Physical media

There was no landslide winner as the most important tech product of 2008. But amidst the most challenging economic storm in decades, you could make a case for viable candidates.

Smartphones, especially Apple's iPhone 3G, got smarter, buoyed by the brand-new iTunes App Store.

Portable and inexpensive laptops, dubbed netbooks, got smaller, cheaper and more ubiquitous.

There were innovative, if imperfect, new Web browsers from Microsoft (Internet Explorer 8), Mozilla (Firefox) and, most notably, Google (Chrome).

Microsoft on Friday opened an online store for U.S. customers. The company already has online marketplaces in the United Kingdom, Germany and Korea.

The home page for the Microsoft Store features the Microsoft Xbox 360 hit Gears of War 2, but also offers various flavors of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Microsoft also features the Zune and a small ad for Vista Ultimate.

I hear a lot about how geeks adversely impact the environment. With our power-sucking computers, toxic game consoles, and general disinterest in the outdoors. But I'm here, today, to tell you that that's bunk. Geeks are greener than the average American, and it's time to point out why.
So we're starting a new series entitled "Why Geeks are Greener." And this is our first installment.

I am primarily an ecogeek, but I can't deny that I'm also just a geek. And so I, of course, love the open source, free software and creative commons movements. Without those powerful forces EcoGeek would absolutely have never existed.
So, yeah, I hate digital rights management. I believe that it's contrary to the spirit of creation and should not exist. But I don't get to talk about it here, because its all geek and no eco.

Transferring information between computers is easier now than it ever has been.

I remember back in the days of my Commodore 64 when it was near impossible to exchange information between different machines unless they were of exactly the same manufacturer and model and had compatible peripherals.

Modems were primitive devices that few had access to and as such you ended up saving the information on to an audio cassette, then either posting or exchanging it in person.