With two of the biggest technology conferences of the year now over, it’s time to take a look back at what happened in the world of tech. What were the coolest gadgets, announcements, and biggest dissappointments. Finally I look at how the rest of 2009 might pan out, and the future of Macworld and CES!

Macworld San Fransisco

Amidst all the controversy, thousands of people came to the Mascone Center in San Fransisco this year to see the latest and greatest in Mac. After announcing that this would be the last Macworld Apple would be attending AND that Steve Jobs wouldn’t be giving the keynote, Apple came and gave an above average keynote.

Though Apple didn’t announce/release any new hardware (I say that because we knew the 17″ Macbook Bro was coming at some point), what it did show wasn’t dissappointing. A great update to iLife with cool additions to iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band being demo’d. I can see why they went with Phil Schiller for this one, since I don’t think I could see Steve Jobs getting as excited as usual.

Demo of the new iPhoto from iLife 09.

This brings up my first point: why doesn’t Apple use Phil Schiller more often? Now I know that everyone loves to see Steve Jobs up there going ‘Theres one more thing…’and getting that smile that he has, but I think this is a good move for the future. I don’t see Steve Jobs being the CEO for much longer (10 years) as his health won’t get much better, and I think he may want to relax with his family. At some point, Apple will need to introduce a new CEO or at least a new person to give keynote presentation. This person is going to need some enthusiasm like Jobs, so the earlier they get that person out in the public (even if they don’t annouce that he is the successor) the better. I could see them starting to trade off between Jobs and Schiller, Jobs doing the more exciting ones that have big releases, Schiller doing ones more driven by small software/hardware updates.

But Apple’s decision to drop out of Macworld does mean that the only conference the company attends is the Worldwide Developers Conference (held by themselves). In the last few years we have seen the rise of Apple-held press conferences to show off certain products or to release new products. Rather than being held down by the date of Macworld and their WWDC. Maybe Apple just wants to be able to release/show products when they are ready. Or maybe the rumors are true; Apple wants to go to CES in 2010.

CES is the biggest electronic show in the United States and is usually the debut of all kinds of gadgets. If Apple were to attend CES they woud certainly create a lot of buzz, as well as steal a lot of traffic. But the thing that many Mac fans are worried about is that it is the same week as Macworld. So do they try and attend both? Or would Macworld be a ghost town? I guess only time will tell…

Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas

CES has now ended and we have seen plenty of cool new gadgets. There were the smallest gadgets, as well as the newest and biggest plasma screen TVs. Now only did we see the latest, greatest,but we saw a lot of cool new technologies that could change the way we play games.

Sony released a prototype of three dimensional glasses that can be used while playing video games, adding even more depth to the experience. Right now the technology is in the hardware of their Bravia televisions, but they say that the technology could be brought elseware. Could this be the start of what we could be seeing in a few years with the Playstation 4?

6mm thick LED TV's from Samsung!

We also saw brand new Samsung LED televisions that were 6.5mm thin. Thats little more than the size of you pencil! While it is just a prototype at the moment, this is definitely the most interesting of the show. Not only were the TV’s fairly large (over 32″), they also show that the new televisions are going for thin, rather than big. While there were large TV’s on hand, I think more people were impressed with a thinner TV because those are more practical in a household envionment than a 120″ mega plasma.

Another great product announced was the Palm Pre. The latest entry in the Palm line of smart phones, this doesn’t just look to be another iPhone wanna-be, it could be the best touch-screen phone besides the iPhone. Palm showed off it’s new device as well as its newest operating system, and it definitely looks impressive. But Palm wasn’t the only phone to get a lot of buzz at CES, LG also showed off the watchphone. This neat device is the answer to all the James Bond lovers prayers. It is a wrist watch that has a touch-screen for a face. It allows you to make calls with a built in speaker in microphone. While people didn’t get a chance to play with it, I do hope this gets demoed more at E3.

Finally I will wrap up with Microsoft. Though they didn’t annouce a new Xbox or new game, they did come out with the best news from CES. Not only did they do a pretty extensive demo for Windows 7, they also announced that there would be an open beta. And not only did they announce an open beta, but they also said it would be coming to the pubil soon. In fact, as I am writing this now, I am using the Windows 7 OS. Along with that, they talked about Xbox Prime Time and showed off a cool game called 1 vs. 100. But the feature of their keynote was the integration between Windows Vista/7, Windows Mobile, and Windows Live (the cloud). I don’t know how well they have been doing that and whether Windows 7 will do any better, but I do think that Windows 7 was an early ‘wow’ moment.

I know I am putting this up a little late, but I hope this gave everyone a brief run-down of the two electronics shows. I will be providing more news, reviews, and previews as the year goes on, so thanks for reading!

Well, the year 2008 is over. It was ‘the best year in gaming’ for the twentieth year in a row, as well as the beginning of Apple’s takeover of modern society. But what were the 10 best tech things this year? I dug through all 365 days worth of news to find them. Keep reading to find out what made it, and what didn’t.

10. Google Chrome and Firefox 3

After months of testing internally, Google finally released the beta for their Chrome web browser. With competition like Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Opera, and Firefox, Google created a very compelling and integrated mark on web browsing as we know it.

The guys over at Mozilla were also hard at work and finally in June released Firefox 3.0. With all the great features of Firefox like plug-ins and add-ons, it was a great update for an equally great browser.

Whats really funny, is that in 2008 Internet Explorer’s market share has dropped to under 69% to 68.2% at the end of December. With a total of 3.1% loss since October, the rise of open-source browsers has begun. Are you using Firefox 3 or Chrome? Download them here: Firefox — Chrome.

9. The Playstation 3

Suprise! After two years and 100 hours of Resistance: Fall of Man, the Playstation 3 FINALLY saw its fair share of great games. With the release of Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue, Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, and Ratchet and Clank, Sony finally had a solid line-up of games extending throughout the whole year.

Not only did they have great first party support, but also the qulity of multi-platform games grew emmensly. In previous years, the Playstation 3 never was quite as good as it’s Xbox 360 counterparts [see Madden series], but now they have Bioshock which includes some Xbox DLC built in, as well as other games that look as good, if not better, than the 360 version!

Granted Sony did end the year with Home (which nearly took down the Playstation Network), all in all it was a great year. Developers finally have their games up to par with what the Cell can deliver and I can only see the Playstation going up. In fact, besides the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3’s only real competition, is the Playstation 2.

8. HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Betamax, it’s that the format that has the most studio support will win. Like the Betamax vs. VHS format war of the past, 2007 was the war between HD DVD (Toshiba) and Blu-Ray (Sony). Finally, this war came to a climax early into 2008.

After Warner Brothers announced they would be dropping their HD DVD backing and switching to Blu-Ray on January 4th, major retailers started to stop selling HD DVD players. Microsoft finally dropped the price of their HD DVD add on to the Xbox 360 to $49 (from $179) on February 26, 2008. One of Blu-Rays biggest wins was from sales of the Playstation 3, having built in Blu-Ray players in ALL consoles (as apposed to Xbox 360’s HD DVD add-on).

By now, over a year after Warner Brothers switch, HD DVD has just about faded from mainstream retailers. While I loved the name (it seemed so much easier to understand than Blu-Ray, HD + DVD…), the hardware wasn’t quite as good as Blu-Ray (highest capacity was 30GB compared to Blu-Ray’s 50GB discs). In the end I guess it just wasn’t meant to be…

7. Microsoft Gets Jerry Seinfeld

Over the past few years, Apple has been releasing a series of Get-A-Mac Ads featuring Justin Long as a ‘Mac’ and as a ‘PC’. The impact of the ad campaign has been tremendous, as Apple has seen a increase of market-share since the release of the first advertisement. Microsoft has never had quite the same connection when it comes to market, but 2008 changed that.

Microsoft brought in the famous comedian Jerry Seinfeld to do a series of ads for the company. The ads depict Jerry and Bill Gates in every-day situations to ‘bring them down to a personal level’. The first of the two ads showed both at a shoe store trying on shoes while the second one was the two staying with a ‘normal’ family. After a minute or so of random shenanigans, Seinfeld somehow relates it to the way Microsoft has ‘changed the computer industry and the world’.

Ultimately, this campaign was ended after two commercials and $30 million dollars. Now Microsoft is hard at work with their ‘I’m a PC’ ads, showing people in various locations saying they are a PC, a slight stab at the Get-A-Mac ads (where the actors open saying ‘I’m a Mac’ ‘and I’m a PC’).  The commercials do a better job at relating people to their product, and don’t require a big name celebrity. I still prefer the antics and jokes that arise in the Apple ads, but I applaud Microsoft for going out there, trying, and then trying again. 

6. Windows 7/OSX Snow Leopard

Say what you want about Windows Vista, but the fact of the matter is, it’s not a bad operating system. Originality aside, it does, after Service Pack 1, perform well enough to not be discredited. But 2008 showed the true purpose of Windows Vista, a beta for Windows 7. But Microsoft wasn’t the only one looking to upgrade, Apple also announced details for their next release of OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. While this upgrade seems entirely under the hood, it does show that both new operating systems aren’t entirely different.

While at first glance, neither OS looks to be any different, the main difference is under the hood. Snow Leopard capitalizes on the 100 or so features that were added with Leopard but allowing for 64bit and an overall increase in performance. That’s not to say that Leopard is slow, but rather than introducing some new feature to the OS (fixing something that ISN’T broken) Apple decided to allow users more flexibility by increasing to a higher processer, meaning that their machines can use more memory and CPU.

As for Windows, many labeled Vista as a graphical upgrade to Windows XP because of its sleek new interface and flashy graphic capabilities with hardly any change to performance. Windows 7 looks to be the true successor to Windows XP with a very similar user interface as Vista, but with a lot more power. With an advanced taskbar and device managers, it will help you work better as well as keep all of your peripherals working properly.

Windows 7 and OSX Snow Leopard will be releasing at some point during 2009, but the annoucement in 2008 does proved completely different things for both companies. For Apple it proves their persistance with updating their OSX with great features and now great performance. For Microsoft it shows that Vista may not have been the best solution for an OSX and that it may have been released early.

I havn’t been updating the blog the last few days for a few reasons.

The first is that I was looking around for a new theme. I really like the theme I have now, but I was hoping to find something with a bit more interactions rather than this bland theme that just shoves content at you. I found a bunch of free premium themes that I am looking into [since I don't have the budget to buy a premium theme].

Another reason was, of course, New Years Eve! So I would like to wish everyone reading this a Happy New Year, and for a great 2009!

And third, I have been cleaning out my room and re-organizing to make way for my Christmas present. I will be making a video [hopefully time-lapse] of my setting up my new room and unboxing/assembling my Christmas presents. So look for that in the next few days…

Thanks for all the support everyone, please subscribe if you like what you’ve read and have a great New Year!

Has anyone had any problems with Google.com lately? I havn’t been able to search for anything in my Google Chrome browser, or Firefox. I can access other Google entities [Gmail, adsense, image search, ect.] but whenever I try and search anything or go to JUST google.com, it takes forever to load, and then gives me an error message.

I tried it on another computer on my network and it seems to be working fine, so it isn’t my connection… I’m running a virus scan now, hopefully that will come up with something…

If you have read my post on the iPhone Nano [if you havn't its here] than you know how I feel about this rumored device… But from a business side, I can see why this would be a next logical step for Apple.

Infact, I think this is a great business model for Apple, forcing people to buy an iPod Classic to hold their music and leaving the iPhone as their ‘PDA’. While I think this is a great model for Apple as a company, for it’s consumers, however, it is costly. One of the biggest selling points for the original iPhone was that for the first time [we'll forget about the ROKR] you could add your music from iTunes to your cell phone. Finally you could stop carrying two devices and now have one. By introducing a product with smaller capacity, you are going against one of the principle functions of the device.

With all that being said, I can see Apple going for cheaper alternatives. Now that the country is officially in a recession, people are watching what they spend their money. You can bet that smart-phone sales will begin to flaten out unless they are offered for a lot lower prices. We’ve seen Apple lower the prices of their notebooks, offering an introductory Macbook for $999, so why would this not apply to the iPhone?

The iPod brand is probably the most well known brand amongst electronics today. Once the iPod took off, you began to see a whole product line emerge. From Mini, to Shuffle, to Photo and Touch, the iPod has seen it all. And with Apple’s current line-up, they can reach every corner of the market. Most notably, however, was the aspect of creating more affordable iPod’s. 

For most people who wanted an iPhone, they have gotten one by now. Even with Walmart selling them [starting today, December 28th] I don’t see there being a huge sales spike. The next logical step for them is to bring the price down on iPhone sales, penetrating this falling economy. 

So what will Apple do in 2009? Well I believe that you are going to see many price-cut’s on their line-ups. The best thing Apple can do right now, is keep the huge annoucements till the economy starts turning around, and continue to sell their current products at more affordable prices. I could see the iMac starting at $999, and the Mac Pro at $2499 for starters. They have the MP3 player market in the bag, the iPhone is now the top selling handset in America, but the Mac is still a distant second.

In this next year I wouldn’t be suprised to see Apple drop the price on most of their products to get into a more affordable price-bracket. When the iPhone 3G came out at half the price of the first, it was very suprising. Normally Apple was a premium manufacturer, giving great quality products for a big price. But the iPhone 3G proved to be a winning formula, and I would bet that Apple will start to implement that with the Mac product line, too. 

As I look ahead into the distant future, I see 2009 being the year of the recession. Where the iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini see significant price-drops, and Apple see significant increase in marketshare. Not only that, but I am willing to guess that we will see a big management shift in the coming months. With Steve Jobs not giving the keynote at this Macworld Expo, as well as this being the last one Apple attends, I get the feeling there is going to be a shift in power, and the eventual phase-out of Steve Jobs. My only hope is that the next management can keep a similar, winning business model.

But when I think about 2010, I see that being the come-back. Apple could re-vamp their Mac line with a netbook [Macbook Mini?] and/or a tablet mac [Macbook Touch?]. Once the economy start to climb back up, I would imagen Apple will start to turn things around and look towards their next innovation. That, however, is very far away, and I think we need to be more focused on the present.

Things are going to change at this Macworld Expo. Whether it will be for the best or the worst remains to be seen. This could be the point where Apple takes off to control the communications marketshare, or it could be the beginning of the end for the Cupertino company. What are your thoughts?