RSSTop 20 BetaNews stories of 2008
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published December 31, 2008, 3:49 PM
What were the stories that gathered BetaNews readers' attention, got them talking, made them think more about the meaning behind the technology? Our space-age statistics generator has provided us with the final tally.
#20. Intel readies the world for generation 7 of its CPUs
Intel's Core i7 architecture nearly, or perhaps even completely, closes the feature gap between its technology and rival AMD's. The memory controller is moved into the chip itself -- where all too many architects believe it belongs in the first place -- and the front-side bus as we have come to know it begins its fade into history.
#19. Verizon officially announces touchscreen BlackBerry
It was the beginning of the Storm, and the promise that Research In Motion could produce a competitor to Apple's iPhone that might even surpass it in several departments, including coolness. The Storm experienced a bit of a stormy start of its own, but just a few months ago, we hadn't seen that coming yet.
#18. Google feels your pain after the latest Gmail outage
Last August, millions of users received an unplanned reminder of why the "beta" label still appears beside the Gmail logo, after so many years. The irony of this story is how many users complained using Twitter, which hasn't always been ship-shape either.
#17. Google releases its data encoding format to compete with XML
Is it too late for a new data description format that uses programmatic constructs, but which could eliminate the use or need of XML in many applications? Google has both the weight and the wherewithal to give it a try anyway, even if the answer ends up being "no."
#16. On second thought, IE8 will default to full Web standards
What is a "Web standard" really? Is it what a consortium of architects defines it to be, or is it what a majority of the world's Web sites choose to use? At one time, Microsoft boasted about the answer being the latter, but as part of its image-changing effort, early this year the company displayed a radical change of heart.
#15. Wal-Mart waffles on reports of $99 iPhone 3G
As it turned out, there was a $99 iPhone in the works, and there was a discount sale being planned at Wal-Mart. But the blog-O-square put the two revelations together as though they were the same one: Wal-Mart's discount only amounted to a few measly dollars, and AT&T's radical price drops were for refurbished models only.
#14. Sony pulls PS3 update after some gamers report bricked systems
Poor Sony. 2008 was significantly less than a banner year for the company that actually won the format war this time around. But despite its sales downturn, its declining growth, and its string of mea culpas from corporate executives, the most read Sony story of '08 was the one that impacted PS3 users directly: a big, big bug.
#13. Just the facts, please: Apple announces a Mac notebook event
Just two months ago, Apple was still capable of making a splash by broadcasting a minor hint about an upgrade that, if you think about it, any other manufacturer might also have made to its notebook PCs. Now the story heading into January is that Apple might not have anything new to announce at Macworld, where it used to make its biggest annual impact, and where the iPhone was born.
#12. Google Chrome takes more than just inspiration from Mozilla
When Google used its unconventional "comic book" as the first white paper for its Chrome Web browser, we recognized many of the characters in the story. They were -- and still are -- prominent Mozilla Firefox contributors. For its part, Mozilla says it's happy that its people are so generous in giving its ideas to the broader community. Somehow we wonder what Mozilla's leaders are saying privately, especially since Google remains the organization's principal source of revenue.
#11. Microsoft acquires Yahoo from the inside out
When Yahoo countered Microsoft's ploy to take over the #2 Internet search provider by partnering with Google, we thought it was a masterstroke...at first. But Yahoo didn't have enough resources to maintain that leverage, and Microsoft used that fact to its advantage in the end. As it turned out, Microsoft ended up snagging one of Yahoo's prize developers anyway, though it now relies on Dr. Qi Lu to run its entire online services division -- a kind of management service that Dr. Lu hasn't done before.
Next: Hello, I'm a PC...Hello, I'm a PC...Hello...
Nice retrospective, Scott, especially when you show their significance to 2009's tech stories. Should be an exciting year for Linux and Windows users. Mac users can do the same ol' same ol' -- empty their wallets at the alter of Steve.
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Seeing as how you and Angela are notable contributers to the site, I'd have actually been more interested to read the top 10 stories that you thought were most interesting.
What a lazy piece of journalism this is. [tsk]
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Great list!
Don't fall into the trap of alienating users by making them click 4 times to view a list!
Web pages have infinite vertical space!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Somewhere in there should be the Zune failure. You probably wrote this a few days ago though, eh?
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