Features
• Orson Welles and His Brief Passionate Betacam Love Affair
• 10 Strange Gadget Situations Caught on Camera
• Avatar Review: Yes, It Changed Everything After All
• This Week's Best iPhone Apps
• It's OK. I Love My Old Gear, Too
• Rainn Wilson on His Nikon DSLR Short Film, and Why Dwight Would Taste Banhammer
• The Physics of Space Battles
• Apple Gestapo: How Apple Hunts Down Leaks
• A Century of Great Gadget Design: Phaidon's Design Classics
• What We Still Need on Blu-ray (And What Should Never Go HD)

Top Stories
• Ultimate Christmas 2009 Shopping Deadline List
• The Economics of a Free Google Phone
• Swedes Camping Outside Apple HQ Asking Steve Jobs to Approve Their App
• The Iron Man 2 Trailer Is Online and My Jaw Is on the Floor
• How Carriers and Phone Makers Are Strangling Android (And How Google Could Save It)
• I Spoke Too Soon, My iMac Is &#;$@ed, Too
• I'm Sorry, But We Blew Up Your Laptop'
• The Graphics Cards You Should Buy at Every Price
• Why We All Need to Calm Down About the Google Phone

Big News
• Google's Hype Generator, The Nexus One, Does Not Have Multitouch (In Browser and Maps)
• Ravaging the Nook, Part II: We Have Apps!
• First Video of the Google Nexus One
• Apple Nemesis Psystar Permanently Banned From Selling Mac Clones
• More Photos of the Google Nexus One

Popular
• You Have Nothing to Apologize For, Panera Bread iMac Man
• The De-evolution of Playstation Gaming Controllers
• Google Street View Spots One Chunky Man's Funky Truck Party
• Prepare to Have Your Brain Exploded by This Known Universe Video
• Canon DSLR Suffers 3000-Foot Fall, Camera and Lens Still Work
• Beautiful Lego in Hoth Photos Have Me in Total Awe
• Google Street View Captures Guy Getting Ready To Do Something Disgusting on a DC Street
• This Naughty Online Clock Has a Girl for Every Minute (NSFW)
• The Master Diagram of Geek Culture

• This Is Why You Shouldn't Put Drunk Ewoks On Live TV
• Next Year, I'm Time Travel Trick or Treating
• Scientifically Haunted Room Shows That Ghosts Are Only In Your Head
• Twelve Beautiful Jack-o'-Lanterns
• Ghostbuster Proton Pack Uses Real Lasers, Can Probably Hunt Real Ghosts
• 10 Of Your Geekiest Halloween Costumes
• A Spider-Bot Pumpkin Is the Scariest Way To Dispense Candy On Halloween
• Build The Spirit Radio That Creeped Out Tesla Himself
• The iMac Cylon Mask Is Both Trick and Treat
• "Working" Apple iPhone Costumes Just Plain Win
• Craigslist Ad By A Horrid Excuse for a Human Being
• Sword Illuminates a Pumpkin by Impaling It
• Ideas for Tech-Themed Halloween Pumpkins
• 10 Robot Halloween Pumpkins Provide Artistic Inspiration
• Scare the Crap Out of Trick-or-Treaters With a Rovin' Pumpkin
• Ruin Halloween For Everyone by Going as Brian Lam or Jason Chen

And please, be safe!

Google Maps Navigation
• Google Navigator for Android Review: Good For Free But Far From Perfect
• Google Maps Navigation: A Free, Ass-Kicking, Turn-by-Turn Mobile App

(An)Droid:
• Motorola Droid First Hands On: It's a Terminator
• A Visual Guide to Android 2.0: So Much Nicer
• No Android Version of HTC HD2 After All?
• GSM Motorola Droid Caught on Video
• How Motorola Stopped Sucking
• Droid Eris Doesn't Look Too Shabby for a Cheapo Android Phone
• HTC Droid Eris Might Be the Cheapest Android Phone at $99
• HTC Hero Among First To Get Android 2.0 Update

Reviews:
• $1000 1080p Projector Battlemodo: Optoma HD20 vs Vivitek H1080FD
• BlackBerry Storm 2 Review: Improving, But Still Mostly Cloudy
• Corsair Flash Voyager 128GB USB Drive: As Big and Fast As a Small Fish
• Canon S90 Review: It'll Never Leave My Pocket (Except When I'm Taking Pictures)
• Samsung Moment Review: The ED-209 of Android Phones

The Copy/Paste Twins Saga
• I Want to Have Twins Just to Get Them These Awesome T-Shirts
• Twin Apple Fangirls Pwn Twin PC Clones
• The Origin of the Twin Copy-Paste T-Shirts

The Rest:
• 12 Things You Need To Know About Apple TV 3.0
• High Res Video of Ares I-X Launch
• http://gizmodo.com/5393755/an-astronaut-explains-how-well-fall-in-love-with-space-again
• Apple Tablet Will Restore Comic Books To Former Glory
• Build The Spirit Radio That Creeped Out Tesla Himself
• Behold, the BlackBerry* Watch: $150, Coming in February

Microsoft:
• Windows 7: A Weekend Install Guide and More
• You Guys Had Some Wild and Crazy Windows 7 Launch Parties
• Japan's Windows 7 Whopper Is Real, and It's Horrifying
• Behold! The Saddest Example of Promotional Convergence Ever!
• Microsoft's First Retail Store Opens (Like Apple Store With More Colors)
• Windows Mobile 7 Screenshots Leak: Where's the Start Button?
• 38 Surefire Ways (Not) to Make Windows 7 Cooler
• 7 Reasons to Stick with Windows XP
• 27 Takes on Windows 7
• Windows 7 Review: You Can Quit Complaining Now

Apple:
• Apple iMac Review: 27 Inches and Less Chin
• Unibody Apple MacBook Review
• Apple Magic Mouse Review
• Time Capsule and Airport Extreme Grow New Antennas to Get Faster and Stronger
• Mac Mini Updates: Faster Processors, More Memory, and a Dual Hard Disk Server
• 10 Things You Need to Know About Apple's New Stuff

Barnes & Noble
• Exclusive: First Photos of Barnes & Noble's Double Screen E-Reader
• Barnes & Noble's Dual-Screen Nook: $260, Eats the Kindle's Lunch
• Barnes & Noble Compares Nook to Kindle 2: Biased But Fair
• Live From Barnes & Noble's Nook Event
• 8 Reasons You Can Finally Love Ebook Readers (Thanks to Nook)
• Barnes & Noble Nook Up Close: Yep, It's Real Nice

The Rest:
• FCC: We're Going to Make Net Neutrality the Law
• The Totally Predictable Cable Industry Response to the FCC's Net Neutrality Plan
• John McCain's "Internet Freedom Act" Seeks to Block FCC's Net Neutrality Rules
• Motorola Droid Unexpectedly Appears on Motorola's Site Ahead of Schedule
• Canon 1D Mark IV: The $5000 New King of Cameras
• Canon 1D Mark IV 1080p Night Vision Videos Are Simply Incredible
• Canon 5D Mark II Firmware Update Unlocks 1080p Video at 24FPS
• Nikon D3s Hands On Photos and Video: DSLR Night Vision Is a Beautiful Thing
• 48 Stunning Photos of Fall

• Our Complete Windows 7 Guide
• The Best Features and Tips
• Our Full Review

• Lifehacker's Complete Guide to Windows 7

• How to Install Windows 7 via Boot Camp on a New Mac
• Win SuperSite: How To Clean Install Win 7 With an Upgrade-Only Disc
• How to Virtualize Any OS for Free

And here's a recap of the finest launch moments of the past week...

The Launch Party

• Readers' Windows 7 Launch Parties
• Adam Frucci's One-Man Launch Party
• Host Your Own Win 7 Torrenting Party
• Microsoft Opens Its All-New Retail Store
• Microsoft's New Windows 7 Ads
• Apple's New Windows 7 Ads
• 38 Ways to Put some Sex Into Windows 7
• Saddest Example of Cross-Promotional Convergence Ever

The Steve Ballmer Interview

• Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming (Update)
• Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: "It Doesn't Matter What the Critics Say"
• Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?
• Part 4: Ballmer on Those Crazy Ballmer YouTube Videos
• Part 5: Ballmer Optimistic About Win 7, But Says Vista Is "Very Popular"

The Dealzmodo

• Last Minute Windows 7 Deals
• Windows 7 Deals of the Day
• HP and Best Buy's Super Insane $1200 Combo Offer

More Windows 7 Goodness

• 27 Reviews of Windows 7
• 7 Reasons to Stick to XP
• Battlemodo: Thin-and-Light Win 7 Laptops
• HP Envy
• Amazon Kindle Touchscreen App for Windows 7

• Exclusive: First Photos of Barnes & Noble's Double Screen E-Reader: In which we scoop the crap out of BN's crazy two-screened reader.
• Barnes & Noble's Dual-Screen Nook: $260, Eats the Kindle's Lunch: In which the Nook leaks a few hours early.
• Barnes & Noble Compares Nook to Kindle 2: Biased But Fair: In which BN thoughtfully explains why the Nook whups the Kindle 2's butt.
• Live From Barnes & Noble's Nook Event: In which intrepid reporters John Herrman and Matt Buchanan bring you the Nook's official announcement, live, with bonus Q & A.
• 8 Reasons You Can Finally Love Ebook Readers (Thanks to Nook): In which we explain why the Nook has finally gotten us excited about ebook readers.
• Barnes & Noble Nook Up Close: Yep, It's Real Nice: In which we go hands-on with the Nook, and like it.

[Barnes & Noble Nook coverage on Giz]

Here are the stories you need to read, if you haven't already skipped over to your favorite online retailer to reserve your Windows 7 copy:

• Where To Pre-Order Windows 7

• Windows 7 Pricing: The Full Story

• Windows 7 Packaging (Now With Flair—and Flare)

And, in case you've been living under a rock these past eight months:

• Gizmodo's Complete Guide to Windows 7: All the new features and benefits, plus our experiences with the beta and release candidate

UPDATE: We have confirmed that both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will appear in the same box, so you do not need to specify which version you want, nor do you need to worry about not getting the right one. Thanks to Mohammed and all the other readers who brought this query to our attention!

iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 3GS Complete Feature Guide
• iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3GS Comparison Chart
• iPhone 3GS Video Walkthrough (Quick 4-Minute Version)
• iPhone 3GS Gets Voice Control

iPhone Pricing Issues: The Untold Story
• iPhone 3G Owners Will Have To Pay $200 Extra To Get iPhone 3GS Early
• Old 16GB iPhone 3G to Sell for $149
• The Not-So-New $99 8GB iPhone
• AT&T's Tethering and MMS Support Delay—and Possible Reason For It

iPhone OS and Apps
• iPhone 3.0: The Whole Story
• "Find My iPhone" Is a Relief to Us Forgetful Types
• App Roundup: iPhone 3.0

New MacBook Pros
• New Amazingly Priced 15-Inch MacBook Pros
• All-New, Low-Priced 13-Inch MacBook Pro, Plus Great Price Reductions for MacBook Air

Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Safari
• Mac OSX Snow Leopard: The Whole Story (Including $29 Upgrade Price!)
• Safari 4 Available, Dubbed "World's Fastest Browser"

The Whole Damn Keynote
• Wish You'da Been There, Elbow To Elbow With Bloggers, Feeling Chen's Hot Breath On Your Neck? Watch This, and Imagine

For one thing, the general purpose computing on graphics processor chips (GPGPU for short) could very well melt your entire face off into a puddle of pathetic all over your razor thing Apple keyboard.

For another thing, there's this 64-bit business. Bandied about by marketing types for years, the tech is legit in Snow Leopard, and we explain why you should give a hoot in our lovable Giz Explains series.

Also on the cool front is this confirmed feature regarding the front-end. Basically, with Snow Leopard the HFS+ drivers will let you access a Mac's files from Windows while in Boot Camp. Multiple OS's? Totally seamless.

Sort of confirmed, sort of up on the air (but going strong): MacBook 3G support is built into Snow Leopard.

Oh, and screen recording is making a triumphant return with Snow Leopard's Quicktime Player.

Of course, questions become answers when WWDC '09 begins in earnest tomorrow. [Gizmodo Liveblog]

Nintendo:
• Nintendo E3 Keynote
• Wii Vitality Sensors Turns Wii into Definitive Nursing Home Console
•Nintendo Wii MotionPlus Hands On: One Year, Three Games Later
• Why the Original Wiimote Didn't Have MotionPlus
• Nintendo: We Could Be Stuck With the Wii for 8 More Years
• Power Up Charging Stand Recharges the Wii Punch-Out Board
• Mad Catz Wiimote Feels Like the Real Thing for $10 Less
• Nyko Zoom Case: 'Cause You Don't Care If Your DSi Is Actually Portable
• Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata Says He Wouldn't Use a Mac or iPhone if Apple Was a Competitor
• Old Feuds Reunite Between Nintendo and Sega
• The Difference Between Sony and Nintendo at E3
•5 Things That Should've Been at E3 But Weren't

Microsoft:
• Microsoft E3 Keynote
• Testing Project Natal: We Touched the Intangible
• Xbox 360 Project Natal Full Body Motion Control One Ups the Wii
• Project Natal Won E3, and Maybe the Motion Control Wars
•Microsoft: Project Natal Is "The Endgame"
• Project Natal on Video
• Download Xbox Live Full Retail Games on Demand
• Microsoft Says Xbox 360 Is "Less Than Halfway Done
• Where Is Xbox Live Anywhere?
• Facebook and Twitter on Xbox 360
• Netflix Lets You Add to Queue, Zune Video Marketplace Gets 1080p Instant Streaming
• Xbox Live Spillover: New Avatars, Where's Hulu and Why I Hope You Have Fast Internet
• Halo 3 ODST Collector's Edition Controller Won't Fit in Convenant Hands
• The Xbox Needs Apps
• 5 Things That Should've Been at E3 But Weren't

Sony:
• Sony's E3 Keynote
• PS3 Motion Controller May Be the Best Game Motion Capture Yet
• Hands On: Is The PSP Go! Too Small?
• Sony to Offer New Digital Copies Of Your Old UMD Games
• Everything You Need to Know About the PSP Go!
• Sony: Dual Shock Still Defacto, Motion Control Secondary
• Sony PlayStation Motion Controller Video: How It Works
• The Difference Between Sony and Nintendo at E3
• 5 Things That Should've Been at E3 But Weren't

Aaaand that's it. Hope you liked our coverage of E3 as much as we liked covering it!

1. The new iPhone

The biggest announcement and biggest question mark is the new version of the iPhone. A new model is coming for sure, but we don't know what will be in it.

Update: We knew that the new iPhone was coming already, but Walter Mossberg—who is well known for having a very tight relation with Apple—strongly suggested that the new hardware is a sure shot next week. He did it in his Palm Pre review, potentially offsetting the Pre's current advantages with unrevealed incoming features in the iPhone. The Financial Times, BGR, and Engadget also say their sources claim that $99 iPhones are on the pipeline.


a. External design
Most probably, the new Apple cell will keep its current design. Since Steve Jobs came to Apple, dramatic industrial design changes have only happened across various generations of gut changes. Historically, the iMac, the Powerbook/Macbook, or the Mac Pro went through several iterations before experiencing a complete redesign. It's too early for the iPhone to change its face dramatically, specially when the current form factor works so well. And, after all, there are only a few ways to do a touch-screen phone. The iPhone 3G's design is simple, elegant, and works extremely well, so there is no reason to see a big re-design now.

Other rumors point at something called "the unibody iPhone", which is a retarded notion at best. The iPhone is already "unibody." It may not be carved out of a single piece of aluminum, but there's no need for that. It is a single surface—which is made of plastic to make reception better—and a glass top. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Update: There may be sightly different components in the design, as shown in the pages of a Chinese original components wholesaler.


b. Colors
Some people are talking about multiple color versions. With the iPod mini, nano, and shuffle, color became a way to convert the low-end hardware into fashion accessories. The iMac also went through that phase, which was later abandoned. The iPod, however, always stayed either white or black, becoming an icon on its own right. The iPhone is also a higher-end icon. Down the line—maybe in a different incarnation, as the iPhone OS product family expands—color will appear. But for now, looking at Apple's past history, logic dictates that the iPhone won't see the variety of colors that the iPod nano has now.

Update: The new iPhone may also experience a change of materials, going from shiny to matte.


c. New camera and magnetometer

Whatever minimal design changes come to the iPhone will be dictated by the new hardware. One of these changes will be an improved camera. I have no doubt that the iPhone will get this much needed upgrade. Just looking at the price range and features of other competing smartphones, a better camera is not only a technical- and economically-feasible option for Apple, it is a must have. They are seriously lagging behind in the photography and video departments, which will be perceived by consumers as a major flaw.

Not only that, but Apple betting heavily on geotagging in their iLife'09 software suite begs for a quality upgrade in their one and only image-acquiring device. In Apple's closed ecosystem, the iPhone seems like a potential candidate to be the perfect machine to shoot and record your life on the go. Expect a better sensor, better lens, and autofocus.

Another must-happen-or-else feature is video recording. This has been pointed out not only by rumors, but also by hints left in the Software Development Kit. More importantly, however, is that video recording is present every single cellphone out there. Apple can't afford not having video recording in the iPhone for an entire year. Not when an army of Android phones with this capability is going to be launching in 2009 and 2010.

Update: We can say—with 99% certainty—that the new iPhone will have a magnetometer and camera autofocus, according to the screenshots that show these components in action. These new features can only be enabled in the iPhone OS 3.0 software by using the actual hardware—the current iPhone camera can't do autofocus and it doesn't have a magnetometer. The images—which confirm previous sightings—also confirm that the new iPhone will also have video recording.


d. Videoconferencing

Update: There also has been some speculation about a front-facing videochat camera, but given AT&T current bandwidth problems, I doubt it, but I hope that this one is true. Maybe the 20Mbps AT&T 3G network will finally materialize for this.


e. Processor and storage

Speed and memory will be the other two pilars for the new next-generation iPhone. Both are logical, specially the increase in storage capacity and RAM for applications. As the iPhone OS market booms, bigger, more powerful applications and games will come in. Increased RAM will be a must for these apps. The increase in storage—specially as video recording becomes an official feature and the megapixel count increases for photography—is also a given.

A faster processor will also happen. Speed is often cited as the most important of iPhone's problems. Not because the current competition is faster—which it isn't—but because people want to access their applications instantly, not to talk about typing without any bloody delays when background tasks kick in. Faster chips—both the CPU and the multimedia processor—will make the next-generation iPhone fly. Not only that: They will be needed to guarantee more powerful applications, needed to support Apple's push on the gaming front and the new video capabilities.


f. Other features

Don't expect any magic hardware features, however—like OLED screen or backlit Apple logos—which just seem the type of thing that random people pull out of nowhere—and with "nowhere" I really mean "their asses."




2. The tablet

I always have had high hopes for the fabled Apple tablet. Heck, I've had actual dreams about this thing for years, since I got my first Newton Message Pad. Now, the technology is right to do it but maybe not at the price point that it needs to be successful. An Apple tablet will basically be a bigger iPhone that will serve as a casual and cheap computing device, confronting the netbook market with a nimbler, less cramped, and not-fugly device. Since we are consuming information most of the time, an iPhone OS-based tablet is something that could work better than netbooks—in fact, it seems that even works better for typing—bringing us closer to a new generation of devices that are less cumbersome than desktop-metaphor-oriented computers.

Unfortunately, Star Trek: The Next Generation's tablets will probably not come this year, even while WWDC may be the last step before the launch. At WWDC, Apple will be laying down the software foundations for this device—things like resolution-independent applications that can adapt to different screen sizes, and true multitasking that would allow you to run several applications and widgets concurrently.

So even while Digitimes and the usual wacky sources keep talking about the 10-inch screen deals between Apple and Wintek, I'm pessimistic about the tablet coming in San Jose. That said, I really hope it finally appears. Even if it is just a pre-announcement—like Apple did with the original iPhone. That way developers will start coding for the new form factor as soon as possible.




3. Mac OS X

There are other rumors about hardware and software. The latter area will obviously be dominated by Snow Leopard, the next big release of the Mac OS X operating system. Snow Leopard may show its new face at WWDC. In a World Wide Developers Conference, it will be the star, only eclipsed by iPhone OS.




4. New MacBook Pros

As for hardware, rumormongers are talking about new MacBooks with 3G capabilities built-in.

Update: We have received some photos showing updates for a new MacBook Pro Summer 2009 Unibody, with a flash memory card slot built-in. However, these are from an unconfirmed source.




5. Other hardware

There are also rumors about ypdates to the Apple Cinema Displays—moving everything to LED backlighting—and the iPod touch—which also needs to be updated, probably reaching the 64GB mark in the same way the iPhone will be doubling its capacity (the iPhone has one NAND RAM chip inside for two in the iPod touch).




6. Steve Jobs

Just with the new iPhone, an updated iPod touch, and Snow Leopard, WWDC 09 will be a solid show. One that everyone interested in these technologies should be excited about. But the thing I'm really hoping for is not hardware or software. I wish that, at the end of his presentation, Phil Schiller will pronounce the magic words, the classic "one more thing," and Steve Jobs would appear on stage, smiling and visibly recovered from his lastest health woes. That, more than anything else, would be amazingly good news for the tech world.

Update: Reportedly, Steve Jobs has been seen walking healthy through the Cupertino campus. Yesterday, the WSJ is claiming that he may be join the Apple fest next monday. We can only hope.

Whatever happens, we will tell you all about it in our Apple's WWDC 2009 liveblog. Tune in next Monday at 1:00PM East/10:00AM Pacific. [Apple's WWDC 2009 liveblog]

•Xbox 360 Project Natal: Full-Body Motion Control One-Ups the Wii: Microsoft's motion control project is revealed, and it looks pretty amazing. I wonder if Project Natal's really gonna be that incredible in person though. The live demo was kinda convincing!

• Project Natal Intro Videos Show Real Controller-Free Interction (Video): Project Natal's motion controls in action, again looking fancy. Hopefully not just Hollywood magic.

• Xbox Live Full Retail Games on Demand: Download Mass Effect, Bioshock and More: It's the beginning of the end for Gamestop and manufacturers of shiny plastic discs, since come August you'll be able to download full Xbox 360 games like Bioshock and Assassin's Creed.

• Netflix Lets You Add to Queue on Xbox, Video Store Gets 1080p: Your PC is removed from the Netflix process, making it that much better, and the video store is now Zune Marketplace, which streams 1080p video instantly.

• Facebook and Twitter Come to Xbox Live This Fall: Facebook! Twitter! Xbox Live!

• Xbox Live Spillover: New Avatars, Where's Hulu and Why I Hope You Have Fast Internet: Microsoft's figured out how to milk Avatars for money, Xbox Live's Marc Whitten sorta dodged the Hulu question, and you need a really fat pipe to get that 1080p instant streaming video action from Zune Marketplace.

• Last.fm Brings Streaming Music to Xbox Live: Last.fm on Xbox, weeee.

• Halo 3 ODST Collector's Edition Controller: There's an exclusive Halo 3 ODST controller bundled with the $99 collection's edition, 'cause you didn't already have 4 Xbox controllers, right?

Overall, a pretty crazy day, and we have a feeling Microsoft might've already stolen the show. What do you think?

Adam took us through some of the worst manglings and murders committed by appliances, from pitching machines to prison toilets. Dan and Jack showed us that lawnmowers and pajama zippers can be pretty nasty, while Blam pointed out—with NSFW photographic evidence—that meat grinders are the surliest of the bunch.

The country's two most famous robotics authors enlightened us on future encounters with our robot overlords: PW Singer, author of Wired For War, walked us through exactly why Asimov's laws of robotics are so full of crap they'll never protect humans from cybernetic violence, though he later explained why the likelihood of a true Terminator-style takeover is slim.

Meanwhile, Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising, showed us why two-legged humanoid robots would soon do our bidding on the battlefield.

The guest appearances continued, with MythBusters' Adam Savage dropping in to blow our minds about the fine art of electrocution, and why you probably shouldn't try it at home.

You all got in the game, voting on which robots were the most deadly in the humanoid and heavyweight divisions, and how the winner of each—Caprica 6 and Gort-would fare in a Battle Royale. 6 won, but since she received 756,000 votes, we're assuming foul play.

Naturally, we also stuck in the age-old question of a bout between Wall-E and Johnny 5, though Sean saved the scariest robots for last, in his TGIF roundup.

It was a good week, though somehow there was no comfort in learning that ordinary dumb gadgets are as deadly as—or deadlier than—robots trained to kill you. Especially when, at present, a 17-year-old Candian girl is our best bet in the war against the machines. [Machines Behaving Deadly]

• 15-year veteran NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao's column about flying in the Space Shuttle and Soyuz, and living on the International Space Station for six months. The little things matter most, and Leroy described the minutiae of zero-g daily life in a way that was both charming and shocking at once. Here are all of his Astroblogger entries.

• In Carmel Hagen's thrilling heist story about a guy and a girl and a locked-up pile of moon rocks, we learned how an intern stole NASA's most treasured possession.

• We had a teaser and then a real honest-to-God taste of spaceman food (without the benefit of floating forks and knives).

• We looked back, on heroes like Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard, mistakes like the horrifying Nedelin disaster, and all kinds of memorable phenomena ranging from space chimps to space Lego to Space Camp.

• More importantly, we looked ahead to the next space shuttles, the development of space tourism, the next moon mission and our ultimate destiny as interstellar pioneers.

Where didn't we go? Maybe where no man has gone before—we left that to JJ Abrams and the ghost of Gene Roddenberry. God speed, Giz readers. And stay tuned for the next thrilling theme week. Any guesses? [Get Me Off This Rock]

While Matt and I explained some of the mysteries of audio cables and loudspeakers, Mahoney tried to explain something far more complicated: the mind of an audiophile, following that with a taste of the craziest audiophile gear.

Speaking of gear, Herrman gave us a look at some of the prettiest ever seen (but not always heard), and then, at the other end of the cost spectrum, Adrian tested the newest iPod/iPhone docks, picking winners in different price points.

It got personal at times. Blam shared the tragic tale of his sweet boomin' bass system. Most of the guys talking about their first album, while I go off on a tangent about the packaging my first albums came in. Jesus told us all why The Beatles sound better in mono.

Meanwhile, you readers shared your own sound systems, 130 rigs we should all envy, and we all reminisced over 10 of the greatest geek rock videos of all time.

In the end, Adrian drove it home with a rant on how tech changed the way we listen to music, while Herrman provided illustration for that, in the form of a timeline of audio formats, from wax cylinders to digital downloads.

We covered a lot of ground, more even than I could recap above. Hopefully you got a kick out of it, and that you'll be ready for our next crazy theme week. [Gizmodo Listening Test]

We (and others) have already said goodbye quite a bit:

• Best Buy Says Goodbye
• Circuit City Employees' Final Words as Circuit City Employees
• Their Dignity Is Not for Sale... Well, Nevermind
• Why Circuit City Closed (According to Circuit City Employees)
• The Circle of Life: Circuit City Buildings to Become High Schools?
• A Violent Goodbye
• Best Buy Rubs Salt in Circuit City's Gaping Wound
• Why I Shopped at Circuit City (By Choice)
• Even in Death, It Managed to Screw People Over
• The Beginning of the End

Rob at BoingBoing Gadgets has this pretty sad clip of the last straggling item at his local Circuit City:

But what's one more good-bye? Leave your fondest (or most wretched) memories below. [Image: F33/Flickr]

• Make your desktop look like a notebook
• Now everyone can use offline Google calendar
• Virtually size up glasses for your face, which saves time at the optometrist

• Have a lot of monitors? Here's how you take care of all those wires
• What's the best home server software?
• Stop Firefox from being Firepig with memory

• Turn a sharpie into an eye gouger
• My Apartment Map can find cheap places in your neighborhood
• Something about taxes!

• Oooh it's a virtual Ikea room planner
• Find tire leaks with watery soap (or soapy water)
• The desktop within a desktop

Mac Mini
The new Mac Mini, available now, is heavily redesigned inside and in the rear, though its body is pretty much identical to the old ones. It comes in two configs ($600 and $800), both based on the 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics. Adam wants you to note that the $200 step up might not be worth it. [MORE]

iMac
The 24-Inch iMac comes down from $1800 to $1500, pushing the 20-Inch iMac down $300 itself to $1200. Despite having the same look they've had since August 2007 (not a problem for me but some people want new freshness), they also have better specs: The super-sick $2,200 iMac has a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 7200rpm 1TB drive (though you still have to pay extra to max out RAM at 8GB). [MORE]

Mac Pro
The new Mac Pro now starts at $2500, down from $2800, but has Intel's Xeon "Nehalem" quad-core chipset and 1066MHz DDR3 RAM for superfast memory access. It comes standard with the fast Nvidia GeForce GT 120, but you can choose an ATI Radeon HD 4870 for even more graphical juice. It's coming March 9. [MORE]

Jesus points out that Apple's keyboard just got smaller—all except the price that is. The larger one will still sell, for now, too.

Time Capsule
The new Time Capsule also looks the same on the outside, but inside it's doubled up its Wi-Fi router power with dual-channel 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11n for managing more network traffic. The cooler innovation is "guest networking," which lets you create a virtual Wi-Fi hotspot for guests that is walled off from the rest of your network. [MORE]

I blame the state of the technology. The lack of real innovation and news. Touch was finally everywhere—two years after the JesusPhone and one year after Research In Motion officials said touch screens were going nowhere—but so what? Been there, done that, got the bloody' t-shirt. Seriously, you know something stinks when you see the BlackBerry people racing to plaster their booth with this:

Yeas, it's one of those phony industry awards. The Storm named as the "Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough". "Press and be impressed", it claims. The BlackBerry Storm is considered a "breakthrough" by "the industry". The not quite a perfect storm, as Matt put it, with its bugs and half-baked SurePress technology.

I rest my case.

And so did everyone else on the floor. You can see people wandering the aisles, looking for something exciting, new, but everyone in the floor was kind of blah and smleh about everything. Just a mass of androids pushing around the floors, searching for nothing.

Here's some of the best—and worst—of what I found.

• Android G2 Hands On: Close to Perfection

• Why Do the Android Phones Have Chins?

• Windows Mobile 6.5 Hands On: The New Interface Rocks

• Coolest Cellphone Interface Ever Is Also Absolutely Useless

• Bluetooth Over Wi-Fi Zoomtastic Speed Shocks Our Pants Off

• How Not To Make a Touchscreen Phone

• Samsung Omnia HD Hands On Video: Amazing Screen, Still Bad Response

• Nokia N97 Hands On Video of Nokia's First N-Series Touch Phone

• Nokia E75 Hands On Video: Shiny Slick Boredom

• Sony Ericsson Idou's Interface: Hotter than Butter Down Beyoncé's Pants

• Garmin Nuviphone G60 GPS Smartphone Video Hands-On

• Garmin Nuviphone M20 Smartphone (Aborted) Video Hands-On

The Original, Classic Neon Super Soaker 50: It's Back

This is What G.I. Joe Looks Like Now

Vex Walker Inspired By Terrifyingly Beautiful Beach Walkers

Nerf N-Force Swords Deliver Solid Smiting Without the Fleshwounds

Star Wars Force Trainer Brains On: Is The Force With Me?

How Long Is 5 Seconds?

Short Round and Sean Connery's Papa Jones are My New Favorite Lego Minifigs

Taste Test: Yummy Dough Edible Play-doh

Gallery: Toys That Will Make Your Children Fat

Toy Fair Action Figure Gallery: Start Your Salival Glands

Apple vs. Palm, Google, RIM and God knows who else:
How the company will or won't defend its multitouch phone interface patent
Bonus: All of Apple's bloodiest patent and copyright clashes, on one page

Apple's iLife '09 Review Roundup:
Our complete review of iPhoto '09 with tips
Special: What to know about iPhoto '09 face detection and recognition
iMovie '09 put through the paces in a full review
GarageBand's new Artist Lessons: What do they actually include?

More Great Stories:
T-Mobile's Curve 8900 mini review
Dealzmodo roundup of HDTV and other great gadget deals, pegged to tomorrow's Super Bowl but not just for football fans
Windows 7: Why Microsoft should just give it away

Ceramic Cloth: Cloth knit from ceramic fibers can provide protection from extreme temperatures. It is easy to see the benefit for military personnel and firefighters.

Temperature Sensitive Glass: Remember Hypercolor shirts? Picture the same sort of thing happening with the glass tiles in your shower. The water will cause the tiles to morph into all kinds of trippy colors. Finally, burnt out hippies will have a reason to wash up.

Flavor Changing Additives: Imagine food that changes flavors repeatedly over time. These additives contain nanospheres encapsulated in larger microspheres that burst with with new flavors in succession. It could turn everything you eat into a Gobstopper.

Conductive Hook and Loop Velcro: The Velcro pictured here can conduct electricity and complete a circuit when the hook side comes in contact with the loop side. This could result in a soft switch for clothing, backpacks, etc.

Hit the link to check out the rest of the list. [Popular Mechanics]

To automatically read the most recent Windows 7 posts, hit this tag (and bookmark it).

Windows 7 Beta Installation Advice
(Note: The beta is available until February 10th, though downloads may be limited, so hurry!)
• How to Download and Install Windows 7 Beta
• How To Install Win 7 on Macs with Boot Camp
• Understanding the Windows 7 Beta Agreement Fine Print

Windows 7 Feature Analysis:
• Why Microsoft Should Give Windows 7 Away
• Why the Windows 7 Taskbar Beats the Mac OS X Dock
• Why It's Smart To Go 64-Bit With Windows 7
• Windows 7 Runs Better Than Vista On Netbooks
• Why Windows 7 Will Beat Vista Overall

Windows 7 Beta Tips
• The Calculator Now Calculates Your Mortgage Payments and More
• Miss Vista's Quick Launch? Here's How You Get It Back
• Registry Tweak Fixes Window Gadgets and UAC Incompatibility
• Adding Extra Monitors Is So Easy a Caveman Could Do It
• 'Play To' Media Control Might Take Over Your Whole House
• Xbox 360 Streaming Is Buggy For Now, but it Still Works...Kinda
• Windows Explorer Preview Pane Works Much Better Than Vista's
• The Windows Key Is Actually Useful Now!
• Maximize and Dock Your Windows by Dragging to the Screen Edge
• Where the Hell is Add/Remove Programs?
• ISO Disc Image Burning Is Built Right In
• Device Stage Gadget Interface Is Gorgeous (When Supported!)
• Libraries Replace the Antiquated Virtual Folders Feature
• Now You Can Choose Which Folders to Back Up and Create System Images
• Fix That MSI Installer Bug And Get Apps Running Again
• Windows Home Server Almost 100% Compatible Already
• Gadgets Integrated to Desktop (But Still Buggy in Beta)
• New WordPad Opens Word 2007 XML Docs
• Careful: Windows 7 Beta Sleep/Hibernate Is Still Buggy
• Windows 7 Taskbar UI Tips
• Inside the Amazing Problem Steps Recorder

Windows 7 General Observations
• Huge Security Flaw in Windows 7 User Account Control
• Windows 7 Is OK, But Can It Run Crysis?
• Windows XP, Vista and 7 Tested For Multicore Performance, XP Still Wins For Now
• Windows 7 Performance Meter Goes Up To 7.9, Still Not Fantastic For Gaming Measurements

Funny—and Not So Funny—Windows 7 Experiences
• The First Windows 7 Blue Screen of Death
• 131 BSODs We'd Rather See
• 25 Features You Definitely Won't See in Windows 7

• The Truth About the Apple Tax - Is there an Apple tax? How much is it?
• A Call for Revolution Against Beta Culture - Why Apple's been one of the culprits in releasing beta products onto the world
• If Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were on Match.com: Who is Sexiest? - The obvious answer is Steve Ballmer

• At Gizmodo Gallery: Ancient Apple Phone Prototypes
• Is Steve Jobs Preparing His Farewell? - Where we pontificated on whether or not Steve was leaving Apple soon
• David Pogue Piano Solo Imagines a World Without Apple or Gadgets - David Pogue taps into his background and writes a song about Apple

• A Brief History of MacBook Redesigns and Upgrades
• Remember This? Looking Back at the First PowerBook
• DIY Papercraft Steve Jobs: Enact Your "One more thing..." Fantasy - Pose Steve Jobs next to Voltron, Pokemon and Ultraman

• Choose Your Own Apple CEO Adventure
• Giz Explains: Ups And Downs Of Developing for Android and iPhone
• Bloomberg News Accidentally Publishes Draft of Steve Jobs's Obituary - Someone has some 'splainin to do

• 7 Years of iPod: What You Paid and What You Got - Spoiler alert, you're getting less now
• 10 Years of the iMac: A Visual History
• iPhone Wedding Cake Makes Geek Happy

• iPhone Coasters Convert Any Table into a Jobsonian Device - Only if your wife/husband likes Apple as much as you do
• Caption Contest: iPhone Cupcakes
• Calvin and Jobs Kick Steve's Nuts

• The initial Windows 7 feature walkthrough, boot video and first taste of the user experience

• Giz Explains all the hidden benefits of Windows 7, and why it will smash Vista

• Our parody of 25 features you won't find in Windows 7

• How Windows 7 will extend laptop battery life by at least 11%

• What the totally upgraded Media Center interface on Windows 7 can do

• Early benchmarks of Windows 7 said to be "very promising"

• Finally, how to install and play with the Windows 7 Beta

[Windows 7 on Giz]

If we learned one thing this last week, it's that neither one had enough news to live up to its previous reputations as king of the gadget shows, which is especially clear when you take it all in at once. Click each image for the full post, and for all the coverage from each, see our tag pages: Macworld 2009, CES 2009

Macworld 2009:

iLife 2009: Everything got touched, from facial recognition in iPhoto to piano lessons from Sting in Garage Band.

17-inch MacBook Pro: It got its expected Unibody makeover, complete with a long-lasting and non-removeable battery; here's how it works.

iTunes dropped DRM for good (but with a revamped pricing structure), and now allows iPhones to download tracks over 3G and EDGE. which we immediately tested.

The final Macworld keynote was without Steve Jobs; We were there to liveblog the hell out of it, of course, and you can watch Apple's broadcast of it here.

CES 2009 Day One Top Ten:
If we told you three months ago that Palm would own CES, would you have believed us? Find out how Palm did it in our full hands-on.

Samsung BD-4600 Blu-ray Player: Wall-mountable, networked, 1.5-inches thick, and really, really nice looking.

Samsung Luxia LED TV Lineup: Samsung loosed a whole series of ultra-thin, LED-backlit, network-connected LCDs, winning the Battle of the TV Announcements hands down. We got a close look in photos.

Vizio Connected HDTVs: These Vizios stream just about everything possible over wireless-N: Amazon, Blockbuster and Netflix VOD, Pandora and more.

Sony Vaio P: Sony's Vaio P is something we haven't seen before: a 2.08:1 aspect ratio (1600x768) on a 1-inch thick portable. Something different in the very, very generic netbook field.

Casio 1,000fps Point and Shoot Cameras: Both the EX-FC100 and the EX-FS10 bring the EX-F1's slo-mo capture goodness to a point and shoot. Casio's still the only folks in the super slo-mo field, and they're continuing to kill.

LG's GD910 Watch Phone: It was a non-working, behind-the-glass prototype last year, but one of every gadget head's boyish dreams will come true later this year: A watch that's a phone.

Eee Keyboard: Asus took the crazy cake with their still-shadowy home theater keyboard. With an onboard processor (of some kind), a touchscreen and keyboard and wireless HDMI, it makes perfect sense as a unique home-theater machine.

Sony Cyber-shot G3: We're all about putting web browsers on as many things as possible, and Sony's found another way to get one into our pants: A super-slim wi-fi-equipped Cyber-shot G3 that's the world's first to surf the web.

Panasonic Portable Blu-ray Player: Panasonic's DMP-B15 is the world's first portable Blu-ray deck. Your laptop probably doesn't have a BD drive, but this will ensure you can watch hi-def 1080p on a tiny, tiny screen on your next flight.

And there you have it. Good stuff you may or may not be able to afford in '09? Disappointment of disappointments? Discuss.

CES 2009 Day Two: The Best Of The Rest

FyreTV Porn Streamer: A quick jump over to AVN yielded juicy fruit: Jason "Roku What?" Chen's favorite porno streamer now does it without wires. Discerning adult cinema fans need their AV center CLEAN and CLUTTER FREE.

HDi Dune Blu-ray Players With BitTorrent : Toss your torrents into this Blu-ray deck's client over the network, then play back your pirated catch with its crazy extensive codec support. Brilliant.

The Hunter Concert Breeze Ceiling Fan Experience: Speakers + ceiling fan. Sometimes, a headline says it all.

Dell Mini 10: A 720p screen and a TV tuner is a nice bump for one of our favorite netbook series.

Cell Mate Hands-Free Cellphone Holder: Bluetooth is for the moneyed d-bag elite; real mobile gangstas clamp their iPhones to their heads.

For our full coverage of each event, see our CES 2009 and Macworld 2009 tagpages.

It began just like any other Saturday...

• If Dave Coulier came back as a pair of scissors, he would look something like this.
• Microsoft Surface failed at the worst possible moment: CES 2009.
• Disney Star Guitarist will only intensify the hatred real guitarists already feel for rhythm video games.
• The ad for Microsoft Songsmith is just as corny as the software itself. Makes sense, we suppose.
• NASA detects mysterious BOOM in the cosmos. Early analysis: Not Steve Jobs.

...and Saturdays turned into lazy Sundays...

• More NASA: a group of rogue scientists were pitching new spacecraft ideas to Team Obama.
• Here's to the nicer, kinder Microsoft, as they lift the download limit on Windows 7 until January 24.
• Slick looking haptics controller could be aiding angst-ridden teens with their headshots by year end.
• Nyko's Wiimote knockoff could very well be better that the original.
• This DTV switch business is turning into a real crapfest, but the FCC won't budge: It's happening on Feb 17 so get ready for it!

.... and now why don't you get over to the homepage and check out the latest gadget news on tap for today. No, seriously, get over there. Now.

Saturday Brilliance:

• Sony's tiny tot of a VAIO netbook looks to be shiny, bright and expensive. Sounds like Sony to us!
• This handy Star Wars clock looks sharp and reminds smuggler friends that parsecs are a measure of distance, not time.
• Hardcore Xbox 360 FPS fans rejoice! This mod brings legit keyboard and mouse controls to the console.
• Saturday saw nothing but deals, deals, deals on HDTV and other geeky necessities.
• An iPhone poured a beer with its accelerometer. Heaven on earth?

Sunday Funday:

• The NASA Spirit rover, five years on planet, is truly one of humanity's greatest accomplishments.
• No Steve at MacWorld, but Unibody MacBook Pro 17-inchers are a real possibility.
• Speaking of MacWorld, be sure to check out the keynote liveblog right here for instant Apple gratification.
• The Audi R8 supercar is Hot, but its lights? Not so much. They're all LEDs—a first for automobiles!
• Want to see something really, really fake? Like embarrassingly fake? Check this "Product (RED)" iPhone 3G.

Now get to the homepage and read the latest and greatest gadget, MacWorld and CES news.

Here's to an even more messed up 2009, friends.

January


• Holy Crap: Did Bill Gates Just Say Windows Sucks? [The first time in history Gates admitted (indirectly) on camera that Vista was not great. And we got it.]
• How To Discover Secret Gadgets Through the FCC [It's not that we can't crawl the FCC, its that we don't want to.]
• Best LEGO Sets in History [The best in the year of the brick]
• LEGO Brick Timeline: 50 Years of Building Frenzy and Curiosities [Another addiction for JD]
• 10 Examples of the iPhone Making People Crazy
• The Truth About the Format War and HD DVD's Demise [Secret: HD DVD was the more thoughful format.]
• The Best of CES 2008 [For all that noise, there wasn't much.]
• 1960s Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple's Future [The past is now]
• Complete Uncut Gizmodo Bill Gates Interview [Our exclusive Bill Gates video interview, in its complete form.]
• Ten Reasons We're Doomed: CES Edition [CES is a victim of its own success and greatness, and I've still never met a single person who enjoys the show.]

February


• The Analog Cellphone Timeline [Jesús Diaz timelines and Trinitron are some of my favorite things.]
• Stop! Why It Still Isn't Safe to Buy Blu-ray [Probably no longer true, but still great for its day!]
10 Feasible Concepts We Wish You Could Actually Buy [This is when we learned how good Sean was at lists.]
• The Biggest Star Wars Collection in the Galaxy [The man's Star Wars addiction in its early stages]
• Nokia's Touch UI Hands-On: Officially Way Behind Apple [At MWC in Barcelona, with Jesús]
• Gizmodo Super Bowl XLII Tech Commercial Awards

March


• Technosexual: One Man's Tale of Robot Love
• Sony XEL-1 OLED TV Review (Verdict: Small on Size, Large on Beauty) [Wish we did more reviews like this. Totally unattainable, but totally lust worthy.]
• Comcast n' BitTorrent BFF: What's Good, What Sucks
• Dash Express GPS Full Drive Review: Total Traffic Terminator [Given the company's financial troubles, I wish we hadn't recommended it without some reservations.]
• Whole Blu World: The Format War's Bloody Aftermath
• Apple TV vs. Vudu vs. Xbox 360: Video Download Battlemodo [Ah the infinite format war, reviewed in battle.]
• Sony Trinitron Timeline Shows Why It Will Live Forever In Our Hearts
• Axiotron ModBook Review (Verdict: A Touchscreen MacBook Done Right) [I still can't figure out if a Mac tablet makes sense.]

April


• Casio Exilim EX-F1 Slow-Mo Super Cam Full Review (Verdict: Totally Unique, Shockingly Powerful) [One of the most revolutionary cameras of the year.]
• Giz Explains: Plasma TV Basics [Matt starts hitting his stride with Giz Explains here.]
• Giz Explains: Digital Camera Image Sensors
• The Ultimate Cheap Camera Battlemodo
• Ten Things You Need to Know About the Optimus Maximus Keyboard Hardware [Never loved this keyboard, but I respect it as art.]
• Will Your ISP F You In the A? Bandwidth Hogs Beware [Matt has a potty mouth that is as sharp as it is filthy.]

May


• How to Love a LEGO Lunatic [Addy!]
• Giz Explains: OLED, the Future of TV
• Subnotebook vs. UMPC vs. Netbook: WTF Is the Difference? [I still can't tell the difference and have to ask Mark every time.]
• 10 Awesome Grills You Can Buy For The Ultimate Memorial Day BBQ
• MacHEADS: The Movie Interview
• Giz Explains: An Easy Primer on GPS
• First Netflix Streaming Box Review, $100 and Unlimited Downloads! [The first of many Netflix enabled devices. If only they'd get grade-A releases, they'd be the only service I'd ever want.]
• Wii Fit Review By a Formerly Fit Geek [Before Wii Fit.]
• Gadgets That Are Guaranteed Date Disasters
• Giz Explains LCD TV Basics
• Full-Screen Multitouch Mac OS X Is Here (But Not from Apple)

June


• Things No One Gives Microsoft Credit For (But Should) [Part of the Bill Gates Retirement Party, which was astoundingly fun to work on.]
• Bill Gates' Made Men: The Wild 'n' Crazy Ventures of the Microsoft Millionaires
• Giz Explains: How the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Will Save the World
• Story of a Peanut: The TiVo Remote's Untold Past, Present and Future
• iPhone Clone Battlemodo: Which One Is the iPhoniest?
• Why I Still Use Windows Despite the Peer Pressure [I like Adam's essay, especially the end where he chalks it up to being lazy.]
• A Night With Bill Gates' New Big Hairy Vision [Bill Gates thinks I'm dumb.]
• Samsung Instinct Review: Best Sprint or Samsung Phone Ever
• 3G iPhone Hands On [It's ok.]
• State of The Infinite Format War: Get Ready for Five Long Years of Set-Top Battle Royale [I think we were the first to recognize that a two format war is nothing compared to the format war between download services.]
• Giz Explains: Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard Parallel Processing and GPU Computing [Apple is crazy smart for not improving their OS with BS, but trying to fine tune the back end.]
• How To Launch an Apple Product in 5 Easy Steps [Sad but true, and effective.]
• The Ultimate Cheap Camcorder Battlemodo
• How I Sold My iPhone in 24 Hours For More Than I Paid
• Exclusive Video: How Lego Builds the Minifigs [Part of Jesús's exclusive visit to Lego HQ]
• Exclusive: Inside the Lego Factory
• 65-foot-high Lego Cathedrals Store 19 Billion Pieces a Year
• Lego Secret Vault Contains All Sets In History

July


• The True Story of the Hurricane Katrina Lightning-Laser Memorial and the Peg-Leg Biologist [This post didn't do well for whatever reason.]
• Giz Explains: An Illustrated Guide to Every Stupid Cable You Need
• Verizon FiOS: How They're Futurizing TV Faster Than AT&T and Big Cable
• Steve Jobs Says He Doesn't Have Cancer (And Why It's Not Your Business Anyway) [I'm fine speculating on the man's health, but not because of its effect on share holder wealth. Sorry, that's greedy. Sell the stock if you have a problem.]
• Why We Still Need the iPhone App Black Market [It's still true.]
• The Dark Knight Review: Even Gadgets Can't Stop The Joker's Madness [Best gadget movie of 2008]
• iPhone 3G Review
• iPhone 2.0 Software Review: Forget 3G, It's Code That Counts [Absolutely true; the iPhone 3G would be nothing without the new firmware.]
• Fantasy Gadget: The Ultimate Next Generation Connected TiVo Box
• What Doesn't Break a Toughbook Makes It Stronger: How They Test the Hell Out of Them [From Japan]
• Gizmodo's Ultimate Water Gun Battlemodo Royale [Reminded me a bit of the Top Gun volleyball scene when the dudes got out the white t shirts and slow motion camera, except ours was even more erotic.]

August


• How it Feels to Fly a Jetpack [Mark drove to an airshow a few hours away and RODE A JETPACK! Of course we had to do this first person.]
• MS Paint Gadget Fantasies are as Twisted as They are Unlikely
• Giz Explains: Batteries, Tech's Choke Point
• AT&T's Internal Plans To Fix Their Network [I hear the exec quoted here got a bit of heat because I headlined "fixed", which implies broken. Anyone who calls my house on my ATT line will know why I said that.]
• Cranky Windows Guy: Apple's iPhone Bugs Stopped Me From Switching to a Mac [Adam knows how to kick up a shit storm, any day of the week.]
• Motorola Insider Blame Game: Engineers Shoved Designers Aside [Brendan K., one of my favorite writers of this generation.]
• Giz Explains: The Magic Behind Touchscreens
• When Good Firmware Goes Bad... And Why You Should Wait To Update
• Secret Origin of the OLPC: Genius, Hubris and the Birth of the Netbook [This epic tale of the OLPC's development was not successfully received by readers (probably for lack of a news peg) but it was fun to work on and over 10k words, I believe.]
• OLPC Origins: US and Taiwan's Hardware Lovechild
• OLPC Origin: Bittersweet Success and Future of the XO Laptop

September


• 150-Inch TV In Action: It'll Melt Brains and Empty Wallets [Giz exclusive, a day of play on a 150-inch plasma.]
• Why Android Will Soon Kick Ass [Half of us were for Android, and this is the piece we came up with in response to Jesús's rant against it.]
• How Criterion Hones Its Restoration Magic for HD [Did you know people complain about high def film grain as compression noise?]
• How Many Google Phone Engineers Does It Take to Tell the Time? [Here's the Jesús rant against Android's UI.]
• What Does LASIK Really Feel Like? [I almost have 20/10 vision now!]
• Review: EFiX Dongle Perfectly Transforms PC to Mac
• Giz Explains: Why HD Video Downloads Aren't Very High Def [Spoiler: compression.]
• 7 Years of iPod: What You Paid and What You Got [Tech evolving and trickling down, in time line form]
• 90 Gadget Cross Promotions That Would Seriously Damage Some Brands [One of Adam's best photochop contests]
• Why I Hate Netbooks [Mark vs. Mark]
• Why I Love Netbooks
• Is Steve Jobs Preparing His Farewell [Jesús has pre-cog powers!]

October


• Smartphone Is a Dumb Word: We Need a New Name [I should start using the word com. Pretty nerdy, but it makes sense.]
• Why It's Safer Than Ever To Buy First-Generation Hardware [I stand by this!]
• Giz Explains: Why Windows 7 Will Smash Vista
• T-Mobile G1 Google Android Phone Review [Spoiler: Important but meh.]
• Why Zen Software Design Does Not Come From Japan [Lisa K.]
• Windows 7 Walkthrough, Boot Video and Impressions [Wilson gives us the first major presentation of the next Windows]
• My Favorite Childhood Sci-Fi Author Fries My Brain
• Giz Explains: How to Choose an HDTV Like a Pro
• The Truth About the Apple Tax [Matt broke down the actual extra cost involved with Apple gear vs comparable PC gear running Windows. ]
• MacBook and MacBook Pro Dual Review
• Internet TV Remote: Quick Links to Free Streaming Shows
• Zero-Cost Gadget Upgrades For the Next Great Depression

November


• This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars [Part of an amazing guest edit by the Phoenix Mars Lander, via Veronica McGregor, from NASA, where we have the Phoenix Lander blogging in first person. As it dies!]
• How To Calibrate Your New HDTV (and Not Lose Your Mind)
• How to Buy an HDTV Today (or Any Day)
• A Call for Revolution Against Beta Culture [Jesús wrote this as a follow up to the Why It's Safer to Buy 1st Gen post, saying just because you can upgrade/fix by firmware, doesn't mean its right that companies come out with shitty stuff out of the gate.]
• A Complete Guide to Playing Video Files On Your PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii
• BlackBerry Storm Review (Verdict: Not Quite a Perfect Storm)
• Mobile Browser Battlemodo: Which Phones Deliver The Real Web
• 10 Things You Should Know About The New Xbox Experience
• 30 Mars Phoenix Discoveries NASA Will Never Show the World
• What it Feels Like to Drive a Tesla Roadster [It's fast, but not faster than some gas vehicles I love.]
• The Wii Fit Review: Six Months Later [After Wii Fit!]
• Review: The World's Thinnest LCD HDTVs [Drool.]
• How To: Max Out Apple TV's Potential With Boxee [I like Boxee, but would prefer to run it lag free with HD content on a Mac mini,]
• Happy Birthday Saturn V, Still The Biggest Rocket of All
• The 50 Skills Every Geek Should Have [Adam made us proud on this list. First draft was a little too easy but the final list was challenging to all.]
• Giz Explains: What's So Awesome About 64-Bit?
• Why You Should Buy a Refurbished Laptop
• 25 Features You Definitely Won't See in Windows 7 [Photochop!]
• Prof. Dealzmodo: Why You Should Stop Buying Your Computers Fully Loaded and Why You Should Buy a Refurbished Laptop [Sean breaking out of lists!]

December


• The Definitive Coast-to-Coast 3G Data Test [Who else is going to run around 8 cities testing 3G data rates for you from all three major 3G carriers?]
• 120 Feet of Video Art: Final Exams at NYU's Big Screens Class [A wall of motion art, as homework. That's an assignment I could have fun with.]
• Silver-Painted Plastic Gadgets Must Die
• Dealzmodo Hacks: 8 Ways To Get More Miles Out Of Your Old PC
• What Beautiful Future Gadgets Will Be Made Of [Ceramic, wood, more metal, and plastic. But not painted plastic.]
• Why Kids Deserve Crappy Gadgets This Holiday
• Dealzmodo Hack: Make Your Old USB Stick Into a Digital Multitool
• Gizmodo Gallery, our little museum presentation of the best gadgets we could find, small and big.
• Choose Your Own Apple Adventure

See how the features progressed towards being bigger and better towards the end of 2008? I feel like a proud papa. Special thanks to Wilson for doing a lot of the behind the scenes work on features without a byline on all the pieces he's influenced, and thanks to all the writers who did features on top of their regular short posts. I hope next year's features will be even better. Happy New Years everyone, thanks for reading.

OnTheSnow's Snow Reports
Using their own dataset, OnTheSnow's $2 app is my app of choice for checking the resort conditions, including time of update, trails and lifts open/total, a direct call number to mountains, weather, new snow depths over the last 3 days and base depth conditions. It looks nice, too. Includes conditions from resorts in EU, South and North America, and allows you to favorite 16 resorts and scroll through them with swipes. [iTunes Link]

Snow Report
The most simple app lets you favorite the same resorts listed in OnTheSnow's app, because it uses their data. The best feature in this no frills app is that it lists all the new snow depth from the last day from all resorts on a single page. You have to click through for surface type, and its $3 so not really recommended. Maybe if it was $.99 or free.
[iTunes Link]

REI Ski and Snowboard Report
I love REI, the outdoor gear co-op, but I hate their iPhone app made by Zumobi. You can only have 3 resorts on tap, it takes awhile to load, and 25% of the space is dedicated to shopping at REI and pushing Zumobi apps, none of which I feel inclined to do when I'm about to hit the slopes. The info is good — it has base and new snow over the last 3 days, lifts (but not run) data, and a link to weather and webcams. Same resort and dataset as OnTheSnow apps. It's worth it only because its free. But I will probably delete it soon because its ugliness offends me. [iTunes Link]

Snocator
It loads slow, but it has a few major things going for it: It is location aware, so can list your nearby resorts instantly, and can use the 3G's gps to pinpoint you on maps of resorts, so you can tell where you are in relation to trails. Clicking through gets you more than just base and new snow and temps: maps, mountain cams, weather, among others. They're building a friend finding feature, soon, too, they say. But a rather ugly app. Only US and Canada support and only 70 resorts are mapped down to the trails. Here's a warning: it costs $2.99, but expires end of the season. F-That! [iTunes Link]

Ski Lodge
OMG so beautiful. All the resorts are listed on one page (which I like) with base, temp, an icon for current weather, new snow over the last one or two days. It's also location aware, and can list your local mountains. Clicking through you get a detailed page with not only photos and websites and an option to view the place in the iPhone map app, but you can download official trail maps! They're highly detailed, so are about a quarter to half a megabyte each, so don't try this on anything but 3G or WiFi. (The good news is they cache for future reference.) But US and Canadian support and only metrics (CM and Centigrade) make it a potential deal buster for me. I also don't know where they're getting their data from. However, if they fix these minor beefs, I'm game. I think they can, so probably best to buy this NOW at $0.99, its current sale price. UPDATE: Settings for metric/standard measurements were in the iPhone system preferences page. Ski Lodge WINS. [iTunes Link]

SnoCountry
Just found this this morning, so I'll just give my brief impressions. Oh, it crashed. And thinks I don't have an internet connection now. Skip. I'll update if I get it working. But you should pass for now on this at 99 cents, or just try the free version which is limited to 2 favorite resorts. [iTunes Link]

We Ski - Ski Reporter
A simple app that uses snocountry's data, and is free. I like how it shows which resorts are open or closed with a green/red icon, but the font for new snow is small and hard to read. But it's free. [iTunes Link]

The Winners
If you've been following along, you probably guessed: Overall I recommend OnTheSnow's app. But if metric measurements don't bother you and you are limiting your skiing to the US and Canada, I'd recommend trying out Ski Lodge, especially at the current sale price.

I'm really looking forward to snowboarding this weekend.

• Female avatars in the new Sony Home service might as well be red meat in a hungry lion's den.
• Chuck E Cheese is... where a kid can watch mom and dad punch other parents in the face.
• BWAH!? Microsoft took the plunge and made an Apple App Store application? True!
• That annoying dancing Matt guy took a Sony SR1 HD camera into microgravity and discovered something new.
• Ninja combo weapons for the win.

Now get back to the homepage for a serious fix of intense gadget-heavy news and views.

Gaming:
• Boom Blox on the Wii for $27 (originally $39.99 - in Blockbuster stores only).
• Viva Pinata on Xbox 360 for $9.99 plus free shipping (originally $19.99).
• Prey on Xbox 360 for $9.99 plus free shipping (originally $29.99).

Home entertainment:
• Panasonic Blu-ray Player for $224.99 plus free shipping (originally $399.99 - use coupon code "EMCBBBJAG").
• Philips 42'' 1080p LCD HDTV for $899.99 (originally $1,399.99).

Cameras:
• Olympus Stylus 10.1 MP waterproof/shockproof digital camera for $172.49 shipped (originally $299.99 - use coupon code "STYLUS105025A").

Memory:
• Fantom 1TB G-Force External Hard Drive for $99.99 plus free shipping (originally $149.95).
• 16GB SDHC Memory Card for $25.99 plus free shipping (originally $89.99).
• Kingston 8GB DataTraveler USB2.0 Flash Drive (pack of 2) for $27.49 plus free shipping (originally $126).

Hobomodo:
• Texas Instruments Calculator for $0.
• Holiday MP3 sampler for $0 (originally $5).
• Planet Heroes in "The Ace that Jumped Over the Moon!" DVD for $0 (originally $9.99).

* Tom Waits' Step Right Up, as promised.

• Broken MacBook Pro is reborn as a sweet "mini tower" Mac Pro Mini
• No lawsuit too small: iPhone 3G case cracks added to the class action list.

• Original NASA moons images made beautiful with ultra HD.
• Even Google gets the shaft from Apple and the App Store approval process.
• Forget the iPhone, Verizon pits BlackBerry against BlackBerry in a pit of death!
• Assault with a deadly weapon now includes Apple iPhone rechargers.
• Mr. President-Elect, we're going to need to have you surrender your Blackberry at the door.

Now, chin up, and read more great gadget news and views at the homepage.

• Girl Talk dishes on why he's a PC, and why that headband might not be ironic.

• Some of these Dell Black Friday deals are pretty sweet.
• The baddest rocket of them all celebrated a birthday!
• A plastic Australian death cage lets you swim with 20-ft. crocodiles.
• If aliens do exist, FEMA will be ready for them. So says their official manual anyway.
• A new indestructible flashlight we discovered charges in just 90 seconds (and lasts 24 hours!).

Now, go with much haste to the Gizmodo homepage ans soak it all in, would ya?

• BSODomize your friends with random BSOD screens. Just don't overdo it.
• Speaking of fanboys... it's been explained by scientists. Doesn't make it any more cool though.
• Who knew old hard drive parts could make a pretty cool clock?

• The Tide at Omaha Beach is lovingly recreated in this handy water birthing tub.
• Some guy built a miniature fighter jet on his own. 'nuff said
• Signs of the Apocalypse: Poor people love the iPhone more than rich people.
• Circuit City, we hardly knew thee. And now you are closing 155 stores. Best Buy's across the land will be lonely.
• Did you spot the ISS trash falling from orbit Sunday? Whatever you do, don't touch anything!

Now get your red or blue butt to the Gizmodo homepage and read all about the latest and greatest gadget news.

• Cowon's new flash-based PMP could be a sleeper hit in the portable media space.
• Sharp AQUOS 32" 1080p HDTV for $699? Yes, please.

• Get ready folks, because the iPhone 3G unlock is coming to an iPhone 3G near you!
• Office fun: AC/DC Excel spreadsheet video had us by the Hell's Bells this weekend.
• Dell's Inspiron Mini 12 is officially the most gargantuan netbook on the block.
• HP's 10-inch Mini 1000 showed up online for about $400.
• If you love soccer (football!) and have an HDTV, you need to watch this Zidane flick. Yesterday.

Now get over the the homepage and swim around in the deep of the gadget pool with Gizmodo.

• Battle of the high end TVs: Mitsubishi versus Pioneer. Who wins?
• The Sony LED Bravia KDL-55XBR8 may very well be the best LCD TV ever.
• Spore sold a lot of copies, but it can't hold a candle to anti-virus software.
• The new MacBook Pro is easy on the eyes, but hard on the battery.
• I'm going to name my new Eden speedboat the Morning Wood.
• High tech truck hijackers were a bit too smart for their own good.
• They say the $60,000 Vacheron Constantin Quai de l'Ile Watch is impossible to fake. Won't you try anyway?
• The Down Low Glow is not an STD. It's for bikes!

Now, go forth and eyeball the great tech and gadget news that graces Gizmodo's homepage each and every day.

In his thorough analysis of a leaked manufacturing pic a few weeks back (that turned out to be legit), Jesús spelled out our hard and fast policy for dealing with Apple rumoring: "Whatever the case is, always remember our first rule of rumors: Never believe them. Especially the ones about Apple." In that sense it is a credit to the good work being done here and elsewhere that most of this list of rumors and leaks did in fact turn out to be true.

Last Minute Photos Show MacBook Pro 2008 Curviness (Machome-China Forums): TRUE.
Yep, that's the MacBook Pro. Information about the hard drive being accessible behind the rear panel was also confirmed to be true.

Last Minute MacBook Rumors: Entire Glass Trackpad Is a Button, Pro Has TWO Graphics Cards, and More (Daring Fireball): TRUE.
Jon Gruber took last night's leaked (and real) pic as an opportunity to spill the beans entirely, and he nailed just about everything—dual GPUs on the MacBook Pro, MacBook as a MacBook Pro Mini, and on down the line.

Spyshot Shows What Looks to Be The New MacBook Pro (Tipster JR): TRUE
The aforementioned pic that hit Monday night—this most certainly is a legit shot of the new MBP...

New MacBook Pro 2008 Mock-Up Lights My Credit Card On Fire (Jesús): TRUE
...which then led Jesús to create this note-perfect mockup that may as well have come directly from Apple.

Apple's $899 Product Might Be LED Display Rather Than Ultra-Cheap MacBook (Macrumors): TRUE.
Hopes of a brand-new low-cost notebook looked grim after this one hit and was verified today, but the 24" LED Cinema Display dashed 'em right quick.

Supposed Best Buy Listings for New MacBooks Show No Price Drop (Tipsters): FALSE
This looked like the current Apple notebook pricing lineup for a reason—it was. Missing is the $1599 top-end MacBook and the $999 reduced original MacBook—and the original $1099 low-end MacBook price point is still there. False false false.

New MacBook 2008 Alleged Aluminum Case Photos Hit the Web (MacX): TRUE
Another Chinese site produced photos of the top portion of the aluminum MacBook's case on Monday, which are now confirmed to be real.

Mysterious MacBook Event Teaser Image is 13.3-inch Model, Says Deduction (Apple): TRUE
Look at this—Apple's brazen enough to picture an actual new product—here the new aluminum 13" MacBooks—in the event announcement itself. Times surely have changed.

New Pics Surface of Anonymous Apple Laptop (Apple Pro - Taiwan): TRUE
More legit manufacturing-stage pics of the MacBook's case, with the correct port configuration, keyboard layout and side-loading optical drive.

New MacBook Pro Rumor Control (Chinese Manufacturing Sites/Engadget): TRUE
Jesús put this shot through the Photoshop ringer and found a few suspect details, which in the end were not enough to debunk this thing completely. Turns out his instincts were correct—it's an actual shot of the new MacBook Pro's port panel.

Apple's 'Brick' is a Revolutionary Aluminum Manufacturing Process? (9to5Mac): TRUE
As we pointed out, this one was not a huge stretch, considering the MacBook Air and iMac have used aspects of this manufacturing process already.

Rumored MacBook Pro Spy Shot Has Touchpad Display, Yet Terrible Photochop Flaws (Nowhereelse/Engadget): FALSE
Another one put through the wily Photoshop ringer, this 'chop had the basic idea of the design down, but turned out to be a fake—note the front-loading optical drive, the resemblance to the MacBook Air in the edges and the keyboard, and the numerous horrific perspective botches. Skepticism does pay.

Nvidia Launch Points to Possible October 14 MacBook Intro (Homemedia): TRUE
Got the date nailed, as well as the full transition to Nvidia chips for the whole line.

Rumor: New MacBook and MacBook Pro Will Look Like Air + iMac (Appleinsider): TRUE.
With a little bit of iPhone thrown in for good measure, we would add, but that's definitely the gist.

New MacBook Pro Revealed? (T-Systems): FALSE.
General design scheme is right on, but the front optical drive again reveals this early rendering to be false false false.

Glass Multi-touch Trackpads Only Make Sense With Displays Under 'Em (Computerworld): TRUE/KINDOF
The glass multi-touch trackpad was nailed 100% here, but our wish for a touchscreen instead of a touchpad went sadly unrequited.

Could This Be a New MacBook Pro? (Apple Pro): TRUE
The oldest of the bunch from July 7—this is definitely the new form factor's top clamshell lid, along with the main portion of the bottom. As you can see, the latch hole to release the not-pictured battery and HDD panel is the same as the real thing, as is the roundness of the edges of the case.

Phew. So yes, this has been the story with Apple events for a while—back in September of last year when the last batch of iPods came around, Brian pined for the days when we didn't get shoved so forcefully into the Xmas present hiding place with our eyes wide open. But the sheer volume of information and photos out there this time is almost enough to make us think twice about or Apple rumor policy. Abandoning prevalent skepticism and rigorous analysis is the last thing we would ever do when it comes to Apple rumoring, but at this point, the volume of good leaks seems close to overtaking (if it hasn't already) the volume of good fakes.

I guess we can't believe in Santa Clause our whole lives though, right?

See all of our MacBook Event 2008 coverage right here.