What a year it’s been in gadgetry! Just 12 short months ago, I was blissfully sleeping in, rising only to attend state-mandated skill focus classes. Yet your unwavering appetite for plastic-clad consumer gear pressed me into service, like a fireman who ignores his high score in Bubble Bobble to rescue a burning baby, or the food engineer who developed Wendy’s Wild Mountain Spicy Chicken sandwich to address America’s flavor cravings. As we prepare ourselves for next week’s electronics orgy of CES, let us take a moment to reflect on the highs and lows of our shiny love affair together, month by month, as we pull out notable and favorite posts from the last 3,500 some-odd articles from this year’s Gizmodo.
On March 4th, I called the Nintendo DS an “ill-conceived vanity project for someone inside Nintendo”. As I write this, there is a Nintendo DS, purchased with my own sister’s stolen Christmas money, next to the computer. We also started our Nintendo DS leaked product shot bounty, which finally concluded in May, with no winners. I consider that offering a small reward for potentially losing one’s job might not be incentive enough to convince a person to leak NDA’s information, but become distracted by blinking LED before learning any useful lesson.
https://gizmodo.com/nintendo-ds-to-play-more-than-games-8672
March also found us scoping out the “N-Gage 2”, which was later released as the N-Gage QD, a seriously decent but ultimately irrelevant bit of gaming hardare. Nokia slunk off to lick their wounds and make gaudy fashion phones. Sadly, after the death of the N-Gage’s most lampooned feature, Sidetalkin’, the system actually got a few interesting games, like Pocket Kingdoms.
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/first-ngage-2-pictures-014911.php
Motorola unveils the MPx in one of many posts that have been eaten by time. We note, “Expected in the latter half of 2004, the MPx is strong, like a lion shot from a cannon mounted on a moving bullet train; the Treo 600 had better stay on its toes.” The Treo 600 stayed on its toes just long enough for the Treo 650 to be released, while the MPx is still MIA. Also, the MPx is fat, like a fat person, deflating much excitement.
March sees the first and last “Gizmodel of the Week,” an attempt to chase away the remaining 2-3% of our audience that are women.
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/tasteful-gizmodel-of-the-week-013856.php
One of my favorite posts from the new Gizmodo team’s first month: Portable Spy Station: Grundig Yacht Boy 400. Also, we talk about Liebermann computers with a suspicious lack of ire. Wal-Mart opens their music store, but the iTunes Music Store price war we predict comes later from Real Networks.
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/portable-spy-station-grundig-yacht-boy-400-013735.php
We learned about translucent concrete, which is still cool. March also marks the first use of the term “punching sharks” on Gizmodo.
https://gizmodo.com/translucent-concrete-8922
