149. Skype on Everything but the iPhone

Are you using Skype to keep in touch with friends, family, and maybe even a few random strangers? Of course you are, because Skype is available on just about every gadget out there, including Sony’s PSP. Long after Vonage’s ‘woo-hoo’ commercials fade from memory, users will be making phone calls and sending IMs through Skype whether at home or on the go, and maybe even one day will you be able to officially do so on your iPhone.

148. Californians Can’t Text and Drive at the Same Time

It’s not because they’re incapable, but because California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger helped pass a bill banning the practice. Get caught texting while driving in the sunshine state and you’ll be hit with a $20 fine. Do it again and that number more than doubles to $50, the same for each subsequent infraction. Curiously enough, the state had already passed a ban making it illegal to hold a cell phone and drive at the same time, but you could still text, assuming you could levitate objects with your mind.

147. The Gamer’s Bill of Rights is Born

Is it truly necessary for game publishers to require that their games can only be played while the CD/DVD remains in the drive? According Stardock and Gas Powered Games, not only is it unnecessary, but it’s a violation of No. 10 in The Gamer’s Bill of Rights. The two devised the list in hopes of garnering enough industry support to eventually create a consortium, which would actually uphold the standards instead of just talk about them.

146. EA Tries to Buy Take 2

 Electronic Arts' infatuation with rival video game maker Take-Two Interactive have been anything but secret, nor has Take-Two's rejection. In late February, Take-Two publicly rejected EA's unsolicited takeover bid worth roughly $2 billion, a move Take-Two accused of being "opportunistic" with Grand Theft Auto IV nearing release. Not taking the rejection well, EA threatened with a hostile takeover in the following months, but has since backed down.

 145. OpenID Finds Big Backers among the Tech Elite

The best ideas in the world can go down in flames without support from key backers – just ask Toshiba about its HD-DVD platform. And so OpenID had to be thrilled to find out Microsoft, Google, Verisign, and IBM were all hopping on board as partners. Board nominations and other housekeeping duties are still taking place, but at this point, it’s hard to imagine a future without OpenID in it.

 144. AT&T Bans Wireless P2P Outright

Forget any talks of overage fees or other measures intended to curb the use of file-sharing applications. In a chat with the FCC, the telco disclosed its stance against allowing its wireless broadband customers from doing anything that “may cause extreme network capacity issues,” while also making sure to specifically point out P2P. Use it and lose it.

 143. OCZ Dives into DIY Notebook Sector

OCZ’s Do-It-Yourself Gaming Notebook Program serves as another reminder of how far the company has come. What started off as an enthusiast memory company has grown into a multi-faced operation with products running the gamut from peripherals, power supplies, cooling solutions, and so much more. It seems only logical that DIY notebooks would end up in OCZ’s radar – there’s not much left for the company to conquer.

 142. Universal Abit Bids Adieu to Motherboard Market

Before you kids got your overclocking groove on with your shiny DFI and Gigabyte motherboards that became all the rage, Abit stood out as a premier producer of enthusiast level motherboards catering to both AMD and Intel. Sadly, the company who brought us such gems as the NF7-S2 and IC7-Max3 let it be known that it would not produce any more motherboards after 2008. Drat.

141. VIA Answer’s Intel Atom with Nano Processor

The year of the netbook can also be described as the year of the Atom processor. Nearly every mini-notebook on the market sports Intel’s Atom CPU inside, but the release of VIA’s Nano chip threatens to shake things up. Benchmarks show lots of promise for the new chip, as does the company’s plan to release a dual-core variant in 2010.

 140. Wikipedia Compiles Book with 90,000 Authors

While on the topic of records, Wikipedia made history by publishing a book with about 90,000 authors, qualifying as the most credited individual authors ever. Credits alone account for 27 pages in “The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia,” which is a compilation of 25,000 of the most popular articles on German Wikipedia.

139. Firefox Sets Record for Most Downloads in 24 Hours

Look at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer over there, thinking it’s so cool with its 70 percent market share. But can it boast a Guinness World Record? Mozilla’s Firefox can, following a pre-launch campaign implorering surfers to download Firefox 3 on the day of its release. Firefox fans responded, helping the open source browser break the record for most downloads in a 24 hour period by registering over 8 million downloads.

138. Psystar and Apple Spar over Cloned Macs

Geek fight! Only this one had nothing to do with stolen pocket protectors. Instead, Apple took exception to the Miami-based OEM selling Mac clones running OS X and hit the company with a lawsuit. Psystar fired back with a lawsuit of its own claiming Apple’s Max OS X EULA runs afoul of U.S. monopoly laws. Ultimately the two parties agreed to have the cased move to “Alternate Dispute Resolution” and avoid setting a legal precedent.

137. Microsoft Hands Pink Slip to Game Test Contractor for Talking to VentureBeat

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, even if that hand is knowingly churning out faulty Xbox 360 consoles. That’s the lesson Robert Delaware learned, who was terminated by Microsoft from his position as a contract game tester after speaking to VentureBeat without permission. Delaware, who has no regrets about his decision, was the only named Microsoft worker who contributed to the piece detailing the Xbox 360’s well publicized failure rate.

136. Merriam-Webster Defines 'Fanboy' and Other Geek Terms

We can think of better ways to describe a fanboy than “a boy who is an enthusiastic devotee (as of comics or movies),” which was just one of a handful of geek terms Merriam-Webster added to its collegiate dictionary. Other notable entries include ‘Malware,’ ‘Netroots,’ and ‘Webinar.’ Sadly, Merriam-Webster still hasn’t updated its definition for ‘tea bag.’

135. iPhone 3G

We're not the biggest Apple fans, but we can't deny that the iPhone 3G was one of 2008's most significant product releases. Hell, even our Online Editor waited in line for one. 

134. FCC Chairman Pitches Free, Porn Free Internet

Taking porn away from the internet would be like, well, taking porn away from the internet. The concept might have trouble registering in the mind, but not for Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman and advocate of a free internet devoid of any lewd content. Martin’s plan? Auction off the AWS-3 spectrum to any company willing to provide nationwide wireless broadband free of charge and free of two of anythings doing anything with a single cup.

133. SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium

The PCI served us well but we can finally let go with the arrival of Creative Lab’s PCI-Express-based X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Edition card. It doesn’t hurt the Titanium that it finally brings Dolby Digital Live support too.

132. Wine Ferments for 15 Years before Popping the 1.0 Cork

Linux and Mac users have long used Wine (formerly WINE, or Wine Is Not an Emulator) to run Windows applications on non-Windows environments, but always in beta form. That all changed when, 15 years later, the application finally went gold and reached 1.0 status. The gold release brought about several bug fixes, including improved Skype support, but it didn’t taste any different.

131. Judge Sides with RIAA Because Defendant Used a File Shredder

Without evidence, there’s no case, right? Wrong! In Atlantic v Howell, defendant Jeffrey Howell found out the hard way that you can’t make your legal woes go away by simply disposing of the evidence. Not only did Howell delete his shared folder, but he used a file shredder to make the data virtually unrecoverable, ultimately earning himself a $40,000 guilty verdict.

130. Intel Delivers Dual-Core Atom Processors

Not only are reports of an Atom shortage a thing of the past, but Intel takes it ultra low-processor technology to the next level and starts shipping a dual-core variant. Essentially two Atom 230 processors on a single board, Intel’s two-core Atom 330 stays clocked at 1.6GHz per core. But unlike its single-core brethren, Intel relegates the Atom 330 only to nettops, leaving netbooks stuck in a single-core world.