129. HP Laptop Lasts for 24 Hours on a Single Charge

Even the Energizer bunny hopped up on Viagra would have a tough time lasting as long as HP’s EliteBook 6930p, the first notebook ever to claim a 24-hour battery life. To make the milestone possible, certain configuration options are mandatory, such as an optional Intel 80GB SSD drive and an LED display. Configured properly, the notebook could outlast a trip from Newark Liberty International Airport to Singapore Changi Airport, the world’s longest scheduled commercial airline flight.

 128. Refreshed MacBook Line Sports Nvidia Graphics Inside, Not Intel

With all the problems Nvidia faced with failing GPUs and falling stock, the graphics chip maker was badly in need of a major win, and it got exactly that with its 9400M GPU. Apple, fully aware of Nvidia’s past problems, chose Nvidia to supply graphics chores for its refreshed MacBooks rather than continue a longstanding relationship with Intel.

 127. PCs Surpass the 1 Billion Mark

At last count, there were approximately 6.7 billion people puttering around the planet. Shift the roll call to the number of computers in use around the world and for the first time, that number passes the 1 billion mark, according to research firm Gartner. And while that number is good for emerging markets, it’s not as rosy for the environment as an estimated 180 million PCs are replaced by year’s end, 35 million of which ultimately end up in landfills.

 126. Asus Literally Thinks Outside the Box with External Graphics

Most notebooks have no way of letting the end-user upgrade its graphics solution, leaving mobile gamers in a tough predicament – dial down the settings, or start over with a new notebook? At least, that’s how it used to be. Asus’ ROG XG Station proved a game changer as being the world’s first external graphics dock with an Express Card connector. Not only does the device allow for easy PCI-E VGA upgrades, but it also comes with four USB 2.0 ports and Dolby Technology through its headphone-out port. That’s rad!

 125. Musicians Give Away Albums, Free is the New $15

Radiohead might have garnered the most media attention over its pay-what-you-want experiment, but they’re not the only band to give away digital downloads. Rock group Marillion made its new album available as a free download with a pop-up box imploring listeners to share their email address. Coldplay Nine Inch Nails, and several others have also experimented with various forms of free music, so that pirates are no longer the only ones sticking it to the record labels.

 124. HyperTransport Consortium Announces HTX3 Specification, Triples Performance to 5.2 GT/s

The HTX3 specification triples the performance of the original HTX 1.0 spec by pushing 5.2 GT/s (20.8 GT/s on a 16-bit link) while also remaining backward compatible, but there’s more to salivate over than just a speed bump. The new connector offers a direct, low-latency route to the CPU that, in theory at least, could replace the PCI-E bus and link GPUs directly to the CPU.

 123. AMD Releases Triple Core Phenom Processors

With AMD’s recent failure to compete in the high-end enthusiast sector, the company needed a strong competitor for the midrange market. The X3 was designed to look good against Intel’s dual core chips, while undercutting the pricier 4-core processors. The tri-core processor did pretty well for itself in the lab, but competitive price cuts from Intel kept it from blockbuster status.

 122. LED Backlighting Lights up Notebooks

The use of LED backlighting in notebooks sees a significant surge in 2008, and that’s only the beginning. Dell announces plans to transition its entire notebook lineup to LED backlighting by 2010, which it says will add up to a combined customer savings of $20 million, and Apple believes it can make the transition even sooner. On your mark, get set, go!

 121. Tera Era Promotional Video Brings Joy to Our Hearts

 As a follow up to their internet classic "Get Perpendicular" video, Hitachi releases the "Tera Era" cartoon to celebrate their first three-platter terrabyte drives. The catchy tune, adorable animation, and Schoolhouse Rock throwback makes this a win in our book. Say goodbye to the Gigabyte/Terabyte is outta sight!

 120. T-Mobile G1

We love the G1 for its intuitive interface, bright screen, and myriad apps—that there’s finally a mobile phone that can go toe-to-toe with what’s in the pockets of our Apple-lovin’ coworkers only sweetens the deal. And though were impressed with the G1, we’re particularly excited about what the device represents, the promise of a host of Android-powered devices available on all the major carriers.

 119. Playboy Jerks DVDs off Assembly Line, Moves to Online Distribution

Yeah, we know what we did there. But what Playboy did was save itself an estimated $12 million a year by ditching its DVD business in favor of digital distribution. The decision was made in an attempt to return the company to profitably, which also entailed job cuts and identifying other money saving endeavors, such as using lighter magazine paper. Tissue would work well, don’t you think?

 118. Mobile Quad-Core

 If you don’t think you don’t need a quad core in your notebook, go encode that movie on a single-core Atom CPU and then come back and tell us processing power in a notebook doesn’t matter. It does and only those who want to pad out their billable hours by using slower computers would choose a single-core or dual-core over a quad-core notebook today.

 117. The Web’s Awash in Over 1 Trillion Unique URLs

We can’t help but imagine some poor sap sitting at his desk counting every unique URL in existence. Unfortunately, such a task is just not feasible, but we do trust Google’s computers to give us a reasonable estimate, which tells us that by July, 2008, the web was home to over 1 trillion unique web addresses. Put into perspective, that’s 149 URLs for every man, woman, and child on the entire planet.

 116. Creative Calls Shenanigans on Asus, Says Company Misleading Customers on EAX Drivers

Customers have long complained over Creative’s crummy soundcard drivers, leading many to cozy up to the competition, such as Asus’ Xonar line. But according to Creative, the only problem with that (well, one of the problems) is customers are being cheated out of advertised EAX support. Creative communications VP Phil O’Shaughnessy accused Asus of essentially misleading its customers, claiming “the new Asus drivers are falsely reporting EAX 5 capabilities.” Oh schnapp!

 115. Ubuntu Linux Leaps onto Brick and Mortar Store Shelves

Prior to Vista, most people viewed Linux as a complicated niche OS ill-suited for mainstream use. But that all changed in 2008 and it doesn’t even matter if Vista’s underwhelming reception is to blame, or if strides in streamlining the interface in Linux played a bigger role. The end result is that for the first time, consumers could walk into Best Buy and pick up a boxed copy of Ubuntu (a free download) for $20.

 114. College Student Faces Charges for Allegedly Hacking Sarah Palin’s Email Account

David Kernell, a 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee and the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, D-Memphis, makes headlines for allegedly gaining unauthorized access into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo-based email account. The stunt, which included posting screenshots of the account, changing the password, and posting the password so that others could access her email, could ultimately result in a maximum 5-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine.

 113. DRAM Market Faces Toughest Time in 15 Years

System builders rejoice at paying a fraction of what 2GB and 4GB kits used to cost, but the mood is decidedly less celebratory among DRAM manufacturers. Memory makers exhaust all the usual tricks, such as cutting production and scaling back the workforce, and even make a plea for a government bailout. None of it worked and A-DATA chairman Simon Chen declared 2008 the worst year for DRAM in the past 15 years.

 112. Overclocker Tends to 51 GPUs in his Folding@Home Farm

The well intentioned competition fostered by Stanford’s quest to find cures to common diseases kicked into high gear when the Folding@Home distributed computing project tapped into GPUs to fold proteins. But nobody took bigger advantage of the new capability than Overclock.net forum member nitteo, who promptly built a F@H farm consisting of 16 motherboards and 51 8800-series GPUs. Failed hardware and a hurricane are temporary roadblocks, but at full tilt, it’s estimated nitteo’s farm pulls in between 225K-250K points per day.

 111. Dirk Meyer Replaces Hector Ruiz as AMD’s CEO

 Following AMD’s forfeiture of the performance crown to Intel, high level execs seemed to be jumping ship left and right. The mass exodus culminated with Hector Ruiz stepping down as CEO after holding onto the title for 6 years. Looking to right the ship, Dirk Meyer jumped into the role and eventually ended up breaking AMD into separate design and manufacturing firms in an attempt to right what’s become a rickety ship.

 110. Spam King Evolves into a Cowardly Cold Blooded Killer

The fact that Edward Davidson sent out so many spam messages that he became known as the spam king is enough to indict him into the scumbag hall of fame, but it’s his later antics that perhaps makes him the worst spammer of all time. While serving a 21-month sentence in a minimum security prison for tax evasion and falsifying computer records, Davidson, with the help of his wife, escaped jail only to kill his wife and three-year-old daughter before taking his own life.