89. AT&T First to Shove Microsoft’s Surface into Retail Stores as a Shopping Tool

Microsoft’s scintillating Surface technology makes its retail debut in select AT&T stores and steals the show from the mobile devices they’re intended to help sell. The 30-inch tabletop invites interaction not only with human hands, but also with devices. Raising the bar in cellular shopping, consumers can drag ringtones onto a mobile phone resting on the Surface, view interactive coverage maps, compare features of multiple devices placed side by side, and more.

 88. Nvidia Activates Physx and CUDA

Starting with the GeForce 8 series, Nvidia puts its CUDA compiler to work by enabling PhysX support and bundling a bevy of CUDA-based programs in a pair of Power Packs. Not many games punch into the PhysX API, which largely limits its appeal to ‘gee-whiz’ tech demos, but CUDA carves a path for developers to tap into Nvidia’s GPUs for non-gaming tasks such as Folding@Home and video encoding.

 87. Jury Helps Rambus Ramrod Memory Industry

Giving Rambus a much needed legal win, a jury rules that Rambus did not commit fraud or engage in anti-competitive means when obtaining its patents for memory technology. The ruling comes as bad news to Hynix, Micron, and Nanya, all targets of Rambus’ suing spree. Rambus, whose RDRAM standard has all but died out, contends that it patented the SDRAM technology long before it became a standardized technology.

 86. Airlines Take WiFi Above the Clouds

Gogo provides passengers with the ability to take their forum disputes to the skies by incorporating wireless internet access on select flights. The new service uses the Aircell Network and supports any laptop with 801.11 a/b/g wireless capability, as well as a handful of handheld devices, such as Apple’s iPhone. Airlines that join or plan to join the WiFi mile high club include Delta, American Airlines, United, Air Canada, and Virgin American.

 85. Microsoft Spends $300 Million on Grassroots “I’m a PC” Campaign

Attacking the stereotype perpetuated in Apple ads head on, Microsoft fires back with a series of “I’m a PC” ads depicting real-life users from all walks of life. Celebrities not named Justin Long get in on the action too, such as basketball star Tony Parker and TV actress Eva Longoria, but most of the ‘actors’ are regular people armed with a webcam and look nothing like John Hodgeman.

 84. Adobe AIR vs Microsoft Silverlight: FIGHT!

With Rich Internet Applications gaining ground, Adobe’s AIR sets the stage for a long-term showdown with Microsoft’s Silverlight despite each one’s different approach. Both technologies seek to redefine desktop applications and vie for supremacy, but unlike Silverlight, which is more comparable to Adobe’s Flash, AIR is a runtime and not a browser plugin. AIR takes flight by being able to run web applications as desktop apps across operating systems, something Silverlight can’t do.

 83. Lord British Launches into Outer Space

Most know Richard Garriott as the creator of Ultima, but on October 13, 2008, Garriott, aka Lord British, leaves behind videogames for new adventures in outer space. The $30 million 10-day flight ticket allows Garriott to follow in his father’s footsteps, who in 1973 spent two months aboard Skylab. Space becomes the new playground for wealthy tech gurus, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin books a flight to space scheduled for 2011.

 82. AMD Releases Phenom, Right into the Bargain Bin

Following the Phenom debut, which failed to take back the performance crown from Intel, AMD found itself in the familiar position of battling for the bang/buck crowd. Part of the problem had to do with releasing Phenom at relatively low clockspeeds rather than burst out of the gates with a 3+GHz chip, but even still, clock for clock Intel’s superior Core 2 architecture notched another victory in its belt at AMD’s expense.

 81. Crytek CEO Estimates Piracy Rate as High as 20:1

Piracy continues to plague PC sales, but during an interview, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli puts a number on the problem claiming there are 15 to 20 PC games pirated for every 1 that is sold. Even more disturbing, Yerli suggests that the days of PC-exclusive titles may be numbered if the perceived situation doesn’t improve, starting with Crytek.

 80. Spore Finally Goes Gold

 Will Wright’s magnum opus arrives in stores, making demi-gods of gamers everywhere. Most critics deem the game worth the wait, but its gameplay merits are overshadowed by EA's unintelligently designed DRM.

 79. Amazon Enables Cell Phone Shopping with TextBuyIt

In what can only be construed as a sign of the times, Amazon unveils its TextBuyIt service enabling shoppers to make purchases via text messaging. Suddenly, brick-and-mortar bargain hunters have the means to quickly compare in-store prices with Amazon’s online sales simply by texting the item’s name, description, or UPC or ISNB number, and then place an order if Amazon’s price is cheaper.

 78. Google Dresses Up Gmail with Goggles, Emoticons, and Canned Responses

Gmail, while still and perhaps forever in beta form, receives several new features to its web mail service. Implementing emoticons ranks as one of the more obvious additions, but thinking outside the box, Google also adds a Mail Goggles feature, which tasks angry writers with answering a series of math questions before sending off that emotionally charged email. And who doesn’t delight in the ability to construct canned responses?

 77. Computing Takes Cover in the Cloud

The concept of cloud computing draws increased interest from heavy hitters in the tech industry, including IBM, who invests $300 million upgrading its infrastructure to offer cloud-based services. The sky-high investment covers 13 data centers worldwide aimed at serving customers in the event a disaster disrupts IBM’s networks. But IBM isn’t the only one with its head in the clouds; Dell goes so far as to try (unsuccessfully) to trademark the term Cloud Computing.

 76. Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB Hard Drive

A decently-fast, stupid-huge 7,200rpm hard drive for under $200? Sign us up! The 1.5TB Barracuda, though not quite as fast as terabyte drives from Western Digital and Samsung, still performs decently, and crams 375GB each onto four platters. We’ve had scattered reports of performance issues with these drives, but we haven’t experienced any, and Seagate pledges a fix via firmware update. Wait for the update, then pick one up—for $180 on the street, you get a lot of storage with decent speeds. And we call that a win.

 75. RealNetworks Releases, then Sued Over DVD Copying Software

The answer to the question of what happens if you release DVD copying software capable of copying DVDs without circumventing the CSS encryption is you go to court anyway. Not only does the RealDVD software rip exact copies, but it even adds an additional DRM layer. But the problem, in the MPAA’s eyes, is that users still have the ability to rip rented movies, prompting MPAA executive VP to nickname the program “StealDVD.”

 74. TorrentSpy Says Goodbye, Then Ordered to Pay $110 in Damages

If there can be a tech equivalent of a self-procliamed martyr, TorrentSpy would be it as the powers that be shut down the site rather than comply with a court order to log user data. At the time of its demise, TorrentSpy was engaged in a legal battle with the MPAA, who accused the site of facilitating copyright infringement. The MPAA was ultimately awarded a $110 million default judgment, a fine that will likely never be paid.

 73. The Pirate Bay Grows 10 Million Users Strong

Much to the dismay of the RIAA and MPAA, The Pirate Bay’s explosive growth leads to over ten million peers managing one million torrents. But those numbers only served as a precursor of things to come. By the end of the year, the number of peers more than doubles to 22 million, prompting the torrent site to seek recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records.

 72. Thermaltake Duo Orb

 Our favorite CPU air cooler eschew the high-rise trend and still outperforms the competition. Modern performance CPU coolers have been getting wider and taller—6” by 5” cooling arrays are, sadly, not uncommon. The ThermalTake DuOrb spreads its fans and fins horizontally, making for a more restrained-looking rig without compromising performance. However, its horizontal sprawl does potentially block RAM and PCI-E expansion slots, so install those first to prevent conflicts.

 71. Apple Bundles Crapware with iTunes

This year Apple got into the bundled crapware racket by foisting first Safari and then MobileMe on unsuspecting Windows users using their Apple Software Update utility, which is included with iTunes. Bundled crapware remains lame, whether it’s Apple, Google, or Ask doing it.

 70. Centrino 2 Cruises onto Laptops

Intel’s long awaited Centrino 2 platform lands on laptops bringing with it several improvements in both performance and power management. Chief among the hardware upgrades is Intel’s Mobile 45 Express chipset, which beefs up the frontside bus to 1066MHz and accommodates both DDR2 and DDR3 RAM, the first mobile platform ever to do so.