Harry McCracken Rounds Up the Year In Tech

Velcroman1 writes "Windows got less annoying. Smartphones became smarter. The Internet continued to change entertainment for the better. All in all, it was a good year for technology and the folks who use it. Harry McCracken, the brains behind Technologizer and the former editor-in-chief of PC World, reveals his picks and pans for the most interesting tech stories of the year."

Comments

Re:Not Onion?

[Scragglykat]

You are thinking of Phil McCracken I believe. Or perhaps Harry Balzac?

Not big stories.

[Darkness404]

While obviously Snow Leopard and Windows 7 were big deals, there are a lot more game changers and important things out there. The ION platform is a big thing, its already used in a few HTPC setups and I expect it to grow even more in 2010. The cheap full laptops are also going to be big things. Its hard to beat a laptop with a 15 inch screen, a 2.2 ghz CPU and 2 gigs DDR2 and a decent sized HDD for $300 or less. A cheap netbook is good for a geek, kids or the businessman. However, for the elderly, those unemployed and looking for a good laptop, and students, these cheap laptops are going to help change the market.

Re:Not big stories.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that Intel is rapidly giving Atoms without on-die graphics the nerve pinch, ION's long-term prospects look grim(ok, VIA might get around to shipping something, 18 months from now). If they want to offer anything for the Pine Trail Atoms, it will need to hang off the PCIe bus(and, given that the Pine Trails have an on-die memory controller, and relatively anemic off-chip I/O, quite possibly dedicated video RAM) That'll raise the cost significantly.

For strict low-end HTPC use, I'd expect that most people will just suck it up and pair the new Atom with a dedicated video accelerator like Broadcom's offering. That will be near useless for 3D graphics; but it'll get you full h246 acceleration for absolute peanuts.

At price(and power draw, though that matters less for something on AC power) points just above that, you run into the combination of a low-end Athlon and an integrated Radeon. Better CPU performance than anything Atom, some GPU capability, and full video acceleration.

Above that, you get into the land of normal desktop processors and, if desired, discrete video cards. Unless Nvidia can somehow get an interconnect licence out of Intel, or get VIA up to speed, and soon, ION is doomed. Which is a pity, Intel's graphics offerings in the area are pitiful, and their tactics could hardly be described as fair; but that doesn't help Nvidia much.

Re:Not Onion?

[Darkness404]

The thing about Palm is they might not have Apple-like cult status, but there are still a lot of Palm fans out there. Plus, compared to the Centro, and the old Palm OS, Web OS is nice, new and shiny. About the biggest problems with WebOS is, its tied to one carrier that isn't a big one. Sprint, while a large company, is nothing when compared to AT&T and Verizon. When the Pre branches out to all major networks, I can see it being a small success, and really taking Palm further more than any other phone previous to it. Just look at Apple when it switched to OS X, it was a rough transition, but once it got going, it turned into a really nice OS.

Re:some boring/predictable stuff in that list

[DesScorp]

Boring and Predictable is what IT is now. We're in a mature period, where very little is actually revolutionary. "Game Changer" depends on public viewpoint and impact, and in that regard, I'd say the last real game changer was the iPhone, and that was years ago.

Re:Windows 7

[PPalmgren]

There was relly nothing wrong with Vista itself, it was just a poor launch. The Vista Capable debacle as well as hardware manufacturers taking shortcuts caused it to get a bad rap. Releasing a memory hog OS at a time when ram was rediculously expensive probably didn't help either, since many Windows users use $400 PCs. People got the preconceived notion that it was bad, and therefore they acted in a way that made it bad to them (self-fullfilling prophecy, the loser's fallacy, etc). I'm not saying Vista was great, but just not nearly as bad as the press made it out to be. Its the same psychological effect Apple used with its "just works" campaign, just in reverse.

In summary, you're right that Win 7 is basically just a Vista rebrand, but it doesn't mean that a Vista hater will hate Win 7. Only a Vista hater for legitimate reasons will (minority), a market sheep will not (majority).