Thought this would be a fun end of the year post! Please click the article for the full details and summaries… below is just the numbered list (for length purposes)…

Enjoy!!

28 December 2009
The 100 Most Important Tech Products, Events, and People of 2009
The hot gear, tech, people, and events that shaped an incredible year
Posted by The Maximum PC Staff and Paul Lilly

A lot has happened in the last 12 months. At the start of the year, iTunes was still peddling DRM, Yahoo and Microsoft were at bitter odds over the latter’s takeover attempts, Nvidia had the fastest consumer videocard, and the ”cloud” was still a burgeoning concept. Oh, how times have changed. Follow along as we relive and reflect upon some of the most memorable moments, products, and people to impact computer users over the last year.

100: Best All-in-One Liquid Cooler: Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50
99: New Jersey Resident First to Be Arrested for Domain Name Theft
98: Samsung Demos Awesome 24-SSD RAID
97: Vandals Sever Fiber Optic Cables in Silicon Valley—Disconnect Many
96: Walt Mosspuppet Is the Only Tech Journalist in the World
95: Pirated Wolverine Movie A Huge Hit A Month Before Its Theatrical Release
94: Woman Arrested under New Cyberbullying Law
93: Facebook and Twitter Worth $12 Billion
92: Google Shocks Android Mod Community with Cease and Desist
91: Best GPU before the Radeon HD 5870: Nvidia GeForce GTX 295
90: AT&T Charges Bears Fan $28K for Watching a Football Game
89: OpenID Gets Its Biggest Backer in Facebook
88: BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos Takes Netflix Prize
87: Sun Rejects IBM’s Buyout Offer, Goes with Oracle Instead
86: Best Blu-ray Burner: Pioneer BDR-2203
85: Seagate First to Ship Super-Fast SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive
84: Judge Voids Uniloc’s Record $388 Million Patent Ruling Against Microsoft
83: OnLive Ushers in Gaming on Demand Services
82: GeoCities Expires, Hardly Anyone Notices
81: Microsoft and Yahoo Bury the Hatchet and Sign Search Deal
80: Best Mid-Tower Case: Silverstone Fortress
79: U.S. Nuke Secrets Posted Online
78: RealDVD Case Drags On in Court
77: Amazon Tax Stands Up in Court, but the Fight Continues
76: Nigerian Police Put the Smackdown on Hundreds of Fraud Sites
75: Congress Characterizes P2P as Dangerous, Especially LimeWire
74: Wall Street Journal Plots a Pay-as-You-Read Business Model
73: Font Fanatics Freak Out over Ikea’s Typeface Change
72: Jammie Thomas Loses Battle against RIAA
71: Best Terabyte Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB
70: Best Air Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212+
69: Microsoft Decides Not to Gimp Windows 7 for Netbooks
68: Red Hat Beseeches Court for Ban on Software Patents
67: Julius Genachowski: The People’s FCC Chair
66: Google Books Settlement Sparks Outrage (and an Investigation)
65: Circuit City Shuts Down, Reincarnated as an Online Entity
64: Facebook’s Entourage Outnumbers MySpace in the U.S.
63: Comcast Plays Internet Killjoy and Throttles U.S. Internet Users
62: Digsby Dupes Users into Donating Spare CPU Cycles
61: Nvidia Kills PhysX for ATI Users; Users Turn it Back On
60: Microsoft Opens First Retail Store, Ashley Tisdale Performs
59: Facebook Amends ToS to Own User Content, Immediately Reverses Amendment
58: Wikipedia Claims Another Victim (Encarta is Dead)
57: Augmented Reality Calls Out the Shortcomings of Regular Reality
56: eBay Hangs Up on Skype, Sells 65 Percent Stake
55: AT&T’s 3G Network Blows—J/K, It SUCKS!
54: Best Soundcard: Asus Xonar STX Soundcard
53: No One Cares About 3D Glasses
52: Google Captains Failboat, Leaks Users’ Docs, Labels Internet Malware
51: Texas Judge Bans Microsoft from Selling MS Word
50: Oops! Microsoft Breaks the Web with IE8
49: Best Netbook: Asus Eee 1000HE
48: Geek of the Year: J.J. Abrams
47: Price Gap between DDR2 and DDR3 Disintegrates
46: Larrabee Demoed, Then Delayed, Then Canceled
45: HD Video Gets Cheap (and Small)
44: Barnes & Noble Announces Potential Kindle Killer
43: Best Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB
42: Nvidia Brings Kick-Ass 3D to Embedded
41: Best P55 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6
40: Awesome Dropbox App Changes the World
39: Google Announces Chrome OS (It’s for netbooks!)
38: Conficker Worm Scares the Crap out of Everyone
37: Best Gaming Mouse: Logitech G9x
36: Microsoft Finally Admits Linux Is Competition
35: Most Interesting Case: Thermaltake Level 10
34: Steve Jobs Takes Leave of Absence, Returns with New Liver
33: Mozilla Releases Its Fastest Firefox Browser Ever
32: Best Sub-$100 Quad-Core: Athlon II X4 620
31: Data Disaster Strikes T-Mobile Sidekick
30: First SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller Chips Ship
29: Best Ebook Reader: Kindle
28: Best SSD: Patriot Torqx 128GB
27: AT&T Tests Metered Broadband, Public Freaks Out
26: Microsoft Gives It to Apple in Laptop Hunter Ads
25: Microsoft Organizes Massive Windows 7 Beta/RC Campaign
24: Hard Drives Reach 2TB Maximum Capacity
23: Nvidia Launches Ion
22: Palm Pre Hype Sizzles, Then Fizzles
21: Seagate Borks Barracuda Drive, Then Botchces Firmware Fix
20: Nvidia Whiffs in 2009
19: Microsoft Flips a Four Letter Word at Google
18: Android Anointed as Main iPhone Competitor
17: Best Portable Media Player: Microsoft Zune HD
16: Pirate Bay Founders Sail into Court, Leave with $3.6 Million Guilty Verdict
15: Multitouch Mania Takes Over the Nation
14: Intel Pays Out Over Antitrust Allegations
13: Net Neutrality Debate Turns White-Hot
12: Tablet Hype: All Talk, No Substance
11: Nvidia’s Fermi Isn’t for You—Yet

10: OpenCL and Direct Compute Promise to Take GPU Computing Mainstream
9: There’s an App (Store) for That
8: Steve Ballmer Stewards Microsoft into a New Era
7: The Cloud Looms Large
6: iPhone Sets the Bar for Smartphone Excellence
5: DRM is Dead (at Least for Music)!
4: Best Mid-Priced CPU: Intel Core i7-860
3: Best Videocard: Radeon HD 5870
2: Twitter Hits Big

1: Windows 7 Launches—Everyone Cheers

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