The 12 Biggest Tech Stories of 2008

Weird ads. Platforms old and new. New skirmishes in the browser wars. Gloom, despair, and a bad-news whale. It's been quite a year, hasn't it?

By Harry McCracken  |  Posted at 11:26 pm on Thursday, December 18, 2008

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topstories-churros1

11. Life without walls…but with churros.

Microsoft began its massive Windows ad campaign by baffling the world with two pricey commercials which costarred recently-retired cofounder Bill Gates and 1990s sitcom icon Jerry Seinfeld–and which didn’t seem to have anything to do with computer operating systems. Then it released new ads which melded appearances by PC users such as smiling South African schoolkids with gripes about the tone of Apple’s “Get a Mac” commercials. Still missing from all the TV and print ads is one word: Vista.

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5 Comments For This Post

  1. Relyt Says:

    Good job, but I you seem to be applauding Apple too much (don’t worry, engadget does it too…but unlike with you people make fun of them!). I mean, Steve Jobs not doing the Mac Expo isn’t THAT huge of a story…Microsoft’s ad campaign and XP’s refusal to die (ironically both Microsoft stories) had more buzz than Jobs not doing the Expo.

    Relyt

  2. Medical Billing Geek Says:

    Nice work – although I almost agree with Relyt… a bit too much Appletalk for us old school Microsoft geeks who are too stuck in our way to move to Apple. I wonder what the stories of 2009 will be – my guess is that electronic medical records and personal health records will be up there!

  3. y3 Says:

    Nice work

  4. y8 Says:

    Relyt Says:
    December 19th, 2008 at 9:52 am

    Good job, but I you seem to be applauding Apple too much (don’t worry, engadget does it too…but unlike with you people make fun of them!). I mean, Steve Jobs not doing the Mac Expo isn’t THAT huge of a story…Microsoft’s ad campaign and XP’s refusal to die (ironically both Microsoft stories) had more buzz than Jobs not doing the Expo.

    Relyt

  5. dave Says:

    i work in the cellphone industry so with my perspective, its pretty near impossible to overemphasize the impact the i-phone has had.

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