#toplist1 ol { padding-left:50px } #toplist2 ol {padding-left:50px} #toplist3 {padding-left:50px} Well, the year has come and gone, and with it, our 365 -- or in this case, 366 -- days of posting. We've seen some pretty amazing stuff, gotten to play with a stack of awesome gear, and watched the site grow by leaps and bounds (we just had our biggest day ever in October). We thought we'd cap the year off with a look back at the posts that got the most heat. One thing that's clear? People really love (or hate) Apple. Check out the top 20 of the year below, and be sure to truck over to Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD for their year-end round-ups!

Top 20 most trafficked posts of 2008 (in order)

1. Steve Jobs keynote live from WWDC 2008
2. Live from Apple's "spotlight turns to notebooks" event
3. Live from Apple's 'Let's Rock' event in San Francisco
4. Live from Macworld 2008: Steve Jobs keynote
5. Live from Apple's iPhone SDK press conference
6. iPhone 3G is finally official, starts at $199, available July 11th
7. The second-gen iPhone: 3G, GPS, only slightly thicker
8. iPhone 3G review
9. BlackBerry Storm review
10. Meet the T-Mobile G1
11. Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 QWERTY with Windows Mobile and HSUPA
12. Woman files $54m lawsuit against Best Buy for losing laptop
13. The HTC Touch Pro
14. MacBook Air review
15. Dell E and E Slim revealed, taking on Eee and Air in one fell swoop
16. Worst parents in the world punk kid into thinking he got an Xbox 360
17. T-Mobile G1 review
18. T-Mobile G1 first hands-on (updated)
19. iPhone firmware 2.0 hands-on
20. The Simpsons mocks (m)Apple

Top 20 most trafficked posts during 2008 (in order; non-2008 posts in bold)

1. Steve Jobs keynote live from WWDC 2008
2. Live from Apple's "spotlight turns to notebooks" event
3. Live from Apple's 'Let's Rock' event in San Francisco
4. Live from Macworld 2008: Steve Jobs keynote
5. Live from Apple's iPhone SDK press conference
6. iPhone 3G is finally official, starts at $199, available July 11th
7. The second-gen iPhone: 3G, GPS, only slightly thicker
8. HOW-TO: Get music OFF your iPod
9. iPhone 3G review
10. BlackBerry Storm review
11. Meet the T-Mobile G1
12. Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 QWERTY with Windows Mobile and HSUPA
13. Turn your PC into a Mac
14. HOW-TO: Get videos and DVDs onto your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) for free
15. Woman files $54m lawsuit against Best Buy for losing laptop
16. The HTC Touch Pro
17. iPhone unlocked: AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity, August 24, 2007, 12:00PM EDT
18. MacBook Air review
19. Dell E and E Slim revealed, taking on Eee and Air in one fell swoop
20. Blu-ray vs HD DVD: State of the Division

Top 15 most trafficked posts of the year, sans Apple-only posts (in order)

1. BlackBerry Storm review
2. Meet the T-Mobile G1
3. Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 QWERTY with Windows Mobile and HSUPA
4. Woman files $54m lawsuit against Best Buy for losing laptop
5. The HTC Touch Pro
6. Dell E and E Slim revealed, taking on Eee and Air in one fell swoop
7. Worst parents in the world punk kid into thinking he got an Xbox 360
8. T-Mobile G1 review
9. T-Mobile G1 first hands-on (updated)
10. Little old lady suing Sony, Samsung, Nokia and everyone else for infringing on her laser patents
11. Sony gets official with PSP-3000
12. The PS3 Laptop: from Ben Heck to Engadget with love
13. Holiday Gift Guide: $1001+
14. Best Buy offers HD DVD owners $10 million in gift cards, trade in, shoulder to cry on
15. HP's UMPC 2133 revealed

A few other interesting numbers for you:

Total posts on Engadget in 2008: 11,878
Total number of comments: 697,672 (and counting)
Average comments per post: 58.7

Combined Engadget classic, HD, and Mobile stats:

Posts: 21,880
Comments: 853,044
Average comments per post: 39.0

Filed under: Meta

Engadget's top posts, 2008 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well folks, we survived another year. Amazing, I know. It's been one hell of a time, and I have every reason to believe 2009 is going to rock the track pants and Members Only jacket off 2008. Happy New Year! See you in 2020! And by 2020 I mean after my Lasik surgery. HIYO!

Ever since the Dev-Team kinda sorta promised that they would have a neatly packaged iPhone 3G unlock ready for release by the year's end, we've all been waiting on pins and needles, counting down the moments until freedom was in hand yet again. Now, a cryptic message on the crew's blog has been followed up with a not-at-all secretive image (shown above), which shows that whatever magic they've got going on will work with the latest (v2.2) iPhone 3G firmware. According to a related writeup at yellowsn0w, we're clearly told that the unlock tool will be made available by midnight PST at the latest, though we're hoping those guys have their AM / PM mixed up -- otherwise, you might be waiting until noontime tomorrow. At any rate, now you've more than a day off and black eyed peas to look forward to tomorrow, right?

Via yellowsn0w and MobileCrunch]

Filed under: Cellphones

Dev-Team teases v2.2-compatible iPhone 3G unlock for the New Year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new report from Fudzilla claims that Microsoft is getting ready to lay off 15,000 employees, or about 17% of its worldwide staff. The axe will apparently fall on January 15th, exactly one week before its second quarter earnings report, and they expect MSN division to be hit hardest, while the successful Xbox crew will probably make it out relatively unscathed. Meanwhile, an anonymous blogger who goes by the name Mini-Microsoft and claims to be an employee well-versed in the goings-on inside the company has been fielding questions from other purported Microsoft workers on recent cutback concerns. This past Monday he posted a handful of anonymous comments saying that the rumored layoffs aren't happening -- at least not in January -- although a re-organization might be in the cards. Both reports should be taken with a grain of salt, but one thing's for certain -- Windows 7 is gonna rule.

[Via Joystiq]

Read - Fudzilla report
Read - Mini-Microsoft

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Microsoft preparing for new layoffs? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's New Year's Eve, and we have some drinking suggestions for you.

We'll start by saying that if you live in any of these cities (plus New Orleans), you probably don't need our advice.

• If you live and Japan and are disgusting, consider mixing your bourbon with, ugh, Yogurt Pepsi.
• For you whisky and water types: only use bottled water if you like strontium, fertilizer, and solvents.
• If you want to be awake at midnight, don't use Drank as a mixer.
• Our dearly departed Jay advises you not to drink Tharra, Russian aftershave, Thunderbird (whatever, it's delicious), Pruno, or Changaa.
• Don't worry about that weird stuff in your Vitamin Water, it's just mold.
• Don't splurge on vodka. It's all pretty much the same.
• If you're getting mixed drinks at a bar, watch out for the lemon wedges.
• When you wake up tomorrow, here's a handy way to gauge just how bad you should feel.

As for us, we'll be celebrating with on old friend while we still can...


Cheers to you; be safe and have a happy new year!
(Photo: Getty)

A Georgia law going into effect tomorrow will require that all sex offenders not simply turn over their email addresses and screen names to authorities—which goes back to 2006—but all their passwords as well.

Georgia is one of 15 states requiring sex offenders to give their email addresses, screen names and "other internet handles" to authorities, and now the second (after Utah) to force them to give up their passwords as well, giving authorities unlimited, unfettered access to monitor their email and other internet activities.

State Senator Cecil Staton told MSNBC, "We limit where they can live, we make their information available on the Internet. To some degree, we do invade their privacy...But the feeling is, they have forfeited, to some degree, some privacy rights."

Obviously, privacy groups, like the Southern Center for Human Rights are concerned by the law, though there haven't been any legal challenges to it yet. So, what do you guys think? One step too far, or totally legit? [MSNBC via Techdirt]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune 30GB brickification acknowledged, Microsoft says to wait it out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Another electronics store was taken for millions by an invoice-fixing scheme: a buyer for Best Buy and a vendor have been charged with overcharging Best Buy $31 million over four years.

Similar to last week's story about a Fry's VP embezzling millions, Best Buy vendor relations manager Robert Bosany and Abby and Russell Cole of Chip Factory allegedly submitted inflated invoices for computer parts to Best Buy, then pocketed the difference. The Coles allegedly used some of their kickbacks to buy a $2.8 million home.

Police say couple paid for $2.8 million new home by bilking Best Buy [Trading Markets]
(Photo: Crawfishpie) Thanks, Derrick!

TUAW has the most complete description yet of the new Mac mini widely rumored/expected to launch at Macworld. It'll be topped with iMac-esque black plastic instead of white, and have a lip like Time Capsule.

The lip conceals the Mac mini's optical drive slot, which is useful now since TUAW says that the new drive will be SATA, meaning it can be swapped out for a second hard drive, probably as a custom build option. The second drive is boon to the business crowd that uses Mac minis in server farms (like this one), since it not only adds more storage, but makes RAID1 mirroring easy.

No other details on specs—we're pretty interested in what processor these things will be packing—though it's looking fairly certain (as certain as these things ever look, anyway) that they'll have Nvidia's GeForce 9400m chipset from the new MacBooks in tow.

We'll know in about a week, along with whatever other surprises Macworld has in store. What would you like to see in the new Mac mini, besides a Blu-ray drive? (Cause that's what everyone wants.) [TUAW]

"Coming soon," huh? Soon, indeed. Optoma's DLP-based pico projector, which is formally known as the EP-PK-101 (or PK101 in some circles), is now up for pre-order at Amazon. So, just how much will you pay for a 4-ounce beamer that you can carry in your left front pocket? If your answer is anything less than $399.99, you're out of luck here.

[Via I4U News]

Filed under: Displays

Optoma's DLP PK101 pico projector up for pre-order at $399.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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