Well 2008 didn’t quite turn out as anyone had hoped. The sub-prime debt crisis turned into the global financial crisis (or GFC as it’s now called), and in an astonishing turn of events, the economic good times came to a screaming halt. Much of the world is in recession, and those parts that aren’t, will probably slide into recession in 2009.

The Internet is used in an inordinate number of different ways. Some people use it for research, some for downloading, some for entertainment. And some, well they use it in order to hook up with strangers for sex. And the price some pay for these services is more than just of the monetary variety.

The Prius is noted for being a more ecologically minded car  than the majority of cars on the road, with its high gas mileage, low emissions and hybrid nature.  Now Toyota is taking this idea one step farther by using more environmentally friendly interior components.

If you were planning to see in the New Year with some tunes from your Zune, you could be out of luck. Owners around the globe have been reporting that their 30GB model of the music player has mysteriously locked up and stopped working today.

The Federal Communications Commission chairman has dropped plans to impose a pornography filter on a free national wireless Internet system. Kevin Martin says he made the change to satisfy both pressure groups and his fellow commissioners.

After a bit of a slow spot, online shopping rebounded slightly near the tail end of the holiday shopping season. However, the bounce back wasn’t enough to avoid the first drop in online sales since 2001.

As Aptera inches closer to production, more information about the final design is being released including the change in name.

A recent report showed that less than 10 percent of U.S. consumers use their mobile phones for banking. The biggest factor: security concerns.

A team of researchers hacked VeriSign’s RapidSSL.com certificate, demonstrating what they say is a means of launching nearly undetectable phishing attacks. The team achieved it with the help of 200 Sony Playstations.

Cars are increasingly starting to do more things for their drivers. From keeping an eye on upcoming speed cameras, to keeping tabs on the current speed limits, and even cars that park themselves, the technology of the automobile is ever-expanding towards total automation. But is this progression liable to turn drivers into zombies, taking away their need to stay alert and out of danger?

Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Bow Wow — all performing “artists” with over the top star power. But have you ever wondered where the hidden talent is? It’s all over the Internet, and for the first time since the record labels took power from the talented musicians who lack the proper image, the real artists are getting heard…on the Internet.

When BMW looked for a company to provide the drive systems necessary to convert the MINI Cooper into an electric car, it chose AC Propulsion.  The Mini Cooper thus became the MINI E electric car.

The recent rash of metric based applications that use follower count to determine “influence” are pushing the social media landscape in a wholly unwelcome direction. Do we really want to continue down this path and create a problem of Nigerian Spam Mail proportions as the atmosphere becomes more rife with get-rich-quick schemes and smarmy snake oil salesmen? I hope not, since the trust factor of social media has always been its biggest asset.

Yet one more item in the American economy may have “made in China” stamped on its underside: the family car.  A Chinese car manufacturer Build Your Dream (BYD) has created an affordable “duel-mode” car with great distance and a battery that doesn’t pollute.

Some forms of ‘21^st century technology’ seem pretty slow in arriving – with just six years until the 2015 of Back To The Future Part II, I’m starting to suspect the hoverboard might not be coming. But if Ford has its way, we’ll see cars which can parallel park themselves next year.

Record labels are now thinking of competing with YouTube, instead of just using it as a preferred channel. But will their efforts succeed?
Wired blogged about the plans for the four major labels to either move to a Hulu-based site, start a premium section on YouTube or perhaps even a standalone service, according to the Financial Times.

 Acer’s launched a new notebook to showcase Intel’s latest mobile quad-core processor. The processor in question is the Intel© Core™2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000.