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Google’s Always-Fascinating Year-End Zeitgeist Rounds Up 2009 in Search [Zeitgeist]

Web users perform billions of searches every year, leaving the folks at Google with a fount of interesting information. When the year ends, GOOG rounds it all up into their yearly zeitgeist. This year, Twitter and Michael Jackson lead the way.

A bit more about how Google puts their zeitgeist together:

To compile the 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist, we studied the aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search this year. We use data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. We also filter out spam and repeat queries to build out lists that best reflect “the spirit of the times.” All of the search queries we studied are anonymous-no personal information was used.

The Google Zeitgeist always provides an interesting overview of what was on our minds in any given year, so give it a look and share what interesting finds you can dig up in the comments.






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Arrington's CrunchPad Dies a Fiery Death

crunchpad.jpgMichael Arrington announced the death of the CrunchPad on Monday morning in a blog post heavily spiced with angst and drama.

According to Arrignton, the Cruchpad — a 12-inch Web tablet expected to be priced at about $300 — was just days away from launch. At the last minute, however, Arrington received an email from Chandra Rathakrishnan, the chief executive of manufacturing partner Fusion Garage, apparently trying to cut Arrington out of the product on the eve of the launch. Fusion Garage, according to Arrington, would market the device itself under its own name.

“Err, what?” Arrington wrote. “This is the equivalent of Foxconn, who build the iPhone,
notifiying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving
ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from
Apple.”

Arrington claims that the company had overcome obstacles at every stage
in the business, securing preferred pricing for the Atom processor with
Intel, negotiating with a “major multi-billion-dollar retail partner”
for a retail launch and up-front payments, and securing venture capital and
angel investments to finance the company going forward.

“Mostly though I’m just sad,” Arrington wrote. “I never envisioned the CrunchPad as a huge
business. I just wanted a tablet computer that I could use to consume
the Internet while sitting on a couch. I’ve always pushed to open
source all or parts of the project. So this isn’t really about money.
It was about the thrill of building something with a team that had the
same vision. Now that’s going to be impossible.”

It's possible that the CrunchPad could still emerge in some form,
although Arrington has vowed to file multiple lawsuits against Fusion
Garage and its employees.  For now, however, the CrunchPad will
inevitably take its place among the most heavily touted vaporware of 2009.

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Man, We’ve Come a Long Way From Floppies [Infographic]

This infographic makes me so glad that we came up with storage methods other than floppy disks. Imagine replacing your 2TB hard drive with 1,422,222 floppies. No thank you. Update:

Reader Drew just noticed that the artist updated the graphic. I’ve replaced the image. Looks like the guide inconsistencies you all noticed have been fixed, at least for the most part. [Curtiss Spontelli via fellow Gizmodian Kyle. Thanks dude!]






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Week in Geek: The Create Shortcuts to Nearly Anything Edition

Over the years, we’ve written loads of articles about how to create shortcuts to system functions that aren’t easily accessible otherwise—and we’ve got a list of the best ones here.

Pretty much all of these shortcuts work in Windows 7 or Vista, but some of them also work in XP.

image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Turn the Desktop Icons On or Off
image Create Shutdown / Restart / Lock Icons in Windows 7 or Vista
image Create a Shortcut Icon or Hotkey to Turn Windows 7 / Vista Firewall On or Off
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey for the Safely Remove Hardware Dialog
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Clear the Clipboard in Windows
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Eject the CD/DVD Drive
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Immediately Eject a Specific USB Drive
 image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Mute the System Volume in Windows
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Open Task Manager’s “All Users” View in Windows 7 or Vista
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Run CCleaner Silently
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Switch Power Plans
image Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Turn Off the Monitor
image Create a Shortcut to Enable/Disable Aero Transparency in 7 / Vista
image Create a Shortcut to the Stored User Names and Passwords Dialog in Windows
image Create Icons to Start the Screensaver on Windows 7 or Vista
image Stupid Geek Tricks: Create a Shortcut to Quickly Edit Your Hosts File
image Create Shortcuts to Quickly Reboot to the Alternate OS in a Vista/XP Dual-Boot
image Create Administrator Mode Shortcuts Without UAC Prompts in Windows 7 or Vista
image Create Shortcut Icon to Disable / Enable the Screensaver

TinyHacker Random Geekery

This was a shorter week for our publishing schedule, so here’s a shorter list of fun stuff we found. 

image Find What You Are Looking for Fast using Windows Grep
image Create Your Own Animated Movies Online using MeMoov
image Download New McAfee Avert Stinger
image 3 Free Amazon MP3 Downloads
image Scan your Hard Disk for Errors using Windows Surface Scanner

Super User QnA

Ever wondered if there’s an alternative Skype client out there? Well, there’s not really, but there are other interfaces you can use instead. Read on.

The How-To Geek’s Lifehacker Features

Over on Lifehacker, I’ve written quite a few lengthy articles in the last month covering keeping your system safe and secure, and making sure that you’ve properly backed up your data. Definitely worth a read.

image Protect Yourself from Drive-By Browser Malware Attacks
image You’re Backing Up Your Data the Wrong Way
image Stop Paying for Windows Security; Microsoft’s Security Tools Are Good Enough
image How to Really Browse Without Leaving a Trace

The Geek Note

Hopefully all of you had a happy Thanksgiving and found a great Black Friday deal on a Nintendo Wii Fit to burn off the calories or gather dust.

Similar Articles Tinyhacker – Tiny Geek Hacks
Latest Software Reviews Super User Daily

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NVIDIA Tegra tablet prototype hands-on

Hey, remember that mystery tablet NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was pimping a mere couple of weeks ago? Well, it’s made its way to London, and woe betide the Engadget editor who didn’t get a hands-on with such an exclusive piece of hardware. So what we’re looking at here is a Windows CE-powered, resistive touchscreen display spanning somewhere around 15 to 16 inches, with the same Tegra internals as may be found in the Zune HD or one of them smartbook devices. As we reported earlier, the company behind the machine is ICD, and this particular unit was built to try and entice T-Mobile into placing a few orders.

Being a prototype, the device on hand was quite literally rough around the edges, but what we saw was appetite-whetting. The overall construction is under an inch thin, 720p video playback was excellent, and there’s even a terrific-looking wireless recharge station cum base accessory — think of Palm’s Touchstone, only enlarged and magnetized to the point where it can support the whole tablet in an upright position. If somebody marries all that hardware potential with the Stantum multitouch firmware and a more finger-friendly OS, this thing just might make the whole Apple tablet brouhaha utterly irrelevant. Video after the break.

Continue reading NVIDIA Tegra tablet prototype hands-on

NVIDIA Tegra tablet prototype hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wal-Mart wins at Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that Wal-Mart Canada Corp. was within its rights when it shut down a store in Jonquière, Que., that had been unionized seven months earlier.