7. A cool electric car
Take a look at the electric cars available in the UK today and most of them look like a four-door saloon that's been driven into a wall. Fast. But besting the stubby G-Wiz, the Gem e2 and the NICE MyCar was the Tesla Roadster. Not only is it gorgeous to look at, This two-seater sports car shows that it's perfectly possible to make an electric vehicle that doesn't handle like a milk float. The 2008 models are already sold out and there's a waiting list for a cat in 2009.
8. Internet video
While the BBC's iPlayer was originally launched in December 2007, this year has belonged to Internet video. Where would we be without an almost effortless ability to watch Strictly Come Dancing on our laptops and mobile phones? Internet video and catch-up TV services are quickly making TV schedules redundant, enabling us to watch what we want, when we want (and often where we want). In the UK alone, telly-watchers can call upon the iPlayer, ITV Player, Sky Player and 4OD. Movies can be rented over Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, while BT Vision provides pioneering pay-as-you-go IPTV. And now iPlayer downloads also work on Mac and Linux too thanks to Adobe AIR.
9. Firmware upgrades
It's no surprise that the best technology is often the most flexible. Consider the iPhone, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Each one of these devices is 'firmware upgradeable', enabling their manufacturers to reinvent or upgrade the software at will. In 2008, Apple's version 2.x iPhone/iPod touch firmware has added the App Store, Enterprise support, Google Street View and various application enhancements. The Xbox 360 has recently been revamped with the New Xbox Experience (NXE), while PlayStation updates have added DivX and VC-1 playback and Blu-ray Profile 2.0 support.
10. Petaflop power
According to the list of the World's Top 500 Supercomputers, the IBM 'Roadrunner' is currently the world's fastest computer. The Roadrunner is a combination of Opteron and 3.2GHz PowerXCell 8i processors, a more powerful version of the PlayStation 3's Cell chip. This $133 million dollar machine broke the petaflop barrier in June 2008, capable of processing in excess of 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.
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Now read The hottest PC technology for 2009
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