I'd say one of the big deals this year was hardware acceleration. Although a lot of the stuff has been about for a few years, and acceleration was a big deal in the 80's this second generation of accelerators is going to be really interesting.

I'm thinking Nvidia and CUDA, ATI and stream computing, IBM Cell, Xilinx V5's integrated to Intel's FSB, Clearspeed Advance, Xmos, That mad 64 core thingy (Tilera or something), etc etc

These were technologies that weren't getting a huge deal of press a year ago but now are getting talked about everywhere you go.

No mention of Quantum Computing and Communication. That's a good sign for it is Stealthy IntelAIgently Designed IT and not for any or every Tom, Dick or Larry.

When Software and Hardware Systems Fuse in the Quantum State twixt and between either and capable of being both, doth one have a Virtual and AI Virtualised Field of Play. Quite Literally, a Blank Canvas on which to Paint Beta Ideas with UNqualified IT Systems Support.

ISAGN for the Reg Standards and Measures Soviet to come up with a new unit for disk storage - the Doom (Dm? No, that's dekameter...Do?).

"...this year the vendors finally formed the committees that will elect the subcommittees that will vote on a board which will select a chairman to choose the stationaries that could be used to write down the minutes for getting something done."

They kept it grey!

No mention of Vista.

That tallies with the same number of Ultimate updates from Redmond too, Haha!

(Yes i know there's BitLocker, Dreamscape and Texas Hold'em Poker - but do they really count?)

And wheres the Paris Hilton angle? She did some bird too this year - jail time, not Lindsey Lohan haha!