Pages on the social-networking site pay tribute to notorious mob bosses, and relatives of mafia crime victims say such content glamorizes the perpetrators.

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Google is heavily influencing server design for large data centers, as vendors offer systems with features like multiple server motherboards, single voltage power supplies, and heat-resistant chips. The best part is you don’t care.

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For all of you Zune 30 owners who woke up this morning to find your PMP frozen in despair at the thought of spending another year alone, Microsoft has finally acknowledged their boo-boo and explains it thusly: There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the device to choke on the last day of a leap year. Rest assured, however — although they may not be releasing an update for the device any time soon, the issue should resolve itself whenever January 1, 2009 rolls around. So have a safe and happy New Year, and let’s hope they do something about this by 2012.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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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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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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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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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On January 24, 1984, the Macintosh came into the world, starting a revolution in personal computing. Now, all attention is turned to what Apple will introduce next.

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Jaybird’s just unleashed their products for 2009, with updates for their athlete-targeted A2DP Bluetooth Stereo Claws. The new ones (which look exactly the same as their previous models) feature apt-X audio compression, giving these puppies a high sound quality “rivaling wired” ones, plus new tips for sound isolation and a modified design to fit a wider range of ears. The company’s also rolling out new metal-cased Tiger Eyes earbuds and over ear Acoustic Dens. We don’t have any word on pricing for this stuff, but we’ll get an up-close gander at them at CES and they should be available in April… when our Go-Go’s-infused work outs should get a little more high def.

Continue reading Jaybird releases 2009 Bluetooth Stereo Claws, earbuds, and more

Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless

Jaybird releases 2009 Bluetooth Stereo Claws, earbuds, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo has gone to some lengths to keep one step ahead of the modding community, but to little avail. We’ve recently seen a product that enables DVD playback on the Wii, and now we’ve been hepped to FLATMII, a device that plugs into the Wii’s drive ribbon, letting you stream ISO backups of your games (or the Gecko OS, Mplayer, emulators and more) from your Windows XP or Vista PC — which your console now takes for its DVD drive. If you’re the sort of sane and sober Wii owner who figures that it is wise and prudent to backup games that you own legally — the kind who would never ever ever think of stealing software — hit that read link. And be sure to catch the video after the break.

[Via Max Console]

Continue reading FLATMII streams games to your Wii, via USB

Filed under: Gaming

FLATMII streams games to your Wii, via USB originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Chinese government has approved licenses that will permit high-speed mobile phone network services, a move expected to help bring higher-end services.

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