2010

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Twitter releases its top trends of 2010, and I sit down with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to discuss them

YouTube releases its top video views of 2010

Google finally launches a Latitude app for iPhone

T-Mobile says a 4G tablet is on its way

Google indexes search results by reading level

If there is one lesson to learn from the most disappointing titles of 2010, it's "don't make a movie game." It seems that this year followed a bizarre pattern: the better the film, the worse the game. Almost half our list consists of failed attempts at such adaptations, more than any year before it.

Unlike last year's dishonorable list, we've decided to tackle games that let us down rather than picking out a handful of bad games. We've personally tested out each of these titles that failed to impress and can vouch for … Read more

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Google releases its 2010 Zeitgeist with the year's fastest growing and most popular search terms

YouTube will now allow a select group of users to upload video longer than 15 minutes, which used to be the maximum time limit allowed

Yahoo revamps Yahoo Local

A new Pew Research study shows that only 8 percent of online Americans are on Twitter

Google's annual Zeitgeist, which delivers the top searches of the year, once again provides an interesting look into what the world was thinking about.

According to Google, "Chatroulette" was the "fastest rising" search term around the world in 2010, beating out Apple's iPad and Justin Bieber, which took the second- and third-place spots, respectively. Recording artist Nicki Minaj came on the scene in a big way in 2010, capturing the fourth spot on Google's list. Twitter and Facebook also made a showing in the top 10 list, taking the No. 8 and 10 … Read more

Apple has divulged the top sellers this year across several iTunes categories in its annual "Rewind" feature.

In 2010, more people spent their hard-earned cash on "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train than on any other song. The track was followed by Katy Perry's "California Gurls" and Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie." "Airplanes" by B.O.B and "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz rounded out the iTunes top-five best-selling songs of 2010.

On the album side, it was Eminem's year as the artist's "Recovery&… Read more

As Kent German mentioned earlier, we've reviewed close to 200 mobile phones this year, and as 2010 draws to a close, we thought it'd be a good time to mention some of the highs and lows. We've already shown you our list of best and worst cell phones of 2010, and now it's time to do the same for smartphones.

It's been a big year for the category, as we saw the launch of some major redesigns of mobile operating systems, including Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry OS 6. Of course, that also means new … Read more

While the role of the professional critic in the realm of books, film, music, or art is well-established, for interactive entertainment the lines are less clear. As a (relatively) young medium, questions about how to actually write about video games are still being hashed out, by consumers, fans, bloggers, established media critics, and others.

The default to date has been to consider a work of interactive entertainment as a packaged consumer product--hence game reviews that focus on the number of levels, hours of gameplay, and other technical details. I am more inclined to consider a game as a cultural or … Read more

At last year's CES, Intel Wireless Display was one of our Best of CES nominees, standing out for its potential to bring streaming Internet video to an HDTV from a laptop over its own dedicated wireless channel, including audio. In fact, it was your pick as Best in Show, winning the People's Voice Award (as determined by a user poll).

Let's go back to early 2010: back then, connecting a laptop to a TV with a wired connection was still the best way to get Internet video content such as Hulu and Netflix without an additional set-top box. Despite having a slight delay in the video/audio signal, and requiring a $99 Push2TV box from Netgear plugged into an HDTV or non-HD television to receive the signal, the benefits seemed clear, and for those looking to make a laptop into a home entertainment solution, there was no better choice.

Times have changed, indeed, although Intel Wireless Display really hasn't. The debut of Apple's iPad, and its support of Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other streaming services, has changed the equation a bit, even if the iPad doesn't support Flash. Video game consoles now have Netflix across the board, and even (on the PS3, at least) Hulu Plus and Vudu. TV sets are including an ever-increasing number of Internet apps for accessing digital content, and set-top boxes such as the Boxee Box, the next-gen Roku box, and Apple TV offer a variety of solutions.

When it comes to methods of getting Internet or computer-stored video content on your TV, your options come to this: … Read more

Price is important for a large swath of the cell-phone-buying public. But so are call quality, hardware and software features, and style.

That perfect balance between a great price and satisfying everything else is rare, and also subjective. Nevertheless, we've rounded up the nine cell phones and smartphones that caused our deal hounds the most excitement in 2010.

This wasn't entirely easy. There have been some incredible values this past year, especially from the summer onward. Our top choices range from a favorite texting phone for teens to two smartphones priced low enough to wonder if the carrier … Read more