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The 100 Best Tech Products of 2006 364

Posted by Zonk from the but-it-is-only-halfway-over dept.
prostoalex writes "You've read about the 25 worst tech products, now it's time to check out a list of the 100 best tech products of 2006 from the same publication. PC World named Intel Core Duo, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core, Craigslist.org, Apple iPod Nano and Seagate 160GB Portable Hard Drive the best tech products of this year."
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The 100 Best Tech Products of 2006 More

The 100 Best Tech Products of 2006

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:42PM (#15469629)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Sad for MS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:47PM (#15469651) Homepage Journal

    They have two products listed: a keyboard (#54) and the Xbox 360 (#89). Odd for a company that focuses mainly on software. Apple has a decent showing, even Ubuntu Linux shows up at #27.

    • Re:Sad for MS (Score:4, Insightful)

      by toddestan ( 632714 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @11:09PM (#15469777)
      On the other hand, a product that enables Macs to boot Windows XP comes in at number 10.
      • They don't seem to be rating the items on there by any useful metric, such as how innovative they are, how much money they've made, how useful they are, it just seem to be a list of what's big buzz. Case in point, the #1 entry the Conroe. Now I fully believe Intel's demos, I believe the Conroe is going to be a great processor. However at this point, it's not a great product because it isn't for sale. It's a tech demo. You show me real systems with real COnroes, then we can start talking about where it shoul

  • Dual Core Processors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bwave ( 871010 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:48PM (#15469659)
    Can't believe they feel Intel Dual Core 2 Duo X2 Dual-Processor CPU2 better than the Athlon 64 X2?
    • I love my AMDs, but the Core 2 Duo is making a better showing in preliminary benchmarks than the X2. Remember, the P4's NetBurst architecture was what made it such an abortion. Pentium M, Core, and Core 2 are all evolutions of the Pentium III's "P6" architecture, which was a much better competitor with AMD.

  • 1st (Score:3, Funny)

    by mortonda ( 5175 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:49PM (#15469665)
    1st post not talking about the new layout....

    uh... wait. dang it!
    • Ubuntu only made 27th?

      I'm impressed. I've always hated Debian because it was arcane and hard to use/learn. Ubuntu takes all the rough edges off.

      Anyway these lists are pretty subjective. Nice way to use a non-story to introduce the new layout. ;)

      • Re:Seriously... Re:1st (Score:2, Informative)

        by grub ( 11606 )

        Nice way to use a non-story to introduce the new layout. ;)

        They kicked it in at 9:30 my time (32 minutes ago). I was editing a journal entry, reloaded and thought I was having an acid flashback for a sec.
  • Wow. It's happened. My online experience will never be the same again...

  • Craigslist (Score:5, Informative)

    by alfs boner ( 963844 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:52PM (#15469682) Homepage Journal
    The real irony is that Craigslist tends to be, like Ebay (which was responsible for 3/4 of ALL internet fraud complaints), something you have to approach EXTREMELY carefully.

    People on Craigslist tend to be really flaky- we're talking the stoned kind of flaky, or the "I'm going to try and cheat you because I think I'm clever" kind of flaky; I'm not sure which is worse. Then there are all the wierdos posting in the various personals section- if you want a great laugh (no matter your gender), read those sections; makes you think of someone walking into McDonalds with $2 and expecting a rare Filet Mignon with sauteed mushrooms. Or the ever popular "I'm hot. Send a picture. Sexiest one wins." I laughed for about 5 minutes so hard I couldn't breathe, and resolved never to look in w4m again because it was dangerous to my health, even if it was a fantastic laugh.

    Top problem though, is that people are complete IDIOTS when it comes to listing their items. "Printer. Best offer." Inkjet? Laser? Dot matrix? Made this decade? God forbid they tell us what company made it. I also love it when useless, worthless stuff is offered up- like cheapo computer speakers. People, I'm all for the recycling bit, but take that shit to the RECYCLING CENTER, don't waste anyone's time putting it up for sale for $5. Round trip subway fare costs at least half that...

    The hysterical bit is that Craiglist supposedly has an "advisory committee" that handles how the site is presented to users. When I complained that even basic instructions were never shown to users as part of the posting procedure and it was clear there was a problem, Craig just replied, "thanks, the committee will think about it".

    Then there are the people who post the "free" iPod/plasma/whatever emails (which are usually flagged by the community)...the problem is that there's nothing to keep them from posting over and over, because (to my knowledge) there is no automatic blacklist after X number of posts flagged...so spamming is pretty easy.

    Then there are the ripoffs. Go read your city's /sys/ for a few minutes, and see how many times you say "WHAT?!"...like people asking $500 for a Pentium 3 system. Go read /ele/ and see how many times you see "Theater Research" speakers being offered for $500; the more honest (or naive) ones admit to buying it from some guys in a white van...the others just think "oh well, I'll get some other sucker to buy 'em".

    Classic example of the try-to-sucker-you-by-omission-and-feined-ignorance approach was a Phaser printer being offered for sale for a few hundred $ with no mention of WHY nobody uses wax printers anymore. In short- you MUST cover your ass like crazy. If it's too good to be true, it most certainly is someone trying to sucker you.

    Typical, but when you consider it against Craig's motivations (community building and other crunchy-granola-ness), Craigslist has ultimately been a pretty spectacular failure. I used to report at least 5-6 posts a day to the abuse department for various reasons (all were accepted, and the abuse group IS very nice; they ALWAYS write you back! To the CL abuse staff, you have my sympathies and admiration), and I just got tired of it...it was like throwing a sandbag into a levee break and watching it disappear.

    I also have a policy now, which I inform sellers of upfront. If the item is different from how it was represented in the post or follow-up emails, both of which I will have with me, I walk out the door- this is after several sellers presented something that was nothing like what they described (like a PC missing half its ram, being sold by a software programmer who played dumb. Riight).

    • I have used it very successfully to buy, sell, and give away stuff. Maybe you're in a different city from me (San Francisco)? I have had very few problems with craigslist.

    • Re:Craigslist (Score:2, Informative)

      by colini ( 702444 )
      My backside is parked on a couch I bought from craigslist (Austin) and I'm completely happy with it. I've never tried to buy any PC hardware from the list, but it sounds like you're the one following up on 'too good to be true' ads. If the seller doesn't provide enough detail you can email them and ask for more, or just ignore it. WRT to furniture, I simply ignore postings that don't include a picture.

      For a "spectacular failure" it sure gets a lot of postings every day, in an awful lot of cities. Person

    • Re:Craigslist (Score:3, Informative)

      by ThousandStars ( 556222 )
      All that may be true, but one thing Craigslist has helped enormously is in real estate. It's now *vastly* easier to find an apartment in most major metropolitan cities. I was recently looking for one in Seattle and found five times as many ads on Craigslist as compared to the Seattle Times. On Monday there were many more still.

      The problems you're describing have always been true about newspaper classifieds; the only difference is in scale. But the scale factor is transforming industries ranging from real

    • ...the members of the General Public (A) are selfish by nature and (B) aren't salespeople.
    • I also have a policy now, which I inform sellers of upfront. If the item is different from how it was represented in the post or follow-up emails, both of which I will have with me, I walk out the door- this is after several sellers presented something that was nothing like what they described (like a PC missing half its ram, being sold by a software programmer who played dumb. Riight).

      Yes, I have been thinking about an even more extreme version of that. Basically I think the seller should reimburse you for
  • instead of a new design i think /. should fix some very real issues with the commenting. No editing for one. The fact that one has to use html to make a longer than one line comment readable. This is 2006, I shouldn't have to put in breaklines manualy.

  • Behold It's Glory (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheMotedOne ( 753275 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:53PM (#15469693) Homepage
    The games page is finally viewable without sunglasses.

  • MY EYES!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by brian0918 ( 638904 ) <brian0918@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday June 04, 2006 @10:59PM (#15469730)
    THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!

  • Mostly blank column (Score:4, Insightful)

    by machine of god ( 569301 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @11:03PM (#15469749)
    How about letting the comments extend to the left edge of the screen. To be honest, I don't come here for the crap articles. Slashdot's real content is the comments.

    The way it is now looks like a xanga page 'customized' by someone with maybe some aesthetic ability. It looks ok, but it's still generic as hell. The front page is pretty good, but the format doesn't support area where the real value of the site is.

  • another "please consider advertising with us" list (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @11:08PM (#15469769) Homepage Journal
    This list reads like the top cars of the year list in an automotive magazine. Enough catagories so that each major mass market automobile manufactur gets one winner for each major automobile they produce. These lists are more like an effort to get more advertising from the manufacturers than editorial content.

    So apple gets two listing for the ipod. Both Intel and AMD gets the top two spots. Hey, I wonder who makes chips for most computers? Googles gets a number of spots all the way through, and even Amazon, someone who probably advertises a lot but has done almost nothing interesting, gets an honorable mention for it's lame search facility. Throw in an award for every printer, every camera, and a few nods to popular technology, and can we say suck up.

    I know that people like to complain about stealth ads on /. In this case, the complaints are warrented. This has no editorial content, and simply is a way for pcworld to prove to advertisers that pcworld cares about them.

  • Should have posted a separate story (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04, 2006 @11:08PM (#15469773)
    When the css change-over went into effect, it should have been a separate story; "New format in effect!"

    Now the poor 100 best product story will be filled with NOTHING but comments on Slashdot itself.

  • Apple List entries (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Marcion ( 876801 ) on Sunday June 04, 2006 @11:08PM (#15469775) Homepage Journal
    The Boot camp is at number 10, while the Mac Mini is down at 35??? Surely they are the wrong way around?

    Surely the trip-proof magnetic AC adapter is far more important than Boot camp?

    Apple got Windows working on Intel hardware, Big Whoppee, Windows on Intel, like fifty billion other people haven't already?

    -----------------------
    If this is nuts then excuse me but I having a hyper-fit with this new Slashdot layout. I'll just go lie down in dark room for a bit.
  • ... which took a lot less time to load despite being 100% as functional.

  • Flickr (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BandwidthHog ( 257320 ) <inactive.slashdo ... icallyenough.com> on Sunday June 04, 2006 @11:35PM (#15469915) Homepage Journal
    Flickr is an amazing piece of technology. Not only is it a remarkable demonstration of the much-maligned (in these parts) Web 2.0, but it has without a doubt made me a better photographer. (Well, that and doing enough overtime to afford a dSLR.) And any technology that can improve your skills rather than just compensate for your shortcomings is all-fucking-right in my book.

  • Fix Light Mode! Simple design + low bandwidth mode should be an exact replacement.
    People using Light Mode *were not* eagerly awaiting the latest eye candy redesign.
  • User's comments page -- clicking on your name -- sections show serially, instead of properly placed on the page (say that with your mouth full of marbles!). Huge amounts of white space that don't belong.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I like it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by joel8x ( 324102 )
    I've been waiting a long time for Slashdot to upgrade the look, and I welcome the new font (I always disable serif fonts in my browser anyway). The coolest part is the Apple section - go check it out, its very nice!

    And to the current mods who are modding down all the comments on the change, maybe you should all chill out and realize that this is a big topic for the loyal Slashdotters and a bit more interesting that the story these comments fall under.

  • Best new design rollout strategy evar! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hartree ( 191324 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @12:27AM (#15470140)
    It's truly amazing. Zonk's on duty, and everybody's bitching about something other than him!

  • Bad 100 Best List! Here's a better one. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bushido Hacks ( 788211 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @12:46AM (#15470210) Homepage Journal
    I believe that this list is BIAS. This list is not rated on raiting but by who gave PCWorld the most money. Since I, Bushido Hacks, is a broke college student here is a top 10 list.

    1. YouTube.com - Who the hell put in in 9th place?
    2. Google Earth - Google Maps: good. Google Earth: f***ing awesome!
    3. eBay - Great spot to browse for technology products. Though the virtual mall is great, it is a good idea to browse the real mall to compare prices and features first.
    4. Sony Viao Notebooks smaller than 12 inches - Any notebook with a screen larger than 15 inches is NOT a notebook. It is a freaking TV. Computers are suppost to be small as well as fast.
    5. Any MP3 player not by Apple or Dell - As much as technological convergence is a convience, I prefere to buy things for what they were used for. An MP3 player is for playing MUSIC, not videos, not "podcasts", not these overated technology that turns everything into TV or as I call it "The Virus". Televison is stupid!
    6. Texas Instruments graphing calculators with the USB port - FINALLY, TI gets with the program.
    7. Sony PSP - Who cares what the critics say! This would be the greatest gaming platform since the Sega Game Gear if only Sony didn't keep trying to kill itself like a 15 year-old emo kid. Why does Sony keep trying to kill itself? By the time the PS3 gets here, Nintendo and XBox will be on to the next thing. Why does Sony keep procrastinating? The people who create the Sony products want what they are making as badly as their consumers, but their Marketing (marketing, the sworn enemy of any computer sciencist!) keeps pushing it back saying things like "people are going to hack into it" or "DRM". These Japanese guys need to grow a little backbone and stop letting these salarymen with hidden agendas kill their company.
    8. Yahoo! Answers - I must get up to 20 answers sometimes with the questions I ask. Some times I ask questions to test peoples knowledge or to express their opinions about things.
    9. Holograms - yet another suppressed technology. You know what would be a great application for these things: automobile decals. You've seen these cars with the hydrolics at car shows with teh airbrush. Why not airbrush a hologram onto a car. One of those 3D projected holograms with a half-naked valkyre warrior woman with a battle axe or sword riding horse with wings that breaths fire! Something worthy of Heavy Metal magazine and Popular Science! 10. The new Slashdot layout - Do I really need to explain why?

  • #1 & #2 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by skiflyer ( 716312 ) on Monday June 05, 2006 @02:21AM (#15470465)
    What gets the Intel Core DUO put at #1 & the AMD 64 X2 and #2?

    Seriously? I have an AMD 64X2 system and I love it, so I'm just curious... all the research I did pre-purchase certainly put the AMD way ahead of Intel... true 64bit, shared memory space, better performance, and definitely better performance per purchase dollar as well as performance per electricity dollar.

    Is this all the hub-bub I've been hearing about the last couple weeks about the brand new not yet out Intels that're supposed to be better yet?

    • Re:#1 & #2 (Score:3, Informative)

      by teg ( 97890 )
      The Core Duo is the laptop chip released earlier this year, not Intel's next architecture released later this year. It's also used in some desktops, e.g. the iMac and Mac mini. A bit early for a 2006 list, isn't it? I'd expect the next Intel laptop chip to be better than the Core Duo, and the X2 might be better or worse than the Core 2 Duo - we don't know that yet.
  • I use about ten percent of the things listed. Does that make me a nerd?

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