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As 2008 winds down, we at BetaNews would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude for all of the support we have received from our devoted readers, software authors and downloaders over the past twelve months.

This has been a difficult year for many, but one that has also inspired a generation to stand up and participate in a way that hasn't been seen in decades. The arrival of 2009 brings promises of change, and hope that better days are ahead, that we can fix the problems caused by years of bad governing and a corrupt financial system.

It may not cover all of the good boys and girls in Manhattan, but Google Earth's 3-D option has bulked up enough to make a virtual traveler feel a little like an airborne Santa.

The 3-D-layer option in Google Earth is old news, but it wasn't very thickly populated in its early incarnation. However, a data increase earlier this month adds thousands of photo-textured buildings to the original set, which included pretty landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the Woolworth Building, but not more prosaic locales such as, say, the intersection of First Avenue and 65th Street.

Last year, one of the most stunning announcements to come out of CES was from, of all places, Comcast -- a CATV provider. One reason could be because technology is giving viewers clear alternatives to scheduled programming.

2008 was a monumental year for television. NBC declared this year's Olympics the most-viewed event in television history, with the 17-day coverage attracting 86% of US television viewing households, or 214 million viewers.

It wouldn't be the Christmas season without the tinsel, the holly, and the zero-days. Since early this month, an exploitable buffer overflow has been known to exist in SQL Server, and today Microsoft is acknowledging its existence.

In a security bulletin released yesterday, Microsoft is saying a somewhat simply exploitable vulnerability exists in all presently used versions of SQL Server dating back to SS 2000 Service Pack 4. It has to do with a Transactional-SQL (T-SQL) statement which apparently uses a parameter that isn't checked for type.

In its latest defense filed in US District Court in San Francisco last week, Mac clone-maker Psystar buffered its well-reasoned claim that it didn't violate the DMCA as Apple has charged, with no fewer than 41 other claims, some unexplained.

Among the single-sentence defenses that Psystar's attorneys have added to the company's defense are some which appear on the surface impossible to be true simultaneously. One states that Apple can't claim copyright infringement since it failed to file proper claims with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Another states that Apple's copyrights (which apparently include the non-existent ones) may be invalid on the grounds that 1) the covered material isn't original enough to merit copyright; 2) Apple may not have been the original creator of the copyrighted material.

Is there anyone you know whose holiday wish list includes a computer weighted down, by design, to his desk? Lack of portability may be becoming a real liability for the desktop PC, but that doesn't mean it'll disappear anytime soon.

It should come as no shock to anyone that general demand among consumers for the desktop PC form factor is at its lowest point in years. The exceptions are at the very bottom of the value chain; but even there, as notebook PCs start to make a respectable value proposition for themselves at $500 and under, it's more and more difficult for their desk-bound competition to compare.

Linux anchor Red Hat spent the past quarter coping with currency discomfort and taking advantage of tough times -- buying back its bonds and stock, and eventually kicking up its total revenue 22% above its numbers a year ago.

The company released its third-quarter 2009 earnings report this afternoon, and in the quarter ending November 30, reported $165.3 million in total revenue, which also represents a 1% increase over last quarter. Subscription revenues, at $135.5 million, were up 17% year-to-year and flat from Q2.

Microsoft is making an accommodation through a flexible inventory program that will allow distributors to place their final orders by January 31, 2009 and take delivery against those orders through May 30, 2009.

This is not an extension of sales, according to the Microsoft spokesperson who issued the statement above. Semantics? Depends on where you reside in the food chain, but mainly, the decision is about giving the put-upon guys in the middle some breathing room.

With its new Chrome browser, Google is already doing "interesting things" around multiprocessing and multithreading support, according to the director of strategy at IBM Lotus -- a company that's taking more of an interest in Chrome.

As the economy drives the Internet cloud to become more all enveloping, Web browsers till take on greater sophistication in 2009 and beyond, predicted Doug Heintzman, director of strategy at IBM Lotus, in an interview with BetaNews. While consumers and businesses figure out how to cope with sudden economic changes, they're trying to find ways to "get more" while spending less.

Those bells you hear aren't all just about the holidays. They're signals that BetaNews is publishing a positive story about Blu-ray. Mark the date in your calendars.

In an effort to restore consumers' enthusiasm in the high-definition disc format that, after all, won the format war, the Blu-ray Disc Association is emphasizing some positive statistics from recent weeks' sales worldwide: Some 462,500 BDs were sold in the UK during the month of November, which the Association claims is a 165% jump from just the previous month.

Social network MySpace pulled down all of the Project Playlist widgets reportedly at the behest of unspecified "major music companies." Meanwhile, major label Sony BMG gave the service its stamp of approval.

Last week, MySpace issued a statement announcing the immediate removal of Project Playlist widgets from its site. They have received complaints at several different times that Project Playlist was engaging in copyright infringement.

Just when mobile device maker Palm could really use a lift, Elevation Partners -- a VC firm that includes U2 singer Bono -- is coming through with a $100 million investment.

With the launch of a new mobile platform and smartphone slated for next month's CES show, financially beleaguered Palm, Inc. has nailed down a highly needed $100 million equity investment from Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that includes Bono, lead singer for the rock band U2.

After a two-year relationship, major label Warner Music Group has moved to temporarily terminate its partnership with video sharing site YouTube.

A statement from the record company said, "We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide."

Let's make a list of the features we really need in a 2010-generation notebook. We'll start with solid-state storage at 500 GB. From there...You know, we might be satisfied with just that.

It's one more indication that PC manufacturers could very well be ready to implement a breakthrough that changes the nature and profile of typical laptop computers: Over the weekend, a giveaway promotion on Sony's New Zealand Web site clearly states the company plans to unveil new, and probably vastly improved, Vaio notebook computers during CES week next month.

At CES next month, a new organization formed to promote interoperability across media devices will get off the ground -- and by that, they mean a way to get podcasts and streaming content to work on multiple device platforms.

CES 2009 will provide the setting for the first meeting of the Internet Media Device Alliance (IMDA), a new association established to improve device interoperability across music, podcasts, on-demand content and other applications used in Internet radio and other media services.