Apple’s planned exit from future Macworld expos has IDG World Expo, the show’s producer, feeling the pressure for 2010. With no Steve Jobs stage strutting or hyped-up gadget announcements, plans for the future of Macworld remain fuzzy, but rest assured, the show will go on, with or without Apple. Banners around the techie shindig, currently underway in San Francisco, proclaim Macworld 2010 as “The start of a new era” and organizers reportedly plan to field ideas in a “town meeting” (how very John McCain-like) during this week’s conference.

Bill O’Reilly is gay, CNN’s resident twitterer Rick Sanchez may skip work to smoke crack and Britney Spears boasts a four foot wide vagina with razor sharp teeth. Well, at least according to Twitter. The Twitter phishing scam that popped up over the weekend has managed to claim some of the site’s most popular members as victims. Even Barack Obama’s account couldn’t escape the sneaky hacking handiwork as his page featured a tweet with an affiliate link to a survey. The Fail Whale Brigade (aka the folks who write the Twitter blog) put out an alert Saturday reminding members to carefully examine DMs and added a red-lettered warning to users’ homepages. Hmm, looks like Twitter will have to add ’security boosting’ to that mysterious business plan.

In a break from the usual candid underwear, nose-picking and crotch-grabbing shots, Google Street View has captured pictures that Porsche probably doesn’t want the average Joe lurking around on Street View to see. A Google Street View car zipping around Colorado nabbed photos of the German automaker testing new, previously unseen-to-the-public versions of the company’s Cayman, Boxster, a 911 Turbo and Targa models. The shots also show Porsche employees unsuccessfully trying to cover up the mysterious cars in a tarp before Google’s pesky camera peepers catch a look.

The Apple factory elves apparently have a new gadget in the works as TechCrunch reports that Steve Jobs and the crew will release an iPod Touch featuring a 7- to 9-inch screen in late 2009. One source claims to have handled a prototype of the rumored gadget that reportedly includes the iPhone’s multitouch functionality. So, will the bigger, fancier iPod Touch be worth standing in line for?

Fear not Macheads, Apple has assured Mac users that their computers will account for the so-called “leap second” tacked on to the end of 2008 by the time-loving folks at the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. So, if you broke out all the Y2K emergency gear that seemed to go to waste in 2000, then put it back in the closet until the next end of the world scare.

Presidential inaugurations can’t just be tossed together with some balloons, streamers and an endless supply of Fanta; no, Washington’s biggest party of every four years requires oodles of planning and oodles of dough to pull the whole shindig off. While most of America closed their wallets to post-election donations, some of the tech industry’s biggest execs forked over large chunks of cash to help foot Barack Obama’s party bill. Google bigwigs like Marissa Mayer, Chad Hurley, Eric Schmidt and Larry Page each donated $25,000 while Microsoft head honchos like Bill and Melinda Gates, Steve Ballmer and Steven VanRoekel all wrote checks for the maximum allowed amount of $50,000. Looks like Bam Bam has enough deep-pocketed pals in the tech world to spring for some Korbel champagne and bedazzled party hats.

FCC boss Kevin Martin has apparently had a change of heart regarding porn (and really, who hasn’t?!), saying that the free internet service currently in the works will no longer require a porn filter. The FCC’s free wireless internet access scheme still has plenty of hurdles to clear, but at least we know the web’s most useful aspect–looking at pictures of boobies–will remain intact.

The Democratic National Convention’s Zune give-away had the Apple faithful scratching their gadget-loving noggins wondering if the future prez harbored a real fondness for the Microsoft MP3 player or if he just liked freebies. Well, turns out Barack Obama did tune in to a Zune for the DNC, but a recently snapped pic shows where his loyalty really rests–a photog in Hawaii snapped a shot of Obama sporting an older model iPod Nano on his waistband. Phew!

Itching for a little voting action now that election season has long since passed? Well, get your voting on over at TechCrunch for the annual Crunchies, the nerdy awards honoring the hottest startups, products and entrepreneurs. The site about all things 2.0 received 180,000 total nominations and narrowed the field down to the best and brightest, but surprisingly no best kiss or sexiest techie category this year. Voting closes January 5, so vote early and vote often.

The cutsey, teeny-tiny laptops that have everyone from business execs to soccer moms looking like squinting giants caused a selling bonanza on Amazon. Netbooks nabbed 17 of the 25 top-selling notebook spots on the shopping giant, putting big smiles on the faces of laptop manufacturers, who had spent the last couple years nervously watching notebook sales slip. Santa also reportedly enjoyed the whole netbook trend thing as it meant a lighter load and more room for doggie bags filled with cookies and booze.

Online quizzes usually just determine your hottest celebrity match or what ice cream flavor matches your personality, but if you have grown tired of hearing you should be boinking Helen Mirren and have a Chunky Monkey disposition, then try the Web 2.0 logo test. Test your smarts on 33 different logos and, remember, no cheating sneaky pants!

Surging iPhone sales have turned into Apple gadget dominance amongst camera phones on Flickr and, more surprisingly, impressive competitiveness with the most popular SLRs on the photo sharing site. The introduction of the 3G model in July vaulted the iPhone over every other camera phone, leaving the second-place Nokia N95 in the dust. The iPhone’s dominance over camera phones shouldn’t come a big, jaw-dropping shocker, but the gadget’s rising popularity has also allowed it to edge out popular SLRs like the Canon 40D and Nikon D80. Could iPhone pic’s popularity have something to do with iPhone users’ notorious love of whipping out their fancy gadgets?

Netbooks’ surging popularity helped push global laptop shipments over desktops for the first time ever. Notebook PC shipments climbed nearly 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 over the previous year, while desktop shipments took a hit and dropped 1.3 percent. Hewlett-Packard remained top dog, edging out Dell and Taiwan’s Acer. While practical, does average-sized person ever really look cool typing away on a teeny tiny netbook? Didn’t think so.

Hubspot’s “State of the Twittersphere” has provided enough tiny Twitter tidbits to impress and probably annoy your family throughout Christmas dinner because really, who doesn’t want to hear about the microblogging service’s stellar year over a honey-baked ham? A few interesting items from the report: 70 percent of all Twitter users signed up in 2008 (including the 20 percent that joined in the last 60 days), Wednesdays and Thursday see the most tweeting action, 35 percent of Twitter users have ten or fewer followers and only 9 percent of all Twitterers don’t bother following anyone. Remember not to share all the fun facts at dinner, Grandpa surely wants to hear about those anti-social Twitter users while indulging in gingerbread cookies.

Only 41 days until some of the most brilliant and innovative minds come together to spread ideas and spark endless conversation at the annual TED Conference and now we know who will take the stage. TED 2009 speakers include Bill Gates, Seth Godin and Herbie Hancock. Wannabe attendees would have better luck scoring Super Bowl tickets on Venus, but if you want to lurk around in hopes of spotting, take note that the TED crew has moved to Long Beach. Check out the full list of program speakers and prepare to get your mind cranking.

Blogger Steve Rubel crunched some numbers (more work than the Truemors gang with our TI-82s was willing to do) and found that re-tweets make up two percent of all Twitter volume. Out of the approximately 1.8 million daily tweets, 34,500 included the word ‘retweet’ or ‘RT.’ Interesting. Ok, now go re-tweet this.

Google has turned into that painfully unhip aunt that buys Catholic magazine subscriptions and bedazzled knick-knacks for everyone at Christmas. The internet giant decided to forgo the usual year-end cash bonuses in favor of stuffing staffer’s stockings with the HTC G1 Android phone, causing employees to monotonically exclaim “oh, super.”

Forget Tweet-Ups filled with booze, name tags and posturing — a Vancouver gathering of Twitterers swapped Spritzers and chit-chatting for sweaters and warm fuzzies as the group decided to turn their meet-up into an event benefiting the local homeless population. After snow forced the cancellation of a scheduled Tweet-Up, planned attendees decided to meet anyway, but also give the event a twist by handing out jackets and sweaters to those stuck out in the cold without anywhere to warm their frozen footsies. The “Vancouver TweetupHeatup” attracted nearly 20 people armed with warm clothes and food and organizers hope the next event will bring in even more big-hearted Twitterers to help the homeless and show the power of 140 characters.

Web golden boy Kevin Rose boasts a loyal following, due in large part to the perceived success of Digg, but a peak at the news aggregator’s financials show the company doesn’t exactly enjoy champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Business Week’s investigative peepers got a gander at Digg’s money numbers that show surprisingly small profits. In 2007, Rose and co. reportedly raked in only $4.8 million in revenue and lost $2.8 million and, for the first three quarters of 2008, lost $4 million on $6.4 million in revenue. Could the mediocre revenue report combined with the major drop in valuation seen in September mean Digg has lost its once-glaring shine?

Santa Claus and his gang of busy elves have entered full-on pack the sleigh mode, but if you forgot something on your Christmas list, there’s still time to ping the jolly chubster on Twitter to make sure that puppy or pony or Tickle-Me-Elmo lands under the tree. NORAD’s Santa Tracker allows Twitterers to make last-minute gift requests, track Old St. Nick’s whereabouts–word has it, he hit a bar in Boston on Saturday–and help Santa’s head honcho elf, Bitz, come up with new lyrics to the “12 Days of Christmas.” Heck, even Twitter co-founder Biz Stone started following the North Pole shenanigans. Hmm, I wonder if he asked Santa for a business plan?

We do love our lists here on the web. Time once again for the best and worst gadgets of 2008!

Oh, and I promise that this article won’t be about Twitter or Facebook.

An anonymous tipster with a big mouth has told Cell Phone Signals that the T-Mobile G2 will hit shelves January 26, 2009. Yes, the G1 came out less than two months ago to an underwhelming reception and the chatty nameless source has about zero supporting evidence, but that hasn’t stopped the buzz. The new device will supposedly feature a 5 megapixel camera, a secondary VGA camera, stereo bluetooth and video capture. No word if the updated gadget will undergo a make-over to tone down the chunkiness factor.

Despite smaller wallets and a little thing called a recession, music fanatics preferred legal downloads over pirated music in the third quarter. Legal music downloads rose 29 percent over the same time a year ago, outpacing increases for illegal music downloads over peer-to-peer networks, which grew only 23 percent. The biggest music loser remains CDs, which declined a staggering 19 percent for all age groups and, more significantly, plummeted 34 percent among typically big-spending teenagers.

Twitter egos took a hit this week when the microblogging service decided to do a little spring (or middle of winter) cleaning and give the boot to thousands of spammer accounts. With spammy members sent the way of the Fail Whale, plenty of twitterers woke up to find follower numbers deflated and began asking “was it something I said?” Do you think Biz, Ev and Jack don little French maid outfits for Twitter cleanings? Ok, maybe not–a girl can dream.

Twitter has made its first move towards finally raking in some revenue with a job posting for a product manager, so who should lead the site’s rag tag team towards the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Leprechauns need not apply (looking at you, Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich), but anyone with Web product manager experience and an active Twitter account can ship their applications over to Ev and Biz for consideration. Silicon Alley Insider decided to help the Twitter dudes along and offer a few suggestions including Twittertise founder Jon Steinberg, tech blogger Robert Scoble, former Ask.com VP Mark Fletcher and, somewhat out-of-left-field option, MC Hammer.