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With CES looming like an electrically charged storm of news and announcements, it's time for us to give you our best bets on what you'll see come January. During the month of December, we'll bring you a series of CES preview posts, forecasting what you can expect when the news deluge begins. For more of what's to come, check out our hub.

It's incredible to think that when CES 2012 kicked off back in January we had only reviewed five Ultrabooks. Yep, five. Enough to count on one hand. Even weirder, we still hadn't seen that many by the time we wrapped our coverage of the show. Sure, a few companies teased ultraportables they planned to release later in the year, but these only represented a slice of the 100-plus models slated to launch in 2012. And that didn't even include all the Ultrabook imposters! Ever hear of Sleekbooks? Ultrathins? Whoever said PCs are dead clearly doesn't have to review them for a living.

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By Billy Steele, Sarah Silbert and Christopher Trout
Illustration By ILoveDust

While planet Earth has yet to meet its demise, the end of 2012 is nigh. It was a year of lengthy legal battles and shifting power dynamics in the tech industry. It brought with it great advancements and great failures -- and, for some, the promise of the end of days. We've combed our archives to bring you just a few of the stories that made the biggest impact on our reporting this year. Herewith, an abridged look back at the year that was.

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Because you haven't been living under a rock, by now you know about our big Expand event coming up in San Francisco this March (plus, you're following us on Twitter and Facebook to be the first to get all the news, right?!). Did you also know about our Insert Coin: New Challengers competition to shine the spotlight on the best new crowdfunded hardware projects out there? You do now!

The best part is, submissions are now open -- and that means you can submit your project for a chance to win free tickets to Expand, $1,000 to cover your travel costs, and a total of $25,000 in prize money! No, we're not kidding: all this could be yours.

Read on to find out more!

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This trip around the sun has been a monumental one for crowdfunding, marked by big projects and astronomical numbers. Take Kickstarter wunderkind OUYA, for example, which raised more than $8.5 million in funding from 63,416 backers. Kickstarter itself has even grown and matured, expanding to the UK and putting its foot down when it comes to pitching hardware by requiring working prototypes and assessments of risks and challenges. Out of the 60 crowdfunding efforts that crossed our desks as Insert Coins in 2012, 47 were successfully funded, four still have time to rake in funds and nine fell short of their goals or were otherwise stymied. We've handpicked and placed the top 10 projects that won our hearts and, on occasion, our hard-earned scratch after the break.

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With CES looming like an electrically charged storm of news and announcements, it's time for us to give you our best bets on what you'll see come January. During the month of December, we'll bring you a series of CES preview posts, forecasting what you can expect when the news deluge begins. For more of what's to come, check out our hub.

Last year, we saw the likes of Motorola, LG and Samsung continue to demonstrate their technical skills on washing machines, fridges, home automation and even cars. While some Engadget editors struggled to see even half the appeal of those WiFi-connected washing machines at CES 2012, Motorola's Connected Home gateway showed a realistic vision of how a wireless home should work, with its gateway router tying your Android devices to your thermostat, security system and lighting. However, we haven't heard much since January from Motorola when it comes to its household system, so it wouldn't surprise us if the Google-owned manufacturer has a refreshed, possibly deeper system to show us this time. But what else will the middle of Nevada have to offer the forward-looking homemaker in the next year? We have more ideas after the break.

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Welcome to Growing Up Geek, a feature where we take a look back at our youth, and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. This week, we have our very own Amol Koldhekar!

My childhood may have kicked off the 1990s, but I grew up surrounded by remnants of the 80s, like the Apple II that temporarily lived in my dad's home office or the Nintendo Entertainment System that was originally my older sister's console. I think all younger siblings of that era can identify with having to play as Luigi on Super Mario Bros. My sister eventually lost interest in her NES, so I took claim to it. While I had loads of fun playing Excitebike and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, I always spent an inordinate amount of time escaped in Duck Hunt while I was busy peering through the glass end of the NES gun, trying to see how it worked. Ironically, this curiosity may have impeded obtaining better devices early on -- when my NES stopped working, I tinkered with its innards and somehow got it to work, negating the need for my parents to get me a Super Nintendo. As I grew older, I grew wiser, deeming the NES a lost cause in order to convince my parents to let me get a Nintendo 64 with birthday money. How amazing that the NES was soon repaired and still works!

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With CES looming like an electrically charged storm of news and announcements, it's time for us to give you our best bets on what you'll see come January. During the month of December, we'll bring you a series of CES preview posts, forecasting what you can expect when the news deluge begins. For more of what's to come, check out our hub.

Gaming and CES are estranged partners -- CES spawned the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 for short) way back in 1995, after gaming exhibitors required more space than CES could offer. As such, the game industry's presence at CES is ... well, there isn't much of a presence to speak of. Smart, smaller companies have traditionally taken good advantage of this; CES 2012 featured the unveiling of the Wikipad and Razer's Project Fiona, while Gaikai gave us our first hands-on with its LG-based game streaming service. As for the big three console manufacturers? Nintendo gave press another chance to check out the Wii U, but it was nothing more than the E3 demo many had seen months earlier.

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The inaugural Engadget Expand event is taking place March 16-17, 2013 at San Francisco's historic Fort Mason Center, and we can't wait for you to join us. Expand has been a long time in the making and from the start has been planned as an experience squarely for technology enthusiasts. What can you expect at Expand? Here's a little tease:

• Exhibition Floor Showcasing the Latest Devices
• Live Panels and One-on-Ones
• Consumer Electronics' Greatest Visionaries
• Insert Coin: New Challengers Competition
• Your Favorite Engadget Editors
• Live Music and Special Guests
• Freebies and Giveaways

As you can already tell, Expand will be a memorable event and an experience truly tailored to the Engadget community. This event is for you and it won't disappoint!

Tickets Now on Sale!

Today, the switch is officially flipped: tickets are now on sale! Individual tickets are being sold through Eventbrite for $75 as an extra early-bird discount. Attendance will be limited by venue capacity, so don't miss out -- be sure to scoop them up soon.

Read on for more...

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With CES looming like an electrically charged storm of news and announcements, it's time for us to give you our best bets on what you'll see come January. During the month of December, we'll bring you a series of CES preview posts, forecasting what you can expect when the news deluge begins. For more of what's to come, check out our hub.

Looking for what's going to be new in home theaters for CES 2013 is largely a good news / bad news situation. The bad news? The list of tech we're expecting to see (Ultra HD -- aka 4K / 8K, OLED, connected TV and second-screen interaction) is almost an exact mirror of the high-profile launches from last year's show. The good news, however, is that there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that this is the year we'll actually see the technology become available and / or more useful in our daily lives.

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