Welcome to the TECHGEEK.com.au Weekly Recap, where we recap this week’s stories in one, digestible post. This week, we finally get something from Microsoft about the Zune, Vodafone and 3 gets the go ahead, AOL to be spun off by its parent, and rumours of a new iPhone.

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A suicide technique called “Detergent Suicide” from Japan has become so popular that it is slowly seeping into the United States via the internet; with emergency workers alarmed over the potential for innocent bystanders to be affected by the technique, according to Wired.

This method of suicide that uses simple household chemicals to produce a very deadly gas known as hydrogen sulphide has become a grisly fad in Japan last year, with at least 500 men, women and children taking their life in the first half of 2008 as instructions have been posted on the internet.

Editor’s Note: If you are suffering from depression, have feelings of sadness or just need to talk to somebody, please contact Lifeline at 13 11 14.

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Telstra has said that it will make all calls made to the Gaza Strip between January 7 to 15 free as the ongoing fighting between Hamas and the Israeli forces continue, and families fear for their relatives safety during the conflict. All calls must be made with the 0011 970 8 prefix.

"Telstra customers in Australia will be able to call free of charge from their home phones to check on the wellbeing of immediate family members in the Gaza area,” CEO Sol Trujillo said today.

However, this could be potentially be in vain as the Israeli attacks have crippled the telecommunication network; with the main phone company, Patel Group, warning that 90 percent of the mobile network has been crippled, and several phone lines have been damaged.

Staff from the company have either died or have been injured during the conflict; including “three technicians in the attacks,” according to the group.

Telstra is warning that you should make your calls as brief as possible because of the damaged network.

The year that was known as 2008 can’t be called an easy one. From Barack Obama winning the election to an entire year of worry on our economic stability, or the fact that Australia might be acting like China to implement a filter that we didn’t want; TECHGEEK.com.au recollects on the year that was, in a series of posts from the entire year that were in our archives since 2008.

The following retrospective covers the month of November 2008.

November

November saw London introducing new “bomb-proof” bins, Microsoft tries to lure people to the PC… outside a Apple Store, learning that the DSi breaks homebrew flashcards, a Road sign gets the wrong translation because of an email, TiVos in Australia finally get some freaking interactivity, the RAZR may be dead after Motorola axes the RAZR3, Streem admits defeat and shuts down, YouTube goes widescreen, and an Israeli politician borrows Obama’s site design.

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The year that was known as 2008 can’t be called an easy one. From Barack Obama winning the election to an entire year of worry on our economic stability, or the fact that Australia might be acting like China to implement a filter that we didn’t want; TECHGEEK.com.au recollects on the year that was, in a series of posts from the entire year that were in our archives since 2008.

The following retrospective covers the months September & October 2008.

September

September saw the launch of Google’s Chrome browser, the Apple Store coming to Chadstone, the introduction of a new “BlueTrack” mouse, the potential end-of-the-world scenario at CERN, Microsoft introducing two ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld – before ditching them for the “I’m a PC” campaign, the relationship between porn and you, net radio survives another day, looking at iPhone knockoffs, and the iPhone being unlocked in Hong Kong.

Joost and Hulu compete to see who is the leader in anime, The T-Mobile G1 gets launched,  Adobe releases the much-anticipated update to the Creative Suite line, SanDisk has a new way to listen to music, Vodafone announcing an “unlimited” music plan, Apple recalling the USB power adaptors for the iPhone 3G, Telstra gets a restructure that sees it being split into three, Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account hacked, and porn was found on a phone.

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The year that was known as 2008 can’t be called an easy one. From Barack Obama winning the election to an entire year of worry on our economic stability, or the fact that Australia might be acting like China to implement a filter that we didn’t want; TECHGEEK.com.au recollects on the year that was, in a series of posts from the entire year that were in our archives since 2008.

The following retrospective covers the months March and April 2008.

July

You could say July was a very, very, very busy month – but we are a daily technology news blog… Anyway, here’s what happened during July – 80,000 UK AOL subscribers face the boot off the original AOL network, we saw the merger of Sirius and XM, and the CNET and CBS buyout completed and both Optus and Telstra show off their plans for the (sexy) BlackBerry Bold.

Reports of a fourth carrier in Australia for the iPhone continuing (with Virgin Mobile eventually announced to be it), the ABC iView is launched and is a hit, Ryan Block announced that he will step down as Editor-in-Chief of Engadget, and Apple has a meltdown with MobileMe – forcing it to give everyone a free month.

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The year that was known as 2008 can’t be called an easy one. From Barack Obama winning the election to an entire year of worry on our economic stability, or the fact that Australia might be acting like China to implement a filter that we didn’t want; TECHGEEK.com.au recollects on the year that was, in a series of posts from the entire year that were in our archives since 2008.

The following retrospective covers the months March and April 2008.

March

March saw a New Zealand teenager who apparently ran a spybot network got bail, Ziff Davis Media filing for bankruptcy, Hulu becoming open and no longer a private beta, Wikipedia under another scandal from its co-founder, Jimmy Wales, trading edits for donations, Facebook angering the Israeli for listing them as from Palestine, Scientology starting a war to counter attacks and protests from a group called “Anonymous”, and AnyDVD cracks the DRM on the Blu-Ray disks.

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The year that was known as 2008 can’t be called an easy one. From Barack Obama winning the election to an entire year of worry on our economic stability, or the fact that Australia might be acting like China to implement a filter that we didn’t want; TECHGEEK.com.au recollects on the year that was, in a series of posts from the entire year that were in our archives since 2008.

The following retrospective covers the months January and February 2008.

January

We start off with our retrospective to January with the introduction of the government’s proposed filter, with many IT groups (and us) opposed to it. It even managed to gain wide-spread attention across the world, saying that we have become a follower in China’s footsteps. Hmm, maybe that’s why Rudd learnt Mandarin (remember Election 2007?)

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