Looking back on the 2007 technology world, only a few things stand out. The most prominent companies were Apple and Google; the most remarked-on development was the growth of Fac-ebook; and the biggest surp-rise was that European Co-urt of First Instance upheld the EU’s anti-competitive ruling against Microsoft.

Apple’s share price is up nearly 135 per cent, compared with Google at only 52 per cent and a Nasdaq index up by a measly 12 per cent. In 2007, the company took on an industry it had hitherto spurned — the mobile phone business — and launched the iPhone, announcing that it aimed to sell 10 million in the first year; it has already sold five.

The Apple phone is what corporate strategists call a ‘game-changer’. It’s really a powerful Unix computer in a tiny, sleek package. It happens to make voice calls, but in a way that’s the boring bit. More interesting is its wi-fi capabilities and the way it makes web browsing feasible on a small screen. Its only serious drawback on launch was the fact that it is shackled to slow mobile phone networks.Facebook became the media sensation de nos jours as it opened up membership to any Tom, Dick or Harriet. According to the web-metrics firm Alexa.com, it has nearly overtaken MySpace in traffic and looks likely to exceed Rupert Murdoch’s prime site next year.

What’s next? Apple will launch a 3G iPhone and cause even greater havoc in the mobile-phone business. It will also launch a micro-laptop using the new Intel 45-nanometre Silverthorne chip, and open more stores in upmarket locations. Next year will see mass outbreaks of a Facebook fatigue, as busy professionals realise they are wasting an hour or more a day on essentially mindless activities.

It will also be the year when the world wakes up to what the bosses at Google already know; the computing industry has a colossal, and unacceptable, environmental footprint in terms

of its consumption of electrical power and natural resources.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that spam will increase and we may finally discover what Windows machines someone has been covertly building over the past year is for. My hunch is that the net is headed for its own version of 9/11. So enjoy it while it lasts.