In 2009, IT sector faced downturn in consumer spending; however the year saw new releases from various top technology giants, from Microsoft to Apple to Google, Nokia to Samsung rolled out a number of feature-rich products.

The year saw new mobile phones, media players, software, netbooks and many more. Here, the feature discusses some of the biggest technology launches of the year 2009.

Apple iPhone 3G S

Last year, Apple had introduced the hottest smartphone of the year. The company upgraded its handset in June, which offers faster speed and better features. It is reported that the new device can perform tasks upto 3.6 times faster than earlier version. It has 3 megapixel camera that supports video capturing, auto-focus mechanism and editing capabilities.

The device includes much required 'cut-copy-paste' feature, MMS capability and multimedia messaging. The hype of this device can be accessed that over 1 million devices were sold in the first week of release.

Microsoft's Windows 7

The world's largest software maker had updated its operating system offering by launching its Windows 7 in October. The new offering will certainly compete with the new operating systems coming to the market like Google's Chrome OS.

The new OS features Aero, Shake, Peek, Snap, Jump Lists and a redesigned Windows Taskbar which makes day-to-day work a fun. The new software requires less hardware compared to Vista and promises to be faster, less cluttered and has touchscreen features, is available in six editions.

There is also a starter edition especially for netbooks.

Google Chrome OS

Google Inc, the search giant had unveiled its Chrome OS, which is an open source, lightweight OS and said it will target lower-end PCs called Netbooks. In December, the company also released its source-code for developers.

It is reported that the new PCs based on Chrome OS will support cloud computing and will be web-connected via Wi-Fi, and play only web-based applications such as Google Docs. It seems that the systems would run on either x86 or ARM processors.

Microsoft Bing Search Engine

In 2009, Microsoft had revamped its search engine against Web giant Google, Bing. The software giant said that Bing is not a search engine, but a decision engine and helps people in making decisions. Many new features, which are not available in Google, offers visitors to see the contents of a page without actually clicking on it and a sidebar detailing related searches.

Bhuvan

Last year, ISRO had announced a new satellite mapping tool, called Bhuvan, which offers resolution of upto 5 meters and is considered as a rival to Google Earth and Wikimapia. It uses images taken over a year by ISRO's seven remote sensing satellites with specific emphasis on Indian region.

Nokia Netbook Booklet 3G

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker had introduced its mini laptop, called Booklet 3G. The device based on Intel's Atom platform. It is important to note that Nokia embraces both Intel and Windows 7, instead of its own software or ARM platform, Linux territory, which is used in its Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

Besides the above new releases, Amazon has introduced its Kindle e-Book reader, Internet Explorer 8 by Microsoft, Apple iMac range and Sony Vaio X laptop, weighing just 655 grams in 2009. Further to this, many companies had announced their future devices in 2009, for example, Google Smartphone, Apple's Tablet PC and Lenovo's Smartphone - LePhone.