Happy New Year and happy hacking to all. We had a great time last year exploring the creativity in the hacks that make the Internet a better place. Below you’ll find the nine most popular posts of the year here at Hackaday. Now’s the time to get working on that great project you’ve had in mind. Let us know once you’ve pulled it off and maybe you’ll be on this list next year!

1. Simple Xbox 360 rapid fire mod
2. BackTrack 4 Beta released
3. PSP 3000 firmware 5.03 hacked
4. Black Hat 2009: Parking meter hacking
5. How-to: USB remote control receiver
6. PSP 3000 hacked
7. Pandora’s battery (unbrick your PSP)
8. Nintendo DS homebrew guide
9. SheevaPlug, tiny linux server

Not to be outdone, Popular Science published their Best of What’s New 2008 and packed it with videos and photo galleries. Inspiring inventions include the Pipistrel Taurus Electro, the longest-flying two-seated electric plane, the Intel Core 2 Duo Small Form Factor, which you can thank for the thinner laptops like Apple’s MacBook Air, and the GroundBot, a spherical robot that can roll through the mud, sand, and snow. It’s not even the end of the year yet, but with all these great inventions, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2009.

[via io9]

Attempting to put our past behind us as quickly as possible, TIME has released what they feel are the best inventions of 2008. While there’s some pretty wishy-washy lab-only stuff on the list, we’re glad to see a lot of cool hardware made the cut. Some of our favorites are: The Tesla roadster proving electric cars can be fun. IBM breaking the petaflop barrier with LANL’s Roadrunner. The Large Hadron Collider for getting everyone scared about physics all over again. Have a look at the list for many other tech highlights from this year.