A Schmidtstorm and More: 2010 in Pictures Photoshops

According to 2009′s safely-looking-ahead-at-the-year-to-come articles, 2010 was to be “a year of social media convergence.” It was to be a year in which The Cloud “became part of the everyday lexicon of business” and “a year of invention and innovation.” 2010 was to be not just “the year of the tablet,” but also “the year of the smartphone,” “the year of the tweet” and “the year of location.” Above all, 2010 was to be “a year of significant developments” and generally “a busy year for technology.”

And I suppose it was that. But for me, 2010 was a year like any of year–one not to be taken too seriously. Because if you can’t laugh at Eric Schmidt telling critics of Google Street View to “just move,” Apple telling people that their grip–not the iPhone 4′s antenna–is faulty, or Oracle’s samurai CEO Larry Ellison in a kimono, then, really, what’s the point?

It may be true, as my colleague Peter Kafka noted earlier this week, that there’s little point in pretending we know what’s going to happen in the year ahead, but the year about to pass remains good for a laugh.