This year, we've seen a lot of crazy things. But what's been popular though (Vanessa Ann Hudgens photos aside)? Yahoo! can probably answer that with their annual "Top Trends in Search" list for 2007.

While there are a lot of keywords being searched this year, what concerns us is the list of top 10 searches in technology. Who're the movers and shakers? You can probably guess already, but read more to see the full list!

Just so we're all on the same page, everyone at QJ wants to see that second Grand Theft Auto IV trailer badly. While we could wait a couple of extra hours after the release of the trailer to hit YouTube, we wouldn't be die-hard fans if we didn't at least try to watch the trailer the moment it came out. That's why we're spreading the word that Rockstar Games and Yahoo! have teamed up to give Yahoo! first dibs on the trailer.

You read that right. Yahoo! Games will be the first official place you can view the trailer. According to what we've been able to dig up, they'll also be offering screenshots and an interview with the makers of the game, so it's definitely something you don't want to miss.

In any case, Grand Theft Auto IV's second trailer will premiere on June 28 at 12 p.m. EST at http://grandtheftauto.yahoo.com. If you happen to miss the time (or are in school, work, etc.), we'll also have it on our website as soon as we can find the embed, alright?

The Japanese Yahoo site is currently running a poll among its registered members. The question is rather simple: What next-gen console are you going to buy? The information to follow are all dated September 19 and the total number of voters is 30,511.

Xbox 360 has a very comfortable lead with 19,512 voters saying they are still going to choose Microsoft's console. This number of votes constitutes 64% of the total sample. On the other hand, it is a close fight between Nintendo (15% will buy Wii) and Sony (13% will buy PS3). Of all the three,  only Xbox 360 is currently out in the market. The other two are scheduled for launch later this year.

A minor segment of the sample (2%) says they would just buy both two upcoming consoles. Finally, 2,233 of the voters just couldn't make their minds up yet and decided to compare the three further. For all we know, this 8% cold very well be the smart ones. Because sometimes, it is just better to wait first and see.

The Retail Radar over at GameSpot spotted this peripheral that should bring back some good, old-fashioned gaming memories to a rather contemporary, cutting-edge platform. Mad Catz's Xbox Live Arcade Retro Stick brings together the dual analog stick controls and buttons of the Xbox controller onto a solid base, and throws in a retro-style arcade joystick (okay, so it's just a long control stick replacing the stubby analog thumb-stick to those of us not old enough to remember the good old days) onto the primary analog to boot.

The peripheral's bound to be great with retro-arcade games like Pac Man and Galaga, bringing that old-school gaming feel to old-school games. The Gamespot article also reports that the stick is pegged for $69.99 (ouch! The past bites back!) but will include one hundred Microsoft points out of the box, a free month-long Live Gold subscription, and three... well, the article mentions that whatever those three were, they were unreadable, but they're guessing free Live Arcade games.

This excited our curiosity, so we decided to run over to the hotlinked EBGames page for the product to check it out.

Guess what we got?

Sorry!
We tried, but we just couldn't find the page you were looking for. If you arrived at this page through a link from another website, please contact that site's administrator to report the dead link. If you were using a bookmark, it's probably outdated, so please return to our homepage and create a new one.

Whoa! That really IS a surprise!

Thank the heavens for Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, and whatever search portal we can get our hands on; we've found indicators of this story elsewhere. Joystiq's reported that EBGames had yanked the Live Arcade Retro Stick page out, probably because it was a leak, and probably because they were still finalizing the details regarding the free games that would be included in the package. And they've reported a new (probable) price: $49.99.

Besides the "probables," they also managed to get an actual screenshot of the product from EB games, before the page got yanked out.

Oh, well. At least that settles the mystery of the disappearing arcade stick.

Bill Gates has announced today that he's to start preparing to leave his full time work as Chairman of Microsoft beginning July 2008. The reason? He wants to prioritize his work for his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This was announced two years in advance because Gates believes that it would give Microsoft enough time for a strong transition and it would be best to provide full transparency regarding this matter.

Microsoft, a company founded by Paul Allen and Gates in 1975, has Steve Ballmer as the CEO since 2000 and will have Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie taking over Gates' current position come 2008.

In his announcement, Bill Gates also said that he won't really be staying away from the company as he will still work part-time for Microsoft although most of his efforts will be shifted to his foundation that focuses on poverty issues and global health.

Hopefully, this announcement will not affect Microsoft negatively, especially at this pivotal time when the company's "packages software dominance is being challenged by Google and Yahoo."