ZDNet UK's 2010: Images of the year

Deep inside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California sits the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

ZDNet UK's sister site CNET News's Daniel Terdiman took a tour of the facility, where scientists are attempting to demonstrate that laser fusion is possible, in the hope that the process can someday be used to generate clean energy.

Pictured above is a view inside the NIF's target chamber, a space easily big enough for technicians to stand inside. The giant NIF system funnels the 192 laser beams into the chamber using a complex infrastructure of power amplifiers, mirrors and more.

The world was gripped by the story of the 33 men trapped in a Chilean mine for more than two months.

The last man was pulled out of the mine via a narrow rescue shaft on 14 October, but less well-reported was the method used by rescuers to communicate with the men underground.

The rescue team employed a 'leaky feeder', a relatively simple device that acts as both an antenna and a feeder pipe. ZDNet UK's editor Rupert Goodwins gave his assessment of the leaky feeder technology, which will eventually be used to bring mobile phone coverage to the London Undergound.

Chipmaker Intel and its partners showed off a range of new technology at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco in September.

Intel took the opportunity to preview its Sandy Bridge processor, while the company's chief technology officer Justin Rattner talked about his vision of context in technology.

IDF keynote presentations normally end with the press invited up to photograph the demo kit, but ZDNet UK has never seen a scrum as insanely dangerous as this. Possessed by one impulse — to photograph the Dell Inspiron Duo flippy-twisty netbook-tablet — the pack surged forwards with such ferocity that they temporarily managed to invade the back of the stage, an area normally guarded by Intel's most massively muscled employees. Our man on the spot, Rupert Goodwins, captured the scene.

Hans-Peter Hildebrandt's image (above) of a wire chamber at Desy, the German electron synchrotron in Hamburg, was one of the winners in this year's Global Particle Physics Photowalk.

As part of the competition, more than 200 photographers went behind the scenes at physics labs in Europe, North America and Asia to capture some awe-inspiring shots of heavy tech at work.

The image above topped an online vote by 1,300 photo fans to take the people's choice prize. It also came second in a global jury vote and first in a local jury competition.

"I am an amateur nature photographer and the subject — technology — was a great challenge," said Hildebrandt, a lead technician at a German manufacturer, in a Photowalk statement. "You don't get to see things like accelerators in tunnels very often."

In June, the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists received its Royal Charter, granted by the queen, in St Paul's Cathedral.

The company is the 100th London Livery Company — originally medieval guilds that regulated industries, they are now mostly social and charitable organisations. The Information Technologists' company is particularly active in education and training, and this ceremony marks its full incorporation into that tradition.

After being bestowed in St Paul's Cathedral, the Charter was carried by the Company in a procession through rush-hour traffic to a substantial banquet.

As the procession walked towards Bank from St Paul's, a distinct surge was detected in the mobile phone networks as pictures and texts about "funny men with sticks" flew to all corners of the world. Pagentry and technology meet in perfect sync.

Photo credit: Rupert Goodwins

In May, Intel took the wraps off Moorestown, a version of its Atom chip for smartphones and mobile internet tablets — and provided ZDNet UK with this eye-catching image.

According to the company, this new generation of Atom is far more power efficient than earlier versions, allowing Intel to get into one of the very few markets dominated by another chip design firm, ARM.

Capgemini's Merlin datacentre is housed within an old 86,000-square-foot warehouse in Swindon.

Made up of four modules that add up to a total datacentre area of 10,000 square feet, the facility can be expanded to a maximum of 12 modules. IT consulting and services provider Capgemini is aiming for the facility to be fully occupied handling IT outsourcing work by June 2011.

ZDNet UK reporter Jack Clark took this image in August, during a visit to the facility. "I like it because it makes datacentres look cool and Blade Runner-esque, and actually gives you an idea of their scale," he said.

Cern and its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has dominated the news in 2010 with a series of breakthroughs.

In March, the LHC made physics history by successfully colliding two beams of very high energy.

Pictured above is the massive end cap for the cylindrical detector in the Compact Muon Spectrometer (CMS) experiment.

With Cern physicists having recently trapped antimatter atoms for the first time, 2011 promises to be another exciting year of physics discoveries.

ZDNet UK's intrepid senior reporter David Meyer went to China in October to look behind the scenes at telecoms manufacturer Huawei.

Along the way, he was treated to a spectacular show on the history of China in Shenzen. For more of David's photos, check out the gallery on ZDNet UK's Facebook page.