Hasta La Gadget!

Last year, we published the 100 year timeline of the Times Square New Year’s Ball. Now we’ve updated it with Philips’ and New York’s newest, most dazzling time ball ever. (Click image for big version.)

The 2009 New Year’s Ball is 12 feet in diameter and weighs in at 11,875 pounds. It will blind you with 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDs—that’s roughly triple the 9,576 LEDs that the ball had just last year—shining 16 million possible colors through 2,668 Waterford Crystals.

And despite these barely fathomable numbers, the new ball is 20% more energy efficient than last year’s.

To celebrate the century-old tradition (and appease the tourists), the new ball will stay on display all year long in Times Square. So does that mean we can get drunk and celebrate in the streets all year, too? (Yes, yes it does.) Happy New Year! [Times Square Alliance]