Fret not, friends. We have your Friday video after the jump. It's a NERF office war of epic proportions. And it's the best (SFW) thing we've seen online in a while.

Told you. [via ohgizmo]

[Redstone Gallery via Born Rich via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Its 13 floors are far lighter on columns that conventional buildings since the structure supported by its exterior. And rooftop green space dissipates heat while the building harnesses solar and wind power.

But the most impressive part of the Cybertecture Egg may be for its daily inhabitants. Office workers are treated to customizable workspaces that will apparently alter their "view" with the world locale of their choice—so much for all those gorgeous windows. In addition, bathrooms will monitor worker health by measuring weight and blood pressure. And a doctor will be alerted to any drastic changes. [WAN via Inhabitat]

Sleeping:

Generally, when things are slow at work, sleep is the first thing that comes to my mind. This compact Executive Hammock can help you indulge in a serious power nap. Available for $15.99. [1ofakindstuff]

Arts and Crafts:

You might find that downtime at work is a perfect time to indulge in your passions. Take building weapons out of common office supplies for example. It satisfies both your need to create and that stress-induced urge towards violence that is bubbling just underneath the surface. Here we have a lovely rubber band based projectile launcher and a stapler that doubles as a spiked club. [Office Guns and Strange Cosmos]

Desktop Toys/Games:

There are plenty of cool desktop games and toys out there, like the Gangster Shoot Shooting Gallery and the Rollerscape Roller Coaster Construction Set. The objective with Gangster Shoot is simple—you have three lives and a gun. Try and shoot the mobsters before they shoot you. The Rollerscape kit builds on a Tinkertoy theme allowing users to construct complex marble roller coasters. The shooting gallery and the roller coaster construction set are available for $34.95 and $29.99 respectively. [Gangster Shoot and Rollerscape]

Desktop curling? Eh...not so much. Available for around $20. [Alt-Gifts]

Fight Club:

The purpose of Fight Club is to use fighting as a form of psychotherapy. And if you are stuck at work chances are you could use a little stress relief. Pummel your way to happiness by challenging your co-workers to a karate throwdown using these inflatable karate hands and feet or go medieval with the lifesize foam latex warrior weapons set. Available for around $27 and $49-$59 respectively. [Inflatable Karate Set and Lifesize Warrior Weapons]

Throw a Party:

If you are going to throw a serious party in the office the first thing you are going to need is music, which you undoubtedly have stored on a computer or an MP3 player. The next thing you will need is some ambiance. This USB powered Disco Ball and Mirror Ball combo should do the trick nicely. Available for $11.99 and around $21 respectively. [Disco Ball and Mirror Ball]

After ambiance comes beer. The Avanti MBD5L Mini Pub is small enough to fit on a desktop, but it can dispense beer from a standard 5 liter keg and adjust the frostiness of your brew to a temperature of your choosing. Everything you need to get the party started is included for around $200. [Beverage Factory]

How about a little immature live entertainment to keep the party going? The H.E. Fartsalot Musical Butt Puppet plays "Old MacDonald," "Frere Jacques," or "London Bridge," when you insert your hand into his open torso cavity. Available for around $25. [Smutty Gifts]

Pranks:

When all else fails you can always resort to pulling pranks on your co-workers—and this Phantom Keystroker is one of the best by far. Just hook it up to your victim's computer via USB and laugh as it moves their mouse cursor around and types meaningless text at random intervals. If you are not getting anything done, no one is. Available for $24.99. [ThinkGeek via Link]

Lifted from Vwag:

•Office-productivity software that can be had for $119 at Amazon.com, but is likely already installed on a user's computer.

•A "collaboration" service most home users will have no need for

•Windows Live OneCare, a PC-security and maintenance service which Microsoft already sells as a subscription

•Three Web services Microsoft already offers for free

See what I mean? Presumably it makes for a happy, fun-filled workforce. How they ever get time to do any work I don't know. Still, I work from my couch, so I could always put a slide in somewhere, and stick a bunch of beanbags about the place. It wouldn't quite have the same effect, though. [Swissmiss]

With a retractable wand, the Digital Office Assistant can be pulled around to your heart's content, following you to meetings, lunches and bathroom appointments. It probably won't be as handy as conventional assistants in the latter meetings, but at least your lappie will be safe and accessible. What more could you ask for? [Michael Kritzer via BornRich]

On top of Office apps, TellMe, which Microsoft picked up last year, does voice recognition software, mostly for Windows Mobile, but their general manager said that they're "absolutely going to get a version out there as soon as we can, get TellMe out there on the iPhone." So yes, Microsoft plans to be all over your iPhone. [Fortune via AppleInsider]

With April Fools' just around the corner, this could be a funny prank if done properly. Plus, Maximum PC is offering up three other variants on this trick for those looking to do something even more elaborate—and the best part is that it can be completely anonymous. When the victims glance at their caller ID to find out who the asshole is, they will be frustrated to find that the caller is unknown. That means you can quietly take pride in the fact that you are that asshole—without suffering the consequences. [Maximum PC]

The concept is interesting, but I would imagine that it might take a significant amount of time to construct anything on a large scale, not to mention the fact that an entire office made from this stuff would look extremely bizarre. At the very least, one would hope that Bloxes would offer a most cost effective solution that purchasing traditional furniture—but at $60 for a pack of 20 I'm not so sure. [Bloxes via TechCrunch via CNET via Lifehacker]

[Product Page]

Documentation for the API and com protocols for all of those products will be available for free—just today, they're throwing up over 30,000 pages of Windows client and server protocols that were under lock and key. And every protocol still covered by one of their patents will be available for cheap licensing. Office 2007 will be friendlier with other formats as well, in addition to being more open about its own standards.

Finally, they're launching the Open Source Interoperability Initiative to "promote and enable more interoperability between commercial and community-based" wares. They're promising "resources, facilities and events, including lags, plug fests, technical content" and more.

Microsoft Makes Strategic Changes in Technology and Business Practices to Expand Interoperability

New interoperability principles and actions will increase openness of key products.

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Microsoft Corp. today announced a set of broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices to increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

Specifically, Microsoft is implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products: (1) ensuring open connections; (2) promoting data portability; (3) enhancing support for industry standards; and (4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.

"These steps represent an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies," said Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer. "For the past 33 years, we have shared a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners around the world and helped build the industry, but today's announcement represents a significant expansion toward even greater transparency. Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies."

According to Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect, the company's announcement reflects the significance that individuals and businesses place upon the ease of information-sharing. As heterogeneity is the norm within enterprise architectures, interoperability across applications and services has become a key requirement.

"Customers need all their vendors, including and especially Microsoft, to deliver software and services that are flexible enough such that any developer can use their open interfaces and data to effectively integrate applications or to compose entirely new solutions," said Ozzie. "By increasing the openness of our products, we will provide developers additional opportunity to innovate and deliver value for customers."

"The principles and actions announced today by Microsoft are a very significant expansion of its efforts to promote interoperability," said Manfred Wangler, vice president, Corporate Research and Technology, Software and Engineering, Siemens. "While Microsoft has made considerable progress on interoperability over the past several years, including working with us on the Interoperability Executive Customer Council, today's news take Microsoft's interoperability commitment to a whole new level."

"The interoperability principles and actions announced today by Microsoft will benefit the broader IT community," said Thomas Vogel, head, Information Management, Novartis Pharma. "Ensuring open connections to Microsoft's high-volume products presents significant opportunities for the vast majority of software developers, which will help foster greater interoperability, opportunity and choice in the marketplace. We look forward to a constructive, structured, and multilateral dialogue to ensure stakeholder-driven evolution of these principles and actions."

The interoperability principles and actions announced today apply to the following high-volume Microsoft products: Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of all these products. Highlights of the specific actions Microsoft is taking to implement its new interoperability principles are described below.

— Ensuring open connections to Microsoft's high-volume products. To
enhance connections with third-party products, Microsoft will publish
on its Web site documentation for all application programming
interfaces (APIs) and communications protocols in its high-volume
products that are used by other Microsoft products. Developers do not
need to take a license or pay a royalty or other fee to access this
information. Open access to this documentation will ensure that third-
party developers can connect to Microsoft's high-volume products just
as Microsoft's other products do.
— As an immediate next step, starting today Microsoft will openly
publish on MSDN over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows
client and server protocols that were previously available only
under a trade secret license through the Microsoft Work Group Server
Protocol Program (WSPP) and the Microsoft Communication Protocol
Program (MCPP). Protocol documentation for additional products, such
as Office 2007 and all of the other high-volume products covered by
these principles, will be published in the upcoming months.
— Microsoft will indicate on its Web site which protocols are covered
by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on
reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates. To
assist those interested in considering a patent license, Microsoft
will make available a list of specific Microsoft patents and patent
applications that cover each protocol.
— Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers
for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of
these protocols. These developers will be able to use the
documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in
commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be
able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises
that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not
have such a patent license.
— Documenting how Microsoft supports industry standards and extensions.
To increase transparency and promote interoperability, when Microsoft
supports a standard in a high-volume product, it will work with other
major implementers of the standard toward achieving robust, consistent
and interoperable implementations across a broad range of widely
deployed products.
— Microsoft will document for the development community how it
supports such standards, including those Microsoft extensions that
affect interoperability with other implementations of these
standards. This documentation will be published on Microsoft's Web
site and it will be accessible without a license, royalty or other
fee. These actions will allow third-party developers implementing
standards to understand how a standard is used in a Microsoft
product and foster improved interoperability for customers.
Microsoft will make available a list of any of its patents that
cover any of these extensions, and will make available patent
licenses on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
— Enhancing Office 2007 to provide greater flexibility of document
formats. To promote user choice among document formats, Microsoft will
design new APIs for the Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in
Office 2007 to enable developers to plug in additional document formats
and to enable users to set these formats as their default for saving
documents.
— Launching the Open Source Interoperability Initiative. To promote and
enable more interoperability between commercial and community-based
open source technologies and Microsoft products, this initiative will
provide resources, facilities and events, including labs, plug fests,
technical content and opportunities for ongoing cooperative
development.
— Expanding industry outreach and dialogue. An ongoing dialogue with
customers, developers and open source communities will be created
through an online Interoperability Forum. In addition, a Document
Interoperability Initiative will be launched to address data exchange
between widely deployed formats.

The Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council, an advisory organization established in 2006 and consisting mainly of chief information and technology officers from more than 40 companies and government bodies around the world, will help guide Microsoft in its work under these principles and actions. The full text of Microsoft's new Interoperability Principles, and a full list of the actions Microsoft is taking, can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/interoperability/default.mspx.

The interoperability principles and actions announced today reflect the changed legal landscape for Microsoft and the IT industry. They are an important step forward for the company in its ongoing efforts to fulfill the responsibilities and obligations outlined in the September 2007 judgment of the European Court of First Instance (CFI).

"As we said immediately after the CFI decision last September, Microsoft is committed to taking all necessary steps to ensure we are in full compliance with European law," said Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel. "Through the initiatives we are announcing, we are taking responsibility for implementing the principles in the interoperability portion of the CFI decision across all of Microsoft's high-volume products. We will take additional steps in the coming weeks to address the remaining portion of the CFI decision, and we are committed to providing full information to the European Commission so it can evaluate all of these steps."

Yes, Microsoft is looking for people to help test its new "Windows Feedback Program," and isn't afraid to reel people in with bribes. You'll have all of your computer usage tracked for three months, and you'll also need to submit to surveys every two weeks. As long as you don't mind Papa Gates and his menagerie knowing just how often you look at your ex-girlfriends Facebook profile, it's actually a pretty serious amount of free software for almost no work at all on your part. Not that I'll be taking part, mind you. I respect myself and my privacy. But hey, don't let me stop you. I won't tell; your computer will do that for me. [Windows Feedback Program via Notebook Review]

In addition to my duties as a writer for Giz, I am also a certified personal trainer. So I know what its like to work out hard and sit in front of a computer all day. While I always encourage clients to try and work in fitness whenever possible, I have to wonder how practical a device like this would be. Is it really possible to concentrate on your work while furiously stepping on the GZ PC-Sport? Can the stepper get the average person's heart rate elevated enough to really see results? Is using the device going to result in more than just trim calves? Hopefully a hands-on with the device will help to clear things up. [Product Page via Crave]

The workspace includes integrated speakers, a wireless recharging mat for your electronics, and a wireless camera/projector built into the hood for teleconferencing. Another cool thing is that the hood can be lowered and optional contoured furniture can be arranged to fit against the Eclipse system. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go shave and prepare my resume in anticipation of these things. [Yanko Design]

First up is the standard version, the one that's called Office 2000 for Mac, and that has PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Entourage on board for $399. For $100 more, you can get the Special Media Edition that adds Expression Media, which lets you catalog your music and videos. Then there's the slightly crippled Home and Student version for $149, and it won't let you use its Exchange and Automator functions.

This'll be the first Office for Mac that runs natively on Intel Macs, but not to worry, it'll still run on those moldy old PowerPC Macs, too. Let's just hope Microsoft doesn't change the .doc file format in this version like it did in Office 2007, which can be worked around but is still a pain in the ass. [CNET]

The machine works by networking with a dedicated translation server while simultaneously using various programs to distinguish between actual words and, say, a coffee stain. It's not available for mass-production just yet but the pessimist in me says it'll be more useful for a laugh than an actual translation. [DigitalWorldTokyo via UberReview]

Software interface aside IvanAnywhere is a pretty simple creation. In addition to the webcam and computer, he has speakers and a motorized wheelbase emanating from a metal rod. Looks like we're getting closer to co-existing with robots in all facets of life, as depicted in films such as Metropolis. [TheRecord via Make]

Normally, she told us, the slot houses a little plastic arm that prevents the paper from dropping onto the floor. But it's a fragile little piece, so the bods at Samsung decided to remove it just in case any clumsy IFA-goers (ie me) snapped it off. Not that interesting, really because, given the looks, the peephole should hide microscopic laser guns that go "Pew-Pew-Pew-Pew" if they spot a typo. Just a thought.

UPDATE: I've got you some prices for you to get you some printer love. Most of the numbers at IFA are given to us in Euros, but Samsung told us to expect virtually the same price stateside as in Europe. The ML-1630 will cost 229 ($312) and the SCX-4500 349 , or $476.

Located in SoMa, San Francisco, the office looks like The Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, complete with pool table, levers, switches, light fixtures, Dreamcasts, Xbox 360s, and Sony HD LCD TVs. We're not sure curbstomping was on the agenda for Jules Verne, but it was probably going to make it into the sequel.

Head to Wired to see all the other shots. – Jason Chen

Finding Nemo at a Game Studio's Steampunk Office Suite [Wired]

Furthermore, the Webble is about dispelling nervous energy, getting exercise while you work, and annoying the living crap out of your coworkers. – Brian Lam

The Webble [via Mocolococococo]

The chair looks like a normal chair at first, but you can detatch the back or the bottom in order to turn it into a stool, a rocking chair, a tray, a tiny chair or a foot rest. All this at a price of $239, and you've got the perfect chair for college kids. – Jason Chen

Product Page [TreyChair via Gearlog]

Just head over to the download link, grab the file, and install. You'll need the .NET Compact Framework in order for this to work (it's a free download), and in order to create a new create a new document you'll have to open up an empty one and save it as a new document. Weird, but them's the limitations. – Jason Chen

Hack [Thinkabdul]

I think this is self-explanatory. I'm more of a dog person, myself, so I'd have no qualms about having this on my desk. Apparently the cat goes "Meow" when you stick your pencil up its butt, which is not very realistic. Far better that it leap up and down and bite you, then do a poo on the desk. Anyway, the Cat's Arse Pencil Sharpener costs $14. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [I Want One Of Those via UberGizmo]

Femurs are great for holding pens [Medgadget]