This comes as a catch-up to the Sidekick 2009, which comes pre-packaged with free Facebook and Twitter apps. Why the Twitter app needs a monthly fee is a mystery to me, but maybe it's really spectacular. [Thanks, Matt!]

Here we see on of his children throwing caution to the wind and diving head first down the slide. But it's not just the kids having fun:

"We tend to have a lot of the kids' friends around-they're here perhaps more than at some of the other parents' homes," Michaelis says, adding that even grown-ups can't resist skipping the stairs. "We've been known after a big dinner party to use the slide."

No kidding—this is better than an elevator any day. Although, Michaelis' setup doesn't hold up to Rod Miller's spiral stair slide with fiber optic lighting. [Cookie Mag via Bloesem Kids via Neatorama]

Or maybe is this one?

[Thanks Ariel]

But...is it bad that we were waiting/hoping for someone to get hurt? Not like, never walk again hurt—just a solid Jackassian moment with some good old fashioned grass burns. [geekologie]

Of course, RIM has fired out lots of other patents in the past which we've yet to see in reality. So if you're a Blackberry fan who'd love a bigger slide-out keyboard, don't get too excited by this — we suspect you won't be seeing a real product anytime soon. [Reghardware]

Hopefully the keyport people don't take a page from the Optimus' book and gimp the lower-end version so hard that it's essentially worthless. Adding on keys to a keyboard is pretty lame, but adding on keys to a keychain is, well, just as lame. Most of you wouldn't pay $300 for something that consolidates six of your keys into one gadget, but would you pay $50? We would. We'd probably pay even more if they could make one of the keys a knife. Stabby stabby. [Key-Port]

UPDATED T-Mobile USA Statement on Sidekick Slide Motorola has determined that the intermittent power cycling on some T-Mobile Sidekick Slide devices was caused by a minor issue relating to the battery contacts. Motorola also has identified and tested a solution which it will implement for existing devices, and incorporate into newly manufactured ones. T-Mobile expects to begin offering the Sidekick Slide again beginning next week. If a customer has a Sidekick Slide that is experiencing the intermittent power cycle issue, they may contact T-Mobile Customer Care or go to a T-Mobile retail store for assistance and to discuss available options.

On the outside, where it's interesting, is a SureType keyboard that allows much, much faster text input than the crappy stylus/screen combo that the HTC Touch had to suffer with before. Not much other detail other than this, but Modaco seems to think the phone is going to be officially launched on Monday.

Although the slide-out keyboard will make this phone usable for normal people who really don't want to dig around a Windows Mobile touchscreen interface to do anything—which believe us, is very painful—it's not quite enough to bring it up to level of usability that say, an iPhone has. [Modaco]

Sidekick 3 and Sidekick iD users will be able to grab it, and the Sidekick Slide (a.k.a. Zante) will get this installed by default. – Jason Chen

T-Mobile FAQ Page [T-Mobile via Boy Genius Report via Crunchgear]

The Sidekick 4, if these renders are correct, has a wide screen that fills out the entirety of the middle section, and pretty much keeps the same-ish face buttons as the 3. But with great messengers like the Helio Ocean upping the ante for QWERTY phones, what's the next gen going to bring to the table that we haven't already seen? – Jason Chen

Sidekick RAZR, and Sidekick Slide surface [Boy Genius Report via Engadget Mobile]

The folks at the Tate Modern Art Gallery in London have very healthy inner children, fortunately. They've gone ahead and installed gigantic tube slides that run from the top of the building all the way to the ground floor. When I get around to building my own home, you can bet that I'm gonna be installing something very similar.
–Adam Frucci

Baraskit [via Crave]

Q: How much $3, sugarized caffeine water does one have to sell to afford something like this?

They've even got a conference table that looks like a ping pong set...

–Brian Lam

Red Bull London HQ [Mocoloco]