...Google Gets Caffeinated...An Enormous Collection of Apple-Branded Crap...SpongeBob, Answer to Dell's Increasingly Delirious Dreams...Liquid Condoms: 5X Safer, 10X Messier...
As fun as Bing might be, Google still calls the shots around here. So the fact that Goog is "rewriting the foundation of some of [its] infrastructure" is interesting, though not exactly postable. Dubbed Caffeine (because they ran out of cool codenames?), the previously secret initiative will improve speed and comprehensiveness, whatever that means. You can see it here, though "even power users won't notice much of a difference," says Google search engineer Matt Cutts, at least not at first. [Matt Cutts via VentureBeat]
Tadataka Goh is a man of many pursuits. He is a jazz bassist, a collector of a bunch of stuff with Apple logos and Mac images on them, and...well, okay, he's a man of exactly two pursuits. Turns out, in 15 years, the guy spent over $100,000 on Apple collectibles—keychains, coffee mugs, umbrellas, parking cones, all kinds of swag. There's even a Newton Zippo. (Incidentally, "Newton Zippo" was my porn name back in college, which might explain my lack of success.) Most of the stuff is from the 1980s and 1990s—Jon Ive would have a heart attack if he saw all the crap that the precious Apple logo has adorned. Is Goh a man obsessed? Yes. But do I kinda get what he's so excited about? I hate to admit it, but yes, yes I do. [Cult of Mac]
PC sales are down, and Dell is still a few solid percentage points behind HP in market share. The answer? Ninini-ni-nini-ni-ni-nickel-ode-on! Yes, if you can't sell computers with nothing on them but an operating system (and a half-ton of crapware), why not add a familiar face like SpongeBob or iCarly? Dell unveiled two slime-covered Mini 10v-based netbooks with those themes. My only fear is that the themes will go away once I Hackintosh the crap out of the netbook. [Reuters; Engadget]
Condoms have been around since the Middle Ages, when enterprising barbers discovered how good squid carapaces and sheep's stomachs were at blocking witch's spells. Why mess with a good thing, right? Speaking of mess, the newest version of the condom is intended to be poured into the woman's ladybusiness ahead of the action, turning from a liquid to a solid only when it comes in contact with foreign contaminants such as sperm and HIV. This is doubly good news for people who want to avoid unwanted pregnancy and deadly STDs: Not only does it trap the tiniest of viruses, but the whole process is so damn gross, you turn abstinent within minutes. Me, I'm gonna stick with the sheep gut. [New Scientist via PopSci; Image from Wikimedia Commons]