Slashdot Mirror

Daniel Eran Dilger noted on roughlydrafted.com that the newly released Apple [INSERT GADGET NAME HERE] would need to be fueled on pain, angst, the destruction of the ecology, the torture of kittens and the tears of widows and orphans, plus Apple Store employees roaming the streets raping children -- but put together a devastatingly convincing and very lengthy explanation as to why Apple's actions were the only humanly acceptable option for the consumer, the technology industry and the future of humanity, that Jobs' Nobel Peace Prize was ridiculously overdue and that black was in fact white and up was in fact down. And that all problems were clearly Microsoft's fault.

Illustration: Apple iButtPlug.

The Windows 7 drinking game:

• One shot for every "ethnic" face in an install graphic.
• An extra shot if it's pasted over the head of a white person.
• One shot for every white face pasted over the head of a non-white person.
• One shot for every program with the Office 2007 "ribbon" toolbar stuck on it completely inappropriately.
• One shot for every exciting "new" feature thatâ(TM)s been in Mac OS and Linux for the past five years.
• An extra shot if the exciting "new" featureâ(TM)s been in Mac OS and Linux for the past ten years.
• One shot every time you reboot during the install.
• One shot every time the system asks to reboot just because it feels like it.
• Two shots every time it reboots even though you said "no."
• One shot every time it refuses to let you access a file even though you, as administrator, created it.
• Drain the bottle if there's an actual feature that makes Windows 7 so much better than sticking with XP that you'll spend actual money to get it.
• A bitter mouthful every time the system blue-screens.

(Source link)

I'm thinking of buying a netbook as a second machine for net access and mobile broadband. Should I get one with XP or can I run Linux?
M Shuttleworth

Linux has an apparently friendly front end, but is very demanding if you go any deeper. Linux is like the Mooncup: a nice idea, but messy and not for the squeamish. In fact, Linux can be likened to a Mooncup-using redhaired hippie girlfriend who lives in a house in the country she built herself from twigs and has very strong ideas on how everything should be and has all her original body hair. The sex is fantastic, but only if she thinks the astrological conditions are perfect. The house has a hand-dug latrine, so she's propped a toilet bowl on top and thinks that's "user friendliness."

No, no. You would far prefer Windows. That's like a nice normal bottle-blonde girlfriend who has a proper office job and dresses cleanly from Primark and has a sweet smile and lives in a proper bedsit and knows everyone and how to act normally and is accepted in society. She gets headaches a lot and fits of rage where she smashes everything and there's an odd smell of decaying human flesh coming from the drains and the toilet backs up every now and then filling the entire block with sewage and bits of bodies, but this is entirely normal and nothing to worry about.

My four-year-old PowerBook G4 is putting itself into sleep mode and refusing to wake up. It gives a very unfriendly beep and a black screen when it is turned on. Taking out and replacing the memory will eventually bring it to life.
S Jobs

This is a known fault in the Macintosh line, where the keyboards were dipped in vats of herpes virus before being shipped. Mac OS X is well known to induce symptoms similar to tertiary syphilis in long-term users -- ask anyone with Mac-using friends. The G4 has an old PowerPC chip, and is obsolete because Apple has long since moved to Intel chips. So at least you can run a proper operating system like Vista on the new ones.

I have a PC bought from Dell, a proper computer company, and am running Microsoft(tm) Windows(tm) Vista(tm) Service Pack 1(tm). It's the best operating system ever in the entire universe and I can do anything those annoying Mac users and Linux nerds can. And Windows 7(tm) will be even better! I don't have a problem, I just wanted to tell you this to piss off those annoying anti-Microsoft trolls who keep commenting on your Guardian column.
J Schofield

This is an excellent start to a perfect computing experience. Make sure you have only genuine Microsoft software on the system, and donâ(TM)t ever use Firefox in case your penis shrinks -- Internet Explorer 8 guarantees you will get many useful email offers for a greatly increased penis with incredible sperm production capability. Also, Google will invade your privacy and put pictures of you masturbating on Google StreetView, so only use Bing. Happy surfing!

An actual photo of the Zune HQ iPod amnesty bin. Note that all the iPods are the same model, current at the time of the Zune release. No doubt pure coincidence.

"Astroturfing word of mouth is difficult," said Cylon Number Six from Waggener Edstrom, "but we've been careful to get all our partners and MVPs on the case. Here's the invitation:"

Dear INSERT NAME HERE,

Come to our supar l33t party! It'll have "balloons" and "games" and "family friendly" fun and really easy setting up, nudge nudge, wink wink! Plug and play, my friend. Plug and play. Don't forget your ... anti-virus. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.

The hosts of the best Windows 7 House Parties will win a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition. The runners-up will get a leftover copy of Vista.

The Windows 7 drinking game will include:

• One shot for every "ethnic" face in an install graphic.
• An extra shot if it's pasted over the head of a white person.
• One shot for every white face pasted over the head of a non-white person.
• One shot for every program with the Office 2007 "ribbon" toolbar stuck on it completely inappropriately.
• One shot for every exciting "new" feature that's been in Mac OS and Linux for the past five years.
• An extra shot if the exciting "new" feature's been in Mac OS and Linux for the past ten years.
• One shot every time you reboot during the install.
• One shot every time the system asks to reboot just because it feels like it.
• Two shots every time it reboots even though you said "no."
• Drain the bottle if there's an actual feature that makes Windows 7 so much better than sticking with XP that you'll spend actual money to get it.
• A bitter mouthful every time the system blue-screens.

"There's a party in your ass," said Number Six, "and we're going to ... I'm sorry, I picked up the wrong cue sheet. The Wow starts NOW! Hold on ... Windows 7! It sucks less! Honest! Yeah, that's the one."

Seven million Britons face having their internet connection cut off and fines of up to GBP50,000 as Digital Britain is implemented.

Lord Carter, the report's author, has now left the Government for consultancies unknown. Lord Mandelson, who has taken over responsibility for digital policy, has been persuaded of the need for a tougher approach after entreaties from starving music mogul David Geffen, who was introduced to him by the Rothschild family. "He warned me in 2001 that these 'MP3 players' would lead to the downfall of civilisation. I understand iPods were popular in the City just before the Great Recession, you know."

Internet piracy is estimated by the movie and music industries to cost them around GBP1.4 billion squillion zillion a year, ripped untimely from their generous artist-supporting pockets.

Critics have compared the proposals to King Canute, failing to turn back the tide. "So it's up to the Government to supply the sandbags. We have an industry to defend!"

Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, will require Internet providers to record users downloading illegal content. The magical copyright detector, which the music industry just knows the ISPs are being obstructive in not enabling immediately, will be used to send a massive voltage up through serious repeat offenders' Internet connections and into their chairs.

Labour backbencher Tom Watson said the sanctions would attach an "unbearable burden" on an emerging technology with the power to transform society. "Sounds just fine to me," said Lord Mandelson.

Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East, will be in charge of the party's Internet campaigning ahead of the general election. "Voters will increasingly be searching the web to find out what we think about the issues. If we haven't cut them off."

In other news, membership of the Pirate Party UK, launched earlier in the week, has been increasing at 100 new members per hour.

After a minor shipping delay, flying cars have arrived for all. As of today, all major cities also feature moving pavements and weather control and commuter flights to the Moon will be commencing tomorrow.

Earth President Barack Obama welcomed the representatives of the Galactic Brotherhood to Washington, assuring them that the many wars on Earth were now to be conducted entirely by robots, though the robots would be carefully monitored and pulled out of battle and granted citizenship the moment they achieved sentience. He also offered the galactics free access to Google, with only the requirement for tasteful contextually-attuned text advertising to be imprinted on their DNA.

The reactionary forces of the twentieth-century United States finally conceded defeat and shut down the Five-Year Plan Tractor Plants of Detroit, where ridiculous oversized transport was bashed together by semi-literate peasants between fifths of vodka from the nerve gas factory next door, and the Five-Year Plan Software Plants of Redmond, where ridiculous oversized operating systems were bashed together by semi-numerate fresh graduates between fifths of Red Bull. The record and movie company back catalogues have been placed into the public domain for the preservation of human culture and the comic-book capitalists of Wall Street have been sent to calming, soothing, humanistic re-education facilities. "We'll teach them to love again," said Mr Obama.

Robot housecleaners are now universally available at quite reasonable prices. The robot companion for your child, designed to say "I LOVE YOU" while the child hits it repeatedly, was an early release for Christmas 2007. The new model features the voice of Justin Fletcher from CBeebies and is designed for parents to hit repeatedly.

Future innovations for the century include the rise of the Great Old Ones from their eternal sleep to take back the Earth and consume the souls of all humanity, first driving them slowly insane. The citizenry is being prepared for this eventuality using repeated broadcasts of Teletubbies, Waybuloo and In The Night Garden.

The Home Office has announced new security measures for identity cards.

"The biometrics, chip and PIN, RFID transponder, fingerprint-reader, real-time spectroscopic DNA analyser and two-way radio that demands 'papers please!' in a cod-German accent inexplicably failed to completely eliminate crime or identity fraud or stop terrorism," said Home Secretary For Life Jacqui Smith, "so we're getting back to the basics of PFI-funded governmental identity management: magic beans, pixie dust and snake oil. EDS Capita Goatse's experience in these areas is unparalleled."

Identification procedures have duly been enhanced. Magic beans are squashed into the paper driving licence, producing a pixie-dust effect when inspected by the police. Day-to-day purchases are made smoother by the snake oil, with the pixie-dust glow authenticating the transaction. Frequenters of brothels will be able to require the prostitute to wave her identity card at them and be reassured by the pixie-dust glitter certifying her bona fides as a legal resident.

The requirements for getting a bank account -- a retinal scan, hair clippings, 250 millilitres of blood and three documents for every address change since twenty years before your birth -- remain unchanged.

The new identity card weighs thirty-five kilograms. All UK residents must carry it everywhere at all times and produce it on demand of council bin inspectors or any higher official.

It's August, the best of times when you're a space-filler generator in IT journalism, as every other media outlet turns into a gaping void at least as bad as ourselves. This leads to the inevitable debate: which is the best operating system, Windows 7 or Snow Leopard?

To help determine that, I've put both operating systems through their paces, selected categories for a head-to-head competition, and then chosen a winner in each category.

Operating system name: Windows 7 gets lots of page hits and comments from individual Microsoft fans who, it's true, just happen to be employed by Microsoft's PR company, but are completely independent in their thinking. Snow Leopard attracts Apple cultists, freshly charged from reading a novel-length apologia at RoughlyDrafted and all set to refute perceived calumnies and smite the unbeliever. Tie.

Upgrading: Windows 7 has an insanely complicated upgrade graph, whereas Snow Leopard's is: "put the disk in the computer." The former is way better for extended articles on how it's even easier to do a complicated Windows upgrade process by hand than it was going from XP to Vista and saves us lots of work thinking of things to write. Apple just fail to provide us material. Advantage: Windows 7.

Presentation: Windows 7 has the thoroughly reworked taskbar and the beautiful fonts and polish of Vista. Mac OS X has minor variations on the same interface it's had for eight years. Windows 7 looks just way more exciting in screenshots in tech press articles. Advantage: Windows 7.

Improvements: Microsoft made Windows 7 as backwards-compatible with Vista as possible, down to application performance and memory usage. They did dazzling things with the presentation of all this functionality, putting everything you use every day into exciting new places, with helpful new names. Apple, on the other hand, focused largely on internal plumbing and security. It's just dull, boys. How are we supposed to puff this up? C'mon, meet us half way here. Advantage: Windows 7.

Price: The Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade is $120 on Amazon, whereas Snow Leopard is $29. Apple just aren't putting enough value on their products. Do you want people thinking it's just cheap garbage? Advantage: Windows 7.

Enterprise readiness: No-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft. If you get a Mac, however, your co-workers will conspire against you and probably steal it. With Windows 7, you can be sure no-one else will ever want to touch your computer. Advantage: Windows 7.

System configuration: Microsoft gave me this laptop with only eight CPU cores and 16 gigabytes of memory to show just how good Windows 7 was on such low-end hardware. We had to buy a Mac to do this test on, because Apple just didn't understand the promotional advantages of giving me a shiny new 17" MacBook just because I wanted one. So I got a second-hand Mac Mini for a fair comparison. It's clear that Microsoft understand the needs of modern information technology journalism perfectly. They also sent over their PR people Candy, Brandi and Bimbi to help me with my Windows setup all last night. Apple just completely don't get it Advantage: Windows 7.

(just posted)

Microsoft has said it may ditch Vista the moment Windows 7 comes out! They've since backtracked - but we need to make sure they know our feelings.

Windows 7 is CASTRATED APPEASEMENT to soy latte-sipping girly-men who wish they owned a Mac. We want a REAL operating system. An operating system that PERSONIFIES America's INDUSTRIAL MIGHT. That makes you feel AWE at the MAJESTY of the progress of its operation. VISTA is a monument to everything that makes us the country we are!

Like Chrysler, like Hummer, like Edsel - "Vista" is a name that will be remembered as the greatest operating system in Microsoft's history.

Just Say "No" To Seven -

SAVE VISTA!

Original blog post.

"I fully support this initiative. My computer business employs 200 people; the best possible thing for it is to make sure Vista continues and goes forward." - M. Shuttleworth, London

"I can't tell you how much Vista has done for my business. So many people depend on it." - S. Jobs, Cupertino

"Vista is the one thing that will keep people seeking out and using systems that are at the forefront of technology. It's been the best thing for all of us." - L. Torvalds, Portland.

"I'm ... I'm touched. *sob* I didn't think anyone cared. You guys. Developers! *sob*" - S. Ballmer, Seattle.

Facebook group .

Google, the world's largest non-evil corporation, has released Google Books Stalkertude(tm), which allows you to share your location, your reading, your DNA and your tastes in porn in real time with your dearest friends from all your social networks and blogs, that guy your friend gave your LiveJournal username to when you were both drunk and anyone you've ever sent or received a message to or from on GMail. And your boss.

Google Books Stalkertude(tm) allows you to broadcast where you are and what you're thinking about at all times. It supports all current smartphones except that stupid iThing from Cupertino. If you're using Google Chrome, you can automatically share your location from your laptop too! The laptop maintains and archives a complete record of your life in text, video and audio form with the twelve built-in webcams and microphones dotted around the casing, plus samples of your DNA from the keys. The data is transmitted to the Google servers for your comfort and convenience and remains absolutely and entirely confidential between you and Google's marketing department. Tasteful and understated text ads are subliminally woven into the display pixels.

Privacy features are important to Google Books Stalkertude(tm). You can trust us with your entire life record, even as we argue in court over Google StreetView that privacy doesn't exist in the modern world. Besides, better we have your complete dossier than Microsoft, right? And we'll only give it to the government if they, like, ask for it or something. That we've gathered so much data on you in the first place is in no way a danger to you. We promise we won't tell your husband, and that's what counts.

Rupert Murdoch, speaking out on the news business, stated today that "the free access model is clearly malfunctioning, as I don't make enough money from it."

Media commentators fear for the future of investigative journalism. "How can we hold governments' feet to the fire without money to pay our great reporters? Where would you get your recycled wire feeds, your Garfield cartoons?"

"We have to educate people that free doesn't work, particularly for us. So the BBC should give me free money. How about a bailout? And Google. Free money please. Go on, gi's it."

Illustration: my precioussssss.

VICTORIA, Steampunk Britain, Thursday -- An all-out Microsoft rocket attack on Google's London office yesterday caused a small fire from a ruptured gas cylinder, a reminder of the browser and search engine wars and Microsoft's overwhelming might.

The six-story-tall Microsoft mecha, approaching from the direction of Victoria Station, unleashed an all-out attack, belching amusing farts of smoke from its Zune HD assault flamethrowers, before halting with an E74 error and collapsing onto the top of the building, where Google employees were enjoying their regular Thursday afternoon barbecue roasting a Snow Leopard on a spit.

Four fire engines and twenty firefighters in hazmat suits were sent out after reports of Vista fumes in the area.

The attack came a day after a Microsoft suicide car bomber killed seven cockroaches and gave himself a papercut when his car computer bluescreened. Microsoft disclaimed responsibility, asserting it was a completely independent suicide commando who only coincidentally happened to be in the pay of their PR agency.

The BBC has reported Microsoft's complete victory in the battle, with extensive Zune downloads in Silverlight format of the victorious Seattle Revolutionary Army in action.

Illustration: The destruction of the Isengard data centre

$NEWSPAPER has asked the Government to examine Google News and other content aggregators, claiming they contribute insufficiently to their income.

"The newspapers put their content up on the web for free and then Google, the freeloading bastards, tell people where to find it. We told them to pay up or stop using our stuff, and they said OK, they'd stop using our stuff!

"We need the Government to bring back balance, 'balance' defined as being able to make them give us money because we want it. You'd think the Internet wasn't invented to give newspapers and record companies free money!"

$NEWSPAPER argues that traffic from search engines doesn't make up the cost of producing the content. "Ad revenue has collapsed, so search engine traffic doesn't bring in enough views to pay for itself. Our inability to sell ads is clearly Google's problem."

$NEWSPAPER suggests the exploration of new models that "require fair acknowledgement of the value that our content creates, both on our own site through advertising and 'at the edges' in the world of search and aggregation. Basically, they should just give us money because we want it. And the music industry too. How about a bailout? Go on, gi's it."

Illustration: "My preciousssss!"

Illustration: The new accurate Xbox 360 logo

Microsoft has discounted the entry-level Doesn't-Do-Much Xbox 360 to $200 from Friday, $50 cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. (This will translate to a GBP250 price point in the UK.)

"We are thrilled to be the first next-generation console on the market with a big 'Microsoft' logo on it to reach $199, a price that invites everyone to enjoy Xbox 360," said Aaron Greenberg, marketing marketer for Xbox. He says this will cause a "smash and grab" mentality amongst consumers. "And not 'grab and smash' as they throw it out the window when it gets a red ring of death again."

The models that actually play anything worth playing will, of course, stay at $300 and $400. "But history shows that more than 75 percent of all console sales happen after the price falls below the $200 mark. Which would be the PS2, PSP and DS ... uh, forget I said that."

Greenberg assures consumers that the new cheap Xbox 360s will not be refurbished red ring of death casualties. "Not all of them. Honest. However, twenty Xbox lifts every morning will be much better exercise than Wii Fit."

Microsoft Japan is already actually paying people to take the machines, with little success. "We hope more people will be able to enjoy Xbox 360," said marketing marketer Takashi Sensui, "and we can stop enjoying quite so many of them. We also have this fine pile of HD-DVD drives ... Wait! Come back!"

Greenberg further assured consumers that "the Xbox 360 will kick the PS3's ass every way from Friday, you wait and see." Nintendo were unable to comment in time for this story as they were still too busy trying to make Wiis fast enough to keep them in the shops.

Baron Mandelson, 679, of Transylvania, smiled for the cameras, only having to reconstitute himself twice when the flashes dissolved him into dust. "I only enter where I am invited," he said in sepulchral Eurocratic tones. "When I am called upon, I shall return."

Labour MPs rushed to greet the chief architect of New Labour, many carrying wooden stakes, garlic and crosses.

Mr Mandelson has had a chequered career in office. Previous Cabinet terms have ended with unfortunate resignations due to being beheaded by angry villagers, burnt at the stake, wrapped in chains and thrown to the bottom of the Volga and, in one case, nuked from orbit.

Seven million Britons face having their internet connection cut off and fines of up to GBP50,000 as Steampunk Britain

is implemented.

Lord Carter, the report's author, has now left the Government for consultancies unknown. Lord Mandelson, who has taken over responsibility for digital policy, has been persuaded of the need for a tougher approach after entreaties from starving music mogul David Geffen, who was introduced to him by the Rothschild family. "He warned me in 2001 that these 'MP3 players' would lead to the downfall of civilisation. I understand iPods were popular in the City just before the Great Recession, you know."

Internet piracy is estimated by the movie and music industries to cost them around GBP1.4 million billion squillion a year, ripped untimely from their generous artist-supporting pockets.

Critics have compared the proposals to King Canute, failing to turn back the tide. "So it's up to the Government to supply the sandbags. We have an industry to defend!"

Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, will require Internet providers to record users downloading illegal content. The magical copyright detector, which the music industry just knows the ISPs are being obstructive in not enabling immediately, will be used to send a massive voltage up through serious repeat offenders' Internet connections and into their chairs.

Labour backbencher Tom Watson said the sanctions would attach an "unbearable burden" on an emerging technology with the power to transform society. "Sounds just fine to me," said Lord Mandelson.

Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East, will be in charge of the party's Internet campaigning ahead of the general election. "Voters will increasingly be searching the web to find out what we think about the issues. If we haven't cut them off."

In other news, membership of the Pirate Party UK, launched earlier in the week, has been increasing at 100 new members per hour.

The online user-generated social networking site Wikipedia and the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica are both considering radical changes in how they are run.

Wikipedia is proposing a software change that would see revisions on some articles being approved before they went live on the site. "Our featured articles on subjects such as 4chan cannot be sullied with false reports and vandalism BUSH IS GAY LOLOLOLOL," said Jimmy Wales.

The change has proven controversial. "It's a slippery slope," said administrator WikiFiddler451 (real name WikiViolin451). "I don't see how we can reasonably keep the Pokemon and Naruto entries sufficiently up-to-date and welcoming of new contributors. I understand the queue for edits to go live could be up to an hour. The occasional accusation of paedophilia against minor public figures in the page thatâ(TM)s top Google hit on their name is a small price to pay for the most up-to-date neutrality."

Meanwhile, the Encyclopaedia Britannica has considered adopting "wiki"-like methods (from the Hawaiian word "wikiwiki," meaning "your proposed edit is stalled on a six-month discussion by obsessive nerds who failed a Turing test and speak entirely in WP:INITIALISMS"), particularly when it comes to their publicity. Under the plan, readers and contributing experts from Encyclopedia Dramatica will help expand and maintain press releases about those deemed "suppressive" by the editorial board, comparing them to public toilets and assorted unflattering Internet memes, and darkly insinuating that Google only pushes Wikipedia because theyâ(TM)re in it for the money.

Illustration: The hammer of Wiki crushes j00!

The Greater London Assembly is introducing CCTV cameras claimed to "predict" if a crime is about to take place and alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering, apparent thought in public, walking while brown or not spending money fast enough.

Anyone spotted may then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer. "Tough on lack of consumer confidence, tough on the causes of lack of consumer confidence," said Nick Hewitson of EDS Capita Goatse SmartCCTV. ("Consumer confidence" is a technical economics jargon term measuring willingness to casually spend ridiculous sums of cash on idiotic rubbish, particularly while drunk.)

"Only a criminal terrorist paedophile with something to hide could possibly object," said councillor Jason Fazackarley. "Criminals will pay much better attention to their dress and grooming with cameras there. Channel 4 has tentatively offered us a reality TV show. And Channel 5 would quite like the tapes of drunken shagging in shop delivery bays."

The project has been compared to the Tom Cruise science-fiction film Minority Report, in which psychic journalists are arrested on CCTV before they commit the crime of not peppering articles with the most obvious possible cliches copied from other papers.

However, Stephen Fry has delivered a crushing blow to the project with an unfortunately-timed negative review on his Twitter feed: "++ungood crimethink brb txtspk lol."

After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with anything Apple or AT&T might vaguely think about in the far future and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) as a corporate policy.

"Fuck it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it's pretty and it's cool and it works. It's not like you'll go back to Windows Mobile. Ha! Ha!"

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! Asshole."

"Of course, we're still not evil," said Sergey Brin of Google. "You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. I mean, 'Bing.' Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."

"We are so, so happy with Google Chrome," mumbled Mozilla CEO John Lilly through gritted teeth. "That most of our income is from Google has no bearing on me making this statement."

Microsoft was unfazed. "Browsers don't need to be integrated with online apps," said marketing developer Ian Moulster. "Certainly not like the operating system ... I'll just get back to you."

Google's new browser will give you their web and email services, photo processing, mapping, office applications that will run in said browser and will make you a cup of tea. This is all paid for by personally-directed text ads in your tea leaves, based on analysing a DNA sample taken when you sip the tea and sending your genetic code back to Google for future targeting.

Pichai stressed that Google would maintain complete confidentiality within the marketing department of whatever the browser accessed concerning your confidential business data, bank account details, medical information and personal preferences in pornography. "We're Google. We know where you live. In a completely not evil way. Sponsored link: Get Chrome Browsers on google.com. Or we'll make you use Bing."

It'd go something like this ... (and this would be the logo)

Microsoft has announced its long-rumoured handheld XBox gaming console, to compete with the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS.

"The GameBoy will be wiped out by this!" said marketing marketer Shane Kim. The console, to be named the ZuneX ("we wanted a really evocative brand that would set the tone straight away") will integrate with XBox Live Arcade and the Zune music store and have phone capabilities.

"Weâ(TM)re also looking at instant-on, 1080p high-definition, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix deals, Project Natal, Windows 7, Internet Explorer 6, downloadable rings of death in every possible color ... nothing will hold a candle to the ZuneX. Google and Apple will be quaking in fear." The E74 error will also be updated to E75.

The device will be two feet by three feet and weigh twenty-four pounds. "That's an important feature. Wii Fit just canâ(TM)t compete with the rippling abs the ZuneX will give you." The device is fully portable within the length of the twenty-foot three-phase 415 volt power cable.

President Barack Obama has asked Americans not to believe "rumors" that his health reform initiatives will lead to a government-run health care system, push Medicare recipients to die rather than run up their bill or lead to widespread euthanasia of the Republican "base."

"Let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, or cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover," said Mr Obama. "That's simply not true. Furthermore, our proposed tests would still rule Sarah Palin as being human and actually alive, despite the evidence from the brain machines."

Sarah Palin has spoken in horror of the centralised "death boards" she says Obama wishes to introduce, instead of the ones that individual hospitals run now to send people home to die when their money runs out. "Scientists like Stephen Hawking would have been killed off by the National Health Service," she said, "if they'd grown up in Eng-er-land!"

Peter Ferrara from Fox News refused to buy Mr Obama's claims. "The Obama health plan is based on evidence -- but evidence leads to science, and science leads to Darwinian evolution being applied to you and yours! He'll raise health costs, make freedom of choice illegal, ration health care and build a machine feeding illegal aliens in luxury on the corpses of aborted Republican babies, sacrificed in a gay Muslim Kenyan ceremony. You can buy my book on it at heartland.org for just $19.99. Call now! Operators standing by!"

Microsoft has discounted the entry-level Doesn't-Do-Much Xbox 360 to $200 from Friday, $50 cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. (This will translate to a GBP250 price point in the UK.)

"We are thrilled to be the first next-generation console on the market with a big 'Microsoft' logo on it to reach $199, a price that invites everyone to enjoy Xbox 360," said Aaron Greenberg, marketing marketer for Xbox. He says this will cause a "smash and grabâ mentality amongst consumers. "And not 'grab and smash' as they throw it out the window when it gets a red ring of death again."

The models that actually play anything worth playing will, of course, stay at $300 and $400. "But history shows that more than 75 percent of all console sales happen after the price falls below the $200 mark. Which would be the PS2, PSP and DS ... uh, forget I said that."

Greenberg assures consumers that the new cheap Xbox 360s will not be refurbished red ring of death casualties. "Not all of them. Honest. However, twenty Xbox lifts every morning will be much better exercise than Wii Fit."

Microsoft Japan is already actually paying people to take the machines, with little success. "We hope more people will be able to enjoy Xbox 360," said marketing marketer Takashi Sensui, "and we can stop enjoying quite so many of them. We also have this fine pile of HD-DVD drives ... Wait! Come back!"

Greenberg further assured consumers that "the Xbox 360 will kick the PS3's ass every way from Friday, you wait and see." Nintendo were unable to comment in time for this story as they were still too busy trying to make Wiis fast enough to keep them in the shops.

Illustration: the new official Xbox 360 logo.

GAMESCOM, Ichiyaga Camp, Tuesday -- Sony is releasing the new PlayStation 3 Slim across Europe in early September, the company hoping that anyone will remember the PS3 still exists.

The new light-weight version is two-thirds of the size and weight, only requiring a single, much smaller, extra room built onto your house, fitted with 13-amp 405-volt three-phase power. The new, more compact enriched uranium fuel rods are not supplied.

PlayStation chief Kazuo Hirai made the announcement at the GamesCom conference in Cologne, in a move widely seen as an attempt to regain momentum in the battle against rival Microsoft and put off having to ritually disembowel himself with a sword. "Our competition is absolutely the XBox 360. That's the one to beat! Thank God they didn't build a box that worked, we'd have real trouble if they had."

The PS3 has struggled thanks to its high price and lack of games, not to mention competition from the Nintendo Wii, which, apart from costing half as much, is actually fun. The Sony console did, however, have spectacular launches in Japan and America, with tens of fans queuing through the night to get their hands on the console, particularly with their Sony employee discount. The machines sold at only half the price on eBay soon after.

Baron Mandelson, 679, of Transylvania, smiled for the cameras, only having to reconstitute himself twice when the flashes dissolved him into dust. "I only enter where I am invited," he said in sepulchral Eurocratic tones. "When I am called upon, I shall return."

Labour MPs rushed to greet the chief architect of New Labour, many carrying wooden stakes, garlic and crosses.

Mr Mandelson has had a chequered career in office. Previous Cabinet terms have ended with unfortunate resignations due to being beheaded by angry villagers, burnt at the stake, wrapped in chains and thrown to the bottom of the Volga and, in one case, nuked from orbit.

Lord Peter Mandelson has become deputy prime minister in the latest cabinet reshuffle, one of the highest positions held by an unelected politician in recent times. Joining him is Sir Alan Sugar, to become Lord Sugar, as enterprise secretary.

"Elections are so passe," said Lord Mandelson, "don't you think? Look at the EU vote. They couldn't think of any proper parties to vote for, so the few who showed up and could, you know, work a pencil voted in the Nazis and those UKIP idiots.

"Clearly, elections are an idea whose time has passed. We need to get back to a monarchy with a solid system of courtiers. Thus, only the unelected can join the cabinet and, in due course, become Prime Minister. Or Grand Vizier, as I prefer to call the role."

Lord Mandelson reassured everyone that Gordon Brown had seen off the latest round of attackers with knives for his back and that Mr Brown was safe in his position for at least another week. "But should he take ill or otherwise be unavoidably detained, in a dungeon or tower or similar, you will be comforted to know that strictly temporary succession plans are firmly in place and he has a deputy ready to do the job pro tempore. Just in case it should prove unfortunately necessary. The moves to allow life peers to relinquish their peerage and, say, re-enter Parliament via a safe seat, are entirely coincidental, though we may sadly have to employ them, say, next year. Purely hypothetically."

Lord Mandelson also reassured everyone that Lord Sugar was not merely waiting for the right moment to break the news to Mr Brown. "Or the cameras."

Seven million Britons face having their internet connection cut off and fines of up to GBP50,000 as Digital Britain is implemented.

Lord Carter, the report's author, has now left the Government for consultancies unknown. Lord Mandelson, who has taken over responsibility for digital policy, has been persuaded of the need for a tougher approach after entreaties from starving music mogul David Geffen, who was introduced to him by the Rothschild family. "He warned me in 2001 that these 'MP3 players' would lead to the downfall of civilisation. I understand iPods were popular in the City just before the Great Recession, you know."

Internet piracy is estimated by the movie and music industries to cost them around GBP1.4 squillion zillion a year, ripped untimely from their generous artist-supporting pockets.

Critics have compared the proposals to King Canute, failing to turn back the tide. "So it's up to the Government to supply the sandbags. We have an industry to defend!"

Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, will require Internet providers to record users downloading illegal content. The magical copyright detector, which the music industry just knows the ISPs are being obstructive in not enabling immediately, will be used to send a massive voltage up through serious repeat offenders' Internet connections and into their chairs. Labour backbencher Tom Watson said the sanctions would attach an "unbearable burden" on an emerging technology with the power to transform society. "Sounds just fine to me," said Lord Mandelson.

Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East, will be in charge of the partyâ(TM)s Internet campaigning ahead of the general election. "Voters will increasingly be searching the web to find out what we think about the issues. If we haven't cut them off."

In other news, the Pirate Party UK, launched earlier in the week, has been increasing its size at 100 new members per hour.

Only 98% of Twitter updates are "pointless babble," says a new report that studied 2,000 tweets over a period of two weeks.

The top category was "pointless babble" tweets, with nearly 98% of tweets being inanity no sane person could want to read, retweets of inanity, links to inanity, retweets of links to inanity and retweets of retweets of links to links to the reretweet itself. And camera phone pictures of bowel movements on Twitpic.

Almost 2% was Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman or retweets thereof and the rest was Warren Ellis posting scatological abuse of his fans.

Botnet command messages were becoming more popular, many disguised as combinations of the syllables "lol" "wtf" "d00d" "RT" and "#fb" or scatological abuse of Warren Ellis's fans.

Twitter's demographics as of June 2009 were 55% female, 43% ages 18 to 34, 78% white, and 99.5% of such short attention spans that Facebook might as well be War and Peace. Botnet readership was considered likely to rise as soon nothing with organic intelligence would be able to cope.

Twitter recently redesigned its homepage, changing the tag "What are you doing now?" to "Post tomorrow's CNN headlines, particularly about #goatse."

And they're so much work to change!

On the upside, attacks of flying penises are all but unknown. Nearly.

I made one based on 4chan.

Humanity: LOLBOT! HOW DO WE REVERSE ENTROPY?
LOLbot: i dunno lol

[to be posted uh tomorrow, probably]

Only 98% of Twitter updates are "pointless babble," says a new report that studied 2,000 tweets over a period of two weeks.

The top category was "pointless babble" tweets, with nearly 98% of tweets being inanity no sane person could want to read, retweets of inanity, links to inanity, retweets of links to inanity and retweets of retweets of links to links to the reretweet itself. And camera phone pictures of bowel movements on Twitpic.

Almost 2% was Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman or retweets thereof and the rest was Warren Ellis posting scatological abuse of his fans.

Botnet command messages were becoming more popular, many disguised as combinations of the syllables "lol" "wtf" "d00d" "RT" and "#fb" or scatological abuse of Warren Ellis's fans.

Twitter's demographics as of June 2009 were 55% female, 43% ages 18 to 34, 78% white, and 99.5% of such short attention spans that Facebook might as well be War and Peace. Botnet readership was considered likely to rise as soon, nothing with organic intelligence would be able to cope.

Twitter recently redesigned its homepage, changing the tag "What are you doing now?" to "Post tomorrow's CNN headlines, particularly about #goatse."

Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular "preview porn videos in the search engine" feature and turning its Bob Hope "decision engine" into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com, that loads automatically in Internet Explorer whenever you go to a site that doesn't exist.

"It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It's a natural synergy," said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users' systems. "It's all about tools," said Mr Ballmer, looking rather too excited. "Our tools have amazed people for decades. Microsoft are famous for the biggest and best tools ever. Developers! Developers! Developers! DEVELOPEEERS!"

Internet Explorer 8 is a vital part of the promotion. After a competition that advertises IE8's superior standards compliance with a site that deliberately breaks all other browsers, a programme to donate eight free meals for the poor for every IE8 download (with the cost of the meals being 10% of the spend on promoting them) and a string of free porn sites requiring a Silverlight download to watch the smut, IE8 Service Pack 1 will include a "boot straight into porn" mode. "We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system. I mean, browser. They're inseparable, you know." It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. "If you can't beat âem, join 'em." The system will also set up automatic deductions from your bank account and credit card.

Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. "Unlike porn sites, we don't just tease -- we really will fuck you. Now bend over."

Picture: Steve Ballmer ecstatic at the fifth great quarterly results in a row.

Americans today committed egregious acts of democracy to elect the next failed administration and the next failed Congress.

In a fabulous upset, almost no-one could bring themselves to vote directly for either of the official candidates, instead opting for a write-in vote. Popular write-ins included "the black guy", "the old guy", "McCain from 2000" and "Tina Fey." The seventeen votes for "The Invisible Man" were tallied for Joe Biden. Several tons of Liquid Paper needed to be scraped off voting machines.

The winning candidate turned out to be Noneof Theabove, 46, of Dogshit, Nebraska. Apart from the Presidency, Mr Theabove won 72% of Congressional seats and all Senate seats up for election this year.

Mr Theabove's policies include drinking, shouting abuse at the television and inchoate existential despair. "He completely embodies the national mood," said Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, just before applying for a new job flipping burgers.

A majority of US soldiers in Afghanistan stated the place was "just fine, really" and they were learning to speak Pashto rather than returning. Canada looked south and snickered, though not very much as they still had Stephen Harper to cope with. The Kingdom of Mexico stated its "regret" today that it has had to close its borders to American refugees.

The Easter Bunny should be discussed in school science lessons rather than dismissed, says the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"If pupils have strongly-held family beliefs about the Easter Bunny, such ideas should be explored," said Prof William Dembski (D.D, Ph. D. [P.T. Barnum University mail-order]). "Easterbunnyism, Santaclausism or the contemporary militant Tooth Fairy jihadist movement are best seen by science teachers not as a misconception but as a world view. This is more valuable than simply banging on about 'reality.' Reality-based thinking is vastly overrated and certainly won't prepare children for a career in Wall Street or in government."

Simon Underdown of Oxford Brookes University disagreed. "With so much to be crammed into science lessons, it is not a worthwhile use of time to include lessons on Easterbunnyism. We have monthly standardised testing to coach pupils on."

Professor Richard Dawkins is working on a childrenâ(TM)s text on useful ways to quickly construct street-corner gallows and burning stakes for rehabilitation of the religious.

Stephen Fry has been hospitalised and is queueing messages from his PatientLine text terminal in readiness for the site returning. "Twatter ++ungood sweeties zomg I do believe I'm feeling a little faint."

The source of the attack is unknown, but is hypothesised to be either the Russian Mafia, the Iranian security forces, the Chinese government or Alan Davies recoiling from his latest humiliation on QI.

News agencies around the world condemned the attack, which hits at the root of their online news-gathering processes, and have had to resort to following the Wikipedia "Recent Changes" feed. "Apparently BUSH IS GAY LOLOLOL," says the current CNN front page headline. "Who knew?"

A new site, "Grunter," has attempted to take up the slack. Users of "Grunter" are freed from the wordy excesses of Twitter's 140-character limit and can post one of twelve pre-programmed onomatopoeic noises, such as "mmrph," "huh," "grah" or "tubgirl."

Popular teenage angst poetry blogging and fan fiction site LiveJournal was affected by a similar attack at about the same time, but that attack was considered "just as well, really."

This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.

We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^WLive Search^WKumo sucked 'cause you're just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passe, dahling.

So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.

So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

And just look at these results!

What do we want?
Braaains.
When do we want them?
Braaains.
What do I need to run Windows 7?
Braaains.
What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
Braaains.
What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
Vistaaa.

This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.

After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with iTunes in the far future and charging developers for the privilege and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) as a corporate policy.

"F*** it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it's pretty and it's cool and it works. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!"

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! A**hole."

"Of course, we're still not evil, we said so," said Sergey Brin of Google. "You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. I mean, 'Bing.' Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."

As Microsoft's search engine share sunk to its lowest level yet, with approximately 8 to 9 queries total worldwide, Steve Ballmer has hooked up with Yahoo! and its 21 queries worldwide.

The press conference was held on a street corner in San Francisco as Mr Ballmer and Jerry Yang sat with their hats on the sidewalk and playing harmonicas with a "WILL WEBSEARCH FOR FOOD" sign behind them.

"Understandably, we expect less activity in the Great Recession," said Mr Ballmer. "Nobody knows what value assets should be ⦠say, you aren't finished with that cigarette, are you?"

Press attendees included a schizophrenic local resident in a tinfoil hat ("to keep Google out"), two teenagers drunk on malt liquor and a policeman keeping an eye on things from a distance. The teenagers taunted, confused and upset Mr Ballmer by suggesting he attempt to locate his own posterior.

"My new search technology is unstoppable! Just look at this netbook!" shouted Mr Ballmer, waving an Etch-a-Sketch in a threatening manner. "IT'S MAUVE! IT RUNS WINDOWS SEVEN! LINUX PUT A RADIO IN MY HEAD! I'LL SHOW 'EM ALL! BASTARDS!"

"Some love stories are eternal," said Mr Yang. "Romeo and Juliet. Heloise and Abelard. Leopold and Loeb. Microsoft and Yahoo."

The UK is introducing CCTV cameras claimed to "predict" if a crime is about to take place and alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering, apparent thought in public, walking while brown or not spending money fast enough.

Anyone spotted may then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer. "Tough on lack of consumer confidence, tough on the causes of lack of consumer confidence," said Nick Hewitson of EDS Capita Goatse SmartCCTV. ("Consumer confidence" is a technical economics jargon term measuring willingness to casually spend ridiculous sums of cash on idiotic rubbish, particularly while drunk.)

"Only a criminal terrorist paedophile with something to hide could possibly object," said councillor Jason Fazackarley. "Criminals will pay much better attention to their dress and grooming with cameras there. Channel 4 has tentatively offered us a reality TV show. And Channel 5 would quite like the tapes of drunken shagging in shop delivery bays."

The project has been compared to the Tom Cruise science-fiction film Minority Report, in which psychic journalists are arrested on CCTV before they commit the crime of not peppering articles with the most obvious possible cliches copied from other papers.

After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with iTunes in the far future and charging developers for the privilege and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) as a corporate policy.

"Fuck it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it's pretty and it's cool and it works. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!"

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! Asshole."

"Of course, we're still not evil, we said so," said Sergey Brin of Google. "You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. I mean, 'Bing.' Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."

Ekiga!

(On the GNUphone.)

Artificial intelligence came a step closer this weekend when an MIT computer game, which learnt from imitating humans on the Internet, came within five percent of passing the Turing Test, which the computer passes if people cannot tell between the computer and a human.

The winning conversation was with competitor LOLBOT:

"Good morning."
"STFU N00B"
"Er, what?"
"U R SO GAY LOLOLOLOL"
"Do you talk like this to everyone?"
"NO U"
"Sod this, I'm off for a pint."
"IT'S OVER 9000!!"
...
"Fag."

The human tester said he couldn't believe a computer could be so mind-numbingly stupid.

LOLBOT has since been released into the wild to post random abuse, hentai manga and titty shots to 4chan, after having been banned from YouTube for commenting in a perspicacious and on-topic manner.

LOLBOT was also preemptively banned from editing Wikipedia. "We don't consider this sort of thing a suitable use of the encyclopedia," sniffed administrator WikiFiddler451, who said it had nothing to do with his having been one of the human test subjects picked as a computer.

"This is a marvellous achievement, and shows great progress toward goals I've worked for all my life," said Professor Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, confirming his status as a system failing the Turing test.

"We own all the back catalogs we've been buying up," said EMI, "and YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM! And we'll sue your grandmother's ass if you try going around us!"

Richard Dawkins spoke in favour of the perpetual unavailability of music, as per his new book The Art Delusion . "'Music' appears to be an entirely subjective phenomenon with little or no objective measurements possible -- much like any other brand of snake oil or balderdash. Music seems to be a sort of virus on human consciousness, parasitically sapping the collective intelligence of the human race." He defended his own attendance at his local church's Christmas carols: "I'm only putting them at their ease so they let their guard down while I work on plans for mass re-education camps for the sufferers of musical appreciation."

Dedicated Monsanto geneticists, working for the good of humanity and a badly-written space filler in the newspapers, have produced a fabulous array of valuable new cash crops with 100% all-natural artificial flavors that developing countries can grow to pay the interest on their ludicrous debts to the International Monetary Fund.

"Bananas that taste like banana flavoring!" said Cylon Number Six of Monsanto Public Relations. "Strawberries that taste like strawberry flavoring! Brewed coffee that tastes like instant! I was really disappointed the time I ate a strawberry as a kid, it didn't taste anything like strawberry flavor. Now your kids will never have to suffer the same way."

The wholly natural artificial flavoring builds on examples from nature: bacon with the magical taste of bacon, Quorn with the magical taste of Quorn and Budweiser with the magical taste of urine. The latter example also produces urine with the magical taste of Budweiser.

Some flavors for specialist niches were not a success. "Ice cream that tastes like vanilla dental dams turned out too gritty for the lesbian market, probably because no-one actually uses them." Authentic(tm) ManJuice(tm) chewing gum for the gay market was considered too "outre" at this time, as no-one could actually bring themselves to use the word "tasteless."

The company looks forward to continuing to feed the world at very reasonable rates on heavily patented non-breeding seed. "Without us, the poor would starve. Starve, you hear? Naturally grown Big Macs with the magical taste of a New Jersey chemical vat will save the world. Anyone who hates Monsanto hates humanity and probably turns tortoises upside-down in the desert," said Six, nibbling on a Red Dye No. 1 fruit fresh off the vine. "We do what we must because we can."

AP has asked the Government to examine Google News and other content aggregators, claiming they contribute insufficiently to their income.

"The newspapers put their content up on the web for free and then Google, the freeloading bastards, tell people where to find it. We told them to pay up or stop using our stuff, and they said OK, they'd stop using our stuff! We need the Government to bring back balance, 'balance' defined as being able to make them give us money because we want it. You'd think the Internet wasn't invented to give news publishers and record companies free money!"

The AP argues that traffic from search engines does not make up the cost of producing the content. "Ad revenue has collapsed, so search engine traffic doesn't bring in enough views to pay for itself. Our inability to sell ads is clearly Google's problem."

The AP suggests the exploration of new models that "require fair acknowledgement of the value that our content creates, both on our own site through DRM and lawsuits and 'at the edges' in the world of search and aggregation. Basically, they should just give us money because we want it. And the music industry too. How about a bailout? Go on, gi's it."

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. "Of course," said Steve Ballmer, "the betas preview the 'champagne and hookers' edition, which would be way too much for netbooks and explode users' brains. Imagine thinking those little things are computers! So we're releasing what we call Windows 7 Dumbass Edition(tm). It lets you log in and look at the shiny. Even Spider Solitaire has the ribbon toolbar! And you can buy an upgrade to the version that runs programs! It lets you do that!"

Dumbass Edition(tm) comes with pre-installed viruses to make the computer part of the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

"Some manufacturers were going to release netbooks with ARM processors, which would run Linux or Chrome OS at twice the speed, half the heat and ten-hour battery life, but wouldn't run Windows 7. Microsoft assures us this is a crushing blow for ARM," said Michael Silver of Gartner. "ARM didn't have anything to say to that, just a guffawing sound down the phone. Obviously they're upset and hysterical."

In future news, Microsoft Corporation has announced a limited one-off extension of availability of its Windows XP operating system to April 2101 after criticism from large customers and analysts. This is the fifty-sixth extension of XPâ(TM)s availability since 2008. "Windows XP is currently in the extremely very prolonged super-extended support phase and Microsoft encourages customers to migrate to Windows for Neurons 2097 as soon as feasible," said William Gates V, CEO and great-grandson of the company founder. "Spare change?"

Illustration: Steve Ballmer's joyous expression when announcing seeing the latest Microsoft quarterly figures.

As Microsoft's search engine share sunk to its lowest level yet, with approximately 8 to 9 queries total worldwide, Steve Ballmer has hooked up with Yahoo! and its 21 queries worldwide.

The press conference was held on a street corner in San Francisco as Mr Ballmer and Jerry Yang sat with their hats on the sidewalk and playing harmonicas with a "WILL WEBSEARCH FOR FOOD" sign behind them.

"Understandably, we expect less activity in the Great Recession," said Mr Ballmer. "Nobody knows what value assets should be ... say, you aren't finished with that cigarette, are you?"

Press attendees included a schizophrenic local resident in a tinfoil hat ("to keep Google out"), two teenagers drunk on malt liquor and a policeman keeping an eye on things from a distance. The teenagers taunted, confused and upset Mr Ballmer by suggesting he attempt to locate his own posterior.

"My new search technology is unstoppable! Just look at this netbook!" shouted Mr Ballmer, waving an Etch-a-Sketch in a threatening manner. "IT'S MAUVE! IT RUNS WINDOWS SEVEN! LINUX PUT A RADIO IN MY HEAD! I'LL SHOW 'EM ALL! BASTARDS!"

"Some love stories are eternal," said Mr Yang. "Romeo and Juliet. Heloise and Abelard. Leopold and Loeb. Microsoft and Yahoo."

The Arctic Ocean is now largely clear of ice, heralding vast new business opportunities, President Sarah Palin announced today.

The famed North-West Passage is now permanently navigable, with huge shipping volumes between Arctic nations. "We're considering just building a highway straight across," said Mrs Palin, "though those long desert drives can be dangerous to health without air conditioning."

Tourists have been flocking to Alaska and northern Canada to get away from the boiling oceans and sulphurous atmosphere around Hawaii. The Nunavut Tourist Bureau has shipped 60,000 swimming polar bear shirts this month alone. "It's also clear," said Palin, "that the bears have no business claiming to be endangered when there's so many jobs in tourism for them."

Oil drilling in Alaska will also be much easier, and will of course further the conditions leading to this Arctic economic boom. "No it won't," said Palin. "What are you talking about?"

"I'll say one thing for them evilutionist climate change conspirators," giggled Palin, "their hard work to take away the ice and make it look like they were right has done wonders for us good and decent folk."

A computer worm that spreads through Flash and PDFs on PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

1) This vulnerability exists on OSX, Windows, and Linux.

2) The annual pwn2own competition, among others, shows that Linux and Windows are similarly secure and OSX is much less secure. OSX goes down first every year, while Windows and Linux both last until later days of the competition when more direct access to the systems is granted to the contestants.

A Windows machine is more likely to be compromised, but that's because of market share. "Insecure by design" implies that you're talking about the security of the OS against someone who wants to compromise it. It's proven every year that only OSX lags in this area, and it lags quite badly (this year's winner rated the difficulty of compromising Vista and Linux as a 9-10, and the difficulty of breaking into OSX as a 3, IIRC).

3) Goto 1)