Category Archives: Technology

Entertainment, Technology, United States

New iPod Shuffle induces “iPod shuffle”

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JOBSTOWN, Cupertino, Saturday (NNGadget) — Apple has announced its new iPod Shuffle, the smallest yet. The new Shuffle offers more storage, better sound, a talking interface (“the first talking interface on an MP3 player! Except Rockbox, but only freetards use that and they don’t count”) and superior abilities to pick up chicks.

Apple iPod Shuffle ButtplugControversy has surrounded the new hardware requirements for the Shuffle, including new Apple-branded headphones, Apple-branded music and surgical attachment of the device to one’s genital region. “Total quality control,” said Steve Jobs. “All competitors are inferior by definition and will be crushed.”

Apple fan blogs were unanimous in their praise of the “iButtPlug” installation procedure. The hardware lock-in was a brilliant business move on Apple’s part, the best possible thing for the consumer and a moral and ethical requirement to sell MP3 players at all, wrote Daniel Eran Dilger on RoughlyDrafted. He also intimated that all negative press on the matter was yet more Microsoft astroturf and vaporware.

Microsoft countered with a preannouncement of its new Zune LP player, which works with 9.5″ vinyl discs manufactured with the PlaysYouBetcha!™ process and a cubic zirconia stylus.

“There’s no such things as Zunes,” laughed Jobs. “They’re a fairy tale we invented to get young Apple Store employees to behave.”

Health, Technology, United Kingdom

Children’s charities warn of Internet cancer

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TUBGRILL, Goatse-by-Cam, Monday (NNN) — The Home Office and a coalition of children’s charities are seeking to block access to the Internet to save the populace from child pornography and Internet-borne cancers.

My Little Monster Pony“Only 95% of Internet users are protected from computer-borne paedophile cancers,” said Home Office Minister Alan Campbell. “We must bring the other 5% into line, despite their spurious claims of the fine British-designed Cleanfeed system being ‘completely incompetent broken crap that never worked in the first place.’

“It is clear that blocking all potentially illegal images is as easy as stopping people from sharing movies and music, which is a solved problem. We just block everything. This will then revive the newspapers and the record companies and thus the whole British economy, by the Mended Windows theory.”

Zoe fucking Hilton of the NSPCfuckingC concurred. “We need decisive action from the government to ensure our continued income. If you’re an ISP who doesn’t sign up with the IWF, you’re a fucking paedo. Paedo. Paedo. Paeeee-do. And you cause cancer, you fucking arsehole. HEY, EVERYONE! THERE’S A FUCKING PAEDO OVER HERE! And give us your fucking money, now. Paedo. I hope they fuck and kill you in jail.”

“The IWF has protected ISPs from government interference for over a decade and users from potentially illegal images,” said potentially fabulous drag queen and IWF head Peter Robbins. “Although our recent foray into actually attempting to do the impossible rather than just existing as something for ISPs to point at hasn’t gone so well, we must protect children from carcinogenic Olympic logos of Lisa Simpson being forced into sexual acts. Think of the cartoon characters!”

The Government has signalled it will block the “streaming” loophole by making it illegal not merely to download such images, but to think about them or consider their possible existence.

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Health, Technology, United Kingdom

The Internet causes cancer

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BOG ALERTS, NHS Indirect, Friday (RT @NewsTechnicaUK) — Facebook and Twitter will give you cancer, says Dr Aric Sigman, a completely unbiased researcher from the University of Metro.

The Firefox girl will kill us allSocial networking sites “could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact,” leaving you more susceptible to cancer, dementia, heart disease, diabetes, influenza and rheumatoid arthritis. But not lupus. Instead, you should be spending your time breathing germs on the Tube and reading newspapers.

Cigarette breaks in most offices have been replaced with Facebook breaks, as users desperate for a hit take a moment to reject seven vampire invitations and relax a bit.

“It’s also a sign of autistic spectrum disorders and stuff,” said Dr Sigman. He pointed to a new “are you autistic?” test in this evening’s London Lite:

Do you prefer:
(a) sitting at home on your interweb like a nerdy no-mates goit?
(b) getting pissed down a strip club with the guys from marketing, like normal people?

“It’s obviously ludicrous rubbish,” said Internet socialite Hiram Nerdboy, well-known around Second Life for his sexy fox-with-breasts avatar. “Internet social networks don’t affect your health,” he noted, munching through his second pizza and two-litre Coke of the day and shifting his stomach folds to one side so as not to block the Skype microphone.

Technology, United States

Share your precise whereabouts with hundreds of your very closest friends

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THE PANOPTICON, Mountain View, all times everywhere (NNGadget) — Google, the world’s largest non-evil corporation, has released Stalkertude™, which allows you to share your location 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 SauronStalkertude™ allows you to broadcast where you are 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!

Stalkertude™ comes preinstalled on the Google Notepad netbook, a free Android-based mini-laptop to keep you connected wherever you go. 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 Stalkertude™. 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.

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Education, Technology, United States

Wikipedia and Britannica swap operating models

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WIKIALITY, San Francisco, Monday (NNN) — The online user-generated social networking site Wikipedia and the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica are both considering radical changes in how they are run.

Bouncy Wikipedia logoWikipedia 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 Pokémon 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 that’s top Google hit on their name is a small price to pay for the most up-to-date neutrality.”

Meanwhile, the Encyclopædia 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 Encyclopædia 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 they’re in it for the money.

However, Britannica said it would not follow in letting a wide range of people make contributions to its press slander. “We will require UnNews accreditation at the very least,” said Britannica president Andrew Keen. “Citation is needed.”

Entertainment, Technology, United Kingdom

Microsoft UK launches MSN MusicTurd™ service

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BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Pit of Despair, Friday (NNGadget) — In a bid to win back profits after huge layoffs worldwide, Microsoft UK has launched MSN MusicTurd™ for mobile phones.

Microsoft Zune “Anus” logoThe highly competitive music store offers tracks at twice the price, DRM-locked to a chosen individual ear of the purchaser. If they can get it to work with their phone. Microsoft were careful to point out to the financial press that charging your account, however, works perfectly and that the helpline number has been connected to a fax machine.

Microsoft is confident the MusicTurd™ service will attract millions of people who will buy tracks from them to play on one mobile ever, not transferable to any other device including the same phone’s replacement, in preference to stores offering cheaper unlocked MP3s, and won’t just drive people to filesharing networks, MP3 blogs or copying 500 gigabyte USB disks full of music from their friends in sheer disgust at these corporate tools.

“We understand that lots of people use telephones they carry around with them these days,” said Hugh Griffiths, Microsoft UK head of Mobile, “and you can even play music on them. A bit like a transistor radio. Whatever will they think of next! So if we get the consumer interest, we’ll offer an enhanced version, MusicTurd™ Polished™. Like we’re doing with Windows 7. You can’t expect it to be any good until the third version, of course. So buy the first two and it’ll be fantastic. Trust us on this. We have hundreds of loyal suck, er, customers on the MSN website, I’m sure we can squeeze them until the pips rattle.

“What do you mean, I’m lacking enthusiasm for our product? You’d think I was trying to get redundancy in the next round of layoffs or something. Ha! Ha! What a ridiculous notion.”

Technology, United States

Yet another Windows virus devastates millions of complacent idiots

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CONTINUE TO SHOP, Avoid Panic Buying, Friday (NNGadget) — A computer worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and 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.

BTI Explosive Breaching Free-Standing DoorDespite many years’ warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying “COME AND GET IT.”

Microsoft cannot believe people have not applied the patch for the problem, just because they keep trying to use Windows Genuine Advantage to break legally-bought systems. “Don’t they trust us?” asked marketing marketer Steve Ballmer.

Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. “There’s a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin,” said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

“It can’t be stupid if everyone else runs it,” said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. “Macs cost more than Windows PCs.”

“Yes,” said Phagge. “Yes, they do.”

Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can’t say we care.

Politics, Technology, United Kingdom

Labour takes back the “Web”

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CYBERMANDY, The Information Super-Motorway, Monday (NNN) — Peter Mandelson has launched LabourListing.com, a completely independent Labour Party website not affiliated or controlled by the party in any way whatsoever.

Handy Mandy on LabourList“Spin is dead,” said Lord Mandelson today. “We’ve issued a press release to this effect to our favoured journalistic contacts.”

The site features an avatar of Lord Mandelson, a small “Handy Mandy” figure, to guide the reader through a very special Labour experience. Handy Mandy will offer the reader a completely free choice of several places to go to next, all leading to the same following page.

To compete with the highly successful ConservativeHome site, LabourLurching will feature:

  • A “take to this ‘Web’ thing” initiative involving the MPs most in tune with the culture and technologies of the Internet, such as Andy Burnham, with lots of help from his friends from the record companies. Labour supporters will be able to help vote on British Board for Web Classification ratings. “We should get through all two hundred million websites in no time.”
  • An Obama-style “virtual phone bank” for Labour campaigners in the run-up to this year’s council elections. The site will include coaching lessons in sounding like a robocall recording.
  • Breaking into “social networking,” on trendy and popular sites such as Friendster.
  • Expanding the use of “virals” and web humour. “We’re feeding pictures of Dave Cameron to 4chan, and we’re pretty sure we’re close to having one get popular instead of being followed up with a string of cartoons of Japanese schoolgirls with inflated breasts. Those nice fellows from b3ta also offered to help, and we can’t wait to see what they can do for us.”
  • Teaching Gordon Brown to use emoticons. “We’ve nearly managed to get him past putting frowny faces on everything.”

“The project will only work if we can end top-down politics,” said Lord Mandelson. “I am, of course, the first person anyone would think of for such a task.”

Technology, United Kingdom, United States

Google are evil bastards who will kill us all

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YOUR LAPTOP, Your Bed, When You Think No-One’s Looking (NNGadget) — A new study shows that using Google will destroy the planet. A typical Google search on a completely random topic such as “charlot chirch sex tape” produces enough carbon for 98 pencils or seventeen boiled kettles and brutally murders an average of two point four cute fluffy things.

The destruction of the Isengard data centre“A Google search has a definite environmental impact,” said Alex Wissner-Gross of Harvard University. “Instead, you should use Windows Live Search — to be renamed Windows Love Search — which produces butterflies and baby seals. That’s instead of whatever you were looking for, but hey — it’s for the planet.”

Google is “secretive” about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. “Or at least, they told us to fuck off when we asked how many endangered species they’d killed off today. This proves their inherent malice. If you search using Google you may as well be strangling kittens. You should go to a trustworthy company of demonstrated moral fibre, like Microsoft.”

A recent Gartner report said the global IT industry generates as much greenhouse gas as the airlines industry. “Primary in this is the large quantities of hot air produced by completely independent analysts to support the views of the highest bidder.”

The Home Office welcomed the findings. “This proves that Internet users might as well be terrorists,” said Jacqui Smith, “and so we’ll treat them like they are. All Internet access in the UK will be run through Cleanfeed filters and your electronic ration book ticked off per web page used. Reading Wikipedia or the Guido Fawkes blog will, of course, be declared capital offences.”

Microsoft has demonstrated its environmental credentials by recycling Vista, its huge and lumbering Hummer of an operating system, as Windows 7. “All new and yet … old,” said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer. “Save the planet with Windows 7! Requires 4 core processor 2 gigabytes memory 500 gigabyte hard disk and basement nuclear power plant. Power plant sold separately.”

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Technology, United Kingdom

Thieves of liberty to take away your freedoms and lightbulbs

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AN INCONVENIENT TROUT, Gulf Stream, Tuesday (NNN) — Controversy has erupted over incandescent light bulbs being phased out in Britain to be replaced with horrible expensive yellow things that look like robot marital aids.

Compact Fluorescent Fester LightbulbThe switch to compact fluorescent lamps is expected to save households two-thirds of their monthly income, singlehandedly save Britain from climate change and bring about world peace, harmony and a top 10 chart not filled with rubbish.

However, many people find the low-energy bulbs ugly, slow to warm up and much more expensive, and the harsher light they give off akin to that of a police cell or McDonald’s. Their rapid flicker contains coded messages designed to hypnotise independent-minded Britons and turn them into gibberish-spouting Eurocrat cultists. The bulbs are made entirely of mercury, polonium and ebola. Scientists have proven that Hitler used low-energy bulbs for illumination when writing Mein Kampf, and paedophiles prefer internet images of dear innocent children taken under their unforgiving glare.

The Daily Mail has come out strongly against the compact fluorescents. “British cowed by tin pot marxists maddest flights from reality political class bizarre gesture Bliar take away liberty march on Westminster revolt against Europe IF YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH WHY DON’T YOU LIVE THERE.” To this end, the paper is giving away five thousand incandescent bulbs free when you spend a pound calling an 0900 number.

“We can’t be having this com-pack fluoro Euro rubbish,” said Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ) of East Cheam. “They just don’t have the same warm glow to them. It’s so cold this week! We need more gas lamps and burning torches, they go well with the pitchforks.”

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