SOULS 5¢, Cyberspice, Tuesday (NTN) — Facebook staff have been amazed to discover that when Facebook passes users’ complete details to application developers and advertisers, some of the partner companies might accidentally let slip the information in some manner.

“We are appalled at this information leak,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as he took a break from his personal RSS feed of drunk women’s tits posted to his service. “But I can assure you that we have sternly suggested to everyone involved that they take somewhat greater care not to get caught, and maintain a serious demeanor when rolling around in the great big pit filled with money in their basement.”

“I’m horrified and outraged,” said office worker Brenda Busybody, 43 (IQ), “that stuff I put on the Internet is on the Internet. It violates everything I expect. I want privacy when I’m calling my boss a useless fuckstick to the entire world, all my coworkers and my boss himself. And when I’m playing a bit of FarmVille before we nick off down the pub.”

Privacy advocates are working on Diaspora, a security-enhanced social network so far populated by Linux users who cryptographically sign every update about which episode of Babylon 5 they just finished watching alone in their parents’ basement. “START GPG KEY BLOCK!” said open source software advocate Hiram Nerdboy, 17. “WE WILL PROTECT YOUR FREEDOMS!” The next version of Diaspora will allow users to list more than three friends, should there be any demand whatsoever for such a feature.

Facebook works on the now-standard “Web 2.0” business model: 1. Brutally sodomise the personal privacy of anyone who comes within a mile of your service and say “hey baby, I’m sorry” every time you’re busted. 2. Sell ads.

AXLE GREASE, Down Under, Tuesday (NTN) — Desperate to stay competitive against iPhone and Android mobile devices, Microsoft has released a two-pound lump of actual cow faeces that they claim constitutes a phone.

Windows Mobile 7, in development for several years, strips the mobile telephone down to its fundamental essence: futility, annoyance, malfunction, inconvenience and a socially unacceptable odour. Confounding analyst expectations, the turd is in fact shined.

US mobile carriers hailed the turd as the perfect physical complement to their world-famous customer service. “This powerful product will promote our growth!” said John Harrobin of Verizon Wireless. “We’re marketing them as edible.”

“We think we can really work the brand equity,” said Steve Ballmer, modelling the optional shoulder-length rubber gloves. “Everyone works with our stuff all day every day. They know who Microsoft is and what we do.”

“How about making our customers actually swallow our bullshit physically?” said John Harrobin. “Windows Mobile 7 was my idea.”

HEY HEY 16K, Need To Know, Saturday (Big K) — Activision has announced its new playalong title, Video Game Hero, in which the player immerses himself in the world of the cultural hero of the twenty-first century: the gamer.

The player enters a virtual parents’ basement and starts shadowing an expert game of Tetris. He works his way up through pretending to pretend to farm an imaginary farm in a virtual version of Facebook to going “yeah, see?” next to a non-player character pimping nonexistent hoes in Grand Theft Auto. Additional modules kill your player and call you “n00b” and “fag.”

But it’s not all video playalong — players have to click to gain additional powerups of Cheetos and Diet Coke. Traps include hygiene points and female players. An Anime Expo subgame requires the player to cosplay a character one-third their avatar’s weight, a foot shorter and the opposite sex.

The game comes with an authentic imitation controller, with all the buttons of a real controller.

Later titles this season include Journalism Hero, in which you follow the bouncing cliches on a screen and try to cut’n’paste the phrases in increasingly bizarre and meaningless combinations to win the most Google hits for the day and keep your job.

However, scientists at the Print Publication and Buggy Whip Institute issued an epistle cautioning that Journalism Hero could lead to short attention spans, shallow emotional affect and blathering buckets of shite over anyone in range.

NO MICROSOFT WAY, Redmond, Wednesday (NTN) — Microsoft has unveiled its new Zune One and Zune Two mobile phones for unusually stupid social-networking enthusiasts in their late teens and early twenties with a higher income than their IQ.

Team leader Roz Ho said the company had tried to create a Microsoft gadget that people actually wanted to have, like the XBox 360, but that actually worked properly.

“Get your Friendster and your MySpace!” said Ms Ho. “We studied consumer habits and built the perfect phone for the, uh, ‘social generation,'” she air-quoted, “to make it ‘fab’ and ‘bling’ — I mean, of course, ‘Bing!’ — for people too dumb to work an iPhone to share their lives moment to moment.”

The handset is of simple design for simple people. The keyboard engages caps lock at random and interjects common “chat” acronyms like “LOL” and “OMG” and “RTFM” should too many words in a row be spelt correctly. A breathalyzer automatically switches on the video camera in the event of excessive alcohol consumption. As well as the usual daily crashes, the Blue Screen of Death can be invoked by the user so as to have a suitable excuse not to answer a text. Later revisions of the phone may include making voice calls.

“We are excited to be the exclusive carrier for this exciting new Microsoft phone in the exciting US,” said John Harrobin, Senior Vice President of Paperclip Filing, Morning Drunkenness and Excited Press Release Quotes at Verizon Wireless. “Because we fucking hate you people. We really do.”

Roz Ho was previously leader of the Microsoft team that lost all the data on everyone’s T-Mobile Sidekick phones last year when the systems team was told not to bother with backups.

ONE APPLE WAY, Cupertino, Saturday (NTN) — iPhone developers are up in arms at Apple requiring them to use only Apple toolkits, sacrifice a Windows developer at their local Apple Shop every Sunday and maintain an altar to Steve Jobs in their homes. And eat a bug.

Apple is famous for its rigid control over its devices, in its quest to maintain user quality. Developers have worked under increasing restrictions in their attempts to provide quality applications for the iPhone such as I Am Rich, Magic 8 Ball and iFart.

“Not a big deal,” said Mr Jobs in a personal email. “Cross-platform development leads to a worse user experience every time. Also, the video of you eating the bug has to be H.264 QuickTime or your app is out. Extra points for cockroaches.”

“This clause shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the creative freedom developers need,” said iPhone developer Greg Slepak. “Software is an infinitely malleable creation of pure thought. Toolkits, languages and frameworks are only a way to develop something people will want. It’s like telling Rembrandt what brand of brushes he’s allowed to use.”

He paused to chow down on a palmetto bug for his MacBook’s camera. “I’ll tell you, a lot of iPhone developers are seriously considering Android, just as soon as Google develops a suitably exploitable stream of mindless thralls that will generate us a gushing torrent of money.”

“Thanks for the video, Greg,” said Mr Jobs, “but we’ve just added section 3.3.1.a: ‘In particular, when Greg Slepak submits an application, the bucket of cockroaches in the video have to be Apple-branded and genetically engineered in Cupertino.’ So we’ve rejected your application, cancelled your membership and zeroed your account.

“Of course, you’re free to apply again. Or not, if you don’t want a goddamn dumptruck full of money backed up to your house. It’s a free country.”

WHEREVER YOU ARE, At All Times, forever (NTN) — In the wake of massive Buzz privacy problems, Google has announced that its slogan “Don’t Be Evil” will be extended for the 2010s with “But Do Feel Free To Be Dangerously Bloody Stupid.”

“I don’t see how people could ever have thought it wasn’t perfect,” said Google marketing marketer Todd Jackson. “We’ve used it in-house for ages, and our test group of white male engineers all working inside a single corporation think it’s the best thing ever! So of course we didn’t see the need for any user testing or opt-in.”

Gmail users have been up in arms at their frequent email contacts and private addresses that forward to Gmail being publicly revealed, their precise GPS location being automatically posted with updates from their mobile phone, photos you didn’t upload being pulled off your Android phone into Buzz and that switching off Buzz doesn’t actually switch it off.

“We have heard of the case of the woman whose violent stalker could track her through the Buzz function she didn’t actually switch on,” said Jackson. “But I’ve reached out and personally reassured her that, should she actually be killed, we will of course apologise for her poor product experience.”

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “Having a bad husband, living a life or whatever. It’s obvious it’s her own fault for not having first found the function hidden behind three panels to untick ‘KEEP MY STALKER UPDATED ON MY EVERY MOVE.’ Some people just shouldn’t be let near computers.”

Jackson emphasised the non-evil nature of Google. “We are most definitely not evil. But if, y’know, evil just sorta happens, well. We just send the rockets up. It’s not our job to think about where they land.”