Just after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer finished the official launch announcement, I went to check out a few of the PCs on display that were running Windows Vista. So I strolled over to this laptop and was wondering how to log on when I noticed the handy piece of tape at the bottom of the keyboard with all the users and passwords. No matter how good the operating system gets, some users will never change. –Noah Robischon
If you thought even old Billy Gates himself would give you a compelling reason to rush out and buy Vista, then move along, cause there's nothing to see here. Overall, it was standard PR that sadly lacked in hilarity other than Jon Stewart asking if the beta version of Vista will make you sterile. I guess the answer depends on who you ask.– Matt Buchanan
Man, I'm tired. I need to start going to bed earlier so I don't feel like I'm about to fall asleep at my keyboard in the morning. What I need are a pair of these Vision Optic MyDo Bururu (what?) glasses. No, not because my vision is poor — 20/15, bitches — but because these glasses are designed to shock you awake when you're nodding off.
They detect your level of wakefulness via the angle of your head, which seems to me like a pretty crappy way to judge whether or not someone is awake. What happens when you look down to wash your hands or make a sandwich? You get zapped by your glasses? No thanks, especially not for $370. –Adam Frucci
You might have heard of the teen-repellent noisemaker a store owner employed in his parking lot here in the UK - not to mention being used by kids in class to secretly SMS each other - and now that squealing device that supposedly makes an extremely annoying racket that only teens can hear has found its way to the United States. The device has been named Kids Be Gone, as if paying customers with more disposable income than any generation of youth in history are some kind of plague.
Called by cops in England "the most effective tool in our fight against antisocial behavior," now stateside retailers can also unfairly discriminate against those aged 20 and younger. Because of age-related hearing loss that starts at about age 20, this thing really does sound obnoxious just to those people under that age. But what about babies? And dogs?
How will you know when one of these repellant boxes is installed? Just look for this cheap-looking gray speaker, and teens fleeing the scene. Just what we need: more noise. – Charlie White
Ok, so maybe there won't be a 7-foot tall robot who takes your keys and parks your ride, but that's not to say New York's first robotic parking garage won't be worth checking out. The garage (which will be located in Chinatown) will be able to squeeze 67 cars into a space that would otherwise fit 24. (Kinda like your studio apartment). You basically just drive your car onto a platform and...
PC World is killing off the floppy disk by announcing that it won't stock any more of them once the existing stock has sold out.
Capable of storing 1.44MB of data, the floppy disk was the blank CD and DVD of the 1980s and early 1990s. Hell, I still have the original Warcraft game which came on the format. You might think that 1.44MB wasn’t a lot of storage - and it wasn’t - but then there were no such things as MP3s or video files, while the Internet and downloading content was in its infancy.
“The sound of a computer’s floppy disk drive will be as closely associated with 20th century computing as the sound of a computer dialling in to the Internet", said Bryan Magrath, commercial director of PC World. "The pace of technological change is relentless and it is now increasingly standard for computer users to transfer data via the Internet or use USB memory sticks, some of which will store the equivalent of 1,000 times the capacity of floppy disk. With that amount of memory available in such a small and convenient device, the floppy disk looks increasingly quaint and simply isn’t able to compete.”
Some quick facts:
2 billion floppy disks were sold globally in 1988, according to the Recording Media Industries Association of Japan.
By 2006, this had fallen to 700 million units.
Today, 98% of all PCs in PC World have no floppy, or ‘A’ drive. It will be 100% by this summer.
Jump now for a few historical milestones and trivia.-Martin Lynch
Dictator and much-loved movie puppet, Kim Jong Il will not be getting any of the high-tech and other luxury items he desires. At least that’s the official line from the US Commerce Department, which has banned exports of iPods, fast cars and luxury booze to North Korea. Of course, there’s no black market for these things, is there?
Other goods on the list include Kim’s alleged favourite tipple – cognac – as well as jet skis and designer clothes. The sanctions on luxury items are designed to hurt only the country’s elite, the US explained.
Apparently Kim likes to toss his generals the odd trinket when he’s not busy driving the country’s population into the dirt.
If you ever wondered what happens when you conduct a rogue nuclear test, now you know. Not exactly the death penalty, but close.-Martin Lynch
I like the idea of ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) but the price is still way too high for your everyday punter. This probably explains why most of them are being targeted at businesses with deeper pockets. Sony is the latest vendor to roll out its newest UMPC, the smart-looking VAIO UX1.
It measures 95 x 150 x 38.2mm (W x H x D) and weighs in at a pocket-friendly 480g (around 1lb). It houses an Intel Ultra-Low Voltage processor, 1GB of memory and runs Windows Vista Business. There’s a 4.5in widescreen LED display suitable for boring old work or, watching movies and viewing photos, and there are two cameras – one for video and another on the back for taking snapshots.
The hard disk has been swapped out for an expensive 32GB of Flash memory which will make everything from boot-up to file loading very fast. Battery life is around four hours and, like all UMPCs, it can be operated using the keyboard, stylus or touch-screen.
When it ships next month, all you'll need is around £1,700 + VAT. -Martin Lynch
You might have heard of the teen-repellent noisemaker a store owner employed in his parking lot here in the UK - not to mention being used by kids in class to secretly SMS each other - and now that squealing device that supposedly makes an extremely annoying racket that only teens can hear has found its way to the United States. The device has been named Kids Be Gone, as if paying customers with more disposable income than any generation of youth in history are some kind of plague.
PC World is killing off the floppy disk by announcing that it won't stock any more of them once the existing stock has sold out. 
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
