Rumor has it, Google is going to get into the hardware biz:

Google hasn't given up on creating its own consumer electronics gear.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company is working on a home entertainment device that would "stream music wirelessly throughout the home" and be marketed under Google's name.

Between this and Apple's rumored TV, we're looking at what could be a big year in home entertainment delivery systems.

In response to an article in the LA Times about Siri's inability to decode a thick Scottish burr, here's this:

Someone get the poor lad a Caledonian 80/-, and quick.

ZDNet reports that a bug in Facebook's "report abuse" tool can let people see photos in your account that you thought you had made private.

For example! Here someone has pulled out a bunch of Mark Zuckerberg’s "private" photos. Nothing scandalous, just the life of a boy-zillionaire. Surprisingly ordinary, really. Friends, food, Halloween candy, the president, dead chickens.

I'm sure Facebook will fix this, but remember: Don't put anything on the Internet you don't want everybody to see.

This is not a practical idea. I can't imagine it will take off. But I don't care, because I want the Little Printer in my house:

The Verge explains:

You choose the sources you want from an app on your iPhone or Android smartphone, and the data is beamed wirelessly to the thermal printer (no ink refills!) from the included Berg Cloud Bridge, which plugs into your router...BERG's CEO, Matt Webb, sees it as the perfect medium. He says that "paper is like a screen that never turns off. You can stick to the fridge or tuck it in your wallet. You can scribble on it or tear it and give it to a friend."

Adorable!

TechCrunch, which is the site that broke the news about Amazon's tablet, seems to think another gadget is in the works:

Amazon just entered the tablet market this week with its Kindle Fire. But this time next year, it could be introducing its own smartphone. A research report put out this morning by Citi analysts Mark Mahaney and Kevin Chang states that an “Amazon smartphone may be coming next year.”

Based on supply-chain checks with hardware manufacturers in China, Citi believes that Amazon is jointly developing the smartphone with Foxconn, but that the phone itself will be manufactured by TMS (which produces the Kindle line).

Driverless cars manufactured in the US, robots that commute to work for you... these are a some of the inventions secret Google scientists are working on.

Via the NY Times:

In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined.

It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.

These fantasies sound dreamy—especially on a Monday morning. They also seem impossibly lonely.

Last week, The Onion came up with a great idea for a website: A "decoy website" that "lure[s] moronic Internet commenters away from all other websites." Here's a taste:

According to sources, Outkube boasts thousands of articles and forums carefully crafted to draw in dim-witted web users and effectively quarantine obtuse, uninformed comments on topics such as gay rights, Ryan Gosling, the threat of Sharia law in the U.S., health care reform, whether Kobe is better than LeBron, Jewish control of the government and media, the New York Jets, the Second Amendment, and professional wrestler John Cena.

Now, Outkube is real. It's packed with all kinds of troll bait:

Don’t you think it’s time we knock it off with the guns already? Just get rid of them. Make them illegal. What’s the point? The only people who use guns are criminals and they need to be put in jail before they hurt somebody, or before their kids find their guns and shoot each other with them.

Just watched this video and it made me cry. I don’t think I have to tell you guys just how amazing Justin Bieber is, but in case you aren’t a Belieber then watch it, below. I think it’s obvious to any sane person he’s the most underrated performer we have today.

The comments are perfect, too: Exactly as even-handed, intelligent, and pleasant as you would expect.

You can call me an Apple-wanker all you want, (although I use Android, Chrome, and Google Plus, too, which I guess means I'm wank-cheating on Apple on a regular basis) but if Microsoft follows through with this interactive hologram desktop idea, I will be one of the first people lining up to buy it:

Of course, I'm still stinging from the Horrible Microsoft Courier Miscarriage of 2010, so I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, but still: Drooooooool. (Via Engadget.)

This gives me hope for my future retirement: 80s rap superstar (who later went famously bankrupt) MC Hammer is developing his own... wait for it... SEARCH ENGINE. Called "WireDoo," the search engine is designed to out-perform Google and Bing by offering a new "deeper level" of searching. Here's the description he gave to O'Reilly Media via the LA Times. And because I can't resist:
IT'S HAMMER TIME!

"The engine crawls and the algorithm is designed in a way to get all of the related information to your query and then package it consistently in one environment," Hammer said. "Kind of thinking, right? The way you would think. If it's a car ... it's not just about the word 'car,' but it's about insurance, it's about the specs, it's about mileage, it's about style, it's about all these things. So that's the way it works."

He goes on to explain that if you were to type a zip code into WireDoo, you'd discover everything about that zip—such as the educational level of the residents, or other public information about the area. Needless to say, and for obvious reasons, Google is not worried. However, I was surprised to learn Hammer (sorry, but I refuse to call him by his real name Stanley Kirk Burrell) is no newbie to the tech world, having co-founded DanceJam—a social networking site for fans of dance videos. If you want to learn more about Hammer's new project check out the full video interview here. Otherwise...

CAN'T TOUCH THIS!!