Isn’t it? Yes.

This… is the same firm that decided to call its security suite Microsoft Wanker. Sure, it says OneCare when it’s written down, but go on. Read it aloud.

Moblin, the Intel-backed Linux for netbooks, looks pretty nifty. Which makes a change:

With most technology, looking into it is like shopping for a new and exciting car. We’ll happily spend days scanning brochures, reading reviews and coming up with increasingly imaginative and expensive configurations.

With Linux, though, it’s more like shopping for a new central heating boiler. You know it’s going to be worthwhile and you know it’s going to save you money, but it’s hard to summon up much enthusiasm. Oh look. It’s a boiler. Oh look. It’s another boiler. Oh look. It’s a slightly different boiler. Oh look. I’ve wasted my life.

Will humans of the future have extra ears? Probably not, but cyborg technology is still fascinating.

Sadly the “bionic arms race” owes much to a very real arms race. In 2005, the US military announced a multi-million dollar investment in prosthetic technology after a surge in the number of US soldiers losing limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Improvements in body armour technology mean that attacks that just a few years ago would be fatal are now survivable – but the armour doesn’t protect limbs.

Inevitably the military isn’t just interested in rehabilitating injured soldiers. It’s rather keen on enhancing soldiers’ effectiveness in battle, too, which is why it’s testing exoskeletons.

And Google Chrome 2 is out of beta. Time for another car comparison.

Firefox is a gadget-stuffed MPV, Chrome is a stripped-down sports car and IE8 is a Honda Legend: it’s built well enough, but it’s hopelessly outgunned by smarter and more stylish rivals.

It’s that man again. And by that man, I mean me.

We’re rushing into a world where everything depends on an internet connection, whether it’s your email, your online apps, your Xbox Live or your TV on demand.

Most of the time, that’s absolutely fine. Great, even. But it means that we’re more vulnerable to catastrophe and cock-ups than ever before.

Two of my things have hit the internet. First up, an op/ed on Google’s ever-increasing usefulness:

There’s no doubt that search engines are getting smarter, which is generally a good thing. However, they’re guilty of something called Mission Creep: that is, they’re doing more and more work. In the good old days search engines were facilitators, dumb actors that didn’t actually know anything but knew where you could find what you needed.

Now, they’re attempting to be oracles. Instead of showing you where to find the answer, they want to tell you the answer; instead of taking you to the right destination, they want to *be* the destination. That’s an important difference, and it’s bad news for webmasters.

Then, a feature I did for PC Plus about where the UK internet is heading:

…it looks rather like our creaking transport system: overloaded, prone to jams at the most inconvenient of times and under constant surveillance. Only Britain could take the idea of an information superhighway and try to turn it into the M6.

Der der der der der! I woke up this morning! Der der der der der! Went to a well known branch of a high street electrical chain! Der der der der der! It was rubbish! Der der der der der.

The slightly more coherent version is over here:

It’s a depressing old world at the moment.

The combination of a global recession, swine flu, impending climate Armageddon and the continuing existence of OK Magazine are enough to make anyone feel down.

But if you fancy cheering yourself up a bit then we have the answer: pop along to your nearest high street (or more likely, retail park) electrical retailer.

One of my world-weary .net columns has made its way online:

I’m not suggesting that social networks are bad. But again and again I’m finding that I seem to be living in a different world to the tech triumphalists [with] their sunny Californian positivity.

From the You Couldn’t Make It Up department:

you’d need a very special brand of lunacy to decide that the best thing to do right now would be to put a tax on internet ads and broadband connections. Guess what? The government’s considering exactly that…

To appreciate the genius of the idea, you need to know what the monies raised will be used for. You’ll need to take a deep breath. Ready? Okay then. The broadband tax will make broadband more expensive in order to ensure that rolling out broadband isn’t too expensive.

The Internet ad tax will make advertising more expensive in order to help out broadcasters whose advertising revenues are plummeting because advertising is too expensive.