Technobabble

iPain Last column, we talked about exploding laptops and notebook power supplies that caught on fire. Now we hear about lightning traveling up the iPod earbud cable of a 17-year-old, burning his face and ears. The youth was struck while mowing a lawn in Castle Rock, Colo. The lightning blasted a hole in the rear of the iPod, and the earbud headphones melted to the youth’s skin. His shorts and shirt were burned, and he was bleeding from the ears and vomiting when the ambulance arrived. A neighbor called 911 after seeing the boy’s scorched Reeboks in the street not too far from the abandoned lawnmower. Some wonder if the Metallica he was listening to contributed to the injuries.

iBegging There was this 21-year-old college student who needed a way to get out of debt and came up with the idea to sell pixels of ad space on his Web site for $1 apiece. Four months later, Alex Tew was a millionaire. Then there was Vinnie, the videographer who promised to blow up his Mac G4 (pictured) if enough people sent in money for him to buy a new G5 (video on YouTube; search Explosion G5). Now, we have Kyle MacDonald, who posted a picture of a bent red paper clip on his blog with the intention to trade it for a house. Fourteen trades later and exactly one year to the day, Kyle moved into his new two-story house in Saskatchewan, Canada.

iTerrorism I mentioned in an earlier column that al-Qaida was hiring video producers. Last week I heard a story on NPR’s Morning Edition on the very professional video-production arm of al-Qaida, al-Sahab. Turns out a young white kid from Southern California, Adam Gadahn, is on its team. I wonder if Adam was one of my readers? On a side note: I like how our “journalists” blankly call al-Sahab’s video “propaganda” but label U.S. coverage of staged events—such as the Jessica Lynch rescue, the toppling of the Saddam statue and Bush Senior’s incubator babies fiasco—“news.” Wait, this isn’t a political column …

The iRest What else happened in tech news this past fortnight? “Google,” with a small “g,” was proclaimed a verb by Merriam-Webster. After long delays concerning security, it turns out that the recently released HD DVD and Blu-ray DVD discs can be copied by using the common “Print Screen” key. Microsoft ended security updates and all other support for Windows 98 and ME, leaving over 50 million users vulnerable to hackers. And, due to continual harassment toward female online gamers, Audio4Fun has released AV Voice Changer software that digitally masquerades female voices to sound like men’s.