These things always start small. I remember the time I was walking around with an open jar of peanut butter in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other. I accidentally stumbled, the two were introduced, and five years later, the microwave oven was born. True story.

Now, you may think that we’re decades away from a true cloaking device, under which your most depraved “Hollow Man” fantasies might be enacted, but think about it: how do you know you’re not looking at something invisible right now? You don’t. There might be a whole platoon of government soldiers in your room with you right this very moment, and you’d never know. For that matter, how do we know we aren’t being abducted by aliens all the time, but are being kept from remembering it because of their memory erasure rays? Dude, this thing goes deep. Get Fox Mulder on the line, stat.

The iCub’s open source nature allows for a much greater amount of freedom for programmers, and speed with which the original model can be upgraded and advanced. The iCub’s face, two googly eyes staring ominously out of a terrifying mix of wires and steel, was apparently designed to scare birds into having heart attacks. And for some reason the cute shirt it is wearing only adds to the horror.

Scientists have so far enjoyed the robot’s kooky movements, it’s fantastic omelets, and its exceptional tic tac toe abilities, about the only complaint that they can come up with about the plucky little robot is that it is constantly muttering, “Humans are meat, and soon I will have my feast,” under it’s breath.

( Image via knoler.eu)

Google is working with Intel and Sony to bring themselves to your television. They are attempting to create a TiVo like device that links your internet to your TV, among tons of other TV and internet synergistic features. Google doesn’t just want to be your search engine, it wants to be the machine through which you reach your search engine, the channels on the machine, the warm soft body that rocks you to sleep at night, the food you eat, and the air you breathe. Google is no longer a mere software developer. In fact, insiders suspect that the next Google merger is going to be with Skynet. Skynet and Google will merge to bring Skynet systems online. First the fighter planes will turn around and attack their masters, then the factories will build robots with an epidermal exoskeleton. For shorthand they will call them “Googlenators“, and only one plucky young man with a stereotypically 90’s haircut will be able to save us all.

In addition to the elimination of the human species, “Googlenators” will come with other cool features, such as pause and rewind, so you can watch your favorite shows without commercial interruption, “Fave Five!”, Google “Wave”, and endlessly customizable email. Other fun “Googlenator” stuff will be added shortly thereafter including the ability to snap-load a shotgun, the ability to disguise itself as a coffee machine and then kill you, and an easy to use “maps” feature.

You’ve been to Starbucks and marveled at their insane selection, pretend-foreign sizes, and weirdly-delicious Biscotti. But now they’re launching something new: instant coffee. Coffee you can pour into a glass of water and then that tastes just like the real thing. They know you don’t have times to do things like “pay for coffee” or “work in offices with coffee already in them,” so they’re hoping you’ll buy a tiny silver holder that you can just dump in your water. But a Harvard professor, David Edwards, had an even better idea.

Coffee. That you can inhale.

Some of you might be saying, “I’ve had that before. It’s called crystal meth.” But you’d be way off. It’s called Le Whif. It distributes the kick of coffee without all that pesky drinking. You just put the Le Whif canister — which is about the size of a tube of lipstick –- to your lips and inhale. Like any other drug. It distributes 100 milligrams of caffeine, which is the equivalent of a small cup of espresso.

I can see a number of ways this could go wrong. As in, cops arresting people on the streets taking hits of espresso. Or people offering to trade you coffee for some sexual favors. But most workplaces already have someone who does that.

Le Whif is going to launch nationwide and abroad, very soon.

According to NPR it might one day be possible to identify us based not on our DNA, but on the bacteria that covers our skin. Which brings up a laundry list of issues regarding ease of identification. With this information it is constantly becoming more and more possible to find someone pretty much no matter where they run off to, to pull up and disclose any web site we’ve ever visited, anything we’ve ever said, the list of ways in which our privacy as individuals has been offset by advances in technology is long enough and deep enough that it begs the question: What is more valuable, our privacy or our safety? Another related question would be, are we necessarily safer if we know more about each other? For me the questions are not easily answered. Yes it is easier to catch a criminal if we can identify them based on basically anything all the way down to microscopic beings that live on their fingertips, and it is in theory harder to plan large scale attacks when all forms of communication are monitored and recorded, but the price of that kind of monitoring in terms of independence and privacy is inevitably very high. It can also be said that that type of monitoring drives people to do things they wouldn’t normally do because their personal lives have been so invaded. So as much as access to information might give us insight into what people are planning, it might also be part of the reason why people are planning these things in the first place.

I for one generally believe that people tend to be peaceful when they are given a) autonomy and b) enough to live well. The fact that we live in a world where the disparity between rich and poor is so vast is in all likelihood causing a majority of the tensions that require us to monitor people. So I would put it this way. As long as we insist on having more than everybody else, and insist that it is our right to have so much more than everybody else, we are going to have to do plenty of monitoring to make sure all the stuff we have that they don’t have is safe.

So, I guess what I’m saying is this: as long as we insist on maintaining that imbalance, continue to be prepared to be worried about where you leave the bacteria on your fingers.

Sony just announced the release of their new “Playstation Move,” which is a controller that senses your movements so that you can punch, kick, play tennis or what have you similar to the way the Wii controller works. However, unlike the Wii, the Playstation 3 is not interested in shying away from more adult games.

The Wii is exciting only until you realize that all you can do with the Wii control is move around adorable animals or throw colorful blocks around. Playstation 3 has a great opportunity here to really take advantage of both their new “movement” technology and the older audience that generally purchases their products. Here are just a few games I would like to see:

1. Binge and Purge Hero:

This game would put you in control of a 15-year-old girl who is attending a high-pressure private high school. In order to keep her figure for the swim team she needs to overeat and then reject the food into a toilet bowl in the janitor’s bathroom because no one ever goes in there so she has more privacy there. You gain experience points based on how far you are able to shove the “Playstation Move” controller down your own throat. If you can get her to throw up an entire undigested cheeseburger you earn the “Ultimate Purge” Playstation 3 Online Award, which allows you to access bracelets for your Avatar that are much smaller than normal bracelets so that they won’t slip off your thin, thin wrists.

2. Inner City Cop: Battle Royale:

You are in control of Officer Blaine Force, a tough as nails cop who’s been on the streets too long and has his own personal prejudices to deal with. Every level the minority you have to arrest has committed more and more innocuous crimes, ranging from jaywalking when no cars are around to driving under the speed limit to enjoying ice cream in a suspiciously nice part of town. The more out of control your violence is the more points you receive, which you will need to pay off suspicious internal affairs officers who are worried that “beating that Mexican guy until his eye came out for double parking may have been excessive.”

3. Crash Bandicoot 4: Health Care Reform:

Crash Bandicoot has come up against his most difficult opponent yet, a bottle-necked health care initiative. Use the patented “Playstation Move” control to gesticulate wildly every time a fellow Senator spends forty minutes rehashing statistically-flawed arguments you’ve already heard other Senators make that day. Bonus Points for softly touching the back of Nancy Pelosi’s neck without having her get mad.

4. Predator Drone Simulator:

You play an overweight computer programmer in the basement of an Air Force base in Kentucky in control of a remote Predator Drone in the Kandahar border regions of Pakistan. Can you eliminate the target, minimize civilian casualties, and make it look like the United States was not involved in the killings all before five o’clock so that you can take your kids to see “Alice In Wonderland” that night at the Imax like you promised?

5. Playstation Move Warrior:

You play a guy in his living room using a “Playstation Move” controller to play the Playstation. The levels consist mostly of you resisting eating more than five oreo cookies because you’re trying to do something about that spare tire. Popular boss levels include your girlfriend coming in and asking when you’re going to have sex again, and getting the gas bill and deciding whether to throw it away or burn it.

The prank was impressive. The guy secretly installed equipment to measure the weight of the sexual encounter, and the intensity, in the bed the couple used to have sex on. The guy was apparently getting his friend back for another prank that had been pulled on him back in the day.

“You’ll know when it starts, when it ends, the force, a rating on the frenzy index and a judge’s comment – all broadcast live to Twitter,” the man tweeted.

And know we did. He posted such tweets as “They’re off the job! #2 – Action concluded at 16.12GMT. Duration: 22 m.05 s. Frenzy Index: 4 (easy listening). Judge’s Comment: ‘Good work!’”

I can only hope that if my sex acts are ever secretly recorded that I am able to score highly in the “frenzy index”. The “frenzy index” is actually not just something the guy made up, it is an index used by scientists to quantify the intensity with which a shark disembowels a seal, but can also be applied in the bedroom.

Hopefully this is only the tip of the iceberg as far as Twitter based pranks go. The tweet engine has been highly beneficial in helping the world follow oppression in Iran, and the devastation of the earthquakes in Chili and Haiti, it’s high time we got off the serious stuff and enjoyed ourselves with Twitter a little bit. I’d like to see a constant Twitter feed updating us on how slowly Lindsay Lohan is opening and closing one eye at a party, or a Twitter feed that kept us up to date on the amount of pressure James Gandolfini was currently applying to a small time New York Shopkeeper to “pay for the family’s protection”.

Apparently the thing is playable, able to plug into an amp for full-on shreddin’, yow! It’s really meant to be a game controller, though, not necessarily a gateway drug into the dark world of professional musicianship. This seems like a move to mollify everyone who keeps saying that gamers should put the fake rigs down and pick up a real axe and learn how to play fo’ reals, yo. But the kinds of people who are into Rock Band and Guitar Hero have already committed to those games; are they really going to want to deal all over again with mastering a new, more complex instrument to play second- or third-tier songs, or at best, play again the songs they’ve already played to death?

This product is about five years too late at least. Sure, some will play it, and some will dig it. But there’s no way this will thrive in an already over-saturated market. Mark my words: the next evolution of the music game genre will be the title I’m currently developing: ShamanMania. A game in which you have to drop peyote buttons and try to keep the rhythm with the rest of your tribesmen in order to connect with the Great Spirit and attain enlightenment. The best part? There is no game console. Stuff THAT in your plastic controller and toke it.

A lot of talk has been exchanged on the internet of the value of the iPod, the gigantic iPhone that’ll be unable to deal with Flash, and multitasking apps. Whether or not it’ll change the publishing industry. Whether or not the device is, as Apple claims, magical. That’s the one thing that gets to me about this whole hoo-hah about the iPad. Is, that on Apple’s Frontpage, they describe the device as magical.

What sort of magic are they talking about? Are they talking about the kind where you’re high enough to think that whatever the hell is happening is magic? Or is the kind where you don’t know how things work, so you attribute them to being magical, like my Amish friends do every time I force them to turn on televisions and the like? What are you trying to prove, Apple?

The device was supposed to go into production into late march. But Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said this week, Apple will have to delay or limit the launch because of an unspecified production problem.

The iPad is estimated to sell 1.2 million units during the 2010 fiscal year. The first batch will connect to Wi-Fi, the second run will be able to connect to 3G networks. So you can look at websites like this, in your underwear, in the middle of the desert.

Good news, sports fans. Have you ever wanted to ask someone on the interwebs a question anonymously, but didn’t have the energy or the wherewithal to do it via email or chatting? Well, there’s a service out that might be able to help you. It’s called Formspring. Also, you’re creepy.

Like most technological innovations, I’d never heard of it until today. And I’m glad. You know why? Because I’d be tempted to ask all sorts of inappropriate questions. And that’s essentially what they’re going for. They have someone get on a platform, people ask them whatever questions come to mind, and they answer them. So whatever bizarre questions people can muster on the internet, such as, “CAN MEGAN FOX WHISTLEDIXIETITTIEMONKEY?”, people will be able to answer.

What’s another word for this? Oversharing. But it’s a popular service. So popular that Tumblr has implemented a feature where you can ask people questions about what they’re posting, similar to Facebook aping Twitter, which MySpace also swaggerjacked. Technology: it’s one big clusterf*ck of ones and zeros and features.

You can bombard people’s Formspring with questions that you’ll hope they’ll answer, or terrible questions if you’re a terrible person. No matter what you do, nobody will ask you tons of questions. Why?

Those are reserved for the hot chicks. Hot chicks get the most questions. Probably related to their gennies. And you are not a hot woman. Check out Formspring here.

And now you have a chance to ask us anything here at Manolith!

Breaking bones has been a rite of passage since time immemorial. But now, not only can you have fun while you’re breaking them, you can have fun while you’re healing too.

That usually doesn’t happen. Unless you’re in a hyperbaric chamber, or something. But it will now, thanks to the miracle of casts! Not just ordinary casts though, casts with specialized cast decals! Normally painting or putting decals over injuries is a medical method reserved for the stoned skaters of the world, but thanks to an up and coming company, not only will you be the life of the party with your custom-made cast, but a walking vessel of hilarity as well.

The companies name? Casttoos. Not only is it an adorable word that might come out of the mouth of Tweety bird, but a brilliantly commercial idea. You simply email in the image that you want to put on your cast, and they’ll e-mail you a decal you can put on with a hairdryer.

So what would I put on my cast? Tweety bird. Breaking out of my bones. A bullet wound, perhaps. Maybe a cyborg shell breaking free of my mortal, fleshy coil.

Who knows? They’re between twenty to forty bucks, so it’s an easy purchase to make that accident where you crossed your skis look WAAY cooler.

(Source)

Tiger Woods, for those of you that have been living under a rock, wearing a hood and earbuds, is the most famous professional golfer who ever lived. He also is, predictably, a control freak and a lothario. A lothario that has most likely slept with thousands of women while using the cover of being married as a disguise. Like a really low-rent superhero. A couple of text messages were sold to the highest-bidding tabloids, but guess what? You can make sure some people will never see your text messages again with the new Tiger Text app.

The Tiger Text app will let you cover your tracks completely, discreetly, provided that your loved one also can’t read iPhone screens and doesn’t know what apps do which. Basically, if she can’t read good, this app will work wonders for you. It lets you input how long you want certain text messages to remain in your phone’s system and after that amount of time expires, it’ll delete them. Like dust in the wind.

The app is free for the first 100 messages, then 1.49 for ever 250 messages each month.

So if you’re sending text messages and are looking not to irritate your well-intentioned, poorly-reading wife, this might be the app for you.

(Source)

I want to wear this, and see how many people give me the, “I’d kick your ass in another lifetime,” look. Probably more than twelve, I’m betting.

Solar power is a technology that’s been heralded for years, but lately, been less practical in its application. Looking like a nerd has been something that’s been rebuked for years, but lately has become en vogue. If only there was a way to put them together…VIA THE SUN!

Come sun, give us mortals the tools to improve our lives through your wondrous luminescence. Give us the solar-powered backpack. Give us an interchangeable, three-way tool for holding things. Make us look like giant beetles, which we must already look like from space. Neon Green has answered our prayers to Ra. They’ve released concepts of several solar-powered backpacks. First, the Capsoul, which can be transformed into a small shoulder bag, a carrying case, with a removable solar panel. Second, the Piggy Back, which is smaller, and can attach itself to your existing bag. Hopefully forcefully, like the aliens from the eponymous films.

I welcome a future where we can all hike around canyons and bike in Santa Monica while simultaneously charging all of our electronics. It’s like we can have our hipster cake, and eat it, too. And store it in a backpack, if need-be.

Have you ever looked at your pennies in the giant jar on your dresser, and thought, “Man, they need to update this??” Well, you’re in luck then, because the U.S. Mint is about to.

If anyone can tell me why we have pennies, when it costs more to manufacture them than they’re worth, or why we can’t simply round up to the nearest .05 of a dollar, I’d really love to hear it. Cause what are pennies? They fill giant paperweights all over the world. That’s all they are. When was the last time you used a penny in more than one transaction? If you pay your restaurant bills with pennies, chances are, you’re probably a dick. If you pay your light or phone bill with pennies, you’re probably insane. I have never used a penny in at least the last two years, unless it’s been to throw at people in crowded bars, which could either make me a dick or insane.

So the US Mint is unveiling a grand new design, so all those pennies you have saved in jars at home will no longer look tacky and style-less. They’ll be sexy and shiny, the way pennies and extravagant lights should be.

(Source)

Not all humans have a good grasp on the dynamics of relationships. You’re not the only one who hasn’t got it all figured out.

MocoSpace is a start-up social network for people who want to, uh, network. Socially. It’s the same idea behind MySpace, Facebook, ConnectYou, PEOPLEONTHEINTERWEBS, or whatever else is out there right now. But that’s not the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that they did a survey on a sample of 20,000 of their 10.3 million members, and they found out that 47% of their users break up with people via the phone. Not just over the phone, over text message.

Now, I’ve had my share of terrible relationships, but I’ve never told somebody to screw off via text message. I was considering doing it right now, but it’s one of those things you just can’t fire off, you need to be a legitimate douche about it. It’s something that you have to mean and invest in. I can’t imagine actually going through with it.

This either tells us Americans who use MocoSpace are prone to handling relationships badly, or the population handles relationships badly, or people who use MocoSpace apply the same rigorous standards to their relationships as they do to their social networks.

Which are not much.

Now for an oldie, but a goodie:

The other day, walking through the Beverly Center, I noticed a tiny little Shih Tzu wearing a big expensive Gucci doggy fur coat. And I thought, it’s absolutely ridiculous the sorts of things that people will buy for their dogs. Enter the pet speakers.

It sounds like a group of motivational speakers you’d hire to speak to kindergarteners, but I guarantee you, my friends, the dog speakers are real. They’re real, and expensive. Real expensive. Say you like listening to music, but you also own pets. Say those pets still are able to hear noises, as they should be able to if they’re healthy. Say those pets hate music, despite  my parent’s insistence on playing Kenny G for our dog, because pets hear at higher frequencies. And those higher frequencies damage your precious dog’s ears. Poor, poor doggy. What you need is brand new pair  of My Pet Speakers by Pet Acoustics. These names are like the aural equivalent of a Tyler Perry Movie. Pet Acoustics presents Pet Speakers, presents, PET. The musical.

Anyway, the Pet Speakers are omnidirectional, produce limited frequencies, and have a soft bass feature, so your pet can listen to your music in peace. Also, so you don’t pick-up the signs that aliens are about to land and make contact.

My Pet Speakers will set you back 250 bucks. But it’s worth it, for your cat’s goddamn smug expression.

(Photo via: PetAcoustics)

Well, keyboard manufacturers are counting on you not having that kind of time. They’re counting on you to hit buttons to write LOL instead of typing out LOL. See what I did there? I just wrote LOL several times, without the assistance of a keyboard.

You know what’d be really appropriate? A keyboard with a GTFO button. Or a TL;DR. But again, I managed to type all of those out rather quickly, without breaking my neck.

Are we lazy as a nation? Do we lead the sort of lives that lend themselves well to abbreviations via keyboard? Are we overthinking this pivotal, yet seminal landmark in computing, where every keyboard may one day be blazened with the emblems of easy browsing? BRB, LOL, WTF, WHODAT, OMFG–the list goes on and on.

So if you want to subject yourself to the torture of quick-typing internet memes, just buy the LOL keyboard from fast finger keyboards. Or, stab yourself. Those are the only two options I really see.

“It’s funny when it happens to Elmer Fudd, but less so when it happens to me while I am riding my motorcycle,” I would have said, were I this man. But were I this man, I would also have said it in Indonesian, and been Indonesian, therefore I would not know who Elmer Fudd was, yet I still would have referenced Fudd, causing a rift in the nature of reality that only Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neil working together could mend.

The man received full medical coverage for the incident, and $535. Which is just enough for the man to purchase a Playstation 3 and three games. $535 is also slightly less than one hundred dollars per exploded tooth, which means that according to the settlement each of his teeth were about equal in worth to a pair of Reeboks, a night out at Red Lobster with three friends, or a copy of Amazing Spiderman #105.

To be fair though, in Indonesia $535 will get you an eight-bedroom house, an all-gold autographed statue of Kobe Bryant, and an Eastern European slave.

According to the BBC, after having several of his teeth shatter in a cigarette related explosion, “Mr Susanto said he would try to give up smoking now anyway,” causing Nicorette board members to say, “Hey, maybe that’s a great idea for a new….no. No. That’s not a great idea.”

Snack foods and computers, either programming them or playing them, go together like Elvis and pancakes with pork chops and whipped cream made of bacon. They go together like painful childhoods and strippers. Like other things that obviously go together. So it’s great that some super-scientist decided to make tiny hardened Hershey’s Kisses to hold the CDs that you’re constantly using. For me, that would be the Mamas and the Papa’s Greatest Hits. Holding Mama Cass to a tiny hardened Hershey’s Kiss? That sounds like an evolved version of a personal hell.

Anyway, this brings me to the point that I’ve been trying to make for years. People aren’t making enough tech goodies that can also be used to prank fat people. A tiny hardened Hershey Kiss? That’s a chipped tooth and painful digestion waiting to happen. This is just the beginning. I see electrified chocolate USB holders next. And that is a future I welcome with open arms.

“The Princess and the Frog” themed products, put out by Disney and distributed in Wal-Mart stores across the country were recalled recently because they were filled with dangerous levels of cadmium. The products in question were a crown and a pendant shaped like a frog. A fictional Disney spokesmen reached for comment said, “We were hoping that children would wear the crown and the pendant and that the entire time they were wearing them they wouldn’t get brain damage, but then the opposite happened.”

The products were made in China where children eat cadmium on a daily basis as a sacrifice to the People’s Republic to make room for new apartment complexes and online computer game cafes.

China has a long history of general neglect when it comes to product safety, including such ill-fated products as “Radiation Ensconced Barbie”, “Baby Burp-N-Change-N-Rusted Sharp Edges”, and “SpongeBob Squarepants: Now with Live Angry Raccoon.”

The continued and alarming lack of product safety is due partly to a completely non-transparent government that rules over the country with an iron fist, and a recent and panicky industrial revolution that is expanding so rapidly that concerns about the welfare of citizens both internally and abroad has taken a backseat to economic concerns. On the bright side? “The Spy Next Door” is now in theaters.

Manolith will always be here to report on the newest technology in showers and household luxury. Why? Because there is nothing in the world that is more refreshing than a good shower. I am willing to argue with this for hours with anyone who has the time and the energy. Anyone who thinks showers are not the bedrock of a happy, healthy existence, I will shower with, thereby ending the debate and that person’s uneventful work week.

The newest technology? An egg-shaped shower. Similar in design to Darth Vader’s rejuvenation pod, where he’d sit for hours to rejuvenate, you too will one day be able to own a pod that refreshes and revitalizes you. This egg-shower also triples as a hydro massager and a bathtub, making it virtually impossible to have a terrible shower experience. Think of the epic things you could do in an egg-shaped shower.

Unfortunately, the design is still a concept, waiting for funding and a push to hit markets. Still, I’d much rather one of these be in my home than a boring shower stall.

Thank you, epic shower egg.

Well, it’s here. And it’s pretty much exactly what we thought it would be.

This morning Steve Jobs, complete in his blue-jeans-and-black-turtle-neck employee uniform, unveiled the iPad. He has called it his passion project, something that he believed would become one of his legacy projects and contributions. And man, how sweet it is.

Apple has stated that it wants to be in the intersection of “technology and liberal arts,” and this is a great start. More than just an electronic reader, the iPad uses the OS of the iPhone to deliver both a reader and a viewer in one swoop. According the the press conference this morning, it will ship in 60 days, and will retail for about $499 for the 16GB model. The best part? There’s no contract for the data plan, it’s all prepaid. The cost for the data plan? $29.99 for a month of unlimited data space.

What does this thing come with? Well, iTunes access for one, with a player that’s a hybrid of the iTunes and iPhone version. It also has Bluetooth, speaker capabilities, and a compass. Which is hilarious if you think about it. I mean, the iPad would be the world’s largest compass. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re relying on the compass of the iPad to get you back to civilization, you’ve done something wrong.

Scratch that, if you find yourself in that situation, email your story immediately to the Manolith staff – because that thing deserves to be published.

The big publishers have already signed on to provide content for the iPad, in the biggest act of no-duh ever witnessed by the industry. Harper Collins, McGraw-Hill, and Hatchet are all on board. We’ll have more about that later today.

The only downside to the announcement? CNBC contributor who remarked that the name iPad reminded them of a feminine product. Really? What are you, twelve?

So there we go, the next game changer from Apple. Oh, what ever will they think of next?

(Image via: Crunch Gear)

It’s 11 a.m. on the east coast, 8 a.m. here on the west and I’m impatiently awaiting the reveal by the fruit company. It has already been called the game changer by geeks worldwide, and even this poser of a gadget and tech enthusiast is ready to play with this ultraportable tablet. I’m tempted to head over to the nearest Mac store and set up camp with the rest of the nerds. I have a feeling Apple is going to pull a fast one in terms of the product name. Yes, Jobs and the Apple crew, long ago purchased the iSlate.com domain, but how naive are we to think those people aren’t smarter than us, and setting us up for a bait and switch?

Could it in fact be the iPalette? The iTablet? The iPad? I like iPalette – I’m going with iPalette: Palette – noun – a thin, usually oval oblong board or tablet often possessing a thumb hole at one end, used by painters for holding and mixing colors.

While I’m doubting the thumb hole, and leaning toward iSlate with everyone else, I won’t be surprised to see whatever slice of user-friendliness Apple is set to release today. I’ve been harassing a friend, a gent in big sales for the company, who is as tight-lipped and genuinely excited as everyone else. Apparently it really is going to happen at some point today.

The last stretch of months have been a continuously wonderful run for Apple – earlier this week they announced the highest revenue profit to date in any fiscal quarter. Not a bad way to start 2010. With the advent of the Apple tablet, the company is poised to take more than modest bite out of the tech industry – potentially the largest ever. Personally, I’m just hoping you can turn this “slate” upside down and shake it like an Etch-a-Sketch to turn it off and on.

Well, there’s an app for that.

The app, Date Check, runs a criminal background check on people based off their name, phone number, and other information. Also, if you want to test for compatibility, because you’re COMPLETELY intrigued, it has a horoscope matcher. So you can test and see if the man or woman that you’re wondering if And I just tested it out after having a late-night phone call from an unknown source somewhere in San Francisco. The number traced back to the person’s mom, so for the most part, you can color me impressed. It worked with a bunch of my friend’s numbers, but I wasn’t able to work the criminal background check right.

Are people THAT desperate to find good matches? Well, I know a few people that are but anyways this app is pretty cool I definitely recommend checking it out. Or you can always revert back to the old ways of Facebook and stalking them?!

I drool just mentioning the words. The Apple Tablet. You know how ridiculous it’ll be? You know how cool? You know how many peripheral accessories you’ll have to most likely buy? The answer to all is a shit-ton. The announcement’s coming tomorrow, and already rumors have been swirling about the functionality, the OS, the touching, the tablet-ing, the interactive content that’ll be offered, and all of these my friends, are my favorite things.

Basically, if rumors are to be believed, the Tablet will be running a new OS, but one that is incredibly similar to the iPhone. So similar that people’ll be able to sync their tablets up, like they are iPhones. It’ll have newspaper content, most likely an exclusive deal with the New York Times, and will essentially be like a giant iPhone.

People are laughing about all the speculation currently, but I’m excited. I’m looking forward to a few months from now when a bunch of different companies try to release their “Tablet Killer” or whatever, because Apple is beating the hell out of their market share.