How does a multinational tech company prove that its servers will stand up to adverse conditions and keep running without a glitch?

Fire a bullet at one, of course.

Those mad boffins in white coats at HP decided to run a little experiment and film it. Of course, it's shameless marketing, but fun to watch.

Take a HP XP12000 disk array, aim a mounted custom-made rifle barrel that delivers bullets with pinpoint accuracy, place a fish tank behind the server, then fire the gun...

The fish tank is no more, but are the videos streaming from the XP12000 still playing?

Watch the video to find out.

What's amusing, in a sad way, is the bunch of disclaimers at the end of the film. Basically, if you fire a gun at your HP server, and it stops working, don't blame them. They're professionals. You're not.

Read (Via Duncan Campbell's blog)

Scientists have been working on something which is, apparently, a big problem - perfectly boiling an egg.

Yes folks, forget the humble egg timer, or intuition: if you really want to know when your egg is cooked to perfection, you need 'thermochromic' invisible ink, which turns dark when it reaches a certain temperature.

According to Lion Quality Eggs, who launched the project, thousands of people have been asking how to boil an egg properly, and so B&H Colour Change came up with this techie solution.

Feeling environmentally friendly and looking at all that lovely sunshine we've had recently? Then pop down to your local Currys store (providing you live in Croydon, Fulham or West Thurrock) and pick up a Sharp solar panel or nine.

Actually, you don't need a whole lot of sunshine these days. New technological advances, plus Sharp's knowledge of the British climate that dictates we don't get more than 3 weeks of sunshine in any year, means that they'll generate electricity from daylight (even our grey daylight).

Customers wanting to invest in solar panelling for their home can have a detailed in-store consultation, followed by a free home survey to ensure suitability.

Installation usually only takes a couple of days, with a small amount of equipment placed in the roof space. Apparently homeowners could cut their bills by around 50% if they install enough panels.

The panels aren't cheap - around £1000 each I've read - but consumers might be able to get a grant from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

The Propaganda

Virgin Mobile have committed to expanding their own branded line of mobile phones in the second half of this year, under the name 'Lobster'. These are designed to appeal to youngsters who eat seafood, or are on a budget, or something. Anyway, the 544 is another one of those "for music lovers" phones that everyone is so keen on at the moment.

The Good

The design of the phone is great. It's got a fairly average rounded clamshell shape, but the finish, which is a kind of high shine dark silver colour, makes it look much more expensive than it is. It's also got an external screen under which is one MP3 control - play/pause.

An interesting post over at The Inquirer suggesting that for Dell, as the number one, or possibly two, laptop manufacturer on the planet, there's a certain inevitability about a few of their notebook computers catching fire.

What doesn't help is their interesting interpretation of 'service and support' which can lead to frustrated customers.

Unnerving as it may seem, even modern lithium batteries are effectively little high-energy packages that have the potential to explode due to any manufacturing defect or mishandling.

Is Dell perhaps just one of the companies we love to hate? Pick on the big guy? Other notebooks are as susceptible to the problem (unless they don't use batteries...).

Apple's been recalling and replacing MacBook batteries, and other PC manufacturers have had their problems.

Whatever make or model of notebook you have, it's at best an annoyance, and at worst, dangerous, if your machine spontaneously combusts - but seemingly just 'one of those things' - a small but potential risk of carrying round a large chunk of metal and chemicals on your lap.

Read

Sony, the company that brought us the Walkman and changed the way we consumed music in the '80s, has turned 60 - quite an achievement.

A recent article suggests that Sony is losing touch with what consumers actually want, citing a range of luxury products in the Qualia line that were axed within three years. Sure, it's all very well designing a CD player that self-centers the disc - very swishy - but the price tag doesn't justify it as a mass consumer item.

Part of the current problem is Sony's previous success that now spans a number of different divisions: gaming, consumer electronics, music, film - and sometimes I wonder how much these divisions actually talk to one another.

New boy CEO Howard Stringer seems to have taken a new, and distinctly Western, approach to Sony - downsizing and focusing on growth areas rather than maintaining the cultural status quo of, for example, promoting retired executives to advisory positions.

Skype pretty much rules the roost when it comes to Internet telephony and its free PC-to-PC service has millions of fans but there's a new kid on the block called the Gizmo Project. The basic software is free, just like Skype, and it has all of the usual VOIP facilities, including free PC to PC calling, conference calls and so on but here's the killer features. First it's an open source program so it should be compatible with other VOIP systems but the big news is that outgoing calls to overseas landline and mobile phones are free. So what's the catch? There isn't one, except that the person you are calling must also be an 'active' Gizmo user (active means making a few calls per week). If you want to take incoming and make outgoing calls to non-Gizmo users there are a couple of paid-for call plans but even so the rates are still very low.