Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Having problems making people a nice cup of tea?

Don't worry. Onkar Singh Kular has the solution - mugs in the appropriate Pantone shades. All you need to do is choose the shade you want (for with milk and without, and, of course, for the type of tea you're using), brew until the colours match, add milk if required and there you go, one perfect cup of tea.

Don't let it get cold...



(link all the way from Coolhunting)

There's a rumour going round (which has turned into an article in the Times) that Google is planning a VOIP service. It all seems to be based on the fact that they're advertising that they want to hire a network "strategic negotiator" to help build an international infrastructure. Somehow that's been seen as them wanting to set up as a telecoms provider.

One job advert is a very thin thread on which to hang a story of that weight.

Having worked in the Internet industry for many years I think it's much more likely that Google is looking at setting up significant private bandwidth between its data centres, as it rolls out local copies of the Google database to speed up searches and indexing. This isn't going to be dark fibre purchased for VOIP services - it's going to be used to make the existing Google network run faster and further. Their current bandwidth bills are likely to be huge - and they'll be wanting to get a better deal from their fibre providers and collocation spaces.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers, guys.

Today is the 21st birthday of the Apple Macintosh.



Happy birthday Mac!