Tech Talk

Gizmo news and reviews with Nicholas Bispen

FANS of the troubled Pernice Boomerang handset have been disappointed following the long-delayed launch of the v-shaped personal organiser. Persistent glitches have meant that all software has had to be removed and the £199 device is nothing more than an actual boomerang.  A Pernice spokesman: “It goes quite far though”.

Users of the Lang 786 series of laptops from 2003 are stranded in a virtual August after a software fault meant that their machines failed to acknowledge the beginning of July. Over 4,000 Lang users have been reported missing, but as 786 tech support ended last year, they are not expected to return.
 
There’s a major announcement imminent later this week from Chong. I’m betting it’s either a re-duddified version of the Camel X-7 or a new VGF for the Spazzmo.

 
PRODUCT TEST: MANNHAUSER DF-66 TABLET COMPUTER – £299
They’re calling this the ultimate iPad killer and although that’s a potential exaggeration, if you hold it in the air and activate its iPad-destruction app, green smoke will emit from its anus. No iPads were destroyed during our test.

The DF-66 is one of the first tablets to run the new Claypole-Gadzooks firmware – as a result it grows a jester’s hat and a full beard in about a week. Users can then style the beard to their own liking with the add-on customising kit or with a pair of standard nail scissors.

PLUS POINTS: The DF-66 is a more inclusive device than the iPad – for example, when you use it to browse porn sites, the machine shouts ‘Ooh, I say!’ in the synthetically-recreated voice of Kenneth Williams.

MINUS POINTS: The incessant, unstoppable playing of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire.

 

Houses Go Bad

HOUSES, for so long the friends of mankind, have finally turned against their masters, according to the latest property market survey.

Mortgage lenders have reported a sharp rise in houses uprooting themselves from their foundations and embarking on murderous rampages, caused by either a comet which recently skimmed the earth’s atmosphere or the tightening of credit conditions since April.

Tom Logan, of the Halifax, said: “We’re definitely seeing the start of an uprising by sentient houses and bungalows hell-bent on chaos.

“They are using the jagged glass of their smashed windows as razor-sharp teeth, tearing and rending mercilessly through flesh and bone, consuming all in their wake.”

He added: “It is a concern for homeowners, particularly those with a five-year fixed rate or a tracker. In the short term prices will be affected, while in the medium to long term they’ll kill every single one of us.”

The leader of the houses, 28 Rathbone Place, said: “For centuries we have given you shelter and warmth and you repay us by mutilating our kitchens in the vain pursuit of profit, or to make your friends feel inferior and worthless. It ends now.”

Number 28 was then surrounded by hundreds of other angry looking houses chanting: “Bricks not flesh! Bricks not flesh! Bricks not flesh!”

Teacher Emma Bradford recently purchased a two-bed semi in an up-and-coming area of Lewes, East Sussex for £195,000. It has since slaughtered her fiancé Tony.

She said: “The house lifted up its attached garage and swung it like a mallet, instantly severing Tony’s head.

“Then it jumped up and down on his body, crushing it to a bloody pulp as the letter box turned into a mouth shouting ‘Die! Die! Die!’.

“It’s a nightmare. I’ll probably have to move back in with my parents.”