Ever heard of Google X? That's the Google webpage that has an Mac OS X interface. It was a project from the Google Labs but it was pulled down after a day.

The interface is pretty cool, but then it turned out that Apple holds the patent for the design. After it was quietly taken down - no official Google or Apple statements were made - around 50 mirror sites turned up like mushrooms sporting the same interface. We may never see an official Google X - but then you never know.

By the way, it has a nice page footer too. "Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you."

Back in 1994, Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, and chairman and co-founder of Opsware, was a Mac user. And although it was quite a surprise that he jumped fence towards Microsoft, he's setting things right once again by going back to Mac.

It's a phenomenon observed many times before, but this time, it's all about the head of a company that was once against the Redmond giant.

Andreessen is best known for being part of the Internet revolution back in the early 90s, pushing out his masterpiece: the Mosaic browser. Netscape Communications soon became his greatest achievement when he co-founded it and lead it up the industry ladder. When AOL got their hands on Netscape, he remained as Chief Technical Officer.

Today he stands at the top of data center automation provider, Opsware, and was pretty disappointed when his Lenovo ThinkPad T60 just couldn't keep up. He swapped the machine for an Intel 15-inch MacBook Pro and was pretty chirpy about it. As he said, "I used to be a Mac user till 1994 and now I am a Mac user again.Â?

Because his Mosaic browser was turned against Netscape's Navigator in the form of Internet Explorer, it's a surprise that he even considered grabbing a Windows laptop in the first place.

Shiny Media (based in the United Kingdom), Xataka (Spain), Daily Gadget (Germany), Journal du Geek (France), and GamesBlog (Italy) asked their readers to vote for Europe's "gadget of the year".

Here's the list of winners. We're throwing in some of the Wii's other awards just to further drive the point home:

Nintendo Wii: Except for Italy, over one half of the voters from each country voted for the Wii.

• The Wii won the Game Critics Award for Best of Show and Game Critics Award for Best Hardware at E3 2006.
• Popular Science made it the Grand Award Winner in Home Entertainment on December 2006.
• Electronic Design magazine gave it the Consumer Design of the Year award in their Best Electronic Design issue.
  
• It got the Spike TV Video Games Award for breakthrough technology.
• It is one of PC World magazine's 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year.
• Gamespot gave it the Best Hardware award at their Best and Worst 2006 awards show.

Apple iPod nano: Italy voted for the iPod nano.

• All we can say is Apple's popular digital audio player has won too many other awards to mention. (It doesn't need to - the iPod is the current undisputed market leader when it comes to portable audio and video.)
  

Nokia N Series phones: These got lots of votes from Spain.

• The "N Series" or "Nseries" is popular for its variety of multimedia features. Most notable are the high-resolution screens, FM radio, 3D graphic support for games (something we very much admire), variety of music codecs, and high-resolution camera. Just look at the Nokia N73.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on a roll. It was just yesterday when we reported that the outspoken official took a shot at the music industry with his focus being on DRM or Digital Rights Management. This time, Jobs had a couple of not-so-friendly words for the public schools in general, with emphasis given on teacher unions.

To make the long story short, Jobs' message stated that the only way to improve the state of education in America is for school principals to learn to fire bad teachers. He then said that the unions directly contributed to the demise of public education:

What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good? Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.' I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.

After that rather harsh comments, the Apple official then went down to business and talked about his proposals. According to Jobs, he dreams of having textbook-free schools in the future. In lieu of these, Jobs said that students may have a free online information source that is being updated by experts regularly. Think Wiki.

He added that instead of channeling funds for printing books that become obsolete in no time, we could use the money by buying "delivery vehicles" such as computers and faster Internet. With the Wiki-like project, Jobs believes as well that some of the brightest minds will definitely contribute.

Lastly, Jobs remembered his earlier statements against the educational system well. He closed his speech with "Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure." The teachers and other guests present during his speech supposedly applauded Jobs.

"Seven geeky gifts your girl will love this Valentine's day." Notice the quotation marks? No, it's not because I'm just quoting the title, it's because some of the items in this list are actually gifts that you'd buy for yourself. Personally, I think an HD-DVD player's a bit off base. Think of the Bowling Ball episode from the Simpsons and you'll understand what I mean.

That said, there are actually a couple of good ideas in the list. One of these is the Laser Stars Projector. This 10-inch tall gadget uses green laser and holographic technology to project green laser stars and blue clouds onto your ceiling, walls, your face, your girlfriend's face, etc. The clouds and the stars are all constantly moving and morphing, too.

This thing is perfect for setting up the mood, and if you're a real geek, you should know at least a few constellations by heart so you can regale your girl with some funny anecdotes, just like how Rocky Dennis won his classmates over in the 1985 classic, "Mask".

If your girl's a music fan, then chances are she's already got an mp3 player. Despite this, I still think that the iPod shuffle (which is the third entry in the list) is a good gift idea. You can actually turn it into the digital equivalent of an old-school mix tape and put in those songs that are important to the both of you, or maybe you can go for the whole concept album-style presentation and weave a long musical tale of your relationship so far. You can even buy her a model that comes in her favorite color.

Lastly, there's the Digital Photo Frame (I know I said "a couple" but I actually meant "three"). This one should be a no brainer. Take a shot of the two of you dancing the night away to the tunes you pumped into your girl's new iPod while the Laser Stars Projector takes care of the ambiance. Pop it in the Digital Photo Frame, leave it on her nightstand, and surprise her come morning. Instant brownie points.

If you want to check out the rest of the list, click on the "read" link below.

When Apple and Intel joined forces to revolutionize computing, lots of consumers and Mac aficionados couldn't help but feel good about it. And it seems that former, longtime Intel honcho, Leslie Vadasz, is just one of those people who's beaming about that partnership. Why is that, you may ask?

Going over Digg, we found an interesting tidbit about Intel's Les and MacBooks. Apparently, when he was asked by someone if "he finally got to buy the computer youÂ?ve always dreamed of having, now that thereÂ?s Intel inside?", Les replied with a direct "you're god damn right!". Feel free to take a look at our image.

Now that's a convincing endorsement.

State Senator Carl Kreuger, a Democrat representing New York's 27th district in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn, has recently announced his plan to introduce legislation that would ban the use of electronic devices (iPods, BlackBerrys, cellphones, DS Lites, PSPs) while crossing streets in major cities.

Sen. Kreuger has claimed that the phenomenon of "iPod oblivion" has led to a number of fatal accidents on urban streets. While he did not cite any statistical studies that have indicated a rise in such incidents, he did refer to the January death of a 23-year-old Brooklyn man who, while tuned into his iPod headphones, walked into the path of a city bus.

The bill would basically make it illegal to use any kind of handheld device while crossing the street in major cities like New York, Albany, and Buffalo. Offenders would end up with a US$ 100 fine and a criminal court summons.

Joggers and other exercise buffs who like to pass the time listening to tunes while burning calories would have to limit their iPod use to city areas in which no street crossing would be involved.

While this proposed bill may infuriate handheld gamers, music loving exercise buffs, and Wall-Street BlackBerry addicts, Kreuger stands fully behind this bill, saying that tuning in and tuning out is a fatal combination on the streets of New York. CNET News reports that Kreuger said this in a statement:

You can't be fully aware of your surroundings if you're fiddling with a BlackBerry, dialing a phone number, playing Super Mario Brothers on a Game Boy, or listening to music on an iPod

We here at QJ would like recall George Carlin's view on children and "dangerous toys" and prefer to think of this "iPod oblivion" phenomenon as a passive form of eugenics: If you're too dumb to play your PSP while crossing a traffic-heavy street, then you're probably just too dumb.

A regular bloke from London, Freecycle advocate, he repares broken iPods and return them to owners Matthew Smith, has been doing something that is very extraordinary - He takes broken iPods, fixes them, and gives them back out to the freecycle community for free. The Londonist interviewed the chap and he divulges the reason why he restores and gives away iPods for no cost instead of selling them.

Apparently, the reason why he started doing this is very simple - he broke his own iPod. In his effort to fix the thingamajig, he advertised on Freecycle for a couple of broken iPods for spare parts and he then promised that if he gets more than he needs he'll fix the others and would give them back to the community. Apparently, the idea caught the eye of a lot of people and thanks to more spare parts, he is able to fix more iPods.

So if he's doing a good job on repairing the broken thingamajigs, then why doesn't he sell them on eBay or something? He mentions that the Freecycle community is the reason why he doesn't do that. He says that:

The thing with Freecycle is that you surprise yourself by getting the generosity bug and learning how good it feels to give something back. We spend our whole lives working to earn money so that we can then spend it on stuff that ultimately we don't really need Â? we just think we do because the media and society tells us we do. So I fell under Freecycle's spell and now its definitely paying off for me.

As a famous figure once said, "let the world change you and one day you can change the world". That's what Matthew Smith did, and now, in his little way, he is changing the world. One could only hope that more people will allow their world to change them.

This next tidbit just goes to show that a classic never grows old and at times, doesn't diminish in value. Just what in blazes are we talking about? Going over Digg, we found out that an Apple Newton (which has been around since 1993) was recently sold at eBay to the tune of  US$ 229.

Apparently, the Newton sold at eBay is still shrinkwrapped, with the seller claiming that it has never been used and opened. Plus, he/she says that it has been stored in a climate-controlled environment.

Anybody could speculate that the seller just had a shrink wrapping machine and he used to make some quick bucks, but then again, the guy has a 99.4% positive feedback.

The bidding has already ended, but it's amusing to see just how much Apple aficionados are willing to pay to snag a piece of Apple history. Check out the read link below to check out the eBay site.

After just a few weeks since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, it seems like it already has a Chinese look a-like, and a beefy competition at that. Chinese company Meizu, who has found their niche in making mp3 players, has concocted a cellphone called M8, which has an uncanny resemblance to the iPhone.

It has a smaller 3.3 screen which has a 720 x 480 resolution. It also has touch screen functionality like the iPhone, is powered by a ARM11 processor and runs on Win CE 60 OS. Aside from that, it also has Bluetooth, a TV-out feature, and what appears to be two integrated cameras - a three megapixel cam at its back and a 0.3 megapixel at the front.

We still don't have any info about its price tag and availability. But we're betting that it would be cheaper than the iPhone. Anyhow, we'll update you about this as more info comes our way.