"Why the hell is Steve staring at the beach ball?" That was the question of the afternoon at NeXT's 1987 company retreat. "It's always about beach balls with him," they muttered derisively, "what's so interesting about beach balls?"

These, of course, were but the first of millions of much more profane Apple/beach ball related mutterings to come. And that last question, made up as it may be, is a good one: There is nothing interesting about beach balls, rainbow colored, spinning or otherwise. Nothing at all.

Join me in cursing that day. [AllAboutSteveJobs]

The Aurora Watch has no interest in traditional minute and second hands. It doesn't even have a dial to speak of. Yep, you're just going to have to settle for good old fashioned touch activated laser hands.

Yes, designer Jihun Yeom has put laser lights in a watch, with red indicating minutes and blue indicating hours. The sad news is, it's only a concept for now. Presumably they need to perfect a fail-safe to keep from singeing wrist-hairs. But there's no question that Future Me will be sporting one of these at each and every light cycle derby. [Yanko Design]

My keyboard is silent, but deadly, without any of those old-school klick-klack-klickedy-klack-klack sounds. But for Just over $20, I can at least make it look retro and dream of being a serious typewriter user. [Rockett St George via Toxiferous Designs]

I wish there were light bulbs that could actually illuminate a room exactly like candles. In the meantime, the Light Bulb Effect substitutes hot filaments, glass, and vacuum for real wax and wicks.

Helbert Ferreira and Remi Melander, I love you. [System Design Studio]

Louie Sulcer won Apple's 10 Billion Songs Sold contest. He just didn't believe that he won or that the guy calling to congratulate him was Steve Jobs himself. Guess he thinks Cupertino is full of prank callers.

The contest was simple: You buy the 10 billionth song and you win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. Louie happened to purchase a copy of Johnny Cash's "Guess Things Happen That Way" at just the right moment and next thing you know, he was getting a call from Steve Jobs. Except Louie didn't believe it was actually Steve:

He called me and said, ‘This is Steve Jobs from Apple.' I said, ‘Yeah right,' " Sulcer tells Rolling Stone. "I have a son that loves to play tricks and he does that every now and then - calls me and imitates somebody." After three or four times of asking "Come on now, who is this," Sulcer realized that his caller ID read simply "Apple," and only then did he believe that he was the winner of the contest and a $10,000 iTunes card.

Congratulations Louie, both on winning the contest and on making a good song choice. Just watch out for spoofed caller IDs. [Rolling Stone]

From what we can tell, the $175 Life Vest Messenger Bag, while quite fashionable, does not actually float. Thank goodness we clarified that before anyone got hurt on the way to some beach bound Starbucks. [ehrensache via notcot via boingboing]

You've probably heard about the school district that installed spy software on laptops issued to its students so they could spy on them without their knowledge. Creepy! Well, here's a peek at the principal who came up with the idea.

The other fellow in the video is DC Pierson, of Derrick Comedy fame. He has a new book out called The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To. It's awesome and you should check it out. He also co-wrote and co-stars in the new movie Mystery Team, which he made with the Derrick Comedy folks. That is also very much worth checking out! So do it!

Music and technology aren't unfamiliar bedfellows, but the i-Tab offers a unique method for enhancing your guitar with gadgetry: clamp it on. Like a TomTom for tunes, the electronic songbook prompts players with chords and lyrics for thousands of songs.

For hundreds of years guitarists have mastered their instrument with patience and practice. But this is 2010—who has time to practice? The i-Tab accelerates the learning process by offering thousands of dynamic tabs, scrolling chords at any tempo while you stumble your way through the song.

The device has a 5" touch screen—using your guitar pick as stylus is encouraged—and 4GB of memory to hold the songs, which can be downloaded through a tab store. The company claims there will be 5000 tunes available at launch.

On some songs you can accompany your noodling with backing tracks that can be played over speakers or headphones. And you'll probably need them—having the i-Tab clamped to your guitar isn't likely to win you many bandmates. Sure it'll fast-track your fingerpicking, but at what price.

Well, the price of $199 and looking like a dweeb, as it turns out. Pre-orders are slated to be filled first week in March. [i-Tab via Oh Gizmo]

You know that Mac vs PC music in EVERY ad? Do you think it sounds like baby music? Because everyone at Gizmodo just got into a huge debate over it and are not talking to each other now. Tiebreaker please?

I'm not saying it's bad or uncool, other than we all have it stuck in our heads from the repetition. Just that it sounds like, well, the kind of music you play for a baby so they fall asleep. Dreaming of Apple ads.

You know that Mac vs PC music in EVERY ad? Do you think it sounds like baby music? Because everyone at Gizmodo just got into a huge debate over it.polls

Amazon started calling publishers before Steve Jobs had even left the stage at the iPad event, according to the NYT. They wanted to know what Apple promised them—and more importantly, what they promised Apple.

The deal Amazon's been trying to ink with publishers for the couple months would guarantee that books on the Kindle would be the same price as on any other reader, if not, in fact, cheaper—the incentive, a bigger chunk of revenue, though Apple's largely screwed that pooch for Amazon with their own offering, which lets publishers set their own prices, which what publishers are really after: Control. (Though Apple might have more control than expected.)

One of the tidbits with larger implications is that some publishers are running on a month-to-month contract basis with Amazon, instead of a full-blown multi-year agreement, meaning they actually have plenty of room to maneuver in negotiations, especially with Apple at their back. What some publishers might do, they told Bits, is sign the Amazon contract now, and just push a limited free app on the iPad, then switching to a full-blown paid model whenever Amazon's Kindle Touch arrives.

'Cause that'll make thing simple. [Bits]

A quantum physics breakthrough that can predict the kinetic energy of electrons in simple metals—and semiconductors—will enable computers to simulate the behavior of new materials up to 100,000 times faster than they currently can. That's huge.

Princeton engineer Emily Carter led the project, which took an equation by Llewellyn Hilleth Thomas and Enrico Fermi that calculates how many electrons are distributed in a theoretical gas with evenly distributed electrons and figured out how to apply it to real, imperfect materials:

"The equation scientists were using before was inefficient and consumed huge amounts of computing power, so we were limited to modeling only a few hundred atoms of a perfect material," said Emily Carter, Princeton engineer who led the project.

"Important properties are actually determined by the flaws, but to understand those you need to look at thousands or tens of thousands of atoms so the defects are included. Using this new equation, we've been able to model up to a million atoms, so we get closer to the real properties of a substance."

The results of that effort mean that principles of quantum mechanics, previously limited to small bits of matierals, can now be applied on a large scale. Modeling, then, for anything from fuel-efficient cars to electronic devices, will happen exponentially faster than it does today. Innovation just got an upgrade. [Princeton via PopSci]

Oh hello! The FCC has just approved a phone with the model number PB99300. It's HTC-made, CDMA-using and just happens to remind us of the Nexus One's PB99100 model number. Odds are that this handset is the Nexus One bound for Verizon, but we'll have to wait for an official confirmation and a release date. [FCC via Unwired View via BGR]

Three-dee displays make me dizzy. I want to see real 3D without eyeglasses, which is exactly what this new Nintendo DSi game does. It opens a world to a new dimension by tracking your face with the DSi camera.

Its name is Rittai Kakushi e Attakoreda, and the mechanics are quite simple: You move your face or tilt your Nintendo DSi to find hidden shapes inside a 3D scene taking over the two screens, a fantastic Through-the-Looking-Glassish doll house that seems completely real. It feels as if the DSi is a window to an alternative world.

What's the magic trick? It uses the front camera of the DSi to track your eyes' position in relation to the angle of the DSi screens, the same principle as Johnny Chung Lee's Wii hack. Since the game knows from where you are looking, it changes the perspective of the 3D camera in sync with your eyes, giving you the perfect illusion that you are looking into a world inside your handheld. [Nintendo Japan via Boing Boing]

Yesterday, up popped our buddy Bill on Twitter, saying he was in Antarctica with a decent satellite connection to the Internet—good enough for tweeting at least. But what's he doing down there?

We asked his people, and it turns out, Bill is on vacation. Yep, if you want to know where a guy who can go anywhere (except space) goes on his time off, that's where.

Sadly, though Bill rhapsodizes that "the beauty is amazing," he says he can't upload pics via his satellite connection. Here's hoping for a serious slideshow on Gates Notes when he returns. [Twitter]

A Micro Four Thirds camera with some surprising extras, the cutting edge of SDXC cards, a portable thumb drive unrivaled in capacity, and a shameless and lazy MacBook ripoff. Come see what's Now Available.

SanDisk 64GB Ultra SDXC

SanDisk sure has a penchant for pushing out the fast and furious compact storage mediums before most other manufactures and this 64GB Ultra SDXC card is no exception. If you're lucky enough to own a DSLR or HD Camcorder that supports this SD 3.0 card you can look forward to its fast 15 MB/sec read speeds and the capability to hold about 8 hours of HD Video. Chances are if you're the proud owner of a compatible device its $350 tag is fairly reasonable for a ticket to the bleeding edge of camera storage. Capture it here.

Kingston DataTraveler 310

Yowza! Those of you that have been holding out for a 256GB flash drive stateside can finally breathe easy. While the rest of the world has been enjoying the DataTraveler 310 for about six months it's now at least available in the good ole‘ U-S-of-A. With 25 MB/sec read and 12 MB/sec write speeds it's not even near the fastest flash drives out there, but it certainly holds its own given the capacity. I'll probably stick to my 250 GB external hard drive, but If you have $1,108 dollars in that penny jar under the sink (and who doesn't?) you may want to consider picking this up, here.

Viewsonic MacBook ViewBook Pro

It's painfully obvious the marketing department at Viewsonic didn't stay up too late the night they came up with ‘ViewBook Pro.' Basically, this thing is an underwhelming MacBook at nearly the same price. For $950 you get a weak but efficient 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. Perhaps the only unique aspect of the unit is the ability to sacrifice the DVD burner for an extra battery, effectively extending the lifespan to around 12 hours. C'mon, Viewsonic! For around fifty bucks more you can have a much beefier MacBook and install Windows on it. If you want this lame ripoff you can kick yourself here.

Olympus PEN E-PL1

We were pretty excited when this bad boy leaked earlier in the month. So we're even more excited that this little gem is practically available right now! You can head over to Amazon and pre order the possible future king of Micro Four Thirds cameras. For $600 you get the body and a 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko zoom lens, which is of course swappable with other compatible lenses. The built in flash is also a feature that seems to be decidedly absent from other niche options. Look for our official impressions next month.

In today's Remainders: news that's breaking. Boxee Beta is available on Apple TV; Symbian^4 rears its ugly head; analysts analyze things and predict cheaper iPhones; Carly Simon reveals who was so vain; and a nation-sized iceberg breaks free in Antarctica.

Boxee On Your Apple Boxy
According to the Boxee blog, Boxee Beta is now available on Apple TV. If you had the Alpha version installed you can just update the Launcher, but if you're going in fresh you'll need to go through the atvusb-creator and then follow these instructions. H.264 playback is improved but still doesn't have the benefit of hardware acceleration. More bad news: no Crystal HD support, yet, though the forums are already clamoring so there's always hope for the next update. [Engadget]

IBM Improvements
At the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics conference in Seattle—sounds like a ton of fun, doesn't it?—IBM announced a new algorithm that allows machines to process data at crazyfast speeds, reportedly reducing the cost of the dealing with gigantic sets of data by an order of two magnitudes. In a test, the new algorithm crunched through 9TB of data—a process that would normally take about a day—in about the time it'd take to watch one episode of Seinfeld sans commercials. Fast! IBM's being tight-lipped with the details so no one's quite sure how or where the improvements were made, but they seem pretty darn excited about it in their press release. So fast, so furious. [Seattle Times]

Symbian...Fore!
Symbian^3 isn't even supposed to show up until sometime in the fall, but today videos showing a development version of Symbian^4 cropped up and they are none too exciting. You get some transition animations, some largely uninspired widgets, a droopy Dali clock and not much else. Don't worry too much, though—Symbian^4 won't be cropping up in its final version for another year or so. That leaves plenty of time for improvement. [SlashGear]

So Vain
Today, one of the most enduring questions in all of pop music came to a close. The subject of Carly Simon's 1972 song "You're So Vain" has been a topic of intense speculation since the song's release, and ever since it came to light that Deep Throat was that one dude, there might not have been a higher profile case of mystery identity. Well, in a rerecorded version of the song, Simon answered the riddle...backwards. Playing the new record in reverse reveals the name of the vain individual to be David. As in David Geffen, the rich, bald fellow who headed Simon's label, Elecktra, back in the early 70s. Apparently Simon felt the need to immortalize Geffen in song because the exec was giving Joni Mitchell, a labelmate, more attention. So anyway now it's settled, and no one will think the song is about them again. [The Awl]

Burr!
Oh shit. An iceberg the size of Luxembourg, which, for those who don't have a handle on their European geography, is about a third larger than Rhode Island, broke free of Antarctica and is now floating about on the southern pole of our planet. The thousand square mile ice cube could have all sorts of consequences down the line, depending on how it moves in the open water. One of them involves messing up the habitat of a huge colony of Emperor penguins that live nearby. Penguins are just about the cutest thing Antarctica has going for it and icebergs are probably among the worst, so this development is unsettling, to say the least. [Times Online]

Netvertible
In an announcement that no one was waiting for, Viliv confirmed the price of their S10 Blade netvertible: $699. Not exceptionally cheap for an Atom-powered, folding Windows 7 netbook with a touch screen. Also, you have to ask yourself: do you really want to be carrying around something that's proudly marketed as a "netvertible?" Like the type of cars it's styled after, I imagine the Blade will look nice but lack performance when the going gets tough. [Engadget]

Wow
A study commissioned by the Australian government on the risk of crime in virtual games was recently completed. As games like World of Warcraft and Second Life continue to thrive, and as their real world economies continue to grow, the AU Institute of Criminology thought it was about time to start setting up some guidelines for keeping virtual activity lawful. One particular, unusual aspect of the games that was given a close look: virtual rape. Apparently a Second Life rape in 2007 required Belgian police forces to patrol the online world to prevent further incidents, and several other instances have left authorities unsure of how to respond. Welcome to 2010, my friends. [Slashdot]

Analysis
Analysts, who are hardly ever wrong, are saying that come June Apple is going to announce new iPhones that not only have new features but are cheaper, as well. Analysts are traditionally reliable on these sorts of matters and there is plenty of evidence that Apple's new iPhone will indeed be cheaper, perhaps even free. Oh wait a moment, I had that confused. No, actually, these are just the idle musings of a Morgan Stanley analyst and there is no evidence that these things will come to pass in June. Sorry about that! [Apple Insider]