Back when it first debuted, Apple TV was basically just an overpriced home media server.  Sure, it connected straight to your iTunes account and could store iTunes-purchased movies and television via a DVR-type hard disk drive, but aside from connecting directly to your computer for streaming and acting as an AirPort node, it wasn’t anything spectacular.  There are other devices that do similar features, and for the price, you could just buy a traditional media server that’s much more powerful and flexible, even if it’s not as easy-to-use.  However, that’s the old Apple TV; we’re talking about the new Apple TV.

The new product launched as Apple TV earlier this week is basically a Roku-style streaming video box for a brand-new iTunes television and movie RENTAL service.  That’s right, no more actually buying movies or TV episodes; now you’re renting them from Apple (at least via Apple TV).  That seems like a huge step back to me; why would you rent a TV episode for $1 when you can buy the episode for $2, or just watch it for free online via the network’s website, Hulu, Netflix On Demand, Amazon VOD, or any one of a million other streaming video options that Apple’s trying to take on.

Granted, it’s not like Apple TV’s been a big success.  Since it rolled out in 2007, it has only sold about 3 million copies (versus the iPad, which sold 3 million in as many months).  Why not experiment a little and see if you can succeed in an entirely new venture?

Via Engadget.

It’s the latest and greatest thing in getting your kids back to school!  With a top speed of 387 miles an hour, you’ll never be late again thanks to Paul Stender’s custom ride, The School Time Jet-Powered School Bus.  If you’re a gear head, this is the car for you.

Stender made this beast out of an old yellow school bus and (the special ingredient), a jet engine re-purposed from an F-4 Phantom.  Not only can this thing fly, it’s also capable of producing a jet flame from the back end, with a fire-blowing radius of 80 feet!  Just the thing to keep tailgaters at bay.  Stender says he came up with the idea for School Time to keep kids of drugs, adding, “jets are hot, drugs are not.”

Of course, there is a downside:  the bus’s jet engine consumes 150 gallons of fuel per quarter-mile.  Odds are that won’t pass the emissions test.  Then again, what cop could catch you?

Via Neatorama

Last week, I showed off 10 fun facts about Apple.  In the interest of equality amongst the OSes, here’s a corresponding list of 10 fun facts about Microsoft, including one of the most adorable things I’ve ever read:  MS’s Redmond, Washington, campus is full of abandoned baby bunnies.  That’s way cuter than the infestation of hipsters on Apple’s campus in Cupertino!

Also among the cool facts about Microsoft is that the company is actually a lot hipper than people let on.  Not only do they ask some incredibly strange questions in their job interviews, the Windows boot-up noise was actually composed by avant-garde musician and generally experimental sound guy Brian Eno, who has worked with everyone from David Bowie to U2 and Coldplay. Like record producers, the company also gives code names to pretty much everything, in an attempt to obscure products before they hit the market (like how movies are shipped to theaters under fake names to prevent bootlegging straight from the 35mm film or how record producers give albums false identities for the same reason).

Another fun fact about Microsoft is that employees celebrate their anniversaries with M&Ms.  No, they don’t get them, they give them!  Specifically, they have to bring in a pound of everyone’s favorite chocolate candy for every year of employment with Microsoft.  Who gets those M&Ms?  Probably the company’s thousands of employees each get one.

Really, how can people hate on a company whose first staff photo looks like the inside of a Doobie Brothers album?

Remember the typewriter?  Well, it lives on still.  While it’s not longer weighing down every desk in every office, it’s still a vital component of our nation’s musical heritage.  Musical?  That’s right, Musical.

In 1950, composer Leroy Anderson composed “The Typewriter,” which is a pops piece for orchestra plus one special instrument.  If you said the glockenspiel, you’re wrong.  If you said the typewriter, ding!  Speaking of the ding, let’s listen to the classical piece made famous by pretty much every cartoon character who has ever typed something in a hurry.

That’s the one thing I hate about the modern keyboard.  You get some soft clacking noises, but nothing like the incredible sound and tactile pleasure of clacking away on an old-school typewriter.  If they ever had a keyboard that made typewriter clicks and dings, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Image via Wired’s “From Spy Plane To Monster Truck-a Photo Gallery of Awesome Cockpits“

Digg founder Kevin Rose is a guy who knows about building a website from the ground up.  He’s on a lot of boards, he’s got a lot of friends, and most importantly, he hears a lot of rumors.  Take, for instance, the news that he posted on Twitter late Saturday night:  Facebook might soon be getting competition from Google in the form of Google Me.

Now Google has a lot of products that do the same thing Facebook does:  Google Latitude, Google Buzz, Google Wave, Google Profiles, and even a Facebook competition site currently up and running called Orkut.  None of these, aside from Latitude, have made a dent in the market.  Some (ahem, Google Buzz) have been outright disasters.  However, if you take all these pieces, mash them together, add them to your Google Profile, toss in Google Talk, YouTube, and GMail and… do you have something?

I don’t know.  I don’t think anyone’s going to leave Facebook for a new social networking website any time soon.  Whatever happens will happen slowly, and will take years to really make a dent in Facebook’s market share.  I mean, people still use Internet Explorer, MySpace, and even AOL, don’t they?  Google can’t kill Facebook, but they can at least finally get serious about entering the social networking arena.

View all four Bruce Campbell’s Soup labels via Sci-fi Wire.

It’s the perfect combination of an iPhone, an iPad, and a Nintendo DS!  Toshiba has launched a new line of netbook dubbed the Libretto, which features dual screens, a virtual keyboard, and touch-sensitivity on both screens, all of which are features stuck in a clamshell-design powered via Windows 7.  Basically, it features all the best features of both the tablet computer and the traditional laptop computer, in an ultra-portable, incredibly thin setup.  Staggeringly, the WiFi and 3G-capable Libretto W100 comes with a 63GB solid state hard drive!

Toshiba’s newly-announced products features two other units:  the Portege R700 and AC100.  The R700 is a traditional laptop with a state-of-the-art cooling system, while the AC100 is an Android-powered netbook that’s only 14mm thick!  There have been no prices announced, as of yet.

Man, that Libretto is a thing of beauty, isn’t it?  I’m sorely tempted to pick one of those up, just for the portability and the wow factor of something more capable than a tablet but more flashy than a netbook.  This just might be the device that encourages me to trade in my old laptop once and for all.  If it has netbook-style battery life, the Libretto will be made of win.