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The designer who made a name for himself last year by developing his own rebranding of Microsoft is going to work for the Xbox division this summer.

PayPal says “aggressive changes” are planned to its overzealous frozen funds policy.

A compendium of the worst tech keynote addresses ever includes Apple.

For some of us, writing is hard. Theo Sanderson has decided that it’s not quite hard enough and has created the “Up-Goer Five” text editor.

The name comes from a xkcd cartoon about a diagram of the Saturn V Rocket but explained using only the “ten hundred” words English speakers use most – thus, “The Up-Goer Five”.

Sanderson’s text editor lets you write about a topic of your choosing but it alerts you when you use “non-permitted words” in the applet’s text field.

Give it a try – Sanderson says it gave him “increased clarity” in his writing. It just made me even more frustrated with the writing process.

While Americans worry about things like “Why are we here?” and “What is the nature of the universe?”, we Canadians send our astronauts into space to ask good, down to earth questions.

Sony admitted that the motivation for the sale was to raise much-needed cash, expected to equal $770m, after debts on the building have been repaid.

They are renting the building back. Sounds a lot like what cash-strapped Nokia is being forced to do.

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It was updated this week with a number of new features. The season starts tomorrow.

Samsung Galaxy Fonblet.

Google has no shame.

I think I’ll just wave from now on.

Aubrey Johnson:

In late November, Nguyen was seated at the dinner table in Steve Job’s home on Waverly St in Palo Alto. Also present were Eddy Cue and Tim Cook and other Apple executives. Steve led the conversation while eating a beet salad:

“I’m going to give you a number, Bill, and if you like it, let’s do it and just be done with this whole thing. Okay?” Bill agreed.

Jobs passed a piece of paper to Nguyen and Bill nodded. The deal was done.

That’s the way you get shit done.

Grant Howitt describing his experience at the Panasonic Toughpad press conference:

I think Panasonic has invented a new kind of pixel. A bendy pixel. I don’t understand. What does PPI stand for? What am I doing with my life? Why am I here in this basement in Munich at the age of 26 staring at a man fire a laser pointer at a graph? How did this happen? I wanted to be a Sky Pirate. I don’t understand any of this.

You have to go read this. It’s hilarious.

Winning the Internet or acting like a dick? You be the judge.

Overcome the clutches of procrastination with Finish, a busy iPhone user’s best friend. Unlike other to-do apps that are “clever” for their own sake, only Finish takes advantage of how you naturally think. Finish gets in your face when you need it, stays out of the way when you don’t, and effortlessly keeps you focused the only thing that matters.

Love this — I just bought it.

An FAA proposal would prevent flight personnel from using electronic devices while the plane is operating, so your flight attendant won’t be distracted by a game of Angry Birds.

Lenovo is preparing a version of its ThinkPad laptop running Google’s Chrome OS.

Jim and Dan discuss the article put out by the Wall Street Journal “devaluing” Apple and speculate on Dell’s plans with private-equity firms.

Sponsored by Hover, (use code DANSENTME for 10% off) Mailchimp, Sourcebits, and Squarespace (use code DANSENTME1 for 10% off).

Seth Godin:

If you go to work and do what you’re told, you’re not being negative, certainly, but the lack of initiative you demonstrate (which, alas, you were trained not to demonstrate) costs us all, because you’re using a slot that could have been filled by someone who would have added more value.

So true.

And this is why people are flying Virgin.

Oh Google.

Rene Ritchie outlines what an LG smart home would look like and wonders how Apple will fit into that future.

The Bad Lip Reading guys are back with a hilarious send-up of NFL footage.

That looks cool.

“Apple needs to adapt to a very different world,” Sculley said. “As we go from $500 smartphones to even as low, for some companies, as $100 for a smartphone, you’ve got to dramatically rethink the supply chain and how you can make these products and do it profitably.”

Seriously? The guy that kicked Steve Jobs out of Apple and then ran the company into the ground is giving advice to Tim Cook, a supply chain guru. What’s Bloomberg got on tap for tomorrow, an interview with a car full of clowns and a skateboarding dog?

The Atlantic:

Astronauts can, certainly, tear up — they’re human, after all. But in zero gravity, the tears themselves can’t flow downward in the way they do on Earth. The moisture generated has nowhere to go. Tears, astronaut Andrew Feustel put it, “don’t fall off of your eye … they kind of stay there.” NASA spacewalk officer Allison Bollinger, who oversaw Feustel’s EVA, confirmed this assessment. “They actually kind of conglomerate around your eyeball,” she said.

In other words, yep: There’s no crying in space.

Even worse? According to the article, “space tears” actually can hurt.

As a Canadian, I have to say that #2 is very popular.

The bloggers at the official Star Wars Web site had a bit of fun with the Obama administration’s response to a petition asking them to build a Death Star.

Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called “Graph Search.” It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.

Who gives a fuck.