NSA takes the blame, Google protects its name

When a flaming Dell Inspiron turned his Ford pickup into a Pop-Tart, Thomas Forqueran became an unlikely media celebrity. The 62-year-old was interviewed by MSNBC and The New York Times, among others — but you read about him here first. He says Dell offered to reimburse him for a truck rental and give him a new laptop. He replied, “Yes and no, thanks,” respectively. I wonder if a fire extinguisher was part of the package.

Warrantless in Washington:  A federal judge in Detroit has declared the NSA’s warrant-free wiretap program unconstitutional, immoral, and probably fattening as well. I guess if the Feds want the inside dirt on us they’ll just have to rely on researchers from AOL — or hire its newly unemployed CTO.

Great Googley Moogley:  Google has warned journalists not to use “Google” as a synonym for “Web search.” Thus Google joins Kimberly-Clark (Kleenex), Johnson & Johnson (Band-Aid), and Xerox (Xerox) in a doomed effort to keep their “proprietary eponyms” out of the King’s English. My prediction? In the future, everything will be “googlized.” As in, “Here, let me google some copies for you.” And “I cut my finger; get me a google, stat!” Or “I need to wipe my nose — anyone got a google?”

The Pod Squad:  In other grammatical news, Apple sent nastygrams to two manufacturers who dared use the word “pod” in their product names. Maybe Apple is concerned that buyers of the TightPod (a laptop cover) and Profit Pod (a device that reads data on arcade machines) might become confused and try to download music to them from iTunes. Next on Apple’s hit list: Web grocer Peapod.com and Christian metal rappers P.O.D. (payableondeath.com).

Fear of a Black Hat:  It seems I unfairly sullied Windows Vista’s reputation when reporting on the little “Blue Pill” exploit unveiled at Black Hat. As Cringester Jon C. points out, AMD’s virtualization technology allowed a researcher to have her way with a machine running Vista, not with the OS itself. Sorry for the boner, I feel like such a stiff.