Geek Week in Review

Please check your number and try again. Microsoft has re-organized its mobile platform team, as it gears up to take on Apple and Google in the only OS fight that really matters these days – the battle for your cell phone. With luck, the newly focused, razor sharp, highly motivated Redmonites should be ready to reorganize again in two or three years.

Breaking news. A Pittsburgh TV station was forced to broadcast its midday news show from a parking lot on Wednesday thanks to a computer glitch caused by Windows Update. WPXI’s new Windows-based production system failed to install a vital update, rendering it useless. When you put the letters X and P in your station name, bad things are bound to happen. (A tip of the Cringe fedora to R. J. N for that tidbit.)

Whole lotta shakeups goin’ on. Following in the sonic footsteps of Radiohead, supergroups Oasis, Nine Inch Nails, and the pre-menopausal Madonna have announced plans to bypass record labels and sell their music directly over the Web. Meanwhile, the record companies are planning a rebellion of their own. According to BusinessWeek, Universal Music, Sony BMG, and Warner Music are hatching a subscription service called Total Music that would take on both Apple iTunes and Rhapsody. I understand the record companies plan to keep all the money while the artists get to keep the shaft.

Is your Blackberry jingling or are you just glad to see me? An epidemic of phantom vibrations is striking mobile phone users across the nation, according to a report by the Associated Press. It seems scores of Blackberry and Sidekick users can feel their phones vibrating in their pockets when they’re really just sitting idly, waiting for Paris Hilton to call. Also just in from the AP: Eating Pop Rocks while drinking Diet Coke can cause your head to explode.

Got more stupid tech news stories? Lay ’em on me or file your report below. Top tipsters qualify for serious swag.