IBM doesn’t want to stay off our minds apparently. Their scientists have built a prototype nano-scale computer —San Jose Mercury or original in Nature (free sign-in required). The device is primitive, but extremely small. If the technology can be made practical, the scale of computers will shrink radically. The vast majority of the computer is the case and the goodies –keyboard, mouse, display, removable drives– we use to get stuff in and out of the computer. If you remove all of that from the laptop I’m using, you would have something that could be rearranged to the size of a paperback and would consume a lot less power. That’s why most handheld computers don’t use keyboards, harddrives or full-size displays. The companies that can find a better, smaller way to communicate with a computer are going to clean up.

Once again it’s time for the Hopelessly Complete Waste of Time with a page full of stuff labels warn you against, including the one-of-a-kind Spud Gun. You ever wonder what happens when a half-pound of spud travelling 550 mph hits a watermelon?