As The Telegraph reports, Tehran scientist Ali Razeghi has invented a device about the size of a personal computer that will predict details of your future for the next five to eight years. He’s registered the device with the state-run Centre for Strategic Inventions, the Iranian version of the USPTO.

Apparently, no one there has ever heard of a magic 8-ball.

Razeghi intends to mass produce the device and use it to help Iran “prepare for challenges that might destabilize it,” as well as perhaps manipulate foreign currencies for fun and profit.

But he’s not releasing his time machine — which he says the U.S. has spent “millions” trying to invent — just yet. And the reason has nothing to do with whether or not the device works.

Rather, it’s for self-protection:

“The reason that we are not launching our prototype at this stage is that the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight.”

Razeghi is apparently a serial entrepreneur with more than 179 inventions to his credit. I only wish we could see them all. He is clearly one creative individual.

photo credit: Stéfan via photopin cc

So is Samsung, apparently.

The Korean consumer electronics giant’s tempestuous legal relationship with Apple is well known, as the two companies fight for global dominance of the smartphone and tablet markets. But it doesn’t mean that Samsung can’t have any fun with it.

Just like this:

Samsung is teasing their big Super Bowl ad, of course, but it’s also poking a pretty big finger at an unmentionable competitor with rounded corners and a design language that it fiercely protects against all comers.

I wonder if Apple is amused?

photo credit: elviskennedy via photopin cc

Believe it or not, there are some instances where mankind has produced some truly disgusting uses of technology — disgustingly awesome, that is. The most recent example is the new Shatoetry iPhone app from the greatest performer who ever lived, William Shatner.

Shatoetry is indeed a play on words, combining both Shatner and poetry, to perfectly describe the app’s purpose. The famous actor is often known for delivering lines with unnecessary pauses intended to add a dramatic tone to a performance. And Shatoetry lets you put words into his mouth — sort of like a talking pet monkey, but more awesome and Canadian.

The app essentially gives you a huge soundboard of words spoken by Shatner. You can drag words to the screen and arrange them into a sentence, adding pauses when appropriate. Tapping a word gives it a greater emphasis or changes the tone, while tapping the pauses makes them longer. Once you’re finished arranging, you tape the “Shat That” (seriously, that’s what it’s called) button to play it back. If you like it, you can share it on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or via email.

There’s even a co-op mode that lets you build “Shatisms” with friends. It actually uses Apple’s Game Center to find other people to play with, which I wasn’t expecting at all. Each person get a set time limit per turn to drop as many words onto the app before the buzzer dings. Then it shifts to the other player.

The app is amusing, but its one setback is in actually sorting through the huge list of words to craft the perfect Shatism. It would be far less time consuming if the developers sorted words by type (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.). After about 20 minutes, I settled on my own Shatism, which is embedded as a YouTube video below.

And should there be any doubt, the app did come from Shatner’s brilliant mind, according to the app’s developers, Blindlight.

“All we did was to focus on what Mr. Shatner had already done (which is MASSIVE), and figure out what part of will be most interactively rewarding on a mobile platform,” Blindlight General Manager Lev Chapelsky told VentureBeat. His firm has over a dozen years of experience getting celebrities to uniquely utilize their talents through technology and was instrumental in signing Paul McCartney to score a recent Bungie game.

“For us, the product and the celebrity need to be integrally sensible,” Chapelsky said. “Shatoetry is a voice app concept that’s uniquely Shatner.”

Chapelsky said the development team is planning to release an Android version of Shatoetry in the near future. The team would also like to offer users additional “word packs” as in-app purchases at some point. For instance, a winter holiday word Shat pack would make a lot of sense in a few more weeks.

Shatoetry is available to download in Apple’s App Store today for $2.99.

But all those crazy hours take their toll, despite the perks, and that stress has to come out somewhere. Lucky for us, Googlers find an outlet in sarcastic humor, which BuzzFeed captured just a few days ago. Google’s intranet has a meme generator that employees put to good use, poking fun at both competitors and the company itself.

One highlights former Googler Marrisa Mayer, now chief executive of Yahoo, as “Accomplished tech leader … finally leading a non-profit.” (Mayer, by the way, just unveiled her plan to save Yahoo.)

Another shows a Facebook stock quote at $19.99, down four percent on the day, with a “Gonna party like it’s” title.

But the internal memesters are not above poking fun at their own company and keeping themselves honest. One shows Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster with a caption: “Please report all cookies for an immediate and thorough review!” Besides being funny, it’s a clear reference to Google’s privacy breaches with Safari and Internet Explorer.

Another, perhaps by a Googler unimpressed with the company’s own thin-client Chomebooks, shows a roomful of men doubled-over and laughing at the prospect of making interns use the machines full-time.

This is perhaps somewhat unfair, given that Chromebooks have recently been updated, and are now available at fairly low prices.

But perhaps the funniest — and the most cutting — is another that seems to be referring to Yahoo yet again, and the former web giant’s seeming inability to retain a chief executive for longer than a year or so.

That one is just ouch.

Check out the entire gallery at BuzzFeed.

Image credits: photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc, BuzzFeed

Like sorting socks.

I really could not believe the pitch at first when it hit my inbox. BlackSocks.com has given socks RFID chips, a scanner, and an iPhone app, all so that you can … wait for it … sort your socks.

The Blacksocks app

And know the life story of your socks: How often they’ve been washed, what the “sock ID” is, which sock it should be partnered with, whether it is a left sock or a right sock, whether it is paired or … divorced, when it was made, and when you ordered it.

I am not making this up. I almost wish I was — it would make a perfect story for The Onion.

The socks themselves cost $189 for a 10-pack and the scanner, and you can order them online. The app, which you can also use to determine the blackness of your black socks, is free from Apple’s app store — it doesn’t have an Android version yet. Google groupies, make of that what you will.

Blacksocks founder Samy Liecht takes this very seriously, unveiling the socks, the app, and the scanner in a very stylish, Ikea-esque, Apple-like product demo video … which turns into inadvertent comedy when you show it to any woman (or at least the two I tried it on).

It even has a pairing functionality to mate new partners when one sock — alas — kicks the bucket earlier than first spouse.

Perhaps I am just clueless, but frankly I don’t care which of my socks is left or right or whether they get matched up or not. I can tell if my black socks are black just by looking at them, and I know that it’s time to replace them when they get holes.

Blacksocks: Because it would be a disaster if one of your socks paired up with the wrong partner.

Here is the demo video — enjoy:

photo credit: Lotus Carroll via photo pin cc

Stefon, the wildly popular Bill Hader character from Saturday Night Live, is a (likely drug-addled) club-hopping gay dream within a nightmare, and his “reviews” of fictional New York City nightclubs are a hilarious part of the show’s Weekend Update segments.

Although formulaic, the Stefon bits always surprise and entertain — in fact, it’s rare that Hader and Weekend Update host Seth Meyers can get through a Stefon sketch without breaking character and giggling behind their hands.

So when we saw “Stefon” on Yelp, we were delighted but apprehensive — could the writer of Stefon’s Yelp reviews keep up, comedically speaking, with the SNL writers?

This club has EVERYTHING. Jeffries, live-action Furbies, Jewish pole vaulters, closeted guidos and flaming straight guys making out with none other than THE Nelson Mandela!

And just when you think it’s all over, walk into the back room to be met by a gaggle of human donkeys.

What are human donkeys you ask? It’s like that thing, where you have a midget glue some big ears on, wear a Mexican blanket, and carry your stuff over their back in wicker baskets.

We think that’s a yes.

It’s Friday, and let’s be honest: you’re not going anywhere or getting anything done for the next few hours, anyhow. Might as well kill a couple minutes sniggering over Stefon… and messaging the owner of the account to write more reviews, already.

UPDATE: One of our younger reporters informs us that she has never heard of Stefon. We’re guessing SNL airs past her bedtime and are including this clip for her benefit.