Yes, the tanking economy is hitting the mighty Google just as hard as every other company out there, and they’re having to cut costs as a result. Gone is the 20% time that allowed engineers to dedicate one day a week to pet projects. And hell, why pay those engineers at all? Users can come up with ideas just as well as they can, and they don’t even have to pay them.

That’s the idea behind the new Google Product Ideas blog, a place for people to submit and vote on ideas for new Google products. And what if you come up with a genius idea that makes Google millions of dollars? “If you post an idea or suggestion and we put it into action, we may give you a shout out on our Product Ideas blog, but we won’t be compensating users for their ideas.” Don’t be evil, indeed. [Google Product Ideas via Slashdot]

SmartBolts, designed for industrial and medical applications, feature a simple colour-coded indicator on their tops: If they’re red, the bolt is loose. If they’re green, nice job, everything’s locked down. And if they’re black, you may over-tightened things a bit, Mr. Look How Strong I Am.

Each bolt also promise 20 years of durability (which actually seems a bit low for many applications) as SmartBolts use simple fluid compression to measure and produce the chromatic indication in real time. That means there are no moving parts, and we fucking hate moving parts. [SmartBolts via medgadget]