There have been lots of Steve Jobs sightings at Apple last week, but it’s finally official that he’s back at work.
If you don’t work at home where you can permanently doze or beat off undetected, iNap@Work provides audio camouflage of papers shuffling and click-clack typing—too bad the iPhone’s crappy speaker sounds like a liability. [iTunes]
Besides making you resemble David Byrne in Stop Making Sense (good!), this concept from Polish designer Maja Ganszyniec that turns your collar, tie and sleeve into a pillow looks very comfortable. [Portfolio Page via DVICE]
newVideoPlayer("/microsoftofficemac_gizmodo.flv", 506, 404,""); Reader Dennis Liu created the Again and Again Mac OS X Leopard tour video last year. The Microsoft Mac Business Unit liked it so much that they hired him to do one using Microsoft Office:
For office drones at big companies such as AT&T, United Health Group and Cigna, booting up their computers at the start of the day and waiting for them to shut down takes some decent time. Like 20 minutes at the start and end of the day. And they sure don’t like the fact that their weasely employers have decided to not pay them for that time. So, of course, they’re suing.
I usually tend to ignore press releases from anti-virus companies – do you guys really care that another virus has been released into the wild? But the subject of the latest findings from Messagelabs caught my eye: “In the Workplace, Online Porn Surfing Prevails”.
Apparently 85% of inappropriate content is being blocked by businesses, which means 15% of perverts out there are getting their daily fix of human nudeness at work. And according to the report, most of it happens at lunchtime:
Analysis of MessageLabs URL Filtering service shows an increasing number of businesses are blocking employee access to inappropriate web sites, such as pornography, during the working day. Most policy rules are set by organisations to block this content between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Further analysis reveals that 28.9 per cent of blocks occur between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., which is usually lunchtime for most employees.
There’s no mention of how much appropriate content is blocked by this service though – I remember at a previous job, I couldn’t read an article about Facebook because Facebook had been blocked at work – which kind of makes researching a story about Facebook difficult.
But in any case, looking up porn at work is a surprisingly growing trend. What about you guys – do you (or have you) used the work computer to browse for the pornography? Why? Let us know in comments…
[Messagelabs - Pic from SaintGeorgesDay]
Having easy access to your office 24 hours a day can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you will never miss a beat. On the other, it may seem like you are always stuck at work. With that in mind, check out the T6 concept workaholicmobile designer Alexander Zhukovsky has put together. It comes complete with all of the technology and space you and your co-workers need to get the job done–even when you are stuck in traffic. In other words, it is a boardroom on wheels. galleryPost('t6concept', 3, '');
David Walsh, a network engineer who worked at Apple from 1995 to 2007, is currently suing them for making him work a little too hard. Specifically, he says they made him work more than 40 hours a week without overtime (because he was a “senior” engineer, a pseudo-management position he says was created to skirt paying overtime) and required him to be on call for seven days straight every six weeks. In other words, a pretty standard schedule in the Valley. Besides, if anything, MobileMe’s launch made it clear Apple’s network engineers should be working more, not less. I keeeeeed. Kind of. [Macworld via Valleywag]
Hi, boss? It’s Nick. Actually not too good – I ate some terrible chinese food last night and I’m afraid that if I wander too far from the toilet, I’m going to be dying my pants an unattractive shade of brown. What’s that? The sound of crashing waves in the background? Oh, that’s just a relaxation CD my wife put on for me to help me relax – seeing as how I’m so sick and all. What? Yeah, she’s here too – she ate the Chinese as well. Actually she’s a bit worse than me – she’s throwing up as well. Yeah, it’s a constant battle for the toilet here.
What do you mean how could she put the CD on if she’s throwing up? It only took her a second. Hang on a minute… mumble, mumble, sunburn, mumble…
You there boss? I’m going to have to go. Literally. I’m cramping like a… what do you mean hang on? You think I’m faking it? You can hear the wind blowing across the microphone and people laughing in the background? That’s just the TV. Why do I have a CD and the TV on? I dunno, I like noise, I guess. You want to make me do what? Take a lie detector test? Over the phone? What will that do? Monitor the sound of my voice and check if it thinks I’m actually sick. Why would I want to do that?
What? You say it’s a new voice recognition technology that’s being trialled in the UK that was developed by Capita and Digilog UK and called Voice Risk Analysis. It makes thousands of checks on my voice during a call and picks up changes in my voice that suggest I’m lying, then gives me prompts to reconsider calling in sick?
I’m not sure boss. I don’t like the sound of that. I mean, it’s a machine right? Probably gets it wrong all the time. I don’t want you thinking I’m healthy when I’m actually vomiting out by backside. So yeah, I’ll pass, thanks. What do you mean I’ll take the test or not come to work tomorrow. You’re giving me a long weekend? Thanks boss, you’re awesome. I’ll see you next week. Or not? Now you’re just confusing me.
It’s no secret that desk-based jobs (such as blogging) provide a lifestyle for people that quickly turns them into quivering, rotund masses of gravy-scented putty, which is why it’s no surprise that this whole “exercising while you work” thing piques people’s interest. But really, do you want to jog on a treadmill all day while you work, or bounce up and down on a yoga ball?
