Before slapping your wheezing and underpowered desktop PC for blue-screening you for the third time in an hour, think twice – if robots and other conscious machines get granted rights in a few decades time, there may be a precedent for retrospective prosecution of abusers. Hardware has feelings too, y’know.

Appropriately enough for the season, a scientifically verified virgin birth is in the offing. Of course, this adds no weight at all to the biblical stories of the same type – unless there was a bit in there about Jesus being a komodo dragon that I skipped over.

The cancellation of a London conference on social networking due to lack of interest from potential delegates has The Guardian wondering whether social sites are going the way of the dodo. Though I’m inclined to believe that the end-cap to the piece is more accurate in its assumption:

“Alternatively, the cancellation of a social networking conference in London may just be another example of the sad reality that European companies just don’t get the web.”

Clever advertising can be a great tool for getting out an important message – like this bicycle-powered billboard that promotes the efficiency of LEDs over normal bulbs. Sadly, it’s an industry that is more widely concerned by barraging us with images and products at times when our attention is captive by circumstance – like when you’re checking your grille in a public washroom mirror.

Expect to see a lot of smugly satisfied English literature professors and students on a campus near you after the holiday season, once they hear the news that there is scientific evidence to support the notion that reading Shakespeare is a stimulating intellectual exercise for your brain.