Yesterday, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington was driving around Google's campus, talking on his phone trying to figure out where exactly his meeting was. One righteous Googler didn't approve of Arrington's potentially unsafe talking-while-driving, so he took a stand. Literally.

In what Arrington describes as the young man's Tiananmen Square moment, a stand-off ensued between the TechCrunch proprietor and the bespectacled Google geek. Thankfully, this moment was captured in photographs by both participants.

Here's how Arrington recaps the drama:

...this guy, who's wearing a Google employee badge, decides it's time to take a stand against cell phone use in cars. So he stands in front of my car and won't move...Cars behind me start swerving. I back up to go around him. He steps forward, vigilant in his defense of the law. I'm off the phone now, and snapping this picture didn't help getting him to move on. The light changes. The light changes again. Cars are now backed up behind me...I'm not sure what comes next in a situation like this. I can either drive over him or park my car. So I put the car in park, open the door to get out and discuss the situation with him. That's when he ran away. His mission, apparently, accomplished.

The employee in question, Mike Shields, has not backed down in the face of public semi-humiliation:

@arrington If you really want to talk about this, let's do that when your car is not abandoned in the road.

I take automobile safety as seriously as the next guy, but I'm also a fan of a good razzing when its appropriate, so I'm not really sure who comes out on top in this soon-to-be-legendary Mountain View stand off. I'm just glad that I live in a day and age in which camera phones let me relive the high drama as if I were actually there. [TechCrunch via Business Insider]

Yesterday, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington was driving around Google's campus, talking on his phone trying to figure out where exactly his meeting was. One righteous Googler didn't approve of Arrington's potentially unsafe talking-while-driving, so he took a stand. Literally.

In what Arrington describes as the young man's Tiananmen Square moment, a stand-off ensued between the TechCrunch proprietor and the bespectacled Google geek. Thankfully, this moment was captured in photographs by both participants.

Here's how Arrington recaps the drama:

...this guy, who's wearing a Google employee badge, decides it's time to take a stand against cell phone use in cars. So he stands in front of my car and won't move...Cars behind me start swerving. I back up to go around him. He steps forward, vigilant in his defense of the law. I'm off the phone now, and snapping this picture didn't help getting him to move on. The light changes. The light changes again. Cars are now backed up behind me...I'm not sure what comes next in a situation like this. I can either drive over him or park my car. So I put the car in park, open the door to get out and discuss the situation with him. That's when he ran away. His mission, apparently, accomplished.

The employee in question, Mike Shields, has not backed down in the face of public semi-humiliation:

@arrington If you really want to talk about this, let's do that when your car is not abandoned in the road.

I take automobile safety as seriously as the next guy, but I'm also a fan of a good razzing when its appropriate, so I'm not really sure who comes out on top in this soon-to-be-legendary Mountain View stand off. I'm just glad that I live in a day and age in which camera phones let me relive the high drama as if I were actually there. [TechCrunch via Business Insider]

Blackberry users who have been frustrated by their phone's inability to properly sync IMAP email can unclench their fists. Documents detailing the new features of the upcoming BIS 3.0 show Gmail syncing and WMA support are on the way.

RIM is finally updating BIS so that Gmail will accurately sync read and unread status of your mail. It's about time.

The update will also add support for Windows Media Audio attachments as well as OpenOffice documents. BIS 3.0 will also include the decidedly less exciting updates of a reconfigured, more secure E-mail setup application and more accurate error messages that will direct users to their specific carrier. I'm not kidding.

Carriers are themselves responsible to roll out the new Blackberry Internet Service so it's hard to say exactly when it should be popping up on your Blackberry. But just be glad that Gmail syncing and more exacting error messages are on their way. [Crackberry]

There's a pretty gnarly GeekBench result running around which appears to be for a new model MacBook Pro—6,1 to be exact—running a crazyfast 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 620M, one of the Arrandale chips Intel announced at CES.

MacBook Pros are definitely in need of fresh guts, and the obvious choice for chips are from the fresh batch of Arrandale processors Intel announced last month. The Core i7 620M would definitely fit the bill—it's a fast dual-core chip, and its TDP is in line with what's in the currently shipping MBPs. The GeekBench score is 5260, which MacRumors notes handily bests the current-gen 2.6GHz MBPs, which typically hit around 3700-4000. Not answered by the Geekbench results is what's up with the MacBook Pro's graphics situation.

In case you're not familiar with the way model numbers work at Apple, like the MacBook Pro 6,1 here, the first number in the set designates a major revision, and the second number indicates a smaller subset—the first unibody MacBook Pros were 5,1 for instance. And it's not unheard of for new hardware to come with a slightly custom build of OS X, like the 10C3067 seen here.

Results posted to GeekBench aren't the most credible evidence of new, gutsier MacBook Pros for obvious reasons, but if even they aren't real, it seems safe to assume we're due for some fresh Core i7 silicon sometime soon. I hope so, anyway. [Geekbench via MacRumors - Thanks mika and Jack!]

If you saw the iPad and said "Yes!" but then heard that it had an LCD screen and said "No!," Yinlips is making the clone for you: their iPad lookalike has an E-Ink screen.

Okay, it's not color and it won't run any of those apps you cherish so much, but if you like the form factor of the iPad and the easy-on-the-eyes screen of the Kindle, this device from Yinlips offers the best of both worlds.

It packs a 6" E-Ink touchscreen and boasts 20 hours of battery life, and can handle PDF, TXT, HTML, and apparently some photo formats as well.

There's no word on the price or availability of this Frankenreader yet, and the original page in Chinese doesn't offer much in the way of detail. Still, if you're an E-Ink devotee but you really don't want to give up that single home button, stay tuned for more information. [Imp3 via PMP Today - Thanks Brian!]

Sure, anybody with ears can agree that something is lost when records are converted and compressed to digital files. But if you really want to walk the walk you can't just listen to vinyl, you have to record your own.

Gakken's Gramophone kit can play records of any size, using a bamboo needle to belch crackling analog goodness out of its nickel-plated iron horn. Playback speed and tone are adjustable, and the player is powered by a hand crank. We wouldn't want to spoil your old-school integrity with batteries, now would we?

But the most fun part of the Gramophone kit is the ability to record your own music directly to vinyl.

To record your own records, sing into the horn and the bamboo needle cuts the grooves into a new piece of vinyl. OK, it's probably not going to sound as good as Garage Band but it's a fun experiment nonetheless.

It'll cost you about $170 to import this sucker from Japan Trend Shop and some assembly is definitely required, but if you're an analog enthusiast and looking for a good project, Gakken's gramophone kit might be the ticket. [Random Good Stuff]

Say Hello to Markos Calasan. He's nine years old and lives in Macedonia. He's also Microsoft Certified four times over and working on his fifth certificate. (And he prefers Bing.)

This is the type of story that warms your heart but also makes you feel a little bad about yourself. Why? Because still in his single digits, Markos is more computer literate than many of us will ever be. Here he describes his first memories of using a computer:

But my first memory is from when I was approximately 3 years old when I was making simple actions like personalizing Windows, then installing Windows, making remote desktop connections with workstations and servers on remote locations, and so on.

As someone who still struggles to get remote desktop working, that hurts. But still, good for the little guy, who has earned four certificates—MCP, MCDST, MCSA and MCSE—and is going for his fifth to become a Microsoft Certified Trainer. When asked about his plans for the next ten years, Calasan said he hoped to write Windows 7 instructional books for users of all levels. He also said that Bing is his preferred search engine.

When asked if he preferred Windows or OSX, Calasan held back from indulging his literal inner fanboy, explaining, "For everyone, the choice is different, so for me I use Windows because I am satisfied with its security, stability, scalability, productivity and many other good advantages of the Microsoft Windows operating system."

That diplomatic reponse to the enduring operating system debate might be an even more impressive display of precociousness than his certificates. [Network World]

Philip Ross runs a mushroom farm called Far West Fungi. And on it he's growing your future house. Or at least the nontoxic, fireproof, mold- and water-resistant building blocks for it.

Ross has dozens of mushroom-filled shipping containers on his farm, but what he's after is the "fungi's thin, white rootlike fibers" also known as mycelium. He's after these fibers because they make great building blocks:

Mycelium doesn't taste very good, but once it's dried, it has some remarkable properties. It's nontoxic, fireproof and mold- and water-resistant, and it traps more heat than fiberglass insulation. It's also stronger, pound for pound, than concrete.

If you doubt how strong the material is, consider this: Ross "destroyed many a metal file and saw blade" while shaping 500 of these mushroom bricks into a six foot by six foot archway. He hopes to destroy many more tools by one day building entire homes out of mushroom bricks.

And my parents thought I was nuts when I told them I wanted to live in a mushroom just like the Smurfs.[Time via Futurismic]

There are some things that I've always struggled with in life: Professing love, admitting that I'm part robot, and confessing that I like to fight crime. Thankfully this card does it all for me.

Ok, ok. So I'll have to correct the gender on the card, but come on! No product is perfect. [Etsy via The Daily What]

Kickstands are enjoying something of a renaissance lately as tablets have jumped to the forefront of everyone's attention, so it's only natural that the HD2, the most tabletesque of smartphones, is getting a combination kickstand/battery pack of its own.

The battery definitely adds some bulk to the skinny HD2, but if you're looking to take advantage of its 800x480 screen to do some video-watching on the go, then an extended battery and a sweet kickstand are two things that could suit you well.

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