Magic Tap, a 99-cent iPhone application, lets you send fake calls to yourself on command, just in case you ever need an excuse to get out of an awkward situation such as a horrible blind date, or having "that talk" with your girlfriend. To make this application more realistic, it lets you customize the caller's name, number and photo I.D. to anyone you choose. However, keep this in mind: setting the caller I.D. to "Shakira" with a steamy photo of the diva probably wouldn't be too convincing, so you better stick with using Jason Chen's sexy mug instead. We've even provided one for you after the cut. [PC World]

Intel halted development of Ultra Wideband technologies, leaving the future of the standard highly in question. According to Electronista, Intel decided to pull the plug on the 5-year-old project last month but only just announced it now. This comes after one of the biggest UWB chip manufacturers, Wiquest, stopped production last week. Intel said the choice was made because it was cheaper to source the chips rather than make and design them in house, but it still seems like a death sentence to me.

Crappy consumer products, a healthy dose of public apathy and a lack of integrated support from most major electronics companies doesn't leave much upside for UWB. But what do I know? I was convinced Minidisc was the music format of the future. [Electronista]

This bunny USB webcam looks just like a normal stuffed bunny at first glance (if you ignore the USB cable coming out of his ass), which is perfect for whatever clandestine recording opportunities you're setting up in front of your computer. Of course, there are much easier ways of secretly documeting things than putting a stuffed bunny on your desk or monitor, many of which our own Sean Fallon is intimately familiar with. Sixteen bones and shipping gets you this 1.3-megapixel furry creature—which actually looks more like a dog than a rabbit. [Sourcing Map via Shiny Shiny]

What is this? A video of a self-propelled iPhone robot that uses a small electrical engine and a Arduino board that is not tuned to Flight of the Conchords "The Humans are Dead"? For shame.

[Air-Nifty via Cult of Mac]

The original Datamancer Steampunk keyboard was quite steampunky in its presentation, and VERY steampunky in its price ($1000 to $1500). In the second round, Datamancer decided to do away with the straight edges and make the keyboard both brassy and rounded, two changes that would make any piece of hardware more...you know. It's made from an IBM Model M-15 split keyboard and is a one-off commissioned by a female client, so unless you call him up and promise him about 1000-1500 real (not steampunk) dollars, I wouldn't count on getting one this Xmas. [Datamancer via Techpin via DVICE]

You know, I thought electric light here in the 19th century was the devil's work. In fact, I must say that when I walked into this room filled with the strange candle-less fire I almost soiled my pantaloons. Thankfully, Mr. Edison's disclaimer on the wall put my mind at ease. [NextNature via Boing Boing Gadgets]

It seems like every tech company is feeling the pinch these days, and Dell is no different. In order to cut costs, they are encouraging employees to take up to five unpaid vacation days or a severance package during Q4. CEO Michael Dell has also initiated a hiring freeze and announced that the company will be using fewer contract workers during this time. Dell hopes to trim $3 billion off its annual spending over the next few years, and my guess is that another round of layoffs might occur if these preliminary measures don't help enough in the short term. [AP]

Sadly, Canadian police believe that they have found the body of Brandon Crisp, a 15 year old that ran away from home in early October after his parents took away his Xbox 360 privileges. Apparently, he had become obsessed with Call of Duty 4 and action was taken after it began to affect his grades. The boy was found on the Oro Medonte Rail Trail outside of Barrie, Ontario with a tent and a meager supply of food. Police are awaiting the pathology report before confirming the boy's identity. Ugh...I can't even imagine what his parents must be feeling right now. [CP24 via Kotaku]

Good news, everyone! According to some real-world testing by Lifehacker, Windows 7 is booting 20% faster than Vista. On an identical system, Vista Ultimate took 37 seconds to boot from operating system selection screen to the login screen. Meanwhile, Windows 7 took just 27 seconds...the exact same time as Windows XP.

But actually, since Windows 7 still isn't entirely optimized, we could expect to see even faster loading times than XP. Maybe 26 seconds or 25 seconds. Maybe 24 seconds or 23 seconds. Maybe...you get the point.

In fact, Microsoft has achieved internal boot times of just 15 seconds. So getting even lower is a pretty distinct possibility.

Of course, this is not a final version of Windows 7, and it could be a lot slower, too, once they add more stuff to the OS's boot profile. But given that Microsoft's objective is to make this a better version of Windows (really, seriously) I'd bet the boot reductions are a true preview of what's to come.

If you tuned into CNN's election coverage last night, you probably saw their new fangled hologram technology being used to pull up data and conduct interviews. Sure, it was a gimmick-and-a-half—but it was interesting at least. Plus, as far as I could tell, the complicated system was pretty much glitch-free (Fox News, on the other hand, seemed to have problems with their basic touchscreen system all night). But my question is: was was it stupid or cool?

Results from "Do You Prefer a Paper Ballot or a Voting Machine?"

Which Do You Prefer?

Touchscreen 29%
Lever Machine 9%
Punch Card 3%
Paper (Optical Scan) 32%
Paper (Ballot Box) 20%
I Don't Care 6%

Which Did You Actually Use?

Touchscreen 26%
Lever Machine 7%
Punch Card 1%
Paper (Optical Scan) 42%
Paper (Ballot Box) 13%
I Didn't Vote 10%