The solution to the frozen 30GB Zune problem is to let the device run flat and then recharge it. Apparently the pause was caused by a date programming error: ie "a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year." Whether that was Microsoft's fault or the chip supplier's remains to be seen, but I'd suspect Microsoft on the gorunds that no other players appear to have had the same problem. On the good side, there seemed to be far more original Zune users than many people suspected. Pity Microsoft had to upset them to make them visible.
* Google's year-end Zeitgeist: it says: "We've compiled some of the highlights from Google searches around the globe and hope you enjoy looking back as much as we do."
* Lake Superior State University's 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use etc is at http://www.lssu.edu/banished/ There's also an AP story.
Five more tweets:
* "How many atoms does it take to build a computer?" Far-future molecule-scale computing at Science Daily
* OK, the EU-funded OpenKnowledge system is explained at ReadWriteWeb
* Will Work for Praise is a Business Week story about http://www.thisnext.com/, a shopping/product recommendation site.
* Paul Thurrott's Windows 7 Beta 1 Screenshot Gallery in four parts
* The Greener Gadgets 2009 conference will be held in New York on February 27
