Weird Tech: The prince, the DJ and the clock

The news hasn't all been Wireless USB, Spider-Man and Bill Gates this week, you know. Oh no. Welcome to the first of our weekly round-ups of the weird, wonderful and frankly trivial news in the world of tech.

Next must-have gadget award

Chris Dimino's "The Shining" cuckoo clock was by far and away this week's winner of our not-yet-on-sale must-have gadget award. Happily masquerading as a normal clock for most of the day, the illusion is shattered once an hour as a demented, grinning Jack explodes through the door announcing "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

If that doesn't scare the bejesus out of you, Shelly Duvall's piercing scream will. Brilliant. Just in case you want to relive the fear, here's a clip of the moment in question. If this clock ever hits the shops it's sure to become the next must-have gadget.

Well, we want one anyway.

You what?

A British judge this week admitted he had no idea what the internet is. Judge Peter Openshaw was overlooking the trial of three men accused of inciting terrorism via the internet. He interrupted the questioning of a witness about a web forum used by alleged Islamist radicals to say: "The trouble is... I don't really understand what a website is".

Perhaps he should have asked MC Hammer , who wins this week's You What? Award hands down. In what's easily our favourite bit of trivia from this week, MC Hammer has been declared a Web2.0 "expert".

Yes that's right. Not only that, he's sitting on the panel of judges at September's TechCrunch20 . For those of you who don't know, this is a conference which features 20 of the best new tech related startups and their products from around the world. He'll be working alongside the likes of Netscape founder Mark Andreeson and the man behind RSS 2.0, Dave Winer.

There's definitely a joke in there somewhere.

Did you know?

Old school first-aiders everywhere have been mourning the loss of Resuscitation Annie this week. She's been replaced in Japan by a robotic mannequin with an artificial brain. It's being trialled as a hands-on educational tool for medical students. These dummies can already bleed, give birth and even die - where will it all end?

Final word

And finally, Prince William received a royal poking on Tuesday after allegedly signing up for a Facebook account. Despite an abundance of elite Facebook friends however, officials now say that the profile for William Wales was a fake .

Never mind that. How many people in this world can say they've "poked" Prince William? Well, about 481 actually.

Julia Sagar
Content director, special projects

Julia specialises in ecommerce at Future. For the last four years, she’s split her time between leading TechRadar’s crack team of deal editors - covering all the biggest sales of the year including Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Amazon Prime Day - and helping the audiences of Future’s consumer tech and lifestyle brands (TechRadar, Tom's Guide, T3, Marie Claire, Woman & Home and more) find the best products and services for their needs and budget.


A former editor of global design website Creative Bloq, she has over 15 years’ experience in online and print journalism, and was part of the team that launched TechRadar way back in the day. When she isn't reviewing mattresses (she’s tested more than she cares to remember), or sharing tips on how to save money in the latest sales, she can usually be found writing about anything from green energy to graphic design.