Rindvieh strikes Cebit 2005

Yay... Cheap Cebit tickets rock... would have actually cried had I spent more money on the ticket... Cebit 2005 was kind of disappointing, nothing really out of the frame anymore. Well, a few nice things were around like a personal computer museum showing devices that caused bad marks dating back till 1970. Further a few attempts at making 3D monitors using special screens to fake 3D effects like you know from these little "holo" cards you can find in your cereals from time to time. Played Counterstrike on one of them and I have to say, it gave me a headache:P Not really the egg of columbus. Well, the most interesting obtainment I made was at the exhibition of our favourite evil software empire: Microsoft.

Among showing their Windows XP Media Center version, Windows version aimed at people who are even too dumb to get used to XP itself (or so it seems:P).
Well, at their place, they gave away fascinating little balls with funky diodes inside.
Pictures [1][2][3] and a [video] of it in action.

The quite fascinating question that got to my head when getting it was: What does this little ball have to do with Microsoft?
And then, it actually struck me: This little ball represents the main qualities of Microsoft Software:

1. It takes away space
2. Serves no real purpose
3. Has a funky look but nothing behind it
4. Is a poor ripoff of an idea that's already been realized ages ago while leaving out the good and useful features:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5da2/images/