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"Sherlock Holmes" is not a wonderful movie. Despite the fact that so many ditheringly unstable people in the movie theater I wandered into on Christmas Day applauded when the final scene slithered away.

However, if you were to ask Robert Downey Jr.'s violently amusing Holmes to tell you discern the truth about the new Apple tablet, he would surely repeat his words from the movie: "Data! Data! Data! I can't make bricks without clay!"

So because there are many who are still groggy after the week's festivities, I thought I'd scour around for data that will separate the rumor from the definitive fact.

Apple's new tablet will be called the iTablet. And it will be launched last September. Yes, last September.

But wait, last September was a few months ago. So perhaps that information wasn't quite correct.… Read more

Everyone who is anyone, or who would like to be anyone, knows that the apps you have on your iPhone say a lot, well, almost everything, about you.

However, there are a couple of new apps that might truly revolutionize your Christmas and not necessarily in a good way.

The first is called the Background Check App. Not only is it wondrously free, but it also strikes a huge and lasting blow for personal freedom.

You can look around your dinner table this holiday season and, with your usual lithe grace, pull out your iPhone. Using your Background Check app, … Read more

You will, no doubt, be plagued this holiday season by real-time conversations from real-time annoyances who claim to be members of your family. You will, therefore, be tempted to indulge in some excessive real-time drinking that might, just might, affect your sense of, well, the real time, the real place, even the real country you are inhabiting.

However, you will, I hope, be delighted that some very enterprising people have considered your plight and decided to offer you the latest hangover cures in real time. All you need to do is to have your smartest phone about your person at … Read more

I once sent a letter to Santa Claus. He never replied. The bruises, like an ill-timed tattoo commemorating a one-night stand, have never really gone away.

However, AT&T offered me a little hope. The company has a service that allows you to text Santa with all of your wishes. All you have to do is text "SANTA" to 1224 if you are an AT&T subscriber.

"Bah, humbug," my innards whispered. "Santa doesn't care about you. He won't write back."

However, some strange hope inside me stirred and I … Read more

I have often wondered if being a divorce lawyer makes you feel better about humanity or worse. Perhaps it merely keeps you in intimate contact with all the pitfalls of relationships on a daily, even hourly, basis.

Still, whose heart could possibly lose so much as a throb on hearing that almost one in five divorces in the UK are fueled by Facebook?

No, it's not that Facebook's employees are so irresistible that anyone who comes into contact with them, even in the UK, immediately leaves their spouse. Rather, it seems that the constant lack of trust in … Read more

The more Verizon and AT&T trade unseasonal greetings over their respective 3G networks, the more collateral damage seems to be inflicted on the iPhone. Yes, Verizon has itself made jokes about the iPhone being a "misfit toy". However, on Saturday, Seth Meyers of "Saturday Night Live" dedicated 16 seconds of his Weekend Update to a joke about, yes, truly, the iPhone.

Here is the precise text: "It was reported this week that Google would soon launch its own cell phone as a challenge to the iPhone. Also a challenge to the iPhone? Making … Read more

It's an odd tradition. Well, it is Britain, where they have a talent for clutching traditions like Posh Spice clutches many things with a D&G logo.

The particular tradition that fascinates at this time of year consists of really caring about which song is the best seller at Christmas.

Once upon a time, some of the greatest music ever composed was Britain's Christmas No. 1. Yes, Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody," Mud's "Lonely This Christmas," and the slightly less melodic "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)" by Pink … Read more

As we all try to settle on our own definition of the word "enough," the enterprising work harder to stretch our definition.

Over the last days and weeks, I have been swamped with readers, friends, and some very strange people indeed sending me details of the latest attempts to make money out of Tiger Woods' fall from his graceful perch atop society.

So, in order to assist you with your final gift selections for the holiday season, I have created this post as a catalog of society's ingenuity.

In pride of place--or, as some might think, in … Read more

There are those who believe that Microsoft came up with the name Bing for its refreshed search engine after staring at the word "Bingo" for several days and then removing the last letter.

However, a small entity in St. Louis has decided that the name Bing was, is and always should be, theirs.

According to Ars Technica, Bing Information Design! has designs on some compensation from Microsoft, as it has used the delightful term, followed by a slightly less delightful exclamation point, ala Yahoo, since 2000.

Even to the most bleary eyes, Bing Information Design's Web site … Read more