We suspect our avid Bitterwallet readers are too savvy to fall for some dickish Facebook (and Twitter) scam, but you’ll no doubt have plenty of friends and family who aren’t, so point them at this.

Obviously Apple doesn’t bother beta testing new products with puny earthlings, so the whole thing is a lot of old balls. If you give your details away to the scamsters – specifically, your mobile number – then you can expect to find yourself subscribed to premium rate SMS services. Nice. It looks like it’s geared towards US users only, but we’re not going to to test that theory:

As seen on Twitter earlier today…

Ah, you cheeky spam-meisters, currently causing chaos on Twitter right now. As good as you are, you’re not going to convince me my brother is a horny 24 year-old chick.

You have, however, made a drab day a little brighter, not only by making our MPs look slightly dickish, but by hijacking the accounts of major companies stupid enough to click on your links:

[The Consumerist]

A burglar, yesterday

Insurance companies could use social networking as a way of squeezing higher premiums out of customers, according to some fresh jaw-fart from a man at Confused.com.

Darren Black, head of home insurance believes that, as using sites like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, allows strangers to tell when you are and aren’t at home, the risk of burglary will be increased, giving the insurers a golden opportunity to bleed a few more quid out of you.

He says: “Criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their information gathering, even using Google Earth and Streetview to plan their burglaries with military precision. Insurance providers are starting to take this into account when they are assessing claims and we may in future see insurers declining claims if they believe the customer was negligent.”

The warning comes in the wake of the Please Rob Me site which appeared this week, listing Foursquare users who aren’t at home and are therefore probably ripe for a good hard burgling.

Here at Bitterwallet, we’re in our windowless underground pod 24/7, so no one’s gonna get their paws on our crown jewels. Know this.

“You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high.”

This tweet made by Paul Chambers of some place called Balby has got him into a world of pain. That’s because he was tweeting about an airport and has subsequently been charged by the fuzz for sending a menacing message.

If there’s a law against that, I’m fucked.

Chambers is to appear at Doncaster Magistrates’ Court on Friday for a preliminary hearing after he was charged by South Yorkshire police on Thursday.

Chambers is said to have made the remarks about Robin Hood airport in South Yorkshire after he found out the a flight he planned to take was cancelled after all that snowy stuff fell out of the clouds last month.

As a result of the comments, some idiot complained to police who then, bafflingly, went and arrested Chambers and seized computers and an iPhone as part of their investigation. To rub dogshit in the wound, Chambers also found that he’d been banned for life from Robin Hood airport by authorities. It’s reckoned that this poor sod is the first person to be charged over sending offensive messages over the social networking site.

Has no-one thought that the likelihood of someone orchestrating a terrorist attack probably wouldn’t bother doing it on a social networking site? I mean, imagine a Facebook status update saying “I’m going to plant a device in my bag and set it off at Gatwick next Thursday”, followed with a thumbs up and Andy Dawson Likes This.

It wouldn’t happen because you’d have to be a monumental idiot to do so and an staggering kill-joy would be the only one to take it seriously.

Next week: Bitterwallet closed by authorities for comments above regarding Gatwick airport despite the fact that they clearly form part of a rubbish article designed, and failing to, make people even slightly amused or interested.

[The Register]

The Toyota recall of their vehicles following reports of sticking accelerators, while obviously a very serious issue raising grave concerns over safety, has also been good for a few laughs, too. For example, the unofficial Viz Top Tops account on Twitter has provided plenty in recent days:

• SPEEDING MOTORISTS – just put a Toyota badge on your car.
• PETROL HEADS – fool your neighbours into thinking you own a Toyota by driving at 80mph into the side of their house.
  
• WATCH OUT! The car behind is a Toyota.

Meanwhile, Toyota jumped on the new-fangled media bandwagon of pleading for forgiveness via the medium of YouTube. Director of operations in Blighty, Jon Williams, stares the camera down as if it spilt his pint, failing to realise that apologies look less convincing if you force yourself not to blink throughout. If you still haven’t found time to watch four and a half minutes of a global corporation apologising and pronouncing Toyota as Ter-rurta, here’s a quick summary:

• We’ve really quite sorry, but hey, everything’s ok. My family drives a Toyota so what’s to worry aobut, eh?
• Apart from there’s a chance it’ll kill you! Wahhhh!
• Here’s the science part – concentrate. Your accelerator pedal is screwed. There we are.
• New parts for your cars will begin arriving next week.
• If you don’t contact us willingly, we will utilise the DVLA to hunt you down like the dogs you are.
• The repair takes just thirty minutes and it’s free of charge for all Toyota owners. Assuming you live that long.
• Again, we’re really sorry. Sorry. Cheers.

We don’t understand American Football in the Bitterwallet office, so we all trooped into work late last night with a 24-pack of Heineken and watched Escape to Victory instead. While they was knacking the goalie’s arm all over again, the fuss in the US was over Google – they are rumoured to have spent up to $5 million on their Superbowl commercial.

After blowing all that cash on the airtime, they didn’t bother producing anything new – this ad was first seen in November last year. Not that they’d have spent much producing a fresh ad, given that it featured nothing other than a Google homepage and search results:

Slightly more cheerful than Hemmingway’s attempt at brevity but what’s interesting about this (and the recent domination of billboards across the UK for their Chrome operating system) is that Google has in the past refused to advertise its services, preferring instead to let word-of-mouth do the talking. But the last twelve months has seen new players emerge in search, in both Twitter and Bing, so Google to is moving to secure its market share – less Googling means less Google Ads.

What the devil has got into Vodafone this afternoon? They’re one of the many companies using Twitter to provide personable customer service on the web, yet all they’ve done for the past hour is apologise profusely to individuals:

What’s all the hubbub about? It seems somebody might have updated the corporate Twitter account instead of their personal account. Or maybe they thought a little light humour was in order for a Friday afternoon:

Expect a four-page special in the Guardian tomorrow.

Are you worried that your inane musings on Twitter might actually be the most boring thing on the entire network of micro-bloggers? Don’t worry because they’re not.

This is. It’s the tweeting Twitter shoe, or the Rambler to give it its correct name.

The innovative little devils who came up with it explain…

“Everyone that uses the microblog service notice the massive amount of useless information that is spread over there. This project intent to criticize this by posting literally every step you take in real life.

A sensor embedded under the sole detects when the wearer is walking. This information is sent via blooetooth to a mobile phone that makes the postings on Twitter. When the sensor detects a certain amount of pressure, the word “step” is posted. For the other moments the “.” symbol is posted.

Following these postings one can know if the wearer is walking or not and also predict his speed.”

Blooetooth eh? Cool. Sadly, it looks as though the Rambler isn’t going to catch on – since it started tweeting on January 8^th, it has amassed the fairly poxy total of just 100 followers. In fact, the shoes haven’t even tweeted since January 9^th.

Has someone nicked the Rambler shoes? They have? Good.

Sweet muscular Jesus, it’s true! There’s a new Apple product on the way later today and in our typically ramshackle fashion, without having a clue what Steve Jobs is going to announce, Bitterwallet is going to give it away to you – the avid reader of this mighty organ.

We’ll point you to some very specific terms and conditions below – essentially what we’re saying is, assuming it’s the mythical Apple Tablet that is unveiled shortly, then you can win an Apple Tablet from Bitterwallet! But how?

You need to do any or all of the following – there are three ways to enter, each counting as one entry:

- if you haven’t already, subscribe to our email alerts; you can do this by entering your email address in the top right hand corner of the page where it say ‘Subscribe To Email Alerts!’ and completing the registration process. This counts as one entry.

- using your powers of cognitive thought and imagination, complete the following quote in 12 words or less:

“I would lose my virginity all over again to Bitterwallet if I won an Apple tablet, because…”

Post your completed quote in the comments below; we’re not judging them on grounds of content (and if you win, you don’t have to hand over your virginity), so don’t take too long to compose it. Remember to include a valid email address in the appropriate field when you leave your comment – don’t worry, other readers can’t see it. This counts as one entry.

- If you’re on Twitter, tweet a link to this post (or simply retweet this one) and include the hashtag #bitterwallet. Don’t spam folk with multiple tweets as we’ll only be counting eligible accounts once. This counts as one entry.

You have until 5pm next Wednesday to enter, so off you go and best of luck! And fans of official small print – here you go, you beasts:

* The competition ends on Wednesday 3rd February 2010 at 5pm GMT
* Open to UK residents only
* One person per household may enter
* Only one entry per person for each of the three means of entry will be valid
* You must complete the email address verification to be eligible
* You must include a valid email address if commenting below
* The prize will be dispatched to the winner within fourteen working days of Bitterwallet receiving it from Apple
* Bitterwallet cannot determine nor guarantee delivery time of prize, nor its compatibility or available features in any given country
* the exact model and specification of the prize will be determined at after the closing date
* Bitterwallet’s decision regarding the winner is final and no correspondence will be entered into

Come on then… entertain us!

[Twitter - BillGates]

Just saying.

It seems the website elves at DSGi have been busy through the night – not making new shoes, but removing the strapline from their website that made no sense whatsoever without the context of their previous adverts. Yesterday:

And today:

Dixons.co.uk is most likely still the last place you want to go, but at least the site is no longer reinforcing your perception of how dreadful it’ll be. It’s also fair to say that DSGi management probably weren’t sold on the idea of using a strapline without the original adverts, given how criticism from Twitter users and Bitterwallet has resulted in its removal.

A spokesperson for DSGi has told BusinessZone:

“Dixons.co.uk has a new tongue in cheek advertising campaign which ran in the south east aimed at drawing attention to the fact that Dixons is now an online pure play brand offering excellent value for money and no longer on the high street.

“As part of that campaign the ad was featured on the home page, but the ad was taken off yesterday and without it the strapline lost its context. The strapline has now been removed from the site.”

Apparently, more than half of British office workers use Facebook and Twitter. I was going to say ’social networking sites’, but no-one uses MySpace anymore and the people who use Bebo certainly aren’t bright enough to get an actual office job.

These people, it has been reported, are costing the British economy somewhere in the region of £1.4bn with their skiving.

Whilst that is an impressive/terrifying figure, when you delve a little deeper, it shows just how rubbish British people are at skiving at work. One upon a time, our great beslacked workforce would drink too much tea for skiving toilet trips or walk around the office with a bit of paper to look like they were doing something. Inventive stuff.

Now, it’s said that they waste an average of 40 minutes a week (each) by Tweeting and whatnot. 40 minutes a week? That’s pathetic!

Some consultant called Philip Wicks, who commissioned the survey, said: “When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole. Social networking can be a cause for good when it is used professionally but I think organisations need to wake up – that is not the way it is always being used.”

Boooo! Typical bloody middle-management talk!

David Clubb, managing director of Office Angels, added: “As younger generations join the workplace, I believe UK businesses will, inevitably, have to embrace social networks, recognising the benefits of providing staff with well deserved downtime, but also their potential for business networking.”

That’s more like it.  Skivers of the world unite! Also, if you’re reading this and tutting, you’re probably one of those daft people who moans about skivers yet does all their outstanding work for them. You should set up a Twitter account so you can moan about it to everyone.

[via Telegraph]

Transport for London have announced that the Tube worker recently caught bawling abuse at an old man has resigned from his job.

Video footage shot on another passenger’s mobile phone showed Ian Morbin stomping about like a knobhead, calling a passenger “a jumped up little git” and accusing him of acting like a “little girl”. Morbin also appeared to suggest that the old man (who might have fought in a war or something) should be “slung” under a train.

Following the incident at Holborn station in central London on October 15, the footage spread like wildfire across the internet, helped in no small part by the self-important busybodies who are becoming an increasingly unsavoury faction on Twitter.

TfL statement said: “Mr Ian Morbin, a customer service assistant at Holborn Tube station, has advised London Underground (LU) that he wishes to resign for personal reasons. He has informed us he would like to apologise for the incident involving a passenger at Holborn Tube station on Thursday October 15 and hopes that his actions have not detracted from the professional job done by hundreds of LU staff every day.”

“We have accepted Mr Morbin’s resignation with immediate effect. As we made clear from the moment this incident was brought to our attention this kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable and does not represent the way our staff go about their jobs helping millions of customers every day.”

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, a posse is being formed after man was caught on camera spitting a piece of chewing gum on to the pavement. The posse are planning to burn his house to the ground later this afternoon.