Remember that Pandora redesign that we told you about, way back in July? Well, it’s finally done testing, and is ready to bring its HTML5-based goodness to the Internet radio-loving masses. The revamp offers up a number of new features like improved socialization, easier station creation and additional information about artists, including lyrics, bios and larger album art. Coolest of all is the ditching of the 40 hour music listening limit for non-premium users — a welcome change in light of similar announcements from MOG and Rdio.

Pandora rolls out HTML5 redesign to everyone, drops 40 hour listening cap originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Guinea pigs and other small mammals don’t do well as solitary pets. They need at least one companion or they get lonely. Guinea pig owners know this, but the Swiss government takes it very seriously. In Switzerland, it’s illegal to keep a single guinea pig, which causes a potentially endless problem:

[…] the owner would have to purchase a new, probably younger guinea pig as a companion to the ageing survivor, whose eventual death would force the purchase of yet another guinea pig, locking the owner into an endless cycle of guinea pig purchases in order to adhere to Swiss law — even though he or she may only ever have wanted one guinea pig in the first place.

Animal lover and entrepreneur Priska Küng found a solution. She owns eighty guinea pigs and rents them out to owners of solitary pigs, who can return them after their own pigs has passed on:

She takes 50 Swiss francs (€41) for a castrated male and 60 francs for a female, “as a deposit,” Küng explains. In effect, she sells the animals but pays back half the purchase price when they are returned. The job of the leased rodents is to cheer up companions in their twilight years.

Some return after just a few poignant weeks, others after months, but some stay away for years. “Sometimes people realize that they still get so much enjoyment from the guinea pigs that they want to go on keeping them and come back for another one once their supposed last pet has died,” says Küng.

Link -via Marginal Revolution | Photo by Flickr user mksystem used under Creative Commons license

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Guinea Pig Rental Service

You might have noticed that Facebook changed last night. Inline photos are a little bigger, the top bar a little blockier, and a news ticker now rests in the upper-righthand corner for real-time updates. Overwhelmed? We’re here to help. More

Woke up to a scary and confusing new Facebook? Us too! We’ll have more to say about it shortly, but in the meantime, here’s a nice little shorthand chart to guide you through Facebook’s latest facelift. More

After months of leaks and speculation, it seems as if Apple is finally ready to unveil its next iPhone. AllThingsD pegs the announcement date as October 4th, which falls in line with most of the previous rumors concerning the next iPhone’s fall rollout.

With Steve Jobs gone, his hand-groomed successor Tim Cook is expected to take over the dog and pony show. Apple’s future likely hinges more on his on-stage presence than just a piece of hardware.

Steve Jobs is a masterful salesman. He previously used his keynote addresses to show the world why they wanted his latest toy. He would pull the product out of his pocket, pull back a black sheet or simply stand in front of a massive screen and, even for just a few moments, make the most mundane feel life-changing. That was the power of Steve Jobs: his passion alone drove sales. Surely if Steve likes it, then we will, countless Apple loyalists said after each Applenote.

But Tim’s in charge now. He’s at the helm of Apple’s massive machine and to delegate the role of chief Apple spokesperson to anyone else would undercut his own role completely. During Steve Jobs’ medical leave, Phil Schiller took over the keynotes for Macworld and WDC, but per AllThingsD’s source, Tim is going to take the stage and announce the next iPhone. It is, after all, his company now and he has massive New Balances to fill.

Tim should have some help, though. Steve Jobs rarely did keynotes alone. Expect department heads and marketing people to play wingman and help Tim Cook along.

October 4th. That’s (reportedly) the day that Apple will move into the Tim Cook era with a little help from the iPhone 5.

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Report: Next Apple Media Event Is October 4th, To Star Tim Cook And The iPhone 5

I’ve always had this running thought in my head, what would a documentary about me be like? Do you ever think that? There’s documentaries about musicians for example, recovered footage, their story, how they became great. Maybe i’m hugely egotistical, but it’d be interesting, for me at least. During the Geeks on a Plane trip to South America i got to know Ben from Micro-Documentaries who shot a bunch of great short videos of the trip . We thought about having Ben come down to Uruguay, but we did get in touch with some great local Uruguayan video producers to work with us, Nui . They’d worked on the ‘ tribute to the ball ‘ video about football. We had them in and spend a long day shooting around the office. They created an awesome little documentary about Cubox .

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Cubox The Video

In March we shot some video about Cubox , my company, trying to explain to people who we are, where, and how we work. Here’s the one about the Cubox Consultants .

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The Cubox Consultants