Australian police want pedestrians to know: trendy white iPod headphones can kill. New South Wales police commissioned several morbid posters in which slain pedestrians are outlined by the white wire of an iPod headphone instead of chalk. The odd thing is, Austrailian traffic services commander John Hartley admits there is little evidence to show Apple's iPods or any other digital music players have actually led to anyone's death. Hartley told the Sydney Morning Herald police reports only go so far as to note "pedestrian distraction."

There's a sign in the bathrooms at Apple headquarters that read: "Take 20 seconds to debug yourself." Here's how they do it in Mountain View. Or maybe this bar of soap serves entirely different purposes? Let us know by writing your own caption, below. We'll re-headline the post with the best entry. Monday's contest was won by photographer Matt Schlicht. The Ustream.tv asscoiate commented about his snap of egoblogger with Robert Scoble kissing Schlicht's underage colleague Mazyar Kazerooni: "Oh - jesus. I didn't want to see that picture again. I'm pretty sure I took it but I don't remember clearly..."

The stock-options backdating scandal, which bored Silicon Valley the day the SEC first announced its investigations, continues. The latest to disclose a brush with the law: Google. Google has not been accused of misleading investors by moving up the grant date of stock options, making them more profitable for the executives who received them. But Google board member Ann Mather, the former CFO of animation studio Pixar, has, and the SEC is now initiating legal proceedings against her.

Apple updated its iMacs today with a new processor from Intel that's not supposed to be available for another 45 days yet. It's not the first time Intel gave Steve Jobs first dibs. A year ago, new iMacs came out with an Intel 3.0-GHz quad-core processor that HP and Dell had to wait on.

Chinese electronics manufacturer Foxconn will manufacture and ship the first batch of new, faster 3G-network enabled iPhones by June, according to reports from Taipei, Taiwan. 3 million should ship that month, and an estimated 25 million over the life of the product. Foxconn is the sole manufacturer of the current generation of iPhones. But it has also been known to break Chinese labor laws — not that such practices would stop your typical antiwar environmentalist here in the Bay Area from upgrading. After all, that Yes, We Can video will download so much faster from YouTube now! (Photo by AP/Jason DeCrow)

Customer relationship management software shop Salesforce's contract with Dell is about to run out, and the company has decided not to renew it. Instead, the company will be outfitting everyone one of their 4,000 employees with a brand new Macintosh, according to an anonymous tipster cited by Alex Curylo. The tipster explains:

Apple has long served as a haven in the Valley for engineers with a taste for hallucinogens and pacifism. The same can not be said of PA Semi, which Apple recently acquired. The PWRficient processor was an instant hit among defense contractors building the latest in hyper-efficient killing technology, such as Curtiss-Wright Controls. As the EE Times reports:

Apple reported second-quarter revenues of $7.51 billion, up 43 percent from $5.26 billion in the same quarter last year. Analysts predicted $6.96 billion in revenue. Wall Street officially expected Apple to have sold 2 million Macs during the quarter. Whispers put the number around 2.3 million. So did reality. Apple profits climbed 36 percent during the quarter. So far, in Apple shares have remained flat in after-hours trading. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer gave analysts a forecast for third-quarter revenues of $7.2 billion, $30 million less than they expected.

In the first three months of 2008, Apple sold 2.3 million Macs, 1.7 million iPhones and 10.6 million iPods, and bought one chip-design startup. [Apple]

Steve Jobs likes to say that Apple is the last company that makes "the whole widget." But it doesn't, not really. Sure, Apple makes software and designs hardware — but inside its gadgets are silicon brains from the likes of Samsung and Intel. Jobs is adept at bullying chipmakers for lower prices and faster delivery, but he can't order around their engineers like he does his own employees. That must rile him. Jobs's ego, therefore, is the best explanation for Apple's $278 million acquisition of PA Semi, a microprocessor design startup. But is Apple getting into the ruthlessly competitive semiconductor business?

A patent application filed last week suggests that Apple plans to sell the company's high-margin fetish objects in 3D virtual worlds. Now your avatar can put on skinny jeans and a colorfully-printed hoodie and spend your money in an ephemeral simulacrum of the Apple retail experience — even if you live in Humptulips, Washington, hundreds of miles from one of the company's real-world boutiques. Coincidentally, a methamphetamine epidemic is raging in places underserved by Genius Bars. Luckily, Apple knows how to reach that demo:

In advance of a rumored new, faster and possibly very different iPhone in June, European retail partners have begun slashing prices on the fetish object in order to encourage sales while potential buyers wait for the latest model, reports the Times of London. T-Mobile has cut prices a drastic 75 percent, to only €99 ($155), which is cheaper than you can get it on this side of the pond. Many of the retailers still expect to take losses on marked-down and unsold inventory, and blame themselves for ordering too much inventory amidst the hype generated by Steve Jobs's reality distortion field. The Times article also serves up on speculation on what the new iPhones might look like.

Everyone's favorite over-allusive Indiewood hit Juno is now available for download at the iTunes Music Store for $14.99. The move marks Fox's first foray into offering new DVD releases as paid downloads through Apple's popular service, with the studio joining Paramount and Disney. Amazon's Unbox already carried the title, where it's also available to rent. Apple TV owners won't be able to rent Juno until May 14.

Mark Zuckerberg wants to be the Steve Jobs of his generation. But his fumbling speeches have only shown how far he has to go. A tip, Zuck: Study CollegeHumor's parody. From the gesticulations to the light lip-smacking, the comedy website's mock Jobs keynote nails the Apple CEO. Look for CollegeHumor cofounder Ricky Van Veen's cameo as John Mayer at the end of the clip.

Could Apple be preparing to spend its $18 billion cash hoard on acquisitions? Apple has hired Charles Charnas, an 18-year HP veteran who oversaw the $25 billion merger between Compaq and HP, to run Apple's intellectual-property licensing and strategic acquisitions. But don't count on Apple making any Yahoo-sized purchases. The company prefers to spend its cash in small amounts, buying talent and patents instead of large businesses which require integration. [9 to 5 Mac]

In this clip, a series of Apple employees "dance" for the camera to showcase morphing technology that was cutting-edge, like their hair and their dance moves, for the time. The video was included on a CD-ROM version of QuickTime released in 1992. Does anyone recognize the folks in the video and know where they are now?

"If I knew [the release date for the new iPhone], why would I announce it in the middle of a sentence at the Finnish embassy, rather than report it in the Wall Street Journal?" — mid-six-figure-salary Journal gadgeteer Walt Mossberg, on earning his keep. Left unanswered: What was he doing at the Finnish embassy in the first place? [Silicon Alley Insider]

Shawn "Jay Z" Carter signing with LiveNation demonstrates that one of the most entrepreneurial artists of our generation has decided that the business of recording music is advertising. The No. 1 digital music retailer, iTunes, has understood this for some time — Apple sells iPods, and iTunes is a service to make it relatively cheap and easy to fill those iPods. Carter will be happy to make a little chump change from digital sales, but the MC knows the real money is in branded events and merchandise. What the labels call "piracy" is actually free distribution of promotional material, and such a model is not without precedent.

Everybody loves vintage ads, because they're all old and weird-looking with funny language and whatnot. The drawback is, you can never buy the products in them. Well now that problem has been solved! Spooftastic Photoshop wizardry website Worth1000 sponsored a contest for fake vintage ads of current products. In a servicey move, we've culled the entire list down to the five best: Girls Gone Wild, Jagermeister, cell phones, Viagra, and laser hair removal—in the old school style—after the jump.

Apple now holds a 19 percent share of the U.S. music market, beating Wal-Mart's 15 percent and taking the No. 1 spot for the first time. Just last month, Apple moved past Best Buy for the No. 2 spot. The data, from an NPD survey, came from a leaked internal email from Apple. Ars Technica suspects the increase in buying is related to Christmas gifts of iPods and iTunes gift cards. Most surprising to me? People still buy music.