Pardon our French, but we have to push the limits of our TV-PG rating for a second here and say "aw, fudge muffins." (Alert the FCC and parent watchdog groups everywhere.) Just when we'd finally rationalized not blowing several hundred bucks on third-generation iPods because we'd rather have the extra battery life of our original 5 GB models than any of the new features, faithful viewer Alberto P. Oyarvide Cano had to go and crush all our hard-crafted denial into dust. He pointed us toward an article on iPoding which describes an undocumented 3G iPod feature currently sitting buried in diagnostic mode: these suckers can record.

Yup, no joke. Apparently this feature is officially lying dormant for now until Apple ships audio-in hardware and an accompanying iPod firmware update, but if you're lucky enough to have one of the new models in your grubby little paws, the article explains how you can test the recording capability yourself by using the left earbud as a rudimentary microphone. (Science is fun.) The experiment as described only allows six seconds of monophonic recording, but if you give it a shot, during playback apparently you will indeed be able to hear yourself shouting into your earbuds like a doofus.

Looks to us like the Extras menu will eventually include options like "Record Memo" (hence the six-second mono deal) and "Record Stereo" (given the presence of a LIN REC test that appears in addition to the RECORD entry used for the mono experiment). This is pretty significant stuff, given that one of the time-honored criticisms leveled at the iPod is that while competing products (like those from Archos) may be butt-ugly and bulkier than Steve Ballmer carrying two twenty-pound Christmas hams, at least they offer recording capabilities.

That got us thinking (jump back, Loretta); if Apple had seen fit to include a recording mode in the new iPod, what other perceived missing features might the company have tried to wedge in? Well, we did a little experimenting of our own with a 3G iPod that we, um, "borrowed" from some poor soul who won't be needing it for a while (at least until he recovers from his newly-sustained blunt force head trauma), and we discovered that it's possible to listen to FM radio stations. So, without further ado, here's an AtAT exclusive: how to listen to FM radio with a third-gen iPod.

1. Start playing any song on the iPod over four minutes in length.
2. Press Pause at any point in the playing time past the halfway mark.
3. With the song paused, navigate to Extras -> Games -> Parachute.
4. Start a new game.
5. Stand next to any radio.
6. Turn on the radio and tune it to the desired station.

Wow, it works! Between that and the recording stuff, maybe we're going to have to upgrade after all. According to faithful viewer Sam Chenkin, PowerMax is offering a hundred clams off any new iPod with the trade-in of an old 5 GB model. Hmmmm...

Listen up, consumer monkeys, 'cause it's time for yet another Apple retail store update. The company recently revised its official retail page to indicate that its Bellevue Square and Walt Whitman stores are now slated to admit marauding hordes of shoppers starting this coming Saturday, May 10th. The Apple Store Bellevue Square is notable for being Apple's first location in the Pacific Northwest, and therefore represents the company's long-overdue retail incursion into hostile Microsoft territory. The Apple Store Walt Whitman, on the other hand, is affectionately known among the retail junkie set as "iYAWP" and "Yet Another Store in New York State."

By our count, come this Saturday, Apple's store tally will tick up from 53 to 55, thus edging the company ever closer to its ultimate goal of total global domination (or, depending on whom you believe, one free 6-inch sandwich of equal or lesser value at Subway). But MacObserver notes a frightening threat to the dream: Apple's Senior Veep of Retail Ron Johnson is officially The Man when it comes to pretty much all aspects of the stores, and after talking to him last week, Merrill Lynch reported that he "would not be averse to closing some stores if those stores were not going to be able to cover their variable costs."

What Ron seems to be implying is that if certain locations continue to lose money and don't look like they'll stop losing money anytime soon, then Apple might consider shutting them down. Which is, of course, totally unacceptable. When Apple first announced its intention to open its own chain of retail stores, wasn't there an implicit contract between the company and the Mac faithful that each store would remain open forever and ever and ever? Were we being somehow unreasonable when we assumed that each and every location would continue standing come hell or high water, outlasting not only its competition, but also civilization itself? Is it somehow unwarranted that we envisaged these stores as ageless as two vast and trunkless legs of stone in the desert? "I am the Apple Store, king of retail-- look on my Macs, ye mighty, and despair!"

Whatever. If the economy doesn't pick up soon, apparently we just might have to deal with the fact that Apple's store count will start ticking downward instead of upward, but we'll leap screaming from that bridge when we come to it. What we want to know is, if select Apple retail stores really do start shutting down, will the company bookend the experience with gala Grand Closing celebrations? We're imagining throngs of Mac fans lined up inside to get out.

Employees must wash hands before going offline! Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the john, faithful viewer Josh Lewis pointed us toward a Webuser article about Microsoft's upcoming MSN iLoo, a porta-potty equipped with a Windows-based Internet terminal so that people can surf while, er, "indisposed." Finally, a place to use Windows where the ensuing onset of violently explosive diarrhea isn't a major inconvenience!

Frankly, this one smelled so much like a hoax we almost didn't even bother checking it out. But a little digging revealed that the story had appeared at MSNBC, who wouldn't be too likely to run a fake story about its own parent company, and pretty soon we uncovered the official Microsoft press release. So, sorry, folks-- we did our best to debunk this one, but unfortunately it looks like the end of the world is nigh, after all. Make sure to hug your loved ones before the universe blinks out of existence.

Not surprisingly, the subject matter has spawned plenty of pithy titles at Microsoft's expense. We ourselves had planned on going with something along the lines of MacObserver's "Microsoft's MSN's Business In The Toilet" or Neowin's "Microsoft's Gone Potty," but Standards & Practices apparently frowned upon our own suggested title of "Microsoft Execs Have Heads Packed Full Of [expletive deleted]." Oh, well.

Get this: Microsoft actually touts the fact that, thanks to wireless networking, the iLoo has "no unsightly telephone wires." Pardon us, but it just seems to us that when you're talking about a computer installed in a public porta-potty that will by handled by 100,000 pooping Glastonbury attendees, as far as aesthetics are concerned, visible phone lines should be just about the least of Microsoft's worries. Plus, the thing's running Windows, so we figure roughly 40% of iLoo users are going to have trouble distinguishing what's on the screen from what's in the commode and will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to flush the display.

All we can say is, unless there are unspecified plans to autoclave the mouse and keyboard after every visitor, the whole idea strikes us as the worst thing to happen to hygiene since excrement-flinging was all the rage amongst our collective evolutionary ancestors. Trust us-- we're hardly germ-phobic neat-freaks over here, but about the only way we can see using a public toilet-fitted computer is if it's controlled entirely by voice and/or telepathy. Perhaps Apple can get right on making that improvement.