CNET UK Podcast 120: Apple makes some serious wedge

This week on the CNET UK Podcast, Ian and Nate were joined by former CNET Australia writer and part-time karaoke legend, Ella Morton. Ella blew into the office and started up the age-old argument about which chocolate snack is better: Aussie Tim Tams or the flightless but still delicious Penguin.

Chocolate biscuit debate aside, we took this opportunity to talk about the investigation of Steve Jobs' illness by the SEC. The aim is to establish if Apple concealed his sickeness to increase profits.

And increase profits it certainly did: the big half-eaten apple posted profits of $1.6bn and announced it had nearly $30bn in the bank, without any debt. The company also sold 22.7 million iPods and 4 million iPhones. Love the Cupertino posse or loathe them, you can't deny it's impressive work.

Next up was the news that Philips is to produce a 21:9 ratio TV. The idea being that you can watch ultra-wide 2.35:1 movies on it, in full screen. Ian is seriously unimpressed, but Nate could see the advantage, suggesting it might be ideal as a second telly. Of course, there's no pricing on the TV yet, but it's hardly likely to be cheap.

There was also news that scientists are working on a pill to 'turn down' your hearing. It does this by acting on the hair-like cells in your ear that are damaged by loud noise. Apparently the treatment did a great job of preventing hearing loss in mice.

Online shopping site Pixmania, part of the Dixons Group, has teamed up with Mensa, to create a TQ (Technology Quotient) test. To be honest, we weren't that impressed but still managed to fall for the old trick of mentioning the story, and the name of the company that set it up. Probably a better indication of how clever -- or stupid -- we actually are.

Our last news item was the glorious new CNET UK style. As you're reading this, there's a good chance you've already noticed we're now black instead of yellow. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the new style, so hit our forums to talk about it.

In WTF this week, we learnt that it's possible to get into hot water by searching for a crime you've committed. Certainly, Lee Harbert came a cropper when he killed a pedestrian in a hit-and-run accident and then searched for it online. Eventually some forensic evidence convicted him, but with some evidence from his PC's cache playing a part too.

As always, we discussed your feedback from our forums. If you'd like to discuss the podcast, you can do so in our podcast forum. There are also individual discussion areas for all of our main review categories.