Disney's space ranger Buzz Lightyear returned from space on Sept. 11, aboard space shuttle Discovery's STS-128 mission after 15 months aboard the International Space Station. His time on the orbiting laboratory will celebrated in a ticker-tape parade together with his space station crewmates and former Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin on Oct. 2, at Walt Disney World in Florida.

The premise of the gag was that while Rowntree and her Getaway colleague Ben Dark were enjoying a catch-up over lunch, the service in the restaurant would become hilariously bad - but Rowntree, the accomplice, would pretend not to notice.

The location was set and all was going to plan until Rowntree left the room to "use the bathroom'' and Dark - obviously not realising he was being recorded - began bitching about her to his friend who had also attended the lunch.

Today at IDF, Intel unveiled Light Peak technology, a plan for an extremely high-speed optical cable they hope will land on consumer products in 2010. Imagine transferring an entire Blu-ray disk in 30 seconds.

Light Peak delivers 10Gb/s speeds right now, and could conceivably go as fast as 100Gb/s within a decade or so. Those kinds of speeds are even sustained over a 100-metre distance, which is really impressive.

The 176th Oktoberfest started on Saturday the 19th, kicked off by Munich Mayor Christian Ude, tapping the first keg with a cry of "O'zapft is!". With predictions of over 6 million visitors heading to Munich, the festival runs until October 4th. This year, a traditional liter of beer will cost visitors about 8 euros (11.75 dollars). And new this year: Oktoberfest iPhone apps, including a dictionary, ordering assistant and a blood-alcohol calculator. Collected here are a few photographs from the first couple of days of Oktoberfest 2009. (31 photos total)

Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.