Top 10 rumours that might do an Apple / Engadget on other tech firms

Poor Apple. One blog post about an iPhone delay based on a faked internal memo, and $4bn is wiped off its stockmarket value. Which has to make you wonder, what in God’s name will happen to Apple’s share price if the iPhone turns out to be rubbish? It’s a thought.

Another thought: could this happen to other tech firms? What sort of crazy rumour would send Microsoft’s stock diving, for example, or grind Sony’s share price into the dust? Weeell….

1. Have you heard about Zune batteries exploding? Microsoft has admitted that 18 people have been badly burned already. That’s over half the people who own one…

2. LG’s Chocolate phone melts in the heat. I’ve seen an internal memo from the company advising that if people want to take it to the beach, it has to be kept in a coolbag.

3. Honda is pretending that its Asimo robot’s ability to run in circles is a big technical achievement. It’s not: they cocked up the manufacturing, and one leg’s shorter than the other.

4. The PlayStation Home virtual world for Sony’s PS3 is in trouble. They mistakenly gave out all the beta test logins to paedophiles, who were looking for a new home after being drummed out of Second Life.

5. The pixies who work Google’s search algorithms are going on strike over pay and conditions. If they don’t get better pointy hats, they’ll down tools, bringing about 213 other industries that rely on lazy Googling to a shuddering halt.

6. Nokia spent so much time squeezing multimedia computer features into their new handset, they forgot to put the voice calls feature in. Nobody realised until all the stock had been shipped out. It’s carnage down at Phones4U…

7. The reason Wiis are in such short supply is because Nintendo has lost the engineering blueprints. Miyamoto’s been improvising with some egg-boxes and bits of string, but someone’s bound to notice sooner or later.

8. MySpace is over. Rupert Murdoch just junked his profile and signed up to Facebook.

9. Volkswagen has warned its network of dealers that there’s a problem with the new Polo: the car horn module was erroneously replaced by an ejector seat trigger at the factory. 764 pushy drivers have been seriously injured already.

10. Virgin Media has given up hope of ever getting BSkyB’s channels back on its platform. It’s replacing them with the Branson’s Beardy Balloonist Bonanza channel on a 24-hour loop. And charging customers extra for it.