Zune team takes a little poke at rival

In what was apparently meant to be a private jab at its biggest rival, the Microsoft Zune team set up an "iPod Amnesty Bin" at its headquarters to collect digital music players discarded by Microsofties switching to the home-team brand.

A picture taken May 18 and posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site shows a plastic bin with a sign that reads "iPod Amnesty Bin" and "bite me." There's also a green apple — a Granny Smith? — with a couple of bites missing.

MSNBC.com's Rex Sorgatz took the photo, which sparked the usual online zealotry at the end of a quiet, pre-holiday week. He posted a comment later putting it in perspective for an Apple fan who thought discarding an unwanted iPod, rather than selling it, was stupid:

"I think it's more of a joke than you're suggesting. Microsoft isn't actually dumb enough to think that people are going to drop their iPods in the bin — it's a way to show they have a reasonable degree of levity."

Brand to brand

AT&T received quite a bit of coverage last week about the new branding campaign it is rolling out in preparation of the Apple iPhone launch. AT&T is the phone's carrier.

The summary is that AT&T had been slowly making the transition from the Cingular Wireless brand back to AT&T. It had wanted a slow process, but because consumers seemed to be accepting the AT&T brand, it speeded up the change. That means you'll see wireless retail stores with AT&T logos soon.

"The iPhone is one of the most anticipated handsets ever in the wireless industry, and we want to make sure that every drop of equity from the iPhone accrues to the AT&T brand," AT&T spokesman Michael Coe told Reuters.

Remember, the company has plenty of experience in brand changes. After Cingular purchased AT&T Wireless, everything was changed from the latter's blue to the former's orange. Now that AT&T has purchased Cingular, blue is the new orange, which, as we noted, was the old blue.

We're wondering if the Cingular folks had old blue AT&T Wireless business cards that now have new life.

Soup's on

We learned a bit more about life as a cosmonaut from recently returned space tourist Charles Simonyi.

At a welcome-home event at Seattle's Museum of Flight, Simonyi spoke with reporters and Cub Scouts.

One question covered what he liked to eat while orbiting the Earth. In general, he said, the food was pretty much the same, but he did sample some Russian fare, "such as dehydrated borscht, which I like very much," Simonyi said.

Yummy.

Download, a column of news bits, observations and miscellany, is gathered by The Seattle Times technology staff. We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or biztech@seattletimes.com.