Time to add to the list of the iPod's evils.

First, there was "your iPod will make you deaf". Then came "your iPod will make you hallucinate", and of course the obvious "your iPod will kill you".

Now it seems that if you survive the hearing loss, hallucinations, and killing, you may also wind up suffering from iPod thumb. Yep. Apparently the iPod separates your middle thumb joint every time you use it. (Not sure what that means.) And not only that, it can spread to your elbow and neck.

I can't remember the last time I saw an iPod user walking around with their elbows and neck all disjointed and flopping around, but apparently it can happen. Beware!  

It's been a few weeks since the latest iPods were released and the hype is dying down, so I guess that means it's about time to start wildly speculating about future iPods.

CNN Money reports that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is predicting a $500, one terabyte (1000 GB) iPod within 5 years.

Now, it's easy to think that this whole iPod size thing is getting out of hand, but if you think about it, this actually makes sense. Here's why:

1. Right now, I have about 30GB of music in my iPod. The reason my 7500 songs take up 30GB and not a bajillion GB is because I have chosen to sacrifice sound quality in order to gain the ability to carry around my entire collection. They are compressed. In the future, this sacrifice will not be necessary.

2. The REAL news (OK, news is too strong of a word) is that the predicted iPod is not freakin' huge, but rather that it will be a media center with portable TiVo-like capabilities. That would be pretty cool as far as I'm concerned. So it isn't really that we need to hold every the music of CD that has ever been pressed in our iPods, but rather that huge iPod capacities will be necessary to accommodate the iPods of the future.

We'll see.  

OK, time to play some catch-up here.

You may have seen Apple's new Eminem iPod+iTunes TV ad. (If not, you can view it here.) Lugz, an appropriately named clunky shoe manufacturer has alleged that Apple's ad is a ripoff of their Fall 2002 ad.

Similarities: The ads feature nearly identical color palettes, a hip-hop soundtrack, an inner city setting, a post-production graphic element (paint splatters for Apple, a moving black "chalk line" for Lugz) and a single silhouetted performer. (Eminem in Apple's case; an anonymous dancer in Lugz's case.) They are very similar ads.

I would agree that this is a complete ripoff, IF Apple didn't already have a history of making ads that are similar to the Eminim ad, yet dissimilar to the Lugz ad. However, it is possible that this convergence of Apple's previously-used design elements into an ad similar to one from another company might be accidental, yet not coincidental (it might be something that was just rolling around subconsciously in someone's head for 3 years). So I'll leave this one to the lawyers.

The fact that Apple picked yet another less-than-wholesome celebrity to represent it is a far more grievous matter, as far as I'm concerned, but that's a whole other post.