Microsoft Toilet??

1
Probably best for all of us that it was just a joke from the start.

Microsoft: Web-ready toilet a hoax


British division made up invention of the ‘iLoo’

ASSOCIATED PRESS REDMOND, Wash., May 13

Microsoft Corp. said a company news release that it was developing a portable toilet with Internet access, called an iLoo, was a hoax perpetrated by its British division
THE APRIL 30 release, issued by the company’s MSN Internet division in the United Kingdom, said Microsoft was developing a portable toilet with a wireless keyboard and an extending height-adjustable plasma screen in front of the seat. The iLoo was to debut at festivals this summer in Britain.

"This iLoo release came out of the UK office and was not a Microsoft sanctioned communication and we apologize for any confusion or offense it may have caused", Microsoft spokeswoman Bridgitt Arnold said late Monday. (MSNBC is an NBC-Microsoft joint venture) The fake release generated coverage by The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press and Reuters.

The Associated Press received confirmation of the project from both Microsoft Corp.’s Waggener Edstrom public relations firm and London-based Red Consultancy, which handles such work for the software giant in England.

In an e-mail sent last week to The Associated Press, Red Consultancy’s Ben Philipson wrote MSN is really working on building a prototype for the Summer festivals, perhaps Glastonbury ... This is very much a ’toe in the water’ experiment to gauge interest so we’ll have to see how it goes, although judging from response so far it’s really captured people’s imagination!

Malina Bragg, who helps with MSN’s account for Waggener Edstrom, also said last week that the project was real.

2
Now it turns out that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing - it was a real project, it was cancelled (possibly due to this bad publicity), and was dismissed as a joke because MSN US didn't know what MSN UK was doing. Kind of embarassing for Microsoft, but funny, too :)
TC wrote:as soon as baseball stops being homosexual, i will.

3
Yeah, here's the Snopes urban legend page about the whole thing:

Origins: The iLoo?
A portable toilet complete with wireless keyboard, plasma screen, and URL-imprinted toilet paper? Plus additional "Hotmail stations" so people queueing up for the toilet can "do something useful"? If the announcements touting Microsoft's supposed latest innovation in consumer computing convenience had been issued on April 1 everyone (presumably) would have taken them for a gag, but since they were issued on April 30 everyone from The Wall Street Journal to the Associated Press ran them as straight news. After everyone was left twisting in the wind for a few weeks, Microsoft finally announced the iLoo was a hoax perpetrated by one of the company's British divisions:

Microsoft Corp. said a company news release that it was developing a portable toilet with Internet access, called an "iLoo," was a hoax perpetrated by its British division.

"This iLoo release came out of the UK office and was not a Microsoft sanctioned communication and we apologize for any confusion or offense it may have caused," Microsoft spokeswoman Bridgitt Arnold said late Monday.
Some news agencies made efforts to confirm that iLoo was a real product and were told it was real, but the information they obtained was supplied by public relations firms rather than Microsoft itself:

The Associated Press received confirmation of the project from both Microsoft Corp.'s Waggener Edstrom public relations firm and London-based Red Consultancy, which handles such work for the software giant in England.

In an e-mail sent last week to The Associated Press, Red Consultancy's Ben Philipson wrote "MSN is really working on building a prototype for the Summer festivals, perhaps Glastonbury . . . This is very much a 'toe in the water' experiment to gauge interest so we'll have to see how it goes, although judging from response so far it's really captured people's imagination!"

Malina Bragg, who helps with MSN's account for Waggener Edstrom, also verified last week that the project was true.
Then, after maintaining that the iLoo was a hoax, Microsoft reversed itself and said there was something to this product after all:

"We jumped the gun basically yesterday in confirming that it was a hoax, and in fact it was not," said Lisa Gurry, MSN group product manager. "Definitely, we're going to be taking a good look at our communication processes internally."

Microsoft said it had relied on bad information from a Microsoft employee in the United Kingdom who said it was a hoax, Gurry said. After more talks with people in London, the company determined it was a real project, after all.

The U.K. division likes to run clever and innovative marketing campaigns, Gurry said, and had thought an iLoo would appeal to the British. MSN typically allows its units to tailor their own campaigns to their regions, she said.
Whether the iLoo plans were genuine or not, no devices were produced, and apparently none will be:

But MSN's executive team, which had heard of the iLoo through news reports, took the unusual step of killing the project on Monday, she said, believing that the portable toilet "wasn't the best extension of our brand."

It's still unclear how much work was ever done on the iLoo. Gurry said she did not know how much time or money was spent on it.

The company had said it was building a prototype and was in the process of converting a portable toilet. But MSN marketing manager Tracy Blacher said Tuesday in London that the company had not done that. Rather, Blacher, who described the project in the original news release that quoted her repeatedly, said MSN had some discussions with portable toilet manufacturers, which she said she could not name because she was not at her desk.