It's the Google Play store's first birthday today, but don't feel bad if you forgot to get it anything. Google knows its better to give than receive, so they're celebrating with a huge sale offering free and discounted apps and media. There are even a lot of in-app goodies specially created for some of Android's top games. The designers of those games even put together a special Google Hangout birthday message for the Google Play team.

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It's common knowledge that Facebook has age limits to keep anyone under the age of 13 off the site, but it turns out they secretly try to keep the hyper-elderly off the site as well. Marguerite Joseph, a 104-year-old grandmother living in Michigan can't post her real age on Facebook, so to use the site she has to lie about her age. Lots of people lie about their age, but living to be 104 years old is probably the kind of thing you'd want people to know.

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On October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs unveiled the first generation iPod. It was a modest announcement held in an Apple conference room for a small clutch of reporters; downright spartan compared to the spectacle that would come to define future product launches. The short presentation ended with the unveiling of a white, handheld digital music player with large capacity and an intuitive design. The rest, as they say is history. Here in 2011, it's hard to imagine a world without the ubiquitous music player or the tablet and smartphone that followed in its wake. Back in 2001, MP3s were just on the cusp of becoming something big. Looking at the lackluster competition the rise of digital music, Apple saw an opportunity to move behind home computing -- which at the time was the company's soul focus -- and move into consumer electronics. It was a gamble that paid off, and paved the way for the company's restoration as a major player in the tech industry. Read on after the break for a video of that fateful unveiling.

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On this day in 1911, the venerable Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was founded. You're probably more familiar with the company after their 1924 name change to International Business Machines or IBM. Since its humble beginnings, Big Blue has gone on to be one of the largest and most profitable companies in the US and helped pave the way for the modern computing industry. In 100 years, the company has gone from selling cheese cutters and punch-clocks to laptops and supercomputers that not only won our hearts but our gameshows as well. With that kind of history, one wonders what the upstart tech companies we see today will look like in a century's time, and how many will last anywhere near that long. Happy Birthday, Big Blue. (PC Mag via Slashdot)

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Move over, ColorFlame. FastLites, and even the Candelabra can't hold a candle to (oh, you knew it was coming, might as well get it out of the way) the Blossoming Birthday Candle. Don't let the initial lighting fool you--after the initial eruption of fire and sparks, the candle opens up to reveal at least 15 petals, each with an individually lit candle rotating around sparks spewing from the center. Video after the jump:

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