Happy fifth birthday, iPod!

On October 22, 2001 Apple introduced a pocket-sized, portable device that held 1,000 songs. In the original press release, Steve Jobs said, “With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.” What might have seemed like marketing hyperbole at the time has proven itself quite true. However, the beginning was bumpy. Apple's rip, mix, burn philosophy drew the ire of the music industry. So, to create a marketplace for legitimate digital downloads, Apple began to talk to record labels. (Some news organizations even mistakenly reported that Apple was buying Vivendi Universal's music division.) What the Cupertino-based company came up with was the iTunes Music Store. A revolution for both the computer and music industries. Over 60 million iPods have been sold over the past 5 years, and the latest incarnation is a matchbook-sized iPod shuffle. But what's next?

Big Yellow Taxi

What if you hopped in a cab and ended up a contestant on a quiz show? That's the premise of the Discovery Channel's show, "Cash Cab." In the clip above, a contestant/passenger gets some help from a pedestrian. Volkswagen does their own version in a Rabbit (minus the cash) in the Gypsy Cab Project. But for those of us who have to pay for our cab rides in New York, fares have just doubled when stuck in traffic. Good news is that there are 11 different hybrid vehicles in the city's fleet, including a Lexus RX.

Underdog Chefs

British food can be peculiar, insular, of questionable nutritional value and, at times, a disgrace. Bubble and squeak. Aspic. Marmite. The bacon butty. So why is it that Britain produces so many chefs who find an international following? Do they have more obstacles to overcome when they start out and therefore try harder? Do they purposely look for a platform outside their homeland because they know their countrymen's tastes? Below are a few of them who've created a wider appeal.

Jamie Oliver cooks with a conscience. His restaurant Fifteen employs young people whom other places wouldn't even think of hiring. Now, he's crusading for better school lunches, as seen in the promo above. And not everyone is happy about it. Gordon Ramsay's eponymous restaurant in London has three stars from Michelin and a price tag to match. And his eagerly anticipated new eatery across the Atlantic opens at the London NYC Hotel next month. On TV he dishes out some tough love to hapless chefs and restauranteurs on "Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." Nigella Lawson remains the queen of comfort food that's still far more sophisticated than anything Paula Deen would whip up. While Tom Parker-Bowles isn't quite a household name yet, his mother Camilla is. The stepson of the future king of England cooks and has assembled recipes from around the world in his new book.