When this alleged internal Microsoft Vista SP1 motivational video for the sales force, hit the Internet, so did speculation as to whether this Vista video is real or a spoof. Either way, we don’t know whom to feel the most sympathy for, end users of Vista, the sales force who must try to sell it, or Bruce Springsteen who is parodied in the video.

(The real Bruce Springsteen)

The Microsoft Vista SP1 video in question, “Rockin’ Our Sales” with Bruce Service Pack and the Vista Street Band

Long Zheng brought our attention to these two Microsoft internal video spoofs which are much funnier.

Microsoft O-Phone

Microsoft redesigns iPod packaging

As Forbes reports,

Some 4,000 people gathered on Sunday evening at the Venetian Hotel’s Palazzo Ballroom in Las Vegas to hear Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates give his final speech to the high-tech world’s mega-conference. Gates has traditionally used the speech as a pulpit for predicting the techno-future or for unveiling an ambitious new product line from Microsoft. This year, he clearly had more on his mind than just the next gadget.

“Do You Believe in Magic?” sang the sound track, as a video warm up flashed through images of people having fun with digital gear, from Xbox games to music-playing Zunes and PCs. A battalion of Microsoft’s industry partners, including Randy Fry, chairman of Fry’s Electronics, filed into front-row seats at the last minute from side doors.

At 6:40 p.m., Gates stepped onto the stage, clad in a lavender sweater and check shirt and black slacks to a very warm, but not excessively long round of applause. He went straight to talk of his legacy.

“My first keynote was in 1994,” Gates began, “and within a few years of that we entered the first digital decade.” He ticked off the ways the industry has changed: PCs are everywhere. Broadband Internet access went from zero to practically ubiquitous. Now there are just as many music CDs sold (618 million) as digital song downloads (614 million). Mobile devices are practically as smart now as PCs were back then. Microsoft’s Sync technology in Ford (nyse: F - news - people ) vehicles is winning raves, as was promised in the same speech last year. Gates also talked in years past of the television merging with the Internet, a vision that has become reality in an interactive TV service called Microsoft Mediaroom, in use by one million customers of British Telecom (nyse: BT - news - people ), AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) and Deutsche Telekom (nyse: DT - news - people ).

“This is just a beginning,” Gates said. “Nothing is holding us back from going much faster and further in the second digital decade.”

Even so, Gates conceded that he won’t have as much of a hand in the next phase of the Internet.

“This is my last keynote,” said Gates, who turned 52 in October. “This will be the first time since I was 17 that I won’t have my first full time job at Microsoft.

“I’m still not sure how I’m going to feel when that day comes,” he conceded.

Here is the Bill Gates CES 2008 video.

In a report that has not received enough attention, Greenpeace did a laboratory analysis of the iPhone and discovered toxic substances: brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and hazardous PVC. Yes, wrong number indeed; levels for these toxins should have been zero.

In May, after thousands of you had participated in our Green my Apple campaign, Steve Jobs the boss of Apple claimed: “Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors” on environmental issues.

We watched closely when the iPhone was launched in June for any mention of the green features of the phone from Apple. There was none.

So we bought a new iPhone in June and sent it our research laboratories in the UK. Analysis revealed that the iPhone contains toxic brominated compounds (indicating the prescence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs)) and hazardous PVC. The findings are detailed in the report, “Missed call: the iPhone’s hazardous chemicals“

Visit the Web site for the rest of the article. iPod toxins are also of concern, as the iPod uses the same kind of PVC containing headphones as the iPhone.

Wired reports that CEH confirms the presence of these toxins violates California law:

After conducting its own “independent lab tests,” the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), a non-profit consumer watchdog group, has concluded that the headphone cords for both the iPhone and iPod do indeed contain high levels of phthalates.While the previous Greenpeace analysis found 5070 parts per million (ppm) of dibutyl phthalate (DBP) in the iPhone headset cable, the CEH’s subsequent testing actually found 6200 ppm of DBP in the headset cable of the phone and 6300 ppm DBP in the iPod headset cable. That, according to the safety group, violates California state standards.

“Apple customers should know that when they get their hands on an iPhone they may be getting a dose of toxic chemicals as well,” said Michael Green, executive director of CEH, in a statement issued Thursday morning. “It’s clear that Apple’s priority is to market new products as fast as possible, not as safely as possible. For their customers who are buying now, that’s just not good enough.”

CNN recently reported on the iPhone toxins. Here is a link to the video. Here’s the Greenpeace video that reveals their lab testing results.