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Best of the Week: Spam, Polaroid 'Instant' Film Are Back
Even in our ever-accelerating, technologically turbulent world, we can count on some things to remain the same. Baby boomers, the generation that virtually invented short-lived trends, experienced another one with Facebook. After joining in droves last year, they started dropping from it like flies this spring. At the other end of the generational spectrum, teenagers continue to do really dumb things that get them in trouble. This time it was a texting teen who crashed her car into a cop -- on a day when she was playing hooky, no less. And, after a brief lull following the take-down of digital junkmailer McColo Corporation, spam volume has swelled back to 90 percent of all e-mail traffic. In other news...
- A bunch of European chemists are trying to reverse-engineer Polaroid instant film so we can relive those instant-gratification analog days.
- The Dallas Cowboys installed the world's largest TV in their galactic-sized stadium, a 60-yard-wide, 1080p video screen.
- We've warned friends not to put too much money into an old PC, but a St. Louis man didn't heed that advice. When Best Buy techs opened up a computer he had dropped off for repairs, they found nearly $10,000 in cash stowed inside.
- We saw what famous movie scenes would look like if they had taken place over chat programs.
- A Houston TV station tested out tools to determine whether your cell phone is bugged.
- We found six high-tech gadgets that do your garden work for you.
- GPS tracking devices are showing up everywhere, letting you keep tabs on everyone and everything
- And we tackled the thorny question of whether extended warranties for gadgets are worth the money.
Shake it like a... well, you know. Since switching to digital, we've often missed the look and feel of prints from our old 
Like other companies long successful and entrenched in the film-making business, Polaroid has had its ups and downs in the digital age. It filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2001 as it tried to pursue a digital imaging future and was acquired by a private investment firm called the Petters Group in 2005. They stopped making instant film cameras for consumers a year ago.
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