Individual Computer Products International Ltd is clearly under orders to differentiate itself from IBM Corp by every means possible, and one method it has chosen is to try to persuade us that unlike IBM, it has a sense of humour (no company with a sense of humour would need a joke database to prime its employees with material when they are required to appear on public platforms): at the Ambra launch, the new company was handing out what it calls the Ambra Cheering Basket, an attachment for your waste bin that has a small basket ball net and starts a raucous and cracked cheering when you succeed in tossing a piece of rubbish into the net; the jokey instructions on how to assemble it are commendably comprehensible and an object lesson to all Japanese manual writers, and the company calls it the first piece of office equipment designed with press releases in mind – no editorial department should be without one, so you’ll know not to pursue your enquiries if when you call to ask whether we received your press release, you hear a strange cackling in the background.