Boffins at Big Blue appear to have far too much time on their hands. In between complicated hardware development which can take a snap of an atom, or create new generations of chips, researchers have come up with a new way of interacting with the social not-working phenomenon Twitter.

In amongst all Big Blue's patent claims we found one for a network-enabled smart remote control that sends out a message to Twitter, Facebook or a blog when you start watching a TV show.

Users can choose from a list of installed text messages or they can type in something themselves. They can also embed a snapshot from the show. The remote would also show messages between Facebook friends, bloggers and Twitterers.

We would have thought that if you feel the need to tweet even the television programmes you are watching,  you really have a sense of your own self importance which is of galactic proportions and an ego the size of Canada.