Today at Boing Boing Gadgets, we paid homage to the Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, the amazing research facility responsible for hundreds of patents and myriad innovations in technology. Steven and Lisa visited the facility in May and got a behind-the-scenes look at several of their newest innovations. As a result, we have:

&bull pictures and diagrams of the first Ethernet cable in the world;

&bull the carpet on which graphic user interfaces were invented;

&bull a smart mirror that helps indecisive shoppers compare outfits;

&bull a gallery of caution signs seen along PARC's many corridors;

&bull a contest in which you could win an Alto user handbook or a Smalltalk instruction manual;

&bull an interview with PARC employees about how they geek out and party and eat good food;

&bull an explanation of the MrTaggy search engine;

&bull pretty photos of flexible electronics;

&bull and the mystery of Alan Kay's office. On the non-PARC-related front, we have Rob's review of the Fit PC2; Jonathan Harris' new Sputnik project; and Dell's ultra-mobile audiovisual presentation platform. Enjoy!