WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
The clocks went back today. Needless to say I forgot and got up an hour earlier than I needed to. It was only as I drank the first cup of coffee and toasted my breakfast muffin over a Sony battery that I realised I was an hour out. Incidentally, the muffins we have over here bear no relation to the so-called 'English Muffin' you get in North American diners and fast food joints!
I've put the Microsoft news into a roundup in the Scanner section this week, otherwise Microsoft/Vista/IE7 material would be taking over the bulk of every issue at the moment.
And talking of IE7, its arch rival, Firefox 2.0, was released this week. I can't give you a hands on report yet, because it's always my policy to wait a month before upgrading software, unless serious security issues are involved. That way I can wait and see what crawls out of the woodwork and make up my mind whether I want to switch to the upgrade.
I'll let you know about both IE7 and Firefox 2.0 as things happen.
Shorts:
Sony's woes continue to make the news. This week Gateway announced that it was planning to replace 35,000 Sony batteries. I've lost count of the total number of recalls announced by laptop manufacturers, but it runs into millions. In any case, in the middle of the week Sony announced a global recall of all the batteries affected - 9.6 million of them. I suspect that this was an attempt to take one final hit in publicity terms, as much as anything else.
In the meantime the first report of an injury came in, with a Fujitsu worker receiving minor burns. Ironically he was involved in replacing a Sony battery in a user's Fujitsu laptop as part of Fujitsu's battery replacement program when it went off! But it's not just bad publicity that these batteries are causing Sony. The financial cost has already driven Sony into the red. It has just reported a second quarter operating loss of US$175 million, and I suspect things will be even worse next quarter. Lets hope no one else gets hurt by these defective batteries.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/24/gateway_laptop_battery_recall/
http://www.physorg.com/news81174016.html
http://www.physorg.com/news81101508.html
PC World magazine has been testing download movies. They gave them a thumbs down for virtually everything. Most of them seem to offer less than DVDs of the same price and offer fewer extra features. Downloading something as big as a movie is grim, and as for trying to move it over to your PC or portable - forget it. No wonder people prefer hacked versions. iTunes provided what it called the 'slickest' service, but currently only has about 100 movies available - mostly Disney material.
I think DVDs will be with us for a while yet...
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-10-27/ (scroll down to get to the article)
Those of you with long memories (i.e. over a week) will recall that Google recently bought the loss making YouTube for a cool US$1.65bn. At the time people wondered whether it was worth it.
The answer is starting to emerge - last week Google deleted no less than 29,549 files on YouTube at the request of Japanese copyright representatives.
And that's only the start. The lawyers are circling for a real feast on this one. When YouTube was a loss making affair it wasn't worth anyone suing for copyright violations, but Google has more money in the bank than even a lawyer can count. In the US various media outfits are 'coordinating their negotiation' and licking their lips at the feast to come. It's not going to be nice, and an awful lot of analysts are going to be telling Google 'I told you so'.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/20/japanese_target_youtube/
There was a great party in the Clifton area of Bristol, UK, early last week. An ATM started dispensing double the amount of cash. Needless to say, the word spread like wildfire and queues went round the block. The bonanza lasted three hours until the machine ran out of money. From reading the story - the bank claimed a manual error was involved - I'd guess whoever loaded the machine put twenties in the tens dispenser.
The bank is saying it is determined to get it's money back, but then, they would, wouldn't they? In the meantime, the bar across the road from the machine reported record takings, apparently they've never had such a happy 'Happy Hour'!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/24/bristol_atm_mix-up/
I mentioned last week that the UK government was massively behind with its IT projects, and didn't have a clue when some of them would finish, or how much they would cost. Further news of their gross incompetence in this field emerged this week whent a spokeswoman for the Home Office, the government department responsible for the proposed identity card scheme, confirmed that they wouldn't be testing chunks of the scheme!
I find myself torn on this one - I want to see the dangerous big brother scheme fail, but the professional programmer in me is absolutely outraged at the sheer amateurism of the government. I doubt if these people could even organise a party in a brewery. What a bunch of idiots we have in charge of our future.
http://Mail.computing.co.uk/cgi-bin1/DM/y/ewyX0BsjfA0UCK0DUcH0Ei
IBM is suing Amazon for patent infringements. Normally my sympathies in patent cases go with the defendants, but in the case of Amazon, much as I like and use their services, my feeling is, 'Serves you right'. I have had little patience with Amazon on patents since they patented their so-called 'one-click' Internet shopping. This execrable, all encompassing, patent should never have been applied for, let alone granted, and by applying for it Amazon went a long way towards legitimising the idea of patenting business methods.
Frankly, I'd like both sides to lose on this one!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/23/ibm_versus_amazon/
Homework:
C|Net has an excellent piece about net research tools. It presents its selection of the top ten tools available on the net, with a paragraph on the strengths and weaknesses of each. Among the choices are the Encyclopedia Britannica, Feed demon 2, Yahoo Answers, and of course, Google and the notorious Wikipedia.
A useful read.
http://ct.cnet-ssa.cnet.com/clicks?t=15625429-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
Geek Toys:
Fancy a tattooed mobile phone? You're in luck. T-Mobile have done a deal with Motorola to produce Razr phones with tattoos etched into them. I love the Razr. it's my phone of choice - by far the classiest on the market. This will add to its coolness. The one problem I can see is that you can't get your own tattoos etched, only ones designed by Ami James.
I suspect the first person to open a custom phone tattoo shop will make a fortune - matching biceps and mobile, anyone?
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/24/moto_miami_ink_razr/
Scanner: Other stories
Firefox 2.0 goes live
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/23/firefox2_release_imminent/
Mozilla touts security and speed for Firefox 2.00
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=15800703-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
NVidia binary driver exploit
http://download2.rapid7.com/r7-0025/
UK Treasury fights to keep Gateway IT reviews a secret
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/20/treasury_gateway_secrecy/
Microsoft Round Up:
Microsoft steamrollers through Q1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/26/microsoft_q1_earnings/
IE7 spoofing bug pops-up
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/26/ie7_spoofing_bug/
Acer: Vista Home Basic is a lemon
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/27/acer_slams_vista_home_basic/
Microsoft dodges court in Belgian copyright battle
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/24/ms_takes_down/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barbara and Fi for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
29 October 2006
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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