WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Happy 4th July to all my US readers :)
Quite a spread of news this week. Some old, some new, some borrowed and some blue. Among other things it has emerged that Facebook is tops in evidence in divorce cases, 3D video is claimed to be bad for your health (at first I thought they were talking about the content), the UK's 'Times' newspaper starts charging for on-line access - I guess they are concerned about the cost of replacing the worn out ones and zeros - and a German is arrested for using an Adolf Hitler speech pledging the "destruction of world Jewry" as a ring tone.
Hmmm... All in all a pretty average week. (URLs for the stories are in the scanner section.) So I guess we'd better get on with it!
Shorts:
Computer maker Dell is back in the news again this week, as details emerge suggesting that from 2003-2005 it knowingly sold faulty computers to major companies and institutions like Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo and the Mayo Clinic, not to mention thousands of smaller companies.
During that period, there were major problems for all computer suppliers, because one of the major suppliers of electrical capacitors sold faulty components, which leaked and caused electrical faults. To give some idea of the scale of the problem, internal Dell material just made public indicates that the company sold at least 11.8 million computers with the faulty computers, and that 97% of them were likely to have problems within three years (the normal life of a computer at that time).
It turns out, looking at the documents, that although Dell knew all about the problems, it tried to hide things from the customers, and when called upon to fix the computers, was replacing bad mother boards with other faulty boards. Naturally the people who paid for the computers were not happy at this state of affairs - and now the documents in a three year old lawsuit have been unsealed, revealing what was really going on.
The bottom line? In its desire for cheap components Dell screwed up on the quality control. That's bad, and it seems to have taken them a very long time to locate the source of the problem. But that's not the real issue, which is their behavior when the problem surfaced. They tried to blame the problems on their customers, or even deny that there were problems. You can tell how good a company is, not by whether it makes mistakes, but by how well it handles sorting out those mistakes for its customers. On this scale, Dell doesn't even make one out of ten.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/technology/29dell.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&
partner=rss&emc=rss
http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/the-ignominious-death-dell-882?
source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2010-07-01
And talking of screwing up things, I've no doubt you've all heard the tales of woe from left handed purchasers of Apple's latest offering, the iPhone 4...
It seems that if your hand is touching/covering the strip of antenna on the back of the phone it affects the reception, arguably causing drop outs when you are trying to use it. One owner who actually wrote complaining to Steve Job about the problem when he held his phone in his left hand got the reply, "Just avoid holding it that way". I thought that was very funny, but, then, I don't have an iPhone 4.
The owners of iPhone 4s were not amused and the word raced round at Internet speed. Apple hurriedly issued a piece of advice which was basically the same as Steve Jobs's advice, but said it in a longer winded way. Actually all cell phones suffer from this problem to a certain extent, it's just that the design of the antenna in iPhone 4 seem to exacerbate this problem.
The whole affair ratcheted up a notch when the tech blog Boy Genius Report (such modesty) got its hands on a script that Apple was allegedly using to reply to those who call up about the problem. Apple then suggested that there was nothing wrong with the phones - just the software that calculated the number of teensey-weensey little bars it puts in the window to show the signal strength. Not that this convinced anyone, no one looks at those bars when the making calls - you would need a third eye next your ear - and in any case customers weren't complaining about the bars, they wanted the call drop-outs fixing.
Finally, just to add to the mix, some bright space spark discovered that Apple are currently advertising jobs for iPad/iPhone antenna engineers!
So much for Apple, but what of the users? I'm sure you won't be surprised to discover that a clutch of them have responded by filing suits against Apple. How stupid can you get. If something doesn't work properly, you take it to the shop where you bought it and demand your money back. You then go somewhere else and use that said money to go and buy something that does work. The only effect of filing suits is to enrich lawyers, with the plaintiffs getting the crumbs - probably a voucher for $5 off an iFault 5.
What is needed here is the return of common sense!
In the mean time also take a look at this for probably the funniest take on the whole affair :)
http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/apples-iphone-4-the-jokes-us-546?
source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2010-06-28
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/iphone-4-anandtech/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/30/apple_script/
http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=55852&
CurrentPage=1
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/01/apple_sued_over_iphone_4_reception
_issues.html
Moving on, I see that JP Morgan Chase & Co are worried about browser security. In fact they are so worried that they have banned the use, by their customers, of all browsers except IE, Firefox and Safari. That's probably the weirdest decision I've seen for ages. They support IE version 6, the least secure of all browsers with a major market share, but they don't support Google's Chrome, generally recognized as the most secure browser around.
It would be interesting to find out who actually made this loony decision, if only to make sure I'm not taking the same medication...
https://www.chase.com/ccp/index.jsp?pg_name=ccpmapp/shared/assets/page/
Crypto_standard
Incidentally, while we are on the subject of security, connoisseurs of black helicopters will probably enjoy perusing the original 'Echelon' secret spook treaty between the USA and Britain, which has just been published on the US National Security Agency web site. So, my friends, don the wrap round shades, turn up the collar of your black leather bomber jacket, and head for the web site!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/25/echelon_publication/
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ukusa.shtml
...and here's some more news for the paranoid. It seems that research just out has shown that you can tell where people have been recently by the water they drink! Yep all that's needed is a bit of hair, so that the proportions of isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen can be matched to known samples from different cities. I guess you'll have to find some way of carrying your own water onto the flight. Good luck.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/01/beverage_tracing/
You know, I think Google may be heading for regulator trouble. This week it announced the purchase of a company called ITA Software for US$700 million - pocket change for Google. You probably never heard of ITA, but they make some very good software which powers a lot of travel web sites. Google wants to use ITA's technology in its web search tools.
Why is this important?
A large chunk of Google queries are for travel, and travel searches are among the most complex there are. ITA's technology is streets ahead of anything else in the market, as a consequence of which a large segment of the online travel market use ITA's software. And, to put it bluntly, the regulators ain't gonna like Google getting its paws on that, since there's a good chance it would be able to use the technology to completely bypass the travel web sites. Watch this spot for more news on Google's latest bid for world domination...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20009474-265.html
By the way, did you know that the US government has a large number of surplus rockets stowed away? No, I'm not talking about the soon to be retired shuttles. These are ex-intercontinental ballistic missile rockets retired under international treaties. Most of the warhead material has already been recycled into commercial reactors, but the rockets haven't been released. The reason they haven't been released is because of objections from rocket makers, who, understandably don't want their markets swamped.
At the moment there are some 150-200 surplus Minuteman missiles knocking around, not to mention around 50 Peacekeeper (George Orwell would have loved the name) missiles. Everywhere else in the world uses decommissioned military rockets as launch vehicles but the USA, it seems, is rich enough not to bother. Maybe the current economic situation will make the powers that be think again.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1654/1
Homework:
I've got three videos for you to watch this week, and all of them came via the excellent TED.com.
The first is a 15 minute talk that Steve Jobs gave to graduating students at Stanford University in 2005. It's not about technology per se, it's about life, and it's a stunner. Highly recommended. The second is a short talk (7 min) by Neuroscientist Adit Shankardass about learning disorders in children. For any parent this is a must see and very moving video. Definitely recommended. And finally, something a little lighter, Lego for grown ups (6 min) takes us on a trip through the sub-culture of Lego. I never knew such things existed!
http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/aditi_shankardass_a_second_opinion_on_learning_
disorders.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/hillel_cooperman_legos_for_grownups.html
Scanner:
Church gives away secret to meeting Jesus in person
http://imgur.com/gallery/3jSN9
An unexpected Apple ally: Porn industry to drop Flash
http://www.conceivablytech.com/1553/business/an-unexpected-apple-ally-porn-
industry-to-drop-flash/
Divorce lawyers: Facebook tops in online evidence
http://www.physorg.com/news196964786.html
WARNING: 3D video hazardous to your health
http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/warning-3d-video-hazardous-to-your-health/
The Times starts charging for online content
http://www.physorg.com/news197293329.html
German arrested for Adolf Hitler ringtone
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/30/german_ringtone/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
4 July, 2010
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! 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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