Y2K refusing to die, Bluetooth lurching forward, and top secret Ginger getting hyped

With the advent of 2001, we should have seen the last of the Y2K bug stories. As it happened, there were three reports of glitches but two of them suggest that we may not have heard the last of this saga yet.

Some Norwegian trains decided 1 January was a holiday for them, some mobile phones went gaga on dates and tills in a large US retail chain refused credit cards.

The only failure that could reasonably have been predicted was that of the Norwegian trains. It resulted from the only kind of error that should have been left as a possibility: failure to recognise 2000 as a leap year on a full calendar year count of days per year. The glitch occurred in only the most modern of the Norwegian fleet of locomotives, which refused to start, demonstrating yet again that, as far as embedded control systems are concerned, it was always the newest rather than the oldest systems which were at risk.

Or should I say ARE at risk? The systems' failure to recognise 2000 as a leap year might not be a one-off; it could be that they can't recognise leap years at all. If that sounds far-fetched, remember that in 1996 the Brussels Bourse, New Zealand Aluminium Smelters and our own Met Office and Papworth Hospital all suffered failures through ignorance of the leap year. So that's a bug we could see recurring every four years throughout the current century.

The mobile phone glitch caused no problems at all except the inconvenience of having to reset the date. However, it reportedly occurred throughout the last week of the year. This suggests some obscure connection with the fact that 2000 had 54 weeks (and only 53 were anticipated); it's a phenomenon that occurs once in every 28 years so we'll have to wait rather a long time to see that bug reappear. However, that too could be catching out companies doing end of year reconciliations right now. It's also a warning to any programmer still happily setting a WEEKS PER YEAR

The retail store failure, in the 7-Eleven chain of 5,000 stores, was perhaps the most significant incident. Interestingly, the tills decided the date was 1901 and thus rejected current credit cards as invalid. This is in some ways the most alarming of the failures in that it suggests there may be many such inadequate fixes out there in various systems: time bombs ticking away merrily until their time comes.

So anyone happily thinking that we've finally seen the last of all this Y2K nonsense had better think again.

*Bluetooth moves forward, slowly*

The IT industry is heavily supportive of Bluetooth but it will be dollar signs rather than a more aesthetically pleasing and convenient work place that will be making their hearts beat faster. The sales opportunities are enormous. Network and communication technology manufacturers can resell this way of connecting devices together and device manufacturers will no doubt sell Bluetooth-enabled versions of their existing products.

The Consumer Electronics Show recently held in Las Vegas provided manufacturers with the opportunity to showcase their Bluetooth wares. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, only 3Com and HP were able to field working demonstrations of the technology with a 3Com Bluetooth PC card sending data to a Bluetooth-enabled HP inkjet printer.

At the moment the technology is based on version 1.0 of the Bluetooth standard that has been defined by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. But some have said version 1.0 is the reason why more Bluetooth enabled products are not currently available. Manufacturers have recently admitted that version 1.0 products are only really suitable for evaluation purposes as they often have problems with power consumption, usability and price.

Apparently version 1.1, planned to be ratified in March or April this year, is a more complete version of the standard and resolves these problems. In the meantime according to Nick Hunn, research and development director of TDK Systems, "people buying Bluetooth products should be warned that [current products] are only there to be played with".

Hunn is certainly not one to be misled by the hype surrounding Bluetooth, he points out that technologies such as GSM and DECT took up to five years from concept to delivery with the products only being hyped in the last six months. Bluetooth in comparison was being hyped by manufacturers before the original standard was even agreed and it has proved far more complicated that manufacturers expected, but this has not stopped them trying to rushing out products to justify the time and money invested.

*Ginger - hyping the future?*

So the invention for now known IT or 'Ginger' is hitting the headlines, but it's still veiled in secrecy. It has all the hallmarks of some kind of scam designed to create more hype in an industry that is known to be susceptible to such activity.

So far, most of the rumours have centred on a new form of travel or fuel. This seems to be based upon a statement from its inventor, Dean Kamen. He is quoted as saying that the invention will replace existing items that "are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities." We are also told that it (or the prototype) is small, will come in two versions and will be a mass-market product. It is also expected to fall foul of existing regulations.

Anybody who has ever been around web bulletin boards will know just how annoying are people that claim to know something of vital importance but can't tell for commercial or political reasons. All that happens is that a great deal of rumour and speculation is stirred up, the majority of which is totally inaccurate. Eventually the truth emerges and those 'in the know' invariably remain sheepishly silent.

If there were valid commercial and political reasons for keeping 'Ginger' quiet then we still wouldn't know about it. This kind of rumour only ever comes out as a part of the marketing initiative and is designed to get us all wound up in anticipation of the event. Guess what? It worked.