The silicon.com Weekly Round-Up: 25.04.03

Anybody who has even been charged for an extra couple of drinks or a starter they didn't order in a restaurant will know how annoying it can be to be faced with an unwarranted bill for something.

Pity then 22-year-old German gardener Thomas Vogel from Munich who received a final demand for almost £1m relating to items he was supposed to have bought from auction site eBay.

Vogel was charged for a luxury £800,000 mansion, a £100,000 Mercedes and a light aircraft - all of which he says he has no knowledge of - and it seems fair to suggest most people would remember buying an aeroplane.

However, eBay and the merchants selling these items are having none of it. Vogel has received a threatening letter warning him that he faces legal action if he doesn't pay up.

In a fine display of Teutonic pragmatism, Vogel has already ruled out overtime as a realistic means to meet the payments. He told German newspaper Abendzeitung: "I don't know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to pay. I can't plant that many trees!"

Still the image of a single man trying to plant £1m-worth of trees is an enduring one - and one which environmentalists would doubtless get very excited about.

And there was good news for those of a 'green' disposition this week.

In an attempt to become more environmentally-friendly HP is making kit out of corn. Not a word of a lie.

Computer manufacturers appear to have woken up to the fact that they are sat at the controls of an ecological time bomb and they are at last doing something about it (either that or they're running scared from tightening legislation which places a greater onus on them to ensure obsolete kit does not end up in landfills - but let's give them the benefit of the doubt).

While no timeline has been set for the release of this corn-fed gadgetry, HP has working samples of an inkjet printer that features a plastic shell made from corn rather than petroleum.

The shell is designed to be durable enough for its useful life, yet biodegradable with the right combination of sun, soil and moisture once its printing days are over (assuming you don't get hungry in the meantime and eat it, cob-style with a knob of hot butter).

Meanwhile, somewhere deep in the foothills of the Himalayas...

As you read this a group of intrepid explorers are on their way up Mount Everest - and unlike Mallory, who only climbed it "because it was there", this group has genuine purpose to its efforts.

These explorers will be attempting to get a mobile phone working from the very highest peak on planet Earth.

Worthwhile, I'm sure you'll agree. But it does beg the obvious question, what ringtone will they choose? What about "I'm on the top of the world (looking down on creation)..." by the Carpenters? (Email your suggestions to editorial@silicon.com).

So with Everest about to be conquered, it seems there are now very few places left on earth where you can go to escape from mobile phones. But they're not all bad. This week we've been inundated with stories from silicon.com readers about times when their mobile proved genuinely invaluable. We received some astounding tales of mobile phones saving people's lives but we also received a few less serious suggestions.

Take it away silicon.com reader David White: "I accidentally went into a cubicle in the women's toilet of a busy cinema and had to text my girlfriend to come and tell me when the coast was clear so I could sneak out?

"I did wonder about the lack of urinals when I went in..."

And then, there was this from silicon.com reader John Stanhope: "I didn't really appreciate having a mobile phone until the other day.

"I was relaxing in my lounge, watching the football one Saturday afternoon when suddenly I ran out of beer. Fortunately I was able to call my wife on my mobile phone, to ask her to bring some more supplies.

"Within seconds she had walked from the kitchen to the lounge, bringing not only beer, but also crisps."

John, the Round-Up salutes you.

On a far more serious note, mobile phones also hit the news in Hong Kong this week.

The former British colony is the current epicentre of the SARS virus, and one enterprising mobile phone operator is capitalising upon people's concerns with an innovative use for text messaging which it claims could save lives.

Through the wonders of GPS technology and data provided by the Hong Kong Department of Health, mobile phone users can now receive SMS text alerts whenever they stray within one kilometre of a building or area where there has been a recorded instance of SARS infection.

Bruce Hicks, group managing director of Sunday Communications, the telco offering the service, said: "With the dial of a few digits, subscribers can quickly get the peace of mind they need to go about their everyday lives."

The service is being offered free of charge, though subscribers will still have to pay standard call charges to register with the service.

However, genuinely exploiting people's fears about the SARS outbreak is the virus writer behind the latest worm, called Coronex.

An email arrives offering the recipient information about the killer flu-like bug but upon clicking on the attachment a self-propagating mass-mailer is launched which will send itself to every address in the user's email address book.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus, said: "The worm has been deliberately coded to exploit the public's genuine concern about SARS, and is just a further demonstration of the ways that virus writers attempt to use psychological trickery to spread their creations." Indeed.

Social engineering is a tool increasingly used by virus writers aware that a topical angle is often the best way to get recipients to launch their attack. You can now pretty much expect any newsworthy event to have an accompanying virus - which all gets very confusing when talking about SARS, but you get the point.

Online and offline viruses permitting, the Round-Up will be back next week.