The Weekly Round-Up: 17.10.03

The silicon.com editorial team adores daft, contrived press releases. Partly because they make us laugh but mostly because they give the Round-Up something to write about on slow news weeks. Like this one.

The latest missive reads: "In 1492 when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he was not searching for the Caribbean islands. And, he was somewhat unprepared when he landed in the 'new world'. If Columbus and his crew had today's wireless technology, their journey may well have been faster, safer and more entertaining."

After chortling at such anachronistic silliness, the greatest technical minds in the editorial team pondered this and swiftly came to the conclusion that if Columbus was trying to use a mobile device in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean he wouldn't have been able to get any reception.

Picture the scene if you will: New world explorer Christopher Columbus is hanging out of the crows-nest holding his Nokia at funny angles and saying: "Zounds! It's not good boatswain, not a single bar."

Moreover, the sailors could have amused themselves playing Snake by infrared while Columbus played with his maps and his funny compass thing and tried to figure out just where the hell this 'new world' was in any case.

Of course, the Round-Up can sympathise to an extent. After all, trying to get journalists excited about technology press releases is a tricky business, especially when lots of new acronyms inevitably get involved in proceedings.

Still, bravo to the PR copywriter in question, but while we're being daft about marketing the latest breakthroughs technology has to offer, why not go wild and play with it.

"What if Neanderthal man had Bluetooth? Imagine the ease with which he could connect flint-based implements wirelessly..."

And why stop with bipeds? There's a whole world of possibilities out there if you're prepared to start anthropomorphizing the animal kingdom.

"What if earwigs had WAP? All the latest rotting vegetation news at the touch of a pincer."

Heck, why hesitate there? Let’s involve whole communities of people: "What if rural Britain had broadband?"

Eh? Yep, you're probably right. Who'd buy that?

Given the choice, would you rather be labelled a criminal by the blood-thirsty legal hounds of the RIAA or be outed as a Ricky Martin and Gloria Estefan nut?

The Round-Up is guessing the answer is probably 'neither' so spare a thought for California resident Ross Plank who was this week accused of being both.

He's one of the latest names on the RIAA hit-list after being accused of distributing hundreds of thousands of songs through the Kazaa P2P network. Most of the songs were Spanish-language Latin music - and the accused man insists it's all a load of maracas.

This week, Plank (no tittering at the back, it's a perfectly nice name and it’s not as if he got to choose it) has become the latest person to be contentiously identified as a file swapper by the RIAA's lawyers, who seem to have adopted a policy of 'litigate first, check facts later'.

Plank (stop it!) insists the RIAA have the wrong man and more importantly the wrong IP address. He also claims not to recognise the music he is alleged to have been distributing.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a lobby group defending digital rights online, has leapt to the defence of the beleaguered web consultant and said in a statement: "Plank does not speak Spanish and does not listen to Latin music."

This appears to be the second such case of mistaken identity in just a few weeks. In late September, the RIAA's ravenous horde of legal hyenas pointed the finger at 66-year old granny Sarah Ward and accused her of making thousands of songs available through Kazaa.

They demanded $300m from her for illegally sharing MP3s. The mistaken identity problems emerged when it transpired that Ward is a Mac user - the Kazaa software is PC-only.

The lawyers withdrew but not before muttering that they "reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs Ward if and when circumstances warrant". Lovely people.

Meanwhile, the RIAA legal team this week went to court to obtain the names of another 93 file swappers from US cable company Charter Communications (see here for more).

The Round-Up only hopes it makes sure it has the right people this time. The lawyers surely couldn't commit the same blunder again.

Could they?

The Round-Up loves its laptop, it really does.

It loves the cheery, little chime it makes when it's turned on, its shiny casing, its glowing logo and the lovely tippity-tap noises the keyboard makes as another sentence, fecund with wit and erudition, crawls its way from left to right across the page.

However, it seems that other laptop users aren't so keen on their machines and some have gone to quite remarkable lengths to express this displeasure.

A survey by Kroll Ontrack lists the top 10 demises of notebook computers.

There are numerous instances of laptop lunacy involving owners dropping their computers under cars and into rivers and spilling red wine on the keyboards.

One laptop met its end by being thrown against a wall by its frustrated user while another was dropped in the bath while its owner was completing the company accounts - bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase 'liquidating the firm's assets'.

However, the Round-up was particularly impressed with the Luddites in first and second place.

Runner-up is a man who hoiked his computer out of the window in an attempt to destroy evidence when he found out the police were coming to seize his PC and arrest him.

Presumably he could also face charges of reckless endangerment in addition to his other crimes. After all, would you fancy being struck on the head by a falling laptop?

However, the chap in first place took his frustration just that little bit further. He was clearly having some serious tech headaches because rather than call tech support he decided the best course of action was to pull out a gun and shoot his computer. Which is exactly what he did. Elvis eat your heart out. (And there's probably a joke in there somewhere - ideas welcome.)

Now, the Round-Up isn't 100 per cent certain about this but it's pretty sure this won't be covered by the warranty.

It was only after the gun-toting technophobe surveyed the smoking ruins of his computer that he realised there was valuable data stored on it.

The moral of the story? Before getting medieval on your laptop's ass, always back up your hard drive...

And finally, last week the Round-Up asked you what posters you had blu-tacked to your office walls. Many thanks to all of you who took the time to email us.

Predictably FHM's girly calendar featured heavily (and to think some people still label IT an outdated, male dominated and inherently sexist industry) but the Round-Up's personal favourite has to be the choice of Martin Sullivan who told us that above his computer is a poster of the famous painting by Edvard Munch, 'The Scream' (which you can see here).

A symbolic representation of isolation, misery and suffering? You may well ask what kind of job Martin does that would call for such a desolate image.

It's quite simple really - he works in tech support.

Martin, the Round-up feels your pain.

Until next week, enjoy some of the best headlines that silicon.com has to offer. And people, please, for the love of God - look after your laptops...

Marks & Spencer starts tracking tag trials Employees 'more of a disaster threat than terrorists' Jury out in UK teen hacker case Rural exchanges fail BT trigger test Stars come out to see iTunes for Windows launched