The Weekly Round-Up: 30.07.04

Moore's Law means different things to different people.

To an Intel marketing creative it's a licence to print money as the company's chips get faster and faster.

To an Apple marketing creative it means a lot of lateral thinking about how to dream up value-adding features to help drive machines with 'slower' chips to market.

However, to senior astronomer Seth Shostak it’s the key to determining whether life exists on other planets. And as soon as possible.

Shostak from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California claims that thanks to the relentless pace of Moore's Law we should learn whether intelligent life exists in our galaxy – other than on Earth one assumes - in just over two decades (see here). Our galaxy is, of course, mind-bogglingly roomy and measures approximately 100,000 light years across.

However, as a result of Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every 24 months, radio telescopes are currently doubling in performance approximately every 18 months.

Shostak has calculated that the rate of improvement of radio telescopes will allow astronomers to detect radio signals from other civilizations in the galaxy by 2025 - assuming they're there.

"We're not very far from success or not," said Shostak in a not entirely unconvincing impression of Donald Rumsfeld. "This is an experiment that may not be generations away," he added.

Good luck to SETI in its quest to make first contact.

Personally the Round-Up isn't too sure about aliens having watched hundreds of sci-fi flicks over the years.

Take Independence Day, in which millions of nasty aliens threaten the devastation of the Earth only to be thwarted at the last by cigar-chomping Will Smith, computer whiz Jeff Goldblum and an Apple Powerbook. (A value-adding feature if ever there was one and significantly more impressive than another processor speed bump.)

Still, thanks to Moore's Law it sounds like we're going to find out sooner rather than later whether the truth really is out there...

"Next time you see the man standing next to you at the urinals fiddling in his pocket," wrote silicon.com reporter Jo Best this week, "don't worry - he might just be looking for his iPod."

After pausing to wonder what a nice girl like Jo has been doing hanging around in men's toilets to observe this kind of behaviour, the Round-Up was intrigued to learn that Londoners can now take a high-tech tour of the capital's conveniences on their iPods (see here).

The potty guide to London's best bogs – cheekily entitled the pPod - can be downloaded for free from nykris.com for the ubiquitous MP3 player.

There are 114 text reviews of London's loos, some with audio commentary and with a few carefully selected musical accompaniments.

Handel's Water Music is one and Cosmic Winds is another. (Honestly, the Round-Up's just writing down what it says here).

Users can find out when their favourite public convenience is open, how clean it is and other useful toilet-related information.

Apparently, London's elite WCs are in Hyde Park - it's where all the beautiful, A-list people are seen hanging out.

In related iPod news, heaven knows how difficult it is for the average gadget hound to deal with the rigors of modern life (which, according to Brit-pop band Blur, is rubbish).

So to find out how a US company is helping some iPod owners to carry a particularly heavy burden, click here.

The lashing rain hit the dirty, Yorkshire streets as Gary Stapleton, private eye, gritted his teeth against the cold and made his way back to his office in his drenched trench coat.

Gary was having a bad day. He'd already broken the butt of his pistol against some punk's jaw, been given the run-around by the crazy dame from the casino and threatened with the loss of his prized assets by a couple of hoodlums unless he stopped poking his big nose into the warehouse fire down at the docks.

The last thing he wanted to hear as he returned to his office at detective agency was that the world's biggest microprocessor manufacturer was suing his company for 'passing off' its trademark name.

Which is a shame really, because that's exactly what has happened.

Detective agency 7intel is one of around two dozen British businesses whose name features 'intel' and the chip giant is having none of it (see here).

Stapleton has accused Intel of "a thinly veiled attempt to bully them into handing over their legally owned collateral, websites and trademarks".

A 7intel press release called 'Oops they did it again', claims Intel's lawyers have "written threatening to sue a number of the 26 UK businesses whose title contains the word Intel, completely irrespective of these organisations' actual area of operation/trade".

The statement accuses Intel of receiving "poor legal advice" and calls the company's ethical trading policies "bizarre".

Intel told silicon.com: "The Intel brand is one of the most valued brands in the world. Over the years we have invested billions of dollars to create that value.

"Like any other asset we have an obligation to our shareholders to protect that asset."

Stapleton claimed that while some small companies are determined to fight the chip giant there are likely to be many who won't - "terrified at the prospect of huge legal bills".

Consequently, Gary is swapping his trench coat and pistol for a vendor-ware T-shirt and web server and is setting up a website dedicated to such supporting such causes at www.piedpiper.me.uk.

Still, if we've learnt anything in the last few minutes it would be that no-one messes with Intel's legal team. And that the Round-Up is never going to make it as a crime novelist...

As the Round-Up's old granny used to say: "When you sit at the big boy's table you've got to roll with the punches, take the rough with the smooth, never let the buggers get you down and always keep a clean hanky up your sleeve."

Of course, that was usually before the lithium sunk in and after that she started to make a lot less sense.

Google must be feeling a little punch drunk since it announced its IPO plans. However, the last week has been particularly torrid for the search giant.

It started off swimmingly with news that its IPO has the potential to be one of the offerings, ever - it's like 1999 all over again (see here).

However, silicon.com readers aren't convinced. Our latest poll asks whether the huge cost of Google shares is justified.

A massive 60 per cent of you have said no, the shares are over priced, while another 24 per cent still wouldn't touch a tech stock with a 10-foot pole.

In fact, 'once bitten, twice shy' seems to be the order of the day (see here).

(The poll is still open so please take a moment to cast your vote here.)

Things started to really go downhill for the company on Monday when it and rival search engines were hit by a new variant of the pesky MyDoom (see here). The attack brought some of its services to a standstill.

To make matters worse, the company with the legendary staff-friendly policy (roller hockey and personal project time for all!) was accused of getting rid of an employee for not fitting the company's 'youthful' corporate culture.

Brian Reid, 54, has filed an age discrimination suit against the company, alleging he lost his job as director of operations because of his age, his diabetes and also because he kept falling over on his roller skates. (The Round-Up made that last bit up.)

Reid claims his contract was terminated without warning in February after being told he was no longer "compatible" with the company's corporate culture (see here).

More bad news was to follow as human rights organisation Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) accused Google (and Yahoo!) of conspiring to censor its search results.

RSF called the pair "irresponsible" for blocking some content labelled as subversive by the Chinese government - including sites relating to Tibet's independence.

The RSF claimed the two companies' alleged actions reflect their desire to conquer a potentially lucrative and fast-growing market and accused them of "making compromises that directly threaten freedom of expression".

Ouch. Read more here.

And to top off a horrid seven days, it seems that software giant Microsoft is really starting to shape up as an arch-enemy to the search engine.

Microsoft plans to unleash the news aggregation dogs of war with a new service called Newsbot (see here).

Newsbot will offer MSN users a personalised news aggregation service, drawing in headlines from over 4,800 news sites in an attempt to create a "neighbourhood newsstand".

Over recent months, Microsoft has increasingly positioned itself in markets dominated by Google in an attempt to capture some of the upstart's momentum.

It recently revamped its MSN search engine (see here ) and is working on advanced search tools for searching PCs, email databases and websites.

Much of this technology is likely to debut as WinFS, the revolutionary filing and retrieval system for its next generation operating system, Longhorn - see here.

Revolutionary for a consumer OS, that is, until Apple's near-identical Spotlight technology debuts in OSX Tiger next year - see here.

All of which segues rather neatly into a report out this week that states we're drowning in increasing volumes of information (see here).

In addition to rising levels of both spam and regular emails, we're also hoarding more and more on our ever-expanding hard drives. Managing that information is a growing problem.

Which is bad news for everyone, except maybe for storage vendors, like StorageTek, which commissioned the report in the first place...

And finally, if you've ever had the brush-off from a recalcitrant call centre rep or been left fuming by some incompetent service at the other end of the line help may finally be at hand.

Registered Call is offering a service that lets you record your call centre conversations in order to resolve possible disputes (see here).

David Hume, founder of Registered Call - and not the Scottish empiricist philosopher - said he was inspired to create the service after his girlfriend was seriously hurt in a car accident in Africa and the subsequent poor call centre management of her case left him at his wits' end.

Hume hopes the service will help others resolve claims and complaints efficiently and quickly.

At the very least you'll have recorded memento of how important your call is to the company you've dialled shortly before you get inadvertently transferred to a post office in Bangalore.

Until next week, the Round-Up will be clutching its Powerbook and staring fearfully at the night skies...

Virus alert: Microsoft targeted by MyDoom wannabe

Lazy new iPod owners rescued by ripping idea

Call centre sufferers get their own back

Devil's Advocate: The thing that could save chip-and-PIN

The time is now for RFID watches

Virus alert: Latest MyDoom causing pain for users

Tesco IT jobs going to Bangalore