The Weekly Round-Up: 10.02.06

Matthew Mellon - Apology

In our Malware news column published on 1 February 2006 entitled "Millionaire accused of being part of hacker gang" and our Weekly Round-Up column published on 3 February 2006 we reported that Matthew Mellon, the well known member of the Mellon family and successful businessman, had been arrested and charged, in connection with allegations of phone tapping and illegal access to NHS systems and private medical records for the purpose of blackmailing famous individuals over controversial medical records. We accept that our report was entirely untrue and defamatory and that Matthew Mellon has not been arrested or charged in relation to such offences at all. The offending articles were removed from our website shortly after Mr Mellon's lawyers Schillings contacted us about this matter. We apologise unreservedly to Matthew Mellon and his family for any distress and embarrassment caused by our articles. We have agreed to pay Mr Mellon a substantial sum in damages and pay his legal costs.

According to science (and science is very rarely wrong) the week which we are now limping towards the end of is the most depressing week of the year... so it's down to the Round-Up to try to cheer you all up.

Apparently the second week of February sees more employees take a sickie from work and bears witness to more glum faces than the front row at a Radiohead concert. (The Round-Up appreciates that's not very topical but pop stars these days are all too chipper!)

However, not everybody is being ground down by the monotony of the nine to five (six, seven or probably even eight in many cases - where was the work ethic, eh Dolly?). News out this week suggests there are 70,000 people in the UK alone making their living, or a large part of their income, from buying and selling on eBay.

That's right, 70,000 people, making eBay one of the UK's largest places of work. The total includes anybody who is classed as an eBay entrepreneur – a qualification which requires they make at least 25 per cent of their annual income via the site.

Speaking of entrepreneurs one of the silicon.com team ran into the ever-so-nice Alex Tew this week – he of The Million Dollar Homepage fame.

Tew was attending a central London networking event for wannabe dot-com entrepreneurs and our man on the scene collared him for a quick interview. Rather decently (though he is worth a million dollars don't forget) Tew even put his hand in his pocket to buy our considerably less well-off journo a beer.

Being polite and well-bred types here on silicon.com our man remembered his manners and thanked Tew for the beer, to which the very personable 'boy wonder' replied: "Don't thank me, thank the pixels."

Nice touch. We're not going to, obviously – they're pixels – but it's a great response.

Moving on, the Round-Up is sure you're aware what's happening next week. Want a clue? Think 14 February... and don't forget it.

That's right, chip and PIN is going to become compulsory.

Oh… and it's Valentine's Day of course.

And that fact is far from by-the-by. The team marketing the move to compulsory chip and PIN appear to have seized upon Valentine's Day as a memorable date to which they can tie the launch.

But is it just the Round-Up or does this sound like a recipe for disaster?

Seven words, spoken meekly: "Any chance we could use your card?"

Men up and down the country are going to be getting red-faced at about 10:30 on Tuesday night when they realise they're ill-equipped for their first transaction with chip and PIN.

Of course, many will be fine but for the fair few who realise they don't know their PIN, or have a card whose chip has become damaged, they'll be in all sorts of trouble.

In light of that, the timing seems almost cruel.

Panicked faces will crack a grimace in awkward embarrassment and cast glances across the table towards the 'what's wrong?' enquiring other-half as the waiter arrives with the chip and PIN handset.

Men will lie awake, alone, at night long into the small hours of 15 February with the same words ringing in their ears.

"Thank you for taking me out for dinner... and for letting me pay."

Also happening next week is the annual 3GSM show which this year is moving from its long time home of Cannes to similarly sunny Mediterranean climes in Barcelona – officially the second greatest city on earth, according to no more influential an authority than the Round-Up.

So it's a shame the Round-Up won't be reporting from there. However, silicon.com will have two of the team on the spot covering all the big news in the mobile arena... and eating tapas, probably.

In fact one of our intrepid duo received an interesting invite just the other day to a drinks reception where some-company-or-other will be unveiling their latest this-that-or-the-other.

The invite said the reception will provide a perfect introduction to Barcelona, by Les Rambles.

'Les Rambles'? Who he?

Now, anybody who knows Barcelona will probably be aware they meant 'Las Ramblas', Barcelona's main thoroughfare, but is it just the Round-Up or does Les Rambles sound like a stand-up comic, circa 1992?

"Ladies and gentlemen, he's the king of rambling, the hip cat of chat, the special agent of the tangent... please give it up for Les Rambles... "

You probably won't have missed news this week that AOL and Yahoo! are expected to launch a system to charge third parties to email their users, in return for guaranteeing the mail passes unhindered through their spam filters, complete with a stamp of authenticity.

Some consumers and even industry experts have reacted badly to this development suggesting the companies are actually looking to make money by letting spammers reach their users.

Of course, quite rightly, AOL and Yahoo! have said this is a nonsense. An AOL spokesman told silicon.com that spammers will not be able to use the service which is designed to enable legitimate companies to use a fast track to recipients if they believe their email is worth paying to send.

Effectively it will create a first and second class email system with spammers unlikely to want to incur the cost of up to 1 cent per email – especially if they are sending millions of emails each day.

But that's not to say there aren't problems with this system – such as the fact it's not particularly democratic. As we see it, companies with the financial means to do so will be able to demote everybody else's potentially-just-as-legitimate email to second class status. Though we accept that can happen with real world mail too.

And what's to say the recipient really wants to receive their email with such a priority? They may not be spammers but we've all signed up for emails which we're not really that fussed about receiving (... no smart remarks about the Weekly Round-Up now, please).

While silicon.com fails to see sense or practicality in such a service, others went far further in their criticism of AOL and Yahoo!.

One press release received in the silicon.com mail box this week declared "Email 'spamming charter' angers leading UK web retailers".

And who are these 'leading web retailers?' the Round-Up hears you ask. Good question, because we're talking about no lesser force in the world of retail than LINGsCars.com and halfpriceperfumes.co.uk.

That's right; 'The Big Two'.

Move aside Amazon and eBay; Ling's Cars and Half Price Perfumes are in the house.

Or, to put it another way, 'Who?'. The founders of both companies had something to say on the matter but the Round-Up had stopped reading by that stage.

silicon.com readers were also incensed. One wrote: "I can't help but be cynical" (which must blight his personal, professional and social life, as well as making movies and other works of fiction very difficult to enjoy).

"I see AOL and Yahoo! looking to make money off the back of 'certified' junk mail," he added as if to prove the point that he really can't help but be cynical.

Moving on, whether it's spam or some other menace, such as operator error, we've all found ourselves growing frustrated while working on a computer.

At such times some of us may choose to hit the computer. Others might choose to hit the bottle.

But now you can do both thanks to an enterprising techie who has built a computer inside a bottle, by way of proving that the casing really is fairly irrelevant.

The bottle is a (empty, obviously) 1.5 litre Ballantine's Scotch bottle and cost £275 to kit out with 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive and an Intel P3 processor.

The brains behind the project, Janos Marton, wrote on his website: "I already had a powerful computer set-up so I wanted something more quiet, small and low power consumptioning to function as a basic home server."

We'll let him off the use of 'consumptioning', given English isn't his first language and there's an outside chance he'd recently polished off a litre and a half of scotch.

And finally, the Round-Up heard a story which made it chuckle this week. In fact it made the Round-Up laugh out loud and embarrass most people within earshot with its hooting and snorting, though it may yet transpire that 'you had to be there'.

A well-known contact in the IT industry, who requested anonymity, though we're not sure why, was recounting a recent experience on eBay. (That's right, time to come full circle to eBay.)

He was watching the Discovery Channel one Friday night (as you do... if you're into programming about sharks or Nazis) and an advert came on featuring a Raleigh Chopper bicycle – the 'easy rider' of the bike world.

Gear stick, that comfy long seat with back rest and handle bars that just scream 'cool'... or so many of us who remember it fondly led ourselves to believe at the time.

Deciding he absolutely must have one, and deciding his daughter's seventh birthday would be a good excuse for him buying one...

"Dad, can I ride my new bike?"
"Of course you can... "
"Well, can you get off it then... ?"

... he logged onto eBay and had a quick search. Bingo! There was one on there which he bid for instantly.

It's worth noting at this point that by his own admission he was really very drunk.

So imagine his surprise when he got an email a few days ago confirming that he had won an auction on eBay for a Raleigh Chopper, thanking him for his payment of £134 and informing him that he now had to travel to the Isle of Man to collect it.

File that one under 'Seemed like a good idea at the time'.

However, let's not let his dilemma go to waste. The Round-Up thinks it's about time we had a good word or phrase to sum up the phenomenon of buying stuff on eBay while drunk. So fire off your suggestions to: editorial@silicon.com.