The Weekly Round-Up: 21.04.06

Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Seattle and its environs this week to meet Bill Gates at Microsoft's pristine headquarters to talk shop. The formalities were followed by a hearty, home-cooked evening meal at chez Gates.

Over a dinner table in the opulent $100m mansion of the world's richest software baron, the two hugely powerful men faced each other. One headed up a regime with a long, suspect history of intimidation and oppression. The other - can you see this one coming? - was Hu Jintao.

Conversations between Gates and Hu no doubt focused on technology, with the pair toasting the recent commitment from Chinese vendor Lenovo (now the owner of Big Blue's former PC arm) to buy $1.2bn of Windows licences over the next year, easing some of the recent tensions in Redmond over so-called 'naked PCs' - computers sold without an operating system pre-installed.

Microsoft is delighted by this decision, Bill told Hu, over a burgundy glass full of Domaine Romane Conti 1990, as it believes the 'naked PC' encourages unscrupulous resellers and consumers to install unlicensed operating systems.

It has literally nothing whatsoever to do with the software giant's bottom line. Hell, no! 'Naked PCs' are a menace to all civilised society, opined Gates… the Round-Up bets.

Many uncouth troublemakers have suggested that by curbing the sale of naked PCs Microsoft is also damaging the potential market for open source operating systems such as Linux. The Round-Up's sure the thought would never have entertained the merest notion of crossing Bill's mind.

These rabble-rousers argue that consumers should be able to buy PCs without Windows - which could be up to 30 per cent cheaper than PCs with the Microsoft operating system - and then install whatever platform they wish.

What nonsense. But then again freedom of choice was never likely to be a likely topic for discussion at this particular dinner table and pre-installed 'authorised' operating systems on PCs it will be in China. Boo!

Apple has a somewhat mixed image in the public eye.

To the enthusiasts that make up a large percentage of its loyal following it is an iconic technology company making computers and software that set the agenda for those that trail behind.

To sections of the hardcore Windows community it's a smug, little company, which will inevitably get its comeuppance one of these days. Just you wait.

To most corporate CIOs and business decision-makers it is largely an irrelevance, producing costly cosmetic machines that have no place in offices full of beige PCs and large IT support teams with families to feed.

To IT journalists it's a company that hires PR agencies - presumably at great cost - which proceed to flatly decline to comment on absolutely anything interesting outside Apple's own product releases.

But to the great unwashed, it's the company that makes the iPod.

Nine year-old US schoolgirl Shea O'Gorman belongs to the latter group, although the Round-Up is sure her standards of personal hygiene are impeccable.

As part of a third grade school assignment about writing formal business letters, little Shea decided to send a short hand-written missive to Apple CEO Steve Jobs about what she thought would constitute a really neat idea for future iPods - on-screen song lyrics so people could sing along to their favourite tunes. Nice idea, Shea.

A full three months after posting her letter to Mr Jobs, Shea received a reply. (He's been busy, OK? Selling Pixar, putting Intel and XP inside the Mac, that kind of thing.)

Unfortunately, the letter wasn't from Jobs, it was from Mark Aaker, a senior member of Apple's legal department. The letter, in perfectly terse business English, informed her that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas, that she shouldn't send them her suggestions and if she wants to know why this is so, she could read their legal policy posted on the company website.

Shea's mother told CBS 5 News: "She was very upset and she kinda threw the letter up in the air and ran in her room and slammed her door."

She may have then proceeded to rip the heads off all her My Little Ponies, though it's more likely that she didn't. Anyway, the bottom line is that Apple made a little girl cry. Heartless, isn't it?

This rather heavy-handed approach to pre-teen stakeholder engagement is clearly part of the company's policy to protect future products and intellectual property rights from possible legal action should someone claim the idea was theirs all along. (Speaking of which… )

However, you might think that a child's handwritten note might have elicited a lighter touch. Even if it was something along the lines of "Dear Shea, thanks for your kewl idea but if you send us any more neat-o ideas we'll have to get litigious on you, m'kay?"

Following the weeping nine-year-old girl incident, Apple reportedly held a meeting to address how it could amend its corporate policy on dealing with inquiries and apologised to the O'Gormans… but it's not an episode that will win it any new fans, particularly in the O'Gorman household.

On the other hand, young Shea has received a valuable insight into how the corporate mindset tends to operate.

It's fair to say that the IT community has its doubts over the government's harebrained ID scheme. At least those who contribute feedback to silicon.com.

The huge cost of the scheme is one sticking point. Then there's the usefulness of the cards. Add to that the potential violation of civil rights - and arguably the creation of a Big Brother state - and you're starting to build a pretty strong case against the project.

(You can read more about the debate in silicon.com's special report on ID cards here)

But leave it to a Tory MP to come up with the real clinching argument for why we wouldn't have ID cards and a National Identity Register: foreign invasion. Brilliant.

Anne Main MP has asked the Home Office what contingency plans are being prepared for the "rapid wholesale deletion of data held on the NIR in the event of invasion by a foreign power".

Main, casting a fearful look over her shoulder in anticipation of seeing hordes of Uzi-bearing Vikings stampeding through the streets around Whitehall, asked the government to reveal whether the planned ID card database will have a Mission Impossible-style 'self-destruct' option which could be used in case of foreign, or possibly alien, invasion.

She also asked what plans are being prepared for the deletion of the National Identity Register in the event of a coup d'état, before pointing at a potted plant, screaming and jumping out of a window.

The NIR will store personal information such as address, name and date of birth, as well as biometrics for identity card holders.

In a written response to the question, Home Office minister Andy Burnham said: "The National Identity Register will be classified as part of the nation's Critical National Infrastructure and security procedures to protect the Register will reflect this status."

He said security risk assessments have been conducted on issues such as the physical, logical, procedural, personnel and systems aspects of the identity card scheme - note he didn't mention its psychological effects.

Little of which is going to placate Ms Main as she feverishly digs a bunker in her garden, eradicates her fingerprints with sandpaper and stocks up on canned goods...

And finally this week, the final word on the final frontier for personal technology - death.

Regular Round-Up readers have no doubt noticed a prevailing theme in recent columns of funeral-related technology tales.

The most recent tale covered the invention of a digital gravestone that allowed the deceased to display rich multi-media presentations above their final resting places rather than engraved text covered in moss.

The Round-Up asked users to suggest their own digital epitaphs. And we were inundated. Thanks to all who wrote in.

So here, representing the final nail in the 'technology+funerals' coffin, so to speak, are some of the best:

Ken Hall would like his digital gravestone to read:

"Here lies Ken Hall.
Abort | Cancel | Retry"

"Bdos Err On d:" suggests Cliff Moore, "after all, it tells you that there is something very wrong - but not what the problem is. Factual yet discrete. The classic computer error message - still with us in all modern software!"

Cliff also adds: "From a Unix point of view, perhaps a CTRL Z, so whenever they found a cure for what ailed you, you can be brought back again, by using 'fg'. Or perhaps a "kill -9" though that sounds so dramatic and wasteful." Indeed, Cliff. The Round-Up thinks it knows what you're getting at.

"Game Over," says George X, who was also one of the few to take full advantage of the multimedia opportunities afforded by the digital gravestone by suggesting a series of background game themes depending on the manner of expiration.

George's suggestions were: "Need for Speed (for those fast and furious), Caribbean sunset (for those who departed peacefully), Strip Poker (for those who departed smiling) and Tomb Raider (for the adventurous)".

Finally, Goons fan David Richmond borrows a little inspiration from the gravestone inscription of the late, great Spike Milligan:

"I told you I was sick."

There. This is now an ex-Round-Up subject. It has ceased to be. It has shuffled off its mortal coil, joined the Choir Invisible and gone gently into that good night.

Next week, a gaggle of hilarious gags about storage area networks and otters. In the meantime, the week's top news headlines follow very shortly. Very, very shortly. Almost there. Close now. Here you go:

• How much does NHS IT chief Granger earn?

• Older phone users are biggest mobile web fans

• Top 10 UK broadband cities revealed

• Earthquake fears make for extreme business continuity

• Symantec boss demands tougher laws on cyber crime