The Weekly Round-Up: 28.07.06

Hands up if you'll be going to Ikea this weekend...

OK, it's an arbitrary way to start, because clearly the Round-Up can't see you - though it would be great to think that at least a few of you did actually put your hands up.

Of course trips to Ikea mean flat-packed furniture, Allen keys and possibly several trips back to Ikea to get missing parts.

For many people, the challenge of assembling Ikea furniture is pretty much interchangeable with splitting the atom with a knife and fork but now one British-born boffin has decided to tackle this issue by designing a robot that can assemble Ikea's million-unit selling bookcase, the 'Billy'.

And interestingly the Billy bookcase shares the same first name as the robot's creator, Dr No-mates.

OK, his name is actually Andrew Ng and he's assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University in California.

"I bought two Billys for my own apartment," Ng told The Times. "After struggling with the first I realised I dreaded the thought of assembling the second," added Ng, who clearly does not hold dear the principles of 'you've done it once so you can do it again' or 'practice makes perfect'.

So Ng decided that far simpler than putting together some Ikea furniture would be building a robot which can do it for you. Think about that a second.

What kind of advert is that for Ikea? Because how difficult must something be before you decide that designing a robot to do it for you would actually be the more preferable project?

"It was soul-destroying drudgery and I knew there were other fun things I could be doing," Ng told the paper, so he assembled a team of 30 computer scientists and set about the task.

Now, the Round-Up can't help thinking that Ikea's main - if not only - redeeming quality (other than the meatballs) is its furniture's pricing, and suspects the additional cost of a robot may actually go some way to bumping up most people's costs to somewhere just above their budget.

However, all the scientists need to do now is design a robot that can sit in traffic, stand in checkout queues and not get easily riled by screaming children and we can pretty much outsource the whole Ikea experience to our new robotic chums.

And that's got to be worth paying for.

Another thing the weekends were made for is sitting down in your favourite armchair and catching up on a bit of sleep, which is all well and good if it's your armchair. But if you happen to be a workman, and the owner of said armchair is really rather hoping you would get on and do some work about the house, well, that's quite a different matter.

One disgruntled cable customer in the US recently called out a repairman from Comcast to replace his broken modem but upon walking into his living room to check up on the progress of the work he found the repairman absolutely fast asleep on the sofa.

Apparently the repairman had been kept waiting on hold for so long by Comcast, when calling in to activate the modem's settings (or whatever it is they do when they make that call... they could be ordering their lunch for all the Round-Up knows) he drifted off for about an hour - during which time the customer filmed him in all his snoozing glory.

And in this age of a far more democratised media world, the customer then posted the video on YouTube, resulting in thousands of people watching the clip of the coma-cast Comcast worker.

Now, your initial reaction may be that the repairman was a little unprofessional in his job - and he undeniably was - but you can't help feeling sorry for the employee of a company whose hold times even send their own staff to sleep.

What must their customers think?

Comcast clearly recognised there was a serious problem here. So what did they do? Did they employ more call centre staff or similarly address the problem of waiting times? No, they sacked the repairman.

The Round-Up can't help thinking this is a case of treating the symptom not the sickness.

You can watch that clip in our top 10 run-down of what's hot on YouTube right now.

And speaking of 'what's hot' this week - in case you hadn't noticed it's been hotter than a car stereo in a Liverpool pub - it's not just the UK that has been sweltering.

Even in California, where they are a little more accustomed to such temperatures, the oppressive heat has caused havoc for a number of high-tech companies such as MySpace, whose site went down earlier this week due to the heat in a data centre.

A similar fate also befell Yahoo! whose services dipped as the mercury rose.

And as the temperature rises, so tempers get shorter - nowhere more so than on public transport. So throw in some technology for good measure and step back and watch the fireworks.

Last week we polled you, our readers, and found the majority of you find fellow passengers having noisy mobile phone conversations by far the most annoying thing a person can encounter on public transport - more annoying even than late running trains or cranked up iPods.

Quite right too. But the best response we had, by far, to this story was from one reader who wrote: "I've found a polite 'will you please shut the f*ck up' works wonders in these situations... "

Fair enough but then she explained: "As I'm a 62-year-old white-haired granny my comment tends to shock the offender into silence."

Madam we salute you and your potty-mouth.

And as the weather looks set to stay nice some of you may be thinking of a family holiday or short break down in the South West. And if you really don't value the happiness of your children you might even be thinking of taking them to see the big satellite dishes and antennae at Goonhilly - the lucky scamps.

One member of the team was researching the facility, which boasts the world's fastest consumer broadband connection in the world (apparently - more on this in coming weeks), and relayed an interesting gem of information.

Apparently the vast installations at Goonhilly are called Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere and Merlin, to mention just a few of the names.

Hopefully you, dear readers, spotted that they are named after figures from Arthurian legend... but not everybody does.

"Contrary to some people's belief, they were NOT named after the Lottery machines... " began a section on the Goonhilly website, explaining that some visitors assume the aged dishes are actually named after the machines of the same moniker used to select the national lottery balls each week.

Makes you proud, doesn't it.

And finally, the internet crowned its latest hapless hero this week, when an email written by a hopeless romantic to the subject of his affections became the latest to be forwarded far and wide across the web.

Like Claire Swire before him, Joseph Dobbie has achieved a notoriety he could never have envisaged when he hit 'send' on his email.

The email begins with Joe introducing himself and explaining to Kate Winsall that they'd met on Saturday night at a party and he'd taken her email address off a group email.

He then wrote: "It was wonderful to meet you on Saturday, and I wonder if you would consider meeting me for coffee sometime; maybe at the Tate Modern?"

Job done, he's asked her out while keeping it pretty relaxed. She wouldn't have to drink coffee, the Round-Up is pretty sure Joe would stretch to a bottle of water (in this weather) or a herbal tea - he's just keeping it simple. No messing about, no putting her off with verbose ramblings.

Neat and to the point?

Not a bit of it...

The Round-Up suspects had Joe left it there he might just have had coffee at the Tate Modern to look forward to - and almost certainly wouldn't have seen his email travel the world.

Echoing that sentiment, Joe then adds: "OK. This is where my common sense is telling me to stop?"

"Keep it simple and positive Joe," he adds, referring to himself in the third person, which is a nice touch, as any footballer will tell you.

"And the probability of me listening to that voice?" he asks rhetorically, while strapping on some protective goggles and a helmet, ready for this whole thing to go downhill very, very fast...

"Experience has taught me that it is not worth putting up a fight; I will end up giving in to the part of me that never wants to find itself shaking its head and muttering 'if only'," he continues, leaving the Round-Up to wonder whether, ironically he is now shaking his head and muttering 'if only'.

"This is the part where I throw caution to the wind," began Joe once more "... the part where I listen to my heart and remember that I should live my life as an exultation...

"I trust that the lady I met on Saturday night is, as I suspect, able to see sincerity where others would see cliché."

"I am fortunate enough to have been able to collect a number of special memories," continued Joe, who we should point out is in his 30s, not his teens, and remind you that he'd met Kate exactly once.

"They are memories of moments that made any struggle leading up to them worthwhile. They are memories of moments when I am struck by something so beautiful, time stands still and all of the ugliness in the world ceases to exist.

"Your smile is the freshest of my special memories... "

Pass the bucket, please nurse.

Joe continues: "Regardless of whether we see each other again... " which belies the fact that Kate by this stage may well have been working on disguises and changing her email address "... I will use it as I do my other special memories...

"I will call on it when I am disheartened or low. I will hold it in my heart when I need inspiration. I will keep it with me for moments when I need to find a smile of my own."

Bucket again, please nurse.

"If you are half as intelligent and aware as I believe you to be, I am sure that you will find what I have written, in the very least, sweet.

"If I am twice as lucky as I would dare to hope, you will find this note charming and agree to contact me and arrange a date.

"And if you think I'm a little bit mental, then you're probably not the only one... "

(OK, the Round-Up added that last line).

"Either way, I trust that your reply will be candid - you told me how much you value honesty."

Sadly, because Joe's email address and phone number appeared on the email which Kate forwarded to her sister Jane, who rather cruelly forwarded it to her friends - and so it all began - there were more people than just Kate who let Joe know what they think.

He's clearly been a bit stupid, certainly over the top, and fairly scarily intense but the worst element of this is the actions of Kate and her sister Jane.

In hindsight Kate should have thought 'eek, that was a narrow escape' and hit delete rather than send it on and initiate a sequence that has seen Joseph's name splashed across the world's media.

Joe to his credit told the BBC he has few regrets, adding: "My mother uses an expression 'it's cool to be cruel these days' and I just don't want that in my life."

So putting aside the fact that such a ready reference to his mother from a grown man conjures allusions to Forrest Gump, at best, perhaps Joe's got a point. Perhaps we are all too cynical in this day and age.

It's certainly something to think on...

Until next week, enjoy your own beautiful memories...

• Gov't to throw cash at mobile mugging

• IT one of the 'most boring' jobs for graduates

• MySpace targeted by cyber criminals

• Spammers dust off their botnet passports

• WEEE enters final phase