The Weekly Round-Up: 27.10.06

The good people of the West Country are well known for enjoying a pint of something strongly alcoholic and quite probably made from apples. So imagine the consternation in the regions at news that the good, hardworking folk of Yeovil, Somerset, will be required to use fingerprint biometrics in order to access their local boozer.

That's right, Yeovil - dare the Round-Up say 'of all places' - has introduced a new level of door security in an attempt to stop its finest beating one another up... or at least persuade them to take their fights 'outside'.

The carrot and stick here is simple. Drinkers register their dabs with the doorman upon their first visit to one of a number of pubs in the town and they are then free to enter the pub. However, should they decide in a moment of madness to smash a bottle over a fellow drinker's head, say, or swing a wild haymaker or two in the direction of a peer, they will be ejected and their fingerprint will be remembered by the system as belonging to a known troublemaker.

The next time they try to enter the pub they will be confronted with this fact and the suggestion will doubtless be made by the helpful bouncer on the door that they try their luck elsewhere. What's more, the system is shared between all pubs taking part in the scheme and so once a drinker is barred from one boozer he or she will find they are barred from all.

Yeovil announced this week that violent crimes in the town's pubs have fallen by almost a quarter... there's every chance they beat seven bells out of one another in a car park or alternative location... but what the hell, the pubs are safer.

So this sounds like a good plan, right?

Wrong, according to some readers of silicon.com, who are outraged.

Take Barry Care, for example. He was utterly appalled.

"I am utterly appalled!" he began - the Round-Up told you so. "This is actually going on in this country? Fingerprints being taken to enter a pub! Why do people put up with it? Have they no fear of the creeping control over all aspects of our lives?"

They're in a pub, Barry, these people have no fear of anything apart from closing time and another dressing down from the better-half for staggering in at midnight stinking like a tramp's vest.

"But what happens to an outsider, who comes into Yeovil, and decides he or she wants a drink in one of those pubs? What then?" asks silicon.com reader G Tingey, somewhat insistently.

Well obviously they will walk up to the pub, register their fingerprint and buy a drink... simple really, with the added bonus that they can actually smash the place up if they want to as they're only passing through.

Another reader, Graham Coles, added: "How can you ever educate people in reducing identity theft when they have to give out all of the details they would normally shred just to get a drink?"

Like their fingerprints? The Round-Up sincerely hopes nobody out there has been shredding their fingers, along with their household bills and bank statements, in an attempt to reduce ID theft. It won't work... it will just make it a lot more difficult to hold your drink.

Still, Yeovil has clearly got people talking. So don't just sit there - let the Round-Up know what you think about fingerprints for pints by voting in the latest silicon.com poll.

Still on the subject of reader comments, we received a very 'interesting' one this week on the issue of Sony's (potentially) explosive laptop batteries and the massive battery recall.

One reader suggests this is some form of divine retribution. 'What?' we hear you ask... so we'll let him explain.

"I link Sony's present woes are down to its launching of the blasphemous film The DaVinci Code. I was very upset and participated in one of the 2,000 protests nationwide. Ever since May, Sony's fortunes have been going down, down, down."

So you see Sony's woes aren't because a few batteries might overheat and catch fire. This is a case of thunderbolts sent forth by the big man upstairs, smiting down the laptops of those who have bought products containing Sony batteries.

He truly does move in mysterious ways.

And speaking of The DaVinci Code, BT this week bought US security company Counterpane in a deal worth at least £20m.

That deal brings with it Counterpane's founder, the gnomish Bruce Schneier, who is regarded as something of a security guru in the industry. In fact Schneier's stock has been so high in recent years that he was even featured in the Dan Brown book.

So he should probably expect his laptop to catch fire any day now...

Back to the subject of identity theft the Round-Up was heartened to notice that many Link cash machines over the past week carried a greeting that read 'Did you know this is National ID Fraud Week?'.

The Round-Up can't help thinking the inclusion of the all important word 'prevention' between the third and fourth words might have put customers more at their ease.

Want more funnies?

Visit the Round-Up at home, in its very own silicon.com site section, by clicking here - for a full R-Up archive and links to amusing things from around the web.

And to complete a triple-header of ID stories (they said it would never happen!), news out of the UK's corridors of power suggests things are moving on apace with the government's proposed ID cards scheme.

Leaving all of us in no doubt that this scheme is in the best possible hands, the government announced it is not going to test all of the technology underpinning ID cards.

Why bother? After all, what could possibly go wrong?

The reason for this decision is because it "would not be realistic to rigorously test everything before the scheme 'goes live'".

Fair dos, at least they've got their reasons. And what's the point of having corners if you can't cut them?

Also being surprisingly frank this week was the RAC, which has called on motorists to leave their cars at home and think about the planet.

In fact, why not get rid of your car altogether and buy a bicycle?

OK the RAC didn't quite go that far but its announcement still sounded surprisingly similar to the head of the turkeys union standing up in the barn and saying: "Does anybody else think it would be great if we had Christmas early this year?"

After all, surely the RAC is aware that fewer cars on the roads means fewer breakdowns and fewer cars for the RAC to fix or tow away, hence less money for the RAC.

But this didn't deter a spokeswoman for the RAC urging businesses to check out alternatives to travelling into the office, such as remote working and videoconferencing.

[Gobble gobble] "ding dong merrily on high" [gobble gobble].

Moving on, whoever would have thought that the kind of person who signs up for Big Brother would be hungry for a bit of media attention?

And yet this week silicon.com received a begging letter from a talent agency offering up a former Big Brother runner-up (no less) for comment on technology or science stories.

"Please find below information on Eugene 'the gadget guy' Sully, Big Brother runner-up, who is looking for any media opportunities to compliment his love of technology."

Putting aside the fact they can't spell complement, and have clearly made up a nickname for him on the assumption it may make him a little more media friendly, the Round-Up was most surprised by the 'he'll do anything' undertone of the email.

Well, he can come and make the tea in Silicon Towers and could possibly do a sandwich run around lunchtime... We suspect it may just be the best offer he gets.

And finally, because the Round-Up likes its readers so much it wants to give a little something back (other than the blood, sweat and tears that goes into producing, well, the weekly Round-Up). As such silicon.com is this week giving you the chance to win yourself a bottle of bubbly... and hopefully have some fun in the process.

What we want you to do is get yourself onto the silicon.com website and have a look at a photo from the silicon.com archives.

Then all you have to do is post a reader comment with a (preferably) hilarious caption - and silicon.com will pick the best and send a bottle of very nice bubbly to the lucky winner (so make sure you include your email address in the appropriate field so we can contact you. It won't appear on the site and will only be used to contact the lucky winner.)

Get involved - or simply log on to read other people's suggestions (don't worry, all comments are time-stamped so cheats won't prosper).

We'll announce the winning caption next week.

And finally, finally a huge thank you to Round-Up reader Kate Hudson from Valiant Technology. Kate responded to the appeal in last week's Round-Up around our fundraising efforts for Computer Aid International in Kenya.

Valiant Technology makes educational aids that enable children to engage with technology and learn in the process and Kate has offered to provide the company's Roamer device to all of the schools we are able to equip with a computer suite.

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