The Weekly Round-Up: 12.01.07

Like a washed-up gambler eyeing his final chip on the roulette layout, the eyes of the technology industry have been focusing to squinting point on Las Vegas this week. The annual shindig that is the Consumer Electronics Show once again rolled into town like the world's largest battery-operated circus.

This is of course the show where the VHS video recorder was first unveiled and, lest we get all sentimental about that machine (which some of us could never really programme), the show also gave us the DVD player which kicked VHS into touch and then danced on its grave.

So what were the big stories from this year's show?

Well, aside from the all important news that silicon.com chief reporter - and high-roller in residence - Andy McCue came away $100 up on the blackjack table much of the big news, as ever, centred around Microsoft, Apple and the growing battle for the living room. (Think the struggle over the remote control in your own living room, only with slightly higher stakes.)

Apple and Microsoft have both realised that with more media - music, movies and on-demand television - now having made the transition to digital formats in the mainstream the challenge is going to be how best to serve the market for storing, viewing and listening to that media.

Bill Gates boldly predicts Microsoft will put a server in every home - more specifically the snappily titled Windows HomeServer, which will be able to back up a family's photographs, music, videos and documents automatically.

"You can get up to literally terabytes on this," said Gates, whose grammar all over the place is. "We think it's a category that can explode in importance."

As opposed to 'explode in reality', for which you might need certain laptop batteries.

Gates - whose penultimate CES keynote proved a hotter Vegas ticket than Prince and Céline Dion (fair enough) this week - also announced Microsoft plans to become increasingly involved with in-car technology.

Cue lots of jokes about inexplicable 'crashes' or being told to pull over to the hard-shoulder, stop your journey and restart it again.

Fortunately for those of us eternally suspicious of the robustness of Microsoft code, the company will at this stage simply be offering a system called Sync (as in '... like a stone'?) to Ford for the voice control of mobile phones and in-car MP3 players.

The system will be included in a number of new models from Ford in the near future.

Although Apple was never far from the thoughts of many of those attending CES, the company itself snubbed the event with typical swaggering arrogance in favour of its own annual party, Macworld, 400 miles across the state line in San Francisco.

It's unsurprising that Steve Jobs should favour the status of being the big fish in a small pond, rather than the undercard to a keynote from old foe Gates, and Apple gave it its all to upstage the announcements coming out of Vegas.

Finally the wraps were taken off the worst kept secret in technology - the Apple iPhone - to cooing from the Mac faithful, assorted analysts and media outlets which seem to think the arrival of a mobile phone that also plays music (what kind of witchcraft is this?) is still news in 2007.

In fact the iPhone isn't even 3G, so people are actually getting all moist at the notion of a second-generation mobile phone which isn't even coming to the UK until the fourth quarter of this year and already has major question marks over its battery life.

Proof it would seem that image is everything.

What next? Ferrari bringing out a Flintstones car, where you have to put your feet through and run, and everybody falling over themselves to heap praise on it?

Toshiba bringing out an Etch A Sketch and analysts claiming it has reinvented the laptop?

Microsoft bringing out an MP3 player and claiming it can overthrow the iPod?

Oh hang on, that last one's already happened.

If you can bear all the whooping and cheering when Steve Jobs does nothing more than announce a new product (YEAH!!... which is quite tragic), you can watch highlights of the Apple boss' keynote here.

However, it's not just the notion of a mobile phone that plays music - or even a mobile phone that runs iTunes or includes a 2 megapixel camera - which might seem a little old hat to the cynics out there.

Some people may also be familiar with the name iPhone already... because unfortunately for Apple - and fortunately for Cisco - that ship has already sailed, taking some of the wind out of Job's own sails in the process.

Cue much legal wrangling.

Moving on, the Round-Up would like to take a second of your time to push you in the direction of the brand new, very exciting, you-really-shouldn't-miss-it, silicon.com Weekly Round-Up podcast.

That’s right, podcast - which we'll look to bring you each and every Friday to complement this rather excellent email newsletter.

You'll find a link at the bottom of this email... but be gentle, it's our first time.

Moving on, those of us living and working in the UK will be aware that the words 'government', 'large IT projects' and 'successful' tend to go together like a young child's curious fingers and a blender.

However, one of the companies most closely linked to a series of high profile 'problems' has - after possibly spotting a lack of other likely candidates - leapt to its own defence this week, claiming things only look so bleak because the media tends to focus only on the failures rather than the successes.

Bill Thomas, president EMEA and quite possibly head of flimsy excuses at EDS, told The Telegraph this week: "It's a simple fact that all the projects that go well are just not interesting."

It's true, of course. All too often we're quick to remark on the negative while entirely ignoring all the good achievements in people's careers.

For example, it's never been noted that Sweeney Todd actually did a great short back and sides - half price on a Wednesday for pensioners.

"These projects are very hard," said Thomas. "When they go wrong, people suffer. Not just civil servants but real people."

The Round-Up thinks that must be the best - if only - use of the phrase 'not just civil servants' ever. Because 'any level of suffering of course is entirely justified as long as it's just civil servants' would seem to be the implication.

That friendly distinction should ensure EDS remains popular with its customers - many of whom are of course civil servants.

At the other end of the perception stakes is Google, which topped two lists this week (neither powered by Google AdWords so their objectivity is beyond question).

First, Google was voted best place to work. Good for them. This accolade is no doubt down to more than the 'bring your dog to work' days and free soda but every little helps. Certainly the London GooglePlex is a fine office space in the heart of London, bearing more than a passing resemblance to a very up-market nursery.

However, the Round-Up can't help thinking the giant screen behind the reception desk which shows real-time searches as they are processed by the whirring cogs of Google's search machine must surely be censored. The Round-Up once sat in Google's reception for some time, watching the screen and didn't see the word 'naked' - or worse - once. We suspect the censor's big black pen must be used somewhere along the line.

Second, the search giant topped the list of most popular brands in the UK, knocking archrival Microsoft into second place... which has got to hurt. What's more McDonald's was playing the part of bronze-medal winner to the all-gold search giant. Signs of the times indeed.

And finally, a conversation among the silicon.com editorial team, which began with a story confirming what many of us already knew - that mobile phones don't float (not even in a pint of lager), got us thinking this week.

It was sparked by news that Blackpool Pleasure Beach has reopened its Big Dipper this week after a major facelift. During the work a number of items were discovered that had fallen out of the rollercoaster during operation, including eight mobile phones. Other items - for the record - included 13 pairs of glasses, a bra, a glass eye, three sets of false teeth, one toupee and an earring belonging to Marlene Dietrich.

But it was the mobile phones that got our little grey matter going.

Now we're looking for your help in compiling a list of the most bizarre, outlandish and downright hilarious ways in which people have lost, destroyed or otherwise fatally wounded their mobile phones.

The Round-Up, who has almost single-handedly - and inadvertently - invented the concept of the single-use mobile phone, going through handsets faster than Don Juan went through women, is more than happy to get the ball rolling.

While some of the Round-Up's handsets have suffered everyday fates - such as being left in the back of a taxi (three), and stolen (by thieves (three) and by the beer fairy (two)) - the most notable demise was of a poor Nokia 8210. It was dropped in a urinal.

Despite being fished out (let's not dwell on that) the phone was beyond saving.

It wasn't the Round-Up's finest hour but we're sure you can beat that.

The silicon.com team remember hearing one tale of horror from a young man whose phone fell out of his back pocket into the cess pit at Glastonbury.

Worse still, the story only really began several months later when his mother received a phone call from somebody claiming to have found a mobile phone.

It turned out the man (get ready to hear about the worst job in the world) whose job it was to clean out the cess pit and rummage through the contents looking for items which had fallen in had found the phone. Not only had he then tried to find out whether it still worked but upon finding out it didn't he removed the SIM card and put it into his own phone in order to call around the numbers in the address book, eventually getting through to our hero's mother.

From CES to cess. There you have it.

Finally, finally, we come to this week's caption competition - a real golden oldie so don't miss out.

And also don't forget to check out the winners of last week's compo - which showed a picture of the Amazon boss getting jiggy with a large bottle of champagne.

And now for something completely different - the inaugural Weekly Round-Up Podcast. Get it while it's hot...