The Weekly Round-Up: 04.05.07

Think Cornwall and you may think about ice creams, cider and probably thick-crust meat and potato pasties.

Which sounds like a great night in for the Round-Up.

But what you probably won't think of straight off the bat when conjuring up images of Cornwall in your head is cutting-edge technology. Yet the good people of Cornwall have found themselves thrust into a bitter battle with one of the biggest names in tech - none other than chip giant Intel.

The problem here is that Intel has unveiled a new family of microprocessors code-named 'Penryn'. And overnight Intel has become the top result when searching for Penryn online.

And that has taken this story from the front page of the Penryn Bugle all the way to Fleet Street and beyond.

Teresa Timms from Visit Cornwall told one of the big papers: "Cornish tourism depends heavily on the internet for bookings. Although the launch of the Intel Penryn may raise the general profile of the town it may also compromise the ability of the town's businesses to be found on the web."

For shame Intel. For shame!

Penryn (in Cornwall) is still coming up third when searched for in Google - though Intel does indeed boss the top two slots.

Most confusing in all of this of course is why Intel would have named its chips after a small town on the Cornish coast.

Did Intel's marketing people really sit there in brainstorming sessions saying: "Well Hank I really think we should go with Truro."

"Truro Dwight? You are kidding me. It's gotta be Penryn."

Sadly no. Word from a spokesman for Intel suggests it has more to do with a town of the same name on the other 'West Coast' - the west coast of the US of A.

Penryn, California was established in 1864 by a Welsh immigrant by the name of Griffith Griffith. The Round-Up is guessing his parents weren't the most imaginative souls, yet their failure to come up with a first name unique from their son's first name didn't stop young Griffith Griffith charting new territories and setting out for the wild frontier.

But 1864 is practically a week ago last Tuesday compared to Penryn in Cornwall.

For those of you who know little or nothing of Penryn, Cornwall, here is what you can find out by clicking on some of those non-Intel links…

According to the Cornwall.co.uk website: "The Borough of Penryn was enfranchised by the Bishop of Exeter in 1236 and in 1259 Henry III granted a weekly market in the town... "

So there you go, you've learned something new today - not least the fact Penryn in Cornwall stakes a claim on the name some 770 years before Intel.

Moving on, it's been a mixed week for parents hoping to teach their children about the idiosyncrasies of this wayward age in which we live.

First of all, as followers of football and students of schadenfreude will duly have noted, there was the very public humiliation of Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho.

"You see kids," parents will doubtless have piped up. "Money can only get you so far in this life. You can't buy success and there's no substitute for hard work and application."

Which is all well and good. Lesson learned.

Kids across the country will have walked away from that experience with a burgeoning sense of what it means to triumph through their own efforts and eschew the Easy Express to Quick Fix Central (calling at Ingratitude International and Over-Privileged Parkway).

But then the BBC comes along and undoes all that good work by sweeping the board yet again at this year's Webby awards.

Well done BBC. No really, it's a tremendous achievement. Surely it would be more newsworthy if the BBC website didn't win any awards given it gets to spend a budget the size of Saturn.

Give the Round-Up £70-squillion and see how many awards silicon.com starts winning.

The Round-Up is willing to wager our successes wouldn't begin or end with a Webby. With that kind of backing you could expect an Oscar or two and probably a few Nobels - not to mention a knighthood for yours truly.

The Round-Up appreciates - as we all should - the fact that if it wasn't for the BBC we'd all be living in a Rupert Murdoch wonderland but it also recognises the fact that over the years the BBC's predominance online has sunk smaller websites because they were forced to compete commercially in a market dominated by the non-commercial Beeb.

Give any of those smaller companies - which had to innovate just to stay afloat - even one-tenth of the BBC's budget and it's pretty likely we'd see some real fireworks. But instead the BBC has lumbered around within its well-funded comfort zone dampening UK innovation while hoovering up awards.

However, while the Round-Up threw its toys out of the pram, the BBC gleefully reported its Webby victories online and also, in the same article, named the judges who presided over the prestigious awards, including the 'father of the internet' "Vince Cerf".

Nice touch.

Perhaps Vint Cerf might think twice about casting his votes next year.

Now the Round-Up doesn't ask much, and when it does it's usually for your own benefit, so make sure you check out this week's podcast. You can listen to it here - and though we say so ourselves we think it's one of our better ones... It's got talking cash machines, Cornish ire, the death of cheques and we ask the question 'students!... do we need 'em?'. (You can also subscribe in iTunes here - or pick up the XML feed here.)

However, we're aware, as Peter Mandelson once sang, that 'things can only can better' and we want your help to turn this into the best dang podcast on the internet. So, whether you love it or hate it, please email all feedback, ideas and suggestions to editorial@silicon.com and together we can ensure you get just the right amount of aural pleasure every Friday.

Moving from soapbox to soapbox, faster than Danny Baker in his Daz heyday, it would seem 'green' is very much the new black these days.

After all, you're nobody if you're not reducing your carbon footprint or cutting your emissions these days. And quite right too.

So it's hats off to Apple which has become the latest company to outline a raft of green proposals.

An open letter from Steve Jobs on the company's website this week stated: "It is generally not Apple's policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished. Unfortunately this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple's desires and plans to become greener."

What does this mean? Well, the green folk at Apple, God love 'em, have been sat there all this time plotting to become as green as their Granny Smith namesake but felt the need to break with tradition and pipe up about these plans ahead of time, lest anybody thought they were all sat on their (no doubt) designer backsides not giving a monkey's nut about the environment.

In a sentence, Jobs' letter could have read: "Lots of people think we're doing nothing but honestly we're up to loads of green stuff, we just didn't think to tell anybody yet."

How annoying for Apple then that the whole time it has been quietly planning these green measures Greenpeace has also been running a campaign to force Apple to take a more environmentally friendly approach. (It seems these tree-hugging types weren't placated by the fact at least a landfill site full of Apple kit looks a lot more stylish than your average landfill.)

And then, just as Greenpeace's campaign reaches critical mass and scoops a Webby award for best campaigning website, Apple announces 'hey guys, we were going to do all this stuff anyway'.

Whatever you say Steve. Whatever you say.

And finally, if green is the new black, Brown is the New Labour and '2.0' is the new 'new' then what is the new rock 'n' roll?

The Round-Up knows it used to be comedy - and thinks it read something last year about both gardening and knitting staking a claim to being the new rock 'n' roll.

But they can all step aside because now it's official. 'Web 2.0 is the new rock 'n' roll according to no more rock 'n' roll a source than BT.

Call it rock 'n' roll 2.0 if you will. It was only a matter of time.

Bruce Schneier (yes, him again) from BT Counterpane has been telling anybody who will listen: "At the moment there is a climate of fear - web 2.0 has caused the biggest generation divide since rock 'n' roll."

Apparently if all us grown ups don't pull our fingers out and stand understanding then humanity 2.0 is going to overtake us and leave us dribbling down the fronts of our cardigans in the business slow lane.

Resistance is futile, BT says. "Finding a solution to web 2.0 is like finding a solution to rock 'n' roll," reiterated Schneier, speaking to silicon.com.

So now you know. You need to employ some education 2.0 and ensure all your staff understand the benefits and you mitigate the risks - such as inappropriate blogging or content being posted which could jeopardise your company.

Recognise!