The Weekly Round-Up: 02.11.07

There were banners fluttering in the breeze, high above the concourse of the San Francisco conference hall hosting the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in 2004.

Some of them were ads for new Apple software and hardware products. They were nice.

Other banners read: "Redmond: start your photocopiers." They were not so nice.

The Redmond reference was a cheeky dig at rival Microsoft. Apple was expecting that many of the features in OS X operating system would end up being features in the heavily delayed Windows Vista and, let's face it, they were absolutely right. But that's not important right now.

Instead, let's fast forward three years. Suddenly it's Apple mimicking Microsoft. First, the latest version of the Mac OS - Leopard - was delayed by several months to get the higher-priority iPhone to market. Worse still, some Macs installed with Leopard now feature one of Windows' most celebrated features: the Blue Screen of Death. It shouldn't happen to a Mac.

Leopard, otherwise known as Mac OS X 10.5, launched with a fanfare last Friday packed with over 300 new features. The OS has been eagerly awaited both by Mac users and Wall Street, following more than two years after the last iteration of Apple's big cat family. Initial reports indicate Apple sold more than two million copies of the software in one weekend. All good so far.

The problems came when people tried to install the software. Complaints soon began to hit Apple's support web forums and phone lines as users reported that having installed the new OS their Macs subsequently hung on restart with a plain blue screen.

According to reports, the Apple support lines were swamped, with stricken Mac users experiencing long spells on hold.

Most of the problems revolve around users who chose to upgrade their machines having previously installed third-party "enhancement" software. Basically system hacks to change the colours of menus and the Dock - a strip for launching applications and documents in OS X. For a company that prides itself on the slick appearance of its products this is an unpleasant irony.

There's a final twist of irony to this. To represent Windows-based machines on a network, Leopard uses an icon of a chunky computer monitor as opposed to the slinky Mac icons. And what's that displayed on those monitors? The Blue Screen of Death. Ho ho.

When future generations look in their dictionaries for a definition of 'hubris', there'll simply be a reference to this cautionary episode.

Miaow...

Now then, could this be the best picture ever? The Round-Up finds itself decidedly smitten. Talk about cute 2.0. Anyway, back to matters in hand…

Good news: the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has a customer - the Uruguayan government has confirmed it has placed an order for 100,000 of the laptops, which have been hit by problems in development, thereby delaying manufacture.

Probably the biggest problem has been the rather pressing issue of not having any official customers. Thankfully, the Uruguayan government has put an end to the increasing anxiety of OLPC organisation founder Nicholas Negroponte. They might even put in an order for another 300,000 before 2009. You never know.

Negroponte recently reportedly told The New York Times: "I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written."

So a real fillip for the XO, which was previously referred to more memorably as the $100 laptop. That name was wisely jettisoned as the device has become increasingly expensive and now costs closer to $200.

Yet more good news for the scheme came with reports that Microsoft is planning on getting its Windows XP operating system running on the laptops.

'Hang on, even though they work perfectly well with the Linux OS already installed?' you may ask.

There is a problem, however. At least for Microsoft.

The laptop uses some technologies developed by the Foundation that haven't previously been used in PCs, accused Microsoft corporate vice president, Will Poole. Apparently totally without irony.

"We still have plenty of work to do in determining if the highly constrained performance, power and memory in the first generation XO laptops will be compatible with Windows and popular Windows applications," said the man representing the organisation at the vanguard of standards compliance.

Could it be an act of tremendous altruism by the company? On a similar scale to the immense charitable contributions being made by departing chairman Bill Gates?

Balls. Redmond is waking up to the threat that hundreds of thousands of children around the world will live out their formative computing years using open source applications and, worse yet, an open source operating system.

Even worse than all that - those experiences might be positive, allowing the users to focus on worthwhile issues like education - the core purpose of the machine and the project - and surfing porn (see here and scroll down to the second bit). Actually, best forget the second one.

Still, there's no guarantee that the greatest technical minds at Redmond will manage to get XP working on the low-spec computers that use a 433MHz AMD chip with 256MB of RAM and a meagre 1GB of flash hard drive space. Good luck with Service Pack 2.

"At the end of the day, there are no guarantees," sighed Poole, inadvertently giving hope to millions of disadvantaged children all around the world...

BBC digital supremo Ashley Highfield, who spoke exclusively to silicon.com this week, is a kind of technological everyman. More on that in a moment but first, the iPlayer 'scandal'.

In an interview with silicon.com chief reporter Andy McCue, the Beeb's digital media supremo defended Auntie's controversial position on the so-far XP-only new iPlayer software.

The BBC launched the iPlayer in July this year for Windows XP, leading to criticism from Mac and Linux users who felt their minority position in the PC market didn't warrant a minority position on the corporation's roadmap for new products. They were, after all, licence payers.

Highfield thinks the criticism has been unfair. He said: "It would be understandable if we'd only ever intended to launch an XP-only iPlayer but that was never the plan.

"When we launch services we will always try to get to the largest part of that universe. The PC universe is the largest part of that. It was just the starting point," he added, suggesting to the Round-Up that one universe could be placed inside another in some kind of metaphorical cosmic paradox.

Anyway, to the burning question that sparked a 16,000-signature petition: when will people who favour wearing three-quarter length trousers and socks and sandals be able to download EastEnders on their computers of choice, asked our Andy, though in not so many words.

Highfield said a streaming version of the iPlayer will be available for Mac and Linux users by Christmas. Streaming? Bah, humbug! We want downloads.

The BBC is still unable to commit to a download version for those platforms - although Highfield believes this almost certainly, most definitely will happen during 2008.

That's not going to be good enough for some people - although with all the delays to Leopard, at least Mac users have got used to waiting for good things. Or possibly not, depending on what third-party apps they have installed. Miaow.

During the interview, Highfield insisted he is a bona fide Mac fan though he currently uses a Sony Vaio. The Round-Up's not going to explain that. You're going to have to rationalise on your feet. We're pushing on through to the end.

He does have an iPod Touch though. But, it turns out, he also has a Zune. So he's the one.

The Round-Up presumes he has a phone, as well. Maybe more than one. After all, two MP3 players, at least two phones, right? Where does he fit all these gadgets? Enormous trousers with huge pockets? For Ashley, is convergence just something that happened to other people?

Impressive trousers aside, Highfield also shares his views on BBC 3.0 (more EastEnders) and life without DRM (bliss) in the full interview.

And finally this week, a complete load of rubbish.

Chips in wheelie bins, the next big idea from councils on getting more tax off you, right? Wrong. It's all about saving the planet so shame on you for being so cynical.

Your council only has your best interests and the best interest of Mother Earth at heart. And definitely not a new Mercedes E-type for the mayor.

The government this week announced that the scheme, which has been derided the length and breadth of the country and no place less than on silicon.com is key to cutting carbon emissions.

The so-called 'chip and bin' scheme could see chips put in bins to collect data on the weight of household rubbish in order to encourage people to recycle more and throw away less.

Only last week, there was speculation the government was backing away from a pay-as-you-throw scheme, with media reports that an announcement about a bin tax had been blocked. Since then, some bright spark in Defra's communications team has thought: "Why don't we say it will save the planet instead?"

Whichever way you spin it, it's still a load of rubbish.

Until next week, when the Round-Up will be reporting on how chip and bin will raise the dead, you can check out the Weekly Round-Up podcast here - and pit your wits against your fellow readers in the latest caption contest here.