The Weekly Round-Up: 24.10.08

As it surveys the scene outside silicon Towers this week (mainly rain and a building site in case you were wondering) the Round-Up has been giving some serious thought to the pros and cons of technology.

Sometimes, the Round-Up finds, people can't see the wood for the tech.

For example, the need to send a text or answer the phone is starting to become more important than savouring those special moments or even just driving safely, if recent research is to be believed.

Research commissioned by disaster recovery vendor, Neverfail, found three-quarters of Americans use their mobile phone while driving - something that should be much less common in the UK after it became illegal, you'd think (although the amount of BMW drivers the Round-Up sees bleating into their mobiles while they bother London's streets would seem to suggest otherwise).

But stranger still, 11 per cent said they use their mobile device during a "romantic moment". Being a pedant, the Round-Up feels duty bound to point out that 'using a phone during a romantic moment' is an oxymoron - how romantic can a moment really be if you're thumbing 'CU @ the pub l8r' at the time?

The Round-Up can only speculate that wasn't the kind of romantic moment the researchers meant.

Meanwhile 79 per cent of respondents said they use a mobile phone in the loo - or 'bathroom' for our US readers - which is clearly just wrong. Apart from the uncomfortable nature of the conversation, the risks of dropping your mobile don't bear thinking about.

And even more bizarrely, 41 per cent said they use a mobile email device while out on the ski slope or while riding a bike or horse.

Interestingly the rise in mobile use has prompted the American College of Emergency Medicine (Acem) to warn people not to text while doing something that requires a modicum of concentration, which presumably rules out any kind of activity bar watching the Jeremy Kyle show.

Apparently, according to our learned friends at Acem, there has been a noticeable rise in injuries - and even deaths - related to sending text messages at the wrong moment. Like on a horse or while skiing, the Round-Up can only guess.

Maybe we should blame the credit crunch. A spokesman from the research firm that carried out Neverfail's survey said the economic crisis means workers will be under increasing pressure to use their mobile devices.

They forgot to add 'to check online recruitment boards if they work in banking,' the Round-Up assumes.

Moving on, the Round-Up got wind this week of a musical currently in development based on Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon's life story.

This got the Round-Up thinking about the possibilities of doing the same thing for some well-known figures from the tech world.

A Bill Gates musical could be an interesting proposition. Songs could include The Beatles classic 'Drive My Car' to cover his well-known 1970s speeding indiscretion, moving on to 'When I'm Cleaning [up with] Windows' for his later exploits.

Steve Jobs would also fit the bill with Mark Morrison's classic 'Return of the Mac' detailing his resurrection of Apple and Johnny Cash's 'Man in Black [Turtleneck]' forming the musical backdrop for Steve's sartorial statis.

And for Larry Ellison, perhaps, a Frank Zappa number. 'Smell my Beard', anyone?

On an academic 'note' it was revealed this week what prospective computer science students have to go through in order to enter the hallowed halls of Oxford University.

Among the challenges professors are setting these days is a death match involving a bar of chocolate that has one square containing a deadly poison (and untangling this lot perhaps?)

Oxford hopefuls must face an adversary and take turns to take one or more pieces of chocolate broken along a straight line to leave their opponent with the poisoned chocolate. They must describe in detail their strategy for survival in order to win the approval of the Oxford dons.

(For anyone interested, the Round-Up's strategy would go like this: step 1: resolve differences with arch enemy. Step 2: mutual agreement that eating poisoned chocolate is an idea of such idiocy it ranks alongside nipples on a fish on the stupid scale. Step 3: add former arch enemy as friend on Facebook.)

Another goody from those Oxbridge types is a test called 'Monkey Beans' in which the contestant, sorry student, has to solve a puzzle as follows:

A monkey takes out two beans; if they are the same, he puts a black bean into the urn, and if they are different, he puts in a white bean from a large heap he has next to him. The monkey repeats this procedure until there is only one bean left. What colour is it?

The university says it accepts and encourages applications for its computer science courses "from candidates who have little or no experience of programming computers".

So as long as they can successfully navigate a chocolate death match and beat a monkey at logic, they'll excel at programming. Fair enough.

To be fair, the reason for these interview questions is that students need to have good understanding of "mathematical ideas" to successfully navigate the course - something these questions are designed to test.

But honestly, what ever happened to having parents who play polo and can pay for a new wing for the don's private library?

Once these youngsters have moved into the world of work they will need to develop new skills in order to cope with the amount of meetings they'll inevitably need to attend.

The Round-Up's esteemed colleague Andy McCue recently came up with five ways to make meetings more bearable including the need for a clear agenda, standing up to keep people alert and the importance of chair choice.

But these all seemed a bit too obvious, so the Round-Up has taken it upon itself to come up with some alternative ways of reducing the meeting pain.

Firstly, make sure you leave your mobile phone on - set the phone to go off at an appropriate time and excuse yourself from the meeting, saying it's a personal matter. It may be to arrange which pub you're going to that night, but no one else needs to know that.

A good choice of pens is another must. While you doodle away to your heart's content, you look to all intents and purposes like you're noting and colour coding every utterance from the guy from sales.

The Round-Up suggests you might want to spend some time working on your drawings of that flying car or the solar powered torch that's going to make your millions and ensure you don't need to sit through any more meetings ever again.

And for good measure, what about getting into the Luddite spirit of the industrial revolution? By disabling a projector you could avoid that really dull Powerpoint presentation boring everyone to tears. Obviously you need to do it in a way that no one can fix quickly or the plan will fail. A monkey wrench can help in such situations, the Round-Up has always found.

Feigning illness is another good, though risky ruse. If you sit there sniffing and feeling sorry for yourself, people will be so impressed you even made it to the meeting that they'll forgive a lack of concentration and contribution.

Although, as anyone who's been on the end of the latest viral email du jour will know, this sort of thing has its own perils, as an Aussie telco worker found when he was denied sick leave on the grounds he wasn't actually ill.

"Prove it," was the response from our antipodean chum.

The return email from his presumably exasperated boss pointed to the telco worker's Facebook status message proclaiming: "Not going to work, f**k it, I'm still trashed. SICKE WOO!"

There's a time and a place for Facebook. The Round-Up would suggest that place is not in the hands of the terminally dim.

Another story that caught the Round-Up's eye this week was the use of fingerprint technology by Interpol which is helping to catch members of the notorious Pink Panther jewel thief gang. The gang has so far grabbed €100m worth of jewels around the world.

Automated fingerprint identification tech matched some prints found after an incident in Monaco to those of a Pink Panther suspect linked with more than 100 high-value armed robberies across 20 countries.

Interpol's system holds 80,500 sets of fingerprints taken from non-nationals arrested in 153 countries across the world. On average it has a 10 per cent hit rate for complete sets of prints checked against the database.

Interpol hopes photos will soon be added to its database for facial recognition next year. The Round-Up questions why Interpol needs such advanced technology - surely the fluorescent pink hair, paw prints and the presence of a loveable but clueless French detective should have fingered the suspect right away?

While you're puzzling that one out, test your wit on the caption competition.