The Weekly Round-Up: 14.11.08

As the dust settles on an historic election, US President Elect Barack Obama turns his focus to the actual nuts and bolts of government.

Less shaking hands, kissing babies and more staring into the middle distance and looking thoughtful and thinking about appointing senior aides - and someone to look after the White House server room as the government CTO.

One candidate for the latter position is Dr Eric Schmidt, who would be a fine choice were it not for the minor detail that he's currently the CEO of Google.

What's more, Schmidt hasn't spent years as the chief of a multibillion dollar company to end up installing printer drivers for the leader of the free world.

Schmidt is one of the people suggested for the role of US government CTO along with Vint Cerf, also at Google.

Schmidt campaigned on behalf of Obama and has been advising the President Elect's campaign on technology and energy matters. He's also part of Obama's 17-member Transition Economic Advisory Board. How does he find the time?

So will Dr Schmidt soon be patching XP and advising Obama on business issues in the Oval Office? ("Have you tried switching the economy off and then on again, Mr President?")

No chance.

"I love working at Google and I'm very happy to stay at Google, so the answer is no," Schmidt said in a recent TV interview.

It's a strange decision. After all, why would Schmidt want to turn down a top job at the most powerful organisation in the world, exercising almost complete control over the way information is gathered, managed and disseminated?

Eh? Oh, right. Sorry.

Are you BlackBerry fan? Of course you are. Would you love to get your hands on a BlackBerry Storm - the latest bit of gadgety goodness from RIM? Of course you would, but what would you be prepared to do to get one?

Unless the answer is that you're happy to get a large tattoo of the gadget on a part of your body you never stood a chance because that's precisely what the winner of a competition organised by a BlackBerry fan site did.

Mr TJ from Ohio posted a video of himself getting a BlackBerry Storm tattooed on his leg to show his dedication to the hugely popular smartphone.

You can see a video of the whole thing here here. The Round-Up must say that the 'iPhone sucks' comment underneath the tattoo of the phone really is an extra nice touch. And just to add to the weirdness, the tattooist is wearing an iPhone t-shirt. Still, let's hope Mr TJ has lots of fun with his new phone.

So, yes, this is unusual behaviour, it's just that it's not unique. A precedent was set by a Zune fan (they do exist) who got not one but three tattoos of the Zune brand on his arms and back to show his devotion to Microsoft's iPod imitator. But now we hear that one of his Zune tattoos is to go – incorporated into a new design instead.

Foresight: it's a wonderful thing, isn't it?

What is the biggest fib ever foisted on the next generation of young adults?

How about: "You youngsters don't know how lucky you have it."

Or perhaps: "Life is so much easier now than it was in my day."

Or possibly: "Your mother and I never messed around with drugs."

All worthy contenders, but how about this one - teenagers are being told that IT is a "dream job" with the promise of working for "inspirational companies".

The BigAmbition initiative from e-skills UK has launched with that message as a central tenet of its recruitment campaign. The initiative hopes to improve teenagers' perception of the IT industry on the site by including testimonials from project managers, designers and engineers "living the dream" at sites such as MySpace and creative design agency Milo.

"Project manager", "living the dream" - two phrases the Round-Up thought could never co-exist in the same sentence.

Businesses such as Facebook, Google, MySpace and BT are being held up as "inspirational companies" to work for in the tech industry.

The organisation reckons the UK needs 141,000 new IT professionals every year.

It's going to be an uphill battle. Earlier this year, leading academics warned that a boring school IT curriculum is turning the nation's youth away from a career in IT.

Telling them how great it would be to work for MySpace, Facebook and Google is a bit like telling kids in the park that if they play enough football they'll end up at Manchester United, AC Milan or Real Madrid.

Seriously, their 'music' might all sound the same but kids aren't dumb...

In other breaking tech news this week.

The iPill: is it the latest teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy iPod from Apple or an intelligent microchip-enabled pill that, once swallowed, can work out how far along the digestive tract it is by analysing the body's pH level as it travels? Find the strange truth here.

Microsoft Live and social networking. It's sheep tossing, Jim, but not as we know it. More here here.

And are these the world's greatest tech sites?

Of course, if that isn't enough, have a go at the silicon.com caption competition. It's right here.