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The Weekly Round-Up: 05.12.03
"Cry havoc and unleash the Gingers of war!"

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 05 December 2003

After learning his research paved the way for the creation of the atomic bomb, iconic astro-physicist Albert Einstein said: "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."

Meanwhile, the US military this week announced plans to use the Segway Human Transporter (aka Ginger) as the basis for a battlefield robot. (And no, the Round-Up is not making this up.)

When asked about the news Segway inventor Dean Kamen said he had no qualms whatsoever about his brainchild being transformed into a soulless, killing machine.

They just don't make eccentric geniuses like they used to.

Kamen told the Associated Press: "You build a car and it can be either be used as an ambulance or it can be used to drive your troops around."

He then covered his face with his hands, shuddered and wailed: "My God, what have I done?"

OK, so the Round-Up made the last quote up, but it's betting that's what he really wanted to say.

However, don't expect to hear US generals shouting "Cry havoc and unleash the Gingers of war!" any time soon - the project is still very much in the R&D phase.

Millions of crisp Pentagon dollars are funding research at universities across the US to evaluate the military potential of the devices.

For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has designed a Segway-based robot capable of navigating corridors and opening doors.

Meanwhile, at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University the devices are being used by researchers to develop robots that can play football with human beings.

Apparently the clever boffins have built a robot that can chase a football and kick it. The next goal is to teach it the rules of the game and convince it to communicate with human players.

So a bit like Emile Heskey then. Except that thanks to its clever gyroscopic balancing mechanism the Segway doesn't fall over nearly as much as Liverpool's hapless striker.

The Pentagon hopes that the transporters can be utilised on search missions, transport injured soldiers or act as electronic 'mules' to transport kit about. (In which case it would surely to be cheaper to use real mules instead?)

The bottom line is that the company behind the Segway Human Transporter desperately needs to shift some units - only 6,000 or so have been sold since the grass-strimmer-on-wheels was unveiled two years ago.

Considering all the pre-launch excitement and hype it would be sad to see the company fall flat on its face. Again, rather like our Emile.

A fat, lucrative military contract could turn the company's fortunes around prove a real fillip to sales of the daft but groovy transportation devices.

After all, noone wants to see a Segway device remain stuck in a box and achieving nothing. At which point the Round-up decided not to labour the Heskey metaphor.

Thump!

Bill Gates took the wraps off Longhorn at a developer's conference in Los Angeles this October.

Less than a month later, some Malaysian software pirates were applying the shrink wrap on boxed copies of the next-generation Windows OS - more than two years before its official launch.

The price? A meagre six rinngit - that's about 92p. Windows XP currently sells for more than $100 in the US.

Of course, the software is in pre-alpha stage and nowhere near the final build but this didn’t stop the news raising the hackles of the Seattle company.

Speaking from Malaysia Microsoft Corporate Attorney Jonathan Selvasegaram said installing the software wasn't a wise move.

Disguised in Malaysian national dress and pointing a high-powered recording device in the direction of some street traders, he said: "It's not a ready product."

Selvasegaram said that even if it works for a while it is "very risky" to install on a home computer.

The Round-Up assumes he's talking about a pirated version of Longhorn and not XP...

Having shelled out over two grand on a new laptop earlier this year the Round-Up was aghast to read a headline this week that asked the question: "Is the laptop on its last legs?" (see here.)

Apparently analysts have proffered the opinion that within a few years PDAs will make laptops obsolete as high-end functionality continues to converge on handheld devices.

Surely it can't be nearing obsolete status already? After all, the laptop was bought as a replacement for a desktop.

Still, the Round-Up subscribes to the late Douglas Adams' theory of technology.

Adams said that anything that exists in the world before you are born is part of the normal way in which the world operates.

Anything invented while you're between the ages of 15 and 35 is all hoopy and revolutionary - and quite possibly something you can get a career out of.

However, anything invented after the age of 35 is "against the natural order of things".

Replace a laptop with a PDA? Balderdash! These whippersnapper analysts don't know what they're talking about.

Let us know what you think by emailing editorial@silicon.com.

What's that? You'd love to test the thesis but don't own a PDA?

Never fear, silicon.com is offering you the chance to win a high-end Palm Tungsten C (courtesy of the fine folks at PalmOne).

Click here and answer three simple questions. Made even simpler because we effectively give you the answers...

The mobile phone driving ban came into force this week.

Drivers caught with their handsets glued to their ears can expect an instant fine starting at £30 - although police intend to issue verbal warnings over the next couple of months until we all get used to the changes in the law.

The fine can rise to as much as £1,000 if a driver is taken to court over the offence and loses.

silicon.com readers are divided over the new law, with some supporting the changes and others believing the legislation to be unnecessarily prohibitive and another case of government meddling.

Click here to join the debate:

Meanwhile, silicon.com's main mobile communications correspondent was almost flattened by a car on the way into the offices this week. The driver had a mobile clamped to his ear.

Our man failed to get either the registration number or even the model of the car.

But credit where credit's due - he did identify the driver's rather swanky handset - "quite possibly one of the Sharp Vodafone Live clamshell models", he enthused.

So if you are crossing the road around Tower Hill be on the lookout for someone talking on a Sharp GX10i while driving a black, or dark blue, BMW. Or maybe a Merc.

Or perhaps one of those new Toyatas...

Stories about identity theft, breached passwords, email 'phishing' scams and biometrics seem to hit the headlines just about everyday at the moment.

Decisions by the UK and other governments to push ahead with controversial ID cards are also big news.

It's all enough to make us wonder: how much data about is held on computer drives and tapes around the world? And how accurate is it?

silicon.com has launched a special report dedicated to the idea of maintaining the integrity of each person's ID.

While this is a subject important to all of us as individuals with rights it's also one which matters for businesses - whether it's companies letting employees swipe in to a building and log on to a computer system or an e-tailer selling over the web.

For the latest news and analysis click here.

And finally this week, the Round-up would like to extend a warm digital welcome to members of the Guarani tribe in Brazil.

The tribe was recently given five battery-powered computers by a charity and now they're online and lovin' it.

The tribe, who live deep in the jungle apparently, have already coined a phrase for the 'internet' in their own Tupi language.

The word translates as "where you can put words, documents and knowledge".

The Round-up isn't an anthropologist, never has been, never likely to be. But since when do remote jungle tribes have 'documents'?

Can you do better? Send us your definitions of the internet by emailing editorial@silicon.com.

Back in the jungle, 92-year-old Guarani tribal chief Veramirim is quoted as saying: "I have always told my people to learn how to write but I also want to see them value our culture."

A fine aspiration but what's the betting that the Guarani tribe Hotmail account is full of offers of penile enhancement, money scams and porn within the week? Until next week, try running a Google search on the words 'miserable failure' and see what the top result is.

(Thanks for Matthew Lenny for the tip. Although we won't ask why he was typing 'miserable failure' into search engines in the first place...)

In the meantime, these are the stories of the week. Enjoy.

McNealy: Crisis? What crisis?

Spammer's porn trick attacks spam busters

IT makes work less stressful Password hint: Think whether yours is good enough

Compulsory ID card trial scheme launched