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The Weekly Round-Up: 20.08.04
The triumph of the lower case letter, Microsoft's racial blunders and the crazy things kids are now bringing to Uni...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 20 August 2004

As the St Winifred's School Choir (almost) once sang:

"Grammar, we love you..."

And this week has seen a victory of sorts for one of silicon.com's own grammatical bug bears. At last people are starting to write 'internet', 'net' and 'web' all lower case.

Wired is the second publication of note, after silicon.com, to take this important, if not earth shattering, decision.

"Why?" asked the Wired editorial piece, in full rhetorical mood. "The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was."

Bingo! Welcome to our world.

The pioneering grammatacists and part-time neologists on silicon.com have been doing it thusly for almost five years now. Nice to see some people are starting to wake up and realise, as any geography student learning their cities will tell you, 'there are far too many capitals out there'.

Also struggling to get a grasp of issues geographical is Microsoft. The company this week admitted to a series of race relations blunders that Prince Philip would be proud of.

While Philip is perhaps best remembered for asking Aborigines whether they "still throw spears at each other", or warning British exchange students in China that they will turn "slitty eyed" if they stay too long, Microsoft has confessed that the tricky waters of international diplomacy aren't just treacherous for in-bred foot-in-mouth specialists.

In fact the company claims its lack of global savvy has cost it millions and seen its products banned in some of the biggest markets on earth - including India where it was forced to recall 200,000 copies of Windows 95 after a blunder involving the colours on the Indian flag and a rather unfortunate exclusion of the disputed Kashmir region which angered Indian politicians.

Another blunder from Microsoft had chanting of the Koran used as a soundtrack for a computer game and caused great offence to the Saudi Arabia government.

Microsoft promptly withdrew the game.

But undeterred the Redmond behemoth managed to further offend the Saudis by creating another game where Muslim warriors turned churches into mosques.

Funnily enough, that game was also withdrawn.

But it's not just the thorny issue of religion on which Microsoft has snagged itself. Simple translations have also proven problematic. The worst instance was when Spanish users, registering their copies of XP were asked to click on which sex they were.

Normally a fairly standard and pretty innocuous question, the choices left a little to be desired.

Spanish users were asked to say whether they were a "male" or a "bitch" - due to an unfortunate error in translation.

That'll teach them to let Snoop Dogg handle their translations.

Other countries and peoples offended by Microsoft include China, Korea, Uruguay and Kurds. The list of Bill Gates' possible (though slightly improbable) holiday destinations is shrinking all the time.

The problem reached such levels that Microsoft staff are now going back to school.

Microsoft's top man in its geopolitical strategy unit, Tom Edwards, said: "Some of our employees, however bright they may be, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world."

As such they are now being enrolled in geography classes to guard against future faux pas. (See here for more on this story.)

Speaking of students, it's A-level results time again, and the nation's 17- and 18-year-olds - plus the occasional frankly quite freaky fast-tracked child - will all have been waking up this morning with a clearer idea about what their future holds in store, assuming they're not ridiculously hungover... which let's face it they probably are, with the obvious exception of the precocious fast-learners who are doubtless rewarded with a new suit and briefcase with which to perpetuate their mini-adult sideshow-attraction lifestyle.

(As an aside, how have any students ended up drowning their sorrows, given the widespread reports of dumbing down in the education system? The Round-Up is left wondering which aspect of passing the modern A-level had them stumped: the turning up, or the writing their own name bit?)

But, with so many students now thinking about heading to further education and all that entails, one headline-courting computer retailer has announced a scheme to prevent the spread of viruses - both online and offline.

Evesham Technology is giving all students who purchase a PC during its 'back to college' promotion free desktop antivirus software and a packet of condoms (do you see what they've done there?).

Previously the offer was run in association with rubbers giant Mates, but now it has been passed to rival prophylactic peddler Trojan - which raises more than a little confusion, given that Trojans, the nasty little pieces of code which covertly hijack a user's machine, are one of the biggest security threats currently facing computer users.

One wit in the silicon.com office even enquired as to whether they will be offering 'backdoor Trojans' - but we probably shouldn't go there...

The Evesham press release says: "Most students will be hitting the shops to buy a new PC to take to university, where sex will be high on the agenda."

Really? OK, the sex bit is pretty timeless, but do "most students" really take a new PC to Uni?

Given that many won't be getting their loans on time due to a computer error at the student loans authority (see here for more) the Round-Up can't help suspecting this is little more than wishful thinking on the part of Evesham.

In fact, if a student's first priority upon getting to Uni is where to plug in their PC then the Round-Up can't help thinking the condoms are probably also a touch on the optimistic side. There's never been a clear correlation between people who spend a lot of time on computers and those who are 'getting some'.

The Round-Up remembers the time when all you needed to pack for Uni was a Morrissey T-shirt, enough pocket change to buy a dozen pints of 'I-can't-believe-it's-not-water' down the student Union and a hotch-potch of half-baked socialist ideologies.

And on the subject of woolly politics... The Tory Party fired a warning shot across the bows of the Labour government this week, using the highly emotive political cannonball of mobile phone masts as its weapon of choice to engage Tony and Co.

With 'love rat' David Blunkett (surely 'love bat' would be better - think about it) hitting the front-pages this week following his romps with a married woman, the government has probably had enough of controversial erections (fnar-fnar) but the health scares and environmental issues linked to mobile phone masts mean the debate just won't lie down (unlike Blunkett who apparently hit the sheets before you could say ''put your paws over your innocent doggy eyes Sadie, Daddy's gonna do this without your help").

But the Tories are claiming New Labour has repeatedly broken promises to protect voters from the spread of masts into the community and have vowed to fight tooth and nail to protect our eyes from the monstrous carbuncles and protect our brains from their (unproven) death rays.

Under Tory guidelines, which the party claims will "champion the interests of local residents", councillors will have new powers to consider health issues and the local population when reviewing mast applications. Proximity of schools, housing and hospitals - not to mention potential Conservative voters - would all become factors that carry more weighting than they do at present.

(See here for more on this story.)

So three cheers for the Tories and their ability to recognise a political football that hasn't been kicked for a while.

Also coming in for a bit of a kicking this week has been the Great Britain Olympic team.

As the Round-Up writes this, Team GB is currently languishing between The United Arab Emirates and North Korea in the Olympic medals table, and casting envious looks up the rankings at the likes of Romania and the sporting titans of Slovakia.

As such you could be forgiven for looking for a little light relief. Thank God then for the streaker in the diving who jumped from the high board wearing little more than a slogan across his chest that read 'GoldenPalace.com'.

GoldenPalace.com is an online casino (though it is also the name of the Round-Up's local Chinese takeaway). However, you shouldn't go there (the website not the takeaway) as your PC will be bombarded with adware and pop-ups. However, as marketing ploys go it's a good 'un. After all, prime time exposure (no pun intended... for once) during the Olympic Games doesn't come cheap.

And this isn't the first time they have barged into mainstream sports coverage uninvited.

In fact, Golden Palace-branded streakers have graced the Super Bowl, the World Figure Skating Championships, the US Open and Royal Ascot to name but a few of the major events they have gate-crashed.

And finally, this week has been national Elvis week on Napster, celebrating (if that's the right word) the fact that it is 27 years since the great man either became an enigmatic recluse and the subject of occasional sightings around the world or died squatting on the toilet with his pants around his ankles - depending on the view you want to take of the King's often romanticised fall from grace.

Not letting good taste stand in the way of a pretty crude marketing campaign, Napster, which promises as many as 120 tracks from the legendary bespangled jumpsuit wearer, claimed to be offering "more choice for Napster subscribers than you could shake a deep-fried cheese sandwich at".

Nice. The Round-Up has now left the building...

Until next week, take two seconds to answer our latest poll on checking voicemail and email while on holiday.

And then read some news.

Leader: Oh, hello... the police have woken up

Microsoft pulls plug on XP SP2 after users say they're not ready

XP Service Pack 2 kills over 40 programs

Real v Apple music war: iPod freedom petition backfires

Police warning over new key-logging 'Trojan' spam emails

Unpatched PCs down to 20min "survival time"

'Lax Linux security makes Windows better for London'

Microsoft agrees to disable XP Service Pack 2