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The Weekly Round-Up: 09.12.05
The good, the bad and the chav-ly

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 09 December 2005

Anybody still looking for some Christmas gift inspiration might be intrigued to hear from a Dutch company called Tulip which claims to be offering the world's "first lifestyle notebook".

"And what is a lifestyle notebook?" the Round-Up hears you ask.

Why, it's a laptop computer which when closed takes on the prestige and appeal of a fashionable handbag. It's available in a raft of designs according to the website, including flowery patterns as well as a rather understated leather finish - for the more discerning lifestyle laptop user.

It's called the Tulip E-Go, though the Round-Up can't help thinking there is some kind of wind-up going on here.

It just sounds a little bit too much like 'Ego'. Perhaps the company's mission in life is actually to poke fun at the kind of people who would buy such a laptop. Or perhaps something got lost in translation.

The jewel in the crown of the line-up is undoubtedly the 'Diamond' edition. Which pretty much does what it says on the expensive-sounding tin.

According to the website, the laptop is "inlaid with solid palladium white gold plates in which thousands of brilliant cut diamonds have been set".

"The brilliant cut diamonds are microscopic and pave set with surgical precision."

"A unique square cut ruby has been set in both Tulip logos."

And it's all yours for what sounds like a ridiculous bargain price of just €280,000.

That's right €280,000. For a laptop whose spec is actually no better than something you could pick up at PC World for £499.

The Round-Up understands that you are paying for the diamonds but can't help but be blinded by the glaring impracticalities here given that diamonds are one of the most enduring items known to man.

While laptops clearly aren't.

If there must be diamonds, then surely a diamond studded carry-case would be far more 'practical' (which is not a word the Round-Up expected to see anywhere near this story). The laptop within then has the right level of disposability that would be required.

Here at Silicon Towers, we were actually alerted to the Tulip Ego while one member of the team was discussing far less frivolous matters with a contact over at CA.

"Check out the price of that baby. Jeez," said Simon Perry, VP of security strategy at CA. "... you'd think it'd come with at least free antivirus installed."

What a pro. And proof that you can take the man out of the antivirus sales pitch but you can't take the antivirus sales pitch out of the man.

Perry went on to point out that it "takes smash-car-window-and-run laptop theft to a whole new level", though the Round-Up would contend that somebody who is so stupid they would spend €280,000 on a laptop probably hasn't yet got their head around winding up the windows or even locking their car doors.

And if you need further proof that a diamond-encrusted laptop may not be the wisest investment, consider these two tales of woe.

silicon.com this week heard from data recovery firm Ontrack who were keen to spill the beans on just how stupid, or occasionally unfortunate, their customers can be.

One woman for example, described as "a frustrated writer", decided the only way to alleviate the tensions of her writer's block was to take a hammer to her laptop.

We've all been there. Things get on top of you, it's been a long week, you don't know what the word is that you're trying to think of... and you're left with no other option but to walk to the shed, find a hammer, return to the study and go at your laptop like a slasher-movie serial killer.

According to engineers at Ontrack, when the writer sent her laptop to them in order to recover data from the now inoperable machine the hammer blows were clearly visible in the unit.

Though Tulip, of course, would argue that their diamonds, if nothing else, would survive an assault by a hammer. And they'd be right.

The precious stones would also survive 'death by pottery' - with clay no challenger to the all round hardness of diamond. However, the laptop of another Ontrack customer didn't survive when its owner - again a 'she', and again a writer, though we're not suggesting there is a pattern developing here - "accidentally dropped a five pound piece of clay pottery on her laptop".

How?

How does a person do that? And more to the point, how do they do it with such brainless precision that the pottery, dropped we assume from some height, landed right on the spot where the hard drive should be (and was, until it was hit by a heavy clay pot and rendered useless)?

Worse luck the hard drive contained a book which had been five years in the writing and which hadn't been backed-up anywhere else.

Still on the subject of gadgets and gizmos, there was unfortunate news for those purveyors of cool at Apple who this week received the unwanted accolade of 'Chav gadget of the year' for its rather naff iPod Shuffle.

Cue lots of obvious puns about "this year's 'must chav' gadget".

Although the iPod Nano and others in the family are rightly singled out for stylish design and a finely crafted 'cool factor', the plastic Shuffle was singled out as the 'ginger stepchild' of the iPod family.

Judges from 'gadgets for girls' website, Shiny Shiny, judged the iPod Shuffle to have high chav appeal because it's cheap, easily recognisable and can be worn around the neck for all to see... while the owner fails to spot the inherent irony in apparently bragging about not being able to afford one of the better iPods, the Round-Up presumes.

The random nature of song selection would also appear to be symptomatic of more style over substance. It's just a shame Apple mucked up on the style front.

Second in the poll was Motorola's fallen star the Razr which has gone from 'ain't it cool' to 'cool it ain't' in the eyes of people who put stock in such shallow matters.

And if you're wondering what a mobile phone is capable of if it falls into the wrong, nasty little chav hands then look no further than the sorry tale that befell flash-in-the-pan pop-sensation Myleene Klass this week - the attractive one from one-hit wonders Hear'Say, if you were wondering, though that may not clear things up any.

Klass was walking through Bermondsey when she was attacked by a pack of south London's finest, keen to make the D-list celebrity the latest victim of the craze known as 'happy slapping'. In this instance it involved throwing food at the star and making threats against her person along the lines of 'we're going to kill you', while attempting to record the whole thing for posterity on their mobile phones.

But back to the Razr, which we've no evidence to suggest was involved in the attack on Klass.

The judges' citation said of the Razr: "Once the height of cool, this has now become standard fixture for every Tom, Dick and Chav. Motorola has done it in pink, maybe they should be thinking of a Burberry version."

Ouch! Put those claws away now.

(On a slightly related note: congratulations to the London mini-cab driver who profited to the tune of one brand new Nokia phone, still in its box, and a chocolate advent calendar, courtesy of a silicon.com journalist returning home from Nokia's Christmas party last week... it could have been worse, it could have been a €280,000 laptop.)

For the records, the 'coolest' gadget of the year was deemed to be Sony's PSP. So there you go.

Another high-tech name linked with that unquantifiable enigma which is 'cool' is Google, which this week ranked third in a list of America's most reputable brands.

The search giant ranked below only Johnson & Johnson (which among other things makes stuff that's good for your teeth) and Coca-Cola (which makes stuff which isn't).

So alongside fizzy drinks and dental floss it appears internet search is now a major part of modern life.

The influential annual poll is compiled by market research firm Harris Interactive and this year marks Google's debut, in with a bullet at number three, and tellingly four places higher than archrival Microsoft.

How persuasive Google's motto of 'Do no evil' was in convincing people they could be trusted is unclear. (Or, if you read The Times, you'll be forgiven for thinking the company's motto is 'Don't be evil' as their reporter put it, which sounds a little juvenile... and not a million miles away from 'Don't be giving me evils', like the Vicky Pollard character in Little Britain.)

But not everybody is convinced. One rival in the search space told The New York Times that Google's meteoric rise to power is cause for concern.

Well he would, wouldn't he? Surely this isn't benevolence on his part.

Brian Lent, the president of mobile search start-up Medio Systems, told The New York Times that turkeys won't be voting for an early Christmas this year either.

OK he didn't say that but he did say: "Google is the new evil empire."

Which some may say is a little harsh. Even if he's not likening Google's behaviour to that of real world evil empires, and the human rights atrocities they committed, there's an Eric Schmidt/Darth Vader association there which isn't very flattering... to either party.

Lent continued: "They have potential monopolistic control over access to information."

Which, reading between the lines, sounds a lot like he may be saying "Google is seriously jeopardising my chance of owning a fleet of fancy sports cars" - though that is merely speculation on the Round-Up's part... and we suppose he might be onto something.

And finally, Microsoft, languishing in seventh spot on the list, has been doing its bit to increase its reputability rating this week by 'fighting the good fight' against the modern menace which is software piracy.

Cynics often have little sympathy for Microsoft when it starts to bemoan the money it loses to software piracy but they will tell you that it's not just a case of growing their already huge revenues. Oh no, it's a case of doing whatever they can to safeguard consumer confidence in software by ensuring shoppers don't buy anything which doesn't perform the way it should, or worse still that damages a consumer's computer.

So Microsoft doesn't want consumers to buy buggy, insecure software?

Who would have thought?

This week the software giant announced it has had more than 21,000 illegal sales pulled from eBay since August in an attempt to crack down on the auction site's prolific levels of piracy.

eBay told silicon.com it has "no obligation to monitor its site for illegal content" and said the onus is on the rights holder to alert it to any breach of copyright or illegal sales.

However, the pirates are more than up to the challenge and silicon.com found plenty of examples of dodgy software being sold on the auction site, with Microsoft and Adobe the companies suffering this form of theft more than any others.

It seems many of the sales conclude quickly, perhaps aware that detection will put a dent in the seller's business model. Others attempt to make their sales sound legitimate by explaining away the fact there is no box, manual or holographic disk because it is an official, 'no frills' version of the software.

Another seller claimed his disk was purely for back-up and that the buyer must already own the software and a valid licence.

Another seller claims he has found a way around eBay's rules on selling software (incredibly they do have some) by saying the disk and its contents are being given away free and that bidders are only competing to buy the plastic sleeve that it comes in.

It shows some ingenuity but eBay said despite the thought he has clearly given the matter the seller was still very much in breach of site rules.

(Would it work in other fields of criminal activity? "No officer I've not been selling drugs, just these plastic bags at £100 a pop... not sure what the white powder is - but they can have that for free." Maybe not.)

But the sale went ahead anyway. In fact silicon.com presented eBay with a number of blatantly dodgy lots and we were told the company would only act "once registered rights owners contacted us and asked us to remove them from the site".

Which Microsoft has been doing with some great enthusiasm, it would seem. One operation which has been closed down by Microsoft and eBay saw around £3m worth of liberties taken with other peoples' copyright.

An online trader called Zoobon (probably not the person's real name) has now been shut down, ordered to cease and desist such sales and forced to return "substantial damages" to Microsoft.

The nature of the out of court settlement means Microsoft gets some cash back and the individual concerned gets to go on their way free as a bird. So everybody is happy... unless anybody out there wanted to see justice beyond financial recompense for Microsoft.

Past research has suggested that as much as 90 per cent of software on eBay is illegal... and it's becoming clear why, though the Round-Up doesn't doubt that it is more in Adobe and Microsoft's interests to clamp down on such practices than eBay which has always maintained a notorious light-touch on regulating what is sold in its auction rooms.

So come on Adobe, pull your finger out... though if you'd hold off until eBay member Santas_Moon_Bucket77 has closed his auction of 'Photoshop v.9.0' we'd appreciate it, for no reason whatsoever, honest.

On that legally dubious note we bid you adieu for another week. Go carefully on icy pavements and check you have all your possessions before getting out of the taxi.


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