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The Weekly Round-Up: 23.06.06
iBog...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 23 June 2006

Around Silicon Towers there's a bit of a running joke. Well, the Round-Up says 'joke' - it's not actually funny - but it keeps us amused.

Upon returning to the office from a spell away from our desks - either because we all have to sleep sometimes or for any number of other reasons (and we're not at all talking about getting away early to watch England matches, because we're more professional than that) - one member of the team may ask of another: "Did we miss anything big... ?"

The answer generally involves Bill Gates being involved in something pricelessly newsworthy - many of the made up answers aren't fit to repeat, even in jest - but the notion is that 'sod's law' at its most potent would, in the world of technology journalism, involve something major befalling or involving Bill Gates while our backs are turned.

So imagine the Round-Up's consternation upon filing last week's newsletter only to wake up the next morning to hear that Bill Gates had taken it upon himself to announce his departure from Microsoft.

Not so much as a heads up from the great man...

We can't help suspecting Gates' timing was a deliberate attempt to make life difficult for the Round-Up. He's never forgiven us for linking to these photos from 1983.

However, despite this being week-old news (as opposed to weak, old news for which you might want to check out some of silicon.com's competitors) the Round-Up couldn't let the great man go without saying a fond farewell.

In our time covering Bill Gates we've seen everything from him being knighted to indicted - or at least dragged through the courts but that doesn't rhyme with 'knighted' - and he has always provided a rich source of news. He was even the subject of this year's April Fool story on silicon.com, so we're glad we got that one in before he stepped down.

Now he is off to concentrate full-time on his charity work in the developing world.

So the Round-Up genuinely wishes him the very best of luck. While silicon.com and many others in the media have rightly flagged up some of the business practices that have made Microsoft unpopular at times during Gates' reign, it also believes those whose criticism of Gates extends to his charity work are well wide of the mark and unjust.

Yes, it's easy to give money to charity when you have lots of if but it's another thing to actually do so and do so with such purpose.

Personally the Round-Up isn't (too) ashamed to admit that if it had Gates' money it would be living the life of an eccentric Bond villain on a personal island staffed entirely by a militia of beautiful women.

So good luck to Bill. He'll be missed, if only because he used to provide such rich material for the Round-Up. And many silicon.com readers seem to agree that the technology world will be a less interesting place without him.

Of course Bill Gates' past few years at Microsoft have been spent to a large degree dealing with legal wranglings over this company's monopolistic practices. But how many people know that 30 years ago, around the very time Gates was setting up Microsoft as a fresh-faced 20-something he also had a run-in with the law?

Some readers may have seen this before but it's worth another look. A photograph unearthed from 1977 shows a very young Bill Gates, aged 22, 'watching the birdie' for the nice folks of the Albuquerque police department in New Mexico.

You can see the smiling Bill Gates' mugshot here.

Just look how happy he is... if Microsoft's rivals and detractors had seen just how composed this man was under pressure aged 22 they might have thought twice about taking him to court some 25 years later.

At this point you're probably wondering why Gates was collared by the New Mexico fuzz 29 years ago (and no it wasn't for wearing that truly awful shirt) it was for nothing more than a minor driving violation, according to The Smoking Gun website.



Which leads us on very neatly (OK, it was slightly contrived) to the second story this week which has seen some serious disciplinary measures taken against staff at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea, Wales.

It seems the DVLA has had a big problem with staff swapping smutty images over their email.

Or to quote one employee, talking to the South Wales Evening Post: "It is everywhere. It is hardcore stuff and very offensive. A lot of people have been unhappy to have the emails popping up on their computers."

The staff at the DVLA want to watch what they do with all this smut or they might not even be able to pass their own eyesight tests.

The DVLA has subsequently announced: "Following an investigation, DVLA has dismissed 14 members of staff for gross misconduct. The staff concerned were found to have used the Agency's electronic systems to send pornographic email attachments out of the Agency, in direct contravention of DVLA's code of conduct."

The Round-Up assumes any sending of smut is against the rules, rather than just that which is sent out of the Agency - unless it really is 'anything goes as long as you don't share it with the outside world', which would be an interesting policy.

And according to reports, a further 101 workers have been disciplined for sending pornographic emails within the centre - so just the 115 staff, which isn't bad out of a workforce of 6,000 people.

The DVLA has denied, however, that the investigation was only triggered after the system started running slowly due to the sheer weight of smut clogging up its servers.

For those with a reasonably good memory for these things, you may recollect last year a female employee at the DVLA was sacked after spreading a home movie of her and her boyfriend 'at it'. Reports at the time suggest around 300 members of staff at the DVLA were treated to the lurid clip.

Do these people not have any work to do?



Rather more unwitting in her distribution of 'candid' materials was the entirely more innocent eBay trader who this week sold a stainless steel ashtray on the popular auction site.

What the seller didn't realise is that the reflective surface of the ashtray rather neatly showed that she was bearing a skimpy bikini top while taking the photographs - ensuring her lot on eBay gained rather more notoriety and popularity than an ashtray should.

For the record the ashtray sold for the princely sum of £5.10, though the Round-Up can't help wondering whether the buyer might have been disappointed to realise the image of a woman's breasts wasn't actually embossed on the ashtray. In fact all that they would have been able to see was their own face, which may be fairly disappointing in comparison.

The Round-Up discovered this story on geek news site The Register and hat's off to our peers over there who sought out this woman and - boys will be boys - asked her to send them some more photos - but only, you understand, "to reveal the face behind the, ahem, camera", they rather unconvincingly claimed.

So be warned, before putting reflective items on eBay - check just what is reflected in the pictures.



(At this point the Round-Up would ask readers not to email in with a 'true story' that involves a hotel room, an adult channel, a video camera, an embarrassing reflection and much hilarity for a group of friends - because it didn't really happen to "somebody you know".)



However, on the subject of business travel, this week one of the silicon.com team headed over to Germany to check out the IT being used to keep the World Cup ticking over this summer.

In the words of Peter Meyer, head of IT at Fifa, staging such an event is dead easy.

"It's simple. You organise a tournament with 32 teams and at the end of it one of them wins."

There you go. What more do you need to know?

Of course, the problems arise when you have to start connecting venues and ensuring the world's media can all plug in to the event and report back to 200 countries worldwide.

And, as our man in Munich reported, it is a truly impressive project of almost unrivalled complexity.

Sure, there are larger projects but not many that only last for 30 days and have to be built in a matter of weeks and disassembled in a matter of days. You can read more here.

One line which didn't make it into the original report as it appeared on the site was a moment of, dare we say, sexism which perhaps could only have been muttered in the world of football, where even still it stood out like an unwelcome sore thumb (not that any kind of sore thumb is welcome, of course).

Meyer was talking about the laptops being used at the World Cup and of Fifa's requirements upon IT partner Toshiba. He said they must be lightweight and robust as they are likely to be carried from venue to venue and might be subject to a few knocks and bumps.

They seem pretty reasonable requirements but then he added it is also important that "for the ladies they also look nice".

Because no serious professional woman would want to be seen out and about with a laptop that didn't co-ordinate with her shoes and handbag, would she now?

It's good to see that an organisation such as Fifa is showing such progressive understanding of the modern woman.



And finally, what do you buy the gadget fan who has everything? What about a toilet roll holder that incorporates speakers and an iPod docking station so they can listen to music while they attend to nature's call.

The unit boasts four speakers and will connect with all iPod models - so anybody who wants to have a Shuffle in their bathroom can do so.

And with iPod users keen to compile playlists it seems just a matter of time before people start selecting the best songs for those moments of contemplation in the smallest room.

Perhaps Handel's 'Water Music Suite' might be a relaxing and apt choice. Or for something more contemporary, what about 'Sit Down' by Manchester band James - or, from the same era, 'There she goes' by The La's.

Or perhaps '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' by The Stones. Or, not wishing to get too unsavoury about this, 'We can work it out' by The Beatles?

Worse still, one member of the silicon.com reliably reports there is a Robert Plant song called 'Big Log' which seems a little too crass and the Round-Up is really fighting the urge to mention a particular song by Johnny Cash here, for any curry fans out there.

However, we're sure you can do better - as ever, email your suggestions into: editorial@silicon.com.

Strangely this gadget was missing from an exhibition of devices that BT is hoping will begin to revolutionise the home of the future. To see more though, click here.



Until next week, be good and read some news:


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