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The Weekly Round-Up: 10.11.06
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 10 November 2006

The UK is suffering a fraud epidemic it would seem. Now that's got your Friday afternoon off to a cheery start hasn't it?

You see there has been a 55 per cent increase in online fraud and a 37 per cent hike in card fraud, according to stats released this week by payment industry body Apacs.

And in the week when it transpired that the Western world will be ruled for at least the next year by a lame duck and a poodle - which sounds more like the cast of Animal Hospital than a quarter of the G8 - it's fitting Tony Blair was once again back in the headlines telling us ID cards will solve all these problems.

"In the end we have a modern world that we are living in that has new and different types of crime," he said, really nailing the specifics of the problem. "If we do not use technology in order to combat it, then we will not be fighting crime effectively."



This is of course the very Prime Minister who still writes everything out in longhand and can't, and won't, use a computer. So we can be pretty confident he speaks from an informed viewpoint where all this crime-busting tech is concerned.

"At the moment the enterprising criminal has it fairly easy," he added. "Searching through the rubbish can provide the person with all that they need to steal an identity but forging an ID card and a matching biometric record will obviously be quite another matter," he said with all the conviction of a man describing the likely effect of hurling a soft-boiled egg against the surface of Jupiter, or describing the likely offspring of a duck and a giraffe.

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Still, at least if Tony is familiar with the concept of searching through the rubbish looking for something useful he'll sympathise with the thankless task of his biographers.



On a cheerier note, we may all be losing money hand over fist to the fraudsters but at least a lot of us are raking it in nowadays, right?

Right?

Well research out this week suggests jobs in IT are pretty much a licence to print money these days. Pay for techies is currently rising at a rate of around 18 per cent per year, compared to the national average of 3.7 per cent.

So all the Round-Up's techie readers must be pretty happy with their lot right now we're guessing?

"What a load of absolute rubbish. Pay isn't skyrocketing," wrote one reader.

"Where are all these high salary IT jobs then?" enquired another.

But these are statistics... how can this be? The Round-Up doesn't understand.

What's more there is also a skills shortage currently, so UK techies can pretty much take their pick of whatever highly paid job they fancy.

"There definitely isn't a skills shortage," wrote one reader, again contradicting The Oracle that is 'stats in a press release'.



Moving on, if you saw the story this week on silicon.com about an 'e-kitchen' in Lewisham, you, like the Round-Up, might have wondered what the technology angle was on a story so obviously about a drugs factory in a South East London residence.

But it turns out knee-jerk assumptions about one of London's least glamorous neighbourhoods would have been well wide of the mark.

You see this particular 'e-kitchen' isn't manufacturing 'disco-biscuits' in a bathtub to peddle to unsuspecting teens. It is in fact a state-of-the-art kitchen at Lewisham College which uses high-tech gadgetry to teach the chefs of tomorrow.

In fact many of the trainees at this high-tech cooks' school are destined for no lesser a restaurant than Jamie 'pukka' Oliver's Fifteen.

Students can use remote-control cameras to follow what the teacher is doing at the front of the class. So, there is no longer any need to huddle around one desk now that technology has found a way for all students to stay in touch with their instructor from the comfort of their own work bench.

This genuinely impressive technology is also being used to teach budding beauticians. They can sit at their workbench and study the teacher.

Which is great. Because let's face it nurses and teachers are ten a penny but the Round-Up finds itself asking 'why aren't we investing more in the beauticians of tomorrow?'.

It does seem to be something of a sign of the times. The UK develops a technology of which it can be genuinely proud - and promptly puts it to use teaching people how to paint fingernails.

Next week, a robot that will take your fighting dogs for a walk and news of a complex algorithm that will enable drivers to work out what the largest possible spoiler they can fit to their Escort would be before it actually stops being able to move.



Another photo story which has been doing 'gangbusters' (to use modern parlance) on silicon.com this week is our photo tour around Google Earth, which features everything from the burning oil fields of Basra to an aerial shot of Silicon Towers, via a nude sunbather in Den Haag. If you've got that Friday feeling why not check it out for yourself here.



And if that's not enough, check out our top 10 smart phones - one for all you gadget lovers out there.



Moving on, the Round-Up noticed this week, while checking out ads on the Tube (because it beats looking at the suit-trouser clad package of the middle-aged man sat splay-legged opposite) that Channel 4 'comedy' (for want of a better word) The IT Crowd is being released on DVD, just in time to spoil somebody's Christmas.

Regular readers of the Round-Up will know it's not a show that met with much approval here in Silicon Towers - based largely around the fact it was rubbish.

The DVD launch is inexplicably being promoted with the slogan: "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Now that's clearly meant to evoke the standard response we've all received from an IT helpdesk at one time or another but the Round-Up can't help thinking it is also very apt, given the programme in question.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

No, but the Round-Up certainly tried turning it off... and liked the silence so much it dispensed altogether with the whole 'turning it back on again' thing.



And speaking of unfortunate promotions, there are rumours circulating in the world of advertising that Apple may no longer be using Justin Long for its ads - he of "Hi, I'm a Mac" fame.

Want more photos?

Click here to browse the full archive of our photo stories.

It's no doubt all very mutual but does follow criticism from some factions who have suggested Long's character has proven a major turn off for consumers, given he appears to be completely up his own USB socket.

One US ad critic - yes, such jobs do exist - described Long as a "smug little twit... just the sort of unshaven, hoodie-wearing, hands-in-pockets hipster we've always imagined when picturing a Mac enthusiast...".

Has Apple been hoist by its own petard? Who knows. Will Apple care? Probably not.



And finally (before getting on to this week's caption competition), Reader Comment of the week goes to a man who wrote in responding to a story on silicon.com about Asda ramping up its efforts to do battle with Tesco and Sainsbury's in the online grocery wars.

You might think that wasn't the most interesting of stories and possibly even one that is a little short of talking points but you'd be wrong, because our reader had plenty to say on the matter.

We'll let him explain.

"I find it rather amusing when Asda say they are going to have a shopping war with Tesco and the likes," he began, putting us at ease with the use of the word 'amusing'.

"It would appear that the Wal-Mart giant can't even get it right on their own shop floor," he continued. "Things like Kingsmill bread has suddenly declined in its variety stakes at Asda, to a degree where in most stores you can only get one variety of Kingsmill bread."

And the kids in Africa think they've got it tough! Just one variety of Kingsmill bread! Where's Bob Geldof when we need him?

And our reader wasn't done yet pointing out the grocery - or possibly gross - iniquities he suffers.

"You don't seem to get single packets of crisps unless you spend hours looking for them. The so called fresh taste of Asda fruit and veg is only so if you eat it on the day. (Mind you Tesco's toasted tea cakes are only good if you make sure you eat them one day before the use-by date.)"

That latter piece of information is certainly going to be something the Round-up carries through its life.

"If you mention these sort of things to Asda management they either ignore your request, or give you some patronising answer. Leaving the customer thinking, well if they haven't got it here, blow them I will go to Tesco or the Co-op."

'Blow them' indeed. Power to the people.

All of which revolutionary talk leaves the Round-Up in need of a light-hearted reminisce over last week's caption competition.

Once again, there was an overwhelming response to the competition, and you can check out the winning entry and some of the runners up by clicking here.

And the response was so overwhelming in fact that guess what...

That's right, we're going to run another caption competition. Same rules - you're probably working out the format now - so check out this week's picture and get thinking.



Until next week - make us laugh... or if your mind's a blank, read some news:


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