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The Weekly Round-Up: 1.12.06
Pick that up!

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 01 December 2006

There is a new danger all around us, ladies and gentlemen.

It's in the coffee shops but it's we're not talking about the coffee. It's in the pubs but it's not the cigarette smoke and alcohol we're worrying about this time. It's in the airport lounges but we're not fearful of terrorists.

It's the wi-fi.

Apparently it's cooking us slowly and soon it will kill us all. Maybe.

The evidence for this outrageous claim? Well a classics teacher from the stuffy Stowe school in Buckinghamshire felt a bit poorly recently and the upper-class finger of blame has been pointed at the school's wi-fi network, possibly to shouts of "Well I was feeling a bally sight better before that wireless interweb thingy came along".

Apparently the symptoms suffered by the classics teacher include "sudden flushes, burning sensations and pressure behind the eyes".

Pressure behind the eyes? The Round-Up suspects he won't be the first classics teacher whose pupils find it a struggle.

As a result the school has now disabled its wi-fi network. Confiscating it quicker than a girly mag smuggled into prep.

And incredibly the discomfort of one classics teacher and the fact another school, no doubt fearful of this knee-jerk and litigious age we live, has also banned wi-fi is all the proof one MP needed to demand an enquiry into this matter.

Dr Ian Gibson MP, former chairman of the commons science and technology committee, has called on the Department of Health to invest some tax-payers' money into finding out just how dangerous wi-fi is.

Gibson says the Department of Health must set up an inquiry along the lines of the Stewart Report into mobile phone radiation.

An interesting request, given the Stewart Report proved costly and completely inconclusive.

For the record, Gibson is MP for one of Norwich's constituencies. That city is, of course, now known for blanket wi-fi coverage.

At the moment the Round-Up has heard nothing more scientific than a classics teacher blaming all that new-fangled technology, so it's safe to say Gibson's suggestion is being treated with a healthy dose of cynicism.

Carsten Sorensen, senior lecturer in Information Systems at the London School of Economics – and voice of reason in this debate - said: "Any new technology will always be subjected to criticism as being dangerous."

He added: "There is currently no conclusive evidence that wi-fi is a cause for health concerns. It seems to me quite dramatic to suddenly ban wi-fi."

Indeed.

Personally the Round-Up thinks classics teachers in general should get their own house in order before blaming 'new fangled technology' for making people ill.

The Round-Up remembers classics lessons at school used to bring on mass bouts of narcolepsy yet doesn't remember a single MP rallying behind that cause.

Moving on, from public school to public order.

Among the many things the Round-Up sees on a daily basis which makes it roll its eyes and 'tsk!' disapprovingly – like the middle-aged Daily Mail reader it most certainly isn't - is the dropping of litter and the assumption that there's now so much rubbish on the streets of Britain that a little more won't hurt.

The process which really gets the Round-Up's back up is the apparent dedication among smokers in particular to get as much litter onto the floor in as short of time as possible. First the cigarette butt (because they don't count, it would seem), old empty packets, the new packet's plastic sleeve, the new packet's foil inner sleeve… all discarded onto the floor within about seven-and-half seconds of extinguishing the last cigarette from the previous packet.

And the beauty then of this process is that it begins all over again.

The real coup de grace – and this is a manoeuvre only the most expert of smoking litter louts should attempt – is the full car-load dump. If littering was given scores like ballroom dancing, this move, performed well, would get straight tens across the board.

This involves sitting in the driver's seat with the door slightly ajar while parked up, preferably somewhere scenic for added effect.

The movement should be barely noticeable to the naked eye but when the car pulls away the delighted onlooker will note at least eight discarded cigarette packs and the contents of two very full car ashtrays dumped on the ground/road side/lay-by/picnic area.

'Where is the Round-Up going with this?' you may ask. Well it seems this is yet another area where technology can come to the rescue.

If you were impressed/scared/nonplussed by mention in last week's Round-Up of CCTV technology which can now listen, then this is really going to blow you away/scare you even more/leave you still pretty nonplussed.

Let's take a trip to Middlesbrough – figuratively you understand (we wouldn't do that to you) – where ultra-smart CCTV is being rolled out which can speak to passers by.

That's right. And we're not talking random platitudes. We're talking admonishment for people who, among other offences, drop litter.

The technology is actually pretty simple. Some speakers are installed along with the camera and beady eyed CCTV operators sit watching their screens. If they see somebody transgress they are able to switch on their microphone and speak live to the street.

"You, yes you in the hoodie… go back and pick up that Coke can."

You get the idea.

Obviously if the operators had any sense of humour they would begin each sentence with a loud booming "This is God speaking…" to really put the frighteners on the litter louts.

But even without divine intervention it seems the programme is working and currently boasts a 100 per cent success rate.

Middlesbrough Council's physical security manager, Jack Bonnar, told silicon.com it's amazing what people will conform to when they know "there's a camera there and we are watching".

There is clearly an "embarrassment factor" for the offender, said Bonnar.

Although there are some stick phrases such as 'the police have been called' Bonnar said the personal touch tends to have a very good effect.

He said operators might use phrases such as: "The lady in the white blouse, you're being witnessed to drop litter…"

This leaves the Round-Up to wonder whether this might actually have been a bride throwing her bouquet.

Still on the subject of surveillance, the Round-Up saw an interesting feature on a blog this week – a run down of the top 10 naked people captured on Google Earth.

It could equally have been entitled 'irrefutable proof that some people have too much time on their hands'.

Regular readers of silicon.com may well remember that last month we ran an article showing some of the best and some of the weirdest shots from Google Earth – the search giant's all-seeing aerial photography application.

Included among those was a picture of a lady sunbathing on her roof terrace in the Netherlands. She had no doubt assumed she was safe from prying eyes but hadn't counted on the eyes in the sky.

We included that because it was quite widely reported around the world and pretty easy to track down. In all honesty it took about five seconds to find.

But really, who spends hours, maybe even days or weeks searching for 10 such images – scouring the beaches of the South of France and the roof terraces of Italy for just a hint of eight or 10 flesh-coloured pixels which could be a topless woman… or could just as easily be a topless man, discarded mannequin or an inflatable doll for all the clarity Google Earth affords on that level of zoom.

If these people really want to see some skin on the internet, it really isn't that hard.

Do they not realise they could find some within seconds with no need to strain their eyes (unless the warnings of the Catholic church turn out to be true regarding the whole 'going blind' thing).

However, it does make you wonder just what aspects of our life we might still be able to regard as private?

Certainly our death seems to be fair game nowadays after rather gory news broke this week that 100 police officers and staff in Hertfordshire have been reprimanded for emailing around pictures of a man falling on railings and – lest he should have survived that – subsequently being decapitated in a freakish accident.

Presumably they thought this fair sport for amusement. But when the constabulary's email monitoring tool picked up the widespread distribution of the images the crackdown began.

However, from stupid PCs to stupidly PC – it seems the reason given for the police wanting to stamp out the circulation of these gruesome emails is because they might be perceived as racist if the scandal ever got out.

'Racist?' you might ask. How so? Because the man featured in the images was black you see.

Deputy chief constable Simon Ash, who oversaw the investigation, said in a statement: "I am disappointed by the conduct of officers and staff who distributed this inappropriate image that some people may have perceived as being racist."

The Round-Up can't help thinking the fact the man's head was missing is possibly more noteworthy than the colour of his skin and suspects the police have missed the point somewhat here. In fact the Round-Up is hard pressed to think of any race who are distinguishable by their lack of a head.

Instead the Round-Up can only assume this shows a worrying degree of honesty within the police force regarding the issue of institutionalised racism. Clearly now it is just assumed that any joke shared between police officers must be racist… even when it really isn't – it's just very, very sick.

As it stands eight police officers have received a formal reprimand after a hearing, while another seven staff have received final written warnings.

They're not laughing now.

And finally, 'good cause of the week' is housing charity Shelter which looks set to reap the rewards from a novelty record put together by the nice people at BT and none other than Tom Baker, one-time Doctor Who and full-time English legend.

Baker, who joined the BT payroll earlier this year when he started providing his golden vocal tones for BT's text-to-voice service, has now gone all Bono and put his talents to use 'laying down a track' for a good cause.

The record is a spoken version of the Kinks 'You Really Got Me' – to a backing track which is part euro-pop, part Casio keyboard demo track.

And should you want to buy it or more likely give some money to Shelter – which is an excellent cause – you can do so here.

The timing of the release for this suggests the ultimate goal is to do battle with the likes of Take That and secure this year's coveted Christmas number one position.

We're not sure about number one but the Round-Up had to a listen to one verse and definitely thought 'number two'.

But it's for a good cause, so show some support.

And finally, finally, the latest caption competition. You know what to do by now.

Last week's best entries and winner can be found here.

And this week's competition is here.