To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://comment.silicon.com/weeklyroundup/0,39024756,39274251,00.htm

The Weekly Round-Up: 22.08.08
Clarkson for PM!

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 22 August 2008

There's a row brewing in Whitehall and just for a change it has nothing to do with government policy on immigration or the loss of yet more personal data.

Instead, some MPs are getting hot under the collar over web 2.0-related matters and that makes a refreshing change.

The Downing Street website was relaunched last week sporting a new WordPress-inspired style and so full of web 2.0 references it would make a grown developer cry (without the use of these). Last week it had stability issues and was up and down more than a manic depressive on a trampoline.

Taking design hints from both the BBC and The Times, the site is a brave departure from the old one. But it's not the design that's causing consternation this week.

This week, Downing Street published a short YouTube video. This is where the trouble started.

The video in question is an official Downing Street response to an online petition calling for Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson to be elected prime minister. It proved quite popular, with Clarkson receiving almost 50,000 signatures in support.

The Downing Street clip opens with a focus on the famous front door. It thanks everyone who signed the online petition and says officials have "thought long and hard" about the idea. The footage leads viewers inside and up the stairs, pausing over photos of past PMs including a Photoshopped portrait of Clarkson looking statesman-like and staring into the middle distance.

The final message reads: "But on second thoughts... maybe not."

OK, it's not exactly comedy gold.

Predictably, the Tories have decried the video and, never passing up an opportunity to take a well-aimed kick at Gordon Brown's dangly bits, have called the video a terrible waste of taxpayers' money.

A Tory spokesman bleated: "While the British public are having to tighten their belts, the government is spending taxpayers' money on a completely frivolous project."

Let's get a bit of perspective. The billions they proposed spending on ID cards were a terrible waste of taxpayers' money but that plan, at least for the time being, seems to have fallen by the political wayside.

Downing Street said the clip had been thrown together by a member of staff in a "spare half hour" and hadn't cost a thing. This is clearly an exaggeration. The clip appears to use stock footage of Downing Street interiors with a text commentary and a bit of Photoshop thrown in at the end. Not exactly half an hour but hardly much effort on behalf of anyone with an ounce of movie-editing knowledge.

If they hadn't responded, the Conservatives would probably have accused the government of ignoring the democratic views of its own voting public on its own website.

Either way, the video has gone viral and apparently attracted more than 20 times as much traffic as other video items on the site, which is a rather handy way of publicising it given it only launched last week, isn't it?

Meanwhile, Clarkson has admitted he would make a 'rubbish' PM and added that the government should be in charge of nothing more important than "building park benches".

However, you can't take away the fact he got an impressive 49,447 votes from the British public to take the reins as PM, which, technically speaking, is 49,447 more votes than Brown.

Apple is facing a backlash from a number of Japanese iPod Nano owners with smoking trousers. The trousers are smoking because the iPods in question are bursting into flames or, in some cases, exploding.

The Japanese government has warned its gadget-loving populace of a potential fire risk from the first-generation devices. The economy, trade and industry ministry has received two new reports of minor fires in August in Tokyo caused by overheating iPod Nanos.

According to the ministry, Apple has been notified of a total of 14 similar cases in Japan. Out of those, reports AFP, two users suffered minor burning. Ouch.

The company has warned users to be aware the devices can become hot during use, particularly when they are being charged sheathed inside third-party cases.

Apple said in its statement: "Apple has received very few reports of such incidents (less than 0.001 per cent of first generation iPod Nano units), which have been traced back to a single battery supplier." The supplier has not been named.

Apple and other tech companies have had to recall a number of computers and devices in 2006 because of overheating batteries.

The Round-Up carries its own iPod in its trousers and is guessing any flames or sparks in that region are not a good thing, leading to entirely the wrong kind of disco inferno.

Short of donning asbestos pants you may be better off holding the iPod at arm’s length in an oven glove, a move that would both protect you from heat and allow you to gravitate more towards the iPod users in Apple's advertising.

Meanwhile, Apple has released a statement advising users that they'll get a free replacement should their Nano explode, which is jolly decent, all things considered...

Despite the threat of immolation and flying shrapnel, Apple has come out on top of the latest customer satisfaction poll for computer makers as voted for by its customers.

The Mac maker scored a customer satisfaction rating of 85 out of 100 - 10 points higher than nearest rival Dell.

"We haven't seen anything like this before, where a company scores 10 points over its nearest rival," chirped one of the research team excitedly.

"It's almost an aligning of the stars," added the researcher who is no way subject to irrational bouts of hyperbole.

It's Apple's fourth year at the top of the customer satisfaction tree. The company's margin over other major manufacturers is also impressive, with a rating 12 points above HP and 13 points higher than Gateway.

As for the others trailing in its wake, technically speaking it's not entirely their fault, with researches suggesting that the lower levels of satisfaction were in part to do with the less than glowing halo effect of Windows Vista.

"Most of Apple's Windows-based competition is suffering a bit from Vista... The fact that Apple is not dependent on the Windows Vista operating system hasn't hurt," was the damning verdict for the Seattle software maker.

"Apple is not without its quality problems," said the research lead. "People know there have been some service and product quality problems but Apple has an almost Teflon-like quality. Its problems don't really seem to matter to consumers."

Even those customers with little pieces of iPod shrapnel impaled in their inner thighs...

Despite the condemnation of its latest operating system and the detrimental effect on its hardware partners' reputations, Microsoft now has a wildly popular Vista feature on its hands: XP downgrade rights.

According to a report from a US metrics company, more than one-third of new Vista machines purchased in the past six months have been downgraded to the previous operating system, which Microsoft discontinued a couple of months back.

Devil Mountain Software said that nearly 35 per cent of more than 3,000 machines it had examined had been downgraded to Old Reliable, or Old Unreliable, depending on how you view XP.

Craig Barth, chief technology officer at Devil Mountain, said: "Either these machines were downgraded by [hardware companies like] Dell or HP, or they were downgraded by the user after they got the machine... In any case, these machines are no longer running Vista."

Although this may seem like a bad thing - and it is - it's not going to worry Microsoft too much, because every one of those downgraded machines still registers as a Vista sale.

Just remember when the financial results for the company come out, no matter how impressive they seem to be, you need to remind yourself to be 35 per cent less impressed than you actually are.

It counts as a hollow victory in anyone's book...

Finally, the Round-Up leaves you with news that David Hasselhoff has launched his own social networking website.

In case you misread that, here it is again: David Hasselhoff has launched his own social networking website. There.

Let's let Dave talk us through the thinking behind Hoffspace (see what he did there?).

"In my travels round the world I have always been surprised that no matter where I go people recognise and know me, from Europe, Australia and India to the Philippines and the Zulu Nation in South Africa.

"This got me thinking... I realised that while two people from two entirely different countries and backgrounds may seem to have nothing in common, the only thing they might have in common is me...

"So I decided to start a network where people from across the world might come together and get a conversation started over me. Where it will lead, I don't know, but the world would be a better place if everyone talked a little more to each other..."

Ridiculous idea? Actually it has more than 12,000 registered users, of which a fair number are no doubt German power ballad enthusiasts and the kind of people who joined huge numbers of joke Facebook groups.

Who'd have thought it: David Hasselhoff is the internet's newest omni-node.

Keep an eye out for the Hoff on silicon.com's annual Agenda Setters survey. The Round-Up is predicting a podium finish.

In other news this week, hospitals are to get secure access to patient records...

Watch out Tesco, it's the battle of the supermarkets: ASDA to kick off a PAYG price war.

Got five minutes? (Go on, it is Friday after all… ) Test your wit on the silicon.com caption competition.