THE FIRST Windows cellphones are now going on sale, thanks to a deal struck between Microsoft and cellphone operator Orange in 21 countries. The new Smartphone works like an ordinary mobile phone but also uses Windows to surf the Web and download music, pictures, movies and games.
Orange鈥檚 executive vice-president Richard Brennan claims that the Smartphone is ideal for use on an airplane. Feedback was concerned it would interfere with a plane鈥檚 navigation electronics, but apparently not. According to Microsoft鈥檚 technical coordinator Ian Ferrell, the Smart phone comes with the option to turn its radio circuitry off. The phone then becomes an electronic organiser, games machine, picture viewer and sound player.
Sounds good so far, but will people remember to use this option and will the airlines understand that what looks like a phone can switch to being something else?
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鈥淚 understand the problem only too well,鈥� admits Ferrell. 鈥淚 had big trouble on a Lufthansa flight coming over here. I was playing a game and in the end I had to turn it off to keep the crew happy. But in six months or a year the airlines will have seen enough of these phones to know the score.
As a British passenger was jailed for four months last September for playing games on his mobile during a flight, we can only wonder how many people will spend time in the slammer before the message is successfully spread.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA has recently experienced a dry spell. So Matt Burnet鈥檚 local newspaper commendably took the trouble to interview an expert from the Bureau of Meteorology to find out what was going on. The meteorologist stated with confidence: 鈥淭here is a 50 per cent chance Adelaide would get average rainfall over summer,鈥� and clarified, 鈥淕enerally across large parts of Australia there is a 50:50 chance we will get median rainfall across the summer months.鈥�
We鈥檙e so glad to know that whatever the weather at least we can rely on the statistics working.
LIBRARIANS are funny people. And, yes, we do mean funny ha-ha. In particular, anyone stuck for an acronym (rather than a mere abbreviation or initialism) for their latest project should immediately consult their nearest librarian. They can鈥檛 resist a self-deprecating pun. In Britain we already have the Social Science Information Gateway, that鈥檒l be a SOSIG machine. And, for true connoisseurs of the internal politics of the UK Academy of Information Systems, there鈥檚 the Follett Implementation Group on Information Technology, which is enough to make a non-connoisseur FIGIT. And now from the Netherlands we have the Networked Research and Digital Information group. Truly NERDI.
LIBRARIES are also the place that academics wish students spent more time in. Luckily, says Martin Pitt, the public house opposite the faculty of engineering in Leeds has recently changed its name to 鈥淭he Library鈥�, making it much easier to keep everyone happy. He wonders whether there is an opportunity for other hostelries to call themselves 鈥淭he Laboratory鈥� or 鈥淭he Office鈥�.
Feedback has a (hazy) recollection of there being one of the latter in London. Now, Google reports that the lucky residents of Rockford, Illinois, have a nightclub called The Office, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase 鈥渨orking late at the office鈥�. The website features, not unexpectedly, people in various flesh-revealing outfits having a good time. Curiously, the website for the Office Club in Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia, Russia, features overdressed giraffes. We tell no lie.
SORRY we didn鈥檛 get this to you in time for you to book a place, but we thought you鈥檇 still like to know that on 12 November 2002 there took place in Brussels, Belgium, a meeting of the Council of the European Union鈥檚 Horizontal Working Party on Drugs.
When we find out about the Prancing-around-doing-cartwheels Working Party on Drugs, we鈥檒l let you know.
COSMETIC magical-marketing speak sounds even better in other languages. For example, 鈥淥n l鈥檃ime pour sa forte concentration en ADN v茅g茅tale et en ARN,鈥� claim Yves Rocher about its line of anti-ageing Biotechnologie V茅g茅tales products. Which means something like, 鈥淵ou love them for their high levels of DNA and RNA.鈥�
Yes, the gunk contains vegetable matter. Yes, oddly enough, that contains nucleic acids. But do these, the very stuff of life and vitality, magically 鈥渙xygenate and rejuvenate the cells of your skin鈥�, as Yves Rocher claim? That鈥檚 for you to decide.
A RECENT BBC News online article about a helicopter crash reported that: 鈥淭he men鈥檚 helicopter was flying from Chile to north-west Antarctica.鈥�
David Hughes, who read the article, asks a pertinent question: How does one determine where north-west is in Antarctica?
Sensible-sounding safety instructions regarding the top-but-one step of a ladder from Geelong Industries: 鈥淒o not stand on or above this step as you may lose your balance.鈥� Fair enough, but the ladder in question only has three steps