Posted 01/18/10 at 09:31:29 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Do you remember reading about something called the SarcMarc here last week? It is a downloadable punctuation mark for giving adequate notice of the sarcasm that precedes it. Though it may appear rather impractical to the vast majority, especially considering the fact that it costs $1.99, a certain Paul Chambers might even kill for such a contrived punctuation mark after a frivolous Twitter post got him booked under the UK's Terrorism Act.

After inclement weather put his travel plans in jeopardy, the 26-year-old Britisher joked on Twitter that he would blow the Robin Hood “airport sky high.” The tweet followed the airport's closure on January 6, 2009 due to heavy snow. Apparently, he was scheduled to board a flight to Ireland from that airport on January 15.  Acting on a tip-off from an unnamed person, the police arrested him on January 13.

"I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they'd never heard of it," Chambers is reported to have said. "Then they asked all about my home life, and how work was going, and other personal things. The lead investigator kept asking, 'Do you understand why this is happening?' and saying, 'It is the world we live in'." Do you still remember the SarcMark? I think “the world that we live in” certainly needs it.

Chambers was released on bail a few hours after his arrest and remains in danger of being tried for perpetrating a bomb hoax. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that the authorities have banned him from the airport for life and his employer has suspended him until it completes an internal probe.

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Posted 08/28/09 at 09:55:49 AM by Pulkit Chandna

The British Met Office is in possession of the country’s most powerful supercomputer, which it uses to better predict the possible impact of climate change on Britain. The weather supercomputer, installed in its headquarters, is now being lambasted for having such an embarrassingly large carbon footprint that the facility holding it has been labeled the worst public building in the UK in terms of pollution.

According to the Department of Communities and Local Government, which compiled the list, the Met Office’s HQ owes 75% of its carbon footprint to the mean machine, capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second. The supercomputer hogs 1.2 megawatts of energy. 'We would be throwing ourselves back into the dark ages of weather forecasting if we withdrew our reliance on supercomputing, it's as simple as that,' a spokesman for the Met Office said, justifying the use of the £30million ($48 million) supercomputer.

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Posted 07/07/09 at 04:54:44 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Sir John Sawers, the incumbent British ambassador to the UN, is soon going to be the country’s top spy, the chief of MI6. However, the missus doesn’t reckon it is a big deal. Ah! Humble Lady Sawyers. She has caused quite a stir by posting family photographs featuring Sir Sawers on a Facebook account with minimal security settings.

Lady Shelley Sawers probably forgot that though posting family photographs on Facebook is a fundamental right of every free human being, it should be exercised in moderation when those photographs can betray certain vital details about your country’s top spy – the location of his London flat, personal details of his children and that he is a beach bum with trunks that this writer can neither exalt nor properly deride. The pictures have now been removed from Facebook.

The British government has a decent sense of humor and has downplayed the entire incident, although the pesky British tabloids certainly think it is serious stuff. “It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks,” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband quipped in a TV interview.

Miliband also liked the entire idea of having Sir Sawyer's photographs on Facebook as it paints a more human picture of the soon-to-be MI6 chief. Facebook is certainly making counterespionage very easy.

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Posted 04/13/09 at 08:36:38 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Teachers in UK are demanding the removal of WiFi from schools lest it may jeopardize the health and fertility of kids. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has become alarmed after a few studies claimed WiFi may cause loss of short-term memory, lack of concentration, cancer and sterility.

The issue was brought up by Colin Kinney at ATL’s annual meeting. He referenced a Swedish research and the findings of some other European experts to justify his sense of alarm. “Have we the right to avoid the moral warnings simply for access to a few more computers?” he asked the attendees at ATL’s annual meeting.

He wants a long-time study to probe WiFi’s impact on heath. The teacher’s body has espoused Kinney’s concerns and resolved to prod the government into action.

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Posted 04/03/09 at 07:52:20 PM by Pulkit Chandna

A Google Street View vehicle came up against a tempestuous, unyielding mob in the British village of Broughton. The Street View car had gone there to collect photographs to be used by the Google Street View service. Google’s ingenious camouflage tactic of leaving the car unmarked failed miserably as its peculiar rooftop camera betrayed the vehicle’s identity and purpose of visit.

When a local resident, Paul Jacobs, discovered the vehicle ambling in his languid village, he rushed towards the car’s driver to deliver his sermon about the privacy rights of villagers in quiet British villages. It did not take long for other villagers to rally behind Jacobs.

Their protest eventually paid off as the vehicle had to leave. The locals are worried Street View may help thieves plan burglaries; Broughton has witnessed three burglaries in the past six weeks.

'I don't mind estate agents taking pictures but this shows people how to get in and how to get out. I was determined to make a stand so I called the police,’ said Paul Jacobs.

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Posted 03/20/09 at 04:25:21 PM by Paul Lilly

With the recent addition of Great Britain, Google Maps' Street View service is now available in seven countries. The recent expansion includes 25 cities in the UK, including London, Glasgow, and Oxford, potentially opening the door to more complaints from those who would voice privacy concerns over the service.

"The images you see on Street View are the same images you would see if you were to walk or drive down the road yourself," said Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist for Google. "If people do not want their homes featured we will take them down, or cut them out of the image."

The problem, from the perspective of privacy advocates, is that not only is it an opt-out service, but as our very own Tom Edwards points out, once the picture is posted certain images are still viewable by scrolling back a block on the map and zooming in on deleted content.

Nevertheless, Google's Street View feature isn't all controversial. Back in January, it was learned that Boston police used Street View to help solve a kidnapping case by tracing the coordinates of an abducted 9-year-old girl's phone to a location in Virginia. The police used Street View to help identify possible hideouts for the kidnapper, leading local cops to nab the suspect.

Pros and cons aside, Google plans to expand its Street View service to more cities in Great Britain in the future.

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Posted 10/10/08 at 07:57:40 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Facebook is the most visited social network globally and Britain is no exception to this fact. The website is the second most popular website in the UK after Google UK, according to Hitwise. Its popularity in recent times can be gauged from the fact that it registered a staggering growth rate of 2905% from September 2006 to 2007. Of course, the website is probably never going to replicate its performance during that period – its halcyon days.  Its annual growth rate has come down to a more digestable level of 88%.

Its growth in the UK is certainly slowing down. There was only a 4% increase in its traffic between August and September, which is almost negligible compared to the 50% growth during the same period last year. Facebook’s average session time has also come down to 20 minutes.

Is there a message hidden in these numbers? Are social networking websites marching towards their popularity threshold?  Will there be a corrective decline in their traffic?

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