IVAN OOPS The intro paragraph incorrectly states that the robot was devised by Ivan Bowman. It is used by Bowman, but it was devised by Ian McHardy who is a collegue of Bowman's at iAnywhere. Donna McHardy, Waterloo, Canada
PALM'S WOES >> can the company compete and survive for another 18 months before be able to release its new platform? That's got to be approaching two generations of iPhones, BlackBerries and others into the future. Uh oh… http://www.pocketpicks.co.uk/
>> I believe there is still a window (all puns intended) of opportunity for Palm to create a compelling mobile platform. However, if it's not able to deliver the goods in 2008 (and I mean sooner rather than later), then that may very well be the end of an era in enterprise mobility. http://www.enterprisemobilitymatters.com/
>> the delays in the next generation of the Palm OS mean that its fans will have another year of models running an operating system that first debuted in 2002. http://www.latest-mobile.com/
>> Lets face it, if they didn't grab up those Windows Mobile licenses, they wouldn't even still be in business! http://dukecarico.com/
>> watch the new executives kill the Palm OS and just got to Windows and be done with this delay. http://thelordshome.com/blog/
TECHNOBILE: CHARGERS The simple answer to Michael Cross's complaint is to label all your chargers, plugs and cables using the self-adhesive labels obtainable from all good stationers and covering them with clear Takibak. Patrick Ford, Carshalton
I agree whole heartedly, in fact I've blogged about your article on Iveswitched.co.uk, a micro campaign site aimed at getting people to use power strips with switched so that we can turn some of the multitude of black boxes off when we are not using them. I'm trying to get people to assess how many of these power supplies they really need to have plugged in all the time. Then to buy a new power strip with switches for the ones they can turn off, as no one unplugs them. Gavin Bell, London
I completely agree with Michael Cross's article (Technobile, 13th September). It is ludicrous to have so many different types of chargers for all our electronic gadgets. Let's get the manufacturers to agree a common voltage standard and a common connector type. My Motorola mobile uses a mini-USB socket, which seems a good candidate. But if manufacturers were to adopt a common standard, not just for mobile kit but for every gadget that converts AC to DC, we could go further. Every new house could be built with DC cabling alongside the historical AC cables. A single, highly efficient, AC to DC transformer would supply power to your hi-fi, cable box, laptop, mobile phone, PC/Mac, halogen desk lamp, radio, DVD player - in fact to almost every piece of electronic kit in the house. The result should save power, as the central transformer would be more efficient. On a larger scale, Ultraspeed have built a DC-powered data centre in London and claims to save 30% of its electricity bill by doing so. Dave Berry, Edinburgh
Michael Cross has a very justified dig at wall warts (as I believe they're known in certain parts.) Douglas Adams wrote a very similar piece a while back; I think it's in one of the anthologies published after his death. Which of course leads me on to Apple machines of which D.A. was such a devotee, and reminds me that the only devices I own which have distinctive external transformers, I'll go further - that actually look quite pretty sticking out of your skirting board - are those from Mr. Jobs's workshop. Ed Walker, Halifax
ADOBE AIR: GOOD OR BAD? Websites that dump applciations on desktops? er, hasn't this sort of thing been around for some time? Otherwise known as computer viruses? Am I being Luddite in being dismayed by the thought of yet another means of delivering unwanted crud on my computer? Robert Ward, Leeds
>> Interesting, though one needs to wait and see whether this one finds more acceptability than similar efforts in the past with Java applets... http://www.eit.in/b/awe/
WEB CENSORSHIP (FINKELSTEIN) >> a "Libertarian Model" - in which there is no government censorship - is much like the element Einsteinium: it doesn't exist in nature. All puns aside, this got me thinking: is the internet the closest mankind has ever gotten to a pure Libertarian media model? http://borntocritique.blogspot.com/
HOW LONG IS FOREVER? I haven't been using personal finance software for years. Why when I can use a SAAS? My personal choice, Mvelopes Personal. No other application on the market (software or competitive SAAS) can compete with its targeted cash flow management tool. It's integrated bill pay feature brings yet another added value. I am consistently saving around 15% of my monthly income by using this service, so its inexpensive subscription fee has never phased me one bit. It in my mind is the leader in personal finance applications. They even have a localized version in your own currency, the British Sterling Pound! Ryan Ragazzo, Salt Lake City, Utah
EXPENSE OUR DATA? Robert Ward (Letters 13 September) makes sound sense, but your "Free Our Data" philosophy is more deeply flawed than he indicates. Even if taxpayers have already paid for official data to be collected and analysed, making it available on demand free of charge is definitely not a zero-cost option. Have you asked us taxpayers if we're happy to bear the extra tax cost, or even tried to establish what that might be? Secondly, spreading such costs among all taxpayers is fair only if everyone makes roughly the same use of the service. I have no need for Ordnance Survey stuff. Why should I pay the costs of enquiries others make, particularly if they are making a profit on the deal? "Free" data? What time is the next flying pig? Robert Sproat, London
MICROSOFT AND OOXML I was interested to read Charles Arthur's piece on the problems Microsoft faces in supporting legacy formats (Microsoft closes ranks on Office Open XML, Sept 7). Mr Arthur is quite right, of course, that Microsoft has always valued backwards compatibility more highly that most other PC companies (the champions of the artform are probably IBM, where software written for a 1960s mainframe will often still run on a modern system today). Whereas Microsoft tortured itself trying to ensure that old DOS programs worked on Windows '95, Apple made far less effort with the move to Mac OS X and Mac users just had to lump it. This does seem to have been a winning strategy for Microsoft whilst, as noted in the piece, leaving them with piles of legacy cruft to support. Should this be reason to feel a little sorry for Microsoft's problems in getting OOXML as a recognised standard? Perhaps, but that seems to miss the main reason for Microsoft's problems, touched on by Mr Arthur and mentioned elsewhere by Jack Schofield (e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jun/21/comment.comment1). It isn't that Microsoft has all the legacy formats to support that's the real problem; it's that they won't give anyone else the specifications for those formats. Of course, that's a direct result of Microsoft furthering its own business interests rather than helping consumers. We'd all have been much better off if we'd been able to convert documents flawlessly between WordPerfect, MS Word and WordPro back in the 1990s, but then we'd have been able to buy products based on which was the best for our needs, rather than because that's what most other people had bought, and Microsoft would never have established its near-monopoly of the Office Suite market. It could quite possibly be that these old formats are not documented in any sensible way even internally within Microsoft, and opening up the formats now would be more trouble than it's worth; but it seems a bit much for Microsoft to use secret file formats as a way to beat the opposition into submission ten years ago and now to ask for our sympathy over the problems they have producing an open format now. Iain Roberts, Stockport
ONLINE CRIME Wendy M Grossman "Why small online fraudsters get away with it" (6th September) is right to highlight problems of investigating internet-based fraud, but is wrong to blame it on the "disappearance" of the National High-Tech Crime Unit into the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) where their role is largely unchanged. Calls for a central e-crime reporting mechanism are understandable but misplaced: We don't have a central unit for reporting mail-order based crime or malicious phone calls, instead each police officer is trained in how to deal with these commonplace crimes. Internet-based fraud is much the same and each police force already has trained experts who should not require a central unit's assistance. As Wendy herself found in her own case. The problems partly stem from many police officers (of all ranks) and businesses not knowing the basic workings of the internet and therefore preferring someone else to take on their problems, a perfectly natural reaction which can be changed with a few hours careful training. These problems are then exacerbated by the difficulty of obtaining evidence due to legislative bureaucracy and poor assistance from internet companies, for example even eBay could provide a faster and more pro-active service to combat fraud. (name & address withheld by request)
IPHONE KEYBOARD REDUX Yes, people are fast NOW with texting because they've had years to get used to it AND they have the predictive text functionality. this test gave them only 30 minutes and no predictive text function? you can't call that a serious study. i think more people are complaining about the slow internet and poor telephone service which is more a problem of the one service provider monopoly that they have going right now. Let a couple more companies have access to the iPhone and watch how quickly the service improves. Ornette Coleman, London
