Technology Newsletter
2 May 2008

Welcome

Welcome to another edition of the Prompt Newsletter.

In this week’s issue: scientists have created an electronics ‘missing link’, computer keyboards are dirtier than toilet seats, and the Webby Awards is on the way.

On the eve of the London Mayoral Election we take a look at what the online community thinks of the candidates. We also report on the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game that is getting critics and the press in a bit of a tizzy.

Finally, to celebrate the launch of our new Tech Toons blog, we’ve included our first ever cartoon, originally published back in July 2005.

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, why not take a look at our blog?

Hazel Butters, CEO - Prompt Communications

Technology News

What do bloggers think about the race to be Mayor of London?

By Ellie Turner

When this newsletter arrives in your inbox, the results of the London Mayoral Elections will be just hours away. The mud-slinging taking place between the candidates over the last few months is coming to an end.

The manifestos of the three main candidates - Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick - are all pretty similar, coming down to a bendy bus here or a congestion charge reduction there, so it seems likely that this election will be won on personality. With this in mind, it's interesting to look at Prompt's new report (PDF) into the online community's reactions to the mayoral election.

The study examined the online reaction to mayoral candidates across a wide sphere of blogs, podcasts and community generated online media. It appears that bloggers tend to focus on the negative, with Johnson and Livingstone receiving significantly more negative posts than positive. The ratio of positive and negative comments would seem to point to a win for Paddick, with a leading 31% of positive posts and only 23% negative. This doesn't reflect the view of national polls which suggest Paddick is unlikely to win.

Johnson received the least number of positive posts of the three candidates. Perhaps his bumbling appearances on comedy show 'Have I Got News For You' have earned him a reputation for being a shambolic toff. And yet many observers still expect him to win. He certainly leads the field in sheer volume of social media mentions with more than three times as many mentions as Paddick.

Prompt's report, 'London Mayoral Elections 2008 - Reactions from the online community', is already generating coverage and discussion in media outlets, including IT Pro. To download the report, click here (PDF).

Here’s the dirt on computer keyboards

By Duncan Heaney

A microbiologist has discovered that computer keyboards can be filthier than the average toilet seat.

The scientist, who was conducting research for Which Computing magazine, examined 33 keyboards and discovered a variety of nasty bugs including E coli and S aureus. In addition the keyboards were home to millions of bacteria that could cause diarrhoea.

The microbiologist took a sample from a toilet seat and a toilet door handle in a London office for comparison. One of the keyboards had to be removed from the office because it was five times dirtier than the toilet seat.

The research discovered that the chief cause of contamination was people eating at their desks and dropping crumbs into the cracks between keys. These crumbs foster the bacteria. Other reasons for the filth included people not washing their hands properly after using the toilet, and dust, which provides a perfect environment for bacteria to grow.

So what can we do? I, of course, wrote this story wearing a full environment suit, but those of you who aren’t farsighted or paranoid enough to carry one around with you will have to make do with gloves. Or, as Sarah Kidner, editor of Which Computing suggests, we could give our computers a good clean now and then.

US Media News

By Tarryn Morley

L. Gordon Crovitz has rejoined the Wall Street Journal as a technology contributing columnist. Crovitz was previously the WSJ's publisher from February 2006 to December 2007. In his new role, he will be writing Information Age, a column in the opinion pages that examines digital culture and its effects on society. It also discusses public policy, innovation, and national security issues.

Yuki Noguchi stepped down from her position as technology editor for the Washington Post on 25 April. She has served as technology editor since December 2006, focusing mainly on how technology is absorbed into culture. Noguchi previously held the role of telecommunications reporter. After leaving the Post, she will join NPR/National Public Radio as a business reporter.

Gavin Harper and Billy Shih recently launched EcoGeek, a blog focusing on green technology. EcoGeek covers environmentally friendly technology and technology companies, as well as ways businesses are trying to implement green practices.

Jordan Golson has resigned from his role as reporter at Valleywag, a blog focusing on technology industry gossip and the people and stories of Silicon Valley. Valleywag is looking for a Silicon Valley-based replacement for Golson.

UK Media News

By Tarryn Morley

TechRadar has promoted James Rivington from news reporter to reviews editor. Rivington has been with the site for nearly two years. His new position involves managing the reviews section on TechRadar.com, which has roughly 7,000 reviews.

Paul Jones has been appointed online editor at Business Matters, a monthly magazine for the owners of small and medium sized enterprises in the UK. In his new role, Jones will also act as digital media manager for the title and will be responsible for much of the dedicated content on the Business Matters website.

Lucy Hedges is the new editorial assistant at Shiny Shiny, Shiny Media’s technology title for women. In her new position, Hedges will produce content for the website, manage loan stock and film video blogs. Prior to joining Shiny Shiny, Hedges was a freelance writer for Toyology.co.uk.

Lauren MacGillivray has been appointed senior reporter for Insurance Times, a weekly publication covering the insurance industry. Prior to joining Insurance Times, she worked at Citywire as a reporter with the New Model Adviser magazine and website. MacGillivray has also previously worked for a daily newspaper in Canada. In further changes at the publication, Andrew Holt recently left Insurance Times to join an energy company publication.

Tech Totals

By Zachariah N. Hofer-Shall

$100 million
The amount spent creating Grand Theft Auto IV, which hit shelves this week. This is the most ever spent developing a single video game

609,000
The number of copies sold in the UK alone during the first 24 hours of sales; the most copies of any one game ever sold in a single day

$400 million +
Total expected sales for GTA IV during this week, which would pass ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ for the highest-grossing opening week of any form of entertainment

Apprentice UK Quote of the Week

“No apostrophe in the history of the English language has been argued over so fiercely.”

Sir Alan Sugar’s aide Nick Hewer on the three hour National Singles / Single’s / Singles’ Day card debacle, which involved the Renaissance team calling the British Library and sub editors of the Daily Telegraph for help.

Webby Awards on the way

By Dave Wilby

The 12^th Annual Webby Awards is looming ever closer. Nominees in all categories were posted on the official site this week, while voting also closed for the People’s Voice version of the awards. The Webby Awards is an annual international roll of honour for all things excellent online. Established in 1996, The Webbys is presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), a 550-member body of leading web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

After the awards, The Webby Awards website acts as an extensive quality online link resource, broken down into over 80 website, interactive advertising, multimedia and mobile categories. The actual winners aren’t decided until 9 and 10 June, but as CNET’s ‘The Social’ blog points out, nominees are already hitting bars around the globe to drum up support, despite the fact that “The Webbys are still more than a month away. That's eons in Internet time”.

Electronics ‘missing link’ could lead to brain chips

By Dave Wilby

A previously "mythical" device known as a 'memristor' has been created by HP scientists who were messing around with nanoscale circuits for sunscreen research. This could now open the way to circuits that work just like the human brain. According to New Scientist, the memristor, a high-tech cocktail of resistors, capacitors and inductors first predicted in 1971, could help develop denser memory chips as well as electronic circuits that closely mimic the synapses of the human brain.

Original research conducted by Leon Chua at the University of California, Berkeley has now been taken on by Stan Williams and colleagues at Hewlett-Packard's lab in Palo Alto, California. Chua claimed his predicted device would remember the amount and duration of the last voltage applied to it, a property he dubbed ‘memristance’. Williams’ team has started building these devices for real. He now wants to build memristor-based memories which will store information as resistance values and therefore need no power to hold on to the data.

Judge demands an explanation for White House email loss

By Oliver Greaves

A federal magistrate judge has criticised the US government for failing to answer questions about missing White House emails.

Shortly after it took office, the Bush administration decided it was time to upgrade its mailing system, changing its Lotus Notes email system to Microsoft Outlook and Exchange. Apparently, compatibility issues broke the automated archiving system and a number of emails were lost.

The powers that be decided that it wouldn’t be a problem, and that White House employees could just save each document by hand. Unfortunately, this is not a fool-proof method and was seen by few to be the ideal way to be dealing with important government communications and documents. It is a legal requirement that government files are meticulously archived.

Ultimately, all attempts to retrofit the old Lotus Notes system to work with the new system either failed or were abandoned. The embarrassing situation caused Steven McDevitt, a senior official in the White House IT shop, to resign from his position in disgust.

The situation also resulted in two lawsuits from public interest groups'Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington', and the 'National Security Archive'. A federal judge last week heard about how the White House had lost its email and data and said that the government must answer any questions about the matter in full.

GTA 4 real?

By Oliver Greaves

Game critics are calling it possibly the best game ever made. The public has been pre-ordering it and waiting by front doors for six months. But nothing could have prepared us for what happened when Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) was released. Queues stretched around the corner from every shop that sold the game and buying the game seemed like an impossible task.

As of the time of writing, GTA IV has already made an astonishing £200 million. Often games this hyped disappoint, but GTA IV is astonishing game critics worldwide. The size of the metropolis in which you roam is gigantic and the game play and effects are reported by many as breathtaking.

BBC reporter Marc Cieslak said that while the latest title in the GTA franchise remains true to its roots, “the game has been refined and honed to such a degree that it makes most other third-person action titles seem hollow and empty in comparison”.

In the latest game you star as an eastern European called Niko Bellic who has moved from his homeland to Liberty City to join his cousin. While adapting to the Liberty City lifestyle you get caught up with gangsters, robberies and murders.

GTA has always been in the sights of the media, and true to form the latest release is already stirring up controversy. Parental group 'Mothers Against Drunk Driving' have strongly criticised the game for allowing players to drink and drive (while out on a murder spree).

Even so, I can’t see this style of game coming to an end any time soon. The profit from them is too high and they’re just too much fun.

Website of the Week

With Sean McManus

Bigbarn

Whether you’re a greenie or a foodie, Bigbarn is the site for you. It helps you to find local food producers, from butchers to ‘pick your own’ farms. If you enter your postcode (sorry, UK only), it’ll show you outlets within 15 miles or more of your home. The site also provides yummy recipes using vegetables that are in season, so you don’t have to have your greens flown from the other side of the world.

Tech Toon

Our weekly cartoons are scripted by Prompt’s team and illustrated by Charlotte Blatchford. We’ve just launched our Tech Toons blog, where we’re posting cartoons from our newsletter archive and you can leave your comments. You’re allowed to use the cartoons on your own non-commercial website or blog, provided you give us a credit and a link. To celebrate the blog launch, here’s our first cartoon from 8 July 2005.

We hope you find the Prompt Communications newsletter an interesting read. For any feedback on our newsletter, or to discuss how we can help you with your technology PR, marketing, social media/blogging initiatives, copywriting or surveys, please contact us using the details below. We are always delighted to hear from you.