Welcome

Hello, and welcome to the Prompt newsletter. This week, we examine a new report that claims that servers are more damaging to the environment than planes and 4X4s, take a look at a campaign to make voting machine code open source, and reveal how Santa Claus is corrupting our children. We also report on this year’s Tokyo International Robot Exhibition, which as an acronym would be TIRE. As if we could ever tire of Robots!

I hope you enjoy the newsletter. If you want more, take a look at the Prompt blog.

Hazel Butters, CEO - Prompt Communications

Technology News

Servers less green than SUVs. And planes.
By Dave Wilby

The servers in your datacentre are as big a threat to climate calamity as the 4x4s in your car parks, and um, the jets in your private hangar, according to a new report from UK-based charitable environmental organisation Global Action Plan and the Environmental IT Leadership Team (EILT). Dig through all the strange comparisons of badness and un-green-ity in ‘An Inefficient Truth’ and there’s some interesting stuff here for IT managers to think about. We’re not quite sure we understand how the charity’s director Trewin Restorick equates the power consumed by his company’s server to an “average SUV doing 15 miles to the gallon” but New Scientist seems convinced, and we’re quite willing to believe that “86% of ICT departments surveyed for the report do not know the carbon footprint of their activities and less than 20% even see their energy bills”.

Santa ruins Microsoft’s Christmas
By Duncan Heaney

The Christmas silly season has officially started! The web community has been shocked / amused this week by the antics of a Microsoft-released Santa bot on their Windows Live Messenger service. Computer World reports that the contact, northpole@live.com, was meant to provide people with a 21st Century way for children to ask Santa for presents through instant messaging. Unfortunately, it seems that the artificial intelligence was not quite up to par.

Rather than being a kindly old symbol of giving, the bot came across as more of a disturbing old pervert. Presented with simple statements, such as the promise of eating pizza, the bot would inexplicably start talking about… things that many believe inappropriate. Statements such as ‘I want some cake for Christmas,’ could get Santa talking about drugs.

The entire shameful / hilarious incident has been charted by The Register who broke the story. (Link here – be aware that the article contains some very naughty words – mostly from Santa). Microsoft immediately tried to change the bot’s language, but it could still be goaded into talking about inappropriate things.

Ultimately, Microsoft was unsatisfied with the way the robot was behaving and made the decision to shut it down completely. It looks like children will have to contact Santa the old fashioned way after all – a letter to the North Pole, or staying up all night on Christmas Eve.

US Media News

By Tarryn Morley

US

Rachel Konrad has resigned from her role as a technology writer for the Associated Press . She will continue to report on trademark and intellectual property disputes and the economy from the Associated Press's San Jose, Calif. bureau until Dec. 21. Konrad has also previously served as a senior writer for CNET.com .

Deni Connor is no longer senior editor of Network World magazine. She will, however, remain a contributing writer with the publication, covering storage, disaster recovery, Novell and MACs. Connor is founder and principal analyst of recently launched analyst firm Storage Strategies NOW. The firm focuses on storage products, technology and data centre issues for technology vendors, IT professionals, and institutional investors.

Wailin Wong has been appointed technology reporter for the Chicago Tribune . Wong previously worked as an emerging markets reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and as a correspondent from the newswire's Buenos Aires bureau

1105 Media, Inc. will launch Virtualization Review beginning March 2008. The monthly print magazine will cover the virtualization industry and its vendors, as well as coverage of the newest technologies and products. Doug Barney, the editor and editorial director of several other 1105 publications, is the founder and editor in chief of Virtualization Review.

UK Media News

By Tarryn Morley

UK

The Independent and the Independent on Sunday business desks are integrating under the Independent's business editor, Jeremy Warner. Similarly, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph recently merged their daily, Sunday and online business sections.

In further changes at the Independent on Sunday, Margareta Pagano has been appointed business editor. Pegano replaces Andrew Murray-Watson who left the role last Friday. Pegano has previously worked as a senior financial journalist at the Times, the Guardian and the Sunday Telegraph. She will take up her position in the New Year and will report to Jeremy Warner.

Christopher Adams has been appointed lead writer at the Financial Times. Adams joined the FT in 1996 and has held various positions at the publication, including the role of political correspondent.

Journalists from the Guardian will be producing video blogs for Current, the television station and peer-to-peer video network founded by Al Gore. Each day, the Guardian journalists will supply a video for Current TV, which is available on Sky and Virgin Media. The videos will also appear on the Guardian Unlimited website and on Current.com, which launched a UK version last month.

Plan for Open Source Code in Voting Machines stumbles in San Francisco
By Duncan Heaney

There has been a call for a while now for the code in voting machines in the US to be open source, so that the inner workings can be scrutinised publically for any signs of tampering and as a check for accuracy. The San Francisco Chronicle explains that these campaigners had found some support in San Francisco, with a Board of Supervisors committee seeing the benefits of making voting systems transparent.

However, on the 6th December, campaigners experienced a set back. The committee announced a proposed $12.6 million contract with Sequoia Voting Systems, a company that does not use open source code in its machines. As a way to placate open source advocates, safeguards are being set up, such as an independent review of the software used to tally votes.

The board revealed that although they would have preferred complete transparency in their electronic voting system, the option was simply not available. “The reality is, that open source voting technology that we all desire is not there yet and will not be available to us for several years to come,” explained Aaron Peskin, Board President.

Another large problem is that companies are very reluctant to make their code open source because of the risk that they may be giving their technology away to competitors. The city has not turned its back on the concept, however. If another voting company brings an open source product to the market, then Sequoia are legally obliged to do the same.

Japanese robots take on the world again
By Dave Wilby

The bi-annual Tokyo International Robot Exhibition this week was crammed with the stuff childhood dreams are made of – if, of course, you were quite a geeky child who liked reading Isaac Asimov and plotting to take over the world with a Big Trak. Which I definitely wasn’t. Anyway, this year’s show featured a bonanza of metallic marvels, including a robot waitress called Aro, a student dental patient called Simroid, a toilet cleaner called Lady Bird, and a plethora of other mechanical chaps that can build cars, remove asbestos, demonstrate exercises, guide dumb humans through crowds, help out with endoscopic surgery or just act like friendly pet seals. I love robots I do, but every year I rely on The Times to remind me about this brilliant exhibition. If only Honda would design me a helpful robotic pal to be my friend and tell me all about the cool things in the world…

Web 2.0 Watch
By Lance Concannon

Is ‘Facebook Fatigue’ finally setting in?

Is it just me, or is Facebook starting to get a bit old? Purely from an annecdotal point of view, whenever a conversation crops up about the ubiquitous social networking platform these days it seems to me that a lot more people talk about being bored with it or simply not having enough time to keep up with all their pokes. For most of this year, the media has seized on pretty much any story, no matter how pointless, so long as it has some tenuous connection with Facebook, just like Second Life before it, but now that’s starting to change. Most of the headlines about Facebook at the moment are concerned with privacy issues and intrusive advertising.

It would be foolish to imagine Facebook as just another fad which will soon fade into obscurity, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to justify the company’s $15 billion valuation (although, as Wired points out, this valuation isn’t entirely concrete). At present, the company’s valuation seems largely to be based on its potential as an advertising platform, but there’s little evidence so far that its CPM banner advertising model will be any more successful than any other web site. I’m guessing the typical Facebook user is likely to be highly resistant to being marketed at while they’re trying to interact with their friends.

I’m certain Facebook has a rosy future, but I think once the novelty wears off and the press inevitably starts to lose interest, we might need to take another look at whether that $15 billion still sounds like a reasonable figure.

Website of the Week
By Duncan Heaney

www.santabot.com

The shutting down of Microsoft’s foul-mouthed Santa bot was greeted with a collective wail of despair from bored IT workers across the world. They had enjoyed goading Santa into inappropriate conversations, and now they would have to find something else to do to avoid working.

But they needn’t have worried – www.santabot.com provides users with another way to converse with Old St. Nick. This bot is a lot cleaner than Microsoft’s, but with creativity and ingenuity, it is still possible to make it say funny things. I’ll leave it to you to discover how for yourselves.

And a final word of advice – don’t ask it about the programming language used. Normally he’s quite concise with his answers, but mention AIML…

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.