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Technology Update

By Sean McManus

Last one out, turn off the office

Many offices throughout Europe will close over the Christmas period, but will they shut down their computers and other hardware first? According to research by Canon, more than six million PCs will be left on in the UK during the holidays. Together with peripherals, they will waste £8.6 million of energy - enough to microwave 268 million mince pies. They're also expected to pump 19,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These wallpapers make the point nicely.

UK patients to get health database opt-out

Patients in the UK will have the right to stop their GPs entering their medical information into a national NHS database, the government has conceded. The database has been proposed as a way to speed up emergency care, by providing instant access to health records nationwide.

After all, nobody knows where or when they'll have an accident. But privacy campaigners have expressed concern that it will give millions of NHS staff and pharmacists access to private healthcare and demographic information. The BBC reports that patients will be able to review and amend details online before they are shared and will have to express any opt-out at that stage. Let's hope that the government sets the highest standards of accessibility for the web interface, so that everybody has an equal right to privacy.

Google axes its search API

The Register reports that Google has axed its SOAP application program interface, which enabled developers to integrate Google search results with their own programs and websites. While Google does offer an alternative AJAX API, the move is a blow for developers who used the old API because they will probably have to re-write their applications.

For now, Google is offering passive support for the old API but not allowing any new developers to adopt it. Web services make integration with third party applications easier, but developers who integrate with third-party services also relinquish some control over their applications. If Google switches off the API, software based on it will stop working. The AJAX API has been criticised for its more restrictive terms of use which forbid developers from changing the order of search results or mixing in results from other sources.

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Consumer Technology Update

By Lance Concannon

Sci-Fi nerds rejoice!

The BBC has announced plans to make hundreds of its TV shows legally available via a peer-to-peer file sharing network. The shows will include favourites such as Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, the League of Gentlemen and Fawlty Towers, which will be available on the Azureus file sharing network thanks to a deal struck between the Bit-Torrent client developer and the BBC earlier this year. The files will be protected with Digital Rights Management software to prevent them from being illegally distributed on other networks. Pricing for the content has yet to be announced.

iPhone Launches, but not from Apple

After months of speculation over the imminent launch of Apple's iPhone, it seems that the company may not even be legally entitled to use that brand name. This week Cisco subsidiary, Linksys, launched a range of voice over IP handsets under the iPhone brand - apparently the company acquired the rights to the name when it bought out Infogear some years ago. Quite where this leaves Apple is unclear, but it's unlikely to stop the Mac fans frothing at the mouth, no matter what the company does.

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Marketing Update

By Elissa Fry and Sally Forge

Sony fakes website

Sony, quite obviously lacking Christmas spirit this year, has been exposed as an online fraud by promoting its PlayStation Portable handheld console through less than reputable means. According to Brand Republic, Sony launched an online viral campaign, intended to boost its PSP Sales, masked as a genuine fan site unaffiliated with the brand.

Not only did the site include a video clip of "Cousin Pete" rapping away about the virtues of owning a PSP, but when gaming enthusiasts smelt a rat and voiced their concerns, administrators of the site were quick to deny any involvement. I guess we know which of Santa's "naughty and nice" lists Sony will be on this year!

Millets' Christmas viral game

Outdoors pursuits shop Millets has launched a Christmas-themed viral game, in order to collect email addresses from entrants into a prize draw. The aim of Yulelob is to throw Christmas presents down chimneys, aiming correctly from a moving Santa sleigh. Revolution magazine says the game has already attracted 17,000 visitors and the agency that created it says it took two weeks to make the game.

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US Media Report

By Heather Lynch

The National Press Foundation has named its 2006 award winners. Art Buchwald, previous Pulitzer winner political humour columnist with The Washington Post, receives the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award. Other winners of the NPF awards include Brody Mullins of The Wall Street Journal, receiving an Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Coverage of Congress in the print journalism category. The awards will be honoured in February at a dinner in Washington D.C.

John Udell, columnist and lead analyst at Infoworld, is leaving the title to join Microsoft. Prior to Infoworld, he had freelanced for Linux Magazine among others, and was a columnist for Byte.com. A new IT Channel title will launch in February, ChannelPro Magazine: The Insiders Guide to SMB, targeting IT professionals. Laurie Sullivan, a freelance writer and previous editor at InformationWeek and TechWeb among others, will be starting as a tech staff writer with Red Herring.

UK Media Report

By Annie Kasmai

Joe Bolger has relocated from the technology team to the industrials team at The Times.

Scott Snowden, features editor at CRN, is leaving the publication to join The Register on 15th January 2007.

NME.com is planning to expand the brand in the US by launching new services on its website. The plan is to increase news coverage on the site and increase interactivity with users through a news comment feature and an enhanced gigs and ticket section. NME has already launched news desks in LA and New York, and has now introduced online desktop alerts to provide users with music news and reviews from the website.

Web 2.0 Watch

By Fiona Blamey

Time magazine has named you its Person of the Year for 2006, putting you in the same league as Hitler, Einstein, Stalin and - until its advertisers protested - Osama Bin Laden.

But before you go rushing off to update your CV, start a war or invent your own special theory, let's see if it was really you that Time was thinking of. For the 2006 Person of the Year title hasn't been given to any old 'you', but rather those of you who have contributed to the global media revolution that is Web 2.0.

In Time's own words, this year's Person of the Year is anyone who "made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. [Who] blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. [Who] camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software."

For all its bandwagoneering (Wired, for example, hailed the users as the driving force of the 'new' Web way back in August 2005), Time has a good point. Its Person of the Year title is bestowed upon the individual or individuals who had the most impact on the media agenda in that year. And while there are plenty of individuals who (for better or worse) dominated the political, social and environmental stage in 2006, it was the bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers and amateur reviewers who continued to turn the whole concept of 'the media' on its head - to the extent that even old media behemoths like Time have no choice but to acknowledge defeat and join in the fray.

And for that, 'you' should be justly proud.