Waiter, there's an RFID tag in my
cannelloni
Downtime loves top-quality Parmesan. None of that pre-grated
supermarket rubbish for us. Nevertheless, we are concerned at plans
to use radio frequency identification tags to guarantee the
authenticity of the products.
Apparently, blocks of Parmigiano Reggiano, which costs about £18
a kilo in the UK, will start shipping from the end of this year
with an RFID tag inserted into the base of the cheese.
Members of the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano Reggiano are
testing eight different types of tags in their cheese, including -
worryingly - a glass tag, in a project to stop Parmesan
pirates.
Embroidering the need for software
protection
On the subject of piracy, we all know about the major software
pirating operations based in Russia and China scooping millions,
nay billions, from the impoverished accounts of software
giants.
But it doesn't stop there - and the industry is hitting back.
The Embroidery Software Protection Coalition is now at the
forefront of safeguarding the intellectual property of the computer
industry.
Its website declares, "Piracy is as old as the Barbary Coast
[exactly as old, in geological time? Forgive Downtime's pedantry -
let's continue], yet with the Internet Age, the illegal manufacture
and distribution of pirated designs and software has become
considerably easier in recent years, mostly due to computer
technology developments and the low cost of replication materials
and equipment."
The ESPC is now suing two Missouri women for copyright
infringement and defamation.
Downtime thinks they may have been stitched up.
Washing line decisions are made a breeze
Computerised cross-stitching is nothing compared to the next
example of the transformative power of IT - the killer mobile app
for your laundry.
Website www.stendibiancheria.net could become essential for all
those who regularly hang their laundry outside to dry. As the
summer nears its end, the big questions are when to put it out, how
long to leave it and whether there is a likely to be a shower,
which could put a bit of a damper on the whole experience.
So the stendibiancheria site sends users an SMS letting them
know how long it will take for clothes to dry, the best time to put
laundry out and whether it is going to rain. At the moment, the
site runs in Italy, but Downtime expects world domination soon.
Blair scores a duck over bird-scaring
devices
Downtime was considering a quick visit to this week's Labour
Party Conference to witness the final speech from Tony Blair. He
deserves a decent send-off.
His government, after all, has for almost a decade operated an
outdoor relief policy for IT professionals and IT companies. Never
has so much been paid by so many (taxpayers) for so little.
However, for all New Labour's talk about the transformational
power of IT and e-enabling the UK, they really lost the plot last
week and as a result we are considering boycotting the
conference.
It appears some jumped-up bureaucrat at the Department for the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs called a public inquiry into
the use of electronic bird-scaring devices around the Wash, a site
of special scientific interest between Norfolk and
Lincolnshire.
Local fishermen, stupidly swallowing the government's
e-rhetoric, have been deploying electronic devices to scare the
birds that were feeding on their mussel beds.
Amazingly, the eider ducks won. What happened to that brave new
world we all embraced so eagerly in 1997?
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