- The year is just getting started, and that can mean only
one thing: It's time to reflect on the most shameful, dishonest, and just
plain stupid tech moments of 2003.
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- Microsoft: In the crapper?
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- Part 1 The PC in the WC. On April 30, Microsoft U.K.
issues a press release touting a new product called the iLoo, an Internet-enabled
toilet equipped with a Wi-Fi broadband connection, a plasma flat screen,
a waterproof keyboard, and sponsored toilet paper festooned with Web addresses.
According to the release, the iLoo will "allow instant logging on."
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- Part 2 Johnny on the spot. Twelve days later, after much
snickering in morning newspapers and on late-night talk shows, Microsoft
flacks back in Redmond come up with a clever strategy for damage control.
The iLoo, says spokeswoman Kathy Gill, was merely an "April Fool-like
joke."
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- Part 3 Something doesn't smell right. The next day, realizing
that nobody's buying the April-Fool's-joke-29-days-after-April-Fool's-Day
explanation, Microsoft calls back reporters and admits that it had told
an iLulu: The project was indeed real but has subsequently been killed.
"We jumped the gun basically yesterday in confirming that it was a
hoax," says MSN group product manager Lisa Gurry. "In fact, it
was not."
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- Think they'll buy the April Fool's joke thing again?
Michael Hanscom, a temp worker at Microsoft's in-house print shop, is fired
after posting to his blog a photo that showed workers at the facility taking
delivery of several Apple G5 computers. His supervisor insists that Hanscom
was fired not for showing the company relying on the product of its chief
rival, but for revealing the location of one of its shipping and receiving
departments.
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- We hear the computer science department sucks anyway
In February, Cornell University sends out an e-mail to incoming freshmen
that begins, "Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!"
The message is sent to all 1,700 students who applied for early decision,
including the 550 who've been rejected.
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- Saddam's Viagra-spam terror!
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- In February, Computerworld publishes an article in which
"Abu Mujahid," a Pakistani operative linked to al Qaeda, claims
responsibility for releasing the Slammer virus. The magazine pulls the
story three hours after it's posted online. "Mujahid" is revealed
to be Brian McWilliams, a freelance writer who created a fake Web site
to lure gullible journalists.
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- Register with Squanderingbillions.com?
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- In October, three and a half years after buying Network
Solutions for $21 billion, VeriSign sells its dotcom-registration business
for $100 million.
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- I wanted to seem petty and vindictive?
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- "There is no business justification. That's not
why I did it." Lindows.com founder Michael Robertson, whose rhymes-with-Windows
company is in the midst of a legal dispute with Microsoft, on the revelation
that he's the formerly anonymous donor behind a $200,000 contest to hack
Microsoft's Xbox.
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- He's got to pass the time somehow
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- In March, Apple Computer appoints former vice president
Al Gore to its board of directors. Apple CEO Steve Jobs reassuringly notes
that Gore, who famously dumped his Mac for a PC in 2000, now uses a Mac
again. In November, Falcon Waterfree Technologies announces that Gore has
joined its advisory board. No word on whether Gore has started using Falcon's
product, a waterless urinal.
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- Al Gore's not interested
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- Despite claims that it "allows people to go farther
and move more quickly anywhere they currently walk," Segway finds
few buyers for the $4,000 Human Transporter scooter in its first year on
sale after it's banned for use on sidewalks by local governments from San
Francisco to Key West. In June, its "self-balancing" claims are
also put to the test when photos of George W. Bush "riding" a
Segway begin circulating on the Internet.
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- A masked guy said the same thing when the cops found
him in front of the bank vault
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- "We looked at a document in the public domain. It's
not some protected preserve with lots of protected content." Larry
Lunetta, an executive at security startup ArcSight, claiming that his firm
did nothing wrong after an employee was caught red-handed poking around
in password-protected files on a competitor's Web site.
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- Influence software sales
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- "Terrorists do things designed to intimidate people,
and we see a lot of that going on all the time -- people trying to attack
us or people that we're associated with." SCO Group CEO Darl McBride,
complaining about the backlash from hundreds of thousands of Linux users
after the former Linux software vendor sued IBM, a major Linux proponent,
for allegedly violating its intellectual-property rights.
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- Designing fonts in Redmond
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- "Microsoft has learned of a mistake in the Bookshelf
Symbol 7 font ... we failed to identify, prior to the release, the presence
of two swastikas within the font. We apologize for this and for any offense
caused." From a statement released in December by Microsoft senior
vice president Steven Sinofsky.
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- Stump recording-industry executives
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- After SunnComm Technologies rolls out new CD copy-protection
software in September, a Princeton student figures out how to disable it.
The devious hack: holding down the "Shift" key.
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- © 2004 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner
Company. All Rights Reserved.
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- http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/02/05/bus2.feat.dumbest.moments/index.html
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