IF there's one group that loves controversy as much as the Fourth Estate, it must be the publicity industry (well, within reason).
But some seem to be getting ahead of themselves in manufacturing controversy where none exists.
Open Source was intrigued when a news release lobbed into the inbox advising that Motorola had produced a new model in its popular KRZR flip phone line, describing it as a controversial piece and a fashion statement .
Now Open Source looked and looked and couldn't see where the controversy was. About the only thing novel about the handset was that it was being produced in champagne gold livery. Was Motorola worried that such a phone might produce mass handset envy?
A closer look at the release revealed the probable glitch. The controversial piece title in the subject header was changed to the less frantic conversation piece in the body of the release. The release was quickly recalled.
SAP took over Vienna earlier this month for the European version of the Sapphire user shindig, but the German enterprise software mob didn't quite have the pretty Austrian capital all to itself.
Open Source tagged along to the gig in the city of wiener schnitzels, museums and steins of exotic lager as a guest of SAP and was handed a tram and rail pass for getting about.
Vienna has a tram system to die for, with reams of the light-rail jiggers making easy work of the trek from city hotels out to the Sapphire conference centre.
The trouble, for SAP, was that every second tram was bedecked in, you guessed it, Oracle ads.
FANCY a night of live, passionate, stirring orchestral music, but are more used to sitting behind the controls of your games console.
Well, now classical music-loving games geeks can have their cake and eat it too when some of the great musical works of modern gamedom make their orchestral debut at the Sydney Opera House.
Open Source was bemused this week when a promotional email landed in his xbox, er, inbox with a picture of the iconic game character Sonic inviting him to a night of culture with PLAY! A Video Game Symphony, in Sydney next month.
Apparently having wowed the highbrow audiences of the US, Europe and Japan, the performance is winging its way south for a season of shows here from June 19-23.
The shows will feature the epic sounds of gaming classics such as Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, HALO, Super Mario Bros, Castlevania and Sonic the Hedgehog, performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and choral group Cantillation, all while giant screens suspended over the stage display gameplay images from these console legends.
Open Source can only be grateful that the theme from games classics such as Frogger didn't make the cut.
IT should probably come as no surprise to hear that the PLAY symphonists have already made the trek to Japan.
Indeed, Open Source thinks it would have been a sure-fire hit in the country that worships manga and Beatles and Elvis impersonators.
Surely most travellers to Tokyo have been aware for years of the weekly Sunday gathering at Yoyogi Park for which the city's young groovers dress up as rockabilly rebel hep cats and strut their stuff.
Now this subculture has been joined by another group, Cosplayers, who dress up as their favourite games characters and meet at the park for weekly get-togethers.
This trend has spread elsewhere. Just last week a Cosplayers international convention, the Blizzard World Wide Invitation, was held in neighbouring Korea bringing Cosplayers from all points of the globe.
Is it too soon to warn of a likely invasion of Cosplayers to our shores around the time of the PLAY concert?
LEST readers be under the misconception that tech writing is a highly -paid occupation, Open Source wants to state for the record that few of our colleagues are likely to join Australia's 50 richest people list on the basis of their efforts in these pages.
That still didn't stop Open Source and colleagues getting their hopes up earlier this week when a well-meaning acquaintance sent a clipping from the New Yorker advising us to keep it in mind come next salary review time.
It seems there is hope for us yet, following the example of one of the doyens of the US technology press, Wall Street Journal columnist Walter S.
Mossberg.
A highly influential gadget writer, Mossberg contributes a personal technology column each Thursday in the Wall Street Journal's marketplace section.
His influence has now been recognised with the news that he has recently signed an estimated $US1 million a year, four-year contract to keep up his flow of words of wisdom.
That could buy a lot of iPods.
This week:
Apple has filed a patent for a buttonless mouse with no scroll ball or wheel. Send us your top 10 suggestions for other features that could be eliminated from electronic gadgets.
10. Features you could eliminate from a mobile phone: television, the internet, radio, MP3 player, Bluetooth, infrared, games, email, still camera, video camera, image editing software, video editing software, DJ software, flashlight, voice recorder, notebook, mirror, stopwatch, calendar, alarm, calculator, themes, wallpaper, screensaver, funky ringtones, un-funky ringtones.
9.
Any form of beep, blip or boink.
8. KEYBOARDS COULD BE SOLD WITHOUT CAPS-LOCK KEYS.
EMAILS IN ALL-CAPS ARE REALLY ANNOYING.
7. The blue pixel.
No more of those pesky blue screens!
6. The thin toaster door on the side of your portable PC.
What? It plays music?
5.
The electric shocks from the keyboard. Aren't they supposed to do that?
4.
Keyboard: follow Apple's mouse design and replace all keys with one key.
3. Monitor: stop all the workers watching porn all day.
2. Bass and treble controls on car audio systems: they are set to maximum and minimum, respectively, all the time anyway.
1.
Replace all the fiddly buttons on the television remote with just four: on, off, sport and movies.
Contributors: Mick Owen, Graham Wilcox, Alex Rigozzi, Digby Jacobs, Paul Burgess, Keith Cundale.
Next week:
Synthtravels, a virtual travel company, is offering virtual tours of the attractions of Second Life, while travel guidebooks are now appearing listing the virtual world's attractions.
Send us your top 10 advantages of virtual tourism over the real thing. All suggestions welcome by lunchtime Thursday.
All Top 10 correspondence: with Top 10 in the subject field.
THE British Home Office has shelled out almost 9000 ($21,430) on iPods to help train top civil servants. A spokeswoman said: As with all Home Office IT equipment, the video iPods should be used appropriately, for work purposes, and will be monitored accordingly.
So, all those civil servants with John Cleese on iPods on the Tube are watching training films, not Fawlty Towers or Monty Python.
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