Industrial Design Excellence Award

Check out the 2004 Bronze Award on Transportation!


Seriously. Ever thought about how nice your new mobile is, how sexy a car can be, how pretty your new furniture and so on...? Well the guys behind the Industrial Design strive to make boring things look amazing. And they deserve some aknowledgement. Visit the Industrial Design Excellence Awards site...

Watch Out for 4-1-9 scams!

I've just read a very funny story concerning 4-1-9 scams.

Maybe you have seen a recent film with Nicolas Cage where he's a professional con-man and tries to steal money by promising wealth to people. According to the US government, this kind of fraud is labeled 4-1-9 (see the article) and occurs in various forms like: Disbursement of money from wills, Contract fraud, Purchase of real estate, Conversion of hard currency, Transfer of funds from over invoiced contracts, Sale of crude oil at below market prices...

The most successful cases of Advance Fee Fraud is the fund transfer scam. In this scheme, a company or individual will typically receive an unsolicited letter by mail from a Nigerian claiming to be a senior civil servant. In the letter, the Nigerian will inform the recipient that he is seeking a reputable foreign company or individual into whose account he can deposit funds ranging from $10-$60 million that the Nigerian government overpaid on some procurement contract. Initially everything seems very easy, but soon the victim is requested to travel to Nigeria. Individuals are told that a visa will not be necessary to enter the country. The Nigerian con artists may then bribe airport officials to pass the victims through Immigration and Customs. Because it is a serious offense in Nigeria to enter without a valid visa, the victim's illegal entry may be used by the fraudsters as leverage to oblige the victims into releasing funds. And so on... the victim is trapped!

The funny part comes in: There is guy called Mike who has a site dedicated to fighting back against those who send out the notorious 419 e-mails. The story describes a case where the scammer pretended to be "Prince Joe Eboh of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)" and Mike "Father Hector Barnett of the Church of the Painted Breast"! The scammer took the bait and ended up painting his bare breast with the red Masai war-paint as a gesture of faith and belief...!

Cell-Phone SPAM

If you thought your spam problems couldn't get any worse, check your mobile phone. Cell phones are becoming the latest target of electronic junk mail, with a growing number of marketers using text messages to target subscribers. Cell phones know where they are. So you can get a CD purchase offer when you approach the local CD multistore and so on... Also there are spam messages that request you to forward them to 10 people in order to save the life of a little girl (just like e-mails). It can become very annoying. Don't forget that the same thing made the e-mail providers to start thinking of charging for e-mails in order to fight it! (story)

In Japan, where text messaging is more popular than talking on cell phones, wireless spam was a huge problem a few years ago. NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest cell-phone provider, said spam text messages overloaded its systems at times in 2000 and 2001, freezing some customers' screens and spreading programs that caused some phones to automatically dial Japan's equivalent of 911. The company eventually brought the problem under control by installing security and spam-filtering software on its network and in its phones. But do the companies really want it to stop? Don't forget that the increased circulation of SMS means revenues for them too! I hope yes. After all, considering the expansion of Bluetooth technology, soon we will be bombed with junk sms from every shop we walk by, at no cost for them, only for us.

Kill SMS Spam Where It Starts. Last month, the European Union enacted new digital privacy rules that require companies to obtain consent before they send e-mail and SMS text messages to mobile phones. Each of the EU's 15 members and 10 countries joining in May will set its own penalties. In Britain, Vodafone launched a trial service to allow its users to report when they get an unsolicited text message. If they get one, they can forward it, at no cost, to Vodafone. The company, in turn, will forward it to Britain's Standards of Telephone Information Services.

Coca Cola Spyware?

There's a new security threat at some of the US nation's military bases and it looks very much like a can of Coke. Specially rigged Coke cans, part of a summer promotion, contain cell phones and global positioning chips. The winning cans from the company's "Unexpected Summer" promotion have a panel on the outside and a big red button like a cell phone device. Winners activate it by pushing the button, which can call Coke's prize center.

That has officials at some installations worried the cans could be used to eavesdrop, and they are trying to establish protective measures. The Coca Cola Company explains that there is nothing to worry about, but still US military bases are asking soldiers to xamine their Coke cans before bringing them in to classified meetings. The Marine Corps said all personnel had been advised of the cans and to keep them away from secure areas. Paul Saffo, research director at "The Institute for the Future", a technology research firm, compared the concern about the Coke cans to when the Central Intelligence Agency banned Furbies, the stuffed toys that could repeat phrases!

I'd love to see new McGuyver episodes where he could bring down a nuclear military base using a can of coke and a talking doll! Paranoia goes better with coke...

Super Smart Ringtone Album !

Ok. How about this: A fine example of our digital life and the digital madness...
A group from Germany called "Super Smart" released their first album only in ringtone format. Forget about cd's, the future is here! The price is only 2 euros and it is easily downloadable and portable to your cell phone. The group is supposed to attack the music industry this way bypassing the normal -expensive- music distribution channels. Moreover, the album is not crappy, you can listen to samples of "Panda Babies" on the Official Site.

Phone ringtones are big business. An estimated £70m of ringtones were sold in the UK in 2003, up from £40m in 2002. GoFresh (a Mobile Music label) already signed up 20 artists and last month said it has sold a million ringtones in just under a year of operation.
Specialisation on musical production is not fresh. Already there are people who write music for supermarkets, elevators, commercial jingles, computer games, hi-tech devices... So, why not ringtones?
Next up: New-wave painters commit themselves to cell-phone logo production...!

Quick! Hide the weapons!

...and don't forget the laptop!

If you asked me how can a PC be used as a weapon I would think of 2 ways: As a remote bomb detonator and when I throw it out the window over innocent by-passers (especially after 10 consequent blue-screens). Apparently there are more ways...
It appears to be that the U.S. house of Reps. want to classify Pentium 4 and above CPUs as weapons. This would mean that all these will require export licenses.(story). Today, computer sellers are required to get a license to export any computer with performance equal to or greater than a system with 32 Intel Itanium processors. The current version of the defense authorization act would lower that limit to systems deemed "militarily critical" by the Department of Defense. That level is currently set to the equivalent of a computer using a Pentium 3 processor running at 650MHz, state of the art in 1999 but considered feeble today.

Next up: Cell phones!