Freedom to use other suppliers

A young Norwegian hacker claims to have circumvented Apple's Fairplay management system to enable iPods to be able to download and play music from other online retailers. I am sure Apple are not happy, but as a nano and shuffle owner, it WOULD be nice to be able to buy from other places.

Hacker 'frees' iPod to play tracks not bought from iTunes

How much more of this do we need?

I understand that some small factions of Islam think that they need to totally cover up the female form, but this is not an Islamic society, we all need to be able to see a face to communicate fully, and I think it is reasonable to expect people working in state schools to fit in. If this young lady in question could take her veil off to go for interview, why does she have to now cover up in school? Why should schools be 'no-go areas for male teachers/teaching assistants, just because some religions teach that men have no self control, and women need to be 'protected' by a sack? I think that her MP is right to tell her to not pursue this to a higher court - it has cost enough as it is. But the media is whipping it up, and somehow, I don't think we have heard the last of it yet.

MP tells veil woman 'let it go'

What a fantastic job!

As a careers adviser, you look at some advertising and automatically think 'Ummm, what sort of jobs would be involved in making that? This is one of those adverts...

Exploding Paint

Airline data

I still am not too happy about the amount of data the US can access if I fly to the USA - and I wouldn't trust them to misuse it either. Their data protection record isn't that good either. At least with this latest agreement, they can't actually take the data out of the reservation systems, they have to wait for it to be sent to them, but I still think they are demanding too much information. Why should they be able to access data about my airmiles if I buy a ticket? I think the EU needs to stand up and say enough is enough, you can't have any more information, you have enough already.

EU strikes deal with US over passenger data
Passenger data deal for US and EU

Hoody

I bought this hoody last week, 'cos I just fell in love with it, and have worn it every day to university this week - despite my colleagues asking me am I getting my Asbo soon! I now read that something called 'asbo-chic' is about to hit the streets - I didn't think I was anticipating the next trend when I bought it, and I am going to wear it all winter, even if I am not allowed in certain shopping centres!

M&S fall foul of the the apostrophe

"Baby Giraffe's" was the blunder emblazoned on a pair of children's pyjamas. M&S withdrew them all from sale, apologised profusely and gave the mother who complained a full refund, M&S vouchers and a full apology for the grammatical mistake. A misplaced apostrophe is the most common grammatical error on signs - and until the current generation currently still in primary school reach the workplace, it is likely to remain so, as many years of little or no emphasis on grammar in schools is displayed in all it's glory on market stalls, FE college adverts, Tesco and M&S!

M&S: the pedant's store