REVERSE-CHARGE text messaging is the latest big thing. It began in Britain and will soon roll out across the rest of Europe, which uses the same cellphone system.
Whereas text messages normally cost nothing to receive, reverse messaging lets cellphone owners pay about 25p a time to receive business or sports news, for example. But some people now complain that they are getting messages they do not want and cannot stop, and which cost up to ÂŁ1 each to read.
Feedback asked Vodafone, the cellphone giant that introduced the reverse-billing system, the key question: can these messages be billed on arrival without the ownerâs permission?
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Vodafoneâs first answer (âCustomers should be waryâŠ.â) ducked the question. So we asked again.
Its next answer is a shocker. Although the message sender âis required to obtain the express consent of a customer before charging them for any text messageâ the system makes it âtechnically possible for a customer to be charged for a text message when they have not subscribed to a service or requested that messageâ.
Vodafone is of course now âsupporting the industry-wide initiative⊠to regulateâŠâ and so on and so on.
Fine. But couldnât Vodafone simply have launched a system that made it technically impossible for people to get ripped off in the first place?
łÒ°ż°żłÒłą·ĄâS automatic translator continues to demonstrate that professional translators need not worry too much about their job security just yet. Reader Richard Janzen was searching for a recipe for vichyssoise recently when Google came up with a novel, dual-soup recipe, âVichysoise [sic] et veloutĂ© dâavocats Ă lâorange et cuminâ.
It sounded good, so Janzen clicked the âtranslateâ button to get it in English. To his surprise, the veloutĂ© part of the recipe was entitled âVelvety lawyers with orange and cuminâ, and the ingredients given were â500 ml of orange juice, 2 quite ripe lawyers, 1 C with tea of powder poultry bubble, 1 C with table of ground cuminâ.
If youâd like the full recipe, just search Google for the phrase âduo de potagesâ and hit âtranslateâ. Oh, and when you start cooking, donât forget to âremove the bark and the core of lawyersâ.
THE APRIL edition of Business 2.0, a magazine for the ailing high-tech world, goes a long way to explaining why the sector is performing so badly. On page 67 it quotes Stephen Yeo, a marketing director at PC terminal manufacturer Wyse, who succinctly explains his companyâs growth strategy: âWeâve been doubling sales every 18 months. However, when you start from zero, it takes a long time.â Indeed.
A BROTHEL is holding up Greeceâs plans for the 2004 Olympics.
Although games will be back on their home turf, the organisers keep running into problems with previous tenants. After protests over the siting of the Olympic rowing pool on the battlefield of Marathon (Feedback, 2 February), itâs now the turn of the equestrians. They face the wrath of Aphrodite, reports the Ananova news service, thanks to the discovery of a 2500-year-old temple that doubled as a bordello on the site near Athens earmarked for the horse-riding events.
About 40 digs are going on at the site, and every trench is turning up archaeological goodies. As well as the temple, the diggers have found 3600-year-old Mycenaean tombs and ancient houses from the 4th century BC.
Perhaps thereâs a new Olympic sport in the making: showjumping over the tombs or racing round the temple. Or perhaps Nigel Knealeâs 1968 play The Year of the Sex Olympics could be restaged in honour of Aphrodite.
LOGGING on to Netscapeâs home page, you usually find it has an online poll inviting you to click on âYesâ or âNoâ buttons to register your opinion on a range of topics. A couple of weeks ago the question asked was: âMy vote in opinion polls counts?âYes/Noâ.
We can see the point of submitting a Yes vote to this, but what would be the logic of voting No?
THE SPELLCHECKER in Macromediaâs Dreamweaver application hasnât quite caught up with the IT revolution, it seems. Here are some of its suggestions for words it didnât recognise when it scanned documents belonging to reader Brendan Murphy: âemailâamyl; emailingâembalming; WWWâWOW; egroupsâergots; spammingâsapling; browsersâborrowers; freewareâFerrari; spamâPam; googleâgaggle.â
THE COMPANY that reader Juhana Jaatinen works for had some misunderstandings with a subcontractor. Jaatinen fired off a letter of complaint. An automatic response came back, saying: âNote: this return receipt only acknowledges that the message was displayed on the recipientâs machine. There is no guarantee that the content has been read or understood.â Jaatinen felt this reply explained it all.
A SONY advertisement spotted by reader Mark Donohoe in The Sydney Morning Herald hints at the hitherto unknown existence of fractional colours. It says: âPFM32C1 32 Plasma Display Monitor now only $109.99â1024 Ă 852 pixelsâOptional tuner, speakers, mounting bracketsâ16.8 colours simultaneously.â
THE STANDARD of literacy in scientific communication still occasionally leaves something to be desired. The usually excellent Earth Negotiations Bulletin was covering the UN Forum on Forests meeting in New York last month. On 12 March it reported: âAs the second week of UNFF-2 began and the impending arrival of ministers drew nearer, the pressure on delegates to reach agreement on the ministerial message rose several degrees.â
FINALLY, Canberraâs Yellow Pages has a listing for Murrayâs Luxury Coach Hire, which is suitable for events such as: âConferencesâ, âTours and Transfersâ and âSchool Executionsâ. They do not say if they supply the gallows.
