Thieves help selves to PCs from Office for Digital Inclusion
Bloody hell, tweets digital Tsar Lane Fox
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The UK.gov's digi-quango, the Office for Digital Inclusion, has lived up to its name by distributing a whole office of PCs to underprivileged people without even trying.
The ODI's job is to close the digital divide and force people onto the web, even if they don't want to.
Staff at the fledgling quango apparently turned up to work this morning to find their office stripped bare of PCs, The Telegraph reports.
The shocking news was quickly relayed to the world at large by the UK's recently appointed digital tsar, Martha Lane Fox, via her Twitter feed. She presumably keeps her digital devices about her person, or works from home.
"O bloody hell the #digitalinclusion office has been broken into and all computers taken :((" Lane Fox wailed, according to The Telegraph, although the tweet in question appears to have since evaporated.
We rushed to the Taskforce's webpage, but alas, this doesn't seem to be exist - surely the scamps haven't taken that as well.
The raid couldn't have happened at a worse time. Chancellor Alistair Darling is today pulling in government ministers to shake them down for potential spending cuts. Let's hope Digital Inclusion has up-to-date insurance.
We called the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which has responsiblity for ODI. They said they were "investigating" the theft.®
COMMENTS
Re: "the complexity of a computer will soon be exactly on par with that of a telephone"
Yep. And the day after that you'll see squadrons of pigs over Bristol.
@RW
"The simple fact is that modern personal computers of all types are simply not ready for prime time. To keep them up and running an in good health takes a degree of intelilgence and initiative that a sizable fraction of the population simply lacks."
Sounds to me like you're saying that a sizable fraction of the population isn't ready for prime time, rather that personal computers -- unless you specifically mean ready for watching prime-time television, in which case, you're right -- the majority of the population are perfectly qualified for that.
"Until the use of a computer is no more complex than the use of a telephone, this whole initiative is doomed to a sad, lingering failure."
Fortunately, Blackberry, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and their hardware and network partners are working night and day to ensure that, indeed, the complexity of a computer will soon be exactly on par with that of a telephone.
Alistair Darling is today pulling in government ministers
Why did I read this as: Alistair Darling is today pulling ON government ministers
Yeah, I know....time for a lie down.
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