This article is more than 1 year old

'Hiding our wristjobs from Apple stores ain't easy' – iThing retail boss

Plus: 'Old kit dumps are an urban gold mine that can KILL YOU'

QuoTW This week, Moore's Law turned 50, Microsoft lost a pile of cash and Comcast gave up on its dream of buying Time Warner Cable.

Here are some of the better quotes uttered over the past seven days:

Google got caught having a piddle party on poor Apple, but the Chocolate Factory was quick to heap the blame on its users. When asked why the Android bot was, er, watering the iconic logo, data-scraping giant Google said:

We're sorry for this inappropriate user-created content; we're working to remove it quickly. We also learn from these issues, and we're constantly improving how we detect, prevent and handle bad edits.

Need a few extra bucks? Perhaps you should pack up your pickaxe and get into the e-waste mining business. UN Under-Secretary-General David Malone said there's gold in them there dumps, so long as you're cool with being poisoned, that is:

Worldwide, e-waste constitutes a valuable "urban mine" — a large potential reservoir of recyclable materials. At the same time, the hazardous content of e-waste constitutes a "toxic mine" that must be managed with extreme care.

The city of Oakland, California, has always had a reputation for being a tough town. Even though Silicon Valley firms are starting to creep over her borders, Mayor Libby Schaaf wants you to know Oaktown is still 2 Legit:

You know a lot of people want to intern in the mayor's office, and people I know will ask, "Can my child intern there?" Well I was walking down 19th and Telegraph and I saw him drop a candy wrapper. So I said, "Excuse me, look how beautiful this city is; it looks so much nicer without trash on the ground." And I thought he was about to give me a, you know, "Fuck you, bitch," but he was instead "Ma'am, I am so sorry, you are absolutely right." And one thing led to another, and next thing I know he is interning in my office.

In Washington, it seems the congresscritters are at it again with attempts to overhaul data sharing. The most recent effort has drawn fire from privacy warriors over at the EFF, who sent Mark Jaycox on the attack with the following remark:

The bills are not cybersecurity "information sharing" bills, but surveillance bills in disguise. Like other bills we've opposed during the last five years, they authorise more private sector spying under new legal immunity provisions and use vague definitions that aren't carefully limited to protect privacy.

At this year's RSA conference, meanwhile, infosec bods showed off some appallingly poor security practices. Researcher Charles Henderson of Trustwave noted how some cash registers had kept the same password for the last two and a half decades (Holy moly! I just spilled my coffee all over the keyboard. – Weekend Ed):

This is the default password for one of the largest manufacturers of point of sale equipment and has been since at least 1990. Nine out of 10 times when we see equipment from that manufacturer, 90 per cent of the time, this is the password.

Those who don't reside in a hermitage have heard that Cupertino is putting out a new product this week. When asked why the Apple Watch won't be appearing in stores, retail boss Angela Ahrendts attempted to explain the move this way:

It was not an easy decision, and I think it is really important to remind every single customer that this is not just a new product for us, it is an entirely new category.

Don't you get it, fanbois? Once again, it's entirely your fault that Apple screwed something up. We thought you'd have learned your lesson after antennagate. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like