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PCR?s week in review

Andrew Wooden

by Andrew Wooden
Friday, August 12th 2011 at 2:31PM

PCR?s week in review

As the worst civil unrest the country has seen since the Brixton riots in 1981 unfolded this week, there was little room for anything else in the media – save for brief diversions into the worsening economic situation in Europe and the US.

As the looting and violence spread from London districts to Manchester, Birmingham and numerous other locations, social media proved to play a major role – for better and worse.

Twitter of course provided a minute by minute updates of the worsening situation on the ground, providing if not always accurate information then certainly reactions and some first hand accounts.

Meanwhile others set up Facebook Groups to arrange clean up operations, fund-raising efforts for victims, and even served as recruitment platforms for local vigilantes looking to defend their town.

However on the other side of the coin, these social networking sites – and BlackBerry Messenger in particular – was also being widely used by looters and arsonists to organise more carnage.

The police force was quick to condemn things such practices, promising arrests. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh said "Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality" and some messages appearing were "inflammatory."

Meanwhile as it became more obvious BlackBerry Messenger was being used nefariously, MP’s began calling for the service to be suspended.

Computer and technology shops were some of the worst hit, carrying products of relatively high price tags. The British Retail Consortium has demanded strong action in the aftermath for all those effected.

Elsewhere in the world of tech, the co-inventor of the PC has pronounced it dead. Mark Dean, who is now chief technology officer IBM Middle East and Africa, said this week the devices are “going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs.”

Microsoft started banging its tablet war drum a little louder, saying consumers will soon expect more than current iPad and ‘me too’ rivals deliver.

Images purporting to be the next Android operating system have emrged – though there’s not a huge amount to see. 

OnLive, the much talked about cloud gaming service, will arrive on UK shores on September 22nd, it was revealed this week –promising to “utterly transform gaming.” The system’s creator Steve Perlman described the current gaming console generation as ‘long in the tooth’ when interviewed by PCR.

And finally 22 more fake Apple stores have been found in China. All of the additional unauthorised Apple retailers are also in the vicinity of the South Eastern city of Kunming.

Have a good weekend. 

Image courtesy of The Telegraph.

 

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Tags: Microsoft, android, tablets, blackberry, bbm, ibm, twitter, pcr's week in review, brc, retailers, death of pc, fake apple stores, riots

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