Tag: theft

Target: Your iPod

Post ImageIf you’re an iPod owner, no doubt you’ve at least once donned your white earphones with a certain pride. White means you’re part of the club, you get it, you’re cool. And it also means you’re a prime target for thieves. It seems that the supposed iPod robberies in New York have jumped the Atlantic (or returned?):

iPod owners are increasingly being targeted by muggers who can spot the digital music players by their distinctive white leads, the country’s most senior police chief has said. The desirability of the players is partly to blame for a steep increase in robberies on the streets of London, according to Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

When stories like this come out, it’s only right to question them. Are thieves really robbing people for their iPods? The numbers in London seem to suggest that’s the case, as “street thefts of iPods have risen from 10 in November 2004 to 52 so far this month. All crime in which an iPod was stolen has more than doubled to around 400 so far this month.”

Just one more reason to buy a music player that isn’t overpriced, and won’t lock you into one store! Or if you like paying a premium, being restricted to purchasing music from one place only, and walking around with a big “ATTACK ME” sign on your person, go ahead and buy that iPod.

[Disclaimer: I own a first generation iPod, but my Creative Zen Touch has since replaced it!]

Read: The Independent

Librarians silently fume over Intel magazine bounty

A few days ago, Intel announced that they would pay up to $10,000 for a mint-condition copy of an April 19th, 1965 issue of the magazine that contained Gordon Moore’s now famed law about how the number of components on integrated circuits would double every year. Kind of amazing that Intel didn’t have a copy of the magazine, and apparently they thought so too, so they offered the bounty.

A day after the bounty was announced, a library at the University of Illinois noticed that one of their two copies of the magazine had disappeared:

There was a glaring space on the shelf where the bound volume containing the April 19, 1965, edition of Electronics Magazine sat for years, said Mary Schlembach, assistant engineering librarian at the Grainger Engineering Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Another librarian heard a student talking on a cell phone about the volume the same day, Schlembach said. Ordinarily, the magazine is not a popular item.

Librarians at other schools are mad too. Stanford, the University of Washington, and a bunch of others have expressed their frustration. Intel though, has apparently said they will only buy library copies from actual libraries, so the student who swiped one might have a hard time claiming the bounty.

Read: CNET News.com