IT Week's Sideways View

Good Week
He is worth gazillions of pounds, he spends his life being manhandled by some of the most beautiful people in the world, he even got away with that ponytail, and now Giorgio Armani has had a naff-sounding Samsung phone named after him. Cue the Italian fashionista showing a command of an even more obscure tongue than technobollox: “Today, fashion has expanded to encompass our way of life, not just how we dress, but how we design our home, the hotels we stay in, the car we drive and the technology we buy … Samsung has successfully anticipated the growing role for consumer electronics in our lives, while recognising the importance of self-expression in the development of its products.” So what’s the phone like? The icons buzz against the finger and the device fits “sensuously into a user’s palm”.

Bad Week
Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long been an icon of techno-visionaries and seemed to be enhancing his reputation with the One Laptop Per Child project to equip children in developing countries with computers. However, his business negotiating skills could do with some polish after he admitted that agreements to invest had not yielded good old cash. “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written,” he was quoted as saying, sounding a little like he’s making a poor excuse to a debt collection agency. “And, yes, it has been a disappointment.”

Word of the Week
FaceSoft. Or perhaps MicroBook, but either way, reports of Microsoft buying, taking a controlling interest in, or even just taking a stake in the sainted FaceBook sticks in many a craw. And nobody, but nobody, wants to poke Steve Ballmer.