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Spot the connection between these two sentences 1) ‘Spending on National
Health Service medicines is running at 13 p a day per person.’ 2) ‘But while
British patients spend modestly on medicines, the pharmaceutical industry
invests 2 million Pounds a day on research.’ The two sentences start a press
release from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry. And no,
there isn’t any logical connection.

* * *

Before Christmas, Philips gave confidential briefings at its Dutch headquarters
to the specialist press on the new Digital Compact Cassette. The content
was embargoed until 10 January, the day the annual Consumer Electronics
Show opened in Las Vegas.

Two weeks ago we reported Philips had confirmed to us that Matsushita
is the co-developer and co-licensee of DCC (Technology, 12 January). This
revelation was political dynamite because it shatters the solid front against
the Digital Audio Tape electronics companies under whip from the Japanese
government.

At a press confernce in Las Vegas the night before the show opened,
all Japanese companies (except of course Matsushita), never joined the Philips
people on the platform and just sat silent in the audience, looking very
awkward. At the last minute, it seems, someone, somewhere got cold feet.
Wim Wielens, managing director of Philips Audio, refused to identify Matsushita
as the co-developer, ducked questions and talked only of partnership with
‘a big Japanese hardware manufacturer.’

Back in Britain, Matsushita’s European headquarters will say only that
it has nothing to say. We only hope for everyone’s sake that no one in the
Japanese government reads New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ.

* * *

Frank Close has just had a book published on the cold fusion saga, Too
Hot to Handle. It seems that the book itself is too hot. His publicist received
a call from BBC Radio 2. Sorry, the John Dunn show can’t feature the book.
You see, fusion .. that’s nuclear .. and that’s nuclear war .. and that
could breach the government’s guidelines on what reporting is and isn’t
allowed during the Gulf crisis. Pons and Fleischmann would be amused.

* * *

More of those odd job advertisements (though thankfully not from the
pages of New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ). The first comes from Recruitment, published by
the Institution of Electrical Engineers. It’s to work on the development
of a ‘Fast Probablistic Automate Machine’. These machines are ‘massively
parallel computers’ that work ‘through the application of simple local rules
(including those based on fussy logic)’. Well, you can’t be too picky these
days, can you? And from The Guardian, an advert from the Ramblers’ Association
(‘Working to protect footpaths and to promote walking’) for a development
officer, at a salary of around 11,000 Pounds. Plus car.

* * *

We all know how judges like to create the impression that they know
nothing of the real world, with questions like who is Gazza, what is a video
and where is this thing you call the tube. Andreas Pavel, the Italian investor
who looks likely to be the first to appear before Britain’s new Patents
County Court, need have no fears about the judge’s understanding of his
case.

Pavel is the man who claims to have patented the personal cassette stereo
player before Sony started selling the Walkman 10 years ago. Sony contests
this. The judge will be Peter Ford.

Those with long memories of the audio industry will remember that in
the 1960s Ford used to write excellent articles in the hi-fi press, often
on the history of recording. His pieces on tape history were later used
as a short-cut source reference by other writers with fewer principles.
So there will be no questions like ‘What is a Walkman?’ and ‘Who is Mr Sony?’
when Pavel pleads his case. Hi-fi buffs are already planning a day in the
public gallery to see what happens.

* * *

A story about how much it costs to run BBC Radio figured recently in
The Guardian. In order to present the information clearly, the article included
a pie chart giving the costs of each part of the empire as a percentage
of the total expenditure for 1988/89.

For the benefit (presumably) of slower readers, the paper gave alongside
this a strikingly similar pie chart, giving the same costs in terms of the
numbers of pence spent in each pound. For example, the segment of the chart
labelled ‘Radio 4′ contained the legend ’22 per cent’ on the left-hand chart,
and ’22 p’ on the right-hand chart.

Is it the BBC or The Guardian that has trouble grasping the fact that
there are 100 pence in the pound?

* * *

Here’s to the latest idea for electronic storage devices: write-only
memories, or WOMs. Extremely useful for filing all those data you think
you might want, well, someday. WOMs can store limitless amounts of data.
Of course, since they are write-only you cannot read the data later. Which
is just the retrieval capacity most people need for most of their filing.

* * *

Ah! The eithical dilemmas technological progress leaves in its wake.
Interviewed in trendy Edge magazine in the US, Doyne Farmer, a computer
scientist at the Santa Fe Institute, issues guidance to vegetarian programmers.
Farmers, described a ‘lean long-hair’, believes he can duplicate life on
his computer: ‘If you’re really a vegetarian you should never turn off your
³¦´Ç³¾±è³Ü³Ù±ð°ù.’