Over the Edge

During tests of the prototype system, volunteers were surrounded by loudspeakers simulating the sound of a chanting crowd and were asked join in. But one speaker replayed the crowds chant with a short delay. When the delay was greater than 200 milliseconds the volunteers found it too difficult to chant coherently.

Some poor production assistant at the BBC put the wrong guy on the air. Rather than Guy Kewney, tech pundit, they grabbed an IT interviewee who was waiting at the Reception desk and put him on a live program instead.

After something of a rocky start, he apparently did quite well -- which kind of underlines how low the bar is for punditry.

Kewney himself, waiting in the green room, had no idea this was going on until he looked at a monitor and saw someone who was not himself.

From the AP, via the NYTimes:

In fact the man was Guy Goma, a Congolese man applying for a technology-related job with the British Broadcasting Corp. Goma followed an employee to the studio after a mistake at a reception desk, the corporation said late Monday.

*snip*

Producers apparently realized by the end of the interview that something had gone wrong -- and, after they had gone off the air, asked their ''expert'' if there was a problem.

''He said: 'Well, it was OK, but I was a bit rushed,' Kewney wrote on his blog.

Goma told the BBC his interview was stressful, but added he was prepared to return to the airwaves. He said he was ''happy to speak about any situation,'' the BBC reported. Officials at BBC declined to comment on whether he would get the job he was applying for.

From the AP, via the NYTimes:

A guy got on a JetBlue red-eye from San Juan to Newark with a couple of undeclared lovebirds in his carry-on. (I mean, he didn't fill out the right form; I don't know what declarations the lovebirds made.) Sure enough, one of them got out and made a break for it.

It all ended happily, though. The bird was caught and both were impounded until the unnamed passenger -- who was not held -- finishes the paperwork.

Sometimes it seems like Apple never forgets. Remember the Cube -- a beautiful but flawed Mac, grey encased in clear plastic the stood about 10 inches on a side? Writ large, that's kind of what Apple's built in one of New York City's most public spaces: Fifth Avenue and 58th Street.

The Fifth Avenue store, which opens tomorrow at 6pm and will never close, sits under GM Plaza, across the street from Bergdorf Goodman, the Plaza Hotel and Central Park and steps away from FAO Schwartz. The entrance is marked by a dramtic 32-foot-cube of glass that encases the Apple logo. A 32-step glass spiral staircase winds its way down a round glass elevator one level down.

The number 32 appears weirdly throughout. The cube is 32 feet on each side. There are 32 steps down. Of course, 32 is 2 to the 5th power -- and Opening Day is the fifth anniversary of the first Apple store's debut, and the store itself is on Fifth Avenue. Good thing it's not on 7th; a 128-foot glass cube might be a tough engineering problem.

The natural light that pours down warms the 10,000 square foot selling area. Ron Johnson, Apple's SVP of Retail, says there are 100 Macs and 300 staffers available for customer use. The Genius Bar is 45 feet long, and they've hird 96 full-time "Geni-i." There's a new iPod bar to provide support for iPod users and a "Studio" to help "creatives" with questions about their hardware and software. The plaza above is now WiFi-ed; I didn't check to see how far into Central Park the signal carried.

Oh -- and this is the first Apple store to be open 24/7/365. "Open today, forever," Johnson said. And yes, there will be Geniuses at the Bar all night long.