Hoax Museum Blog: Technology

4-Wheel Segway Coming Soon — Rumors are flying that the next generation model of the popular Segway will one-up the original by adding an extra set of wheels to the vehicle, thereby producing the 4-wheel 'p-series' Segway. The platform will also be lengthened so that two people can stand on it at once. Of course, as Gizmodo points out, this completely defeats the purpose of the thing since "the whole point of the Segway is that it balances itself on two wheels." But it sure sounds good. (via Gizmodo)

Boycott Gillette — I've received quite a few emails with questions like this: Is Gillette really putting spy chips inside of their products that allow them to spy on consumers at a distance? Is the company surreptitiously snapping photographs of people who pick up their products from store shelves? Are these and other claims being made at the Boycott Gillette website really true? Well, the strange thing is, as wild as these claims sound, they're actually true. Or rather, they used to be true... and could be true again in the future. Gillette did experiment with putting 'spy chips' (wireless transmitting devices, also known as RFID tags, or Radio Frequency Identification Tags) inside of the packaging of its products. And it did experiment with photographing people who picked up its products in stores. This was all revealed last year (read about it in this Guardian article). Gillette claims that it's not currently continuing these experiments, but it's still an enthusiastic supporter of the concept of the use of RFID tags, believing that they could help prevent theft and help the company better manage its inventory. They dismiss claims that the chips would be used to spy on people outside of the store. Dick Cantwell, Vice-president of global business management for Gillette, has been quoted in the media as saying that Gillette would probably only consider putting RFID tags in all its products once the price of the tags came down to around one cent each. Maybe in ten years or so. Another organization (besides Boycott Gillette) that's worried about the privacy concerns that the use of RFID tags raises is Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. Personally, I've been boycotting Gillette for years for a different reason. Their razor blades are too expensive. Plus, I don't see a need to have double, triple, or quadruple-bladed razors (or whatever number they're now up too). A cheap single-bladed, generic razor works fine for me.

Computer Grading? — Robert Yagelowich pointed this article out to me, and like him what I read initially made me pretty skeptical. The article describes a computer program that's being used to grade student essays. Not just grade the spelling and punctuation, but the content itself. Since computers can't even be relied on to spellcheck very well, I couldn't imagine how they would grade content. I had suspicions of another ChatNannies type of hoax. But apparently computer-grading is real. The software, called E-Rater, has been developed by Educational Testing Services, and they provide an online demo of how it works. I used to be a teaching assistant at UC San Diego, and I graded thousands of student essays. And I have to admit that human graders are often pretty fallible. By the time you get to the bottom of a stack of essays, you're just going through those things as fast as possible, barely reading them. So maybe a computer could grade essays better than a human. The computer, at least, wouldn't grade differently depending on how much coffee it had drunk, or how little sleep it had got.

The Mystery of Polybius — Polybius, if you believe this website, was a video game developed by the CIA (or some other shadowy government organization) back in the early days of video games, 1981. But the game was really a secret experiment in behavior modification. Only a few of the game machines ever saw the light of day. They appeared in a few arcades in a suburb of Portland. Kids who played the game reportedly suffered disturbing side effects. They "woke up at night screaming, having horrible nightmares." Some later developed amnesia. Occasionally black-coat types would come to collect 'records' from the games. So did Polybius really exist, or is it all a hoax? Here is a rare photograph of one of the Polybius machines (or perhaps it's just a modern photoshop). Even if it is just a hoax (which, yeah, it probably is) it still makes a pretty good story. (Thanks, Rob).

Don Fulci, Terrorist Mastermind — According to US News, one day last April the FBI, acting on a tip from an informant, went on alert to track down an evil reclusive millionaire terrorist mastermind named Don Emilio Fulci who was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington DC. FBI Director Mueller was even informed about the threat that Fulci posed. Only later did someone in the White House realize that Don Fulci is the name of the crime boss in a video game named Headhunter. I wonder if that day in April happened to be April 1st? (via BoingBoing)

Ideltech — It looks like a real company. It even offers an online job application that you can fill in. But it's not a real company. It's actually part of an Alternative Reality Game called Aware, that you can find at RUAware.org. If I had just stumbled on this without knowing anything about it beforehand, I don't think I would have guessed it wasn't real. Though in hindsight, there are clues that give it away. For instance, most well-established companies don't sell t-shirts from cafeshops on their front page. (Thanks, Sonja).

Night-Vision Contact Lenses — CIO Magazine has a little blurb about these night-vision contact lenses available for a mere $300 from Phoenix Sight (scroll down to find the listing). They're powered by blinking your eyes. But actually, there is no such company as Phoenix Sight, so don't go asking your optician for these just yet. The source of this wild-eyed invention is a Design Challenge sponsored by Popular Science and Core77. The relevant entry is here. The description notes that to get the contacts to work, even in theory, you'd first have to rub neodymium-iron-boron gel in your eyes, which really doesn't sound very pleasant. I have no idea if the military ever has experimented with anything like this. (via Jeff's Super Happy Funtime Blog)

Update: Core77 has a pretty cool illustration of how the contacts are supposed to work.

Anti Mosquito Software — Are you constantly swatting away mosquitoes as you work at your computer? Here's your solution: anti-mosquito software. A Thai computer programmer named Saranyou Punyaratanabunbhu developed it about two years ago, and it proved so wildly successful that he soon came out with version 2.0, that also promised to repel cockroaches and rats. It drives away the nasty critters by making your computer speakers emit high-pitched frequencies. But does it actually work? Well, I wouldn't bet on it. As the pest control experts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln note in their Cockroach Control Manual, "There is no scientific evidence to suggest that cockroaches (or any other insects) respond negatively to ultrasonic sound waves." Still, this hasn't stopped a South Korean phone company, SK Telecom, from offering anti-mosquito software that you can download to your cellphone. (Thanks, Steve)

The Lavender iPod — For a brief while, there was a chance to buy a Lavender iPod on eBay. But now the item has been pulled. Probably because lavender iPods don't exist. (via engadget)

Hot Abercrombie Chick Mystery Solved, Probably — A few days ago I posted about the controversy brewing around the Hot Abercrombie Chick (or HAC, for short). The HAC appeared to be an extremely photogenic young female blogger whose blog was rapidly increasing in popularity. But then rumors started to circulate that she wasn't a she at all. She was a he. And the blog's popularity appeared to be due to manipulation of the way blogs are tracked. Justin Foster and Cameron Marlow have done some impressive internet detective work and traced down who the HAC most likely is: a guy living in St. Louis named Daniel Zeigenbein. They did it by uncovering the IP addresses that the HAC had left behind when posting on message boards, and they all originated in St. Louis. That just happens to be where Daniel Zeigenbein lives. Daniel was mentioned in one of the first posts on the HAC's blog, and Justin and Cameron had long suspected he was the real HAC. Making it even more suspicious, Daniel had a blog that he abandoned right before the HAC started up hers.

Who is the Hot Abercrombie Chick? — If you're a regular reader of Blogdex, as I am, then you'll recognize the name Hot Abercrombie Chick (aka Amanda Doerty). For some reason her weblog keeps rising to the top of Blogdex's index. I've never been able to figure out why. Her posts just don't seem that interesting or relevant. To be honest, I find them boring. Apparently other people have had the same thought, because now she's being accused of gaming Blogdex. But that's not all. Julia Set reports receiving an inside tip that Hot Abercrombie Chick isn't a chick at all. According to Julia, "Hot Abercrombie Chick is really a male college student capitalizing on cute pictures of his girlfriend (previously unbeknownst to her) in a rush of "beggars" trackbacks... Over the course of the last couple of months, 'Mr. Abercrombie' has played every text-book trick for raising his popularity on the blogosphere. The most recent flood of activity, which probably led to his bust, occurred by spamming comments on popular blogs all over the net." Kevin, over at Wizbang, says he's going to contact 'Amanda' to find out what the truth is. Until he reports back, I guess we won't know if the accusations are totally unfounded, or if the Hot Abercrombie Chick is actually another Kaycee Nicole Swenson. Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to random accusations like this, but there does seem something fishy about the Abercrombie chick's rapid ascent to blog stardom. (via Overstated)

Update:The Hot Abercrombie chick insists she's not a hoax. Though I guess one would expect her to say that. There's still no proof either way... but then, how do we know who anyone else on the internet really is?

The Way Things Were: Overpriced Web Host — BoingBoing linked to this webpage, 1c4.net, advertising a 1995 web-hosting service. Back then you could apparently get a website hosted for the bargain price of $250 a month. That may seem a lot, but when you figure that you got a whopping 3mb of storage space with that, it suddenly seems more reasonable. Times sure have changed, but actually I don't think that this overpriced web host was ever real. First of all, did they have .net suffixes in 1995? Maybe they did, but I don't remember that. Second, the webpage 1c4.net was itself only created in 2003, according to its registration info. Finally, I just don't remember web hosts ever being that expensive, though in 1995 I was enjoying free web hosting via my university, so I wouldn't be in a position to know. But I'd assume that this ad is a joke of fairly recent vintage.

Virtual Trader — Wired News has an article about a guy, Julian Dibbell, who almost succeeded in making a living from trading in imaginary goods, namely virtual items from the game Ultima Online. Of course, it doesn't seem that extraordinary to me that someone could earn a good living from trading imaginary things. After all, isn't there a trillion dollar industry devoted to just this... i.e. the financial derivatives market? I mean, options and other financial instruments may have real value to people, but they're no more real, in a material sense, than the items from Ultima Online are.

TV on your Mobile — In an update of the Instant Color TV prank from 1962, Sweden's largest newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, is reporting that mobile phone users can watch movies on their phone screens, simply by pointing the phones at a tv and punching in the appropriate access code.

BMW Offers New Way to Cook — BMW has announced a cutting-edge innovation for commuters that allows them to prepare dinner, while driving home in the car. It's called SHEF, which stands for Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration. Basically all your oven controls are built into the dashboard of your car, and they communicate wirelessly with your actual oven back in your home. You can monitor the progress of your meal via a built-in oven-cam.

iPod Muggings — There have been tales going around recently of iPod owners being targeted by muggers who then demand their iPods. For instance, there's this recent story of an iPod mugging in the British West Midlands, as well as a story from a month ago. Apparently it's the white color of the headphones that are making the owners prominent targets. About which an Apple representative reportedly said, "There are guys who�d rather be robbed than change the colour of the headphones." Now Engadget is casting some doubt on these stories. According to their source, the iPod muggings are a hoax.

WiFi - SM — Are you guilty about living a life of comfort while others around the world suffer? Do you want to 'feel their pain'? Now you can, thanks to the WiFi-SM. This is a wireless device that "automatically detects the information from approximately 4,500 news sources worldwide updated continuously and analyses them looking for specific keywords such as death, kill, murder, torture, rape, war, virus etc.. Each time the text of the news contains one of these keywords, your WiFi-SM device is activated through the Wi-Fi network and provides you with an electric impulse. This impulse is calibrated so that you can feel a certain amount of pain, but is completely safe." (via Gizmodo)

Wired = Overloaded Server — Wired published an article about net hoaxes today, for which I was interviewed. The increased traffic it brought promptly melted down my web host's servers, which has been causing quite a headache for me. But regardless, it's nice to get the visitors. Perhaps a few of them were even able to view some of the site's content.

The Mini Cooper Autonomous Robot — Colin Mayhew, an engineer at a British division of BMW, decided to convert a mini cooper r50 into an autonomous biped robot. The results are quite impressive. In particular, check out this video. The no-frills design of the page makes it seem quite believable. But sleuths on Slashdot have determined that it's a hoax. The url is registered to an ad agency working for BMW. (via Things Magazine)

ChatNannies Last All Summer Long — This story has been growing in size for the past week, and now it seems definite. It's a hoax. It began with a story in New Scientist last week describing an artificial intelligence program designed by Jim Wightman, an IT consultant from Wolverhampton. This program, called ChatNannies, supposedly scours internet chat rooms pretending to be a child and luring pedophiles into conversation with it. Once it identifies a pedophile, it reports them to the authorities. Sounds great, but if it really does what is claimed of it, it would be the most advanced artificial intelligence software in the world. And created by a guy working out of his home, no less. Almost immediately, people were skeptical. Waxy.org has pretty thoroughly debunked Wightman's claims. There's also some interesting material over at overstated.net where a guy describes his experience chatting online with a 'Nanniebot.' The Nanniebot really does seem eerily human, which is because it almost certainly is human... i.e. Wightman typing away at his keyboard.
I figure this whole thing falls into the hoax genre of 'Amazing Inventions that Can't Be Examined.' It's an old, old modus operandi of hoaxers. Come out with a miraculous new invention, but simultaneously refuse, for one reason or another, to let people inspect it. For examples, you can go all the way back to the Great Chess Automaton of the late 18th century, or Redheffer's Perpetual Motion Machine from the early 19th century. A reporter from the Guardian, Ben Goldacre, is trying to get Wightman to allow him to inspect the ChatNannies program. But so far, he's had no luck.
One unanswered question in all of this is: why did New Scientist ever believe Wightman's claims to begin with? If it weren't for New Scientist publishing the story, it would never have received a fraction of the attention that it already has.