Identity Scams Plague Career Sites
Plus: McDonald's gets wireless, phones get game, and Everest gets Net.1. Scamming the Jobless
The Buzz: Seems unemployment is no longer the worst curse of the unemployed. Scam artists have taken to posting fake job listings to elicit personal information--including bank, credit card, and Social Security numbers--from job seekers who patronize online career sites. Other sleazy opportunists are mining online résumés and selling the data they've swiped. Kevin Mullins of job site Monster.com, however, insists such practices are "extremely rare" at Monster, as the company scrutinizes all job listings and cuts off access to those caught downloading too many résumés from the site.
Bottom Line: The lagging economy has a silver lining: great new jobs, like "Identity Thief" and "Résumé Mining Engineer." Any of you venture capitalists wanna invest in my new site, Mobster.com?
2. Wi-Fi Meets Fast Food
The Buzz: We knew Wi-Fi was on a roll; apparently it's on a bun as well. Ten McDonald's restaurants in New York are offering 1 hour of free in-store wireless Internet access with the purchase of an Extra Value Meal. Customers can also buy an hour of Wi-Fi for $3. The chain will reportedly expand its program to hundreds more locations this year.
Bottom Line: McDonald's is all about the eat and run, not the leisurely nosh and surf. Hmmm. Can I get files with that?
3. I Just Called to Say I Fragged You
The Buzz: Cell-phone-based games are nothing new: Gladiator, Snake, and other crude-looking diversions are well-established time-sinks. But Nokia is upping the ante later this year with N-Gage, a hybrid that's part gaming device, part GSM phone. Tricked out with an MP3 player, Bluetooth, and all the fixings, N-Gage is being touted as the Game Boy Advance for grown-ups. With its GPRS-enabled network connectivity and 4K-color display, the gizmo is well suited for multiplayer games--the kind that eat up those pricey cell-plan minutes in a hurry.
Bottom Line: You know who'll like N-Gage even more than gamers? Phone service providers, who'll be raking in cash faster than you can hit the pound key.
4. The Internet Up There
The Buzz: Thanks to the efforts of Sherpa Tsering Gyaltsen, the 18,000-foot Everest base camp has its very own Internet café as of April 14--approximately 50 years after Sir Edmund Hillary first scaled the world's tallest mountain. The grandson of a Sherpa who accompanied Hillary, Gyaltsen collaborated with techies, an environmental group, and two ISPs in his lofty quest to set up broadband access (up to 128 kbps) via satellite dish. The café itself is a modest affair--basically a well-reinforced tent and several computers. At press time, there were no plans to add on a cappuccino bar.
Bottom Line: Why put an Internet café on Everest? Because it's there.
Contributing Editor Steve Fox covers buzzworthy products, ideas, and trends. Contact him at steve_fox@pcworld.com. Click on the link for more Plugged In.
Nagging Question: Who Invented the :-) Symbol?
The smiley was created on September 19, 1982, by computer science prof Scott E. Fahlman. In an online post, he suggested that the character string :-), when read sideways, could indicate that a comment was not to be taken seriously. But was that really the first "emoticon"? Maybe not. One Kevin MacKenzie probably fabricated the first smiley in a 1979 e-mail. His unadorned-) was supposed to mean "tongue in cheek." Sadly, MacKenzie's brainchild was promptly forgotten. What a difference a colon makes.