You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz

IDG News Service — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:24:27 -0700

Apple and China, China and Apple -- this week's quiz is dominated by the inscrutable Mandarins of Cupertino and Beijing. Also on tap: a look at Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, worms enter the space race, Twitter gets in trouble, and Guns N' Roses flexes its muscles. Think you've got the inside skinny on all that? Prove it by scoring 100 on our quiz (10 points for each correct answer). Many try, but only a handful ever attain a perfect score. Now get to it.

1. Apple's online music store was mysteriously unavailable in China last week, though it's back now. Why did China's Net censors nix iTunes?

a. They were offended by Apple's DRM schemes

b. It was selling Songs for Tibet

c. U.S. allegations over Chinese cheating at the Olympics

d. Steve Jobs' Facebook profile is more popular than Premier Wen Jiabao's

2. Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 8 beta sports a feature that instantly erases all data related to a browsing session -- which some wags quickly dubbed "porn mode." What's the feature's real name?

a. Private-I

b. InPrivate

c. Your I's Only

d. One Hand Typist

3. Oh no, it's a Nano. Rumors and photos of a new Apple music player are swirling across the Net. Who's the unlikely source of this Nano news?

a. Wikipedia godfather Jimmy Wales

b. Twitter-crazed blogger Robert Scoble

c. Digg co-founder Kevin Rose

d. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao

4. Though the rest of the world seems gaga over the iPhone 3G, Poland remains unimpressed. Which of the following happened at the phone's recent launch?

a. No one came

b. Wireless provider Orange Poland paid actors to wait in line for it

c. The Catholic Church protested the use of the term "Jesus phone"

d. All of the above

5. You know Twitter has come of age when it gets a DMCA takedown notice from TV land. What were the Twitterati doing that ticked off the boob-tube moguls?

a. Claiming to have superpowers, a la Heroes

b. Pretending to be characters from Mad Men

c. Revealing the plot twists of Lost

d. Spreading nasty rumors about Hannah Montana

6. An iPhone customer in Britain activated his handset last week and was shocked to discover there was content already on it. What did he find?

a. Smiling photos of a Chinese factory worker

b. Nude pix of Paris Hilton

c. Nude pix of Perez Hilton

d. Steve Jobs' unlisted cell number

7. In a dawn raid on his Los Angeles-area home, FBI agents arrested Kevin Cogill for a heinous online crime. What did Cogill allegedly do?

a. Distributed child porn across the Net

b. Operated a botnet controlling thousands of zombie PCs

c. Held an entire city's data network hostage

d. Uploaded nine Guns N' Roses songs to his blog

8. Astronauts on the International Space Station have proved worms can survive in space -- at least, Internet worms. What computer malware hitched a ride on a NASA laptop?

a. Gamma.RAY

b. Gammima.AG

c. Jemmima.AUNT

d. Jiabao.WEN

9. An Apple iPhone commercial has been pulled by the British TV police. Why?

a. Apple claimed an iPhone can reach all of the Net

b. The ad featured nude photos of iPhone Girl

c. Pressure from wireless companies without iPhone deals

d. A new U.K. law banning obnoxious dancing silhouettes

10. Take the amount Immersion is paying Microsoft to settle a suit over force feedback patents (rounding up to the nearest million). Add the speed cap (in kilobits per second) that French wireless provider Orange admitted to placing on all of its 3G devices (including the iPhone). Multiply that by the prison time blogger Kevin Cogill could be facing for uploading those nine Guns N' Roses tunes. Drop that into your 8-track player and press Play. What do you get?

a. 6.3135

b. 60,000,345

c. 63,001,035

d. 2

Answer key: You don't know tech

The facts behind this week's top 10 tech questions

Now that you know how you scored, you probably want to know why. Check out the answers below for the gory details. And be sure to return next week for another news quiz, ripped straight from the tech headlines.

Question 1: What did the Chinese have against iTunes?

10 points

a. It was selling Songs for Tibet

China never said why it blocked iTunes, but when the online store suddenly reappeared -- sans the pro-Tibet album -- the mystery was effectively solved. And the gold medal for kowtowing to repressive regimes goes to, yes, Apple.

Question 2: What new IE8 feature lets you pretend a browsing session never happened?

10 points

b. InPrivate

Click the InPrivate button on the toolbar, and IE instantly forgets all cookies, passwords, queries, history, and any other data entered during that session. Or as Computerworld's Preston Gralla puts it: "Microsoft claims this feature is designed for people ... who want to browse the Web to buy a gift and don't want the person to know about it. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink."

Question 3: Who knows more about the new Nano than he probably should?

10 points

c. Digg co-founder Kevin Rose

On his blog the Web 2.0 icon says he received leaked info and photos of the new iPod, which, if the photos are to be believed, will receive a significant (and significantly uglier) redesign. The good news? Apple has yet to drop a subpoena on Rose demanding his source. Which means it's probably not true.

Question 4: What happened at the Polish launch of the iPhone 3G?

10 points

b. Wireless provider Orange Poland paid actors to wait in line for it

According to The Register, the Polish arm of Orange paid actors to queue up at 20 stores around the country, simulating high levels of interest in the phone. Too bad. Professional line-sitter Greg Packer and his buddies probably would have done it for airfare and beer.

Question 5: What Twitter feat ticked off TV studio execs?

10 points

b. Pretending to be characters from Mad Men

Third-tier cable channel AMC issued the notice but quickly withdrew it, after its Web marketing firm persuaded execs that it would be a PR disaster. So "Don Draper," "Bertram Cooper," and "Roger Sterling" are free to tweet to their hearts content -- when they aren't drinking scotch, chain smoking, and chasing skirts, of course.

Question 6: What did a British iPhone fan find lurking on his handset?

10 points

a. Smiling photos of a Chinese factory worker

The photos were apparently snapped at the Foxconn factory in Shenzen, where the unknown (but exceedingly cheerful) woman worked. News of the "iPhone Girl" spread across the blogosphere, along with fears that she would be fired (or worse). Not yet, according to reports in Chinese newspaper Xiandai Kuaibao. At least, not until she becomes more popular than Wen Jiabao.

Question 7: What was Kevin Cogill's dastardly deed?

10 points

d. Uploaded nine Guns N' Roses songs to his blog

Using the handle Skwerl, Cogill posted nine tracks from GnR's upcoming album "Chinese Democracy" -- their first studio work in 13 years -- to his blog, Antiquiet.com. Apparently GnR has friends in the FBI. Aren't these guys supposed to be fighting a war on terror or something?

Question 8: What little beastie reached orbit, thanks to an astronaut's infected laptop?

10 points

b. Gammima.AG

The relatively innocuous worm is designed to steal log-ons for multiplayer online games like ZhengTu and Rexue Jianghu (yes, the Chinese theme continues). NASA says astronauts don't get to play Internet games in space, so the rest of the solar system is safe -- for now.

Question 9: Why did U.K. Advertising authorities kill that iPhone ad?

10 points

a. It claimed an iPhone can reach all of the Net

The U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority nixed the Apple spot because the iPhone doesn't reach "all" of the Net -- like Flash or Java sites, to name two exceptions. The organization was overwhelmed with complaints about the ad, receiving nearly three in total. Get the feeling the folks at the ASA are just itching for something to do?

Question 10: What's Immersion's payout plus Orange's speed cap times blogger prison sentences?

10 points

c. 63,001,035

Immersion is paying Microsoft $20.75 million (but let's call it an even $21M) to end a series of suits between itself and Sony over game console technology. Orange fessed up to limiting its 3G handsets to 345Kbps, or less than half their theoretical limit, although it says it will bump that up to 1Mbps next month. Cogill could go up the river for three years for violating the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. So 21M + 345 * 3 = 63,001,035. Who has the greater Appetite for Destruction -- Cogill or the band's management? To find out, tune in next week for another head-banging quiz.