Warranty hard sell
Backspace has a friend who recently bought Apple's new iPod mini. Although happy with the music player, she did not appreciate being told the $1,900 device could soon break. Last week she rang Apple Computer's hotline to register for the free one-year warranty. The customer service rep tried to sell an extra year for another $440. 'Your iPod mini easily breaks down, so it's better to ensure its warranty is extended in the second year,' the rep explained. A second customer service rep called the following day with the same sales pitch. That left our friend steaming. 'I was furious . . . I felt cheated and more determined not to pay for the extended warranty.'
A dog's life
Google's big China competition, Sohu.com, has announced it will be pushing a newer search site at Sogou.com. Now everybody is supposed to know that Sohu means 'search fox' (strictly speaking, it ought to be spelt Souhu, but the founders may have had some reason for simplifying the spelling that escapes us). The character sou means 'search' and hu means 'fox'. The new site, Sogou, means 'search dog' (gou is the character for dog). According to Sohu's boss, the idea behind the image of the mutt is loyalty. How far things have come in such a short time! Only a few years ago, Mao Zedong was writing about zou gou, or 'running dogs', the vilest enemy of the people. Now, in this capitalist dog-eat-dog world, man's best friend is a symbol of loyalty. It just goes to show that every dog has his day. And Web browsers who visit sougou.com will not find much help from man's best friend. The site apparently is for use by canines only. 'We just search for dogs!' it says.