A weekly roundup of talking points, sans effort

Thought for the week

“We have never heard of PRISM… …We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.” Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling, responding to a Washington Post report that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been accessing the systems of tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and MSN as part of a top secret operation codenamed PRISM, in order to monitor the live chat, email, and search histories of the American public.
 

Weekly high

Pointless, impractical, and probably just a PR stunt, although Dominos isn’t our favourite pizza provider in the world, or even Manchester, we do like this YouTube clip of the firm’s newfangled Domicopter. Introduced presumably to escape Britain’s increasingly bottlenecked roads, we’re not sure whether customers want to stand outside waiting for their 12″ to touch down, but it still made us smile. RIP the Delivery Boy then.

Weekly low

In Singapore, apparently 20% of McDonalds’ sales come from its delivery service. A major campaign was launched two weeks ago, offering reduced price Hello Kitty toys with every order made in this way; if you’re unaware, she’s a colourful cat character who has copious cuddly animal friends, and in the Asia-Pacific region they are all of celebrity status. Seemingly underestimating how much demand there would be, McDonalds ran out of promotional stock immediately, and when customers took to Facebook with complaints, failed to respond. Read the full story here. 

 
 

Things that might happen in the next week…

The trial of Coronation Street star Bill Roache, arrested and charged with numerous sexual assaults that date back to the 1960s, will begin in Preston Crown Court today. The notorious Bilderberg Group, who may or may not control the world in secret (if you believe Guardian journalist Jon Ronson’s book, Them: Adventures With Extremists) will continue to meet in Watford this weekend. Meanwhile, Barrack Obama will carry on talking at the California Sunnylands Estate as part of the US-China summit.

Just in case you missed it…

Facebook intends to halve its advertising product range over the next six months in a bid to ‘make marketing simpler’. Read more on the story here. 
 
If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!