Extreme Technophobia: Pop Popcorn With Mobile Phones

With all the talk of mobile phone dangers, the idea of radiation from them being powerful enough to pop popcorn doesn't seem that far-fetched, at least on the surface. Why, just this US summer the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute advised its employees to limit exposure to electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones. So why wouldn't you believe the swarm of e-mail telling you to look at the incredible video of friends popping kernels of corn with their mobile phones?

The group allegedly did it by placing the kernels inside a ring of mobile phones that then rang at the same time. The result: The kernels popped wildly as the mobile phone owners shrieked in delight. It must be true--it was on the Internet, and the video was fun to watch. The event set off a wave of imitators attempting to film themselves re-creating it or trying to disprove it. The best of these, in our opinion, was the video where the people replaced their mobile phones with Barack Obama dolls and the popcorn popped anyhow. Watch out, Senator McCain!

Unfortunately, as you might expect, it was all fake. A company called Cardo Systems made the video to promote its mobile phone headsets. Abraham Glezerman, Cardo's CEO, told CNN that the phones were real and the popping popcorn was real, but the video was a composite, with the footage of the popcorn heated over a kitchen stove digitally dropped into the video of the folks with their phones. Dang. Guess the e-mail about mobile phones that can cook eggs isn't accurate either.

Bill Gates Wants to Give You Money

Reccently an editor at PC World received a note from a relative asking if the e-mail she had received that told her Bill Gates wanted to send her US$1000 was real. Uh, no...

Although Gates is being very generous with his fortune now that he has retired from day-to-day work with Microsoft, you can get some of it only by applying to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But long before the foundation was created, back in the early days of the Internet, e-mail discussing Gates's or Microsoft's willingness to fork over free cash was widely circulated--and clearly, it's still forwarded today. Snopes.com has a list of the urban legends circulating most widely and, despite the fact that Gates and Microsoft have been the subject of phony e-mail alerts and hoaxes since the 1990s, they are still in the top 25 this month.

One version says that Microsoft wants to make sure Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser (which we're sure is true). All you need to do to help out and get money from Microsoft is to forward an e-mail to your friends. Microsoft will track the e-mail for two weeks, and you get paid for every person who receives the e-mail through you. Among the attractive details is a list of differing amounts that will come to you depending on how many referrals you make--one version of the scam says the sender received a check for US$24,800 from Microsoft. Not chump change!

Hold on a second. First, if tracking an e-mail like that were even possible, the Electronic Frontier Foundation would be all over that faster than you can say "invasion of privacy." Oh, and did we mention that the technology to do such a thing probably doesn't exist? Of course, you know that already. But if Microsoft ever really wanted to pay us just for forwarding an e-mail, we're game.

Launch a Nuclear Strike From Your PC

In 2002, Symantec supposedly issued an advisory about certain e-mail messages flying around the country about an "important virus to look out for." The antivirus-software maker, which does issue warnings on real viruses, allegedly instructed Internet users not to open any e-mail with the subject line "LAUNCH NUCLEAR STRIKE NOW." If you did open that e-mail, you would inadvertently end up sending nuclear warheads winging their way toward the former Soviet Union. That's right, you could start your very own nuclear war while in your slippers and bathrobe.

The deal was that opening the e-mail would download a virus that would tell your PC to access NORAD computers in Colorado and instruct them to launch a full-scale attack on Russia and former U.S.S.R. states. Okay, maybe US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be thinking that way right now over the current crisis in Georgia, but let's leave that to the professionals, shall we?

Needless to say, the virus isn't real, Symantec didn't issue such a caution, and it should be painfully obvious that this one is a hoax. If that isn't clear to you, step away from your PC and don't ever touch it again.