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HATS OFF to the IBM boys, who recently suggested a brilliant use for home automation controlled by GSM mobile phones. "When you're travelling to your chalet at the ski slopes at the start of your holiday," one explained, "you could phone ahead and get the heating to automatically turn on so the place is warm when you get there." One wonders what happened to "friends living nearby with a set of keys in case the chalet is burgled or catches fire" who might do the same thing because you're nice to them. But then, IBM doesn't mass-produce friends in its factories. At least, not yet.

AMERICANS ARE renowned for their technological accomplishments, but not for their sense of world geography. That stereotype held true at the LightSpeed optical networking conference in London this month when David Huber, chief executive of Maryland optical-switch maker Corvis Corp paused while delivering a keynote speech. Pointing at a map of Europe, he showed a network running from Portugal to the north-western reaches of the Balkans. Seemingly unsure whether he was looking at Slovenia or Croatia (many of us might be similarly challenged), he settled for "just past Italy". Huber is no slouch – prior to Corvis he founded optical sensation Ciena Corp. We just hope he didn't lose his direction as he headed home somewhere west of Ireland...

WHILE WE'RE generalising about Americans, we did notice another Yankee trait on display at the same conference. The knack for down-home talk reverberated through the aisles of the Earls Court event. Venture capitalist John Spirtos, vice-chairman of the Optical Capital Group, implored an audience to think of networking equipment "as Kleenex". He continued: "You have to be able to chew it up, get rid of it and move on to the next thing." His point was that networking technology changes rapidly, so equipment should have short depreciation cycles. Well said, John. But don't you find the bits of tissue get stuck between your teeth?

WE WERE thrilled earlier this month to discover what appears to be the fruits of physicist Paul Davies's new popular tome, How To Build A Time Machine. Evidence that his techniques work comes from the literary world. The title-page of the holiday-season bestseller The Corrections states that the Jonathan Franzen novel was first published in 2002. Our local bookseller insists this is a typographical error. But we don't believe them, and we can't wait to get tinkering. See you in 1955...