Glitches Of The Week Source: Newsbytes Publication date: Feb 18, 2000

This is a weekly column from Newsbytes featuring the latest in the weird, bizarre, and unfortunate when it comes to technology.

Love's Labors Lost

Some of Cupid's arrows missed their mark this Valentine's Day. Some electronic Valentines sent via Egreetings.com were delivered late due to excessive electronic traffic through their web site. On Egreetings.com, customers could choose from 5,000 free, digital greetings, personalize it, and then designate an e-mail destination and date of delivery. But Egreetings.com could not meet the recent holiday demand and as a result was overdue for delivery on some Valentine's Day messages. In an apology e-mail sent to Egreetings.com customers, CEO Gordon M. Tucker said, "Due to record-breaking Valentine's traffic on our site, in some cases we were not able to deliver greetings on time." The company would not comment on the length of the delay or the number of messages that were delayed as a result of the overburdened site.

England Man To Sue Police Over DNA Mistake

Raymond Easton, a man who was charged with burglary last April, is suing the Greater Manchester Police Force for damages after a computer mismatched DNA evidence, placing him at the scene of the crime. According to the London Daily Mail, police were convinced that Easton, who has Parkinson's disease and can't drive, was the perpetrator of a crime in Bolton, a city 200 miles from his Swindon home. Easton was questioned for hours at the police station and released on bail. Although he had an alibi, the police investigation was fueled by a piece of DNA evidence. The national DNA database had linked that evidence to Easton, whose DNA was already on file. The odds of a mismatch in Easton's case were calculated at 37 million to one.

Six months after he was charged, the DNA match was discovered to be erroneous, but only after Easton's lawyer demanded a retest of the data. The charges were dropped after the test results. Since 1995 there have been thousands of convictions based on DNA evidence tests. Authorities are preparing for appeals in some of those cases.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com

10:30 CST

(20000218/WIRES BUSINESS, NETWORK, PC/GLITCHES/PHOTO) Publication date: Feb 18, 2000 ) 2000, NewsReal, Inc.

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-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 19, 2000

Answers

Lab testings are riddled with errors on common tests (cholesterol levels, urine analysis etc.) right now. IMO, the more DNA testings are done for other reasons, the more overloaded the testers will be and less vigilant as with other lab tests now. Error rates will increase.

-- Chris (#@$%&@pond.com), February 19, 2000.