Image of the week: Bowing to the inevitable
Toshiba chief executive Hisao Tanaka (second from left) bows with chairman Tadashi Muromachi (right) and executive director Keizo Maeda during a press conference to announce his resignation at the company's headquarters in Tokyo.
Tanaka stepped down on Tuesday, saying he was "deeply sorry" for a doctored-books scandal in which profits at the Japanese technology manufacturer were inflated by some 151.8 billion yen (€1.1 billion).
Toshiba acknowledged a systematic cover-up, which began in 2008 as various parts of its sprawling business, including computer chips and personal computers, began to struggle. The Fukushima nuclear disaster did not help. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP
In numbers: Spam-a-not-a-lot
12
Number of years since spam rates have been as low as they were in June this year, according to online security firm Symantec.
49.7%
Fewer than this percentage of emails scanned by Symantec last month were classed as spam. This is the first time the spam rate has fallen below 50 per cent since 2003, it said.
80%
Percentage drop in junk emails peddling diet pills after the US Federal Trade Commission took legal action against a single spammer.
The lexicon: Gigamansions
Gigamansions are the new megamansions, the new McMansions, and the new enemy of owners of averagely sized mansions in the hills of Los Angeles. Friends and Cake actor Jennifer Aniston, whose Bel Air home is a mere 790sq m, has joined those objecting to a recent spate of more excessive constructions, citing privacy violations and months of construction noise.
"The very idea that a building of 90,000sq ft [8,361sq m] can be called a home seems at the least a significant distortion of the building code," she is reported to have written to planning authorities. One such gigamansion, the towering 30,000sq ft [2,787sq m] circular creation of developer Mohamed Hadid, was recently subjected to a stop-work order as city authorities agreed it violated regulations. It had been locally dubbed the "Starship Enterprise".
Getting to know:
Noel Biderman Noel Biderman is the founder and chief executive of "life is short, have an affair" site Ashley Madison, which this week discovered that life is unfair and hackers have time on their hands. Infidelity, according to self-styled "King of Infidelity" Biderman, is universal. And the Canadian fortysomething should know – people keep coming up to him and telling him their secrets. "People confess to me at every opportunity," he told CNBC. But has he ever cheated himself? Only when he was younger. Getting married later in life, he was "ready to attempt this path", especially as "I have learned how to better navigate my marriage based on the data I get to see". That's the same kind of data, relating to Ashley Madison's 37 million clients, that hackers are now threatening to publish.
The list: Tinder for . . .
Any swipe can change your life, says dating app Tinder, which is so successful that people can't seem to stop developing Tinders for other things too. Save time by swiping left on all of these.
1 The Best Song: The Best Song is "Tinder for music discovery", apparently. It will hook you up with songs you didn't know you liked yet.
2 Mallzee: Mallzee is "Tinder for fashion". This shopping app has just raised £2.5 million, which makes its founder very happy, as he had turned down a lower offer from Dragons' Den.
3 Tender: We're all looking for a "Tinder for food". On Tender, short for Tender Food and Recipes, users swipe right if they want to eat what's in the picture. Or something.
4 Tendr: Missing that crucial "e", Tendr is "Tinder for entrepreneurs", and it's designed to allow small business owners and investors swipe right together and conquer the world.
5 Tindog: Tindog is "Tinder for dogs". Yes, it is. It helps you meet dogs (and their owners) in your area and according to the Huffington Post it's "way cuter" than Tinder for humans. That's not hard, in fairness.
