Last week the Apple company offered the awards for the applications in the App Store that have the best design and thanks to a trophy received from Apple, a "lucky" developer was confused with a terrorist when he was trying to get to a race leaving from an American airport. The prize offered by the Apple company consisted of a square box that could not be scanned by the X-ray machines of the airport and that shone in an inexplicable way. After a careful analysis by an "army" of employees of the security department, the developer who won the prize managed to board the plane safely, although the prize offered by Apple was initially identified as a possible object that could help a terrorist to hijack a plane.
Of course, all the blame for the incident must be attributed to Jony Ive, considering that he was, most likely, the man who approved the final design of the trophy.
As I was heading back to Seattle from WWDC, I was only traveling with a small backpack. I bundled the Apple Design Award into a t-shirt when I packed that morning, shoved it into my backpack, and forgot all about it when I got to the airport. The backpack went through the x-ray machine and showed up as containing a perfect, black square.
The guy watching the screen from the x-ray machine called for another guy, and another guy, and pretty soon there was a small crowd scrutinizing the image. The backpack came out, I sheepishly admitted to being the owner, and I was taken aside. When the TSA folks pulled the cube from my bag, it glowed.
Whispers passed over the crowd. After I explained that the cube is from Apple, the security folks reverently placed the futuristic artifact into its own plastic bin and ran it again through the x-ray machine. This time, the other passengers got a glimpse of what the commotion was about and, once again, it was the glow of the cube readily visible as it entered and exited the x-ray machine that sent a wave of whispers through the sizable gathering.
Eventually, the cube made its way back into my bag, but the curious gazes kept coming. I suspect I will be reading about "intercepted alien technology of unknown origin or purpose" on the blogosphere soon. What can I say? Apple knows how to design their products.
