Bork!Bork!Bork! Lidl is a well-known purveyor of inexpensive groceries, random goods via the Middle of Lidl, and now… bork.
Spotted by an eagle-eyed Register reader, this branch of Lidl has a bit of bargain basement digital signage, judging by what is on the screen of the non-booting wallware.
The boot agent has a copyright datestamp of 2013; a challenging time for the chipmaker – Intel – but nothing compared to today’s woes. Back then, the company was pushing its 4th-generation chips while belatedly realizing that tablets and smartphones, not desktop PCs, were the consumer future..
Digital signage not booting on wall of Lidl – Click to enlarge
2013 also marked the beginning of Brian Krzanich’s tenure as CEO. Krzanich quit five years later, after some consensual hard rebooting with an Intel employee came to light – the sort of thing companies frown upon, though it pales beside the company’s subsequent strategic missteps under later executives.
It’s fitting, then, to see this Intel era commemorated by Lidl with digital signage that won’t boot. Something has clearly befallen whatever disk lurks behind the scenes. The message “An operating system wasn’t found” isn’t promising. And there’s no keyboard for the recommended three-finger salute (Ctrl+Alt+Del) the stricken sign suggests.
Beyond its occasionally odd-sounding brand names, Lidl is famous for its ‘Middle of Lidl’ aisle (not to be confused with Aldi’s Aisle of Dreams). The aisle contains whatever oddball items the company’s buyers thought were a good idea at the time. It’s hard not to imagine a time-expired digital sign appearing there, nestled among vacuum cleaners and pedal bins.
We’ve hidden some of the network information that might be of use to passing miscreants. After all, it would take mere moments to display something the retail giant would prefer not to see on its walls.
“Time for the checkout clerk to call tech support I guess,” mused our reader, “unless they know how to disconnect any drive that doesn’t have an OS installed.”
Unexpected item in the signage area indeed. ®
