Well co-author. First author is one thing, co-author is another. And I no way mean any disrespect to someone who obviously has contributed a great deal to his field.
My understanding is that this guy was a telephone "phreaker" (hacker enthusiast) and I gather he traveled a lot and would use pay phones and record them as he did.
The "tapes" are him narrating over these old tapes many years later explaining what he was doing. Much of it is him dialing various numbers and listening to the beeps/boops/kachunks and explaining exactly what is happening technically to route the call.
The photos appear to have been taken in January of 2005
From the photographer: "I passed by an old Apple Store today. I used to pass by this store back when I was still in highschool. I used to admire the macs they had on display and always beg my parents to buy me one.. which they never did. Surprisingly the store hasn't changed much. It was freaky checking out the place from the outside. It's as if the shop was stuck in its own time-zone. The shop seems to have been closed ages ago. A thick layer of dust sits on top of everything. What struck me the most though were the "Think Different" banners. They're gorgeous and seeing them in the store window gathering dust and being unappreciated pissed me off. The place felt like a graveyard. In a way it was, the rainbow logo, the beige machines, the old Think Different banners, the Garamond typeface, etc. That's the Apple that existed when I first started using Macs, and its all gone now. On a brighter note, I read that an Official Apple Store will be opening in March here in Kuwait. That should prove to be interesting. More pictures [here]"
From a commenter: "I used to work at this shop in 1995 or so. The shop didn't look any different when I used to work there. It's right across the road from the Meridien hotel, with lots of expensive designer shops in the ground floor and such."
The only really valid part of the linked article is the point about how you can't make sweeping generalizations based on a very small sample size and a (relatively) small trend.
Concluding that people probably know what the EU is while searching very specifically using the phrase "What is the EU" is no more accurate or truthful than concluding that they don't know what the EU is.
The author says at one point, "perhaps we can more likely conclude". Perhaps we can. But perhaps we shouldn't make any conclusions and just stick to the thesis that the press should know better when reporting facts?