Me, on Techradar:
In December 2009, on this very website, I wrote a very silly thing. “There’s no way any device, not even an Apple one, can live up to the hype the long-awaited Apple Tablet has generated,” I grumbled.
Oops!
Elsewhere on the site I’ve written a wee piece on the NGP, aka the Sony PSP2.
Sony’s codename for the PSP2 is NGP, which stands for Nice Gamey Playtime.
Me, on the news that Intel has hired will.i.am as some kind of creative powerhouse:
For the finale of last month’s Paper Clips and Metal Fastenings 2011 show, they wheeled out the pint-sized popstress Pixie Lott.
“All the paper clips, they’ve got it going on,” she sang to a crowd of chubby middle-aged men, tears visible in the corners of her eyes.
“And when you clip that paper the feeling in your bones,” she added, dancing awkwardly, looking for all the world like someone praying for an early death.
No, not really. But it’s not that far from the truth. Like a rubbish Rutger Hauer, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.
Social media Chinese Whispers and thoughtless retweets tend to be more innocuous than tales of crazed gunmen, but they can still be annoying: a few days ago otherwise sensible people were retweeting “an actual letter that was sent to a bank by a 96-year-old woman”, a newspaper humour column that has been floating around the Internet for the last 12 years.
Still, it made a change from hoaxes claiming that X person had died in a hangliding/gardening/snowboarding accident: this year’s crop already includes Justin Bieber and Nelson Mandela, both of whom are very much alive.
Before getting my iPad, I promised to dump my expensive newspaper habit. It didn’t really work, because I missed the serendipity of a printed newspaper. So I came up with a compromise. I’d get a daily paper again, but instead of the full-fat Guardian I’d get i, the abridged Independent.
From tomorrow, I’m back to the Guardian.
i is a nice idea, but it’s not the paper for me. There’s very little comment, which I’ve come to realise is something I really want from a paper. It’s good for exactly 20 minutes of reading, so it’s not something you return to throughout the day – which, again, is something I want from a paper. And some of its supposed innovations are a pain in the arse, such as wasting two pages to tell you what’s in today’s issue (along with a daily “Ooh, this paper’s great, isn’t it?” editor’s letter), quoting tweets from ten randomly chosen people, having a “from the blogs” section that crams the entire blogosphere into 150 words or a TV guide that fails to answer the question, what’s on the bloody TV?
The other problem with i is that if you get it delivered, you’re probably paying more than the cover price for delivery. My newsagent charges 27p; i‘s cover price is 20p. There’s something enormously annoying about that.
So I’m back to the Guardian, for now at least. Financially it doesn’t make sense – it’s £1 a day for something I can get for free online – and there’s the constant danger of encountering an article by Tanya Gold, but I’ve definitely found that I read differently in print and on screens. For all its joys the iPad has a screen and reading on it feels like work: I speed-read, and pop in and out of apps, and look at Twitter, and…
Print doesn’t have that, and I think that’s a big plus. When I need to read, I read on a screen. When I want to read, I want to read without distraction.
That’s one of the things I like about the Kindle. Its additional features – its web browser, its MP3 playback – are rubbish enough that I don’t want to use them, so it works as a pure reading device. I do hope Amazon resists the temptation to add extra features in the next version.
Sensible doesn’t mean timely – this should have happened about ten years ago – but at long last two major record labels have wised up: they’ll no longer release records to radio months and months and months before anyone can buy them.
David Joseph, the chief executive of Universal Music, said: “Wait is not a word in the vocabulary of the current generation. It’s out of date to think that you can build up demand for a song by playing it for several weeks on radio in advance.”
Better late than never, eh?
I think about a lot of things before I share online. But here’s one thing I never think about:
The unthinkable.
Daniel Miller didn’t think of that either. So he shared photos on Facebook and Flickr, wrote anecdotes in his blog, and managed his finances using Mint. And then his one year-old daughter died.
And the machine wouldn’t turn off. Every now and then he just wanted to take his mind off his grief and focus on something happier. But he was constantly reminded of his daughter by the sites and tools that were so integrated into his connected life.
Daniel explains what he calls the “infinitely connected triggers of her memory and the dumb machinesâ€Â in a blog he writes to share experiences related to his family’s loss.
If you haven’t heard, communications minister Ed Vaizey is asking ISPs to consider adopting an opt-in system for online porn. Essentially ISPs will filter unless you specifically ask them not to.
There’s some awful stuff out there, and I don’t think kids should see it any more than I think The Human Centipede should be shown on cBeebies.
I think I’m pretty consistent on this. I don’t think seven-year-olds should play Call of Duty: Black Ops, and I don’t think Frankie Boyle is the best choice of entertainer for your four-year-old’s birthday party.
The problem, I think, is that attempting to filter out porn isn’t going to work. Any attempt to create a national firewall is both doomed and dangerous.
And of course, there’s the biggest problem of all, the hole in the digital dyke nobody can plug.
Other parents.
As a parent, I’m well aware that it’s my responsibility to keep my kids away from filth. The problem is that I can’t ensure that you keep your kids away from it.
I can’t help thinking that the first couple of commenters are missing my point.
If you’re a parent you’ll know Oliver Jeffers: he’s the writer and artist who created the sublime Lost And Found. And now, one of his books is an iPad app.
Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, the iPad version is a digital delight. And as it’s about death, it *will* make you cry.
The app is currently £2.39. More here (itunes link).
You know how I’m often to be found banging on about augmented reality and its potential for awesomeness? Check this out.
It’s real and it works. Astonishing. More here.