Category: Hell in a handcart

  • Who’s afraid of Google Glass?

    I’m fascinated by Google Glass, which is either a game-changer or one of those products that crashes and burns spectacularly. What interests me the most isn’t the tech, though. It’s how we’ll react to it. My gut feeling is that there’s a massive difference between people carrying around cameraphones and people actually having cameras strapped…

  • Don’t make jokes about Scotland

    The comedy show Burnistoun included a really funny sketch about civic pride, which is one of my favourites (it’s at about 15:50 into the clip): I was reminded of it this week when the comedian Susan Calman received a barrage of abuse for saying something perfectly accurate about Scottish politics. As the Scotsman reports, Calman…

  • Suicide is painless for Hyundai

    Yesterday, the internet was outraged by a viral advert for Hyundai that used suicide to sell cars. It was unbelievably irresponsible and utterly offensive, and as a result it’s been a huge success. It also demonstrates that people in advertising think we’re all fucking idiots. The advert was a terrible mistake, Hyundai says, and it…

  • Blood money

    As the news of yesterday’s Boston bombings spread, several high-profile tech websites decided to cover it – not just by linking to relevant stories such as Google’s people finder, but by liveblogging the aftermath, posting as many gruesome photos as they could find on social networks, and by circulating baseless rumours. It’s the Mail Online…

  • Twitter, Thatcher and the Daily Mail as our moral arbiter

    I wrote a piece yesterday about Twitter and the death of Margaret Thatcher, in which I suggested that there’s something a bit off about the Daily Mail using Twitter to find ammunition for its monsterings. I’ve written before that Twitter is like a pub, and I still think that’s true – but I also think we…

  • In-app purchases are a bloody menace

    There’s a good piece by Stuart Dredge in The Guardian about in-app purchases in children’s apps:  IAP in children’s apps isn’t bad, but scammy, over-aggressive and/or naive use of IAP in children’s apps is most definitely bad. Developers shouldn’t do it, and app store owners should be cracking down on it in their approval processes.…

  • Reviewers should be paid, not paid in kind

    I get a lot of emails like this, asking me to review things: Our first review roundup is of Bluetooth Speakers under £50, and we’d like to send you a couple of units (at no cost to you of course – and you can keep them, no strings attached) to review on your site. You…

  • Pay for a billboard, you bastards

    Long-time readers will know that one of my pet hates is advertising, and specifically advertising that’s based on the idea that a business’s right to promote its products is more important than our right to enjoy a world that isn’t a noisy, unpleasant shithole. I’m pretty consistent about it. Many years ago I wrote what…

  • “They can see my penis from space!”

    Technology doesn’t get much more frightening than unmanned drones, and now they’re coming to a city near you. Some will have 1800-megapixel cameras capable of spotting items as small as six inches, and others will have weapons. This Metafilter post and discussion is a real eye-opener.

  • The ReviewerCard: internet-age extortion

    The LA Times has news of a new thing: the ReviewerCard. ReviewerCard charges $100 for a black card that says, “ReviewerCard: I write reviews.” Flash your card, and the world’s your oyster. Brad Newman came up with the idea when… he was at a restaurant ordering breakfast and was treated rudely by the waiter when…