A few things I’ve written are online: first up, I’m doing Techradar’s weird tech section and I’ve got scary fembots, splattered bats and USB sticks as art.

If we were asked to describe the last seven days in one word, we’d say “week” – but if we weren’t allowed that word, we’d say “roboty”, “batty”, “flashy” or “printy”.

And here’s a wee piece about the government’s exciting new plans for “Silicon marshes” in London’s East End and some Google-friendly changes to our intellectual property laws.

Is it just me, or is there something horribly unethical about all of this? Having Google and Facebook throw Shoreditch a few crumbs while avoiding hundreds of millions, even billions of pounds in tax is a bit like someone stealing your dinner and then offering you a half-chewed chip.

Me at Techradar: there are still areas where netbooks are better than iPads.

… [Adobe] Flash. Sure, there are reasons to loathe it, but in my house my wife matters more than Steve Jobs, and many of my wife’s favourite sites use Flash. Until they see the light and switch to something else, the iPad isn’t a fully functional web browser.

It’s not just Flash, either. Some things simply don’t work, either because of overzealous browser sniffers that don’t recognise Mobile Safari (“Your browser is old or strange! You can’t come in!”) or because of a lack of testing. For example, I’ve found many sites that use RBS Secure card authentication don’t work on the iPad because the box that asks for your password doesn’t display at all.

Want to know the key differences between Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and BlackBerry’s PlayBook? You do? Well, looky here then.

You won’t be able to buy a PlayBook until well into 2011, and by then Apple should have iPad 2 ready to roll. The second generation iPad may well address some of the apparent weaknesses in this company; we’d certainly expect more memory, a faster processor and a camera or two to appear in Apple’s 2011 tablet. And of course, Apple isn’t the only firm making tablets. The next few months are going to be very interesting indeed.

And I don’t mean a few copies of Microsoft Office. Symbian is looking increasingly isolated, so perhaps Nokia needs to kill it.

[hardware bossing the software guys about] wouldn’t be such an issue if specs were all that mattered, but in smartphones the reverse is true. In hardware terms the iPhone was and is rubbish compared to its much better specced – and priced – rivals, but superb software saw it fly off Apple’s shelves.

Windows Mobile 6.1 didn’t fall out of favour because the handsets weren’t good enough, but because the software wasn’t. And people aren’t excited about Windows Phone because the handsets promised hitherto unimaginable kinds of hardware heaven.

We know that Nokia can make awesome hardware, but can it make awesome software too?

Some more articles by me have made their way to the Internet. First, has Apple sold out?

It seems that Apple can’t do anything right nowadays. It has been accused of censorship and bullying, and implicated in subcontractor suicides and heavyhanded policing. Despite creating the most impressive, most popular products in its entire history in the form of the iPad and the iPhone 4, Apple is seen by many as a company that’s losing the plot.

And then, a piece about Apple’s telecoms rival, Google. Android is very good, but are Google’s partners messing it up? Here’s a clue: yes. Yes, they are.

When Google announced its Nexus One phone, it threw away the rulebook. Instead of selling phones with contracts attached, it would sell them directly to us.

Instead of letting manufacturers decide what features to include, Google would control the experience.

Instead of letting networks stuff the phones with proprietary software, Google would keep it clean.

Unfortunately it seems that the manufacturers and networks promptly found the rulebook and beat Google around the head with it, because the Nexus One is no more and Google’s partners are doing their very best to do what they’ve always done – that is, make mobile phones as confusing and as closed as possible.

…and Google’s the latest tech firm to jump into it. A wee op/ed piece by me:

One of my favourite TV programmes was Casualty. I didn’t like it for the acting, though. I liked it because of the hilariously protracted accidents in each episode. “I’ll just hammer this nail in with an UNEXPLODED BOMB!” this week’s trolley fodder would announce, with the inevitable explosion following shortly afterwards.

“I think I’ll leave this really sharp kitchen knife sticking out of the steering wheel as I drink and drive!” another would say. “I think I’ll attempt to combine the worlds of TV and computers!” a third would offer.

Oops. That last one wasn’t Casualty. That was Google.

Naturally, writing about the television business means I’m going to take the opportunity to quote Hunter S Thomson properly:

The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.