Category: Media

  • Framing websites is bad, m’kay?

    There’s been a bit of controversy over Digg.com’s DiggBar, which shortens URLs and provides Digg-specific features. The main criticism is that you get the bar if someone sends you a Digg-ed URL, but it’s also annoyed website owners because it frames their content. Digg announced some big changes to the bar yesterday that will address…

  • Amazon’s big gay fail

    It’s Tuesday! Over the weekend, Twitter exploded with anger directed at Amazon.com. The bookselling giant had effectively blacklisted GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) books by blocking them from search results and sales rankings. We’re not just talking about explicit books, either. The affected books included scholarly works, award-winning novels and even Brokeback Mountain. Depending…

  • Hey! Teacher! Leave Wi-Fi alone!

    The teachers’ union ATL wants Wi-Fi to be ripped out of schools because of its evil brain-eating properties. Amazingly, I have an opinion about that. Techradar: Our kids are growing up in a confusing world. Marketers use pseudo-science to flog their products, online misinformation abounds and newspapers are all too happy to run scare stories…

  • Microsoft in “good ads” shocker

    The Windows Rookies campaign is really quite cute:

  • Revealed: the world’s best browser

    It doesn’t exist. So I’ve invented it! Your web browser is probably the most important thing on your computer – and you almost certainly spend more time with it than you do with family or friends. It’s no wonder, then, that browser battles cause so much controversy. Some browsers don’t render sites properly, others don’t…

  • Why aren’t tech firms funnier?

    Me, on Techradar: When David Webster, Microsoft’s general manager for brand marketing, slagged Apple by telling Newsweek that “not everyone wants a machine that’s been washed with unicorn tears”, tech journalists around the world rejoiced. At last, somebody in tech has said something funny. There are some hilarious people working in technology, but in these…

  • Google + Twitter: good for them, bad for us

    Opinions? I gots ’em! Me on Techradar: The problem is that far too many online services haven’t a clue how they’re going to make money, and in many cases the business plan appears to be a single sentence: “Get bought by Google”. Twitter arguably falls into that category, because it’s yet to find a way…

  • Is MP3HD the future of digital music?

    Er, probably not. MP3HD is a lossless format, which means it delivers a perfect digital copy of the original audio – but it manages to do it more efficiently than WAV or AIFF files, which can be massive… We’ve been here before. Nearly eight years ago Thomson announced a new, higher quality kind of MP3…

  • Maybe it’s time for the public sector to run Linux

    Me, on Techradar: GhostNet is a wake-up call. Upgrade Windows or switch to Linux. Compromising old Windows boxes is like stealing candy from a baby. Compromising Linux boxes is more like stealing candy from a baby that’s locked away in a subterranean vault with armed robot guards, packs of savage Rottweilers and lots of Indiana…

  • Windows 7 Starter Edition: no, no, no

    Techradar: Starter Edition is essentially Windows 7 with a completely arbitrary three-application limit. This restriction is “designed to ensure that users get the best possible performance” from their netbook. That’s kind, isn’t it? Why not go the whole hog and slap the Windows 7 logo on MS-DOS? That’d go like lightning!