Category: Media

  • Worried about privacy? Forget about Street View

    Me, on Techradar: Before we pay too much attention to the headlines and the soundbytes, though, we should perhaps wonder if there are more sinister invasions of privacy than a Google car taking shots in the street. For example, we could start with newspapers.

  • Techradar: No news is bad news, more browser battling

    New stuff on Techradar: Local news is dying – and why you should care. It’s not an either/or thing: knowing about the latest tech from across the pond doesn’t mean you don’t care about what’s happening in your town. But you can only care about things you know about. Also, I’ve updated the browser battle…

  • Techradar: Chrome 2 and iPhone 3

    There’s a new beta of Chrome 2. It’s fast, but there are still a few things missing. Also: iPhone 3.0 – it’s all about the apps. It helps if you remember that the iPhone isn’t really a phone. It’s a portable computer that just happens to make phone calls, an operating system that’s going to…

  • Why local newspapers matter

    A great post by Charles Arthur: When the diggers come for your town square, will you know why? People who run shops and market stalls are starting to get worried about whether they can cover their bills, because the council did a stupid, mindless, thoughtless thing and nobody stood up quickly and loudly enough to…

  • Techradar: who’s Google’s butler?

    It’s all going a bit Batman. Who’s going to keep Google on the straight and narrow? We’re not suggesting that Google’s founders dress up like animals and beat up bad guys in their spare time, although if they do then we’d love to see the evidence. But online, Google is developing superpowers – and sooner…

  • Techradar: Browsers, browsers, browsers

    A whole bunch of browser-related things up on Techradar today. First of all: Come in Internet Explorer, your time is up: Imagine if the browser wars were a horse race. Safari’s owner is a bit up himself, but the horse is young, sleek and hungry. Chrome is probably still a little bit too young, but…

  • Techradar: YouTube versus PRS, and banishing software irritants

    It’s Tuesday! First up: why the YouTube/PRS spat is bad news for musicians. Ultimately, though, the spat is like watching two bald men fighting over a comb. On one side we have a multi-billion dollar corporation demanding that musicians pay the price for its inability to find a properly profitable business model; on the other…

  • The New Yorker on Watchmen

    What a brilliant, brilliant review. Anthony Lane: The bad news about “Watchmen” is that it grinds and squelches on for two and a half hours, like a major operation. The good news is that you don’t have to stay past the opening credit sequence—easily the highlight of the film. As David Hepworth writes: There’s something…

  • Bugger off and take your Beatles with you

    A slightly inflammatory piece by me on Techradar: why the music industry doesn’t deserve government help. Now, like General Motors, the record companies are hurting – and like General Motors, they want the government to save them. GM wants cash; the record companies want ISPs to act as their policemen, while the Digital Britain report…

  • .net column: could the war on terror mean the end of online anonymity?

    Another of my print columns has made its way online: The war on terror will wipe out Web privacy. Getting rid of online anonymity wouldn’t actually be that hard to do. Simply pass a law that requires everybody who goes online to get a unique identifier, and to use that identifier whenever they interact with…