Technology Category
Independent news, views, opinions and reviews on the latest gadgets, games, science, technology and research from Apple and more. It’s about the technologies that change the way we live, work, love and behave.
No Date Set For Digital Radio Switchover Because So Few People Care
DO you listen to the radio? Only at work or when there’s a football match on when you’re driving? Well, you won’t be forced into a digital switchover, as happened with television, because so few people actually bother listening to the radio that it barely matters.
It seems, such is the radio malaise, that everyone is still using analogue devices. Or the internet, of course.
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Posted: 17th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology, TV & Radio | Comment
The Race To Mine The Moon For Helium-3 Is On
LAST weekend, China landed a lunar probe on the moon. It was the world’s first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades. Along with the USA and the old USSR, China is only one of three nations to have reached the moon.
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Posted: 17th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
Edward Snowden’s Letter To The People Of Brazil In Full
THIS is Edward Snowden’s open letter to the people of Brazil, published on A Folha today:
An open letter to the people of Brazil, from Edward Snowden
Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government’s National Security Agency to stand in front of a journalist’s camera. I shared with the world evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say. I went in front of that camera with open eyes, knowing that the decision would cost me family and my home, and would risk my life. I was motivated by a belief that the citizens of the world deserve to understand the system in which they live. My greatest fear was that no one would listen to my warning. Never have I been so glad to have been so wrong. The reaction in certain countries has been particularly inspiring to me, and Brazil is certainly one of those.
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Posted: 17th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comments (2)
Well Of Course No One’s Paying For Streaming Music Services
THERE’S a bit of a logical disconnect in this idea that we’re all going to sign up for streaming music services like Pandora, Spotify and so on. The problem being that the more free services there are competing for our custom then the fewer of us are going to bother to pay for it. This is indeed how it normally works you know, more suppliers thus lower prices to consumers:
Yet even as they have grown, streaming companies have encountered a stubborn problem: Music lovers will consume large amounts of music as long as it is free, but getting them to pay a monthly subscription has proved much more difficult.
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Posted: 16th, December 2013 | In: Money, Music, Technology, The Consumer | Comments (2)
Dictionary Update Says Geeks Are Cool And Not In the Least Bit Socially Awkward
SO the language changes once again. Collins, the dictionary people, has just released its list of words of the year. They always do this just before Christmas in order to remind middle aged men that dictionaries make very good presents from Santa for their children. Just like their own fathers told them 35 years ago.
In the list change this year we’ve a change in the definition of “geek”. From one who is socially awkward, near incompetent, to one who is now at the blazing, leading, edge of contemporary culture.
“Often we find that they achieve better longevity too. Just compare previous generations’ use of words like ‘cloud’, ‘tweet’ and ‘tablet’ to ours.
“‘Geek’ is a great example of a word that has evolved from having a negative meaning to having a positive one.
“Its origins are in the 19th century, but it has most recently changed from describing someone preoccupied with computing to someone who is passionate about any field of expertise.
“This change in meaning represents a positive change in perceptions about specialist expertise, and is a result of the influence of technology on people’s lives in 2013.
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Posted: 16th, December 2013 | In: Books, Reviews, Technology | Comment
Robot Librarians Are Fighting Robot Thieves For Control Of The Internet
DID you know that 61% of all web traffic is created by robots? A new report from web security company Incapsula says robots read the web more than humans. The company spotted at 1.45 billion bots from 20,000 websites over three months. Of the 61% robots, 31% are malicious.
Dr Ian Brown, associate director at Oxford University’s Cyber Security Centre, tells the BBC:
“Their own customers may or may not be representative of the wider web. There will also be some unavoidable fuzziness in their data, given that they are trying to measure malicious website visits where by definition the visitors are trying to disguise their origin.”
Frederic Lardinois ponders:
At first glance, this sounds like this means the number of nefarious attacks is up, but Incapsula actually notes that the bulk of growth in this number is due to what it calls “good bots.” Visits from certified agents from search engines and similar tools increased from 20 percent to 31 percent, for example. According to Incapsula, many search engines have lately increased their sampling rates. In addition, the SEO tools that try to help websites rank higher once they are crawled, also now often visit sites more often than ever before.
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Posted: 15th, December 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
Games Publishers Stick Up For Fans Against The Internet
THERE are a lot of companies who still don’t understand the value of fan-made tributes to their products. Prince takes all his stuff off YouTube as soon as he can and some movie studios get riled at clips of films been shown. However, one industry that really understands it is the world of gaming.
YouTube is awash with walkthroughs, compilation videos, nostalgia clips and more, all made by fans for fans. The gaming community understands that it is all free publicity and enables gamers to feel at one with the games they enjoy.
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Posted: 13th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Why Worry About Bitcoin? Why Not Just Start Your Own Currency?
I ALWAYS feel remarkable clever when I find the Financial Times agrees with one of my ideas. It seems like confirmation that I’ve had a good idea sorta thing. And here they’re saying that investing in Bitcoin doesn’t look all that good an idea. For you can start up your own digital currency instead.
Buying Bitcoins while their price is so bubbly is nothing more than a gamble. Investing in other online currencies, or in companies that can help the Bitcoin economy develop, looks like a sensible use of a venture capitalist’s money.
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Posted: 12th, December 2013 | In: Money, Reviews, Technology | Comment (1)
Watch The Top 10 Twitter Spikes Of 2013
THE Football Association are very disappointed that numbers of people taking up football are dwindling. It seems less kids want to run around in dreadful weather, getting lumps kicked out of them and paying their subs for the privilege.
In completely unrelated news, football took over Twitter in 2013 and dominated the spikes of activity the site had.
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Posted: 12th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Sports, Technology | Comment
Melt Your Baby’s Brain With The Fisher-Price Ipad Apptivity Seat
SO. The iPotty was the Worst Toy of the Year. And then…we saw the Fisher-Price Ipad Apptivity Seat, Newborn-to-Toddler.
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Posted: 11th, December 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
The iPotty Is Declared Worst Toy Of The Year
IT is the season for the awards ceremonies and one organisation has declared that this, the iPotty, is the worst toy of the year. I have to admit that I can’t quite see it myself: either as the worst toy of this or any other year or as an actual product to be honest. What it actually is is simply a potty to be used, obviously, for potty training and containing a stand into which one can slip one of Apple’s iPads. And you might think that that’s about it and not something so heinous as to deserve this award:
BOSTON—December 9—It’s official. Fed up with the latest effort to insinuate screens into every nook and cranny of young children’s lives, members of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood selected the 2-In-1 iPotty with Activity Seat for iPad by CTA Digital as winner of this year’s TOADY (Toys Oppressive And Destructive to Young children) Award for the Worst Toy of the Year.
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Posted: 11th, December 2013 | In: Money, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Free Speech Under Attack: Police Arrest Man For Nelson Mandela Joke
IN the UK you can be arrested for a tweet or a Facebook comment. You can be jailed, too. Liam Stacey (above) was imprisoned for saying that critically ill black footballer Fabrice Muamba should die on the Spurs pitch. But the law is not equal because people who said Emma West should be murdered were not arrested. Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were jailed for four years jail for using Facebook to plan a riot. No-one responded to their online call. Like The Clash, they triggered no riot.
Stacey’s tweets were revolting. The Facebook duo are pillocks. Equally twattish is Leicester City footballer Michael Ball. He was fined £6,000 by the FA for tweeting this about Antony Cotton, a gay actor on Coronation Street: “That f**king queer. Get back to your sewing machine in Corrie, you moaning bastard.”
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Posted: 10th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comments (4)
Facebook Button Allowed Users To ‘Sympathise’ With Other People’s Kids
FACEBOOK has a new button. Press it and you can “sympathise” with another Facebooker you don’t know well enough to call on the phone or speak to directly.
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Posted: 9th, December 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
NSA Are Spying On Gamers Too
THE National Security Agency have sent their grotty little tentacles into every corner of the globe, spying on us all in a bid to reassure us all that they’re fighting off terrorists. Even though most of us aren’t terrorists. And by a huge margin too.
Anyway, the tech world have teamed up and said ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! THE ONLY PEOPLE ALLOWED TO INVADE THE PRIVACY OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS US!’
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Posted: 9th, December 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
Candy Crush Saga: The Game That’s Too Successful To Float (See Zynga)
THIS is a fun little story. Candy Crush Saga is the all conquering barnstorming game of the moment and it’s made its maker, King, worth something like $5 billion. But it’s exactly that mega-success of the game that means that the maker cannot cash out by floating it on the stock market. Imagine that, being to successful to be able to sell yourself.
King, the mobile games maker behind Candy Crush Saga, has delayed its initial public offering until next year amid fears that the flagship game has been “too successful”.
The British company, which is gearing up for a potential $5bn (£3bn) flotation on the Nasdaq stock exchange, had considered listing by the end of this year. However, it has decided to wait to give it time to demonstrate that it has other hits in the pipeline and is not a “one hit wonder”.
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Posted: 9th, December 2013 | In: Money, Reviews, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Nottingham Man Buys Photo Of XBox One For £450
WHEN Peter Clatworthy saw a photo of anXBox One console on eBay, he wanted it. He handed over £450 plug £8 packaging. The 19-year-old student, of Bilborough, Nottingham, wanted the device for his four-year-old son, McKenzie. But he got exactly what he clicked on: a picture of an XBox One.
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Posted: 6th, December 2013 | In: Strange But True, Technology, The Consumer | Comments (4)
A Penguin Ate My Camera
This Gentoo #Penguin just ate our @GoPro. #Antarctica pic.twitter.com/C3WiODL43O
— M/S Expedition (@g_msexpedition) December 2, 2013
Posted: 5th, December 2013 | In: Strange But True, Technology | Comment
Sam Wollaston Is The Witless Antidote To Clive James’ TVGuardian
Mic Right’s Remotely Furious: Sam Wollaston and Charlie Brooker
SAM Wollaston is my favourite TV critic of the modern age. While Clive James continued in his dotage to be pure genius, Wollaston is a performance artist, the Andy Kaufmann of sitting around gawping at other people’s work then witlessly hammering out some half-thought out bibble for The Guardian. Nice work if you can get it.
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Posted: 5th, December 2013 | In: Technology, TV & Radio | Comment
The Global iPhone 5 Price Index
THIS is a nice little piece of research showing the variation in price of the iPhone all over the world. You can set it to tell you the absolute price in any country and see the impact of taxes etc on an iPhone 5s. Or you can mix and match it with how rich the country is and so see what percentage of the average salary it is.
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Posted: 5th, December 2013 | In: Money, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
So How Do You Train To Stick Your Finger Up A Man’s Bum?
THIS isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about: how do you go about training yourself to stick your finger up a man’s bum? No, no, not as part of the festivities on Hampstead Heath but rather, how does a doctor get trained to do prostate exams?
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Posted: 4th, December 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment
The FriXion Revolution: Virtual Sex Just Got Intimate
THE FriXion Revolution is here! Never again will BBC DJs and rock stars need to actually touch their fans and run the risk of an underage furore. With FriXion, you can rub and grope through your computer.
On the next generation haptic social network innovative and affordable haptic peripherals empower FriXion users to come together and touch each other in tangible, stimulating ways; from holding hands and kissing up to and including full penetrative sex whether your partner is across the room or across an ocean.
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Posted: 3rd, December 2013 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Living Radiation-Sponge Grows In Chernobyl
THERE is life inside the old Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Growing life. A robot sent within the radioactive energy tomb discovered a smear of goo on one of the walls.
A samples was taken. Further probes. Further investigations. The thing was feasting off the gamma radiation. Gamma radiation 500 times the normal background radiation levels. It sounds terrifying. But, then, what if nature is eating the radiation? Could this fungus clean up radioactive sites?
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Posted: 29th, November 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
How A Standard Lock And Key Work (video and Gif)
EVER wonder how a lock works?
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Posted: 28th, November 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
What Happens When Your Crash A Car Carrying A Christmas Tree (Video)
THINKING of transporting a Christmas Tree on your car roof?
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Posted: 28th, November 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
iPhone Thief Sends Victim Huge Handwritten List Of Contacts
Mr Bin wanted his phone and, more importantly, the contacts on it. He sent another message: “Look through the contact numbers in my mobile and you will know what trade I am in.”
Posted: 27th, November 2013 | In: Strange But True, Technology | Comments (2)
