Category: Columns & Opinion
Opinion: Yet another MP fails to understand the positive role of new media amidst human tragedy
My Tech Digest columns are usually fairly whimsical, so this one has been quite difficult to write. It touches on a sensitive and topical issue which is still being investigated — that of the recent suicides of seven young people in and around Bridgend, South Wales.
None of us know — and perhaps we’ll never know — exactly what motivated those teenagers to take their own lives, and I’m not for one moment suggesting that the Internet couldn’t have played a role in it, if indeed those suicides are connected in some way. However, many other methods of communication could also have contributed to them.
The local MP, Madeleine Moon, is rightly concerned, but has hit out at memorial web sites which she claims “romanticise death”.
“What is concerning is that you’re getting Internet bereavement walls. That’s not going to help anyone,” she told the Reuters news agency.
I’m sorry, Ms Moon, but that is a gross oversimplification of the situation. While I can’t profess to understand the modern teenager, I am probably of a generation somewhere in between theirs, and yours, and I do understand the positive power of online tributes.
Opinion: Social networks reach the parts other sites can't reach – yes, even sexual ones!
Jonathan Weinberg writes… According to MySpace, virtual friends are replacing real-life mates, with more people than ever using the Internet to socialise and find love. Well they would say that, wouldn’t they!
But interestingly, research by the social network has found they are also using the sites to “lose their virginity” with three per cent of under 24s questioned for the poll saying they’d paired up with a ‘friend’ for that purpose…
Opinion: Genuine Apple fan seeks exciting Apple Keynote
I was hoping to write a glowing report of Steve Jobs’ Macworld 2008 keynote presentation yesterday, but (even as an ardent Apple fan) I have found myself disappointed.
Granted, it was always going to be difficult for Apple to eclipse last year’s iPhone announcement, but I felt myself wanting more.
Maybe I’m getting too old, but I find myself desiring function much more than form. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the product announcement I was most impressed with was the Time Capsule. That’s pretty sad in itself, because it amounts to not much more than an upgraded Airport Extreme with a large hard drive in it, and existing software built in to OS X Leopard.
Opinion: Is Apple a bigger danger to our lives than Microsoft?
Jonathan Weinberg writes… I thought I could rely on Apple so this morning I awoke to disappointment in Steve Jobs after his Macworld announcements yesterday. I was sure he’d launch a new iPhone with either 3G or bigger storage memory, thus annoying the FOUR MILLION people who have now, like cult followers, signed up to the iPhone religion.
But it was a clever move. Save that announcement for a couple of months time, and bring a second-generation device out around a year after the first and no-one can have any complaints… can they? After all, technology is always changing and those of us who spend fortunes on gadgets and gizmos, only to see them bettered just weeks later, are fools of our own making. I do it, as much as you…
One gadget to rule them all: how far can one geek's convergence go?
Consumer electronics companies are almost (I said almost) ashamed of using the word convergence now. It’s become a byword for clunky, poorly-designed attempts to shoehorn as many gadgets as possible into one device, while satisfying nobody.
Opinion: Bluetooth is not the colour when it comes to football technology
We’ve all experienced it, walking or driving past a mysterious embedded Bluetooth advert somewhere that tries to download itself to your phone automatically because the BT is switched on, ready to receive on your handset.
Of course, you’ve got the option to decline it and unless you are very stupid, you will do so because that download could be anything, from a mobile-type virus to porn.
But now a firm called Bluepod Media is hoping to deluge us with adverts each time we step inside the football stadium of our favourite team…
Opinion: Surviving Christmas without the Internet, and how BT eventually got it right
Yes, I know that Christmas Day itself should be reserved for offline activities, but you have to understand that trying to survive for over a week without any access to the Internet is, for me at least, pretty difficult.
Part of the problem was that, at 1am on Saturday, 22nd December, I decided to unplug my BT Home Hub during a software update. Bad move.
Opinion: Doesn't anyone have anything better to do than shop on Christmas Day?
Jonathan Weinberg writes… It’s meant to be the one day of the year when you can have a total rest. No work (for most of us), nothing to do indoors other than eat, drink and be merry and with no real shops open, no reason to be tempted to spend cash on anything other than spare batteries that you forgot for those gadget presents and some cream for the mince pies.
So what on earth possessed people to finish up their turkey and pigs-in-blankets, watch the Queen’s Speech and then nip upstairs and buy a TV or toaster from the likes of Comet or Currys.
I don’t know, sure Christmas is a time to be with the family, or if not, it’s a time to get drunk on Advocaat or Sherry so that your handy is not even steady enough to use a mouse. It is not the time to be shopping online, no matter how many bargains there might be out there…
Opinion: The Christmas Day TV movie premiere means nothing any more
I remember a time, growing up in the 1980s, when there was real anticipation for what the BBC and ITV would pull out of the hat for the post-Queen’s Speech Christmas premiere or blockbuster.
In an age where video recorders had only just arrived, there were barely four terrestrial channels, and you had little choice but to watch the broadcasters’ choice, this worked quite well.
As video recorders took hold, I began to think that the channel wars were just a tad pathetic. After all, if you really wanted to watch two programmes that clashed, you just recorded one of them and played it back later.
I suppose broadcasters bank on the likelihood that most people will be stuffed and near-comatosed by 3pm on Christmas Day, but really, good though Finding Nemo and Shrek 2 are, they don’t feel like exclusives any more.
Opinion: 2007: The year your data went AWOL
We’ve been talking about data security, phishing, and online scams for years, but it feels like 2007 was the year that everything went completely pear-shaped.
With visions of Nicky Campbell rummaging through the litter bins of major high street banks fresh in the mind, it seems that every Government agency, and even a few private companies, have had a go at losing our personal data this year.
The Inland Revenue (sorry, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs), the Driver and Vehicle Agency, Fasthosts, the Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service, Leeds Building Society, the Citizens Advice Bureau… I could go on, but it’s too depressing.
Yes, despite all the warnings about how vigilant we, the innocent members of the public, should be — shredding bank statements, having decent security on our PCs, securing our home wireless networks, and so on — it seems the “big boys” still aren’t getting it right.
