“[Verizon CEO] Seidenberg’s main contention seems to be that the iPhone isn’t a success because it has such a small share of the overall mobile phone market, which is sort of like arguing that GM is more successful than Ferrari because they sell more cars.”
Love the comparison From News.com, here.

In an oh-so-unexpected turn of events, Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was today announced as the landslide winner in the country’s presidential elections. Despite it being a somewhat hollow victory due to intimidation, killings, and the opponent being forced to pull out resulting in an uncontested election, the BBC reports that he was rapidly sworn in [...]

I meant to blog this last week but didn’t get round to it. ICANN, the body which oversees the addressing structure of the Internet, voted on Friday to open up Top Level Domains (TLDs) to allow companies or individuals to have any suffix they like. So, for example, News.com reports that instead of being limited [...]

“Yesterday I was talking to someone about their experience at the GPs - the Doctor googled their question in order to answer it.”
David Evans blogs on the BCS website about the way in which healthcare information will be stored and accessed in the future. I find his thoughts about a web 2.0 collaborative system, which [...]

As Brian Suda says, the fabric skin makes you rethink the fundamentals of design. However, while the video notes that the outer metal shell isn’t actually required for crash protection, I did find bastardbrother’s comment on YouTube, that “when you get into a head on collision.. the skin of the car wraps on you and [...]

News.com reports on the case of two US teenagers, who posted a malicious “fire in the hole” video on YouTube. In it, they ordered drinks at a fast-food restaurant, then threw them over the attendant as she gave them their change. In addition to clean-up costs and 100 hours community service, the judge sentenced them [...]

Reuters reports on the Israeli Transport Minister’s recent comment that an attack on Iran looks “unavoidable”. Shaul Mofaz made the claim to an Israeli newspaper on Friday, saying that UN sanctions were not enough. While Iran isn’t exactly a master of tact - and, indeed, may or may not be trying to build a bomb [...]

“The conflict is obvious. A community of developers can enrich software with creativity, fun and all sorts of utility. But it is virtually impossible for a mob to keep it simple … Consider, for example, all the overlapping and not entirely integrated ways that Google users can take advantage of feeds and gadgets: iGoogle, Google [...]

By Balakov on Flickr - original here. I love this pic, though I had a hard time choosing which one to post as the whole Classics in Lego set is class

“The upshot is that if Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, or so on received a wiretap order for text or voice flowing through their IM networks, they could (and would) be able to comply because the services are centralized … [Skype couldn't] Which means that it’s the most privacy-protective mainstream method of communicating through voice or instant [...]

Time’s “The Curious Capitalist” has an amusing anecdote about an interview with T. Boone Pickens, the American billionaire businessman who, despite owning millions of shares in Yahoo!, doesn’t know what the tech company actually does. But it seems an understanding of technology doesn’t mater when you’re a billionaire… In response to being read a breaking [...]

“The way broadband speeds are advertised is to be regulated under a voluntary code published by Ofcom. It wants companies to publish accurate estimates of the maximum connection speeds people can expect before they buy broadband packages.”
This is long overdue. The only thing missing is that it should be compulsory - ISPs shouldn’t have the [...]

“There are two obvious ways forward. Charge the users, or charge those who want to get at the users … The second option might look puzzling, but it has worked before, in the MP3 market … Twitter could do the same: charge for access to its API, or throttle requests over a certain limit from [...]

As I said in my recent post, I’m intending to get a proper review of the BarCampLondon4 sessions I attended written up tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone’s interested I’ve uploaded my [slightly rough-around-the-edges] presentation on “The Geography of Technology” to Slideshare.

It’s not great as a standalone presentation - rather, it was more framed as [...]

The Guardian reports on the Treasury Select Committee’s recommendation that, after 2011, census data should come from government databases rather than manual form-filling. While on the face of it it may seem a sensible, time-saving proposal, this raises many questions - both about technical and feasibility aspects, and surrounding civil liberties and data protection. Regardless [...]

News.com reports that Apple is to sell the iPhone in Japan. I don’t quite understand why. As the story notes, the flashy features of the iPhone are standard fare in one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, and I remember quite a few reports at the time of the first iPhone launch which commented [...]

“Barack Obama has chosen a high-profile team to help select his running mate, after declaring himself the Democratic nominee for US president … Although she has yet to concede, Mrs Clinton has said she would be ‘open’ to the idea of being Mr Obama’s vice-presidential running-mate.”
Great news (although not entirely unexpected) that Obama has enough [...]

Better late than never, I’m back to blogging after going to BarCampLondon4 at the weekend. Somewhat ironic that I was possibly surrounded by the highest concentration of laptops in the world, and yet I’ve only just got round to writing this Anyway, in a nutshell, I had a great time - met lots of [...]