“[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.

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 [...]

“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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

Jack Schofield blogs on The Guardian website that Microsoft are to expand their support of open file formats in Office. Next year’s service pack will bring XPS, PDF, PDF/A, ODF, and (in a sign of the increasing importance of Chinese business) the Chinese national file format UOF as standard. Additionally, the next version of Office [...]

BBC News reports on the EU’s Directive on Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices, which outlaws practises such as setting up fake blogs simply to promote products, or companies reviewing their own products on ratings sites. In theory, a great idea - these advertising tactics are bad for the consumer and underhand on the part of the [...]

“The environmental movement has never been short on noble goals … But today, one ecological problem outweighs all others: global warming … Just one problem. Winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows.”
Wired has a great bunch of articles looking at the sacrifices environmentalists may need to accept in order [...]

Charles Arthur posted a superb piss-take on his Guardian technology blog a couple of weeks ago He takes a look at the new Microsoft Telescope software, starting with the installation procedure (11 lengthy, technical bullet points), followed by Microsoft’s claim of ‘Mac support’. Telescope’s revolutionary way of working on a Mac is to -er [...]

“Steps up to the entrance were deliberately built to ensure nobody would try to ram the building. Cameras and motion detectors are everywhere to be seen. The reflecting windows on the outside are fake … At each stage, at least two forms of authentication are required to enter various parts of the building, including door [...]

I just came across a post on Olly Jackson’s blog about Ordnance Survery finally opening up some of their data. There’s been widespread disquiet for several years over OS’s strict licensing regime for use of their data, including online use, which generally boils down to charging people a lot of money to use data collected [...]