So, Google introduce Play. I first came across this when the Android Store updated itself out of existence, to be replaced with the nonsensically-titled ‘Play’, which wanted me to agree to it, and its Terms of Use. Eventually it turned out that this was Google’s own version of the full iTunes experience: books, movies and […]
Category: Technology
Hey look, it’s no longer the browser you hate! We know it used to be! So here we have a little hilarious video for you showing how people used to hate it. We’re, like, so honest. But of course: So, you should all use this browser now, which has definitely changed and is worth it, […]
One thing the Internet is great for is helping you find stuff that you’ll like. You can get recommendations from the likes of Amazon based on what else you’ve bought, and there are countless tools out there for curating your own little drip-feed of information from the Web. Unfortunately, this reduces the likelihood of you […]
The Problem Digital works, completely divorced from a physical medium and transferable between devices, now lack one of the key ways we’ve given value to these cultural products in the past: their physical size. Another problem: in a hypothetical future where all music and books are available solely as digital downloads (and I hope that […]
Stephen Ramsey has written a series of articles about the advantages of typed interfaces, that is those programs which you use from the command line by typing instructions rather than clicking on ‘buttons’ with a mouse. His argument is that it’s a lot more convoluted to click, click, click, click, drag, click than to simply […]
The death of the desktop PC, and soon the laptop, has been widely reported in the media recently. Tablets, phones and a myriad of other embedded devices will make the power of fixed computers unnecessary for all except the video editors and 3D renderers amongst us. Alongside this, the phrase ‘Year of Linux on the […]
Ebooks are not books. They’re not ‘electronic’ books. In the same way that MP3s are not vinyl and Second Life isn’t real life (who’da thunk?). The book industry is not moving to ebooks. The publishing industry is expanding from paper to electronic screens. The losers will be those who think they are moving to electronic […]
All this ‘shopping shifting’ – from physical goods to electronic goods, and shopping in physical spaces to shopping from ‘wherever you are’ (i.e. via mobile phone web/app) – will further reduce the quality of the stuff we can buy. Of course there are many advantages to replacing a bookcase with something equivalent and yet which […]
I want an operating system that doesn’t define me. Or perhaps, one that defines me better. In a sense this is why I use Linux. I can make all manner of choices with it which reflect my personality when it comes to computer use. However, I don’t think it does it well enough. Default Definitions […]
What does open source innovation look like, and how will it win out over iOS and Windows? (This post inspired by a recent episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast (UUPC).) Here’s a list of open source innovations: And here is a list of things which open source has emulated, and yet failed to break free […]