Human beings are fickle creatures. As soon as any trend reaches its peak, its polar opposite is suddenly the next big thing. Technology is particularly prone to these societal mood swings. Take the latest surge in online anonymity, for instance. The last decade of the Web has been dominated
Author: Alistair Fairweather
If there’s one group of local companies that doesn’t need help, it’s our telecommunications providers. For decades, this cosy oligopoly has reaped the enormous benefits of rapidly growing new markets, from cellular telephony to data. And yet now they are whining about unfair
If you’d told most people in 1994 that in 2014 there would be a website dedicated to watching other people play videogames, they would have laughed at you. And yet on Friday, Amazon concluded a deal to buy Twitch, an electronic sports broadcaster, for nearly
When Apple revealed its latest products to the adoring faithful last Tuesday, most people were focused on the gadgets. The new iPhone (it’s bigger) and the Apple Watch (it’s not just a rumour). But the potential game changer is really Apple Pay. Sure, the bigger (and much bigger) iPhone is going
Some have called the recent hacking of 200 celebrities’ private photographs a sex crime. Others have expressed unseemly delight at this “dream come true”. But few have focused on the real problem here: our collective failure to
Whenever mankind makes a great technological leap forward, we expect utopia will soon follow. But even the greatest invention in history, the Internet, is subject to the gravitational forces of reality. When the Internet entered the mainstream in the
For more than a century, science-fiction writers have been dreaming of robots intelligent and adaptable enough to pass as human. And the mechanical creatures that inhabit books and movies may finally become reality — and within our lifetimes. This isn’t a result of a single massive
The Internet is full of get-rich-quick schemes. Just like the secrets to magical weight loss, these schemes are exactly what they appear to be – too good to be true. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for ordinary people to make money via the Internet. Two local start-ups are betting they can
Publishing books seems like a noble and romantic business. You might imagine publishers in waistcoats, discovering new authors, delivering knowledge and enjoyment to the world, and wearing little glasses at the ends of their noses. Alas, there is nothing noble or romantic about Hachette’s dispute with Amazon. For more than six months Hachette
Which is more important to you, your right to freedom of speech or your right to privacy? Would you rather have the ability to control what is said about you or the ability to speak openly about contentious subjects? A fascinating collision between these rights is currently under way in the European Union