Tumbling tumbling Apples

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

Last week’s unseasonal wind made our garden a dangerous place to be in, not a June drop, more a July blitzkrieg. Walking in the garden was like being on the Normandy beaches. You were very likely to be hit by flying objects and unless you kept you head down, you were a goner. (more…)

And now a paywall for ranting

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Paying to read The Times online is a bit of a stretch for most people, but what about paying to rant about the news stories you read? One US newspaper, the Sun Chronicle in Massachusetts, has started erecting a paywall for reader comments.

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The Raoul Moat Facebook page and the freedom of speech quandry

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

The infamous ‘Raoul Moat You Legend’ Facebook page has been taken down after pressure mounted on its creator and the social networking site (which refused to budge).

While this event poses some highly complex moral and philosophical issues, the development also brings into question the extent to which people in the UK can exercise free speech.

One of the main attractions of Facebook is its ability to bring people together for a common cause. Users can say what they want and interact with like-minded people. Having just started reading David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect, which briefly explores how anti-FARC supporters in Columbia were united by a group on the social networking site, it is clear the service has incredible potential to help people do good.

But the Raoul Moat page is a very murky area indeed. On the one hand, there will be many who would have backed the prime minister’s call for Facebook to remove the page due to the offence it caused. Understandable.

Meanwhile, staunch freedom of speech advocates will get behind Facebook and its unwillingness to remove the group, which managed to acquire more than 30,000 supporters. Also understandable.

A Facebook statement sent to IT PRO reads thus: “We have 26 million people on Facebook in the UK, each of which has their own opinion, and they are entitled to express their views on Facebook as long as their comments do not violate our terms. We believe that enabling people to have these different opinions and debate about a topic can help bring together lots of different views for a healthy discussion.”

(Facebook’s terms say that pages are reserved for the promotion of a business or other commercial, political or charitable organisation or endeavor, including non-profit bodies, political campaigns, bands and celebrities. I’m not sure what the Raoul Moat page would be classed under… political? Celebrities? Charitable? Another gray area for another discussion perhaps).

I’m sure there are many, such as myself, in the middle ground, unable to decide whether such Facebook groups should be banned or if freedom of expression should be an all-encompassing rule. A similar situation recently arose around a group that promoted the drawing of the prophet Mohammed, which caused Pakistan and Bangladesh to briefly prevent access to the service from within their borders.

It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, for any freedom of speech supporter with a strong sense of rectitude to reconcile the contrasting moral and political emotions that this Facebook group will inspire in them.

And even though the page is gone, this internal conflict will surely manifest itself in some serious political debate soon enough.

Raoul Moat – Facebook Folk Hero?

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Apple iPhone recall? Surely not…

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Just what is going on with the iPhone 4? After antenna problems and a consumer non-profit in the US saying it could not recommend the device any longer due to signal issues, Paddy Power has today slashed odds from 2/1 to 4/6 on Apple recalling the device.

Having seen iPad sales going through the roof, Apple would have been forgiven for thinking the iPhone 4 launch would have been an easy ride. No such luck for Steve Jobs and Co. But surely Apple will not get all humble on us and actually ask for the devices back… will it?

I wouldn’t be too convinced by the rumours. Apple knows how damaging this could be. Given the rapid progress of the firm, it’s unlikely it would want to do anything drastic that has the potential to perhaps irreparably harm the reputation it has been building on with such success. After seeing its share price fall following whisperings of a recall, Apple has already had a taste of what could come if one was actually enforced.

If a recall does go ahead, it will surely be the most high profile of its kind in recent memory. The Cupertino company would not just have to cope with criticism from the anti-Apple brigade, some of whom may have even been converted by the genuinely impressive smartphone. It could also expect to lose some of the enchantment it has over fans – an area where the company has shone in recent times with its trendy indie ads, super helpful in-store technicians (at least in the store where I got my MacBook serviced) and the glossy sheen of its products. A lot of people love Apple and people don’t like having their hearts broken.

So don’t expect the latter scenario to come to pass. Not only will Apple most likely be too keen to protect its reputation, but there are rumblings that the technical issues are not actually severe enough for such a step.

Nevertheless, if a recall is initiated, I will buy myself a hat, fry it and eat it. With an apple for dessert of course.

Why is Europe so popular with spammers?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

The latest Sophos ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of those countries which are responsible for the largest amount of spam relaying was published today. While there were no surprises right at the top, apart from the fact that the US has actually managed to pull even further ahead (up from 13.1% of the world’s spam to 15.2%) of the rest of the world which many of us didn’t think was possible, the list does not make good reading for those of us with an interest in domestic web security matters.

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Facebook Gifts gone, just like that

Monday, July 12th, 2010

So Facebook has scrapped its Gifts service. As of August 1, it will be gone.

Now, although I am no huge fan of services like these, believing they’re as much of a money spinner for corporations as Valentine’s Day is, what is disappointing is that it seems Facebook did not ask users whether it was cool to ditch the virtual presents or not. Instead, the feature is pulled, just like that.

At the time of publication, Facebook had not confirmed if it had interacted with consumers over ending the service.

In a blog post, Facebook Gifts developer Jared Morgenstern had this to say: “Closing the Gift Shop may disappoint many of the people who have given millions of gifts, but we made the decision after careful thought about where we need to focus our product development efforts.”

Facebook may be trying to make its other services more appealing, but some form of consultation would have been nice. Given that the government is using the social networking site to ask for people’s thoughts on something as significant as spending cuts, surely some sort of interaction over something as low-key as the Gifts service would have been simple enough. An apt axiom comes to mind: it’s the thought that counts.

And I find this to be symptomatic of a wider problem among some of the tech big boys. Is it not best practice to garner some sort of consumer opinion before scrapping a service?

Of course, the problem may be that Facebook Gifts simply wasn’t popular enough, but then why would Morgenstern talk about the “millions of gifts” that have been sent? He even said he was “proud of the impact gifts have had on Facebook”.

What is concerning about this is that at a time when transparency is supposedly becoming more important, consumers are left out of even the most minor business decisions that affect them possibly more than anyone else.

Buggy Software

Monday, July 12th, 2010

…001 A Space Odd…

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

I’m a Mac user. There, I’ve said it, just like they do at AA meetings. I’m a Mac user and quite happy with it. As I kept reminding myself last Thursday and Friday. (more…)

Have Google and China made up?

Friday, July 9th, 2010

With a smile on its many-hued face, Google has had its ICP license renewed in China, the country it threatened to pull out of altogether just earlier this year. Considering relations between the emerging superpower and the internet giant have been so strained recently, surely they haven’t kissed and made up already?

I would suggest not entirely. While it is positive that people in China should now be able to access the wonderful world of Google search, at the current time the uncensored results seem to be only available through the Hong Kong-based service. Furthermore, the amount you can currently do on Google.cn appears very limited indeed.

However, there are clear signs of a willingness to reconcile differences here. On the one hand, Google is understandably persevering with its efforts in the country. It would be somewhat parochial of the company to completely leave one of the world’s burgeoning superpowers. Google is, after all, a corporation that needs money.

On the other hand, China, a country that sought to exhibit its business prowess at the recent World Expo in Shanghai, will no doubt benefit from having Google on board. If it really wants to prove to the world that it is not a closed shop, then having Google.cn available will be a boon. Not to mention that it will most likely make citizens a little happier.

With another exhibition set to showcase Shanghai as the “next great world city” later this year, will China really want others to think of it as a nation taking retrograde steps like limiting Google.cn?

The only obvious hindrance is the censorship issue – something that Google is highly unlikely to drop. So it will be up to the country with the largest population on earth to decide whether it has a home for the biggest search company on the planet.

From where I stand, it is in both party’s interests to let Google live in China and (time to get prophetic) given the speed of this current development, it may not be too long until we see Google fully up and running in the country once again.