Category: Columns & Opinion
VIDEO: Can you work from in the garden?
It’s the dream. The ultimate fantasy for the home-worker. Working from the garden! But is it possible? Are humans ready to emerge blinking from the office or home and work productively from our gardens?
With summer on the way, I thought I’d continue my investigative home working video series and try to find out IF you can work from in the garden. So, can you? Work? From in the garden?
Opinion: Is it time for YouTube to be regulated?
Jonathan Weinberg writes… Regulation? On the web? You must be thinking I’ve swallowed some happy pills to make a statement like that. After all, the whole premise of the Internet has always been find anything you want, anywhere – hasn’t it?
But while it’s near on impossible to bring in blanket rules and laws to cover the whole of cyberspace, I do think it is time some sites were forced to put their hands up and take much more responsibility for their actions – and that starts with YouTube.
A poll out today found YouTube is the most popular user-generated site in the UK after attracting 10.4 million people in January. That is a 56 per cent increase in traffic compared to 2007 and just shows the reach it has.
The success of the video-sharing site has been phenomenal. Such fast growth over the years undoubtedly causes problems and makes it difficult for any company to keep up with the demands of hosting such a vast wealth of moving images…
Opinion: Why we should all be scared of real robot wars!
Jonathan Weinberg writes… One of the UK’s leading scientists reckons terrorists could soon be using robots to attack their targets – so should we all be worried and run for cover?
Well, I’ve already battened down my hatches, took the tin hat out of storage and stocked up on tins of corned beef and baked beans. Annoyingly, I don’t even like corned beef, but I’m told it lasts.
Anyhow, robots are without doubt one of the biggest technological advances and one of the biggest techno-tests we face in the future. If they can be used for good, it stands to reason they can be used for evil. Anyone who’s seen Steven Spielberg flick Artificial Intelligence: AI starring Jude Law will know how terrifying a world with ultra-realistic human-like robots could be…
Opinion: Why I'm not surprised people are bored of Facebook!
Jonathan Weinberg writes…
You can have too much of a good thing, isn’t that how the saying goes. Who wants sex, chocolate and alcohol every minute of the day? Eventually you’re going to getting a little tired of the same old daily routine.
I speak as a self-confessed Facebook addict when it first launched. I spent ages on there, ensuring I had more friends than everyone else on my friends-list, updating my status every five seconds, adding new pictures and sitting there transfixed by what my increasing social circle was up to. It’s like voyerism, only legal, and without the naughty stuff.
Why did it bothered me X was visiting the farm, or Y was updating their profile from their mobile while sitting on the toilet? I’ll tell you why, because it was new, it was innovative and it was a distraction from everyday life.
But since Facebook has become my everyday life, my interest has waned. I’ve not changed my status in nearly a week, last put snaps up before Christmas and my Blackberry battery is staying juiced-up for longer as I neglect to check it while on the move.
So it doesn’t surprise me that Facebook’s user numbers are falling. So-called “Facebook fatigue” has been highlighted with a five per cent drop from 8.9 million unique visitors to the website in December to 8.5 million last month. But it’s still 712 per cent higher than a year ago and nine per cent higher than three months ago….
Opinion: Apple is devaluing itself by selling off dirt-cheap iPod Shuffles
Jonathan Weinberg writes…
In the race to be the best, and capture the masses, cool firms often make one crucial mistake – lowering their standards so far that eventually it backfires. Apple’s decision this week to make an iPod Shuffle available for just £32 strikes me as being one of those.
There’s no doubt the US giant is one of the coolest companies in the tech sphere. It makes products that look good and have you salivating over them. Who else could have produced the ultra-thin MacBook Air?
But by pricing the 1GB Shuffle so cheap, are Apple not in danger of making themselves far too popular for their own good? An iPod used to be something you desired, something pricier than most other options on the market but like with any big-name brand, you paid more to have that moniker on your gadget…
Opinion: Is the future of entertainment really free?
It was Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross who sang about the best things in life being free, although I doubt they’d have been so chirpy about it if they’d known that within years, millions of people would be merrily downloading their music from Napster.
Opinion: Why I am giving up YouTube for Lent
Ashley Norris writes…
In case you hadn’t noticed, this week was the start of what Christians called Lent. For those of you who dozed off during RE let me remind you it is a period of days in which the faithful deprive themselves of worldly pleasures in order to bring themselves closer to the almighty.
Back in the day folks would swap the temptations of alcohol, sex and the odd pillage for a more cerebral life of bible study and quiet contemplation. It sounds fine but not a lot of fun. I for one would have certainly missed the pillaging. Then more recently people started giving up things like chocolate and coffee. Again this is very sensible except for they risk an earlier than expected rendezvous with their maker following a cocoa bean and caffeine fuelled frenzy on Easter Sunday.
Now the Archbishop of Canterbury has weighed in with a call for people to give up squandering the earth’s resources for Lent. By this he means turning off lights when they are not needed, not driving to the shops when you can get the bus and generally reducing carbon emissions. It is all good stuff, but in my book it is not nearly the equivalent of a spot of a self-flagellation, which as you probably know was very popular during Lent. Besides shouldn’t we be doing that all year ’round?
So ignoring Rowan Williams I am going to go for the jugular and do something almost as painful as a few lashes on the back – I am going to give up YouTube….
Opinion: Digital photo frames, are they really worth the cash?
Now Sony has entered the er, frame, in manufacturing digital photo frames, the Editor-in-Chief posed the question of does this now mean they are serious bits of techno kit.
Well, with so many on sale now, ranging from the £50 cheap to the £200 expensive, they have – in recent months – become best-sellers on many high streets. In fact, recent sales figures show more than a MILLION of them were sold last year…
Opinion: "If it weren't for technology, I wouldn't get my Mum sending me a homemade Christmas cake every Chrimbo"
Katherine Hannaford writes…
Being voluntarily ejected from the Australian womb close to four years ago, staying connected with my family is of huge importance to me. Thank goodness my parents and sister don’t expect me to write long-winded letters like we would’ve done had I left 20 years ago, as obviously with the invent of email and IM every man and his dog has access to that form of communication. Except for my grandmother, but that’s something I’m working on.
What I’m talking about however is other ways in which technology has improved my relationship with my family, through the use of the Xbox 360 Live, Skype, web-camming, YouTube, various social networks and blogs, and a very clever way of using Twitter.
Take a look below for how technology has ensured I still receive a knitted scarf and homemade Christmas cake at the end of every year from my family back in Australia…
Opinion: Free music file sharing was never going to hit the right notes with record firms
Jonathan Weinberg writes… You don’t get anything in life for free. So the saying goes.
And so, I’m not surprised that a website which promised us the world’s first legal file-sharing service has had to backtrack on the plans after the record companies said they were not yet supporting it.
Qtrax made a big song and dance about their launch over in Cannes with stars including James Blunt there. They secured quite a bit of coverage in all the national newspapers too in Britain.
But maybe it would have made sense to secure the record firms first, after all, as the gatekeepers of the industry, they are pretty important don’t you think? It’s like saying you’ve got a No1 song, without actually having the lyrics written or the musical score penned…
