Home / Op-Ed

• Why It Is Better to Wait for 4K Television

  In Op-Ed, Technology

  

  The first 4K televisions are hitting the market, prompting the first saps early adopters to break out the plastic – but now is not the right time to buy, whether you can afford to or not. The electronics industry moves in cycles. The latest 4K resolution standard conveniently came out after 1080p prices hit rock bottom. Right after the big gimmick of the decade, 3D, failed to impress. It amounts to a major jump in [...]

   

• Gmail Insecurity, Government Snooping and the Problem with the World Today

  In Op-Ed, Security

  

  In case you had not heard, General David Petraeus was ousted from his position as the chief of the CIA over an extra-marital indiscretion involving his biographer, Paula Broadwell. To say it is “the talk of the town” would be an extreme understatement – something that should have been a private issue between David Petraeus and his wife has become a full-blown international scandal. The only way it could have been bigger news is if [...]

   

• Is Apple Having Supply Line Issues? [iPhone 5]

  In Apple, Op-Ed, Phones

  

  I must admit, every time the iPhone “sells out” a cynical part of me thinks, “yeah right.” It is good business for Apple to run out of product, it buys them a lot of free press that they would not get if they had a steady stream of iPhones going into customers’ hands. “The iPhone is Selling Like Hotcakes” is one news story. “iPhone 5 Sold Out” and “New Shipment of iPhone 5s Delivered” is [...]

   

• Apple’s Lightning is Basically Just Double-sided Micro-USB

  In Op-Ed, UberSaturday

  

  Full disclosure: I am something of a fan of Apple products. I wrote this article on my iMac, I also own a couple of MacBook Pros and have a pair of jailbroken iPod Touches in my mobile arsenal. I don’t dislike Apple stuff, in fact I like the equipment – I just haven’t drunk proverbial Kool-Aid. If I found another laptop that was better suited to my requirements than a MacBook Pro and its manufacturer [...]

   

• Game of Thrones Will Be the Most Pirated Show This Year

  In Internet, Op-Ed

  

  In case you hadn’t heard, Game of Thrones has been the most pirated television show this year. There is no doubt that it is a popular show – it has certainly made my top 10 favorite TV shows of all time… but is it being torrented into the ground because it is good or because HBO has clung too long to a dying distribution model? In case you didn’t know, you can’t get HBO without [...]

   

• Maybe Facebook Should Get Litigious Over Employer’s Password Requests

  In Internet, Op-Ed

  

  In case you hadn’t heard, the Interwebs and mainstream media have been reporting that some employers have been asking prospective employees to hand over their Facebook log-in information so that they can trawl through accounts looking for any potential skeletons. It is this author’s opinion that this amounts to an extreme invasion of privacy and that Facebook should take some form of legal action. That may sound extreme or even a little silly – but [...]

   

• Megaupload Shutdown Raises Bigger Questions

  In Op-Ed

  

  When it comes down to it, the differences between a site like Megaupload and Drop Box are semantic. They have attracted vastly different crowds, but they are both essentially performing the same function. Dropbox might have some super-slick applications that allow for awesome integration and syncing but at the end of the day it allows users to store and share files. The difference between Megaupload and Drop Box is cost: Megaupload provided unlimited storage for [...]

   

• Did Iran Hack the RQ-170 Out of Fat Air?

  In Op-Ed, Security

  

  The unmanned drone that you see in the video below is the U.S. Military’s RQ-170 drone, AKA The Beast of Kandahar. In case you had not heard, it found its way into the hands of the Iranian military the other day and, much to the embarrassment of all involved on the U.S. side of the equation, the Iranian public got to see it before the American public. The Beast is designed to cruise undetected, at [...]

   

• Your iPod Touch Could Cost You a Whole Lot of Money [iTunes]

  In iPod, Op-Ed

  

  For those who have not read my earlier post about how my five-year-old son managed to spend almost $275 (more than the stupid iPod Touch cost in the first place) on iTunes whilst your author was quietly enjoying a few craft brews with friends, I will summarize. My son was playing a few games on my iPod Touch. Unbeknown to me, one of the games allowed for real-money in-app purchases – expensive ones. In the [...]

   

• My Potentially Expensive in-App Purchasing Fail [iTunes]

  In Op-Ed

  

  It was one o’clock in the morning and I had maintained a moderate pace of drinking since noon when I decided to check my email. Amongst the handful of legitimate emails and the mountain of spam I noticed an inordinate number of messages from iTunes. I opened one up and to my horror, discovered a bill for approximately JPY8,000 – there were three more mails… my booze addled brain did some crude arithmetic and I [...]

   

• Why 2012 Will Be the Year of the Kindle

  In Op-Ed

  

  You could be forgiven for thinking that the future for the e-ink pushers is bleak. The tablet market has exploded: in case you hadn’t heard Apple has made two already, HP has made a cheap one, RIM has made an awful one, and Samsung has made a pretty cool one that is almost as good as Apple’s. Tablets have come of age, but they haven’t gotten any better at reading books. The next few months [...]

   

• What’s Amazon Working On? [Kindle 4]

  In Op-Ed

  

  The whole Amazon tablet thing seems like a badly kept secret at the moment but could Bezos and company have something else in store? The Kindle 3 isn’t broken, and a good number of people would argue that it doesn’t need fixing – but is it really all that it could be? Refurbished Kindle 3s are hitting the market, Kindle 3 accessories are going on sale – something seems to be up. The Kindle 3 [...]