- Blog
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Introducing the Groucho-gram
I’m not sure that I can make a meaningful connection between Groucho and Elvis (apart from the fact that they both died 25 years ago this year) but if there is one, I reckon it’s got to do with the epic generosity of the performer – of the entertainer – that they share and that…
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A shrinking Europe?
The Economist’s cover story this week is a blockbuster (you may need to subscribe to see the story). The message is simple: the population of Europe is – almost everywhere – falling or about to fall, while the population of America is climbing steadily. There’s a strong likelihood that by 2050 there will be half…
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Hilary’s thirteen years war
I tried to date Hilary Rosen’s battle with the demons of high-tech. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to find this Usenet reference to her 1989 opposition to Digital Audio Tape (DAT) – perhaps the only real victim in recent years of the rights owners’ zeal. DAT was confined to a ‘pro-only’ ghetto after a…
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Is this what they call creative destruction?
(This is a longer version of an article written for The Guardian) The music and tech industries have been locked in mortal conflict for decades with no resolution in sight. This time around, will the all-powerful rights owners snuff out innovation and consumer choice or will the maverick geeks and their friends in the tech…
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sufficiently advanced technology…
ShazamSo it’s here. Possibly the most hyped consumer tech product in recent history (apart from Ginger) has finally arrived and it is mindblowing. Shazam has morphed from not-here-yet near myth to jaw dropping ‘how do they do that?’ actuality over night and I am in awe. So far, it’s correctly guessed Little Johnny Taylor’s ‘Starting…
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Bamber Gascoigne and me
For people of my generation (I’ll be 40 next birthday) Bamber Gascoigne is a creature of myth. He was the cocksure big brain who grilled those terrifyingly egg-headed University students and scruffy Poly herberts on University Challenge when I was a decidedly un-egg-headed schoolboy (am I the only one who thought the teams were actually…
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Networks need diversity
GPL zealots play with fire — Open source lobbyists are pushing laws through various legislatures to prohibit Governments from purchasing software from companies who won’t publish source code. Bill Gates, naturally, sees this as a threat and will roll out his biggest guns to prevent it from happening. In this scenario, pointless and destructive conflict…
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Always on, man
Broadband is widely misrepresented as being all about speed. In fact the speed of a broadband connection is the boring part – a simple incremental improvement to narrowband. The exciting thing about broadband is that it’s always on. Always-on is the really disruptive aspect of broadband, the characteristic of your super-fast net connection most likely…
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The Puttnam Report
I’m getting bored downloading Communications Bill documents and searching them for references to the Internet. Lord Puttnam empanelled twelve peers and MPs for his parliamentary committee and took evidence from dozens of media and communications people ? many of whom were apparently Internet experts – and still managed to produce a critique of the bill…