Want child porn blocked? Meet the IWF

Friday, May 31st, 2013

Whenever something bad happens, the powers that be look to an easy scapegoat, and more often than not these days, that’s the internet.

After the horrific murder of Lee Rigby, Home Secretary Theresa May and others called for the return of the so-called Snoopers Charter, though as of yet there’s no evidence to suggest that seeing the sender and recipient of every email sent by Britons — but not the content — would have prevented that poor man’s death.

Today, after the sentencing of Mark Bridger for murdering five-year-old April Jones, it’s happening again. This time, politicians and lobbyists are calling for some combination of porn, violent porn, and child porn to be stripped from Google or otherwise blocked from the web.

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BlackBerry Q10: has it really sold out?

Monday, April 29th, 2013

BlackBerry had a cheerful Monday morning, with its BlackBerry Q10 reportedly selling out in the UK and causing queues at Selfridges, which had the device exclusively for the launch weekend. The posh department store claimed the Q10 was the fastest selling consumer electronics device in its history, selling out within two hours; now, stock is being delivered hourly to “keep up with demand”, the breathless press release stated.

Tales of “selling out” are entirely meaningless unless you know how many were stocked in the first place  – which BlackBerry or Selfridges have yet to tell us.

So we decided to go undercover to find the truth. Disguised as a Selfridges shopper — I’m wearing silly shoes and I’m female — I went in, dodging the dangers of Oxford Street (tourists, chuggers, buses) to bring back this exclusive investigative report.

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The rotten side of Bletchley Park: a photo story

Friday, April 12th, 2013

Britain’s computing heritage is literally rotting away. One of the most famous buildings at Bletchley Park — or what should be famous, at least — is Hut 6, where much of the key work on the Enigma took place during the war, and the subject of the first British book to really discuss what happened at Britain’s code-breaking centre.

Now, if you’ve ever been to Bletchley Park, it may sound extreme to describe it as rotting. Back in 2008, its supporters called for funding help, saying the estate “was in a terrible state of disrepair”, and under threat of being lost entirely. Donations and funding poured in, and visiting the place now is a wonderful experience.

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Major retailers mis-selling Windows RT as Windows 8

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

There are only five Windows RT tablets or hybrids on store shelves and they’re not selling well, as one analyst has pointed out this week.

There’s many reasons devices such as the Asus VivoTab RT TF600T and Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 haven’t challenged the iPad’s dominance — high prices, poor availability, failure to invest in marketing, dislike of Windows RT, incredibly silly names — but I can add one further excuse to the list: confusion among retailers.

The Samsung Ativ Tab RT, for example, is listed over on Argos’ website. It won’t be tough for PC Pro readers to name what’s wrong with this picture:

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How much does cybercrime cost the UK? Not £27bn

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

Judging the success of the UK’s online security strategy is difficult, a government agency has reported – and it’s no surprise given it’s using debunked statistics.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has today released a report examining the government’s£650m cybersecurity strategy, looking to judge whether or not it’s working and offers good value for money.

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3D printing: what’s out there and how much does it cost

Friday, January 11th, 2013

3D printing suggests an intriguing future: forget going to the shops to buy an item, simply design and print your own.

For the present, however, 3D printers – which “print” items by layering liquid or melted plastic – continue to be just out of reach for all but the most enthusiastic early adopters, because of high prices and the skills needed to use CAD software.

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Best and worst robots of CES 2013

Friday, January 11th, 2013

Robots are one of the promises of the future — like flying cars — that just don’t seem to be happening. Where’s our robobutler, eh?

While we don’t yet have a multitalented robot to act as personal assistant, there are many on show here at CES 2013 that have mastered specific tasks — one will clean the gutters on your house, for example, while another crawls over your back for a massage. While that may not sound as impressive as the sci-fi movies imagined, on the upside these single-minded bots are unlikely to overthrow humanity and stomp us out of existence.

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The mind-reading headset that controls a helicopter

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

A few years ago — before I even joined PC Pro — I was at a German tech show, and came across a mind-reading computing system. Stick some sensors on your head, focus on a letter  and it would display it on a screen, allowing disabled people to communicate.

Fast forward three years and shift the scene to Las Vegas, and the idea’s been commoditised — which is a fancy way of saying there’s a stand here at CES that has mind-reading cat ears.

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3M’s 84in multitouch display: (several) hands on

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

3M clearly thinks bigger is better: the centerpiece of its stand at CES 2013 in Las Vegas is a massive 84in, 1080p multitouch display, set up as a table larger than most people eat dinner on.

The new prototype is the biggest in 3M’s lineup of projected capacitive technologies — the same systems used in smartphones — and the dimensions aren’t the only impressive number about the massive multitouch display.

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Polaroid iM1836 Interchangeable Lens Android Camera review: first look

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

The Polaroid’s iM1836 Interchangeable Lens Android Camera follows the lead of Samsung’s Galaxy Camera by running Android on a touchscreen-backed camera, giving the ability to edit and share photos instantly. The camera runs Jelly Bean, which was unveiled here at CES 2013, and will be upgradeable to newer versions of the mobile OS.

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