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Nicole Kobie
Spotify apps review: first look
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
Spotify this week unveiled apps that integrate directly into the music streaming service, but this isn’t quite FarmVille for music lovers. Instead, the apps are, for the most part, geared at helping listeners find music — the system offers 15 million tracks at last count, so figuring out which ones you want to actually hear can be a challenge.
At the moment, the 11 apps are all free, and available to those on free subscriptions, and it’s hard to see that changing any time soon. For the most part, the apps are generally reviews and playlists — hardly something many people will shell out for. Moving the service to handsets might make apps chargeable, but even then, these are little more than curated content.
Black Friday tech deals in the UK
Friday, November 25th, 2011
Like Halloween and the NFL, Black Friday is the latest American import that the British love to moan about, but secretly actually quite like. And with good reason — tech retailers are offering some fantastic deals, whether you’re shopping for Christmas gifts or yourself.
Here’ are a few of the best deals. Drop a line in the comments if you’ve seen any other discounts worth sharing.
Tech City: are there really 600 new tech firms?
Friday, November 11th, 2011
The Prime Minister has said Tech City is well and truly established in East London, with the Government claiming 400 new tech firms have set up in the so-called Silicon Roundabout area since last year, bringing the total to 600.
Now that would indeed be an accomplishment, if it were true. However, the new Tech City Map – launched to mark the one-year anniversary of the plan — doesn’t support that claim.
No wonder people are confused by security…
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
The Met Police can feel justifiably proud of themselves, with an investigation leading to the jailing for many years of a pair of criminals who attacked computers with malware to steal £3 million from UK bank accounts.
Excellent news; high-fives to everyone involved. However, the force’s communications team slightly tarnished the win with some rather confusing advice on internet security.
Google takes Chromebooks to the high street
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
As you may have heard, Google has its first shop-floor presence — not in California as you’d expect, but around the corner from PC Pro, inside PC World on Tottenham Court Road in London.
So this morning I wandered over to take a look and take some photos. Obtaining permission for this latter task from this particular branch of the PC World empire proved a challenge, but that left me lots of time to eavesdrop on customers trying out the web-only machines.
Bartz wasn’t fired because she’s a woman
Friday, September 9th, 2011
When Carol Bartz was unceremoniously fired from Yahoo earlier this week, one thought popped into my head: please, don’t let people say it’s because she’s a woman.
Thanks at least in part to the intriguing details surrounding her departure — being fired over the phone, returning fire with some very unpolite four-letter words — the issue of her gender has been, thankfully, a non-issue.
Six stupid things said about Steve Jobs
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
Steve Jobs has — as you’ve heard, no doubt — stepped down as CEO of Apple. He hasn’t retired; he’s now chairman of the board. And, despite many publications clearly running their pre-prepared obituaries as “profiles”, he hasn’t died.
His departure as CEO is clearly big news, the end of an era, and, given that it’s inevitably down to his poor health, quite sad. No matter what you think of Apple, its products and how it operates, Jobs at the head of that company was a powerful combination.
Why HP is giving up PCs, in picture form
Friday, August 19th, 2011
There are surely a host of reasons behind HP’s decision to ditch making consumer products (aside from printers) in favour of business services and software. However, I’m not going to pretend to be in Leo Apotheker’s mind — he’s German, after all (don’t get offended; my mother’s German, and I don’t get her sometimes either).
The decision took many by surprise, not least because HP is the biggest maker of PCs in the world: if it can’t survive in the computer market, where does that leave other companies? Is this the death of the PC? (Personally, I don’t think so, but working for the UK’s finest PC magazine probably means I’m a little bit biased.)
Government’s piracy policy based on evidence, at last
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
The Government spent much of this morning back-pedalling from its site-blocking plans, with Business Secretary Vince Cable endorsing the Hargreaves’ Review into modernising copyright laws.
It’s generally good news, with the Government accepting sensible recommendations from Professor Ian Hargreaves as well as surprisingly useful advice from Ofcom – format shifting will be legalised (although details on how far that will extend are scarce) and site-blocking will be left to the courts, where it belongs.
Are security breaches really bad PR?
Monday, June 20th, 2011
There’s a general belief in the security industry that being hacked is bad for business: it makes your firm look careless and will cost you customers.
I’ve always wondered if that’s true. Will Sony lose gamers’ hearts because it lost their password details? Will Citi Group, Sega, or any other recent target go out of business over a hack? Or is the PR fallout from a breach not actually as bad as the security industry says?
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