tl;dr - Excluding people, even with a "nominal" fee is exclusionary, and that can be a problem. Before reading this post, you may want to understand what I mean by "privilege". You should also understand where you are on The Global Rich List. The heavy-handed schmaltz that is Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom made an excellent point on its final episode. Voter registration which requires a driving licence is a racist policy. For a privileged guy like myself, it seems like the simplest thing in the…
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When giants fight, it is the grass which suffers. As the never ending patent wars between the the titans of the mobile industry rumble on, one thing is becoming clear. The technology world is stepping into an abyss from which even the mightiest empires shied away from. It is said that the only thing which kept the planet safe from all out nuclear war was the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. Why launch your nukes at the enemy when they would retaliate with equal force? In the unlikely…
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Only fools make predictions. So here are my predictions on the future of social media. In the original days of computing, every user had their own computer. Well, Turing had his own computer... Then, everyone had to timeshare on a massive mainframe. Later, every user had their own computer. Now, we're back to mainframes. Sure, we call it "cloud computing" or "thin clients" but it amounts to the same thing. That's the way technology works. It yo-yos between extremes. Think about web…
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You may not have read the book Are Women Human?" Don't worry - neither have I. But the book sits on my shelf staring maliciously at me. The précis is simple: "Human Rights" prevent slavery, promote equal treatment, etc. Women are sold into slavery, are discriminated against, etc. Therefore, women aren't human. I'm a reformed 21st century kind of guy. I believe in treating women as if they were equal to men. I'm a non-violent, non-sexist, non-homophobic, vegetarian …
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Two years ago, a bunch of smart people told the BBC that its plans to build iPlayer for Android on Adobe Flash was nuts. We argued loudly, passionately, deployed logic and reason, and provided specific technical details. Naturally, we were ignored. Sure, Flash was only on a few high end devices now, but the BBC were confident that Flash would be soon be available on all Android devices and our perceived problems would evaporate. Naturally, reality decided to ignore their wishful thinking. …
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I've never been good at growing facial hair. When I was at university, I tried growing a beard for a play I was in. The play was a resounding success - my beard was not. Thin, straggly, patchy, and itchy. At the aftershow party, I put the beard's fate to a vote. All the men in the cast voted to keep my rugged pursuit of manliness. All the women voted to destroy the womp-rat nestling on my face - preferably with fire. So the beard went. I drunkenly staggered to the bathroom, drunkenly…
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I was recently interviewed in The Guardian talking about the use of mobile phone in cultural institutions - museums, libraries, galleries, etc. I was talking about the QRpedia project I co-founded. During the course of the interview, a phrase fluttered into my head - "The Engagement Economy." It wasn't a phrase I'd heard before - although Jane McGonigal wrote an excellent paper in 2008 with the same name. McGonigal's paper talks about getting people to work on a project. My idea of the…
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After an entertaining discussion at BarCamp Berkshire about video games, I decided to treat myself to an Xbox 360. After several happy years with a Nintendo Wii, I was keen to see what the new state of the art was. I picked the current top pick console and, I must say, while the games are great the console is somewhat of a disappointment. I picked the limited edition Xbox 360 320GB Star Wars Kinect Console with Kinect Star Wars - Limited Edition (Xbox 360). Yay! Star Wars! Hardware It…
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