OMG! Some star LOVES Samsung. Back when Twitter started, they used to advertise which Twitter clients people used. You could see that Stephen Fry preferred Feathers, and that I used Dabr. All was well. Then, of course, Twitter went to war with its third party developers. They cut their API limits, reduced their functionality, and obliterated all mention of third party clients. Which means …
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Some days, I think it must be fantastic to work for an organisation which just doesn't care any more. The sort of place which thinks, "sod it, it's not like we need more readers or more money." That is, I imagine, what it's like to work for The Times. For the last 3 years, The Times' articles have been (mostly) behind a paywall. People have been predicting its demise for just as long, but it…
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While we were in New York City, we went to see Nathan Sawaya's The Art of The Brick. The artist uses Lego as his medium, and the art he produces is breathtaking. The mixture of 2D and 3D is incredible. But there are aspects of the exhibition which left me with questions about the nature of art and creativeness. Take, for example, these statues (click to embiggen). They are magnificent…
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It goes without saying that counterfeiting coins is illegal. Sir Isaac Newton when he was Master of the Mint, had people hanged or tortured for illegally producing coins. So, don't do it, ok! That said, coins are very useful as calibrators for 3D printers. They come in various shapes, sizes, and thickness. More importantly, it's really easy to compare a 3D printed coin with one in your…
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David Cameron wants to block certain "pornographic" search terms. He joins a long list of MPs who simply don't understand what they're talking about - like Claire Perry, Andy Burnham, and Helen Goodman. I've talked before about my time working as an "Adult Material Classifier" for Vodafone UK. In short, my team and I used to watch pornographic videos and classify whether they were suitable for…
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It rather sounds like the title of a Doctor Who story from the late 1970s, doesn't it? But it's a term that I think we're going to be hearing a lot of in the future. Jake Levine recently wrote an excellent post on apps which don't require any interaction. It's not quite as crazy as it sounds - the interfaceless application - but refers to a class of program where the only interaction is in…
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Update 2013-07-13 I've just received this email from Nate Tyler at Google. Hope you're enjoying the weekend. I work on the Google Maps team and just saw your post on Google Maps navigation. Thank you very much for the concern. Wanted to be sure you and your readers are aware that we have pushed an update to the latest release of Maps for Mobile to fix this issue. If there's any chance to update …
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There's an ethical conundrum which is often posed to military strategists and philosophers alike. In 1940, the Nazi's communications encryption had been broken by the British. Military Intelligence were able to decrypt a signal which indicated that the city of Coventry was to be bombed. The military chiefs took this information to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. If he ordered the…
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We've all been stuck on hold to some call centre and heard a distant voice say "For your security, and our training purposes, your call may be recorded." I've always wanted to say to people "just so you know, I am also recording this call." Well, now I can. A little back story... Around 4 years ago, I experimented with recording phone calls. It was quite a clunky process, involving conference …
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The British are culturally predisposed to root for the underdog. I'd never been a massive fan of MySpace - but after the trials and tribulations it has gone through, I have a soft spot in my heart for it. So, when this email arrived, I couldn't wait to give it a go. Ok, so the email isn't formatted well for mobile - despite the fact that nearly 50% of all emails are read on the phone. With…
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As with most tasks in life, there are two paths you can go by - the easy way, or the right way. Sadly, many of us choose the easy way which, in the long run, means more work for us all. Take, for example, the seemingly dull task of email unsubscription. A developer wants to make it easy for a user to unsubscribe from an email newsletter. They want to place an unsubscribe link at the bottom of …
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I don't usually get involved in legal blogging. I am not a lawyer, and I find the finicky details somewhat hard to follow. That said, I do appreciate how (most) judges in the UK write their judgements in a relatively clear and unambiguous manner. Jack of Kent today pointed out the recent judgement on Operation Weeting - which is looking into the alleged illegal interception of voicemail…
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