adambowie.com

Category: Internet

  • Examining My Facebook Downloads

    One very good consequence of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica story is that a lot of people are discovering the surprisingly large amount of data that Facebook holds on them. The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones was “somewhat shocked” to see what it had on him. And The Verge has a good piece on the subject with particular reference…

  • Netflix: $8 Billion and 700 NEW Shows?

    How much programming is Netflix actually making? The answer is a lot, but I think that the widely reported numbers are a little misleading. Heavily retweeted earlier today was this: Wow. Fact of the day: Netflix plans to spend $8bn on content this year. That’s roughly 700 (!) new series and 80 films. Shows how…

  • Administrative Note: HTTPS

    I forgot to mention it when I switched it on recently, but this site is now HTTPS enabled. That should mean that in browsers like Chrome you see a nice green “Secure” label to the left of the URL. What did I need to do to get this to work? Not a great deal really.…

  • If People Think It – Does It Matter If It’s Actually True?

    In this week’s excellent episode of the Reply All podcast, Alex Goldman and PG Vogt explore the question Is Facebook Spying On You? In particular, a number of people are of the belief that the Facebook app is listening to what you’re saying and that’s the only way to explain why things you were talking…

  • Facebook, Amazon and the Premier League

    It’s nearly time for the money-go-round… sorry, merry-go-round, that is the Premier League rights auction for seasons 2019/20-2021/22. We’ve just started the second season of the current deal where Sky and BT between them have spent £5.1bn for the current round of rights. Recall that last time around, this represented a colossal 71% increase in…

  • Netflix and Disney

    Last week came news that Disney would be pulling its movies from Netflix at the end of the current arrangement, and that Disney would in future launch its own streaming service. This licensing agreement generated a vast amount of coverage, much of it ill-informed, and ignoring wider issues in the market. There are a few…

  • BBC Store is closing; Streaming v Ownership

    Back in 2015 I took a look at the then new BBC Store. It had opened in a blaze of publicity after a relatively long gestation period. Visitors could buy to own BBC catalogue programmes as well as some of the latest dramas and comedies. Since then, announcers have mentioned the ability to buy programmes…

  • iTunes 12.6.1.25 and Windows 10 Creators Update – A Possible Fix

    This is really here as both to potentially help others, and for me to moan about the incompatibility of the current products of two of the biggest companies in computing. I don’t really use iTunes any longer. I don’t have a personal iPhone, and my iPod Classic is now resting in retirement. These days my…

  • A Few Thoughts on the Ransomware Attacks

    I’ve found a certain amount of the coverage surrounding the WannaCrypt ransomware attack really quite annoying, and the responses in many cases quite pathetic. So here are a few thoughts of my own: The NSA, and other governmental bodies, have an awful lot to answer for. Governments love to collect operating system ‘exploits’ to use…

  • Believe in Worse: Sky’s Streaming Options

    You often hear that we live in a digital non-linear TV world. That’s not actually true. We very much live in a linear television world with lots of people watching television live. But why let the truth get in the way of a good story. But I digress. It’s certainly true that digital streaming is…

  • Amazon Echo – A Longer Term Test

    I bought my Amazon Echo on its official UK release back in September last year. I wrote about it at the time, but I thought it might be worth checking back in here to see exactly how I’m using it. Right off the top, I’ll note here that I use Alexa multiple times a day,…

  • YouTube-ing

    YouTube is a wonderful thing. From music, to how to’s, to clips from films and TV, to game walkthrough’s and a myriad of thousand other subjects. But I confess, that I’ve always struggled with the “YouTubers.” Now that’s not to say that there aren’t personality-driven YouTube videos that I watch. There are the guys at…