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Category: Technology

  • Short Nexus 7 2013 Review

    Since I’ve had it a few weeks now, I thought it was worth writing about the new Google Nexus 7, which annoyingly doesn’t have a particularly distinct new name to differentiate it from last year’s model. So let’s call it the 2013 model. I was a big fan of the first Nexus 7. It was…

  • Samsung Chromebook

    For the last few months, I’ve found myself carrying a full-size laptop around less than I did in the past, and instead using my Nexus 7 more and more. In many respects it’s excellent, and I would (and have) happily recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a 7 inch tablet. Indeed I’m convinced that…

  • In Praise Of… What?

    Here’s a curious thing. The Guardian has a regular “In Praise Of…” column on its leader page where rather than just moaning about things, it’ll sometimes, well, praise something. It’s quite a refreshing change to read something positive in that part of the paper. Last night, I saw the column above published online, and while…

  • Killing Google Reader

    I suppose that we’ve all known that it was coming. But Google is finally killing off Google Reader completely. Their reasoning, buried away in a brief note about “Spring Cleaning” (i.e. things they’ve started and decided to finish with) is that usage had fallen. Not visiting the Google Blog on a daily basis, on the…

  • Wearable Technology

    Last week I spent fifteen minutes in a queue in Piccadilly Station. There’s a chap in a booth there who’s the best person in London, in my view, to get watches fixed or their batteries replaced. He does everything. He’s been there for years. I was having a Casio Pro Trek watch’s battery replaced. It…

  • Internet and Mobile Premier League Rights

    Recently News International won the rights for both mobile and internet highlights pacakges from the next season. These are the packages that are currently owned by ESPN (mobile) and Yahoo (internet), neither of whom will have any rights from next season. According to a source at The Guardian, News International paid £20m for these rights.…

  • Ceramic Handmade Radios

    At lunchtime I chanced across this shop in Berwick Street, Soho. Inside they had handmade DAB radios and BlueTooth speakers built from ceramic bodies that were cast in Stoke-on-Trent before having the technology added down south. Josiah is the name they’re being sold under. They’re not cheap, but they’re functional pieces of art. Some of…

  • Kindle for Android Moans

    As I’ve been using my Nexus 7 more and more, it has also meant that my “old-school” Kindle has seen less action of late. I find it more convenient to carry a single device and use the Kindle for Android app on the tablet. Yet it does sometimes feel that the app doesn’t offer all…

  • Retail

    And so it has come to pass that HMV is in administration. When an unplanned “Blue Cross” sale popped up before the weekend, the writing was on the wall. At time of writing, we can perhaps remain hopeful of some kind of partially successful outcome of the administrators seeking a semblence of a successful business.…

  • Newspapers and Tablets

    The majority of the UK press has been vehemently reacting against the recommendations last week of the Leveson report, and in particular reject any kind of government legislation of their industry in spite of the systematic abuse that many titles have treated members of the public. But as they do that, one wonders – with…

  • YouView Launch

    George Entwistle may be the new Director General of the BBC, but the current one, Mark Thompson, was to be found in County Hall this morning alongside representatives of the other shareholders for the launch of YouView. Lord Sugar – chairman of YouView – kicked off procedings, although most of the demostrations were conducted by…

  • Random Notes

    A few entirely unrelated things worth noting: 1. Nexus 7 Tablet Google’s announced its new tablet, and I’ll let others tell you how good or otherwise it is. What I find quite staggering is Google’s UK pricing. In the US, the 8GB entry level model is $199. When you hear numbers like that normally, you…

  • The ZX Spectrum at 30

    While sometimes you have to rely on Wikipedia or somewhere else on the internet to work out how old something is, that’s never been a problem with the ZX Spectrum. It came out in 1982, and you know that because the first thing you saw when you switched it on was “© 1982 Sinclair Research…