• TECH

  Do you have a fear of spying?

  Life, James Hein, Published on 11/10/2017

  » So how safe do you feel in your home security-wise? I'm not thinking of malware but the ability for someone to snoop on you visually or through audio. There have been some concerns about devices like the Amazon Echo and similar being used to tap into what you are saying with everything recorded on servers that authorities could get from say Amazon.

• TECH

  The World Wide Web turns 30

  Life, James Hein, Published on 10/05/2023

  » The public version of the World Wide Web turned 30 recently. Back in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee proposed a global hypertext system called Mesh. The next year he added a hypertext GUI browser and editor and called the result the WorldWideWeb. Inside CERN, people loved it and by January 1993 the world had around 50 HTTP servers. By February, the first graphic browser appeared known as Mosaic and by April of that year, CERN decided the project belonged to humanity and the public domain version of the WWW was born. The rest and billions of web pages later, is history.

• TECH

  Elon's Twitter bid reopens censorship debate

  Life, James Hein, Published on 27/04/2022

  » Without a doubt, the biggest news of the last couple of weeks has centred around Elon Musk. It started with a tweet where he asked his followers if they thought that Twitter followed free speech principles. Over 2 million responded, with 70% indicating it didn't, and some asked him to buy Twitter. A week or so later he purchased 9.2% of Twitter. This triggered a swathe of wild speculation. Elon then rejected an offer to sit on the board because this would limit his ability to purchase more stock. A week or so later he offered to buy all of the remaining Twitter shares for US$54.20 (1,840 baht) a share, above the current market price and well above pundits' sell price only a little while earlier. The Left went crazy. The board started talking about introducing a financial "poison pill" share approach to both increase the number of and dilute the value of Twitter shares to make it more difficult for Musk to purchase more than 15% of Twitter.

• TECH

  In 2020, China heads into 1984

  Life, James Hein, Published on 23/10/2019

  » China will have 626 million CCTVs installed by 2020. That's close to one for every two people in the country. By the end of 2019, any application for Internet access will require first having your face scanned. In 2020, if you want to surf the web you will first have to pass a facial recognition process. If you are recognised and your social score is high enough you will be able to connect. This directive comes from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Technology.

• TECH

  Human override here to stay

  Life, James Hein, Published on 10/04/2019

  » Computers are useful tools and they will emotionlessly churn through thousands of operations in the blink of an eye to produce whatever results they were programmed to do. Most of the time the results are welcomed. When it comes to malware the results generate a different reaction, and then there are those spaces in the middle. The situation surrounding the Boeing 737 Max MCAS aircraft and the recent crash is an excellent example. The latest analysis would seem to indicate that the computer engineers made some choices that have had unintended consequences. In this case overriding the wishes of the pilots by assuming the plane was crashing, when it wasn't, and not allowing the human pilots to correct the computer's decisions.

• OPINION

  Thank the NSA for latest global ransomware

  Life, James Hein, Published on 24/05/2017

  » Everyone is talking about WannaCry(pt), the latest ransomware worm that attacked over 150 countries across the globe. It hit hospitals, universities, businesses, a telco, train stations and more. Microsoft responded by releasing emergency security patches for Windows versions as far back as XP. To Microsoft's credit they had released a patch for the issue in February, well before this exploit hit, so those that did not update were the ones hit. The lesson here is to install your security patches when they are available.

• OPINION

  Google Android refreshes itself

  Life, James Hein, Published on 07/06/2017

  » Android 8 -- or O -- will be coming out soon, with the beta already available for lucky Nexus and Pixel users. Google is introducing "Fluid Experiences" that include picture in picture, Notification Dots, autofill and smart-text selection. The first will allow you to have an app open but with also, say, a small window running a YouTube video, just like TVs can do. Notification dots show that you have an app notification. A long press will bring up the item, which is useful. You have all seen autofill on forms and for passwords; this is finally appearing in Android. As has been the case for the last few versions, Google is also focusing on maximising security, optimising boot times and app performance, and intelligently limiting background activity for apps to save battery life. These are all welcome enhancements.

• OPINION

  Your TV is watching you

  Life, James Hein, Published on 15/03/2017

  » Love them or hate them as I write this WikiLeaks has just dropped a large batch of new documents for all the world to see, this time CIA secret materials. The part that has caught most attention is the information on how to spy on people, using commonly found household items. Apple and Android devices, Samsung TV's (glad I recently changed to Sony), Macs and Windows devices can all be used to spy on people -- no one in the US of course -- and pass info back to the CIA. There are also different malware products that can be used to infect all manner of devices including a USB stick that can be used to jump that critical air-gap between your system and the outside world. For anyone living in the real world none of this will be of any surprise. All the leaks really do is confirm what everyone knows and every country does.

• TECH

  Exhausted all lifelines? Call a friend

  Life, James Hein, Published on 06/07/2016

  » People who use computers range in skill levels from absolute novices to advanced, but they all have one thing in common -- eventually they need to ask someone for help. Take the recent case of my Skype not working. I had exhausted my knowledge base, checked a few web searches for solutions and in the end had to call a friend who knows a lot more about networking than I do.

• TECH

  Windows into the future

  Life, James Hein, Published on 27/05/2015

  » According to the latest from Microsoft, if you are running on a genuine copy of Windows 7 or 8.x then you will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. You will also be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for a price if you are running, shall we say, those versions of Windows that originate from dubious OEM sources. These upgrades will, however, be very attractively priced. I suspect they are referring to OEMs in places like China and India that may have been a little lax with their licensing agreements. If you have downloaded your copy from a Bit Torrent site and activated it with a keygen, then I doubt the upgrade offers will be as generous.

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