• TECH

  Always check your sources

  Life, James Hein, Published on 15/09/2021

  » At the dawning of the internet age the aim was to provide a platform to share information, initially between higher education facilities. It was a golden age of what was essentially a library of information shared across the United States and later the world. The early fact checkers were academics interested in facts, data and a robust discussion.

• TECH

  Samsung again pushing foldables

  Life, James Hein, Published on 18/08/2021

  » Samsung is betting on foldables. The new Galaxy Z Fold 3 will come with IPX8 water resistance, support for the S-pen and an under-display selfie camera. It will be interesting to see how they solved the clarity issue Apple faced with that last one. The front screen will be an adaptive 7.6-inch 120Hz.

• TECH

  Learning in the time of crisis

  Life, James Hein, Published on 08/04/2020

  » There is a mix of good and bad information regarding Covid-19 on the internet so be careful that what you are reading isn't fake news, especially when it comes to numbers and cures. The numbers available are those reported by each country and are based on testing and the honesty of each government, so will vary from the actual state. This is where the major social media platforms are being exposed even more. They are deleting valid information, such as on hydroxychloroquine trials, while promoting hit pieces on globalisation.

• OPINION

  More data, more problems

  Life, James Hein, Published on 01/01/2020

  » It's time to make some predictions for 2020. A number were made by others a while back, most of which did not eventuate, like a Japanese base on the Moon, flying cars and a Beijing to London rail link. I'll try for a bit more realism.

• OPINION

  None more black

  Life, James Hein, Published on 25/09/2019

  » Accidental discoveries have been responsible for many useful items like rubber and penicillin. A couple of science types at MIT in the US wanted to see if they could grow carbon nanotubes on aluminium to increase its conductance properties. Instead they found they had made the blackest substance yet known to man. It absorbs 99.96% of the light from any angle making it 10 times blacker than the current options. Potential uses include telescopes, optical blinders and art. Carbon nanotubes, is there anything they can't do, eventually?

• OPINION

  Burning issues and great expectations

  Life, James Hein, Published on 19/12/2018

  » Another year almost gone, another year of IT improvements, advancements and lower prices. It was a year of missing graphics cards, where Bitcoin data miners snapped up the market for a while.

• TECH

  Next-gen Wi-Fi technologies on the way

  Life, James Hein, Published on 07/11/2018

  » The fixed line versus Wi-Fi debate continues to be a popular one. And with technologies like Wi-Gig and Wi-Fi 6 in the pipeline, the debate will only intensify. Current Wi-Fi technologies work inside the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands; they also have user-friendly version numbers now. Wi-Fi 4 came out in 2009 under the name 802.11n, Wi-Fi 5 arrived in 2014 as 802.11ac and Wi-Fi 6 is due in 2019 as 802.11.ax. In the near future, you'll see these numbers start to appear on your devices, but not every manufacturer will bother to use the new designations. Wi-Fi numbers 1-3 represent even older, now mostly unused versions.

• OPINION

  Looking into IT's crystal ball

  Life, James Hein, Published on 03/01/2018

  » So it is that time again when I try and gaze into the crystal ball and guess what 2018 will bring the IT world.

• 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

  Money trumps morals in the online world

  Life, James Hein, Published on 07/12/2016

  » In a world where making everything smaller and lighter is the trend, a half-tonne CPU is certainly an anomaly. The 42,300 transistors, 10,548 LED CPU machine was built by hand from regular components and can be seen at the Centre for Computing History in Haverhill, England. The builder is James Newman, who wanted to learn about transistors and then got busy. The result is a CPU that shows how it is working in real time by following the flashing LEDS. At 15m² it roughly equates to the old 33m² Intel 8086. OK not quite that powerful as it only has 256 bytes of ROM and RAM and runs at an estimated 20kHz. I'm putting this in for the people with way too much time on their hands category. You can find out more here megaprocessor.com/programming.html.

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