• OPINION

  Samsung's market share drops

  Life, James Hein, Published on 24/12/2014

  » Based on the third quarter figures, Samsung's global market share in smartphones dropped close to 8% year on year. It is still top of the heap, but their loss was Chinese mobile manufacturers' gains. Apple, Huawei and Xiaomi increased their shipments along with Lenovo, which leaves three of the top five manufacturers now in the Chinese camp. Xiaomi is the biggest mover to date, quadrupling their shipments over the past year. The fastest growing market on the planet for smartphones is currently in Africa and the Middle East so even though they are losing ground in China, Samsung could still make it up in those countries.

• OPINION

  Unconcerned China hacks the iCloud

  Life, James Hein, Published on 29/10/2014

  » Apple was temporarily enthused that their iPhone 6 was going on sale in China since this has been a reasonable marketplace for them in the past. Then it was reported that China state-supported hackers were actively implementing a so-called man-in-the-middle attack against Apple's iCloud which would give them access to people in China trying to connect to the iCloud.com server. This attack replaces the certificate used by the customer and allows monitoring of user names, passwords and activity.

• OPINION

  Networking ain't easy-PC

  Life, James Hein, Published on 05/11/2014

  » When it comes to all things IT, networking is not my strong suit.

• OPINION

  Buyer's market for smartphones

  Life, James Hein, Published on 12/11/2014

  » With the Western markets saturated, the pattern for smartphone sales is starting to change. It is a very good time to be the buyer as competition is fierce for those upgrading and for the tiny minority who don't yet have a model from the upper end of the market. Last month, LG was the only major retailer who had a positive number in their earnings statement. By comparison Samsung, HTC and Sony did not do so well. Elsewhere, like in China and India, the markets are expanding and people are starting to update from a regular phone to the smarter variety, but in the lower price range.

• OPINION

  At the risk of droning on about UAVs

  Life, James Hein, Published on 26/11/2014

  » A hot topic at the moment is UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles. Not the military drone kind but the one with four or six rotors carrying a camera and flying around the neighbourhood taking photos of video up to 4K resolution. The TV show South Park covered this issue in its own unique way and countries are struggling to cope with the legal ramifications of taking pictures over the backyard fence, through windows, above secluded pools and so on. Even innocent pictures like a real estate agent getting an aerial shot of the property can be an issue as one found out recently when part of the shot had someone sunbathing next door that was missed in the process before the billboard went up.

• OPINION

  Just who is accessing your data?

  Life, James Hein, Published on 15/10/2014

  » According to a recent Department of Finance announcement in Australia, agencies must now adopt cloud technologies. In the announcement, the word "must" is in italics because there are some qualifications like "where it is fit for purpose, provides adequate protection of data and delivers value for money".

• OPINION

  How secure are our secure transactions?

  Life, James Hein, Published on 22/10/2014

  » So far, this month has been security issue after security issue. Not counting the usual Microsoft updates, Adobe has been having all sorts of vulnerability problems, which explains the rapid fire updates you keep seeing on your computer. The biggest hit nation so far this month, however, has to be South Korea.

• OPINION

  Safe surfing with a VPN

  Life, James Hein, Published on 27/08/2014

  » So how safe is your surfing? Not the water, board and shark kind, but what you do on the web. Sitting in front of your computer you will either have your own internet protocol (IP) address or be assigned one as part of a pool that is doled out by your internet service provider (ISP). Somewhere between you and the rest of the internet will be a domain name server (DNS) that knows how to get a message from out there back to you and vice versa. Or to put it another way, they know where you are.

• OPINION

  Good old E-merica

  Life, James Hein, Published on 03/09/2014

  » One of the first things you notice when looking at anything computer-related in the US is that it is probably less expensive there than where you come from. The second thing you notice is that you can order nearly anything — and if you pay a little extra, can have one delivered in a couple of days, even faster if you pay a little more. All of those "we can't ship this product to your address" messages also vanish. The world of online ordering becomes completely open to you.

• OPINION

  Watch out, Google and pirates of Oz

  Life, James Hein, Published on 17/09/2014

  » The iHeart Apple lovers, pundits and columnists were out in force after the recent announcements of the latest iPhone and Apple Watch versions.

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