Showing 1 - 5 of 5
A tablet of note
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/11/2020
» I have used my new Onyx Boox Note Air for a couple of weeks now and I like it. Having a user manual in English would be very useful but I finally found the setting to enable the auto rotate feature.
Limiting discourse, leaking borders
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/06/2019
» It is difficult to ignore the latest moves by social media providers like YouTube to change their terms and conditions so as to block individuals and groups they don't like. The shift from an open platform, where all ideas are welcome, to one more concerned with the window of discourse is disappointing, and points to the huge pressure being applied by a small number of special interest groups, mostly via advertisers. The really sad part of this is that there are already indications that Minds, a supposed open alternative, is already censoring content, so for the moment at least I need to withdraw my recommendation for that platform.
Recognising the limits of recognition protection
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/12/2017
» So how good is biometric protection really? In a recent TV series, I watched as the good guys artificially massaged the bad guy's heart to activate the biometric-fingerprint system on his phone. Many modern biometric systems require some evidence of life to work, so the old system of just severing a finger is no longer reliable.
Plugged in, but not all wired up
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/04/2016
» So I was talking to a young couple the other day who expressed some surprise at me having a fixed line ADSL connection as my primary internet source at home. They were part of the ever-growing group of younger users that do not have any fixed line services, phone or data. According to the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for example they have found that in the past two years American households having no fixed line services and relying on mobile networks instead has doubled to 20%. This has been accompanied by a drop in ADSL and satellite connections. So while wired connections are still in the majority in the US they are falling.
Free stuff, TVs, and hacking
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/02/2015
» If you use email and the internet then you will have been bombarded with offers for free stuff. These offers take various forms, but the most common one is the chance to win something for free, where your chances increase with the more friends you get involved with and then there are the mandatory pages of offers that you need to say "no" to, in order to complete the application.