Showing 1 - 10 of 25
AI learning versus human creativity is a real battle
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/02/2026
» If you’ve been reading these columns long enough, you’ll probably know that I write music and I’ve written some books. With the advent of artificial intelligence, the concept of copyright and private property has blurred. The standard rule was, what you have worked hard on to create, belongs to you. As musicians and authors, ideally, we create, we write and we invent. In the world of AI, it will draw a picture, write a book and create music for you based on a simple text prompt that itself may have also been written for you by AI.
Doom, not gloom kicks off my 2025
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/01/2025
» Over the years, the game Doom has been ported onto some amazing platforms including a pregnancy test kit screen. The latest iteration of this practice has turned up in a version that will run in a .PDF file. If you are like me, then this will cause your mental processing to pause for a moment and your next thought may well be: "Wait, what?" The Portable Document Format (PDF) was developed to present documents in a manner that is independent of the software, hardware and operating system showing them. While it does this well, some malware writers have exploited its complexities.
Microsoft gets more invasive
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/06/2024
» Microsoft Windows has added a new feature that will record everything you have ever done on your computer. It does this through a new AI feature called Recall for Copilot+ that allows Windows 11 to take screen snapshots every few seconds. Allegedly these are encrypted and saved to your hard drive (filling it up?). No, this is not a new episode of Black Mirror, but a disturbing change in Microsoft's attempt to track everything you do and fill up your hard drives. It may do this for your Zoom calls and meetings (it will record other people on the other end of a call without their permission). This may also include capturing the data you enter into secure forms, including passwords.
Imagining a world without cash
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/05/2024
» How safe are you in a purely digital economy? If you are carrying cash, someone can of course rob you, or you can lose it or give it to someone. You can also have a stash of it at home for emergencies or for buying something from a garage sale. For the most part, you retain control over any cash you manage. Electronic cash can still be stolen and your ability to spend it can be taken by someone else if your details get into the wrong hands. However, it's convenient, just tap and go, or in some cases, just wave your smartphone over a pad. While you have no idea where your money actually is, a small piece of plastic, your watch or a phone can retrieve it for you for a payment. You can even use it to get cash from a wall.
YouTube ramps up ads, moderation
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/03/2023
» If this was a YouTube video you would have to sit through up to 30 seconds of ads before you could even start. YouTube seems to be stepping up its advertising while at the same time providing less service. I still use it because it has things I'm interested in, like Chinese martial arts series and info on music products I like. If I'd written this using ChatGPT you would not see some of the material because the trust and safety filters on the AI product have repeatedly been found to be biased towards the US political left in the content it will return. Some people associated with ChatGPT have acknowledged this but it remains to be seen if anything will change.
Protect yourself when online
Life, James Hein, Published on 03/08/2022
» A friend of mine, let's call him Dave, wrote to me recently about identity theft. He told me that all of his identifying information like phone numbers, email addresses, old passwords and his usual security questions, were all available on the dark web. He also had a number of notifications of personal information breaches that resulted in fraudulent charges, the need to replace credit cards and attempts to set up fake bank accounts in his name. The latter is used if a hacker is planning to get into your other accounts so they can transfer funds to themselves under your name.
Scams on the rise as inflation bites
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/07/2022
» We start this week with a webserver with extras in a single file that runs on any x86-64 operation system. Enter redbean 2.0. Created by Justine Tunney, it uses the "Actually Portable Executable" that you can read about here, justine.lol/ape.html. When you compile a program to its native binary, in this case x86-64 code, and don't call any external code, then the only difference between a Windows and a Linux would be the file format. If you can solve this, then it could run on any platform. To do that you need Cosmopoliton libc because any real program needs to make some calls, in this case the standard C ones. So, with Cosmo and the APE format, you can write a C program and compile it to a single file that will load and run on six very different operating systems and the same binary can also be booted directly from the PC BIOS. It's not perfect, but any programmer would be scratching their heads by now. Pause for techie amazement.
Got them new phone blues
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/03/2022
» It has been 3 years and I have a new phone. Thanks to a very generous rebate from Vodaphone I have the latest flagship in my hands. It feels nice and solid but I immediately put it in a Spigen Neo case, rated as one of the best by some reviewers. I have been happy with the Spigen range over the years. I watched some drop tests and prefer the phone to stay in good shape so I'm also considering a decent screen protector.
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.
The cloud calls, banks don't hear
Life, James Hein, Published on 07/07/2021
» Is the industry rushing too quickly into the clouds? Cloud computing has been expanding steadily over the past few years and is starting to dominate as the primary platform for many organisations. Providers love it because it allows them to charge a service-based fee instead of a once-off payment for a product. There are rumours that Microsoft through Windows 11 will push to have a similar approach for their next version.