Showing 1 - 10 of 16
Marketeers have simple choices
Life, James Hein, Published on 18/02/2026
» If you use a mobile phone for playing any games, then typically along with that comes all of the advertisements and marketing presentations. First however, there is the "free download", this means you can download it for free, install and run it. After that, things may not be free at all. This is to be expected as advertising is one of the few ways to make any income from the games being played by millions of people across the planet.
We know they know we know about privacy
Life, James Hein, Published on 03/12/2025
» Strap in, because today I'm covering what is going to be happening over the next few months to get even more data about you and what you are doing on the internet. Let's start with the recent exposure of around 3.5 billion phone numbers from WhatsApp, the private platform.
Headlines are disappointing
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/11/2023
» If you have been in any way involved in social media over the past few years, there will be words that immediately have you wondering if the headline is in any way real. My favourite recently was "SpaceX Launched REAL UFO In ISRAEL! HAMAS And Iran Shocked!" on YouTube.
YouTube hypocrisy deserves flagging
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2023
» YouTube is behaving badly again. A prominent presenter I occasionally watch, who has millions of subscribers, has been demonetised, for some possible actions 20 years ago. This is not a commentary on potential innocence or guilt, but on YouTube's processes. There are people whose lives are supported by revenue from their presentations on YouTube. This ranges from small fries all the way up to the big fish like the one here. When an individual is demonetised they can lose the ability to support themselves. In this case allegations were made by the media, not the police or authorities, and at the time of writing there have been zero charges made. YouTube is essentially saying, bring us all your viewers so we can hit them with ads and we can make lots of money, but you will be getting nothing for your work.
EU demands Apple play fair
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/06/2022
» It looks like the Apple-specific charging cable may be a thing of the past with the European Union demanding that all smartphone makers use a universal USB-C port for wired charging by 2024. The same rule will be applied to many other electronic devices like tablets, cameras, headphones, handheld video game consoles and e-readers. In the future, laptops will need to follow the same rule.
Huawei facing tough time outside China
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/07/2020
» China, and in particular Huawei, is not winning these days. Huawei has some excellent hardware. Their latest phones are as good in many aspects as any other manufacturer. However, the fuzzy area is the company's links to the Chinese government. Huawei claims they are not directly linked to the government but many others say there are direct and nefarious links. Huawei recently lost their foothold in the United Kingdom as their 5G network has been disallowed or marginalised for the future. This leaves only Canada as part of the five eyes intelligence partners still supporting Huawei 5G. Other nations have also been hesitant to adopt the technology.
Fujitsu in first big WFH move
Life, James Hein, Published on 15/07/2020
» - As predicted, Fujitsu provided a great example when it announced the permanent closure of half of its office real estate in Japan. They will instead have 80,000 workers working from home permanently. This is a huge redefinition of work culture in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. Called the "Work Life Shift" campaign, Fujitsu is to study data on how employees use offices, with a view to giving them more tools and options to work from home, at hubs or be more mobile. This will end the habit of employees commuting to and from offices. It also indicates the allowance of a higher degree of autonomy based on the principle of trust, Fujitsu announced.
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.
AI -- what is it good for?
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/08/2019
» Why do we care about machine learning and the kind of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems I mentioned last time? The amount of data being taken in by systems in modern times is outstripping the ability of humans to keep up. Enter machine learning systems to pre-process the information, highlight patterns and identify the bits and pieces that humans may find interesting. Key areas include fraud detection, whereby a set of rules is applied to data and flagged if those rules are detected. It also includes the age-old problem of the best delivery routes to bring manufactured goods to customers, with the additional benefit of using less fuel. A recent McKinsey report found that AI improved on "traditional analytics techniques" in 400 use cases across 19 industries and nine business functions. As far as the current situation, AI or machine learning is not an end state. Human intervention is still required to make sure the results make sense and also to ensure stuff isn't being missed in the process. There is also continuing training and refinement being regularly applied. It's a growing field and those organisations that are not at least aware of it could be left behind by their competitors. At least, until Skynet takes over.
The internet grows darker
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/05/2019
» Social media has reached danger levels of influence and like anything powerful it can be used for positive or negative purposes. In countries like China you can say as many good things about the government on social media as you like but anything negative typically triggers a rapid response. The US and UK has its own sets of problems, with a tug-of-war between liberals and conservatives over the truth, with each side seeking to banish the other from social media. Self-defined open, inclusive and balanced social media platforms like Twitter are removing accounts on one side of politics in countries before elections, effectively meddling in elections.