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Technology

How Warm Is It in My House?

This weekend I built a simple temperature sensor with #arduino  and got it sending information to #cosm  via the #gsm  shield, using the #bluevia SIM for data. Even after a year working on this project, this was actually the first time I was able to test the whole thing end to end myself, as a [...]

Having a Cartwright Moment about Telecoms Regulation

So I read this article with some interest this morning on the Tube. Reading it requires subscription or sign-up (it was one of my 8 free articles a month – I’m not sufficiently motivated to subscribe, I’m afraid, though I’m a big fan of the FT WebApp.) For those non-subscribers, allow me to summarize one [...]

Conditions at Foxconn – Should we care?

I was greatly moved  yesterday after listening to the This American Life episode on conditions at Foxconn, the plant in China than makes (among other things) iPhones, iPads, and most other Apple products. I just made a post on Facebook relating to this and a related Forbes article and I encourage you to chime in there or [...]

Developers, developers, developers…

I was amused to see that Nokia’s new CEO closed his talk at Nokia World in London by reprising Balmer’s famous “developers, developers, developers” speech. I’ve been talking to a lot of developers lately. I just got through co-organizing and co-presenting Over the Air and I’ll shortly be heading to San Francisco to help put on [...]

When DRM Goes Bad

I read with some interest about the debacle of Amazon’s “total recall” of 1984 (and other books) yesterday. Kindle owners found some e-books they had downloaded and paid for had mysteriously disappeared from their readers (and that they had been reimbursed). Amazon apparently tried to explain away this digital goods heist by insisting that the [...]

Can We Kill Email?

One of the most interesting discussions I had in San Francisco two weeks ago (where I was co-presenting Mobile 2.0 and the Mobie Tech 4 Social Change camp) was with Brian Fling on the unlikely subject of email. We both agreed that we hate email (a common sentiment these days) and that something needed to [...]

OnePulse: So Far, not so Good

Update on the Barclaycard OnePulse. Apparently, getting an application out to me in the mail is too difficult for these guys because I haven’t received it yet. I also don’t quite understand why I have to re-apply for this card. Instead, shouldn’t I, as a valued Barclaycard customer living in London, have been offered the [...]

Smart Cards, Digital Money, Oyster and the Effective Use of a Hole Punch

So Barclaycard (the credit card arm of Barclay’s, a major UK-based bank) is rolling out a new product, Onepulse, which more or less combines a few payment instruments into one card. Firstly, it’s a regular “chip and PIN” credit card, now ubiquitous across the UK. Secondly, it’s an Oyster card. Oyster is the brand name [...]

Powerbook 12": The Upgrade

The hard drive on my Powerbook was giving up the ghost. First, it started making a high-pitched squeal. Then it started “sticking” intermittently – the machine would just hang there until I gave it a bit of a shake – very unsettling. Finally it just refused to boot. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. Three weeks [...]

Betavine Continues to Ripen

One of the most exciting projects I’ve been involved with this year has been the launch of Vodafone Betavine. Betavine is a collaborative portal for the developer community focusing on mobile and communications apps. Although mobile operators have launched developer sites in the past, Betavine is different because it’s aimed at individual, small company and [...]