Apple ran one of the most famous television advertisements ever; the famous 1984 spot, implying that Apple would challenge the dominance of a certain company based in Redmond. Smaller than MicroSoft they may be, but they are more closed than the Empire of Gates [update - IBM, not MS. See comments]. Exhibit one is the [...]

On Friday, Facebook will start using your photos in ads that will appear on the profile page of your contacts. It’s legal and is mentioned in the fine print when you create your account. If you want to prevent this from happening, do the following: Settings, Privacy Settings, News Feed and Wall. Then Facebook Ads, [...]

It would appear that SpinVox, the company that turns voice mail into text and then emails it to you, is in real trouble. Invesco, which owns a small stake in the company, has written down the value of its holding by ninety per cent. I find this all rather unfortunate. I use SpinVox, and the [...]

Political wonks will be familiar, at the bottom of every piece of election literature (including stickers and t-shirts), with an imprint along the lines of Printed and promoted by Anne Agent on behalf of Can D’Date, both of 29 Acacia Avenue, Dandytown. I believe that’s a requirement under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act [...]

I’ve spent a very pleasant evening in the company of the Sceptics in the Pub London, where the speaker was Dr. Aubrey de Gray, Chief Scientific Officer with the SENS Foundation. In brief, de Gray (Wikipedia article) set out the work of the SENS foundation which, as I understand it, looks at ageing as a [...]

There’ve been a few reports about the demographics of Twitter recently; it would seem that, despite being a funky, young, web start-up, Twitter’s users aren’t that young and, if I’m typical, not at all funky. All this seems to have started about three weeks ago when a fifteen-year-old intern at MorganStanley wrote a paper to [...]

Neil Williams (blog, Twitter) has drafted a template strategy for Government departments wanting to use Twitter; find it on the Cabinet Office’s Digital Engagement Blog or on Neil’s website as a PDF. It’s a good document – you have to bear in mind that this is for civil servants – and could be a good [...]

Let’s ask about the airspeed of an unladen swallow. Assuming estimated average cruising airspeed of an unladen African swallow | Use estimated average cruising airspeed of an unladen European swallow instead Yes, that makes sense. Input interpretation: So far, so good. Result: Ba-dum. Why did the chicken cross the road? Result: to get to the [...]

A phishing attack is underway against Facebook. Messages are being sent on Facebook with the subject ‘Look at this’ and then a link to fbstarter.com, kromked.net and fbaction.net (and entirely possibly other websites) which have been set up to look like a log-in page for Facebook. As ever, if you think you may have put [...]

Further to my post on the Government on Twitter, here are some other directories of UK political twitterers. The UKGovWeb Twitterverse from DavePress TweetyHall – local politicians Local councils on Twitter from Dorset for You Tweetminster Journalists from PR Blogger The UK Government on Twitter from Neil Williams xD.