Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer who started his career on PC World and has written for dozens of computer and technology magazines, as well as numerous national newspapers, business and in-flight magazines. He has also written two novels.
He thinks wires are evil and had a custom desk made to hide them, known as the OC Desk for obvious reasons.
He considers 1000 miles a good distance for a cycle ride, and Chernobyl a suitable tourist destination. What can we say, he’s that kind of chap.
He speaks fluent English but only broken American, so please forgive any Anglicised spelling in his posts.
Twitter is starting to livestream local TV coverage of breaking news in a window alongside the timeline. The new feature has been seen in coverage of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida …
Pinterest is rolling out an update to its Android and iOS apps to allow greater control over your content.
At the bottom level, you’ll be able to rearrange pins – something the company says has been one of its most-requested features …
The heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA and three other US intelligence agencies have warned Americans not to buy Huawei smartphones, or indeed any other Huawei products and services. All expressed concerns that close links to the Chinese government meant that there was a risk of malicious access and data theft.
They gave the warning in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill …
Perhaps the single most requested Facebook feature has been the one the company has been determined not to offer: a Dislike button …
If you’re a single man, and have an older smartphone, you might want to consider an upgrade …
Twitter has made its first ever profit, almost twelve years after the launch of the company. It reported profit of $91M on revenues of $732 in Q4 2017, in contrast to a loss of $167M in the same quarter the previous year …
Snapchat has announced that users will be able to watch ‘live segments of key moments’ of the winter Olympics in South Korea from Saturday.
The firm says that it is aiming to complement rather than compete with TV coverage …
In what seems a very misguided attempt to address the problem of road deaths and injuries in France, the government has just banned handheld smartphone use even when the car is stationary and the engine switched off …
Snapchat is continuing its gradual rollout of a major app redesign. It is treading cautiously, with a widespread rollout of the the redesign limited to a handful of countries to date, perhaps mindful of the poor reviews it has been receiving.
In the US and elsewhere, Snapchat continues to drip-feed new features, with one quietly rolled out in the last few weeks and another on the way …
A growing number of banks in the USA and UK are banning the use of credit cards to purchase Bitcoin over fears that this could end in trouble for customers and banks alike …
Qualcomm has settled its differences with Samsung over its chip licensing practices, and says that it hopes to do the same with Apple.
While there were no lawsuits between Qualcomm and Samsung, the Korean company had been opposing the chipmaker’s appeal against a Fair Trade Commission anti-trust ruling …
Samsung has reported a third consecutive quarter of record profits on the back of strong growth in chip sales. Quarterly profit was 15.2T Korean won ($14.15B), representing 64.3% year-on-year growth.
The firm said that its semiconductor division was responsible for most of the growth, with growing demand for memory chips the key factor …
Twitter is reportedly working on a new camera-centered app designed to make it faster and easier to share video on the platform.
The app is said to be inspired by Snapchat, an app CEO Jack Dorsey has previously praised …
Reddit is now offering the option of using two-factor authentication (2FA) to all users following successful trials with moderators and beta-testers …
While the Trump administration saw the FCC repeal net neutrality, opponents of a two-speed Internet haven’t yet given up. After widespread allegations of fraud during the consultation process, including some particularly unpleasant allegations of identity theft, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed to investigate …
Rovio has updated Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds Evolution for the NFL season with football content.
Bird Island has been tuned into the NFL season thanks to some tinkering from Dr. Strangebird. Now the whole island is hyped up for Super Bowl LII! Join the celebration to collect a brand new bird – The Quarterback, and hit the gridiron for a game of Pigball in the NFLed-out Mighty Metrodome …
Google spent $18M last year lobbying the Trump administration, the highest amount it has ever spent on its efforts to influence the White House. In all, tech giants spent a record $50M on lobbying in 2017.
The record spend isn’t too surprising when you consider the number of issues on which the tech industry found itself battling with the Trump presidency …
British academics last month argued that previous guidance to limit the screen-time of children to 1-2 hours is now outdated. A new report says that the same conclusion is being reached by childcare professionals in the U.S. also …
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has blocked two tactics Internet service providers had hoped to use to reduce the expense needed to meet their broadband service obligations …
A piece in the WSJ poses an interesting question: as Google, Apple and other tech giants become ever more powerful, will the government ever step in to break them up or regulate them … ?
Unless you travel frequently enough to justify an annual policy, arranging travel insurance is just one more thing to think about when planning a trip. Financial startup Revolut now offers a solution to that: pay-per-day travel insurance that kicks in automatically, based on your phone’s GPS location …
Facebook’s messaging lead has acknowledged that the Messenger app has become ‘too cluttered.’ The company’s VP of messaging products, David Marcus, promised a major simplification of the app this year …
A Swedish hospital has filed a formal complaint about the ‘contraceptive app’ Natural Cycles after it was blamed for 37 unwanted pregnancies …