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.
Small-scale studies of smartphone apps that claim to improve mental health have yielded some positive results in teenagers, but these are only indicative. Only a large-scale clinical trial can provide the data needed by mental health professionals to determine the true value of such apps, and a $1.6M study aims to provide the answer …
Following reports of sexualised videos of children attracting hundreds of comments from suspected pedophiles, YouTube has announced that it will be boosting its content moderator team to 10,000 people – but only by the end of 2018. The current team is reported to be around 8,000 people.
A Times investigation first uncovered the scale of the problem eleven days ago, with volunteer flaggers claiming that YouTube wasn’t taking the problem seriously …
Facebook is about to rollout a version of Messenger aimed specifically at kids, known as Messenger Kids. The emphasis is on safety, with all contacts having to be approved by parents.
The app will be iOS-only when it launches in the next few days, with an Android version to follow later in the month …
Gartner predicted last month that global smartphone sales would return to growth next year, and its latest numbers show that this was actually achieved sooner than expected, in Q3 this year.
Global sales of smartphones to end users totalled 383 million units in the third quarter of 2017, a 3 percent increase over the same period in 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. All of the top five smartphone vendors achieved double-digit growth apart from Apple …
Brits who used an iPhone between June 2011 and February 2012 could receive as much as £500 ($672) each from Google as compensation for the search giant bypassing Safari privacy settings between those dates.
A British campaign group has launched a ‘representative action’ (the UK equivalent of a class action lawsuit) on behalf of the 5.4M iPhone users in England and Wales affected by what is known as Google’s ‘Safari workaround.’ The lawsuit could cost Google as much as £2.7B ($3.63B) in total …
Hard to believe, but next year will be the 25th anniversary of The X-Files. To celebrate the event, and the premiere of season 11 of the TV show in January, a new mobile game will be launched the following month.
Popular navigation app Waze is being updated today with three new features. First up, and long overdue, is a hands-free mode. The app now supports an ‘Ok Waze’ command that allows you to set common destinations without taking your hands from the wheel.
Commands supported include ‘Take me home’ and ‘Find a gas station’ …
Facebook is asking some users to upload a face photo to verify their identity when automated processes spot suspicious activity …
YouTube has responded to reports of ‘sexualized videos of children‘ which attracted numerous comments from suspected pedophiles.
The company says that it has terminated more than 270 accounts, removed more than 150,000 inappropriate videos and turned off comments on over 625,000 videos which had attracted interest from child predators …
Analytics data from Adobe shows Cyber Monday projected to be the largest online sales day in history, with a total spend of $6.59B.
Chromecast and Samsung tablets were among the most popular purchases, with those shopping on Android devices spending an average of $110 each …
YouTube ran into trouble last week after it was revealed that advertising for major brands was appearing alongside sexualised videos of children. The videos were reported to have attracted ‘hundreds of comments’ by suspected pedophiles.
The company now seems to be having similar problems with its auto-complete functionality …
We’re expecting a major revamp of the Snapchat app to land early next month, but it seems the company isn’t holding back everything until then. It’s been quietly rolling out a feature that recognises (some of) the content in your photos, and suggests relevant borders and filters …
Major brands like Lidl, Mars and Cadbury maker Mondelez have pulled advertising from YouTube after they found their ads appearing alongside sexualised videos of children.
The videos in question are reported to have attracted ‘hundreds of comments’ by suspected pedophiles …
Although the Trump administration is pressing ahead with plans to remove net neutrality, there’s still time for you to play your part in preventing it.
The proposal still needs to pass a vote in Congress, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has provided a webpage allowing you to instantly lobby your representative …
Samsung has announced that it is creating a new artificial intelligence (AI) research center, which will help develop both mobile and other consumer electronics products …
Skype has been removed from Android app stores in China following a request from the Ministry of Public Security …
An investigation has revealed that Android phones have been collecting and sending location back to Google even when location services are disabled. Google confirmed that it has been doing this since the beginning of 2017, and say that it will end the practice by the end of this month.
Google says that Android phones collect the addresses of nearby cellular towers and transmit the information back to its servers, but claims that the data is ‘never used or stored’ …
Niantic has announced that over 500 million Pokémon have been caught during the first two days of a week-long Global Catch Challenge. The achievement unlocked the first set of rewards to everyone participating …
If you’ve ever experienced problems meeting up with your Uber driver, the company has today announced a couple of initiatives designed to make it easier …
The Android version of Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will be released on Wednesday, the company has announced. It was first expected back in March …
Google has purchased land in Denmark, adjacent to the site of Apple’s second data center in the country. The company said that it wanted to have the option of building its own data center right next door …
We first saw a trailer for the first proper smartphone South Park game back in June. The freemium game South Park: Phone Destroyer is now available for free download – though with some expensive in-app purchase options …
Skype seems to be having a little difficulty at present figuring out whether it wants to be a business service or a consumer one. After recently adding Slack-like notifications, mentions and more, it is now adding Snapchat-style photo filters.
As seems obligatory for app updates these days, the filters claim to be AI-powered …
Facebook is trialling an interesting new approach to combatting revenge porn, when someone uploads intimate photos of a former partner to the Internet.
The system it is trying would prevent specific photos ever being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger – but you do have to privately share them with Facebook first …