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 revealed yesterday that it would be doubling the maximum length of a tweet from 140 characters to a full 280 characters. Initially, it is rolling out the new limit to a small percentage of users ahead of a wider deployment later …
Google is officially 19 years old today, and the company is celebrating by giving you another chance to play 19 of its best Google Doodle games.
Billions of searches later, perhaps the happiest happenstance has been how Google has grown throughout the past 19 years. Named for the number “googol” (a 1 followed by one hundred zeroes), Google inches closer to its namesake each year, currently serving more than 4.5 billion users in 160 countries speaking 123 languages worldwide.
Upon clicking today’s Doodle, we invite you to explore 19 surprises we’ve launched over the past 19 years – including our brand new Search easter egg: Snake Game! So give it a spin and thanks for celebrating with us!
The choice of September 27 as Google’s birthday is, though, somewhat random …
Update: Make that four approaches … CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has also written a letter of apology to Londoners for the company’s failings.
We will appeal this decision on behalf of millions of Londoners, but we do so with the knowledge that we must also change […] We won’t be perfect, but we will listen to you; we will look to be long-term partners with the cities we serve; and we will run our business with humility, integrity and passion”.
Uber is trying three separate approaches to overturn a decision not to renew its operating license in London when it expires on Saturday …
Uber has been told by London’s taxi regulatory authority that it will not be renewing the company’s license to operate when it expires in just over a week’s time.
Transport for London (TfL) says it concluded that the company was ‘not fit and proper to hold a private hire operator licence,’ citing four reasons …
Twitter is rolling out a new Popular Articles feature to both iOS and Android apps, highlighting stories shared or discussed by people you follow. Twitter confirmed to Buzzfeed that it is rolling out to all users.
The Popular Articles feature is just what it sounds like — a list of stories people you follow on Twitter are currently tweeting about, or otherwise engaging with. It also shows links to articles popular in your particular location …
The Taiwan stock exchange has announced that trading in HTC shares will be halted tomorrow in advance of a major announcement, or, in stock market language, ‘material information.’ This follows rumors that the failing company may be acquired by Google.
Local media are also reporting that a Google deal is to be announced …
A new Facebook video posted by Huawei takes a very unsubtle swipe at a glitch in a demo during Apple’s launch of the iPhone X …
If you’ve ever sent a WhatsApp reply to the wrong thread, sharing your pet-name for your partner with a business colleague, or you’ve engaged in a spot of drunk-messaging, it looks like you’ll soon have the opportunity to recall the message either before or after it is read …
Two separate academic reports suggest that playing Pokémon GO can be good for both physical and mental health (provided that you manage to avoid car crashes and stay away from landmines).
Update: While some suggested this might just be a demo mode thing, that approves anything vaguely resembling a face, CNET confirmed on its review unit that the device is indeed fooled by photos.
We tried it on our own Note 8, and sure enough, it’s still possible to fool it with a flat photo. A Samsung rep tells CNET that the company’s guidance remains the same: You’ll want to use the fingerprint sensor or iris scanner for security, and should view facial recognition as a convenient alternative to the simple swipe-to-unlock gesture.
Samsung may have figured out how to make a Note device that doesn’t explode, but it seems the face recognition feature on the new Note 8 isn’t any better than it was on the S8.
Web developer Mel Tajon was able to unlock the device using a selfie taken on his own phone, and even using people’s Facebook profile pics …
Popular messaging app Telegram received an update over the weekend that adds a couple of new sticker features, and provides an easy way to ensure you don’t miss any replies or mentions in group chats …
A total solar eclipse is an awe-inspiring thing to witness, but even if you had a perfect view of it, you only got to see it for a couple of minutes. What Google has done is stitch together 34,000 photos covering the complete path across the U.S. to condense a full 90 minutes of totality into a short video …
Lee Jae-yong, the de-facto head of Samsung’s business empire, has today been convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was found guilty of bribery, embezzlement & perjury, reports the NY Times.
The court ruled that Mr. Lee and four other Samsung executives paid $6.4 million in bribes and other inducements to ensure that the country’s disgraced former president, Park Geun-hye, supported a complicated corporate deal that strengthened Mr. Lee’s grip on Samsung Electronics, the conglomerate’s crown jewel […]
Mr. Lee was also found guilty of hiding assets overseas and of perjury for falsely testifying at a parliamentary hearing on the scandal.
Other top Samsung execs were also jailed …
We noted last month that Verizon was throttling Netflix and YouTube usage for ‘unlimited’ plan users even before they hit the 22GB level at which the company says it may reduce bandwidth – and it has now been revealed that this was just stage one.
Verizon is now starting to throttle all video on its ‘unlimited’ plans, with bandwidth limited to as little as 480p when watching on a smartphone …
A total solar eclipse – the entire sun blocked by the passage of the moon – is one of the most awe-inspiring natural events you can experience. I travelled to Germany to view one in 1999, and I remember it vividly today. The light getting gradually dimmer and dimmer, a deep twilight and then the sudden and dramatic transition into total darkness.
Today will see America’s first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in almost a century. You need to be in quite a narrow band of the U.S. to experience the totality in person, but if you’re not able to do so, there are plenty of ways to livestream the event …
Qualcomm says that next year’s Snapdragon processors will offer much more sophisticated 3D camera capabilities, including the ability to use infra-red for facial recognition.
In particular, the chipmaker seems to be aiming to ensure that Android flagships can match or beat the face-recognition system expected to be a headline feature of Apple’s upcoming iPhone 8 …
Facebook Marketplace, which allows you to sell unwanted items to people in your local community direct from the iOS app, is today rolling out to 17 new European and Nordic countries …
Uber is rolling out an app update that introduces a new chat feature, allowing riders and drivers to send messages to each other from within the app. Previously, communicating with the driver required a phone call or text message …
It seems there’s not much AI can’t do these days. Whether it’s drive a car, improve music discovery, retouch photos or narrate the world to blind people. And now machine learning can even look through your Instagram feed to decide whether you are clinically depressed …
Messaging apps these days aren’t just for sending friendly greetings – increasingly, you can also use them to send cold, hard cash. Or the electronic equivalent, at least.
Skype is the latest to join the trend of supporting peer-to-peer payments through a PayPal integration in the latest update to its iOS and Android apps …
Google and Apple have removed hundreds of financial trading apps from their app stores following an investigation suggesting that thousands of people may have been scammed – many of them seniors. Some have reportedly lost their entire life savings.
The action follows an investigation by a newspaper and a review by a securities & investment body …
Former Google senior vice president of Social, Vic Gundotra, has said that Android phones are literally years behind the iPhone when it comes to photography – and it’s Android’s fault.
Gundotra started by praising the quality of the iPhone 7 Plus camera in a Facebook post.
The end of the DSLR for most people has already arrived. I left my professional camera at home and took these shots at dinner with my iPhone 7 using computational photography (portrait mode as Apple calls it). Hard not to call these results (in a restaurant, taken on a mobile phone with no flash) stunning. Great job Apple.
But he went further …
After Niantic’s Pokémon GO Fest in Chicago turned into something of a disaster – with many attendees unable to use the game at all, and others unable to login or suffering crashes – the company has laid most of the blame at the feet of carriers …
Secure messaging app Telegram has borrowed a feature from SnapChat in the form of photos & videos that disappear after a time-out.
You can now set a self-destruct timer for any photos and videos you share in private chats. If you set a timer, the countdown starts the moment your recipient opens the photo or video you sent. After the time runs out, the photo/video will disappear forever, just like in Secret Chats.
Telegram checks photos & videos to see whether they are publicly-available ones …