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.
Facebook has confirmed its long-rumored plans for a cryptocurrency, to be named Libra and launch at some point next year. It will launch a cryptocurrency wallet called Calibra at the same time …
Instagram account recovery will be a much easier process thanks to a new in-app process announced by the company.
Currently, if you get locked out of your account, the recovery process is a manual one …
If you’re experiencing connectivity issues with Telegram, this is due to what the company describes as ‘a powerful DDoS attack’ (Distributed Denial of Service) …
Uber has announced that it is making a start on its long-promised aerial ridesharing service with Uber Copter, launching on July 9 …
Apple antitrust concerns are growing as the US government is now considering a major investigation into possible anticompetitive behaviors by Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google. It follows an earlier report which suggested only Google was at risk.
If the probe does go ahead, Apple and Google are likely to be investigated by the Justice Department rather than the FTC …
Canalys is forecasting that 2019 smartphone shipments are likely to be more than 3% down on 2018 numbers, at 1.35B units.
However, what is bad news for some brands could prove an opportunity for others, suggests the market intelligence firm …
Apple, Google, Microsoft and 44 other organisations and security experts have signed an open letter condemning a proposal to secretly add law enforcement organizations to encrypted chats and calls.
The proposal by GCHQ – Britain’s equivalent of the NSA – seeks to provide an encryption workaround that would breach privacy and security in apps like Messages, FaceTime, WhatsApp and Signal …
The stats are in for the first year of GDRP, Europe’s gold-standard data privacy law. GDPR fines totalled €56M, with more than 200,000 investigations, 64,000 of which were upheld.
However, the fines were dominated by a single case, with most ranging in the single-digit thousands …
A tech consultant with extensive experience in China has suggested that the Trump administration’s Huawei trade ban could hurt Google as well as Apple.
Much of the attention to date has been on the risk to Apple’s business, Goldman Sachs yesterday warning that the worst-case scenario for the iPhone maker could be a 29% fall in the company’s global profits …
Just a week after Steam Link finally came to iOS, allowing players to stream games from their Mac, Steam Chat for iOS and Android has also been released.
Steam Chat offers most of the key features of Steam chat on the Mac, but not all …
Facebook really doesn’t seem to have gotten the message on privacy. A new report reveals Facebook sharing sensitive personal data with mobile carriers.
The data reportedly being shared includes locations, interests and social groups …
Samsung Galaxy S10 5G speed tests carried out on Verizon in Chicago have shown that the device and service are capable of delivering blazing speeds – when you can manage to get a 5G signal.
And the limited coverage isn’t the only challenge to getting 5G connections on the device: you also have to be careful how you hold it …
The scandal of US mobile carriers selling user location data was exposed earlier this year. The data was sold to a wide range of customers, ranging from banks wanting to reduce card fraud to bounty hunters tracking wanted criminals.
But the most worrying aspect of all was that carriers and bounty hunters alike were selling and re-selling location data to third-parties, with no controls over what then happened to it …
A range of studies have shown that popular games are sending data to multiple third-party entities, and even the developers concerned may not know what data is being sent to whom.
Angry Birds, for example, knowingly sends advertising data to 43 entities, but developer Rovio turned out to be unaware of additional data sent through third-party SDKs …
There seems to be growing consensus on the need for a US federal privacy law along the lines of Europe’s GDPR. There is now bipartisan support in Congress, with Republicans and Democrats alike in favor of legislation.
They don’t, however, agree on the best way to go about it …
The revised Samsung Galaxy Fold launch date in the US will be decided in the next couple of days, says the company’s CEO Koh Dong-jin.
The statement follows an earlier email to customers explaining that pre-orders may be automatically cancelled unless confirmed …
Concerns are being expressed that Europe is going too far with legislation which is controlling tech giants and their customers …
Samsung is cancelling Galaxy Fold orders unless customers confirm that they still wish to proceed despite the screen failures seen in review units.
The company has emailed customers who ordered the device, acknowledging the issues experienced by reviewers, and stating that it will automatically cancel orders unless purchasers confirm that they still wish to go ahead …
Facebook privacy concerns continue as it’s revealed today that the social network has been using a team of contract workers to label status updates and photos with keywords, to help train AI systems to do the same thing.
As many as 260 external staff in India have been carrying out the work on content posted since 2014 …
More BBC TV shows are likely to appear on BritBox, the $6.99/month streaming video service that aims to provide access to the best of British television to a US audience …
Teardown specialists iFixit think they know how Samsung Galaxy Fold screen failures happen. We’ve so far seen six review units fail, with Samsung reportedly taking them all back before any more can happen.
The company says it has identified four potential reasons for the failures, in addition to the screen-protector which isn’t …
Update: One reviewer has suggested that the units were supplied on 10-day loan, with the expectation they would then be swapped for a US-specific model. It’s unclear whether Samsung is recalling the review units early, but at this point they are not being replaced with a US model.
Just a day after Samsung confirmed reports that it was delaying the launch of its foldable smartphone after multiple reviewers reported serious problems with the folding display, the company is reportedly now taking back Galaxy Fold review units from tech writers and videographers.
The Galaxy Fold was originally scheduled to launch in the US on Friday, but this has now been indefinitely postponed …
There was mixed news today for Twitter, the company reporting stronger-than-expected financials, but monthly active users down year-on-year. Twitter Q1 revenue hit $787M, beating both its own top-end guidance and Wall Street expectations …
Update: Our sources suggest that, while there is no way to know for sure, it is possible that the developers are simply using app analytics services offered by Facebook and Google. That would see data being sent to servers owned by the respective companies, but wouldn’t make any of it available for advertising.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has found that most free apps designed to help people quit smoking, or cope with depression, are sharing data with Facebook or Google – and only a third of them properly disclosed that fact in privacy policies …
