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.
In the same week YouTube announced that it will be working with non-profit organizations to help identify and remove extremist videos from its platform, Facebook is expanding a similar initiative …
Redditors are having fun after Niantic announced new measures to deter cheating in Pokémon Go …
Facebook is testing a new feature designed to protect profile photos from being downloaded. The aim is to make women in particular feel more comfortable about uploading their photo to the service.
Doist, the company behind the popular task-management app Todoist, has launched Twist, a team messaging system designed to compete with Slack and Hipchat. The app is available for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac.
Twist takes a different approach to real-time team chat apps, aiming to provide a kind of cross between chat and email …
After first announcing a new mobile Futurama game back in February, and teasing it with an initial trailer last month, TinyCo has revealed that Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow will be launched on June 29.
The company has also created a new trailer for the game (below) featuring Stephen Hawking, George Takei, Bill Nye, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson …
Google has pledged to use a mix of artificial intelligence and human beings to identify and remove extremist videos from YouTube.
The move was prompted when a failure in YouTube’s existing filters saw ads from governments and major brands appear within and alongside hate videos. These included videos of former Ku Klux Klan official and holocaust denier David Duke, as well as Steven Anderson, a preacher banned from Britain after praising the terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando …
A two-sentence notice on Niantic’s support website hints at a major update to Pokémon Go.
Heads Up: Gyms will soon be closing temporarily for remodeling. Any Pokémon you’ve assigned to Gyms will be returned to you at that time.
While that might not seem much of a clue, it is when viewed in context …
Google has been found guilty of antitrust behavior over the way it promoted its own shopping services over that of competitors, reports the Financial Times. This is one of three separate European investigations into the legality of the company’s trading practices.
The paper says that a formal announcement will be made ‘in the coming weeks,’ and that the search giant will be fined a billion Euros ($1.12B) by the European Commission …
The latest Kantar market share data shows that Samsung, LG and Moto all experienced year-on-year declines in U.S. sales. The firm noted that neither Samsung’s S8 or LG’s G6 made the list of top-10 selling phones in the three-month period ending in April.
News for Samsung was particularly disappointing …
Instagram is asking celebrities and others with significant numbers of followers to use a new ‘Paid partnership’ label to identify sponsored posts.
With Britain going to the polls in a national election on Thursday, Uber is playing its part in trying to ensure everyone is able to vote. The company is offering free rides to polling stations to wheelchair users in three UK cities.
YouTube has announced tougher guidelines on hate content in videos, strengthening its response to three categories.
It first promised to take action in March, ensuring that hateful content cannot be monetized. The move was in response to an ad boycott after major brands found their ads embedded in – or appearing alongside – offensive videos …
Code spotted inside the main Facebook app contains some pointers to plans by the company to launch a new chat app aimed specifically at teens.
The app, whose actual or working name is Talk, looks set to contain some features likely to prove popular with teens, and others not so much …
If you’re looking for a simple and inexpensive way to capture short First Person View (FPV) video footage of your adventures, Snap Spectacles are a decent buy. Originally sold only in the USA, they are now available in 14 European countries.
We were impressed when we reviewed them over on our sister site 9to5Mac …
Google’s plans for a new London campus have taken a while to come to fruition, but the company has now submitted a formal planning application for the redesigned building. It will be situated directly opposite Kings Cross station, close to the Eurostar terminus.
Initial plans were filed back in 2013, but the company later decided the design lacked ambition. In 2014, Google asked for an all-new design, and later commissioned the team behind its Mountain View campus to carry out the work …
It’s been more than two months since the U.S. government banned tablets and laptops from cabin baggage on flights from 10 airports, and there has been much talk since of extending the ban.
An iPad bomb plot was said to have been one factor behind the original ban. The Trump administration last month considered extending the ban to all flights from Europe, with the plan said to be ‘under active consideration‘ before it was reportedly rejected.
Now, however, it appears that an even more widespread ban is on the table …
The official Twitter apps for Android and iOS have borrowed a trick from Facebook: direct messages from people you don’t follow now go into a separate Requests tab.
It’s just over two months since we got our first peek at the Essential Phone – a new smartphone from father-of-Android Andy Rubin – and we how have our first full look at the device and its specs.
Despite the name sounding like something basic, it’s a flagship device, priced at $699, having a near-bezel-free design, constructed from titanium and ceramic materials, and with an impressive spec …
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says that a total of 857 children who were reported missing or abducted have been successfully rescued as a direct result of the AMBER alert program.
AMBER alerts are designed to get descriptions and vehicle details to everyone in the area as quickly as possible. They include television and radio appeals, but are notable for the text notifications sent to every mobile phone within range, known as Wireless Emergency Alerts …
A set of Android vulnerabilities discovered by security researchers would allow an attacker complete control of a device, when locked and the screen is switched off.
The image above illustrates just one attack vector, clickjacking – where the user thinks they are okaying one thing while invisibly okaying something else. For illustrative purposes, the researchers have made the real action visible behind the overlay, but in real use (seen in the video below) the permission box would be invisible to the user …
A large-scale study jointly carried out by academics from Yale University and the University of California has concluded that greater than average use of Facebook decreases both mental health and happiness …
Security researchers have discovered a surprising new way for attackers to gain control of a machine: malicious subtitles. The vulnerability is device-independent, meaning it could be used to gain control of anything from a smartphone to a PC or Mac.
Garmin has announced the Virb 360, a high-spec 360-degree action cam shooting at an impressive 5.7K at 30fps. The unusual resolution is designed to create enough spare pixels to automatically apply spherical stabilization to output smooth 4K video in the company’s own Virb Edit software.
As with earlier Virb action cams, there’s built-in GPS to allow you to overlay data like speed, altitude and location – as well as data sent via Bluetooth from any device with an ANT+ sensor. But the features don’t end there …
The latest Gartner data (below) shows that both market leader Samsung and second-placed Apple lost market share in the first quarter of the year as Chinese brands continued to increase their sales.
Samsung saw its market share fall from 23.3% in Q1 2016 to 20.7% in the same quarter this year. Gartner said that the company was suffering from strong competition in low-cost smartphones in particular …
