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.
Using the typical in-flight entertainment system on board an airliner is like time-travelling back to 1990. There’s usually no touch-screen – you have to navigate with physical joypad type systems – and everything is laggy and clunky. The contrast with the hi-tech tablet you probably have on your lap is a glaring one.
Virgin America is aiming to bring a more Android-like experience to its seat-back entertainment systems by, well, adopting Android …
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The UK tax body, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has completed a successful trial of Google Apps and will be rolling out the service to more of its staff throughout the year, reports The Register.
HMRC has 70,000 staff, and as such will be Whitehall’s first mass deployment of Google’s cloud services […]
David Fitton, head of public sector sales for Google UK, wrote on Linkedin: “The acceptance by HMRC that they can store official information offshore in Google data-centres represents a major change and endorsement of Google’s approach to managing sensitive information.”
HMRC said that it had “carefully considered the protection of customer information” when making the decision …
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Google is marking World Oceans Day, on Monday, with underwater Street View imagery in three amazing locations: Bali, the Bahamas and back to the Great Barrier Reef. The Google Maps blog says that the company wanted to draw attention to the environmental damage we are doing to our oceans.
Home to the majority of life on Earth, the ocean acts as its life support system, controlling everything from our weather and rainfall to the oxygen we breathe. Yet despite the ocean’s vital importance, the ocean is changing at a rapid rate due to climate change, pollution, and overfishing, making it one of the most serious environmental issues we face today.
The company says that mapping the ocean not only showcases its beauty, but also provides baseline imagery which can be used to monitor changes and highlight threats …
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We’ll leave aside the question of who the heck searches Google for ‘Google’ … But if you did so in Egypt until recently, your first hit would have been an air conditioning technician named Saber El-Toony, with Google itself reduced to second place, reports Gizmodo. El-Toony has now achieved minor celebrity status in the country.
Far from an SEO genius, El-Toony was decidedly non-technical and unable to explain why it was happening. He had, he said, been forced to switch off his phone.
BlogStart founder Eyad Nour investigated and found that El-Toony had given a Google search for his own name as the URL on his Google+ page. As you do. An “experimental algorithm” then put him at the top of search results for Google, explained a Google engineer.
Google has seemingly implemented a temporary fix by removing Mr El-Toony’s Google+ page.
Google appears to have finally accepted that Google+ is dead, ditching or hiding the link from many of its own sites.
A text-parsing bug is causing Android, iOS and Windows Skype apps to repeatedly crash when they receive a simple text string. On all these devices, chat history is loaded when the app re-opens, causing it to immediately crash again.
The text string is simply the first part of an URL, on its own: http:// …
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Update: The WSJ is reporting that Nintendo has denied the suggestion:
There is no truth to the report saying that we are planning to adopt Android for NX
Nintendo has been keeping quiet about its plans for its NX games console, due to launch next year, but a report in Nikkei claims that the system will run Android.
The report suggests Nintendo is planning the shift away from its own operating system as a means of bringing more games developers on board after the Wii U was left with almost no non-Nintendo titles available for it …
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Alongside the ZenWatch 2, Asus has also announced a flurry of new tablets – now using the Zen branding – and a new ZenPhone.
The highlight, and the only tablet Asus talked about in any detail, is the ZenPad S 8.0, an 8-inch model with impressive specs. The metal body contains a 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580 processor, 4GB RAM, hi-res 2048×1536 IPS display in 4:3 ratio, up to 64GB storage – and a shiny new USB Type C connector …
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Asus confirmed last month that its next-generation ZenWatch was on the way, and would be released in Q3 this year. It has now shown off the Asus ZenWatch 2 for the first time – though not told us very much about it beyond the looks.
It will be available in two sizes, 49mm or 45mm, and offer a total of 18 different looks via three color choices for the watch itself and a range of straps. You can choose between silver, gunmetal and rose gold casings, each with matching stainless steel link bracelets, with leather and rubber strap options too …
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Lenovo has today shown off a couple of product prototypes that fall somewhere on the scale with ‘interesting tech’ at one end and ‘batsh*t crazy’ at the other… Buck Rogers style.
The first is Magic View, a smartwatch with a second display – a really tiny one – embedded in the strap. The idea appears to be that when the main display alerts you to new content, you hold the tiny screen up very, very close to your eye to view that content on the second display. I’m just waiting for someone wearing Google Glass and someone with their smartwatch in front of their nose to walk into each other …
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The long-running dispute between Oracle and Google over whether Java application programming interfaces (APIs) used within Android were protected by copyright has taken another strange turn, with the Justice Dept urging the Supreme Court not to hear Google’s appeal.
The legal battle is over whether small sections of code originally written by Oracle’s predecessor, Sun Microsystems, can be used under the ‘fair use’ exemption to copyright laws. Google argues that it used only small code snippits, did so mostly for consistency and offered to pay royalties; Oracle argues that the code is its intellectual property, and the royalties offered were too low …
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Reuters reported back in March that Microsoft planned to bring its Google Now competitor Cortana to Android, and Microsoft has now officially confirmed this in a blog post.
Today, we’re announcing a Cortana application for Android phones and for iPhones which works as a companion to Cortana on your Windows 10 PC. The ‘Phone Companion’ app on the PC will help you install the Cortana app from the Google Play or Apple App Store onto your phone so you’ll be able to take the intelligence of Cortana with you, wherever you go […]
The Cortana companion will be available for Android phones at the end of June and for iPhones later this year.
While Microsoft is pitching the intelligent assistant as a companion to a Windows PC, it appears that most of the functionality will work in the Android app without the need for a Windows device, Microsoft saying that you can “make the same queries, ask the same questions” in the standalone app …
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Google’s existing Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 handsets
With Google reporting falling revenues from its Nexus devices, and having seemingly abandoned the original concept of an affordable vanilla device in favor of more expensive devices, the future of the product line was looking a little uncertain. But a new rumor says that Google will indeed be continuing the Nexus program – and not just with one new smartphone, but two.
Android Police cites a “reliable source” in suggesting that Google is partnering with two different manufacturers: with LG for a 5.2-inch smartphone code-named Angler, and with Huawei for a 5.7-inch phablet code-named Bullhead …
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While Google has been working hard to become a more diverse company, you don’t necessarily see much diversity in image searches. Carry out a neutral search on Google Images for terms like man, woman, face or hand, and the vast majority of search results show white people.
The World White Web project aims to change that, by the simple mechanism of asking people to share images of people of color, which boosts their search rankings in Google, increasing the racial diversity of search results …
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Pebble has updated its Kickstarter page, advising that the first batch of Pebble Time smartwatches will begin shipping on 27th May, and that all orders placed through Kickstarter will ship by mid-June.
Great news: the first batch of Pebble Time shipments are scheduled to go out Wednesday, May 27. With things moving along at this rate, we expect all Pebble Time Rewards to be manufactured by the end of the month […] Every backer with a Pebble Time included in their selected reward tier should receive a tracking number from us by mid-June.
Despite raising $20M from the Kickstarter campaign, however, TechCrunch is reporting that the company is having trouble raising additional funding “in order to stay afloat” …
A multinational government group known as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the spy group comprising Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand – planned to hack Android phones by compromising both Google and Samsung app stores. The plan was revealed in newly-released Snowden files dating back to 2012, reports CBC News.
Five Eyes specifically sought ways to find and hijack data links to servers used by Google and Samsung’s mobile app stores [trying] to find ways to implant spyware on smartphones by intercepting the transmissions sent when downloading or updating apps.
The alliance planned to begin by analyzing traffic to the stores to identify the Internet usage habits of targets (such as which apps they used), but the ultimate goal was to plant spyware that would enable them to extract data from targeted smartphones, or even to take control of them …
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Lenovo’s first full quarter since it completed the acquisition of Motorola from Google brought good news and bad: smartphone shipments and revenue up, but profits down.
TechCrunch reports that Lenovo shipped a record 18.7M smartphones in the final quarter of 2014, reported now, with year-on-year revenues up 21% – but profits fell 37% …
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Chinese manufacturer Oppo has announced two new mid-market smartphones, the R7 and R7 Plus – going on sale in China tomorrow, with the international rollout expected next month, reports GSM Arena.
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Google’s family-friendly YouTube Kids app has been hit with a second complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, this time accusing it of containing inappropriate content, including sexually-explicit language and “jokes about pedophilia.” This follows a complaint last month that the app was “deceptive to children” in the way it mixed ads into the programming.
The WSJ reports that the complaint was sent by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy.
Examples of what the non-profit groups found include: explicit sexual language in cartoons; jokes about pedophilia and drug use; activities such as juggling knives, tasting battery acid, and making a noose; and adult discussions about family violence, pornography, and child suicide.
The group created a video (below) illustrating the inappropriate content found …
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Rumors that Google has big plans for virtual reality seem to be gathering pace. After yesterday learning that the lead designer of Google Search is now heading up Google Cardboard, another engineer believed to be working on the projected has hinted at an announcement at Google I/O …
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Google and Apple have co-signed a letter calling on President Obama to reject any government proposal to allow the government backdoor access to encrypted data on smartphones and other devices. The Washington Post says the letter, due to be delivered today, is signed by more than 140 tech companies, prominent technologists and civil society groups.
The signatories urge Obama to follow the group’s unanimous recommendation that the government should “fully support and not undermine efforts to create encryption standards” and not “in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable” commercial software.
The FBI has been pushing increasingly hard to require tech companies to build in backdoor access to their encryption systems to allow access by law enforcement, even going so far as to say that Apple could be responsible for the death of a child. a NY District Attorney has also cited public safety as justification for demanding access to encrypted data.
The letter calling on Obama to reject this argument is also signed by five members of a presidential review group appointed by Obama in 2013 to assess technology policies in the wake of leaks by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
Many in the tech industry have pointed out that, aside from the obvious concerns over government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, any backdoor used by the government could potentially be discovered and exploited by hackers and foreign governments.
Google’s initial play with virtual reality couldn’t possibly have been any more basic: the company’s first headset was quite literally made from cardboard. But suggestions that the company is more serious about VR than Google Cardboard have been backed by a high-profile exec change within the company spotted by Fast Company.
Jon Wiley, the lead designer of Google Search, has transitioned to become lead designer of Google Cardboard […] Wiley’s Twitter profile reflects his new position, and Google confirmed the move, but declined to share details as to when or why it occurred, or who will replace Wiley in his former role. What’s clear is that Google has invested a major design talent in VR.
The WSJ reported in March that Google was working on a new project to build a VR platform based on the Android operating system which would be free for hardware manufacturers, and Google last month announced a ‘Works with Google Cardboard‘ program to unify third-party viewers …
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Google may have grown increasingly corporate over the years, but I love the fact that it still sets out to do cool things just because it can. Working with the University of Washington, the team found a way to create fully automated timelapse photos of both landscapes and cityscapes using photos pulled in from popular photo-sharing sites like Yahoo’s Flickr and its own Picasa.
First, we cluster 86 million photos into landmarks and popular viewpoints. Then, we sort the photos by date and warp each photo onto a common viewpoint. Finally, we stabilize the appearance of the sequence to compensate for lighting effects and minimize flicker.
The team says that the results are not just fun to watch, but also serve a useful purpose …
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The Financial Times is reporting that European mobile carriers are planning to block Google and other web ads in order to reduce demands on their networks and break Google’s hold on advertising (via TNW).
According to the story, which cites anonymous sources, the carriers have installed software from Israeli ad-blocking firm Shine in their data centers to block advertising in Web pages and apps, but not social networks.
Many websites, 9to5Google among them, depend on ad revenue to deliver free content to their readers. Any move to block ads could have far-reaching consequences …
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Google’s fleet of self-driving Lexus cars have notched up a total of 140,000 miles on public roads, and the company is now ready to begin road-testing its first purpose-built autonomous cars.
We first saw the cute-looking cars almost a year ago, when the company explained that they were not intended to ever make it to public sale. Their purpose is to see how people respond to a next-generation driverless car before later seeking partners to actually bring the technology to market.
We learned earlier this week that Google’s existing Lexus fleet has been involved in three low-speed accidents, none of them the fault of the car, but the company still isn’t taking any chances in this latest phase …
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