technology archive
The robots are taking over…
A sign of the future from the Polish air force: Poland’s Defense Ministry has announced plans to replace its fleet of aging Russian Sukhoi-22 combat aircraft with armed UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, aka drones]. The complete replacement of the Polish air force’s strike capability with drones is a logical extension of the increasing popularity of [...]
Twitter, trolling and the law
Last week I took part in a discussion on Voice of Russia radio about the problem of abuse and threats on Twitter. We talked about questions such as what the law should allow and what Twitter’s terms and conditions should permit. You can listen to the full discussion, in which I joined Vanessa Barnett, a partner [...]
Trolls: feed or not feed, ignore or react?
How best to react to when on the receiving end of online abuse has been rather in the news, courtesy of some high profile recent incidents. My own view is that ‘don’t feed the trolls’ is far more widely said than is useful, both because ‘trolling’ now means so many different things to different people [...]
Pippa Middleton shows Facebook’s problem with fake accounts
Here’s the evidence, taken just now: Facebook know there’s been a long-running issue with numerous repeated fake Pippa Middleton accounts as their presence and Facebook’s speed at removing them is something I’ve tracked in the past, having first become interested in the issue after helping out with a splurge of fake Nick Clegg accounts. In [...]
Twitter, threats of violence and fake certainty
Tweeting about politics, I’ve been on the receiving end of a fair few more than robust messages (and I dare say that, despite my attempts to keep civil, there’s a tweet or two I’ve sent that didn’t read right or were badly phrased). When it comes to messages appearing to threaten my physical safety, I’ve [...]
5 things you shouldn’t miss: the bots behind Wikipedia, spotting cancers and more
Welcome to the latest of my monthly collections for the Engine Group of five links that you shouldn’t miss. The bots that edit Wikipedia http://bbc.in/PtlLTJ Behind the scenes of the international encyclopedia which anyone can edit is a small army of automated programs that keep the site going. An app – to check for [...]
How to report SMS spam to your mobile phone provider
Recently needing to do this, I came across this very helpful table courtesy of Money Saving Expert. If you receive a spam text message, all you need do is forward it to the relevant number, making for a wonderfully simple and quick way of reporting it and so doing your bit to help tackle text [...]
Trolling for peace
Wired reports: In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has used a wide variety of tactics against terrorists. It’s invaded countries where they operated (and ones where they didn’t). It’s tried to win the backing of foreign populations in which the terrorists hide. And it’s sent commandos and deadly flying robots to kill them [...]
The future as it once looked
A very impressive effort from 1969, despite getting off to an unpromising start with thinking that the future of phones lay in video phones – that perennial prediction for the next big thing that kept on turning out to be misplaced time after time as other more important and more popular innovations took off instead: [...]
