Category: Stories
-
Nokia radical bundling deal deserves applause
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
You could be forgiven for thinking that Nokia’s music announcement yesterday was yet another subscription service. The phone giant didn’t help dispel the notion by omitting some details from the official press material. However, we were able to put more flesh on the bones of the announcement last night. It’s beginning to look as if…
-
How Web 2.0 concentrates power, and makes Microsoft stronger
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
One IT Manager, bemoaning his lot to me, recently compared the rise of Web 2.0 enthusiasts to the problem the Police has with Freemasons. The blog and wiki evangelists within are not as secretive, of course, but they’re equally cult-like: speaking their own language, and using the populist rhetoric of “empowerment” for relentless self-advancement. He…
-
I’m in privacy trouble … bitch
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
Three weeks ago, Facebook unveiled a three prong strategy to monetize its active base of 50m users. (See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/09/facebook_analysis/.) It hasn’t taken long for one those prongs to go prang. Facebook’s privacy-busting referral scheme called Beacon is to be modified. If you buy something elsewhere on the web, this information is piped back into your…
-
‘Use me as a mouthpiece’, pleads Guardian hack
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian‘s Mr “Bad Science” writes witheringly about sloppy science journalists. Many of them are simply “juggling words about on a page, without having the first clue what they mean, pretending they’ve got a proper job, their pens all lined up neatly on the desk,” he writes. They trade on scare stories, and…
-
Google’s founders are less humble (and jetless) than you think
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
Casting around for an example of the simple life to use in an Arab-bashing column, veteran columnist and editor Alexander Chancellor alighted on what he must have thought was the perfect foil to the free-spending Saudis. It appeared right there in front of him, on his PC, nestling between some coloured balls. Unlike Prince Alwaleed…
-
Amazon’s Kindle: a $399 folly
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
Reading has never been cheaper, and for most of us, requires no additional machinery – only the source material itself. So why do we need to pay the online retailer Amazon.com $399 to read books?… Read More