Time to Give the Telephone Back to the Cellphone?

Was interviewing a guy intimately involved in the mobile phone industry the other day, and we were comparing the various features of our sophisticated smartphones, when he suddenly leaned over and said, “Off the record, but this is my favorite phone.” And he showed me this: Nokia 1100, photo Mobile Phones UK The Nokia 1100,… Read More »

The Puppy Love Scam

A few weeks back I wrote about love scams (“You Give Love a Bad Name,” WSJ.com) — how scammers are trawling online dating sites looking for suckers. What interested me about the scam is that in some cases the scammers play a very patient game — luring the mark in over a period of months… Read More »

Facebook’s Faceless Apps

We’re probably being too kind to Facebook, and, in particular, to the third party applications that plug into it. They’re abusing user trust and committing sins we castigate others for, so we should be consistent: Many Facebook applications are spam. Take this one, for example, illustrated above. It’s called ATTACK! and upon accepting an invitation… Read More »

Software That Plays Tag

This week’s WSJ.com column (subscription only, I’m afraid) is about Jiglu, a sort of automatic tagging service you can see in action somewhere on this blog: If you’re a writer, you hope your words will be etched in stone for eternity. If you’re a blogger, you’re happy if someone stumbles on your writings a few… Read More »