This is a column I did for the BBC World Service, broadcast this week. There’s been a lot of talk that the big boys — by which I mean Apple and Samsung — are about to launch so-called smart watches. But how smart does a watch have to be before we start strapping them to … Read more
This is a piece I wrote for the BBC World Service.. So, the iPhone 5 is here, and while it will sell well, probably better than any phone before it, there’s a sense of anticlimax: this, we are told, is evolution, not revolution. None of the mind-bending sense of newness and change that the iPhone … Read more
This is also a podcast, from my weekly BBC piece. While folks at the annual tech show in Vegas are getting all excited about a glass-encased laptop, the world’s thinnest 55″ TV and a washing machine you can control from your phone, they may be forgiven for missing the quiet sound of a milestone being … Read more
Internet banking takes another knock with news from AP that Germany’s biggest retail bank Postbank has imposed an online transaction limit . Germany’s biggest retail bank, Postbank, said Monday it was imposing a euro3,000 (US$3,860) limit on online transfers in an effort to protect customers against e-mail “phishing” scams. The bank, which has 11.5 million … Read more
If you think the Internet is a scary place for stealing your sensitive bank data, try your local gas station. The Star Tribune in Malaysia reports that criminals there are increasingly intercepting the transmission of credit card data between the point of sale machines that swipe your card and the bank. This data, incredibly, is … Read more