Why our government should make paying ransoms to cyber criminals illegal
Justice Minister Kris Faafoi has been in the headlines lately defending the proposed new hate speech laws. The laws sparked opprobrium from both the left and right, critics citing the limits...
Explained: Why Apple’s child abuse AI image-scanning feature is controversial
“Privacy is a fundamental human right. At Apple, it’s also one of our core values. Your devices are important to so many parts of your life. What you share from those...
Why the tech industry could do more to help close the gender gap
In 1843, mathematician and writer Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm. It can only be assumed she would have expected all women to, one day, be...
Here’s why “Live Text” is Apple’s best feature from WWDC 2021
Up until now Apple hasn’t been quite as adept at dealing with text in images as Google or Samsung. I open my Google Photos app when I want to find, say,...
I’ve never had a VR injury, but I do have one embarrassing tech tale
Not since Nintendo encouraged people to pretend the Wii remote was a bowling ball have there been so many TV-related accidents.
According to UK insurer Aviva, it saw a 31% year-on-year increase...
Tragedy bring out the worst of Twitter (or: you say it best when you...
I don’t know how much — if at all — the story registered in New Zealand, but last week in Britain, a member of parliament was murdered. Sir David Amess was...
If you’re over 30, it’s safer not to use emoji
Language can be a tricky thing, even when there shouldn’t be any ambiguity at all. Case in point, during a 1977 jaunt to Poland, President Jimmy Carter made quite an impression...
Facebook is too big to tame or kill
Facebook is having a difficult time of it of late. It has weathered storms before — most notably that whole undermining democracy snafu — but this time it’s clearly pretty shaken,...
Is Chrome’s latest security update enough to keep you safe?
With the launch of Chrome 91, Google will roll out an update which will assist Enhanced Safe Browsing by filtering out harmful extensions and protecting against infected downloads.
Since the initial launch...
Sorry Xiaomi: 4K smartphones are still utterly pointless
It’s tough being a smartphone manufacturer. With so little to differentiate one shiny black rectangle from one another (“look: this one has slightly smaller bezels!”), it must be tempting to see...