It's all in the wrist: Your fitness tracker could be as much about data warfare as your welfare
Column Tick, tick, boom?
Personal Tech19 Jun 2019 | 101
Mark has worked in the technology industry since the late 1980s, and has contributed to all manner of products, from dial-up modems to 3D graphics including co-inventing VRML. He is an award-winning columnist who writes regularly for The Register. His full bio can be found here.
Minecraft's my Nirvana. I found it hard, it's hard to find. Oh well, whatever... Never Mined
Column What on Earth are you playing at, Microsoft?
Personal Tech23 May 2019 | 49
Complex automation won't make fleshbags obsolete, not when the end result is this dumb
Column We're messy, expensive, lazy, difficult – and entirely necessary
AI + ML25 Apr 2019 | 81
FAANGs for the memories: Breaking up big tech's biggest isn't a matter of if, but of when
Column Everyone's had enough of their sh!t
Legal26 Mar 2019 | 45
Cheap as chips: There's no such thing as a free lunch any Moore
Column Industry faces down Spectre of performance optimisation
Personal Tech05 Mar 2019 | 44
Having AI assistants ruling our future lives? That's so sad. Alexa play Despacito
Column It's Amazon how quickly these monopolies begin
AI + ML17 Jan 2019 | 88
Between you, me and that dodgy-looking USB: A little bit of paranoia never hurt anyone
Let's lift our eyes from the balance sheet and take a look around...
Security13 Nov 2018 | 155
'Moore's Revenge' is upon us and will make the world weird
When everything's smart, the potential for dumb mistakes becomes enormous
Security04 Jun 2018 | 107
Social networks have already violated the spirit of GDPR
Closing off researchers’ access to APIs in the name of ‘safety’ means we’ll never know how we’re being screwed
On-Prem08 May 2018 | 35
Tech’s big lie: Relations between capital and labor don't matter
IBM shafting fifty-somethings shows business-as-usual hasn't been disrupted
On-Prem03 Apr 2018 | 44
Fear the wrath of robots, for their judgement is final and irrevocable
The right to be forgiven will soon be more important than the right to be forgotten
Science12 Mar 2018 | 26
Voice assistants are always listening. So why won't they call police if they hear a crime?
We've given away our privacy for the wrong rewards
AI + ML26 Feb 2018 | 126
Face, face, face! Apple, TrueDepth and a nose-driven iPhone X game
Selfie-satisfied to augment reality with their mugs
Science13 Feb 2018 | 20
Talk down to Siri like it's a mere servant – your safety demands it
Voice assistants get samples of our voice that can be remixed and faked
AI + ML12 Feb 2018 | 71
Death notice: Moore's Law. 19 April 1965 – 2 January 2018
Done in by the weaponisation of optimisation, and now 2017 may be as good as it ever got
On-Prem24 Jan 2018 | 218
Smartphones' security enhancements just make them more dangerous
Is that incriminating data in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
Security08 Jan 2018 | 77
Surveillance Capitalism thinks it won, but there's still time to unplug it
We gave up privacy for convenience, and 2018's the time to win both of them back
Science28 Nov 2017 | 79
Your attention has value, personal cryptocurrency will advertise it
ICOs meet advertising in the end-game for the gig economy
Science14 Nov 2017 | 21
Augmented reality: Like it or not, only Apple's ready for the data-vomit gush
It's all about AR... and iPhone has the X factor
Science13 Nov 2017 | 38
It's time to rebuild the world for robots
We smoothed the world for cars, but assume robots will have eyes and ears
Science24 Oct 2017 | 55
Leaky-by-design location services show outsourced security won't ever work
Google and Facebook can't – or won't – anticipate misuses of data that shouldn't exist
Security10 Oct 2017 | 88
Alexa and her kind let the disabled or illiterate make the web work
But they need a marketplace and the cloud to make it happen
Science26 Sep 2017 | 23
Sure, HoloLens is cute, but Ford was making VR work before it was cool
Interview Elizabeth Baron found genuine use for virtual reality in the design process
Science18 Sep 2017 | 12
The bigger the drone, the bigger the impact
Fast book delivery is a first world problem, but cargo-carriers might just slow down the growth of cities
On-Prem11 Sep 2017 | 35
In the Pearl River Delta's electronics souks, AI lets the haggling happen
With three different forms of Chinese spoken across one mega-city, smartphone translation is essential
AI + ML25 Jul 2017 | 12
Good luck building a VR PC: Ethereum miners are buying all the GPUs
Once the tap turns on again, GPUs will restore PCs and edge computing to glory
Science10 Jul 2017 | 71
Robots will enable a sustainable grey economy
Oldies will retain mobility and independence when Teslas can self-drive them to work or be sent out to do the shopping
Science29 Jun 2017 | 93
Connectivity's value is almost erased by the costs it can impose
The internet made information flow on the cheap, but making it anti-fragile will cost plenty
Security13 Jun 2017 | 35
PAH! Four decades of Star Wars: No lightsabers, no palm-sized video calls
Star Wars New Hope @ 40 Sort of. Leia's a New Hope
Science24 May 2017 | 55
Go ahead, stage a hackathon. But pray it doesn't work too well
OPINION Are you ready for an idea from the playground to challenge your organisation?
Devops23 May 2017 | 21
Facebook is abusive. It's time to divorce it
And lament that early browsers gave up on web site authoring tools and created monsters
Science08 May 2017 | 253
TVs are now tablet computers without a touchscreen
And that's good because apps can handle codecs that broadcasters abandon
Personal Tech26 Apr 2017 | 133
Machine vs. machine battle has begun to de-fraud the internet of lies
Standards help, too, as we fight to ensure the cost of sharing doesn't outweigh the benefits
Security10 Apr 2017 | 77
OVH-VMware deal skips Australia, will snuff vCloud Air's public bits
Focus will be on Europe, US
SaaS05 Apr 2017 |
Trump's America looks like a lousy launchpad, so can you dig Darwin?
The space boom is lifting off and there's only so many places close to the equator with heavy industry and stable government
Science27 Mar 2017 | 39
Can you ethically suggest a woman pursue a career in tech?
Efforts to engage women with STEM are useless if 'Bro culture' means they face years of harassment and frustration
On-Prem13 Mar 2017 | 178
Autonomous cars are about to do to transport what the internet did to information
Matter is going to move more freely and cheaply than ever before
Edge + IoT27 Feb 2017 | 121
Kids these days will never understand the value of money
Nor should they, because the folding stuff is disappearing into phones and cards
On-Prem13 Feb 2017 | 89
'Grey technology' should be the new black
When the elderly can't access services or communicate, we all lose
Personal Tech31 Jan 2017 | 83
Too much landfill, too little purpose: CES 2017
Tech sector needs decluttering
Personal Tech10 Jan 2017 | 52
The future often starts as a toy, so don't shun toy VR this Christmas
We won't know the possibilities of VR or any other technology until we play with it
Science28 Nov 2016 | 31
The sharks of AI will attack expensive and scarce workers faster than they eat drivers
Your career is now a game of musical chairs: you need to be ready when the song stops
On-Prem14 Nov 2016 | 95
Good luck securing 'things' when users assume 'stuff just works'
Making devices secure by design requires more effort than vendors currently allow
Security27 Oct 2016 | 70
Virtual reality is actually made of smartphones
From the HoloLens to the PlayStation VR, all VR kit is descended from the first iPhone
Personal Tech13 Oct 2016 | 61
Zombie Moore's Law shows hardware is eating software
Customised CPUs are doing things software just can't do on commodity kit
AI + ML22 Sep 2016 | 77
Vale, LOGO creator Seymour Papert, who taught us that code can be creative play
Arduino-fiddling kids, and the rest of us, owe Papert a debt of gratitude
Software25 Aug 2016 | 12
Star Trek Beyond: An unwatchable steaming pile of tribble dung
Review Trek works when the struggle is within, not when the fights are fast and furious
Legal20 Jul 2016 | 218
Smartphones aren't tiny PCs, but that's how we use them in the West
In China, they get it, QR codes are like money and mobile payments are everywhere
Personal Tech13 Jul 2016 | 128
Hackathons aren't just for hipsters
Done right, they can be a training tool that engages and produces rapid results
On-Prem16 Jun 2016 | 6
8K video gives virtual reality the full picture for mainstream use
Reg man gets his hands on Samsung's only-in-Korea Gear 360 VR cam
Personal Tech02 Jun 2016 | 20
If you know what's good for you, your health data belongs in the cloud
Connected diabetes monitors show the more you share, the more you can be helped
SaaS20 May 2016 | 35
When careers don't last much longer than primary school, play is the new training
Drag and drop tools that teach through experimentation have a place beyond the classroom
On-Prem06 May 2016 | 14
Clucking hell! Farcical free-range egg standard pecked apart by app
Software as an instrument of transparency has the potential to scramble politics for good
Legal20 Apr 2016 | 72
Grab your Hammer pants – it's the '90s again: Facebook brings Virtual Reality back
But why exactly does it want to be a hardware company?
Personal Tech13 Apr 2016 | 37
Australia's broadband policy is a flimsy, cynical House of Cards
Prime Minister Turnbull is strangling our economy
Legal06 Apr 2016 | 37
It's nuts but 'shared' is still shorthand for 'worthless'
But it won't be long before sharing's wealth-creation potential is realised
On-Prem23 Mar 2016 | 46
Home Ebola testing with a Tricorder? There's an app for that
DNA-testing peripherals for smartphones are here. And DNA can change your day
Applications09 Mar 2016 | 26
Wikidata makes Wikipedia a database. Let the fun begin
What are the ten largest cities with female mayors? For the first time, machines can answer
Software25 Feb 2016 | 26
Bitcoin's governance bungles stain the blockchain's reputation
If the cryptocurrency can't organise its own evolution, we lose a chance at better security
Security11 Feb 2016 | 26
Sensors, not CPUs, are the tech that swings the smartphone market
The more your phone knows about the world, the more useful - and invasive - it becomes
Personal Tech28 Jan 2016 | 42
Biting the hand that feeds IT
