MicroChick

Management speak: Can you run that up the flagpole?

Siobhan Chapman — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:30:24 GMT

Nothing annoys me more than management speak, the often meaningless and over-complicated drivel uttered by managers in meetings. All the journalists I know find it tricky to decipher, as if the speaker was trying to obfuscate and perplex the listener.Words...

Facebook clears up iPhone app Contact Sync hype

Siobhan Chapman — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 14:56:21 GMT

Yesterday I wrote a blog about the Facebook Contact Sync feature for iPhone, which syncs the contact details of everyone on your iPhone and matches them to your Facebook friends. The blog referenced a number of media reports, including this...

Facebook iPhone app shares all your phone numbers

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:22:52 GMT

Update: Facebook has since responded to this story. Due to the length of their response, you can read it in full on this new post. Facebook is, once again, embroiled in a privacy mess: The social network is reportedly publishing your...

Best of the web: Epic fails, the origin of the universe and iPhone gets buried

Siobhan Chapman — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:21:47 GMT

Here's my pic of the best of the web this week.For tech startups and economic theorists:Startup-Russia blog looks at the mechanics behind Silicon Valley failures, an environment where nine out of ten startups are likely to fail. From the blog:"The...

New Digg vs old Digg, Old Dogg and new tricks

Siobhan Chapman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:54:23 GMT

Digg has launched version 4 (v4)of its popular social news website to much derision across the web.New Digg has borrowed a few ideas from Facebook and Twitter, introducing the ability to follow friends. Along with Top News, the New Digg...

Tweetup is in the dictionary, chillax

Siobhan Chapman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:31:45 GMT

Tweetup, a meeting arranged through Twitter, is one of more than 2,000 new words and phrases welcomed into the Oxford English Dictionary in its latest edition. This latest edition is compiled from analysis of two billion words in usage, including...

How women (like me) are shaping the Web, supposedly

Siobhan Chapman — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:52:00 GMT

More women than men visit social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and spend 30% more time per month using them, according to Internet research firm comScore. The research firm studied the Internet habits of women across the world,...

Steve Jobs fake 'relax' iPhone 4 email serves a lesson about online journalism

Siobhan Chapman — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:30:00 GMT

Apple PR have dismissed reports of a recent email exchange between Apple chief Steve Jobs and a concerned iPhone 4 customer as fake. The exchange was first published on The Boy Genius Report (BGR) and then quickly published around...

Apple, New York Times and the case of the yo-yoing Pulse app

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:18:00 GMT

A popular iPad application called Pulse News Reader, developed by two students at the Stanford Institute of Design, has been at the centre of a media storm this week. Pulse works like a fancy RSS reader, by collecting and...

LEGO Printer says Hello World

Siobhan Chapman — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:06:00 GMT

A member of the B3ta forums, who goes by the name of Squirrelfantasy, has built a working printer out of LEGO parts, which uses felt tips pens instead of ink cartridges. From his description on YouTube: "The 'Lego felt...

Facebook privacy and empty platitudes

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:52:00 GMT

The latest Facebook status of my friend made me chuckle: "WARNING! As of tomorrow, Facebook will creep into your bathroom when you're in the shower and tweak your boobs. To change this option, go to Settings > Personal Settings...

Adobe hearts Apple in tough love ad campaign

Siobhan Chapman — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:30:00 GMT

Adobe has launched a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign, claiming that it ‘hearts’ Apple. The ads, which seem to be aimed at Apple fanboys, features on popular geek sites such as Engadget and Ars Technica. There were also full page ads...

TechCrunch asks readers: Should we prosecute hacker?

Siobhan Chapman — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:23:00 GMT

TechCrunch was hacked earlier this year. The TechCrunch.com site was defaced twice over a two day period and was redirecting for part of that time to a third party site. Now Garda (police in Ireland) believe they found the...

The Apple iPhone 4G leak: Gizmodo, Engadget and chequebook journalism

Siobhan Chapman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:05:00 GMT

Gizmodo has scored what is probably the tech scoop of the year by obtaining a prototype Apple iPhone 4. But the real story is how Gizmodo managed to get hold of the new device, then spin out the coverage...

#Ge2010: The Digital Election revolution will (not just) be televised

Siobhan Chapman — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:13:00 GMT

I'm excited. It’s my first election since being in the UK, and, not only that, it’s also the first digital election in history. As the digital campaign trail gets under way, it has become obvious that this election will...

Use open source? Then you're a pirate!

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:48:00 GMT

There's a fantastic little story in the Guardian today that says a US lobby group is trying to get the US government to consider open source as the equivalent to piracy. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella...

Australia's net censorship and Operation Titstorm

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:21:00 GMT

Earlier today (10 February), hackers connected with the group Anonymous, launched an attack on Australian government websites, as a protest against proposed net censorship regulations. At time of writing, the Parliament of Australia's website was still down. Anonymous, a...

Apple Tablet event: The hype machine

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:28:00 GMT

The much-anticipated launch of the Apple Tablet is upon us, and it seems the hype machine has slipped into overdrive. Here are some of the more outrageous media reports on the internet. Treehugger asks what Apple's Tablet will mean...

I heart sarcasm mark, not

Siobhan Chapman — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:12:00 GMT

Have you ever tried to send a sarcastic comment in an email, only to be taken literally? Well there is a solution: a new piece of punctuation called the sarcasm mark. US company Sarcasm Inc. has designed the sarcasm...

Windows 7 Whopper and other bizarre Microsoft marketing stunts

Siobhan Chapman — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:51:00 GMT

The global launch of Windows 7, Microsoft's latest operating system release, has dominated the headlines of most IT media today. Love or hate Microsoft, you have to admit that it has excelled itself in marketing campaigns around the world...

Apollo 11 command module is released to open source

Siobhan Chapman — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:27:00 GMT

The software that helped take humans to the moon has been released to the developer open source community to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The Apollo 11 program was made up of two different spacecraft,...