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Tuesday
Feb022021

Ask Webster anything...

I am always pleased to hear from readers for any reason but in particular I’m happy to try to resolve any computer or internet related headaches you may have.  If I can’t help, I may be able to point you in the right direction.

Click on the button below to ask me anything. 


Wednesday
Nov112020

Immunity online

In USA law’ Section 230 of the ‘Communications Decency Act’ provides immunity for websites like Twitter and Facebook if third parties publish illegal or unpleasant things on their platforms, although it does require them to remove such material when they notice it.
It was rather obscured by the election, but there was recently a four hour hearing  in the US Senate on the future of the law featuring the bosses of Facebook, Google and Twitter.  Their different approaches are interesting.
Google and Twitter warned that removing their immunity would, in the Twitter chap’s words ‘collapse how we communicate on the internet’.  But Facebook took a different line – Mark Zuckerberg said that he felt it is time to update the law, and make the platforms more liable. 
This may sound attractive on the face of it, but the conundrum is that that only a giant like Facebook could afford to obey such a law; it already has thousands of human moderators and censors, as well as highly developed Artificial Intelligence systems looking for the problems.  Little companies can’t hope to compete, and would effectively be prevented from offering Facebook any legal competition, thus further cementing their dominance.
It’s the oldest question of all: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

 

Thursday
Oct292020

Google challenged

We all think of Google as a pillar of the web; even though it’s only been around for twenty years.  However, it’s worth remembering that nothing is permanent, however big it might get.  Remember Blockbuster Video Rentals? 

It now seems possible that even Google will finally see some sort of competition, and it’s from one of the few organisations big enough to take it on: Apple.

If you look closely at the latest version of the software that runs the iPhone, you’ll see a tiny change to how its search function works. Apple has started to show its own search engine’s results, rather than Google’s, which had been the arrangement hitherto.

Search engines only make money if they have lots of users; if someone takes over some of their traffic, income drops. Perhaps none of this should surprise us; Apple poached Google’s Scottish head of search in 2018, and I doubt that he was hired just to sit quietly in a corner.

The industry gossip is that Google sees this as a warning shot, reminding them that they are not the only game in town.

Tuesday
Jun022020

A funeral online

I have now attended my first online funeral and digital wake; they were unexpectedly heartening experiences, despite my considerable forebodings.

One week into the Coronavirus lockdown, my mother died; it was no tragedy, she died of ‘old age’, mercifully, not infected by Covid-19. Nevertheless, that virus casts a long shadow, and it affected many aspects of her final days, her demise and her cremation. We would have found it all much tougher without the internet and help from an industry new to me, called ‘bereavement technology services’. It would have been very different twenty years, or even ten years, ago.

Click to read more ...

Friday
May082020

VE day and my mother

Few of us are old enough to remember VE Day, but my mother did; she was 21 a few days before it happened.  At the time she was working for the glamorous American magazine Time Life, and was sent out into Piccadilly Circus to report.  By accident, the Picture Post took her photo, watching a group of dancers, a picture which is often reproduced; she is the young woman in the white shoes.

Sadly, for me, she didn’t quite live to see today, athough there was no doubt her time had come.  However, she always said that her astonishingly positive, glass half full, find the best in people, make the most of life and cope with whatever it throws at you approach was born of gratitude for surviving the war. It was an approach that carried right through to her nursing home this year, and has long inspired my own attitude to life.

RIP

Embed from Getty Images

Thursday
Oct242019

Quantum Computing

The big computing news this week is Google’s claims to have made a major breakthrough in quantum computing. My favourite part of the whole thing is the picture of Google’s machine; it is a splendidly Heath Robinson sort of affair, with more than a hint of Colossus, the code breaking computer created at Bletchley Park all those year ago. See for yourself.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
May242018

Be careful what you post...

An eye-opener. All the information available in this video was obtained from the children’s public profiles in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Whatsapp. Think before you post and protect your privacy on social networks.

Thursday
May242018

Cabinet blues

I recently wrote about the poor placing of one of those green Broadband cabinets that are popping up all over the place; in our village, it has been installed in a spot that is not only unsightly but dangerous, as it obscures the view for drivers at a junction.
As ever, my readers have come up trumps, and I have received this excellent guide to fighting the problem. Not for the faint-hearted, but worth a try.

Click to read more ...

Monday
Apr042016

Is this really a perpetual motion machine?

Monday
Jul202015

My favourite Honda advert - from ages ago

And I don't even like Honda cars.