Minutes to midnight

31 July 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Move over Matthew Broderick, the UK government's decided it's a smashing idea to recruit a diehard gamer to its atomic weapons division.

Power corrupts

17 July 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

"We are a company that seeks to do no evil - right, ok, well everybody believes that."

Whatever the weather

10 July 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

So what's the big news in technology this week? Facebook's founder eats koala, Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to Asteroids and The New York Times is miffed that Sony fictionalised bits of a movie about a blog.

Monetise or move on

03 July 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

I don't know what it is about technology fads that sends some in the media into such paroxysms of stupidity.

Downloaders French-fried

29 May 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

So earlier this month we saw the French were at it again, caving to the imperialist interests of Hollywood and passing a law that lets the government boot chronic BitTorrenters off l'internet.

Pandemic cliches impossible to mask

01 May 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

I might not speak Mandarin, but recent history clearly shows that the Chinese word for crisis is also the Chinese word for video-conferencing

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

24 April 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Try as I might to stay in tune with the zeitgeist of the technology industry, there are some (ok, many) things that pass me by.

Datacasting, Freeview and other reasons the NBN is a great idea

17 April 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

I, for one, truly hope that the proposed FTTH network will shake up the TV industry, but that depends on the government not capitulating to the free to air networks again

I'm no lawyer, but...

03 April 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Before I label BitTorrenters a bunch of thieves* determined to destroy Australian ISPs, I have a question.

Need for speed

26 March 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Telstra's outgoing chief executive, Sol Trujillo, was forcefully arguing last year for laying fibre to every suburb and back street in Australia.

Gold-medal broadband botch

20 March 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Australia's lack of innovation is oft lamented but it seems when it comes to botching vital broadband infrastructure projects we've set a gold standard even the US is trying to adopt.

One more game of chicken

11 March 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Sol Trujillo may have already booked the movers for his return to the US, but it would seem the feisty Telstra CEO couldn't resist at least one more game of chicken before he punched out of Oz.

If chance will have me king

03 March 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Not long ago my broadband connection went out for a week - not an hour, which I can abide, nor a day, which is inconvenient - but one whole, entire week.

Cloud watching, quietly

24 February 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Based on reader response I should talk about video piracy, Stephen Conroy, internet filtering or that broadband thingo that's causing so much trouble - but I have something far more interesting in mind.

12 February 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

It would appear Microsoft has been held hostage by Vista for so long that the software monopolist's product managers have contracted a mutant strain of Stockholm Syndrome.

Idea does not equal startup

10 February 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

For a supposedly clever country, we still do bugger all in the way of IT innovation

How I learned to stop worrying and love the downturn

28 January 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Messaging psuedo-friends online about the potato you just boiled speaks more to society's failure than technology's advance.

Music thieves should be deeply ashamed

20 January 2009 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

I may previously have mouthed off against overzealous efforts to make pirates walk the plank, but if the latest theft figures are on the money some file sharers have gone too far.

Harsh lesson on school PCs

02 December 2008 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Little Britain's Carol Beer famously told her customers "compu'er says no", but when it comes to coughing up cash to put laptops and PCs on the desks of hundreds of thousands of high school students, the Rudd government has a hard time saying anything but "yes".

P2P? It's TV's fault

21 November 2008 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

As there's clearly not enough handwringing over Hollywood suing iiNet, I should add my two cents - it's Australia's miserly free-to-air broadcasters wot's to blame.

Walking the plank

19 November 2008 | MIS.Online | Ben Woodhead

Did Wii-stealing Somali sea pirates also force Yahoo's Jerry Yang to walk the plank? Probably not.