Category Archives: Technology
by ambyrneWhether its our personal account or personal inbox, e-mail is a challenge to manage these days. The idea was that electronic mail was to reduce the amount of things we got in the post and make life easier, but today we are bombarded with newsletters, spam, adverts and countless other things that clog our folders…
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by ambyrneLiving in Ireland I’ve always been struck by the fact that it seems that little bit more difficult sometimes to get the products and services that I’m looking for. This isn’t something new. Since I was a child and wanted to join the Lego club I found challenges based on the fact that I was…
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by ambyrneScience fiction is full of stories of killer machines and the rise of the robots which often gives us this overblown idea that the technology of the future will be malicious and out to end the human race. We’ve even had people warning about the dangers of the rise of artificial intelligence and how this…
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by ambyrneWhile wearable haven’t had the impact on the public and even in the technology space that may were hoping for there is still hope for electronics that are on our person or even embedded within us. From chips under the skin to fitness bands there’s no shortage of different ideas that are being researched, but…
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by ambyrneIn the past auto dialers were used by sales and marketing companies, scammers as well as schools to do everything from plugging products, trying to skim money or even announcing snow days. While these were useful there was no mistaking the prerecorded message that you were hearing and no real interaction took place. In more…
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by ambyrneMuch as I’m not a fan, I can’t help but be impressed at Mark Zuckerberg’s performance in his testimony in the US in the last couple of weeks. He’s remained calm and patient and explained and defended Facebook and technology companies in general well and effectively in the face of some tough challenges, not the…
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by ambyrneThere are some industries that you don’t typically think of as being innovative, for example you may think that the only change in the dairy industry in the last 50 years is moving from glass bottles to paper cartons, and in truth you’d be forgiven for thinking this at times. Let’s begin though with what…
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by ambyrneIt’s a strange thing for someone like me, who is very anti-paper and pro everything technology to find a strange fascination with all things cardboard. If this seems to you as the reader a massive contradiction, I have no choice but to put my hands up and agree. But, before you start laughing and asking…
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by ambyrneSocial media is a double-edged sword for many people. The ability to connect with people from your past or over long distances is making the world smaller and more connected, but at the same time the pitfalls and potential challenges of being constantly online are ever-present and more and more public when things go wrong….
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by ambyrneIt’s no secret that the cost of smartphones has gone up in the last few years, and the logical reason is because of all the bells and whistles that you now get from your handheld devices. The truth is that the internal hardware of your phone has come on leaps and bounds even in the…
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by ambyrneI made the decision shortly before Christmas to put my blogging on pause, thinking that there couldn’t be much happening over the holiday period that wouldn’t be massively interesting. How wrong I was, I missed so much. In the tech world it seemed like companies decided to sneak in last-minute bombshells and interesting stories just…
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by ambyrneIf you’re a fan of Terminator 2, you can’t help but be swept up in the idea of liquid metal. In case you haven’t seen the film, a machine from the future, sent back to kill the leader of the human resistance in his youth, can form itself into various shapes by virtue of the…
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by ambyrneMuch of the technology I look into and implement in my own home tends to be smart home technology. Voice command systems, motion sensors and the like, and, even though at first it was a bit of a novelty, through repetitive use, I really have found them beneficial in day-to-day life. At the same time…
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by ambyrneIt used to be the case that when big companies decided to engage in rivalry on the public stage the consumer could reap the benefits. It was a great way of increasing competition, getting greater brand awareness, and it often lead to reduced prices or better value for the customer. Take the examples of Burger…
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by ambyrneLast Sunday market 25 years since the first SMS was sent and it’s fitting that the message sent from engineer Neil Papworth’s computer was to a then director of Vodafone Richard Jarvis was ‘Merry Christmas’ as it kicked off a huge new revenue stream for Vodafone and for telecoms companies as a whole. From those humble beginnings…
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by ambyrneI’d say for most people today when you hear the word startup the images that come to mind are of tech companies or guys huddled in a garage somewhere. Or if you believe the myth that all IT startups get huge funding right off the bat, you might think of brightly colored office spaces where…
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by ambyrneThere are many things you need to watch out for when you’re online today. From scam e-mails to people phishing for your credit card details there are pitfalls when you’re browsing that thankfully have been well publicized and we are more and more aware of. But there are other things to be aware of that…
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by ambyrneLet’s face it, it’s a little bit artificial to use a keyboard. You may be very proficient at typing, but I’m sure everyone would prefer another way of interacting with their computer. Or then again maybe not, perhaps the idea of using the keyboard helps remind us that we are using a piece of technology…
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by ambyrneAs the Christmas period is approaching, laptops and PC’s are going to be on many people’s wish lists, either for themselves or for others. The level of choice out there is huge, and I’ve previously posted about the specifications and the requirements you might look for when buying a new device, but one of the…
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by ambyrneYou may or may not have heard conversations in the last few days around net neutrality and if you’re thinking it’s something tech related, or only effecting businesses and giants like Google or Facebook I’m going to be the barer of some bad news; this is a big deal for all of us. I’m picking…
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by ambyrneI’m a fan of Elon Musk, or at the very least I’m a fan of his vision for the future. Green energy, life on Mars and a truly self-sustaining way of living. That hasn’t stopped me from acknowledging that he is reportedly difficult to work with, demanding and even controversial. More than that his optimism…
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by ambyrneBack in 2012 I bought myself a Samsung Note 2, which, at the time was the answer to all my mobile concerns. It was a phone, a miniature tablet and a writing device all at once, and although the functionality is nothing like what you would expect today, this device packed a punch. Within a…
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by ambyrneToday with micro-transactions you are paying again for a game you already own. When I was a kid buying a new computer game was a big deal. I still remember vividly the day I saw the box for Monkey Island 2 and, it being about 6 weeks away, I starting dropping hints for my birthday…
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by ambyrneI’ve talked in previous posts about my move to turn my home into a truly smart apartment and in the process of this I’ve been looking into smart locks. Let’s start from where a lot of my fondness for technology and gadgets comes from, my hatred of something else, in this case keys. I’ve always…
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by ambyrneDoctors prescribing medications have lots to think about, be it the dosage that the person will receive, whether its counter indicated with some other drug that they are taking, side effects the patient might suffer as well as dozens of other considerations that they may have before they take out their prescription pad. You would…
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by ambyrneBetween now and Christmas there will be an up surge in people buying laptops, both for themselves and for family and friends. Many small businesses will also consider replacing and updating in the sales that seem to inevitably follow the holiday season, and, although there’s plenty of choice out there, there are some pitfalls to…
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by ambyrneEveryone has probably had the same experience, a lost phone full of photos, a laptop that just packs it in for no apparent reason or even a keydrive that gets misplaced with some important documents. The chances of loosing data that is critical or images and files that have sentimental value like family photos being…
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by ambyrneTwitter is one of those weird companies that I can never really get a handle on. They are global brand which has a recognition that would probably rival the likes of McDonald’s these days, and yet the platform still seems to be having difficulty actually making all that much money. Anyone who has looked into…
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by ambyrneGiven that I’ve been watching a lot of science fiction movies over the past few weeks it’s no surprise that as an early adopter in technology feel slightly frustrated at times with the progress we’ve made toward certain ideas. I’m not for one second saying that we should all have flying cars or be able…
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by ambyrneThere has been so much talk in recent weeks and months about the advancement of Artificial Intelligence, or AI and for the most part it seems that people want the technology to move forward with the assumption that it will be of benefit to humanity. The current thinking is that AI will create better self-driving…
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by ambyrneWhen they were first brought to the attention of the public smart watches seemed to be the new darling of the gadget world. Take something that virtually everyone wears and make it smart, not only that but make it something that people would actually like to have smart functionality in, unlike the ill-fated Google Glass…
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by ambyrneOver the past few weeks we’ve seen news reports of high-profile hacks and data breaches from even the most seemingly security conscious companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft and more. We’ve even had a major US agency responsible for credit scores and financial rating admit to letting more than 143 million users details, not only of…
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by ambyrneWe have a fascination today with payment services it seems. Although most of us are looking for ways of saving money for the most part, we are at times living a contradiction when it comes to how easy we want it to be when we do want us to part with our money. It’s an…
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by ambyrneThere’s been so much talk of Bitcoin in the last couple of years, even to the point where it’s now being mentioned in TV shows and has slowly but surely become a topic of conversation when people mention everything from gaming, to gambling to illegal activities. But what is Bitcoin, and will it have an…
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by ambyrneA couple of decades ago not having any computer experience was something that was a non issue when going for a job interview. Even when I was growing up, it was the exception rather than the rule to be asked if you had working knowledge of a PC, but as time went on this changed…
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by ambyrneFor most people, the idea of messing around with a piece of computer hardware might seem alien in the same way that trying to do anything with a car engine is to me, but recently several devices and kits have been released to the market that mean even the most novice techie, following a set…
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by ambyrneFull disclosure before you continue reading this post, I’m not a fan of Apple and I can’t say that I ever have been. I’ve long-held the belief that they are one of the best companies in the world when it comes to marketing their products as well as being brilliant at design, but although they…
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by ambyrneWatching the new Star Trek series on Netflix the other night a thought struck me, I’m still a geek. It wasn’t the first time I had the idea pop into my head, it was just the co-incidence of simultaneously getting a message on Facebook from someone I went to school with. These things will all…
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by ambyrneVirtual Reality is one of those technologies which keeps coming around and yet somehow until recently never really seemed to find its footing. The main reasons for this were the technology itself which just wasn’t fluid enough to make for a really immersive experience, and the other major issue, its expensive, cumbersome and generally a…
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by ambyrneLiving in an apartment means that space is limited at this leads to the occasional clear out of clothes, old pots and pans, and most recently DVD’s and books. Before the bibliophile’s get up in arms, please be prepared to hear me out. I do love books, I enjoy reading and I confess that over…
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by ambyrneThe universal translator has been a familiar trope of science fiction works for as long as I can remember as the idea provides the writer the ability to get past the language barriers that would make much of their stories more cumbersome, or altogether impossible. The act of travelling to an alien world and allowing…
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by ambyrneAt some point or another we’ve had the experience of misplacing our phones. For most people it’s an inconvenience as we know we’ve left if somewhere in our room, apartment, house or whatever, but what happens when this comes at a time when its really needed, or worse, a time when it’s a genuine emergency….
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