Column
In just nine years Huawei has overtaken Apple and has eyes on Samsung’s number one spot
Most people only know Chinese telecoms giant Huawei because of its smartphones, which this month overtook Apple to take the number two spot both globally and locally. They deserve it. Huawei only started making Android smartphones in 2009 and now make superb devices with luxurious materials, excellent quality screens and […]
Apple defined the mobile internet age, was always on track to be first $1tn company
It was inevitable that Apple would become the most valuable listed company ever by being the first company to reach the magical $1tn figure. It is Apple – with is stylish minimalist design and must-have gadgets – that has come to define this mobile internet age we live in and […]
Having lost $120bn in a day, Facebook has been torn down to earth for its tardy privacy policies
Facebook’s critics would have experienced a fair amount of schadenfreude last week when it lost a fifth of its value when weaker-than-expected results wiped 24% off its share price, the eye-watering amount of $120bn. It’s now the largest one-day sell-off in history, but also the biggest sign to date that […]
Facebook defending the indefensible in dealing with Holocaust and school-shooting liars
What was the most damning tech news last week? That Google’s Android was fined $5bn for anticompetitive behaviour with Android? That Donald Trump continued to obfuscate around the Russian meddling in US elections? Or that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the rights of Holocaust denialists? Perhaps because I’m Jewish and […]
Thai cave rescue’s dramatic conclusion last week reminded us that the world is a good place
Last week’s extraordinary rescue of 12 teenager soccer players and their coach from monsoon-flooded caves in Thailand will be one of the defining stories of this generation. It has all the hallmarks of great literature: an ill-fated adventure into a cave before sudden floods trap the boys, a chance discovery […]
What started as a prank: a story of manipulation and the most viewed video on Vice
After writing numerous TripAdvisor reviews himself, Oobah Butler wondered what it would take to get a restaurant to be number one in London. So he took photographs of his small rented cottage in a suburb called Dulwich – including some made up food shots using pool chemicals and his foot […]
Photographers like Sam Nzima and David Goldblatt were great chroniclers of our history
My favourite thing that the great photographer David Goldblatt said was in answer to why he didn’t shoot colour film during the dark days of racial repression: “During those years colour seemed too sweet a medium to express the anger, disgust and fear that apartheid inspired.” Last Monday, news broke […]
The resignation of Intel’s chief over a moral infraction is an astounding act of ethics
A quite remarkable thing happened in the tech world last week, that would be even more astounding if it occurred to South African politicians and business people to do the same. Brian Krzanich, the chief executive of Intel, resigned last week after the semiconductor chip maker’s board found he “had […]
Email is the least secure means of transmitting anything, especially private and financial information. You’ve been warned
If there is one good thing to come out of the Liberty Life hacking drama that ruined everyone’s Saturday night, it may be that people finally realise how insecure email is. Once designed as a means to send simple text messages over the nascent network that would evolve into the […]
The recent spate of hacked websites is a reminder that you need to protect your online security more than ever
All 3bn of Yahoo’s accounts were hacked in 2013, the search giant revealed last week, triple the previously stated 1bn, making it the biggest data breach so far. This followed the staggering hack of US credit agency Equifax last month, exposing the personal details of 145.5m Americans, including their credit […]
Monica Lewinsky went from being an intern to the most harassed, humiliated person online. But she’s fighting back
Monica Lewinsky relates the story about the time a 27-year-old tried to pick her up, using the “charming but unsuccessful pick-up line” that he “could make me feel 22 again”. After a pause, she said: “I’m possibly the only person over 40 who doesn’t want to be 22 again”. In […]
History is important, but so is how it is taught. In an internet age, education must keep pace
“Why is there so much interest in the [Anglo] Zulu war of 1879,” the great orator David Rattray asked in his epic account of the battle of Isandlwana. “Why is that so much has been written about this insignificant campaign fought in an economically insignificant territory adjacent to an almost […]