Science fiction: Why it's a must read for IT pros
You need more than text books and manuals on your desks. How about some near-future SF?
500 words into the future
Unapologetically opinionated views on technology, in the office and out
Simon Bisson
Simon Bisson is a freelance technology journalist. He specialises in architecture and enterprise IT. He ran one of the UK's first national ISPs and moved to writing around the time of the collapse of the first dotcom boom. He still writes code.
Mary Branscombe
Mary Branscombe is a freelance tech journalist. Mary has been a technology writer for nearly two decades, covering everything from early versions of Windows and Office to the first smartphones, the arrival of the web and most things inbetween.
Latest Posts
How RIM still hasn't learned the Windows Vista lesson
RIM needs to make sure it has the fundamentals in place if it wants to be a player in the smartphone market. That means it needs to learn the same lesson that Microsoft did a few years back.
Why Windows 8 means goodbye Start orb, hello Windows key
User interface isn't just about pixels on a screen, it also depends on PC hardware - just look at what happened to the Windows 8 Start orb. And that's just the start.
Why Microsoft is building a tablet - but won't build smartphones
Microsoft has surprised everyone by developing its own tablet, the Surface. But don't expect Microsoft to be building its own phones any time soon for a number of reasons.
Microsoft's Surface - easier to repair than a MacBook Pro?
Microsoft's forthcoming Surface tablet could be easier to repair and upgrade than its buttoned up rivals like the MacBook Pro.
Would you still want a Lumia 900? Roadtrip report
For the last few weeks I've been using a Lumia 900 on AT&T's LTE network as we've travelled between conferences and press events.
The Lego datacentre
It used to be that datacentres were more art than science; wonderfully baroque constructions of servers and cabling, the very temples of modern computation. The wiring that linked the servers in some datacentres was so convoluted that it was easier to lay a new cable than trace the route of an old one…Then came co-location centres: there were cages full of servers, structured cabling, masses of fans.
Plane fantastic
I grew up on a small island. It was a quiet place, full of bankers and farmers all watching their crops grow: potatoes in the spring, tourists in the summer, pound notes all year round.
Windows Phone 7.8: is it more than a Start screen?
Yes, the only Windows Phone 8 feature that Microsoft has promised users of existing Windows Phone handsets is the new Start screen, with three sizes of tile you can arrange in a more creative layout. But that's not the only new features existing Windows Phone users are going to get.
Privacy, DNT, Microsoft, the FTC and Silicon Valley
Did Microsoft put a two-year privacy negotiation in danger or expose it for a shabby compromise? Who should the burden of consent for tracking fall on?