The Good, The Bad, & The Awkward

Last week I did media spots about the FaceApp excitement. Of course, ‘excitement’ starts with viral fun on social media and, these days, often ends with “and now here’s what that thing just did to your privacy.” The good news, in a way, is that we’re getting better

Big wigs to tikking kids

I’ve spent my week putting a lot of work into getting my new office whipped into shape. Thanks to the amazing organisational and IKEA skills of my wife, Sally, things now have homes and there’s space on desks to get serious work done. That also meant a short

"They're doing what now?"

It’s been a dark year for tech culture discussions. Lots of ‘oh no, that nice thing has turned out even worse than we’d feared?’ discussions. And a few more of those today… BUT I’ve made sure and throw you some more positive links at the end to

Home

Google Assistant now on Sonos here in Australia

Alexa not doing it for you? Now you can ask Google to help you out via your Sonos speakers instead. The new features landed in an update on Tuesday night.

Technology

AIS gives Aus Women's Cricket an Apple Watch edge

As the Aussie Women's cricket team get ready to destroy the English in the Women's Ashes Tour (after a 2-0 drubbing in the warm up one-day matches), it's

Games

'Saviors of Uldum' is the next Hearthstone expansion

Is it time already? It's the sign of a healthy period for the game when a new expansion sneaks up on us rather than us desperately wishing for new cards to

The Game Table

Enter The Game Table podtastic D&D prize draw!

Thanks to Wizards of the Coast and Good Games Australia, we're giving away the two latest D&D books plus some D&D Live 2019 tidbits as part of the

Apple

Jony Has Left The Building

Jony Ive has left the building. Wow. I’m one of the true believers in the Lennon-McCartney dynamic of Steve Jobs and Jony Ive. Steve Jobs was a true design champion, and knew how to give someone as gifted as Ive the space and the constraints to do his best

AI, 'doing' science, awkward hacks and Ikea meatballs

Testing a Monday push. Let me know if you think Friday is best fit, or whether a Monday missive might give you a different vibe at the start of the week? Thanks everyone for the feedback to date. Really helpful! Best of the Week The New Wilderness A fantastic discussion

Ever heard of 'Fishwrap'?

Preamble be damned this week. Enjoy the links! OK, one quick thing… please let me know what you’re thinking of the newsletter so far. I appreciate all feedback, even if there’s stuff you don’t like. It all helps refine what I’m sharing. Fundamentally, if I think

WWDC, EmDrives, Napster, and working smarter

I just got home after attending Apple’s WWDC in San Jose, California. (I attended as a guest of Apple). It was a big year – a new Mac Pro for the most extremely high end of users, iPad gets its own OS to push it toward more serious ‘laptop alternative’

Dirty rotten engagement

Brace yourself. There aren’t too many happy stories this week. I’m not sure there have been many happy stories lately, but the nature of looking deeply at the state of technology doesn’t have many good answers right now. Tech is at quite the crossroads culturally. I keep