Tech and Auto

#16: To Infinity…And Bankruptcy! (Fri 18th September 2015) “Toys To Life”. That’s what they’re calling it. Toys. To. Life. If you’re not familiar with “Toys To Life” as a concept, close your eyes and imagine what it is. Maybe you see a teddy bear wandering around your living room? Or a brightly coloured xylophone shouting obscenities at you. Or something else. I’ve no idea. I’ve never met you, and haven’t the slightest idea how your mind works. What “Toys To...

15: I Am The New Miyamoto (Fri 11th September 2015) If you own a Wii U, stop reading this now and go and buy a copy of Super Mario Maker. If you’re still here, stop reading this now and go and buy a Wii U and a copy of Super Mario Maker. If you’re reading this, you’re either an idiot or incapable of following the simplest of instructions, but we’ll soldier on regardless. While you read the witterings of a...

By Natalie Duffield, CEO of intechnologywifi A recent study has revealed that the UK’s largest cities have significant discrepancies when it comes to mobile connectivity, with London faring particularly poorly in comparison to other highly populated cities. Scoring the UK’s 16 most populous urban areas, the research – by mobile network analytics firm RootMetrics – found that Liverpool has the UK’s best mobile network performance, reliability and speed. Beyond highlighting the issue of poor mobile reception, the research suggests councils...

#14: Pacman, Betamax and Runner Beans Hello, dear reader. Forgive the brevity this week - I’m currently running round like a runner bean running round a roundabout. Hence that dreadful sentence that would never normally make the edit. Firstly, a huge thanks to the brilliant guys at GamerDisco and Replay Events for having me along to Play Margate last weekend. I had a lot of fun meeting everyone there, and it was a genuine honour to be with Jon Stoodley...

By Ryan Georgiades, Managing Director, Plan Insurance Brokers There’s no doubt that autonomous cars will soon become a reality – but are we ready? Google are at it, Apple fancy a flutter and numerous other major brands have thrown their hat into the ‘self- driving’ ring. It is estimated that by 2030, we’ll just need to tell our vehicles where we want to go - technology will handle the rest. On the face of it, autonomous cars deliver a multitude of...

By Patrick Vernon On any given day, large numbers of people cross the forecourts of motorcycle dealers such as Metropolis looking for a new way to get around and every year some 130,000+ new motorbike registrations are made. There are many reasons people prefer riding a motorbike to driving a car, but one of the most common is the ability to avoid traffic jams. When the jam is not too tightly packed, a slim bike and a skilful rider always has the edge...

#13: The Big Three: Edinburgh, London, Margate (Fri 21st August 2015) Hello once again, dear reader! What a week it’s been – on Monday, me and “King” Rob Sedgebeer performed WiFi Wars at the Pleasance, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – a huge thank you to those of you who came along and said hi afterwards! Yesterday I was in London for the final voiceover session for my Minecraft TV series ‘Digging Deeper’ on Ginx TV - there’s...

By Alex Kontos Alex argues that we need to think hard about the future of the internet “It’s not ok not to understand the internet anymore,” declared Martha Lane Fox in her Richard Dimbleby lecture in March. She is right. The internet is virtually omnipresent in our lives these days, from workplace email  to the Netflix box-set binge. However, “understanding the internet” goes much further than simply being able to work software. The tech sector is increasingly challenging some of...

#12: Playstation Plus  Hello, dear reader. I’m writing this just moments after finishing my weekly stream on twitch with hairy game-chum Chris Slight (http://www.twitch.tv/twomorewhiteguys/) . Once again, we’ve been streaming from my PS4, as we find it the easiest and most reliable solution. Every time we’ve tried with the Xbox One we’ve had issues with sound or buffering so we pretty much exclusively stream PS4 games now. As we mostly just use the streams as an excuse to chat with...