BRUCEB NEWS
The History Of The Snark: Notes On Lewis Carroll
On July 18, 1874, Lewis Carroll was on a morning walk when a sentence popped into his head: “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” That thought led to one of the greatest works of English literature that you’ve never heard of. It had been ten years since Alice’s...
Privacy And Trust Part 3: What Do They Know And How Do They Know It?
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords. • Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other...
Privacy And Trust Part 2: No Escape!
A series of articles about privacy and trust in the era of tech overlords. • Part 1: Data about you is being gathered by the big tech companies (as well as many other...
Privacy And Trust Part 1: Data Collection By The Tech Overlords
Tech companies know all your secrets. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are studying your every thought, word, and deed. AI analysis has already given them spooky...
Breaking News: February 18, 2019
I’m trying to get my thoughts in order for a couple of long articles about how to think about privacy in our world of surveillance by giant tech companies. That's not quite ready...
Improve Your Home Wi-Fi By Meshing It Up
Got any Wi-Fi dead spots in your home? You can improve Wi-Fi coverage in your home more easily than ever before. There’s new Wi-Fi technology – “mesh networking” – that...
Microsoft Thinks The Future Belongs To Teams (And It Might Work For You, Too)
Microsoft Teams is an Office 365 service that businesses can use for their employees to chat and collaborate, providing an alternative (and perhaps a replacement) for email...
All Things Must Pass: Say Goodbye To Windows 7
Windows 7 was released almost ten years ago. Those are human years; in technology years that is roughly the length of the Mesozoic era, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. There’s no...
Rules For Computer And Online Safety 2019
These are the rules for computer and online safety in 2019. You can download a copy here. Only your vigilance will protect you against bad guys. You will be safe if you are...
How To Pin A Chrome Shortcut To The Taskbar
Google has changed the steps required to pin a website to your Windows 10 taskbar. It’s still possible but it takes a bit of extra effort. There are some websites that fit your...
Security Tip: The Bad Guys Can Spoof The Sender’s Name And Email Address On Malicious Messages
Let’s start with two familiar security principles. • The bad guys can make any name appear as the sender of a malicious email message. • Frequently the email address...
It’s Not Just Your Computer – Everything Is Too Hard To Use (And It’s Not Your Fault)
I wrote an article a few years ago about how difficult it is for non-tech people to manage the fiddly bits required to run a Windows computer. It’s one of the things that drove...
Bloomberg And Chinese Spies: The Strangest Technology Story Of The Year
The Chinese government has put secret spy chips on US government servers. They’re stealing secrets from Apple and Amazon. And the US government is engaged in a massive effort to...
The 2018 Bruceb News Year In Review
Remember when I wrote an article a year ago predicting that always-connected computers would be heavily promoted in 2018? Yeah, about that: not even close. Nada. All the buzz...
Spotify Wrapped: My Top Ten Is Better Than Your Top Ten
(This will be the last Bruceb News article for 2018. I’ll return with more news next year, if anything interesting happens. Remember, a subscription to Bruceb News makes a lovely...
Algorithms And Paperclips: How Facebook Drives Us Apart
A famous thought experiment shows how an AI could be designed with good intentions and without malice, and still wind up destroying humanity. Imagine that an artificial...