I really like the new Google Search Options (as noted by Matt Cutts reporting on the Searchology press event this week). VentureBeat and others also covered the event in detail. I’ve only focussed on the search options in this post. Now in your Search results, there’s a bunch of additional filtering...

I initially missed this story last week about recent research that found that those who download music illegally are also 10 times more likely to pay for songs than those who don’t. Thankfully TorrentFreak pointed me to it. The research findings are welcome news I’m sure to all modern day pirates...

Yep, big title. Big job. Everyone will have an opinion of today’s announcement that Aneesh Chopra has agreed to serve as America’s Chief Technology Officer (see also The Washington Post article). TechCrunch for example doesn’t seem too excited with the choice, and there’s been plenty of discussion...

Yesterday’s news about the clowns at The Pirate Bay being found guilty should come as no surprise. Justice has been done. Sure, many will make hair-splitting arguments about how they didn’t break the law (the letter of the law), but to me it is the spirit of the law that has been upheld (although...

Sometimes I have to wonder. With the SPAM stats growing all the time (Microsoft recently pegged email as being 97% spam – download the report here – the 97% stat is on p12) and the number of communication mechanisms such as Twitter and IM now considered mainstream, I’m beginning to think that...

This just in from the department of paranoid and illogical: Buckinghamshire village has managed to thwart the evil plans of Google by stopping the Street View car from taking pictures of their streets. Residents joined forces after one of their members got the mob mentality going with gems like the following:...

I’ll keep a list of April Fools’ Day pranks here. In no particular order. Add a comment with your favourite and I’ll update the post. UPDATE: TechCrunch has an awesome list of pranks happening today, as does AprilFoolsOnTheWeb. Google gBall Google can always be relied upon to come...

I have to admit when I first read that a URL shortening service managed to get $2M in funding I was bewildered. How on earth will the investors get any return on that I wondered? But the article (on ReadWriteWeb) goes on to explain why very convincingly (although most of the people commenting on it totally...

As I write this it’s less than an hour until April Fools’ Day starts here in Sydney, Australia. I’m actually looking forward to the inevitable batch of lame jokes. Everyone knows (well, almost everyone) that anything odd sounding is likely to be a prank, and so the enjoyment is in who can come...

You’ve probably read about the Computer Tan site – a hoax site with a good message: skin cancer is a big problem, so be careful. If nothing else, read the FAQ on the site. It’s a crack up.