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Article — 2 May 2025 — 1,271 words

Keeping it real in the age of artificial intelligence

Amid technology-focused hype cycles, the job of human-centred practitioners is to remind everyone: the main reason people use technology is to enhance our connections with other humans in the real world.

Article — 4 February 2025 — 1,406 words

There’s no such thing as a technology problem

Business — Social science — Society — Technology — Web

Information has become the forgotten half in “information technology”. Tech companies are struggling because they aren’t focusing on the human problems they need to solve.

Article — 11 January 2022 — 877 words

Awooga! The metaverse was better 29 years ago

Media — Technology

What’s most surprising about the metaverse is just how lacking in ambition it is. This is a half-hearted rehash of a 30-year-old idea.

Article — 18 December 2018 — 215 words

Why a bad algorithm is like a bad magic trick

Culture — Current affairs — Technology

About 20 years ago I watched a TV programme featuring the magician Paul Zenon. He invited the viewers to think of a card, and he said he could guess the card you were thinking of.

Article — 4 November 2018 — 391 words

Why Google’s feed succeeds when Facebook’s fails

Current affairs — Technology

With Google adding its Discover feed to its famously minimalist homepage, what will stop them repeating Facebook’s mistakes?

Article — 29 March 2018 — 1,984 words

The media also has lessons to learn from the latest Facebook furore

Media — Politics — Technology

I am no fan of Facebook. But I am less than impressed with the media’s coverage of Facebook as well.

Article — 1 March 2018 — 2,087 words

Media dinosaurs have the wrong scapegoat in Facebook

Media — Technology

Anyone who reads this blog will know by now that I am no fan of Facebook. But I will defend them on this. The newspaper industry’s attempt to pin the blame of their woes on Facebook is wrong.

Article — 2 January 2018 — 1,303 words

Happy new year 2018 — reflections and resolutions

Cycling — Personal — Technology — Travel

2017 is a year that showed that I have a lot to be grateful for. But even though I don’t normally set new year’s resolutions, I am setting myself three broad goals for 2018.

Article — 13 November 2017 — 1,239 words

Facebook and Twitter are repeating the catastrophic mistakes of past designers

Architecture — Digital — Technology

Architects had to face up to the problems that eventually emerged with bold modernist designs. Now Facebook and Twitter need to wake up to the fact that their platforms are damaging society.

Article — 1 October 2017 — 1,208 words

Why it’s time to reclaim our digital lives

Personal — Web

The more we come to understand about the big social media networks’ impact on society, the less appealing it becomes. It’s time we stopped letting them control our digital lives. This is why I will start blogging again.

Article — 3 March 2016 — 1,051 words

What the Accelerated Mobile Pages project tells us about the sorry state of web publishing

Digital — Web

The web is in a bad state of health right now. Web publishers and developers can blame themselves.