Digital Services Act: The most significant legislation you’ve never heard ofMany of its operational cogs and wheels run behind the scenes, meaning you probably didn’t notice anythingThu Aug 31 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Technology helps piece together archive lost in 1922 Four Courts fireVirtual Record Treasury of Ireland has, in some cases, recovered more than 85% of destroyed archive collections but gaps remainThu Aug 24 2023 - 05:00
Don’t let the Zuckerberg-Musk cagefight nonsense distract from the real issuesMedia need to focus on what’s happening at Twitter and Meta, not a ludicrous fight that was never likely to happenThu Aug 17 2023 - 05:00
Getting to grips with regulating AI which no one fully understandsIreland will be a key player in regulation but setting rules requires unsettling levels of guess-making about how AI technologies might affect usThu Aug 10 2023 - 05:00
Change at Dublin payments firm cited as reason for Patreon issuesNumerous Patreon users report payments rejected as fraudulentSat Aug 05 2023 - 05:00
Is this the future of social networking? The fediverse has been trumpeted as a way to break the dominance of the social networking giants. Can it succeed?Thu Aug 03 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: X? Really? Really, Elon Musk? X?‘Those rump members left on Musk’s comic book X-world should probably start thinking about alternatives'Thu Jul 27 2023 - 06:00
Why iPhone design is no longer the gold standard for usabilityApple products were renowned for being user-friendly, but that's no longer the caseThu Jul 20 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Threads’ early success is little cause for cheerThat so many people are so willing to opt for more Meta says much about how ghastly Twitter has becomeThu Jul 13 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Online restrictions must be based on sound evidence not emotional argumentKarlin Lillington: Despite a lack of clear research on harm to children from social media, there can be an rush towards legal curbsThu Jul 06 2023 - 05:00
Data decisions create dark day for Irish democracy Government move to force stopgap data retention and amendment that could gag discussion on complaints prolong history of State bungling on data protectionThu Jun 29 2023 - 05:00
The Power of One by Frances Haugen: Whistleblower’s insightful account of how Facebook damages society and democracy Former insider at social media giant offers her personal witnessing of its algorithmic workings and the harms knowingly caused to us as people and communitiesSat Jun 24 2023 - 05:00
Data centres: We don’t need to be world leaders in these low-employment electricity vacuumsThe State still listens to and parrots the arguments of self-interested, powerful sectors, leaving it to struggle to balance the needs of citizens, the economy and, now, the environmentThu Jun 22 2023 - 05:00
As the US dithers, the EU is setting the global agenda on tech regulationKarlin Lillington: There’s been considerable US lobbying lately in the hopes of watering down legislationThu Jun 15 2023 - 06:00
Benefit of tech advances ‘outweigh risks’, says top US diplomatUS ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy Nathanial Fick emphasises need for strong governanceMon Jun 12 2023 - 20:19
Apple’s Vision Pro feels as potentially transformative as the iPhone once did Focus on spatial computing over virtual reality and AI signals Apple’s determination not to alienate its audience as it aims for mass market appealThu Jun 08 2023 - 05:00
Why did the Irish data regulator not want to fine Meta?Data Protection Commissioner initially planned not to fine Meta for data breaches but fines are arguably the most dissuasive tool in the GDPR toolkitThu Jun 01 2023 - 05:00
We cannot afford to misinterpret the failure of Buzzfeed and ViceKarlin Lillington: As advertising migrated online, the traditional print model shrivelledThu May 11 2023 - 06:00
We often don’t notice the walls around our pretty internet playgroundsKarlin Lillington: I’d like to think we’ve reached a moment of reconsideration where people will opt for an open web model with more freedom, less surveillance, and greater user controlThu May 04 2023 - 06:00
Social Capital: Life Online in the Shadow of Ireland’s Tech Boom - caught in the webSome excellent insights and details, but work let down by limp editingSun Apr 30 2023 - 04:16
Paying for Twitter Blue has ironically robbed verification of value Elon Musk’s so far ill-fated effort to monetise account verification is undermining the worth of his social media investmentThu Apr 27 2023 - 05:00
Why we should be alarmed at Garda plans for facial recognition technologySeveral US cities banned technology in policing when analysis indicated, at best, 72% accuracy rate with higher rate of false positives for people of colourThu Apr 20 2023 - 05:00
Book up, because you can be both Team Print and Team Digital Audio Reading out loud triggers something very human, very ancient, and very rewardingThu Apr 13 2023 - 05:00
Google’s cuts to perks feel like a red herring to bigger issues facing techOne internal email axing snacks and massages is hardly a sign of another dotcom-style crash. But massive industry job cuts could beThu Apr 06 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Gordon Moore was original tech industry starFew would have recognised Intel co- founder despite his enormous contribution to the world we live in todayThu Mar 30 2023 - 05:00
Publishers looking to delete library of digital books in licence spatCase triggered by lending of scanned and digitised books during Covid lockdown likely to end up in the US supreme courtThu Mar 23 2023 - 05:00
Big tech is all for capitalism until the going gets toughKarlin Lillington: SVB’s collapse pulls back curtain on ridiculous hypocrisies and false narratives beloved of tech sectorThu Mar 16 2023 - 06:00
Karlin Lillington: Long past time for closer scrutiny of TikTokYouth-focused social media platform has admitted allowing Chinese access to data and there are fears about the use of the data of minorsThu Mar 09 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Why Iceland trumps Ireland as a home for data centresPower hungry data centres place huge strain on our grid and emissions They should be built further away, and rely on renewable energy.Thu Mar 02 2023 - 05:00
GAA clubs and other local groups may be unaware they are subject to new EU digital frameworkIreland has an opportunity to become a centre of excellence for advising on complianceThu Feb 23 2023 - 06:00
Smart devices’ limited supports are ridiculous and damagingMany large appliances lose support for so-called smart features after just a couple of years. That’s not good enoughThu Feb 16 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Getting to grips with AIWhat combination of algorithm, data input and analysis crosses the line between machine learning and artificial intelligenceThu Feb 09 2023 - 05:00
GDPR complaints system is an unfair burden on Ireland and a weakness for EuropeOne-stop shop places an unmanageable load on one small member state’s underfunded data regulatorThu Feb 02 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: Reports of email’s death are greatly exaggerated, yet againPeople have sounded the death knell for email for years, and they’ve been wrong every timeThu Jan 26 2023 - 05:00
Karlin Lillington: A relief to have that Twitter jackhammer silenced … mostly‘I’m shocked at how narrow a range of people and discussions Twitter’s algorithm fed to me’Thu Jan 19 2023 - 06:00
Could the internet now move towards the promise of earlier days?Karlin Lillington: Data breaches, disinformation, scams and the likes of Elon Musk. But change may be in the airThu Dec 29 2022 - 06:00
Beware your smart Christmas tech gifts in the season of surveillanceKarlin Lillington: Any ‘smart’ present you give this Christmas means your or your gift recipient’s data will be gathered and sent back to the companyThu Dec 22 2022 - 06:00
Tougher restricted breed law will not stop dog attacksActual and pressing problem is State’s low level of enforcement regarding existing canine legislationTue Dec 13 2022 - 00:00
Government inaction leaves our data retention laws in limboGraham Dwyer case is a consequence of Government inaction on data lawsThu Dec 08 2022 - 04:30
Elon Musk’s Twitter opera exposes hazards posed by tech sectorIf Musk were competing in some billionaire version of The Apprentice, he’d have been fired by now for incompetenceThu Dec 01 2022 - 05:30
To my surprise, Apple went from surely-about-to-collapse to one of the most valuable companies everKarlin Lillington: It’s sometimes depressing to look back at columns I wrote 10 or 20 years ago and see the exact same unresolved issues around data privacy, copyright, regulation, control, surveillance, digital access and equalityThu Nov 24 2022 - 11:15
Karlin Lillington: A wild geese of tech scenario keeps Ireland frettingOur twin-track economy — booming multinationals and sometimes struggling domestic economy — must be more closely alignedThu Nov 17 2022 - 06:00
#Mastodaoine: Twitter woes prompt Irish Mastodon stampedeLittle-known platform once the preserve of a few is now adding ‘instances’ in the thousandsThu Nov 10 2022 - 06:00
Karlin Lillington: Ireland’s forgotten computer pioneerOnly in his 20s, Percy Ludgate designed the world’s second computer in the early years of the 20th centuryThu Nov 03 2022 - 05:00
Web of Lies by Aoife Gallagher; The Moderator: Inside Facebook’s Dirty Work in Ireland by Chris GrayFrom rabbit-hole conspiracy theories fuelled by the internet, to torrid moderation for a tech giantWed Nov 02 2022 - 04:13
Billionaire-owned platforms lose sight of the vulnerable Reach of Twitter means we will all be affected by Elon Musk closing the deal as planned this week, even if we are not on the platformThu Oct 27 2022 - 05:00
Joe Biden’s move to accommodate EU data protection laws does not go far enough Transatlantic data transfers ‘are critical to enabling the $7.1 trillion EU-US economic relationship’Thu Oct 13 2022 - 05:00
Smartphone upgrade season shows negligence and hypocrisy of consumersUsing your smartphone for seven years is the best way to reduce its environmental impactThu Oct 06 2022 - 05:00
Apparently, in a world full of terrible conflicts, Irish people are especially deserving of work opportunities in USIreland fought for its US ‘undocumented’ even as the ‘undocumented’ here were deported, and refugees isolated into direct provisionThu Sept 15 2022 - 05:30
Karlin Lillington: Energy-hungry big business should accept paying more for their supplyRegulator's proposal to charge big firms for using electricity at peak times is fraction of government supports given over the yearsThu Sept 08 2022 - 05:00
