Weekly Wrap 195: Melbourne and many expenses

Melbourne skyline: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 24 February to Sunday 2 March 2014 was largely spent in Melbourne and Sydney. Both cities proved more or less enjoyable. And then I spent the weekend in a rainy Wentworth Falls.

While the Melbourne trip was primarily for the Intel event detailed below, I also caught up with various geekfolk and managed to combine work-related conversations with excellent food and drink. May I draw your attention to the Cookie Beer Hall, Whiskey & Alement, the Shark Fin Inn in Chinatown, and the Red Emperor Chinese Restaurant at Southbank.

I paid for all those things. It was more expensive than I’d planned. I don’t know how the lesser people can afford it, but there seemed to be so many of them in these venues.

Articles

I’ve also been working on a 1500-word piece for the Walkley Foundation magazine that’ll be published in May.

Media Appearances

5at5

Uhoh. The whole thing collapsed. Sorry. I’ll revive the poor little thing in the coming week. Promise.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Tuesday I went to Intel’s mixed-bag event in Melbourne, which combined briefings on their new Xeon E7 v2 Server processors, their vision for the future of workplace collaboration and how they’re implementing it themselves — I’ll be writing about that at some point — a look at a new project at NAB, and a rather fine three-hour lunch at Bistro Vue. Intel paid for my flights to Melbourne, airport transfers, and one night’s accommodation at the Crowne Plaza Melbourne — that last item being their sensible alternative to me having to catch the 0513 train into Sydney to catch a 0830 flight.

The Week Ahead

Monday is mostly about planning my media work, writing something for ZDNet Australia, and finishing off the article for the Walkley Foundation.

Through the rest of the week week I’ll be writing another piece for ZDNet Australia, one for Technology Spectator, making sure 5at5 returns to schedule, and figuring out what to do about the loose ends from my Pozible project.

The last is particularly embarrassing, because I’ve simply failed to deliver some of the products. I’ll have to figure out some alternative plan to make good.

I’ll be in Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday, staying overnight. In Wednesday there’s a lunchtime briefing by WatchGuard Technologies, and on Thursday I’m meeting with people from the Slovak infosec firm ESET.

I’m supposed to be in Sydney again on Saturday for an important social event. I’m not quite sure how I’ll plan my movements around that.

[Photo: Melbourne skyline, 26 February 2014.]

Talking the Apple Car rumours on 1395 FIVEaa

FIVEaa logoThe fact that Apple is in further talks with electric car manufacturer Tesla has triggered rumours that an Apple Car might be on the way. Orly?

Presenter Will Goodings grabbed hold of Joshua Dowling, motoring editor for the News Limited mastheads, and your truly to talk it through on Adelaide radio station 1395 FIVEaa on Wednesday 19 February.

Dowling’s explanation of global auto industry issues was excellent, so I’ve included his comments in the audio here.

I’ve then skipped over a bunch of adverts before getting to my contribution — which mentioned smart cars, the internet of things, the potential for surveillance, and the risk of hacking all these things.

I also spoke about Gartner’s prediction that by 2020 there’ll be 50 billion objects connected to the internet. Yes, the smart rice cooker got a mention, as did the hacking of the smart TV.

The audio is ©2014 dmgRadio Australia, but here it is ‘cos it hasn’t been posted on the radio station’s website. Besides, this is a reasonable plug.

Talking digital privacy and Apple refunds on 1395 FIVEaa

FIVEaa logoI continue to be pleased that digital privacy issues are getting more and more coverage in the mainstream media — such as the interview I did last Monday 20 January with radio 1395 FIVEaa in Adelaide.

Presenter Will Goodings had spotted the story of Turnstyle Solutions in Toronto, who can track people around town via their smartphones and use that location data for marketing.

Rather stupidly, I talk about Australia’s Privacy Act being “under review” when in fact that review is well over and the new Privacy Act comes into force on 12 March.

We also spoke about the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) forcing Apple to refund $35 million to customers who’d had their kids make what they felt were unauthorised in-app purchases on their iDevices.

It’s something the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been concerned about too, and they have a page to explain how you can block in-app purchases or complain to Apple or Google.

The audio is ©2014 dmgRadio Australia, but here it is ’cos it hasn’t been posted on the radio station’s website. Besides, this is a reasonable plug.

Talking many things on the Reckoner podcast, again

Reckoner podcast logo: click for original websiteAt very short notice today, I ended up being a guest on another episode of the Reckoner podcast.

Along with hosts Peter Wells and James Croft, the conversation included Jason Murray.

We talked about Chromebooks and the Move Concept Store and Leap Motion and whether Nintendo was dead yet and the Pokemon X Y Launch and the Omny radio app for smartphones and more. Including dicks.

There’s links to all those things on the episode page. That’s three links to that page now, so you should click on one of them. Go on.

That said, here’s the audio right here, embedded in this page so it’ll also appear in my Conversation podcast feed.

The audio is Copyright ©2013 Reckoner.

Talking many things on the Reckoner podcast

Reckoner podcast logo: click for original websiteOn Sunday I was a guest on the podcast Reckoner with hosts Peter Wells and James Croft, which has been badged Episode Three | Freedom Of Choice.

We spoke about the Australian Taxation Office’s clunky e-tax for Mac software; Choice encouraging people to bypass geo-blocking to get at the digital content they want; a chap called Mattrick moving from Microsoft to Zynga; Yves St Laurent CEO Paul Deneve joining Apple; Samsung buying Boxee; and Twitter client Falcon Pro for Android going free, but gaming Twitter’s user-token limits.

There’s links to all those things on the episode page. That’s three links to that page now, so you should click on one of them. Go on.

That said, here’s the audio right here, embedded in this page so it’ll also appear in my Conversation podcast feed.

The audio is Copyright ©2013 Reckoner.

Talking the Apple Maps disaster on Balls Radio

The disaster that is Apple Maps was the topic for my spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week.

If you haven’t caught up with Apple Maps yet, check the Tumblr of map disasters and listen to this week’s Patch Monday podcast. Short version: Apple decided to dump Google Maps from iOS 6 and introduce their own Apple Maps — but it’s a mess.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

The program is no longer broadcast on FM99.3 Northside Radio, it’s purely a podcast. You can subscribe over at the website.