How technology started a riot - then helped clean it up

Should we blame rioting on BlackBerry's BBM?

Why the rash of rioting, looting and arson that started in London and spread viciously across the UK in the last few days took plae is still being discussed, by everyone from the national press to the government. Some say the economic climate and high unemployment rate in the affected areas has created a hotbed of tension just waiting for a spark - the alleged shooting of Mark Duggan by Police being that spark.

But what is definitely clear is that technology has had a big part to play in the events of the past week - both good and bad.

BlackBerry Messenger has been widely criticised for helping the riots to happen.

All it takes is a quick BBM pin swap - easily distributed en masse through other technologies like Twitter - and potential troublemakers are quickly in contact with one another. All BBM conversations are private, and one message can send to several users at once, for free. Perfect for starting a riot.

Another reason BBM has been chosen as the method of choice is that the looter demographic and the BlackBerry demographic align. Not that all BlackBerry users are rioting thugs - far from it. But as ABC News points out: "BlackBerry made a specific effort to market its product among black youth in London, recently sponsoring a "secret gig" in London featuring top U.K. rappers".

Indeed, as The Telegraph reports: "RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones are very popular among inner city youths on both sides of the Atlantic. The devices themselves are typically cheaper than Android models and the iPhone, particularly on pay-as-you-go packages".

MP David Lammy has even called on RIM to shut off their BBM service: "Just been on 5Live asking BB to consider suspending their messaging service this evening...", he said via Twitter.

"Technology is ruining us," agrees tweeter Jessica Kennedy.

BlackBerry have certainly got a lot of damage control to do in terms of their tarnished image. No company wants to be responsible for rioting and destruction which has seen entire streets razed to the ground, including a 150-year-old furniture store and a huge Sony distribution centre, which was torched.

But it is important that we don't over react and blame the technology for the way people have used it. After all, quick communication tools like BBM and Twitter can only be as beneficial - or as destructive - as people make them through how they use them.

What is clear is that technology in 2011 can be immensely powerful. But if that power is being used to organise riots in the streets, it is not the fault of BlackBerry, it is the fault of the people doing the looting. I see no reason to shut off a legitmate service used by millions because a band of senseless thugs can't be trusted with communication tools we could only dream of a decade ago.

Technology can and has been used for good, too. Within days of the riots, Twitter account @riotcleanup was established, helping to get hundreds of people armed with brooms and bin bags out onto the broken streets and cleaning up the mess.

Similarly, Police in South Yorkshire, through @syptweet, have helped to keep people informed by countering destructive rumours that riots had started when they hadn't - which could have ironically caused riots to form had the rumours persisted.

Technology is like anything else - it is only as good as the people who use it. Let's hope we can use CCTV face recognition technology as well as Twitter to help put away those who can't use it responsibly.

iPad: Saviour of the newspaper industry?

©Alex Evans 2011

For hundreds of years, the newspaper has been a staple component of the morning routine for millions of people around the world. From businessmen vanishing behind the vast expanse of their broadsheets on the Underground to builders sat in Transit vans trying not to drip brown sauce on page 3, newspapers have for many years, and for millions of people, been absolutely essential.

But perhaps not for much longer. The internet, for all that it’s given us – better communication, cheaper shopping, social networking, has the newspaper squarely in its crosshairs. After all, why spend £1 on a lump of messy paper, half of which you won’t read, when you can pick and choose news content on the internet, free of charge?

Print circulation is in sharp decline. Average net circulation of daily newspapers has dropped 15% in four years, down from 11.5million in May 2007 to 9.8million in May 2011, according to figures published in The Times, Friday July 15 2011.

The same research suggests print costs have risen by 20% in the last year while advertising revenues for, as an example,  The Daily Mail, are down 7% in three months. Meanwhile, the cost of newspapers has risen – The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph have all risen from 70p to £1 in the last four years, while The Times has moved from 65p to £1, The Daily Mail has risen from 45p to 55p and The Financial Times has doubled, from £1 to £2.

It all adds up to a situation in which newspapers are trapped in a self-defeating cycle – the more circulation dwindles, the more prices rise – and the further prices rise, the quicker circulation drops. 

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The Daily Telegraph has dropped from 911,454 to 651,184 daily circulation between 2007 and 2011. The Times has dropped from 670,054 to 457,250, while The Guardian has dropped from 384,070 to 279,308. Of these four, only The Daily Mail has seen a small decline (in terms of percentage of overall readership) – from 2,354,028 to 2,136,568. 

The one factor pointed out by analysts most often as the cause of this plunge in readership is the free online news movement.

Newspapers have reacted very differently to this new environment where news is quick, simple and free. The Daily Mail’s website is incredibly successful, pulling in millions of unique users every day, offsetting declining print circulation. But others have fought against it – The Times have locked their content behind a paywall, pushing readers to identify the newspaper’s web output as something worth paying for – with mixed results.

There is, though, one last saviour for traditional print publications: tablet computers, like the iPad. Apple’s hefty slab of screen is the first device which can actually mimic a newspaper exactly. The huge, bright screen lends itself perfectly to presenting full versions of newspaper pages identical to those sitting on newsstands. Indeed, The Times’ iPad app does exactly this – repacking the newspaper every day into a digital edition, complete with turnable pages and, unlike print, added interactivity.

The iPad offers newspapers and magazines a lifeline. A chance to sell their newspaper as a whole, as it was meant to be, complete with rich analysis, opinion and photographs. Never mind web pages with short stories written to gain immediate traffic, the iPad can deliver the deeper newspaper experience in digital format. Crucially – people are willing to pay.

How many people? And will this news revolution turn the whole industry to tablet computers overnight?

Certainly, from talking to newspaper and magazine editors and senior journalists from across the country, there seems to be hope. Hope that the same generation who buy iPods to listen to music, not CDs, the same generation who rent films over the internet rather than buy DVDs, the same generation who want everything with them, everywhere they go, in one device might want to buy newspapers for those devices.

iPad might not kill the newspaper industry – it might just save it.

__________________________________________________________________________

This is the introduction to my University dissertation; for confidentiality reasons I cannot publish any further excerpts, but any feedback is appreciated. This is an update of an earlier article from April, fleshed out after interviews with three major newspapers. All writing ©Alex Evans 2011.

Is Google Plus Facebook Minus the brilliance?

Facebook is dead. Or at least, that's what Google are hoping will be written on sites like these in a few years from now. Just like Facebook killed Myspace, Google hope to topple the current giant.

Thing is, to do that Google's social site has to not only equal Facebook, but leave it trailing.

Thing is, Plus is nowhere near offering the kind of ease of use Facebook offers. The big F can take you from new user to sign-up within a matter of mere minutes. Google, on the other hand, seem to operate in some sort of exclusivity bubble, demanding new users seek 'invites' from current customers. It's not exactly the approachable, easy to sign up service we've come to expect.

It does bring some new ideas, though. The 'circles' which allow you to place your friends into particular groups and keep them from seeing content and conversation (and drunken photos) with other groups you've got. It's like Facebook, but with optional barriers.

It may not sound like fun - isn't social media all about inclusion? But it does offer a more personalised experience, allowing you to keep your old school friends from spilling all your embarrassing secrets to your new work colleagues.

Similarly, it means your boss won't be able to see those drunken photos. And it's just perfect for affairs. Google Plus? That means wife plus mistress.

Similarly, Sparks allows users to establish a 'feed' of only the content they're into, rather than a catch-all Wall like Facebook.

Hangouts, on the other hand, are a sort of online skulking ground meets Skype - you can let users know you're online and go into video calls, or arrange a virtual meet there in future, like a web video cafe thing.

But is it enough innovation to tempt users away from Facebook? I'm not so sure. People know Facebook. They like it (no pun intended). There is no real reason for anyone to make the switch and go through the pain of inviting all your friends to the new service. Especially as most of them won't be on there.

And who wants to keep two social networks running? I already receive millions of emails and notifications both on my phone and laptop from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Any more and I think my email inbox will explode. Then there's the time involved in keeping both going.

No, the only people using Plus will be hardcore Google fans and those looking for a change from Facebook. And I don't think Circles and Sparks are enough to bring down the current networking titan.

Is the handheld console still relevant?

Uncharted and Zelda are great, but are people happy enough with Angry Birds in their pocket?

PS Vita looks great. Sony's new handheld has twin analogue sticks (for COD on the go) and graphical power to match PS3, all for only £280 - which is very cheap considering the technology involved is right on the cutting edge.

PS Vita smashes iPad, iPhone and 3DS in terms of graphical power, and gameplay experience. A full set of buttons is always going to be more useful than just a touchscreen - and Vita's got one of those, too.

But PS Vita could be a huge failure. The handheld market has changed so much in the last five years since the original PSP release, and PS Vita may just represent an outdated business model.

The 3DS, Nintendo's newest handheld, has had a stuttering launch, and while the lack of games must be partly to blame, it's tempting to see the rise of the smartphone as the real culprit.

Do people still want to play on a dedicated handheld? Do the masses want to lug around a hefty handheld console when they already carry a smartphone everywhere they go?

That smartphone, too, already has games. Nothing on the scale of Uncharted, like PS Vita, or Zelda 3D, like 3DS. But thousands of games ranging from free to a few pounds/dollars. Why spend £40 on a new 3DS game when you've got Angry Birds expansion packs at no extra cost?

The smartphone, whether iPhone or Android, is clearly a huge threat to the handheld gaming market - and threatens to destroy the market entirely.

There is one thing that can save PS Vita and 3DS though: Differentiation.

What Sony and Nintendo must do is show people that these consoles offer a rich enough, a different enough experience to warrant the extra expense; the extra pocket weight, the dedicated games machine.

Sony need to show that having a PS Vita means having a PS3 in your pocket. Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Pictured, right) is basically a full-fledged version of the blockbuster franchise, and it looks every inch as beautiful as its bigger brother, but it's portable. The iPhone will never have that - and even if one day smartphone graphics caught up, the iPhone lacks the twin analogue sticks, face buttons and Trophies.

Will it be enough? Not for some. But there will always be a crowd looking for a deeper experience and I think Sony still has a market to aim for; a market who want Smartphone + 'proper' games machine.

Nintendo has a bigger task on its hands. Aiming mostly at casual gamers, Nintendo has a tough time persuading the people who bought a DS with Brain Training, or Professor Layton, or Sudoku, that the 3DS is what they need next.

The 3D is the key differentiation for Nintendo, but even that will not last - Glassesless 3D capable smartphones are coming, and they're going to be here by Christmas.

The only thing Nintendo have left are their big franchises: Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, etc. These games will never appear on an iPhone, and the company now more than ever needs to rely on these games' appeal to push the 3DS into peoples' hands.

But it all seems a little desperate. In reality, both companies' business models are beginning to look a little dated.

Differentiation may save them for now - but one day, iPhones or other Smartphones will figure out a way to close down these differences, too - and both game makers will have to try to stay one step ahead or risk falling behind.

Looking at the 3DS sales, I fear it may have already happened.

Hackers? Do us a favour

Is it right to punish hackers for exposing security flaws which put our personal details at risk?
 
Today a British teenager was arrested over the recent spate of hacking which has seen the likes of the NHS, the CIA and a range of companies like Sony and Nintendo's websites hacked open.

The arrest, co-ordinated by Essex Police and the FBI, saw a 19-year-old who is the supposed ringleader of notorious internet hacking group LulzSec taken into custody.

Yes, he broke the law. But is it fair to punish someone for exposing the security flaws which could have put us all at risk?

Hacking, you see, has become all the rage. Everybody who's anybody (read: a bedroom shut-in nobody) has been hacking into bigwigs' websites for a laugh, leaving messages inside their 'secure' servers and boasting on Twitter about how they could get access to all these companies' personal details. Aka, your personal details.

These are not simple little Norton firewalls. These are, in some cases, multi-million pound security software systems which have been compromised by groups of internet anarchists seemingly intent on watching the world burn, one web hack at a time.

LulzSec's now-notorious logo

But have hackers, like the infamous 'LulzSec' and 'Anonymous' groups, become demonised unfairly? After all, these sites are supposed to be secure websites housing, in some cases, very sensitive data and have been hacked open as if it were as easy as shouting 'open sesame' at the NHS database.

Yes, some of the hacking has been silliness. The news site PBS posted a story stating that legendary, deceased rapper Tupac Shakur was actually alive and living in New Zealand. This was obviously useless, borderline dangerous joking by hackers at the expense of PBS.

But a lot of the hacks have actually served a beneficial purpose - they have exposed serious, some might say criminal, flaws in the supposedly secure systems of these websites.

Hacking group LulzSec allegedly left this message inside the NHS database which holds the names, addresses and other personal details of millions of people:

"While you aren't considered an enemy - your work is of course brilliant - we did stumble upon several of your admin passwords".

"We mean you no harm and only want to help you fix your tech issues".

If these apparently harmless hackers can hack in so easily, though, what's to stop a more malicious group from gaining access to the details of anyone on that NHS database?

Similarly, the group has highlighted serious flaws in the security of the government's 2011 census database; which surely holds enough information about each and every one of us to put all of us at risk of identity theft.

Whilst I would never condone what these hackers have done - after all, Anonymous put the PlayStation Network down for a month, at the estimated cost of some $100million to Sony - which could have repercussions for their employees.

And whatever their stated intentions, we should always be wary of any group which is openly admitting to accessing databases of personal information. It only takes one rogue, less noble member of LulzSec to sell on these personal details to someone unscrupulous to put everyone at risk.

But these hackers have shown us just how fragile these 'secure' databases really are. Sony held PS3 users' credit card details in its records, yet secured them so poorly that some bedroom-dwelling teen might have made off with the lot. Government bodies like the NHS, too, must be secure enough to stop any intrusion.

If they are going to force us to hand over our personal information, the least they could do is look after it properly.

Hacking is obviously illegal, and the arrest made today shows how seriously the authorities are taking it. But some blame must lay at the companies' cyber-doors.

If this spate of web attacks results in more secure databases for all our personal info, they may just have done us all a favour.

I'm not trying to argue that this teenage hacker is some modern day martyr. But this is one area in which the law clashes with ethics - we must all question whether it is really right to punish him when his actions may have helped get us all better protected.

Why Ocarina is 3DS' Time to Shine

3DS has had a rough launch. For almost 4 months, its 15 mostly mediocre games sat lonely on store shelves while DS Lite and even PSP outsold the 3DS. As launch periods go, it was barren to say the least.

Today, though, the Legend of Zelda returns. Widely heralded as the best game of all time, the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is looking to do for 3DS what the title did for Nintendo 64 all those years ago (1998, for the record). Does it succeed, or is it time to move on?

Not only is Link's greatest adventure still as magical as it is epic, it's actually matured with age thanks to the abilities of the 3DS system - and not just the graphical ones.

It's not really about the graphics - even though they are luscious in eye-popping 3D and more bright and beautiful than they ever were on N64 (and you really will worry about your eyes popping when arrows soar straight at your face). No, what's most startling about OOT 3D is just how well it shows off what 3DS can really do.

There's nothing worse for ruining a game than getting stuck. With any other game on any other console, the solution would be to slam the console or controller down and scurry off to the laptop to look up the solution. Not any more.

Thanks to the recent 3DS online update, you can suspend Ocarina of Time 3D with a quick press of the Home button, then launch the Web Browser. In seconds, you can go from traversing the wild plains of Hyrule to trawling the depths Gamefaqs.com for the answer to the next puzzle. Once you've found the solution, another couple of clicks and it's as if the game was never paused. Just like every good idea, it suddenly amazes you that no-one's thought of it before.

Sure, you might have a laptop or a smartphone you could have used. But then you'd probably get distracted and check your facebook or get sucked into Twitter, never to return. The beauty of the 3DS, as Zelda so brilliantly outlines, is how it integrates everything you need for gaming - and gaming alone.

Sure, Sony's PSP, or upcoming PS Vita, both offer millions of multimedia bells and whistles; music, movies, apps, you name it. But 3DS is a Nintendo machine. A games machine. It exists only to make gaming as perfect as possible. The mid-game Web Browser is just one small (inspired) step towards that goal.

See those icons? You can suspend your game and hit those

Not content with running to the internet for the solution? Well, you can use the Game Notes feature instead. This works the same way - suspend the game and hit the icon in the menu - and allows you to draw Pictochat style notes about the game and save them for later. The real beauty of this, though, is that it keeps a photo of your current game on the top screen. Handy if you need to write down a number, name, a clue or a certain order. It's ingenious.

Yes, these features work with other games, too, but with Zelda, the various bright ideas packed into the 3DS just seem to click into place. It's like the 3DS grew up in the space of one title release. Gone is the DS with a prettier screen - in its place is a smart, innovative and much more sophisticated system geared towards delivering a first-rate, painless gaming experience.

In short, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is just the game to experience how Nintendo's handhelds have matured.

For Nintendo, it may have been 13 years, but it seems Link's still working his magic.

Introducing Call of Duty: Monthly Subscription

Bang! That's not the sound of a headshot from an AK-47. It's the sound of Activision, publishers of the world-storming Call of Duty franchise coming up with an idea that will change not just the company's fortunes, but the gaming landscape forever: Call of Duty: Elite.

Activision's new subscription model, which offers Call of Duty players bonus content in return for a monthly subscription fee is sure to spark a war of words as much as a gaming one.

Starting with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the latest entry into the blockbuster FPS franchise which releases this autumn, players will be given the option to sign up for a subscription to Call of Duty which will work with MW3 and all future COD games. In return for the monthly payment, players will get access to extra, exclusive maps as well as a stats service which shows them in depth which weapons they are having most success with.

It’s not known how much the charge will be yet, but this idea is, of course, from the company which runs World of Warcraft, an online role-playing game which can take £10-15 a month from each subscriber on top of the cost of the game.

Considering that MW3 costs an eye-watering £55 just for the disc, it seems more than a little excessive to start charging to play online, too.

Yes, the free service will stay in place. Players can still get online and shoot seven shades of shellshock out of one another for nothing. But the fact is, come this autumn there will be an exclusive section of the online community cordoned off – maps only subscribers can play, rooms teeming with pay-per-month customers who don’t want to mingle with the cheapo users.

It’s a worrying direction for gaming. We already have games which last at best, 5-10 hours in single-player, devoid of any split-screen multiplayer, with developers insisting the online modes (most of which are soulless clones of every other game’s online play) make up for the lack of meat elsewhere.

 As recently as five years ago, that wouldn’t have happened. PS2 games, for all their low-res, offline antiquatedness, had to deliver a compelling, lengthy experience and often a good split-screen mode to survive.
Fast forward to 2011 and we have games with content on the disc which you have to pay to access – DLC packs which were made as part of the main game, then locked out. Then they sell you the digital key to your own disc for £7.99. It’s absurd.

Now, Activision want to split the market entirely, into payers and non-payers. Sure, currently it’s only a few measly map packs and some data tracking. But if the idea catches on, expect what’s offered in the free zone to slowly diminish whilst the pay-for section gradually begins to resemble exactly what we used to get for free.

Sure, Activision are more than within their rights to do it. It’s a free market – and if people will pay, then Activision can – and in a pro-business sense sort of way – should offer it.

But embrace this future and we could suddenly see the glory years of free online play slide into yesteryear, much like PS2’s meaty single-player campaigns did. Show that we’re willing to stump up for one game, and every game developer will want to sell us a 12-month contract as well as a game.

Eventually, we’ll all buy one shooter (COD), one racer (NFS), one sports game (FIFA) and one action game (GTA) every year, subscribe to their online play and to hell with originality, innovation or indeed, free online. We’ll no be longer gamers, we’ll be loyal, contracted subscribers.

This may all sound like a ludicrous, exaggerated over-reaction. But MW3’s subscriber model is one small step away from this disastrous new reality. Don’t take that step. Step back, and throw up a middle finger, not a credit card.

Has PSN's downtime ruined the PS3?

At some point last week, PSN finally came back online after 22 days of PS3 gamers being left in the cold, offline wilderness.

It's back, but it's still a bit broken. Playstation Store is closed. The servers seem a bit jumpy, and my PlayStation Android app doesn't really, er, work.

Sony have promised that when PSN is fully functioning, owners can choose two of five free games to make up for that rather unfortunate matter of everyone's credit card details now sitting on the hard drive of some dark room dwelling borderline sociopath somewhere in Ohio.

On top of that, Sony PS President Kaz Hirai and his fellow executives apologised publically with a bow; a deeply significant gesture in Japan's culture of humility and integrity.

Too little, too late? Well, it might be. But we can't even get our free games yet, because the Store is still down.

The whole sorry episode has seen Sony shambling through problems like these. It's no wonder that PS3 trade-ins have increased an astonishing 200% since PSN went down, according to EDGE magazine, based on official retail figures.

PS3 had been having a good year until last month. Between exclusives like Gran Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet 2 and the Uncharted 3 announcement, the PS3 was hot property. It even threatened to topple the Xbox 360's dominance, often overtaking it in sales.

They say a car is only as fast as its driver, though. Give Vettel a Red Bull F1 car, you get victory. Give me a Red Bull F1 car, and I'll give you an explosive, bloody mess, not a world championship.

Well, Sony ain't Vettel. They've driven the PS3 machine from a stable, advantageous position into the dirt track, and it may take a lot more than a couple of hand-outs of old games (LittleBigPlanet 1? Really?) to restore gamers' faith.

At the end of the day, we're all grown ups here. We don't hold certain companies or consoles in some beloved, quasi-weird position of love. We just want to game. It's understandable that many have probably defected to Microsoft's Xbox, where the online is always on and the credit card details always un-leaked.

To win over the gaming crowd again, Sony need to do something special - and I'm not sure they have it in them, any more than gamers have it in them to trust the company again.

E3, the annual games convention usually bursting with announcements, is only a couple of weeks away - and for PS3, it could be do or die.

Google Chromebook: The glorious future, not the glorious present

One day, we'll use the internet for absolutely everything. Every TV channel, every phone call, every time we watch a film or write a document, it will be online.

For some, that future could be in four months. That's when the first Chromebooks release; notebooks running Google's new Chrome operating system. It promises to revolutionise computing because every single application, everything it does and everything you do on it is done through the internet.

The advantage is that Chrome has no programs other than its built-in internet explorer. Nothing is running in the background, and it can't install anything, either. That means no viruses, and no bulky, slow anti-virus software, no hard drive, nothing. It can do pretty much whatever a normal notebook can - but it does it all via the web. It's proper 'cloud' computing.

As long as you're on Wi-fi, you can create a Google text document (no Microsoft Word here) then save it online, while playing your music collection on an internet-based music player using files from your online storage.

Here's Google's video, summing up exactly what the new OS offers:

Google's slogan is 'Ready when you are'. Thing is, when on earth will that be?

While most of America and Asia enjoys speeds of between 10MB/s and 100MB/s, much of the UK still runs at very poor broadband speeds - think 1-4MB. Imagine trying to stream a film, work on several word documents and browse the internet while Twitter is open in the background. Normally, a bad internet connection would struggle with that. But when the computer's every thought has to be piped down the internet and back every second, the wireless router will just explode at anything under 5MB/s. Unluckily for us, that's what most of the UK has.

Even if you have a good internet connetion, there's the problem of being out of Wi-fi range - and it's not just a problem for us Brits. Most computers are badly hindered by not having an internet connection, but at least you can work on documents and access your own music, video and photo collections. With a Chromebook, if you're offline, you've got nothing but an expensive paperweight.

Wi-fi hotspot coverage is improving all the time, of course. But it's still nowhere near what it needs to be to make a Chromebook anything approaching convenient.

Chromebook is undoubtedly a brilliant idea. It takes just eight seconds to start up, because it has no programs to load. If you lose it, or break it, well, all your files are online. Just buy another and you won't even notice the transition.

And buying another won't be so painful, either. Prices haven't been announced yet, but because a Chromebook is essentially an internet explorer with a Wi-fi card and a screen, they are going to be much, much cheaper than normal notebooks.

That means Chromebook could eat into Windows' marketshare quickly. If it's half the price, twice as fast and does everything a normal laptop can do, why wouldn't it take off?

Yup, it’s internet speed. It's a shame - and shameful - that the UK has such poor internet speeds. It lags far, far behind the rest of the world. But even in America, fast internet is nowhere near universal, and even if it was, Wi-fi hotspots aren't. And Chromebook's 100% dependence on them outside of the house makes it awkward, at best, to take on the road in 2011.

Chromebook is the future. Years down the line, it will be probably be how computing works, not just on notebooks but on phones, games consoles and TVs. But not yet. Not until internet companies and governments – especially in the UK- catch up with Google's ambition.

Skype's buyout: The end of free web calls?

Yesterday, Microsoft stunned the technology world by announcing it had bought up internet video chat company Skype for an eye-watering $8.5billion.

That's a lot of dollars. Enough to buy about a squillion M&Ms, according to some rough maths.

Skype, though, is a free service which makes very little money. Its only source of income is from a few small adverts placed in its side panel.

So why has the American tech giant spent so much cash on a company which produces free software? And more importantly, does this mean the end for Skype as we know it?

Currently, Skype is available on all platforms - including Apple's iPhone and Google's Android products. While Microsoft would be crazy to suddenly block all competitors, we can surely expect that the best new features will come to Microsoft's much-vaunted, much-overlooked Windows Phone first. Perhaps some features might even stay exclusive to Windows PCs and mobiles.

Non-Windows users' losses are Xbox players' gains, of course. Skype represents a great opportunity to add another string to Xbox's bow - video calls over Kinect, with voice control, is a perfect example of the different features of the games console coming together to offer something exciting.

And then of course there's Live Messenger, the age-old instant chat service once known as MSN. While it has been offering free video calls for years, it would be a big suprise if Microsoft didn't work in the Skype experience (which has always bested Bill Gates' program) into its software. We might even see Skype calls from inside Hotmail, in much the same way that the company has started working in a light, free version of Office into its email service for all users, regardless of whether they own the full suite. This image shows off quite well what Microsoft has in mind for the service in terms of merging it into its own offerings:

All of this is very nice and happy, but the acquisition could mean trouble ahead for non Windows Skype users. Should Microsoft try too hard to monetise Skype, they could find the people flocking to another service, whilst excluding Apple and Android users from any future features could see Skype's marketshare dwindle at a time Microsoft need it to start making real money.

On that subject; Microsoft might try to split the market, offering a free version with very low quality video, stripped down to the basics, and a pay-per-use version with all the bells and whistles.

Equally, they could ram the service with adverts. Imagine having to watch an ad for Burger King every time you rang your girlfriend, or sit through a very loud, very long Call of Duty trailer just to ask your mum how to cook an omelette. There could even be ads during calls: "We interrupt this heartfelt apology to the love of your life to bring you this important message: Have you had an accident at work?".

As the immortal line in the Social Network goes, at the moment, it's cool. Start throwing ads around and it's no longer a party.

Microsoft has to tread very carefully not to ruin a great service by desperately trying to squeeze money from it, nor anger users on non-Windows devices by treating them as second class.

The reality is, Microsoft's acquisition of Skype smacks of desperation. Unable to capture the market themselves, or perhaps wracked with paranoia that cooler, hipper Google or Apple were going to snap Skype up and rule the world, they jerked their knee and opened their wallet just to spite their competitors.

For Microsoft, it looks almost a lose-lose situation. Keep Skype the same and they'll never get back their investment. Change it too much and they risk alienating the users and, er, never getting back their investment.

Play it right, though, and Skype could be the cornerstone of Microsoft's latest assault on the market, taking a bite out of Apple and helping Windows Phone and Xbox to scale new heights.

Just dont ruin Skype please Bill. Unlike Windows Phone, it's quite good at the moment.

Kindle's coming to pulp the paperback book...

As digital book sales skyrocket, how far are we from the death knell of the paperback?

One day, you'll be telling your grandchildren about the days you used to read words printed on 'paper', in big, thick, heavy slabs known as 'books'. Shrugging, they'll put their virtual reality glasses on and keep reading.

For now, most of us still read the old fashioned way. But for how much longer?

The news this week surfaced that e-book sales are skyrocketing in the UK; up from just £4million last year to £16million. Add in academic books and the total reached £196million.

It is, of course, still a drop in the ocean compared to the £3.1Billion overall book sales - but the sector is growing. Fast.

The reason is obvious - e-books actually work now.

Most technology sells itself on offering something that you can't normally do without it. iPods offer all your music in one place. Smartphones pride themselves on organising your life, one app at a time. But e-book readers are different. Though they do offer something that books cant do (the ability to carry your whole library around on the go), in order to become mass market they actually need to do what books do, not try to better them.

In years past, we were forced to read digital versions of the latest novels on dim, clunky screens with very poor battery life. Vision problems and a time limit are not something we normally associate with a good read.

Then, Amazon cracked it. Their Kindle e-reader actually mimics the appearance of paper. No million-colour screen, no ultra-sharp LCD, no HD flash-bang gimmickry. Just a screen which looks, feels and behaves like paper. A un-technological approach to the technology, or a technological approach to the untechnological? Whatever, it works.

The battery life is eye-watering, too - a month with the wi-fi switched off. That means, just like a book, that you can shove it in your bag on every hotel stay/holiday or commute and not have to worry about whether you can finish your gripping thriller before the battery decides it doesn't care if you're three pages away from finding out who the killer was, it would quite like a nap.

The beauty is that they behave like books, but with advantages on top. Thousands of books in one place. Free versions of public-domain classics like Shakespeare, Dickens and Stevenson. Instant downloading on any internet connection and, of course, no pulling out the bookmark by accident and having to work out where you were by the number of fingerprints on the pages.

Now, other e-readers have copied the technology and people are starting to flock to digital books at long last.

This is a critical juncture for digital books. There are still stumbling blocks that must be manouvered. Why, for example, are some digital books more expensive than their paperback counterparts? Surely, with no distribution or printing costs, no stock management and no re-sale value (thus, no second-hand market), e-books should be much, much cheaper than normal books. Even the same price would be a rip-off, but digital versions are often more expensive. Until this is sorted, e-books will never be anything more than a niche market.

The number of titles, too, needs to be improved. People won't buy a Kindle if they can't read all the latest chart books on the same day as the normal versions are released. The choice is rising all the time, but the number of traditional books still outweighs digital offerings by thousands upon thousands to one.

Staunch traditionalists (read: old people) also argue that the feeling of reading a proper book just can't be beaten with any slab of wires and circuitry. Until a Kindle can mimic that 'new paper' smell, they still can't do everything.

Whether these issues can be fixed - or accepted - remains to be seen. The truth is, though, that we are still years away from waving goodbye to traditional ink 'n' paper. But the first chapter in the story of the book's demise might already be written.

When will FIFA give in over goal-line tech?

So, it's that time again. Time to ask FIFA why we still haven't got goal-line technology. Why the people (and the referees) inside the football stadium are less well-placed to take make or break, million pound decisions than people like me eating crisps and watching Sky Sports at home.

Yesterday, Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeer Heurelho Gomes fished a ball off the line and tried to insist the ball had never gone in. Cue a couple of minutes of confusion before the referee seemed to make a complete guess that the 'goal' should be given.

Watching it in super slow-mo on Match of The Day later that evening, you could tell that not all of the ball had crossed all of the line, as the goal rule dictates is necessary. Goal wrongly given, the game ends up 2-1 to Chelsea. The title race remains open and Tottenham might now miss out on a Champions League spot.

You can't blame the referee and his assistant for getting it wrong. In real-time, it's just impossible to say for sure what the right decision was. But had they seen the TV pictures, the game would have rightly ended 1-1.

So why are FIFA still dragging their heels over goal-line technology? It is a question which has been asked a hundred times, most notably in the World Cup game between England and Germany last year where Frank Lampard's five-yards-over-the-line goal wasn't given.

But it's a question we must keep asking. It is crazy that in 2011 we still can't use the technology we have at our disposal to help determine something crucial to the whole sport - like whether a goal is scored.

Video technology didn't do rugby any harm; a sport which has brilliantly adapted to modern times and blended traditional officiating with video evidence to the benefit of the game.

If video or goal-line technology is only brought in for goals (and maybe offsides), there's no reason at all it would slow football. We could even have a tennis-style system where each team gets three checks of the video every game.

Then there's the argument that it makes the game unequal, because the Premier League and the flashy money-soaked divisions will get video tech, whereas the lower leagues must struggle on without it because of the expense. It hardly seems fair to have a sport where refereeing accuracy is dependent on the size of your stadium or the sponsorship cheque of the division you play in, detractors argue.

Tosh. The best referees operate at the highest level. So should the best technology. With all due respect to the Isthmian league, and other such 'amateur' divisions, never will there be a goal decision which could be worth tens of millions of pounds down there. The same can't be said of Gomes' goal-line fumble at Stamford Bridge yesterday.

Sepp Blatter has given countless flimsy excuses as to why it hasn't been implemented. It's too expensive, none of the tech is accurate enough, it gives the fans something to talk about, and so on.


What it does do is give the fans something to harass the referee about. If every bloke screaming abuse at the ref after a decision went against them knew that the officals had watched indisputable TV pictures, then they'd have to shut up. Give referees more accuracy, and you give them more respect.

Accuracy is a big sticking point. Chip-in-ball systems may be better than people, but none of the systems which have been trialled have been 100% accurate, apparently. Well, 99% has got to be better than what we have now.

Even if chipping footballs is a non-starter, TV replays are surely a must. Personally, I don't see why we can't have a video official watching the TV feed on the sideline at every game. If they see an injustice unfolding, it would only take thirty seconds to check the replays and tell the ref. Sky/BBC/ITV pundits usually tell us if a goal should stand before play has resumed.

It wouldn't undermine the referee, either. It's not like the ref would run over to the video man every two minutes. It would just be a whisper in the ear if he's about to do something a bit silly.

Case in point: remember at the last world cup when Tevez scored an offside goal for Argentina which was accidentally replayed on the stadium's mega-screen? The referees gave the goal, then saw the replay but were powerless to do anything about it. It was ridiculous then, but what's even more ridiculous is that almost a year later, nothing has moved on.

Blatter promised to look at technology after Lampard's ghost goal. So where is it?

If FIFA truly care about football, they will get with the times and turn to technology. And it's not just FIFA, but the FA, the Premier League and UEFA which need to act.

In the immortal words of Ian Holloway, "The game is wrong. The people in charge of the game are wrong. I'm not naming names, I'm just telling them they're wrong. They are so wrong it is frightening".

How many more Gomes moments will it take? How many more ungiven goals? Who knows. But it's a question we simply must keep asking. It's time to kick inaccuracy out of football.

Can we trust the internet with a credit card?

If a supposedly secure, world-wide service can be hacked, should we really be shopping online at all?


Somebody 'may' have got hold of 70 million peoples' credit card details this week, according to Sony.

Yes, the Playstation Network (PSN), which allows millions of PS3 and PSP owners to play games online has been hacked, causing the service to be suspended for over a week, but more worryingly, for the card numbers, date of birth, email and physical addresses of all of its users to potentially be compromised.

If PSN can be hacked, and card details (like mine) obtained, then what about other websites? Amazon is completely secure. It displays that little gold padlock in the corner when you buy something. So does Paypal, and eBay, and Play.com. I've used all these sites and never have I received a phone call from my bank asking why I've started bulk buying iPods and Bulgarian porn. But the risk remains.

I must stress that these sites are secure, and I have heard no reports of them being hacked. But it could happen, theoretically. If PSN, a 70-million user service from a world-recognised corporation, can be hacked open, why not one of these sites? If there is even a slight risk, why shop online at all?

Well, some don't. And they aren't all old fogeys who don't know what an internet is. My 18-year-old brother refuses to shop online because he doesn't trust a computer to feed his money digits down a webpipe to some company in the hope he'll receive something in the post four days later. There are plenty who feel the same way.

But we've come a long way since the early days of the internet. The fact is, there is virtually no risk at all in buying from a reputable, recognised website. The level of security is beyond military standard. People's lives are one thing, but if there is money involved, the security goes up to another level.

Yes, PSN was supposed to be that secure, and it might have been compromised. That's a huge error on Sony's part. But games console networks are in their infancy. The Playstation 2 didn't have any sort of network, and the PS3 has only had one for five years. Now that it has happened, future games consoles will be doubly or triply secure.

Sites like eBay and Amazon have years of security experience behind them. If we can't trust them now, we probably never can.

So, can we trust them now? Well, it's up to individuals to determine if it's worth that risk. In my eyes, I take a larger risk of having my card details stolen every time I leave the house than I do when I shop online. Shopping on Amazon is the equivalent of using the cash machine with an army of fifty bodyguards by your side. Out on the street, I'm a scrawny white bloke who couldn't fight a paper receipt, let alone a paper bag or a mugger.

But it is up to the companies who run these websites to persuade people how safe they really are, though. Sony has a lot of damage control to do, and if peoples' accounts do start emptying, it could set web shopping trust back years.

If Sony is the weak link that ruins internet shopping for the rest of us, then it will have a lot more to worry about than the Playstation Network.

Internet shopping should be treated with a heavy dose of caution, but it's as safe as anything else in life: 99%. Nothing can ever be totally safe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to wait for a possible phone call about some Bulgarian videos.

Does liking technology mean hating the world?

So, it's Earth Day today, apparently. To honour it, I've been tweeting from my laptop while using my PS3 on a 40" TV and charging my phone, all at once. Again.

It's ironic that the rise of consumer technology has come about at the exact same time as the eco-revolution.

At one time in the mid-noughties it was estimated that computers took 12% of all the world's electricity useage. While it may sound fairly small, that figure means that for all the lights, shops, factories,businesses and heating systems in the world, computers still took this huge chunk of power just for Liking biscuits on facebook and watching iPlayer.

For the average tech junkie, you'll probably find any of the following running all at once in one room: a TV, games console, smartphone charger, laptop/PC, iPod/mp3 player, stereo, wireless box, freeview/Sky box. My living room is beginning to resemble the NASA launch centre.

And these are thirsty, thirsty bits of kit. An Xbox 360 will use 1000w of electricity every four hours; a PS3 every three. And while I don't know how much my HTC smartphone needs in juice, I do know it takes longer to charge fully than it does to run flat again.

Surely, then, you can only be a technology fan if you hate the environment, don't believe in global warming, don't care or all of the above.

Well, to a degree. But it isn't our fault.

Yes, we can try to do our bit. We can use rechargeable batteries, we can put our laptops on 'Power Save' mode and we can dim the telly. But there is so little information out there about how much power our tech actually needs that it's difficult to even think about it, let alone act.

I only know how much a PS3 uses because some time-rich anorak plugged it in to a watt-measurement device and put the results online. I certainly don't know how much an iPod, or a TV, or my laptop uses, but I'm sure it's a fair chunk.

Why don't I know? My computer lists endless, incomprehensible features on its side, like 'up to 1308 MB DVMT' (I don't know what this means) as well as listing its green credentials - 'Energy Star Approved' (I do know that this doesn't mean much, since it's on almost every electrical product ever), but nowhere does it say how much electricity it uses.

In these eco-conscious times, green transparency, so to speak, is long overdue. It's high time companies like Sony, Samsung and Apple started listing how much power items need right on the box.

Why is it only washing machines that are energy rated? Computers, TVs, phones and games consoles should be marked from A* to F, too.

Not everyone will notice, not everyone will care. But at least we'd all have the option to make the green choice. It's certainly better than buying ever more powerful devices and wondering why our electricity bills are through the (poorly-insulated) roof.

I could go on, but I'm going to use my last sliver of laptop battery to watch the ice caps melt on YouTube.

iPhones can track our every movement - should we be worried?

Wherever you are, wherever you're going, if you're an iPhone owner,  Apple are going to know about it.


That's because iPhones and iPads are apparently tracking our every movement, according to researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden (original report - BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13145562 ).

It's a pretty terrifying use of technology we assume is designed to make our lives easier, rather than spy on us without telling us.

According to Warden and Allan, the spying is covered in Apple's terms and conditions, in a sort of PR-gibberish way, but frankly we could have all promised our lungs to fifty different companies several times over by now. No-one, no-one reads them, and Apple know it.

So they're being a tad sneaky, but should we be concerned that we're essentially being spied on, 1984-style, by Steve Jobs' Apple army?

In short, no. I want to be spied on. I want my data to be tracked. Yes, it's one small step between data tracking and my iPhone despatching police to my house because they can see I'm at the brothel again, but data tracking actually has the power to make all our lives much easier if it's done right.

Keep getting stuck on the M1? What if Apple send you a reccommendation for a Traffic Check app? Keep going for petrol at your local pump? Perhaps your iPhone informs you it's 3p cheaper to go a mile further afield. Keep shopping at Tesco? Perhaps your phone downloads you a Clubcard app you didn't know existed.

Though it's tempting to see data tracking as some looming freedom-destroyer, it can clearly be used to enrich our lives. We have waited years for technology to be able to do all it can to increase our convenience. We shouldn't shirk it now because we don't want to be a stat in a pile of anonymous data.

I can't wait for the day my fridge orders me fresh milk because it sees I'm running low, or my microwave suggests a dating service because it sees I'm eating a ready-meal lasagne for one for the fifth day running.

Yes, we should all be wary. We don't want our freedoms sold down the river, one app at a time, nor do we want our data handed over to governments to be used to make our lives hell instead. But as long as we keep that healthy caution, there's no reason technology can't be trusted to make everything better.

Don't like it? Sell your iPhone, or don't buy one in the first place. It's probably only a matter of time before a phone comes out which sells itself on the sole premise that it won't track your data, won't analyse your habits or make reccommendations.

But for everyone else, it's a brave new world. And it's damn exciting.

Wii 2: HD, Blu-ray - What if the rumours are true?

The sequel to Nintendo's world-storming Wii console is close. Very close. That's what rumours bursting from inside the industry would have us believe, with most tipping an unveiling at this year's E3 convention - the annual games industry shin-dig where new tech has always been shown off.

It will be HD - but that's a given these days. What's more interesting is that the rumours say it will have a controller with a HD touchscreen, as well as use Blu-ray and a meaty quad-core processor to deliver graphics which are ahead of PS3 and Xbox 360 levels whilst still remaining innovative.

Whilst these rumours should be treated with caution, it is intriguing that the French site which revealed these specs - 01.net - also leaked the final specs of Sony's 'PSP2', the NGP, before the device was made public.


If the rumours are true, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo manages to market the console to its more recent target audience of families and social gamers as opposed to the Modern Warfare, dark room, headset types who will no doubt be more at ease with a high-spec, high-price console than the mums who just want to play Wii Fit.

It would mark a serious departure from Nintendo's low-graphics, high-innovation approach which has seen it sell 225 million DS and Wii consoles in six years.

If Nintendo does return to targeting a more typical gamer audience, it might at once alienate its most recent fans whilst struggling to claw back old fans who grew disillusioned with Wii Play and Brain Training and moved to Xbox or PS3 to get their fix.

The new 3DS might give us some idea. The handheld may not be the most powerful thing ever created, but it does smash the PSP and deliver graphics capable of beating Wii - and in 3D. And with games like Pro Evolution Soccer, Ridge Racer and Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D promising deep experiences rather than light family fare, it marks a shift in focus for Nintendo back to its more traditional roots. The price - £230 - is more than double the launch price of the £99 DS, leaving all but the most fanatical for the device unlikely to open their wallets.

A console which delivers the likes of Zelda, Metroid and Mario Galaxy in glorious HD is a dream to any Nintendo fan, but where does it leave the new crowd?

The controller may provide the answer. While I'm not sure why you'd need a HD screen on a controller (the aspect of the rumour I'm most suspicious of), if it were true that the Wii 2 will use a controller with a touch screen, it would be a way of marketing the console as something a bit different.

Cue adverts of families playing Monopoly on their Wii 2 with their money laid out on their remote screen, or playing 'silly' mini-games whilst smiling un-naturally. Even if it weren't the controller, but some other gimmick (a projector has been rumoured, meaning the console wouldn't need a TV to be played), there is likely to be something to make the console stand out.

There is a danger, though - as there is with 3DS' 3D screen - that the headline feature, the touchscreen controller, thrown in to make the mainstream take notice simply won't do the trick.

That would leave Nintendo in a vulnerable position. PS4 and NeXtbox will likely beat Wii 2 graphics, leaving most developers to make games for that pairing, leaving Wii 2 with only ports of old games (even if those 'old games' are today's PS3 and 360 titles) and the likes of Mario for owners to play. Except they wouldn't have the mass market to fall back on.

On the flipside, it could take the mass market while bringing in the 'hardcore', too, capturing both markets just like the mighty PS2 managed.

Either way, it's going to be an interesting 12 months for the industry's most unconventional of companies.

iPad 2 does 3D screen trick

Researchers in France have managed to get '3D' images to display on iPads using camera-based head tracking.

Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay, from EHCI research group have created a program which shows 3D images on the tablet's 9.7 inch screen.

The program uses the devices' front-mounted cameras to track your face. It then moves and tilts the image on-screen so it looks like a 3D image, with real depth.

The difference between this and a 3DTV or a 3DS is that it's just a trick - it isn't really showing 3D at all, and in fact it can run on any normal iPad or iPhone.

DSi's '3D' game, Looksley's Line Up

This trick has actually been seen before - on Nintendo's DSi. Looksley's Line Up, a downloadable DSiWare title, released last year and it used the DSi's front camera to create supposed 3D.

3D is all the rage this year, with 3DS recently becoming the first glasses-free 3D device to hit the mass market and phone-makers LG looking to follow suit with the LG Optimus, the world's first 3D smartphone.


Whether Apple actually take the French pair's research and apply it to their apps and firmware remains to be seen - but it shows how 3D content is being delivered in ever more clever ways.

3DS QR Code

Just a quick update before my next blog proper - for any readers with a 3DS, here's my QR code so you can scan and save my Mii to your system, should you so desire.

It's amazing to think that just a few years ago, we all had 0.1 megapixel cameras on our phones, and now almost every device can compare prices on almost any item just by having a shufty at the box's barcode, enter competitions or swap data - like Miis - in an instant.

If anyone else wants to post their own QR code in the comments below, feel free - it'll be like a Prose and Consoles Mii love-in.

Can the iPad really kill the newspaper?

It's 7am: you lean over your toast, pour some orange juice and flick through the morning paper, chewing over the news while chewing your breakfast.

Only, it's not a 'paper' at all, it's a big square lump of plastic, glass and silicon - an iPad, running the top news apps, flashing up the latest headlines.

For thousands, this scene is already a reality - but will a future where every newspaper is delivered digitally, instantly, and in a proper newspaper format, ever become the present?

What the iPad is packing in 2011 is already enough to put the traditional newspaper under threat if you're a Times reader. For £2 a week, you get the latest version of the paper streamed straight to your iPad every morning, with all the same headlines, pictures, text and layout as the traditional print version - except upgraded to be interactive. It literally marries the best bits of both formats into one impressive - and inexpensive - package.

Other news organisations have been slower off the mark, though. None of the others can boast a digital offering as complete or as comprehensive as Murdoch's outlet. But other papers are slowly coming on board, and it's only a matter of time before we see the likes of The Guardian, The Independent and The Sun get their papers digitised.

Even if we do get to the stage where every notable news outlet is offering their own complete-paper app, will it really spell the end for traditional ink and paper news?

Well, there are several hurdles to vault first. For one thing, iPads are expensive. Really, really expensive. Even if the tech-savvy, cash-rich of the 20-40 group gobble up pads and news apps like there's no tomorrow, that still leaves the rather sizeable group of everyone else who still like to read their news from a piece of paper.

Here in Sheffield, there are fiftysomething blokes in peaked caps whom I'm almost certain are never going to trade up their Daily Bilge for the iPad version while chatting about snuff in their local greasy spoon. Joking aside, there are literally millions of people who for one reason or another just won't take to reading newspapers in a digital form, even if it looks largely identical.

One option often mooted among the media is that papers should give free iPads out on a subscription model, like how mobile operators subsidise phones in exchange for your loyalty. To anyone with an interest in news but without the ability to stretch to £600, this is likely to be much more popular.

But even then, asking people to put another monthly subscription on their overheads, let alone carry a hefty slice of news device everywhere they go, is a big step.

But these are teething problems. The fact is, the iPad, Kindle and Android tablets are increasingly becoming home to a like-for-like version of traditional newspapers, complete with turnable pages and all the same content of a newspaper. One day, you'll wake up and each newspaper and magazine you subscribe to will have been wirelessly streamed to you in your sleep.

Whether that really means that one day, one truly sad day, the printing presses really will grind to a halt remains to be seen.

But you can be sure that if that day comes, you'll probably read the news on your iPad.

Is 3D really the future?

One day, you'll tell your grand-kids about ye old times when you drove a car which ran on explosive fuel, watched ITV without a 'talent' competition on it and looked at 2D pictures on every gadget's screen.

This week, a device released promising the 3D-screen experience for around £200 - about £1000 cheaper than any 3D-enabled kit so far. It does 3D movies, photos and games all without glasses - the Nintendo 3DS.

Heralded by many as the device which will finally break the uncertainty barrier keeping people from investing in 3D tech, the 3DS could well spark a revolution of sorts. Remember how after the DS launched, every piece of tech, from mobiles to printers, slapped on a touch screen? Or how every film suddenly rushed to slap (often rubbishy) 3D effects on their flicks after Avatar? The same could soon happen with 3D on the go.

The iPhone 5 is rumoured to be packing 3D. LG are already prepping their 3D mobile - the LG Optimus 3D - while TV companies charging over a grand for a flatscreen which needs £150 glasses are suddenly scrambling around trying to do damage control.

But is it hype for nothing? After all, I've seen many a person struggle on with a touch screen, wishing they'd stuck with the cosy comfort of proper buttons.

Similarly, many people complain of sickness, nausea and headaches when viewing 3D images. Just today, The Sun ran a scaremongering attack on the 3DS, citing the views of "The Sun Doctor" (I'm not making this up) who said the 3D effect was 'unnatural' and will make your brain explode, or something.

But there may be something to the reports. And leaving the queasy aside, there's still people with weak vision and lazy eyes, or missing eyes (honest) who can't see 3D at all.

And to top it all off, we've been here before. Feast your eyes on this film advert, for a movie released in 1922.


Now, 3D before they had talking parts was probably sprinting before we could gurgle, but the point is: we've had several 3D resurgences since and they've all failed too. Can it ever work?

Well for one thing, the glasses are gone - at least in the portable realm, and TVs will catch up some day.

For another thing, 3D is backed by Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, LG, Nintendo, Philips - pretty much anyone who's anything in the tech world.

Plus, the amount of 3D content available this year is astronomical. Sky Sports 3D, hundreds of 3D games both on 3DS and PS3, as well as several major 3D movie releases.

3D isn't the future, it's the present, and it's a great time to get on board.