Recent Blog Posts

At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, some retailers had to deal with gaps in their supply chain as customers stockpiled on essential goods. For others, the transition to a remote workforce was ...

The fiasco with the calculations for A-Level result marks has projected the unfairness of algorithms into the spotlight. In modern society, such algorithms act as black boxes that make fundamental ...

If the experts are to be believed, quantum computers will radically change problem solving. IBM recently held  an event to explore the skills gap that exists between the education system and ...

July has been a busy month for us, a month that is traditionally dotted with enterprise tech events that have since been moved online amid the Covid-19 pandemic. On the sidelines of ...

Lancashire’s Cronkshaw Fold Farm is pimping out its portfolio of goats for video-conference appearances to fund its investment in renewable technology. That’s right, at just a fiver a pop, remote ...

As the IT conference season heads into peak season, the CEOs of the top tech firms have used these large global gatherings as a platform to speak out on racism. In his keynote kicking off the HPE ...

Since the lockdown began on March 24, UK tech workers have shown that they can adapt and develop new processes very quickly to enable many people to remain productive during the Coronavirus ...

At Computer Weekly, we strive to provide the latest news and independent advice to help IT decision makers navigate the changing IT industry landscape. While we hope our readers like you have found ...

COVID 19: Accelerating the need for business transformation in the print industry Quocirca recently conducted a snapshot online survey between 31st March and 7th April 2020 to understand the impact ...

This is a guest post by Srinivasan CR, chief digital officer, Tata Communications No matter how much technology keeps evolving, making predictions about the future is always a risky business. But ...

This is a guest post by Simon Piff, vice-president of security practice at IDC Asia-Pacific The essence of IDC’s predictions for 2020 is about efficiency, velocity and productivity in this era of ...

During Gartner’s recent Symposium event in Barcelona, CIOs heard the latest thinking from the analyst firm about where it sees the role of IT leader heading. Each year, CIOs head to the Symposium ...

In just under three years, tech veteran Ramesh Munamarty has accomplished what some of his peers can only dream of – building an agile culture, shoring up the IT infrastructure and delivering ...

The increasing use of renewable energy, consumer expectations of digital services and market liberalisation are some of the forces that have been reshaping Singapore’s energy industry in recent ...

“Once you put someone in orbit, it is a lot harder to fix it if something goes wrong,” says Paul Kostek, a senior Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) member and senior systems ...

There are certain functions in database administration, that are good candidates for automation. These are the nuts and bolts of the job - like how to partition the storage, what happens if a disk ...

Words have power – in particular, your choice of words modifies how your readers or listeners react to what you write or say. Politicians do this sort of thing all the time, swapping one word or ...

The recent story reported in Computer Weekly about Revlon’s SAP woes, illustrates the importance of tech due diligence. Its CTO, Chau Banks, who previously worked as CIO at New York & Company, ...

The digital transformation of government and public service delivery is well under way and is by now – hopefully – unstoppable. It’s taken longer to get here than it should have, and it will take ...

Tech gossip doesn’t get steamier than the richest person in the world, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, being blackmailed with his own dick pics by The National Enquirer. But why would he mind who has to ...

Sometimes reporting the latest tech news at Computer Weekly throws up an entertaining juxtaposition. Take these two headlines, for example, from last week: TechUK calls on Matt Hancock to ...

Dominic Raab, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, has been in hot water for his late-dawning admission of the importance of the Dover-Calais route to the UK’s trade in goods. Raab was ...

As we, seemingly, edge closer to something resembling a UK deal for leaving the European Union (and by the time you read this, that statement could quite possibly have been superseded by events), ...

Earlier this week, all members of Computer Weekly’s APAC CIO advisory panel gathered for the first time to share their thoughts on digital transformation and what the overused term means to them. ...

When analysts and journalists write about Agile and DevOps, the focus is typically on the technology and infrastructure – what it means for software and systems development in an age when the ...

Amid the global debate about trade tariffs, prompted by US president Donald Trump’s unorthodox economic policies, it’s little remarked that the digital economy is largely untouched by the ...

This is a guest blogpost by Mikael Lindmark, a senior vice president at SAP Fieldglass As CIOs and other executives across enterprises turn to contractors, freelancers and other external workers to ...

Singapore Airlines (SIA) has been on roll lately with a slew of announcements that it hopes will cement its position as a leading carrier amid stiff competition from premium rivals and low-cost ...

The Brexit impact studies that never were make for embarrassing reading: the UK is being driven towards a cliff by a driver without a licence and in a vehicle that has not had an MoT test

The hype over digital transformation is tapering off. Organisations in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are now confronting the realities of rolling out digitalisation initiatives, many of which are ...

It would be churlish not to applaud the government’s pre-Budget commitments to the tech sector – an increase in funding to support tech startups and expanding visa availability for bringing in top ...

Politics, rightly or wrongly, has an impact on government technology projects. It’s an inevitable part of having a democracy and political prowess can be used to drive transformation, but can it ...

More countries are rushing to make their cities smarter, by driving the use of technology – though that may not always be fully appreciated by citizens. Take Singapore, one of the poster boys for ...

A new survey by Gartner has found that CEOs in the Asia-Pacific region believe that “conventional technologies” such as cloud, ERP, analytics and CRM will help them to improve productivity, rather ...

Let’s start with the disclosure. I voted for the UK to remain in the European Union (EU). My reasoning at the time was that the EU is an over-bureaucratic, dysfunctional organisation that ought to ...

An application that is difficult to use may not be used - individuals will find workarounds. An application that provides greater value than the effort of using it will be firmly embraced. Make ...

It’s probably fair to say that the world doesn’t need another journalist trying to explain why Donald Trump won the US presidency right now. Nonetheless, I think that we in the technology sector ...

Yesterday saw the departure of another senior figure at the Government Digital Service (GDS) as Gov.uk Verify director Janet Hughes announced she is leaving. The news, which came only weeks after ...

Taking a look at the lighter side of IT - technology may be a serious business but it rarely fails to raise a smile too.

The software developer community's commitment to poor posture has been laid bare in a blog, showcasing the wide variety of inventive ways coders have found to punish their spines over the course of ...

The UK government culture secretary John Whittingdale - the minister in charge of overseeing the British media industry - has been in embroiled in allegations this week after reports suggested that ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to take over the world, steal all our jobs and ultimately subjugate us all - or so we are told.We've seen IBM's AI system, Watson, beat humans on the US game ...

The decision to allow people on the internet to have their say in anything has backfired again, this time on the Natural Environment Research Council

Someone has finally found a use for London's ubiquitous pigeon population that involves fitting their fat, feathery bodies with tiny air pollution-detecting backpacks. The bird-brained scheme has ...

What happens when the cute autonomous robot falls into the wrong hands?

Londoners were all a-twitter this week when a "software bug" apparently caused the London Underground API to tell all the apps that use its live transport data that every Tube line in the capital ...

The younger generation are so obsessed with technology they've been given the hotly debated label "digital natives" who go nowhere without at least one device glued to their person. But what the ...

In the Mike Nichols 1967 classic The Graduate, Mr Maguire tells Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin, "There is a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?So nearly half a century on, ...

Scientists thought for a moment that they had made the momentous discovery of a spider with nine legs, but were disappointed to find the said arachnid actually had a hard-on.Not just a hard-on, but ...

The Dutch police has launched an initiative to target drones. We've some people use air rifles to shoot down drones. Now here's a totally natural alternative: a proper bird of prey who will happily ...

Jones has not had much success with Version 1 of his efforts to connect his washing machine to the internet. But help is at hand. Panasonic is working on creating a 'Laundroid,' a washing machine ...

It had all the ingredients for a smart way of letting London's tech talent know that they exist, but one company in the recruitment game didn't bank on Michelin Star tastes Clozer, which is a ...

Two seat sports cars could regain top billing for those entering their middle ages as a US state gets tough on drone enthusiasts.The sports car industry has been suffering since the popularity of ...

As a regular train user, what better way to waste time on a delayed service, than delve into a bit of analytics on the daily commute. First, trains are less busy on Monday - because most of us ...

Samsung's latest refrigerator promises to make grocery shopping easy and spice up life in the Kitchen.The South Korean tech firm announced its Family Hub refrigerator at the Consumer Electronics ...

Downtime knows it is talking to the faithful in recounting tales of mobile phone batteries that never last long enough and always run out of power at the most inopportune moments. But now, ...

Now that it is no longer constrained by simply being HP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) seems it will be opening up a late night drinking joint at 1 Aldermanbury Square EC2V 7HR, a short walk ...

Nasa technologists have brought many great innovations into our lives as a result of spin-offs from space development - artificial limbs, scratch-resistant lenses, portable cordless vacuum ...

A video by Ocado Technology asks parents of technologists to describe what their children do at work, revealing how little they know. Parents who have children currently employed in the technology ...

Apparently close to one in three business executives responded to recent research from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) admitting their office is still 'piled high' with ...

A Google employee is living in a van in the car park outside his office in a bid to save money. Yes 23 year old Brandon has been blogging about it.Apparently the cost of accommodation and travel in ...

Never give a sub-editor an excuse.

Downtime regulars may already know that in future, we won't own or buy stuff anymore, we'll all share with everyone else in a big, cuddly, let's-all-have-a-spliff-around-the-campfire, tree-hugging ...

The increasing need for software development and web-based digital skills is a hot topic these days, and it's hard to go more than a week without hearing about how in-demand the tech savvy are. But ...

Paul Donnellonwww.voodoodog.com

IT people always talk about aligning IT with the business. So if you head up IT for Arsenal, Man U or whoever, what's the priority from an IT perspective? Options are:Put Wi-FI in the stadiumFigure ...

Michael Dell pulls off another miracle with his acquisition of EMC

2014 2015It seems the big brains creating the robots that will take over the mundane tasks that humans have to do, otherwise known as a 'fair day's work for a fair day's pay,' want robots to have ...

pauldonnellon.com

A couple of months ago loo roll maker, Charmin developed an app that helps people find the nearest public lavatory.The Sit or Squat app identifies nearby bathrooms (along with ratings) for those ...

Apparently, 41% of Brits claim their busy professional and personal lives mean they would invest in some sort of help which means they don't have to do housework, if they could afford it. So now ...

Trust in high quality software

Congratulations to mobile operator O2, which may finally have found a way to put an end to the most tedious and embarrassing aspect of the consumer digital revolution.With Apple releasing the ...

Microsoft-backed startup Skoove has set its sights on helping aspiring piano players learn their craft by offering them online access to the "best elements" of having a real-life tutor. According ...

Rumour has it that John McAfee has entered the US president race. The founder of McAfee AV software, who is on the run from Belize police investigating the murder of his neighbour, looks set to run ...

They say whatever happens in the US in technology terms hits the UK soon after. Delivery companies in the UK should therefore take note of what is happening in the US.The business opportunities ...

Oracle has introduced a new perpetual user licence agreement - or Pula for short. How the It industry loves acronyms. It's also a four letter word in Romania...something that Wikipedia calls a ...

For reasons unknown, furniture retailer Bright House has commissioned some boffins to investigate the cleanliness of a range of living room items, including laptops, smartphones and tablets.Their ...

Ofcom should relinquish control of its time machine to BT's Adastral Park boffins immediately, for the greater good.

In Downtime's experience, Uber users tend to be a smug bunch, who love boring on about how much cheaper their cab journeys home have become since downloading the taxi-booking app. No longer do they ...

A group of UK conservationists have begun using GPS tags, heart rate monitors and cameras on Rhinos to deter poachers. The project is run by the not-for-profit group Protect which developed the ...

The prospects for light-hearted political point-scoring were high at this week's TechUK annual dinner in London, with Conservative digital economy minister Ed Vaizey and former Labour spin doctor ...

Are you a smartphone user that's ever struggled to recall the mobile phone numbers of your significant others? Then you, dear reader, could be a digital amnesiac. According to Kaspersky Lab, it's a ...

Heinz went red in the face recently as one of its consumers pointed out a QR code on the back of its Tomato Ketchup bottles pointed towards a porn site. The brand had set up the interactive codes ...

The Turing Test is a famous challenge to computer scientists to create an artificial intelligence machine that is so convincing people believe they are talking to a real human being. Meanwhile, it ...

Virgin Money is not in the business of castration but is determined to use new technology to rid the finance sector of bollocks.The challenger bank claims new technology that allows bank cards to ...

For reasons passing all understanding, supermarket chain Asda polled their customers on what they would like to see on their dream barbecue.

A hunt has been launched for an elderly lady in America who unwittingly dumped a rare Apple I computer, worth more than £130,000, at a recycling centre.The lady in question donated the computer, ...

A Swedish start-up has set out to help recruiters streamline the way they source potential new recruits by replacing paper-based CVs and tiresome application forms with video pitches. To apply for ...

Scientists are attempting to find a link between workers viewing porn and productivity increases.This is after research from security firm Blue Coat Systems found workers in China, the world's ...

Google has revoked the right for users to edit and update the content of its Maps after some ne'er do wells decided to deface them with racial slurs and offensive images.Readers, believe us when we ...

Everyone knows the internet was invented for cats. You can't go anywhere online without the furry critters popping up in everything you do, from social media to professional emails. But on the day ...

With Apple's most recent iOS 8.3 release came hundreds of new emoticons for the emoji keyboard, including new multiracial characters and more diverse relationship couplings. This is something many ...

There's no getting away from the fact that the quaint Berkshire town of Slough has an image problem, with the general perception being that it's an ugly place with a funny smell. That's not us ...

The name Lucas Hinch may not be immediately familiar to you, but we sense he may go on to become a folk hero in computing circles, in light of his dramatic approach to PC tech support. Having grown ...

Those struggling to access rural broadband services can thank their lucky stars that they don't have to deal with monkeys.

The industry's jolly japes on April Fools' Day miss the point of April Fools' Day

Everyone is caught up in the BYOD revolution, and the flexibility it brings mean more people are emailing from anywhere using whatever gadget they have on them. Unfortunately it seems that ...

A press release came through to the Downtime inbox in the lead-up to Easter warning consumers to be aware of fake branded chocolate bars being sold, presumably over the internet or otherwise. An ...

Rumour and speculation is the fuel that much of the tech journalism world runs on, and for press officers working at firms like Google, responding to it all must be a wearying experience. So much ...