Comparing code courses for Wired UK

I had three goals for 2012: 1. Write for the Guardian 2. Write for Wired 3. Appear in a magazine The first happened in February, but for most of the year I've been busy covering rock news for Ultimate Guitar. Which is great, but it's important

Ignore Ive. In 2008, Apple said it's in this for the money

Jonathan Ive is widely credited with being the design genius who helped turn Apple's fortunes around in the late 1990s.  As a propagandist, he's underrated. Today Wired UK posted comments from Ive on how Apple's goal is not to make money, but to make

Apple probably wants HD-AAC for iTunes Match

Yesterday I reported in the Guardian on Apple's plans to upgrade its iTunes Match library to offer "adaptive streaming".The theory is, anything you re-download (or stream?) from iTunes Match will be at the best quality available for your device or connection speed. HD-AAC is developed

Spotify pays more than 1p per stream - sometimes

Spotify receives a lot of bad press for its tiny streaming royalties. At the last #sonicmeet, I told a skeptical Mike Hillier that Vienna Circle, a band whose second album I have been producing, have seen streaming payments in the pennies before. Sure, it's no flattering payment, but

At The Drive-In reunite. I react.

The band that changed my life is coming back from the dead. But there was a problem. Upon the cover was a sweating, wide-eyed lion of a man with an afro to match. Jesus Christ. I can't get into this, I thought. This is not for me. With

Did Facebook just kill check-in apps too?

I hated that ticker two days ago. Now it all makes sense. At F8 last night, Facebook introduced the idea of tracking your entire consumption history and feeding it in to facebook. The ticker was a way of sharing that information with friends without shoving into their newsfeed.  The biggest

Writing Steve Job's Obituary for CNET

It was 12:43am and I was playing an Xbox puzzle game with and old school friend. I got a text message through the service ifttt telling me Mac Rumors had been updated. It said Steve Jobs had passed away. I felt sick, for the wrong reason. I had been

The Impending 24-bit Audio Con

Note: The original post linked to my Gizmodo article now retitled to "Why 24-bit Audio Will Be Bad for Users" There's been some heavy discussions between engineers on twitter about the reports that consumers will be sold 24-bit audio. While on one hand we should be

Finding Radiohead's King of Limbs Tree

After hearing that Radiohead were naming their album after a tree in the nearby Savernake Forest, and as an obsessive fan, I had no choice but to find it. It took some work, but eventually I got there. The excellent music site DIY posted my pictures and story on it,

Insect Micro-sound

There was a story about Aphex Twin recording the sound of an insect crawling into a tap. I never heard the sound, but I liked to imagine the close-up made for long reverberating clicks and curious sub woofs. Knowing more about physics now, I know that description couldn't