Archive: 2008-03-08

  • Cracking open the iPlayer

    In what seems to be a burst of the kind over-enthusiasm that the iPhone inspires, someone at the BBC has set up a special version of the iPlayer for that shiny toy. It recognises the iPhone’s user agent and serves up standard MP4 files.

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  • The world’s most intrusive airport?

    I already make a point of avoiding Heathrow, one of the worst airports in the world. (My next flight, for example will be from London City via Schiphol in Amsterdam.)

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  • Pay no attention to the database behind the curtain

    The introduction of ID cards has been, so to speak, on the cards since the instinctively authoritarian Tony Blair and David Blunkett were in power. Since first proposed, the ID card has gone through many changes of identity, being promoted as a solution to a progression of bogeymen, including immigrants, benefits cheats, and terrorists. It wouldn’t surprise me if paedophiles were in there somewhere, too. Throughout all this, it’s been clear that it’s been the idea of identity cards that’s come first, with the rationalisations being very much ex post facto.

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