A new year always seems like the time to make predictions for the next twelve months; however, as somebody once said, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. So, this year, rather than trying to guess what will happen, I’ll list some things that won’t happen. Frankly, I’m more likely to be right.
;)
I am always pleased to hear from readers for any reason but in particular I’m happy to try to resolve any computer or internet related headaches you may have. If I can’t help, I may be able to point you in the right direction.
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We all think of Google as a pillar of the web; even though it’s only been around for twenty years. However, it’s worth remembering that nothing is permanent, however big it might get. Remember Blockbuster Video Rentals?
It now seems possible that even Google will finally see some sort of competition, and it’s from one of the few organisations big enough to take it on: Apple.
If you look closely at the latest version of the software that runs the iPhone, you’ll see a tiny change to how its search function works. Apple has started to show its own search engine’s results, rather than Google’s, which had been the arrangement hitherto.
Search engines only make money if they have lots of users; if someone takes over some of their traffic, income drops. Perhaps none of this should surprise us; Apple poached Google’s Scottish head of search in 2018, and I doubt that he was hired just to sit quietly in a corner.
The industry gossip is that Google sees this as a warning shot, reminding them that they are not the only game in town.
I have now attended my first online funeral and digital wake; they were unexpectedly heartening experiences, despite my considerable forebodings.
One week into the Coronavirus lockdown, my mother died; it was no tragedy, she died of ‘old age’, mercifully, not infected by Covid-19. Nevertheless, that virus casts a long shadow, and it affected many aspects of her final days, her demise and her cremation. We would have found it all much tougher without the internet and help from an industry new to me, called ‘bereavement technology services’. It would have been very different twenty years, or even ten years, ago.
Few of us are old enough to remember VE Day, but my mother did; she was 21 a few days before it happened. At the time she was working for the glamorous American magazine Time Life, and was sent out into Piccadilly Circus to report. By accident, the Picture Post took her photo, watching a group of dancers, a picture which is often reproduced; she is the young woman in the white shoes.
Sadly, for me, she didn’t quite live to see today, athough there was no doubt her time had come. However, she always said that her astonishingly positive, glass half full, find the best in people, make the most of life and cope with whatever it throws at you approach was born of gratitude for surviving the war. It was an approach that carried right through to her nursing home this year, and has long inspired my own attitude to life.
RIP
The big computing news this week is Google’s claims to have made a major breakthrough in quantum computing. My favourite part of the whole thing is the picture of Google’s machine; it is a splendidly Heath Robinson sort of affair, with more than a hint of Colossus, the code breaking computer created at Bletchley Park all those year ago. See for yourself.
An eye-opener. All the information available in this video was obtained from the children’s public profiles in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Whatsapp. Think before you post and protect your privacy on social networks.
I recently wrote about the poor placing of one of those green Broadband cabinets that are popping up all over the place; in our village, it has been installed in a spot that is not only unsightly but dangerous, as it obscures the view for drivers at a junction.
As ever, my readers have come up trumps, and I have received this excellent guide to fighting the problem. Not for the faint-hearted, but worth a try.
