Technology
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The Human Cost of Our Phones
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2019 was another year of “techlash,” of outrage against social media’s continued spread of Fake News and conspiracy theories, its purposefully addictive designs, and its insidious invasion of our privacy. Past excitement about the power of social networks to change the world for the better has all but vanished: at the start of this new…
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What Are the Best Ethical Alternatives to Medium?
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Medium, an online publishing platform launched in 2012, is fairly well known in the blogosphere, offering a quick and easy entry point if you need somewhere to host writing about almost any topic. A number of reasonably professional publications exist on the platform. Medium also hired a variety of big-name writers over the past few…
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Smartphone Savvy: How to Buy a New Mobile Without It Costing the Earth
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According to Ofcom, 78% of us use a smartphone in the UK, that percentage lifts to 95% if you are aged between 16-24. We’re never far from our phones, checking them on average every 12 minutes. We are the connected generation, the ‘I’ll just ask Google’ learners and the responders to the various beeps, buzzes…
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What Is Ethical Hacking and Why Is It Important?
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‘Ethical hacking’ seems like a misnomer. Hacking into somebody’s account or service doesn’t seem very ethical – but you might be surprised by the good it can do. Nowadays, with a bit of know-how and a connection to the internet, anyone can be a hacker, so here’s the lowdown on doing it ethically. While most…
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Microsoft Alternatives Guide: How (and Why) to Avoid Microsoft
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Microsoft is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, recording $126bn in annual revenue for 2018. This 14% increase on the previous year helped it displace Apple as most valuable US company at the time. It’s a startling position considering the company’s struggles back in 2012, posting their first ever quarterly loss after…
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OMG CLIMATE | A Free Community-Run, Open-Space Event around Tech and Climate Change
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Talk about it! It’s one of the first things you can do about the climate crisis, and one of the main pieces of advice anyone from climate scientists to engineers and teachers would give. But it needs to be constructive talk in conjunction with action. This series of unconferences explores complicated topics (last year it…
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Mindful Tech: Do These 8 Mindfulness Apps Practise What They Preach?
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It’s becoming increasingly clear that modern tech is having a serious impact on our wellbeing. And unlike drug or alcohol abuse, the effects aren’t always visible. But that doesn’t mean it’s not damaging to us—particularly because modern society demands a certain level of dependence on it. So what can we do about it? One method…
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How to Reduce Your Internet Carbon Footprint
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About three years ago, I found out that the internet has a carbon footprint. While browsing, I clicked on an article about Bitcoin and discovered that mining cryptocurrencies uses unfathomable amounts of energy. In fact, it uses so much processing power that the best option for many cryptocurrencies is to house their servers in Icelandic…
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What is Open-Source Software? A Definition & History of OSS
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Open-source software (OSS) sounds almost too good to be true. The term is used to describe computer software and products that can be adapted and implemented for free, giving full access to the source code for anyone to use and modify. This is in stark contrast to commercial software (or closed source software), where developers…