Amazon Fail

I am so late to the party...I know, I know.

What makes it worse is that over the Easter weekend I actually watched the whole Amazon Fail debacle unfold on Twitter. For anyone who needs to catch up - this is where Amazon decided to remove some books from search results because of what they felt was Adult Content - basically de-ranking the books without really thinking about the context of the content.

For an author - this is seriously bad news, but for a consumer - I don't want Amazon censoring my searches. I like the recommended books - I like generic searches to bring up stuff I might be interested in.

Is it really anything to do with child safety? How many kids are shopping for books on Amazon - or have a missed a trick with these digital natives?

I have less of a problem with talk of monitoring all Internet use than I do with retail sites censoring their searches. They don't sensor your search in Waterstones...I'm just saying - is this the rise of the high street again?

I'm tired of the Mac Love-in

I'm back - did you miss me? Whilst I've been away I've been stewing about Apple. It's certainly no holiday - it's been a pet stew of mine for the past 9 years. That's a long time to hold a grudge.

You could say it's because I've never owned anything made by Apple - in which case I'd gruffly mutter about wannabe's and how it's not all about looks.

But what's got my goat today is the CNet comparison of the iPhone vs the netbook - their 'extreme writing test' driving in a rally car to see which is more accurate on the text input under such conditions.

The iPhone won.

FIX.

The whole typing mechanism is so totally different - the thumb predictive text of the iPhone vs a laptop, key pad, two handed input. What the hell kind of comparison is that?

Flippin' Macophiles.

Electric Easter

At first glance, it seems so pointless - an electronic Easter egg that bleeps. But visually impaired children in Arizona State have been joining in the Easter egg hunting fun thanks to these seemingly pointless blue eggs.

It's one of those things you take for granted (Easter egg hunting that is...I do it all the time). But this simple concept has warmed my cockles on Good Friday.

Although I recon being in a field full of these squeaking eggs might be like a form of KGB interrogation rather than fun...

"Dear Sirs..."

I'm clearly a fan of companies doing right by their customers and the public. But I don't just complain for complaining's sake; I don't watch the television well into the night waiting to get offended and more often than not in stores I scurry out and moan in the privacy of my own home.

In fact I get really annoyed by the Daily Mail reading Great British Complainers, who clearly derive no joy from life.

Latest victim: Google Street View.

Some describe it as an "invitation to criminals" and an "invasion of privacy" while Google thinks it's only coming under fire because it's so successful.

I feel like I'm the only one who went straight to my house and zoomed in with the hope that I could see myself in there. Is that weird? And what are people doing in their homes that they're so worried about being caught on camera for anyway?

In my view, Google Street View is yet another source of great online entertainment - it's like the next generation of You've Been Framed (Sunday night tea-time-TV that I always thought was popular with the mainstream, Great British Complainer). I expect we'll see a lot more of these amusing screen shots posted over the coming weeks - like all the naked people there were on Google Earth. *gasp*