Television advert breaks are now full of children playing with radio-controlled cars, anorexic dolls that cry crocodile tears, short-range projectile weapons and robots, so Christmas is officially on its way. But the manufacturers of conventional toys ...

Some readers were sceptical about my earlier column on the use of computers and cameras (here). Since I wrote that column, there have been one or two new developments in the world of computer-aided surveillance. First, ...

Volvo recently admitted that some of its dealers had illegally worked to keep new car prices artificially high in the UK. Volkswagen has been penalised for similar crimes elsewhere in Europe. There's evidence that other manufacturers ...

Hype is far more dangerous than any computer virus. Over the last few months, virii such as Melissa and Worm.ExploreZip have wreaked havoc on many companies' and home users' PCs, destroying data and usefully highlighting two ...

Some readers may have gleaned from various news sources that the next piece of code to emerge from Microsoft's heaving software foundries will not be a finished product at all. No change there, I hear the ...

Some journalist colleagues were recently discussing the effect of the Internet on UK censorship laws, particularly those relating to pornography. Where 'obscene' material is concerned, the UK has some of the strongest censorship laws in Europe, ...

The various conflicts in Iraq over the past decade have had an interesting effect on the public perception of war. To us in the UK, thousands of miles away from the battleground, it can seem that ...

Ever wondered what would happen if the PC on your desk was cleverer than you? At the moment, PCs may be powerful but they certainly aren't clever. Performing millions of operations in a matter of seconds ...

If you asked a friend or colleague what his new PC was like and he said "Housed in a beige tower casing, my new computer is powered by a 450MHz Intel Pentium II processor backed by ...

Hurrah! As I write this it's 4pm on the last day of 1998. A day when half the country goes wild with over-indulgence in everything - mainly drink, bad dancing and unwanted sexual advances - while ...

The widespread use of computers has far-reaching implications for the structure of our society. On the one hand, we have the benefits; menial office tasks are mostly computerised so we can concentrate on important work, we ...

Some readers will have noticed that September was a quiet month for IT Reviews, with only a handful of new reviews appearing on these pages. That's mostly my fault, first for going on holiday and subsequently ...

Just suppose that, within one randomly-selected software manufacturing house, there was a technical department consisting of a dozen individuals. Despite the technical nature of the company in general, these twelve people were by far the most ...

If ever proof were needed of the validity of the Chaos Theory, the British economy provides it a-plenty. Just when it seemed that everything was going really well, with a fresh new government, a steadily improving ...

"Two thousand zero zero, party over, oops, out of time". So sang the diminutive purple pop star, Prince, before he became AFKAP. And he, along with plenty of prophets and doom-merchants, may be right. The year ...

Thursday the 25th of June saw the launch of Windows 98, Microsoft's evolutionary development of its desktop operating system and one that is aimed more at consumer users than businesses. The latter should, apparently, be looking ...

Few of the early computer users could have guessed what the future held in store. Those keen enthusiasts in this country who bought Sinclair ZX80s, ZX81s and Spectrums, Oric Ones, BBC Micros, Commodore 64s and VIC20s ...

Launch! Little more than a month after the first planning meeting, the UK's newest electronic computer magazine is live on the Web. IT Reviews is a totally independent site aimed at bringing honest reviews to you, ...