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Perhaps the worst idea in the history of technology is the internet-connected fridge.

The idea, and it’s been around for at least a decade-and-a-half, is that your fridge will know what’s in it and be able to do things like order milk when you’re running low. Or, it’ll be able to suggest recipes based on what you happen to have sitting in it, slowly going off.

It’s madness. People don’t think, or work like that.

Anyway, on Wednesday last week I was at the a BLN’s “CEO Tales� talk on the

I’m pleased to announce that the first will be held at the Apex City of London Hotel on Wednesday 26th March at 6:30pm.

The principal aim of the CIO Innovators� Forum is to bring CIOs together to talk about their projects and learn from one another.

Every CIO has a story to tell. A project that went well that want to share, or perhaps one that isn’t going so well that they want to seek advice for.

The focus is on how CIOs are enabling post-PC, mobile, and digital life innov...

I’ll be honest with you � I’ve never understood the fine detail of my energy bills. They arrive, I’m surprised at how much I’m expected to pay, and then I pay it. Greater transparency on what these bills look like does need to happen.

Today we’ve learned that the government is going to mandate energy providers .

The good side of this is that it’s opening up the data from the energy companies to the benefit of the end customers.

The bad side of this is that it’s be...

Over the past week I’ve had a small flurry of newcomers to Windows 8 come to me for help. What seems to bamboozle users more than anything else is related to the Old Windows, New Windows mismatch � specifically that when you’re in an Old Windows application and end up jumping to a New Windows app, most non-technologist users get stuck.

A good example of this is opening an picture attachment within Outlook and ending up in the Metro-style photo app. When you do this, everything disappears but t...

Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to talk about on Radio 4′s .

Before I left, I took some notes in Evernote so that if needed I could refer to specific facts and figures. (The fact, by the way, that the presenter David Eades and the producer were bowled over by was that .)

When I was driving down there, one thing occurred. If I had taken notes on a PC, I likely wouldn’t hav...

“Customer-driven�, “customer-focused�, and “customer-centric� are the sort of terms often bandied around, but often used without much weight. All business consider their customers, for the simple reason that a business that does not do this won’t be in business very long.

Being customer-driven is important, but in reality what most businesses aim for is being market-driven. Customer-driven only considers one dimension � i.e. the customer. Market-driven considers the customer, the business’s co...

Personally, I find Chromebooks utterly fascinating. In June this year they’ll approach their third anniversary. In all that time, they’ve never managed to hit a point where they have been fundamentally appreciated en masse.

The funny thing about them is that they just amazing and fantastic machines. Just today my friend and ZDNet colleague David Gewirtz wrote a piece about . Last year I wrote a piece about how much . Another friend and ZDNet...

Yesterday, I wrote a ZDNet piece on how . In doing so, I noticed something interesting.

A lot of the apps in the top free charts for Windows 8 in the UK are produced by Disney. Of the top 30 apps, eight of them (i.e. about a quarter) are produced by Disney. They are “Monsters University�, “Wreck-it Ralph�, “Toy Story: Smash It�, Avengers Initiative�, “Where’s My Mickey XL�, “Where’s My Water�, “Where’s My Water? 2�, and “Where’s My Perry?�.

Some of those apps are p...

In-app purchasing (IAP) can be a big headache for parents. It’s very easy to end up with your kid buying hundreds of pounds worth of princess hairdos, rainbow pixie dust, and pony food.

in this regard, but in fairness what else can they do? ISVs have found a way to in IAP. This system works for everyone in a broad sense. It just needs a little adjustment to stop people getting bill...

The (aka “Threshold�), the Start menu is coming back, and you’ll be able to run Metro-style apps in popup windows.

Really, you could file this one under “what else could they do?�

I’ve written a lot about Windows 8. I’ve covered being from being positive about it, to being negative about it, to everything in-between. What I’ve learned over the period is that that there is one one thing that matters: “people don’t like it�.

And if you’re in business, building somethi...