Richard MacManus

In last week’s column, I predicted that the government’s digital identity service RealMe will eventually be used for online voting. I was surprised to discover this is a divisive issue, since some people think online voting will never (or at least should never) happen. Others – including parts of the New Zealand government – think … Read more

It’s an interesting time to be growing a centralized online identity service, like the government’s RealMe. That’s because the current trend in web development is to decentralize. After seeing the damage done to our society in recent years by government-sponsored hackers let loose on large, centralized apps like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, developers the world … Read more

My recent column about startups in New Zealand raised some hackles in the local tech scene. I had argued there were too few startup success stories coming out of our startup accelerators (and certainly no unicorns). Others responded that while we may not be churning out multi-million dollar startups, accelerators are helping to train entrepreneurs. … Read more

At the beginning of the year, cryptocurrencies were riding high. Bitcoin reached US$17,000 in early January, while Ethereum rose to just under US$1,400. But since then, it’s been all downhill. Last week, Bitcoin dipped to around US$6,200 while Ethereum went below US$200 for the first time since July 2017. I must admit, I had been … Read more

For many years, Facebook’s motto was “move fast and break things.” Indeed, that pretty much describes the ethos of all of Silicon Valley over the past couple of decades. The goal of companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple – at least for online services – has been to grow rapidly and fix any mistakes … Read more

Many of New Zealand’s young or inexperienced entrepreneurs start their journey at a startup accelerator. These are typically three to five month programmes designed to help entrepreneurs take their ideas and make them a commercial reality. The idea is to match founders with so-called “mentors” – who are often angel investors looking to find (and … Read more

Raising money for a startup used to be difficult, but now there are almost too many options. Venture capital, angel investment, startup accelerators, crowdfunding, private equity, IPO, and now cryptocurrency ICOs are all potential avenues for early stage businesses. Traditionally, startups have raised “seed rounds” from angel investors or accelerators, and then gone onto larger … Read more

Nobody really knows the true impact of digital technology on our children, because this is the first generation to grow up in an all-digital environment. However, some are questioning whether digital technology is doing more harm than good to our kids. In a recent interview with The Telegraph, British scientist Baroness Susan Greenfield said she … Read more

Facebook has a content problem; and it goes way beyond political meddling or “fake news.” Fundamentally, Facebook is grappling with the issue of free speech. At least, that’s what its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks. In a recent interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Zuckerberg pointed out that “the US has a very rich tradition … Read more

This month, New Zealand got just its second undersea internet cable directly connecting us to the United States. The Hawaiki cable is a 15,000 km fibre optic deep-sea cable that runs from Pacific City in Oregon, on the west coast of the US, all the way to the top of New Zealand’s North Island at … Read more

By the end of 2017, even Facebook was admitting social media is bad for us. The biggest social media company in the world simply could no longer ignore the side effects: fake news, constant outrage, polarised opinions, tribalism, groupthink, virtue signalling, and all the other ills of our internet culture. Yet despite Facebook’s promise to “help … Read more

Online shopping continues to grow in popularity. Last year kiwis spent $3.6 billion online, an increase of 13 percent over the previous year. That’s according to a new report commissioned by NZ Post, which has a vested interest in the success of online shopping. After all, someone has to deliver all those goods bought in … Read more

Digital payments continue to grow in popularity every year, thanks to technologies like tap-and-go cards and smartphone apps like Square. Add to that the wild west promise of cryptocurrencies, which could yet disrupt the financial landscape, and the future for bank notes and coins seems grim. Even the Reserve Bank is thinking about issuing a … Read more

As artificial intelligence becomes prevalent in society, computers are increasingly making autonomous decisions that affect us all. Not surprisingly, it turns out that computer software can be just as biased in decision-making as its human programmers. In a recent New York Times opinion piece, MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini wrote that artificial intelligence can “reinforce bias … Read more

The big farming news of the year so far has been an outbreak of the mycoplasma bovis disease in cows, which forced the government to come up with an $886 million eradication plan last month. But as this month’s Fieldays event showed, it’s not all bad news in our farming sector. When it comes to farm … Read more