Richard MacManus

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

In her recent annual report for the Internet industry, Mary Meeker noted that “China is catching up as a hub to the world’s biggest internet companies.” Nine of the top twenty Internet companies in the world, by market valuation, are Chinese. That puts China nearly on a par with the United States, where the other … Read more

Interactive gaming is one of New Zealand’s hottest startup segments and is attracting significant interest from technology companies overseas. Auckland’s Grinding Gear Games recently sold 80% of its company to Chinese Internet bohemeth Tencent, for north of $100 million. Tencent also holds a 25% stake in Dunedin’s RocketWerkz. Meanwhile, Wellington’s PikPok is still 100% locally … Read more

The government has announced an audit of algorithms operating in agencies like the Department of Health and the NZ Transport Agency. In particular, the audit will look closely at Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms. The project aims to “ensure transparency and fairness in decisions that affect citizens.” The announcement came just a few weeks after Minister … Read more

Last Thursday the second annual Creative Realities conference was held in Wellington, as part of Techweek 2018. Previously called Future Realities, this year’s conference was about the impact of technology on the creative industries. It was a timely switch in focus, because New Zealand has developed a reputation for tech-savvy companies in the creative sector: … Read more

Google may be harvesting huge amounts of data from Android phones in Australia, according to a report last week from The Australian. This isn’t a new claim; indeed we’ve known for a while now that Google and Apple receive a lot of personal data from Android and iOS phones respectively. What’s more interesting at this … Read more

Next week the European Union’s new privacy regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), comes into effect after a two-year transition period. It couldn’t be more timely, after the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica controversy which forced Mark Zuckerberg to front US Congress last month. The EU isn’t the only territory addressing ever-increasing privacy concerns; New Zealand has … Read more

Streaming tv services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Lightbox and Neon are becoming more and more popular. But how to measure the popularity of content on these services? In New Zealand and overseas, television networks have long relied on Nielsen’s PeopleMeter panel to calculate ratings for tv shows. Nielsen’s local contract was recently extended to … Read more