Robert X. Cringely - Author - PC World Australia

Stories by Robert X. Cringely

Article | 16/12/2010 Geek of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg

The ballots have been cast, the votes have been counted, the results are in, and once again, I was robbed. Instead of being named Time's Person of the...

Article | 11/12/2010 Something Wiki this way comes

It's been All WikiLeaks, All the Time here in Cringeville lately. And why not? As I noted last time out, this is the biggest thing to hit the WebberNe...

Article | 9/12/2010 The Web will eat itself over WikiLeaks

We are at war, and I don't mean the literal kind. It's the first all-out cyber war, not between nations but between factions: those who agree with wha...

Article | 9/12/2010 WikiLeaks: A terrorist's best friend?

If WikiLeaks' Julian Assange were in memoir-writing mode, I'd bet "How to Win Friends and Influence People" would not be among the likely titles.

Article | 4/12/2010 Google vs. Microsoft: A tale of two upgrades

I am a brave man. I just want to put that out there. Why brave? Because, for no reason other than the sheer testes-shriveling terror of it, I decided ...

Article | 25/11/2010 The Golden Gobblers: Biggest tech turkeys of 2010

For the fourth year, I'm trotting out my nominations for the biggest turkeys of tech.

Article | 16/11/2010 You've got Facemail! Now what?

I'm fascinated by how technology's center of gravity shifts over time. For a long time Microsoft was the 900-pound gorilla (careful where you stand --...

Article | 11/11/2010 Google vs Facebook: Adult supervision desperately needed

You'd think the drinking water in Silicon Valley has been replaced with baby formula, given how childish some of the biggest companies in tech have ac...

Article | 21/10/2010 Steve Jobs vs. the world, part deux

You'd think grown men would have better things to do than squabble like rabid squirrels fighting over a Brazil nut. But when it comes to the future of...

Article | 19/10/2010 Is Facebook evil or merely incompetent?

It's been months since the last major Facebook privacy debacle. I was beginning to lose hope. Thank goodness, then, for the news that the world's bigg...

Article | 2/10/2010 You don't mess with rogue hackers 4chan

First, let's get one thing straight. You can consider tugging on Superman's cape. You can probably spit into the wind without severe repurcussions. Yo...

Article | 30/09/2010 AOL swallows TechCrunch -- but can they keep it down?

What do you get when you mix a tottering giant from the InterWebs' formative years with the new breed of post-first-ask-questions-later news blogs? We...

Article | 21/09/2010 Facebook phone: how to kill journalism in 10 easy steps

God, I love the InterWebs. Years from now, scholars dissecting the complete disintegration of journalism in the 21st century will look back at us and ...

Article | 21/09/2010 Have we hit social media overload?

The problem with the Internet these days? In a word: socialism.

Article | 17/09/2010 Twitter 2.0: Not just for narcissists

Using Twitter is like being trapped in an elevator with someone who has a severe case of attention deficit disorder and just consumed three pots of tr...