Don't leave home without your... calling cards. I'm not entirely sure of the exact difference between calling cards and business cards (which I do sometimes forget to take when I leave home), but the former are apparently making a comeback. In the 1800s, there was a certain logic - and a cool distance - to the formal calling card. Those who were part of, or sought a place among, ... Read full entry

Talking of email, I happen to think that checking for new messages while at church, or in a meeting, is pretty cool, perhaps even necessary. As for any other situation... not so smart. In bed in their pajamas: 67%, From the bathroom: 59% (up from 53% last year), While driving: 50% (up from 37% last year), In a bar or club: 39%, In a business meeting: 38%, During happy ... Read full entry

"Spam isn't a technical problem, it's a social one." John Levine on why there is little point in devising a more secure alternative to the SMTP email standard. The reason that e-mail is uniquely useful is that you can exchange mail with people you don't already know. The reason that spam exists is that you can exchange mail with people you don't already know.

If a fish could talk... it could actually talk. Well almost, as it seems fish have vocal circuitry that is similar to that of humans. Andrew Bass, a neurobiologist at Cornell University, has been studying the midshipman's vocal habits for more than a decade. Recently, he and two colleagues mapped out the neural circuitry that controls the fish's soundmaking. They found that a set of rhythmically firing neurons control ... Read full entry

I still find voicemail useful but only in short message format, that is "this is my name, this my number, give me a call." I can't abide the callers though who are determined to cram what amounts to their life story into a voicemail message. Is that why people are giving up on it, in favour of text messages or e-mails instead? In today's busy, busy world of instant ... Read full entry

How easy is it anymore to have a complete conversation without being interrupted by someone's mobile phone ringing? It's certainly becoming harder. I've also noticed that incoming calls on mobile phones increasingly take precedence over any face-to-face discussion that is in progress. Where people once told callers they'd get back to them, it is more common to hear the words "we'll get back to this conversation later", while they wander off ... Read full entry

While the verbal structure of languages may differ between cultures and countries, when it comes to non-verbal communication, with hand gestures or facial expressions, it seems we all speak the same language. If Kim Jong Il plays charades, his hand gestures might look just like George Bush's, a new study suggests. It seems that, regardless of the sentence structure of their native tongue, non-verbal communication is the same across ... Read full entry

Not that I have anything against the frivolous nature of Twitter, but there certainly are more practical ways of deploying the application, as Diana Mounter points out. This might come as a surprise to some, but the office of the British Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, is one entity leading the way, in its use of Twitter to communicate with the British media and community. Twitter ... Read full entry

Twitter is a great messaging and networking tool, downtime notwithstanding, but why we have to refer to twittering as microblogging is a little beyond me... it's online text messaging people. Much of the Twittering crowd argues that Twitter will continue to grow in importance, perhaps rivaling other social media powers such as Facebook. "I have hundreds of friends on FB, but have done 10x the networking, connecting & communicating ... Read full entry

Apparently it's possible. Simon Usborne talks to eight people who live, and work, without a mobile phone. People become obsessed with looking at them and fiddling with them. It's all right if you're a teenager, but there's something pathetic about adults checking their mobiles all the time and texting. People get equally irritated by my failure to use one. If you're supposed to be meeting someone, they will ask for ... Read full entry