Technology
The 1850s: a dizzying decade of boom and bust
We can all identify decades in which the world moved forward. Wars are not entirely negative experiences: the social and…
Always obey your satnav? Then you can vote rationally on the EU
In many ways a satnav is a miraculous device. A network of US military satellites more than 10,000 miles above…
We’re swamped with nonsense gizmos and it’s all Steve Job’s fault
I keep being told that the big hot technological gizmo of the moment is a box that sits in the…
Take it from a QC – you won’t get away with murder
Technology has made murderers much easier to catch
Spectator letters: What might have been for young Boris and Dave
What might have been Sir: Harry Mount points out that Boris Johnson is two years older than David Cameron (Diary,…
When Britannia ruled the digital waves
Everyone, we hear these days, must learn to code. Being able to program computers is the only way to be…
Maybe you should tax me more – just don’t touch my dishwasher
There was a big fuss a year or so ago about a book by a French chap called Piketty about…
How contactless cards will change the world (much more than you think)
I am one of those annoying, mildly claustrophobic people who sit at the end of a row in cinemas. There…
Where’s all the joy gone?
Britain seems to be suffering from a dearth of lightheartedness
Dear Mary: On a troublesome festive invitation
I have been alone in the country this festive season as my adult children and most of my friends are…
Dreaming of bringing your favourite pet back to life? Soon it could be reality
The super-rich are already bringing beloved dogs and horses back to life. Soon the rest of us will be able to do it too
We let programmers run our lives. So how’s their moral code?
A few years ago, in the week before Christmas when supermarket sales are at their highest, staff at one branch…
Email needs eugenics
You won’t read much about Sir Francis Galton nowadays because, while it’s inarguable that the man was a giant in…
Powder to the people: the new deal for the cocaine market
Fierce competition is forcing drug dealers to adjust their sales methods
Bubble-wrap, berry-picking and the secret pleasures of destruction
The secrets of bubble-wrap and other delicious little sensations
Why I joined the smiley-face cult
Why my generation has fallen for the smiley-face cult
Exciting new ways of not writing a novel
Procrastination is easier in the age of Google – but less honest
I wouldn't want to be a girl in the age of Tinder
Romance is being killed off by the brutal marketplace of dating apps such as Tinder
The real reason GPs are grumpy: the robots are coming for them
There’s something wrong with the relationship between patients and their GPs. I’ve spent much of this winter in my local…
Google vs governments - let the new battle for free speech begin
Freedom of the press still matters when the presses are virtual
The technology giants are breathtakingly irresponsible about terrorism
We know they can be good citizens when they want to be. So why are the technology giants acting in ways that could endanger us all?
The agony of dying gadgets
To survive as a technophobe in the 21st century, you must depend on the kindness of strangers
Why the most important years in history were from 1347 to 1352
A group of retired Somerset farmers were sitting about in the early 1960s, so Ian Mortimer’s story goes, debating which…
Cronenberg attempts a teleportation from cinema to fiction. Cover your eyes…
Following his beginnings as a science-fiction horror director, David Cronenberg has spent the past decades transforming himself into one of…
Don’t buy The Glass Cage at the airport if you want a restful flight, warns Will Self
Will Self 28 February 2015 9:00 am
Nicholas Carr has a bee in his bonnet, and given his susceptibilities this might well be a cybernetic insect, cunningly…