Features

Cyberclinic: Why can't I use an alias on Facebook?

On the one hand, Facebook encourages you to invite friends to sign up and expand its already colossal user base. On the other, your account will be disabled if you post too many messages, incessantly ask complete strangers to be your "friend", or sign up under an alias.

Inside Features

No signal: The mobile phone refuseniks

Monday, 26 May 2008

Every step you take: Hi-tech gadgets to catch a cheat

Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Worried that your lover might be cheating on you? Well, here's some good news, of sorts. Gone are the days when rummaging through your other half's pockets in search of incriminating restaurant receipts or phone numbers was the only way to confirm, or allay, your suspicions. And there's no need to hire a costly private eye, either.

Cyberclinic: How can I find the crook who took my Mac?

Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Can I use software to find out who stole my laptop? Faced with a choice between your £1,000 MacBook Air and your £1,000 antique grandfather clock, most burglars wouldn't think twice; grandfather clocks don't slip neatly into a bag. But the ability to operate computers remotely via the internet – a subject we featured last month – is giving victims of theft a good chance of finding out who swiped their machine.

Mapping the disaster zones

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

It is an all too familiar story. A natural disaster strikes in a remote part of the world, causing devastation and suffering. Villages are levelled, people are forced into camps, and chaos ensues.

Cyberclinic: How can I play all those great 1980s games?

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

People are cooing with delight over the exquisite detail, complex plotlines and grisly slaughter of Grand Theft Auto IV. When a game is called a masterpiece with "Oscar-calibre drama", you can't help but be intrigued – but I don't own a gaming console, and I'm stubbornly refusing to fork out for one. I know what will happen; hours will be frittered away acquiring skills – such as driving a bus through a police blockade – that I'd find hard to deploy in real life.

X-ray perspectives: 'The Eagle' comic returns

Wednesday, 7 May 2008

'The Eagle' comic's cut-away diagrams fired imaginations and inspired a generation of post-war children. Now London's Science Museum is bringing the illustrations back to life – for today's inquiring minds

Cyberclinic: Why can't my mobile phone read my mind?

Wednesday, 7 May 2008

Predictive text-messaging is a divisive thing. Those who use it can't understand why anyone would still bother thumbing away at the keypad, creating a heavily abbreviated mass of unpronounceable consonants. Others hate it because when they start typing "Father", "David" appears on the screen.

Wii: More than just a game

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Remember the buzz when Nintendo unleashed its Wii console the Christmas before last? If you'd pressed your nose up against the window of any computer games shop in Britain, you probably would have witnessed enthusiastic punters waving around a white device slightly larger than a mobile phone. If you had investigated further, you would have seen that they were playing a game of virtual tennis, or maybe golf or bowling. It seemed the height of interactive computer gaming.

Cyberclinic: When should I trust forwarded emails?

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

There's probably a legitimate use for that button that forwards a message to your entire address book, but I can't think of one offhand. Forwarded emails can be profoundly irritating – not because they necessarily carry viruses, but because of the grossly misleading information they contain.