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Living the dream: tech and cheese

By Fiona Halkerston

Earlier this month, I moved from our office in London to work at Johnson King’s French office in Paris. Having lived in France on two previous occasions – during my gap year and to study for my 3rd year at university – I knew more or less what I was in for with the move, and I was really excited about it!

People’s reactions to our decision to move were unanimously positive, but almost everyone we spoke to voiced their concern on one of three issues:

1. The food – how good it is and how careful we were going to have to be to avoid constantly over-indulging in cheese and patisserie goods 
2. How expensive Paris is as a city 
3. TV – how on earth would I cope without my beloved Sky+ and my embarrassing addiction to cheesy US sitcoms 

So I wanted to take this opportunity to alleviate people’s concerns on one of these issues. I wish it could be about the food – it’s truly incredible and I have to walk down the street staring straight ahead so that I’m not drawn in by the array of stunning French produce.

However, satisfying my thirst for American medical and legal dramas has not been a problem at all. Our apartment is fitted with a Freebox from Free, and this bit of kit has truly shown me how far ahead France is when it comes to IPTV. The Freebox offers us Wifi, cable TV (with recording capabilities), and free landline calls to over 100 countries. It also makes playing downloaded content over the TV easier than I’ve ever seen, all over the wireless network. I can sit on the sofa and control the TV from my iPad or laptop, transferring content wirelessly to the 250GB hard drive.

I realise that this might sound a lot like Apple TV, but given everything else that’s contained with the Freebox, it’s pretty incredible. Free has also recently jumped into the mobile space, offering tariffs that are so cheap that they’re forcing other operators to react and cut their prices i.e. iPhone 4S for 1 Euro, and then 17.99 Euro per month for unlimited calls, unlimited SMS and unlimited Wifi.

I admit that this is starting to sound like I’m trying to PR Free, but I’m truly impressed by this service, especially compared to the amount I was paying for my iPhone and Sky back in the UK. Free is forcing other companies to re-think their pricing models, and hopefully this is something that will have a ripple on effect to help cut costs for TV, mobile and internet use across Europe.

So, now that I’ve tackled one of the major concerns about my move to Paris, does anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid all the cheese?

Mike takes to the saddle for the NSPCC

Kudos to Mike King who took time out from his holiday in Texas last week to try his luck at horse riding, all to raise money for NSPCC.

Because those Texans are considerably braver than us Europeans, Mike was expected to take to the saddle without a riding hat and to steer one handed. And while we tend to stop at level crossings when a train is approaching, it seems that in Texas the horses are taught to gallop across the tracks.

Mike’s endeavours are part of Johnson King’s involvement in the Gold Challenge, which will see a team of us chance our arm at a number of different Olympic sports this year, covering a combined distance of 2012km. So far we’ve racked up 927km and have raised just over £3,000 for children’s charity the NSPCC.

 

Censoring cyberspace

by Lindsey Challis

Everything and anything exists on the internet; from an instant ‘drunk’ spray to a magnetic floating bed, and some things will inevitably be more suited to some people’s tastes than others.   This does however create a problem, and whilst we seem to have got the hang of controlling unsavoury content in the real world – glamour magazines on the top shelf, age restricted films and adult only shops – a new can of worms has been opened with the internet.  The scariest element of all is that it is often those who we need to protect the most – children – who have the ability to access it all!

With politicians such as Claire Penny MP arguing that ISPs must take responsibility for child access to porn, and the recent court ruling stating that ISPs should block access to the Pirate Bay, focus is once again on the internet, its availability and censorship.  For some, the net is an optional extra that they can live without, for many others it’s essential.  My concern is that the first view presumes there’s a brick wall between the real world and the virtual world, one that simply doesn’t exist. 

The online and physical world are combining, interweaving and becoming more dependent on each other, every day.  The internet is increasingly mirroring the physical world, and the more we integrate it into daily lives, the more problems this mirror will reveal.  As in the real world, there will be internet crime, obscenities and danger, and like the real world, only so many precautions can be taken.  The rest needs to be done with common sense, education and guidance.  At present, some seem to be overlooking this point.

Protecting children from unsavoury information, such as porn, terrorism and brutality is not as easy as flicking a switch, and default internet censorship is not the silver bullet.  Firstly, if children don’t find ways to circumvent the restrictions, hackers and scammers will, meaning that children may still be targeted in phishing or social engineering scams.  Secondly, what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ is completely subjective.  What for one person is nudity and inappropriate for children, may for another be sex education, or a school art project.   Different sites will also be more damaging to different individuals.  For example, weight loss sites may strike a chord with some but not others and   while websites may not look incriminating at first glance, they might need to be treated just as sensitively as more obviously explicit websites. 

It is absolutely correct that we should be trying to protect the vulnerable, but restricting websites creates the illusion that this can be done at the touch of a button, as easy as launching a web browser.  For some parents or grandparents who are less familiar with the internet, they may see such precautions as a solution, leaving children at huge risk of seeing something they shouldn’t, by simply not realising that internet use itself still needs to be monitored.  You wouldn’t let an eight year old start reading Cosmopolitan magazine, so why would you allow them on a website or into a forum which discusses similar issues?  The only reason ISPs should proactively block websites is if they’re illegal, anything else is a matter of opinion, as far as I’m concerned.  In reaction to Claire Penny MP one Tweeter quoted by the BBC said, "You want DIY stores to be responsible for what buyers of crowbars do with them."  I completely agree.

As always, a combined effort is needed: the Government, security vendors and ISPs need to advise parents on how to control internet usage, but blanket censorship of the internet is not a solution, just as it isn’t in the real world. 

 

Don’t mention the Games!

By Claire Ayles

As a sports fan and a proud Londoner, I can’t wait for the Olympics, but, with still three months to go, some of the official sponsors’ ads are already beginning to grate.

Whether it’s a washing powder suggesting your Olympic kit will fade unless you use its particular brand, or a fast food joint creating the impression that the world’s finest athletes are fuelled solely by burgers, there’s simply no avoiding the marketing onslaught.

But good luck with your Olympic-themed marketing if you’re not one of sponsors. Fair enough, firms shouldn’t be able to stick the Olympic Rings on their website if they haven’t paid for the privilege, but it seems that even pubs and bars could be banned from putting up posters saying they are showing the action. And it’s not just easy-to-bully small businesses that are feeling the heat. The same story reports that easyJet was prevented from running a campaign, fronted by 1992 Golden Girl Sally Gunnell adorned with a Union Jack, because it might step on the toes of official sponsor, British Airways.

However, there is at least one area where LOCOG, the Olympic organisers, has admitted defeat. While tickets (for those lucky enough to get some) will include small print stating that photos and videos shot of the Games cannot be posted on the internet, it has been forced to concede that these rules are totally unenforceable.

So you might want to run the risk of uploading your shots of Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Sir Chris Hoy to Twitter and Facebook. Or if you’re me, they’ll be pics of footballing superpowers, South Korea and Gabon (yes, I had to look up where it was too).