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Bill Bennett
Freelance journalist.
Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers.
His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast.
Bennett's The Download Weekly newsletter is published every Friday. You can sign up for it here.
If you want to support his work, you can make a donation to his PressPatron account.
Bill Bennett - Latest News [Page 23]
Five new regional digital hubs
Saturday, 9 May 2020, 2:17 pm | Digitl
Regional economic development minister Shane Jones dipped into the Provincial Growth Fund to find $2 million for five more digital hubs. More >>
5G to dominate mobile carrier thinking
Saturday, 9 May 2020, 2:14 pm | Digitl
IDC vice-president Hugh Ujhazy says 5G is going to be huge for the mobile carriers He says: “We’ve done a telco capex [capital expenditure] forecast for the Asia-Pacific region excluding China and Japan. The fastest growing single capex ... More >>
Surface Book 3, Surface Go 2: Microsoft hardware refresh
Saturday, 9 May 2020, 2:11 pm | Digitl
Microsoft’s uses Surface to take the laptop fight to Apple. While it leaves mainstream Windows hardware to the likes of HP and Dell, its own brand adds an element of sophistication and a different take on innovation. More >>
Apple MacBook Air 2020: Near perfect
Friday, 17 April 2020, 6:50 pm | Digitl
The Guardian reviewer Samuel Gibbs gives Apple's 2020 MacBook Air five stars . In form and function the MacBook Air is just a few shades short of the perfect traditional laptop. If you don’t want a more modern convertible, you’ll struggle to find ... More >>
Webcams: Laptop models are bad
Friday, 17 April 2020, 6:45 pm | Digitl
In our coronavirus-tainted world, we’re realising that we depend a lot on our laptop webcams… and they’re not good. WSJ’s Joanna Stern compared the new MacBook At the Wall Street Journal Joanna Stern takes a critical look at laptop webcams: ... More >>
2020 iPad Pro 12.9-inch review part one: More processor powe
Friday, 17 April 2020, 6:43 pm | Digitl
Apple’s 2020 iPad Pro 12.9-inch brings a useful speed bump, overhauls the main camera, adds full mouse and trackpad support. More >>
New Zealand got lucky twice with broadband
Friday, 17 April 2020, 6:37 pm | Digitl
It’s no secret that, for most New Zealanders, broadband is world class. Our UFB network was always a good thing. It proved its worth again since the Covid–19 forced large numbers to work from home. More >>
Cell tower attacks: As we didn't have enough to deal with
Friday, 17 April 2020, 6:35 pm | Digitl
Northern Advocate reporter Peter de Graaf writes in Covid 19 coronavirus: Far North cell tower attack linked to Covid-19 hoax at the NZ Herald website: The destruction of a cellphone tower north of Kaitaia is thought to be related to an online hoax ... More >>
2degrees cuts workforce 10 percent
Friday, 17 April 2020, 3:58 pm | Digitl
Telecommunications provider 2degrees is planning to cut its 1,200-strong workforce by 10 percent as it braces for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. More >>
5G cell towers in the front line
Friday, 17 April 2020, 3:50 pm | Digitl
This morning’s CommsDay reports on the dangerous and destructive turn Covid–19 conspiracy theories have taken in the UK: “BT has revealed that 39 engineers have been verbally or physically assaulted – including threats to kill – over conspiracy ... More >>
COBOL back from the dead... again
Friday, 17 April 2020, 3:43 pm | Digitl
Many US systems that process unemployment claims still run on COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that relatively few coders understand. More >>
Why you need your own domain name
Saturday, 14 March 2020, 12:51 pm | Digitl
"Some storytellers and influencers are also migrating from personal sites toward individual channels on Medium, Blogger, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. But there's a risk here — those creating and sharing unique content on these channels can lose ... More >>
DuckDuckGo is good enough... most of the time
Saturday, 14 March 2020, 12:44 pm | Digitl
Jake Voytko posted a long, considered and comprehensive post about his experiment comparing DuckDuckGo and Google Search. It's a subject that has fascinated me for years. More >>
Microsoft Word stickiness
Saturday, 14 March 2020, 12:43 pm | Digitl
I rarely use Word to write stories or blog posts. Yet, I never hesitate to renew my Office 365 subscription. More >>
Gamers behind biggest data surge since Rugby World Cup
Saturday, 14 March 2020, 12:32 pm | Digitl
Chorus' biggest data traffic surge since the Rugby World Cup took Kurt Rodgers, the company's network strategy manager by surprise. Yesterday we had the biggest surge of traffic on the @ChorusNZ network since the RWC. Thought it might be people working ... More >>
Gamers behind biggest data surge since Rugby World Cup
Saturday, 14 March 2020, 12:27 pm | Digitl
Chorus' biggest data traffic surge since the Rugby World Cup took Kurt Rodgers, the company's network strategy manager by surprise. Yesterday we had the biggest surge of traffic on the @ChorusNZ network since the RWC. Thought it might be people working ... More >>
Y2K bug has a 2020 echo
Tuesday, 25 February 2020, 1:44 pm | Digitl
The millennium bug is back with a vengeance, after programmers in the 1990s simply pushed the problem back by 20 years. Source: A lazy fix 20 years ago means the Y2K bug is taking down computers now | New Scientist More >>
What Spark thinks about its fixed wireless broadband
Tuesday, 25 February 2020, 1:38 pm | Digitl
Last week Spark announced its first half results for the six months to December 31. It is a solid report showing strong revenue growth. More >>
Galaxy Z Flip brings notification relief
Tuesday, 25 February 2020, 1:25 pm | Digitl
Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip is a another take on the emerging foldable phone format. More >>
