Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
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 47]
New Zealand iPhone 6 plans compared
Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 12:21 pm | Digitl
New Zealand prices for Apple's iPhone 6 start at $1000 for the 16GB model. Well, $999 but we're not fooled. That's $50 cheaper than the cost of the lowest price iPhone 5S when it first launched here a year ago. More >>
Taking stolen emails at face value
Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 11:40 am | Digitl
For a few weeks stories involving stolen emails dominated New Zealand news reports. It was no accident this was in the run up to the 2014 election. More >>
Chorus warns Australia on structural separation
Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 11:36 am | Digitl
Chorus manager of marketing strategy and insight Rosalie Nelson warned Australia’s telecommunications industry on the risks of New Zealand-style full structural separation. She was speaking at the CommsDay Melbourne Congress and reported in Communications ... More >>
Android: Third among equals
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 7:34 pm | Digitl
Last year I spent a week working exclusively with each . My conclusion is you won’t go far wrong with any of them. All three cover the basics adequately. None of them is perfect and none has a fatal flaw. Each has pluses and minuses. More >>
Fibre uptake past 20% in Christchurch suburbs
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 7:28 pm | Digitl
Enable Networks reports it is connecting about 600 customers a month to the Christchurch fibre network. The company says it has a total of 6,100 customers already connected — making a total uptake of 11 percent across the city. That's a little better than ... More >>
Getting off the technology upgrade hamster wheel
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 7:22 pm | Digitl
Apple's first iPhone appeared in 2007. Since then there have been nine product cycles. Microsoft recently took the wraps off its third Surface Pro tablet in 18 months. Samsung's Galaxy S5 is the fifth model since the Galaxy S i9000 appeared in 2010. More >>
iPhone 6, 6 Plus: 20mm and miles apart
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 6:56 pm | Digitl
Apple’s iPhone 6 sports a 4.7 inch screen. The display on the iPhone 6 Plus is 5.5 inches across the diagonal. That’s just 20mm more and yet, in use, the difference between the iPhones is huge. It’s almost as if you are looking at two separate ... More >>
HP split will change NZ PC market
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 6:44 pm | Digitl
Hewlett-Packard says it will split in two. One part will offer high-end computer equipment and services to large companies. The other will make and sell PCs, printers and other devices. More >>
Samsung profits fall as iPhone trumps Galaxy
Tuesday, 7 October 2014, 6:39 pm | Digitl
Samsung makes beautiful hardware and sells more smartphones than any other company. All it needs to do now is to figure out how to make the business profitable. More >>
Asus pushes upmarket with Zenbook UX301
Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 3:48 pm | Digitl
Asus is best known for mid-price PCs and tablets in New Zealand. It aims to change that with the upmarket Zenbook UX301. More >>
On TV3 talking Muse brainwave sensing headband
Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 3:34 pm | Digitl
Muse is a brain wave sensing headband from Thought-Wired . It comes with software for computers and smartphones to help you manage stress, increase focus and enhance cognitive awareness. More >>
Five must have free business apps for any device
Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 3:27 pm | Digitl
Whether you use a smartphone, tablet, PC or all three here are five apps to give your business an immediate productivity boost. All are available for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android: More >>
Working with iPhone 6 Plus
Tuesday, 30 September 2014, 3:13 pm | Digitl
Apple's demonstrator laid an iPhone 6 and an iPhone 6 Plus side-by-side on the coffee table. He asked "which do you prefer?" My instinctive first answer was to pick the smaller iPhone 6. More >>
Microsoft Azure: Cloud for the rest of us
Wednesday, 17 September 2014, 2:10 pm | Digitl
Cloud computing is great. Yet anything beyond Dropbox, OneDrive or iCloud can be daunting for those of us who aren't IT professionals. While Amazon is the market leader at selling cloud services to business, you couldn't describe setting up a ... More >>
Touch Voicemail iPhone app makes smartphones smarter
Wednesday, 17 September 2014, 2:04 pm | Digitl
Modern cellphones are smart, but that’s not what it feels like when it comes to voicemail. Until now the only way to get at missed incoming messages is to call your phone network’s voicemail service, wade through clumsy prompts and listen to messages ... More >>
Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Note Edge
Saturday, 13 September 2014, 3:22 pm | Digitl
Samsung has something to prove. The company sells more smartphones than anyone else. It is the only Android hardware maker that matters. But it doesn’t have Apple’s brand power. Samsung isn’t cool. That’s why Samsung took pains getting its latest ... More >>
NZ broadband beats Australia again
Saturday, 13 September 2014, 3:12 pm | Digitl
More evidence that New Zealand's broadband is accelerating past Australia's network. Local web performance measuring company TrueNet compared the speed of downloading Australian and New Zealand websites from PCs in Australia and New Zealand . More >>
See you at ITx conference
Saturday, 13 September 2014, 3:07 pm | Digitl
Last year's IITP conference was a eye-opener with many great speakers. This year the conference has expanded to become ITx , it won't be New Zealand's biggest technology conference, Microsoft's Tech Ed is larger, but it is the most wide ranging vendor ... More >>
A challenge of smartphones, a desperation of smart watches
Saturday, 13 September 2014, 2:58 pm | Digitl
Everyone has heard of a school of fish . Most people know there's also murder of crows . More >>
Microsoft's cloud first, mobile first challenge
Saturday, 13 September 2014, 2:43 pm | Digitl
Microsoft shows a refreshing ability to reinvent itself. On his first day in the job incoming CEO Satya Nadella told employees: “Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world.” Those words, slightly rearranged as ... More >>
