Pamela Minnoch

A few years ago, the Dead Internet Theory was one of those wonderfully strange internet conspiracy theories that was interesting to read about but easy enough to dismiss. The theory suggested that at some point bots and automated systems would make up the majority of activity online, while actual humans would gradually become a smaller part of the internet they had created. It sounded suitably dystopian. Except lately, parts of it don't sound quite so ridiculous. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince...

A few weeks ago, Eftpos New Zealand announced the rollout of its new Verifone Victa payment terminals. On the surface, it sounds like a fairly standard technology upgrade. New terminals, better screens, Android-based technology and more capability for retailers. Then I got to the part about biometrics. The new terminals have been designed to support facial and palm recognition, opening up the possibility that one day we could walk into a New Zealand shop and pay without getting out a card,...

There's a strange feeling that a lot of people have had without quite being able to explain it. You book a ride, and the fare looks higher than it did last week for the same trip. You're offered a shift, a rate, a deal, and something about it feels personal, even though you know it came from a machine. It turns out that feeling has a name, or rather two names, because two different researchers have been tracking the same phenomenon from opposite ends. On the consumer side, it's called...