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The Cloud — what an awful, vacuous term
‘Cloud computing’. What an awful, vacuous term. Computer usage with clouds. Even the average IT professional – never mind the average SMB owner – feels how intangible those words are and can’t make heads of tails of them. You can try it yourself the next time you run into some computer whizz. Ask them to…
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Drones: let them fly or ban them all?
A while ago, one passed me by as I was leaving the Central Station of the capital of the Netherlands: a drone. A quadrocopter, to be precise. Fortunately it managed to narrowly avoid crashing into a group of tourists. What was it doing there? Was it some 16 year old trying out their new birthday…
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‘The right to be forgotten’ is fundamental
The recent verdict by the European Court of Justice is on a lot of people’s minds. Suppose that Google would show incorrect or irrelevant information when someone searches your name; in that case, this verdict lets you file a request with Google not to show the irrelevant pages — but only if the search string…
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Don’t ridicule the right to be forgotten
The recent verdict by the European Court of Justice is on a lot of people’s minds. If Google shows irrelevant results when you search a person’s name, that person can request to have those results omitted — provided that the search string was their name. Is that an improvement of the right to privacy, or…
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Have banks already lost the battle?
This was my speech for the Dutch Parliament about the usage of customer data by banks: Esteemed chairman, commission and others present, Much has already been said today about the role of banks in our society, the legal framework within which they have to operate and their role regarding innovation. I would like to attempt…
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Young CEOs
They want responsibility and meaningful work to do. How can you keep the new kind of young employees motivated? I know someone who switched jobs to join the Dutch navigation system company TomTom, even though he’d be earning less there. Working for TomTom was more fun to him. That’s my generation. We’re fine with giving…