Interviewing Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin was a fascinating interviewee when he visited Sydney this year. Even though he must have sat through tens of thousands of interviews in his life, he still sounded as though he was answering questions for the first time.

Here's an excerpt from his interview with Sky News Business, where he discusses moon dust. The question was: what most surprised or amazed you about the moon?

The curse of late adopters

Some years ago there was a UK comedy sketch featuring a middle-aged father who enters the room as his children are watching Top of the Pops. "Hey what's this? It's got a good beat!" he says, and begins a dancing display akin to a moonwalking walrus.

And this is exactly what we see with the Internet. With every single advance, every single innovation, every single new trend. While most people quietly start using these services: communicating with friends, sharing videos, starting interest groups, there is a whole host of antiquated walruses who fling themselves loudly and obnoxiously at every new technology in some misguided attempt to be "down with the kidz".


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iPhone, iHype

Amongst all the frenzied speculation and rumour-mongering over Apple's predicted new tablet computer, there's been little comment on one key issue. Will the device function as a standalone computer or will it remain essentially a semi-parasitic pod?

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Internet Pigeon Protocol

One of the quirkiest stories in Tech Report this week was a pigeon that flew faster than the internet.

An experiment was carried out in rural New South Wales where a car, a pigeon, and a Telstra ADSL 2 connection all raced to deliver a 700mb file. The pigeon won. The internet connection dropped out twice, and eventually failed to send it.

This kind of non-electronic data transfer is known as a "sneakernet". They're actually widely used today. Online DVD-rental services send digital media by post. Oil companies generate vast data files from seismic surveys, and have to take them back manually. If you've ever carried work files home on a USB because they were too big to email, you've used a sneakernet.

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Interview: Steve Wozniak, Apple founder

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has praised the innovative design of the iPhone but criticised the restrictions on it. In an interview on Sky News Business Channel, Mr Wozniak noted that there were many things that users couldn't do with locked phones.