Recent rulings by a US Judge that Apple's approach to keeping its software locked onto its hardware are not actually secrets have taken an unexpected turn. Recent prototypes by a French company show the iPhone OS running on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

The Digital Economy is our saviour, according to the government. It's not just them: the Boston Consulting Group said, in 2010, that the UK internet economy is larger, per head, than in any other country, and is forecast to grow by 10% a year.

The UK makes a lot of its place in the knowledge economy, at times seemingly relying on it to drive us out of recession and back to growth. And we have been previously successful in this - the recent sale of Autonomy to HP provides commercial evidence for this.

But will this continue? Does the Knowledge Economy have such a bright future?

Or rather, the maps of Britain? The OS? companies? us? In a few weeks, I'm attending a meeting with the Ordnance Survey to discuss how they can work more closely with higher education. However, thinking about this highlights an interesting conundrum: why is it that a taxpayer-funded institution is charging for access to its data, whereas a commercial company is offering mapping for free?

There is a minor furore at present within academic circles over the activities of Elsevier, the publisher.
Claims are being made that they offer their books and journals to libraries at very expensive prices, or bundled up into large packages, which means that the costs to academic institutions is ever rising.
The frustration is caused because the content of the journals is provided by academics, who write the papers.
The quality of the journals is created by the academics, who review and comment on the papers.
The editor and editorial board, who are academics, set the tone and style of the journals.
The papers are often provided to fit a given format, so that the majority of the typesetting is done by the academics.
And all the academic effort is given for free: the protest is therefore at the exploitation of publically funded research and publically funded academics by private companies for profit.

It's that time of year when all and sundry (especially journalists, hacks, pundits and loudmouths) make predictions about the future, and in particular the next twelve months.

So here's my personal take on what will happen next year: some is informed guesswork, some is speculation, and some will accidentally turn out to be fact.....

I try and write a piece for the first of every month - this month I've spectacularly failed. Part of this is because I decided to 'update' my computers, which seemed to do exactly the opposite.

Recently, I've been discussing various aspects of computer science and technology in the media - beyond this blog - and have discussed social media for the tv and local radio stations.

One of the things that I've noticed, and now got used to, is that I'll do a 15 minute interview, with (for tv) chatting and walking and talking and acting out using the computer - and maybe 15 seconds will get shown.

Radio is better - if live, then all is used, whilst for pre-records then maybe half appears. A number of conclusions can be drawn from this, mostly unscientifically.

Either I'm not photogenically good for tv; maybe I have a voice (and a face) for radio; perhaps I don't say that much interesting; maybe media coverage of science is superficial.

If I were wanting to defend my personal construct, I'd perhaps be plumping for the latter, and this would be a tirade against the lack of science in our lives, the shallowness of media, and so on.

However, it isn't going to be that (and nor am I going to argue that I should be seen on tv for my ravishing good looks, either).

One of the recent trends in technology is the move to the cloud. But what does this mean for people, and why is it happening?

Steve Jobs is one of the richest men in the world. However, whilst this may also be true financially, I think his true riches actually come from the supreme achievement of creating beauty and happiness in the world. He was, until a few days ago, Chief Executive of Apple, the iconoclastic leader of a company that created some of the most desirable products of our age.