Michael Webb's Blog

AI, Education, Creativity and Society.

  • Hay Festival – on plastic, the harm of conspiracies, lost words, lost quietness and being driven.

    I live about an hour away from Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye – a lovely 10 day long book festival. I was there Saturday and Sunday, and here are some of the random things I learnt. From Jeevan Vasagar (Plastic Inc: Are We Stuck With Plastic?) – the American equivalent of Keep Britain Tidy is perhaps not all…

  • iPod Nano 7 battery pads

    The iPod Nano 7 isn’t the easiest to work with for many reasons. One issue seems to be that the battery pads on the motherboard are easily torn off when removing the battery. I was lucky with this one in that’s it’s just the ground connector: It’s the darker looking pad towards the top left.…

  • Repairing and modding iPods – easiest to hardest.

    This is a quick rundown of iPods I’ve fixed, in terms of how easy or fixable I think they are, along with things to watch for and a breakdown of the costs. But why?! If certain corners of the internet and press are to be believed, iPods are having a bit of a moment, as…

  • Claude Cowork – a little more…

    Ok, an uncharacteristically excited post from me, and something I will write more about soon. Having lived with Claude Cowork for a couple of weeks, I can say it is genuinely impressive. It is the first really useful tool I have used that clearly shows the next big stage of GenAI: automation. It is probably…

  • Claude Cowork – First Impressions

    I’ve just installed Claude Cowork on my Mac. The hype: “The Future of AI at Work: Introducing Cowork“. The reality – early stage agentic AI that can process your files and access some applications. I’ve subscribed to Claude Pro – £18 a month, which gives access to the beta version, and I’ve decided to use…

  • AI APPG Horizon Scanning

    I’m on a train heading back from a crowded committee room in the House of Lords for an AI APPG (all-party parliamentary group) evidence session on horizon scanning. AI events always draw a crowd, and I suspect the presence of Yann LeCun was a big attraction. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s a big…

  • Banning Social Media?

    Some Friday morning thoughts on banning social media for under-16s. I absolutely think we have a problem, and it is not just about under-16s. But I wonder if the mainstream media debate is in the wrong place. The government’s consultation is looking more broadly, which feels like the right thing to do, even though it…

  • Ofcomm’s Online Nation

    A report I missed at the end of last year, but well worth reading: Ofcom’s Online Nation Report 2025. It is a long read, with a lot of detailed data on internet use in the UK, including a stark reminder of the near-total dominance of Meta and Alphabet, and the power this gives them. There…

  • End of year reflections

    First, full disclosure – I started writing this for our Jisc AI team blog, but I ran out of time to get my colleagues’ input before the Christmas break! So I’m reviving my Substack for this one, as it’s purely my thoughts and reflections. As we approach the end of 2025, I thought I’d look…