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Ben Francis

@tola.me.uk
158 followers 115 following 202 posts

Krellian Founder. W3C Invited Expert on Web Apps and the Web of Things. Previously: Mozilla & Google. tola.me.uk

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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 14/08/2026
Good to see @andyburnham.bsky.social finally highlight the climate crisis as Prime Minister. Now please no more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, and stop subsidising fossil fuels to give renewables the chance to replace them. www.facebook.com/share/r/1Jhc...
facebook.com
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 15/07/2026
I love that the conclusion of the @theverge.com Vergecast is that the best AI gadget is the gadgets you already have, but working together. 1. Phone 2. Watch 3. Headphones We don't need a new form factor for a personal AI device. www.theverge.com/podcast/9650...
theverge.com
Today’s Vergecast: Watch, headphones, phone: Which AI gadget is best?
So far, there have been exactly zero great AI-first gadgets. But that hasn’t stopped the tech industry from trying to figure out what shape and size these new gadgets might take, and whether any of th...
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 09/07/2026
Tech workers are not worried about AI taking their jobs, they are worried about being expected to do more for less. People are divided about AI, tech is in chaos, productivity is up, quality is down, burnout is rife, but some are still optimistic. www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-tech-w...
lennysnewsletter.com
How tech workers are feeling in 2026: a workforce splitting in two
Results from our second annual tech worker sentiment survey
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 03/07/2026
It was really inspiring to hear about the work of @aria-research.bsky.social at an event at BALTIC Gateshead yesterday. ARIA is a UK research funding agency modelled on DARPA in the US, but with a scope that spans the whole of science and technology for economic and societal benefit. aria.org.uk
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 24/06/2026
In case it needs saying, 35-40°C in the UK in June is not normal. We are a planet of boiling frogs 🐸 Feeling helpless? Here are eight ways you can help fight #GlobalHeating today www.unep.org/news-and-sto... #ClimateCrisis
unep.org
Here are eight simple ways you can fight climate change today
By walking more, tweaking your diet and conserving energy, you can help the world avoid a full-blown climate catastrophe.
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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
This is only the beginning. The climate crisis is here. So why are politicians and most of the media still acting as though this can wait? It can't. We can still avoid some of the worst impacts - but only if we find the courage to act. metro.co.uk/2026/06/22/g...
metro.co.uk
Greta Thunberg warns 40°C heatwave about to hit UK 'is only the beginning'
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 19/06/2026
I've had a great time at #TechNExt26 this week. High quality production, some thought provoking talks, and most of all good conversation. Thank you to everyone who came to my talk yesterday about the #WebOfThings and Krellian's #SmartBuilding solutions.
Jamie Hardesty interviewing Pete Cheyne on stage at the Festival Launch.Henrietta Newble talking on stage about her Biotech startup at the Festival Launch.The exterior of the Catalyst building hosting the Data & AI Hub in Newcastle.Paul Hands from ARK51 discussing potential dangers of AI.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 17/06/2026
It has been a long and winding road, but Krellian finally has a product that people can buy. medium.com/krellian/ann...
medium.com
Announcing Krellian Commercial Pilot
Meet your net zero targets whilst saving money.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 12/06/2026
Trillionaires should not exist. It would take the average American 16 million years to earn $1tn. There is no way that one human can be "worth" that much more than another human, no matter what they have achieved.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 04/06/2026
Just two weeks until my talk at TechNExt Festival, "Making Buildings Smarter with the Web of Things" www.technext.co.uk/programme/ev... If you're interested in smart buildings or the Web of Things, please join me for this free talk at the The Catalyst in Newcastle on Thursday 18th June.
TechNExt, krellian

Making Buildings Smarter with the Web of Things

Extending the web to physical objects for smarter, safer & sustainable buildings
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 27/05/2026
AI needs the open web, but it also poses an existential threat to it. LLMs rely on the content that humans create for their training, whilst also undermining the business models that incentivise people to create the content in the first place. nicolasbouliane.com/blog/death-b...
nicolasbouliane.com
AI is killing All About Berlin - Nicolas Bouliane
They used my work to train their AI, and now they're using their AI to put me out of work.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 21/05/2026
If you'd have told 16 year old me that Microsoft would one day release their own Linux distribution, I wouldn't have believed you. www.zdnet.com/article/micr...
zdnet.com
Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0
You'll be able to run this Linux distro on both Azure and your desktop using Windows Subsystem for Linux. Here's what we know about it so far.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 19/05/2026
Did Lean Startup get a conscience? www.incorruptible.co As someone who has been trying (and often failing) to follow the Lean Startup methodology for many years it has raised lots of questions for me about speed vs. long term impact. I am looking forward to reading this book.
incorruptible.co
Incorruptible by Eric Ries — Why Good Companies Go Bad
Eric Ries's new book — Incorruptible — on why successful companies turn on their founding values, and how to build ones that don't. Out May 26.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 14/05/2026
Googlebooks will run a desktop version of Android with a Gemini-possessed cursor. Seems like the beginning of the end for ChromeOS, with serious implications for education in particular. Should we be building an open source web-based replacement..? www.theverge.com/tech/928479/...
theverge.com
Google announces its Chromebook successor: the Googlebook
Google has a new operating system and a new laptop platform, but no hardware just yet.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 11/05/2026
I'm delighted to share that I will be giving a talk at TechNExt Festival 2026 called "Making Buildings Smarter with the Web of Things". technext.co.uk/programme/ev... #TechNExt #TechNExtFestival
I am hosting a session at the TechNExt Data and AI Hub! TechNExt 15-19th June 2026.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 05/05/2026
This pay package implies Elon Musk believes a 1 million person settlement on Mars is feasible within his lifetime. I'm not anti space travel, but imagine if those kinds of resources were put into solving the climate crisis on our actually habitable planet. www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-...
teslarati.com
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
SpaceX has given Elon Musk the goal to put one million people on Mars.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 21/04/2026
Typical that in the week I finally caved and paid for a Copilot Pro subscription after getting hooked by the Opus models in their free trial, GitHub removes Opus models from the Pro subscription. I guess I will have to start using my brain again. github.blog/news-insight...
github.blog
Changes to GitHub Copilot Individual plans
We're making these changes to ensure a reliable and predictable experience for existing customers.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 25/03/2026
Very excited at the prospect of the Web Thing Protocol joining a standards track at the W3C, as the "WoT Thing Protocol". This would be the next step towards standardising a universal web-based application layer protocol for the Web of Things. #WoT #IoT lists.w3.org/Archives/Pub...
A diagram showing an hourglass with the WoT Thing Protocol (HTTP REST & WebSockets) at the narrow part in the middle, IoT protocols like MQTT, BACnet and OPC UA a the bottom and applications, dashboards, cloud services and intelligent agents at the top.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 23/03/2026
A reminder that whilst countries fight reckless wars and set fire to gas fields and oil refineries, our climate is being pushed beyond its limits. Humans living on the surface are only experiencing 1% of the dangerous global heating. #ClimateCrisis www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high
State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 22/03/2026
My microblogging is split across Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky. Twitter (I refuse to use its porn name) is full of vitriol, Mastodon is all geeks and Bluesky feels like a political bubble. Conversations feel fragmented, engagement is rock bottom and it's just not the same.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 17/03/2026
I've been working on the first time setup for Krellian Hub, which involves creating a temporary Wi-Fi hotspot and captive portal, before connecting to another Wi-Fi network. It turns out that not even Claude can figure out how to use the NetworkManager DBus API. 😩
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 17/03/2026
I recently found myself writing a desktop app, and realised that for the first time in my career I could actually implement the Model View Controller design pattern as it was originally intended (as opposed to the disjointed approximations we use in web apps).
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 05/03/2026
New blog post: Putting the Web back in the Web of Things tola.me.uk/blog/2026/03... We spent over a decade standardising the Web of Things, but I believe it’s still missing a key component it needs in order to grow. 🧵
tola.me.uk
Putting the Web back in the Web of Things
We spent over a decade standardising the Web of Things, but I believe it’s still missing a key component it needs in order to grow. I this blog post I provide a deep-dive retrospective into the last 1...
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 12/02/2026
New blog post: How I think Web Apps Should be Installed tola.me.uk/blog/2026/02... There's currently a discussion at the W3C about how web apps should be installed from web browsers. Here's how I think it should work.
tola.me.uk
How I think Web Apps Should be Installed
There's currently a discussion at the W3C about how web apps should be installed from web browsers. Here's how I think it should work.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 07/01/2026
When addressing shortcomings of current models LLM advocates like to say that the models are the worst they are ever going to be, but what if the training data is the best it's ever going to be? #AI
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 19/12/2025
📢 Announcing WebThings Gateway 2.0 webthings.io/blog/2025/12... Build your own smart home hub. The WebThings community are very excited to announce the WebThings Gateway 2.0 release, with a new groups feature and W3C WoT standards support.
webthings.io
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Cllr Nick Hartley - Green Party @nickhartleygreen.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Excited to welcome @jamiedriscoll.bsky.social to @nclgreenparty.bsky.social today Jamie thinks deeply about how we tackle inequality and the impact of a broken economic system on people and planet As former North of Tyne Mayor he brings so much to our teams working with our communities. Welcome!
Jamie Driscoll & Nick HartleyKhaled Musharraf, Jamie Driscoll, Mothin Ali, Sarah Peters, Nick Hartley
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 17/12/2025
Hands off our BBC Donald. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/d...
theguardian.com
BBC to fight Trump’s $10bn lawsuit, saying it should be dismissed
Corporation will argue it did not have rights to air film in US and it did not cause serious reputational harm
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 10/12/2025
Copilot just correctly diagnosed that my regular expression wasn't matching because it contained invisible zero-width space characters. The problem? It put them there in the first place. #DontTrustAI
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 02/12/2025
📣 Strawman Proposal: Web Thing Protocol HTTP Sub-protocol w3c.github.io/web-thing-pr... A dedicated HTTP-based application protocol for the Web of Things.
w3c.github.io
Web Thing Protocol
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 25/11/2025
This is why I have trust issues. #AI
It's about 62.14 weeks from now to 17 January 2026
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 25/11/2025
We told our five year old daughter that this box contains the missing matter of the universe, and now she won't let us get rid of it 😂 #H2G2
A cardboard box containing packaging materials and a hand-written note saying "Please keep matter of the universe".
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 24/11/2025
The ambitious plans for a "forest city" east of Cambridge, where a million people would live in modular wooden buildings inter-weaved with pedestrian streets, tram lines, ancient woodland and 12,000 acres of newly planted native forest. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
How ambitious ‘forest city’ plan for England could become a reality
Cross-party coalition behind proposals hope eco-friendly scheme for million people could begin before end of decade
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 21/11/2025
An average AI prompt consumes 0.3-3Wh of electricity (2-3g CO₂). 3Wh could power my LED desk lamp for an hour. In the context of the average UK resident's daily power consumption of 12,000Wh that's not awful, but it's also not awesome. Use sparingly. www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/carbon-foo...
sustainabilitybynumbers.com
What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT?
Very small compared to most of the other stuff you do.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 18/11/2025
Twitter ("X") is down due to a Cloudflare outage. How exciting.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 14/11/2025
Say hi to Kit. 🦊 www.firefox.com/en-US/kit/
firefox.com
Say hi to Kit
The Firefox brand is getting a refresh and you get the first look
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 11/11/2025
I currently have availability for part time consulting/contracting work. I'm a full stack Software Engineer with 15+ years of commercial experience, specialising in Web Apps and the Web of Things. Please let me know if I can help with anything. #OpenToWork tola.me.uk/consulting
tola.me.uk
Freelance Web Consulting - Ben Francis
Bespoke websites, web apps and web things.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 07/11/2025
An interesting new range of Matter smart home devices from IKEA www.theverge.com/news/814241/...
theverge.com
Ikea’s new smart home collection is entirely Matter-compatible
Ikea’s affordable smart home devices will now work with other brands.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 06/11/2025
New blog post: Introducing the Web Thing Protocol tola.me.uk/blog/2025/11... A dedicated real-time protocol for the Web of Things.
tola.me.uk
Introducing the Web Thing Protocol
I am excited to share that the W3C Web Thing Protocol Community Group has published the first draft of the Web Thing Protocol WebSocket sub-protocol, a dedicated real-time protocol for the Web of Thin...
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 31/10/2025
Still within the margin of error, but an opinion poll showing the Greens ahead of both Labour and Conservatives is quite a moment in British politics. 💚
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 23/10/2025
Dia is still the best attempt at this "AI Browser" thing so far IMO. Despite my serious misgivings about the whole concept, it kind of feels like what a web "user agent" was meant to be all along.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 23/10/2025
Only just noticed Firefox now has a chatbot sidebar to chat with Claude, ChatGTP, Gemini and Mistral. But unlike Dia, Comet and Atlas it cannot use open tabs as context for prompts - which is by far the most useful feature of chatbots in a browser. support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/ai-...
support.mozilla.org
Client Challenge
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 21/10/2025
"This Jen, is the Internet." #AWSOutage
A scene from The IT Crowd where Moss tells Jen that a small black box on the table in front of them is the Internet, with the black box labelled AWS us-east-1.
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Reposted by Ben Francis
Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
British.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 09/10/2025
So Nvidia has now invested billions in both OpenAI and xAI... to enable them to buy Nvidia GPUs. The deal has a "unique deal structure, backed by the GPUs as opposed to the company". I can't see any way this could possibly end badly... 🫧 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
xAI to Raise $20 Billion After Nvidia and Others Boost Round
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is raising more financing than initially planned, tapping backers including Nvidia Corp. to lift its ongoing funding round to $20 billion, according to ...
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 08/10/2025
💚 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxt4...
youtube.com
Let's Make Hope Normal Again - Green Party Political Broadcast
YouTube video by Green Party of England & Wales
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 03/10/2025
Proud to have Krellian featured in the ICC's “Opportunity of a Lifetime” campaign. "The climate crisis is not only the defining challenge of our time, it is also the greatest opportunity to build a more sustainable and inclusive future." iccwbo.org/news-publica...
iccwbo.org
Empowering startups to seize the climate opportunity of a lifetime - ICC - International Chamber of Commerce
Sage Foundation is supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime. In partnership with Village Capital, it welcomes 165 purpose-driven startups...
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 01/10/2025
"Why I gave the world wide web away for free" www.theguardian.com/technology/2... "If we are able to muster it, we have the chance to restore the web as a tool for collaboration, creativity and compassion across cultural borders." -- Tim Berners-Lee
theguardian.com
Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee
My vision was based on sharing, not exploitation – and here’s why it’s still worth fighting for
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 24/09/2025
Android is eating the world. www.theverge.com/news/784381/... It always seemed inevitable that Android and Chrome OS would eventually converge in some way, but I was cheering for the other team. The one built on the open web.
theverge.com
Google’s Android for PC: ‘I’ve seen it, it is incredible’
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon teases his first look at Google’s merger between Android and ChromeOS.
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Ben Francis @tola.me.uk · 23/09/2025
🇺🇸🙊 www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyoY...
youtube.com
"Freedom of Speech" - Marsh Family parody of "Under the Sea" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid"
YouTube video by Marsh Family
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