Monday, June 3, 2013
Here’s a semi-article, in that it’s more like a rant, but certainly not a link post. If you’ve seen similar stuff in your dashboard, feel free to let me know. Dear Marissa and David, Joe here. I’ve used all of Tumblr’s competitors extensively and I settled on Tumblr because it’s mindfully-designed, …Monday, May 27, 2013
German railroad mulling anti-graffiti dronesWith US authorities pushing for easier backdoors into electronic communications systems, a network of anti-graffiti drones looks like a good front for general state-wide surveillance. The German privacy ethic runs deep, but it may provide an interesting …Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Strongbox and Aaron Swartz: Open source, anonymous tipsThere is plenty of Google news today coming out of their annual I/O conference, but this looks far more important and big-picture, if it actually gets used.Wednesday, May 8, 2013
DARPA and deep learningThis article by Daniela Hernandez at Wired is well-done and fascinating. However, this bit most caught my eye: Half of the $100 million in federal funding allotted to this program will come from Darpa — more than the amount coming from the National Institutes of Health — and …Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web UsersCharlie Savage of The New York Times: the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies …Friday, May 3, 2013
Netflix launch reduces BitTorrent useJoe Hanlon of TechRadar: Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos says that there is a correlation between the Netflix launching in a country and BitTorrent traffic slowing down in the same region. If you stream it, they will pay.Thursday, May 2, 2013
The Perfect Empty VesselThis is a good piece on how hard Facebook tries to keep the social juices flowing. Alexis Madrigal, commenting on Facebook’s designer-hiring spree: As all these designers vanish into the bowels of the company, so, too, does their work. Facebook wants to create design that …Friday, April 26, 2013
The next generation of InstapaperMarco Arment has turned control of his read-it-later service, Instapaper, over to incubator-turned-company-in-its-own-right Betaworks: I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We’ve structured the deal with Instapaper’s …Saturday, April 20, 2013
Why carriers should be more worried than Google about Facebook HomeEllis Hamburger, writing at The Verge: Mirroring its rollout of free VoIP calling for iOS, Facebook has updated its Messenger app for Android to allow free calling for users in the US. I think this is Facebook’s true …Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Want to learn to code? Start here.Zack Shapiro offers some great advice for those interested in learning to code as a means to build something. I’m one of those people he mentions who are using Code Academy but I make it a part of my weekly routine and it’s helping. I wrote a post almost a year ago …Friday, March 29, 2013
Facebook To Reveal “Home On Android”I predict Facebook will announce a custom Android launcher — a “home” screen. Update April 4, 2013: I was right.Thursday, March 28, 2013
Amazon acquiring GoodreadsMakes sense.Monday, March 25, 2013
Yahoo: The Marissa Mayer TurnaroundJean-Louis Gassée consistently provides insight and, perhaps even more importantly in today’s tech-writing landscape, truly elegant prose. This is a great write-up, but I recommend you make Monday Note one of your weekly reads. He and Frédéric Filloux are often …Friday, March 22, 2013
HBO CEO wants to bundle HBO GO with your internet subscriptionThis is progress, although MG Siegler is right to doubt whether cable companies, many of whom are also internet service providers, would even consider such a deal. At least HBO recognizes that the math won’t hold up against a la carte …Monday, March 4, 2013
Twitter kills TweetDeck, announces it on Posterous, which they’re also killingI admit, squeezing the entire post into the title is lazy, but at least it’s informative. I’ll link to Twitter’s death notice for Posterous and call it a post.Monday, February 11, 2013
Evernote CEO hints at future task management integrationPhil Libin, CEO of Evernote, talking to Lifehacker: What’s your favorite to-do list manager? You know, I don’t actually have one. I use Evernote, which isn’t particularly great for to-dos yet. Yet. Despite having tried every task management …Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The Verge picks the best reads of 2012This is a great list, and includes only a few that missed, which probably means I read too much about tech. But what I particularly like about it is that most of the stories would appeal in one way or another to even to “normals”who don’t obsessively follow the …Sunday, January 13, 2013
More House of Representatives data available in XMLO’Reilly's Alex Howard reports that both House floor summaries and bulk downloads of all House legislation are now available in XML. It doesn't mean everything Congress does is available yet, but it’s a great progression. I really hope some …Friday, January 11, 2013
TechCrunch’s John Biggs on how to cover the Consumer Electronics ShowJohn Biggs, in a great post at TechCrunch about how they approached their CES 2013 coverage: But when you take a step back and look at CES from an innovation standpoint, and with the expectation that the big money here makes …Monday, January 7, 2013
Subscribe to The Brief if you like concise daily updates on the tech news that mattersThe ads weren’t working, so The Brief is now accepting $3/month or $30/year memberships. The incredibly useful site by Richard Dunlop-Walters will remain free to all, but it’s continued existence is now predicated …Thursday, January 3, 2013
Learning by ShippingFormer Windows executive Steven Sinofsky, explaining the name of his new blog: The title comes from something impressed upon me early in my career, which is that learning as an engineer comes from the process of starting, then finishing, and iterating on products–getting …Thursday, October 18, 2012
Verizon Activated 3.1 Million iPhones In Q3 2012, But Only 651K Were iPhone 5sMG Siegler, commenting on the TechCrunch post by Chris Velazco, linked above: In other words, the iPhone 5 was on sale for just nine days before the quarter ended. And it was supply-constrained the whole time. Mr. …Monday, October 15, 2012
SoftBank buys 70% stake in Sprint Michael J. De La Merced and Neil Gough, in The New York Times: In a statement on Monday, SoftBank, a big Japanese telecommunications company, said it would pay $8 billion to buy newly issued Sprint stock worth about $5.25 a share. It will then pay $12.1 billion to …Friday, September 14, 2012
Twitter forced to turn over protester’s deleted tweetsMike Isaac, writing at All Things D: In the end, the New York DA and the judge used a legal maneuver to put pressure on Twitter, threatening to hold the company in contempt of court and levy steep fines if it didn’t hand over the data. …Thursday, September 13, 2012
Hamish McKenzie, writing at PandoDaily : With two product launches in a row that show Apple is merely keeping pace with innovation rather than leading it, the world’s most valuable company will start to seem mortal. I disagree. For the record, I’m usually on board with Mr. McKenzie’s analyses, and …Friday, August 24, 2012
Cloud startup aims to make “dumb” cell phones smartSean Gallagher reports at Ars Technica on biNu, a company developing an asynchronous, server-side smartphone emulator in Java. The system’s low-bandwidth, high-security nature makes it a perfect fit for countries where the next iPhone is out of …Saturday, August 18, 2012
Apple’s Secrets Revealed at TrialIan Sherr, writing for the Wall Street Journal: In cross-examination, Mr. Forstall said Eddy Cue, now head of Apple’s Internet services efforts, had used a 7-inch Samsung tablet for a time, and sent an email to Chief Executive Tim Cook that he believed “there …Monday, July 30, 2012
Don’t believe the ‘Apple invests in Twitter’ hype In fact, an Apple investment in Twitter is painted as something Twitter can take or leave, but a partnership Apple desperately needs. Tim Carmody makes a great point in this piece.