Category: Tech news

 Facebook, Google and Twitter have to deal with outrageous amounts of spam and abuse. They hire teams of engineers to stop trolls, outwit bad actors and otherwise keep their walled gardens free of misanthropes. It’s a costly business. Huge teams of Full-Time Employees, or FTEs, are charged with stopping these attacks at other companies, and it’s easy to imagine millions of dollars… Read More

 The convenience and versatility offered by mobile devices and the ubiquity of connectivity has caused a shift in the way we live and work. Gone are the solitary cubicles and stodgy desktops of yore, replaced by the mobile workforce user. Companies are adopting strategies like bring-your-own-device and deploying better governance policies to harness the increasing demand for enterprise mobility. Read More

 Earlier this week, I joined a group of journalists to meet with director Alex Gibney and discuss his new film, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine — and the first thing he did was put away his iPhone. It was no big deal, but the action took a little extra humor and weight since the documentary is all about our relationship with Jobs and the products he created. It opens with footage of… Read More

 A series of recent breaches at United Airlines, Anthem and, most recently, Sabre Corp. and American Airlines are reportedly tied to state-sponsored cyber attackers. These attacks further highlight an important trend in the cybersecurity arena: Government entities are targeting corporations in addition to other governments, with far reaching implications. Read More

 Apple is expected to unveil new iPhones at an event next Wednesday, and likely also new iPads and an updated Apple TV. Here’s a quick round-up of the tweaks Apple watchers are expecting this time around for the new iPhones… Read More

 An AI roundtable discussion is a staple of the tech journalism circus — usually framed with a preamble about dystopic threats to human existence from the inexorable rise of ‘super intelligence machines’. Just add a movie still from The Terminator. Read More

 I received a lot of feedback on an article I wrote a few months ago about changing the way we perceive the “Things” in the Internet of Things (IoT). The gist of my argument was that we should start treating these “Things” more like people — in the sense of thinking about them the way you would think about an employee hired to fulfill a specific function. Our… Read More

 As the #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag continues to gain traction, you’ll be hearing more about geeks who break the stereotypes of what programmers should be like. One such example is Michelle Sun, the founder of First Code Academy, a company that teaches schoolchildren as young as 6 years old how to code. Read More

 This is a call to action for the dreamers of the world. Imagine being in a market where more people live in a high-speed mobile Internet zone than have electricity. The innovative thinking that has defined the world’s best entrepreneurs would be able to create services that don’t exist today that would empower these users. This world doesn’t need imagining — there are… Read More

 The Gillmor Gang — Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, September 4, 2015. Mr. Robot AKA Mike Arrington rematerializes as the Gang mulls President Trump v Echo, Burning Man v 3D VR, Apple TV or not TV. No Spoilers. Plus, the latest G3 (below) with Mary Hodder, Rebecca Woodcock, Francine Hardaway, and Tina Chase Gillmor. Read More

 But in reality, you often have to reset your router when your connections start dropping and woe to you if you ever have to actually change any settings. Despite their ubiquity, most routers still have dismal user interfaces. Enter Google. With the $200 OnHub router, Google wants to fix everything that’s wrong with modern routers — and for the most part, it does. After a few days… Read More

 Backers of startups worldwide are looking for the next “disruptive trend” that can overturn industries. Ironically, the venture capital industry has begun to resemble markets that investors themselves are looking to disrupt. Read More

 There was a time when Stanford University was considered a second-rate engineering school. It was the early 1940s, and the Department of Defense was pressed to assemble a top-secret team to understand and attack Germany’s radar system during World War II. It’s hard to imagine Stanford passed over as an innovation hub today — Stanford has outpaced some of the biggest Ivy… Read More

 This week in the world of tech, Uber got word that drivers in California were granted class-action status, a settlement ends the poaching drama started by Apple and Google and Apple’s about to drop everything but the kitchen sink next week at their September 9th circus event. We’re all wearing blazers in this episode and Matthew Lynley nails his transition marks (so you know we… Read More

 Parking. It’s an issue that impacts everyone who owns a car. People might not think about it or talk about it, but it certainly can be one of those daily frustrations that ignites stress. Traditionally, drivers will circle the block for a coveted on-street parking space or a parking garage that has an affordable hourly rate. However, there is more to parking than white lines, garages… Read More