Remember 2011? The Arab Spring, a.k.a. “Revolution 2.0″? Four governments were overthrown, and the stage was set for further social-media-fuelled protests: Brazil. Ukraine. Turkey. It seems awfully apparent, now, that Facebook and Twitter can serve as a potent catalyst of eruptions of revolutionary fervor– –and equally apparent that that isn’t nearly enough to… Read More

 Okay, it’s technically not “middle” America, geographically speaking, but it is a small chunk of suburbia on the outskirts of an even smaller urban center. A place where people don’t rush right out and buy the latest new gadget simply because it exists. Where people don’t even notice your upgraded Dick Tracy-style Apple Watch wristwear, unless you find yourself… Read More

 I write to you from Aqaba, Jordan, a town made famous when conquered by “Lawrence of Arabia” and Faisal al-Hashimi 99 years ago, at a confluence where today four nations divide a mere 25 miles of coastline. So I have travel much on my mind. And it seems to me that the influence of travel on technology has hit another inflection point, and traditional travel companies have much… Read More

 This past week’s Disrupt NY 2015 conference was my first opportunity to use the Apple Watch at a multi-day event, and considering Disrupt is always essentially a non-stop workfest for us here at TC, from morning well into night, it’d be hard to find a better real-world test case to see how the Apple Watch performs in this type of setting. In short, events throw into bas-relief… Read More

 Ladies and gentlemen, the C programming language. It’s a classic. It is sleek, and spartan, and elegant. (Especially compared to its sequel, that bloated mess C++, which shares all the faults I’m about to describe.) It is blindingly, quicksilver fast, because it’s about as close to the bone of the machine as you can get. It is time-tested and ubiquitous. And it is… Read More

 “I would again draw an analogy to venture capital,” observes Ben Thompson, in a typically incisive Stratechery post eviscerating the new streaming service Tidal. “The importance–and amount–of venture capital has never been greater. The truth is that because so many folks can now get started it is that much harder–and more expensive–to cut through… Read More

 If there’s any doubt that Netflix doesn’t want to just augment your cable TV subscription, but actually desires to replace it outright, then look no further than today’s news of the streaming service’s intention to reboot the classic 80s-to-early 90s comedy “Full House,” under the new, oh-so-creative title, “Fuller House.” The spin-off, deemed… Read More

 What is the Apple Watch? The simple answer is Apple’s first smartwatch. In fact Apple calls it its “most personal device ever”. But early reviewers have wrestled with the raison d’être of the Apple Watch. Read More

 The powers that be want to control your phones and your drones. And who can blame them? It was inevitable. Of course they’re upset that smartphones are making it hard to catch speeders. Of course manufacturers are hurrying to ensure that drones refuse to fly to certain locations, before they’re forced to do so by law. Those are the instruments of power in today’s and… Read More

 In 2009 I discovered Google App Engine and fell in love. Its promise: any software developer could build web apps available to anyone, anywhere, 24/7, without having to worry about server configuration, or database setup, or OS versions, or security patches, or load balancing, or scaling. Automatic scaling! All we had to do was write our code; App Engine would handle everything else. Read More

 Listeners lose when music becomes fragmented. You might like your new on-demand streaming better than CDs, but at least you could buy them in any store. At this rate, no matter who you choose to pay $10 a month, you might not get all the music you want. As each streaming app tries to differentiate itself, they’re signing exclusivity and windowing deals so you can only hear certain songs… Read More

 HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is the world’s most pirated show, according to new data from anti-piracy solutions provider Irdeto out today. So it’s not surprising that the network has now moved to make watching its content more easily accessible to those who don’t want to pay for cable or satellite television. Instead, thanks to deals with Apple, Cablevision,… Read More