These days, whenever I think about Google, I recall a line from Madame Bovary. “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris,” Flaubert writes, capturing Emma Bovary’s provincial reality and her romanticized dreams of escape. That is Google in a nutshell, isn’t it? The … | Continue reading
As one month ends and another begins, I find myself performing what has become a private ritual with two pens from my unusually large collection of fountain pens. These are not the sober instruments that sign checks or pen manuscripts—those steadfast companions are already loaded … | Continue reading
Bijan Sabet is one of the people in our industry I admire ardently. His work ethic, moral conviction, and understanding of himself have made him a joy. We served together on the board of Academia, where I learned much by observing his combination of empathy and steely resolve. He … | Continue reading
You can now use Claude to search the internet to provide more up-to-date and relevant responses. With web search, Claude has access to the latest events and information, boosting its accuracy on tasks that benefit from the most recent data. Web search is available now in feature … | Continue reading
In this week’s edition of CrazyStupidTech, I wrote about how Chinese domination of “electric vehicles” is going to become a nightmare, not just for car companies, but also for Silicon Valley. More below! The future of cars is code, not chrome. Volvo’s ES90 is the latest example o … | Continue reading
If you’re a visitor to the website, you might have noticed a new link in the menu — Daily Blog. If you receive my writing by email, here’s a brief overview of this new feature. I used to publish a “Daily Om” blog during GigaOm’s expansion beyond my solo operation. It primarily se … | Continue reading
It is no secret that I love fountain pens, and that’s why I get excited about events such as the Manila Pen Show, which is the brainchild of a longtime friend and an admirable blogger, Leigh Reyes. She doesn’t blog much, but she posts everything she used to do on Instagram. And w … | Continue reading
John Gruber is not mincing his words. What Apple showed regarding the upcoming “personalized Siri” at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a company in disarray, if not crisis. The Apple that commissioned the futuristic “Knowledg … | Continue reading
I have been on the phone a lot today—talking to Katie Fehrenbacher, Stacey Higginbotham, and Chris Albrecht. Surj Patel popped into town, and we had coffee. Call it kismet—or just coincidence—that today happens to be the tenth anniversary of one of the most terrible days of my li … | Continue reading
It is the new Apple computers review day — as you can see from the top of Techmeme, which is dominated by the reviews of Apple’s new Mac Studio and MacBook Air models. While Mac Studio is garnering significant attention, the M4 MacBook Air is likely more relevant to everyday user … | Continue reading
So maybe it’s time we finally changed the way we talk about the Internet of Things (IoT). We keep talking about it as something achievable. Perhaps it’s time we started talking about what it really is: one of the biggest consumer scams ever invented. For a generation, we’ve been … | Continue reading
Microsoft is shutting down Skype. It will go offline in May 2025. “We’ve learned a lot from Skype over the years that we’ve put into Teams as we’ve evolved teams over the last seven to eight years,” Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, said in … | Continue reading
When it comes to technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, it has been surreal to watch events unfold. From politicians in technology backwaters to opportunists and fashion billionaires, everyone has jumped on the “AI” version of Shinkansen. And if that wa … | Continue reading
This quote pretty much sums up a lot of what happens to successful people as they grow older. They lose the ability to risk it all. The more successful they are, the more they want to protect what they have. You go from being a creator to a protector/hoarder. One doesn’t have to … | Continue reading
DeepSeek, a company associated with High-Flyer, an $8 billion Chinese hedge fund, changed the AI narrative when it claimed OpenAI-like capabilities for a mere $6 million. The company challenged conventional thinking about artificial intelligence and its seemingly insatiable need … | Continue reading
When I started writing about broadband, there were fewer than a few thousand T1 lines, but the magic of fast, always-on internet was pretty obvious even back then. In almost three decades, broadband has become ubiquitous, both at home and at work. We now almost always assume ther … | Continue reading
Yesterday slipped away, and I never got a chance to mark the 15th birthday of the iPad, perhaps one of the most misunderstood products in Apple’s lineup. The confusion over the device is not limited to reviewers or buyers but extends to Apple itself, which hasn’t really been able … | Continue reading
Fred Vogelstein, my co-writer for the CrazyStupidTech newsletter, has been wanting a digital research assistant powered by AI ever since he saw ChatGPT two years ago. He might have finally found the tool he loves — Google’s NotebookLM. Why? Because it helps transform his personal … | Continue reading
It has been one of those weeks where so much is going on that the noise is drowning out the signals. When the head of a trillion-dollar software giant starts throwing out lines like a late-night talk show host, you know we’ve finally put the “silly” in Silicon Valley. Not surpris … | Continue reading
In 2010, a college student wrote a piece of code that would help him start a company. Thirteen years later, he would walk away from a multi-billion-dollar public company he built, only to start tinkering with something new that could reshape how developers work. Mitchell Hashimot … | Continue reading
It is just over a year since Apple launched its face computer, and seventeen years ago it launched its skinny computer. The trajectory of one tells a lot about the future of the other. But before we get to that, a little trip down memory lane embellished with some grainy photos s … | Continue reading
A new season of CrazyStupidTech has begun, with my co-writer Fred Vogelstein turning his attention to a new company from one of the fathers of modern artificial intelligence. Generative AI has dominated recent discourse, but the impact of artificial intelligence extends far beyo … | Continue reading
Today is my 17th re-birthday. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you know why I call it my re-birthday. If you are new around here, well, here is a short recap. Just after I turned 41—17 years ago—a life of poor habits and family genetics caught up with me. I had a heart attack an … | Continue reading
As an avid Reddit user, I’ve learned to approach everything I read with skepticism, echoing Jerry Seinfeld’s catchphrase, “Really?” This morning, I encountered an unsourced post about Boox, a tablet and e-reader, which I viewed with a critical eye. According to the post, an upgra … | Continue reading
While I now like dogs — hi, Sadie Michel — I wasn’t really a dog person until I met Mr. Gibbs, who out of nowhere captured my heart. He very quickly became my dog-son. Gibbs was a black toy poodle — though his face was as salt-and-pepper as mine. We became inseparable buddies fro … | Continue reading
I recently wrote about the future of the browser and Surf, a new app from the creators of Flipboard. Both stories explore the changing nature of the web and its impact on the media landscape. I’m not shy about expressing my frustrations with the establishment media and the ever-p … | Continue reading
It’s a hell of a noise to be woken up by your continuous glucose monitoring app sending an alert for a hyperglycemic event. As a diabetic, you’ve got to pay attention to this — get up, take a quick sip of apple juice, and wait for things to get better. While you’re doing that, yo … | Continue reading
“It’s generally human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity. Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon On My Mind We, as modern humans, try to control everything. In reality, though, we can’t really control the infinite number … | Continue reading
In this week’s edition of my newsletter, CrazyStupidTech, I posted a reported essay on the future of browsers in the age of AI, with reflections on their past, and their role in our multi-device, machine-first, information-dense extended reality. My thinking was prompted by immer … | Continue reading
Last week, I wrote about a study conducted by TRG Datacenters that assessed the digital quality of life across U.S. cities by measuring metrics such as download speed, number of internet service providers, and customer ratings. I had some follow-up questions, so I requested acces … | Continue reading
When reading this story about the growing popularity of vintage digital cameras in Wired, I was reminded of this quote by Don Draper from the television series Mad Men: “Nostalgia – its delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means “the pain from an … | Continue reading
Uber & Lyft Earnings Under Pressure from Waymo, Robotaxis. Waymo’s robotaxis are undercutting Uber and Lyft prices in Phoenix while matching quality. It’s no longer just about autonomous technology — it’s about making the economics work at scale. This is a sign of the times as mo … | Continue reading
No, despite being the Babylon of the post-information society, San Francisco is not the top digital city in America, according to a study that is subjective in nature but telling nevertheless. Chicago, thanks to high penetration and lower prices of broadband, has the best digital … | Continue reading
Pete Warden is the kind of fellow you would run into at the old eTech conference or at Foo Camp—an old-school engineer who is equally at home hacking hardware and writing code in the latest languages. It was at an eTech conference that I first met Warden. We often swapped emails … | Continue reading
Notable Numbers Worth Reading The Last Word Enrique Allen, a partner at Designer Fund, passed away. Enrique became a friend when he and Ben started The Designer Fund. The news hits hard. RIP Enrique. Taken too soon. Ben’s note on Enrique’s passing is moving and heartfelt. Novembe … | Continue reading
There seems to be an open season on books. It is such a shame that even the so-called educated people don’t see the bigger picture. Books, in a way, are a means to build on collective human history. Our new-fangled “AI” is the sum of all books, though even its purveyors are not a … | Continue reading
If you can’t beat them, compromise them. The “them” being AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude. Ed Sussman, a former lawyer, and his company Citate.ai are pioneering ways to influence how AI chatbots perceive and present information. Their approach isn’t about hacking AI syste … | Continue reading
Given our ever-increasing digital lives, what I am about to say makes little sense — recently released numbers show that there might be a historic slowdown in internet traffic growth. Three of the largest content delivery networks (CDNs) — Akamai, Fastly, and Edgio — indicated th … | Continue reading
Company Nov 5, 2024 Nov 11, 2024 Change ($B) Change (%) Meta $1,445B $1,471B +$26B +1.80% Amazon $2,174B $2,175B +$1B +0.05% NVIDIA $3,432B $3,563B +$131B +3.82% Microsoft $3,059B $3,108B +$49B +1.60% Tesla $808.9B $1,124B +$315.1B +38.95% Apple $3,378B $3,389B +$11B +0.33% Alpha … | Continue reading
Con·tent (as an adjective) in a state of peaceful happiness. (as a noun) contents of a book, television program, or website, or even a container. Daylight saving time can play havoc on one’s mind. Even though I am up at my usual time, I look out the window and it’s pitch dark. So … | Continue reading
Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief product officer, said something in a 2020 conversation that has stuck with me since. “Twitter is one of those products where I can see overuse making people have a long term, problem with the product emotionally. And that’s being exacerbated in the day … | Continue reading
Dennis Crowley has built his career at the intersection of emerging technologies and human behavior. Twenty years ago, as a 25-year-old inspired by Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map, he created Dodgeball—turning text messaging into a way for friends to find each other in the city. Wh … | Continue reading
In the past, I typically followed election news and results on television networks like CNN and websites such as The New York Times. This time, I opted for Apple News’ Election Center coverage instead. It turned out to be good choice. This approach significantly reduced the anxie … | Continue reading
The chatbots-as-search paradigm encourages us to just accept answers as given, especially when they are stated in terms that are both friendly and authoritative. The chatbot interface invites you to just sit back and take the appealing-looking AI slop as if it were “information.” … | Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I went on a road trip to Montana with Rod Clark, a photographer friend. On the way back, we stopped in Wells, NV, to get food at Sher-E-Panjab Dhaba, a converted truck stop diner that serves good old-fashioned Punjabi food. When paying for our lunch, I got into a … | Continue reading
I have been using MacWhisper for recording and transcribing my conference calls and interviews for quite a while now. I have also tried FlowVoice.AI for using voice to respond to emails, text messages and do short dictations. Now that I have upgraded to the latest version of the … | Continue reading
For the sports fan in me, this has been a bit of a tough week. Two teams I normally like lost in a humiliating fashion. The New York Yankees lost to the L.A. Dodgers in the MLB World Series (4-1), and the Indian Cricket Team (ICT) was spanked by New Zealand, 3-0. The Indians have … | Continue reading
“You can write a narrative in your head, and spin yourself down a negative path, and beat yourself up and second guess. But what’s true is you made what you thought was the best decision in the moment. Then, you leave it behind. There’s no going back. Everyone makes mistakes. Eve … | Continue reading