Smartphone photography keeps marching on — and why not. After all, cameras, screens, and battery life are the key distinguishing features of most phones, especially in the Android ecosystem. And that is why we continue to see Android hardware makers — Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and … | Continue reading
Apple is kicking off 2023 with a slew of new products — Mac Minis and MacBook Pros. Apple’s new devices are powered by two new chips, M2 Pro and M2 Max. These two chips are the next generation of Apple’s Silicon, and if the mini-keynote and the press release are any indications, … | Continue reading
“Time moves in one direction, memory in another,” said William Gibson. I was reminded of these words when reading two long pieces about my friends Mathew Ingram and Wesley Verhoeve. Both stories (tangentially involved me,” and inadvertently took me down memory lane. Mathew wrote … | Continue reading
David Lowry, a songwriter, has a very thoughtful counter take on OpenAI, the hot new AI thing in Silicon Valley that will apparently get a $10 billion investment from Microsoft. Lowry brings up powerful and valid points, and I urge you to read them. (Additionally, Tom Krazit expl … | Continue reading
I had a fantastic start to 2023: in the mountains, taking photographs, and being completely meditative. That didn’t last long — on my way back, I picked up something, and by the time the work week got rolling, I fell sick. All sorts of symptoms — sore throat, nasal congestion, ac … | Continue reading
A very happy rainy, soggy hump day! Let’s start by wishing my friend, Matt Mullenweg, a very happy birthday! It is amazing to see someone you met as a teenager turn into a man and a titan. The New Yorker recently wrote about the quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is not a life philos … | Continue reading
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into a tawdry reality show in which he is the star, the villain, and the comedian, everyone has been talking about a new decentralized web. New products, such as Mastodon, and new technologies, such as Activity Pub, are part of … | Continue reading
I took a quick break for the holidays and went out to take photographs in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The photography was amazing, and I got a chance to connect with nature. I managed to do some hiking as well. However, the biggest adventure was when flying home. In the winter, … | Continue reading
It has become quite a habit now: at the end of the year, I look back and see how often I have tended to my digital homestead. In more prosaic terms, it translates to the total number of posts during the year. Over the past 12 months, I posted 128 times (129, if you include … | Continue reading
Time has a strange habit of slinking away. It does so quietly that we don't notice it till it's too late. And what you are left with are fragments, or what we grandiosely call memories. You remember some days, a few moments, and a handful of faces, and they all add up to become y … | Continue reading
In 2022, my visual vocabulary found appreciation for error and blur, and, more importantly, I learned that reality is just a perception. | Continue reading
Thank You, Santa Claus, for making this the best gift ever! Allbirds trend in Silicon Valley is over! The Wall Street Journal reports, "Allbirds customers' average annual spend has dropped by more than $31 since 2018." Which means slowing revenue growth and increasing losses.(om. … | Continue reading
Thank You, Santa Claus, for making this the best gift ever! Allbirds trend in Silicon Valley is over! The Wall Street Journal reports, “Allbirds customers’ average annual spend has dropped by more than $31 since 2018.” Which means slowing revenue growth and increasing losses. A … | Continue reading
In my time writing about Silicon Valley, it has gone from being a place of naive curiosity to where posturing is everything. And the reason we have this state of affairs is that, with extreme success, the denizens of the valley have ostracized these four phrases from their vocabu … | Continue reading
How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?– Dr. Seuss It has been a few weeks since I sent one of these updates. I thought I would write one last month. … | Continue reading
QUOTABLE Short-selling giant Jim Chanos in a Twitter Spaces conversation, had some choice words for Silicon Valley investors when it comes to due-diligence failings, as demonstrated by the FTX blowup shows. “Look at the texts that were released in conjunction with people wanting … | Continue reading
Cake, a company known for making electric bikes, just announced The Kibb is an all-electric ATV. “The modular body of the Kibb will have different attachment points to allow for compatibility with a wide variety of ATV accessories. The Kibb will be a multifunctional battery-power … | Continue reading
We live in stranger times, when the day there is good news is now a red letter day. Today happens to be one of those days. I woke up to the news that a very close friend had a healthy baby boy. What a delight it is to be an uncle again. A few minutes … | Continue reading
Watching Musk torment Fauci is a warning to all of us. Never mind why he’s doing it, it doesn’t matter. What matters is he’s doing it. Organizing insurrection aimed at random individuals and their families. When it’s your turn, there’s nowhere to run. Keep your head down little c … | Continue reading
I have always enjoyed Trevor Noah, who hosted “The Daily Show,” a faux news show initially made famous by Jon Stewart. About seven years ago, Noah, a South African comic, took over from Stewart. He brought an outsider’s viewpoint to this quintessential American socio-political cu … | Continue reading
It is winter, or as I like to say: the season for me to take photos. I am already dreaming of visits to Alaska and Wyoming, along with short stops in Idaho and Montana. One of the favorite things to snap during winter: “powerlines.” I don’t know why, but I love the networks, cabl … | Continue reading
It is no secret that I am a big fan of BBC/National Geographic’s reality TV show, Life Below Zero. It is now in its twentieth season. As someone who didn’t have a cable television account, I used to buy the season from Apple’s iTunes store. I paid for the first fourteen seasons. … | Continue reading
Way back In 1935, genius musician Duke Ellington in an effort to placate two ladies, placed each of them on two sides of his piano, he composed and played a song — In a Sentimental Mood. Such is the magic of the song that nine decades later I can’t stop listening to it — in … | Continue reading
I am fortunate enough to have traveled to many exotic locations. Still, the biggest thrill is when the plane slowly makes its way around the bay area and settles into a slow approach over the San Francisco Bay towards the San Francisco Airport. The bigger the bird, the slower it … | Continue reading
If you were a teenager (or slightly older) in the eighties, there is a good chance you tried out Calvin Klein cologne. It was quite the thing - it was everywhere, so much so that you couldn't tell if the cologne smelled like the magazines or the magazines smelled like the cologne … | Continue reading
If you were a teenager (or slightly older) in the eighties, there is a good chance you tried out Calvin Klein cologne. It was quite the thing — it was everywhere, so much so that you couldn’t tell if the cologne smelled like the magazines or the magazines smelled like the cologne … | Continue reading
John Scalzi, a veteran blogger, reminded us that even as we deal with the demise of the social media web, we should make a special effort to link to other bloggers and their work. So, today’s reading list constitutes all the good stuff I have read on other blogs. The Buy and Hold … | Continue reading
Even though we like to blame the shortening length of music tracks on TikTok, the fact is that songs have been getting shorter ever since we started to live on the Internet. Just as written content went from being longer to more ephemeral tweets, the same has happened with music, … | Continue reading
I returned from a quick trip to London on the day of Thanksgiving, thus missing the bonhomie of the weekend. While I did miss the slices of pie, it was good to spend the time watching The Silence of Water on PBS Masterpiece (via Amazon Prime.) The Italian crime show is beautiful … | Continue reading
A few months ago, news broke of an insider trading ring at Coinbase, one of the many crypto exchanges hoping to make the world of magical Internet money easy for normals. SEC and other authorities acted swiftly and nailed down the perpetrators; their ill-gotten gains were around … | Continue reading
No matter how often this happens, we don’t learn our lessons — we continue to till other people’s proverbial land and keep using their social spaces. Whether it is Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Medium, we get trapped in the big platforms because they dangle the one big carrot … | Continue reading
If you pay enough attention to the present, you can see the future. You can learn, adapt, and prepare for a world reshaped by science and technology. This newsletter focuses on our Present Future - on what is possible within our lifetimes.(om.co) | Continue reading
I crave these moments of stillness. I occasionally find myself in the right place with the right camera and capture the moment precisely the way I feel it. Of course, it takes a bit of an effort to get rid of the distracting color I hope you are having a great day, where ever … | Continue reading
Ever since the FTX story broke, I have had two recurring thoug. This energy companyrace reminds me of Enron, the energy company that wanted to make markets in everything — especially in gullibility. I wrote about their remarkable similarities in my piece for The Spectator, which … | Continue reading
Good morning my friends over here! Earlier this morning, I got a message from another friend that someone was imitating me on IG by stealing my photos. I sadly had to go there and report the account. It was one of my first visits to IG since I quit the service in 2020. And the … | Continue reading
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” Lewis Carroll Today is the first day of November. We have off … | Continue reading
Every year at its annual launch fest, the Adobe Max, Adobe announces enhancements to its flagship software products. I keep an eye on photography-related offerings — Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. This year’s product enhancements tapped into Adobe’s “artificial intelligence … | Continue reading
The popular narrative these days is that AI (aka artificial intelligence) is evil and will end the human race. To paraphrase a roman leader, the only thing to fear is the fear itself. As I have said before (on multiple occasions), AI will be a necessary co-pilot in our increasing … | Continue reading
When I see a landscape, all I see is a dreamscape. And that is when I know it is time for me to press the shutter. Here is a vintage photo from 2019, when I last visited Utah. I hope to go back soon. This is reimagined with a new preset I recently developed with … | Continue reading
Delivery startups don’t deliver — that is the gist of the big feature story on GoPuff, a delivery service that started selling hookahs and other smoking paraphernalia in Philadelphia. The company is the latest in what seems to be a long line of money-losing attempts at instant (o … | Continue reading
I am reminded daily that the Internet and online media can be awful places. Today, the reminder came in the form of reactions to the election of form Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, as the British Prime Minister. Whether these are bots doing the bidding of some hidden p … | Continue reading
When Apple announced that it now has 100 million songs on its music streaming platform, it started a conversation. Bruce Houghton, founder of Hypebot puts the conversation to the rest with his estimates: With just over 100,000 songs being uploaded every day, the totdaily, this n … | Continue reading
As a Lana Del Ray fan, I sometimes keep up with the news about her. Today, a news alert popped up — a laptop, three video cameras, and hard drives were stolen from her car. The computer has her book manuscript, and music and videos are on those drives. The singer took to Instagra … | Continue reading
I have been busy researching two long pieces, which have my mind going in many directions. I need to calm down and start writing. But up until then, enjoy these random bits I have accumulated on my blotter. They are bits of data, quotable quotes, and stuff worth reading. And just … | Continue reading
It has been a minute since I shared new photographs. I was traveling to India, and when I returned, I got an infection that rendered me useless for a few days. Now that I am back in the saddle, I w...(om.co) | Continue reading
It has been a minute since I shared new photographs. I was traveling to India, and when I returned, I got an infection that rendered me useless for a few days. Now that I am back in the saddle, I wanted to share some photos. I had a tough time finding things to capture in … | Continue reading
Facebook is shutting down Bulletin, its newsletter subscription service, and it will wind down by the end of 2023. This is terrible news for idiots who keep falling for false promises of Facebook, Google, and every large platform that lures than with traffic and large audiences. … | Continue reading