Archive | TechReads

Apple University revealed. (Brian X. Chen/NYTimes)

Apple’s in-house training program sounds very, very Apple-esque.

Microsoft to reorg, cut up to 18,000 jobs. (Satya Nadella/Microsoft)

Why that Comcast rep wouldn’t let Ryan and Veronica just cancel. (Adrianne Jeffries/The Verge)

Because doing so would cost him money.

Fox tried to buy Time Warner. (Andrew Ross Sorkin/Michael De La Merced/NYTimes)

Anyone who wants to buy Time Warner should read the original AOL Time Warner press release, which I annotated in 2009.

Apple-IBM deal is bad news for BlackBerry. (Ingrid Lundgren/TechCrunch)

Just what BlackBerry needed: more bad news.

Here are the sites Google is hiding under EU “Right to be Forgotten” law. (Jeff John Roberts/GigaOm)

Gone from the Google index, but not forgotten.

The password is dying. (Christopher Mims/WSJ)

And to prove it, Mims shares his own Twitter password (which is christophermims).

Bringing back Prodigy. (Benj Edwards/The Atlantic)

One man wants to breathe new life into a very defunct online service.

Should Yahoo and AOL merge? Will They? (Kara Swisher/Re/code)

Maybe! Maybe not!

Does anyone want a smartwatch? (Kevin Roose/New York)

Still the most important question about the whole category.

Germany considers regulating Google like a utility. (Ingrid Lundgren/TechCrunch)

Um, fabulous idea.

Samsung figures out its smartphone future. (Brian X. Chen/NYTimes)

Squeezed by China on the low end, Apple on the high end.

Sapphire screens: both neat and impractical? (Brad Molen/Engadget)

The multiple challenges of a technology Apple is supposedly about to embrace.

Amazon tries to negotiate with the FAA over drones. (Donna Tam/Cnet)

The can now fly at 50mph.

Five points that mattered in Satya Nadella’s Microsoft memo. (Ina Fried/Re/code)

Big changes are yet to come.

How much is Uber worth? (Bill Gurley/Above the Crowd)

A cogent (and exhaustive) argument that it’s worth a lot.

An interview with Satya Nadella. (Josh Topolsky/The Verge)

Good clarification on consumer/business divide–or, as Nadella maintains, the lack thereof.

LinkedIn launches a new Connections app. (Ingrid Lundgren/TechCrunch)

Another example of the current trend of “unbundling” mammoth services into specialized apps.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is coming back. (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

The company’s second oldest product after its BASIC, I think.

Computer Space, the first arcade video game. (Mat Smith/Engadget)

Featuring a nice plug for this Technologizer story by Benj Edwards.

 The truth about smartphones. (Ben Thompson/Stratechery)

Explaining Samsung’s bad quarter.

Amazon might want to give Hachette authors all the revenue from their e-books. (David Streitfeld/NYTimes)

The ugly negotiations continue.

JibJab’s “This Land” video turns ten. (Robinson Meyer/The Atlantic)

I disagree with Meyer’s contention that it wouldn’t be a hit today.

Samsung’s lousy quarter: bad news for every phone maker? (Eric Blattberg/VentureBeat)

The company is blaming it on industry trends which (theoretically) affect everyone.

BlackBerry–yes, Blackberry–is a hot stock. (Matt Burns/TechCrunch)

Maybe it’s fallen as far as it’s going to fall.

BlackBerry defends its squarish new smartphone. (Jon Fingas/Engadget)

It looks cool to me!

Startup 3D prints custom earphones. (Liz Gannes/Re/code)

I hope they’re more comfy than the do-it-yourself custom-molded Eers I paid almost as much for.

The man who built Silicon Valley. (JP Mangalindan/Fortune)

Once upon a time, before tech companies moved in, it was full of orchards.

“Let’s Ask the Audience” (This Week in Tech)

I guested on this episode of TWiT with Father Robert Ballecer and The Business Insider’s Steve Kovach..

What it’s like to use a Razr for a month. (Ashley Feinberg/Gizmodo)

2004’s coolest phone, revisited.

Independence from Facebook, Apple, and Google. (Dan Gillmor/The Guardian)

I’m not trying to declare it myself, but it’s fun to read about someone else declaring it.

More than ever, Android and iOS are diverging. (Benedict Evans)

Android is treating the Web and apps the same; iOS is making the web less relevant.

Smartphones may boost 4K video. (Dawn Chmielewski/Re/code)

…which would be good for adoption of big 4K TV sets.

The latest in ATM skimmer technology. (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

Fiendishly innovative.

Rumor: Microsoft will release Surface Mini after all. (EvLeaks)

The missing iPad Mini competitor will allegedly show up before the summer is over.

The NSA stored info on innocent Americans–badly. (Conor Friedersdorf/The Atlantic)

Whatever you think about the legitimacy of the agency’s actions, it’s tough to argue that it acted competently.

Google is making Europe’s “right to be forgotten” mess even worse. (Danny Sullivan/Search Engine Land)

Nobody knows how to explain search-related matters better than Danny Sullivan does.