When a power outage in San Francisco last night caused Waymo’s autonomous cars to stall and snarl traffic, clog streets and blocked emergency vehicles, it felt to me like a paradigm of big tech. It was a predictable failure. The tech industry loves to release… Read More »When Technology Breaks, It Breaks Society
We no longer see the swarm of major new gadgets that we saw earlier in this decade. Instead we’re seeing refinements, improvements, and more miniaturization. I recently looked back on some of the gadgets that I purchased this year and like enough to recommend. Anker… Read More »Favorite gadgets of 2025
There was a time when the under-seat bag barely mattered. It carried a book, a computer, a boarding pass, maybe a sandwich. The real action lived in the overhead bin. That was the focus of interest in the rollerboard bag category, each manufacturer creating a… Read More »Why Under-Seat Bags Became the New Battleground
My phone messages are being filled with a continuous torrent of requests for donations from our politicians. Day and night I receive texts from politicians who insist that I, a stranger they have never met, hold the key to saving their campaign. The tone is… Read More »The great texting onslaught from our politicians
It’s becoming one of the real annoyances of our daily life: the constant request to rate, score, or review every transaction we make. Buy a sandwich, rate the sandwich. Order an item from Amazon, rate the packaging. Call customer support, rate the agent before you’re… Read More »The Endless Survey: How Customer Feedback Became Customer Fatigue
I just returned from Paris with tired legs, achy feet, hundreds of photos, and a renewed appreciation for something that most cities lack: the enjoyment of walking. Paris is a city built for the pedestrian in a way few modern cities are. While other places… Read More »Paris: The World’s Greatest Walking City
We were told the AI era was going to be different. More careful. More reliable. More accurate. Yet the latest misstep at Google shows something very different. — and very, very irresponsible, especially for a company that is supposed to provide reliable information. Google recently… Read More »AI Still Hallucinates: Why Google’s failure is a danger sign
For years, owning an iPhone meant accepting a trade-off: unmatched user inteface, strong ecosystem, and excellent build quality — but battery life that was barely good, and never great. Even as Apple’s hardware improved dramatically, many users remained frustrated that Apple paid less attention to… Read More »Digital Peace of Mind: How OPPO’s Battery Brings iPhone’s Weak Link Into Focus
After more than a decade of hype, driverless taxis are finally becoming a reality. We’ve heard the promises for years — cars that would pick you up without a steering wheel or a driver in sight — but this time electric vehicles are actually navigating… Read More »The Driverless Taxi Moment Has Arrived
General Motors’ decision to remove Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its upcoming electric vehicles has set off a wave of frustration—not only among tech enthusiasts, but increasingly among everyday drivers who expect their phones to “just work” when they get into a car. The… Read More »GM’s CarPlay Gamble: Doubles down in new interview