The autonomous car has thrown the automotive industry — an industry that is notoriously slow to change — into the forefront of technology. The autonomous car has become a technology catalyst because it requires innovation in many areas, ranging from processor and sensor technology to artificial intelligence. As with all new technologies, the industry rushes […]
Welcome, friends, neighbors and distant strangers to the latest edition of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, in which your trusty columnist highly recommends a trip to your regional wine producers when not perusing the latest gadget announcements. In our tasting flight this time around are a pair of earphones that double as earrings (or is that […]
For pretty much my entire career, CEOs have been almost invulnerable. Even when Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and lead spokesperson, tried to get then-CEO John Scully fired from Apple, he lost and got fired himself. I’ve watched CEOs at companies with zero-tolerance employee dating policies have affairs with subordinates and get a pass. (At Intel […]
Photo-hosting service Photobucket in May quietly restored third-party hosting of photos, reversing its unpopular year-old policy that required users to pay nearly US$400 in subscription fees for hosting privileges. Many irate users had reacted to the policy by claiming their photos were “taken hostage.” Hosted photos on blogs, forums and other sites were replaced by […]
By John P. Mello Jr. Jul 17, 2018 9:57 AM PT Roku has earned a reputation for making streaming TV products that are easy to set up and use, and that deliver above-average quality at affordable prices — and that’s the approach it has taken with its new Roku TV Wireless Speakers. The company unveiled […]
Apple on Thursday announced updated MacBook Pro 13- and 15-inch notebooks with a Touch Bar, 8th-generation Intel Core processors, support for up to 32 GB of DDR memory in the larger notebook, a True Tone display, and an improved third-generation keyboard for quiet typing. The 15-inch model comes with 6-core Intel Core i7 and i9 […]
By John P. Mello Jr. Jul 11, 2018 9:38 AM PT A new feature in iOS 11.4.1, which Apple released earlier this week, is designed to protect against unwanted intrusions through the iPhone’s Lightning Port. However, the protection may be weak at best. The feature, called “USB Restricted Mode,” disables data transfer through the Lightning […]
Tech companies have been going through a lot of CEOs of late. Prior to its split, HP had a revolving door for CEOs with mistake after mistake. Yahoo’s board kept making choices that made things worse, Uber’s CEO almost took the company under (granted, he was a founder), and CEOs fired for ethical lapses jumped […]
Facebook and Google have manipulated users into sharing data using so-called “dark patterns,” such as misleading wording and confusing interfaces, according to a report the Norwegian Consumer Council released Wednesday. The practices nudged users toward accepting privacy options that favored the tech companies rather than themselves, the NCC found. Facebook and Google have no intention […]
Peppermint 9, released June 22, accomplishes something most other Linux distros don’t: It melds the best components from other desktop environments and integrates them into a solid operating system. Peppermint OS is a lightweight Ubuntu-based distribution featuring a desktop environment mashup of Xfce and LXDE components. The latest release nearly completes a process begun several […]