A writer focused on covering early-stage startups, especially those with a technology focus.
If I could only have one MacBook (which is usually the case for your average laptop-buyer), this is the one I’d pick, without hesitation. Fewer issues than its 15-inch cousin, which pioneered the Retina line, combined with a much lighter design with a smaller desktop footprint for a display that can still give you crazy amounts of screen real estate all adds up to a sure-fire winner. → Read More
Microsoft has revealed its new Xbox, the successor to the Xbox 360. It’s a next-generation console, with plenty of power under the hood, but it’s also clearly about consolidating your digital entertainment and operate as much more of a lifestyle device. → Read More
Burstly’s grand vision coming out of its TestFlight acquisition is getting full reveal today with the announcement of the company’s new corporate structure, which rebrands Burstly’s monetization tools as SkyRocket, and opens them up to all mobile developers and publishers with a new self-serve option, whereas previously they’d been accessible only to the biggest fish in the app ecosystem pond. → Read More
Android UX and interaction design leads Helena Roeber and Rachel Garb gave a talk at Google I/O this year about the Android Design Principles (ADP) they helped create and introduced back in 2012 with the launch of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The ADP foll three simple principles, essentially “enchat, simplify and amaze,” but there’s much more to those principles that that relatively slippery… → Read More
The Wall Street Journal is now reporting via Twitter that the rumored $1.1 billion cash acquisition deal for social blogging site Tumblr has been approved by Yahoo’s board of directors. The Tumblr acquisition was rumored last week, with a price tag reportedly north of $1 billion, which appears to be accurate if the WSJ’s sources are correct. → Read More
Google is under fire in the UK for its tax practices in the country, and a new key witness (who spoke to The Sunday Times) might put them in deeper hot water when he hands over a reported 100,000 emails and documents to the British Revenue & Customs (HRMC) services. Barney Jones, a former Googler who was at the company between 2004 and 2006, says he has material proof that Google’s London… → Read More
Google made a relatively quiet announcement today regarding how it’s pushing the developer ecosystem forward around Google Now, its intelligent personal assistant for Android devices. The company has begun extending mark up tools for emails from select partners, which help highlight flight schedules, hotel bookings and various types of reservations, to make sure that Gmail can spot that… → Read More
Google held a session today at I/O 2013 about how to make money on Android, and in the initial few minutes it shared some updated stats around Google Play revenues and how those are progressing. Not surprisingly, the big growth is coming with in-app purchases, though Google’s recently launched subscription model is also making headway. → Read More
Google unveiled its completely redesigned Google Maps product on the web at I/O 2013, and at a panel dedicated to the new Maps experience, Maps User Experience Design Lead Jonah Jones and Engineering Director for Maps on the web Yatin Chawathe took us through what went into creating Maps and the engineering effort behind the considerable change seems prodigious. → Read More
Google impressed a lot of people when it debuted its Grand Canyon Street View imagery in October. The Trekker backpack used to capture that imagery, which is essentially a backpack-mounted version of the same all-seeing eye that sits atop the Google Street View car. → Read More
One of the most interesting product demos on display at Google I/O this year was a virtual sky-diving simulation built using eight separate computers running Chrome, along with a Kinect-like motion sensor made by ASUS called the Xtion Pro. The Maps Dive experiment was created by Portland-based independent digital agency Instrument. → Read More
NVIDIA brought its new Shield handheld gaming system to Google I/O this year and showed off a near-production device. The Shield made its debut at CES this year, surprising most since it’s a consumer handheld device from a company that generally makes internal components. But it has some neat tricks up its sleeve, including a Tegra 4 chipset, 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch 720p display and 16GB of internal… → Read More
Leap Motion was showing off its still unreleased gesture motion controller for computers at Google I/O 2013. The demo unit allowed you to use the controller to navigate Google Earth, and the functionality felt ready for prime time to me, as this was the first time I’d ever used the Leap Motion. The controls seemed intuitive, and within a few minutes I was flying around the globe pretty handily… → Read More
Google announced a number of new partner apps today on stage at Google I/O during the “Developing for Glass” session. Facebook and Twitter were the highlights of the list, which also included Evernote, Tumblr, Elle and CNN, in addition to the previously announced NYT and Path apps. → Read More
Google took the lid off of its new version of Maps at I/O 2013 today, which is a dramatic redesign of the long-standing navigation and place-finding software across all platforms. We got a chance to go hands-on with the new Maps, which is still a beta product, with access only given out to a few select users so far. In the video above, you check it out in action as a Google rep gives us a… → Read More
Apple had a bit of a head start when it came to mobile software sales, since it launched its App Store earlier than the Android Market (which would later become what we call Google Play today). But the gap was more pronounced in terms of downloads when they kicked off, but lately the gap has been closing, and today both Play and the App Store announced very close milestones. → Read More
Google announced some fresh updates for Google Now today, consisting of six new types of cards that will show up in the automated, intelligent digital assistant feature for Android and iOS. The new cards include a location-based Reminder feature, public transit travel times, and information about books, music, TV shows and video games that might be of timely interest to users. → Read More
Google is offering a version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, arguably one of the top current Android devices, with Jelly Bean 4.2 unlocked on Google Play beginning June 26, the company revealed at I/O today. The news is big because it’s the first non-Nexus device to get blessed with this opportunity, and Google says it will be updated in time with all other Nexus devices. → Read More
Realmac Software is showing off its latest app today, ahead of a launch to come later in the month. The app is called Analog, and is an iPhone version of its desktop quick and easy photo manipulation software. I’ve been beta testing the software, and the experience it provides is in keeping with Realmac’s other recent mobile releases, like the super simple to-do app Clear it created in… → Read More
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