Money makes the world go ’round, (also the conservation of angular momentum), and things were really spinning this week. That’s because Dell, maker of computers, has agreed to buy EMC, maker of data storage products, for $67 billion dollars. This, of course, is subject to regulatory approval and may take a year to complete, but if it all … Continue reading PTJ 163 News: No Time Like the Present
Apple’s Siri, Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana are the Charlie’s Angels of personal virtual assistants, each with their own strengths and weaknesses in the battle to do good. As assistants go, none of them are very old: Siri first arrived in iOS 5 in 2011, Google Now debuted in 2012 and Microsoft’s Cortana stopped being … Continue reading (Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Ask Me (Almost) Anything
Back in the day, Microsoft was the elephant in the room. Apple was a cult favorite and Google was just a search engine. These days, Bill Gates’ pride and joy is the scrappy underdog and is doing all it can to stay relevant. To that end, the boys from Redmond unveiled a slew of products this week and … Continue reading PTJ 162: Microsoft Doubles Down on Hardware
Now it’s Microsoft’s turn on stage! The company held a big press event on Tuesday here in New York City and showed off a great big pile of new devices all designed to run its Windows 10 operating system. There was the Surface Book, a laptop/tablet combo that starts at $1500, the Surface Pro 4 tablet with … Continue reading PTJ 162 News: Surface to Air
Operating systems and websites have gotten increasingly nosy cover the past few years — dipping into your contacts, peeking at your email, tracking your location and that sort of thing. While the increased personalization can be helpful for virtual assistant software, some people just don’t want their address books rifled through, or targeted local ads following … Continue reading (Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Lock It Down
Technologist Don Donofrio stops by this week with a review of the new iPhone 6s Plus and some insights on life with an Apple Watch. (And check out the articles he mentions on both the iPhone’s evolving camera and Sherry Turkle’s recent essay about face-to-face conversation in a smartphone world.) Apple put out a press … Continue reading PTJ 161: Apple Watchers
Google’s turn! Yes, it’s Google’s turn for the big fall product announcement event, which the company held this Tuesday in San Francisco. Among the revelations, the LG Nexus 5X (top) and the Huawei Nexus 6P (bottom). Both are in Google’s Nexus line and available for online pre-order in in the Google Store. You have to buy the phones from … Continue reading PTJ 161 News: Life on Mars
This week on the galaxy’s best independent tech-themed podcast, El Kaiser breaks down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and J.D. digs up some news apps that may may actually help you forget the long lamented Google Reader. And, of course, we have a whole mess of pumpkin-spiced tech news for your listening pleasure.
Well, well, well… According to a report in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Apple is committed to producing an electric car and aims to have it tooling down the road by 2019. So I guess we’ll pencil in that grand demo for September 10th, 2019, eh? The stuff that Apple did announce on this past September … Continue reading PTJ 160 News: Vroom Vroom
The official arrival of Apple News last week brought a reminder that there are tons of customizable news-gathering apps out there. Some even serve like RSS readers to collect the top stories on topics you actually care about. Yes, Flipboard and its ilk are still around, but here are a few news apps to consider … Continue reading New News Apps
