The Geek’s Guide to International Travel

travelapps

On my recent vacation to Europe, I traveled without folded maps, paper guidebooks and journals, or physical backup copies of my passport, rail pass and other critical documents. Instead, I relied only on my smartphone – even though it was disconnected from cellular voice and data service for the full ten days. Think of it as the… Read More…

Slideshow: 7 steps to raise a geek child

Photo via Bigstock

GeekWire columnist Frank Catalano wrote one of our favorite posts of all time with his seven tips for raising a geek child. Now, it’s back in an entirely new form. (See below) Catalano’s goal at the time was to help parents raise well-balanced proto-geeks “who keep their nerd heritage and don’t wind up living in… Read More…

Bill Gates at SXSWedu: The future of education is data

Bill Gates

If there was a single nerdy subtext that Bill Gates brought to his closing keynote at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, it was the importance of data. Useful data. Education data. Gates, as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was the headliner to a standing-room only crowd of roughly 2,500 at SXSWedu, the… Read More…

Paper trumps tech at national library conference

Public Information Kiosk's book vending machine.

I went looking for the digital future of libraries at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting this week. Conveniently, the conference was held in Seattle, near a couple of very forward-looking library systems that make eBooks, mobile apps and digital downloads expected, almost routine. But if the exhibit hall represented the near future for libraries,… Read More…

3 ways digital media is turning us into 2nd graders

FurtherPeterRabbit

We are all regressing. And I have proof from an authoritative source: the state of children’s books. The underlying reasons lie in the digital means by which we communicate, forcing increased — and often unreasonable — expectations of speed and brevity, no matter how complicated the concept. My evidence for declaring this probable cause and… Read More…

Hey, ‘disrupt’ this! 5 tech terms to banish in 2013

trashcan

The New Year is a time for us to reflect on the past, make adjustments for the future and — in tech — to clean up our language. Every few years, I whip myself into a linguistic frenzy and create a list. In writing (as well as marketing), the most-effective words are specific, staking a… Read More…

America’s unmet tech challenge: the public radio pledge drive

baldwin2

This is my favorite time of the year. Because it’s the only time when there are no public broadcasting pledge drives. But wait. While I was typing this sentence my mainstay NPR station announced it was beginning its “December celebration” of a “Favorite Things” weekend. They don’t say “pledge drive,” but there it is: the… Read More…

Here comes another tech bubble — in education

Flickr photo via Justin D. Miller

I’m the kind of guy who worries when something gets too popular. I looked askance at novels (especially science fiction) that made it to mainstream bestseller lists when written by otherwise mediocre authors. I avoided buying any footwear or polo shirt that was named for, or sported images of, long-jawed fast-crawling reptiles. When anything rapidly… Read More…

Why eBooks won’t rule the Earth

ipadbooks

The certainty in the headlines is almost palpable. “eBooks Now ‘Dominant Single Format’ in Adult Fiction Sales,” shouted book publishing site GalleyCat. “Kindle ebook sales have overtaken Amazon print sales,” trumpeted UK’s The Guardian. “E-book revenue outstrips hardbacks in first quarter,” trembled The Bookseller. But if these stories led to you to believe that the… Read More…

Banks behaving badly: Dealing with a divisive digital divide

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When a company providing financial services emphasizes digital convenience, you’d think that also applies to its customer service. After all, nearly every major bank and credit union pushes online banking, mobile banking, text and email alerts and electronic bill payment. But there seems to be a digital divide between financial institutions promoting digital and thinking… Read More…