If you want to see the future of Amazon in education, don’t look to Seattle. Look to Sao Paulo. For months, I’ve wondered what Amazon’s strategy for the Kindle in… Read More
This is a tale of two keynotes. One, by a working scientist explaining the work being done in her field. The other, by a recycling expert dropping an inexcusable f-bomb:… Read More
There are many things that seem stubbornly cyclical in their refusal to be resolved in the tech industry. Password management. Bubble valuations. Sexism. I’ve addressed the first two elsewhere. I’ve… Read More
It began as a dare: Take an entire business trip without touching a piece of paper. I nearly choked on my half-finished beer, wondering if I’d been poured malt liquor… Read More
The “learn to code” movement may be about to run afoul of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Few (least of all nerdy me) will argue that learning a computer language… Read More
Happy Data Privacy Day! The first round of credit card numbers is on me! Yes, this Tuesday, Jan. 28 really is Data Privacy Day in the U.S. and Canada, commemorating… Read More
All hail the lowly business card. For it is the most concise chronicler of the advances in communications technology. Despite calls for its elimination as wasteful in an era of… Read More
It’s 2014, and time to ring in the new and throw out the old. Old tech terms, that is: those made meaningless in 2013 by media and marketers. I occasionally… Read More
Makers of tech products are often told to “eat their own dog food” – actually use what they tout in their real-world lives. The same should apply to reviewers of… Read More
There’s a classic tech industry joke. A jet is lost in dense fog and low on fuel. The pilot, desperate to get his bearings, winds up circling an IBM skyscraper.… Read More
When the Kindle Fire HDX was first released, I read reviews that raved how this Kindle finally added business-friendly features, enough to garner it the blessing of corporate IT departments.… Read More
It’s time to shoot the password. And multiple screens are the trigger. I had this epiphany when wrestling with one Rhapsody music service on two devices using three pieces of… Read More
For the past three decades, I have been a psychological test subject. Not in a creepy NSA-and-tin-foil-hat kind of way, but as part of a long-term study designed to understand… Read More
A geek is not a nerd. And vice versa. Unless, of course, they are. When I was a kid, I wore thick black glasses, long pants that were too short… Read More
Memo to Microsoft: When it comes to Surface tablets in the classroom, be careful what you wish for. Because you might be the next victim of education’s Curse of the… Read More
On this twentieth anniversary of the first popular web browser, consider how its potential was viewed just one year after its birth. If only to realize that sometimes in tech… Read More
The tech community has a rite of passage for its newborns hoping to reach adulthood. It is selective, it is harrowing, and it crushes many under the weight of expectation… Read More
Don’t try to be smarter than a smart device. That’s the main lesson I learned from an otherwise flawless first Google Chromecast experience. Chromecast is Google’s new entry into a… Read More
Geeks and science fiction. You can almost track the rise in influence of the former by the inexorable pop-culture spread of the latter. So it was with a sense of… Read More
On its face, it was totally unbelievable. After all, when was the last time you recall any tech support pro-actively contacting you to solve a problem? “Hello, sir. I am… Read More
There are those moments in life that occur, seemingly, in slow motion. That first teenage kiss. A bobbled piece of early morning toast headed Nutella-side down toward fuzzy carpet. A… Read More
As caps and gowns are returned for deposits while freshmen are readying to be deposited this fall in the college of their parents’ choice, it’s time to do some preparation.… Read More
For journalism, the future isn’t what it used to be. Especially when viewed from two decades ago. I recently undertook an archaeological dig (others call it “cleaning out files”) and… Read More
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… Read More
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.… Read More
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… Read More
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… Read More
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… Read More
While much of the tech world’s attention is focused on Las Vegas and the Consumer Electronics Show (and Microsoft’s lack of a keynote or exhibit space), the upcoming SXSWedu conference… Read More