Tech Buzz

OPINION

Imagining the Future Smart City

At the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerate 2021 event last week they talked about the advantages that those living in a smart city would enjoy. Smart cities are coming, though I agree with Qualcomm that most will likely be done poorly and need to be redone due to the lack of city and state expertise in...

Microsoft last week launched its new Surface line, and elements of it better target Apple's weaknesses than any prior effort. Let's talk about the new Surface PC product that best showcases how Microsoft can compete with Apple. We'll close with the product of the week, the Surface Duo 2, which has ...

Trust in sources that we depend on for business and personal decisions is critical. A platform that aggregates opinion and news should be held to the highest standard of trust and honesty. Last week we heard that Facebook's moderating system XCheck gives special privileges to some celebrities and po...

The next generation of iPhones expected to be launched in September will include support for satellite communication, according to numerous news reports based on a research note released by insightful Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. He predicted in the note that Apple will include hardware in the iPhone...

What if we applied the military's capacity to build "weapons" to save people from natural disasters? Let's talk about some of the inventions that could be used to make us all safer, and switch our focus from harming to helping. We'll close with the product of the week, arguably the coolest Tesla-lik...

To fix the problem Facebook is trying to solve requires — and this is where the irony comes in — a social network, which Facebook’s collaboration failure showcases it is not.

OPINION

Autonomous Driving’s Missing Link

Autonomous driving now forms the core of most of the efforts to create autonomous robotics. However, up until now there's been one rarely talked about but critical problem that remains unsolved: What do we do with those things that will share the roads with these self-driving cars and trucks that ar...

People are freaking out about reports of NSO Group's Pegasus surveillance tool being used to spy on journalists, political dissidents, and other opponents of regimes worldwide. It's disheartening, and worth discussing. But why are we shocked? In Pegasus' case, the game theory is clear: some company ...

OPINION

The Metaverse Comes to Life

Much of what you are going to see at Siggraph this week has to do with creating the Metaverse, which is conceptually very similar to the artificial world that the movie "The Matrix" showcased. This technology will not only have a massive impact on lower-cost and far better movie graphics, but also o...

Let's explore the the state of affairs with electric cars, and key determinants to consider if you have your mind on an EV. Then we'll close with the product of the week -- a new laptop from HP.

Amazon last week held its Alexa Live 2021 developer conference, which would have been a lot more fun if during the event the Amazon Echo show in my office hadn't gone insane. Let's talk about the promise and some of the problems with the coming wave of ambient computing devices. Then we'll close wi...

OPINION

Tech Solutions To Beat the Heat

It's been a sweltering summer for those of us on the West Coast of the United States, and keeping power bills down when running air conditioning 24/7 is a challenge. This week, let's highlight technologies you can use to personally respond to the heat problem and deal with a world that is becoming ...

Those of us who grew up with Star Trek might remember a device from the series called a replicator. This was a 3D printer of sorts that could create almost anything, ranging from food to weapons, at the touch of a button. Let's talk about our progression to the home-based replicator that could take ...

Windows 11 shows a massive change in focus from earlier significant releases, which pretty much assures that the Microsoft's mistakes of the past won't be repeated, at least not under the current leadership. It also suggests a path to the next version of Windows -- which for now we'll call Windows 1...

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