Readers, let’s have a conversation. First, some basics: I am an industry and market analyst who studies personal technology. I am not a journalist. I write an opinion column here for TIME’s Techland section. I am not a paid …
Pono: Can High-Quality Audio Sell Neil Young’s Portable Music Player?
Having conquered rock and roll, Neil Young is setting his sights on consumer electronics with Pono, a portable music player and accompanying high-quality audio service coming next year.
TechnologizerCompanies
The Sad State of Japan’s Consumer Electronics Giants
The Washington Post‘s Chico Harlan has a sobering story on the dicey financial condition of big Japanese electronics companies such as Sony, Panasonic and Sharp. Once they were the gold standard in gadgets; now they’re struggling …
TechnologizerReviews
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Review: The Screen Makes It the Best E-Reader Yet
We live in the era of gadgets that want to do it all. The typical smartphone of 2012, for instance, isn’t content to just be a phone. It also wishes to be a PC, a still camera, a camcorder, a music player, a gaming console, a …
TechnologizerApps & Software
Madefire’s Digital Comics Come to the iPhone
Among many other things, the iPad is one of the best ways ever devised to read comics. And one of the more interesting ways to read them on an iPad is with Madefire, an app which lets you download “motion books” — serialized …
Tim Cook Apologizes for Apple Maps, Recommends Alternatives for Now
In a post on Apple’s site called “A letter from Tim Cook on Maps,” Cook begins by saying, “At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new …
Needed for Google’s Next Nexus 7 Tablet: More Storage
Now that Amazon and Barnes & Noble have announced their latest cheap tablets, it’s become clear that Google’s own offering, the Nexus 7, has a storage problem.
The $200 Nexus 7, which launched in July, comes with just 8 GB of …
Take Kinect, Add Robotics, Strap to a Human and Presto — Automatic Building Mapper!
Mapping the insides of anything in real time is hard. Certainly harder than it looks in movies like The Dark Knight, where, near the end, a bat-suited Christian Bale dashes through a high-rise, taking out small squadrons of …
Bad Piggies by Angry Birds Maker Lets You Anger the Birds Instead
Maybe there really are two sides to every story. Did anyone ever stop to ask the villainous pigs from Angry Birds why they keep stealing the birds’ eggs? I mean, we humans eat birds’ eggs all the time – rarely, if ever, asking …
Google Turns 14, Was Initially Called ‘BackRub’
Apparently today is Google’s 14th birthday. Though the company’s official history makes no mention of September 27, the birthday cake Google Doodle – complete with 14 candles and hovertext that reads “Google’s 14th Birthday” …
Sony’s ‘Day 1 Digital’ Downloads: How Much Longer Until Retail’s Demise?
Sony’s PlayStation Network-related announcement on Tuesday about “Day 1” digital game downloads was both unexpected and inevitable.
Inevitable because digital storefronts are flourishing and putting significant pressure on …
Google Discounting Popular Apps to 25 Cents over the Next Five Days
Google Play – formerly known as the Android Market — has passed 25 billion app downloads. A large majority of those were from me, I admit. I get so frustrated playing Angry Birds that I uninstall it and swear I’ll never play …