Imagine if your doctor’s office was more like an Apple Store mashed up with a fancy gym: a modern white-and-wood aesthetic, replete with fancy gadgets and gleaming touch screens, for which you paid a monthly fee to visit as often as you …Continue reading
Why Insurance Companies Want to Subsidize Your Smart Home
Insurers such USAA and American Family have lately begun offering to strike a high-tech bargain: wire your home with Internet-connected devices such as a new thermostat, and get a discount on your home insurance policy in return. Offers like that could speed …Continue reading
The Best Gadgets Coming in 2017
Here are the likely standouts among the smartphones, VR headsets, and smart watches hitting the market this year. Smartphone geeks have a lot to look forward to in 2017. Phones dominate our list of the six most significant gadgets we expect to …Continue reading
Mark Zuckerberg’s Long March to China
For U.S. Internet businesses, China is the land of moral defeat. Many people hoped that Western technology companies would loosen China’s control over information. Instead, those companies have willingly participated in efforts to censor citizens’ speech. Yahoo gave Chinese authorities information about …Continue reading
Facebook’s Content Blocking Sends Some Very Mixed Messages
Facebook has reportedly built a new censorship tool as part of its bid to succeed in China—a revelation that’s hard to square with its response to its fake-news problem. Many Internet giants have tried to crack China in the past. But it …Continue reading
Is This Africa’s First Smartphone Factory?
Onyx Connect, a South African startup with $10.5 million in funding, is in the news today as it prepares to become the “first company to ever manufacture smartphones in Africa.” Its factory, which is slated to open in early 2017, will produce …Continue reading
Tech Giants Are Joining Forces to Battle Terrorists’ Content
Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTube are joining forces to remove extremist content from their websites more efficiently. Savvy social media strategies have helped ISIS and other terrorist organizations disperse video and images online, helping to recruit new members and inspire attacks. As …Continue reading
Google’s New Hardware Strategy: Actually Make Money
Technology companies like to cite computer scientist Alan Kay’s famous quote that “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” These days, Google’s motto could be, “People who are really serious about AI should make their own hardware—and …Continue reading
If Apple Builds Smart Glasses, They’d Better Be Spectacular
Imagine the scene: Tim Cook is nervous. His palms are sweaty. The whole board room looks on, waiting for his killer announcement. The iPhone 7 underwhelmed the masses. A refresh of MacBooks added only a row of shiny buttons. He’s got one …Continue reading
How Pebble Is Killing It on Kickstarter
On May 24, startup Pebble raised over $1 million in an hour on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter from people eager to get their hands on its latest products. Two of those products are new smart watches with heart-rate sensors, Pebble 2 and …Continue reading