Steven Norris, an editor at Gearburn—a Cape Town, South Africa website chronicling "the latest gadget news from around the world"—admits to being endlessly amused by "staggeringly cool technology videos" that reveal how designers transform ugly tech devices into "eye-pleasing shapes." As a favor to those who share his fascination, yesterday Norris shared 13 videos "of incredible inventions that show off their makers' insane intelligence." His picks? We agree they're all staggeringly cool, but suggest that their inventors are likely quite sane geniuses. More
Tag Index / Showing 21 - 40 of 82 results for “Google”
The End of Industries
In my field of business journalism, writers have traditionally had "beats" that corresponded to specific industries. One might cover energy, autos, airlines, financial services, or media. Similarly, analysts on Wall Street have specialized along similar lines. Rankings and ratings of companies by industry continue to proliferate. But today such categorizations are increasingly an obstacle to understanding rather than useful demarcations for meaningful analysis. Many of today's most exciting companies do not fall neatly into a conventional category. Business in a technologized age has raced ahead to a new unbounded shape. More
Google Teams Up with Environmental Scientists to Map Gas Leaks
Google Maps Street View lets people discover any place in the world and explore it via the Web as if they were actually there. Now, the cars that take photos for Street View are using advanced sensor technology to search for gas leaks and faulty pipes in places like Staten Island, Boston, and Indianapolis. Google has partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to pinpoint sources of pollution using methane sensors and data-crunching algorithms. More
The Convergence of Medical and Consumer Health Apps
Consumer healthcare apps linked to smartphones or wearable devices are growing in popularity, and forthcoming offerings from Apple and Google are likely to draw more attention to the field. These systems allow users to monitor a range of information—heart rate, calories burned, distance walked—but they don’t guarantee a change in behavior, much less an improvement in health. More
Satellites Will Power Google’s Latest Moonshot Project
Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the only tech titan aiming to make the Net truly global. Google’s ambition to help bring Internet access to everyone in the world may soon be taking form. The search giant reportedly plans to invest over $1 billion in 180 satellites that “could amount to a sea change in the way people will get access to the Internet,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The satellite investment is part of Google’s latest moonshot project to deliver broadband service to under-developed areas—an effort that also includes Project Loon, which aims to beam Web access via high-altitude balloons, and the recent acquisition of Titan Aerospace, which will presumably enable drones to transmit broadband signals. More
Baidu Chases Google in Silicon Valley
Chinese search leader Baidu is trumpeting its opening of a new R&D center in Silicon Valley, becoming the latest Chinese Internet company to make such a move in the tech capital of the world. The announcement is obviously full of symbolism, since Silicon Valley is home to global search leader Google, which once tried to purchase Baidu but was rebuffed by company founder Robin Li. Company watchers will also be asking if the move could auger a major new step for Baidu, which could see it challenge Google in lucrative but highly competitive western markets. More
Global Tech Security & Privacy
The Right to Be Forgotten? Europe’s Orwellian Internet Time Warp
When the European Court of Justice—the rough equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court—ruled that individuals have the "right to be forgotten," it took a dangerous step backward. Among many potential negative consequences, it could contribute to slowing global economic growth. The court endorsed a profoundly ahistorical, anti-technological argument about the supposed rights of individuals. More
Techonomy 2010-13: Highlights
A who's who of Techonomy participants join Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick in a series of highlights from our 2010-12 conferences that address the growing impact of technology on business and society and why, increasingly, every company is a technology company. More
Tomorrow’s Sci-Fi Tech Excites Us … and Scares Us
For all the technological change Americans have witnessed in recent decades, from space travel to smartphones, we know much more is coming. And we’re only happy about some of it. A study by the Pew Research Center released last week finds that while Americans are generally optimistic about science and technology in the long term, we’re more pessimistic about it in the short term. The report culled data from a survey of 1,001 adults, with questions that attempted to get at the heart of attitudes toward closer-term advances—like bioengineering and robotics—and longer-term possibilities like space colonization and teleportation. More
A Privacy Bill Should Impose Consequences
Lamenting a fast-approaching privacy crisis in the U.S., New York Times op-ed columnist Joe Nocera this week reports what experts say should be included in a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, should Congress be so inclined to draft and pass one. Nocera suggests that not just consumers, but also companies in the business of collecting their data—including Google, Facebook, and Acxiom—stand to benefit from regulation; after all, he writes, credit card companies objected to the 1967 Truth in Lending Act that turned out to be to their advantage because it "showed consumers, for the first time, that they had some protection from fraud or shady practices." Nocera's conclusion: "Sometimes, government has to save business from itself." More
This Company Wants Teachers To Make Money on YouTube
As the cost of education skyrockets in the U.S., online education is an increasingly appealing alternative to the traditional classroom. Everything from standardized test prep to undergraduate classes is being offered online. While some bemoan the fate of scholarly pursuit, the entrepreneur behind one education startup believes this is the shake-up academia needs. Socratic co-founder Chris Pedregal says the educational system wasn’t designed with its end-users in mind. “Very little in the educational space is impacted by the questions students have,” he says, pointing out that this is the approach behind many tools students already use to find information, such as Google. More
Techonomic Top 5: Web Fightback, #BangkokShutdown, Sochi Tech, and More
Every week we spotlight techonomic happenings on the Web and beyond, picking people, companies, and trends that exemplify tech’s ever-growing role in business and society. Here’s what’s got our attention. The Day We Fight Back, Tuesday’s anti-spying Web protest, rallied more than 6,000 websites against government surveillance—among them, Internet heavyweights Google, Mozilla, Reddit, and Tumblr. Protest participants hosted a banner on their sites, linking visitors to legislators to encourage them to take action. “Dear internet, we’re sick of complaining about the NSA,” the banner read. “We want new laws that curtail online surveillance.” More
At Europe’s DLD: Innovation, Anxiety, and Inspiration
DLD, Continental Europe's highest-level technology conference, opened this week in Munich with a panel on European competitiveness. The key takeaway: Snowden's revelations were, as one European executive said, "A gift to the European Internet industry." Fair enough. But even as the halls vibrated with the sound of cards being exchanged between aggressive Euro-technologists and investors and other hyperconnectors from around the world, the ongoing dominance of the U.S. was in evidence. More
LinkedIn Takes New Step in Slow Road to China
Online professional networking leader LinkedIn took a big step towards entering the lucrative but tricky China market last week when it created a new China chief position and filled it with an industry veteran as it explores a formal service launch. The move was just the latest in the company’s slow and careful approach to China, and could boost its chances of success in a market that has proven difficult for other global giants like Google, Yahoo, and eBay. More
Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Vital for American Innovation
Open borders brought Andrew Carnegie and Andy Grove to the U.S. They also brought Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, a slew of German theoretical physicists to work on the Manhattan Project, and countless investors and entrepreneurs, including me. Immigrants to the U.S. have been transforming the industrial geography and the technology landscape since the 1860s when Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie launched Keystone Bridge Company, which became the cornerstone of his mammoth steel empire. More
Can Silicon Valley Survive?
Silicon Valley hasn’t had one of its best years. There are more and more complaints about inequality, discrimination against women and minorities, lack of innovation and a focus on short-term economic gain. The Valley, veterans say, isn’t what it used to be. And, they go on, if Silicon Valley is to survive, it has to reinvent itself in an increasingly competitive global economy where most of the rest of the world is trying to emulate the Valley. So, I asked David Kirkpatrick, when I interviewed him at an Ericsson and AT&T Foundry hosted FutureCast event that focused on the future of innovation, how exactly can Silicon Valley reinvent itself? More
Google Isn’t The Only Way to Research
The fast-growing Digital Public Library of America aims to make accessible the holdings of every library, historical society, and other repository of information. Not just text but photos and other resources flow through this aggregator of sites. The DPLA regularizes the metadata so anyone can search through vast troves of specialized material. Want to find where your great-grandmother lived in rural Minnesota? This is how you may do it. More
Web Firms Flock to Routers, China Mobile Goes Global
First it was smartphones, then it was Internet TV, and now wireless routers have become the latest flavor of the day for Chinese Web firms, as everyone looks to drive traffic to their sites and services in the fast-evolving market. I previously wrote when security software specialist Qihoo 360 entered the router space in June, and now a new report says smartphone maker Xiaomi, search leader Baidu, and game specialist Shanda are preparing to enter the sector as well. Meanwhile, in a separate but related telecoms move, leading telco China Mobile is making a feeble move into the international market with a relaunch of its Jego service that it suspended shortly after an original roll-out earlier this year. More
Newsletter