The sixth most widely used website in the world is not run anything like the others in the top 10. It is not operated by a sophisticated corporation but by a leaderless collection of volunteers who generally work under pseudonyms and habitually bicker with each other. It rarely tries new things in…

I dislike iOS 7 so strongly that I feel inclined to begin this post with a disclaimer about how much I admire Apple. Apple is my hero. They’ve always inspired me to be better at what I do, even when I was an ICU nurse. But they are not perfect. I can and should criticize their worst work when I find…

NASA There are two stories, both of great consequence, that Lee Billings tells in his new book, the excellently titled Five Billion Years of Solitude . The first concerns the recent discovery of plane

It seemed like a foregone conclusion that the 10-inch tablet market was done for, with all interest and excitement shifting to smaller, but equally capable 7 or 8-inch tablets instead. It also seemed

This morning's New York Times Magazine blows the lid off of an Apple conspiracy more outrageous than a dozen Foxconns. Cracking the Apple Trap , it's called in the print edition. Why Apple Wants to Bu

A curious thing happened when my grandfather died, the sort of thing that seems more and more curious as the years pass, investing itself with significance. At the time I was living in New York, and since this was the middle of the last decade, I was always only a phone call away from my family in…

When I became a father for the first time, at the ripe old age of 44, various historical contingencies saw to it that my nascent son would be sharing his home with two senescent canines. There was Nina, an endearing though occasionally ferocious German shepherd/Malamute cross. And there was Tess, a…

Tweetbot 3 for iPhone Tweetbot is, by far, the iPhone app that I use the most on a daily basis. It’s not just that I keep Twitter open essentially all day to check for news, talk to friends, or post G

I am humbled that my mentor and my friend Dr. Hope Jahren has honored me with her voice on my blog. (n.b. Hope has transitioned this piece over to her own blog here and if you’d like to carry on the conversation with Hope, that’s probably a better place for it. Also, you should all read Hope’s blog,…

The Royal Suite at Claridge’s in London is not where you would expect to be meeting with Jonathan Ive, the man who designed the iPod, the iPhone, the MacBook Air, and just about everything else that h

Joe brockmeier 1 / Oct 7, 2011 / Work It’s time for free software to find a new voice. Once again, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman is putting his feet firmly in his mouth. This time,

I was in seventh grade in 1993 when Marie C Wilson and Gloria Steinem launched the Ms Foundation’s Take Our Daughters to Work Day, intending to show us young women that a big, wide world existed beyond our gender and our bodies. For me, it did just that, although it also seeded a lifetime obsession…

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And Then Steve Said, ‘Let There Be an iPhone’ 1 / 3 Credit... Illustration by Matt Dorfman 1 / 3 Credit... Illustration by Matt Dorfman 2 / 3 Credit... Illustration by Matt Dorfman 3 / 3 Credit... Ill

Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science? At the Solvay Conference on Physics in 1927, the only woman in attendance was Marie Curie (bottom row, third from left). Last summer, researchers at Yale p

Editorial John Boehner’s Shutdown By Tuesday morning, the leadership failure of Speaker John Boehner was complete. In encouraging the impossible quest of House Republicans to dismantle health care ref

It’s Not Climate Change — It’s Everything ChangeIt’s Not Climate Change — It’s Everything ChangeOil! Our secret god, fulfiller of our every desire. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. But it’s on everyone’s mind.Margaret E. Atwood3 days agoTable of ContentsTable of ContentsI don’t know which…

Colors can inspire mood, convey attitude, or create instant associations in people’s minds, making it a powerful tool for branding. But FiftyThree, the team behind Paper for iPad , saw that as a major business problem: Traditional software works with color in ways that are faithful to the way…

Rechner by Berger & Föhr, the app that converted me to “fLAT DESIGN.” Is flat design just a fad or is it progress? 8 min read · Jul 7, 2013 -- I’ve typed and deleted many words since the flat trend be

For much of the iPhone's life Apple has enjoyed a first-mover advantage. At the launch of the first iPhone, Steve Jobs expected the device and OS would give it a multi-year head start over the competi

The cement was dirty, but so were my pants after three weeks of traveling. I lay down on the sidewalk in front of the Sagrada Família, stretching back to look up at the Nativity Façade, trying to capt

Jony Ive: The man behind Apple's magic curtain CUPERTINO, Calif. — The man who designed the iPod ponders the question with furrowed brow. "That's a good one," says Jony Ive, when asked what he would t

Published in Monday Note · 5 min read · Sep 15, 2013 -- Remember netbooks? When Apple was too greedy and stupid to make a truly low-cost Macintosh? Here we go again, Apple refuses to make a genuinely

One of the enduring mysteries of the iPhone has been its lack of a portfolio. After six years it seems that Apple has finally acquiesced that there should be one , albeit currently limited to two item

‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ says Ozymandias’s ruined statue in the desert of Shelley’s imagination. Shelley’s sonnet is often interpreted as a sober warning that human works are fleeting, but when I read it as a young boy it kindled a sense of adventure; it suggested a wonderfully…

September 2, 2013 at 3:00 PM by When Apple was on the ropes sixteen years ago, there was no shortage of advice about what the company should do to save itself, much of it fueled by a deep love for App

NASA Today, NASA announced that the Kepler Space Telescope, which had been malfunctioning, will not be able to be repaired . Kepler may be used for other scientific operations, but its life as our cou