Monthly Archives: October 2011

Week of 10/24/11 – Roundup

Tech News

It was another dismal week for Netflix. The stock dropped 35% after announcing that they lost 800,000 subscribers and projecting that fourth-quarter earnings would be below expectations. Henry Blodget (Business Insider) says: Sorry, but this Netflix collapse is overdone.

HP announced that it will keep it’s PC division but there was speculation that they would shut down the webOS division. The head of HP’s PC division this was an unfounded rumor.

Google announced an update to Google TV and there were rumors of a Siri-powered, integrated Apple TV coming in 2013.

The New York Times published a very touching eulogy of Steve Jobs written by his sister Mona Simpson. A must-read.

Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

– Mona Simpson, A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

People aren’t happy about Google’s plans to discontinue the social features of Google Reader.

Flipboard, the popular news/social reader application for tablets, is about to get some competition from Google (Propeller) and Yahoo (Livestand).

Benchmark-backed Nextdoor launches a private social network for neighborhoods.

Y Combinator held their Startup School. Mark Zuckerberg, Paul Graham, and Marc Andreessen all spoke.

Mark Zuckerberg interview at Y Combinator Startup School

Apps

Television / Movies

Sports

David Freese’s Game 6 walk-off home run:

The Week Ahead

The Groupon IPO is scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd. Before you consider investing, read this piece by Nicholas Carslon (Business Insider): INSIDE GROUPON: The Truth About The World’s Most Controversial Company

Favorite Food Trucks: Ebbett’s Good To Go

Every week or two, I’m featuring a Bay Area food truck on this blog. This week, I picked one of my favorites: Ebbett’s Good To Go. Ebbett’s specializes in sandwiches. Great sandwiches. They’re best known for their Cuban Sandwich (my favorite), but they always have two or three other sandwiches on the menu: Asian Tofu, Short Rib, Grilled Cheese. Lately, they’ve been hitting these locations: Emeryville (64th & Hollis or 2100 Powell), 21st & Webster in Oakland, and various locations in San Francisco: Truck Stop SF (Mission St. between 1st & Fremont), Hawthorne Plaza, and Civic Center. You can find their schedule on their Twitter page, Facebook page, or head over to their web site.

Week of 10/17/11 – Roundup

Steve Jobs

A couple of weeks after his death, Steve Jobs continues to be a huge topic. On Wednesday, Apple celebrated the life of Steve Jobs at the Apple campus in Cupertino.

The biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson was released on October 24th.

Here’s the video of the celebration of Steve Jobs

Sixty Minutes devoted an entire show Sixty Minutes devotes an entire show to the Steve Jobs Biography

Reviews of the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson

An unabridged version of the biography is available on Audible

More from 60 Minutes videos: The Steve Jobs Family Photo Album

Lots of speculation out there about the final project(s) that Steve Jobs was working on.

Tech News

Other tech news this week:

Sergey Brin at Web 2.0 Summit

Apps

Music

Radical Face – Mountains (video by YouTube user celmannn)

Sports

Week of 10/10/11 – Roundup

Tech

The iPhone 4S went on sale on October 14th. Despite lukewarm reaction to the announcement of the 4S, initial sales number appear to be very healthy. As usual, people were lined up at Apple Stores. Pre-order sales were very strong – over one million pre-order units in the first 24 hours – and AT&T’s activation servers were overloaded when everyone tried to activate their phones at the same time. Some analysts predict that Apple will sell 4 million phones over the weekend and another analyst estimates that Apple will sell 24 million iPhones in Q4 2011. Apple stock closed at an all-time high ($422 a share) on Friday.

iPhone 4S launch at Apple’s 5th Avenue Store:

Reviews of the iPhone 4S were very positive, especially for the new Siri personal assistant.

Speech recognition. Crazy good, transformative, category-redefining speech recognition.

David Pogue, New York Times – New iPhone Conceals Pure Magic

Here’s a roundup of other iPhone 4S reviews:

People are having a lot of fun with Siri.

Siri Demo from SlashGear:

A few days before the iPhone 4S went on sale, iOS 5 was released.

Other tech news this week:

Apps

Music

Sports

Television

San Francisco Restaurants

The Week Ahead

Nom Nom Truck SF

I’ve become a big fan of the Bay Area food truck scene over the past couple of years. Earlier today, I had a chance to try the Nom Nom Truck when they made a stop near where I work in Emeryville. Nom Nom Truck got a lot of attention when their original, Los Angeles based truck was a finalist on the first season of Bravo’s Great Food Truck Race. They specialize in Banh mi sandwiches. Today, they were serving four versions: grilled pork, lemongrass chicken, vegetarian tofu, and one they call the Deli Special. I had the grilled pork and it was outstanding. You can check Nom Nom’s schedule on their Twitter or Facebook pages or head over to their web site. For a complete review of this food truck, check out the this post from the excellent I Left My Cart in San Francisco blog.
Nom Nom Truck SF visits Emeryville