- Where’s Google Going Next? (TED)
- Microsoft releases Office for iPad (Engadget)
- Why Facebook’s $2 Billion Oculus Buy Is a Bet Too Far (Wired)
- Starbucks Is the Microsoft of Coffee. Is This the Apple? (Slate)
- Beyond Incredible: Building The Next Pixar (Fast Company)
- The Next Big Health App Needs to Do More Than Just Track Our Numbers (Wired)
- Ageism (AVC / Fred Wilson)
Tag Archives: google
How It Feels [through Glass]
Google released a video showing what it’s like to use Google Glass…
Week of 11/7/11 – Tech News Roundup – Google launches Google+ Pages
Google launched Google+ Pages to allow companies and brands to connect with their customers. Danny Sullivan (SearchEngineLand) wrote a thorough overview. You can create a new Google+ page here.
This is the introductory video from Google:
Many people were excited about this announcement, but there were some critics. Some common complaints were:
- It’s not designed for large companies who have multiple people managing the account (Robert Scoble)
- It’s too easy to claim a brand that isn’t yours (ITWorld)
My take? Hopefully the Google+ team is listening closely and will address these issues in the near future.
If you’re looking for companies & brands to circle on Google+, just type in “+” followed by the brand name in the Google+ search box. Here are some brands that I’ve circled:
Google+, This Week In Tech (TWiT), TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, NPR, NPR Fresh Air, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, San Francisco Giants.
Other Tech News This Week
- Zynga is planning an IPO after Thanksgiving (Bloomberg)
- Yelp is rumored to be planning an IPO in early 2012 (WSJ)
- Salesforce launches a new collaboration platform called Do.com. Currently invitation-only (ReadWriteWeb)
- Amazon announced more apps for the Kindle Fire (VentureBeat)
- Is Google launching Google Music next week? (The Verge)
- Bank Simple rebrands as Simple, opens beta (VentureBeat)
- Apple release iOS 5.0.1 to fix issues with battery life but the issue still persists (All Things D)
- FireFox 8 is released
- Charlie Rose interviews Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg
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
- Mint finally launches an iPad app (iTunes, Mashable post)
- Scan old photos and post them to Facebook using the Shoebox iPhone app (iTunes, TechCrunch post)
- The creators of Daily Booth launch a great new photo sharing app called Batch. The buzz about this app is off the charts.
- Mike Arrington (CrunchFund) says: Batch may be the perfect photo sharing app
- Paul Graham says he was “blown away” and “this is the app everyone’s been waiting for“
- Robert Scoble says” “I have NEVER seen an app get this widely hyped“
- Soundcloud launched a new iPad app (iTunes, All Things D post)
- You can watch live TV on DIRECTV’s new iPad app (iTunes)
- Bloomberg TV launched an iPad app (iTunes)
Television / Movies
- A couple of PBS shows worth watching:
- America In Primetime (premiers Sunday, 10/20)
- Steve Jobs – One Last Thing (premiers Wednesday, 11/2)
- Cars 2 is available on DVD, iTunes
Sports
- The St. Louis Cardinals win the 2011 World Series. Game 6 will be remembered as one of the greatest World Series games ever.
- The 49ers defeat the Cleveland Browns and are 6-1 for the first time since 1998.
- Buster Posey is swinging the bat in Arizona. Hank Schulman (SF Chronicle) writes about his recovery here.
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
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
- New York Times
- Washington Post
- Huffington Post
- The Telegraph
- USA Today
- George Stephanopoulos / ABC News
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.
- Apple Television? (MG Siegler / TechCrunch)
- Text books? (NY Time Bits blog)
- iPhone 5? (CNET News)
- All of the above?
Tech News
Other tech news this week:
- Apple sold over 4 million phones last weekend
- Apple reported their 4th quarter earnings. For the first time in a long time, they fell short of analysts’ estimates because they didn’t release a new iPhone in June. But Apple predicts a blow-out 4th quarter and MG Siegler says you’re an idiot if you were one of the many people who sold Apple stock.
- Google announced Android 4.0 a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich
- Google announced that a Google Music Store is coming soon (All Things D)
- The AsiaD conference was held in Hong Kong. Videos: Jerry Yang talks about what’s next for Yahoo, Bradley Horowitz talks about Google+
- The Web 2.0 Summit was held in San Francisco. Videos: Sean Parker, Sergey Brin (Google), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Kevin Rose (Milk), Dennis Crowley (FourSquare).
- GroupOn sets Nov. 4th IPO Date (WSJ)
Sergey Brin at Web 2.0 Summit
Apps
- Instapaper 4.0 (iTunes)
- Hipster – send digital postcards from your phone (iTunes)
- 500 px for iPad – photo sharing (iTunes)
Music
- Peter Gabriel – New Blood
- M83 – Hurry Up We’re Dreaming (Spotify)
- Pallers – The Sea of Memories (Spotify)
- Radical Face – The Family Tree: The Roots (Spotify)
- Real Estate – Days (Spotify)
- Coldplay releases Mylo Xyloto on October 24th (Amazon)
Radical Face – Mountains (video by YouTube user celmannn)
Sports
- Albert Pujols hit 3 home runs in Game 3 of the World Series. Reggie Jackson and Babe Ruth (twice!) are the only other players to accomplish that.
- The Raiders trade for Carson Palmer to replace the injured Jason Campbell