VentureBeat’s second annual CloudBeat conference is coming up, and here’s why you should be there: * Unlike most other conferences, customers are center stage at CloudBeat 2012. We’ll have IT executives talking about how they implement cloud technologies in the real world, sharing equal billing with the vendors that provide those technologies. So if you’re sick [...]
Here we go again. The clouds part, and another iPhone descends from the heavens. What mystical secrets will be written on the device’s extra-large, 640-by-1,136-pixel Retina display? Will there be earthshaking new features? Will it contain the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything? Not likely. Apple has entered a new phase [...]
One product that Apple does exceptionally well is the press conference. This week’s Worldwide Developers Conference was no exception, with a two-hour presentation that, while on the long side, was perfectly orchestrated, beautifully presented, and full of real news. It’s that last item that, for some reason, many companies overlook. Sure, it’s easy to focus [...]
Facebook’s post-IPO performance has been poor. But is it so poor that it will hurt the prospects for other startups? The short answer: Almost certainly. This is the subtext of the wave of anger and disappointment over Facebook’s stock slide over the past few weeks. First, let’s get something straight: Facebook did well for itself [...]
Here’s my latest column. I wrote this yesterday, after stewing about the affair over the weekend. Perhaps my anger is misplaced? Let me know what you think. The text of the column is below. Also, this week I’m in Los Angeles for the All Things Digital 2012 conference, also known as D10. Will you be [...]
Now that Planetary Resources has unveiled its plans to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new deposits of platinum and water, and to strip-mine them and shuttle them back to secure facilities back on our home planet, I think it’s time to take ask the question we’ve all been wondering: Just what do Earth’s [...]
I recently spent a day at an event sponsored by Monocle magazine and GE, focused on “tech craftsmanship.” It started with an interesting statement from Tim O’Reilly: If you want to see what the future holds, look at what really smart people are doing in their spare time. For example, the PC revolution began with [...]
Frustration. That’s the dominant note sounded by commenters at this week’s Mobile Summit, an invitation-only conclave of mobile-industry executives and investors sponsored by VentureBeat. It’s polite frustration, to be sure. But again and again, I’ve heard on-stage speakers or members of the audience in various discussions allude to their difficulties working with carriers, with Apple, [...]
For someone who’s lived through one tech bubble, it’s hard not to see signs of another one every time the market starts edging upward. Besides, no one wants to be the rube who’s the last one to realize the party’s over and the cool kids have already left. That’s why so many people are quick [...]
More than 6,000 hopefuls from around the world entered Facebook’s programming challenge, the Hacker Cup, in January. Three months later, just 25 finalists went head-to-head in a three-hour battle for supremacy today at Facebook’s new Menlo Park campus. The winner will have his name (all 25 finalists are male) inscribed on a 50-pound trophy, a [...]