Last year, Courtney Stanton organized a conference for game developers whose 12-person speaker roster was half women, and half men. And she did it without considering the gender of applicants. In the world of tech conferences, that gender ratio is almost unheard of — let alone getting there without

Felony, originally uploaded by dtweney. This is on the box for the Daily News, one of San Mateo’s free newspapers. Free, but only for up to 3 copies. After that it’ll cost you up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $7,500.

Swipp, a new “social intelligence platform,” is trying to bridge the gap between evanescent, useless social data (I ate a B.L.T. for lunch today! Look at this cool mural!) and more lasting, but less personal, knowledge, like the Wikipedia entry on San Francisco. “We want to create a smarter, wiser p

Published on VentureBeat When IBM bought Lotus for $3.5 billion in 1995, it looked as though the venerable computing giant was just about to lock up the software industry and coast to unstoppable profits. Eighteen years later, Lotus looks more like a millstone around IBM’s neck than a flywheel givin

Here is my latest column on VentureBeat: We need more people like Aaron Swartz. I spent much of the past few days thinking about Aaron Swartz and what a loss we suffered when he took his own life last week. His passing breaks my heart. I didn’t know him, though he was in my circle: I […]

“In short, Aaron Swartz was not the super hacker breathlessly described in the Government’s indictment and forensic reports, and his actions did not pose a real danger to JSTOR, MIT or the public. He was an intelligent young man who found a loophole that would allow him to download a lot of document

After a two-week holiday break, my VentureBeat column is back. This week: why CES still matters. Coincidentally, this morning NPR ran a similar story on Morning Edition. The reporter points out that, while big companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon don’t have booths at CES, they still s

My son asks me to time him, then bolts down the sidewalk and out of sight between two strangers. He returns at top speed, twelve long seconds later. 4 Jan 2013   the binoculars reveal distant waves crawling slowly across the horizon 5 Jan 2013   Sunlight breaks through the sky over Capitola, surroun

Jupiter shines, a pale yellow beacon, almost directly overhead. In the distance, the sound of freeway traffic, like surf.

scattered gravel along the bike path and one old champagne cork

I made a short, clickable Tapestry story out of an old poem I wrote but had never published. I hope you like it.

clear darkening sky and the sounds of the neighbor’s party — a swallow darts over the treeline My first contribution to Fiona Robyn’s mindful writing challenge. Happy new year!