Nokia doesn’t want you to think of its forthcoming mapping software for PCs as a Google Maps competitor. But press them, and Nokia executives will admit Google is the enemy. And with that particular enemy, there can be no compromise. At the Where 2.0 conference in Burlingame, Calif. today, Nokia sho

Living online, it’s easy to get overloaded. Tools designed to simplify communication, like Twitter and Facebook, somehow wind up turning into extra inboxes you have to keep an eye on lest you miss something. RSS feeds proliferate and multiply. Channels of communication that once seemed intimate (IM,

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Even though it’s called the 420, Olympus’ latest camera has absolutely nothing to do with illicit drug use. We tried to find a secret compartment for storing your stash: No dice. In fact, the Olympus Evolt E-420 doesn’t have much room for stashing anything. It’s t

“I just told my son that when I was a kid I had to leave home to play video games, to watch movies, to send mail, to see friends….” —Martin Varsavsky on Twitter

“Folks here were never that psyched about the idea of Microsoft buying one of the hometown heroes and I think they’re happy to see that the deal is off the table right now.” That’s me, talking on public radio station KQED this morning about Silicon Valley’s reaction to the now-suspended Microsoft-Ya

A nice surprise over the weekend: the Gadget Lab podcast I produce has risen to the #6 spot among technology podcasts in iTunes’ podcast directory. That’s pretty remarkable, given that we produce this podcast in a borrowed closet with no budget and zero marketing. If you haven’t listened to the podc

O’Reilly’s annual Maker Faire is happening this weekend, May 3 and 4, 2008, in San Mateo. It’s a festival of do-it-yourself (DIY) culture, and is a chance to see just how creative people can get with soldering guns, welders, circuit boards, old bicycle parts and lots of propane. That’s just for star

Your shoes are destroying your feet. More specifically, they’re messing up the perfectly-balanced, coordinated bipedal gait that our species evolved over millions of years. That’s the argument touted by a lengthy article in New York magazine this week, You Walk Wrong. Its starting point is a number

If you follow my daily haiku magazine, tinywords, you’ll notice that it hasn’t exactly been “daily” for the past week. In fact, I’ve missed quite a handful of weekdays over the past couple months, and I’ve got a big backlog of submissions I haven’t read yet. I apologize for that. Since January, I’ve

I’m on the latest episode of John C. Dvorak’s video show, Cranky Geeks, this week. This was a fun one: The guests were former Ziffians Annaliza Savage and myself, both of whom are now working at Wired.com, and we had a lively, pugnacious conversation with Dvorak about filesharing, China blocking You

This incredibly compact, bike-oriented multi-tool has five different sizes of Allen wrench plus a Phillips screwdriver head, all of which folds up into a little pod about the size of a walnut. Sometimes I’ll carry it in my pocket or toss it in shoulder bag; mostly I keep it in the under-seat pouch o

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Monterey, Calif. is a terrific, mind-expanding experience for all who attend. Or so I’ve heard: The $6,000 price tag has, so far, kept it well out of my reach. That’s why I checked out the Bil Conference, also in Monterey, a free, t