Rough Drafts

Some librarian got her knickers in a twist about the word “scrotum” appearing in the latest Newbery award-winning children’s novel: “The Higher Power of Lucky” is the story of a 10-year-old girl in rural California and her quest for “Higher Power.” The opening chapter includes a passage about a man

Richard Branson has set up a $25 million prize for the first person who can come up with a workable way of removing a billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year. It’s a clever idea, offering a big prize as an incentive to spur innovative research. Big purses like this (or the X-Prize, […]

Generally, Apple does software reasonably well. The company understands that the user experience doesn’t end with the plastic and the circuits, but also encompasses the on-screen interface, the dialog boxes, and even the fonts used in its applications. So what happened to iTunes? Version 7 is, frank

My friend You Mon Tsang is finally taking the covers off of Boxxet, his third startup since I first met him a decade ago. It looks very promising. Boxxet takes aim at one of the problems I targeted in the livable web manifesto: that the World Wide Web as viewed through Google is just too […]

The Web has outgrown the ability of most people to use it effectively. Trying to find useful information via Google requires search savvy that most people don’t have. Even if you know what you’re looking for, there are problems with spam, advertising, and context (for example, “haiku” gives you resu

If you ever have arguments with people of the opposite sex, the following may be the most valuable advice you will receive all year. In humans, strong emotion starts with physiological changes in your body, not with an awareness of the emotion in your brain. So when somebody pisses you off, your hea

My very idiosyncratic list: Scariest product: Security Spy Direct was demonstrating a combination flashlight/taser. As the brochure says: “Your opponent’s eyes will literally POP OUT OF HIS HEAD when you send 500,000 volts of stunning electrical power into his body with our stun guns.” Then you can

It’s a new year, and it’s time for pundits — even part-time pundits like me — to make their predictions. For someone who loves tech products, it’s an even more titillating time, because CES will bring an avalanche of them. So here are 7 key tech trends for 2007, and a measurable index (my prediction

You’d think after 5 years and millions of users, Blogger would be sporting some significant improvements now that it’s finally out of beta. Unfortunately, what I notice most is what’s broken: My “BlogThis!” button no longer works. The site sometimes gets hung up on the “publishing” page (even though

Pre-rolls — the short 10-15 second commercials that some video sites often make you watch before you get to the actual content you want to watch — are a bad idea. Here’s why: When you’re flipping the channels on the TV and you come to a channel with a commercial, do you stop and wait […]

Banjo!

Last week EBay’s Skype announced a new “unlimited calling” plan. Starting in January, the company will charge $30 for a year of unlimited SkypeOut calls to any phone numbers in the U.S. and Canada. (They’re offering an introductory rate of $15 if you sign up before the end of January.) This brings a