Rough Drafts

As bloated as I’ve gotten on christmas cookies and candy over the past few weeks, I’ve started yearning for a better snack food. OK, honestly, I’m not all that bloated, despite the huge quantities of delicious treats that our many loving friends and family members sent to us. It’s just that I can’t

Buddhist Tradition Thickens Parts of the Brain Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception — the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for

My latest story for Technology Review (on their brand spankin’ new web site, which is about 30 times faster than the old one): Esperanto for Toasters The ZigBee wireless standard could teach a common language to your lights, appliances, doors, and even your cell phone.

Sure, intelligent design is bad science, because its central propositions can’t be tested — more precisely, there is no test that could show them to be false. But doesn’t it give you an extra frisson of schadenfreude to know that ID is also bad religion? J. M. Tyree points out ID’s theological under

My first freelance article since leaving Mobile last month is out, and it’s for Technology Review: Eyes on the Prize If hefty technology prizes like DARPA’s $2 million Grand Challenge prize push technology forward faster, why not create more of them?

Andrew Orlowski is unusually clear-headed this week, pointing out the phony slump in movie revenues: Listening to our old friend Lawrence Lessig and former MPAA boss Jack Valenti debate each other on National Public Radio last week, it became clear. The dears sounded like a couple of senior citizens

The newly-discovered 10th planet, Xena, turns out to have a moon. They’re calling it Gabrielle, of course.

“There is a design revolution going on. And it’s not about the winner of round 5 of the console wars. This is about moving our devices out into free space, no longer constrained by their own form factor. This is about how we start using our bodies for communication, commerce and play in a digital […

My story about Palm Inc. for the November issue of Mobile (on newsstands next week) turns out to be right on the money. My analysis: Palm better switch from Palm OS to Windows Mobile soon, or face oblivion. Today, confirmation: Engadget shows the Windows-based Treo 700w.

Well, I should have lots more time for blogging now that my days won’t be taken up with the agonizing work of producing the world’s most entertaining, authoritative magazine on mobile technology. Yes, it’s true: Mobile magazine has folded. Despite having far better-written, more accurate, and better

For me, Disney’s Electrical Parade was the highlight of our visit there this past spring. It’s a long, trippy parade of illuminated vehicles and floats, some of which are covered with thousands of lights, which starts just about sundown and goes on for maybe 20 minutes. As it rolls slowly by in the

Sept. 17 is Coastal Cleanup Day. Go catch a spork crab!