Superman wears Warby Parker
Movie merchandising is nothing new. What’s new is that Warby Parker, an online brand (going offline) is partnering up with the Man of Steel movie on eyewear that is inspired by Clark Kent nee Superman. Read more »
Om Malik
Om is the founder of GigaOM. He has been a journalist for over 20 years. He was part of the founding team of Forbes.com as a senior editor. He joined Red Herring as a senior writer in August 2000 & Business 2.0 in March 2003. He has also contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and MIT Technology Review. Om is the author of Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist. Om also blogs on his personal blog, Om.Co. Follow him on Twitter @om
HTC One and the harsh reality of the Android ecosystem
HTC was the shining star during the early days of Android. Now it is reeling under the pressure of cheap Androids, a dominant Samsung and a management disarray. It’s a damn shame, as the new HTC One is actually a nice device. Read more »
Faster & faster! The US now has 82.4 million broadband connections
A resurgent housing market and stronger economy, along with our growing need for speed and connectivity is the reason why demand for US broadband is booming. Here are some numbers to give you an idea as to who is winning and who is losing. Read more »
What Tumblr’s sale means for New York startup ecosystem
photo: Om Malik
The New York startup ecosystem will get a big boost from the $1.1 billion sale of Tumblr to Yahoo. The exit, one of the biggest New York has seen, shows that with content becoming important, New York is finding its footing on the startup stage. Read more »
What Nikola Tesla vs. VCs video says about the state of Silicon Valley
Imagine if Nikola Tesla had to pitch venture capitalists to fund his idea. The reaction to his crazy ideas would be precisely what you see on this video. Sadly, the video also says a lot about the skewed risk and investment system in Silicon Valley these days. Read more »
7 stories to read this weekend
Costa Rica’s killer bull, fear in Cyprus, crimes of Ranbaxy and BitCoin bubble — that along with basketball uber coach Phil Jackson are part of this week’s reading material. Of course, question to ponder: briefs or boxers, how did they get into men’s pants. Read more »
Some of the best articles you need to read about Google I/O
photo: Janko Roettgers
Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O has been center stage in technology world for past few days. The news coming out of the event can be overwhelming. Here are a handful of articles that I find worth of your time and attention. Read more »
Yahoo wants to buy Tumblr. Will Facebook swoop in at the last minute?
Yahoo wants to buy Tumblr. We hear Facebook might spoil the party. But the question is: is Tumblr the fountain of youth that Yahoo badly needs or will this be case of a pathetic old-middle aged guy hanging with youngsters trying to be hip. Read more »
What do good shoes, Google+ and Facebook have in common?
My post about the Google+ redesign and the shift in direction from Facebook design has met with some well reasoned argument. Here I present my own arguments, and reason why I think the two design philosophies are moving in different direction. Read more »
Google CEO Larry Page: Do as I say, not as I do
Google CEO Larry Page, who has been suffering from vocal cord issues, showed up at the end of the Google I/O keynote and spent some time talking about his vision of technology and took questions from the audience. And that’s when the fun started. Read more »
Eight years later, Google reinvents its Maps for a data rich web
Eight years after Google launched Maps as a beta product, the search giant is reinventing the map for a new data rich web that lives on fast broadband, and runs on computers with oomph to spare. Read more »
What Google was thinking when redesigning the new Google+
Google’s reworking of its social network, Google+ shows that the company has started to marry data with design and craft new experiences. Will that be enough to turn you and I into active participants? Who, knows, I am just happy it doesn’t look like Facebook. Read more »
Google Apps set for a communication upgrade with deeper Google+ integration
Google will reveal new communications features for Google Apps for Business users built on Google+ technology, we’ve learned just before Google I/O is set to begin. Read more »
With Square Stand, Jack Dorsey & Co. reimagine the cash register
photo: Pinar Ozger
Square, which started with a small card reader that plugged into an iPhone’s audio jack has made an iPad-based point of sale system, that is a warning shot across the bow of competitors such as Verifone. It also is a sign of Square’s grand ambitions. Read more »
Checking out Pinterest’s new home in San Francisco with CEO Ben Silbermann
photo: Om Malik
Pinterest moved into its new offices in San Francisco on Monday, and CEO Ben Silbermann talked with us about his goal for the company and where it’s headed. Read more »
7 stories to read this weekend
Reality TV, Raymond Chandler, Miami cold case, a dead hedge fund manager and privacy in the age of Facebook, circa 1985 — here are some of the the stories on the menu for this weekend. Enjoy! Read more »
How the New York Times can fight BuzzFeed & reinvent its future
The NYT’s multimedia project Snow Fall was a huge success, attracting big audiences and lots of plaudits. But the paper can do even better — it can build a new business from this type of project, and change the definition of journalism in the new century. Read more »
Stunning Google Earth photos show our planet changing
Google, NASA, USGS and TIME have released a set of photos that show a “picture of Earth through time.” It is stunning to see Amazon rainforest shrink and a glacier vanish. Impressive Read more »
John Maeda on how better design can lead to better health
Design is no longer esoteric and instead it influences everything and is everywhere, argues author John Maeda, President of Rhode Island School of Design. Health and healthcare too are changing with design thinking. Read more »
GigaOM Reads: A look back at the week in tech
Well no one saw this one coming: a comparison between Steve Ballmer and Tim Cook; the Future of Television according to Netflix; 3D printers and guns; plus Touchscreen Toddlers and San Francisco’s real estate inflation are some of topics covered this week. Read more »
As Internet gets faster, Hong Kong & South Korea lead the broadband speed derby
The broadband speeds across the planet are going up, even as more and more people are connecting to the Internet from their mobile devices, according to Akamai State of the Internet Report. Read more »
Hyper-connected, real-time news is a good thing — but so is accuracy
The big news events of today are increasingly becoming participatory, thanks to growing and hyper-connectivity. This new landscape means, the media and its process — but not its real job – has to evolve. Read more »
Intel’s dilemma and the slowly crumbling PC ecosystem
photo: ArtyFree
Intel is looking for a new CEO and its looks at internal candidates. The big problem: they are all kids of the PC revolution. What Intel needs is fresh thinking, much like Microsoft to get out of the crumbling PC ecosystem. Read more »
Dish Network wants to buy Sprint for $25.5 billion
Dish Network’s Charlie Ergen is taking on Japan’s Softbank and has decided to make a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint. Softbank wants to buy about 30 percent of Sprint for about $20.1 billion. Read more »
GigaOM Reads: A look back at the week in tech
Missed the week in tech? Here is our rewind and quick take on the most important stories and some great links for your weekend reading. From Google Fiber to Tumblr to FWD.us, we got it all ready for you. Read more »
Why a Warby Parker flagship retail store is a big moment for online brands (video)
photo: courtesy of Collin Hughes/Warby Parker
Warby Parker is opening up its first full-fledged store (beyond its showrooms) and is using sensors, Wi-Fi and other technology to understand how people use their retail space, and take that data and marry it with their online sales trends. Read more »
Dennis Crowley and the cycle of second-guessing
Dennis Crowley can bask in the positive reviews of Foursquare’s latest software release, but only briefly. Because that praise will soon fade away and once again, he’ll have to deal with the flurry of armchair critics. Read more »
Why I have issues with Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us
Mark Zuckerberg has launched a new political group, FWD.us and has been joined by Silicon Valley luminaries. They want reform in immigration but their focus on technology and innovation centric changes doesn’t take into account the harsh reality of post industrial society & its invisible victims. Read more »
HTC First (and my last) with Facebook Home
photo: Om Malik
The HTC First is the debut device powered by Facebook Home, an app-meets-skin that focuses the phone experience to all things Facebook. There is a lot to like and a lot more to dislike in the device. Here are my impressions. Read more »
As JC Penney and Ron Johnson just learned, it is always about the team
Ron Johnson, former retail chief of Apple was hired by JC Penney as a man with the silver bullet. Both didn’t realize: winning comes from team (and timing). Read more »
GigaOM Reads: A look back at the week in tech
Its a unicorn. No it’s a phone. Actually it is Facebook Home, for now; Apple’s China Syndrome is making it think different; The Bit coin boom (& bust); Chrome & WebKit go to war and did Vdio really kill the Rdio star? Read more »
Why Facebook Home bothers me: It destroys any notion of privacy
photo: Om Malik
Facebook’s history as a repeat offender on privacy, and playing loose and easy with our data means that need to be even more vigilant about privacy issues, thanks to this Home app/faux-OS. Read more »
US TV cord cutter households will reach 4.7 million (4.7%) by year-end 2013
— Convergence Consulting Group
Facebook’s mobile hype, eyeballs and dollars grow. Is that enough?
A year ago, it seemed mobile was going to be Facebook’s achilles heel. Things seem to have turned around, though I am not entirely convinced that it means big dollars for the company. Read more »
Here is an IPO you didn’t expect: Moleskine
Who says paper is worthless in the age of iPad! Moleskine, the favorite notebook of tech people, went public today, and is valued at $626 million. It is a nice windfall for technology investor Index Ventures. Read more »
HTML5 lovers rejoice: Famo.us to make its platform free for developers
Famo.us, a San Francisco-based HTML5 platform maker, is making its platform free for developers and has new technology that makes its HTML5 platform even more robust. Read more »
GigaOM Reads: A look back at the week in tech
In Summly we trust, Flipping the magazines, Math Madness, Say no to contracts & iPhone comes to T-Mobile, plus cable cuts slow down the Internet and links to web-world greatness. A look back at the week in tech Read more »
There is something fishy about the Egyptian cable-cut arrests
Three men were arrested for planning to cut an undersea cable, according to published reports. The arrests by the Egyptian Government raise more questions than answers, for this is an atypical event when it comes to undersea cable cuts. Read more »
Undersea cable cut near Egypt slows down Internet in Africa, Middle East, South Asia
photo: Shutterstock / Mikhail Melnikov
Internet and telecommunication networks live on undersea cable networks. And like clockwork, every so often we have cable cuts which disrupt the flow of information. A recent cut near Egypt has impacted millions of Internet users in Asia, Middle East and Africa. Read more »
Coffee & Empathy: Why data without a soul is meaningless
As we move towards a quantified society, one shaped by data, we start to dismiss things that are unquantified. Empathy, emotion and storytelling — these are as much a part of business as they are of life. Here is why. Read more »
