The recently announced Apple Vision Pro headset is a new platform as much as a new product. If it succeeds it will be the first in a line for years to come. If it fails it will be beacuse it didn’t provide enough value for its cost. Either way it’s something Apple had to try. […]
These days the news is filled with stories about artificial intelligence (AI). Much like reporting of past technology breakthroughs, what’s being reported is confusing, contradictary and often alarming. The truth is most of the writers (myself included) have little sense of what it all means, even those designated as experts. That doesn’t stop the major […]
ChatGPT providess answers to all sorts of questions based on being able to string the most likely words together found on the Internet. While it may be useful for writing poems, job descriptions and novels, it has been terrible when it comes to researching facts. In my experience it’s been so wrong, it may be […]
The process of getting prescriptions filled is antiquated and inconvenient and outdated in this modern age of online shopping. The doctor first needs to write the prescription and electronically transmit or fax it to a pharmacy that we designate. We then need to check in with the pharmacy to see when it will be ready […]
Guest column by Andy Abramson (Bio follows article) Here’s a satirical look at how Southwest has changed. It’s written to call out how much the experience has changed for a passenger of many years who has loved the airline since the 90s. It is not meant to be a political statement but instead to serve as […]
I noticed a generation gap when I began planning an upcoming vacation trip to Greece, a destination that my son and his family visited last year. When I asked if he had any guidebooks, he said he doesn’t use them and relies entirely on the Internet. So, are travel guides going the way of typewriters […]
This is not about a labor strike of autoworkers. It’s about the baffling decision-making at General Motors that flies in the face of market trends and common sense. In recent weeks GM has announced that they’re killing CarPlay and Android Auto on many of their future models and that they’re discontinuing the Chevy Bolt, the […]
With several trips coming up, I’ve been looking for a new carry-on. I’ve been using a 22-inch 4-wheel softsided expandable rollaboard from Briggs & Riley for ten years. It’s served me well, but it nows needs its shredding wheels replaced. (While wheels for my model are not currently available, they do offer replacements for other […]
Travel tech once meant chargers, backup batteries and luggage scales, but now it’s more about apps on your phone, tablet, and watch. Having just returned from a week in Japan, I relied on a whole new set of apps that made my travels more helpful and enjoyable. I’ve been traveling to Japan on business for […]
GM has been taking a lot of criticism and ridicule with their announcement this week that it’s planning to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its electric vehicles beginning with some 2024 models. As a reminder, CarPlay and Auto allow you to access many of your phone’s apps on the car’s display while driving. […]
As a frequent business traveler, I love flight apps and have been using them ever since the beginning of smartphones. They’re great for keeping informed of upcoming flights or those in progress. As they’ve evolved over the years, they’ve added a few features such as Where is my plane?, What gate number?, Is my flight […]
I’ve had a lifetime interest in photography that led to my first job, designing cameras for Polaroid. I’ve owned most brands of film and digital cameras including Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Fuji, Ricoh and Leica. One of the most important criteria for choosing a camera and lens is that it produces images that are sharp, distortion-free […]
It seems more and more we’re taking action on behalf of a cause, in opposition to an event, as a way to make a statement, or to address a grievence. Is it because there’s more things to get upset about, our expectations are greater, or because we have the ability to complain? Probably all of […]
In my column last August I predicted that Facebook had peaked and was facing an inevitable decline from it’s former torrid growth. I wrote: I’ve been around the high tech industry for more than 40 years and have experienced it first hand. Usually what you see from the outside bears little resemblence to what goes […]
This morning I awoke to an email from United Airlines, telling me that the reservations we made a few months ago, after many days of effort, were now being changed. As I noted in an earlier column, my wife and I, who live in San Diego, worked for days to research and reserve flights from […]
Have you noticed how difficult it’s become to do simple stuff on the web, such as searching, shopping, or simply reading a news article? It seems anything we try to do is met with in-your-face advertising and annoying requests that get in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s become impossible to escape […]
You have to hand it to United Airline’s PR department. They managed to flood the news this week with their story about how United is now allowing families with young children under 12 to more easily sit together. “We’re focused on delivering a great experience for our younger passengers and their parents and know it […]
When Musk purchased Twitter and began to make his moves, we all were trying to figure out his motivations and logic. So many of his first initial actions made little sense, such as firing key personnel responsible for safety and allowing posts from former members that were anti-semitic, anti-black and anti most every other minority. […]
Artificial Intelligence that can be used to create both written documents and digital art has created a lot of attention in recent weeks because of how much it could change how we work. It can do something in seconds that might normally takes hours or days to accomplish. Currently there are two products that are […]
Like many others these days, we’ve been traveling a lot more by car and avoiding flying on trips of 500 miles or less. It became apparent after the Covid disruptions that flights of an hour or two take much longer after factoring in driving to the airport, parking, shuttling to the terminal, waiting in the […]