As we close out 2025, the tech landscape has been a mix of ambitious breakthroughs and some truly spectacular misfires. While “worst” is a matter of personal opinion, several products this year stood out for failing to meet their massive hype, suffering from critical design flaws, or simply offering poor value. Here are several of […]

There’s a Verizon scam that’s fooling many, that we should be aware of, because it’s quite clever and initially fooled me. I received this text, supposedly from Verizon, saying I had points that were about to expire and I needed to redeem them soon: I looked at the link and saw Verizon.com, which normally indicated […]

More than a year ago we read how ChatGPT would just make things up and how it embarrassed a lawyer who used it by citing court cases that it just made up. After all this time, ChatGLT is no better and maybe worse. At least 25% of the time I use it, I find it […]

When a power outage in San Francisco last night caused Waymo’s autonomous cars to freeze in place, snarl traffic, and block emergency vehicles, it felt to me like a paradigm of big tech. It was a predictable failure. The tech industry loves to release breakthrough products, but consistently refuses to confront how fragile these systems […]

I remember when my December newspaper columns were filled with new and unusual tech and travel products of the year, but no longer do see the swarm of new gadgets that we experienced in past years. Instead we’re mostly seeing refinements, improvements, and miniaturization of existing categories of products. This week I look back at […]

There was a time when the under-seat bag barely mattered. It carried a book, a computer, a boarding pass, maybe a sandwich. The real action lived in the overhead bin. The focus of interest was the rollerboard bag category, with every luggage company creating a line of bags measuring precisely 21 x 9 x 15 […]

My phone messages are being filled with a continuous torrent of requests for donations from our politicians. Day and night, I, a stranger they’ve never met, receive texts telling me I hold the key to saving their campaign. The tone is always frantic. “We are begging you.” “We are collapsing.” “We will not survive the […]

It’s becoming one of the real annoyances of our daily life: the constant request to rate, score, or review every transaction we make. Buy a sandwich, rate the sandwich. Order an item from Amazon, rate the packaging. Call customer support, rate the agent. These days it feels like every business we interact with is less […]

I just returned from Paris with tired legs, achy feet, hundreds of photos, and a renewed appreciation for something that most cities lack: the enjoyment of walking. Paris is a city built for the pedestrian in a way few modern cities are. While other places require cars, busses, and rideshares to get around, Paris invites […]

Google recently withdrew its Gemma AI product from the market after a letter from Senator Marsha Blackburn accused it of making up false allegations. When the AI model was queried if she had been accused of rape, Gemma responded with a completely fabricated story involving a state trooper, prescription-drug pressure, non-consensual acts, and fake news […]

For years, owning an iPhone meant accepting a trade-off: unmatched user inteface, strong ecosystem, and excellent build quality — but battery life that was barely good, and never great. Even as Apple’s hardware improved dramatically, many users remained frustrated that Apple paid less attention to the battery than its thinness. Consider the latest iPhone 17 […]

After more than a decade of hype, driverless taxis are finally becoming a reality. We’ve heard the promises for years — cars that would pick you up without a steering wheel or a driver in sight — but this time electric vehicles are actually navigating city streets around the world, picking up passengers, dropping them […]

General Motors’ decision to remove Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from its upcoming electric vehicles has set off a wave of frustration—not only among tech enthusiasts, but increasingly among everyday drivers who expect their phones to “just work” when they get into a car. The move was strongly defended this week by CEO Mary Barra […]

If you own a cell phone, you probably know the feeling: you hear that familiar alert, glance at your screen, and find yet another text message begging for a donation before midnight. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never signed up for anything, or if you’ve opted out a dozen times already. I typically receive at […]

When Citi rolled out its new Strata Elite credit card earlier this year, it was supposed to be the bank’s long-waited return to the premium card arena. With a $595 annual fee, lounge access, and concierge-level support, it aimed to compete head-to-head with the American Express Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Instead, it became a disaster […]

Scams come to us by email, text messaging and phone calls, but other times we go to them without being aware. An example are the fake product reviews that litter the internet everywhere you look. The search engines that serve these review sites to us don’t bother to discern the dishonest ones from the real […]

TheVerge reported this week that Amazon introduced a major update of its line of Alexa-enabled Echo smart speakers and displays that they liked alot, then ruined them a few days later when they began to fill them with intrusive video ads that impacts the products’ usability, much to the surprise of the users. Surprisingly, ads were […]

There’s a moment most of us experience several times a day: we sit down to do something simple online — pay a bill, check a warranty, read an article, or maybe just order takeout — and are met by that dreaded prompt: Enter your password. Then comes the frustration. Which one? Did it need a capital letter? […]

Luggage pack-off: My wife has long sworn by her trusty Briggs & Riley expandable soft-sided carry-on rollerboard. It’s been her travel companion for years — durable, familiar, and once considered the gold standard. I used to have the same bag until I replaced mine with a cheaper Away hard-sided model of the same size. Ever […]

If you’ve called a hotel or airline lately, chances are your first conversation wasn’t with a person. It was with a chatbot or voice bot programmed to answer questions, process simple requests, and—if you’re lucky—eventually hand you off to a human being. Hotels, airlines, banks, and even health-care providers are increasingly leaning on these digital […]