Tech Buzz

This month America's first baby boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, signed up for the Social Security benefits she will start to collect in January. The new phase of life that she and her generation are entering is creating demand for new industries that affect everyone, one of which involves "brain ...

Last week was one of the busiest of the year. California, where I live, was mostly in flames, and that had me thinking about what we need to do to prepare for a catastrophic event. One of the most liked features in the new Leopard operating system from Apple -- coincidentally -- is Time Machine, whi...

We are on final countdown to the launch of Mac OS X Leopard. You'll see lots of feature head-to-head pieces start to ramp up, but the real difference is that Vista is from an engineering-driven company while Leopard is from a marketing-driven company -- and that is worth exploring this week. Last we...

There are some weeks when I wonder if we have too many executives and politicians who truly don't have the sense to come in out of the rain. Last week was one of those weeks. The Recording Industry Association of America may have lost a war by winning in court and creating a martyr. On the positive ...

This past July, a joint FBI/Chinese effort seized about $500 million worth of counterfeit Microsoft and Symantec software. The seizure and arrests came at a time when our government was pressuring China to do something about its traditional tolerance of software piracy. This was no small seizure and...

Last weekend, 150 people attended the Alcor life extension conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. The main subject was cryonics, the use of technology to cool and preserve the human body with the aim of future revival. The technology, still speculative, raises many present-world issues. In 2003, a daughte...

Did you hit any garage sales when you were growing up? Most likely you didn't do it to save the planet but rather to make money or shop for bargains. Regardless of the motivation, a secondary result -- one with far grander, long-term benefits -- is that a lot of old items sold were kept out of the t...

It is hard to get around the fact that smartphones are incredibly hot right now, and while the iPhone appears to be suffering from vendor-induced trauma, Research In Motion's financials were impressively good. However, the whole enterprise phone market is about to go through the most massive change ...

The reaction to ISO's recent rejection of Microsoft's Office Open XML ranged from triumphant: "Microsoft trounced in document format vote," to cautious: "not so fast." Lost amid the complex ISO process and reports of Microsoft's ballot-stuffing is a clear understanding of just what the fuss at ISO i...

OK, we clearly can't talk about the events of last week without mentioning the huge surprise "Halo 3" was in terms of popularity and execution. I was having doubts prior to the launch, but those doubts are dead now. This is a wonderful game. In fact, it's actually hard to find anyone saying anything...