About Dan Dan Lyons is a humorist, journalist, and screenwriter. He has been called “the Mark Twain of Silicon Valley,” and “Jonathan Swift for our own digital age.” He’s a sharp-eyed, cynical humoris

Lately I’ve noticed some concern over the intermittent tendency to portray Occupy Wall Street, and other insurgent movements, as somehow “neither left nor right”; recently, we can see Matt Taibbi engaging in this rhetoric, and Richard Seymour found it cropping up at Occupy London. This is, I agree,…

In the last two posts ( How much does an Apple store cost? , The down payment on iCloud ) I discussed two line items in the PP&E asset class on Apple’s Balance Sheet. In isolation, the data is interes

I have no inside information or insight, but historically Apple’s product improvements have strongly broadcasted where they’re going in the future. Here are six things I think are inevitable for Apple to do over the next decade, from most to least obvious: maps, iCloud, payments, TVs, search, and…

This story first appeared in the Oct. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter . “I’m coming to Paros.” Hearing those words was much scarier than you’d think. During the spring and summer of 2006, Steve Job

As exciting as every new major iOS release is, there’s just as much if not more excitement in finding the little things that no one knows about. Apple spends a lot of time  creating major additions a

The initial reaction to the iPhone 4S was cooler than Apple might have hoped. Expectations had been hyped to such a point that people were looking for a leap forward equivalent to the first iPhone. When they couldn't immediately see it, many were disappointed. But that leap was there — it's just not…

Fine. But you are dragging the rest of us, who still believe in science and think that things can and should be done quickly, down into what increasingly seems like a future hell. You need to get on board. Why? Here is the final straw.

I was warmly surprised to see how many people responded to my Google+ post about Dennis Ritchie's untimely passing. His influence on the technical community was vast, and it's gratifying to see it recognized. When Steve Jobs died there was a wide lament - and well-deserved it was - but it's worth…

I was leaving the main building on the Apple campus. Just ahead of me was Steve. This was not an uncommon sight despite being such a large company. He was often seen walking in the halls or in the courtyard in the center of all the buildings. He always seemed to have a spring in his step, like he…

Learn the ins, outs, dos and don’ts of creator marketing at Social Media Week Europe this 10–11 October in London. Register for your in-person or virtual pass . Steve Jobs made computers and music pla

Steve Jobs turned Eve's apple, the symbol of fallen humankind, into a religious icon for true believers in technology. But can salvation be downloaded?

Like many of us, I’ve been thinking a lot about Steve Jobs the last few days — thinking about the man and his legacy. I’ve been having some trouble even understanding the way I feel, let alone being a

This summer, at the age of 51—not even old—I watched on a flatscreen as the last Space Shuttle lifted off the pad.  I have followed the dwindling of the space program with sadness, even bitterness.  Where’s my donut-shaped space station? Where’s my ticket to Mars?

When I wrote my piece entitled “ One More Thing… ” in August following the news that Steve Jobs was formally stepping down as CEO of Apple, I knew that sooner or later there would have to be a follow

Remember a few years ago, when your Apple store on any given Saturday afternoon ceased being the clean, technological zendo you once admired — the place you bought your iMac — and instead became a cro

I was in the third hour of a three-hour meeting on the afternoon of October 5, 2011, and I was feeling a bit punchy. The day before was an all-out sprint to cover Apple’s press conference and its fall

There's been a lot of hubbub about the possibility of FTL neutrinos. But would breaking the light barrier really be such a big deal? Hell, yes, it would! In this week's "Ask a Physicist," we'll find o

Steve Jobs did not create products. He created an organization that predictably and reliably created emotionally resonant products. Steve Jobs did not make movies. He made a company that predictably a

Amidst all the bad news coming out of Wall Street and the economy, here’s something good: California has backed out of the talks for the long-awaited foreclosure settlement, now making it far from likely that the so-called “Attorneys General” deal will happen anytime soon.

Economics Economics Indicators Central Banks Jobs Trade Tax & Spend Inflation & Prices Central Banks Don’t Bet on ECB Rate Cuts in First Half of 2024, Kazaks Says Central Banks ECB’s Stournaras Urges

I went to a dinner party at a friend's home last weekend, and met her five-year-old daughter for the first time. Little Maya was all curly brown hair, doe-like dark eyes, and adorable in her shiny pin

You will probably never need to know about the Olson database, also known as the Zoneinfo or tz database. And were it not for my elmcity project I never would have looked into it. I knew roughly that