Apple’s design team is the stuff of legend. But following the death of Steve Jobs, dysfunction ran rampant, Tripp Mickle writes in a Fast Company excerpt from his new book “After Steve.” The result was a shift from a company of innovation to one of operational excellence, which has cost Apple its soul, he says.
Axios, a digital media company founded five years ago to cover politics, business and technology, said Monday that it had agreed to sell itself to Cox Enterprises in a deal valued at $525 million, the New York Times reports. Axios has succeeded in part because Meta, Alphabet, and other Big Tech companies have been pouring ad money into digital publishers that focus on Washington, D.C., Recode's Peter Kafka writes.
Launched by RIT graduates in 2015, cybersecurity firm Token misfired when it targeted the consumer market. Now, the Rochester Beacon reports, the firm has experienced leadership, a new focus and $13 million in capital from Tom Golisano’s investment firm.
TikTok has rocketed in popularity since its North American debut several years ago and now is a top social media platform for teens, the Pew Research Center reports. In a study released Wednesday, Pew says some 67 percent of teens use TikTok. It trails only YouTube, which is used by 95 percent of teens. Facebook's share, meanwhile, has plummeted from 71 percent in 2014-15 to 32 percent today.
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Real estate tech startups have made it easier for people to invest and manage property. Critics say these software companies and their business models are driving up costs and pushing out first-time buyers. But, GeekWire reports, researchers argue that technology is not the real culprit in the lack of affordable housing.
Compass Mining grew quickly during crypto’s halcyon days, but the good times did not last. Now, Wired reports, its customers and their thousands of mining machines are stuck.
The government's $42.5 billion investment in physical broadband infrastructure could be a game-changer for getting 5G to more places, CNet reports. Investment in old-fashioned fiber is critical because wireless signals don't actually travel very far—hopping between your phone and a local cell tower or base station that's hooked into that physical infrastructure.
Though it’s hard to imagine, three random words have the power to both map the globe and keep your private data secure, writes Lynn Reed, a mathematics professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, on The Conversation. What3words is an app and web-based service that provides a geographic reference for every 3-meter-by-3-meter square on Earth using three random words. Meanwhile, the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre is also advocating the use of three random words as passwords.
Private browsing aka incognito mode is a great way to prevent your web browser from saving what you do. But to call it privacy-focused is a stretch, the New York Times Wirecutter reports. While your browser or device doesn’t log your movements in its history and cookies, that doesn’t mean you are truly anonymous.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have figured out how to engineer a biofilm that harvests the energy in evaporation and converts it to electricity, Science Daily reports. This biofilm—a thin sheet of bacterial cells about the thickness of a sheet of paper—has the potential to revolutionize the world of wearable electronics, powering everything from personal medical sensors to personal electronics.