Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
gallery js end gallery js start of gallery code fullscreen A little bit more than four months from opening, a thin film of dust covers everything. Only a handful of exhibits have been installed. Still, it is already clear that the National Museum of African American History and Culture is stunning. A Smithsonian more than…
Photo: iStockphoto uBeam, a high-profile startup backed by some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors, has become a tech-industry sensation because of the wireless charging technology it claims to have in its labs. Scheduled for delivery next year, uBeam promises to use ultrasound to charge a mobile phone wirelessly, as you go about your…
What is it Like to Wake Up and Have the Press Ready to Torpedo Your Business? In case you missed it, the press yesterday ran several stories questioning the viability of a wireless charging company I invested in called uBeam. Obviously my day turned out very differently than I had anticipated when I woke up,…
From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I love tiny houses. My own apartment is a little over 300 square feet, most of which is taken up by a Murphy bed. The idea of building an entire free-standing structure where every appliance and piece of furniture can fold into something else is very appealing. And for decades…
This Oct. 20, 2015, photo, shows a sign outside Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Google announced Wednesday that it will ban all payday loan ads from its site, bowing to concerns by advocates who say the lending practice exploits the poor and vulnerable by offering them immediate cash that must…
Illustration by Tara Jacoby There are few things on this planet I hate more than bottled water. Just the crinkling sound of someone wrapping their mouth around one of those squeaky garbage accordions fills me with rage. I stopped drinking it a long time ago—and you should stop drinking it, too. In 2015, in the…
Mic CEO Chris Altchek. Credit: Mic AD UNIT 1 /AD UNIT 1 Like explorers on the high seas, digital media companies these days are looking left and right, high and low, for new sources of revenue. Advertising, branded content in particular, has become a huge business for companies like BuzzFeed and Vox Media, but revenue…
It isn’t unusual for Facebook’s advertising and content policies to change week-to-week as the social network looks for more ways to bring in revenue while carefully managing the user experience. But the constant evolution, particularly with video, may be starting to rile publishers who are looking for their own ways to make money from the…
Begin: WordPress Article Content uBeam could be vaporware, according to a blogger claiming to be uBeam’s former VP of engineering. They accuse the startup of being unable to fulfill promises made about its technology. [Update: Reporter Lee Gomes confirmed with the author that they are former uBeam VP of Eng Paul Reynolds. More below] uBeam…
It’s difficult to imagine that there was a time, not long ago, when advertising was said to be “dead.” In 2004, research company Forrester & Co, proclaimed that we had reached “the end of the era of mass marketing.” In 2009, Advertising Age, said “the post-advertising age is under way.” “Advertising Is Dead,” headlined the…