Year: 2018

 SpaceX will attempt its first launch of 2018 later today, with a two-hour launch window opening at 8 PM EST (5 PM PST), with a backup launch window set for tomorrow at the same time. The launch was originally planned for late last year, but was pushed due to SpaceX wanted to review data related to fairing used in the launch. The payload for the launch is the ‘Zuma’ spacecraft, a… Read More

 A few days ago DraftKings announced an NFL product called Showdown, which lets you play in a fantasy football contest centered around just a single football game. This means that all your players will be drafted from just the two teams playing in that game. Lineups will consist of only six players – four offensive players and two defensive players. Later today it’s being tested for… Read More

 Silicon Valley’s problem, says Tim O’Reilly, is actually a structural problem with our entire economy. What’s gone wrong, O’Reilly argues, is that what he calls “short-term greed” has replaced the traditional “long-term greed” of the market. Read More

 Sure, fine, maybe it’s a bubble. OK it’s definitely a bubble, but that’s a good thing, a bubble brings attention and investment in infrastructure, which breeds real innovation. Right? Look at the dot-com boom. A lot of people lost a whole lot of paper money, but it brought us a cheap worldwide fiber backbone and companies like Amazon and Google. Today’s crypto bubble… Read More

 Google’s here, and it’s planning something big. The company’s presence is impossible to miss as you drive down Paradise Road toward the Las Vegas Convention Center. Like much the rest of the show, the company’s parking lot booth is still under construction today, but the giant, black and white “Hey Google” sign is already hanging above it, visible from… Read More

 In comparison to an anemic 2016 for venture-backed technology IPOs, 2017 was a much better year. Companies as diverse as Yext, Cloudera, Blue Apron, StitchFix, and SendGrid all went public last year, not to mention one of the most anticipated IPOs of the past few years, Snapchat. Looking forward to this year, there are a bunch of potential companies on the docket that could go public, and… Read More

 In comparison to an anemic 2016 for venture-backed technology IPOs, 2017 was a much better year. Companies as diverse as Yext, Cloudera, Blue Apron, StitchFix, and SendGrid all went public last year, not to mention one of the most anticipated IPOs of the past few years, Snapchat. Looking forward to this year, there are a bunch of potential companies on the docket that could go public, and… Read More

 Add the surprise return of the cassette tape to the long list of why the last couple of years have been some of the strangest in recent memory. After a number of strong years for the vinyl record, the media’s successor had a good 12 months, as sales in the US rose a solid 35-percent, according to Nielsen Music.  The cassette tape doesn’t appear to be on track for the same kind… Read More

 Add the surprise return of the cassette tape to the long list of why the last couple of years have been some of the strangest in recent memory. After a number of strong years for the vinyl record, the media’s successor had a good 12 months, as sales in the US rose a solid 35-percent, according to Nielsen Music.  The cassette tape doesn’t appear to be on track for the same kind… Read More

 Earlier this week news broke of a pair of massive chip vulnerabilities dubbed Spectre and Meltdown (for an explainer see this post). We learned that the larger cloud vendors like Amazon, Google and Microsoft have been in touch with chip vendors and have been working behind the scenes to mitigate the vulnerabilities. But what about smaller cloud hosting vendors like Linode, OVH… Read More