Tag: Google

Gear by Joe WilcoxSep 22, 20156:40 pm

Google OnHub Review

One word: Fantastic! That should be enough said, but one of my colleagues asked me how much OnHub costs. He bristled at $199.99, calling it too much. So, okay, let’s do a real review that explains the magic that Google and partner TP-LINK accomplish with this remarkable router. But I warn you now: Buying one, even for two C notes, isn’t easy. This thing is out of stock most everywhere, as it has been for weeks.

Simply stated: OnHub is the best router ever to anchor my home network. Beauty, simplicity, availability, and extensibility are OnHub’s defining characteristics. Sold in blue or black enclosures, the thing is gorgeous, and it feels as solid as it looks. Setup and maintenance are frightening for their ease. The usable wireless range far exceeds the Apple AirPort Extreme router that OnHub replaces in my home. The network device packs protocols and other features you won’t need now but will want later on.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 19, 20155:44 pm

Apple Ad Blocking Blasts the Google Free Economy

On Sept. 16, 2015, Apple released iOS 9, which enables users of iPad and iPhone to disable ads. The company claims the capability improves the overall user experience. As someone covering the tech industry for more than two decades, I perceive it as something else, too: Competitive assault against Google and means of pushing publishers to iOS 9’s new News app. There is nothing friendly about Apple’s maneuver. It is aggressive and tactical. But does it really matter?

Stated simply: More than 90 percent of Google revenue comes from contextual and search-related advertising. Apple derives about the same figure from selling devices and supporting services. At the same time, mobile is the future of Internet advertising and the battleground where the two meet. The entities’ respective mobile platforms, Android and iOS, long ago put the tech titans on a collision course. Conceptually, what Apple can’t gain from iPad and iPhone sales, it can take by shaking pillars supporting its rival’s business.

News Media by Joe WilcoxSep 18, 20159:00 pm

Who Mourns for the Fourth Estate? (Part 1)

April 2009, I busily bang out a news analysis for Microsoft Watch, one of two news sites I edit for Ziff Davis Enterprise. My boss sounds alarm that there is some jeopardy to my job. I earn a six-figure salary, which panics investors/creditors that recently increased involvement in editorial operations. He infers that I am the highest-paid writer on staff.

Days later, he informs me that in two weeks, ZDE will lay me off—the first time this has ever happened in my long journalist career. My last day will be April 30. As the end approaches, but I continue to produce content normally, he returns with an offer: Stay on writing news stories for eWeek, take a 36 percent reduction in pay, and agree to a 5-story-per-day quota. I politely decline but privately fume.

Photo by Joe WilcoxSep 16, 201510:44 pm

Cali can’t wait for Caturday

My daughter’s cat takes possession of a tapestry; I snapped the pic using Nexus 6, which is my main smartphone again. I sold iPhone 6 Plus, and, unbelievably, the buyer shattered the screen not long later. […]

Google by Joe WilcoxSep 16, 20152:30 am

Google’s European Problem

Three weeks ago, Google filed its expected rebuttal to the European Competition Commission’s statement of objections released in April 2015. The EC alleges unfair competition in online shopping services.

My missive focuses less on the “what it is” and more on the “what does it mean”. Google blogged about the filing, but I haven’t yet seen the document. I choose not to source the blog, which is more about public relations. You can read the post by Kent Walker, general counsel, for yourself or the recap somewhere else. A Google blog recapping the filing is secondary to the legal document.

Google by Joe WilcoxSep 10, 20153:09 pm

Gimme Google Fiber, San Diego!

Please take my money, Google. Tap the vein right here if blood is the currency you need. I am ready, willing, and over-excited. If you disappoint, I understand, though. My city is a brick wall when it comes to new commerce. It’s regulation central. So good luck to you, GF.

This afternoon I received email from the Google Fiber team that stopped my heart: “We wanted you to be among the first to hear the news. Today we announced we’re exploring bringing Fiber to San Diego”. Hell, yeah, baby. Sign me up. Which up-for-reelection-politician needs me and other native and transplanted San Diegans to be thorns in the butt? Give us more speed than we possibly need for prices we probably can’t afford.

Mobility by Joe WilcoxSep 9, 20159:35 am

Pixel Me Life

I am in one of my moods today, waiting for the big Apple media event to start in about 30 minutes. For no reason, other than perhaps boredom thinking about what’s to come, I wrote a quickie poem—an ode to Chromebook Pixel. It’s all just for fun and doesn’t pretend to be anything more.

When you work alone in a home office and there is no one to tease with spitballs and paper airplanes, making fun is a singular effort. The poem is meant to be read with rapid meter. Confession: I don’t play a fife, but it rhymes with life. Maybe I will add more verses later.

Google by Joe WilcoxAug 29, 20158:19 pm

Debating the ‘Google Free Economy’

On Aug. 28, 2015, I posted the second story, “In Europe, Google Fights Back“, in my crowdfunded series “What Does the Google Free Economy Cost You?” The analysis is not the one planned. The first two were meant to be scene-setters for deeper reporting to follow. But Google responded to the European Competition Commission’s state of objections issued about four months earlier. Breaking news took precedent.

What’s missing from the conversation is long-form interaction with mechanical engineer Tim Lewis, who responded on Google+ rather than comment directly to the story. I don’t want the exchange to be lost in the noise, so here it is for your convenient peruse. Rather than block quote long paragraphs, they are color-coded. How nerd is that?

Google by Joe WilcoxAug 25, 20157:25 pm

Please Support My Google Exposé

My mind is divided about Google, or is that Alphabet now? On one hand, I see the company as among the most innovative ever. I highly value many of Google’s products and they enable me to work more efficiently and to accomplish much more in far less time. On another hand, the search and services operation’s business model is hugely disruptive to people like me that generate content that is primarily consumed online. My profession is in shambles, with the “Google free economy” as the primary wrecking ball.

Overnight, I started an investigative report that will, in the early stages, primarily focus on how the information giant’s business disrupts the news media and some other content producers. “What Does the ‘Google Free Economy’ Cost You?” is crowdfunding through Byline. Should I achieve my modest milestone goal—$250 over 40 days—another milestone would follow with larger goal, and the reporting will expand into additional areas of concern, such as privacy or even how Google could influence the outcome of the U.S. 2016 Presidential election.

News Media by Joe WilcoxAug 16, 201512:56 pm

Discussing Chromebook’s Success

One of the problems with bad news reporting: Those of us who strive to be responsible and accurate are lumped in with the lumps of coal, and the black powder rubs off on us. Illustrative: The excellent exchange I had over at BetaNews to the version of my Dell Chromebook 13 story posted there.

Commenter Joe HTH bristled about bloggers overstating NPD data and making Chromebook’s success much larger than it really is. I agree that this occurred about 18 months ago. But he levels his accusations at my reporting , which I assert correctly stats and interprets newer data that the analyst firm released just a few days ago. What follows is his comment and my response, in red and blue rather than block-quoted. I put story titles to my links, which are presented differently in the commenting system.

Gear by Joe WilcoxAug 16, 201512:20 pm

Dell Chromebook 13 means Business

The strangest, and largely overlooked news, coming out of the tech sector this past week was Dell’s Microsoft betrayal. This isn’t the first time that the PC maker strayed. Linux joined the product stable long ago, and last year an educational Chromebook debuted. But this newer and larger model, which will be available September 17, raises question: WTF?

Dell’s core PC market is business—small, large, and everything between. Windows, and that smattering of Linux, is core, and longstanding loyalty to Microsoft’s application stack. But the Chromebook 13 announcement, as positioned by the OEM and Google, is all about the competing cloud app stack. Interestingly, selling prices rival Windows laptops, which is another head scratcher: $399 to $899, depending on configuration.

Google by Joe WilcoxAug 11, 20151:49 pm

What Google gets from Alphabet

I predict that the innovation of the year will go, not to a tech product, but to Google’s creation of a new company: Alphabet. The search and information giant that disrupts so many other companies on and off the Internet essentially disrupts itself. By doing so—divesting the core, established business from future research and inventions—cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin unshackle weights dragging growth.

To recap: Page announced the dramatic change after the market closed yesterday. Google becomes secondary to Alphabet, which will hold a collection of related entities. Page hands over Google chief executive reigns to Sundar Pichai, while becoming CEO of the new entity. Brin is president. Can we call him letterhead instead of figurehead? 🙂