2011

Today at the Microsoft Mix event, an annual showcase of its latest web and mobile technologies, Microsoft announced an SDK (software development kit) for its motion-controlled gaming system Kinect. After launching in November 2010 on the Xbox, Kinect became the fastest selling electronics device ever – eclipsing the iPad in units sold. News of the … Read more

Over the weekend there was a hackathon held to promote the Internet of Things (IoT), when real world objects get connected to the Internet. The event was run by London-based IoT platform company Pachube. So what got created at this hackathon and what does it tell us about how the Internet of Things is progressing? … Read more

First it was smartphones integrating cameras. Could we be about to see the inverse – cameras integrating smartphone technology? That’s the concept being explored by Seattle design company Artefact. They’ve come up with an intriguing prototype for a camera that incorporates smartphone technology – a.k.a. a SmartCam. Artefact claims that innovation has stalled in the … Read more

Over the past week I read Kevin Kelly‘s latest book, What Technology Wants. It’s a highly ambitious and expansive book, which looks at technology from an evolutionary perspective. Over 350 pages, Kelly outlines and explores technology as a living system, akin to humanity’s biological evolution. The title alludes to this – ‘What Technology Wants,’ as … Read more

Pioneering Internet of Things startup, Pachube, is running a global hackathon starting on April 8, 2011 at 2pm U.K. time. Internet of Things (IoT) is a term for when real world objects and environments get connected to the Internet. The hackathon runs for 24 hours and will bring together over 100 developers working on IoT … Read more

There’s increasing concern in China and worldwide about the detention of leading Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. Reports first surfaced on Sunday U.S. that Weiwei had been detained by China authorities, while at the Beijing Airport on his way to Hong Kong. Weiwei is a prolific Twitter user, but his account hasn’t been updated … Read more

The dream of creating a structured database of the world’s content has eluded Google’s grasp. But at least it got a bunch of useful retail data out of it. The Web world is nothing if not Darwinian: it’s survival of the fittest and products need to evolve with the times. Some Web products fly and … Read more

For online radio service Pandora, the car was a logical place to take their web app. At a SXSW Interactive panel on connected cars, Jessica Steel of Pandora noted that radio is already a well established experience inside a car. “50% of all radio listening happens in the car,” she said, so it was “a … Read more

It’s the one year anniversary of the launch of the iPad. But has the iPad had as much impact on the online world as smartphones like the iPhone and Android phones? In an internal discussion here at ReadWriteWeb, at least one of our number uses smartphones far more than the iPad. Personally, I use both … Read more

On April 3, 2010, Apple officially launched its much anticipated tablet: the iPad. It was the most hyped tech product of the year, but for many of us the hype turned out to be justified. My own Web browsing habits were immediately changed by the iPad. Indeed, I’m writing a whole series currently about how … Read more

RSS feeds were a big driver of innovation in the Web 2.0 era. RSS Readers like Bloglines, Newsgator and Google Reader became the go-to services for people to subscribe to the latest news and blog posts. Over the past couple of years, mobile phones have become a major content consumption device. Yet RSS Readers have … Read more

When the iPad launched in April last year, news media companies were among the first to create applications for the new tablet device. We’re now a year into the iPad era and some of those news apps have dramatically changed how we consume news. But it hasn’t been the apps from traditional news media. Rather, … Read more

We’re living in an exciting era for media. The user experience of consuming (and producing) media is changing rapidly, as new devices take hold of the consumer market. Smartphones, tablets, Internet TVs, eReaders, and more. It isn’t just new devices either. The content we’re consuming is beginning to change too. For example, it’s only natural … Read more

Wouldn’t it be great if MTV documented and showcased emerging bands on its television network, instead of making uninspired, irritating reality TV shows? Well if MTV won’t do that, then a new web site that launched this month will. Noisey is a video-based “new music discovery platform” that is profiling new bands and local music … Read more

That was the question I got asked the most during my time in Austin and San Francisco this month. Perhaps it’s become the new ice-breaker at networking events. But also people are genuinely curious and unsure about whether the tech scene has entered another bubble. My answer to that perennial question over the years has … Read more