Writing

On Wednesday, the European Union brought down an antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros—or about $5.06 billion—against Google, for anticompetitive practices related to Android, the company’s mobile operating system. It’s the European Commission’s largest antitrust fine ever, topping the previous record of 2.42 billion euros—which was also levied against Google, just last year, for abuses of its search-engine dominance. At… read more

Last week, for the first time in years, I stopped my car at a red light and didn’t bide the time by fondling my smartphone. This isn’t a proud admission, but it is an honest one: Pretty much every time I stop my car at a traffic signal, I pick up my phone and do something with it. I’m not… read more

Here are some of the things I heard about in my neighborhood over the past year: A thunderstorm downed a tree, blocking a central road; a shadowy agent called “the night clipper” arose, surreptitiously cutting overhanging bushes while unsuspecting property owners slept; several dogs and cats were lost, found, or “on the loose,” whatever that means for a cat; a… read more

A mass-shooting in Annapolis, Maryland, at the Capital Gazette yesterday killed five journalists, making it the most deadly domestic attack on the press since 9/11. Local police say a suspect in custody, Jarrod Ramos, appears to have acted alone and been motivated by retribution for a failed defamation lawsuit against the paper. As accounts of the shooting and its aftermath… read more

The international health community has decided that if you play video games like Fortnite or World of Warcraft a lot, you might suffer from a mental-health issue: Gaming Disorder. It’s a behavioral condition that the World Health Organization has added to the proposed 11th revision of its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, or ICD-11, the first… read more

The moment I put the Apple AirPods in my ears, I feel like I’ve already dropped them in the toilet. They are so small and slippery. The mere act of removing these precious, wireless ear buds from their lozenge-shaped case makes them feel like a futuristic cure to unknown ills. I am late to adopt them, so I indulge a… read more

It’s easy to forget in the app era, but Silicon Valley got its name from microchips. The generation that transformed orchards into Oracle did so by manufacturing electronic circuits that encrust “chips” of a semiconductor material, usually made of silicon. In the fertile purlicue south of San Francisco, the foundations of the electronic revolution were invented, designed, and manufactured. Shockley… read more

For some American families, one kitchen is apparently not enough. What is wrong with having just one kitchen? Well, people cook in kitchens, and when they cook in kitchens, they make messes, and then, to make matters worse, if their kitchen is in full view from the rest of the house—as many today are—their mess is out in the open… read more

In a shocking reversal, the Senate voted 52–47 to disapprove of the rollback of network neutrality—the policy that treats broadband and wireless data as common carriers. That protection required internet service providers to treat all internet traffic the same, rather than blocking, throttling, or otherwise interfering with access to particular services. All 49 Democratic senators were joined, somewhat unexpectedly, by… read more

Facebook’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, made a remarkable announcement during a keynote at the company’s big conference this week: “The increase in the Stories format,” he explained, “is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.” This caught me off guard. I have been ignoring Stories for years,… read more