Tag Archives: Fusion

Weekly output: robot arms, strange tech at CEATEC

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I have to remind myself that I’m not imagining things through a haze of jet lag: The Washington Nationals really did win the National League Championship Series with a 4-0 sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals (revenge for 2012!), and a D.C. baseball team will play in the World Series for the first time since 1933. Eighty-six years!

I watched game four of the NLCS from 6,700-plus miles away on my laptop–first in my hotel room, then the CEATEC press room. I can only imagine what the other journalists there thought of my demeanor, which went from “staring a hole into my laptop’s screen” as the Cards loaded the bases in the top of the 8th to absolute elation as the last pitch of the game landed in Victor Robles’s glove and the Nats rushed onto the field to celebrate.

Now we just need to win four more games. Go Nats!

10/19/2019: Here’s what it feels like to sprout an extra pair of robot arms, Fast Company

I knew that one of the keynotes on CEATEC’s opening day would spotlight ANA’s ventures into telepresence avatars. I didn’t expect one of these experiments to take the form of a set of remote-controlled arms that a person could wear while another operated those appendages–or that I’d get a chance to strap on that Fusion rig myself. This was a fun piece to write.

10/20/2019: Too-smart toilets and work-tracking shirts: Could this tech in Tokyo come to the U.S.?, USA Today

What CEATEC lacked in shipping or soon-to-ship products, it made up in a sort of science-fair weirdness. I tried to capture that in this show recap/photo gallery I filed Thursday night in Tokyo. The piece could have been considerably longer… but I get paid a fixed rate per USAT column, so writing long only drives down my per-word rate.

 

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Weekly output: “Beyond television,” cable boxes and apps, Google I/O (x3), Chrome OS, security, Android N

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I had a two-city, four-airport week: I spent Sunday afternoon through Tuesday evening in Boston for the cable industry’s INTX show, flew to SFO that night and spent Wednesday through Friday at Google I/O before flying home Saturday morning. I am seriously exhausted… so it’s not optimal timing that I’m writing this from Dulles. Why? I was invited to moderate a panel at the Connected Conference in Paris later this week (and on the side, meet a bunch of French startups the government wants to show off). I haven’t been to my family’s one-time expat home in 25 years, so this would have been difficult to turn down. But I did think about that.

5/16/2016: Beyond Television: Extending the Media Brand Across the Digital Forever, INTX

I moderated this discussion with BET’s Kay Madati, Fusion’s Jigar Mehta and Scripps Networks Interactive’s Vikki Neil about how cable networks are trying to connect with current and potential fans outside the big screen. I may be a cord cutter, but I do have one of Alton Brown’s cookbooks and I often turn to Fusion’s tech coverage, so I guess I’m an example of successful beyond-television marketing.

Consumer Reports I O preview5/17/2016: What to Expect from Google I/O 2016, Consumer Reports

My debut piece for CR (no subscription required to read it) was a preview of Google I/O’s expected news that I think mostly holds up.

5/18/2016: Live at Google I/O, Jefferson Graham

Right after I picked up my press badge, I ran into Jefferson and a few other USAT pals, and he elected to do a Facebook Live stream on the spot.

5/18/2016: Cable operators are trying to fix the single biggest problem with their apps, Yahoo Finance

I wrote a reality-check piece about the cable industry’s “but we have apps!” response to the Federal Communications Commission’s “unlock the box” proceeding. The cable operator that now seems most far along in providing TV apps that can take a cable box’s place without compromising on major features? Comcast.

5/18/2016: Google just made it clear that it’s trying to catch up in 3 big areas, Yahoo Finance

This recap of the keynote that opened up I/O disappeared sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon due to a publishing glitch nobody noticed at the time. Sorry for the mess!

5/19/2016: Google just revealed it’s ‘bringing the Play Store to Chromebooks’, Yahoo Finance

The news that Chrome OS laptops and desktops shipped in the last two years will get a free update opening them up to the Play Store’s catalogue of 1.5 million Android apps may have been the biggest consumer news out of I/O.

5/20/2016: Google: 3 steps you should take now to secure yourself online, Yahoo Finance

Like at last year’s I/O, Google’s security chief Stephan Somogyi gave a great presentation about the state of security that I judged worth a writeup.

5/22/2016: 6 big changes coming to Android phones, USA Today

My last I/O post broke down the changes coming to the next major Android release. I wound up finishing it on my Android phone–an excruciating experience–after my laptop ran out of battery on Caltrain on the way into San Francisco.