Weekly output: Verizon admin-fee increase, mmWave 5G smart repeaters, White House AI policy, Pixel 7 calling features, alternative social platforms, U.S.-EU privacy framework, Mark Vena podcast

Posted on October 9, 2022 by robpegoraro

In addition to the work you see below, I also spent most of Tuesday afternoon volunteering at a vaccination clinic–about a week and a half after getting my bivalent booster at the same clinic.

10/3/2022: Did Verizon just raise prices? Administrative fee increase is another price hike, USA Today

Corporate executives apparently continue to believe they can cram a price hike into a fine-print fee without customers noticing. The e-mails I’ve gotten since this column ran suggest that this belief is grossly incorrect.

10/4/2022: A new pitch for mmWave: smart repeaters, Light Reading

I spent Thursday morning hearing out a variety of pitches for millimeter-wave 5G wireless broadband’s latest possibilities, then filed this report for one of my favorite trade-pub clients that included some caveats from industry experts.

10/4/2022: White House AI Bill of Rights Looks to Rein in ‘Unaccountable’ Algorithms, PCMag

I thought this would be a quick post to write, then realized that this document ran about 30,000 words.

10/6/2022: With the Pixel 7 series, Google tries again to answer the call of harried phone users, Fast Company

This story might have come out differently if I had not been forced to rely on a non-Pixel Android phone, devoid of the Pixel-only calling features I’ve gotten used to in recent years.

10/6/2022: Only 6% of US Adults Get News From Alt-Social Platforms Like Truth Social, PCMag

The Pew Research Center gave me an early look at this study… and then I still didn’t file it until after the embargo expired, because I had too many other things going on Thursday morning.

10/7/2022: Biden Executive Order Implements New Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Safeguards, PCMag

Another executive-branch tech-policy document became another long read for me this week.

10/8/2022: S02 E37 – SmartTechCheck Podcast, Mark Vena

This week’s edition of my usual podcast (also available in video form) featured a new addition to the usual gang of tech journalists: my PCMag colleague and fellow New Jerseyan Angela Moscaritolo.

Weekly output: Verizon’s unlimited plan (x3), video-game economic impact, chatbots, broadband competition

Posted on February 20, 2017 by robpegoraro

Presidents’ Day used to feel like a real holiday–preferably experienced while enjoying views from a chairlift somewhere–but Monday doesn’t feel like much of one. I’m facing an abbreviated workweek, thanks to my Friday departure for Barcelona to cover Mobile World Congress. On the upside, I’m about to spend a few days in Spain for work.

2/13/2017: How Verizon’s new ‘unlimited’ plan compares to the competition, Yahoo Finance

This workweek technically started Sunday afternoon, when Verizon announced that it would once again sell an unlimited–more accurately called “unmetered”–data plan. After I’d filed this post, I got to rewrite a quarter of it to catch up with T-Mobile lifting the two worst restrictions on its own “unlimited” plan.

2/14/2017: Achievement Unlocked: The Video Game Industry’s Economic Impact, Entertainment Software Association

The nice thing about moderating a panel with members of Congress: They are guaranteed to make you look timely. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D.-Calif.) had to duck out halfway through this discussion, just as Rep. Doug Collins (R.-Ga.) made his belated entrance. You can watch the conversation, also featuring Higher Education Video Game Alliance president Constance Steinkuehler, on Twitch (this is the first and probably the last time I’ll appear on that game-centric network) and see photos from the event at ESA’s Facebook page.

2/15/2017: A Chatbot Is Here to Help, FedTech

I filed this story about the potential of chatbots to ease federal-government services in a simpler time when a Facebook Messenger bot would walk you through sending a message to the president. The Trump administration shut that down; I don’t know why, as my e-mailed inquiry to the White House press office did not yield a response.

2/15/2017: Here are the catches in Verizon’s new plan, USA Today

My editors at USAT asked if I could file my column early, recognizing that something about Verizon advertising unlimited data was driving readers bonkers. The piece now has 27,788 Facebook shares, which suggests they had the right idea.

2/17/2017: Unlimited data! But at what cost?, USA Today

My USAT editors also asked if I could do a Facebook Live spot with tech and media reporter Mike Snider. This allowed me to see what USAT’s Tysons Corner newsroom looks like–yes, more than five years after I started writing for the place.

2/18/2017: Wireless carriers are fighting for your cash, and that’s good news, Yahoo Finance

While I was gathering string for a story on broadband infrastructure, I realized I already had almost everything needed to write a post about the wireless industry’s recent display of the benefits of competition–and the equally telling behavior of residential-broadband services that face few or no rivals.

Weekly output: Google phones (x2), SXSL, e-mail encryption

Posted on October 9, 2016 by robpegoraro

I just watched the second presidential debate, and I was disappointed but not surprised by the lack of tech-policy banter. You?

10/3/2016: Why it matters that Google might be producing its own phones, Yahoo Finance

My suggestion at the end that Google might offer an installment-payment option for the new Pixel and Pixel XL phones–something analyst Jan Dawson suggested to me in an e-mail–panned out when Google introduced just that.

10/4/2016: Google’s new phones, WTOP

I spoke briefly about the Pixel and Pixel XL to the news station. One thing I wish I’d mentioned: These two new phones aren’t waterproof, unlike the iPhone 7 and the Galaxy S7.

10/4/2016: Obama gathers top tech to tackle US problems, Yahoo Finance

I spent most of Monday at the White House, which is not a bad way to while away an afternoon. This South by South Lawn event did not feature free beer (at least during the day) and so fell short of being a D.C. salute to Austin’s South by Southwest festival, but on the other hand SXSW has yet to allow me to see Rep. John Lewis (D.-Ga.) speak.

10/9/2016: How to protect your email from snooping, USA Today

Freelancing for multiple clients can sometimes lead to situations where one client asks you to write about an issue involving another.

Weekly output: cybersecurity disclosure, Facebook bots, White House Science Fair, Apple’s aging computers, Mac Bluetooth

Posted on April 17, 2016 by robpegoraro

HONG KONG–I am in this fair city for the first time since 1998 for the IFA Global Press Conference, a gathering put on by the organizers of the IFA trade show at which I’m going to speak on a panel (with my old Yahoo boss Dan Tynan) about virtual reality. I accept that it’s rather shameful to have waited 18 years to return to this part of the world.

4/13/2016: After hospital ransomware attack, time for some blunt talk about cybersecurity, Yahoo Tech

MedStar Health’s vague and dismissive responses to press queries got this story rolling, but this is about more than condescending PR. Compare this “we don’t have to tell you” attitude to the complete and mandatory disclosure you see in commercial aviation, and you will not be amused.

4/14/2016: Facebook bots, Al Jazeera

As I was already wearing a suit to cover the White House Science Fair that afternoon, I was better dressed than usual for this appearance on the Arabic news channel. My take on Facebook’s Messenger bots: Customer service is hard enough to do with actual people answering chat queries, and I’m not fond of having such an interrupt-driven medium take over more of my online interactions.

4/15/2016: Beyond the robot: White House Science Fair celebrates a nation of nerds, Yahoo Tech

As I wrote on my Facebook page after chatting up many of the intimidatingly smart and poised middle-school and high-school exhibitors here: “I can only hope they will prove to be benevolent bosses when we all wind up working for them.” Tip: Don’t read to the end of the comments if you’re not in the mood to see some mean, ignorant white-guy resentment of brown kids and white girls doing well.

4/15/2016: Hey Apple, how about shipping a new computer sometime?, Yahoo Tech

This column began life as a cranky tweet that spawned a little group therapy with Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham. I then turned it into a post with the help of some useful context from NPD’s Stephen Baker, a longtime source of mine.

4/17/2016: Stop your Mac from singing the Bluetooth blues, USA Today

An unadvertised benefit of owning an older Mac: Its random malfunctions provide a steady stream of topics for my USAT column. Fortunately, this crop had a happy ending–so maybe I don’t need to buy a new Mac just yet.

The other thing that happened this week: Friday marked five years since my last day at the Post. I didn’t expect at the time that half a decade later, my taxes would not have featured a new W-2 from anybody. I’ll have more to say about that later this week.

How I went to an event at the White House and didn’t file anything

Posted on August 7, 2015 by robpegoraro

As you might have seen on Twitter, I was at the White House Tuesday for the Obama administration’s first Demo Day. (Yes, I should have added #humblebrag to some of those tweets.) This event was both a diversity-boosting exercise for the president and a chance for the 32 startups in the spotlight, many not founded by the usual crop of twenty-something white dudes, to get some wider exposure.

My Yahoo colleague Alyssa Bereznak was already set to write about the diversity angle–it’s a real problem for the industry, as you can see in the testimony from some of these female and minority founders in her story. I had RSVPed after her but figured I could file something profiling some of the more interesting startups.

But then after 35 minutes spent standing the East Room of the White House and watching live video of President Obama talk to various startups in an adjacent room, then hearing Obama’s speech (key line: “the next Steve Jobs might be named Stephanie or Esteban”) and singing “Happy Birthday” to the president (it being his 54th birthday), we were all ushered out past the startups and back to the press room. Oops.

I did manage to get back in, courtesy of Alyssa and I running into a press contact we knew, but by then some of these companies had packed up their exhibits. I wound up only talking to five of them, just three of which were on my own list of exhibitors to check out, before I was again ushered out. That was less reporting time than I expected–nothing compared to last summer’s Maker Faire at the White House— and did not yield enough material for a story.

Am I bothered by that? Not really. Some of the people I did meet will be worth talking to later on, I was only out $4 and change in Metro fare, and confusing friends by wearing a suit for work was its own reward.

Weekly output: drones (x2), White House Maker Faire, proxy servers and online video

Posted on June 22, 2014 by robpegoraro

I went to the White House this week for the first time since visiting it as a tourist sometime in high school–this time around, with a press pass. That was kind of neat.

6/17/2014: Regulations Could Ground Drones Before Takeoff, Yahoo Tech

I wrote about the completely inconsistent regulatory climate around drones–recreational use is essentially wide open below 400 feet altitude, but commercial use is banned outright. The fearful if not paranoid nature of many readers’ comments bugged me, as you may tell from the tone of my replies. Thought I had afterwards: “I’ve been around drones enough, and all of the drone users I know play by the rules. Is this what it’s like to be a responsible gun owner and have strangers see you as a loon like Wayne LaPierre?”

6/17/2014: 4 Ways to Use Drones for Good (None of Which Is Amazon Delivery), Yahoo Tech

I talked to a few people–including my long-ago Washington Post colleague Dan Pacheco, now a journalism professor at Syracuse–about peaceful, profitable uses for drones that tend to get overlooked as people throw around the specter of snooping in people’s backyards.

6/18/2014: White House Hosts Its First Maker Faire, with Robotic Giraffe in Attendance, Yahoo Tech

I covered the White House’s debut Maker Faire–somehow, also the first story I’ve written around a presidential speech–with this photo gallery. There’s more in my Flickr album.

6/22/2014: Geo-fakeout: Use a proxy for online video, USA Today

A neighbor wanted to know how he could have watched Netflix during a recent trip to Morroco; answering that also allowed me to give a tutorial in using proxy servers to watch World Cup coverage online. There’s also a tip about checking for “TLS” encryption at your mail service (something I covered at greater length at Yahoo Tech the other week), making this one of the more technically involved columns I’ve written for USAT.

Rob Pegoraro

Occasional shop talk about journalism, technology and a few other things

Tag Archives: White House