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Google introduced Android Studio at I/O in May 2013 as a new official development environment for Android. It was based on JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA rather than the Eclipse tooling Google had previously promoted. Read more
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Google announced Blink in April 2013 as a fork of WebKit’s WebCore rendering engine for Chrome and Chromium. Chrome had originally adopted WebKit because it was mature and standards-oriented, but Google’s browser architecture was diverging from Apple’s priorities. Read more
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The Raspberry Pi is a very small computer, but I think its real size is larger than the board in your hand. What I like most is not its speed. There are much faster computers everywhere. What makes it interesting is that it invites experimentation. Read more
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Samsung introduced the Galaxy S4 in March 2013, continuing Android’s shift toward large, high-resolution smartphones. The device used a 5-inch 1080p AMOLED display and shipped in different regions with either Qualcomm Snapdragon or Samsung Exynos processors. Read more
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Canonical demonstrated Ubuntu for Phones in early 2013 as an attempt to extend Ubuntu from PCs and servers into smartphones. The interface emphasized edge gestures: swiping from different sides of the screen opened applications, controls, or navigation. Read more
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For most of my life, a digital file and a physical object have belonged to different worlds. A photograph can become a print, but a chair, gear, case, or toy still needs a factory, workshop, or skilled person to make it. Read more
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Facebook introduced Graph Search in January 2013 as a way to query the social network’s structured data using phrases such as “friends who live in San Francisco” or “photos of my friends before 2010.” Read more
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Google expanded access to Compute Engine in 2012, offering virtual machines on the same broad infrastructure family that supported Google’s own services. The product put Google in more direct competition with Amazon EC2. Read more
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Windows RT devices reached consumers in late 2012, including Microsoft’s Surface RT. They ran on ARM processors rather than the x86 CPUs that had defined Windows PCs for decades. Read more
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Microsoft released Windows 8 on October 26, 2012. The operating system combined a touch-oriented Start screen with the traditional Windows desktop, making it one of the most radical interface changes in Windows history. Read more
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Apple introduced the iPhone 5 in September 2012 with LTE cellular support, a taller 4-inch display, and the new Lightning connector. LTE was the most important networking change because it brought much higher mobile data speeds than the 3G technology used by earlier iPhones. Read more
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Windows 8 reached release-to-manufacturing status in August 2012, giving PC manufacturers a final build before the public launch. The operating system was built around Microsoft’s belief that touchscreens would become central to personal computers. Read more
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Apple released OS X Mountain Lion in July 2012, continuing the transfer of ideas from iOS back to the Mac. Notification Center, Messages, Reminders, Notes, and deeper iCloud integration made the desktop operating system more closely connected to Apple’s mobile devices. Read more
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For years, I had been trained to respect Linux. Read more
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In July 2012, I wrote about the newly formed Chamber of Computer Engineers. Read more
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Microsoft announced the first Surface tablets in June 2012, marking an unusual move for a company that traditionally licensed Windows to PC manufacturers rather than building flagship computers itself. Read more
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Google introduced the Knowledge Graph in May 2012 to supplement ordinary web search with structured information about real-world entities. Instead of treating every query as a collection of words, Google increasingly tried to determine whether a user meant a person, place, book, company, or other specific thing. Read more
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Google launched Drive in April 2012 with 5 GB of free storage and tight integration with Google Docs. The service entered a market already shaped by Dropbox but connected file storage directly to Google’s browser-based productivity tools. Read more
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NVIDIA launched its Kepler GPU architecture in 2012 with products including the GeForce GTX 680. Kepler was designed to improve performance per watt compared with the preceding Fermi generation. Read more
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The Unexpected Hanging Paradox is a puzzle about prediction, knowledge, and surprise. A common version begins with a judge telling a prisoner that he will be executed on one weekday during the following week, but the execution will be a surprise. The prisoner will not know the day in advance. Read more