Aftermath
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After Math: The week of living dangerously
It was a chaotic week in the tech world, even before the YouTube HQ shooting. Apple's pushing its luck by pushing its Mac Pro release to next year, Russia's mail delivery drone barely got off the ground, and Scott Pruitt's EPA is doing its best to suffocate California in smog. Numbers, because how else will you know when yours is up?
After Math: This is a witch hunt
It was a dangerous week for some of the biggest names in technology as they they were forced to face off against these new things called "consequences" which have come about due to their ongoing "actions." It's all so very unfair. Ashley Madison is still super duper sorry about the whole exposing of America's least competent infidelitors thing, Reddit is saying "sayonara" to bitcoin (but not its resident racists), and the government of Ecuador went and changed up the Wi-Fi password on poor Julian Assange. But hey, at least Zuck won't be out of a job anytime soon. Numbers, because how else will we know whether she'll sink or float?
After Math: Business as usual
While most everybody's eyes were glued on the happenings at GDC 2018 this week, the rest of the business world quietly continued turning. Google offered $40 million for the Lytro camera company, DJI constructed a legion of drones for a construction crew, 2 million Spotify users nixed the ads on their free service and the President decided to start a trade war with China. Numbers, because how else will you figure out how much more your electronics and appliances will cost?
After Math: When it all comes crashing
It's turning out to be a great week for falling objects. China's first space station is set to reenter the Earth's atmosphere, IBM's 50-qubit processor record was felled by Google's latest invention, the FBI and Geek Squad's cozy narc relationship has been revealed and the White House has decided it wants to be able to shoot civilian drones out of the skies. Numbers, because how else will you gauge how fast you're falling?
After Math: Internet flame war
As the president sets the stage for a showdown with the video game industry over school safety (since it's the games that are the real problem, not the guns, nope nope nope), small scale skirmishes and outright battles have been springing up all over the internet this week. GitHub somehow survived the biggest DDoS attack in history, Equifax revealed that another 2.4 million people were affected by its latest security breach and The Woz himself lost seventy grand in a bitcoin scam. Numbers, because how else will you know if you're mature enough to play this game?
After Math: Calls for alarm
While the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting provided the nation with a master class in how to effectively articulate policy reform demands and ruthlessly drag talking heads of the political class, the tech industry had some communication issues of its own. Like the 1,600 911 calls a set of iPhones at a California repair center made, or the Tinder security flaw that enabled account access with only a phone number, or how the FCC is getting sued (again) for trying to roll back Net Neutrality rules. Numbers, because how else are you going to see how savagely the NRA is getting ratioed?
After Math: Market fluctuations
It's been a volatile week for us all, what with the stock market's unpredictable undulations, the US Senate's DACA drama, the Olympics hacking and whatever other craziness that's sure to happen between the time I file this post and Sunday morning. It was pretty wild for the tech industry as well. Turns out that Apple's HomePod seemingly secretes wood-marking oils, Sony announced it'll cut the price of its VR headset by a third, and Netflix continued its spending spree, blowing $300 million on the guy who brought us "Glee." Numbers, because how else are you going to count stuff?
After Math: It's bobsled time!
The 2018 Winter Olympics are starting up but Pyeongchang won't be the only place crowning champions. This week we've already seen Waymo win out over Uber in court; Sasha 'Scarlett' Hostyn, the most successful woman in eSports, was victorious in an Olympic-backed Starcraft 2 tournament; and Amazon came up with yet another way to dominate the delivery market -- 2-hour Whole Foods deliveries. Numbers, because how else will you count the scorecards?
After Math: The state of the 'uniom'
It was a week of taking stock as the President meandered his way through the State of the Union address and a number of tech firms reviewed their Q4 earnings. Alphabet and Amazon both had something to crow about, while Apple and GoPro both posted less than stellar holiday sales. Numbers, because how else would we realized that, at this point, the rules are made up and the points don't matter?
After Math: If I had no loot
It was a week of lost and found fortunes in the tech world. The Feds charged My Big Coin Pay over its $6 million cryptocurrency scam, Netflix is poised to take home as many a four golden statues for Mudbound, Bungie's in hot water again over tweaking its Faction token payouts and Google will be holding onto its $20 million XPrize payout thankyouverymuch. Numbers, because how else would you evenly divvy up the spoils?
After Math: First!
It was a week of firsts for the tech industry. Facebook finally got around to adding its first African American board member (because it's not like it's already 2018 or anything), a lifeguard drone made its first Hasselhoffian beach rescue, Ferrari announced that it is indeed working on its first electric supercar, and Kodak took a break from slapping its brand on cryptocurrency mining rigs to release the first footage from its upcoming hybrid Super 8 camera. Numbers, because how else will you put entrants in order?
After Math: CES 2018 by the numbers
After a week in the desert, CES 2018 has finally come to a close. Booths were trod, products were demoed and the conference was visited by only one of the biblical plagues. Puffco debuted one of the only cannabis gadgets seen at CES in recent memory, a gaming robot beat virtually every human who challenged it in Scrabble, and Toyota's "E-Palette" mobility concept turned all of the heads. Numbers, because how else will you tally votes for the Best of CES awards?
After Math: CESpocalypse Now
Get hyped everybody, it's CES week! This is the high holy holiday of tech geekdom, a pilgrimage through the hallowed halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Everybody's going to be there. LG will be showing off an 88-inch 8K TV, Neutrogena is debuting its skin-grading iPhone accessory, and Honda has all of the adorable mobility bots. Numbers, because how else will we count down to the show's opening?
After Math: Merry Christmas, you filthy animals
It's been a wondrous week working up to Christmas Eve and not just for the guys with the Tommy Guns. Alamo Drafthouse announced it is starting a rental store and loaning out rare VHS, Protera is going to wake up tomorrow with an order for 25 of its electric buses under the tree, and Google is practically giving away its digital movie rentals. Numbers, because how else will you know how many gold rings you've got coming?
After Math: When you come undone
Oh hey, what a surprise, the guy who joked just last week about how he was a "puppet FCC Chairman" in front of his former Verizon bosses just so happened to spearhead a campaign to roll back Net Neutrality protections -- something Verizon has long lobbied for. Such a coincidence. Of course those weren't the only shenanigans to take place this week. The UK declared the website of accused serial rapist Julian Assange, Wikileaks, a media organization; a crew physically stole $1.8 million in cryptocurrency somehow, Disney managed to become an even larger evil empire than it already is and AOL finally took AIM out back behind the woodshed. Numbers because how else will you maintain an accurate body count?
After Math: Game On
This has been a celebratory week for video games, what with the industry coming together at the the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday to honor 2017's standout titles. Celebrities were spotted and hobs were knobbed but that's not the only news! Overwatch players are in for a holiday treat on December 12th, Bayonetta's third installment is coming to the Switch and HTC showed off its $600 standalone Vive for the Chinese market. Numbers because how else are we going to determine the high score?
After Math: Hello from the auto show
With Thanksgiving already in the rearview and New Years still on the horizon, you know what time it is: it's auto show season! Engadget just wrapped up a week of reporting from the Los Angeles auto show and have plenty of posts to show for it. Volvo unveiled their subscription-based car service, VW showed off their all-electric crossover, and Desert Bus got itself a VR makeover. Numbers, because how else will you know how long it'll be until we get there?
After Math: Well that's helpful
While social media continues to be humanity's greatest and most toxic of dumpster fires, the tech industry did manage to do some good this week. Researchers discovered that molten quarks can produce eight times the energy as the hydrogen bomb, Ford began testing exosuits for its assembly line workers, and Google floated its Project Loon as a way to get Puerto Rico back online. Numbers, because how else will you know how good of a Samaritan you are?
After Math: Xs and Os
It's been a wild week for schemes and strategies. A band of thieves made off with a load of new iPhones, the CIA released more of bin Laden's hard drive contents, and Netflix nixed House of Cards because Kevin Spacey turned out to be a sexual predator. Numbers, because how else will you know if your fence is underpaying for those looted wares?
After Math: The fix is in
It was a difficult week for the truth -- and not just how the president coerced a four-star general to lie about the sentiments he made to a grieving war widow. More than half of tech experts now doubt we can fix the "fake news" problem, Congress rolled out a new bill to make online political ads more transparent, Google served "fake ads" to fact-checking news sites, and the NFL teamed up with TicketMaster to take down scalpers. Numbers, because how else will you measure what little integrity you have left?
