M@Blog

Digital Garage along with Joi Ito hosted a conference titled The New Context covering the future of web 2.0.� I was returning from San Francisco the night of the first day so I unfortunately missed Lawrence Lessig’s keynote, but Gen kindly scored me a free ticket for all of day 2 (thanks Gen!) so [...]

Google Labs just updated their RSS reader, Google Reader. I know some people swear by other popular readers, notably NetNewsWire, but none that I’ve found had a good mix of web-accesibility, usability, and blog-integration (i.e. like the badge/widget in my sidebar). This new UI is quite nice - you should check it out!

I’m finding it remarkable that almost nobody in Silicon Valley followed the Mixi IPO, let alone knew who or what Mixi is. Here’s an SNS at $2B that makes MySpace look like it sold too early and Facebook actually seem reasonable. Okay, so Japan may be in its own little internet bubble, but as [...]

The Tuesday, September 25th US edition of the WSJ has an article on one of the most successful academic-institution chancellors - the one and only E. Gordon Gee, who once presided as Brown University’s chancellor for a mere two years and miraculously burned through $3 million fixing up the president’s mansion before being whisked away [...]

(Day 1, if you haven’t read it yet.)
What’s Next For Web Apps: Building the Next Flickr
The second day started off with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch zipping through a host of up-and-coming as well as going-down-in-flames startups, and discussing their strengths and weaknesses. He started off his presentation with a catchy anecdote - that PlentyOfFish [...]

AJAX is roller skates for the web - Bruce Sterling
As part of my reconneissance trip to the Bay Area over the past two weeks, I attended the Future of Web Apps workshop hosted by Carson Systems at the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts Theater, just across the street from the Presidio where George Lucas [...]

I was visiting the Stanford bookstore today and saw a sign over in the computer section that amused me. Here’s a section from Stanford’s new student “getting started” guide with the quote which was on the sign:
4. Should I buy a Mac or a PC? Should I buy a laptop or desktop?
Both Macs and [...]

My younger sister is spending the year in Ecuador and has started a blog!  Check it out - Mel’s Mindtrips.

Two years ago ABC’s Lost made a significant bet by introducing subtitles for an extended period throughout its episodes. For a good part of the beginning of the season, two Korean characters communicated only in Korean, and God forbid if couch-potatoe viewers couldn’t keep up with reading the English - here was a chance [...]

At least someone finally figured out how to profit from the Engrish phenomenon. I found this sad toy at the Urban Outfitters near Union Square in San Francisco. Seems analogous to the irony of black minstrelsy - this time it’s American culture mocking the Japanese trying to recreate an American image. So who’s [...]