11 2025 December
Apple Finds the Wrong Way to Measure Innovation
The iPhone Air is a sales disaster with some media outlets reporting “virtually no demand.” The latest Samsung S25 is also facing disappointing sales results....
Read Now01 2025 December
The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide
This week, you’ll see my annual Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide with a few products that caught my eye throughout the past year. As I share...
Read Now24 2025 November
How AI Is Helping Reduce Accents, But Could Do Much More
Thanks to AI there are a number of new services that are designed to help language learners learn a new dialect and reduce their accents...
Read Now30 2025 October
Lessons From the Reinvention of Pittsburgh into an AI Robotics Hub
Pittsburgh was known for steel. Now the city has ambitions to become a hub for something else: AI and robotics. The pieces seem to be...
Read Now29 2025 October
The Villains on Pre-K TV Are Cuddly, Annoying and Onto Something Interesting
How does the evolution of the way we learn to see “bad guys” evolve as we grow older? That was the interesting question at the...
Read Now22 2025 October
The Next Generation of Gig Work Will Be Microtasking
This week Uber announced that they will have a new offering where gig works can choose to take on “microtasks” such as training AI models...
Read Now16 2025 October
The Room Where You Can Hear Your Own Nervous System
Imagine a room so quiet you can actually feel your own heart beating. It exists already and it’s known as an anechoic chamber. Over the...
Read Now08 2025 October
What You Can Learn About Marketing from Flavored Vodkas
I accidentally tried Smirnoff’s Spicy Tamarind Vodka. It was a gift from a friend, and I didn’t have high hopes. It was more of a...
Read Now06 2025 October
The Cormackian Challenge and What AI Could Really Do
There were two major stories this week that seem on the surface to have little to do with one another. The first is one you...
Read Now03 2025 October
SXSW 2026 Announcement!
SXSW is reinventing itself in 2026! The latest session announcement just came out and I’m excited to share that I’ll be back as a Featured...
Read Now22 2025 July
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell
Broadly, magical thinking describes the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect external events. Mythologizing the world as an attempt to “make sense” of it...
Read Now04 2025 July
The Talking Statues of Versailles
When my kids were younger (and probably today too!) one of our favorite family movies was Night at the Museum. The idea of museums coming...
Read Now03 2025 July
Digg, the Internet’s Favorite Defunct Brand Is Coming Back
If you were around for the early days of the Internet, you might remember Digg. It was a collection of interesting stories that was so...
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