The Store That Closed on Black Friday
REI closed all 143 stores for Black Friday and paid employees to stay home instead — a look at #OptOutside, Apple Pay's first big shopping weekend, and why "doorbuster" pricing barely means anything anymore.
Tech News
Tech News
My Black Friday Apple Pay Fail at CVS
Apple Pay worked everywhere on Black Friday except CVS, where the chain quietly killed its NFC terminals to protect the still-unreleased, already-breached CurrentC app.
The Sony Hack and the Boring Reason Nobody's Shocked
The Sony Pictures hack has everyone talking about who did it, but what's stuck with me all week is how unsurprised I am it worked in the first place.
Alexa, Meet God View
Still waiting on my Amazon Echo invite, and this week's Uber privacy mess has me thinking harder than I'd like about what it means to put an always-listening microphone on my kitchen counter.
The Fire TV Stick's Whole Pitch Is a Plastic Remote
A few days living with Amazon's new $39 Fire TV Stick next to my old Chromecast, and why the thing I didn't expect to matter (a physical remote) is the whole selling point.
GTA V on PC: The Download Took Longer Than the Weekend
GTA V finally landed on PC last week, and between the 65GB download and a Social Club login meltdown on launch day, actually playing it took longer than expected.
Fire TV Stick Showed Up and Now My TV Has Too Many Remotes
My Fire TV Stick showed up this week and mostly won me over, while Halo: The Master Chief Collection's multiplayer is still a mess for everyone I know.
Firefox Swapped Google for Yahoo and I'm Weirdly Conflicted
Mozilla just swapped Google out for Yahoo as Firefox's default search engine. I tried Yahoo results for an actual bug I was debugging and have thoughts.
The Uber Dinner Nobody Should've Had
Uber's SVP talked about digging up dirt on a critical journalist, and a BuzzFeed reporter says she was tracked with the company's "God View" tool. Some thoughts, and why I deleted the app.
Sixty Hours on a Comet, Then Silence
Philae's battery ran out this morning after sixty hours on a comet. Some notes on the bounce, the drilling, and why I was refreshing ESA's blog at 2am.
I Paid $60 for Four Halo Games and Couldn't Play Any of Them Together
Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched this week with four remastered games for $60, but multiplayer matchmaking has been a mess since day one.
A Robot Landed on a Comet and We Talked About a Shirt
A lander touched down on a comet this week after a ten-year journey, and then immediately got upstaged by a bowling shirt. Some thoughts on both.