Search Results for: tech

Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust

Longreads Pick

A look at which alternative energy initiatives succeeded, which ones failed, and whether there’s hope for a rebound:

“In 2005, VC investment in clean tech measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The following year, it ballooned to $1.75 billion, according to the National Venture Capital Association. By 2008, the year after Doerr’s speech, it had leaped to $4.1 billion. And the federal government followed. Through a mix of loans, subsidies, and tax breaks, it directed roughly $44.5 billion into the sector between late 2009 and late 2011. Avarice, altruism, and policy had aligned to fuel a spectacular boom.

“Anyone who has heard the name Solyndra knows how this all panned out. Due to a confluence of factors—including fluctuating silicon prices, newly cheap natural gas, the 2008 financial crisis, China’s ascendant solar industry, and certain technological realities—the clean-tech bubble has burst, leaving us with a traditional energy infrastructure still overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels.”

Source: Wired
Published: Jan 20, 2012
Length: 22 minutes (5,733 words)

The Mercenary Techie Who Troubleshoots for Drug Dealers and Jealous Lovers

Longreads Pick

Meet Martin, the I.T. guy who’s helped everyone from drug dealers needing to dodge wiretaps, to restaurants looking to inflate their Foursquare numbers:

“If you’ve seen that episode of The Wire, you know principle behind Martin’s system: ‘Burners,’ prepaid cell phones drug dealers use for a short time then abandon to thwart wiretaps. Prepaid phones have become so associated with drug trafficking and crime that New York Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to require an I.D. to buy one. (Martin said if I.D.s were required he could still run his business ‘but I would probably charge triple because I’d have to make fake I.D.s’)

“But burners can be a pain. For maximum security, phones need to be switched as often as possible—a top Cali cartel manager was once reported to use 35 cell phones a day. Martin’s system makes it easy for a crew to switch all their phones rapidly.”

Source: Gawker
Published: Jan 25, 2012
Length: 7 minutes (1,956 words)

Dropbox: The Inside Story Of Tech’s Hottest Startup

Longreads Pick

[Not single-page] Jobs smiled warmly as he told them he was going after their market. “He said we were a feature, not a product,” says Houston. Courteously, Jobs spent the next half hour waxing on over tea about his return to Apple, and why not to trust investors, as the duo—or more accurately, Houston, who plays Penn to Ferdowsi’s mute Teller—peppered him with questions.

When Jobs later followed up with a suggestion to meet at Dropbox’s San Francisco office, Houston proposed that they instead meet in Silicon Valley. “Why let the enemy get a taste?” he now shrugs cockily. Instead, Jobs went dark on the subject, resurfacing only this June, at his final keynote speech, where he unveiled iCloud, and specifically knocked Dropbox as a half-attempt to solve the Internet’s messiest dilemma: How do you get all your files, from all your devices, into one place?

Houston’s reaction was less cocky: “Oh, s–t.”

Source: Forbes
Published: Oct 18, 2011
Length: 11 minutes (2,999 words)

The Billionaire King of Techtopia

Longreads Pick

Friedman was soon pitching to Peter Thiel, a staunch libertarian himself, the big, weird idea. It goes like this: Friedman wants to establish new sovereign nations built on oil-rig-type platforms anchored in international waters—free from the regulation, laws, and moral suasion of any landlocked country. They’d be small city-states at first, although the aim is to have tens of millions of seasteading residents by 2050. Architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered, 12,000-ton structure with room for 270 residents, with the idea that dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of these could be linked together. Friedman hopes to launch a flotilla of offices off the San Francisco coast next year; full-time settlement, he predicts, will follow in about seven years; and full diplomatic recognition by the United Nations, well, that’ll take some lawyers and time.

Source: Details
Published: Aug 23, 2011
Length: 13 minutes (3,425 words)

This Tech Bubble Is Different

Longreads Pick

After a couple years at Facebook, Jeff Hammerbacher grew restless. He figured that much of the groundbreaking computer science had been done. Something else gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google, and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks.”

Source: Businessweek
Published: Apr 15, 2011
Length: 11 minutes (2,966 words)

Jonathan Ive: How Did a British Polytechnic Graduate Become Apple’s Design Genius?

Longreads Pick

It is hard to know what is the greater intrigue: recent conjecture that Ive is preparing to walk away from Apple to relocate to his beautiful Grade II-listed mansion in Somerset so his children can be educated in the UK (false—he is not, and the property is now standing empty); that he will step out of the shadows and assume Steve Jobs’ role when the great man stands down (highly doubtful); or what—or perhaps more accurately who—propelled him to leave for the U.S. in the first place and deny Britain the talents of one of the most influential designers of the modern age.

Author: Rob Waugh
Source: Daily Mail
Published: Mar 21, 2011
Length: 16 minutes (4,079 words)

The Best Longreads of 2010: Science, Medicine & Technology

The Best Longreads of 2010: Science, Medicine & Technology

Can Technology End Poverty?

Longreads Pick

The myth of scale is seductive because it is easier to spread technology than to effect extensive change in social attitudes and human capacity. In other words, it is much less painful to purchase a hundred thousand PCs than to provide a real education for a hundred thousand children; it is easier to run a text-messaging health hotline than to convince people to boil water before ingesting it; it is easier to write an app that helps people find out where they can buy medicine than it is to persuade them that medicine is good for their health.

Source: Boston Review
Published: Nov 20, 2010
Length: 17 minutes (4,340 words)

Attached to Technology and Paying a Price

Longreads Pick

Mr. Campbell continues to struggle with the effects of the deluge of data. Even after he unplugs, he craves the stimulation he gets from his electronic gadgets. He forgets things like dinner plans, and he has trouble focusing on his family.

Published: Jun 6, 2010
Length: 14 minutes (3,614 words)

Life after death: newspapers and the re-invention of paper technology

Longreads Pick
Published: Jun 19, 2009
Length: 8 minutes (2,089 words)