Author: JD Rucker

It is rare that the direction, success, and fate of a company is so closely tied to one person. With Steve Jobs taking a medical leave, people will be wondering and bloggers will be speculating about how it will affect Apple. It won’t. His work there may not be done – he’s still the CEO and will be involved in major decisions – but he has built a company that is amongst the elite “untouchables.” It would take a catastrophic failure bigger than Steve Jobs to take the company down. They’re embedded into our culture like few tech companies have ever been. The company’s rise as well as the rise of Steve Jobs is…

Keep smiling, Mark. In a recent email from SecondMarket, the latest auction of Facebook shares hit $28.26, up 24% from just before the holidays and putting the unofficial valuation north of $70 billion. How high will it go? Any speculation regardless of one’s level of expertise is futile. This is uncharted territory – an Internet firm with no tangible products other than advertising skyrocketing in prominence and taking over the attention of the online world. Here is the body of the email: Subject: Privileged and Confidential – SecondMarket’s Facebook Auction Update To Facebook market…

In today’s episode of 1-minute science, we look up. The sun is the source of, well, just about everything that we need. It would be an insult to our readers to go over the details of how important the Sun is to our very existence, so suffice to say that we need it. This graphic by 1bog puts that all into perspective and offers facts and figures that may be helpful if you ever make it to Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Is that show still around? Click to Enlarge. Home Solar Power Discounts – One Block Off the Grid…

The announcement of the Verizon iPhone launching next month has a lot of people considering changing providers. Some are thinking of switching to Verizon to get their iPhone. Others are wanting to leave Verizon for fear that their service will go downhill once the iPhone onslaught begins. Other than local and regional providers, there are 4 major cell services out there. Which one is best? It’s always a matter of debate and often relies on word of mouth and reputation. Then, there are those who want data. Here it is. This graphic by Wilson Electronics puts all of the data and presents it in a visual…

There have been many stories about email dying for 3 or 4 years now. It seems that everything that people and businesses were told just 4 or 5 years ago, that email was a must-have, may be quickly reversing itself. Some businesses (and people) are starting to redirect their incoming emails to other forms of communication online or to SMS. Before we can truly decide what the future of email really is, we should take a look at it’s history and how it has evolved. This graphic by Focus brings us way back to the good ol’ days (the 90s) and visually depicts where we’ve been with email. Knowing where we’ve been…

Just in time for next month’s Verizon iPhone release, we present to you a bit of thought-provoking, guilt-tripping data. In this graphic by InfographicWorld was created for iAmGreen and brings to light some of the questions that nobody asks but everyone should. What happens to all of those cell phones that we simply stop using after we move on to the latest and greatest? How much power does it take to keep all of these cell phones running? Is it likely that this graphic will make you toss out (in the recycling bin, of course) your cell phones and go back to the age of landlines? Of course not, but it makes…

Join in on the Facebook Discussion on this topic. When it comes to the Internet, the US government usually doesn’t have a clue. That seems to be the case with the recent announcement of the Obama Administration’s plans to develop an internet identity system that officials claim will reduce fraud and identity theft while streamlining online transactions. Cut to the chase: the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is a bad idea. On the surface having something that will increase online transactions and reduce identity theft makes (some) sense. Security is the #1 reason…

I love early adopters. They get the newest gadgets, the latest technology, the bleeding-edge widgets and gizmos that I might or might not want to get for myself at some point. To many, it’s a statement of who they are – the gotta-geek-at-any-expense techno-hounds who frown on anyone who still has a CD collection. They are the front-liners who bravely explore the technology that only they and tech-bloggers touch. They are bleeding-edge so many of the rest of us can be cutting-edge. We all know that new technology means inflated prices. Just how inflated are they? This graphic below by our friends…

Every year is more exciting than the previous in the world of tech. It’s in the very nature of progress that we find this to be the case as things that once thrilled us become boring and nothing short of something brand-spanking new will blow out minds. In 2010, our minds were blown. We have for you this excellent time-line infographic detailing what happened in gadgets and the like. The year may have belonged to Mark Zuckerberg, but we’re the ones who reaped the benefits. Click to enlarge. [via VPS] <a href=”http://finerhosting.com/2010tech” mce_href=”http://finerhosting.com/2010tech”><img…

Could it be? As most of the tech world is huddled around various devices in Las Vegas, Apple is quietly rolling out vacation date block outs between February 3rd and February 6th, a source confirmed with BGR today. Something big will likely be launch on the 3rd, a Thursday, and unless Apple has a big surprise up their sleeves (which is never out of the question with Apple) it is likely that we will have a Verizon iPhone launch on that day. Can you hear me now? Not yet, but soon….