Author: Navneet Alang

Navneet Alang is a technology-culture writer based in Toronto. You can find him on Twitter at @navalang

Will Apple ruin our cloud video future?

Aug 3 by Navneet Alang | 3 comments

Ever since they first came about, digital movies have been totally absurd. Not only are they overpriced, they are almost always locked into particular hardware ecosystems. Buy a movie from iTunes and it only plays on Apple hardware; buy the same movie on Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, and more »

If tech news is boring, blame the free market

Jul 27 by Navneet Alang | 1 comment

“Tech news is so phenomenally boring!” said Gawker‘s Adrian Chen, in the classically confrontational, controversial style of the site. And oh how it’s true. Tech news is boring. Every minute Apple rumor is reported in detail. In fact, each tiny little upgrade or tidbit of info about any hot company – Google, more »

What is the future of the desktop computer?

Jul 20 by Navneet Alang | 4 comments

For years, the desktop computer has been but a shell of its former dominant self. The world went mobile, and that gray box that your co-workers used to call ‘the hard drive’ seemed destined for an obscure life – if a stable one. After all, it was still going to be used by gamers, programmers, media buffs more »

Is Apple an elitist company?

Jul 13 by Navneet Alang | 4 comments

In the few brief moments of respite we get from the constant flurry of Apple rumors, sometimes it seems worth something to think about the broader effects a company like Apple has. After all, though there is always much debate about the gang from Cupertino, it tends to be about technology or features more »

TeamWox: Making your company more efficient

Jul 6 by Navneet Alang | add comment

Though there are myriad software and services for managing various aspects of a company, they are often divided into components: use one thing for accounting, another for team management, another for internal discussion. It can get a bit unwieldy, particularly in terms of having everyone on more »

Five things about Google+ Facebook should worry about

Jun 29 by Navneet Alang | 4 comments

For a company that has had trouble understanding social, the response to Google+, the company’s new social network platform, has been remarkably good. But no-one so far has suggested that Google+ will be the proverbial “Facebook killer’. And nor should they. We have no idea how the mass market will respond to Google+, especially more »

Meteroic: Download music and movies to your iOS device

Jun 22 by Navneet Alang | add comment

Apple’s iOS, for all its benefits, is notoriously closed. Particularly annoying about this is that you have no access to the OS’s file structure, which means you cannot download music or video clips from across the web. Thankfully a new iPhone and iPad app called Meteoric looks to fix that. Though on the more »

It's time to call it: The Blackberry will never rise again

Jun 22 by Navneet Alang | 19 comments

For the past couple of years, we have been waiting to see whether Research in Motion, the makers of the Blackberry, could rise to meet the challenge of iOS and, later, Android. And for a while, we were hopeful. Looking at RIM’s past and brand loyalty, there was much reason to believe they would succeed more »

Can Nintendo and Sony can save mobile gaming?

Jun 15 by Navneet Alang | 2 comments

Only a short while after its release, the Nintendo 3DS, the successor to the most popular handheld of all time, sold a mere 97,000 units in the US last month. That is a big deal. After all, who could have imagined just a few years ago that a new Nintendo mobile console would sell so comparatively poorly? Years into its more »

How Nintendo just "out-Appled" Apple

Jun 8 by Navneet Alang | 3 comments

Out of the gate, I should say I realize that comparing Nintendo and Apple is odd. One is a gaming company, the other a general purpose computing and software company. What’s more, while Apple recently introduced a software upgrade, Nintendo announced new hardware in the form of the Wii U. So what possible good could come from contrasting their recent actions? more »

How Apple could make "iCloud" revolutionary

Jun 1 by Navneet Alang | add comment

Now that we know that Apple is set to announce their “iCloud” service, it’s time to start a-wondering what the service will feature. But while it’s possible that iCloud will simply be your music tracks in the cloud – like Dropbox for audio files – that would be a disappointment. iTunes revolutionized music for a lot of people. more »

E3 2011: What do Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have up their sleeves?

May 25 by Navneet Alang | 2 comments

E3, the gaming world’s biggest show, is almost here. The annual event has become the place for a large portion of the industry’s biggest announcements, and every year, gamers sit with bated breath listening to what will come. Last year, we took a guess at what the big three might have. We were right, oh, on about more »

Three misguided fears about the web

May 18 by Navneet Alang | add comment

Every so often, almost like clockwork, someone will come out and say that the internet is ruining everything. This week, it’s the New York Times’  Bill Keller, who fears that “we may be unlearning, tweet by tweet… complexity, acuity, patience, wisdom, intimacy” The usual response to this from web-heads more »

The best ways to beat information overload

May 11 by Navneet Alang | 4 comments

There once was a time on this grand internet of ours that finding information was hard. You knew there was lots of it out there, but actually getting to it took real work. Now, in 2011, we have the opposite problem. We have too much information. Social networks, aggregators like Reddit and our RSS more »