Tech Brew Ride Home

Since it’s a holiday week in the US, I’m going to do what I’ve done once before on Holiday weeks and give you an episode from the Internet History Podcast archives. This is a story about tech history that, if you’ve never heard it, will blow your mind. What if I told you there was a crazy entrepreneur who was the true founder of what would become America Online? He was the guy who hired Steve Case back before AOL was AOL. What if I told you that same entrepreneur invented true, networked, online gaming—not in the era of the Xbox 360, or Stadia, but back in the days of the Atari 2600? What if I then told you that same entrepreneur invented a Napster/Pandora/Spotify/Sirius-like music service, all the way back in 1981, before the compact disc was even widely available? That Man Is William von Meister And he is the subject of this episode. This is a crazy story, about a hard drinking, heavy-smoking, women-chasing entrepreneur, seemingly from the Mad Men cloth, who was “a pathological entrepreneur” with a “reality-distortion-field” that would give Steve Jobs a run for his money. It’s a story of about a dozen harebrained businesses, none of which were really successful (excepting of course that some or all of them lent their DNA to the company that would become AOL) but all of which were way ahead of their time, and in many ways, presaged technologies we take for granted today.

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Google fires four workers associated with labor organizing, Amazon's ruthless quotas lead to high rates of warehouse injuries, grass-roots opponents to Amazon's power form a coalition, a report cites the public cost of Amazon warehouses on Southern California, the California DMV is selling driver information, the Rev transcription service exposes contractors to horrific recordings, Facebook pays people to take surveys, Zuckerberg mostly listens to old white men, a TikTok teen spreads the news about Chinese mistreatment of Muslim Uyghurs, and Texas Instruments keeps toting up new profits from an old calculator style.

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Uber loses its license in London, the web’s founder launches a “contract” to save it, eBay sells StubHub, the Threadrippers seem to be the real deal, Deadpool is buying a mobile carrier and Elon Musk knows why those windows cracked.

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We gotta talk about Cybertruck, Twitter continues its shipping products hot streak, AirPods are hotter than even Apple anticipated, some trouble in Russia for gadget makers and, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

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Google is changing its rules around political ads, PayPal is acquiring Honey for a ton of money, why have a Dash Button when you can have a Dash Shelf? Route puts all your orders in one place and I’m afraid Google’s original culture is definitively dead.

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Hackers could take over your Android cameras, the police can do whatever they want with your Ring videos, if your Disney+ account is hacked, is it probably your fault? An amazing breakthrough in solar technology and why fishing by drone has become a thing.

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Apple’s planning an awards ceremony? Amazon has a new fire TV accessory, Spotify launches Your Daily Podcast, Google announces Your News Update, Ransomware comes for the vets, and the hidden cost hurdle for electric cars.

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The Mustang Mach-E wants to out Tesla Tesla, John Legere is stepping down from T-Mobile, .org domain names might be getting a lot more expensive, and the reviews on Google Stadia are decidedly mixed, but at least it works.

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So, that Razr event, out in LA... obviously I didn’t get to cover it live… and if there was ever a recent hardware event crying out for “hands-on” reporting, this was one. So, I reached out to someone who was there: QZ.com’s Mike Murphy, and actually, his take was pretty different than some of the others I read to you on Thursday. Come for that, and stay for the reality check about what will really make the 5G revolution happen.

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Apple takes down vaping apps from the App Store, why is Google going ahead with the Stadia launch this month? Amazon protests the JEDI decision, the TikTok juggernaut rolls on—especially in India—and, of course, the weekend longreads suggestions.

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