Mike Elgan

Personal computers are getting faker. The percentage of counterfeit components is growing steadily, if unevenly. Fake components make PCs cheaper. The downside is declining reliability, safety and performance. Is it even possible to keep it real? A massive crackdown at U.S. and European airports during two weeks in December yielded some 360,000 fake electronic components […]

You may have heard of, but probably don’t use, an online suite of office and productivity applications called Zoho. I know, I know – another Web 2.0 wonder application. I mean, what’s the point? You’ve already taken out a loan and purchased Microsoft Office. Or your company bought a license. Plus, you’ve invested your entire […]

Why would anyone want to buy a Tablet PC? Tablet devices are perceived as little more than heavy and slow laptops with small screens and large price tags. The payoff? You get to write on them with a stylus and take notes as if you’re writing on paper. Wake me when you’re done. Poor sales […]

Democracy in America is in trouble. For some reason we can’t figure out how to cast votes and count them without blunders, inaccuracy and stupidity. In the past few decades, the simple act of voting in the United States has been characterized by malfunctioning voting machines, hanging chads, damaged, unreadable or lost ballots and gross […]

Wouldn’t it be interesting if somebody shipped a gadget from the future — say, a typical PC or a cell phone from the year 2015? The PC might have a 72-inch multi-touch display, 64 terabytes of holographic memory, infinite solid-state storage and a 45Gbps connection to the Internet. The cell phone could be the size […]

When you think about hardcore gamers, what comes to mind? Do you think of twitching slackers wasting away — mind, body and soul — in front of a flashing screen? Or do you see highly skilled people who have mastered a wide range of very complex tasks with a combination of memorization, intuition and big-picture […]

Dear Industry, Another CES has come and gone, and you’ve demonstrated yet again that you haven’t got a clue when it comes to designing, building or marketing an ultraportable computer. With the exception of ASUS Eee PC, all the tiny laptops unveiled at CES and available in the market are too bloated, too small, too […]

Silicon Valley is a marvelous engine of innovation — both technical and linguistic. And to use an annoying Silicon Valley buzzword, language invention is the “low-hanging fruit” of the innovation process for any Bay Area startup. It all starts with a desire to emphasize the totally new nature of something that really isn’t all that […]

Who in the hell is Asustek, and why does Microsoft hate them more than any other company in the industry? Why does Apple, Dell and Palm Computing hate them? And why does Intel love them? Taiwan’s Asustek — better known as ASUS — is one of the most interesting, innovative and fastest-growing companies in technology. […]

Prediction: The story of the year in 2008 will be the colossal failure of censorship during the Beijing Olympic games. The games themselves will be exciting, lavish and hotly contested. But the main event will be the clash between the Chinese Communist Party, which will use biometrics, surveillance, censorship and an army of goons to […]