If you observe the space in silence for a few minutes on a weekday afternoon in a San Francisco café, an interesting thing happens. There are still laptops with glowing Apple logos strewn across tables, but just as many people are crouched over phones, tapping quickly, flipping between spreadsheets, documents, and messages. It’s difficult to ignore the fact that some of them seem to be functional. Technology companies have been hinting at a straightforward concept for years: your smartphone may eventually serve as your only computer. More than most, Google appears to think that possibility is approaching. Key InformationDetailsTechnology FocusSmartphone-as-Computer…
Author: Taylor Lowery
Taylor Lowery
Taylor Lowery is a senior editor at glofiish.com, a technology writer, and a true circuit enthusiast. She works in the tech sector, so she does more than just cover it. Taylor works for a smartphone company during the day, which gives her a firsthand look at how gadgets are designed, manufactured, promoted, and ultimately placed in people's hands.Her writing is unique because of this insider viewpoint. Taylor makes the technical connections that other writers overlook, whether she's dissecting the silicon architecture of a new flagship chipset, analyzing the implications of a significant Android update for actual users, or tracking the effects of a new AI model announcement across the mobile industry.Her editorial focus covers every aspect of the current tech stack, including smartphone software and hardware, artificial intelligence (from large language models and generative tools to on-device inference), and the broader innovation trends influencing the direction of the consumer technology sector. She is especially passionate about the nexus of AI and mobile computing, which she feels is still in its most exciting early stages.
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One winter evening, almost everyone on a packed tram in Munich appeared to be wearing headphones, staring at phones, or peering through dark sunglasses that looked more like tech than eyewear. It’s a minor observation, but those glasses have started to include cameras lately. This is where the tale of Nearby Glasses, a tiny Android app, starts. Yves Jeanrenaud, the developer of the app, is neither a venture-backed startup founder nor an engineer from Silicon Valley. In his free time, he codes. He is a sociologist by training, teaching, and studying social behavior. In the midst of his late-night programming…
A strange thing can now occur on a peaceful hillside far from any city lights. Suddenly, a phone without bars—the kind where calls fail instantly and maps won’t load—manages to send a text message. The message ends up in an unexpected place. Not to a nearby cell tower. Not via underground fiber wires. Instead, it goes upward. Straight into space. Direct-to-cellular satellite technology is still new enough that even engineers sometimes describe it with a kind of cautious excitement. The basic idea is surprisingly simple: satellites acting as temporary cell towers, floating hundreds of kilometers above Earth, catching signals from…
The commuter train through Silicon Valley fills up fast on a weekday morning. As the hills outside fade into the distance, laptop screens shine in the silent carriage. The majority of passengers hardly glance up. They are modifying models, writing code, and resolving bugs. It becomes evident that these riders are not merely traveling to work somewhere between San Francisco and Mountain View. They are engaged in a technological race that has the potential to change the world. Many of them are headed toward artificial superintelligence, a concept that used to sound like science fiction but is now firmly rooted…
A group of graduate students spend their afternoon gazing at lines of code that appear nearly unintelligible to outsiders on a peaceful university campus in the Central Valley of California. Their lab is located in a small engineering building at the University of California, Merced, a long way from the glass skyscrapers in Seattle that house Amazon executives. The pupils here, however, are a part of something much bigger—a developing endeavor to address one of the most challenging issues facing artificial intelligence. AI is now extremely powerful. In addition, it has become extremely costly. CategoryDetailsTopicEfficient Artificial Intelligence ResearchLeading CompanyAmazonResearch ProgramAmazon…
Traders inside the New York Stock Exchange continue to watch screens flicker with numbers on a gloomy morning in lower Manhattan. Nonetheless, the room’s rhythm has subtly changed. Phones are ringing less. Fewer commands were yelled. Nowadays, a large portion of the activity is carried out by silent algorithms that execute trades more quickly than human reflexes could ever handle. Quiet calculations taking place deep within data centers are gradually replacing the loud drama that was once associated with global finance. Gradually, almost courteously, artificial intelligence has been making its way into the financial system. It seldom comes with the…
A small group of people gathered around a demonstration table full of common-looking glasses at a technology summit earlier this year. There were no futuristic helmets or glowing screens, just frames that might have been purchased at an airport store. However, the glasses would respond with a translation, instructions, or a brief AI-generated response every few minutes when someone spoke softly into them. There was a faint sense as the scene developed that something familiar was occurring once more, similar to how early smartphones subtly suggested a change was about to happen. CategoryDetailsTechnologyAI Smart GlassesMajor CompaniesMeta, Google, Samsung, Amazon, AlibabaSupporting…
The Glofiish M810 debuted at an odd point in the history of smartphones. The industry was still debating what a smartphone should look like in 2008. Some businesses thought sliding keyboards were the way of the future. Others thought it would be solely based on touch. In public, engineers were conducting experiments. The M810 seemed to be a component of those experiments. The gadget appeared solemn at first glance, almost defiantly professional. The front panel had a subtle, slightly industrial dark graphite finish. It appeared more like a small office tool than a consumer device when it was placed on…
Smartphones used to resemble tiny mechanical experiments rather than sleek glass slabs in the late 2000s. The hinges opened with a click. The screens moved up. Keyboards emerged from concealed spaces. The Glofiish M800, a gadget that felt committed to demonstrating that a smartphone could also function as a tiny laptop, was a product of that era. The first thing that strikes you when you pick up the M800 is how heavy it is. It doesn’t feel delicate or fragile at 178 grams. It seems intentional. It’s almost serious. The density of the phone indicates that engineers continued to cram…
Acer executives quietly made a decision that felt strategic and a little risky on a humid Monday morning in March 2008. The Taiwanese computer giant announced that it would buy E-TEN Information Systems, a smaller business that is primarily well-known among tech enthusiasts for its peculiar Glofiish line of Windows Mobile smartphones. The asking price was around $290 million, which was not insignificant at the time but also not the kind of big-ticket deal that makes headlines. However, there was a certain significance to the moment. CategoryDetailsCompaniesAcer Inc. and E-TEN Information SystemsDeal AnnouncementMarch 2008Acquisition ValueApproximately $290 millionIndustrySmartphones / Mobile DevicesAcer…