Friday, August 1, 2014

[Advanced] Wise Words From a Tech Expert (1)

An interview with columnist David Pogue about the future of technology 

Standing on a stage, David Pogue pulls out a phone and opens an app that shows him the temperature inside his Connecticut home.

The 50-year-old technology writer decides his kids have the thermostat too high, so he casually turns it down, puts the phone away and moves on with his presentation about how technology is changing our lives.

The Nest Labs technology he demonstrated was bought by Google for $3.2 billion recently – a prime example of how Silicon Valley titans are pushing into uncharted territory.

Pogue is heading into new areas, too. With the New York Times as a platform for his advice, he became one of the most well-known personalities helping people figure out which gadgets to buy. But he left that position to launch a new tech information venture at Yahoo. He sat down with the Orange Country Register to answer questions about what’s in store in technology.

Question: Why’d you leave the New York Times for Yahoo?

Answer: I’ve never built anything in my life. I’ve always been hired by an existing organization and plugged into it. But Yahoo is telling me, ‘whatever you want to do, we’re there, we’re gonna fund it – and they have never let me down. Whereas newspapers are an industry desperately trying to figure out how to stop shrinking, Yahoo never stops thinking about how to grow and how to build. That’s just an intoxicating approach to a fundamentally creative guy like me.

Question: A number of new tech information sites have launched. What makes Yahoo Tech different?

Answer: The others are all vying for technologists. People who care what processor is in the phone. Most people don’t care about any of that stuff. The people who are just struggling everyday with making their existing gadgets work are underserved. That is what Yahoo Tech is about.


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