Editor-in-Chief
When Nilay Patel was four years old, he drove a Chrysler into a small pond because he was trying to learn how the gearshift worked. Years later, he became a technology journalist. He has thus far remained dry.
Nilay was a co-founder of The Verge and the site's first Managing Editor before taking over as Editor-in-Chief. He also was the acting Managing Editor for the launch of Vox.com. Before that, he spent four years as Managing Editor of Engadget, where he drew upon his background as a lawyer to report and explain complex legal situations in everyday terminology — a niche that led to SAY Media naming Nilay one of 10 "voices that matter" in technology journalism.
Nilay co-hosts the Webby Award-winning Vergecast podcast, and has appeared on CNN, CNN International, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, Sky News, NHK, G4TV, TWiT, and many others. Nilay received an AB in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2003 and his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2006.
Duke University Libraries have decided to drop their use of Basecamp, after reconsidering various blog posts by co-founder David Heinemier Hansson in which he decries the push for diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Duke’s post about it is clear-eyed and crisp, and worth reading:
So when we encounter a tech company boss who takes in a nationwide movement of organized protest against police brutalization and systemic racism, led by Black activists, and amplifies the rare incidents of violence, much of it instigated by the police or right-wing counter protestors, using the mendacious language of extremists to refer to it as “riots,” we have a good idea what we’re looking at.
When we enter into business with a company whose boss takes delight in the mass layoffs of tech workers because it disempowers those who might speak out against their company keeping a list of non-Anglophone names that some members of the team find hilarious, we have a decent sense of who we’re dealing with.
You can choose to spend your time and money however you want, it turns out — a lesson that more and more Twitter-pilled CEOs are learning the hard way.
[Duke University Libraries Blogs]
53 seconds into this Cybertruck walkaround video, Mat from Carwow picks up the wiper. And…it’s so floppy! Looks like one blade but still inconclusive.
Thanks to Tyler for the tip — The Verge is America’s leader Cybertruck wiper news source, and it’s all thanks to readers like you.
Just noting that Franz von Holzhausen weakly threw a baseball at this Cybertruck instead of a rock that broke the windows four years ago.
We’re all waiting on this stream to start, and the music is like standing in the most evil possible version of Starship Earth at Disney World.
Couple things: first, there is a TikTok channel called StorageReview, and second, it has a hands-on video with a giant 27 petabyte IBM tape storage robot at a trade show where giant IBM tape storage robots go to make friends. Excellent all around.
The mystery of the Cybertruck wiper continues: Verge pal Patrick George went and looked at a Cybertruck in the Tesla Manhattan showroom, and he thinks the wiper is all one piece, not two. Lots of fun photos in his story, too. I guess we’ll find out on Thursday at the launch event, unless someone actually picks the wiper up and looks first.
I repeat: The Verge remains America’s number one source of Cybertruck wiper news, and it’s all thanks to readers bold enough to pick up the wiper on a stranger’s truck.
Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami on why the web isn’t dying after all
The co-founder of website builder Wix is embracing generative AI, and he’s not too worried that it might destroy the business models of the web.
If you’ve ever poked around the world of high-end audio, you’ve come across Roon — it’s basically a very fancy riff on the classic iTunes app that can stream to all sorts of fancy devices. Well, it just got bought out by Harman, the parent company of JBL, Harman Kardon, Infinity, and others. (Harman itself was bought by Samsung in 2016 as part of a bet on connected cars, which, well, sure.)
Along with this forum post, a press release says Roon will not become a proprietary hell app:
Aligned with its ‘work with all’ strategy, HARMAN is committed to growing Roon’s open device ecosystem which includes collaborating with more than 160 other audio brands, delivering audio to more than 1000 high-performance devices.
People who can afford to pay for a high-end music service that works with their high-end music gear love change so we’ll see how this goes!
Amazon’s free Fire TV Channels service is adding more sports content to its mix today: highlights from the NBA, Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 are now available, as well as Fox Sports’ 24/7 linear channel. and shows from the Locked On Podcast Network. The service already had content from Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, NBC Sports, and others.
Two things about this:
1. The great re-bundling of TV just keeps accelerating, and sports is really leading the way, and
2. Amazon announced this in a post on Medium, which... what?
[Amazon Fire TV]