Notices by Harry McCracken 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (harrymccracken@mastodon.social)

I wrote about the possibility that Google will have to sell Chrome, and the larger fact that the big browsers are so sleepy. They feel like obligations, not the vibrant tapestries of innovation they could be. https://www.fastcompany.com/91231751/google-chrome-sale-department-of-justice-browser-war

Tom Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC—probably the piece of software that has meant the most to me—has died at age 96. When it turned 50 ten years ago, I wrote a VERY long article about why it was so important, and I’m very grateful that he helped with it. RIP. https://time.com/69316/basic/

Vile respects vile. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/14/vaccine-maker-stocks-fall-as-trump-chooses-rfk-jr-to-lead-hhs.html

For my Plugged In newsletter, I wrote about leaving Twitter and using OpenVibe to wrangle Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. It’s a great app! https://www.fastcompany.com/91226135/openvibe-mastodon-bluesky-threads-unified-client

Firefox is turning 20. When it was new I was VERY excited about it and pleased to see an article about it in Fortune. And when I began reading it I was surprised to see the lede was about me. https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/29/8192684/index.htm

I don’t believe in deleting stuff off the internet, so I’m not going to delete my old tweets. But is there a straightforward way to make them available at a place that isn’t Twitter?

This is brutal and could have been avoided in any of several ways. (I am not cancelling my subscription and find the whole idea of doing so based on one terrible decision to be counterproductive.) https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post-bezos-endorsement-president-cancellations-resignations

X’s war on misinformation has one basic problem. https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2024/08/08/elon-musk-deletes-post-spreading-fake-news-about-uk-detainment-camps/

What other presidential candidate, in the entire history of our company, could say this without it becoming the biggest news story in the country with a headline in the largest available typeface size?

In related news, you can still take my 2010 poll on whether HP buying Palm is a good idea! https://technologizer.com/2010/04/28/hp-buys-palm/index.html

I’d like to see Humane remain independent and succeed, and probably don’t have to tell you what the possibility of them being acquired by HP brought to mind. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/technology/humane-ai-pin.html

I wrote about why Google search telling us all to eat rocks isn’t as serious an issue as it claiming there’s a non-existent Dr. Seuss book. https://www.fastcompany.com/91132217/google-ai-overview-errors

Oh no, not again

Hey, I just met @Gargron. (Photo by @mike.)

Google is showing lots of cool stuff at I/O, though plenty of it doesn't involve any specified launch dates and it's unclear how far along it is. The AI race has prompted more vague pre-announcements of things than I can remember in a long time.

For this week's Plugged In newsletter, I wrote about Kagi, a Google alternative with a lot to offer, especially to search nerds like me. For something from a tiny company, it's downright amazing! https://www.fastcompany.com/91038374/kagi-web-search-engine-google-alternative

Fair warning: I have two favorite Christmas songs, and I may be sharing multiple versions of them over the next few days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jcq5dkXfU

The Adobe-Figma deal is off, which is is a positive development for competition in in the creative-software market. Last month, I wrote about Figma and what its overarching strategy moving forward might look like, regardless of who owned it. https://www.fastcompany.com/90939386/figma-dylan-field-dev-mode-future-ai-adobe

I thought this was a parody, but it's real.

(I ended up getting a refund on my OfficeJet 7740, which kept crashing and had built-in Dropbox support that didn't actually work.) https://www.pcmag.com/news/hp-ad-campaign-printers-are-annoying-but-ours-are-made-to-be-less-hated

I spoke with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber about its plans to leave invite-only status and launch its AT federated social networking protocol. https://www.fastcompany.com/90996044/bluesky-twitter-alternative-jay-graber-ceo