Stories by Robert X. Cringely

Escape from the Twittering masses

I'm thinking maybe this whole social media thing has gone too far. Maybe we don't really need to know what everyone we've ever encountered is doing every single moment of their lives in 140 characters or less. It's starting to distort our collective notion of reality.

Google's iPhone interface is gone baby gone

On the verge of releasing what could be some scary Q4 results for the Company That Can Do No Evil (at least according to some Motley Fools), Google has managed to tick off a key component of its future success: mobile geeks.

Going Steve-less

The news that Steve Jobs is stepping down as Apple CEO, however temporarily, gives an opportunity to think about what life would be like without Jobs.

Sex, censorship and the Net

I don't know what it is -- the holidays, the waning days of the Bush Administration, or just something in the air -- but the war over sex on the Net has reached a new and disturbing level.

Julie Amero case, part II: May the farce be with you

The Julie Amero case has stirred up a lot of emotions, including some from Cringe readers who feel I was less than fair in my description of the expert witness hired by Amero's attorney, Herb Horner. You know what? They're right.

The Julie Amero case: A dangerous farce

Since I posted my screed last week about Julie Amero, the Connecticut middle school teacher who almost did hard time because a computer in her classroom was infected with malware, I heard from many Cringesters -- including a handful of people with intimate knowledge of the case. Whatever you thought of the Amero story before, the reality is far, far worse.

Biggest turkeys of 2008

What has feathers, can't fly, and likes to stick its neck out at precisely the wrong moment? Cringely cries fowl by naming the biggest tech turkeys of the year.

Amazon behaving badly

Is the "world's biggest store" going through an awkward phase, or has it just gotten so arrogant that it no longer cares what its customers think?

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