David Pogue

Graham Roumieu Do you laugh when someone’s grocery bag bursts? Do you find yourself stealing cabs? Have you shouted at puppies? If you answered yes to any of these, then you may have Empathy Deficit Disorder. For this Crowdwise, I asked you to…

Claudia Toran If we need a checkup on our health, our finances or our cars, we can find doctors, accountants or mechanics. But who checks up on our digital lives? There’s no such thing as 10,000-mile scheduled maintenance for your hard drive or an…

Graham Roumieu You know what the English language needs? A word for the hot, sickening feeling you get when you accidentally hit “Reply All,” subsequently broadcasting a private message to a much larger group. Maybe we should call it e-barrassment.…

My inaugural column in these pages, eight years ago, explored the world of crowdsourced answer Web sites. My last Scientific American column—well, you're reading it. My tenure here has aligned neatly with the rise of everything in the headlines…

In the beginning, there was the keyboard. If you wanted to issue a command to your computer, you typed it. Then came the Apple Macintosh, which popularized the mouse as standard equipment. No longer would people have to memorize key commands! No…

Lots of cars these days can auto-park. Lots can self-drive on the highway. Lots of them have collision avoidance—they’ll slam on the brakes if you don’t. A few cars can change lanes automatically when you put your turn signal on. Tesla’s Autopilot…

In the beginning, there was MoviePass. It was a revolutionary service that let you go see as many movies as you liked, in theaters, for a flat $10 a month. (Here’s my interview with the CEO in happier times.) Amazing! Irresistible! Boom: 3 million…

James Patterson, among the world’s bestselling authors, has never shied from experimenting with the storytelling form—or the storytelling business. He heartily embraced e-books when they were new; he’s launched a series of super-short, $4 books…

Car companies predict that self-driving cars will save millions of lives. They talk about a future without personal auto ownership, drivers' licenses, car insurance or the search for parking. When you need a ride, simply use an app to call an…

Some people don’t know about Amazon’s shadow clone site, even though it launched five years ago. It’s a complete, nearly perfect duplicate of Amazon.com. It sells the same things, for the same prices, with the same descriptions and customer reviews.…

More It’s amazing that Tesla (TSLA) even exists. Before Tesla, the most recent successful American auto startup was Chrysler, over 90 years ago. Tesla has survived the first hard part: designing beautiful, fast, high-tech electric cars that a lot of…

A few years ago, backstage at a conference, I spotted a young blind woman using her phone. The phone was speaking everything her finger touched on the screen, allowing her to tear through her apps. My jaw hit the floor. After years of practice, she…

You’re probably used to the periodic upgrades in our cell-phone networks. There was 2G, which came along in 1991, replaced with 3G in 2001, followed by 4G in 2009. Now we’re hearing about the coming of 5G. But 5G is a much bigger leap than what’s…

As though we needed any more evidence that the world has gone mobile, the pace of innovation in Apple’s (AAPL) two major product lines—Macs and iPhones—has grown wildly lopsided. The company is pumping far more resources and effort into phones than …

The iPhone X is dead. Long live the iPhone X! What I mean by that, of course, is that the new 2018 iPhones are named (and designed) to be tuned-up versions of last year’s iPhone X. There are three of them: one faster, one bigger, and one …

Wait, is this September? Why, yes—yes it is! And you know what that means: Time for another free, annual release of iOS 12, Apple’s operating system for iPhones and iPads. Phone OS upgrades these days rarely introduce blockbuster, routine-changing …

You think people get riled up about politics and religion? Try insulting someone’s phone. Apparently, a lot of people hang their identities on what phones they carry. An iPhone person might feel personally affronted when a Samsung Galaxy gets a great …

The most exciting time in the life of any new product category is the first years. That’s when it rapidly sprouts all the cool new features that we’ll one day consider standard. Can you imagine how thrilling it must have been the first time your car …

Well, there’s no doubt about it: This is an S year. As longtime Apple (AAPL) followers are aware, Apple seems to alternate iPhone design years. For every Big New Dramatic iPhone Year (like iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6), there’s an S year (iPhone 4s, …

Most people probably associate three things with hearing aids: an elderly demographic, beige plastic construction and high-pitched feedback in public places. As it turns out, all those notions are now obsolete—or will be soon. The most popular …