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Catch me on CNBC

Tune in to "Power Lunch" on CNBC, every Thursday at about 1:45 pm. There you'll see me almost every week, with my usual goofy take on tech. (The same segment will also become my regular Times video later that day.)

My PBS NOVA Miniseries

In case you missed my four-part NOVA mini-series, "Making Stuff," all is not lost. You can watch each episode in full - no ads, no fees, all free! (Your tax dollars at work...)

The show is about the latest in cutting-edge materials science. Carbon nanowires, spider silk from goats, stab-proof clothing - and that's just the beginning. To watch, click the show you want: "Making Stuff: Stronger", "Making Stuff: Smaller", "Making Stuff: Cleaner", "Making Stuff: Smarter".

This week's New York Times column

Scanning on the Go, Wirelessly

At this point, the first rule of technology should be clear to everyone: as progress marches forward, gadgets get smaller. Our phones. Our cameras. Our laptops. Our savings.

But there’s a fly in the truism: some things can’t get smaller forever. You can’t make a microwave oven smaller than the food you put inside. You can’t design a Blu-ray player that’s smaller than the disc it’s supposed to play. And you can’t make a scanner that’s smaller than the pages or photos you want to scan.

You can come pretty close, though. Several companies sell compact portable scanners that could almost fit inside the cardboard tube from a paper-towel roll: foot-long skinny gadgets with a slot that pulls in photos and papers and spits them out the back. The scan quality is surprisingly good, and the speed is decent (about two seconds a page). The huge drawback is that you can’t scan books, magazines or anything else that won’t slide through that slot...more

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This week's email column

Things That Were Once Amazing

A few weeks ago, I was attending an educational conference. I was at a lunch table chatting with the attendees. I overheard a guy telling this story to his colleagues:

“So there I was, struggling to make PowerPoint display correctly on this projector. I restarted it. I went through the menus. Nothing was working. So this eighth grader comes up and says, ‘Mr. Summers, let me help you.’ He kneels down, fiddles around, and damned if he didn’t fix the thing! An eighth grader!”

And he shook his head in amazement.

I was amazed, too. Not that an eighth grader proved to be more technically proficient than his teacher — but that anybody would find this story noteworthy.

I mean, is anybody even surprised anymore when a child is more comfortable with some technology than his parents? That old chestnut, “Oh, I’ll just have my kid explain it to me,” isn’t that 30 years old by now? Maybe I’m just jaded because I spend my time in tech circles, but isn’t that joke so worn out, it’s just not that hilarious anymore?...more

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Recent video

Show and Tell: iPhone 4S

David Pogue brings the new iPhone 4S to show and tell.

Click here to see older archived videos or here to subscribe to Pogue videos via the iTunes Music Store!

Special interest - Scientific American Column

Check out my monthly column in Scientific American magazine! Each month, I take a broader look at what's going on with consumer tech and society….

Big Progress on the Little Things

Let's take a step back and praise three unsung trends in consumer electronics...more

Use It Better: The Worst Trends in Tech

Consumer technology doesn't always get better, faster and cheaper. Here are four bad moves that prove the future isn't always bright...more