The Morning After: 20 years of Engadget

This website first began on March 2, 2004. It’s older than YouTube, the iPhone, Uber, Tesla cars, Spotify and a whole lot more. It’s even roughly a month older than the word ‘podcast.’

To mark the 20th anniversary of Engadget, we’re taking a longer look at how the tech industry has changed over the past two decades. First up: streaming.

We were going to kick things off with a letter from the editor, but two weeks ago, Engadget’s parent company laid off many editors, writers and videographers from our small team, including our editor-in-chief, Dana Wollman.

As Aaron Souppouris puts in his introduction to the series, it’s not “business as usual,” but we are committed to pushing Engadget forward. What started as a grass-roots tech blog has now morphed into a media organization “aiming to break news, give no-BS buying advice and highlight the stories in tech that matter.”

Oh, and we have a podcast.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Dune 2 kicks butt (literally)

This is what it looks like to reenter Earth’s atmosphere from a space capsule’s POV

Streaming video changed the internet forever

​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

Meta has rarely been in so much hot water.

Axios, a site known for political analysis (and extensive use of bullet points), has joined the ranks of pundits fawning over Mark Zuckerberg’s PR strategy. The Meta CEO, they claim, is (as originally headlined) “having a PR moment.” Should anyone be praising the PR strategy of a gigantic company credibly accused of enabling a variety of mass-scale harm? Even if that PR strategy was working — which it isn’t.

Continue reading.

No spring event?

In Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman says Apple plans to announce several new products in a series of “online videos and marketing campaigns” pretty much imminently. If so, that’d be two years in a row Apple has passed on a spring event. This year, it could be particularly busy: Along with an iPad Pro refresh and a new 12.9-inch iPad Air, Gurman reports that Apple is planning to announce new Apple Pencils and Magic Keyboards. (Likely with USB-C.) It’s also expected to release the M3 MacBook Air in 13- and 15-inch models.

Continue reading.

Despite the company getting suspended in February.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has permitted Waymo to expand its robotaxi operations to Los Angeles and more locations in the San Francisco Peninsula despite opposition from local groups and government agencies. In the CPUC’s decision, it admitted receiving letters of protest from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance about Waymo’s expansion.

Following an incident where two of its robotaxis collided with a backward-facing pickup truck, the agency suspended Waymo’s expansion efforts in February for up to 120 days. Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said in a statement to Wired that the company will take an “incremental approach” when deploying the service in LA.

Continue reading.