Related Articles: Virtual Viewpoint

• Striking It Rich: Is There An App For That?

  Tony Dokoupil 10/6/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Steve Demeter seems like the perfect poster boy for Apple. Two years ago, the 30-year-old computer programmer became one of the first people to sell his product—a puzzle game called Trism—through Apple's App Store, a virtual marketplace where third-party software developers connect with customers wanting downloads for their iPhones. He pulled in $250,000 in just two months and quit his job writing code for ATMs. Demeter's success caught the eye of Apple's public-relations team, which profiled him in an inspirational video at Apple.com and gave him a shout out at its June 2009 World Wide Developers' Conference (WWDC). Media hailed the San Francisco resident an "App Store Millionaire" who would never have to work again—a happy financial reality that Demeter confirms. "Nine-to-five is no longer a concept for me," he tells NEWSWEEK. (Story continued below...)

• Kenya Needs a Reboot

  9/25/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Kenya's slide into temporary anarchy after failed elections at the end of 2007 shocked the world. The country had been seen as a force for stability in a turbulent region. Its robust economy, sophisticated urban middle class, good infrastructure, and other advantages made it an economic, political, and social hub for East Africa. Then came ethnic violence in which more than 1,000 people were killed and some 350,000 were displaced, stunning Kenyans and the rest of the continent.

• The Triumph of Web 2.5

  Daniel Gross 9/18/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Earlier this week, Intuit, the software company that owns the popular personal-finance software programs Quicken and TurboTax, agreed to pay $170 million in cash for Mint.com, a two-year-old startup whose free tools allow chastened customers to manage their personal finances online. Some critics, such as Web entrepreneur Jason Fried, view the deal as a defeat for upstarts: A wounded incumbent that charges hefty fees for its services is taking out a free competitor for a relatively small sum and increasing its market power. (Last year, Slate's "Shopping" column tabbed Quicken.com and Mint.com as the best online tools for keeping track of personal finances.) But the all-cash deal, which will provide a hefty payday for the company's founders and venture capital investors, represents a triumph of a new business model. Indeed, the sale of Mint.com may be the first big payoff for a Web 2.5 company.Web 2.0 refers to the generation of companies and services built on the wreckage of Web 1.0.

• Is the Internet Broken?

  9/2/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Google's Gmail system, which serves millions of customers around the world, shut down yesterday. The problem may hurt its efforts to market applications which include e-mail to businesses. Google prides itself on the reliability of its software, at least according to its marketing pitch. It is not clear why Google had the problem. It keeps thousands of servers. Some of those may have developed trouble or some outside programmer, a hacker, may have sent a bug into the system to make it collapse.

• Will Apple Stumble With Snow Leopard?

  Daniel Lyons 8/28/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Conventional wisdom is that everything ran great at Apple during the six-month period when CEO Steve Jobs was out having his super-secret liver transplant. Supposedly, the company just kept running without a hiccup. But after unimpressive reports on the performance of Snow Leopard, the new version of the Mac OS X operating system, I'm starting to have my doubts.

• Moore’s Law Doesn’t Matter

  Daniel Lyons 8/15/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Back in 1965, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore predicted that the semiconductor industry could double the number of transistors on a chip every 12 months (he later amended it to 24 months) for about the same cost. And for half a century, Moore's Law has held true, making computers cheaper and faster and more powerful. It seems almost that long that experts have been warning that Moore's Law would eventually run smack into the laws of physics, bringing everyone's giddy ride to an end. It hasn't happened yet. Justin Rattner, the chief technology officer at Intel, insists the company can keep doubling the number of transistors on a processor through several more generations of chips over the next decade.

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