On the eve of the expected announcement that the wishes of many mobile phone customers would be fulfilled with the arrival of the iPhone on Verizon’s network, there’s a larger question that’s not so easily answered. That question is whether a large number of supposedly disgruntled AT&T customers will switch as soon as their contracts […]

As most regular readers know, I’m not enamored of Consumer Reports and the way the magazine handles personal technology. Their efforts to simplify and generalize possibly complex information ends up helping nobody. While they no doubt accurately represent reader surveys about product and service reliability, the actual reviews are tragically flawed. I’m also concerned why […]

I gather there are some of you who assume that, because something is published, it must be true, even if it comes from a site that posts rumors. This can become a trifle irritating when the report ends up being only partly true, or completely false. When you read an erroneous story, you might wonder […]

It’s part of the human condition to tell stories and, often as not, to embellish the ones you hear in the retelling. Sometimes you wonder how information conveyed orally passes on through generations supposedly without loads of changes. So here’s a little story: Years ago, the late comedian Steve Allen would occasionally conduct an informal […]