Stories by Mike Elgan

Elgan: Got a subnotebook? Get Ubiquity

Cheap and tiny subnotebook computers have become, well, ubiquitous. Dell is the latest company to ship one, joining a list that includes ASUS, Acer, Everex, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, LG, MSI and many others.

Elgan: When LinkedIn knows where you are

Within two years, I believe mobile social networking will become the most valuable business application since e-mail.

Better batteries? Gadgets get everything but!

Ten years ago, everyone expected massive improvements in battery technology for laptops, mobile phones and other mobile gadgets.

While Windows sleeps

Dell, Intel and their partners announced this week new technologies that represent major leaps forward for mobility. The companies seem to have discovered the secret to making such bold leaps: Cut Microsoft out of the deal.

Is your mobile phone trying to kill you?

Don't look now, but your mobile phone is out to get you. This deadly device can cause accidents, give you cancer or even kill you, according to a rising chorus of alarmist reports.

Elgan: Why expensive mobile phones are worth it

The price of the new iPhone 3G dropped by $200 in the US. Although the phone bills necessary to take advantage of the phone's faster data speeds rose beyond handset savings, many hailed the lower price as an important development. Finally, the price ...

You can be Batman, too

Batman: The Dark Knight, the most highly anticipated of the series yet, hit cinemas on Thursday.

Control your BlackBerry with voice commands

The BlackBerry from Research In Motion is the most popular line of mobile phones in part because they tend to be easier to type on than most other phones. We e-mail addicts love them.

Will gadgets make knowledge obsolete?

In the 1984 cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer , author William Gibson describes a future in which people can acquire knowledge by buying special chips called "microsofts" that plug into a surgically installed jack behind the ear. Once you plug in the chip...

Here comes the mobile phone ad disaster

I recently visited the Greek island of Santorini. The island is best known as a sunny destination for jet-setting holiday makers who lounge in idyllic hotel rooms perched on the sides of steep and majestic cliffs. But historians, geologists and archa...

The '$100 laptop' may be a glimpse of the future

You've no doubt heard of the "$100 laptop" project. The idea is to help poor kids around the world by providing them with simple, durable, usable and wireless laptops for downloading and using textbooks and educational software, playing games and com...

You can be a 'digital nomad' (no, really!)

You may have heard about the extreme telecommuter lifestyle and thought to yourself, "Wow, I would love to do that, but, nah, I could never make it happen." Wrong job. Young kids. Can't afford it.

In search of the super easy super phone

MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte railed against complexity in mobile phones, recently, and said that "simplicity is the biggest challenge that handset makers face."

Hyperconnectivity: Friend or foe?

An April 2007, Time magazine feature called, "The Hyperconnected," was illustrated with a picture of a person's wrist handcuffed to a mobile device. This image faithfully conveys a common and growing reaction to the explosion in connected devices and...

Your car - the ultimate 'mobile computer'

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates expressed his goal many years ago to put "a PC on every desktop, a PC in every home" -- all running Microsoft software, of course. He didn't mention a PC on every driveway.