The TechTalk episode where I talk about the secret history of Steve Ballmer

In this TechTalk radio episode, I reveal what dark history Steve Ballmer lived out between his days at Harvard and his illustrious run as a minion of Microsoft. Here's a hint: it involved a midwestern state, pastries and another legendary Fortune 100 CEO. No foolin'.

Mercifully, we spent much more of the episode discussing Oyster and its "Netflix for ebooks" pitch, as well as the future of the prose-for-pay industry. The parts when I'm not talking are definitely worth a listen.

As always, my complete archive of podcasted misdeeds is available here.

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I am returned to Techtalk Radio, discuss the end of the Space Shuttle program

After weeks of missed connections and conflicts, I'm finally back to dragging down the quality of TechTalk Radio. This week, I throw out a quick missive on smartwatches, some trivia on the last cargo item the Space Shuttle placed into orbit, and lay down a challenge about the secret history of Steve Ballmer.

More importantly, Mike and Dave go deep on Google Maps tech with Daniel Seiberg. You can fast-forward past my drivel to the good stuff, no worries.

Listen to the TechTalk podcast here.

Truly Trivial What sci-fi novel was the XBOX 360 dev team required to read?

Image via Wikipedia

I'm off to the Consumer Electronics Show this week, so I'm shamelessly and indefensibly shirking my trivia responsibilities yet again. To fill the void, here's some tech-toy themed minutia from my old Geek Trivia columns:

While Bill Gates may have a personal wealth that dwarfs the gross national product of many third-world countries, and Microsoft boasts a cash flow that would make some state revenue cabinets envious, jumping headlong into the multibillion-dollar gaming hardware market was still quite a daring leap for a software company. The man who convinced Gates and, perhaps more important, Steve Ballmer to get in the game, so to speak, was Xbox development chief J Allard. ...

Allard drew his inspiration for the Xbox 360 not just from more traditional sources of product development and market research, but also from science fiction—including a noted sci-fi novel that Allard made required reading for his entire Xbox 360 development team.

WHAT SCIENCE-FICTION NOVEL DID XBOX 360 DEVELOPMENT CHIEF J ALLARD REQUIRE HIS TEAM MEMBERS TO READ?

Get the complete Q&A here.

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