How to Keep on Top of Technology When You Write About It

Nick Wingfield at home in Seattle with his Macbook and Apple watch. Credit Kyle Johnson for The New York Times
Nick Wingfield at home in Seattle with his Macbook and Apple watch. Credit Kyle Johnson for The New York Times
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How to Keep on Top of Technology When You Write About It

Nick Wingfield at home in Seattle with his Macbook and Apple watch. Credit Kyle Johnson for The New York Times
Nick Wingfield at home in Seattle with his Macbook and Apple watch. Credit Kyle Johnson for The New York Times

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Nick Wingfield, a technology reporter based in Seattle, discussed the tech he is using.

You cover Amazon and Microsoft. Do you use their technology?

The one technology constant in my career as a journalist seems to be Microsoft Word. I take notes for all of my stories in it on a MacBook Pro. I’ve tried Google Docs and OneNote, but can’t stick with them for reasons I can’t explain. I have a feeling I might be cremated with a copy of Microsoft Word.

Like most people, I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, and I’ve tried most of their gadgets. I used an Echo for a while. My family mainly used it to turn on a lamp through a WeMo light switch with our voices. My kids enjoyed asking Alexa to play scatological sound effects. I enjoyed that too, if I’m being honest.

What do or don’t you like about their tech products that you use?

I find some of the things you can do on the Echo pretty silly and much easier on a smartphone app. I’ll give you an example. A while back I was installing a sprinkler system in my garden that was connected to a wireless control unit. I found out I could use the control unit with Alexa to turn on the sprinklers with my voice.

When I told Alexa to turn the sprinklers on, a geyser of water shot up six feet in the air from a pipe I hadn’t properly secured. I yelled every Alexa command I could think of to turn it off, but apparently she didn’t like my syntax, and the water kept gushing. I finally just opened the app for the sprinkler unit and turned it off. Also, most people have their sprinklers on timers so they don’t need voice control.

What are your favorite websites, apps or other tech tools for keeping on top of technology news?

I get so much of my news diet, technology or otherwise, through Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook. I have configured my phone to send me a text message every time Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, tweets because he’ll occasionally make news that way.

What tech gadgets or apps are you or your family currently obsessed with and why?

Another reason I’m not the most avid Echo user is that I like the sound from my Sonos speaker system better. Roughly 70 percent of the time I’m using Sonos to stream KCRW’s Eclectic24 music mix. The rest of the time, it’s Spotify and KUOW, my local NPR station. I pay for a Spotify family plan, which keeps my daughter’s playlists from contaminating my own and vice versa.

I am a contrarian on the Apple Watch, which I believe has been unfairly maligned by tech pundits. I love mine, and I get pretty frustrated by a lot of Apple products. I’m a runner and cyclist and track all of my workouts with it. I use Siri on the watch to respond to text messages.

Apple somehow managed to create a wearable device versatile enough that you can wear it on a run and with a suit. That’s impressive.

Are there technologies that you’re not crazy about?

I’ve never cared for reading books on screens, even though I almost exclusively read newspapers and magazines on my phone and computer.

I’m also skeptical of most kitchen gadgetry. I bought an Anova sous vide wand, which cooks meat and other proteins at precise, low temperatures in water baths. In most cases, I feel the results aren’t worth the effort. A cast iron pan is much cheaper, will never break and steaks taste better when prepared in one.

You once wrote about taking your kids to a video game little league. What video games are you, or they, now heavily into?

I don’t play video games. My son does. I’m embarrassed to say he spent a decent chunk of the summer wasting bad guys in Call of Duty. He also read a big stack of books and is a sweet, sensitive kid, which is how he got away with it.

What’s your advice about how much or how little kids should be on their devices and on games?

This is such a difficult issue. Most of my daughter’s homework is on a computer so policing her screen time is really about limiting certain applications or websites. The other day I gave her a hard time when I heard her listening to YouTube. It was for her Spanish class.

Overall, I try to encourage personal responsibility rather than hassle my kids all the time about their devices. It has worked so far.

(The New York Times)



Trump Offers Support to Musk's Car Company in a Surprising Post as Tesla Stock Plunges

Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo
Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo
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Trump Offers Support to Musk's Car Company in a Surprising Post as Tesla Stock Plunges

Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo
Mar 22, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Elon Musk and President Donald Trump during the Division I Men's Wrestling Championship held at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images/File Photo

President Donald Trump took to social media Thursday morning to support Elon Musk's car company, a startling development given their bitter public feud.

”I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, Reuters reported.

The post wasn't enough to help Tesla's stock, which fell sharply after the company reported another quarter of lackluster financial results and Musk warned of some potentially “rough quarters” into next year. At midday, the stock was down around 9%.

Late Wednesday, Tesla said revenue fell 12% and profit dropped 16% in the April-June quarter. Many prospective buyers have been turned off by Musk’s foray into right-wing politics, and the competition has ramped up in key markets such as Europe and China.

Investors have been unnerved by Musk's social media spat with the president because Trump has threatened to retaliate by ending government contracts and breaks for Musk's various businesses, including Tesla.

But Trump struck a starkly different tone Thursday morning.

“Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the US Government. This is not so!" Trump wrote. “The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us.”

After Trump's massive budget bill passed earlier this month, Tesla faces the loss of the $7,500 EV tax credit and stands to make much less money from selling regulatory credits to other automakers. Trump’s tariffs on countries including China and Mexico will also cost Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars, the company said on its earnings call.

Musk has blasted the budget bill on his own social media platform X for adding to US debt at a time when it is already too large. The Tesla CEO has called the budget pushed by the president a “disgusting abomination” and has threatened to form a new political party.

On Wednesday's call, Musk said the electric vehicle maker will face “a few rough quarters” as it moves into a future focused less on selling cars and more on offering people rides in self-driving cars. He also talked up the company's business making humanoid robotics. But he acknowledged those businesses are a ways off from contributing to Tesla’s bottom line.

Tesla began a rollout in June of its paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and hopes to introduce the driverless cabs in several other cities soon. Musk told analysts that the service will be available to probably “half of the population of the US by the end of the year — that’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals.”

“We’re in this weird transition period where we’ll lose a lot of incentives in the US,” Musk said, adding that Tesla “probably could have a few rough quarters” ahead. He added, though, “Once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year, certainly by the end of next year, I would be surprised if Tesla’s economics are not very compelling.”