Stories by Mike Elgan

Spanish lawmakers did something dumb this week. They passed a new law that forces Google to pay news publishers a fee for sending valuable, monetizable content from Google News to their sites.

We tend to think that everybody's online these days. In fact, only one-third of the world's population has access to the Internet. The other two-thirds are simply beyond reach.

It's hard to believe, but it's illegal to fly a drone in the U.S. for commercial purposes.

California is a house divided, with global entertainment powerhouse Hollywood in the south -- epicenter of the movie, TV and music businesses -- and global technology powerhouse Silicon Valley in the north.

Amazon surprised everyone Thursday by unceremoniously launching a product called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/oc/echo">Echo</a>.

Dear Google Inbox:

I'm predicting that Google will end Gmail within the next five years. The company hasn't announced such a move -- nor would it.

Every major social network is a mixed bag of good qualities and bad. For example, the best quality of Twitter might be its limit on the length of tweets, which enables you to follow many people and organizations without getting bogged down in long-winded, complicated posts.

We're right on the edge of dual revolutions in artificial reality and augmented reality. It's an exciting time because we're in the final days of a world in which these technologies are considered "futuristic." By next year, early adopters will have them in their homes. Within three years they'll be mainstream.

The single biggest controversy about social media, and one that has persisted for two or three years now without resolution, is whether <a href="https://plus.google.com">Google+</a> is a dying wasteland of non-activity, or a hive of conversation and engagement.

The issue of the decade is privacy.

The Internet of Things is great - if, that is, you like the Internet and you also own some things.

What's wrong with the debate around the Apple Watch, what's wrong with the watch itself, and why is it a profound revolution?

Four years ago, in-the-air gestures were the future of gaming and the desktop PC user interface.

Twitter has made two small changes that indicate a big shift in direction for everybody's favorite microblogging service