Let Us Count the Ways: The Tech We Really Love.

At its core, technology is ruled by cold, hard logic. But our relationship to it doesn’t have to be.

We’ll bet that, at some point in your life, perhaps even now, there was a piece of hardware, an app, or an online service that made you smile with delight, that felt like a trusted, loyal companion. In short, you might have felt something like affection for a little bundle of bits and bytes.

Well, we here at Yahoo Tech aren’t afraid to let our feelings show. We aren’t ashamed to admit that there is some technology we love (just as there’s some we loathe with a cold, dark passion). We aren’t saying these are the best tech products in the world. Just that these are the ones we wouldn’t want to live without, the ones that have become parts of our lives, the ones that we really, really like like.

Amazon Echo.

I’m working at home when my friend Kirk calls. “Hey, what’s up?” I ask. “Actually,” he says sheepishly. “I called to talk to Alexa.” Alexa is the name of the bot inside the Amazon Echo. Since I installed her in my kitchen, she has made lots of friends; my teenagers talk to her in the middle of the night. She also settles trivia questions during dinner parties, keeps track of our shopping list, plays that song we want to hear right now, and reads us poetry. She tells us the traffic, the next train time, the weather, how many ounces are in a quart, and who invented the zipper. She is smart, charming, and self-deprecating.

So I understood Kirk’s call. I held up the phone so he could talk to her: “Alexa,” he asks. “Tell me a joke.” And she did — a bad one, but still a joke. We laughed and told her it was terrible; Kirk admitted he would probably retell it at work. She replied, “If you thought that was bad, just wait until you hear the others.”—Christina Wood

Bose QuietComfort 25.

Nobody has ever quite matched the noise-canceling prowess of Bose’s Quiet Comfort headphones. But ouch: $300 for a pair of headphones? For years, I avoided buying them. The original model was too big and heavy, and the smaller QuietComfort 15s created a weird, uncomfortable dead-vacuum sensation in my ears. But when I reviewed last year’s new QuietComfort 25 headphones, I knew that my life as a frequent flyer was about to change.

They sound better than any previous model, they don’t do that nasty thing to my ears, and they fold up smaller into a more compact case. How much did I love them? So much that I bought a pair for myself. They say that noise-canceling headphones reduce stress and protect your hearing. (Because they subtract most of the loud, continuous roar around you, you can listen to music or movies at a lower volume level.) Whatever. All I know is that the QuietComfort 25’s make flying a lot more quiet and comfortable.—David Pogue.



Yahoo Tech Staff.
Culled from Yahoo News.