Liveblogging my way through the Code Conference

I had the great fortune this week to attend the inaugural Code Conference, organized by Kara Swisher, Walt Mossberg, and their merry gang of insatiable scoop hounds. While I was there, I mostly liveblogged. 

There was Satya Nadella. 

I just started listening to Nadella again. Picked up with: "Humanity. Ever since we started to speak and we wanted to cross the language boundary." Not sure where we are, or where we're going. But it's a hell of a ride and it is my privilege to bring you with me.

There was Sergey Brin.

"Here's my hotel key, Walt, for later," Brin says, after it falls out of his pocket. "I'll keep the Glass off — I promise." WHAT IS HAPPENING

There was Ryan Seacrest and Dick Costolo. 

Seacrest discloses that he is a food lover who recently Googled how to make ramen burgers. Costolo reveals he has never had a ramen burger. Seacrest describes the proper construction of a ramen burger. Code Conference tickets cost $6,500.

And finally, there was Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine.

Cue: "Later this year, we've got the best product pipeline that I've seen in my 25 years at Apple."

Iovine: "I get to see it tomorrow! When I go there they put tarps on everything. I'm not kidding!"

#LetJimmyUnderTheTarp

I obviously could not have had more fun. Here's to the next #codecon. 

The brilliant life, stupid death, and improbable return of Upcoming.org →

I wrote about one of my favorite people on the web, Andy Baio, and his quixotic efforts to bring the beloved social calendar Upcoming.org back online: 

Upcoming had a follow / following model, later made famous by Twitter. It let users vote up the best events in a fashion later popularized by Digg and Reddit. And while its community was small by today's standards, Upcoming was among the first online social networks to serve a purpose beyond helping people meet people. The promise it showed in connecting people to local events led Yahoo to acquire Upcoming in 2005 for an undisclosed sum. But Yahoo fumbled the acquisition, and the service was later abandoned. In the intervening years, no other service has realized Baio's vision of a smart calendar, curated by people, that reliably informs you of fun, cool, weird things to do.

Pocket wants to be your permanent digital library, for a price →

I took an exclusive early look at Pocket Premium, the new paid offering from one of my most-used apps.

But Weiner says that when Pocket surveyed its users, interest in a permanent archive was "off the charts." And the link rot problem will only grow more pronounced with time, he says. "Links don’t really start disappearing until one, two, three years into their lifespan," he says. "Pocket is now basically two years old. People are finally starting to hit some of these issues." Other ways of generating revenue are on their way, Weiner says, but users now once again have a way to support the service. "It's important that we take the first steps into becoming a revenue-generating business," he says. "Other things are going to take some time to build."

I took a ride in Google's self-driving car →

I really did!

“Climbing into the car, the first thing that strikes you is how ordinary it looks. The interior of the RX450h has the same leather seats and wood accents as a normal Lexus hybrid, and there are few signs that show it has been transformed. The most prominent change is a giant red button that has been installed just below the gear shift. This is the master kill switch, and pressing it disables the autonomous capabilities instantly. “If you hit this down, you have a Lexus,” says Nick Van Derpool, who has climbed into the passenger seat and will spend our trip recording feedback to pass on to the company’s engineers. The goal for our roughly 25-minute cruise around Mountain View: avoid having to hit the kill switch.”

What Apple is really buying with Beats →

I wrote about the surprising news that Apple is reportedly buying Beats Electronics, makers of the high-priced headphones and streaming music service.

Though critics generally panned their ham-fisted sound reproduction, the company’s bold designs and the endorsement of Dr. Dre helped transform premium audio from a geeky obsession of audiophiles to an affordable luxury craved by the masses. The company also showed a genius for marketing — when Iovine served as a judge on American Idol from 2011 to 2013, a product-placement deal put Beats headphones on display in front of millions every week. Over time, the company’s lowercase "b" logo replaced Apple’s iconic white earbuds as a status symbol for music lovers.