Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Back to School: Summer Ends as Tech Giants Get Ready for a Device Rumble

Welcome back, class of 2013. Time to fire up your devices for the jam-packed fall.

As in, tech launches, of course, which is the lifeblood of the ADD-afflicted digital industry.

Perhaps prompted by Apple’s annual fall-event stylings — more on that below, of course — this week is already packed with events (all of which will be exhaustively covered by the crack team here at AllThingsD).

That includes two different smartphone unveiling events tomorrow by Motorola Mobility (a.k.a. Google) and Nokia (kinda a.k.a. Microsoft).

Amazon will take the whole next day for itself with the rollout of new Kindle formations, including what is expected to be a larger version, in the Los Angeles area.

Nintendo is up the following week on September 13, with an invite noting it will unveil how its “Wii U will change the future of gaming and entertainment” — is that all? — at an event in New York.

Today, HTC sent out an invite for a September 19 event in New York “to see what’s next.” It’s another mobile device is my guess!

And, a month later, Microsoft is the outlier of the group, with its own Windows 8 debut on October 26.

Of course, this is all due to the event Apple announced today for September 12 to introduce the iPhone 5, a fact that the tech giant was not even bothering to hide in its invite with a big 5 in the shadow of the 12.

Those clever imps at Apple are probably snickering away today at their Cupertino, Calif., HQ to see if we can figure it all out.

(We did, but are still parsing the symbols to find the location of the Holy Grail, too.)

So, as usual, Apple is at the center of the action, which others have smartly glommed onto (also as usual).

Thus, going forward forever more — and to get ahead in the consumer mindset before the holiday buying season — everyone will be required in the post-Labor Day time frame to hawk their latest goods.

Pity the poor consumers, perhaps, but get ready anyway, as there will be a pop quiz.

Speaking of back to school, here is my fave version from the under-appreciated movie musical “Grease 2”:

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik