Learn a little bit about what makes The Intelligence special.
Look, we get it: Tech news sites are a dime a dozen. There are more blogs dedicated to covering technology than anyone can possibly keep track of nowadays, and we’re not so naive to think that mainstream tech publications (not to mention mainstream news outlets) don’t cover the same general topics as we do as part of their regular coverage.
And, sure, if you want to just get the surface level news about what is going on with your technology, reading those headlines — with a few articles thrown in every once and while for good measure — is all you need.
But what if you want to really understand the technology that you use on a daily basis? If you want to make sure that everything works exactly how you want it to, and that your tech is helping you do what you want, instead of hindering you?
We’re so glad you asked, because that is precisely where The Intelligence comes in.
The Intelligence isn’t like those other outlets. Our newsletters don’t just “cover” technology — they look beyond all that, at how real people interact with their devices and apps, to help you reach a point at which you are empowered by your technology instead of controlled by it.
Okay — that might sound slightly like overly vague mumbo-jumbo. So gather round, kiddos: It’s storytime.
Way back in the day, before The Intelligence was even a glimmer in our eye, we started as just Android Intelligence. And from the moment of its birth as a column — in June of 2010, when Android was but a niche player in the smartphone game — our resident Android appreciator, JR, was one of the few tech journalists taking Google’s mobile ambitions seriously. From when he first started focusing on Android, the space beneath his byline was always about going beyond the basics and providing the next-level advice, insight, and analysis that’s so often missing from the fast-moving stream of mobile tech madness.
The way he saw it then, and how we at The Intelligence still see it today, is that plenty of places were already addressing the day-to-day developments in tech — what we think of the main entrées in your tech diet. Android Intelligence was there to serve up something fresh and different. To bring you the zesty side dishes and slow-cooked desserts — treats you could enjoy whether you’ve devoured a thousand news stories in any given week or none. Plain and simple, it was here to make your meal complete. (Anyone else feeling hungry all of a sudden?)
The Intelligence has grown since those early Android days. What was once only a column became a newsletter. A newsletter became a full-fledged publication. But, ever insatiable, we still wanted to offer more. So we added on a few additional newsletters to round out the meal: Security Intelligence, which serves up fresh insights and how-tos in the security space, and Cool Tools, which offers tasty little tips and tricks that work on any device.
These days, information is everywhere, but The Intelligence is all about context — about putting the pieces together and making sense of the big picture, in a brutally honest way that’s free from the overly enthusiastic cheerleading and nauseating hype so often associated with tech coverage.
Our goal is to eliminate your need to wade through endless streams of empty, unfulfilling content and websites, filled with clickbait, and instead bring the content you need — and better yet, want — directly into your inbox, in plain English, in a way that’s both enlightening and fun and that makes learning feel simple and entertaining instead of stressful or overwhelming.
Plain and simple, we’re here to help you better understand the ever-changing technology in your life. We live and breathe this stuff, we use it in our own day-to-day lives, and we genuinely care about helping you live a life that’s enhanced by electronics.
We hope you enjoy consuming it as much as we enjoy creating it.
Our people
JR Raphael is a journalist and columnist who’s been covering Android and Chrome OS since their earliest days. His Android Intelligence (née Android Power) column was born at Computerworld in 2010 and has happily made its home there ever since. These days, Android Intelligence includes not only the column but also the weekly newsletters along with the resource-packed premium membership community.
JR’s written about practically everything imaginable at some point and continues to write regular features on a variety of subjects for both Computerworld and other publications. Lately, he’s been penning pieces about productivity for Fast Company and how-to guides on all sorts of tech topics for The Verge. Oh, and random fact: He was quoted in Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of Steve Jobs, talking about — what else? — porn. (Totally not kidding about that, by the way.)
JR Raphael is a journalist and columnist who’s been covering Android and Chrome OS since their earliest days. His Android Intelligence (née Android Power) column was born at Computerworld in 2010 and has happily made its home there ever since. These days, Android Intelligence includes not only the column but also the thrice-weekly newsletters along with the resource-packed premium membership community.
JR’s written about practically everything imaginable at some point and continues to write regular features on a variety of subjects for both Computerworld and other publications. Lately, he’s been penning pieces about productivity for Fast Company and how-to guides on all sorts of tech topics for The Verge. Oh, and random fact: He was quoted in Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography of Steve Jobs, talking about — what else? — porn. (Totally not kidding about that, by the way.)
JR loves bringing logic, context, and plain-English perspective into areas frequently guided by emotion, jargon, and uninformed reactions. He’s obsessed with productivity and finding clever ways to make the most of our modern technology. He enjoys chewing, breathing, and dancing with wolves. And he’s really good at writing about himself convincingly in the third-person.
Be sure to get the Android Intelligence newsletter to keep up with all his latest Googley musings.
Kristin Burnham has been reporting on technology since the first smartphones entered the scene and “social media strategy” meant figuring out what mundane details of your life to over-share with your Facebook friends.
A longtime B2B tech and cybersecurity journalist, she’s spent nearly two decades writing about enterprise technologies, IT leadership, cybersecurity, online privacy, and social media for a variety of publications, including HBR Analytic Services, MIT Sloan Management Review, CIO, CSO, Computerworld, InformationWeek, and just about every acronym in between. She specializes in translating tech-speak into boardroom relevance, poking at buzzwords until they make sense, and occasionally unearthing actual security flaws — like the time she exposed how Yahoo’s recycled email addresses gave strangers access to people’s digital lives. (Oops.)
She’s endlessly curious, suspicious of jargon, and never afraid to follow a thread until it unravels into a story worth telling. Outside the digital world, Kristin is usually skiing, hiking, growing weird varieties of vegetables and defending them against predators, or elbows-deep in a craft project she swears she’ll finish this time.
Kristin Burnham has been reporting on technology since the first smartphones entered the scene and “social media strategy” meant figuring out what mundane details of your life to over-share with your Facebook friends.
A longtime B2B tech and cybersecurity journalist, she’s spent nearly two decades writing about enterprise technologies, IT leadership, cybersecurity, online privacy, and social media for a variety of publications, including HBR Analytic Services, MIT Sloan Management Review, CIO, CSO, Computerworld, InformationWeek, and just about every acronym in between. She specializes in translating tech-speak into boardroom relevance, poking at buzzwords until they make sense, and occasionally unearthing actual security flaws — like the time she exposed how Yahoo’s recycled email addresses gave strangers access to people’s digital lives. (Oops.)
She’s endlessly curious, suspicious of jargon, and never afraid to follow a thread until it unravels into a story worth telling. Outside the digital world, Kristin is usually skiing, hiking, growing weird varieties of vegetables and defending them against predators, or elbows-deep in a craft project she swears she’ll finish this time.
Justin Pot is a journalist who helps readers get more out of their tech. He writes tutorials and essays that inform and/or entertain and regularly contributes to Lifehacker, PopSci, and WIRED, among others.
Justin believes that computers and phones are tools, not a way of life, and is constantly exploring where that can all go wrong. He aims to write articles that solve problems for readers so they can focus on what matters most to them (instead of what matters most to the bottom line of Silicon Valley companies).
When not writing Justin is brewing beer, reading something, or exploring some place beautiful. He writes regular commentary and rounds up links over at Connectivity, a newsletter where he talks about the art of being a person online.
Justin Pot is a journalist who helps readers get more out of their tech. He writes tutorials and essays that inform and/or entertain and regularly contributes to Lifehacker, PopSci, and WIRED, among others.
Justin believes that computers and phones are tools, not a way of life, and is constantly exploring where that can all go wrong. He aims to write articles that solve problems for readers so they can focus on what matters most to them (instead of what matters most to the bottom line of Silicon Valley companies).
When not writing Justin is brewing beer, reading something, or exploring some place beautiful. He writes regular commentary and rounds up links over at Connectivity, a newsletter where he talks about the art of being a person online.
Jared Newman is an independent journalist who helps people understand and make the most of technology. He’s been at it for more than 16 years now.
If you’ve ever researched how to cut cable TV or save money on streaming, you’ve probably seen Jared’s weekly cord cutting column for PCWorld/TechHive or his Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter, which goes out to more than 35,000 readers every Friday.
Perhaps you’ve also read Jared’s computer-related coverage at PCWorld or his reporting for Fast Company, where he brings perspective on the state of the broader tech world. He’s an occasional contributor to New York Times Wirecutter and has written for Time.com, Popular Mechanics, Vice Motherboard, and Rolling Stone.
When he’s not writing for those outlets — or finding neat apps to recommend in the Cool Tools newsletter — Jared’s probably busy working on his own Advisorator newsletter, where he helps an audience of more than 10,000 readers feel more in control of technology.
Jared Newman is an independent journalist who helps people understand and make the most of technology. He’s been at it for more than 16 years now.
If you’ve ever researched how to cut cable TV or save money on streaming, you’ve probably seen Jared’s weekly cord cutting column for PCWorld/TechHive or his Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter, which goes out to more than 35,000 readers every Friday.
Perhaps you’ve also read Jared’s computer-related coverage at PCWorld or his reporting for Fast Company, where he brings perspective on the state of the broader tech world. He’s an occasional contributor to New York Times Wirecutter and has written for Time.com, Popular Mechanics, Vice Motherboard, and Rolling Stone.
When he’s not writing for those outlets — or finding neat apps to recommend in the Cool Tools newsletter — Jared’s probably busy working on his own Advisorator newsletter, where he helps an audience of more than 10,000 readers feel more in control of technology.
Rebecca Linke is a reformed editor now working in the background to help keep The Intelligence chugging along. Simultaneously a technophile and technophobe (it’s complicated), she does her best to keep up with the rest of The Intelligence crew.
She has been quoted in exactly zero mainstream publications, but her children remember every mistake she has ever made while speaking (such as once saying that “candy is nature’s fruit” and also explaining that “you can put your lunch in the fridge to heat it up”) and quote her constantly.
Rebecca Linke is a reformed editor now working in the background to help keep The Intelligence chugging along. Simultaneously a technophile and technophobe (it’s complicated), she does her best to keep up with the rest of The Intelligence crew.
She has been quoted in exactly zero mainstream publications, but her children remember every mistake she has ever made while speaking (such as once saying that “candy is nature’s fruit” and also explaining that “you can put your lunch in the fridge to heat it up”) and quote her constantly.
A Special Acknowledgment
Our sincerest thanks to the charter Android Intelligence Platinum members, whose early support helped create the foundation for the newsletter and this website:
Buck Amey
Richard Baierschmidt
David Baukman
Buzz Baylis
John Bowdre
Quent Cassen
William Cheng
William Cunninghame
Ray Dabkowski
Bob Day
Peter Firth
Mark Fogle
Ian Forshaw
Ron Fussell
Daniel Grobani
Lee H.
Barry Horne
Thomas Hornik
Craig Kilgour
Michael Kizer
Jacob Klay
Woody Leonhard
Patrick McAfee
Donald Nelson
Cecil New
Michael Oliffe
Philip Salen
Donald Stewart
Stephen Syputa
Kevin C. Tofel
Nancy Triggs
Mary Willoughby
Steve Wilson
These fine folks established this community with us before its virtual walls were even fully constructed — and they have our everlasting gratitude for their early belief in the value of this independent editorial effort.
