Microsoft's Xbox One presents a big and complicated machine whose primary purpose is a menu layer for watching television. This in an age where living room television is irrelevant. Having bet the farm on this vision, the company looks so out of step as to almost be laughable and has built the digital equivalent of the Spruce Goose.

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — neatly sidestepped the Yahoo Tumblr acquisition and segued into the wonderful world of messaging. As Facebook Home settles into a cot at the homeless shelter, Google is revving up for an all-out assault on the service suite. Google Glass is just the tip of the iceberg; below the waterline, the search giant is sucking image, location, traffic, and advertising data in realtime.

Google Buzz, the social service that Google launched way back in 2010 and then killed in 2011, reminded former users that their data still lives in and will be moved over to your Google Drive accounts in July. That's lovely.

Although 3D printing technology has existed for some time, it's only now beginning to cross over into mainstream awareness, thanks to increasingly affordable access to the printers themselves as well as attention-grabbing headlines about 3D printed guns and life-saving medical applications. While less eye-catching, perhaps, the innovation is also powering a new class of creatives, who are using 3D printers to produce art instead. Their "handmade" goods, including jewelry, home decor, gifts and more, appear on sites like the marketplace for crafters, Etsy, and the 3D printing resource center and online shop, Shapeways.

Your government is worried. The world is "going dark." Once upon a time, telephones were the only way to talk to someone far away, and the authorities could wiretap any phone they wanted. Nowadays, though, suspects might be communicating via Facebook, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Skype, Viber. And so, inevitably: “Today, if you’re a tech company that’s created a new and popular way to communicate, it’s only a matter of time before the FBI shows up with a court order to read or hear some conversation.” But some of those providers have no interest in spying on their users. The FBI is not amused. "A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Face­book and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur," according

Editor's note: Jon Gottfried is a Developer Evangelist at Twilio, co-founder of the Hacker Union, and a StartupBus Conductor. Being one of the first cyborgs in the world has meant that I have been privy to a unique set of bizarre experiences. Experiences that lead to some early observations and theories about the future of Google Glass and wearable technology. 

Digital dating is nothing to scoff at; it's a big business, and it's changed a lot of lives -- mostly for the better. Yet, while dating has seen enormous progress during the Digital Era, there's still a lot garbage out there, and the space is still mostly dominated by a handful of old names. A gaggle of dating sites and apps have appeared over the past five years, but few have had real staying power, and many have gone the way of the dinosaur. While it's still too early to make any pronouncements, it's looking more and more like Tinder could buck the trend. Created by Hatch Labs -- an LA-based startup backed by IAC, the same Barry Diller-led digital media giant that owns Match.com and OKCupid --

A few weeks ago, Google briefly made a "Google Now" topics page available on the web and then took it down again. The page showed a list of topics Google believed you were interested in, based on your search history. Now this feature is back, but it's a bit different from the leaked page. A few days ago, it seems, the company quietly (re-)launched this feature with the latest Google Now update. The leaked page was also visible on the desktop, but it looks like Google has plugged this hole the cards are now only available on Android - and only by going through Google Now's research cards.

On this week's Ask A VC episode, Index Ventures partner Danny Rimer joined us in the studio. Rimer has been in the venture industry for over 11 years so he had plenty to share on how VC has changed, and the differences in the venture world in Europe and the U.S. Rimer, who has led the firm's investments in Etsy, Nastygal and many others, also talked to us about the future of ecommerce and how the industry is changing for startups.

Once a upon a time, Microsoft saw fit to put together a YouTube app for Windows Phone and it was actually pretty great -- it let users download videos straight from the app and there was nary an ad to be found. To absolutely no one's surprise, Google wasn't too pleased: after all, the features that made the app so appealing didn't exactly jibe with YouTube's terms of service, and the search giant demanded the offending app be removed. Well, after a bit of back and forth (and a conciliatory update), it seems the two companies have finally come to an agreement. Microsoft and YouTube released a statement today affirming that the two companies will work together on crafting yet another YouTube app for Windows Phone that doesn't fly in the face of Google's and YouTube's rules.