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Tech Week: Twitter Takes Off, Audie Cornish In Silicon Valley

<strong>Will It Fly?</strong> The Twitter logo decorated a post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Richard Drew
/
AP
Will It Fly? The Twitter logo decorated a post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

It's time for our Friday round-up of the tech and culture stories from NPR and beyond. Here we go ...

ICYMI

All Things Considered reported from out West this week, with host Audie Cornish bringing you stories about the man who wants to diversify Silicon Valley by 2040, the company behind the first-down yellow line on your TV screens, and the future of passwords. Our new effort to do themed-reporting weeks seems to have helped us pick up some younger listeners: A third-grade class heard Steve Henn's video game story and wrote in with their reactions. And our podcast from kids and tech week is doing pretty well over on SoundCloud. Take a listen.

On the blog, Lizzy Duffy explored a new kind of luggage tracking, Emily Siner introduced us to Facebook's new anti-cyberbullying hub and for a weekly innovation, we chose 4-D printing. Yes, 4-D.

The Big Conversation

Twitter's big debut dominated the tech headlines, with the company's initial public offering taking-off big time. On its first day as a public company, its stock gained 73 percent to close at $44.90 a share. All Things Considered interviewed New York Times reporter Nick Bilton about the bitter rivalries and backstabbing in the hatching of the new Wall Street darling. We blogged about the demographic numbers in Twitter's favor and Heidi Glenn looked at other big tech IPOs and found out what they're up to now.

Other Curiosities

Washington Post: Big Cable may have felled Seattle's mayor, but it couldn't stop this Colo. project

A story in which innovation and a small town actually beat 'big cable.'

Valleywag: The Creator Who Wasn't There: This Guy Pretends He Invented Twitter

A lot of people were involved in the creation of Twitter, but Dom Sagolla isn't one of them. It hasn't stopped him from writing books and appearing in media with 'Twitter co-creator' as his title.

San Francisco Chronicle: Google barge mystery unfurled

Google broke its silence on the mysterious structure atop a barge floating in the San Francisco Bay — it's supposed to be an interactive learning center and exhibit space.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR's Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network's coverage of both Koreas and Japan, and filed from a dozen countries across Asia.