Anita Balakrishnan

The chipmaker recently announced a new pair of smart glasses, Vaunt, with a slim profile unlike anything else on the market. But while it may have generated some excitement in the press, Vaunt has vexed major players in the emerging augmented reality space. Sources told CNBC that the product appears to rely heavily on its aesthetics and a limited release -- it provided a prototype of the glasses to only one outlet, The Verge, which formed the basis for all subsequent news reports.

SoftBank's Vision Fund — a $100 billion private equity fund that's outspending almost every other player in start-up investing — seemed to come out of nowhere this year. But for the company's firebrand leader, Masayoshi Son, an ambitious vision was ordained at birth. "You are a genius, No. 1 in Japan," Son said his father told him as a child, according to a 1987 interview obtained by Bloomberg. "You'll be a big shot." It proved to be prophetic: Son is now one of the world's richest men.

Snap got a slew of positive verdicts from Wall Street this week — but a month into its life as a public company, analyst sentiment resembles the troubled Twitter more than the successful Facebook after their respective IPOs.

Even as a college student in 2000, multimillionaire Imran Khan was ahead of his time. Today, 39-year-old Khan is the chief strategy officer of Snapchat, the man behind the curtain whose youthful exuberance, illustrious network and Wall Street chops have shepherded the company to stardom. But in 2000, the dotcom bubble and Y2K loomed large. Alibaba was a year old, Amazon sold books, Facebook and YouTube didn't exist — and Khan was a kid from Bangladesh.

Jack Estes, an IT consultant in Indianapolis, doesn't think people who know him are too surprised he kept his recalled Samsung Galaxy Note 7. "A number of them know me as a little bit of a maverick." Estes said. "I regularly wear pants printed with dogs and whales ... I'm not the same type of buttoned-down businessman that you see in stock pictures. Some people have said I'm tilting at windmills, but no complaints from clients. I have a somewhat healthy disrespect of authority."

Ryan Graves announced he would step down from an operating role at Uber on Thursday. This profile originally ran in May. Travis Kalanick has become the face of Uber, the brash and super-successful entrepreneur that "holds no prisoners" and bleeds "Uber blood." But central to Uber's recent unraveling is a less familiar face — Ryan Graves, the start-up's first CEO.

When disasters from hurricanes to wildfires swept the U.S. this fall, mental health start-up Talkspace turned to Facebook for free advertising to reach victims. But while Talkspace CEO Oren Frank says he's grateful for the donation, he was left with mixed feelings about accepting the ads. Facebook is a near-necessity for companies trying to rapidly reach disaster victims, including Talkspace, which offers online therapy, Frank said. But Frank believes Facebook could take a more active approach.

The president's comments on my Apple reporting: I promised that my policies would allow companies like Apple to bring massive amounts of money back to the United States. Great to see Apple follow through as a result of TAX CUTS. Huge win for American workers and the USA!

Speaker Ryan on my reporting on Foxconn: This decision will create thousands of good jobs, and I’m excited for all the Wisconsinites who will benefit.

Apple's newest operating system, iOS 10, pits Apple's mobile software prowess against your favorite messaging apps, from Facebook to Snapchat. For users, that means some cutting-edge texting options. The power of the new tools were featured in an advertisement push Apple launched Thursday. After all, it's an important move for a company that is hoping to expand its services business to the size of a Fortune 100 company by next year.

Internet surfers may take that little green or gold lock in the corner of their Web browser for granted. But starting Jan. 1, 2016, it might go away for a small percentage of people across the globe, and millions of users could lose access to websites because of it. It's all to do with the "SHA-1 Sunset," a phrase used by technology insiders to describe the expiration of support for a certain level of encryption.

Chinese billionaire Pony Ma does not flaunt his strategies like Alibaba's Jack Ma or Japanese mogul Masayoshi Son. Pony Ma's company, Tencent, has moved with the stealth of its founder this year, making a series of investments in Western companies that are significant, but not splashy: A 5 percent stake in Tesla, a 10 percent stake in Snap, an investment in Essential Products, and now, reportedly, a 10 percent stock swap with Spotify.

Critics of virtual reality argue that the immersive nature of VR relegates the technology to gaming, entertainment and job training — not everyday tasks. At its worst, virtual reality is imagined as the epitome of escapism. But now I believe that those critics have underestimated the prevalence of media in our culture, and its impact on society.

By creating a better version of just one Snapchat feature — messaging — Apple could siphon potential Snap customers into iMessage.

A smart contact lens could combine many of Apple's current initiatives as well, such as augmented reality, content, photography, navigation and health monitoring. One can imagine them pairing nicely with bone conduction or AirPod audio.

Critics of Apple have accused the company of failing to innovate, relying on iPhone addiction to drive its business while letting consumers' living rooms get taken over by Netflix and Amazon's Alexa. I don't think Apple has overlooked these criticisms. Instead, I think the company has a long-term plan to stay out of the war for consumers' attention — and is actually moving away from plowing everything through our iPhones.

My video appearance introducing Amazon's new bookstore.

My TV appearance and script for Restaurant of the Week in Denver.

While many of her high school classmates are working cash registers and fast-food grills this summer, Gabriela Lacy has a job not typically seen as a teenage rite of passage: processing payroll and time sheets for a non-profit. But the office position at a Chicago social services center is providing her valuable skills that could lead to a well-paying career. "Initially I just wanted to earn extra cash for my household," said, Lacy, 18, who recently graduated from high school.

Let the Outdoors In!

DU is planning to raise tuition 3.95 percent and adding $9.7 million in financial aid to its budget for next year after a budget shortfall caused base salary increases to be frozen for most faculty members this academic year, according to Gregg Kvistad, Provost. The “main causes” of the budget shortfall were lower-than-expected enrollment at the undergraduate level and in four graduate programs, said Kvistad. “We enrolled about 40 fewer first-time, first-year undergraduate students than budget