On October 19, two European Space Agency spacecrafts arrived at Mars, right on schedule. But while one crash-landed on the red planet’s surface (ESA scientists are still trying to figure out what happened to poor ol’ Schiaparelli), the other safely inserted itself into orbit. And last week, the ExoMars orbiter sent home its first images. An onboard camera called CaSSIS—Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System—snapped these pics. In the past weeks, it has blinked online for just a few hours...
If you want to hang out with drummers, you’ll need earplugs. Deirdre O’Callaghan discovered this after spending an hour with John “Drumbo” French as he beat the hell out of his kit one afternoon. Driving home, she couldn’t hear a thing. “Soon after I went to a music store in LA and got proper ear protection,” she says. O’Callaghan went through no end of earplugs in the five years she spent shooting The Drum Thing. Her moody photos provide a glimpse into the studios and...
WIRED would love to be presenting you with our review of the 10-years-in-the-making RPG Final Fantasy XV, the sort of timely analysis you may be seeing elsewhere on the internet this lovely November morning. However, for reasons unbeknownst to us, the game’s publisher Square Enix declined to allow WIRED to review the game in time for its release. This practice is becoming increasingly common, and while we can only speculate as to Square Enix’s reasoning for leaving us out of...
The only time a holiday gift has to be expensive is when you’re trying really hard to impress the new boss. For everyone else, all you need is something thoughtful, and who cares what it costs? Getting the best stuff and the best prices is easy as long as you know where to look. Use this guide to fill the family’s stockings, or just crush it at the office white elephant exchange, all for less than a quarter-Benjamin. Xiaomi Selfie...
Aimee Bender is the author of quirky novels such as The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and short story collections like The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Willfull Creatures. Her stories often have the feel of modern-day fairy tales, but in her recent collection The Color Master she goes one step further, writing new versions of two classics, “Donkeyskin” and “Molly Whuppie.” Podcast https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/geeksguide231final.mp3 RSS iTunes Download...
Ever since the Presidential elections, every one I know seems to be worrying about their social media echo chamber. And no one seems to see the irony of discussing it on Facebook. WIRED OPINION About Kartik Hosanagar (@khosanagar) is a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as well as a cofounder of SmartyPal and Yodle. Hosanagar’s research work focuses on the impact of algorithms on consumers and society, as well as digital media and online marketing....
The Amazon Echo is remarkably useful. Alexa, the digital personal assistant within the cylindrical black gadget, plays music, helps with recipes, and orders stuff online. One thing it cannot do, however, is speak Chinese. The LingLong DingDong can. The name may sound funny to you, but this gadget is no joke. It could introduce millions of people to the power of a voice-activated, cloud-based smart home speaker. And it could help introduce the Echo to China. Companies like Amazon and...
Starting today, when you give your Uber driver a five-star rating, your app will ask you to provide them a little extra feedback. It’s not mandatory, but if you choose, you can give them a sticker that says something like “Awesome DJ!” or “Great car!” or “Above and beyond!” Or you can tap a prompt at the bottom of the screen and leave your driver a more personalized thank-you note. Drivers will see these stickers and notes in the feedback...
Workout headphones are weird. They’re not made to reproduce the finest details of a brilliant acoustic performance. Their whole purpose is to keep you motivated during intense exercise, so the focus is on convenience and simplicity. Under that lens, the new wireless iSport Victory BT in-ear headphones from Monster are as capable as they come. recommends 2016 Monster iSport Victory BT 8/10 Learn How We Rate Wired Great sound from a workout headphone. Extremely comfortable for long wear. Easy to...
The new MacBook Pro comes in three flavors: two 13-inch models and a 15-incher. They all have thinner bodies, better screens, and trackpads so big they blot out the sun. And you can buy it in space gray. But the important addition is the Touch Bar. This capacitive strip of OLED glass above the keyboard is supposed to change everything, again, about how you use your laptop. recommends 2016 Apple MacBook Pro With Touch Bar 8/10 Learn How We Rate Wired Thinner,...
The last couple minutes of Dave Chappelle’s #ChappelleOnSNL monologue. pic.twitter.com/PHyc2bbtay — Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) November 13, 2016 If you’ve been feeling in need of an upper during these last few downbeat months, don’t worry: It turns out that Dave Chappelle on Saturday Night Live is a hell of a drug. The comedian and writer made his (decades-overdue) SNL hosting debut this weekend, opening the show with a hilarious, panoramic monologue that touched upon everything from the horrific Pulse nightclub...
If you were born in the ‘60s or ‘70s, your personal music collection is probably pretty scattered. Crates of records, a tower of cassettes, bookshelves full of CDs, a hard drive stuffed with MP3s, and a couple dozen playlists on Spotify. It’s hard to bring all that stuff together and control it from a single box. It’s even harder to find a little box that make those disparate analog and digital sources sound truly great. That’s the mammoth job Naim...
Back in hi-fi’s golden era—also known as the 1970s, when your parents roamed the Earth alongside dinosaurs, and the Cubs’ World Series drought wasn’t that bad yet—the only factor in deciding if a speaker was any good was the sound. Audio quality was all that mattered. Those days, of course, are long gone. When evaluating a speaker now, you need to consider things like portability and versatility. Inputs matter. So do integrated streaming services, multi-room options, long battery life, and...
On Thursday, November 24, 2016, DJ Jeff Mills and the RTS Symphony Orchestra will perform at the 10th annual Lovefest Experience at an as yet to be announced venue in Belgrade, Serbia. Yes, this year audience members will have the rare opportunity to experience the world-famous disc jockey Mills and the internationally-acclaimed RTS Symphony Orchestra performing together. It promises to be a unique musical mashup of both electronic music and symphony music. The event organizers have spent...
