Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver begins the way most capers end: three goons pulling off a bank heist, then their getaway driver leaving the cops in his rearview. Unlike most capers, though, the escapade goes down to the pulse-pounding strains of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” It’s a whiplash-inducing rush that lays more than a dozen cars to waste and doesn’t let up for the song’s entire 5:16 runtime, each screeching turn and crash perfectly timed to the track’s churning...
Silicon Valley (the place) has a long history of big exits: Steve Jobs being forced from Apple, Larry Ellison stepping down at Oracle, and most recently, Travis Kalanick leaving Uber. Yesterday’s episode of Silicon Valley (the show) treated us to another, when Erlich Bachman—Aviato founder, Bachmanity partner, and all-around palapa-immolating gasbag—left his incubator to take up (unwitting, long-term, possibly indentured) residence in a Tibetan opium den. Fans are already mourning the loss of Bachman, who in the hands of...
Jon Larsen’s idea for a book fell into his lap. Well, his breakfast, actually. The Norwegian jazz musician was dining on his porch one day eight years ago when a rock tumbled out of the sky onto the table. It was shiny, rough, and metallic. Baffled, he did what anyone would do: He googled shiny rocks that fall from the sky. Google told him it might be a micrometeorite, a tiny bit of space rock that made it across the...
Of all the social networks, Instagram stands out as the place to show off your most idealized life. But look more closely, and you’ll spot a dissonance present in those pristine posts when you scrutinize them—that low-fat granola bar looks too sumptuous, those expensive designer sunglasses worn too coolly (and yet still front-and-center!) in a casual photo. Are these filtered displays real life, or just an ad? Now, Instagram is working to better distinguish a good old-fashioned filtered ’gram from...
The bouncy beeps of Pac-Man. The percussive build-up in Legend of Zelda. The effusive gibberish of The Sims. The sounds in videogames tell us to speed up, start over, and of course, to keep playing. But how does one set of beeps so effectively tell you you’ve gained power, while another indicates your character has died? And how, exactly, does someone create the sound of the Dark Knight punching the Joker in the face? The answer: Genius sound design. Take,...
It’s hard not to watch Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant invade millions of living rooms and not feel like Apple blew an opportunity. Almost six years after Apple announced Siri as a feature on the iPhone 4S, Siri’s still confined to computers and phones. Siri has to be unlocked, activated, and summoned. Alexa and Assistant are omnipresent, always ready and waiting. The closest thing Apple offers is “Hey Siri,” which works approximately never. Now Apple finally has a way to...
Ask a four-year-old how an electrical circuit works, and you’ll get a blank stare in return. Ask a four-year-old how to make the eyes on her monsters light up, and they’ll happily plug an LED into a block of conductive dough while explaining that electricity is making it happen. Children can grasp technical concepts, but they need the right tools. “You need to lead with what kids can do with technology, not the technology itself,” says Bethany Koby. Koby is...
