Maybe you’ve noticed that today is a day of online protest. Or maybe you haven’t. Whether you realize that today marks a Day of Action in support of net neutrality depends entirely on what websites you visit—and how the companies behind those websites...
People like Alexa. They’ve bought millions of Alexa-powered devices. When you think about Alexa, you’re probably thinking about the Echo, the tall, cylindrical monolith that first introduced Amazon’s chatty assistant to the world. The Echo features...
The Volta V is a gaming computer made out of wood. Many stories have been written about the Volta, and they all talk enthusiastically about its impressive woodiness. This enthusiasm may take the form of nostalgia for the days of console televisions, or commentary on...
A single black hand rises from a sheet of steel-blue water. Fire enshrouds a house as women and men look on in amazement, or perhaps fear, and a voice tracks the haunting spectacle: “I’m willin’ to die for this shit / I done cried for this shit,...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
The show constantly questions what keeps innovation from happening in the tech world—but it should ask the same of itself. The post It’s Time For Silicon Valley to Disrupt Its Toxic Asian Stereotypes appeared first on...
If you tune into the third season of Syfy’s 12 Monkeys this weekend, and you’re only familiar with Terry Gilliam’s 1995 movie of the same name, you may be a little lost. You remember James Cole, the time traveler who’s ventured back from a...
A new PBS documentary chronicles the impact of the lathe—and next month will release the music contemporary artists recorded on one. The post Rebuilding—and Recording With—the 1920s Technology That Changed American Music Forever appeared first on...
Skip Suva is a fidgeter. When he worked at paper-intensive administrative jobs, he’d doodle incessantly; when he started a coding career last year, he took up fiddling with an SD-card reader that made pleasant snick noises. “Popping the SD card out and...
Using math to create 1000s of new musical instruments. The post Google’s AI Invents Sounds Humans Have Never Heard Before appeared first on...
engineered to deceive by julia halperin Many of today’s visual artists are technological innovators, using advanced materials, industrial design, and sophisticated light manipulation to build experiences that trick your brain. Look inside their...
With help from machine learning algorithms, Artsy wants to create an art brain that understands the whims and nuances of the art market the way an insider would. The post Inside Artsy’s Quest to Make You Love Art as Much as Music appeared first on...
Few films start so inauspiciously as Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads frontman David Byrne walks onto a bare stage at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles wearing a grey suit and white sneakers and carrying a boombox. “Hi,” he tells the crowd. “I...
This year at Coachella the biggest spectacle wasn’t Radiohead, Kendrick Lamar, or even Lady Gaga. It wasn’t Selena Gomez and the Weeknd’s PDA, either. Instead, it was a massive dome where attendees could see giant neon caterpillars, alien landings,...