Monday, December 29, 2014

The Big Future: What does the future of interaction look like?

The rise of smartphones has left us tapping away at touchscreens. In this week's Big Future, we look at what comes after the glass. Will we all be speaking to our devices? Are augmented reality glasses and contacts going to feed us information all day? Or does touch interaction work so well that we'll never really replace it?

Touch has dominated for a long time

We've accessed and manipulated information with our hands and fingers for decades. Whether we recognize it or not, our brains are constantly processing information afforded by what we hold and telling our hands how to respond. What we've lost over the years as we swapped mouse and keyboard for glass touchscreens, though, is feedback. Our phones and tablets demand our...

Sunday, December 28, 2014

The Interview makes over $15 million online, beating movie theaters

The Interview did far better online than it did in its limited theatrical release. Sony Pictures has revealed that the film pulled in over $15 million over the holiday weekend from online purchases and rentals alone. That handily beats the estimated $2.8 million the film earned over the same time period in theaters. However, only a relatively small sampling of independent theaters carried the film — had the major theater chains been willing to show The Interview, these numbers would likely be very different. The studio has also announced that the film was rented or purchased over 2 million times online over the holiday weekend.

The comedy's box office numbers — online and off — are being closely monitored, as the drama surrounding the...

This is what The Wire looks like in HD

Fans of The Wire have been eagerly waiting to see how the beloved show has made the transition from 4:3 standard definition to its new widescreen, HD versions. Leading up to its premiere this past Friday, HBO has kept its HD remasters of The Wire entirely under wraps — but now we can see just what the show looks like in HD. And, frankly, the results are quite good.

Unlike The Simpsons , this is no half-assed scan-and-pan job that merely stretches or crops the original 4:3 frame to fill your widescreen TV. Since the show was originally shot on 35mm film, the editors had extra footage to work with to bring the remastered version to life. That means we now have a "true" widescreen version of The Wire to enjoy. However, it's important to...

Saturday, December 27, 2014

AirAsia loses contact with plane carrying 161 people over Indonesia

The Associated Press reports that an AirAsia flight on its way from Indonesia to Singapore is missing, having lost contact with ground control Sunday morning. Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, had 155 passengers and six crew, and, according to an official statement, disappeared about an hour before it was due to land. Search and rescue efforts are currently underway.

"Search and rescue operations have been activated by the Indonesian authorities," said the Singapore aviation authority in a statement. The Singapore navy and air force have been deployed in the search.

AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact at 07:24hrs this morning http://t.co/WomRQuzcPO

— AirAsia (@AirAsia) D...

North Korea blames US for internet outage, calls Obama a reckless 'monkey'

North Korea believes it is being punished for a crime it did not commit. KCNA, the North's state-run media outlet, has published an official statement from an unidentified spokesperson that accuses the US of shutting down the country's internet access earlier this week.

"The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the Internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic," reads the statement.

Among other insults, the government spokesperson blames President Obama personally for the release of The Interview, adding in an apparent racial slur: "Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical...

The Weekender: on seeing monsters and Strange Days

Good morning, and welcome back to The Weekender. Our weekend journey is just now starting, so thank you for choosing us for your travels. As you may recall, this was the 52nd and final full week of the year 2014 on the planet known colloquially as Earth, otherwise known as Terra in other inhabited star systems. It was not a quiet week, as you might imagine. Below you'll find your itinerary, carefully crafted for your pleasure; stories from the week passed and recommendations for the days ahead. Now. Please sit back and relax as we take you on a journey through time and space. You might hear a slight buzzing in your ears as we get started.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Home for the holidays, and for a 20-year-old issue of PC Magazine

When I'm home for the holidays, one of my most beloved traditions involves sifting through my time capsule of a bedroom, where decades of PC Magazines, PC Worlds, Windows Magazines, and Visual Basic Programmer's Journals collect dust. These were my bibles as a youngster: magical cocktails of attainable and unattainable technology pulling me forward into an education and career in engineering. If it weren't for PC Magazine in particular, I'm not sure I ever would've touched a line of code. And now, today, I'm a founding editor of a publication that I consider something of a spiritual successor to those classic mags. I'd like nothing more than to be inspiring an eleven-year-old somewhere to pursue a career in technology, the way PC Mag did...