"We had to create these 3-D avatars that to the world say the Beatles," says Harmonix creative director Josh Randall, who led the team that produced the new game The Beatles: Rock Band. "We were like, we cannot screw this up." To get it right, Harmonix didn't ask just anybody for help -- it called the world's foremost Fab Four experts: the Beatles and their families. "Olivia Harrison pored over photos of George at their home, Yoko Ono came to the studio and gave us a bunch of direction about John, and we actually got to sit with Paul and Ringo and show them what we came up with," says Randall. The game already has one big fan: Harrison's son Dhani, 31, who was clearly born to play. He's been challenging the Harmonix team by sending them iPhone pics of himself racking up high scores. -- Zachary Wilson
Now that we have a president with a BlackBerry addiction and at least 70 members of Congress who tweet, naturally we have to have a conference to talk about how tech is transforming government. The Gov 2.0 Summit, hosted by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb, is about more than simply using social media. "It's about how you think the government should interact with citizens, how it should create and enact policies, and how administration should happen," says conference general manager Jen Pahlka. The key word, we note, is should.-- Anne C. Lee
Wed, September 09 Program GOV 2.0 SUMMIT Washington, D.C.
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The execs, scientists, and policy makers at this meeting have much to celebrate: The seed busi-ness is having its best year in decades. Thanks in part to the recession and the new frugality, seed retailers say U.S. sales have jumped by as much as 75% in the past year. It's not hard to see why. According to Philadelphia-based seed titan Burpee, a $50 investment in seeds and fertilizer can produce up to $1,200 in fresh vegetables. While seeds may seem low tech, those levels of productivity are the result of intensive R&D -- they must pass tests for things such as purity and disease resistance. Just goes to show (we can't help ourselves) that you reap what you sow. -- AB
America may be 233 years old, but really, she's a teenage girl with bulimia. In this fascinating account of our nation's binge-and-purge cycle of spending and sacrifice, Weber, a second-generation cheapskate -- her father reuses a tea bag up to 12 times -- traces thrift's evolution from bedrock principle of the Founding Fathers to behavior that's demonized as harmful to today's consumption-driven economy. She takes surprising, insightful turns into the birth of home economics, the way we financed World War I on personal savings, and Freud's theory that being a tightwad is rooted in unresolved potty-training issues. Weber ultimately makes her case for what she calls "ethical cheapness," embracing sustainability and social responsibility to cloak frugality in virtue again. Try not to take it too far by deny-ing yourself the pleasures of this engaging, uniquely American story. -- David Lidsky
Each year, this global group asks the next generation of urban planners to take on a design challenge. This year's is to imagine a future for the site of Berlin's historic Tempelhof, the ridiculously central airport, left, that closed last October. The 400-hectare spread offers architects and landscape designers the rare chance to create something big, new, and noteworthy -- a park? a community? a mall? all of the above? -- in the heart of one of the world's great cities. Luckily, the students are working in the land of make-believe, where the local passions and politics that often bedevil even the most ingenious plans and planners are a nonissue: In June, 5,000 Berliners, fearful the land would be sold to luxury-housing developers, clashed with police after trying to storm the old airport terminal. -- Jeff Chu
If you're one of America's 750,000 Corvette owners, start your engine: 25 caravans -- with cars and drivers from every state in the Lower 48 -- will mark the National Corvette Museum's 15th anniversary by converging on GM's Corvette plant in Bowling Green. The event will be unparalleled this fall in fuel burned and miles driven. There may be smarter ways to celebrate, but we can't think of one that would be more red, white, and blue. -- Kate Rockwood
There are more than 4 billion mobile phones in the world, and two-thirds of them are in developing countries. This gathering explores how mobile technology can trans-form communities. In Chile, for example, farmers rely on text mes-sages for reports about growing conditions. TB patients in Thailand receive mobile phones, then get daily calls reminding them to take their meds. And in the Philippines, the poor are opening bank accounts via cell phone. Those are innovations worth calling home about. -- Abha Bhattarai
If Ad:tech's sleek Web site (ad-tech.com) doesn't convince you that it really is "the event for digital marketing" -- as its tagline boldly claims -- spend a few minutes browsing its blog, YouTube videos, Flickr pics, and Dopplr map. Then join its more than 2,400 fans on Facebook and 4,800-plus followers on Twitter. With Ad:tech presentations also available online, that just leaves us to mix a drink and ask, Why bother attending in person? -- Dan Macsai
Congrats to the winner of Afghanistan's second presidential poll: You're leader of the world's No. 1 narco state.
Opium production has grown 4,000% since the Taliban's ouster in 2001,
and the country now supplies 93% of the global opiates market. But
there is good news. A government crackdown led to half of Afghanistan's
provinces being declared "poppy free" last year. Unfortunately, that
campaign also pushed many farmers toward a lucrative alternative --
marijuana -- prompting the UN to predict that Afghanistan will soon
overtake Morocco as the world's top cannabis-resin producer. -- TB
Thu, August 20 Vote
Afghanistan's Presidential Election
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This annual powwow for the world's top economists and central bankers is so hush-hush
that the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, its organizer, declined to
share the who, when, where, or how. But our sources tell us that the
meet-up will start, as always, with dinner on Thursday, followed by two
days of wonkfest -- discussions and paper presentations and, no doubt,
exuberant debate about who got us into this economic mess and how to
get us out. Incidentally, the world's longest-running shoot-out, hailed
by Jackson Hole as a show of "frontier justice," will take place every
night of the meeting in the town square. Greenspan versus Bernanke,
anyone? -- AB