Now: July/August 2008
monday, july 14
Fly/Buy
FARNBOROUGH INTERNATIONAL AIRSHOW
Farnborough, England
Let's hear it for the little(r) guys. The aviation biz's biggest meeting is usually dominated by noisy competing announcements from Airbus and
tuesday, july 15
Play
25TH ANNIVERSARY OF NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM
Happy birthday, Mario brothers! In the summer of 1983, a new game system called Famicom hit the Japanese market, and within two years, it had become a hit in the United States as well, where it was redubbed Nintendo Entertainment System and sold under the tagline "Now you're playing with power." A quarter century of Zelda and Tetris later, Nintendo has led the latest evolution of game consoles with the Wii, which, ironically, was introduced by designer Shigeru Miyamoto with the declaration "Power isn't everything for a console." -- Clayton Neuman
thursday, july 24
Geek Out
COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL
San Diego
In case you were wondering just how many geeks still read comic books, we can tell you: a lot. Last year's Comic-Con -- the annual industry mega-convention that draws publishers, writers, movie execs, and of course plenty of fans dressed up in superhero tights -- sold out for the first time ever, with attendance of 125,000. "It's a challenge," says David Glanzer, marketing director for Comic-Con. "We have a contract here until 2012, and our revenue has plateaued" at $60 million. He's not complaining too much. "Comics are finally being recognized as viable art," he says. And with the medium's visibility rising (exhibit A: the smash big-screen success in May of Marvel Entertainment's Iron Man), "it's only going to grow." -- CN
tuesday, july 29
Blast Off
NASA'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Celebrated in its Cold War infancy and sobered by the Challenger disaster in its twenties, NASA has lately been in a slump. The number of missions has dwindled. Budgets are tighter. And despite the space agency's flashes of glory -- such as the Mars Global Surveyor, which has sent back spectacular images of the red planet -- the public doesn't seem to care much anymore about leaps, great or small, into space. How to reclaim that early energy? Perhaps a space-shuttle launch on July 29, the date President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed NASA into being? Nah. Instead, there's a yearlong lecture series! And a closed-to-the-public gala! And panel discussions on the future of NASA -- which we have to hope will generate some better ideas for getting us interested than ... panel discussions. -- KR
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