The First crew of the starship Enterprise shall fly no more. Paramount has announced they are canceling the most recent iteration of the Star Trek franchise and will not bring the show back for a fifth season. This version featured ...READ»
Science fiction is one of the 20th century's most characteristic and dominant literary forms. Despite serious criticism and misunderstanding, it has millions of readers worldwide and has established itself at the heart of popular ...READ»
Rick Rashid, head of Microsoft's Research labs, is a major Star Trek fan, and we talk about that along with a ton of what Microsoft's R&D labs are developing.READ»
It may not be quite up to the spec of Geordi La Forge's visor on Star Trek TNG, but researchers in Germany have come up with an eyeglass-mounted display that's so freakily high-tech you may need only to move your eyes to control a PC.READ»
Fujitsu has announced a device that scans the veins in a person's hand as authentication. So the hand is joining the growing list of security identifiers: fingerprints, eyes, face proportion, heat signature, voice recognition, and ...READ»
The Sci Fi channel announced that it was changing its name to SyFy a few months ago, and the switch happens tomorrow. Unfortunately Bruce Willis is not going to rescue us from this colossal attack of bad branding and phonetic foolishness.READ»
Google's revealed it's working on extensions to its smartphone voice-control powers, debuted in the Nexus One, that'll automatically translate between languages. It's the stuff of pure utopian science fiction. But is it a good idea? ...READ»
After going three-for-three in drawing public criticism for its Whopper Virgins, Texican and Square Butts campaigns, Crispin Porter + Bogusky has scored another trifecta: a three-picture Burger King marketing tie-in with Viacom's Paramount Pictures, starting with Friday's release of Star Trek.READ»
Sitting in Samuel Schweighart's garage in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the stuff of science fiction--and soon reality. Schweighart, an engineer with Boston-based Terrafugia, is part of the team leading the charge to get a ...READ»
Uh oh. The Whenever-We-Feel-Like-It Internet Police are back on the job.
The FBI arrested 47-year-old Bronx resident Gilberto Sanchez earlier this morning and accused him of copyright infringement for allegedly uploading a copy of ...READ»
Spend an exciting weekend in Seattle. Play all afternoon at Wild Waves Water Park where you can zoom down water-tubes and slides, splash in the waterfall lagoon, tube the lazy river, or cool off in the wave pool. Visit Seattle's ...READ»
The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab is building the future of business -- literally. Think C-3P0 with degrees in astrophysics, marine biology, and home economics.READ»
Accio ticket sales! The Hogwarts crew returns with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on July 15. So far, the films' grosses have been stunningly consistent. Here's how other major franchises compare.READ»
Last week I attended The Future In Review (FiRe), an intriguing annual conference hosted by Mark Anderson, the publisher of Strategic News Service. Mark asked each of the attendees--a bunch of brilliant scientists and influential ...READ»
Androids like Data, a Star Trek character, have recently been recycled into devices less humanoid but more functional – like Motorola’s new Android phone.READ»
"Economics is as close to psychohistory as you can get."
-- Paul Krugman "Incidents from My Career"
This year's winner of the Nobel prize in economics is one of the finest scholars in the field, ...READ»
In our September issue, Scott Kirsner considered five technologies that will change the world. In the October Technology Review, science-fiction author Bruce Sterling identifies 10 technologies that "deserve to die." Among them: ...READ»
About the web's supremacy against machines and tools:
" There is an endless list of technologies with us today that forty years
ago only science fiction writers, and professors at MIT, could have
imagined imagined. But ...READ»
Another great bringer of inspiration has passed. Arthur C. Clarke was the author of several famous science fiction works, from 2001 to Rendezvous with Rama. I have written that Gary Gygax inspired others to creativity. Clarke did ...READ»
Another sign of the crumbling wall between traditional media and advertising... MIT's Branding Cultures blog reports on a Russian advertising firm that sells product placement in pulp fiction and sci-fi novels. The firm keeps a ...READ»
A research lab inside the U.S. Navy tasked with dreaming up the future of the armed force has been busy working on a new command center design. It's suitably high tech--and is undeniably influenced by Star Trek.READ»
Robots, robots everywhere, with barely time to think (about the coming robocalypse.) Mechanoids are a fact of life folks, and if you need proof then learn about Chinese farmer Wu Yulu and his list of robo pals, and Stanford's freaky ...READ»
