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If what technologists say is true, then at some point in the not-so-distant future we'll be unburdened of our phones and will experience augmented reality through smart glasses instead. For now, though, we're still standing en masse, pointing our phones at an unremarkable wall at a convention center in San Jose, California, all for the chance to see a simple AR animation. That's how the future was...

Few things in this world are as exhausting as interacting with humans. You’ve got to maintain eye contact (ugh) and watch for subtle body language (ugh) and pay attention the whole time (ugh). And if you think that’s tough, wait until you start interacting with robots, which aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer just yet. It’s going to be hell. That is unless, of course, a particular breed of r...

Last weekend Avengers: Infinity War made more than $640 million at the global box office—and at least $258 million of that came from domestic theaters, a number that easily bests previous record holder Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This is relevant for two reasons: One, holy crap that’s a lot of money. Two, it means we can finally talk about this movie freely since pretty much anyone who wanted to...

This afternoon, Elon Musk will get on the phone with Tesla's investors. He will field their questions about Model 3 production numbers, cash flow, the possibility of profitability, maybe even where he sleeps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close observers of Apple’s networking products—surely they exist—know that the company hasn’t updated its Airport line of Wi-Fi routers since 2013. That’s so many iPhones ago! This week, the company made it official: It will no longer churn out Airport Express, Extreme, or Time Capsule routers. Rather than mourn the end of an era, take the chance to give your home Wi-Fi a boost with one of these n...

Each time a volunteer editor adds a new fact to one of Wikipedia's over 44 million articles, they're required to cite where they learned it. The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the encyclopedia, became interested in what kinds of sources editors rely on the most. A recent study conducted by the organization revealed something fascinating: A single academic paper, published by three...

Some movies are obvious hits. Like, for example, Avengers: Infinity War, which made a record-breaking $258 million at the domestic box office last weekend, filling seats and the pockets of Marvel Studios parent company Disney. But not every summer—or spring, or fall—blockbuster has the benefit of 10 years and 18 movies of built-up audience goodwill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastc...

Mary Rickert’s short story collection You Have Never Been Here is one of the most disturbing books of recent years, with many of the stories touching on the abduction or victimization of children. Unsurprisingly, Rickert says she has a longstanding interest in true crime stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Don’t look now, but the next computing platform is coming. It won't be a phone, or a laptop, or a miniputer you wear on your wrist. It will be a pair of glasses that upend the way you communicate, find information, and view the world around you. Want a glimpse of that future? Take a look through Snap’s Spectacles. Hold up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the world of automotive propulsion, the hierarchy of complication goes something like this: Pure electric cars are simple; internal combustion engines, with many more parts and those explosions, are complex. Hybrids, which make the two work in concert, are extra complex. Honda’s Clarity Plug-In Hybrid calls for a new category: so-complex-it-makes-your-head-spin. Learn more about your ad choices...

Kratos, the star of the God of War series of action games, is a bad man. Devised as an ersatz Achilles edgy enough for gaming in the mid-00s, all anger and very little pathos, the one-time god and long-time god-killer is one of the biggest dicks in the medium. He had a family, once; he murdered them. He was a womanizing, cruel, monstrous hero. Over three games, he single-handedly slaughtered the e...

Am I enjoying these Beats too much? I’ve asked myself that question a few times in the last couple weeks. For years, I’ve listened to audiophiles rail against Beats by Dre headphones, saying they were all style, no substance. For the money, they just didn’t sound very good and put too much emphasis on a bass-heavy sound. Sure enough, the first thing I noticed about the Beats Studio3 Wireless was t...

While Google rightly gets a lot of flack for its scattered approach to messaging, its to-do list offerings have been a close second for sprawling, scrambled efforts. There's Google Keep, a note-taking app; Google Reminders, which nag you about Calendar events, email follow-ups, or Keep notes; and Google Tasks, which originated in Gmail nearly a decade ago as a stripped-down to-do list feature. Non...

In the second season of Handmaid’s Tale, everything is different. It has to be. For one, the first season's plot burned through almost all of its source material, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel of the same name. For another, the inaugural season was filmed during the 2016 election cycle—a time when many thought America might be on the way to its first female presidency—and Season 2 was wri...

It’s a tedious task you've been putting off for what could be years. But the moment has come: You're going to clean your computer inside and out. That means scrubbing down those keys and wiping the fossilized fingerprints off your screen. It also means deleting all the files you secretly downloaded when you were trying to figure out how to make a GIF, and finally tidying up your feeds on social me...

Fake news is hardly new news, but over the past couple years it's found a new home across social media and other news aggregators. And, perhaps, not surprisingly, people's trust of the news isn't at an all-time high. But people have also started paying more attention to the news, at least in the US. The Pew Research Center reports that last year more Americans followed the news "very closely" than...

A favorite motif of Westworld is the shattering of its heroes. Bernard isn’t only a thoughtful-yet-murderous host, he’s Arnold! Then there’s gallant, love-struck William—oh wait, he’s the Man in Black! Sweet, all-suffering Dolores—crap, she’s also the crazy killer Wyatt. Season 2 of the futuristic drama is no different. But this time the reversal is on a grander scale. Learn more about your ad cho...

Nestled among giant fish tanks at the California Academy of Sciences, there's a black box—just big enough to hold six aquariums and maybe five humans. What it lacks in size, though, it makes up for in preciousness: Running here is a experiment that could help save corals from annihilation. The corals in these tanks are reproducing sexually. Which is weird, because even out in the wild, coral spawn...

The duck face, the fish gape, the smize—these are just a few of the time-honored poses that celebrities, influencers, and the Instagram-happy masses have relied upon to create perfect selfies. But a lot has changed since the early aughts, when people first started training their smartphone lenses on themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook is massive. Six million advertisers use Facebook's vast data holdings to perfectly target ads reaching more than 1.4 billion daily (and 2.1 billion monthly) active users, amounting to almost 40 percent of the global internet population. That enormous user base forms a castle wall around Facebook’s core ad business, because few other companies can promise the same level of return for ad sp...

In a hallway of an engineering building at Stanford University, some devilish researchers have built a sprawling obstacle course. To make it through, competitors have to wind over sand, through a door, up some steps, and finally, through a forest of small pillars. Sounds like the Rube Goldbergian machinations of an grad student with too much time and Red Bull on their hands, but no: This is a robo...

If you've seen old-timey photos of aviation in the early decades of the jet age and wondered where all the glamour went, you've been flying economy. When airlines change the back of the plane, it's usually to pack in more passengers or install something you can give them money to enjoy. For those who turn left as they board, life aloft is swankier than ever. But last week at the Aircraft Interiors...

Most people spend very little time thinking about the terms of service that govern life online. The agreement appears in a flash, we affirm that "I agree to the terms of service," and then it's all quickly forgotten. Until, of course, something goes wrong. Last week, when Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress to defend Facebook, more than one senator pointed to the company's terms of service. L...

If you're in the mood for shopping, this is a great, great week. Especially if you're awaiting a juicy tax refund, why not treat yourself to something you probably need? Nintendo's Labo kits come out this Friday and are currently available for pre-order. You can learn more about the kits, which we love, and how to order them, here Our friends at TechBargains have also found our favorite robot vacu...

Tell people you’re vacationing in a trailer (or a caravan, if you’re in Europe), and you might get a snobbish raised eyebrow. Tell them you’re striking out for freedom in an Airstream, and you’ll get envious glares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices