1. The Apple Watch is a lock-in mechanism, argues Ian Bogost.

"So, even if the Apple Watch does evolve into a more self-contained, independently adept wearable, the interaction model it embraces might be far more important than the quirks of a first-generation device would suggest. Apple Watch and CarPlay are more like K-Cups and cable than they are like Rolex or Mercedes—but they are also two examples of a future deluge of gadgets manufactured or licensed by Apple that extend and deepen the lock-in of the company’s most valuable asset: the iPhone."

+ Bogost's new book on Apple, The Geek's Chihuahua, is also out today.

2. Ban cellphones in cars. Ban radio in cars. Ban contemplating your junior year in high school in cars.

"The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has done research indicating that, even when drivers put down the cell phone, they don’t necessarily put their attention back on the road. 'The finding was that, half the time we are doing anything, we are actually thinking about something else,' Dr. Adrian Lund, president of IIHS, said."

3. A surprisingly interesting ode to Howard Johnson's?

"That fake movie premiere promised me that Howard Johnson's would be around in the future. But that future only went up to 2001, and now it's 2015. There's no longer a Howard Johnson's in Greenfield, Massachusetts. There aren't three Howard Johnson's in Times Square. There are only two Howard Johnson's in the whole world, and I probably won't get to either of them before there are none. I lived beyond the future. It seems likely, now that my diet doesn't include ice cream and fried clams, that I will outlive Howard Johnson's. Now where is our monolith?"

4. On wind turbines and meaning and our bodies.

"Any new technology carries the unexpected in with it, like a bright pin on the jacket. Health researchers picked at what might be happening between the blades, the noise, the infrasound, the electromagnetic fields. What They Found May Surprise You. Plot out the complaints onto a map, and you'll see that they don't actually line up against where windfarms are, nor of the size of the turbines themselves. Trawl back through the peer-reviewed literature on 'wind turbine annoyance' and again, see no causal relationship between people living in proximity to wind turbines, emitted noise, and physiological health effects."

5. FOLD: an interesting new storytelling platform from MIT Media Lab and the Center for Civic Media.

"FOLD is an authoring and publishing platform for creating modular, multimedia stories. Authors can search for and add “context cards” to their stories directly within the platform. Context cards can contain everything from videos, maps, tweets, music, interactive visualizations, and more."

On Fusion: Americans really, really like that eggplant emoji, according to this report.

Today's 1957 American English Usage Tip:

dum(b)found. In US usually dumfound. Fowler says, 'Write dumbfound; it is probably dumb plus confound.

Subscribe to The Newsletter

But That Future Only Went Up to 2001