Real Future
1. A contact lens with zoom built in. "Developed by a team led by Eric Tremblay at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the rigid contact...
RF: dexter
1. David Carr, a media columnist who was the north star for many journalists (myself included) died yesterday in the tower of news. "David’s public...
RF: devolute
1. Beautiful art from Casey Reas of the UCLA Arts Software Studio. "I work with statements, variables, loops, conditionals, functions, objects, and arrays....
RF: desperation (w. bonus reader feedback)
1. The megabad climate change scenario. Earth, 2200 AD. "There are only about 500 million of us left, after the convulsive transformations caused by climate...
Real Future, 0.5: desolated
1. Shimmering data is one of the most useful, evocative phrases I've run into in a long time. "The climate knowledge infrastructure is constantly opening...
Real Future, 0.4: desire
1. Life inside a Chinese bitcoin mine. "Strangely, the mine’s workers actually live inside the facility itself, returning home just four or five days a...
RF, 0.3: desideratum
1. After Google denied his request to photograph an Oklahoma server farm, an Irish artist flew a helicopter over it to get a better view. "The joy of the...
Real Future, 0.2: derring-do
1. Navy SEALS, DELTA Force, Green Berets, and CIA operatives recently met to discuss... bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. "In particular, the Islamic...
Real Future, 0.1: depositary
(Hey, why has the name changed?! Read this.) 1. The resurgence of psychedelics as psychological treatments gets the big New Yorker treatment. "'I don’t want...
Welcome to Real Future (née 5IT)
Standby for a real, actual (tiny)letter! I have some good news. When I left The Atlantic to go to Fusion last year, I said that I wanted a place to explore...
5IT: depicture
1. This Deadswap offline sharing game sounds fascinating. "deadSwap is a clandestine offline file sharing system where participants covertly pass a USB stick...
5IT: dentrifice
1. A mini-doc about Grace Hopper, one of the giants of early computing. "As a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, Hopper worked on the first computer, the Harvard...
5IT: dent
1. Logistically, how does the US military pull out of Afghanistan? "Command centers packed with arena-style seating, video-conferencing systems, and giant...
5IT: dénouement
1. Somebody looped 12 hours of the ambient droning in Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner. It has received 115,000 listens. "Relax into the couch as you...
5IT: demote
1. Autodesk is taking the idea of designing life quite literally. "Although primarily known for revolutionizing computer-aided design with the release of...
5IT: demoralize
1. Perhaps the movie Ex Machina gets artificial intelligence right? "Ava (played with alien poise by Alicia Vikander) is a beautiful robot created by a self-...
5IT
1. A historically informed deflation of the short-term potential of AI to revolutionize geopolitics. "The artificial intelligence landscape of the 1980s was...
5IT: democrat(ic)
1. This research into homelessness in SimCity is so, so interesting. "SimCity players have discussed a variety of creative strategies for their virtual...
5IT: demimonde
1. Glass is really, really important in our current computing paradigm. "At CES 2015, Corning unveiled its new glass product, Iris, which focuses on the...
5IT: debacle
1. Hollywood studio courts "cybersecurity influencers" to promote new hacker movie, Blackhat. "Last week, a bunch of real-world hacker types got an advance...