One of the rewards of inventing something new is that you get to name it. The name doesn’t always stick; with familiarity, “horseless carriages” tend to become “automobiles” and finally mere “cars.” But the original coinage is a snapshot of how we saw the world in that moment, flush with delight in new possibilities. Imagine: […]
Even though the year is grinding to a close—this is the last While You Were Offline column of 2017!—nothing is slowing down on the internet, where former Pentagon officials are talking about possible alien life, Bitcoin is apparently collapsing, and some really impressively bad reviews are circulating for Netflix’s big holiday release. Talk about going […]
Every comic book convention is full of highly engaged fans. People who aren't utterly consumed by pop culture don’t take time off work and sometimes travel hundreds of miles to go to panels dedicated to their favorite topics. But the truly dedicated of the bunch are always the cosplayers—the fans who not only made a […]
The grosser parts of the internet have a new trick: Using machine learning and AI to swap celebrities’ faces onto porn performers’. The result? Fake celebrity porn seamless enough to be mistaken for the real thing. Early victims include Daisy Ridley, Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, and Taylor Swift. Originally reported by Motherboard, this nasty trend […]
Can you feel it? No, it's not a disturbance in the Force—if anything, the Force is stronger than ever right now. But what you might be sensing is the buzz for Star Wars: The Last Jedi reaching Screeching Porg levels of hype. Now that the new poster and trailer are out in the world, excitement […]
Few comic book movie villains, if any, are as beloved as the Joker. Or, at least, the most well known. He’s had three high-profile portrayals (and a Lego incarnation) in the past three decades—two of them downright iconic—and, unlike many comics-based baddies, he’s a character with character, a knowable personality whose motivations beyond “world domination, […]
Judging by their habits on the Netflix show, you’d think the Stranger Things kids only had time for Dungeons & Dragons, bike-riding, saving their town from a Demogorgon, and feeding their peculiar Eggo obsessions. Turns out, that’s not the case at all. In the real world—aka Upside Down-free 2017—their down-time activities are decidedly more conventional: […]
"Not everything that happens in your life is good," Robin Hunicke says. "But everything that happens is a part of your story." We're sitting in a small apartment across the street from the LA Convention Center the week of E3 2017, talking about her new game, Luna. It's quiet and heartfelt, which should come as […]
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t waste much time when he walked onstage at the San Jose Convention Center on Wednesday morning to deliver the first keynote address at Oculus Connect, the virtual-reality company’s developer conference. "The future is built by the people who believe it can be better," he said, announcing that he and his team "want […]
(Spoiler alert: This story contains major plot points and spoilers regarding the second season of Netflix's Stranger Things.) If you’re like us—and if you’re reading this site, you probably are—you spent every minute this weekend that you weren’t working on your Halloween costume or playing Super Mario Odyssey binge-watching the latest installment of Stranger Things. […]