Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2019 i WIRED

Recently, my partner ducked into the market for enzyme sprinkles. (It’s Lab-Grown Taco Tuesday.) Watching through the window, I saw them consider two checkout lines. One looked significantly longer but was entirely self-checkout. My partner turned toward the shorter queue with error-prone human cashiers. No! I silently pleaded, that way lies damnation! At the final moment, as I willed them from afar, they course-corrected. Such cerebral synchronicity, a true mind-meld, is perhaps the most intoxicating manifestation of something I seek everywhere I can. I’ve always been vicariousness incarnate, longing for moments of instant instantiation. At sporting events I lurch in my seat, vainly puppeteering my favorite quantum-ball pros away from would-be quantumbles. When my partner plays videogames, I become an armchair voxel-jockey, squirming this way and that as I attempt…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Trekkies were the first fandom. But universal acknowledgment does not make a truth true. In fact, Adrianne Wadewitz, a feminist scholar of 18th-century literature, set Wikipedia straight on this point over a decade ago, when she identified the first fandom subculture as the Janeites, the network of Jane Austen stans who found their prime directive, Austen idolatry, around 1870. Star Trek: TOS didn’t air until 1966. ■ But what does this matter, except for purposes of quarrels about trivia? Here’s just one reason: Janeites are known for having organized their networks in an almost magically prescient way that didn’t just prefigure Star Trek fan culture, it prefigured the … internet. Go with me here. Janeites can be seen as internet culture avant la…

“A cloned, AI version of my brain to answer emails as I write. That or a lightsaber. No, definitely a lightsaber.”—Senior editor Angela Watercutter (page 72) “Prosthetic thumbs and interspecies translation software for my dog. My friends refer to Max, my 11-year-old diabetic King Charles spaniel, as my ‘assistant.’ I appreciate the company he offers, but late-stage capitalism is all about output, metrics, and productivity. If he could handle transcription, it would go a long way.”—Contributor Jessica Bruder (page 58) “I tend to have my best creative breakthroughs in the shower. But when I’m grappling with a story and desperate for inspiration, I rarely have time to get naked and douse myself with water. I could use a gadget that tricks my brain into thinking I’m taking a shower while…

Last year, Jibo—“the world’s first social robot for the home”—began to lose its mind. First came memory problems. The bot started to spend less time swiveling its head like the animated Pixar lamp and more time staring blankly at the wall. Its cognitive demise was slow, then fast. At one point, Jibo itself delivered the fatal diagnosis: “The servers out there that let me do what I do will be turned off soon,” it said in its computerized voice. “Once that happens, our interactions with each other are going to be limited.” Jibo the robot was dying, because Jibo the company was going out of business. Jibo’s sudden plunge into digital dementia brought on an outpouring of grief and consternation. People had shelled out $900 for this thing; could the…

1 In the concept sketch, Padmé Amidala stands in profile. The stiff brown tunic and pants—the clothes she’ll die in—are a far cry from the regalia worn by the Queen of Naboo. Her pregnancy is far enough along to hinder her, and her posture overcompensates. Her long dark braid is wrapped in thick ribbon: bright, blood-red. Her eyes cut across the page, directly toward the viewer. 2 There is no central thesis left for Star Wars. It’s just too big, a single root system holding up a thousand trees. It’s a locus of pop-culture fascination because it both is and is not pretty much anything you need. By now, purchase patterns at Star Wars theme parks are sent to the same offices where story decisions are made. The sheer scope…

CASE CLOSED In October, Lauren Smiley recounted the murder of a woman whose Fitbit data made her 90-year-old stepfather the chief suspect. (The stepfather, Tony Aiello, died while awaiting trial shortly after we went to press.) Also, Brendan I. Koerner chronicled how pigeons, rats, and other critters have evolved to thrive in cities, which might show humans how to adapt to climate change. And in September, Jason Parham plunged into the transfixing world of influencers who bare it all on OnlyFans. Readers share their theories, shock, and New Jersey pride: RE: “THE TELLTALE HEART” I’m left feeling that Karen and Tony deserve justice and closure. I’m not a “true crime” fan, but something about this story haunts me. The data says, and therefore it’s true. Scary thought. —Stephen V. Smith…

Normally, when you open Facebook, you see pictures of your friends’ awesome vacations or links to maddening political stories your dad is sharing—your basic emotional goulash of FOMO and TMI. But last year, the nerds at Microsoft Research tried something different: They put bits of office work into the News Feed. ■ The researchers created an AI app that looked through documents you were writing in Microsoft Word. It extracted simple editing tasks, like making a sentence less wordy. Then, using a Chrome plug-in, the software would slot these jobs into an item in your feed, one every 2,000 pixels. The researchers gave the tool to a test group, who began duly doing the little work tasks, a few each day, when they saw them while scrolling through Facebook. Every…

01↘ SKI CAP POC’s new snow sports helmet is full of features to save adventurers’ brains (thick shell, rotational impact protection pads) and bodies: It has an industry-standard sensor that rescuers can use to find you and an NFCenabled chip that stores medical data. So when you gonk your noggin on a tree and wind up unconscious, the ski patrol can swoop in, scan the chip, and get to work. POC Obex BC SPIN | $250 02 ↘ LISTEN HEAR Since Apple’s AirPods popularized the idea of truly wireless listening, everyone is taking a stab at wirefree headphones. 1More has made the pair most worth a listen. Like all wirefree sets, they have no cords and come with a charging case. Unlike the competitors, 1More’s buds have a comfy, stay-put…

ANNAMARIE MCINTOSH IS coming undone. People in comic-book tees are rushing past her, lit up by too-bright fluorescents. She’s surrounded by massive signs with corporate logos, from Nintendo to DC Comics. The cavernous hall is 460,000 square feet, and McIntosh is taking up about three of them, trying to cinch the beige bandages wrapped around her arms. “We’re having issues here,” she says, with an exasperated giggle. “It’s been falling down all day.” With an assist by her mom, the 17-year-old finally twists and tucks her costume into place. All things considered, the fix is easy. It’s 2019’s Comic-Con International, and compared to the wizards and warlocks and Wonder Women crowding the floor, the outfit of the Jedi Rey is plain, simple. Sensible. Cosplay, that pinnacle of performative fandom, dates…