Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i WIRED

BILL COSBY has been accused of drugging and raping dozens of women over several decades. Roger Ailes is accused of harassing multiple women as far back as the 1960s. And then there’s all those Catholic priests. Indeed, when sexual predators, especially those in positions of power, get away with such crimes once, they often do it again and again until an overwhelming preponderance of accusations, evidence, and outrage brings them down. Perpetrators can get away with attacking so many because often when individuals report these crimes, they are ignored or discredited. But in the cases above, after multiple survivors— previously unbeknownst to one another—shared the same story, the authorities and the public started to take their accusations seriously. There’s strength (and credibility) in numbers, after all, but victims have few…

ALAN TUDYK has always been an animated character actor, beloved for his lively turns in Serenity, Dodgeball, and other movies. Nowadays, though, that description rings doubly true: Many of his best performances are as cartoons. Tudyk has voiced characters for Disney hits like Frozen (Duke of Weselton), Zootopia (Duke Weaselton— very different guy), and Wreck-It Ralph (King Candy), plus a slew of TV shows and videogames. And 2016 might be his biggest year yet. After playing a linguistically limited rooster in November’s Moana—nothing but variations on “Ba-kawk!”—he now joins the Star Wars universe in Rogue One. Not as a flesh-and-blood human, of course: Tudyk plays the main droid, K-2SO. ¶ He got the job, in part, because of his role more than a decade ago as Sonny in I, Robot—one…

Though fire extinguisher foam looks kind of delicious—like lightly whipped cream—you wouldn’t want to touch the stuff. The chemicals are so toxic that cleanup requires goggles, gloves, even respirators. Dry powders work, but those can reignite. And regular old water can turn grease or gasoline fires into explosions. So Ann-Christine Langselius, an entrepreneur and former officer with the Swedish Air Force, created Miraculum, an extinguishing agent that squelches grease fires, won’t reignite, and is so low in toxins its safety data sheet says, “May cause discomfort if larger amounts are ingested.” (The same could be said of shampoo—or hummus.) Miraculum is made of ammonium chloride—an inorganic salt used in food and fertilizers—and other ingredients like vegetable oil, dish soap, and vinegar. It forms a water-soluble gel that cuts off oxygen,…

INVESTOR STARTUP CIA / Skincential Sciences The portfolio for the spy agency’s venture arm, In-Q-Tel, includes a beauty company whose original product was designed to harvest chemical data from wearers’ skin. Skincential now focuses on exfoliating creams. (Or so they say.) Sprint / Oxie Kansas City–based Oxie wants to surround your head with a bubble of the “best air ever”— if you’re willing to wear an air purifier that looks like a neck brace. Perhaps cleaner air means a better cell signal? Nestlé / Seres Therapeutics The international candy giant hopes Seres will succeed in its (thus far failed) effort to transform fecal transplants into FDA-approved oral capsules. Butterfingers, Raisinets … and chocolate-covered poop pills. Uber / HiProMine Uber’s investment in a Polish factory that converts insects into biofuels is…

1 POT OF GOLD This gold-washed brass bowl and matching spoon will look simply smashing next to your collection of artisanal loose teas. Fill it with sugar and let your guests indulge themselves. Tom Dixon Form Sugar Bowl and Spoon $90 GO WITH THE TRIPLE THREAT: SALSA, QUESO, AND GUAC. 2 GET SOME AIR Take that 1996 Bordeaux to mindblowing levels by aerating it. This carafe’s dramatic angular shape and wide bottom help your vino oxidize and develop its flavors. Crate & Barrel Tour Wine Carafe $100 3 THE BIG DIPPER This convertible set features a large autumn-red bowl that conveniently nests a trio of smaller bamboo-fiber dishes. Serve chips alongside three dips, or create a bed of ice beneath crudités. Triple dipping is encouraged. SFMOMA Four-Piece Party Server $26…

No, you’re not imagining it. Everybody really is going to Iceland these days. More than a million people visited in 2015, outnumbering residents four to one. And many of them came for free. Well, kind of. Courtesy of Icelandair, travelers on their way to mainland Europe can spend an extended stopover in Iceland for up to a week at no extra charge. It’s a clever strategy: When visitors realize the country is great, they tell, tweet, and Snap their friends, who get jealous and then spend real money on real (though still pretty cheap) tickets straight there. And now other airlines are doing the same. From Toronto to Lisbon, the layover-as-vacation is taking off. The airline Copa now offers free connections in Panama City, and Qatar Airways includes a free…

1 Pack Right Stand out from the nylon-rollie masses with luxe leather and easygrab slots for your laptop and iPad. Piquadro Cabin Trolley, $970 2 Ear Muffs These noise-cancelers mute crying babies (mostly) as the Bluetooth 4.0 streams calming tunes into your ears. Sennheiser Momentum Wireless, $500 3 High Flier The 7-minute battery life on this tiny drone lets you peek up at facades (hello there, Mr. Gargoyle!) with time left for an overhead selfie. Aerix Vidius HD, $95 4 Bag Tracker You see London, you see France. With these little Bluetooth squares on your bags, you’ll never lose your underpants. Tile Mate, $70 for four 5 Wrap Star Protect ya neck from Arctic in-cabin weather with this cashmere and silk scarf. Or drape it over your head and slumber…

If you’re lucky, an airport does one thing really well. Maybe it has painless security. Or robot assistants. Even just free Wi-Fi. Now imagine if every part of the experience was optimized for ultimate efficiency. We searched terminals around the world for the smartest innovations and mashed them all up into one. At this Frankenport, you might even want to show up early. Universal Check-In Heathrow, London Grab your boarding pass at any counter in the departures hall, regardless of airline. Just look for the shortest queue. All-in-One Terminal Beijing Daxing International The facility, opening in 2019, is organized around a central shopping area, with wings leading off in multiple directions. The farthest gate in the complex is only 650 yards away. Smart Baggage Calgary International Each checked bag—tracked via…

My phone is constantly running out of memory. It’s full of apps and music, sure, but the bulk of the bloat is photographs. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those pictures are how I chronicle my experiences—where I’ve gone, what I’ve seen, whom I’ve met. And since I post so many of them to social media, they’re also a version of who I am. I edit and design my Instagram feed … well, I’d say “carefully,” but “obsessively” might not be wrong. So on the occasion of wired’s first collaboration with our sibling magazine Condé Nast Traveler— it starts on page 81—I’d like to share my secret formula for a perfect digital travel diary. All Work … No spoilers! The print edition of WIRED operates at least three months…

FOR HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of years, the Siberian permafrost has been a giant freezer for everything buried within it. But global warming has put the frozen ground in defrost mode, and the tundra is now heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet. “Permafrost is a silent ticking time bomb,” says Robert Spencer, an environmental scientist at Florida State University. As it thaws, the dirt could release a litany of horrors. Beware: The ice-beasts cometh. 1. Bacteria THREAT LEVEL: Sporadically scary Seventy-five years ago an anthrax outbreak in West Siberia felled herds of reindeer. In July those carcasses thawed and infected 23 humans, killing one. 2. Carbon THREAT LEVEL: Civilizationimperiling Taken together, the remains of ancient grass, moss, and animals buried in permafrost add up to some…

A: You say something accurate and honest, but necessarily infantilizing. You say, “We call our private parts ‘private’ for a reason. And even though Facebook looks like another game on my phone, it’s actually a kind of public place: Lots of people, even strangers, can see what we post there. So when you post a naked picture of your [brother/sister], it’s like walking up and down [crowded street in your town] showing that picture to everyone who walks by. It’s sharing something private in public. And it’s inappropriate.” ¶ Then you exhale deeply, pour the kid a glass of juice or let them settle in with a popsicle, and continue: “There was once an oral surgeon named Lytle S. Adams. He lived a long time ago, when America was fighting…

Cellulose Acetate The “invisible” film that we know as tape. It starts as cellulose, a long, tough, glucose-laced polymer that gives plants their structure. Typically it’s extracted from cotton or wood and treated with acetic acid, the chemical that makes vinegar vinegary. The process swaps out hydrogens in the cellulose for acetyl groups, which allows the hardy polymer to be dissolved and extruded into a translucent strip that’s strong and water-resistant yet able to be torn off by hand while you’re lovingly (or hastily) wrapping those holiday gifts. Cellulose acetate goes way back: It’s been used for a century as film for photographs and movies. Acrylics Although 3M has kept the specific ingredients of its adhesive under wraps for decades, it’s undoubtedly a soup of monomers like butyl acrylate, methyl…

1 Cocktail Kingdom Nick and Nora Glass Step away from oversize cocktail glasses and try these elegant 1930s-inspired Nick and Nora glasses. This 5-ounce cross between a wineglass and a martini glass will make it easy for you to get across a dance floor without spilling a drop of precious gin. Well, easier. $42 for six 2 St. George Spirits Bruto Americano After one sip of this American take on aperitivo, you might turn your back on Campari. Its closely guarded botanical formulation creates a distinctive bitter flavor that reminds us of woodsy outdoors with a hint of spice and incense. Just don’t Google the reason for its stunning red color (cochineal) midgulp. $30 3 Knoll 1966 Serving Cart Outdoor furniture is hard to maintain, but with a porcelain enamel…

Don’t mean to incite class warfare here—but the seats and the food and the lighting and everything else on private jets are way more awesome than what you’ll find in commercial economy. Still, excellent news: As the Gulfstream set gets sweeter amenities, some of those perks do trickle down to us peons smooshed in row 97. Private Jet Private fliers often get full control of their lighting for maximum rest. With the flick of a switch (or touch of an app), they can adjust electronic shutters and dim windows. Which, on some craft, can be huge—the better to survey your kingdom. Clients outfit their planes with heavy, soft leather chairs. Some sky thrones have personal temperature controls and seat belts with built-in airbags. On jets, as in mansions, the widescreen…

I’m standing outside Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico City, and I’m stumped. The neighborhood is unfamiliar, and I need lunch. Soon. But then I remember the map. I pull out my phone and see that it’s just a short walk to a ceviche stand suggested by my friend Eric. It turns out to be one of my best lunches of the trip. That semi-serendipitous meal was possible because I had compiled suggestions from friends in a custom Google Map. And unlike a guidebook, it wasn’t weighing me down or outing me as a tourist. Here’s how to set it up yourself: Sign in to Google Maps on a desktop and click the drop-down menu at top left. Select Your Places, then Maps, and click Create Map at the bottom.…

GET YOUR KICKS Much as we love sneakers, they wouldn’t normally be the subject of a huge story. But we’ve been waiting for this one for a long time. See, Nike’s HyperAdapt is no ordinary shoe: It’s an IRL version of Marty McFly’s power-lacing sneaker in Back to the Future Part II. I (Tinker Hatfield and Mark Parker, now Nike’s vice president of creative concepts and CEO, respectively, were the ones who originally gave director Robert Zemeckis the idea for the shoe almost 30 years ago.) Slip it on and an algorithmically controlled lacing engine perfectly tightens the HyperAdapt to your foot. Our video of the shoe, which featured Hatfield and lead engineer Tiffany Beers, broke every video record we have. Guess you’ve been waiting for it too. Re: “#WANT”:…

TO GET TO the world’s weirdest mall, just open Instagram. You’ll find vendors hawking vintage Bruce Springsteen tour shirts, bookstores that specialize in self-help books from the ’60s, and, of course, a whole lot of enamel pins. It’s such a wonderful—and wonderfully addictive—way to shop that you won’t mind the extra step of inquiring about a purchase via a cell number or DM (the app lacks a formal way to buy stuff). If you have specific desires, try a few of these Instashops. Or roll the dice and browse #forsale or #shopnow to see what catches your eye. Vintage Geekery For a $40 Q action figure from Star Trek: The Next Generation or a $10 copy of 1989’s High Desert Kill: An Experiment in Terror, try @collectorswarehouse. Then there’s @faustian…

Scientists have long studied how the first human colonists might survive on Mars. But what about the inevitable first generation of Martian-born babies? That’s the premise of December’s The Space Between Us, a movie in which the first child born on Mars (Asa Butterfield) journeys to Earth and explores the planet he’s only seen via video chat. We checked in with Dorit Donoviel, deputy chief scientist at Baylor’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute, to see what kind of childhood a real-life Mars baby might experience. (Hint: not great.) Birth In the film, the motherto-be embarks on her Mars mission without knowing she’s pregnant— and only finds out mid-journey. That’s a problem for any fetus. “In zero gravity I would be extremely concerned about embryonic development,” Donoviel says. “Gravity is important…

From social media feeds to purpose-built apps, our phones have become our inspiration boards, our travel agents, our in-flight entertainment, our guidebooks, and our scrapbooks. Did your Instagram just blow up with photos of a surreal, irresistible landmark in the middle of nowhere? You can go there tomorrow. (Just remember to pack your gorgeous, smartly designed gear in your gorgeous, smartly designed rollie.) Does getting through the airport seem almost tolerable these days? Thank technology, including friendly robots that tell you what to do. And when you show up in a new city, it’s now easy to check out all the coolest places like a native. Here, we’ll tell you how to plan and enjoy the best, most seamless, most beautiful trip … to anywhere you can imagine.…

Wikitude You won’t catch a Pokémon with this AR app, but you will learn about those horse-fish creatures in the Trevi Fountain. Just point your phonecam and it annotates the scene with pop-ups on everything from ancient ruins to taco stands. Detour Lose yourself in the mysteries and histories of the world’s great cities with this superb walking-tour app. Detour tracks your location to cue the audio, so it’s all handsfree and you can go at your own pace. In 10 cities so far. Rome2rio Wherever you find yourself, pick your next destination and Rome2rio will plot the best way to get there—whether it be planes, trains, and automobiles or buses, ferries, and bike shares. It’s the freedom to not plan ahead. Maps.me Download free maps for anyplace in the…

Faster and greener methods of travel will emerge in the coming years. But no matter the vehicle’s splendor or range, you’ll still have to battle fellow passengers for total armrest domination. Hyperloop Elon Musk’s pneumatic-tube system that will propel capsules at 700 mph. Your seatmate: A venture capitalist en route to a pitch meeting for “the Seamless of psilocybin microdoses.” Self-driving UberPool car Autonomous sedan that will roam urban streets nearly 24/7. Your seatmate: An Amazon delivery drone technician rushing to make a 7 pm JoustFit class. SkyTran Monorail-style system that will move two-person pods at up to 155 mph. Your seatmate: A cast member from the hit show Gaslight the Walking Dead on his way to ComicConWeekly. Straddling bus Gargantuan bus shaped like an overpass so traffic flows beneath…

Rumbles in the Jungle Just because you’re in the tropics doesn’t mean you have to spend all day napping in the sun. Most island destinations have all kinds of ways to get you moving without ever stepping foot on the beach. 1 Mountain Biking Trinidad and Tobago’s rugged terrains are perfect for cyclists, with options for four- and seven-day trips that will take you across jungles, grassy lowlands, and spectacular mountaintops. There is a 39-mile route to Sobo Falls in the north that is popular. Nearby Saint Lucia is another island biking hot spot, with towering mountains and 19,000 acres of rainforest. 2 Spelunking Climbing Trinidad’s Mount Tamana is a treat, but the real treasure comes from exploring the network of caves inside the mountain. The Tamana caves host 11…

Recording is good; livestreaming is better. Rather than shoot video of an event and store it on your mobile device— which could be confiscated or destroyed—you should livestream it to make sure the footage is secure (it’s usually stored on your platform’s server automatically) as well as instantly viewable. Know your rights. Filming the police is not only legal— it’s constitutionally protected. Any bystander has the right to film police activity so long as they’re not interfering with an officer’s ability to do their job. Make no sudden movements. Don’t reach quickly into your pocket or bag to take out your phone. An officer might perceive that as reaching for a weapon. Go wide. Hold your phone horizontally (in landscape mode) to capture as much of the scene as you…

PUBLIC APPEARANCES DON , T come easily to James Clapper, the United States director of national intelligence. America’s top spy is a 75-year-old self-described geezer who speaks in a low, guttural growl; his physical appearance—muscular and bald—recalls an aging biker who has reluctantly accepted life in a suit. Clapper especially hates appearing on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress wait to ambush him and play what he calls “stump the chump.” As he says, “I rank testimony—particularly in the open—right up there with root canals and folding fitted sheets.” One of the things Clapper does profess to enjoy about his job is meeting with the men and women who make up his covert empire of 17 agencies, which range from brand names like the CIA, NSA, DEA, and FBI to…