I'm not talking about obvious screwups like Microsoft whitewashing their Polish advertising campaign (which they apologized for), or Intel's obviously unfortunate—but probably accidental—Core 2 Duo campaign. I'm talking about ads that never got pulled, never prompted an apology, and that, to most people, probably seem harmless. Who, dear readers, will be the 1949 GE of 2060? And for what? Racism? Sexism? Some as-of-yet-unnoticed *ism? Am I oversimplifying what constitutes progress? Difficult questions!

More to the point, will my kids watch these PSP ads in history class, come home, and ask me why I was such a terrible human, back in 2009?


Yep, probably. Post your best guesses in the comments, about, you know, the future. [CopyRanter]

Today's initiative has been variously billed as "iTunes for Magazines" (correct philosophically, but wildly overstated) and "Hulu for Magazines" (incorrect, since Hulu is free). Basically you can now go to this digital storefront and buy all your favorite Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, Time Inc., and News Corp publications, to read on your "portable digital device" of choice. Your crappy mobile phone, or iPhone, or upcoming Apple tablet, or, hey, Time Inc. is making its very own tablet, & ad infinitum.

And, of course, this is not the only "digital storefront" thing—Hearst, a partner in this venture, is also going forward with its own personal digital storefront called Skiff , and there are similar services already operating, although, hey, there's not dominant iTunes-type player yet, so you never know.

This could be a successful venture. Then again, it could fade into irrelevance in months. Somebody will make the dominant digital storefront for content like this, just like someone will make the dominant digital reader. Magazine publishing companies, one would think, are likely to get smoked by someone like Apple in this particular sector. But they think it's worth the gamble, after watching what happened to the music industry.

But it'll take a few years. How much would you pay to read Sports Illustrated on your E-reader right now? You don't have an E-reader. And you can read Deadspin for free. So, you'd pay nothing. Changing that dynamic is what media companies need to worry about.

And here's Time Inc's announcement to employees, just because we have it:

December 8, 2009
To: Time Inc. Employees
From: Ann Moore
Re: New Digital Venture

Today, five leading publishers including Time Inc., Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corporation announced the formation of a new venture to develop a digital storefront and a common reading application that will allow consumers to enjoy their favorite magazine and newspaper content on any platform they choose.

We already know that the next generation of mobile devices will be loaded with color touchscreens, flexible displays, video capabilities and other features that will make them ideal for consuming rich content and an appealing environment for advertisers. These devices will allow us to combine the best of what consumers love about magazines – quality, curated journalism, engaging content and beautiful photography – with the speed, convenience and portability of the latest technology.

While Time Inc. is pursuing a number of initiatives that will help us expand our current digital businesses and develop new products and revenue streams, our participation in this venture is an important part of our efforts. You'll be hearing more about it in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, for a look at some of the work Time Inc. is doing around portable devices, check out the demo Sports Illustrated developed, which will give you an idea of how our digital content might be enjoyed in the near future.

www.si.com/tablet

A.M.

DirectX 67? Tongue-finity? My favorite quote: "Pulling a trigger is just as easy as pushing a button, only a lot more fun and healthy...You say babies, we say bootcamp" Nice.

There are three "commercials" in the playlist below, with the most interesting one loaded up first. A little too self-consciously viral, but too interesting not to share. [XFX 2118AD] Thanks Milo!

Also interesting is that the montage comes from a 1993 Newsweek CD-ROM. The theme: That one day, magazines would be sent to you as a CD-ROM sponsored by ads. Uh, no. Crazy to think that was only 16 years ago.

It's ironic that the main two things the ads get wrong are now core AT&T businesses: We don't fax from the beach (we email; but close enough), and we don't video chat from public telephones (or with our iPhones—where's my forward-facing camera damn it).

And as for tele-commuting in your bare feet? Hey, I'm doing that right now… [YouTube via David Pogue]

Transhumanists believe so, and contemplate how technology might be used to enhance our mental and physical capacities.

H+ Magazine has round up some leading minds, and steered their thoughts towards sex. Will it still exist as we know it today?

Sex for procreation will be separated from sex for pleasure. Polyamorism will be the norm. After all if "I" have uploaded, duplicated myself and exist as self-similar copies in cyberspaces co-existent with realspace, where does the "self" end and the "other" begin? —Extropia DaSilva

Exosex, sex outside the biological body, would be simulated in virtuality, much like Second Life or Skype and other digital formats where sex is enhanced, extended, digitized, and synthetic. It would be more real than real - a hyper-real experience. —Natasha Vita-More

Woah. More trippy concepts for your Wednesday morning after the jump. Not exactly safe for work, though. [H+ Magazine via Fleshbot NSFW]

Given the oft-hilarious Russian inventors, their equally staid and awkward American partner and the fact that this is on Vice Magazine's video site, a part of me thinks this might be a joke, but it actually looks like they've gotten the thing to work. It's essentially one of those giant American Gladiator balls, but placed on a stand equipped with wheels, so whoever's inside can run in any direction. The users are equipped with goggles and what looks like a plastic laser gun for the first-person shooter demo, and the game picks up movement pretty nicely. We imagine it'd be tougher than they think to change direction on a dime, and of course not that many people have room for a 10-foot metal ball in their family room, but it's worth a look. Best line: "It really is a locomotion simulator. And just to define locomotion, it doesn't have anything to do with trains [dude does his best to hold back a vigorous guffaw at this pun] but with the movement of people." [VBS.tv]

Anders Sandberg has run a few back-of-the-napkin calculations on what it might take, power-wise, to sustain a theoretical mechanical brain:

How efficient could a postbiological civilization be? The current IBM roadrunner does 376 million calculations per watts. If we take my mid-range estimates of computing needs, 10^22 to 10^25 FLOPS, then a single emulation would need 10^13 to 10^16 watts. The total insolation of Earth is about 10^17 watts, so this won't do - there would be space for just a few minds on the entire planet. But current research on zettaflops computing suggest we can do much better. A DARPA exascale study suggests we can do 10^12 flops per watt, which means "just" a dozen Hoover dams per mind.

But this first projection is flawed, which Sandberg admits; it exists in a future that has borne a mechanical brain, but that is for some reason bound to the computing technologies of the early 21st century. Assuming advances like Quantum Dot computing, which Sandberg thinks could create a 200-2000-watt mind (apparently 2-20 times our current brain draw), and other, more distant/less grounded concepts, he sees a future in which a mechanical mind might be extremely efficient:

The quantum dot computer mentioned above is not the most effective computer imaginable. Using reversible computation there could in principle be calculations done at no energy dissipation. Unfortunately it would still be needed for error correction and interacting with the real world. A conservative bound would be assuming one irreversible operation every millisecond at every synapse, which leads to 10^17 operations and an energy dissipation of 3*10^-6 watts per degree - colder computers are more efficient. Using just liquid nitrogen (77 Kelvin) the energy requirements of a mind would be on the order of 0.0002 watts, 20% of an optical disc player laser. Even adding in the costs of cooling and manufacturing the hardware, it seems likely that this kind of postbiological human would be extremely resource efficient.

Of course, these predictions are equal parts futurist ramblings and science, so at the later end they're close to meaningless. But they're fun! [Andart via BoingBoing Gadgets]

[Gizmodo Clocks, Alarms]

From Dior, the Blow glasses are a fluorescently fugly take on the future of fashion, debuting in a limited batch of 500 this April. No, they don't contain any special video hud or miniature computer, but no one else needs to know that as you threaten to retaliate to their name calling with mechanically-focused psionic blasts. [Viewon via StyleCrave]

Seriously. When I was around eleven years old, for some reason I spent a lot of time thinking that me and my brothers were all robots. I imagined that somewhere inside me there were chips, valves, and strange circuits. Some nights I couldn't even sleep thinking that my parents-who I thought were human-would come at night to open some hidden compartment and recharge my batteries or access my memory.

Definitely, this image scares me to no end. [Dark Roasted Blend]

It's pretty straightforward, really. You just need a leaf blower, a tarp and a board. It takes some work, but it looks pretty doable. And the results look totally awesome. You might not be able to outrun Biff and his gang, but you'd still impress everyone hanging out in front of the old clock tower. I want one. [Jason Bradbury, Wonder How To via The Daily What]

[Jalopnik]

SpaceShipTwo is the spaceship that'll actually go into space, while White Knight Two is the plane that'll bring it up high enough to launch itself away. SpaceShipTwo will be able to tote eight people at a time into sub-orbit, two pilots and six passengers, each of whom will pay $200,000 for the right to be one of the few humans to see the earth from above.

The White Knight Two is already almost complete, with testing scheduled for later this year, while SpaceShipTwo is about 60% complete. The flights will take off from the Spaceport that Virgin Galactic is building in the New Mexico desert. As much as I'd like to say $200,000 is a ridiculous amount to spend on a flight into space, you know what? If I had so much money that $200,000 wasn't a big deal, I would be all over this. Hey, Branson! How's about a press preview flight, hmm? Good reviews can be bought with free trips to space. [Virgin Galactic via BBC]

Microsoft's Shift, on the other hand, re-creates whatever's underneath your poker so you can actually see what you're clicking on. Plus, there's added visual feedback so you can narrow down your inputs as well. Check out the video on their site for a closer look. – Jason Chen

Project Site [Microsoft Research via jkontherun]