Matt Novak

It’s Easier To Draw the Smartwatch Future Than It Is To Build It

“It’s still easier to draw a new wrist technology in a comic strip than to sell it to consumers,” wrote James Gleick in 1995. And boy was he right. Even before 1995, consumers had seen countless visions of the smartwatch future. And Gleick’s reluctant optimism about the future of wrist-worn tech was certainly admirable. But…

Time Capsule of Unpublished Books Won’t Be Opened Until the Year 2114

Sadly, you won’t be able to read Margaret Atwood’s new book. When it’s finally published you’ll be dead. Well, you’ll probably be dead. Because her latest work is going to be placed in a time capsule that won’t be opened until the year 2114. And hers isn’t the only book. “It does appeal to that…

Can Apple’s Watch Overcome the History of Broken Smartwatch Promises?

Yesterday, Apple announced that it will release its own smartwatch in “early 2015.” But the smartwatch has a trail of broken promises in its wake. Around this time last year Samsung announced that they were going to bring us the sci-fi future we had always dreamt about. Can Apple finally make our smartwatch dreams a…

That New Utopia Show Is a Dumb Dystopia But Obviously That’s the Point

Throughout history, people have tried to build many different versions of Utopia. Sometimes it’s a charismatic leader ushering people toward a righteous path with a common goal. Other times, groups of like-minded people come together to democratically work toward a common goal. And sometimes it’s just a bunch of knuckleheads on a reality show. If…

7 Famous Quotes About the Future That Are Actually Fake

Here at Paleofuture, we love failed predictions. It’s kind of our bread and butter. But shockingly, some of the failed predictions being passed around on the internet are often misleading, frequently taken out of context, or sometimes completely fabricated. Fake quotes on the internet? Unbelievable, I know. But today we have seven predictions you may…

The Jetsons Amusement Park Ride That Never Was

Bruce Bushman was a designer whose name you may not know, but whose work you’ve almost certainly seen. He worked on everything from the design of the Disneyland castle to episodes of The Flintstones TV show. But there’s one project that Bushman worked on that sadly never became a reality: a Jetsons theme park ride.…

Twenty styles of children’s sunglasses—215,000 pairs, in all—have been recalled for having “excessive” amounts of lead in them, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Many Disney and Marvel-branded sunglasses are included in the recall. So if you bought lil’ Johnny some Spiderman sunnies this summer, you may want to check out the recall…

First Graders of 1988 Make Predictions for 2000

Kids are often some of the most interesting futurists. Their ideas about what tomorrow might bring usually include the most optimistic and far-out predictions of the culture. But they’re also shaded by the fears and neuroses of their parents. The first grade class of 1988 was no exception. In the 1980s, the New Castle News…

1 in 5 American households with children are food insecure

The United States is one of the richest countries on Earth. But according to a new report, thousands of American children go to bed hungry each night. In fact, one in five American households with children are food insecure — meaning that they have difficulty consistently providing food for all members of their family during…

Uber Is Currently Fighting the Battle That Jitneys Lost 100 Years Ago

The mid-1910s saw an explosion of people driving unlicensed cabs. They were called jitneys (slang for a nickel, which was also what they typically cost) and cities across the U.S. scrambled to regulate them. Today, cities around the world are struggling to regulate modern-day jitney coordination companies—ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft. But unlike the…

80% of Americans took a week’s vacation in 1976. Just 56% will in 2014.

In Australia every full time worker is guaranteed four weeks of paid vacation each year. In Japan, it’s 10 days. Canada? A minimum of 10 days of paid vacation. Here in the U.S.? Zero. Just as the United States is the only wealthy country in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid maternity leave, it’s also…

It’s legal to label foods with trans fats as containing none

A new study has shown that about 9 percent of packaged foods in the United States contain trans fats. Of those, the vast majority (84 percent) were listed as containing no trans fats. And that’s all perfectly legal according to the FDA. A significant body of research has shown that the consumption of partially hydrogenated…

Louisiana loses a football field of land every hour to the ocean

If you compare a map of the Louisiana coastline in the 1920s to today, the difference is striking. About 1,883 square miles of land has just disappeared — swallowed into the Gulf of Mexico. And each year Louisiana loses more. In fact, roughly a football field’s worth of land is lost every hour. From ProPublica:…

Operators Tweak That Handsome Furs Magic Into Synth Heaven

When the curtain was first raised at the Future Islands show at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood last week I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know who would be opening for the Baltimore-based band and hadn’t bothered to check. Squinting to make out the lead singer’s face (I really need to update…

6 More Viral Photos That Are Total Lies

The internet is filled with plenty of photo fakery. And we here at Factually are here to help you distinguish the true from the too-good-to-be. Today we have six more images you may have seen floating around recently. None of them is precisely what it claims to be. 1) Is this a Soviet-era beach? The…

Amazing 1960s Predictions About Satellites, Email, and the Internet

It’s hard for many of us living here in the early 21st century to imagine a world without satellites. Well, in fairness, we don’t really think about satellites at all. Much like electricity or tap water, we only remember how vital they are when they stop working. Our GPS devices, smartphones, and modern military infrastructure…

Matt Novak’s Public PGP Key

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No, the first baby born under anaesthesia wasn’t named Anaesthesia

According to a recent post that’s gone viral among science and history nerds, the first baby born to a mother under anaesthesia named her baby Anaesthesia. It’s an amusing fun fact. But unfortunately, it’s too good to be true. Anaesthesia was reportedly a nickname sometimes used by the doctor who delivered the baby girl in…

Elephants, monkeys, and the Holy Spirit can’t claim copyright in the US

A new paper from the US Copyright Office has been published to clarify what can and what cannot be copyrighted. Novels written by human beings are covered. What’s not covered? Photos taken by monkeys, murals painted by elephants, and songs written by ghosts. Things that can be copyrighted: Photos taken by a human Songs written…

Stop Pretending There’s a Line Dividing Politics and Tech

“Silicon Valley is a place where seemingly impossible problems are solved every day,” Ezra Klein writes in a new post for The Verge. “…while Washington is a place where solvable problems prove impossible to do anything about.” Klein presents a huge chasm dividing the worlds of technology and politics. This idea is misguided at best,…