According to the Montreal Gazette, Canada would be a drugged-up dystopia by 2000 AD
Remember back in the year 2000 when you’d feed your brat kids their breakfast pellets, head to work under the city’s weather controlled dome, your computer overlords only knew you by your nine digit identification number, and you’d end your day fantasizing about a life before computers? The January 18, 1969 Montreal Gazette ran this…
Some Japanese patients shun robot helpers, throwing high-tech future of elder care into doubt
In Japan, robot-led weddings, robot factory workers and even squeaky robot pets are all fine and good. But in-home helper bots, which are the main goal of many robotics research projects, are anything but widespread, even in that robo-friendly country. Apparently old people and sick people, even in Japan, still prefer that human touch. Rather…
No, hackers can’t open Hoover Dam’s floodgates
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is shooting down a key legislative talking point: that the internet “kill-switch” legislation is needed to prevent cyberterrorists from opening the Hoover Dam’s floodgates. The brouhaha started last week, when legislative aides on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee offered Threat Level examples of why the Protecting Cyberspace as…
io9 Must-Reads, Evening Edition: February 4, 2011
Did you miss some of the excitement today on io9? Here are your must-read stories of the day. Image by Zdzisław Beksiński. One of the absolute worst space battle sequences we’ve ever seen It’s not just the hideous special effects, although those are pretty terrible — especially the closeups of pilots’ faces while random rear-projection…
Mathematicians figure out how to fend off gold-diggers – with game theory
As any man will tell you (especially in the weeks before Valentine’s Day), gift-giving is a tricky business. Although men can use gifts to enhance their chances of getting laid, this can also leave them vulnerable to “gold-diggers” (a highly scientific term that describes women who use the promise of sex to get stuff from…
