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How to Dial a Phone, circa 1930s

For all you whippersnappers out there who never had the experience, here’s a primer on how to use a rotary dial telephone. Produced by Big Brother … I mean, the telephone company … in the 1930s, the film explained the dial tone and busy signal to consumers used to having the operator connect their calls.…

io9 Lynn Peril

ChooseThe Next Scifi Classic To Get The Comedy Remake Treatment

Now that Eddie Murphy and Brett Ratner are remaking The Incredible Shrinking Man as a comedy, maybe we’ll see the start of a trend of comedy remakes of scifi classics. After all, a version of The Day The Earth Stood Still starring Martin Lawrence probably wouldn’t be any sillier than the “serious” Keanu Reeves version…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Inside the Heart of Gold That You Never Saw

If you haven’t seen the BBC television version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then you need to get off your lazy duff and give it a whirl. It’s extremely different from the movie version, and much closer to the novels and radio drama. Probably the best thing about it is the Guide itself,…

io9 Kevin Kelly

Drink with io9ers Tonight at Nerd Salon in San Francisco

Tonight in San Francisco the nerds can rejoice at Nerd Salon, an event where you can chat or flirt without fear about comic books, computers, bioengineering, and Battlestar Galactica. Convened by myself, and Electronic Frontier Foundation legal geek Jennifer Granick, Nerd Salon is a place where people will help you with your homework. While drinking.…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Please Don’t Let Arnold Schwarzenegger Do Terminator 4

The producers of the fourth Terminator movie dismissed rumors that Arnold Schwarzenegger would put in an appearance in the film months ago, but now Arnie himself is stirring them up again. He told a reporter that he hasn’t had any talks with anybody, but he’s really interested in appearing in T4, as long as it’s…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Why Virgins And Superheroes Shouldn’t Mix

Dear Sir Richard Branson and Gotham Chopra: I think we need to talk about your superhero habit. I was reading that your company, Virgin Comics, has just employed aging icon Stan Lee to create a new line of superhero books, just days after the publisher announced that it would be releasing Superbia, a series about…

io9 Graeme McMillan

Eternal Youth For Baby Boomers Spawns A Horrendous Disease

The coolest near-future story I’ve read recently is now available online, as a free download. Maureen McHugh’s story “Interview: On Any Given Day” wraps genetic engineering and future youth subcultures into a story that’s alternately funny and super-disturbing. The story’s faux-interview format and weird little hyperlinks add to the feeling that you’re consuming a piece…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

X-Prize Hits the Meatpacking Industry

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are putting their money where their mouths are with a million dollar contest to see who can grow edible, tasty chicken nugget meat in a lab by 2012. The prospect of lab-grown meat has a lot of promise, but has been around for years without much progress,…

io9 Michael Reilly

How To Bring The Weird In Your Near-Future Stories

Everybody says we’re living in a science fictional era now. Your grandma’s poodle is on Facebook, your whole social life is on your iphone, and mega-corps know everything about you. But if you think the world is futuristic now, just wait another twenty years. The weirdness will swarm exponentially, making the world of 2028 easily…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

1970s Soviet Alien Architecture

French photojournalist Frederic Chaubin likes to take photographs of science-fictiony Soviet architecture from the 1970s and 80s. During that era, the Soviets erected several formidable buildings that look like cities you’d see on an alien world. Pictured here is a strangely organic-looking wedding palace which is located in Georgia. More U.S.S.R. spaceportecture below. This is…

io9 LISA KATAYAMA

Hard Scifi Flick “Splice” Actually Based on Internet-Rumor Science

Turns out that the hard science underpinning Splice, a forthcoming flick about genetic engineering directed by Vincenzo “Cube” Natali, is actually not so hard. In a recent interview, the director claims his inspiration to do a genetic chimera movie was seeing a now-famous image of a mouse with a human ear grafted onto its back.…

Movies Annalee Newitz

Why Titan is the Awesomest Moon in the Solar System

It’s bigger than Mercury, has dune seas like Tatooine (or Arrakis) and has the coolest name of any moon: Titan. The Cassini spacecraft is still revealing many of its secrets, with another flyby scheduled just a few weeks from now. Here are five reasons to get excited about Saturn’s largest satellite. 1. Titan is the…

io9 Ed Grabianowski

Michael Bay Plays Internet Punk’d

This just in: Michael Bay is messing with your head intentionally. Or, at least, he is if you’re one of the people who’s been paying attention to the various spoilers and leaks from the second Transformers movie. Because according to Bay, almost all of it is fake, produced by the studios to keep fans guessing.…

io9 Graeme McMillan

Four Ways of Looking at Speed Racer

Speed Racer is a simple concept movie about futuristic cars which producer/director team the Wachowskis have managed to make almost as complicated as their Matrix trilogy. New clips from the film released yesterday take us deeper inside the visually bizarre world the Wachowskis built for this film, and what’s becoming obvious is that Speed Racer…

Movies Annalee Newitz

Universal Soldier 3 (Version 2.0) Is Coming.

It’s finally happened: Jean-Claude Van Damme has decided to come home and is in talks to star in Universal Soldier 3. Not the Universal Soldier 3 that already exists, of course, because that one starred Burt Reynolds (No, really), but an all-new third chapter to the reanimated zombie warrior saga that unleashed 10,000 BC and…

io9 Graeme McMillan

Secrets Of Battlestar, Sarah Connor And Lost

Spoiler alert: Fans got hold of some script pages from one of the very last episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and they give a lot of spoilers for how the show will look in its home stretch. Also, producers tell us what to expect from the next Superman movie and season two of Sarah Connor Chronicles.…

Television Charlie Jane Anders

UFO Sightings in Arizona Can Be Traced Back to “Close Encounters” Footage

Arizonans are buzzing today about a series of floaty lights that hovered over Phoenix last night for about 15 minutes. One guy captured them on film (you can see it here), and the news covered it to death, wondering how people could have seen a bunch of lights that the Federal Aviation Administration and local…

io9 Annalee Newitz

What If Every Single Joel Silver Movie Took Place In The Same Universe?

Some movie producers are as identifiable as directors — just think of Jerry Bruckheimer and his splodey-boom school of film-making — and their oeuvre forms a coherent statement. One producer who doesn’t get the props he deserves is Joel Silver, who’s produced everything from the cheese-plattery Xanadu to the paranoiac Matrix trilogy. Silver’s movies all…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

A Galaxy Unwinds, 140,000 Light Years From Its Core

Baby stars spring to life at the supposedly desolate fringes of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as M83, in this new image from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. Up to 140,000 light years from the galaxy’s center, the outer arms of its “pinwheel” shape seem to flap away from the center like “giant red streamers,”…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Forget Warp Speed, Try One Of These Alternative FTL Ideas

In Star Wars and Star Trek, the main way to get around the galaxy is to use warp speed or flip on your hyperdrive, which is a bit like hitting the gas pedal as hard as you can so you’ll get there a bit quicker. There’s more science to it than that, involving subspace fields…

io9 Kevin Kelly

How to Dial a Phone, circa 1930s

ChooseThe Next Scifi Classic To Get The Comedy Remake Treatment

Inside the Heart of Gold That You Never Saw

Drink with io9ers Tonight at Nerd Salon in San Francisco

Please Don’t Let Arnold Schwarzenegger Do Terminator 4

Why Virgins And Superheroes Shouldn’t Mix

Eternal Youth For Baby Boomers Spawns A Horrendous Disease

X-Prize Hits the Meatpacking Industry

How To Bring The Weird In Your Near-Future Stories

1970s Soviet Alien Architecture

Hard Scifi Flick “Splice” Actually Based on Internet-Rumor Science

Why Titan is the Awesomest Moon in the Solar System

Michael Bay Plays Internet Punk’d

Four Ways of Looking at Speed Racer

Universal Soldier 3 (Version 2.0) Is Coming.

Secrets Of Battlestar, Sarah Connor And Lost

UFO Sightings in Arizona Can Be Traced Back to “Close Encounters” Footage

What If Every Single Joel Silver Movie Took Place In The Same Universe?

A Galaxy Unwinds, 140,000 Light Years From Its Core

Forget Warp Speed, Try One Of These Alternative FTL Ideas

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia Adds ‘Succulent Chinese Meal’ Guy

Feds Sniffing Around Polymarket After Suspicious Bets

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Don’t Get Too Attached to Any AI App

‘Paradise’ Writer Teases What’s Coming in Season 3 After That Huge Twist

Trump’s New White House App Is Mildly Concerning and Weird for a Lot of Reasons

Bloodsucking Ticks Can Survive Inside Your Home Longer Than You Might Think

The Best New Toys of March 2026

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

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