Carrie Fisher had a psychedelic-induced encounter with a talking acorn. Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann recalls the time he dropped too much acid and his cymbals began melting mid-set, forcing him to leave the stage. Ben Stiller admits he only dropped acid once and had such a bad trip that he called his parents, Jerry…
DetailsAmazon enters the crowded games industry in full force Wednesday with its release of Crucible, the first big-budget PC game to come from Amazon Game Studios. Crucible is a promising mainstream introduction for the eight-year-old studio, which until now has had a large question mark hanging over its head.Crucible is a third-person team shooter that…
DetailsThe magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic will largely depend on how quickly safe and effective vaccines and treatments can be developed and tested. Many assume a widely available vaccine is years away, if ever. Others believe that a 12- to 18-month development cycle is a given. Our best bet to reduce even that record-breaking timeline…
DetailsI’ve been testing a lot of budget phones lately. You’d think my favorites would come from established brands like Samsung and Motorola, right? Not quite. The phones I’ve really enjoyed using come from a brand you may not associate with mobile devices: TCL, a company better known in the US for making affordable televisions.TCL has…
DetailsThis story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.As the US approaches another scorching summer, the power grid will be tested once again. Energy use typically spikes during heat waves due to the massive amount of electricity required by widespread air-conditioning. This extra demand is met by so-called peaker plants,…
DetailsImage: Steph “FerociouslySteph” LoehrLast week, Twitch announced a new Safety Advisory Council intended to provide input on some of Twitch’s most pernicious issues, including work-life balance, safety and moderation, and protection of marginalized groups. The council is made up of social media experts as well as a small handful of streamers. One of those streamers,…
DetailsThe Last of Us Part II is just a month away now, with the long-awaited PlayStation 4 sequel due to finally arrive on June 19, 2020. To celebrate the home stretch, Naughty Dog has today announced that an official emoji for the game is being added on Twitter.If you use the hashtag “#TheLastofUsPartII”, your tweets…
DetailsThe SD Association, the group that sets the standards for memory cards, announced a new SD 8.0 specification for SD Express memory cards today that will allow the cards to transfer data at a rate of nearly four gigabytes per second, in large part thanks to utilizing PCIe 4.0 and NVMe interfaces commonly found in…
DetailsThe latest high-stakes standoff between Apple and the FBI has come to an end. After claiming for months that Apple alone could unlock the two iPhones of Pensacola, Florida shooter Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the agency announced today that it had managed to do so without Cupertino’s help—and without undermining the encryption that protects over 1…
DetailsHello, and welcome to a fresh edition of The Monitor, WIRED’s entertainment news roundup. We’ve got a few crazy ones in the lineup today, including an online reading of James and the Giant Peach led by director Taika Waititi and a Twitter spat between Elon Musk, Ivanka Trump, and Matrix cocreator Lilly Wachowski. Let’s dive…
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