The online virtual reality experience that almost every tech giant today wishes to commercially exploit may not catch onIn the 1992 sci-fi dystopia Snow Crash, the author Neal Stephenson imagined a bleak 21st century where the collapse of the global economy had seen governments fall and their power replaced by a few giant businesses. The book is notable for prescience, anticipating the adoption of what was then seen as outlandish technologies like the wireless internet, cryptocurrencies and smartphones, as well as the rise of the gig economy. But it is the book’s prophetic vision of “the metaverse” that has revived interest in the work.That is because Stephenson described the online virtual reality experience that almost every tech giant today wishes to commercially exploit. Last October, Microsoft announced that users of its Teams online meetings app would be able to turn themselves into avatars – the term Stephenson popularised in Snow Crash – to encourage users into virtual interaction. Days later Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, rebranded his company as Meta, with a focus on the potential for virtual worlds. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-02-07 19:11:48 UTC ]
Whether the Meta boss and his ex-lieutenant Sheryl Sandberg are truly beyond awful is neither here nor there. I thought he was done with factcheckingI am as shocked as I am confused that Mark Zuckerberg is going all-out to block a memoir by Facebook’s former director of global public policy,... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-14 12:37:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Here are the finalists for this year's Nebula Awards, honoring the best in science fiction and fantasy. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-03-13 14:16:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this
J.D. Beresford’s The Hampdenshire Wonder is generally considered to be the first fictional treatment of superhuman intelligence, or “superintelligence.” This is a familiar trope for readers of science fiction today, but when the novel was originally published in 1911 it was anything but. What... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-03-06 09:59:31 UTC ]
More news stories like this
My friend and former work colleague Simon Welfare, who has died aged 78, was a writer and pioneering TV producer whose programmes aimed to make science accessible to all.Together with the science fiction author Arthur C Clarke and a fellow producer, John Fairley, in 1980 he cooked up the format... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-02-24 11:07:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Science fiction has been obsessed with perfect female robot companions but never considered what makes a good male human companion, till now. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2025-02-05 17:21:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The subgenre helped increase the market share by 41.3% last year aided by bestseller Fourth Wing from Rebecca Yarros while food and drink topped nonfiction salesSales of science fiction and fantasy books rocketed last year, with their value increasing by 41.3% between 2023 and 2024.The booming... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-02-03 17:00:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Mysterious tarot + a missing person, an action-packed science fiction thriller, an ancient guide to modern life, and more of today's best book deals Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-21 16:18:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Barry Blitt, Jack Ohman, and Jen Sorensen discuss the promise and many perils of their chosen artform. Editorial cartoons and illustration are fairly niche topics—or so I once thought. On Jan. 3, cartoonist Ann Telnaes published Why I’m quitting the Washington Post on her Substack. It detailed... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-01-21 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Unfortunately, there are two crucial flaws with the idea that the show’s severance procedure could involve a simple snip to the hippocampus. Severance, which imagines a world where a person’s work and personal lives are surgically separated, will soon return to Apple TV+ for a second season.... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-01-20 17:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
These genre-defying science fiction books dissect, critique, and upend the genre, forging a whole new approach to sci-fi. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-16 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
After winning just about every major science fiction and fantasy award, Nnedi Okorafor explores a traumatic event in her own history in her most autobiographical novel yet. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-01-12 10:01:14 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Prolific science fiction writer who conceived alternative lives for figures including Emily Dickinson and Sigmund FreudIn 1965, Barry N Malzberg, who has died aged 85, decided that the career he sought as a literary writer was closed to him – the magazines were impenetrable, the control of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-09 17:38:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The aircraft—known as “electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, or eVTOL—lift off the ground like a helicopter. When he was still a boy making long, tedious trips between his school and his woodsy home in the mountains during the 1980s, JoeBen Bevirt began fantasizing about flying cars... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-01-08 15:38:34 UTC ]
More news stories like this
From angry spirits and parallel universes to alien abductions and epic folklore, African writers are offering fresh new horizons for the world’s science fiction landscape. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-12-19 08:05:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this
From angry spirits and parallel universes to alien abductions and epic folklore, African writers are offering fresh new horizons for the world’s science fiction landscape. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-12-19 08:05:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this
From cyberpunk to space to climate fiction, novels and novellas, here are the 10 best science fiction books of 2024. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-12-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The year’s best speculative fiction includes a fantasy novel by Kelly Link, alien epics and promising starts to series. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-12-06 10:02:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this