Augmented Urban Reality

Frank Rose in The New Yorker: 

The Times recently reported that midtown sidewalks are so crowded that people have taken to walking in the street.

It’s a bit curious that this is happening just as digital technology infiltrates everything. If the automobile caused us to disperse, the information age seems, paradoxically, to be drawing us back together. Widespread predictions that the Internet would free us all to telecommute from the greener pastures of outer Podunk have not been borne out. Being hyperconnected in the digital dimension appears only to make us want to feel hyperconnected in the physical as well. Which is fortunate, because cities are generally beneficial in any number of ways—more efficient than suburbs and small towns in their use of energy and other resources, more conducive to the free flow of ideas, more tolerant, more, well, urbane. The question is whether technology will be able to support the millions of people whom cities are now attracting.

3 Million LEGO Bricks in One Room

Wired visited Robbie McCarthy and Bill Gowdy, two of LEGO's Master Builders. They show us LEGOLAND's model shop packed with more than 3 million bricks in 70 different colors. Robbie also gives us an exclusive look at LEGO's proprietary 3D modeling software.

Pixar: What Makes a Story Relatable

A quick look at Pixar's approach to storytelling and character development. 

Everything is a Remix: The Force Awakens

Kirby Ferguson continues the Everything is a Remix series with a look at Star Wars. 

What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation? A Brief Guided Tour

The New York Times explores innovation:

The truth is, this isn’t a debate that can be settled objectively. Which was a more important innovation: indoor plumbing, jet air travel or mobile phones? You could argue for any of them, and data can tell plenty of different stories depending on how you look at it. Productivity statistics or information on inflation-adjusted incomes is helpful, but can’t really tell you whether the advent of air-conditioning or the Internet did more to improve humanity’s quality of life.

We thought a better way to understand the significance of technological change would be to walk through how Americans lived, ate, traveled, and clothed and entertained themselves in 1870, 1920, 1970 and the present. This tour is both inspired by and reliant on Robert J. Gordon’s authoritative examination of innovation through the ages, “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” published this year. These are portraits of each point in time, culled from Mr. Gordon’s research; you can decide for yourself which era is truly most transformative.