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The Best of WIRED on Star Wars Can’t wait for the Force to awaken on December 18? Go to WIRED.com to access our stellar Star Wars coverage— from a 2005 interview with George Lucas to our predictions (and hopes) for the franchise reboot, plus one writer’s tale of finally watching the original movies for the first time. ON THE WEB: WIRED.com/tag/star-wars VIDEO Better Drinking Through Chemistry Make awesome cocktails this holiday season, with science! WIRED articles editor Adam Rogers, author of Proof: The Science of Booze, joins some of the Bay Area’s smartest bartenders as they harness the power of chemistry to make tasty, pro-quality drinks at home. ON THE WEB: video.WIRED.com WEB + PRINT The Future of Football The Super Bowl is 50, so WIRED and Sports Illustrated are…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE HOW TO FIX PHARMA’S PRICE PROBLEM

ALPHA SHOUT IN 1990, scientists in Italy published a study comparing the efficacy of two heart medications. After looking at more than 12,400 cases, they concluded that the newer and more expensive drug provided no significant improvement in health outcomes. The study was controversial and, not surprisingly, contested by Genentech, the company behind the costlier option. It also kickstarted a conversation about the rising cost of medicines. The price tag of the new drug in the study was $2,200 per dose, after all. ¶ How quaint. Today, many drugs cost more than $30,000 a pop. In the past 50 years, prices for cancer drugs have increased a hundredfold, and spending on specialty drugs is forecast to double yet again by 2020. The industry’s riposte to any criticism about pricing is…

6 min

WIRED|Dec-15

F&#K IT, WE’LL DO IT LIVE!

In December, the coolest sci-fi/fantasy epic of the 1970s is finally getting the high-profile revival it so richly deserves. If you’re as excited as I am, yell it with me: The Wiz Live! What, you thought I was talking about something else? Nope. The all-black reimagining of the classic L. Frank Baum book was the toast of Broadway when it first appeared, and it remains the great cultural touchstone of the Gerald Ford era. (How many Tony Awards did Star Wars ever win? None, that’s how many.) Now The Wiz strikes back as the latest musical broadcast live on NBC—and it gets even better, because next month Fox is jumping on the trend by staging Grease. This is exactly the sort of high-risk, high-reward programming we need. When it’s good,…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

Q: IS FLIRTING ON LINKEDIN LESS WEIRD THAN ON OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA? AFTER ALL, YOUR R SUM VOUCHES FOR YOU IN A SUBSTANTIVE WAY.

A: Whoa. Hang on. Let’s first poke at the premise of your question, because the implications here are huge. Notice how you casually presume your résumé offers a more substantive representation of your basic humanity than, say, all the tweets you’ve tweeted or all the digital artifacts amassed on your Facebook page. Think of the photos on Facebook alone: You in a rowboat with the gentle-looking man playing a banjo whom we understand to be your deceased (too young) father. You being silly— but not obnoxiously silly, just innocently, endearingly silly—in the Halloween aisle of a big-box store. You tagged in a photo of that kid you mentored that one summer, as he graduates from Berkeley. You climbing a goddamned mountain! Like, with pickaxes and stuff! ¶ Do these not…

5 min

WIRED|Dec-15

WIRED CITIES HOT SUN IN THE WINTERTIME SWAP SEASONS IN MELBOURNE

FEBRUARY 7, 2009, WAS MELBOURNE’S HOTTEST DAY ON RECORD: 115.5 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. // THE VEGEMITE FACTORY HERE PRODUCES MORE THAN 22 MILLION JARS PER YEAR. // IN THE SUMMER, MORE THAN 30,000 FLYING FOXES (AKA BATS) BLACKEN THE SKY AT SUNSET AS THEY DESCEND ON THE CITY TO FEED. “Ice-cold drinks, shorts, clean shirts, and a seafood buffet feast—that sums up Christmas for me. I remember heading to Nevermind Bar on Christmas Eve, spinning music all night long on the roof deck until nobody was left.” — Nicholas Murphy, aka Chet Faker, electronic musician THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, banish all thoughts of eggnog and log fires. When you spend December in Melbourne, it’s gourmet barbecues by the river and impromptu park parties until sunrise. (And don’t forget to leave a craft…

2 min

WIRED|Dec-15

CREATE

Number One No.2s RHODIA PENCILS $9 FOR 3 Where'd that damn pencil go? Probably rolled off the table again. Don't risk a back sprain trying to reach for it; buy a set of these scribblers instead. The triangular shape keeps them where you left them, and the black linden-wood innards look plain gorgeous. BLOCK PARTY BLOCKITECTURE HABITAT $25 Any average toddler can stack blocks. Cantilevering, on the other hand, that’s the kind of thing more advanced children—your children, for example— might do. Hand your prodigies this set of specially notched blocks and let them dream up buildings as unconventional as Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67. SKETCHBOOK................................................. $4 PENCILS............................................................... $9 BUILDING BLOCKS..................................$25 STYLUS..............................................................$50 POCKET SYNTHESIZER......................$59 HAMMER..........................................................$79 SMARTPHONE LENS SET..................$99 IPHONE CAMERA...................................$599 3-D PRINTER.........................................$2,899 SONY DSLR............................................$3,000 ELECTRIC GUITAR............................$5,250 LEICA CAMERA...................................$7,450 NAILED IT! HARDCORE…

3 min

WIRED|Dec-15

RELAX

SLIDE SHOW MASHSTUDIOS LAX SERIES ENTERTAINMENT SHELF $980 EVEN THE BEST HOME THEATER GEAR CAN BE AN OFFENSE TO THE EYE. THIS SLEEK WALNUT CONSOLE HAS A SLIDING ALUMINUM PANEL (SHOWN IN WHITE) TO HIDE YOUR MORE HIDEOUS PIECES. AN OPENING IN BACK ACCOMMODATES THE CABLES. TEAPOT..............................................................$20 CHROMECAST..............................................$35 COCKTAIL GLASS......................................$75 GLASS CARAFE........................................$100 MODULAR HEADPHONES..............$145 ALARM CLOCK/LIGHT........................$190 HAMMOCK....................................................$195 EARBUDS.......................................................$199 TABLE LAMP...............................................$350 WIRELESS HEADPHONES...............$500 LOUNGE CHAIR........................................$900 ENTERTAINMENT CONSOLE........$980 WIRELESS MUSIC SYSTEM.......$3,295 65-INCH OLED 4K TV......................$5,000 Kick off your shoes, pour yourself something nice on ice, and hit Play to fill the air with some calming grooves. It’s you time, and with these beautifully designed products, the living is easy. YOUR DOWNTIME IS WHEN YOUR BEST IDEAS COME TO LIGHT. Great Awakenings WITHINGS AURA $190 This alarm clock/lamp hybrid greets you every morning…

4 min

WIRED|Dec-15

THE FORCE WILL BE

WITH AL WAYS. US. ULISES FARINAS KATHLEEN KENNEDY HAS HEARD A LOT OF MOUTE PITCHES. For decades she worked with Steven Spielberg, producing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, the Jurassic Park series. You get the picture. So it probably wasn’t a surprise—it was cool, even—when, right after Kennedy took over as head of Lucasfilm, the company George Lucas founded to make Star Wars, John Knoll walked into her office. Knoll is not nothing, either. He’s the chief creative officer at Lucasfilm; he did the visual effects on the Star Wars “special editions” of the 1990s and a couple of Star Trek movies, among others. Along the way he cocreated Photoshop. This was 2012, and even then, it was pretty clear Lucasfilm was going to make more Star Wars…

20 min

WIRED|Dec-15

FROM ONE FAN TO ANOTHER

“What is the friggin’ deal with those Jawas?” I remember thinking to myself. I was scared, and who could blame me? Those chattering little bastards were menacing: a skosh taller than me, beady yellow eyes glowing like cinders under their dark burlap hoods. They surrounded a slightly paunchy Darth Vader, one Jawa clinging to his leg, which was odd in retrospect, because even though Vader grew up on Tatooine, there is no cinematic evidence of his ever hanging out with Jawas. But there they were, a few story-line-challenged cosplayers standing in line at a West Texas strip mall in the summer of 1980—terrorizing the likes of 4-year-old me. My dad hadn’t planned for me to be terrified when he brought me to see The Empire Strikes Back, of course. He…

2 min

WIRED|Dec-15

HACKER TV EXPOSING SECURITY FLAWS ON YOUTUBE

Kamkar’s Greatest Hits SkyJack A drone that lets a hacker take control of another drone. Combo Breaker A bot that can crack a combination lock in under 30 seconds. OwnStar A device that can be planted on a car and used to commandeer the vehicle through its smartphone app. IN AN AGE when hackers trade techniques on the dark web and sell them to intelligence agencies, Samy Kamkar takes a more entertaining approach: You-Tube. A display of the 30-yearold’s digital mischief, the video series Applied Hacking teaches some 50,000 subscribers flashy hacks, and no household item is immune: He has tweaked a kids’ toy to open garage doors, 3-D-printed a Master Lock–cracking robot, devised a fake charger that can sniff keystrokes in wireless keyboards, and even hijacked cars’ smartphone apps…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

GEAR SHIFT AN OVERHAULED CAR SHOW

THE BUILDING THAT houses the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles was never meant for cars. Originally designed as a department store, the ’60s-era Brutalist monolith had an awkward floor plan and a freight elevator better suited for ferrying kitchen appliances than, say, a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Which is why the two-decade-old museum shut down for 13 months of massive renovations. When the Petersen reopens in December, it won’t be some refurbished garage you’re stepping into—everything from the exterior to the display areas to the tech that permeates the space has been given a 21st-century tune-up (to the tune of $125 million). It’s like a shiny new supercar, captivating inside and out.…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

A SEEING-EYE CANE BUZZY HELP FOR THE BLIND

Every day, Indirani Sankari, a petite 23-year-old schoolteacher in Mumbai, commutes between a western suburb and the city’s southeastern edge. The trek takes two hours, three trains, and a lot of walking—each way. But that’s not the most painful part. Sankari is visually impaired, and her route is a gauntlet of threats: signboards, glass doors, benches, stray animals. “I’ve been attacked by dogs and cows, and I’ve been hurt everywhere,” she says. In the past year, though, Sankari has managed to get to and from work largely unscathed. For this, she thanks her SmartCane, a device that sits atop her regular walking stick and uses ultrasonic beams to scan her surroundings. Whenever she approaches an obstacle, the contraption buzzes against her palm, intensifying the vibrations the closer she gets. The…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

LOOK WHO’S TALKING WHOLE NEW WAYS FOR ANIMALS TO SPEAK

IMAGINE YOU’RE A DIABETIC and you use a service dog trained to alert you if it senses your blood sugar is falling. These dogs are incredibly useful, because diabetics can lapse into “hypoglycemia unawareness,” where they don’t notice their own oncoming symptoms. The canines do, and they intervene. But sometimes a diabetic shock can emerge so suddenly the human passes out. Then the dog’s in a quandary: How does it go for help? Because dogs can’t talk. ¶ Unless they’re sporting a wearable computer that helps dogs communicate with humans. Melody Jackson, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech, has been outfitting service dogs with computerized vests, so that in an emergency they can find another human and pull a mechanical lever on the vest that triggers an audio message: My…

3 min

WIRED|Dec-15

MOVE

Hot Wheels BUDNITZ NO.1 SCORCHER TITANIUM $6,440 The disc brakes and maintenance-free carbon belt drive on this city bike make it great for commuting, but Budnitz’s murdered-out Scorcher isn’t ready to hang it up at quittin’ time. The burly titanium frame and knobby Schwalbe tires are just as capable at shredding singletrack as they are cruising the bike lane. Plus, with that matte-black paint job and inverted handlebars, it just looks mean. SLAM DUNK SPALDING ABA BASKETBALL $126 You can’t go as hard in the paint as you used to. But with a piece of hoops history, you can still school opponents on the court. Turn back the shot clock to the early ’70s and the glory days of the American Basketball Association with the league’s iconic redwhite-and-blue ball. LANTERN/BATTERY............................$100…

3 min

WIRED|Dec-15

LUCKY VII

STEP THROUGH THE sleek, anonymous metal door of J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions and you enter a world of memorabilia—the murderous Talky Tina doll from The Twilight Zone, rows of VHS tapes labeled “Midnight Movies,” a Six Million Dollar Man board game, assorted Godzillas. But look closely and you will see a meticulousness to the madness: The props and tchotchkes are all dust-free and carefully arranged. Those 1970s Star Trek action figures aren’t just sitting there. They’re posed. It’s clear that in addition to being one of the most gifted movie directors in the world, Abrams is also a superfan. That puts him in a precarious situation. He has inherited the one megafranchise to rule them all. And this is no reboot. Abrams is marshaling the same actors, writers, designers,…

20 min

WIRED|Dec-15

MILITARY. INDUSTRIAL. COMPLEX.

Sebastian Kim How secretary of defense Ashton Carter is transforming theUS military—by reintroducing it to Silicon Valley. JESSI HEMPEL (@jessiwrites) is senior staff writer at wired. The “Doomsday Plane” weighs 800,000 pounds when fully loaded and can withstand the effects of a nuclear bomb or asteroid blast while remaining aloft for 12 hours without refueling. First deployed in 1974, the Boeing E-4B has been the preferred mode of long-range transportation for US secretaries of defense ever since. But when Ashton Carter’s staff discovered the behemoth would literally crush the runway in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he planned to attend the annual gathering of tech elite at the Allen & Co. conference, the SecDef nimbly switched to a sleek Gulfstream V. He jetted in with just a few aides, his wife…

21 min

WIRED|Dec-15

SOLAR, ECLIPSED

A FEW MINUTES AFTER I meet E. V. R. Raju, a vision pops into my head. I can see him on one of those lists of the World’s Most Important People released by the likes of CNN, Forbes, and Time. Besides the obvious entrants like the president and the pope, the lists always also include a few buzzy, click-generating names: Emma Watson, perhaps, or Bono. Raju is certainly not in either of those categories. He is the environmental manager of a coalfield in northeastern India. The Jharia coalfield, where Raju works, is India’s biggest and most significant, covering some 170 square miles. It has been on fire, calamitously, since 1916; entire villages have collapsed into the smoking ground. Raju’s job is to put out the fire, so that his company…

22 min

WIRED|Dec-15

Comments

BUILDING THE FUTURE WHEN WE THINK of innovative design, often it’s discrete objects—a gorgeous tea kettle, a sleek Bluetooth speaker, the original iPod— that come to mind. But for this year’s design issue, we wanted to go big. Our subject: cities. From the gondolas soaring above the streets of Medellín, Colombia, to the museum that spirals into the earth in Shanghai, these ingenious efforts are lighting the way toward a better, smarter future. (That’s literally true in Los Angeles, which is retrofitting 4,500 miles of streets with smart LEDs.) Our list included cities as far-flung as Nairobi, Eindhoven, and Dubai because, as we’ve learned: Inspiration lives everywhere. Re: “Cities by Design” “I READ 23.10 FROM FRONT TO BACK. BOTH CONTENT AND DESIGN WERE OUTSTANDING.” Leon Taylor via email “Not many…

4 min

WIRED|Dec-15

TOTAL ELLIPSE CORNERLESS BILLIARDS

How Loop Works Every ellipse contains two focus points. In theory, if you hit a ball that’s on one focus point (A), it should always rebound in such a way that it crosses the other (B). Bellos devised a pool table with a single pocket at one of those focus points. EIGHT BALL in the corner pocket? Not on Alex Bellos’ billiard table. It has no corner pockets—indeed, it has no corners whatsoever. Bellos, a British journalist who covers sports and mathematics, combined his two obsessions to create a unique game that he dubbed Loop. ¶ While working on his book The Grapes of Math, Bellos became fascinated by the ellipse. “The shape has these wonderful geometrical properties that we’ve known about since the ancient Greeks,” he says. Instructors frequently…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

UNVEILED VOICES MUSLIM WOMEN SPEAK OUT

YOU KNOW YOU’VE REACHED peak Islamophobia when a presidential candidate says he’d be uncomfortable with a Muslim in the White House. In response to Ben Carson, Twitter user (and Libyan-American Muslim woman) Hend Amry pointed and laughed, launching the hashtag #How-ToStopAMuslimPresident. (First idea: all-bacon White House.) She’s one of a growing number of Muslim women who are using social media (and a healthy dose of humor) to speak truth to preconceptions. Hend Amry @libyaliberty When Bill Maher claimed that ISIS fighters aren’t outliers in their violence, she tweeted, “Five of the last 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners were Muslim. So according to Bill Maher, we’re all Peace Prize winners!” It was retweeted more than 7,800 times. But her best joke was that Princess Leia is a headscarf short of being…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

FEBREZE AIR EFFECTS JOLLY PINE CASTOR OIL AND SUGAR RINGS

Cyclodextrin One of the key ingredients that help Febreze keep your stench in check. The hydrophobic core of this sugar ring attracts certain volatile aromas—like of rancid grease—and traps them inside its funnel shape. Make no mistake, you can still inhale the smelly stuff—it’s just walled off from your olfactory receptors. Nitrogen The main component of Earth’s atmosphere is compressed to help deliver a spray of mist from the nozzle. This is a friendly alternative to ozone-depleting CFCs. Plus, nitrogen gas isn’t flammable— although some of the other ingredients in Febreze can be, so don’t go spraying it on a lit menorah or the Yule log. Hydrogenated Castor Oil This emulsifier, derived from castor beans—which are actually poisonous seeds, but that’s another story—has bonus –OH groups that help reduce the…

1 min

WIRED|Dec-15

PARTY

COASTERS......................................................... $7 BACKGAMMON..........................................$23 COCKTAIL BOOK.......................................$35 SERVING TRAY............................................$40 UNBREAKABLE GLASSES.................$50 TERRA-COTTA CARAFE.......................$65 ICE BUCKET...................................................$90 PORTABLE LIGHT..................................$100 DARTS..............................................................$132 COCKTAIL SHAKER..............................$135 DARTBOARD..............................................$140 INSTANT CAMERA................................$169 UE BOOM SPEAKER............................$199 CITRUS PRESS.........................................$200 SONOS SPEAKER..................................$499 B&W SPEAKER.........................................$699 Entertaining is about the little things: the right lighting, the awesome playlist, the perfect glasses for that punch you’ve been concocting. Set the stage with care and the good times will take care of themselves. NICE SERVE CB2 ROY TRAY $40 AND UP This eye-catching iron tray adds a dash of sophistication to any gathering, whether you’re serving hors d’oeuvres or a fancy nightcap. Raw metal on the outside, enameled blue or ivory inside, it could make even a couple of PBRs look classy. Quick Pics LOMO’INSTANT SANREMO $169 The whole point of an instant camera is to deliver photos…

4 min

WIRED|Dec-15

OBSESS

MASTER BLASTER MAD CATZ L.Y.N.X. 9 MOBILE HYBRID CONTROLLER $300 NOW YOU CAN DO YOUR GAMING SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN YOUR PARENTS’ BASEMENT: MAD CATZ’S NEWEST CONTROLLER WORKS WITH ANY BLUETOOTHENABLED WINDOWS PC, BUT IT ALSO CONNECTS DIRECTLY TO ANDROID DEVICES. SPRING-LOADED GRIPS CAN ATTACH IT TO YOUR PHONE OR TABLET. TAKE THIS CATZ ANYWHERE—IT FOLDS UP SMALL ENOUGH TO FIT IN YOUR POCKET. HEAVY METAL 12-INCH BOROUGH FURNACE BRAISING SKILLET $320 This isn’t your grandmother’s cast-iron pan, unless Grammy ran her own metal-casting workshop. Borough Furnace’s handcrafted skillet is made from recycled iron and arrives preseasoned with flax oil. The slanted sides make it easy to slip a spatula under Nonna’s meat loaf. ROBOT NUTCRACKER..........................$30 PARROT DRONE........................................$99 GARDEN SENSOR.................................$100 TETRIS CUSHIONS...............................$100 BIONIC BIRD...............................................$135 STAR WARS DROID..............................$150 GAMING CONTROLLER....................$300 BRAISING SKILLET...............................$320…

3 min