Tabla de contenidos para September 2017 en WIRED

ILLUSTRATOR Zohar Lazar expected that depicting the anxieties of our tech-addled lives (“The Great Tech Panic,” page 54) would be a lighthearted, even comic process. Then came the tide of dread. See, Lazar recently put aside his paints and began working exclusively on an iPad. “Now I’m completely dependent on this one device,” he says. “I’ve got all these massive files—what if I lose them? If my iPad konks out I’m up shit creek.” Lazar, a frequent WIRED contributor, set about pouring his fears into an everyman character who represents all of us, fretful about a new world that we’re still learning how to navigate. Return of the Nerd(s) Back when uber was just an overused German word, wired’s Angry Nerd ranted about everything from correct sci-fi terminology to superhero…

WHAT DO WE WANT? C-level jobs! When do we want them? As soon as we acquire the necessary job skills, meet the right people, and find a company with appropriate pathways for growth! Here’s what the Chief Something Officer planetary system looks like, based on data from job-search site Glassdoor and student-services firm Chegg (where I have my day job). Turns out, CEOs share many of their top 10 skills with many other roles, making it perhaps easier to wriggle up to that post, while chief compliance officers are largely single-skill sharers. And if salary is important to you, chief medical officer is the way to go. Too bad you’ll probably need another degree for that.…

LIKE HOLLYWOOD, Sand Hill Road is a metonym for an industry based on dreams: VCs gathered in low-slung office buildings funding startups that aim to change the world (sometimes they even succeed). Like Chernobyl, though, it’s also a proxy for some cataclysmic flameouts. Here’s how a sleepy 5.6-mile stretch of roadway in Menlo Park, California, became a genuine rock star. GRANT HEIDRICH: I visited Stanford University in high school with [Stanford’s former head of real estate] Tom Ford, in 1969. We’re bumping along a dirt road— Highway 280 was not even complete at the time—and Tom points up to this hill covered with briars and weeds and says, “I have a vision. This will become one of the most sought-after places to work, because it’s right between San Jose and…

Methyl Acetate Spritz K2r on a splotch of pizza grease and this organic solvent gets to work—its molecules pull fatty hydrocarbon chains from the stained surface. And methyl acetate evaporates fast, which makes it useful in quickdrying lacquers and printer inks. It’s also present in strawberries, kiwis, and cabbage, adding to their distinctive fragrances. Mmm, chemicals. Acetone Like an edgy but popular teenager, acetone (a k a nail polish remover) is a master at mingling with opposites: It mixes with both oil and water, thanks to a polar carbon oxygen bond and non polar methyl groups. C3H6O is so good at dissolving things that it’s also used to clean lab equipment and isolate drugs for pharma companies. Acetone and methyl acetate are a formidable duo: Milder methyl acetate takes on…

1 XYZprinting da Vinci miniMaker You don’t need to be a fab-lab rat to work this simple 3-D printer. Kids can design their own objects using free software or print a predesigned trinket. $250 (Ages 14+) 2 Kano Pixel Kit It’s no Retina display, but Kano’s 16x8-pixel grid still dazzles. Make the LEDs glow using Kano’s simple web coding app. Program the screen to display weather and stock data, or just create pixel art. $80 (Ages 6+) 3 Cubetto This nifty kit works like a physical command line. Each colorful plastic block represents an action; string multiple actions together on the board to make a program that the little mobile bot obeys. $225 (Ages 3+) 4 Lego Boost Boost combines regular blocks with motors, lights, and sensors so kids can construct robots (like…

In his 2010 book, Cyberwar, former US counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke ranked how well a handful of countries would fare in a digital conflict. According to his formula, the US placed dead last. And on top? North Korea. The US and Russia may have the world’s best offensive hacking capabilities, Clarke figured, but North Korea has an even greater advantage: a lack of digital dependence. The hermit kingdom’s hackers can wage a scorched-earth cyberwar without jeopardizing much on the home front, because its citizens remain so disconnected. The US, meanwhile, is far more dependent on the internet than its rivals are. That’s why Clarke found America so uniquely vulnerable to what he called “the next threat to national security.” Seven years later, it’s time to stop worrying that the era…

In YouTube’s earliest days, when people were still blowing up Diet Coke with Mentos, responses to the site’s curious videos tended to fall into two categories: astonishment and skepticism. First came the huzzahs. “Better than Hendrix!” one commenter wrote in 2006, praising a shred guitar solo that was YouTube’s most-discussed video for a time. The commenter surrendered to the spectacle. Then came the forensics. “Look at 1:14,” another wrote of the same video. “It’s not in sync. He’s not really playing.” In 2007, this magazine published a piece called “why i hate youtube/google video,” which took aim at an innocuous video showing a man counting to 1,000. This “disgusting mouth breather ... will make you want to choke the life from him,” argued the piece, a virtuoso expression of fearful…

THEY’RE IN THE NEWS. They’re in our elections. Russian hackers have even invaded critical infrastructure that keeps the heat on and the lights burning, as senior writer Andy Greenberg reported in July (“Lights Out”). And while two power-grid hacks in Ukraine don’t explicitly threaten the United States, they absolutely represent a new, all-digital way to wage war on any nation. Of course, the US is already grappling with plenty of other challenges: Lauren Smiley’s story about the killing of an Indian tech worker in Olathe, Kansas, (“Murder in the Heartland”) brought readers to tears. In both cases, our best shot at facing these dangers is to understand them. @WIRED / MAIL@WIRED.COM Re: “Lights Out”: Russian hackers take aim at infrastructure “A POWER-GRID HACK COULD KNOCK OUT YOUR NETFLIX AND HULU,…

MILLENNIALS ARE, LIKE, so 2000-and-late. Marketers now hope to sell stuff to kids born after 1995—so-called Generation Z. And this latest demographic designation is just as removed and reductive as any other. This is how marketing firm FutureCast puts it: “They view their identity as a curated composition.” (So ... selfies are a thing!) “All it takes to change their outward identity is a simple swipe and an upload to Instagram.” (Swipe to upload?!) But fine, we’ll play along. After rigorous review of marketing reports and press coverage, here’s a portrait of your new sales target: the screen-swapping, painstakingly curated, social-good-performing Gen Zer (as imagined by Gen Xers).…

stalkerware n. / 'st -ker- ' wer / Spy software marketed to consumers. Slipped into a cell phone, it lets spouses and parents track their loved one’s movements via GPS, eavesdrop on their calls and chats, even flip on the mic to record goings-on. El Tío n. / el 't?-? / A weather cycle caused by Pacific Ocean currents—like El Niño, but lasting much longer. El Tío (Spanish for “uncle”) has been in a cool phase since the late ’90s, which probably reduced global warming over the past 20 years. Bad news: It may now be reversing. recr. n. / 're-k r / A proposed tag, sho caused by Pacific Ocean currents—like El Niño, but lasting much longer. El Tío (Spanish for “uncle”) has been in a cool phase since…

THE NEXT BIG THING IN SILICON VALLEY: the apple. And these are actually made in the US. This spring, venture capital firms Tellus Partners, GV, BayWa AG, and others invested $10 million in a fruit-picking startup called Abundant Robotics. “When I first talked to them, I thought, ‘How big could that really be?’” says Andy Wheeler, a partner at GV, an Alphabet venture branch. Massive, it turns out. Apples are the most profitable orchard crop in the world (eat it, bananas). But VCs are in it for the dough, not the sauce. Funding for agricultural technology tripled in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year, according to Crunchbase, backing a bumper crop of agbots. Meanwhile, immigration crackdowns have exacerbated the shortage of farmworkers, whose numbers…

KIDDO WANTS A PUPPY—but given her track record with goldfish and guinea pigs, that’s maybe not the best idea. The miniature Spark drone is a safer bet. Barely the size of a shih tzu, it’s nearly as cute as a canine and much easier to train—the quadcopter’s aerial acrobatics can be controlled using only hand gestures. Turn it on and the front-facing camera sizes up the pilot, then the drone takes off and hovers overhead. It follows the movements of an extended palm, gently sliding right and left, closer and farther. Making a square shape with your outstretched thumbs and forefingers snaps a selfie. A smartphone app handles more complex movements, and Sparky can fly for 16 minutes before needing a nap. When the fun is over, the drone uses…

Clek Foonf BEST FOR: Toddlers whose parents are terrible drivers The smallest tykes require the greatest protection, and Clek builds impressive safety into its versatile seat. In rear-facing mode, it accommodates kids as old as 3. When Junior’s big enough, Foonf flips around. In both configurations, an aluminum honeycomb core sucks the wind out of a head-on crash by absorbing the brunt of the collision. After all, crumple zones aren’t just for Volvos. $450 Cybex Solution Q2-fix BEST FOR: Older kids not yet ready to ride shotgun When your pride and joy outgrows the toddler seat, you’ll need a booster (for how long varies by state). Many are about as effective as plopping a kid on a phone book, but this adjustable Cybex can grow along with your child—the backrest…

THREAT LEVEL SCALE: 1 = NAH, YOU’RE FINE. 5 = YEP, YOU’RE SCREWED. THREAT LEVEL: 2 NOPE ( BUT DON’T PLAY IN TRAFFIC ). Relax. You can loosen your white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. In cities where self- driving cars are being tested on public roads—San Francisco; Boston; Tempe, Arizona— there’s a trained engineer on board to make sure the nascent tech doesn’t start taking out squirrels (or pedestrians). “It’s that person’s job to pay attention to what the vehicle is doing,” says Nidhi Kalra, codirector of the RAND Center for Decision Making Under Uncertainty. Fully autonomous cars on public roads are still at least three years away, according to experts’ most optimistic estimates. That technology will never be infallible; people will still die in car crashes. But ultimately,…

THREAT LEVEL: 4 YEP, BUT IT’S NOT PERSONAL . Gaining access to your email isn’t that difficult. Phishers have grown considerably more sophisticated, as evidenced by the increasing intensity of ransomware attacks. Not that they need to be all that smart. “A cleverly composed email that says ‘I’m your tech support person and I need to know your password’ still works a shocking percentage of the time,” says Seth Schoen, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Don’t freak out, though: When it comes to leaking those emails, the threat to the average person is quite minimal. Though attacks like the DNC leaks, the Panama Papers, and the Macron campaign hack may stoke your sense of paranoia, unless you’re a Kardashian or a Trump, your personal correspondence is likely…

THREAT LEVEL: 3 PROBABLY NOT. PROBABLY? AI could eventually be capable of conducting science experiments, executing construction projects, and even (gulp!) developing more AI—all without human input, says Paul Christiano, a researcher at the nonprofit OpenAI. But he and his colleagues aren’t worried that evil robots will someday destroy us. (In case it tries, engineers at Google’s DeepMind unit and Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute are collaborating to understand which types of AI systems might take actions to reduce the chan ce of being turned off.) They’re more concerned that, as AI progresses beyond human comprehension, the technology’s behavior may diverge from our intended goals. It’s up to researchers to build a foundation that has human values at heart. Much of that work is currently focused on refining a rewards-based…

B BEFORE HE ROCKETED off to spend a year in space, one of Scott Kelly’s final acts on Earth was peeing on the back tire of a van. Not because you can’t pee in space (you can—it just requires some suction). It’s tradition: Yuri Gagarin, who made it to space first, did the same thing. In Kelly’s new book, Endurance, the veteran astronaut writes about that and all the other weird practices and rituals and anxieties and safety checks and responsibilities and more safety checks that go into preparing for, and then spending, a chunk of your life in perpetual free fall. The main takeaway: It’s hard. Coffee comes in plastic bags. Space smells funny. There’s never enough chocolate pudding. But these pesky truths, along with some extreme ennui, are…

“HAVING A TV SHOW gives you carte blanche to say whatever you want about any other TV show,” says The Kid Mero, one half of Viceland’s raucous late-night talkfest Desus & Mero. Co-host Desus Nice takes it a step further: “If you don’t have a TV show, you shouldn’t be allowed to comment on TV shows. This is my new, one percent way of living.” And when you’re that high up in the entertainment world, you’re free to pass judgment on the new crop of fall TV series even if you’ve only seen the trailers—which is all we could show the comedy duo anyway. 1 The Gifted (Fox) An X-Men spinoff centering on a family with two mutant teenagers. MERO: Shouts to Marvel for being so expansive that I have no…

Q:MY SISTER WATCHES PIRATED TV. I DO TOO, BUT SHE WON’T ADMIT SHE’S BREAKING A RULE. WHY DOES THIS BUG ME SO MUCH? A: “I’m going to bury this auditor in paperwork,” Norm brags, shuffling phony receipts and faked mileage logs around his corner of the bar. It’s halfway through CheersÕ 11th season, and after years of atrocious negligence with his income taxes, everyone’s favorite mug-coddler has found himself in the IRS’s crosshairs. ¦ Norm doesn’t care about taxes. He doesn’t think about the importance of equitable burden-sharing or pitching in to help sustain millions of less privileged citizens or even paying the salary of his mail-carrying, federal-employee best friend, Cliff Clavin. Nope. For Norm, the tax situation is all a game. And now that he’s caught, he has skipped straight…

Grocery shopping offends me. First you have to trudge through the cat food to get to the light bulbs and side-eye the Froot Loops on the way to the sprouted flax cereal. Then there’s the other people (GTFO, buyers of low-fat cheese). So everyone needs to stop clutching their pearl onions already over Amazon’s megapurchase of Whole Foods. Fine, yes, the effect on small farms will be unpropitious and the decimation of the meal-kit market absolute, but an Amazonified grocery store is an optimizer’s dream. Imagine the associative pairings! If you like peanut butter, you might also like bread. Bam! They’d be on the shelves together. Kale salad fiends, look! The lardons and balsamic are right there. And just think of the algorithmically generated shopping lists that not only plot…

1 Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook 13 Chrome OS can power a serious machine, and the ThinkPad Chromebook is as serious as the federal funds rate. The superrugged notebook has power and ports to spare, ready to grow alongside your youngling’s business acumen. The sleek black notebook will look at home on the conference table during their post- undergrad Wall Street internship too. $395 2 Acer Chromebook 14 Portability matters, but so does screen size. Acer’s 14-inch display simplifies multitasking, brings prom photos to vivid life, and doubles as a TV when algebra’s done. Add in a MacBook-like aluminum case, a roomy keyboard, and a 12-hour battery and you get a true workhorse. It’s a heavy 3.4 pounds, but young backs can manage it. $300 3 Dell Chromebook 11 Even a careful middle schooler’s laptop…

THE SLINKY MAY have become a phenomenon, but it was born an accident. Richard James, a naval engineer during World War II, was working with torsion springs when one fell out of a box; he watched in awe as it “walked” across a table. He spent the next few years tinkering with coils in search of the slinkiest shape—one that’s fully compressed when relaxed. Shopkeepers thought it was too boring for kids used to loud and colorful toys, so James took the marketing into his own hands. He staged a department store demo that sparked a craze, and 72 years later, more than 300 million have been sold. Lots of reasons have been given for the Slinky’s enduring appeal: It’s cheap, or it teaches kids physics. But Betty James, who…

THREAT LEVEL: 1 NOPE . (PHEW!) Despite the action flicks imagining that very scenario, it’s “highly improbable,” says Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at RAND who specializes in counterproliferation and risk management. “Nuclear weapons are not connected to the internet, making it difficult for someone to hack them.” Instead, such weapons are controlled by stand alone computers and code keys distributed by human couriers, a system specifically developed and maintained with security in mind, says John Schilling, an aerospace engineer and analyst for 38 North, a Korea-focused analysis group. It may be possible to sabotage a nuclear bomb by hacking its secondary and tertiary guidance systems —a tactic the US may have used on North Korea’s missiles, according to Schilling—but there’s little chance that rogue agents could launch nukes.…

THREAT LEVEL: 5 YOU BETCHA . CAVEAT EMPTOR ! It’s certainly possible. Cybercriminals, third-party developers, and sometimes even the compan - ies that make smart devices may have the means to access your audio stream. “We’re always accompanied by high- quality microphones,” says Mordechai Guri, head of R&D for the Cyber Security Research Center at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. “Your smartphone or smart TV could be turned into an eavesdropping device for advertising purposes.” The same goes for smart home devices, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, with far-field, always-on microphones. More and more, even apps are asking to access smartphone microphones to feed you hyper- targeted ads. It’s unlikely that there’s a person listening in on you, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties…