Go Tweak Yourself, Facebook

Talking about social-network service changes as mysterious changes to algorithms turns software companies into false idols.

Last week Facebook “tweaked its algorithm” again. The latest update promises to show users links that people spend more time reading, which might be a good thing for media outlets like this one. Another update, this one purely hypothetical, concerns the company’s hypothetical ability to affect the outcome of elections by altering its news feed—to prevent a President Trump, for… read more

Play Anything

The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games

This book is available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats. Buy on Amazon How filling life with play—whether soccer or lawn mowing, counting sheep or tossing Angry Birds—forges a new path for creativity and joy in our impatient age. Life is no game. It’s demanding, boring, and rarely fun. But what if we’ve got games wrong? Playing anything—whether an instrument,… read more

The Art—and Absurdity—of Extreme Career Hopping

It’s not any harder to imagine a Federal Reserve Chair Kim Kardashian now than it was two decades ago to imagine a President Donald Trump.

Two high-profile examples of disorienting job changes, both involving Google, recently graced the news. First, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO, will head the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board at the Pentagon. And second, Chris Poole, the founder of 4chan, the anonymous messageboard known for Internet diversions such as lolcats and Rickrolling—as well as its… read more

Amazon Edges Closer to Fully Automated Retail

With the Dash button and service, the tech giant wants to make your house do the shopping for you.

I press the white, round button on the Gatorade-branded Amazon Dash Button in my palm. It’s lozenge-shaped, about three inches long, faced with a black bezel sporting the sports drink’s logo. The smooth, concave button is a pleasure to push. It scallops just a little, modestly, less than you would have expected. Then a white LED flashes, and you have… read more

In Virtual Reality, Finally a World for Men

Decades hence, a citizen relives a famous photograph.

“Oh, that was a long time ago,” I said, looking at the old photograph on the battered tablet, hoping to demur. Rows and rows of men bearing one of the earliest visor headsets. “That was a long time ago.” “Were you there?” Huxley asked. Her big eyes—we used eyes again, by then, at least some of the time—were blood-red from… read more

Things You Can’t Talk About in a Coca-Cola Ad

A “Profanity API” for a user-generated marketing campaign censors vulgarity, Pepsi, belching, and murder—but also Bill Cosby, capitalism, the Book of Genesis, and tacos.

When Daniel Joseph, a York University doctoral student studying labor and technology, found out about Coca-Cola’s GIF the Feeling promotion, he knew exactly what he wanted to make with it: a Coke-branded critique of capitalism. An accessory for Coke’s newly launched “Taste the Feeling” global ad campaign, GIF the Feeling is a website that allows visitors to fashion Coke ads by combining… read more

Offloading Affective Labor to Customers

Companies once asked only their employees to feign heartfelt devotion to their products. Now their customers are expected to do so too.

Dining recently with friends, everything looked the way it always does. The menu boasted appealing but ordinary fare—antipasti and starters, wood-fired pizzas, freshly-made pastas, meaty mains. I noticed that a handful of the menu items were printed in red, and I asked the server why. “These are our signature dishes,” he explained. “They’re the ones that are most shared on… read more

The Deeper Meaning of Black Friday

Giving a gift is an act of competition as much as generosity.

Get $100 off the iPad Air 2 at Best Buy. Save $50 on the Xbox One Gears of War Bundle plus get a $60 Target Gift Card. At Walmart, one can buy a Samsung Smart HDTV for under $200. Under $200! These are the marks of Black Friday, the annual bacchanal for consumer excess. And excess, it is normally thought,… read more

The Logic Behind the Sky-High Candy Crush Deal

In its seemingly exorbitant purchase of the popular app’s creator, Activision Blizzard is just playing the game.

The fact that Activision Blizzard bought Candy Crush creator King Digital startled people less than the sheer size of the deal: $5.9 billion. As many noted, that’s almost $2 billion more than Disney paid for either Marvel or Lucasfilm. It’s more than twice the $2.5 billion Microsoft paid for Minecraft maker Mojang, a property that feels like it has more long-term staying power… read more

The Car That Killed Glamour

Tesla and the end of the automobile as an object of desire

The Tesla Model S is a supercar without equal. Recently, the P85D trim broke the Consumer Reports rating system, earning a score of 103 out of 100. They rounded down to just 100, calling it “closest to perfect we've ever seen.” The Model S accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in under 3.5 seconds, via an electric motor that produces… read more