Month: March 2018

Nathan Mattise

AUSTIN, Texas—Just about half a year ago, a simple job change rocked the comics world. Brian Michael Bendis, the longtime Marvel writer who created Jessica Jones and wrote for all the company’s big heroes from Spider-Man to The Avengers, decided to switch sides. In a November 7 tweet, Bendis announced to the world that he’d be joining DC Comics. And this weekend at the South by Southwest conference, he sat on a panel with DC bigwigs from artist Jim Lee to writer Frank Miller to discuss the recently turned 80-years-old icon he’ll work on: Superman.

“I’m a little Jewish boy from Cleveland, and in Cleveland, you grow up and are told, ‘Rock n’ Roll and Superman were born here'—that’s all we have plus some decent pizza,” Bendis told the crowd. “Everyone thought maybe I came [to DC] to do Batman, but all I wanted was Superman.”

BELLEVUE, Washington—We've visited Valve Software's Seattle-area headquarters in the past, but this week's gameplay reveal for a new release was met with something else: a chance to check out the company's biggest-ever office upgrade. I took my camera on this office visit expecting to maybe see a big new mural or a couple of new things, but instead, I wound up with a memory card full of stuff I hadn't seen in my previous visits, thanks to an office swap roughly six months ago.

So, what does it look like at Valve's new digs—at least, in the spaces I was allowed to take photos? I've broken the answer down in four galleries. The first is a general overview of the space, with a focus on game-related art. In addition to the usual Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Dota 2-themed paintings and sculptures, I also caught some weird stuff, like a lovely tiled mural in the company's cafeteria and a ridiculous rug that portrays TF2 character Saxton Hale facing off against a bear. (I also, er, asked to hold the Dota 2 Aegis, and Valve obliged my silly request.)

Sam Machkovech

Enlarge (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Despite recent watchOS dominance, Samsung hasn't given up on Tizen. The OEM's wearable operating system continues to power a bunch of devices made exclusively by Samsung, including the $249 (originally $299) Gear Sport. Introduced last year, the Gear Sport is the successor to the Gear S3 and the smartwatch cousin of the Gear Fit 2 Pro band.

It's easy to forget about Tizen since it's not as well-known or well-marketed as Android Wear or watchOS. But considering the Gear Sport can connect to both Android and iOS devices, users shouldn't rule Tizen out of their smartwatch buying decisions. While the Gear Sport isn't drastically different from the 2016 Gear S3, it's updates make it a viable competitor to the top Android Wear devices and the latest Apple Watch.

Design

Here's a controversial opinion: the Gear Sport is more attractive than the Apple Watch. From a pure design point of view, Samsung's smartwatch looks more like a traditional watch than Apple's wearable does, and Samsung did a good job marrying elements of regular timepieces and advanced smart wearables in one device.

Enlarge / The Razer Blade Pro FHD, complete with a week's worth of fingerprints on its black-aluminum frame. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

For all of the years we've talked about the gaming-hardware company Razer and its range of expensive and (sometimes) remarkably thin gaming laptops, we've rarely put those "Blade" machines through extensive testing. The Razer Blade line debuted in 2011 with a flashy multitouch panel that had a screen inside of it—which, at the time, was the most Pimp My Ride tweak we'd ever seen in a laptop. ("Yo dogg, I heard you like screens, so we put a screen... in your trackpad!")

But we passed that one up, along with most other Razer laptops, except for its 2016 not-quite-gaming entry, the Razer Stealth. As the company has settled into a steadier track record, we wanted to take an opportunity to see where Razer's purest gaming laptop line has come now that its Blade Pro variant—which has a 17" screen but a body that's still reasonably thin—has a model just a hair shy of $2,000. If you want Razer laptop features like a side-aligned trackpad and a customizable, color-mapped keyboard on your gaming-ready, 17-inch laptop, this means you no longer have to pay for Razer's whopping $3,999 version of the same model.

Our verdict? For a 17-inch gaming laptop, the Blade Pro FHD model is totally fine, and if you want that size in an impressively slim body at a $2,000 price point, this one comes with reasonable compromises. But unlike its insanely priced sibling, this Blade Pro UHD model struggles to excite us enough to recommend it—and its price tag—over cheaper and similarly powered gaming laptops.

Enlarge / Is robotics science? A lot of people would apparently say no. (credit: Ariel Skelley / Getty Images)

Recently, we had a look at a global survey of the state of science, which tracked the efforts different countries are putting into training scientists and pursuing research. That set of "science indicators" included a bit of information on how the public viewed science, even though that wasn't the primary purpose of the report.

So we were happy to find out that someone had done a through job of looking into the global attitudes towards science. 3M, a company that views itself as research driven, commissioned surveys in 14 different countries with a mix of developed and developing economies, and the results are pretty encouraging. Despite the many cultural differences, people consistently feel that science has an overall positive impact on global society, and they're excited by what we learn.

But buried in the positives are a few areas of concern. Most people don't recognize the impact that science has had on their daily lives and view it as something that their kids might be involved with. Yet younger people are more likely to view themselves as skeptical of science and not trusting of what scientists have discovered.

AUSTIN, Texas—"We can't just come to SXSW with Westworld," said Jonah Nolan, co-creator of the hit HBO show, within the last 10 minutes of the cast and crew's South by Southwest conference keynote. "So we have a little something at the end to leave you with a bit of optimism; Westworld isn’t a terribly optimistic show unless you’re a robot."

Nolan, co-creator Lisa Joy, and the main cast including leads Evan Rachel Wood (Dolores) and Thandie Newton (Mae) had just spent the better part of an hour hyping the show's upcoming second season. There was sneak peek footage shown that Nolan (unsuccessfully it turns out) pleaded to stay within the room and celebrations of a show that grapples with modern-day themes of female empowerment or the dangers of AI. But then, a moment foreshadowed in a Friday night tweet finally came to fruition.

"As a kid, I spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking about spaceflight," Nolan began. "I watched Super 8 movies of the Saturn launch, and that seems to have gone away a little bit. I’m passionate about it, but it was our grandparents who went to the moon and we haven’t gone back in our lifetime.