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Break out your cleaner tapes because audiocassettes are coming back. (credit: stuart.childs)

Cassette tapes, like vinyl albums, are making a comeback. While CDs and digital media still reign supreme, according to a 2015 mid-year Nielsen report, the largest operational cassette factory in the US reports an impressive increase in demand.

National Audio Company (NAC) President Steve Stepp told Ars that his Springfield, Missouri, company had been seeing a (very) healthy 20 percent year-over-year growth in demand for audiocassette tapes for several years. But 2015 was even better. As of the beginning of October, NAC reported a 31 percent increase in order volume over the previous year.

NAC is in a curious position, because in addition to being the largest audiocassette factory in the US, it's also one of the last remaining.

If you keep tabs on the Internet's largest depositories for pirated music, films, and TV series, you're used to an annual deluge of major films appearing in illicit fashion a month or so before the Academy Awards—typically sourced from DVD screeners sent to longtime Academy voters. Thanks to a major leak of award-season screeners, however, 2015 marks the first year that a massive dump of DVD screeners hit the Internet before the eligible nominating year had even concluded—and perhaps calling into question the old way of getting advance-release films into voters' hands.

In particular, a few of this award season's leaked films found their way to the Internet before they'd enjoyed either limited or national theatrical release, including Christmas-premiere films like Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, David O. Russell's Joy, the Leonardo DiCaprio film Revenant, and the Will Smith vehicle Concussion. The release notes attached to many of these leaks are linked to a group known as "Hive-CM8," and most of those have included threats of a grand total of 40 leaks this season.

That high number doesn't sound like hot air; we've already confirmed leaks of quite a few other Oscar contenders sourced from DVD screeners, including the Aaron Sorkin-penned Steve Jobs. The release group Hive-CM8 was also linked to a few substantial leaks from the 2014 screener season, particularly the final chapter in the Hobbit trilogy, which included lengthy boasts about defeating watermarks and other potentially identifying bits in the films they released. This season's slew includes similar brags, including a copy-pasted note on most releases stating that "all digital watermarks are removed."

Enlarge / The Fossil Q smartwatch. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

It has been a big year for wearables. The Apple Watch was born (finally), Google Glass died (finally), and bands that track everything from steps to mood changes have grown up and become not terrible (finally!). While wrist-bound devices have cemented themselves as the face of wearables, we started to see other forms of wearable technology grow in popularity, like smart scales, textiles, and jewelry. There were hits and misses in 2015, and trends are emerging that indicate where these devices will go in the coming year. Here are some of the wearables that stood out in 2015—for better and for worse.

What worked

Fitbit Charge HR

Fitbit has been the king of fitness trackers since 2013, and it's keeping that title this year by making the best tracker for the money: the Fitbit Charge HR. It does everything you'd want a fitness tracker to do and has the right mix of extras to make it worth the $150 price tag. It monitors steps, distance, calories, floors climbed, and sleep and has a continuous heart rate monitor to use throughout the day, whether during workouts or just sitting around. It also delivers call notifications to your wrist, and now with software updates, the SmartTrack feature will automatically know when you're doing some type of workout and record it to the app.

Fitbit's Charge HR is easily the best all-around fitness tracker in terms of features, design, and price.

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Fitbit has one of the most extensive lines of fitness trackers available, and the Charge HR is easily the most cost-effective way to monitor your activity. It's a no-brainer choice for anyone in need of a tracker but not sure where to start, as it provides the simplicity of the more affordable Fitbits with the heart rate monitor and exercise tracking software similar to the $250 Fitbit Surge. Overall, Fitbit remains the top fitness tracker company because its devices are versatile enough (and priced well enough) to appeal to people with all kinds of lifestyles—from coach potato to marathoner to anyone in between.

(credit: John Harris)

The winter holidays are looming, and many of you will soon be spending time in terrible places like airplane seats or the homes of relatives who want to lecture you about something deeply annoying. You need to escape. Never fear—we've got a bunch of recommendations for science fiction novels that will fill your brain with other realities.

These are books for binge-reading, so I've tried to include lots of series (just in case you need distraction for a prolonged period). The majority of these recommendations are for books that came out in 2015 or for trilogies whose final book came out this year, but there are a smattering of less-recent ones just to top you off.

I'm sure there are lots of books that you love but that I did not include. Recommend them in the comments!