Observation Deck

Observation Deck episodes:

• 12.24.2012

  Ep. 30: The Parking Meters of the Future

  This time I’m thinking about parking -- specifically, about how eerily accurate production designer Syd Mead was in his depictions of the parking meters of the future.

  
• 12.17.2012

  Ep. 29: A Critical Analysis of Bipedal Movie Robots

  I love giant fighting robots as much as the next guy, especially if the next guy is the pilot of a giant robot lion that can merge with four other robot lions to form an even bigger robot and fight...

  
• 12.10.2012

  Ep. 28: 3-D Simulation Technology Creates a New Kind of Map

  Maps don’t have to be big, folded pieces of paper - or even the GPS-enabled windows our phones now become. Maps are, essentially, infographics...

  
• 12.03.2012

  Ep. 27: Animated Pixels in Public

  Adam Rogers takes a look, or several, at animated lighting in cities.

  
• 11.19.2012

  Ep. 26: On Narratives and TV Scripts

  Messing with some terminology this week. I'm interested in what constitutes the narratives we tell ourselves about narratives-stories behind stories, making-of stories, stories that characters tell themselves, stories that characters can't hear but viewers and readers can. Partially that's because...

  
• 11.12.2012

  Ep. 25: The Cities That Re-Elected Obama

  You might be sick of hearing explanations for what happened in the election last Tuesday. But this week on The Observation Deck I want to draw your attention to just one more — the primacy of cities in re-electing Barack...

  
• 11.05.2012

  Ep. 24: Protecting Cities From the Disasters of the Future

  Hurricane Sandy’s effects on the New York area have made people think — rightly — about how best to protect cities from disasters.

  
• 10.29.2012

  Ep. 23: How Time Affects Urban Maps

  A too-short cab ride in New York — with a very observant cabbie — got me thinking about the ways we map time onto our spatial maps of cities.

  
• 10.22.2012

  Ep. 22: The Strange Allure of a Hot-Pink Albino Alligator

  Adam Rogers is away, so Caitlin Roper snuck on to the Observation Deck set to talk to you about a pressing subject — albinos.

  
• 10.15.2012

  Ep. 21: What Looper Tells Us About Time Travel

  It's time to talk about Looper.

  
• 10.08.2012

  Ep. 20: What 'Smart' Slime Molds Tell Us About Alien Intelligence

  Let's talk about slime molds. Specifically, Physarum polycephalum, which despite being a big gooey bag of nuclei and protoplasm, may be intelligent - sort of.

  
• 10.01.2012

  Ep. 19: Designing Cities for People, Not Cars

  On this week's Observation Deck, I'm contemplating the car-free metropolises of the future.

  
• 09.24.2012

  Ep. 18: Spielberg's Sci-Fi Malaise

  This week we take a look at how Stephen Spielberg's sci-fi films have changed over the years.

  
• 09.17.2012

  Ep. 17: How Tearing Up Highways Could Make Better Cities

  I'm thinking about what could happen if we tear up some of those ribbons of roads and start over again. We might end up with better cities.

  
• 09.03.2012

  Ep. 16: The Shaky Science of Sci-Fi Booze

  Considering some of the tsuris characters in science fiction go through, it's no wonder they drink. But what, exactly, are they drinking?

  
• 08.27.2012

  Ep. 15: What Happens When Cars Start Talking to Each Other?

  The cars: They will drive themselves. That's pretty much a given at this point, thanks to artificial intelligence research at Stanford and elsewhere. And they'll talk to each other, too — the processes that let our cars go fast and...

  
• 08.20.2012

  Ep. 14: Books, Artifacts and Sending Information Across Time

  This week on the Observation Deck, I'm thinking about the different flavors of books, sending information across time, and the way to judge a book without a cover.

  
• 08.13.2012

  Ep. 13: How Signs Shape Cities' Identities

  We inscribe words on our cities -- street signs, neon, billboards and sometimes poetry and knowledge about the city itself.

  
• 08.06.2012

  Ep. 12: Why Hollywood Should Double Down on No. 2s

  You already know that the second movie in a big action trilogy is usually the best one. But I think I might have figured out why that's the case (no spoilers; watch the video above to get my theory).

  
• 07.30.2012

  Ep. 11: Mapping a Bold New Approach to Breaking News

  In this edition of Observation Deck, I'm pitching an approach that combines all that data with geolocation technologies and maps. What would that look like?

  
• 07.23.2012

  Ep. 10: Why I Want a 'Google Nose'

  Let's figure out a way to, as the techies say, surface all that data. I want to see (or smell) all of it. Who knows? Maybe the isoscapes of daily life will teach us all a way to build something...

  
• 07.16.2012

  Ep. 9: At Comic-Con, All the World's a Stage

  People go to cities to watch other people. In any city, at any given moment, some people are performing (whether they intend to or not) and some people are audience (whether they mean to be or not).

  
• 07.09.2012

  Ep. 8: Science vs. Politics--In a Way

  Which is more important: The presidential election or the discovery of the Higgs boson? I try to figure out the answer, by way of some thinking about the differences between science journalism and political journalism as I've practiced them.

  
• 07.05.2012

  Ep. 7: The Science Fiction We Need

  I try to think about changes in my favorite sub-genre, post-apocalyptic stories … because those stories have changed.

  
• 06.28.2012

  Ep. 6: From Movie to Theme Park

  What happens when you build a ride, a whole environment, based not on traditional hand animation but on 3D, computer generated data?

  
• 06.21.2012

  Ep. 5: We Deserve Better

  I imagine you're tired of talking about Prometheus at this point—and I know that all of us geeks have pretty much aired out our criticisms, questions, defenses, counterattacks, etc. But frankly, I'm still mad...

  
• 06.14.2012

  Ep. 4: Saving the Planet with Pavement

  You might already know that reflective rooftops are better for the environment. They reduce the Urban Heat Island effect, help keep buildings cool, and therefore lower energy use. But on a recent trip, flying into Burbank, I began to wonder...

  
• 06.07.2012

  Ep. 3: What is Genre, Really?

  Wired Senior Editor, Adam Rogers weighs in with the possibility that everything is genre.

  
• 05.31.2012

  Ep. 2: The Time-Warping Power of Skyscrapers

  Wired Senior Editor Adam Rogers talks about skyscrapers and relativity in this week's Observation Deck.

  
• 05.24.2012

  Ep. 1: What's Beneath Us

  Wired Magazine's Senior Editor, Adam Rogers talks about long forgotten tunnels, the romanticism of underground dwelling, and his own tale of a figure from underneath; in this inaugural edition of The Observation Deck.