What's Tech?

In two weeks, I will fulfill one of my childhood dreams for the sixth time over by attending E3. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, held every June in Los Angeles, is no longer the biggest video game convention on the planet, but it’s the most important. I should say importance, in this case, is a measurement of money and sweat.

I want to visit space before I die. I have no practical reason to do so, and surely I'm not alone. I just want to. There's something about the concept of exploration that I pine to achieve. Which is a little silly, considering I haven't seen most of the planet I live on. And yet, I look up at night, and there waits space.

While traveling from New York City to my new home in Austin, I downloaded Twitter onto my phone. I have a sordid history with the social media platform, particularly when its stream of opinions is accessible all day, every day. But I wanted something to distract me on the long road trips, and help pass the time in an unfurnished house. Twitter is nothing if not a competent distraction.

Every day I practice the same routine: I hop out of bed, take a shower, get dressed, and drink a cup of coffee. The process is so repetitive, it's become this uninspired dance I do with my eyes half closed. I never stop and consider how I could make these moments I repeat every day even a little better.

If you watched Avengers: Age of Ultron this weekend, you're in good company. The film had one of the strongest openings of all time. As the credits rolled, though, I wondered about the sustainability of this behemoth franchise.

I love my new camera, even though I have little understanding of how it works. I recently wrote about the Fuji X100T, which I swear is less complicated than its Terminator-esque name would have you believe. I love how it looks, how it feels, how its pictures look like the photographs I used to take on my mother's SLR. Plus, the X100T is so easy to use, that my not knowing much about its inner workings, or even some assumed photography basics, doesn't prevent me from enjoying the experience of photography. In fact, it's been a belated re-entry point.

If only new episodes of What's Tech appeared on Mondays, we could have run this week's explanation of the Singularity on 4/20. That would have been appropriate. This is, after all, the strangest thing we've recorded — and our pilot involved a man almost crashing a drone into a woman and her child.

Don't smoke. At least, don't start smoking because of this episode. Vaping has become a niche of tech culture, to the point that I can't attend a press event without getting lost in a plume of root beer flavored vapors. I don't particularly enjoy the stench, but I am curious to know how electronic cigarettes became so popular, so fast.

When Gary Schteyngart wrote about the äppärät, an iPhone-like device that could stream our thoughts and conversations while monitoring our popularity, the idea seemed like an extreme parody of real life. The gizmo plays a central role in his 2010 novel Super Sad True Love Story; at the time, I found it distracting, seemingly cynical and implausible. I never thought the iPhone would come so close to the äppärät, let alone so within half a decade, but with Meerkat and Periscope, it seems the truth is even stranger than fiction. I invite The Verge's live streaming expert Ben Popper to tell me about the origins of live streaming, and what our future looks like on and off camera.

Our future will involve driverless cars. At this year's CES, car companies and graphics card manufacturers alike featured the technology that they believe will power the vehicles of tomorrow. But how soon will we be driving hands-free?