Writing the Future

In addition to our two assigned readings for today (“How robot drones revolutionized the face of warfare” and “Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man”), it’s very much worth looking into the “Living Under Drones” report, recently released out of Stanford and NYU Law and currently garnering quite a bit of attention.  The Guardian has a succinct writeup here; the full report is here, along with a useful executive summary.

Courtesy of YouTube and something called Crackle (not to be confused with the delicious chocolate bar), here’s a complete, legitimate, streamable copy of Moon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbCfsAC-Aoo

• *Wired on the futures that never happened
• *present-day consumer electronics as they might have been imagined in the ’70s

Apple and dystopia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhsWzJo2sN4

Reagan and utopia:

The US military’s science-fictional appeal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiB3vrhPDNs

AT&T tries its hand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnQ8EkwXJ0