Technology & Innovation — February 17, 2011

A Green and Bitter Apple

Yes, that’s right: Apple isn’t the best at everything. Apple’s new fee structure for premium content not only risks anti-trust issues—its 30% cut is greedy, says TechCrunch.

bigthinkeditor

Yes, that’s right: Apple isn’t the best at everything. You can’t read an iBook on anything other than an iPad or iPhone, compared to Kindle which supports a half-dozen other platforms and the E-ink Kindle reader, which is a vastly better reading experience than any backlit display to boot. Oh, and users also stand to lose out on the pricing competition between the two eBook platforms. Similar comparisons can be made for other services that could potentially compete with Apple’s products: music, movies, TV shows, and so on.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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Guest Thinkers

Kasparov Remembers Bobby Fischer

The circumstances were bizarre. The sudden return, the backdrop of war, a shady banker and arms dealer as a sponsor. But it was Bobby Fischer! One could not believe it.