Technology & Innovation — July 9, 2010

Will Closed-Source End Apple?

“By the end of next year, there’s a good chance that Android devices will have displaced the iPhone in terms of sales.” The Independent predicts closed-source programming will end Apple.

bigthinkeditor

“By the end of next year, there’s a good chance that Android devices will have displaced the iPhone in terms of sales.” The Independent predicts closed-source programming will end Apple. Google’s freewheeling operating system Android is similar to Window’s broad appeal, which, despite Apple’s following, came to dominate the marketplace. “Android is now being touted as the operating system of the future – not only for mobile phones, but also for tablet computers, televisions, car dashboards and anything else with a screen. Google are happy to hand Android out to manufacturers just as Microsoft allowed unfettered access to Windows in the 1980s and 1990s, and the effects of this are now beginning to show.

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.

▸

7 min

—

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.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Air Pollution Worse Than Oil Spills

“The Gulf oil spill ranks as the nation’s worst environmental disaster only if you ignore the great ongoing spill in the sky.” The L.A. Times says air pollution gets a pass, but shouldn’t.