There’s a moment in 1917—the World War I blockbuster which hit cinemas on Friday—where a plane comes crashing down from the sky. Normally, in producing such a scene, the director would have a very important tool in their arsenal in convincing the audience that what they’re seeing is real: the ability to cut to other…

Greetings, and welcome to another edition of The Monitor, WIRED’s culture news roundup. This week’s news has been dominated by politics, but there have been a few interesting tidbits to come from the world of entertainment. For one, there’s a new Beastie Boys documentary coming to Apple TV+. For another, Amazon is getting into the…

The revelation that MIT’s Media Lab aggressively sought the financial support of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and tried to keep his donations secret, has left the once-prestigious “future factory” in chaos. Its director since 2011, former WIRED contributor Joichi Ito, was forced to step down in September and the university still has not…

A glance to the left. A flick to the right. As my eyes flitted around the room, I moved through a virtual interface only visible to me—scrolling through a calendar, commute times home, and even controlling music playback. It's all I theoretically need to do to use Mojo Lens, a smart contact lens coming from…

This all might sound familiar: After a mass shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants Apple to build a tool that can unlock the attacker's iPhones. But don't expect round two of Apple versus the FBI to necessarily play out like the first. The broad outlines are the same, but the details have shifted precariously.For…

Inside the Gathering Spot, a posh members-only club in Atlanta that serves a diverse set of entrepreneurs and innovators, Travis and Troy Nunnally—better known as the Tech Twins—are holding court.After discovering a love of engineering by building soapbox derby racing cars as kids, the brothers have launched a few different companies in Atlanta. Holding two…

On the morning of December 1, 2018, the vast central plaza in Mexico City was thronged by tens of thousands of people. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-wing populist, had just been sworn in as Mexico’s 58th president. In his inaugural address, he thumbed his nose at decades of neoliberal rule and promised a sweeping…

Hyundai and Kia announced Thursday that they are investing $111.5 million in Arrival, a startup British automaker building electric delivery vans. The three companies will jointly develop vehicles and share know-how as Arrival scales up its operations and moves to put a vehicle on the market in the next few years.Arrival was founded in 2015…

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their departure from the royal family last week, the news came not from a royal press release nor from the British press, but from a post on Instagram. In a message to their 10.7 million followers, the couple detailed plans to step back from their royal duties, raise…

Pinterest today released its latest diversity report, showing slight gains in representation of underrepresented minorities while also hitting its three hiring goals. The company has long been recognized as an…