Matt Buchanan on wearable computers before Google Glass: http://nyr.kr/12Vi7Wb

Above: Steve Mann adjusts his Eyetap. Photograph by Randy Quan.

Cartoon by Edward Koren. For more from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/YCe9PO

Maria Bustillos interview Tom Bissell, who wrote Gears of War, about the potentialities of video games as literature: http://nyr.kr/15YCl57

(Source: newyorker.com)

Recently, I created an app called Petting Zoo. It is an interactive app for iPhones and iPads, and creating it was a difficult but interesting process…

Christoph Niemann illustrates the creation of his new iPhone app, Petting Zoo: http://nyr.kr/Zo7wDY

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the most outrageous criminal law you’ve never heard of. It bans “unauthorized access” of computers, but no one really knows what those words mean. Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department attorney and a leading scholar on computer-crime law, argues persuasively that the law is so open-ended and broad as to be unconstitutionally vague. Over the years, the punishments for breaking the law have grown increasingly severe—it can now put people in prison for decades for actions that cause no real economic or physical harm. It is, in short, a nightmare for a country that calls itself free.

What can be done? Here, Tim Wu considers: http://nyr.kr/WRAXAA

Cartoon by David Sipress. For more from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/Z0qY6v

Google Reader, I discovered, is like an infinite attic. Inside it, your old interests, which you’ve outgrown or set aside, keep on growing. It’s as though your old passions wandered off and lived their own lives, without you…

Upon the news that Google Reader would be shutting down, Joshua Rothman logged back in and rediscovered his old self: http://nyr.kr/Z3M1oA

(Source: newyorker.com)

2 P.M.: Austin airport. It takes less than forty-five seconds after I walk off my plane and into the terminal before I am watching a live music performance—an accordion/guitar duo serenading customers at a restaurant promising “farm to flight dining…”

- Discographies Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/YcffFJ

Nilkanth Patel on dunking—and being dunked on—in the age of YouTube, Twitter, and 24-hour sports networks: http://nyr.kr/YUmPUz

The new news feed, as beautiful and as smartly designed as it may be, does little to encourage fatigued users to fill it up with the photos and personal updates that they’ve ceased posting on Facebook, or promise them that it’ll be loaded with more of the kinds of “can’t miss” things that will keep them coming back. It lacks the grand ambition of Facebook’s last major products…

Matt Buchanan looks at Facebook’s new news feed: http://nyr.kr/YFgqg0

Are you on Facebook? If so, how will you use the new stream?

(Source: newyorker.com)