Tom Hanks Takes Imax to the Moon Hacking Online Poker

TOM HANKS TAKES IMAX TO THE MOON HACKING ONLINE POKER

All you-can-eat

of tomorrow with your host Jon Stewart

Why YAHOO! will be The Dream Factory the center of the How to turn your million-channel universe desktop into a custom “Fab Lab” ESPN thinks oustide the box

The Wired Blood Feud Guide to TV 2.0 Greed, Denial, and DNA in Indian Country

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! The science of superheroes page 60

Watch it, buddy September 2005 September 2005 www.wired.com/wired

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FEATURES DEPARTMENTS 102 The TV of Tomorrow 25 RANTS & RAVES: Feedback. He’s the smart-ass host of the Daily Show. But more than that, Jon Stewart is helping to invent a new kind 29 START: Technology. Business, People. of TV- time-shifted and multiscreen. by Thomas Goetz PLUS: TV 2.0! Six new ways to watch, from the 32 Scofflaw: ‘80s classics on your PSP internet to celevision. 38 What I did at geek summer camp 106 The Super Network With video search and holywood muscle, Yahoo! 42 B.F.D.: Self Healing microchips! hopes to dominate the million-channel universe.by Josh McHugh 44 The do-it-yourself space program

112 ESPN Thinks Outside the Box 46 Infoporn Raw data. Web, WiMax, cell phones, and more. The sports Tracking the censors: The nations the block Web sites powerhouse is about to be on every screen in your and what really offends them. PLUS. Jargon Watch, life. by Frank Rose Wired Tired Expired, and more...

96 On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Bot 55 PLAY: Culture. Gear. Obssesions. In the Bustling world of online poker, anyone can win. Especially with an autoplaying robot ace in the hole. 56 How fans saved Joss Whedon’s Firefly Are you in, human? by David Kusher 58 Death Cab’s favorite MP3 blogs 118 Blood Feud These are boom times for the Five Civilized tribes of 77 Fetish Technolust. Oklahoma. But bad times for thousands of black Indians Even Forty’s personalized foosball table, Nemo’s battling for tribal citizenship. Now the Freed men are turning inflatable tent, Nike’s sun blooking contact lenses to genetic science for help. by Brendan I. Koerner 80 Test Consumer reviews. 126 One Giant Leap Micro-laptops, bloggin service, water guns, and what Tom Hanks takes Imax to the moon. by Spencer Reiss the wired gang bought this month. Plus: Motor, Arts, Reviews, and more... 128 Dream Factory From design to delivery, custom manufacturing is coming soon 87 POSTS: Dispatched from the Wired frontier. to a desktop near you. Inside the “fab lab” revolution. Wiring the Middle East’s war zone by Clive Thomson 90 The Baltiomre Ravens go digital 134 The Inside Story of Doctor Atomic Composer John Adams set off a chain reaction in the 92 Engines and the people who love them opera world with his explosive works on Nixon and the PLUS: Lessing on how MGM v. Grokster affects Apple Middle east. Now he’s taking on the father of the Abomb. By Johnathon Keats 154 FOUND: Artifacts from the future.

WIRED - 9/05 - 009 ARTS DRAFT ANIMALS Theo Jansen has engineered his own spe- which he set loose for a day in Amsterdam ping wings pump atmospheric pressure cies. His giant sea creatures, or Animaris, last year. Despite its size, the Rhino walked into lemonade bottles - allowing it to keep have skeletons of steel or electrical tubing so efficiently that children were able to pull moving when the gusts subside. It’s the lat- and scamper about on multiple legs with- it on a leash. His newest creation, Percip- est link in an evolutionary process Jansen out the aid of motors or electricity - they’re iere, will traverse the main square of Linz, hopes will one day lead to Animaris living propelled only by the wind at their backs. Austria, in September as part of the Ars autonomously on the beaches of the Neth- The Dutch artist’s biggest beast is the Electronica Festival. Percipiere is the first erlands. Darwin would be terrified. 15-foot-tall, 2-ton Rhinoceros Transport, Animaris to store wind energy - its flap- - Robert Capps

What has 12 legs, stands 15 feet tall, and is propelled by wind? The Animaris Rhinoceros Transport

068 - WIRED - 9/05 B.F.D. Computer, Heal Thyself! Soon Electronics will self-repair when they break. by Sunny Bains

Microchips are like potato chips: More of outs. But advances in fabrication are finally tion, enough to kill a person (or give them them come out of the oven broken than lowering the price. superpowers). After getting fried, the sys- whole. And of the chips - micro, not potato tem started fixing itself, attempting up to - that make it to market, many have built- “There’s little need for fault-tolerant chips 100 configurations per second until it found in weaknesses that eventually cause them in the market,” says Jason Lohn, a com- one that worked. to fail. Most people don’t care. The use- puter scientist at the NASA Ames Research ful lifespan of an electronic device is only Center. “But for space applications, we Ultimately, though, engineers hope that about three years, and it’s hard chips will do more than recover to consume just one. By the time from a blast of cosmic radiation. your cell phone’s processor melts “We want systems that can grow, down, you’ve already bought a self-repair, adapt, cope with envi- newer model. ronmental changes, and give us fault tolerance,” says Andy Tyrell, But if you’re planning to send a electronics department chair at computer on, say, a 10 - year mis- the UK’s University of York. Tyrell sion into deep space, then you is working on what he calls immu- need more staying power. The notronics, a digital immune sys- best option used to be to send tem, complete with antibodies. lots of spare processors and cross He has designed an electronic cir- your fingers. As your probe flew si- cuit that can distinguish between lently through the night, you would self and other, just like a human dream about chips that could fix being does - though the ma- themselves. chine uses strings of data instead need much longer lifetimes.” His team is of proteins. The system looks for “dis- It’s not crazy. A type of processor called a working on systems with two processors eased” information (data with unexpected field programmable gate array really can that are proprietary variations of FPGAs. If characteristics) and, if it finds some, recon- recover on the fly. Invented in 1984, FPGAs a fault occurs in one, the backup chip takes figures itself. don’t have hardwired patterns of circuits. over, generating a new configuration using Instead , their wiring runs through program an evolutionary algorithm - it tries differ- Microprocessors may not come into the mable intersections called logic blocks. ent approaches until a layout emerges that world with finesse, but they’re learning to They’re slower than ordinary chips, and gets the job done. Researchers at NASA’s grow old gracefully. until recently their high cost limited their Jet Propulsion Laboratory exposed their application to rapid prototyping of chip lay- self-healing chip to 250 kilorads of radia- Sunny Bains ([email protected]) wrote about liquid lenses in issue 13.04.

Jargon Watch Pulse

Non-Analytical Dirt-Style Toyetic Meat Puppet You can’t stop the evolution of digital content Positive adj. Having hip adj. Suitable for n. An online iden- delivery (see “TV 2.0,” page 105), but Wired adj. Coined by graphic design that merchandising. tity created solely to readers like things the way they are. Just 10 the US Anti-Dop- remixes stodgy, Describes a media stuff a wiki or usenet percent of 1,290 readers polled hoped to ing Agency as a amateurish Web property, like a ballot box. The term watch TV on cell phone, iPod, or PDA. euphemism for guilty content for ironic movie, that’s easily is an extension of of using perfor- aesthetic ends. exploited for selling sock puppet, a How will you prefer to watch digital video mance-enhancing Think: the vi- other products, such pseudonym created content? 4% drugs based solely sual equivalent of a as a McDonald’s by a usenet member 6% on circumstantial mash-up. Happy Meal. (Usage: to second one’s own evidence. (Usage: “Say what you will opinion. Computer “He won’t submit to about cinematog- TV 33% our voluntary drug raphy, Star Wars: 57% testing? Then he Episode I is more iPod/PDA must be non-analyti- toyetic than My Din- Cell Phone cal positive.”) ner With Andre.”)

- Jonathon Keats ([email protected]) WIRED - 9/05 - 042 We interupt this broadcast to bring you a Special Report from Jon Stewart: REINVENTING TELEVISION The Wired Interview, by Thomas Goetz; Photographs by Matthias Clamer

ake up, television executives of America: Jon Stewart - the wiseacre host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show - knows more about your business than you do. Sure, The Daily Show may just seem like a smart comedy program on wbasic cable; nothing more thanical satire and a spot - on parody of

“Getting video off the Internet,” says Daily Show host Jon Stewart. “is no different than getting it off the TV. 102 - WIRED - 9/05 WIRED - 9/05 - 103 TV News pieties. But it’s also a demonstration of for a conversation about television: where it might over. The one thing that you have control over What was the symbol for stop supposed to be? So applying your Goodness Theorem, if you start television done right. In the six years since Stew- go, and whether Stewart will get there first. is the content of the show. But how people are Karlin: [Gives thumbs-up.] putting real content online, then you’re going to TV 2.0 art took over, the audience for The Daily Show reacting to it, how it’s being shared, how it’s being Stewart: It was a stupid way to do it. get more outlets for good stuff. has grown almost threefold to 1.4 million viewers WIRED: There’s a lot of chatter out there about discussed, all that other stuff, is absolutely be- Karlin: Sure. But it’s not done that easily. Obvi- Six New Ways to Watch a night. It boasts a legion of young, smart fans how the old model of television - the big box in yond your ability to control. tewart: I’m surprised But the show was a total sensation: Something ously, there was this first wave of people during who are among the most demographically desir- the living room - is becoming a relic. people don’t have cables coming out of their like 3 million people saw that - but mostly online. the bubble who thought, “Oh my god, we can put able audiences in the industry - further collapsing Stewart: You mean getting up with your pliers to asses, because that’s going to be a new thing. Less than a quarter of them saw it on CNN TV on the Internet,” and all those people, all that the caste distinctions between networks and change the channel? That’s outdated? You’re just going to get it directly fed into you. I proper. It was huge, phenomenal viral video. money, went into all these digital things, Internet cable. It has raised the bar for tie-ins, with a best- look at systems like the Internet as a convenience. Stewart: It was definitely viral. I felt nauseous network plans, everything like that. And they are . Internet TV seller (America [The Book] has sold a stunning 2.5 Yup, it is. And you made this argument yourself in I look at it as the same as cable or anything else. afterward. It was one of the most downloaded all pretty much gone. They were probably too 1 million copies), a hit DVD (Indecision 2004), and an interview with The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta. Everything is geared toward more individualized clips ever. soon, and the technology and the bandwidth - starting in October - a full-fledged spinoff (The You said there was an emerging recognition that consumption. Getting it off the Internet is no dif- Stewart: Really? That’s not true. Pamela and weren’t there. The stuff that works on the Internet What it is Colbert Report). And The Daily Show may be the television was just a delivery system, just a box ferent than getting it off TV. Tommy Lee? right now is short things that don’t really need A host of new startups- led by Akim- most popular TV program on the Internet: to be filled with content. “The quality of what you production quality or anything that has an do is not diminished by how far you are up on the Isn’t that going to pose a challenge to the tradi- OK, maybe that was bigger. But it was amazing underground guerrilla quality to it. bo, Brightcove, and Dave TV- have Between blog links and BitTorrent downloads, dial,” you said. “It’s all just airtime.” tional network model? that CNN was so clueless about what you gave Stewart: The Internet is just a world passing cut deals with copywright owners for hundreds of thousands of people watch clips Stewart: I agree. I agree with me. Stewart: But we’re not on a traditional network: them. Suddenly, for once, everybody wanted to around notes in a classroom. That’s all it is. All video clips that viewers can download online each day rather than on TV. In other words, We’re on the goofy, juvenile-delinquent network to see Crossfire. They could have taken the show those media companies say, “We’re going to over the Internet to a TV or a PC. The in form if not in tone, Stewart’s Daily Show offers The Daily Show really exemplifies that sort of new begin with. We get an opportunity to produce this and put it on their Web site, said Click Here, and make a killing here.” You won’t because it’s still a glimpse of what all TV may one day become: model. It’s on a cable network, not broadcast. It’s stuff because they make enough money selling gotten all this traffic. Instead, everyone had to go only as good as the content business model: Customers pay for something we can consume in many distillations, among the most popular shows traded online. beer that it’s worth their while to do it. I mean, we through these other sites and back doors. everything from CNN news shows at a time, place, and device of our choosing. People download and watch the whole thing, know that’s the game. I’m not suggesting we’re Stewart: That’s really half the fun, isn’t it? If CNN Yet there’s a lot of venture capital going into and A&E specials to fanfic movies every day. Were you guys aware of that? going to beam it out to the heavens, man, and had put it on its Web site, it would have lost some video-delivery technologies that could allow more Stewart likes to protest that he doesn’t pay any Karlin: Not only am I not aware of that, I don’t whoever gets it, great. If they’re not making their of its allure. shows to go online. Isn’t there something promis- and random snowoardingwipeouts. mind to this. All he and his crew do, he says, “is want to be aware of that. money, we ain’t doing our show. Karlin: It’s people going, “Holy s#*, you see this?” ing about new ways to watch television? try and put out a funny, well-written show about Stewart: Sure. But how much do you need TV Why it Matters current events.” But push a bit and he shows Well, don’t go shutting it down. Let me ask you about the Crossfire thing - not to be available in convenient form? It already is Internet TV circumvents traditional himself to be a savvy observer and critic of his Stewart: We’re not going to shut it down - we about your critique of that show, but about the “ That That Video Video was was de- convenient - we have the DVR. Do you need TV industry. Not entirely surprising: He’s spent 15 don’t even know what it is. I’m having en ough reaction to it. “ on your watch as you walk from your cell phone delivery methods- cable, satelite, years in cable and syndicated television, a stint trouble just getting porn. Stewart: Ben was there, by the way. I remember definetelyfinetely virtual virtual - I felt –– to your BlackBerry? At what point do we get broadcast-and in theory offers un- that includes three failed MTV projects. And his Karlin: If people want to take the show in vari- looking out into the audience and seeing his face saturated enough to say, “OK, I get it! We can get limited programming. Networked TV scorching critique of television on CNN’s Crossfire ous forms, I’d say go. But when you’re a part of and realizing, “I guess this isn’t going well.” Inauseouse felt nauseouse. afterward.” anything we want at any time! Let’s go sit around last fall was so dead-on that the network’s presi- something successful and meaningful, the rule Karlin: Well, we had hand signals, and before the “f” a large table and eat a meal in silence”? Some- is coming, and these companies are dent cited Stewart’s indictment when he canceled book says don’t try to analyze it too much or dis- show I made the mistake of saying that It was also a powerful critique of television that times this shit’s just overkill. leading the way. the show in January. Wired sat down with Stewart sect it. You shouldn’t say: “I really want to know this [drawing his finger across his throat] meant people agreed with. It was good television. Karlin: I do think it would be cool if at one point and Ben Karlin - The Daily Show’s executive pro- what fans think. I really want to understand how “Keep on going, great, do the exact same thing.” Stewart: Boy, I never want to be part of some- your computer and your television are more or ducer, Stewart’s partner at Busboy Productions, people are digesting our show.” Because that is So I was frantically doing this [draws finger. thing called “good television.” I can tell you that. less the same device. That’s one less big box and a guy who can finish Stewart’s sentences - one of those things that you truly have no control That is not a comfortable place to be. But you screen that you have in your house. know what it was? It was a person not playing the role that is prescribed to them under normal Ben, I read something in which you talked about The Colbert Report, it’s a spinoff - do you think it’ll Stewart and executive producer Ben Karlin on the Daily Show set. circumstances. But I also think that it’s fun for how network television and cable were going to go the way of Rhoda or the way of Phyllis? people to send those things to each other or become one and the same. Stewart: We prefer not to think of it as a spinoff. check them out. Karlin: Only in the sense of perception. From a We prefer to think of it as a diverse marketing Karlin: Like when the whole Pat O’Brien thing creative standpoint, there used to be this idea integration through spore reproduction. Stephen was happening and his calls went online, and that network was the holy grail and that cable is an unbelievably talented guy, and we sort of did then someone modified them. Those were all over was where people went who couldn’t work on a goof called The Colbert Report. And in the back the place, and that by definition has to remain an network. That’s the old model. And now that of our brains we thought, “Oh, that could actually underground thing. When those types of things there’s just as many quality shows coming out work as a show.” News is so much a bifurcated are commodified and someone makes money off of cable - on FX there’s good shows, Comedy system of people reporting and then these of them and all the other stuff, something else will Central has good shows, HBO … I think the audi- personality-driven universes where people create just come in to take its place. ence is going to cease noticing, “Oh, that’s got their own truth, so it makes perfect sense for us Stewart: That’s exactly right. It will constantly be the NBC logo on it.” to have that and attach Stephen to it. co-opted. The guy who did all those pirate media Stewart: It’s the idea that the content is no longer things now works for marketing companies. The valued by where it stands, in what neighborhood What are the risks in doing a spinoff? first thing marketing people do is go, “Wow, that’s it lives. What matters is what you put out there, Karlin: We won’t know what to do w/ the money. really exciting and new and underground and not its location. I think that’s what people have Stewart: Yeah. Actually, that is a risk. authentic. Let us take it and bring it into our dark come to learn from the Internet - it doesn’t matter hearts.” What’s nice about Internet is it’s egalitar- where it comes from. If it’s good, it’s good. Just Your contract goes through 2008. How do you ian. It is democratic in that it parcels interest. because our channel is after HGTV and right be- think people will be watching the show then? fore Spanish people playing soccer doesn’t make Stewart: Through their nipples. I believe the What is that level? it any less valuable than something that exists in show will come in through one nipple and will Stewart: I’d say it’s around 12 percent. I’d say the single digits on your television. be broadcast out the other through some sort of 12 percent goodness, 88 percent crapola. I’m projection device. calling it the Goodness Theorem. The goodness Karlin: The bottom line is network television is Karlin: And if you have three nipples, you’re basi- is a constant, like pi, and it stays that way. What going to have to figure out a way to produce its cally walking high definition. happens is, as the environment expands around shows less expensively in order to survive and Stewart: No, listen. We make the doughnuts; we it, the goodness expands at the exact same rate. compete. And cable shows are going to have don’t drive the truck. I have no idea. I assume So the ratio of goodness to crapola remains the to figure out a way to pay people a little more, there are people in white lab coats working on same. And the percentage of goodness on net probably, as they start getting the same kind of that very thing. And I’m sure at some point it will work TV is probably the same as 30 years ago. revenue out of their shows that the networks get. be in liquid form.

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