I just got the new iPhone 7, and it’s great! I love my new AirPods: fancy, totally wireless headphones with enough battery life for me to listen to The Beatles’ White Album all the way through—twice.
Today is my 30th birthday. Until today, I was sure that I was a millennial. Now things are less clear.
Many countries are very good at this or that Olympic sport. Russia has a reputation for weightlifting. The United States, swimming. South Korea is impeccable in archery. But which country’s sporting supremacy is greatest?
The way artificial intelligence is progressing, you might think that a robot takeover of the human race is right around the corner. Artificial brains can now drive cars, do legal research, recognize faces, and beat the best human players at games like Go. Prominent technologists keep warning that AI poses a fundamental threat to humanity.
At one point or another you’ve found yourself communicating with a colleague or a family member or a zoo animal that was just sitting there.
サーバー過大負荷によるトラブルや事故への懸念にも関わらず、ポケモンGOは人気アプリトップを独占状態だ。加えて任天堂の市場価値に数十億ドルもの恩恵をもたらし、モンスターボール（ポケボール）などのバーチャルグッズをもって数百万ドルという売上を叩きだした。人々はポケモンゲームというノスタルジアに浸りつつ、公で堂々とゲームをプレイする喜びを見い出している。
At long last, America’s Republican Party has announced the list of speakers that will appear at its convention in Cleveland, Ohio, this week. With support for Donald Trump thin among mainstream Republicans, the presumptive nominee had to get creative to fill the list. The final lineup includes soap opera stars, reality TV participants, and B-list athletes.
Pokémon are taking over the world.
People are loving Pokémon Go because it gets them outside and makes them more active. Some are complaining about sore legs from extended periods of walking.
Did you know that hanner amser means “half-time” in Welsh? We didn’t either—until we followed a link from a colleague and saw this:
This story has been corrected.
Fears that Greece would leave the euro zone gave us the term “Grexit,” that is, “Greek exit.” Britain votes today (June 23) on whether or not to leave the EU, a.k.a. “Brexit.” There are murmurs about an eventual “Frexit.”
The Cornish language has come back from the dead. Once officially branded “extinct” by the UN, the language, spoken primarily in Cornwall in Southwest England, was upgraded to “endangered” in 2010.
LinkedIn just got a new job at Microsoft. Its new title is “Acquisition Target.” Head to LinkedIn to congratulate LinkedIn on its new position!
This Saturday (June 4) marks the 27th anniversary of the massacre that ended pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Since June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party has tried its best to stop people from mentioning the incident and convince them that the whole thing never happened.
Chinese government propaganda is often pretty heavy-handed. State media insist that economic growth will be L-shaped, for example, but do not bother to say what that means. A string of bizarre English-language music videos demand praise for China’s 13th Five-year Plan, and detail how great Americans find it to work for a Chinese boss.
Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen, will not be inaugurated into office until May 20. But Beijing is already blaming her for future decisions that may upset the delicate balance between the mainland and the island, which China views as part of its territory but is a self-governed democracy.
If Britain votes to leave the European Union in a referendum next month, it will leave one thing behind: the English language. The French may be reluctant to admit it, but English has become the dominant language for communication between eurocrats who don’t speak the same native tongue, and it will remain so.
An odd phrase has popped up this year in Chinese economy talk: “L-shaped growth.” In January, an interview with an “authoritative figure” appeared in the People’s Daily, the communist party’s mouthpiece. “China’s economy is unlikely to achieve a V-shape rebound, but instead an L-shape growth,” the anonymous figure said.
If you own a smartphone and are trying to learn a language, you probably have Duolingo. At this very moment the app—which tries to turn language learning into a rewarding game—may be not-so-subtly suggesting that you are overdue for some Spanish vocabulary practice.
Woodstock, 1969: eccentric, iconic, utterly singular.
