longreads
How Bloghouse’s Sweaty, Neon Reign United the Internet
For a brief, weird moment in the Myspace-fueled early 2000s, dance music felt truly alternative.
Gravity Could Solve Clean Energy’s One Major Drawback
Finding green energy when the winds are calm and the skies are cloudy has been a challenge. Storing it in giant concrete blocks could be the answer.
What Happens When an AI Knows How You Feel?
Technology used to only deliver our messages. Now it wants to write them for us by understanding our emotions.
The Quest to Trap Carbon in Stone—and Beat Climate Change
On a barren lava plateau in Iceland, a new facility is sucking in air and stashing the carbon dioxide in rock. The next step: Build 10,000 more.
The Wave-Conquering, Metaverse-Crashing Life of Kai Lenny
Treated as an outcast in Maui’s cool-kid surf culture, he went on to master nearly every extreme water sport. No wonder the tech elite has a crush on him.
And Now: 31 Notable WIRED Long-Form Stories of 2021
In another strange year, our feature articles bubbled up through the cracks and managed to capture the zeitgeist.
Welcome to Miami, Where All Your Memes Come True!
The city is trying to lure in Silicon Valley types, hyping the promise of sun, sand, and seed rounds. Does it want Silicon Valley’s problems too?
Boom’s Quest to Make Supersonic Flights a Reality (Again)
Denver-based startup Boom already has orders for its commercial supersonic planes. But is supersonic travel really the future, or best left to nostalgia?
The Race to Find ‘Green’ Helium
Helium is a critical—and finite—resource. The future of our most indispensable technologies depends on a new supply.
4 Dead Infants, a Convicted Mother, and a Genetic Mystery
Kathleen Folbigg was found guilty of killing her babies. One scientist suspected the real culprit was mutant DNA—and went on a tireless quest to prove it.
David Attenborough’s Unending Mission to Save Our Planet
“We tend to think we are the be all and end all—but we’re not. The sooner we can realize that the natural world goes its way, not our way, the better.”
The Twitter Wildfire Watcher Who Tracks California’s Blazes
When fire ignites, the race begins to alert the state’s residents of the path of destruction. One of the leading voices lives on the other side of the world.
The Matrix Is the Best Hacker Movie
Most people point to Sneakers or WarGames. They’re all wrong. The Wachowskis actually invented the ultimate cyber superhero.
Welcome to the (Synthetic) Meatspace
Reactor-grown nuggets, human-edited genetic code, and new mRNA technologies could change our relationship to life itself.
WIRED Peers Into the Future of Reality
Two decades after The Matrix, technologies have emerged that make us question what is real—in ways stranger, if less sinister, than the movie imagined.
What The Matrix Got Wrong About Cities of the Future
Where the movie foresaw a distinction between digital and physical reality, modern cities are merging them, and not necessarily in a good way.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Is Ready to Blow Your Mind
The actor isn’t just the new Morpheus. He’s the future of Hollywood.
It’s Time to Reimagine the Future of Cyberpunk
In the 20th century, the genre imagined the body modifications and protective streetwear that could save us from our own future. Now it needs to envision humanity anew.
Can a Digital Reality Be Jacked Directly Into Your Brain?
The idea of a synthetic experience uploaded to the mind has been a sci-fi fantasy forever. New brain-computer interfaces are making it nonfiction—very slowly.
Amazon's Dark Secret: It Has Failed to Protect Your Data
Voyeurs. Sabotaged accounts. Backdoor schemes. For years, the retail giant has handled your information less carefully than it handles your packages.
At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down
Do you feel lost? Alone? Powerless in the face of forces beyond your control? Timothy Morton can help—if you’re ready to have your reality blown apart.
The 10,000 Faces That Launched an NFT Revolution
When two Canadian coders started an online project called CryptoPunks, they had no idea they’d spark a hyped-up, blockchain-fueled cultural juggernaut.
The Metaverse Is Simply Big Tech, but Bigger
It’s a rebrand of Silicon Valley's increasing power and reach. And it’s made for companies, not people.
Why Can’t People Teleport?
Set your phasers on stun, because we are going to beam you up on the physics of teleportation.