The PC game is due to be in stores by autumn of 2006.

Sims creator takes on evolution

I think it's because making something good is so hard. Most books, movies, plays, albums, product design and restaurants are awful. You just see more bad TV because the medium makes it so easy to browse.

They Liked the Naked Middle-Aged Man

Thomas Friedman spends an hour talking to MIT about his new book. Watch streaming video of the May 16 event.

Chances are good that Bhavya in Bangalore will read your next x-ray, or as Thomas Friedman learned first hand, "Grandma Betty in her bathrobe" will make your Jet Blue plane reservation from her Salt Lake City home. In "Globalization 3.0," Friedman contends, people from far-flung places will become principal players in the marketplace.

The World is Flat: An Hour With Thomas Friedman | MIT World

Intellectual property rights, argues Rishab Ghosh, were ostensibly developed to increase creativity; but today, policy decisions that treat knowledge and art as if they were physical forms of property actually threaten to decrease creativity, limit public access to creativity, and discourage collaborative creativity. "Newton should have had to pay a license fee before being allowed even to see how tall the 'shoulders of giants' were, let alone to stand upon them," he writes.

Lawrence Lessig says:

"CODE is a mature and sophisticated exploration of the most important issues related to creativity in the digital age. The broad mix of scholars, offering extraordinarily insightful perspectives, makes this collection essential for understanding this critically important set of questions."

Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy

Have you stood in front of a newsstand lately? 400 Star-laden Pages. 115 Things To Do With Cheese. The 27 Faces Of Infidelity. Numbers and lists dominate the mediascape. Why? Is it a brutish apotheosis of private property—thoughts as things, and the more the better? Is it the end of civilization? In a word (actually, over 1,500 of them!), yes.

I'm curious about what our trust in lists means—from the New York Times' "100 Notable Books of the Year" and the Fortune 500, to the endless gush of long and short lists for book prizes. Why are we such suckers for numbers? To me, numbers flaunt a kind of bogus, unearned power, like border officials, or the doormen of trendy clubs.

But lists are deeply American; the possibility of rising up the list from the bottom of the heap to Number One is what the American Dream is all about.

So here is a list of thirteen possible reasons why, for better or worse, human beings love to list.

13 Reasons For List Lust

If national security in and of itself is no longer a justification for this degree of classification, one might be inclined to ask what is.

Cat-and-Mouse Games

It's a transformation as significant as when we went from black-and-white to color—and it's already underway. The promise is that you'll be able to watch anything you want, anywhere—on a huge high-def screen or on your phone.

Television Reloaded

Bill Joy, Nicholas Negroponte, and more!

Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT showcases the technologies that are poised to make a dramatic impact on our world. Now in its 5th year, this unique two-day event brings together world-renowned innovators and leaders in technology and business for keynote, panel and breakout discussions that center on the transformative technological innovations certain to better our lives, create opportunities and fuel economic growth. The event will also celebrate Technology Review's top 35 Innovators Under 35 and award the 2005 Innovator of the Year.

Did you know that Bill Joy joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers?

Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT

In The March of Unreason, Dick Taverne expresses his concern that irrationality is on the rise in Western society, and argues that public opinion is increasingly dominated by unreflecting prejudice and an unwillingness to engage with factual evidence. Discussing topics such as genetically modified crops and foods, organic farming, the MMR vaccine, environmentalism, the precautionary principle, and the new anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movements, he argues that the rejection of the evidence-based approach nurtures a culture of suspicion, distrust, and cynicism, and leads to dogmatic assertion and intolerance. Science, with all the benefits it brings, is an essential part of a civilized and democratic society: it offers the most hopeful future for humankind.

March Of Unreason: Science, Democracy, And The New Fundamentalism

Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life.

Down to the Wire