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Review: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Nicolas Roeg's enigmatic sci-fi film
Star Wars came out the year after Nicolas Roeg's enigmatic sci-fi film (re-released now in an uncut version), and after that no studio was likely to make anything similar again, nor would many audiences have the patience to watch it.
By PETER KEOUGH | August 10, 2011

Eli Pariser is interviewed by Ethan Zuckerman about his new book

Eli Pariser talks about The Filter Bubble

News feeding
When he was executive director of the progressive advocacy organization Move On, Eli Pariser had the chance to meet lots of fellow liberals. But he had fewer conservative friends, and he worried he was missing out on their perspectives on political and social issues.
By ETHAN ZUCKERMAN | May 26, 2011

The rise and uncertain future of ''pirate'' radio in Boston

Will Boston’s unlicensed radio stations go legit?
After a 10-year campaign by proponents of hyper-local radio, Congress finally passed the Local Community Radio Act in December. So how will that affect Boston's burgeoning "pirate" radio landscape?
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 07, 2011

South by Southwest Interactive plots a course to a better world

Peace, love and QR codes
Peace, love and QR codes
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 24, 2011

Love and Robots in Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera

In Tod Machover's new opera, Death and the Powers , high technology meets high anxiety
A third of the way through the opera Death and the Powers: the Robots' Opera , the leading man becomes a machine.
By CHRIS DAHLEN | March 18, 2011

Greening the knowledge district

Bull Session
Christopher Bull is on the engineering faculty at Brown University, but what he teaches is a vision. “We all bear some responsibility in the direction the world goes,” he says, “and we need to accept that responsibility and act on it.”
By MARION DAVIS | March 09, 2011

Inside the Echo Nest's deal with Def Jam

A&R for apps
At the Digital Music Forum in New York, representatives from Somerville's The Echo Nest announced a watershed partnership with Island Def Jam (IDJ), the behemoth imprint that's home to such mega acts as Ludacris and Justin Bieber.
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 02, 2011

Web hits Quiet Desperation and Karmaloop are turning Boston into must-see TV

As Seen on PC
In Boston, there are two nascent examples of Web-video projects getting flipped into legitimate TV deals.
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 03, 2011

At RISD: Art, science, and what's wrong with ATMs

Confabs
Among the most prominent solutions offered up for our present economic malaise and the broader decline of the republic: a robust investment in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | January 19, 2011

The year in tech

Private eyes are watching you
This year saw some tech wins (public information), some losses (privacy), and many more questions for the future of an increasingly wired world. (Example: Is anything secret anymore?) And there was the appearance of yet another grassroots David, and, as if a warning to future Davids, the epic collapse of a bloated Goliath.
By JEFF INGLIS AND NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | December 22, 2010

Adventures at Tech Mart

Hoopleville
Finding a cell phone is a little different these days.
By DAVID KISH | December 08, 2010

Providence's mapmaker goes digital

Geography Dept.
Eddie Grant, veteran mapmaker for the city of Providence, sits at the back of an otherwise colorless planning department office, a large cardboard cutout of the Three Stooges looking over his shoulder.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | December 08, 2010

Review: Medal of Honor misses the target

Fog of war
Could this be, at long last, the video game that deals frankly with the morass of war? Don't kid yourself.
By MITCH KRPATA | October 31, 2010

Mo' money, fewer problems

Going green
Now is the time to weather- and winter-ize our homes, and not just because the temperatures are dropping (the Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting a milder-than-usual winter).
By DEIRDRE FULTON | September 29, 2010

11 Big Ideas for Rhode Island

Great notions to make things better in tough times: internpreneurships, dance parties, and Netflix for underwear
Rhode Island has problems. We all know it. Unemployment, political corruption, the Providence College basketball team.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | October 05, 2010

Interview: Armie Hammer (''The Social Network'')

The actor talks about playing twins, digital-age chivalry, and growing up in the most interesting family that ever existed
Armie Hammer looks like a menswear catalog model.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | October 04, 2010

Interview: Jesse Eisenberg (''The Social Network'')

The actor on Harvard, anachronistic technology, and raging at the patriarchy
Eisenberg's performance suggests he's a genius, and a five-minute conversation does nothing to dispel that impression.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | October 04, 2010

Interview: Aaron Sorkin (''The Social Network'')

The screenwriter on hackers, Harvard, and getting even
Aaron Sorkin is one dapper guy.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | October 05, 2010

Review: Halo: Reach

A long goodbye
Throughout Halo: Reach 's campaign, you are haunted by the thought that, at the end, you will die — and that with your death, the Halo empire will come to an end.
By MADDY MYERS | September 21, 2010

State e-mail retrieval: $36K + 1 year — or free, and right now

Bureaufusion Concratic Dept.
Happily, the estimated $36,000 cost state officials told a reporter it would cost to retrieve certain e-mails sent to or from Kurt Adams when he was chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission turns out to have been a gross overstatement.
By JEFF INGLIS | September 16, 2010

Learning lost

Letters to the Portland Editor, September 10, 2010
I read Deirdre Fulton's recent article in the Phoenix about the impact of technology and "learner-centered" education on the college experience with a mixture of admiration, because I think she got most things correct, and dread, because I think she got most things correct.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | September 09, 2010

Exploring Twitter: best thing since CB Radio @140 Character Conference

Series of Tubes Dept.
The traveling con hits Boston to tackle such topics as "Crowdsourcing Cancer."
By ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | September 08, 2010

Unused video games

Big Fat Whale
Truman Capote's Quip-Out!!
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | September 08, 2010

Review: Mafia II

Just when you think you're in, Mafia II pushes you back out
Thanks to Goodfellas , The Sopranos , and, oh yeah, The Godfather , the life of a wiseguy has been pretty well deromanticized in popular culture. Credit Mafia II , then, with the difficult task of deconstructing the genre even farther.
By MITCH KRPATA | September 07, 2010

FairPoint's struggles continue

Corporate Albatross Dept.
It has been a very long time since our last FairPoint update, but you can rest assured that the North Carolina-based landline provider's downward slide has continued, as the company attempts to restructure its way out of crushing debt through bankruptcy-court protection.
By JEFF INGLIS | September 01, 2010

Maine breaches

Cybersecurity
When many Mainers think of "cybersecurity," they probably remember the 2008 HANNAFORD SECURITY BREACH , when 4.2 million credit- and debit-card numbers were stolen from shoppers at the grocery chain's stores.
By JEFF INGLIS | September 01, 2010

SCVNGR

Play the Phoenix's Boston Photo Scavenger Hunt
We’ve mapped out your ﬁrst month in Boston.
By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | September 02, 2010

The backstory on Curt Schilling's Rhode Island jaunt

Origins
The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation's controversial decision to offer a $75 million loan guarantee to former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling's video-game company, 38 Studios, has become a prime issue on the campaign trail.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | September 01, 2010

Maine's broken e-mail system

Press releases
When Naomi Schalit of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting asked for electronic copies of e-mails between the chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission and representatives of companies the PUC dealt with, she did not expect to receive a cost estimate of $10,000 from the state — nor to be required to pay $80 for the privilege of receiving that estimate.
By JEFF INGLIS | August 26, 2010

Is micro-news the future?

AOL thinks so, and the Globe and GateHouse are fighting back
AOL is like the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps going and going through a staggering number of transformations and reinventions.
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 20, 2010

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