Amazon Reveals Just How Huge the Cloud Is for Its Business

The Amazon cloud is a $4.6 billion business. That number might not seem big compared to the tens of billions in revenue Amazon generates through online retail. But in revealing the size of Amazon Web Services for the first time today, the company best known for e-commerce offered a glimpse into the business that might ultimately define its future.

In its latest financial earnings report, Amazon said AWS grew 49 percent in 2014, pulling in $4.6 billion in revenue. After reaching $1.57 billion in the first quarter of this year, AWS is on track for $6.23 billion in sales by year’s end, the company said. Though its cloud business still accounted for only 7 percent of the company’s overall quarterly revenue of $22.72 billion, AWS is growing at a much faster rate than the rest of Amazon (AWS grew 49 percent, while the company’s core North American business grew 22 percent). And contrary to what the company has indicated in the past, its margins are significantly higher with AWS.

These numbers are important. Though Amazon made its name selling consumer goods, its retail operation is covered in red ink. In the cloud, on the other hand, Amazon is both powerful and profitable. In the future, Amazon may be a cloud company with a retail site rather than the other way around.

Amazon’s Enormous Lead

Cloud operations like AWS provide instant access to computing power over the internet. Rather than setting up their own machines, businesses and developers can rent access to servers, storage systems, and all sorts of software that run atop these services. Amazon pioneered the idea about a decade ago, and Microsoft, Google, and others—so many others—have followed suit.

These cloud services have slowly eaten away at the businesses of tech giants like HP, Dell, EMC, and Oracle, which traditionally sold hardware and software that companies could set up in their own data centers. And this trend isn’t stopping. According to estimates from research firm Forrester, cloud computing will account for about 15 percent of all information technology spending within the next five years, and after their head start, Jeff Bezos and company have established an enormous lead in a market that will grow to $40 billion.

Prior to the release of its report, big name financial services firm Deutsche Bank pegged Amazon’s cloud revenues at $6 billion a year. That wasn’t far off. And the bank estimated that Amazon’s haul is about ten times that of its nearest cloud competitor, Microsoft Azure.

“They were their first, and they were fast,” say Tamim Selah, who oversees cloud computing strategies as a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, a firm that provides technology consulting to multinationals. “Everyone else is now playing catch-up.”

The Battle in Seattle

Microsoft also raised the curtain on its cloud business today, claiming it’s on track for a $6.3 billion in revenues this year. But this includes Microsoft’s online email and document service Office 365 as well as its Dynamics customer relationship management service, which are different from the services offered by AWS and Microsoft Azure.

But Amazon can’t be too smug about its head start. The concern for Amazon is that its AWS margins, though high, are shrinking. This is due, in large part, to the company’s recent investment in new data centers. But competitive pressure from the likes of Google and Microsoft are also a factor. In some respects, cloud computing is a commodity business. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all offer access to raw virtual machines and storage. As such, one of the chief ways to differentiate your company is on price.

At the same time, all three of these companies are expanding their offerings, providing tools for analyzing the massive amounts of data housed on their storage services. They’re also building sweeping online software applications atop their virtual machines. The only way for Amazon to stay ahead of competitors, Selah says, is to keep adding new services—to offer things that the others don’t. “They will try to avoid a scenario where it’s just a scale game, where they just compete on price,” Selah says, “because that is a not a great business model.”

Amazon may not stay ahead. But for now, it’s the clear leader—a lead that suggests the cloud, not shopping, is the business Amazon does best.

Xbox Sales and Revenue Are Down Big Time in 2015

Skip to story An attendee plays Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One at HaloFest 2014 in November. Microsoft

Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles aren’t doing as well as they were last year, the company said today.

While the company as a whole grew its revenues to $21.7 billion for the first three months of 2015, the Xbox business didn’t help those numbers. Revenue was down 24 percent compared to the first three months of 2014, Microsoft said.

One of the reasons it gave for the drop is that Microsoft sold fewer Xbox Ones and Xbox 360s—1.6 million combined units this year, versus 2.0 million last year. Microsoft did not break out sales of its new Xbox One console versus sales of the legacy Xbox 360 console.

The other reason it gave for the revenue drop is that Xbox One had a massive price cut this year. The units Microsoft sold in the first quarter of 2014 came bundled with the Kinect camera and cost $500. Later, Microsoft unbundled the Kinect and dropped the price to $400—then dropped it again to $350 before Christmas.

Earlier this month, the NPD Group said that spending on home console hardware in the U.S. in March 2015 had dropped by 29 percent ($104 million) across all platforms. Sony’s PlayStation 4 outsold the Xbox One that month.

Samsung Redesigns Its VR Headset to Fit the Galaxy S6

If you’ve wanted to get in on the smartphone-powered VR game without using a relatively ginormous Samsung Galaxy Note 4, your day has come.

Samsung has released pricing and availability info about its new Gear VR headset that’s compatible with Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge smartphones.

The Gear VR Innovator Edition for the S6 and S6 Edge (that’s the name!) is available for preorder online at Best Buy starting Friday, April 24. It goes on sale online in a couple of weeks, beginning May 8 on Samsung’s Gear VR site and the Best Buy site. It’ll hit Best Buy retail stores on May 15. The price stays at $200, just like the previous Gear headset.

The new wearable, which we first got wind of last month, is smaller, has newly designed face-straps, and has a built-in fan. Like its Note 4-compatible counterpart, the new Gear VR will essentially be a comfy facemask into which you slide the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, then watch in stereo vision as your phone runs VR apps. The headset itself doesn’t compute any of the VR craziness, but it has a touchpanel on the side of it for navigating menus on the phone. There’s a MicroUSB dock you slide a phone into to activate the handset’s VR antics. All the experiences are driven by the phone; the headset is just there for security, comfort, and magnification of the screen during prolonged VR sessions.

Using the headset with the newer S6 lineup may work a bit better, too. The new flagship Samsung handsets may have the same resolution screen as the Note 4, but the pixels are packed in tighter due to a smaller screen (577ppi versus 515ppi). Processing power is also different between the phones, as the Galaxy S6 lineup packs an eight-core Samsung Exynos processor versus the Note 4’s quad-core Qualcomm chip.

Despite the differences, the S6 phones will have the same features as the Note 4 when used with the facemask. Content will be available through Samsung’s Milk VR service as well as the Oculus Store. You can browse and download free and paid content to the device while using the phone in the VR headset.

In the best case scenario, this is a decent step forward for VR. This isn’t the move that makes VR a mainstream must-have, of course. The content coffers are still pretty barren beyond short-form experiments and demos, and that’s a big barrier. VR really needs an essential title or two to drive it forward. But having a decently priced facemask that works with a hot-selling phone like the S6 makes the initial jump to VR less intimidating. People will buy the S6 anyway, and once they have it, an extra $200 to turn it into a fun face-computer is a modest investment.

Of course, there are a few headsets that have been designed to work with a wider array of phones—and they’re cheaper. The $99 Zeiss VR One has an adaptable tray that works with the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5, as well as CAD models that let you 3D-print trays for other phones. And there are free cardboard housings that are even more forgiving in terms of phone type, although those are likely to get uncomfortable during an hours-long immersion sesh.

The Onion and Vice Are Now Making Ads With Facebook

People watch videos on Facebook—a lot of videos. During its earnings call yesterday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the number of videos watched on Facebook now totals more than 4 billion per day—triple what was being watched on the social network last summer.

With all those eyeballs trained on its moving pictures, the company is now moving quickly to make them pay. Today Facebook announced that it is teaming up with seven popular media companies, including The Onion, Disney and Vice Media, to produce video ads for brands hoping to capture the attention of the social network’s 1.44 billion users.

The partnerships are the latest development in a fast-moving trend toward publishers acting more like traditional ad agencies, particularly in the realm of content for the web and social media. It’s a model largely pioneered by Buzzfeed, though its own ad shop is absent from the initial list of partners for what Facebook is calling Anthology. The new program also comes at a time when Facebook is seeking to act more like a publisher as it seeks to host more and more content itself rather than linking out to other sites.

In-house video ads appear to be a significant step step in that direction. Rather than working with an outside agency to make an ad for, say, YouTube that merely lives as a link on Facebook, brands can work with any one of these Facebook-vetted producers, which also include Electus Digital, Funny or Die, Tastemade and Vox Media. The common thread among them is a proven track record of making content that goes viral on, you guessed, Facebook. Advertisers can also work with Facebook’s in-house creative strategy team to get guidance on how to build, distribute and measure advertising campaigns on the social network. In other words, instead of working with a third party to try to figure out how to make ads that do well on Facebook, brands can just work with Facebook.

Facebook’s Video Push

The launch of the Anthology program is a kind of culmination of Facebook’s big push into video over the past year, a push that judging from the social network’s exploding video growth seems to have succeeded. Among its efforts to capture more video traffic, Facebook acquired video startup QuickFire Networks last January to support high-quality videos that don’t eat up users’ bandwidth. Facebook has also been encouraging publishers to post their video content directly to Facebook rather than linking out to it. Partnering with publishers to produce video ads seems like another way to lure them into the company’s video fold, with the added bonus of bulking up the quality of the options it can offer its own advertisers. Media partners, meanwhile, get the advantage of a look behind the curtain of the world’s number-one social network, which is fast becoming the online publishing industry’s biggest driver of traffic.

To be sure, Facebook is not the first video platform that has sought out these kinds of partnerships to produce high-quality advertising. YouTube is by far the leading destination for internet video, delivering more than 6 billion hours’ worth of content every month to viewers worldwide. It unveiled a plan last September to invest millions in its biggest stars, funding brand-new shows and series to attract ad dollars.

Meanwhile, startups that facilitate advertising deals for social media stars—players like TapInfluence, Izea, and Jerome Jarre’s Grapestory—are all fighting for video ad dollars. In February, Twitter even acquired one of these so-called social media agencies, Niche, to help it boost its revenues. Just today, a new startup called Victorious launched apps that help internet video stars connect—and market directly to—their vast audience of “superfans.”

But as with any other product market it enters, Facebook is now the giant in the branded content room, too. It likely has a long line of publishers knocking at its door, eager for tips on how to gain a better position on the platform, and an even longer line of advertisers hoping to do the same. By outsourcing the content those advertisers want to other publishers, Facebook gets to enjoy plenty of ad dollars without having to spin up a labor-intensive content production shop of its own. Everyone wins—well, except for Buzzfeed.

America Needs to Figure Out the Ethics of Gene Editing Now

Skip to story Colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a human embryo at the eight cell stage. Yorgos Nikas/Sprocience Photo Library/Corbis

In an international first, researchers in China have reported doing experiments that involve editing the genome of a human embryo. Ever since scientists developed the ability to cut and splice DNA, they have worried over the safety and ethical implications of applying those techniques to the human genome. Now, though the reported work was preliminary and not completely successful, researchers will have to contend with a challenging set of questions about this newly-opened genetic frontier.

In the research, published a week ago in the journal Protein and Cell, the scientists used a powerful new DNA-editing method called CRISPR/Cas9 to replace the genes that cause a potentially deadly blood disorder. If the edit had been successful, the new genes would have manifested in every new cell as the embryo developed. (The embryos used in the study would never have reached term, because they had been fertilized with two sperm each.) Because only a small number of the 86 cells in the trial survived and carried on the material, the experiment was abandoned. The study’s lead author, Junjiu Huang of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, told Nature News, “If you want to do it in normal embryos, you need to be close to 100%. That’s why we stopped, we still think it’s too immature.”

The technique Huang and his co-investigators used, CRISPR/Cas9, allows researchers to snip out and insert specific segments of genetic code. Discovered in 2012, the technique is the subject of a lot of excitement and trepidation in the cell sciences (and its inventors are already being suggested as candidates for a Nobel Prize). Relative to other gene editing techniques, CRISPR/Cas9 is easy to use, and it seems to work in just about every living organism. That means it could, among other possibilities, hold the key to personalized medical therapies, new drugs, and (as the Chinese scientists attempted) human genetic modification.

But—and this is a big but—using the technique without proper guidance could result in unforeseen consequences. The Chinese researchers, for example, found mutations in many of the embryos in genes other than the ones they’d targeted with CRISPR/Cas9. They assumed this was due to errors in the method, but also mentioned that the mutations could have been because the eggs were double-fertilized.

Within the past few months, several groups of scientists around the world have called for a moratorium on just this type of research—calling for no more human embryo modification. They’re worried about all the science-fiction problems you’d imagine: The technology has the potential to erase genetic diseases, but it could also be used to make designer humans. And this kind of genome editing is on what’s called the “germ line,” which is to say, the edits get passed along to subsequent generations.

WIRED spoke to many of the people who called for moratoriums in two of world’s top scientific journals, to see what they thought about this Chinese research, and what it means for prioritizing the national discussion on the ethics of germline editing.

These quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Edward Lanphier, co-author of Nature moratorium on embryonic DNA editing—Sangamo Biosciences; Alliance of Regenerative Medicine

This paper completely validates the technical and scientific concerns that we raised in the Nature article, especially in terms of the “off target” gene modifications, and the inefficiencies in modifying the target gene. I think this exacerbates or highlights the need for the kind of broad-based discussion that we called for, and for a renewed sense of urgency.

Also, there is an important distinction between modifications to the germ line—which is passing things on from generation to generation—and somatic cell modification, which is already being used to treat disease, and we’re having great successes there.

George Q. Daley, co-author of Science moratorium; stem cell biologist—Boston Children’s Hospital

We need to start having this conversation now, immediately if not sooner. Because I think this paper indicates that researchers are actively pursuing the area of embryonic DNA editing.

There are two issues: One is trying to understand at a deeper scientific level whether such an approach can be made safely. The second would be the broader and deeper ethical considerations of editing our heredity. I feel very significant concerns about using a new technology to do something as bold as changing someone’s germ line—not just for that individual, but all of the offspring.

This article really reported the remarkable inefficiency and highlighted a lot of challenges in getting this procedure to work in a human embryo. It’s a cautionary tale, and it should make any practitioner take pause before moving forward.

R. Alta Charo, co-author of Science moratorium; professor of medical history and bioethics—University of Wisconsin-Madison

The number of unintended effects is precisely why this technique is not appropriate for use in clinical applications. Regulatory agencies look for a reasonable balance between possible benefit and risks. I was among the authors on the paper in Science calling for a temporary moratorium on clinical efforts to use CRISPR for germ line gene editing of nuclear DNA. The call for a moratorium while public discussion and safety research proceeds is especially pertinent, therefore, in places where regulation is weak or absent.

G. Steven Martin, co-author of Science moratorium; cell and molecular biologist—University of California, Berkeley

It was precisely this sort of possibility that just reinforces our conclusion that there should be some temporary moratorium on this sort of research until we figure out what’s safe and what’s ethical. It’s clear from the results they describe that there are lots of problems with the application of the technology.

If we have an open and vigorous discussion in the US, then the Chinese authorities and Chinese Academy of Science will take notice and try to make sure that research is conducted more responsibly in China. That’s really all we can do. We hope to conduct those debates in a very public way, and the sooner we can conduct them the better.

Jennifer Doudna, co-author of Science moratorium; cell biologist; co-discoverer of CRISPR/Cas9—University of California, Berkeley

Although it has attracted a lot of attention, the study simply underscores the point that the technology is not ready for clinical application in the human germline. And that application of the technology needs to be on hold pending a broader societal discussion of the scientific and ethical issues surrounding such use.

Hank Greely, co-author of Science moratorium—Stanford Law School

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with their research. The fact that they used triponuclear zygotes, and their work could not in any respect ever become a baby, is an important ethical safeguard. As far as we can tell, they met legal requirements in China. What they did would be illegal in some US states, and they certainly couldn’t apply for federal funding. But I don’t think they have anything to be ashamed of.

I thought it was useful research, but if anything this makes it more real, and makes it look like it may happen more. And even just beyond the fact of how poorly it worked, it did work in a human embryo. This makes it even more urgent to have a societal conversation about how far to go. My own view of the Science paper is that it didn’t call for a moratorium on all research, it called for a moratorium on making babies this way.

Mike Botchan, co-author of Science moratorium; cell biologist—University of California, Berkeley

I think this is an important point: This is not something that scientists can have an opinion on that’s any better than yours. These are ethical, political, economic issues. It behooves scientists to be transparent about what’s possible and what isn’t, and get ahead of any potential hysteria that might come from misinformation of what we can and can’t with genome editing do on a technical level. We can have opinions, but our opinions are part of the process.

Calbuco Calms Down After Explosions and Lava Flows

Skip to story The Chilean Calbuco volcano seen from Puerto Montt, located at 1000 km southern Santiago de Chile, Chile, April 22, 2015. Alex Vidal Brecas/EFE/ZUMA

Chile’s Calbuco had a very busy day after its unexpected eruption on April 22. The initial eruption produced a ~15 kilometers plume that towered over the region and dumped upwards of 40 centimeters of ash and larger volcanic debris on some areas. The first explosion ended with lava flows that made it down from the summit crater but it is likely that any dome that formed in the crater was destroyed by a second explosive eruption that may have reached over 15 kilometers in the early morning hours of April 23. Around 4,000 people have been evacuated from town near Calbuco.

Be sure to watch this exceptional video (UPDATE: here is a non-Facebook link to the video) that shows, in realtime, the start of the eruption at Calbuco. At 18:05:54 PM local time (1:37 into the video), a small plume starts to grow from the summit crater. By about one minute into the eruption, the plume has consumed much of the summit, with what look like small pyroclastic flows around the crater. Pay attention at ~3:04 into the video to see an excellent view of the vertical thrust portion of the column lofting the initial cloud of ash skyward. By the end of the video, the plume is pulsing with each explosion, with some of the material being thrust upward and some billowing sideways and flowing down the slopes of the volcano.

Considering the size and surprise of the first explosion, it is remarkable that no one is thought to have been killed or hurt by the eruption (although a hiker is still missing). The biggest issue facing the area around the volcano will be ash removal and potential remobilization of the volcanic debris by winds, in lahars (mudflows) or floods. Ash fall has been reported as far north as Pucón to the north and well into Argentina to the east. Remember, ash might look light but its really much denser than snow, averaging ~1,600 kilograms per cubic meter of dry ash (much heavy when wet). This means that any flat roofs would have upwards of 600 kilograms of ash per square meter if they are being buried by 40 centimeters of ash — a recipe for collapse. On top of that, many surface water sources might be contaminated by heavy ash fall.

Terra image of the Calbuco plume, seen on April 23, 2015. NASA Earth Observatory

The plume was well documented by satellites as well. NASA’s Terra satellite captured a gorgeous image of the tan ash plume spreading across southern South America. In that same image (above), you can see some of the ash fall on the area around the volcano as well. The Suomi NPP infrared imager captured the plume (see below) and  “gravity waves” in the atmosphere caused by the concussive blast of the eruption. You should definitely check out this great infrared loop from the GOES-13 satellite that captures both of the plumes from the explosions on the night of April 22. The GOME-2 satellite has also imaged the sulfur dioxide plume from the eruption spreading eastward from the volcano. Even the International Space Station got into the act, catching some of the ash plume.

Suomi NPP infrared image of the April 23, 2015 plume from Calbuco in Chile. NASA/NOAA/CIRA

It’s far too early to tell what, if any, climate impact the eruption might have, but if you’re curious, check out this post on the Carbon Brief. Right now, the SERNAGEOMIN webcam for Calbuco looks calm, but with an eruption like this, new explosion could occur without much notice as magma continues to move under the volcano.

Amazon Reveals Just How Huge the Cloud Is for Its Business

The Amazon cloud is a $4.6 billion business. That number might not seem big compared to the tens of billions in revenue Amazon generates through online retail. But in revealing the size of Amazon Web Services for the first time today, the company best known for e-commerce offered a glimpse into the business that might ultimately define its future.

In its latest financial earnings report, Amazon said AWS grew 49 percent in 2014, pulling in $4.6 billion in revenue. After reaching $1.57 billion in the first quarter of this year, AWS is on track for $6.23 billion in sales by year’s end, the company said. Though its cloud business still accounted for only 7 percent of the company’s overall quarterly revenue of $22.72 billion, AWS is growing at a much faster rate than the rest of Amazon (AWS grew 49 percent, while the company’s core North American business grew 22 percent). And contrary to what the company has indicated in the past, its margins are significantly higher with AWS.

These numbers are important. Though Amazon made its name selling consumer goods, its retail operation is covered in red ink. In the cloud, on the other hand, Amazon is both powerful and profitable. In the future, Amazon may be a cloud company with a retail site rather than the other way around.

Amazon’s Enormous Lead

Cloud operations like AWS provide instant access to computing power over the internet. Rather than setting up their own machines, businesses and developers can rent access to servers, storage systems, and all sorts of software that run atop these services. Amazon pioneered the idea about a decade ago, and Microsoft, Google, and others—so many others—have followed suit.

These cloud services have slowly eaten away at the businesses of tech giants like HP, Dell, EMC, and Oracle, which traditionally sold hardware and software that companies could set up in their own data centers. And this trend isn’t stopping. According to estimates from research firm Forrester, cloud computing will account for about 15 percent of all information technology spending within the next five years, and after their head start, Jeff Bezos and company have established an enormous lead in a market that will grow to $40 billion.

Prior to the release of its report, big name financial services firm Deutsche Bank pegged Amazon’s cloud revenues at $6 billion a year. That wasn’t far off. And the bank estimated that Amazon’s haul is about ten times that of its nearest cloud competitor, Microsoft Azure.

“They were their first, and they were fast,” say Tamim Selah, who oversees cloud computing strategies as a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, a firm that provides technology consulting to multinationals. “Everyone else is now playing catch-up.”

The Battle in Seattle

Microsoft also raised the curtain on its cloud business today, claiming it’s on track for a $6.3 billion in revenues this year. But this includes Microsoft’s online email and document service Office 365 as well as its Dynamics customer relationship management service, which are different from the services offered by AWS and Microsoft Azure.

But Amazon can’t be too smug about its head start. The concern for Amazon is that its AWS margins, though high, are shrinking. This is due, in large part, to the company’s recent investment in new data centers. But competitive pressure from the likes of Google and Microsoft are also a factor. In some respects, cloud computing is a commodity business. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all offer access to raw virtual machines and storage. As such, one of the chief ways to differentiate your company is on price.

At the same time, all three of these companies are expanding their offerings, providing tools for analyzing the massive amounts of data housed on their storage services. They’re also building sweeping online software applications atop their virtual machines. The only way for Amazon to stay ahead of competitors, Selah says, is to keep adding new services—to offer things that the others don’t. “They will try to avoid a scenario where it’s just a scale game, where they just compete on price,” Selah says, “because that is a not a great business model.”

Amazon may not stay ahead. But for now, it’s the clear leader—a lead that suggests the cloud, not shopping, is the business Amazon does best.

Xbox Sales and Revenue Shrink In 2015, So Far

Skip to story An attendee plays Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One at HaloFest 2014 in November. Microsoft

Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles aren’t doing as well as they were last year, the company said today.

While the company as a whole grew its revenues to $21.7 billion for the first three months of 2015, the Xbox business didn’t help those numbers. Revenue was down 24 percent compared to the first three months of 2014, Microsoft said.

One of the reasons it gave for the drop is that Microsoft sold fewer Xbox Ones and Xbox 360s—1.6 million combined units this year, versus 2.0 million last year. Microsoft did not break out sales of its new Xbox One console versus sales of the legacy Xbox 360 console.

The other reason it gave for the revenue drop is that Xbox One had a massive price cut this year. The units Microsoft sold in the first quarter of 2014 came bundled with the Kinect camera and cost $500. Later, Microsoft unbundled the Kinect and dropped the price to $400—then dropped it again to $350 before Christmas.

Earlier this month, the NPD Group said that spending on home console hardware in the U.S. in March 2015 had dropped by 29 percent ($104 million) across all platforms. Sony’s PlayStation 4 outsold the Xbox One that month.

Samsung Redesigns Its VR Headset to Fit the Galaxy S6

If you’ve wanted to get in on the smartphone-powered VR game without using a relatively ginormous Samsung Galaxy Note 4, your day has come.

Samsung has released pricing and availability info about its new Gear VR headset that’s compatible with Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge smartphones.

The Gear VR Innovator Edition for the S6 and S6 Edge (that’s the name!) is available for preorder online at Best Buy starting Friday, April 24. It goes on sale online in a couple of weeks, beginning May 8 on Samsung’s Gear VR site and the Best Buy site. It’ll hit Best Buy retail stores on May 15. The price stays at $200, just like the previous Gear headset.

The new wearable, which we first got wind of last month, is smaller, has newly designed face-straps, and has a built-in fan. Like its Note 4-compatible counterpart, the new Gear VR will essentially be a comfy facemask into which you slide the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, then watch in stereo vision as your phone runs VR apps. The headset itself doesn’t compute any of the VR craziness, but it has a touchpanel on the side of it for navigating menus on the phone. There’s a MicroUSB dock you slide a phone into to activate the handset’s VR antics. All the experiences are driven by the phone; the headset is just there for security, comfort, and magnification of the screen during prolonged VR sessions.

Using the headset with the newer S6 lineup may work a bit better, too. The new flagship Samsung handsets may have the same resolution screen as the Note 4, but the pixels are packed in tighter due to a smaller screen (577ppi versus 515ppi). Processing power is also different between the phones, as the Galaxy S6 lineup packs an eight-core Samsung Exynos processor versus the Note 4’s quad-core Qualcomm chip.

Despite the differences, the S6 phones will have the same features as the Note 4 when used with the facemask. Content will be available through Samsung’s Milk VR service as well as the Oculus Store. You can browse and download free and paid content to the device while using the phone in the VR headset.

In the best case scenario, this is a decent step forward for VR. This isn’t the move that makes VR a mainstream must-have, of course. The content coffers are still pretty barren beyond short-form experiments and demos, and that’s a big barrier. VR really needs an essential title or two to drive it forward. But having a decently priced facemask that works with a hot-selling phone like the S6 makes the initial jump to VR less intimidating. People will buy the S6 anyway, and once they have it, an extra $200 to turn it into a fun face-computer is a modest investment.

Of course, there are a few headsets that have been designed to work with a wider array of phones—and they’re cheaper. The $99 Zeiss VR One has an adaptable tray that works with the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5, as well as CAD models that let you 3D-print trays for other phones. And there are free cardboard housings that are even more forgiving in terms of phone type, although those are likely to get uncomfortable during an hours-long immersion sesh.

The Onion and Vice Are Now Making Ads With Facebook

People watch videos on Facebook—a lot of videos. During its earnings call yesterday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the number of videos watched on Facebook now totals more than 4 billion per day—triple what was being watched on the social network last summer.

With all those eyeballs trained on its moving pictures, the company is now moving quickly to make them pay. Today Facebook announced that it is teaming up with seven popular media companies, including The Onion, Disney and Vice Media, to produce video ads for brands hoping to capture the attention of the social network’s 1.44 billion users.

The partnerships are the latest development in a fast-moving trend toward publishers acting more like traditional ad agencies, particularly in the realm of content for the web and social media. It’s a model largely pioneered by Buzzfeed, though its own ad shop is absent from the initial list of partners for what Facebook is calling Anthology. The new program also comes at a time when Facebook is seeking to act more like a publisher as it seeks to host more and more content itself rather than linking out to other sites.

In-house video ads appear to be a significant step step in that direction. Rather than working with an outside agency to make an ad for, say, YouTube that merely lives as a link on Facebook, brands can work with any one of these Facebook-vetted producers, which also include Electus Digital, Funny or Die, Tastemade and Vox Media. The common thread among them is a proven track record of making content that goes viral on, you guessed, Facebook. Advertisers can also work with Facebook’s in-house creative strategy team to get guidance on how to build, distribute and measure advertising campaigns on the social network. In other words, instead of working with a third party to try to figure out how to make ads that do well on Facebook, brands can just work with Facebook.

Facebook’s Video Push

The launch of the Anthology program is a kind of culmination of Facebook’s big push into video over the past year, a push that judging from the social network’s exploding video growth seems to have succeeded. Among its efforts to capture more video traffic, Facebook acquired video startup QuickFire Networks last January to support high-quality videos that don’t eat up users’ bandwidth. Facebook has also been encouraging publishers to post their video content directly to Facebook rather than linking out to it. Partnering with publishers to produce video ads seems like another way to lure them into the company’s video fold, with the added bonus of bulking up the quality of the options it can offer its own advertisers. Media partners, meanwhile, get the advantage of a look behind the curtain of the world’s number-one social network, which is fast becoming the online publishing industry’s biggest driver of traffic.

To be sure, Facebook is not the first video platform that has sought out these kinds of partnerships to produce high-quality advertising. YouTube is by far the leading destination for internet video, delivering more than 6 billion hours’ worth of content every month to viewers worldwide. It unveiled a plan last September to invest millions in its biggest stars, funding brand-new shows and series to attract ad dollars.

Meanwhile, startups that facilitate advertising deals for social media stars—players like TapInfluence, Izea, and Jerome Jarre’s Grapestory—are all fighting for video ad dollars. In February, Twitter even acquired one of these so-called social media agencies, Niche, to help it boost its revenues. Just today, a new startup called Victorious launched apps that help internet video stars connect—and market directly to—their vast audience of “superfans.”

But as with any other product market it enters, Facebook is now the giant in the branded content room, too. It likely has a long line of publishers knocking at its door, eager for tips on how to gain a better position on the platform, and an even longer line of advertisers hoping to do the same. By outsourcing the content those advertisers want to other publishers, Facebook gets to enjoy plenty of ad dollars without having to spin up a labor-intensive content production shop of its own. Everyone wins—well, except for Buzzfeed.

America Needs to Figure Out the Ethics of Gene Editing Now

Skip to story Colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a human embryo at the eight cell stage. Yorgos Nikas/Science Photo Library/Corbis

In an international first, researchers in China have reported doing experiments that involve editing the genome of a human embryo. Ever since scientists developed the ability to cut and splice DNA, they have worried over the safety and ethical implications of applying those techniques to the human genome. Now, though the reported work was preliminary and not completely successful, researchers will have to contend with a challenging set of questions about this newly-opened genetic frontier.

In the research, published a week ago in the journal Protein and Cell, the scientists used a powerful new DNA-editing method called CRISPR/Cas9 to replace the genes that cause a potentially deadly blood disorder. If the edit had been successful, the new genes would have manifested in every new cell as the embryo developed. (The embryos used in the study would never have reached term, because they had been fertilized with two sperm each.) Because only a small number of the 86 cells in the trial survived and carried on the material, the experiment was abandoned. The study’s lead author, Junjiu Huang of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, told Nature News, “If you want to do it in normal embryos, you need to be close to 100%. That’s why we stopped, we still think it’s too immature.”

The technique Huang and his co-investigators used, CRISPR/Cas9, allows researchers to snip out and insert specific segments of genetic code. Discovered in 2012, the technique is the subject of a lot of excitement and trepidation in the cell sciences (and its inventors are already being suggested as candidates for a Nobel Prize). Relative to other gene editing techniques, CRISPR/Cas9 is easy to use, and it seems to work in just about every living organism. That means it could, among other possibilities, hold the key to personalized medical therapies, new drugs, and (as the Chinese scientists attempted) human genetic modification.

But—and this is a big but—using the technique without proper guidance could result in unforeseen consequences. The Chinese researchers, for example, found mutations in many of the embryos in genes other than the ones they’d targeted with CRISPR/Cas9. They assumed this was due to errors in the method, but also mentioned that the mutations could have been because the eggs were double-fertilized.

Within the past few months, several groups of scientists around the world have called for a moratorium on just this type of research—calling for no more human embryo modification. They’re worried about all the science-fiction problems you’d imagine: The technology has the potential to erase genetic diseases, but it could also be used to make designer humans. And this kind of genome editing is on what’s called the “germ line,” which is to say, the edits get passed along to subsequent generations.

WIRED spoke to many of the people who called for moratoriums in two of world’s top scientific journals, to see what they thought about this Chinese research, and what it means for the prioritizing the national discussion on the ethics of germline editing.

These quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Edward Lanphier, co-author of Nature moratorium on embryonic DNA editing—Sangamo Biosciences; Alliance of Regenerative Medicine

This paper completely validates the technical and scientific concerns that we raised in the Nature article, especially in terms of the “off target” gene modifications, and the inefficiencies in modifying the target gene. I think this exacerbates or highlights the need for the kind of broad-based discussion that we called for, and for a renewed sense of urgency.

Also, there is an important distinction between modifications to the germ line—which is passing things on from generation to generation—and somatic cell modification, which is already being used to treat disease, and we’re having great successes there.

George Q. Daley, co-author of Science moratorium; stem cell biologist—Boston Children’s Hospital

We need to start having this conversation now, immediately if not sooner. Because I think this paper indicates that researchers are actively pursuing the area of embryonic DNA editing.

There are two issues: One is trying to understand at a deeper scientific level whether such an approach can be made safely. The second would be the broader and deeper ethical considerations of editing our heredity. I feel very significant concerns about using a new technology to do something as bold as changing someone’s germ line—not just for that individual, but all of the offspring.

This article really reported the remarkable inefficiency and highlighted a lot of challenges in getting this procedure to work in a human embryo. It’s a cautionary tale, and it should make any practitioner take pause before moving forward.

R. Alta Charo, co-author of Science moratorium; professor of medical history and bioethics—University of Wisconsin-Madison

The number of unintended effects is precisely why this technique is not appropriate for use in clinical applications. Regulatory agencies look for a reasonable balance between possible benefit and risks. I was among the authors on the paper in Science calling for a temporary moratorium on clinical efforts to use CRISPR for germ line gene editing of nuclear DNA. The call for a moratorium while public discussion and safety research proceeds is especially pertinent, therefore, in places where regulation is weak or absent.

G. Steven Martin, co-author of Science moratorium; cell and molecular biologist—University of California, Berkeley

It was precisely this sort of possibility that just reinforces our conclusion that there should be some temporary moratorium on this sort of research until we figure out what’s safe and what’s ethical. It’s clear from the results they describe that there are lots of problems with the application of the technology.

If we have an open and vigorous discussion in the US, then the Chinese authorities and Chinese Academy of Science will take notice and try to make sure that research is conducted more responsibly in China. That’s really all we can do. We hope to conduct those debates in a very public way, and the sooner we can conduct them the better.

Jennifer Doudna, co-author of Science moratorium; cell biologist; co-discoverer of CRISPR/Cas9—University of California, Berkeley

Although it has attracted a lot of attention, the study simply underscores the point that the technology is not ready for clinical application in the human germline. And that application of the technology needs to be on hold pending a broader societal discussion of the scientific and ethical issues surrounding such use.

Hank Greely, co-author of Science moratorium—Stanford Law School

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with their research. The fact that they used triponuclear zygotes, and their work could not in any respect ever become a baby, is an important ethical safeguard. As far as we can tell, they met legal requirements in China. What they did would be illegal in some US states, and they certainly couldn’t apply for federal funding. But I don’t think they have anything to be ashamed of.

I thought it was useful research, but if anything this makes it more real, and makes it look like it may happen more. And even just beyond the fact of how poorly it worked, it did work in a human embryo. This makes it even more urgent to have a societal conversation about how far to go. My own view of the Science paper is that it didn’t call for a moratorium on all research, it called for a moratorium on making babies this way.

Mike Botchan, co-author of Science moratorium; cell biologist—University of California, Berkeley

I think this is an important point: This is not something that scientists can have an opinion on that’s any better than yours. These are ethical, political, economic issues. It behooves scientists to be transparent about what’s possible and what isn’t, and get ahead of any potential hysteria that might come from misinformation of what we can and can’t with genome editing do on a technical level. We can have opinions, but our opinions are part of the process.

Calbuco Calms Down After Explosions and Lava Flows

Skip to story The Chilean Calbuco volcano seen from Puerto Montt, located at 1000 km southern Santiago de Chile, Chile, April 22, 2015. Alex Vidal Brecas/EFE/ZUMA

Chile’s Calbuco had a very busy day after its unexpected eruption on April 22. The initial eruption produced a ~15 kilometers plume that towered over the region and dumped upwards of 40 centimeters of ash and larger volcanic debris on some areas. The first explosion ended with lava flows that made it down from the summit crater but it is likely that any dome that formed in the crater was destroyed by a second explosive eruption that may have reached over 15 kilometers in the early morning hours of April 23. Around 4,000 people have been evacuated from town near Calbuco.

Be sure to watch this exceptional video that shows, in realtime, the start of the eruption at Calbuco. At 18:05:54 PM local time (1:37 into the video), a small plume starts to grow from the summit crater. By about one minute into the eruption, the plume has consumed much of the summit, with what look like small pyroclastic flows around the crater. Pay attention at ~3:04 into the video to see an excellent view of the vertical thrust portion of the column lofting the initial cloud of ash skyward. By the end of the video, the plume is pulsing with each explosion, with some of the material being thrust upward and some billowing sideways and flowing down the slopes of the volcano.

Considering the size and surprise of the first explosion, it is remarkable that no one is thought to have been killed or hurt by the eruption (although a hiker is still missing). The biggest issue facing the area around the volcano will be ash removal and potential remobilization of the volcanic debris by winds, in lahars (mudflows) or floods. Ash fall has been reported as far north as Pucón to the north and well into Argentina to the east. Remember, ash might look light but its really much denser than snow, averaging ~1,600 kilograms per cubic meter of dry ash (much heavy when wet). This means that any flat roofs would have upwards of 600 kilograms of ash per square meter if they are being buried by 40 centimeters of ash — a recipe for collapse. On top of that, many surface water sources might be contaminated by heavy ash fall.

Terra image of the Calbuco plume, seen on April 23, 2015. NASA Earth Observatory

The plume was well documented by satellites as well. NASA’s Terra satellite captured a gorgeous image of the tan ash plume spreading across southern South America. In that same image (above), you can see some of the ash fall on the area around the volcano as well. The Suomi NPP infrared imager captured the plume (see below) and  “gravity waves” in the atmosphere caused by the concussive blast of the eruption. You should definitely check out this great infrared loop from the GOES-13 satellite that captures both of the plumes from the explosions on the night of April 22. The GOME-2 satellite has also imaged the sulfur dioxide plume from the eruption spreading eastward from the volcano. Even the International Space Station got into the act, catching some of the ash plume.

Suomi NPP infrared image of the April 23, 2015 plume from Calbuco in Chile. NASA/NOAA/CIRA

It’s far too early to tell what, if any, climate impact the eruption might have, but if you’re curious, check out this post on the Carbon Brief. Right now, the SERNAGEOMIN webcam for Calbuco looks calm, but with an eruption like this, new explosion could occur without much notice as magma continues to move under the volcano.

This iPad App Helps Pilots Spot Bad Weather in Real Time

Commercial airline pilots need to keep track of a lot of things. From fuel loads to passenger and cargo manifests, there is a ton of paperwork and forms to be filled out and submitted before a flight can depart.

To streamline these processes, airlines like American and United are beginning to give pilots iPads equipped with specially designed apps to speed preparation for takeoff and, more crucially, cut weight (less paper to carry means more fuel saved).

To cater to those carriers, aerospace supplier Honeywell has created an app called Weather Information Service. It’s a standalone subscription service that uses on-board data connections to provide real-time rain, clouds, and turbulence forecasts, and current conditions to pilots. It operates independently of any other Honeywell systems, so an airline doesn’t need to be an existing customer to take advantage of it.

The app allows pilots to focus on weather and “really make some sense of it for safety and forecasting,” says Honeywell’s chief pilot, Joe Duval. “Especially in a situation where you have a longer flight or cross country or over water.” Planning ahead to avoid bad weather helps airlines better stick to schedules, avoid turbulence, and even save fuel.

It’s similar to what Honeywell offers on its modern avionics suites, but for the thousands of planes with older-style cockpits, adding real-time, highly visual weather forecasts to an iPad that may already be in a pilot’s flight bag is a savvy move. This is a retrofit solution for planes that might have a decade or more of life left in them, but that aren’t worth a multi-million dollar investment to install a state-of-the-art glass cockpit.

For many pilots, real-time weather and forecasts are now delivered in a text-based format or through voice updates from a dispatch center. The app, which collects data from a worldwide network of national weather sources (which are then distributed through Honeywell’s data centers), is a subscription offering for airlines looking to upgrade the weather readings their pilots get. Honeywell wouldn’t disclose costs, which would vary depending on how many pilots get the software, as well as other products the airline already buys from Honeywell.

The app is specially designed to work over the extremely limited (that is, slow) data connections available on airliners. It also plugs into systems used by airline dispatchers. Pilots can see their planned path, including altitude, and make adjustments before taking off based on anticipated weather, or in midair as conditions change.

Pilots have the “ability to look at a forecast in the future and see how a certain storm or system is going to move over time,” says Duval. “You can see your flight plan on the screen and move the forecast into the future and see how a storm might affect your flight plan.”

Dispatchers can push alerts to pilots through the app as well, notifying them of significant weather and what to do about it. By combining long-range data with the on-board weather radar that many aircraft carry, pilots can get a good idea of what they’ll be dealing with, and act appropriately.

Honeywell says similar products could be created for other industries like shipping, rail, or trucking, but the apps would be specially customized—like this one is—to display the information in a familiar and useful way.

To avoid the cost and effort of securing FAA approval, Honeywell set up the app so it doesn’t have to meet special regulations. The app doesn’t display the current location of the airplane, and the map doesn’t automatically move to follow the plane as it flies. If it did, the risk that it could display incorrect information would merit more oversight from the feds. Honeywell says, however, that it’s worked with the regulatory body so it is aware of what’s going on and can share any concerns. Honeywell does plan to update the app a few times a year, adding new features and services as it goes.

This isn’t the only standalone app that pilots may soon be using. Apple and IBM have built an iPad app called Plan Flight that lets commercial pilots estimate fuel usage for upcoming flights. So next time you see your pilot playing with an iPad in the cockpit, she may not be playing Candy Crush.

Comedy Docs You Should Watch Instead of Misery Loves Comedy

Why do comedians become comedians? A lot of documentaries have attempted to answer this question. The latest—from actual comedian Kevin Pollak—is Misery Loves Comedy, which aims to answer a more specific question: Do those people who become comedians also have to be miserable to get laughs?

The documentary, which is currently available on iTunes and hits select theaters this Friday, does a decent job of answering that question, thanks to talking-head interviews more than 50 big-name comedians. There’s just one problem: They’re nearly all old-guard white dudes. (There are 48 men and seven women, and two non-white folks by our count.) So either women and racial minorities are funny because they’re happy, or this film is just, as Variety pointed out, “an excuse to hang out with the old boys’ club instead of learning anything revealing about the members.”

Either way, Misery Loves Comedy is just the tip of the funny-doc iceberg; if you’re going to spend 90 minutes or more hanging out with comics, you can likely do a little better. To that end, may we present our list of some of the best comedy documentaries around.

The Original Kings Of Comedy (2000)

Spike Lee had already carved out a niche directing acclaimed documentaries (4 Little Girls) and stage performances (John Leguizamo’s Freak) by the time The Original Kings Of Comedy hit theaters, but no one expected it to become the second highest-grossing comedy concert film ever (just after Eddie Murphy Raw and just before Richard Pryor’s Live On The Sunset Strip). To be fair, Lee didn’t really have to do much, other than let the cameras roll during a two-day stadium performance in Charlotte and capture four standup titans owning a crowd, while splicing in B-roll of tour promotion and backstage banter. MC Steve Harvey was miles away from his Family Feud or Think Like A Man personas—which is to say, actually funny—especially when stealing the coat of a man who got up in the middle of the show. Harvey’s sitcom co-star Cedric The Entertainer continued his meteoric rise that made him a go-to supporting player in ensemble comedies for over a decade. D.L. Hughley, right in the middle of of his WB/UPN sitcom The Hughleys, riffed on family issues and why black people don’t like bungee-jumping. And the late, great Bernie Mac told it “like it is” with such blatant disregard for political correctness that the very next year he got The Bernie Mac Show, which won Nightly Show host Larry Wilmore an Emmy. All the subsequent descriptors-of-comedy tour films—Blue Collar, Queens, Latin Kings, Kims, and Comedians—stem from the success of Lee’s epic moment in time. —K.M. Mcfarland

Comedians of Comedy (2005)

If Jerry Seinfeld, Stephen Wright, and the rest of the 1980s standup explosion are the Baby Boomers of comedy, then the 1990s cohort is the Gen X—and this documentary is its Reality Bites. Maria Bamford, Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Zach Galifianakis travel the country between tour dates, pissing off Cracker Barrel patrons as they go. (It’s also worth noting that most performances happened not at comedy clubs, but at music venues.) Oswalt was already well-known, but the doc and Comedy Central’s ensuing miniseries of the same name thrust the alt-comedy scene vault into the national spotlight, putting the world on notice that nerds were officially the cool kids of comedy. —Peter Rubin

The Aristocrats (2005)

Want to see comics at their most unvarnished? Watch them trying to make each other laugh with pure depravity. Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza directed this look at a decades-old comedy in-joke that only exists as a vessel for testing the boundaries of profanity—and we mean that in the best way possible. (The premise and punchline of the joke are always the same, but the rest of it varies widely, and depends on the individual joke-teller’s particular flair with filth.) While the doc has just about everyone you can think of, from Phyllis Diller to the Smother Brothers, it joins the pantheon on the strength of two appearances: Gilbert Gottfried, whose rendition of the joke at Hugh Hefner’s roast is the stuff of legend, and Sarah Silverman, who unflinchingly sticks with the conceit that she was a child performer in the titular Aristocrats. It is, as every single comic featured would tell you, fucking brilliant. —Peter Rubin

Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy (2009)

While Misery Loves Comedy looks at the influence sadness has on comedy, Why We Laugh looks at race’s influence on the artform—specifically the use of humor as a coping mechanism when confronting racism. Like Misery Loves, it’s not exactly funny, per se, but it cuts deep on how vital comedy is to the black community, from Redd Foxx to Chris Rock. This doc also brings in valuable insight from non-comedians like Cornel West, who puts everything in historical context, and is narrated by Angela Bassett, who’s an American treasure.—Angela Watercutter

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)

By the time she passed away in 2014, most people knew Joan Rivers for her trademark fashion snark during Hollywood’s biggest nights. But before Fashion Police she made her name as one of the greatest stand-ups ever to hold a microphone. This doc looks at just how truly funny she was and also how truly human. (She may have had a lot of work done, but underneath it was the heart and brain of a heroine.) Also, if you’re not awed by her massive index card collection of jokes, you have no soul.—Angela Watercutter

Audio Visuals: David Hasselhoff Gives Us Just What We Need

For this week’s music videos, we time-traveled (hello, David Hasselhoff and Natalie Imbruglia!), crinkled our noses at colorful whimsy (looking at you, Fur Voice and Cold Mailman), and tilted our heads in wonder (what’s up, Arca?). We tried to pick out a theme, spot a trend, but it turns out that much like the recent signing of Tim Tebow to the Philadelphia Eagles, these videos are just something that happened. So why not celebrate? Let the weird week in audio visuals commence!

“True Survivor”—David Hasselhoff (Above)

No words. None at all. Except thanks, David Hasselhoff!!

“Sad Bitch”—Arca

It’s tough to figure out how and where and why this video embodies the term “sad bitch” … but we’re feeling it.

“Fantasía”—Fur Voice

Well that was a colorful journey!

“Don’t Dream It’s Over”—Kawehi

Hey, man. Sometimes you’ve just gotta respect an artist and their vibe. Get lost in some Crowded House with Kawehi.

“Guest List”—Alvaro & Jetfire

Cause when you’re up in the club—or wishing you were—who better to be than a sexy woman?

“Something You Do”—Cold Mailman

This is one of those irrepressible, endearing slice of life videos that you just can’t quit, and we sure do love those. Especially when they have just the right amount of nudity and light choreography.

“Night”—John Carpenter

So, John Carpenter made a music video for a horror-soundtrack-inspired song that isn’t actually from a horror soundtrack and he used a VR headset to control a robot avatar? Cool!

“Claire Huxtable”—Louis York

Can we get a “hell yeah!” for subverting gender stereotypes?! OK, so Louis York may have used a bundle of video vixens to sing about how he’s tired all these video vixens, but the message is still right. And it’s pretty funny, too.

“Instant Crush”—Natalie Imbruglia

Our nostalgia is too strong not to include Natalie Imbruglia’s newest video in this round up! And high five to Ms. Natalie for staying fine, sounding sweet, covering Daft Punk, and pining for a man statue in this comeback track video. We love the 1990s, and we love you.

Delivery Drivers Can Now Leave Packages in Your Parked Audi

Skip to story A new pilot program from Audi, DHL and Amazon gives DHL drivers access to customer trunks to securely deliver packages. Audi

Ordering stuff online is awesome. No waiting in line, no parking lots, and no dealing with weird people at the mall. Missing your shipment because the carrier didn’t feel comfortable leaving it on your doorstep? That sucks.

That’s why Audi, Amazon and shipper DHL have partnered up to allow delivery drivers to put parcels right in your car—as long as it’s an Audi, and parked at your house.

By issuing a keyless temporary authorization, the DHL driver can open the trunk of an Audi, drop the package in, and close it up again. The idea is to save time for the delivery driver (who doesn’t need to attempt another delivery tomorrow) and convenience for the driver, who could receive a package delivery in their car at work.

Drivers will receive a digital access code that works during a specific time frame, and only once. Once the trunk is closed, it’s locked, and the code expires. In the future, Audi plans to allow customers to ship packages from their car as well, with drivers picking up instead of dropping off.

It might not be delivery-by-drone, but unlike Amazon’s other futuristic package delivery scheme, this one is launching next month with a pilot program in Munich, Germany.

This Suitcase Pairs With Your Phone, and Charges It Too

The killer feature of any smartphone isn’t its camera. It’s not the apps, the screen resolution, or the build quality either.

It’s the fact that it’s always on you—a trait that makes the other features much more significant. It’s a pocket computer, and the industry might be trying to replace or augment it with a face computer or a wrist computer, but a phone is likely to remain the essential device for decades. You need one.

You also need luggage, but luggage hasn’t exactly smartened up yet. At first glance, the idea of a “smart” bag packed with sensors, radios, and chips doesn’t seem necessary or logical. Does a roller bag really need cellular service, electronic locks, and an app to go with it? We’re only getting used to baggage-fee charges, and now we have to worry about charging our baggage?

But if tackled correctly, the “smart luggage” concept isn’t all that crazy. A startup called Bluesmart is trying to do it the right way. The company’s first product, a 21.5-inch carry-on bag that’s loaded with sensors and ports, will ship to its Indiegogo backers in August. It’s not just built to solve annoyances with bags and baggage handlers. It’s also designed to solve common woes with airports, airplanes, and lost luggage.

For example, finding a wall outlet that isn’t already five-deep with fellow travelers charging their own gear. The Bluesmart bag has a 10,000 mAh battery built into it, with a full-size USB port on top of the bag for charging up phones and tablets. You can also charge two devices at once or keep your tablet or phone juiced while it’s stowed in the overhead compartment. There’s a second USB charging interface on the inside of the bag, as well as separate padded compartments for a tablet and laptop.

The on-board battery will charge up a phone or a tablet, but it doesn’t put out enough power to charge a laptop; you’ll still need a wall outlet for that. And of course, you’ll also need to charge the bag’s battery between trips using a miniUSB port on the outside of the bag.

“The hard part about the technology is controlling (the bag’s other) features,” says Bluesmart co-founder Brian Chen. “We’ve set it so that there’s a 10-percent battery reserve. It’ll stop charging a phone when the bag’s battery hits 10 percent so the other things will continue to work.”

Bluesmart

Those other battery-powered features sound amazing, too. You’ll purportedly have the ability to track your bag if it gets lost and see its location on your phone. Bluesmart says its bag includes 3G and GPS location tracking with free service, thanks to a deal the company struck with wireless provider Telefonica. If your bag gets lost, there’s even an option in the app to have Uber pick it up and bring it to your current location.

When paired with your phone via Bluetooth, the bag will also automatically lock when you step away from it. You can unlock it wirelessly with the sidecar app for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, and to meet TSA-approved standards, it also has a standard key lock so security agents can search your bag.

All the tech components for Bluesmart’s bag are housed under a fixed handle on top of it, which also helps the carry-on gauge its own weight. You lift the bag, and the weight displays on the mobile app. When it’s empty, the bag weighs 8.5 pounds—no more than the weight of similarly sized roller bags from Samsonite or Travelpro.

Chen says that if anything goes wrong with the electronics, Bluesmart will replace your entire bag. Beyond the realm of practicality, there are another couple of fun features planned for the bag as well.

“For the geeky traveler, we have a lot of stats we’ll provide on the app,” says Chen. “Like how long you’ve been on the road, how many miles your bag has traveled, and a social dashboard so you can see the stats from your friends.”

The current version of the bag is still a prototype, but the 11-person Bluesmart team is moving from its current offices in San Francisco to a new home base in Hong Kong. That’s so the team can be close to its supply chain in China while design refinements and mass-production efforts are ongoing.

One of the first goals is to improve the build quality of the bag. Chen says they’re working with some of the same companies that produce materials and bags for Tumi and Samsonite, and they’re looking for a bag that matches up to that durability and quality.

“We don’t want this to be a gadget,” Chen says. “We want it to be a necessity. The whole point of it is, eventually, people won’t call it a smart bag. People will just assume you have a bag with these features.”

In August, the first wave of bags is slated to ship to its Indiegogo backers, who pitched in about $2 million in presales. Another $500,000 in presales came in through the Bluesmart site after that campaign, with approximately 9,000 units sold in total.

As you’d expect, this bag is pretty pricey, but it’s not entirely out of line with brand-name (and non-smart) luggage. It’s available for $320 via preorder through the Bluesmart site right now, and the company hopes to sell the bag through major online retailers in time for the holiday season. Chen also says that if all goes well with the first-generation bag, different sized models may follow in the coming years.

Cape Watch: No, Spider-Man Isn’t in Age of Ultron—Or Is He?

Skip to story 20th Century Fox (left), Valiant Entertainment (center), Marvel Studios (right)

Early reviews are coming in for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but we don’t want to read them for fear of getting spoiled. So instead we’re going to distract ourselves with thoughts of other superhero movies that lie in wait, whether it’s Batman v Superman, Fantastic Four, or something a little bit more obscure. Here, as always, are the highlights of the last week’s superhero movie news.

SUPER IDEA: Sony Announces Five-Picture Deal with Valiant Entertainment

There’s nothing like a five-movie deal with a massive studio to tell the world that you’re serious about your shared superhero universe. Congratulations to Valiant, then, which will bring the directors of John Wick and the producers of the Fast & Furious franchise together for Bloodshot and Harbinger movies, starting in 2017. There’s also a crossover between both properties planned as the fifth movie.
Why this is super: Valiant’s comic books have been a constant highpoint in the superhero world since the publisher’s relaunch in 2012, so the prospect of seeing them translated into movies was an enticing one even before the Fast & Furious/John Wick mash-up of talent got involved. File under: High hopes.

SUPER IDEA: Doom Awaits

Also stirring some optimistic thoughts is the latest trailer for Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot, released last weekend.

Why this is super: The more we see of Fantastic Four, the better we feel about it. Sure, it may be visually dark, but this trailer makes it clear that the heart of the core characters is present (with the arguable exception of Doctor Doom, who never seems to be able to make it through to movies intact, sadly). We’d be a little more excited were they all a little older, but maybe that just means we’re old farts.

SUPER IDEA: LA Clipper DeAndre Jordan Is Batman (Almost)

Never mind the official teaser—although, you did all see the official teaser when it was released last Friday, right?—the best chance fans had to see the outfits of the next cinematic Wonder Woman or Batman was, oddly enough, in an online video about Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan visiting the Batman Exhibit at Warner Bros. Studios in LA. No, really; you even get to see the new movie Batmobile, as well.
Why this is super: Hey, look! Wonder Woman’s costume has, like, colors and her magic lasso and stuff! Also, Jordan’s excitement at seeing the Batmobile is really, amazingly charming. All future movie reveals should be done this way, just showing adult fans let their inner 10-year-olds out.

SUPER IDEA: Marvel Gets Small with Ant-Man Marketing

Sure, the trailers haven’t been particularly impressive so far, but miniature billboards have started appearing in Australia advertising the movie. It’s not the first time Marvel has shrunk down its marketing for the movie; there was also a miniature version of the flick’s first teaser at the start of the year.
Why this is super: Not only is it a cute, memorable idea, the tiny billboards also manage to suggest a sense of playfulness and fun that the trailers haven’t yet. Something like this makes the idea of seeing Ant-Men seem like something other than a grind. Maybe one day, there’ll be something from the movie itself that manages the same thing.

UNCERTAIN IDEA: No, Spider-Man Really Isn’t in Avengers: Age of Ultron (Or Is He?)

This video appeared on the Internet earlier in the week, purporting to be the post-credits sequence from Avengers: Age of Ultron:

Is it real? Joss Whedon definitely says no, as you can see from this footage from a press junket below:

Certainly, common sense would seem to agree with him; as far as we know, the next cinematic Spider-Man hasn’t been cast yet, and you’d have to hope that the VFX folk at Marvel could come up with a more convincing Avengers Tower in the background than appears in that video. And yet… it wouldn’t be entirely out of the realm of possibility for everyone to be fibbing in order to try and preserve a surprise when the movie is released May 1. (There’s certainly no Spidey tag on the press screenings, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be one on the finished movie. The shawarma gag from the first Avengers was added post-premiere.)
Why this isn’t clear: While we’re fans of the idea that Spidey could show up when fans least expect him, we’d hope that it’s with a scene better than the one in this video. Also, if Age of Ultron is going to be introducing future heroes ahead of time, can we all agree that it would be better to see Black Panther?

Americans Want Self-Driving Cars for the Cheaper Insurance

Skip to story Semi-autonomous features like Volvo's "Queue Assist" can already net drivers lower insurance premiums. Volvo

Americans want self-driving cars. Not because they’ll save loads of time or ease the commute nightmare, but because it will save them money.

Of the 1,500 US drivers the Boston Group surveyed in September, 55 percent said they “likely” or “very likely” would buy a semi-autonomous car (one capable of handling some, but not all, highway and urban traffic). What’s more, 44 percent said they would, in 10 years, buy a fully autonomous vehicle.

What’s most surprising about the survey isn’t that so many people are interested in this technology, but why they’re interested.

The leading reason people are considering semi-autonomous vehicles isn’t greater safety, improved fuel efficiency, or increased productivity—the upsides most frequently associated with the technology. Such things were a factor, but the biggest appeal is lower insurance costs. Safety was the leading reason people were interested in a fully autonomous ride, with cheaper insurance costs in second place. (Reasons not to want a robo-ride include fear of hacking, distrust of the technology, and good old love of driving.)

This is unexpected, because how insurance will shake out usually is on the “tricky things to be figured out” side of the ledger, alongside how the government will test and regulate the vehicles. The current insurance business model—car owner has insurance to protect himself from the risk of causing a crash—doesn’t make sense if the computer’s in charge. And if we can make cars that rarely crash, do we even need insurance? We certainly won’t need to spend as much on it (currently about $800 a year, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners).

But just as automakers are sneakily getting us to accept self-driving cars, insurers are quietly adapting to the change.

In the near term, semi-autonomous features—blind spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, collision avoidance—will lead to fewer crashes. That reduces costs for insurers, says Xavier Mosquet, head of Boston Consulting Group’s North America automotive division. That’s why you see lower premiums for safe driving records, and discounts for having things like anti-lock brakes.

Features that reduce crashes—like Volvo’s automatic braking—also reduce costs for insurance companies. Volvo

That’s why “a vast number of insurance companies” are exploring discounts for those semiautonomous features, Mosquet says. For example, drivers who purchase a new Volvo with the pedestrian protection tech qualify for a lower premium. “The cost to [the insurer] of pedestrian accidents is actually significant, and they’re going to do everything they can to reduce this type of incident.” That’s already started in Europe and is spreading to the US.

The tricky part for insurers is figuring out how much each advanced driver assistance system feature is worth to them. Boston Consulting Group is helping with those calculations, and it’s not a major hurdle.

The harder question comes when we hand over nearly all the driving to our robots. Liability—who’s responsible in a crash—will be an issue. What will likely happen, Mosquet says, is a shift from driver liability to product liability, so blame and cost will be assigned to the automaker, or whatever supplier is at fault in the event of a crash. Figuring out whom to blame, exactly, won’t be easy, and regulators will likely step in. Again, a tricky situation, but nothing that will stop progress.

So yes, we’ll be rewarded financially for giving up the wheel. But in the long run, as fully autonomous cars take over our roads, the insurance companies will have to adapt. They can’t argue against saving lives, but “they’re very, very concerned,” says David Carlisle, chairman of the board of auto industry consultancy Carlisle & Company. “If the car can’t wreck anymore, those premiums have got to go down drastically.”

We’re not sure just yet how they’ll stay in business (higher flood insurance premiums to go along with sea level rise?), but we’re glad that letting the robot drive won’t just keep us alive and productive on the road—it’ll save us money, too.

Oculus’ Founder on the Pros and Cons of VR for Social Good

Before he founded Oculus VR, Palmer Luckey worked at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, where a team of therapists were using virtual reality to help veterans overcome their post-traumatic stress disorder through a process known as exposure therapy. Veterans would strap on the virtual reality goggles and be transported to back to the battlefield. Only this time, the competent hand of a trained therapist would guide them through their fears.

Years later, Luckey says that was the first time he truly realized that virtual reality is good for a lot more than gaming. “It can make a significant difference in people’s lives,” he tells WIRED.

Virtual reality’s potential to transform entertainment and social networking has been thoroughly discussed. But its promise as a tool for doing good is only beginning to be understood. The possibilities of VR as an avenue for more than escapism are taking center stage this week at the annual Games for Change Festival in New York. Luckey says VR offers fertile ground as a catalyst for social change because of the powers of immersion.

Because virtual reality has the ability to put you in places in a much more real way, it has the potential to be a much better canvas. Palmer Luckey

The fact is, some of the most pressing problems in the world — war, starvation, natural disasters — can often seem very “over there” to those of us lucky enough to enjoy the developed world’s typical middle-class comforts. Even the most compelling videos or photographs are still several steps removed from the reality many of us in the US experience. Virtual reality, Luckey says, is different. “Because virtual reality has the ability to put you in places in a much more real way, it has the potential to be a much better canvas,” he says.

Still, Luckey hastens to add that, today, virtual reality technology, including Oculus’s own, has its shortcomings. For starters, designing any virtual world still requires taking some artistic liberties, and that means no virtual world appears exactly as it would be in real life. “Until we have technology that can perfectly capture and recreate what’s going on in something like a war zone, there’s the potential for heavy-handed bias in how things are presented,” Luckey says. “There’s a risk people see it and treat recreations of things with the same weight and authority as videos and pictures, which are much harder to manipulate.”

Reality Check

The potential for VR to be used as a venue for true documentary-style VR experiences is currently limited by the lack of affordable cameras capable of shooting in immersive 3-D. But such devices will be within reach of consumers in a year or two, Facebook’s chief technology officer recently told WIRED (Facebook owns Oculus). In the meantime, the UN-commisioned Clouds Over Sidra, a VR tour of a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, has a lot of people talking about gear like the Oculus as a powerful medium for non-fiction storytelling.

Luckey says virtual reality is already playing an important role in healthcare, helping with things like surgical and emergency response training. “That’s going to lead to less direct but just as important social change in the world,” he says.

The good news is Luckey believes that in the future, virtual reality headsets will be as affordable as mobile phones are today, making them a viable option for people living in the developing world. “That’s important that VR will be on the same path as mobile phones, because other technologies, like televisions and even laptops, haven’t made that jump,” he says. When that happens the number of applications for virtual reality as an instrument of social good will rapidly grow.

Today, however, Luckey says the crucial thing is that philanthropists don’t blindly dive into the world of virtual reality simply because it’s the new toy everyone’s talking about. First, they need a legitimate reason to try it and the technical chops to pull it off. “Most revolutions in technology do take time to take hold and virtual probably isn’t going to be different,” he says. “It’s the newest, shiniest thing, but it’s not always the best tool for every problem.”

Is AI the Killer App for Cancer?

Remember Watson, IBM’s supercomputing Jeopardy! champ and gourmet chef? It’s growing up. Watson skipped university and took a career as a super-elite MD deploying AI software and predictive analytics for research trials at blue-chip healthcare institutions. Yet Watson still needs a whole lot of schooling before making independent decisions and in the meantime, nurses and physicians have the final say. IBM, spotting this opportunity, just launched a new cognitive-computing business division called Watson Healthcare Cloud, with the lofty goal of generating $50 billion a year for Big Blue by 2018.

It’s no surprise that a tech goliath like IBM is betting big on AI in a huge marketplace like healthcare, but innovation tends to be bottom-up—and a number of startups are looking for novel ways that AI applications can improve patient outcomes and slash costs in America’s health-industrial complex. Some are exploring AI tools to design new structures for drugs based on the mechanics of the disease; others are tapping into terabytes of health data to make specific recommendations for individual patients.

So, aside from Mr. Watson, who’s to watch in this complex field? Many AI firms prefer to remain in stealth mode to stay out of incumbents’ crosshairs or refine their technology before enduring public scrutiny. San Francisco-based startup Enlitic came out of hiding last year with the promise of creating medical machines with visual intelligence capable of interpreting X-rays, MRIs, and other medical scans to spot tumors and other pathologies at speeds that an MD simply can’t. The idea is that if you show a machine thousands of pictures of a cancerous growth, it will start to understand the patterns and spot them on its own.

Here are a few others worth keeping our eyes on:

• Atomwise—Uses AI to predict how existing drugs will react with certain biological markers to treat diseases and chronic conditions.

• The Human Diagnosis Project—Initiative that aims to map all human health symptoms to every type of diagnosis—a kind of Humane Genome Project for disease detection.

• Chrono Therapeutics—An app with a wearable device, called SmartStop, that helps smokers quit by automatically adjusting nicotine doses by time of day and the smoker’s typical cravings.

• uBiome—Helps humans understand their microbiome—the thousands of species that live in and on the body that can indicate a wide range of health conditions, including diabetes and depression.

• Ekso Bionics—Developing a bionic suit that uses sensors to help people how to walk again.

• Ginger.io—App that analyzes sensor data from patients’ smartphones to identify mental health issues and help hospitals and providers manage care.

• Kyruus—Software that analyzes reams of medical records to help hospitals, health systems, and accountable care organizations get patients to the right provider and optimize care.

• 3Scan—Converts thin slices of human tissue into interactive 3D pathology slides that physicians use to detect diseases or other issues.

• Foundation Medicine—Analyzes a patient’s genomics and molecular markers to create personalized treatments for that individual’s tumors.

While these intelligent solutions show promise, they lack the bedside manner that’s critical to patient trust. Algorithm outputs should help doctors make more informed decisions—not be a prescription for treatment decisions. Enlitic CEO Jeremy Howard, previously of data modeling firm Kaggle, doesn’t see Enlitic replacing radiologists but significantly optimizing their workflow—flagging suspected tumors to save them time, but letting the physician make the final call. “The people who have the greatest chance to be successful through this machine learning revolution are those who are able to combine their area of expertise with the power of machine learning.”