Inverse - 👾 Luminaries 2022

Good Morning

August 16 2022

Remember the '90s? It was a simpler time, with flip phones, Crystal Pepsi, and dial-up modems. In 2022, everyone understands what the internet is. But that wasn’t the case back then. Popular culture was rife with anxiety about the unfathomable potential of a global, interconnected information network (see: The Net, or even The Matrix).

That's basically where we're at with the metaverse today. The gaming community has largely greeted this emerging technology with weary cynicism — likely due in no small part to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's dreary vision of a sea of virtual Zoom meetings. But Reggie Fils-Aimé, the beloved former president of Nintendo of America, says developers and publishers shouldn’t be deterred by that skepticism.

"Any company that isn't experimenting with these technologies and approaches will be left behind,” he tells Inverse.

Fils-Aimé is one of five video game Luminaries interviewed as part of a special Inverse gaming issue. Learn more about it in today's Inverse Daily.

What's New

LUMINARIES

Special Issue

Reggie Fils-Aimé wants gamers to give the metaverse a chance

Reggie Fils-Aimé has never shied away from making bold bets about the future of video games.

The former president of Nintendo of America’s 15-year tenure at the company was marked by stratospheric hits (The Wii! The DS! The Switch!) and the occasional head-scratching miss (The Wii U! Nintendo Labo!).

Though he retired back in 2019, he’s just as optimistic about the future of the industry as ever — and still convinced that video games can make the world a better place.

HBO	Television

7 things to know before watching House of the Dragon

House of the Dragon is almost here, just don't expect to see many familiar faces. The series is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and the situation in Westeros looks very different.

Here are a few crucial details you need to know before diving in this weekend.

Animals

Science

'Gifted' dogs may share this one trait

There are a small handful of known gifted “genius” dogs in the world — and researchers want to figure out what makes their brains tick.

These skilled pups are able to learn the names of objects — like toys — fairly quickly and remember those names over a two-month period.

Canine researchers at the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest turned to the possible link between animal personality and cognitive abilities. Their research suggests one specific personality trait may be common to these pups, yielding valuable insight into the unique nature of these dogs’ minds. Does your dog have it?

See for yourself

Study

Science

Humans gave up screaming in favor of speaking, researchers find

What we lost in range we gained in precision.

Evolution may persuade some that everything about humans is more complex than in their animal predecessors: brain, taste, communication. But perhaps the simplification of one pivotal structure is exactly what makes humans capable of speech.

Researchers from Europe and Japan have investigated a structure in the primate larynx that humans once possessed but no longer have. They examined larynxes with these anatomical features in dozens of other primate genera and species. In their findings published in the journal Science, they point to this loss as a stunning example in which simplification of anatomy actually led to the complexity of ability.

Learn more

Watch

Science

This 14-legged lifeform walks without a brain

What has 14 legs and crawls around without a brain or nervous system? That would be the single-celled organism Euplotes eurystomus, a microscopic protist that thrives in water.

Writing this week in the journal Current Biology, researchers investigated the movements of Euplotes under a microscope to determine how it walks.

See the video

TO HELL AND BACK

Entertainment

The oral history of Event Horizon

In the mid-’90s, Paul W.S. Anderson could have made almost any movie he wanted.

Coming off the success of Mortal Kombat, the English director found himself in an enviable position. “The way Hollywood tends to work is when you have a big hit, you’re a genius, and then, as soon as you have a failure, you’re an idiot,” Anderson recalled in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I was in my genius phase.”

Hollywood offered him the X-Men. Instead, he chose Event Horizon, a science-fiction thriller from first-time screenwriter Philip Eisner best described as “The Shining in space.”

By all accounts, it was a disaster. But a quarter of a century later, Event Horizon is a cult classic with a story that resonates and practical effects that still hold up.

Seven key members of the production (including director Paul W.S. Anderson himself) reveal to Inverse how Event Horizon was born, died, and resurrected.

Inverse - 👾 Luminaries 2022

Older messages

🌌 The earliest known dark matter

🧠 Let’s talk about inflammation

📜 Redefining historical fiction

🕸 Happy birthday Spider-Man

🌲 North America's forests are in danger

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