Helvetica 6 Episode 10: IT releases Amazon?

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This week we talk about the IT trailer, the new release of the Samsung S8, and the Amazon Store CRASH!!!!

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Stephen King’s IT Trailer Is Here and It’s Terrifying

Pennywise is back, ladies and gentleman because the first trailer for IT is here. Yes, after years of talking about a possible big-screen adaptation of Stephen King’s famous horror novel about a killer clown that likes to kill kids, this trailer makes it clear that IT is very much a reality. And IT is coming for us this fall in what looks to be very terrifying fashion.

Warner Bros. has been releasing a steady stream of images from this new adaptation of Stephen King’s IT for months now, but they have finally done horror fans a favor and dropped this first trailer. Some lucky fans at SXSW were treated to a trailer reveal and the response from those in attendance made it clear that this movie was going to be straight-up scary. People have a fondness for the TV miniseries that more or less serves as a movie that starred Tim Curry in the role of Pennywise the clown, but this looks to be much darker.

“Based on Stephen King’s best-selling novel. A group of young kids face their biggest fears when they seek answers to the disappearance of children in their hometown of Derry, Maine. They square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.”

Director Andres Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti both started teasing the release of this first trailer for IT last week on Instagram. Andres Muschietti posted a photo with some creepy looking balloons on it, seemingly signifying a countdown of some kind. Barbara Muschietti decided to post a picture featuring Jack Dylan Grazer and Wyatt Oleff with a caption that read, “What is 22 + 7?” It is unclear if it was always the plan to release the trailer now, but given the positive response to what screened at SXSW, it is possible the studio gained a little more confidence and decided to get the marketing train really rolling.

We have had to wait a very long time for this IT movie to happen and everything we have heard, and now seen, makes us think that the movie will be worth the wait. Not only has Stephen King seen the movie and gave his glowing approval, but the studio is already moving ahead with the sequel, which could start filming any time now. According to the producers it has always been the plan to split IT into two movies, one focusing on the protagonists as kids and one focusing on them as adults, much like in the book. However, if the studio didn’t feel confident in the final product, they would maybe be hesitant to move forward so quickly with IT 2.

Bill Skarsgard leads the cast of Stephen King’s IT as Pennywise the clown. The cast also includes Jaden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor and Owen Teague. IT is being directed by Andres Muschietti (Mama) and is set for release on September 8, 2017. Be sure to check out the very first, terrifying trailer for yourself below.

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The Galaxy S8’s misplaced fingerprint scanner was probably a last-minute change

by Vlad Savov

Ask anyone to tell you where a smartphone’s fingerprint reader should be and, though the answers will vary, you’ll never be told “off center, right next to the camera lens on the back.” But lo and behold, that’s exactly where Samsung plopped its fingerprint scanner on the new (and otherwise delightful) Galaxy S8. It’s a perplexing decision if we consider it as a deliberate design choice, but reports ahead of the S8’s launch, which now seem validated by the device itself, suggest that it was a last-minute alteration enforced by the slower-than-desired development of more ambitious technology.

A March 13th report out of Korea lays it all out lucidly. Samsung, working in collaboration with Synaptics, had initially hoped to build the fingerprint sensing tech directly into the screen itself. “Samsung poured resources into Synaptics’ fledgling technology last year but the results were frustrating,” an informed source is quoted as saying. “With the production imminent, the company had to decide to relocate the fingerprint scanning home button to the back of the device at the last minute.”

I’ve handled the Galaxy S8 myself and noticed how much time Samsung has committed to recreating the tactile home button it’s had at the front of its phones since the Galaxy S series’ inception. There’s localized haptic feedback at the location of the new on-screen home button on the S8, and Samsung’s demo staff are fully trained up to explain the difference to uninitiated users. Even the lock screen has a “place finger to unlock” graphic that hovers immediately above the software home button’s spot — which would also be the most logical place to find an integrated fingerprint reader.

It may be circumstantial supposition, but I’m far more willing to believe Samsung made a bad compromise late in the development process of its new flagship than I am to think that the company intended to have the current design all along. Samsung has gotten too good at industrial design for that to be the case.

What I’m noticing these days is that the leading hardware companies are clashing with engineering problems and limitations more often than ever before. The Galaxy Note 7 debacle last year was the result of Samsung trying to squeeze every last bit of battery that it could into its premium phone. A few months later, Apple’s MacBook Pro refresh was supposed to come with a tailored battery design, which apparently didn’t pan out in time and the laptop was eventually released with a more conventional battery setup. The more mature a tech category is, the harder it becomes to accomplish the next great jump forward.

As far as the Galaxy S8 is concerned, we’ll have to wait until we’ve reviewed the new phone to decide if its fingerprint reader location is as bad as it looks at first glance. Maybe we’ll all develop the alacrity to unlock our Samsung phones without always smudging up their camera lenses. Either way, we can probably look forward to seeing Samsung and Synaptics finishing off their work and releasing a phone whose all-encompassing display is capable of reading its user’s fingerprint directly. Perhaps in time for the Galaxy Note 8.

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Ethics Question:

Elon Musk launches Neuralink, a venture to merge the human brain with AI

by Nick Statt

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is backing a brain-computer interface venture called Neuralink, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company, which is still in the earliest stages of existence and has no public presence whatsoever, is centered on creating devices that can be implanted in the human brain, with the eventual purpose of helping human beings merge with software and keep pace with advancements in artificial intelligence. These enhancements could improve memory or allow for more direct interfacing with computing devices.

Musk has hinted at the existence of Neuralink a few times over the last six months or so. More recently, Musk told a crowd in Dubai, “Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence.” He added that “it’s mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.” On Twitter, Musk has responded to inquiring fans about his progress on a so-called “neural lace,” which is sci-fi shorthand for a brain-computer interface humans could use to improve themselves.

These types of brain-computer interfaces exist today only in science fiction. In the medical realm, electrode arrays and other implants have been used to help ameliorate the effects of Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and other neurodegenerative diseases. However, very few people on the planet have complex implants placed inside their skulls, while the number of patients with very basic stimulating devices number only in the tens of thousands. This is partly because it is incredibly dangerous and invasive to operate on the human brain, and only those who have exhausted every other medical option choose to undergo such surgery as a last resort.

This has not stopped a surge in Silicon Valley interest from tech industry futurists who are interested in accelerating the advancement of these types of far-off ideas. Kernel, a startup created by Braintree co-founder Bryan Johnson, is also trying to enhance human cognition. With more than $100 million of Johnson’s own money — the entrepreneur sold Braintree to PayPal for around $800 million in 2013 — Kernel and its growing team of neuroscientists and software engineers are working toward reversing the effects of neurodegenerative diseases and, eventually, making our brains faster and smarter and more wired.

NEURALINK JOINS KERNEL IN THE QUEST TO HACK THE HUMAN BRAIN

“We know if we put a chip in the brain and release electrical signals, that we can ameliorate symptoms of Parkinson’s,” Johnson told The Verge in an interview late last year. (Johnson also confirmed Musk’s involvement with Neuralink.) “This has been done for spinal cord pain, obesity, anorexia… what hasn’t been done is the reading and writing of neural code.” Johnson says Kernel’s goal is to “work with the brain the same way we work with other complex biological systems like biology and genetics.”

Kernel, to its credit, is quite upfront about the years of medical research necessary to better understand the human brain and pioneer new surgery techniques, software methods, and implant devices that could make a consumer brain-computer interface a reality. The Wall Street Journal says Neuralink was founded as a medical research company in California last July, which bolsters the idea that Musk will follow a similar route as Johnson and Kernel.

To be fair, the hurdles involved in developing these devices are immense. Neuroscience researchers say we have very limited understanding about how the neurons in the human brain communicate, and our methods for collecting data on those neurons is rudimentary. Then there’s the idea of people volunteering to have electronics placed inside their heads.

“People are only going to be amenable to the idea [of an implant] if they have a very serious medical condition they might get help with,” Blake Richards, a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, told The Verge in an interview earlier this year. “Most healthy individuals are uncomfortable with the idea of having a doctor crack open their skull.”

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