Get hyped for this

With both artificial general intelligence and quantum computing looking like they're further away than ever, it's probably a good time to remember that technology isn't all AI and qubits. Other future technologies are almost here, including one that I associate with sci-fi almost as much as the flying car: vat-grown meat.

As reported by Newsweek:

Laboratory-grown meat could soon be available, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration announcing that they would oversee its production so it could be safely sold to consumers across the country. 

A joint statement released by the two agencies said they would be working together to “foster these innovative food products and maintain the highest standards of public health.” The FDA would be in charge of regulating the collection, banking and growing of the cells used to make artificial meat, while the USDA would work on the production and labeling of food products.

[...]

There are many benefits to lab-grown meat. It would eliminate the need for animals to be bred and slaughtered—in the U.S. alone, around 9 billion chickens and 32 million cattle are killed every year. It would also help limit climate change—agriculture, and meat production in particular, is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. There would also be major financial incentives if the technology could be successfully scaled.

It will be a while before lab-grown meat becomes generally available, or cheap enough to be generally affordable, but this technology has the potential to be truly game-changing if this catches on. The environmental benefits alone could have an enormous beneficial impact on our rapidly warming climate. Stand aside, VR; this is what a transformative technology looks like.

Let's get this nonsense started: Devolver Digital's E3 2018 jiminythinger

Well, if I'm going to do this motherf*cking thing, then I may as well do it.

Devolver Digital's 2017 "press conference" was a thing of genius. A savage send-up of the entire E3 hype-fest, and a brutal critique of the worst of the videogame industry's anti-consumer practices, it also managed to announce a couple of the company's games along the way, and had me literally laughing out loud for most of its run time. As I sat down to watch their 2018 "presser," I wondered how they could possibly top that.

How else? They made a sequel. Literally.

Upping the ante on everything, including the profanity and gore, Devolver continued their savage satire of the entire E3 experience, with "Nina Struthers" returning to show all the world just how soul-less and mercenary the videogame industry could be.

This is how you do it: Microsoft does E3 right

This is how you do the E3 hype thing:

• Start by announcing a new Halo game.
• Move on to showing actual gameplay footage in the next game you announce, a sequel to the much-loved Ori and the Blind Forest.
• Announce a totally new IP, Sekiro, again with a trailer that includes actual gameplay footage.
• Pause as rarely as possible for speech-making. It is a press conference, after all, and there's corporate messaging to get through, but nobody cares about your corporate bullshit, so don't dwell on it.
• Lather, rinse, and repeat, until you've announced 50 different games.

This is what people watch E3 to see, and wow! did Microsoft ever deliver. The range and sheer variety of games announced was staggering: