We
live in the age of superheroes and tech-obsession, with comic-book
inspired flicks hitting the box office back to back. Today, we've gone
much further than the Batmobile with funky controls. In the tradition
of
The Six Million Dollar Man and
The Bionic Woman,
whose bodies were miraculously healed and enhanced into super-human
machines after their near-fatal accidents, Robert Downey Jr. in
Iron Man
made headlines as Howard Stark of Stark Enterprises, the genius
inventor who aims to save the world wearing a suit of power armor with
a glowing heart after a traumatic incident that left him in need of a
heart transplant.
A seemingly bottomless bank account and the brains to be rated one of
the top 10 most intelligent fictional characters in American comics by
Businessweek
make all this seamlessly possible, but root such stories firmly in the
world of fantasy. With our growing technological capacities however,
our fascination and excitement over superhuman capacity may be quickly
crossing the line from fiction into fact.
One may look no further than Japan to see the
shocking materialization of what may be our lofty scientific ambitions—or our worst fears. For some time, highly unlikely—but nonetheless
interesting—inventions like the terrorizing
Land Walker robot in
2006 were the only significant developments we heard of. Since then the
Japanese government has put pressure on companies to make robotics a
primary focus of development, resulting in the Honda Motor Company’s
demonstration late last year of the
Asimo Bots...
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This
week's cover story addresses the skyrocketing price of cigarettes in
New York and some of the ways people are coping. The hideous and
disturbing anti-smoking commercials and billboards, together with the
indoor smoking ban has sent smokers running for a variety of smoking
alternatives, both to side-step legislation and make somewhat healthier
choices. 
Google’s
web-hegemony has become so unquestionable at this point, that any
attempt to topple it comes off not as merely futile, but as a kind of
Brechtian joke. The successors to the search-engine standard line up,
boast revolutionary features and vamped-up security. They have vague,
inviting names like ChaCha and the Jeeves-less Ask.com.
And yet, it’s all tech-nerd theater. Nothing changes, nobody cares. In
a best-case-scenario, most people will simply search Google for the
details on its own ostensible competition. 
