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why fast is good
Taking cues from Doctor Who, television is playing with time in fresh ways. A mysterious crime or tragic misunderstanding used to give rise to a clever investigation, a montage or two and, precisely 42 minutes later, it was case closed. In the future, interactive video will let us view short clips multiple ways – the multisequential story, interactive TV researcher Janet H. Murray calls it. She’s working on a prototype with Boston’s WGBH, where any part of any episode could be viewed at whim. (Similarly, Canadians created Meanwhile, a non-linear, interactive film: habitatstudio.ca/~cmendis/meanwhile.) “Writers are writing television that can be viewed more than once, so that story arcs are more coherent and more complex,” Murray explains. Shows like 24 unfold in real time over the whole season; How I Met Your Mother is set in the future and told in flashbacks; Day Break is a Groundhog Day-type retelling of the same day. In Lost, subjective and compressed timelines alternate with flashbacks and flash-forwards. “The context of time is something you can’t take for granted,” executive producer Carlton Cuse said – to Time.
The world’s best auto engineers are shifting into carbon neutral. Alternative-fuel cars may soon trade the limited appeal of their alt-image for a sexy new sports car’s body. Formula 1 has announced it will add green racing technology to the sport by 2009, and just like the anti-lock braking, power steering and safety cage construction that came before it, eco-speed is sure to trickle down to everyday drivers. The technology is already on track. Gas-electric hybrids like the Lexus GS 450h and RX 400h and Honda Accord have more outright pace than their fossil-fuel consuming twins. In Europe, a hydrogen engine from BMW and a multifuel engine from Volvo are in the works, both of which have set speed records for alt-fuel vehicles. Seems the recent film Who Killed the Electric Car? is about to prove a shade premature. Available this year, the Tesla Roadster, the world’s first high-performance production electric car, boasts the equivalent of less than two litres per 100 kilometres and goes from 0 to 100 kilometres an hour in about four seconds. That’s a comeback worthy of Lazarus. |
Souped-up Hybrids