MargaretAtwood
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'The Handmaid's Tale' ventures outside Gilead in second season
The Handmaid's Tale has been a huge success for Hulu, earning the streaming platform quite a few Emmys and two Golden Globes. The first season was based on Margaret Atwood's novel by the same name but many have wondered what's in store for the upcoming second season. "The biggest barrier of season two was season one," showrunner Bruce Miller told Entertainment Weekly. "You sort of intimidate yourself. But at a certain point, you can't spend all your time second-guessing things. Instead, you just have to remember to try and tell a good story." Miller says he and Margaret Atwood began talking about the direction of the second season before the first was completed.
Watch Hulu's first trailer for its take on 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Ever since Hulu announced that it was adapting The Handmaid's Tale, it's been hard not to wonder: would it adequately capture the bleakness of Margaret Atwood's dystopian classic, or do justice to the movie? You now have an inkling of how well it'll work. Hulu has posted its first trailer for its Handmaid's Tale series, and... it's definitely not the feel-good hit of the year. The teaser shows Offred (Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss) grappling with the end of the United States and the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a harsh theocracy where women lose their rights and "handmaids" like Offred only serve as childbearers.
Hulu is adapting Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Taking a cue from Netflix, Hulu isn't slowing down with its original programming. Today, the streaming service announced that it's ordered a full series adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's seminal sci-fi novel. It centers on a totalitarian society where the birth rate is falling, and fertile women are placed in sexual slavery as "handmaids" to help humanity repopulate. Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, Top of the Lake) will star as Offred, a handmaid working in the home of a government official named The Commander. Her main goal? To find her daughter, all the while trying to deal with her low place in society.
Early third-generation Kindle software update improves web browser, provides new way to feel e-litist
What better way to read up on your Republic of Gilead lore (whether or not such country allows you to read in the first place) than on a digital screen via firmware that's just a tinge futuristic. Amazon is offering an early preview of software update 3.0.2 for the latest generation of its Kindle reader. It's as simple dragging-and-dropping a file onto your device, jumping through the right menus, and waiting patiently for several minutes. What does it offer? "Web browser and general performance improvements," according to the site, and while the browser did seem a tad snappier, that could very well be a phantasmagoria of our optimism. Still, you do get to show all your friends you've got a newer version, and that's what really matters, right?
Researchers create functioning human lung on a microchip
Researchers at Harvard University have successfully created a functioning, respirating human 'lung' on a chip in a lab. Made using human and blood vessel cells and a microchip, the translucent lung is far simpler in terms of observation than traditional, actual human lungs (for obvious reasons), in a small convenient package about the size of a pencil eraser. The researchers have demonstrated its effectiveness and are now moving toward showing its ability to replicate gas exchange between lung cells and the bloodstream. Down the road a bit more, the team hopes to produce other organs on chips, and hook them all up to the already operational heart on a chip. And somewhere in the world, Margaret Atwood and her pigoons are rejoicing, right? Here's to the future. Video description of the device is below.
