Recommended Reading: the legacy of Myst, the fall of BlackBerry and more
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books dealing with the subject of technology that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.
Lost to the Ages
by Emily Yoshida, Grantland
Twenty years after its release, Emily Yoshida looks back at the legacy of the landmark game Myst, which has sold some 6 million copies and spawned sequels and countless ports to various platforms over the years. That includes a firsthand account of the making of the game from co-creators Rand and Robyn Miller, who discuss whether they were trying to make "Art with a capital A," and what they'd still like to see more of from video games today.
Inside the Fall of BlackBerry There's been plenty written about the state of BlackBerry in recent months, but this in-depth report from The Globe and Mail shed a fair bit of new light on what went on behind the scenes as the smartphone maker saw its fortunes dwindle. Not the least of which being competing visions for the company between its current and former CEOs. | How LucasArts Fell Apart A look at another fondly remembered piece of PC gaming history, this story from Jason Schreier for Kotaku examines how LucasArts -- of X-Wing and classic adventure game fame -- went from being a leading and pioneering game maker to a casualty of Disney's Lucasfilm acquisition; a move that, as he explains, proved to be just the final straw for the company. |
And Then Steve Said, 'Let There Be an iPhone' Ahead of his book on Apple and Google, Fred Voglelstein offers this exhaustive look at the period leading up to the launch of the iPhone through the eyes of Apple engineer Andy Grignon, who was responsible for all of the phone's radios and witness to the intense deadlines and secrecy surrounding its development. | Inside the Arctic Circle, Where Your Facebook Data Live As we've seen, Facebook's data center efforts have taken the company in some interesting directions -- including to a massive operation just south of the Arctic Circle where, as Ashlee Vance explains in this piece for Bloomberg Businessweek, it can take advantage of a particularly efficient cooling system. |
Further reading:
How the feds took down the Dread Pirate Roberts
by Nate Anderson and Cyrus Farivar, Ars TechnicaThe Hidden Dangers of Chop-Shop Electronics
by John Villasenor and Mohammad Tehranipoor, IEEE Spectrum
