One of the most consequential companies to come out of Silicon Valley is one you've probably never heard of. The story of General Magic starts in 1989 at Apple, when Marc Porat convinced then-CEO John Scully that the future of computing was in a device that would marry communications, computers, and consumer electronics — the germ that would spawn the smartphones we know today. When Apple lost interest, General Magic was created by some of Apple's project members. Those people would go on to start some of the websites and design the devices we know today, like eBay, the iPod, and Blackberry. General Magic premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will have a broader release later this year.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory finished digitizing recently-declassified footage of atmospheric nuclear tests from the height of the Cold War. All the chilling film is available on their YouTube channel — and they are terrifying to watch. The video here is from a test on the infamous Bikini Atoll site called Operation Hardtack. The detonation causes a huge water burst that causes an ominous black mushroom cloud to rise from the ocean — a dark reminder of the power of the Nuclear Age.