With a radical new approach, doctors have found a way to extract a person’s speech directly from their brain. The breakthrough is the first to demonstrate how a person’s intention to say specific words can be gleaned from brain signals and turned into text fast enough to keep pace with natural conversation. – The Guardian
Blog
The Digital Revolution That’s Hitting School Textbooks
As more and more coursework winds up online, the Balkanization of teaching resources cuts ever deeper. – Wired
Orange County’s Crystal Cathedral Reborn – But Music Still Doesn’t Work
Tim Mangan: “To put it briefly, these were cathedral acoustics: echoey, murky, swimmy, with a decay time of several seconds. Aurally, it was like playing in a high school gymnasium or Carlsbad Caverns. It’s no place for a couple of hundred musicians to perform an intricate piece of classical music.” – Voice of Orange County
Senate Confirms Trump’s Pick For NEA Chair
Remembering Hal Prince, Gruff Truth-Teller
No figure in Broadway history had a bigger influence on how shows looked and behaved in the second half of the 20th century. – Los Angeles Times
Fifty Years On, The Ideals And The Reality Of Woodstock
On stage, musicians – the most famous of the era, the ones who would become even more famous from Woodstock – were flown in; extensive set changes occurred around frantic, angry, urgent housekeeping messages from the stage; and a young generation liked free stuff – and became a generation that could be targeted by marketers. – The New York Times
The Hot Commodity For Celebrities: Scandal Insurance
Dick pic? Groping? Racist rant? It’ll be fine. There are now “plans to sell ‘disgrace insurance’ to entertainment companies and commercial brands, making the risk of celebrity downfall as quantifiable and reimbursable as that of floods and car crashes.” – Vulture
Renée Fleming To Redesign And Co-Lead Aspen
Fleming and conductor Patrick Summers of the Houston Grand Opera will be co-artistic directors of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s opera program, redesigning it. “Fleming, who will continue to perform, said she was drawn to the opportunity to reimagine the program to better prepare young singers for today’s intensely competitive, rapidly changing opera environment.” – The New York Times
Television Critics Love, And Award, ‘Fleabag’
Everyone loved the first season of Fleabag just fine, but then the second season went and added a hot priest to the mixture. The TCA Awards responded. (The entire list of other winners – yes, there were some – is at the link as well.) – Vulture
The Farewell May Be Culturally Specific, But The Issue Of Lying To Dying Relatives Is Cross-Cultural
A man who gained work in the movie business as an undocumented immigrant says that “it’s the element of migration and the severed intergenerational connections it creates that modify the family dynamics in Billi’s story, my story and those of millions of others whose relatives are scattered far from their common source.” – Los Angeles Times