Living

Math! It's hard enough to wrap your head around even when it's not systematically unraveling your understanding of reality. For instance: there's a pretty decent chance you're dreaming right now. No, seriously; math says so. The mid-morning mind-frak springs from the highly advanced brain of Jan Westerhoff, a philosophy professor and metaphysics researcher at the University of Durham. In the ambitiously titled book Reality: A Very Short Introduction, Westerhoff breaks down why your present reality might not be so real: We optimistically assume that you get eight hours of sleep a night, which leaves sixteen hours during which you are awake. Sleep researchers have found out that there is a strong correlation between dreaming and being in so-called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. REM sleep is characterized by rapid movement of the eyeballs; the brain is highly active, its electric activity resembles that of a waking brain, but the sleeper is more difficult to wake than du...

Time was, sports fans would get a bonus refrigerator magnet with their season tickets. But that’s so last century. Now, season ticket holders for one NFL team are getting a much more high-tech perk through augmented reality. The Philadelphia Eagles unveiled this week a new addition to their team app that will add a host of supplementary content for season ticket holders who hover their smartphones over game passes. Each game will feature a different combination of highlights, previews, messages from players and analysis, according to the team. Videos will be able to be played with the tickets in the actual background for an augmented reality effect, or fans can opt to simply watch on fullscreen. The Eagles say its the first time such technology has been used for NFL tickets, and developed the feature in partnership with the augmented reality company Aurasma. “We are always trying to provide new features and experiences for our fans,” Eagles president Don Smolenski said in a press rele...