Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending December 26, 2015)

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

December 24, 2015

The Year We Started Buying Phones Like We Buy Cars
With the demise of the two-year contract across almost all major carriers also came a change in the way Americans buy cell phones.
—Julia Sklar, interim associate Web producer

‘Detour’ Audio Tours Reveal Cities’ Fascinating Backstories
A new app offers a dose of augmented reality in the form of a kicked up audio guide. As you walk around a city, the app geolocates you and, in time with your walking pace, offers historical tidbits about the world around you that you otherwise might’ve walked past without really seeing. The only obvious downside is that it’s not available in a ton of cities yet.
—Julia Sklar

From Marriage Equality to Pluto and Beyond—These Are the Things We Appreciated Most About 2015
Slate takes an interactive approach to cataloguing a year’s worth of good news.
—Brian Bergstein, executive editor

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The Forgotten Father of Environmentalism
My German grandfather was fascinated by Humboldt, who turns out to have been “this first scientist to talk about harmful human-onduced climate change.”
—Linda Lowenthal, copy chief

The Year in Fungi
A roundup of newly found eukaryotes.
—J. Juniper Friedman, associate Web producer

Ghosts in the Machine
An interesting New York Times piece explains how social media is changing the way we mourn.
—Rachel Metz, senior editor, mobile

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