1883: The world's first elevated electric railway in the world makes a trial run. It's in Chicago, of course. It's indoors, and it won't last, but the idea will.

New York City began elevated railway service in the early 1870s, running in Manhattan on Ninth Avenue and Greenwich Street. It was America's first elevated railroad, but it was steam-powered. Steam locomotives put out prodigious amounts of smoke and soot -- hardly what you'd want to be adding to the already-dirty air of a teeming metropolis. And they were plenty noisy, too.

German inventor and industrialist Werner Siemens built a short, small-scale electric railway at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exhibition. Using the new invention of a third rail to feed power to an electric locomotive, it carried up to 30 passengers at a time at about 4 mph along a line merely 600 yards long.

Elevated railways were a reality. Electric railways were a reality. Who would combine the two technologies?

Perhaps you've heard of Thomas Edison.

Edison and Stephen D. Field incorporated the Electric Railway Company in the spring of 1883 with a capital of $2 million (about $42 million in today's money). They aimed to dazzle the crowds at the Chicago Railway Exposition, and they did. They built a narrow-gauge 3-foot-wide track in the gallery around the edge of the main exhibition building, with tight curves at each end of the 1,552-foot track -- less than one-third of a mile long.

The locomotive weighed 3 tons and was 12 feet long by 5 feet wide. It drew current by rubbing a wire brush on each side of an electrified, central third rail. The 15-horsepower locomotive pulled a passenger car at a stately 9 mph. Between June 5 and the exhibition's conclusion June 23, Chicago's protoype 'L' had carried 26,805 passengers.

Edison and Field also took their electric railroad to an exposition at Louisville, Kentucky, that year. It enjoyed similar success there.

The demonstration was proof of concept, and both Chicago and New York City debated, discussed and promoted various ideas and systems over the next decade. Chicago won the race.

The world's first permanent elevated electric railway, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway, opened in 1895. It began at Franklin Street in Chicago and headed west, splitting into three branches. It was connected to Chicago's other elevated lines in the famous Loop by 1897, and the others were converting to electric power by century's end.

The technology had literally gained traction.

Source: Various

Like a wisecracking sidekick who winds up stealing the movie from a too-bland lead actor, graphics processing units are edging more general-purpose central processing units out of the limelight.

"There's this conventional wisdom [that the] GPU equals games, and a fast PC is a fast CPU," says Rob Csonger, Nvidia's vice president of corporate marketing. "The truth today is the GPU is accelerating everything because everything is rendered now."

Over the past several years, graphics processing units have evolved from highly specialized components coveted by Mountain Dew-swilling Unreal Tournament devotees to high-performance computing engines used by academic researchers. The latest shift has seen yet another transformation of the GPU into a fully programmable, open-architecture chip, in some cases just as flexible as -- and packing far more parallel-processing power than -- today's general-purpose central processing units.

The evolution of the GPU has prompted changes throughout the computer industry, from PC manufacturers who are modifying systems to better take advantage of GPUs, to software makers who are adding features designed to exploit the now-ubiquitous graphics chips.

Recent demos by Adobe showing how Photoshop and Flash might make use of GPU acceleration are merely the latest in a parade of software and hardware vendors copping to the power of the GPU.

While much of the GPU market these days is still anchored to the videogame market, graphics rendering has become increasingly important to a wide range of ordinary computing tasks. On the mobile front, the iPhone and iPod Touch, both of which use a version of Imagination Technologies' PowerVR MBX mobile graphics processor core, have cemented the notion that whizzy graphics capabilities can add exponentially to user experiences -- especially on touchscreen devices. Other handset manufacturers, such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have also started incorporating robust 3-D graphic acceleration chips into their high-end phones. And modern operating systems, like Microsoft's Vista and Apple's Leopard, can barely open a text file without making heavy use of the GPU, thanks to their 3-D interfaces and slick visual effects.

What's more, the GPU's parallel architecture makes it well suited to a variety of modern computing tasks.

"When you look at the GPU what you're basically looking at is a highly parallel processing engine," explains Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron. While today's top-end CPUs boast four cores, GPUs have anywhere between 80 and 128 cores. That makes them particularly adept at doing tasks that require a lot of simultaneous number crunching, such as 2-D and 3-D graphics, but also cryptography, scientific modeling, transcoding HD video streams and even running financial market simulations.

Many high-end GPUs also include a video unit for faster encoding and decoding of video data, which companies like Elemental Technologies are already taking advantage of with new GPU-accelerated video-processing software.

"Ultimately, everything you now see on your computer now touches the GPU in some way or another," notes McCarron.

The GPU's increasing clout is also starting to have a profound effect on how manufacturers and chipmakers build computers.

For instance, Gateway recently introduced a budget gaming laptop, the P-6831 FX, that makes use of a mid-range GPU (the Nvidia GeForce 8800M) to compensate for a relatively anemic CPU (a 1.6-GHz Intel Core Duo) -- a strategy that gives the laptop decent performance with a budget $1,200 price tag. The laptop has been more or less sold out at Best Buy since its introduction early this year.

On the software side, consumer-oriented companies are also increasingly relying on the GPU.

Adobe recently announced that the forthcoming version of its Flash Player would start using GPU acceleration to support 3-D effects, video card acceleration and large bitmap images of up to 8,191 pixels per side.

"When you boil it down, the GPU is really just a type of CPU that is used for calculating floating point operations," says Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager for Adobe's Flash Player. "With that, you get high bandwidth, you get additional memory, and you get what's basically a really versatile processor."

Cooliris is another company that figured out how to harness the GPU, in this case for a better web-browsing experience. Working with Nvidia, the company recently debuted an application called Piclens.

Instead of relying on the 2-D interface you get when hunting down pictures and videos on YouTube, Flickr or Google, Piclens renders all of those results as a glowing tower of images that you can scroll through and zoom in and out of effortlessly.

"People get caught up in the 3-D element of [Piclens] -- the flashy element -- but I think there is also a fundamental navigation problem we're solving," says co-founder Josh Schwarzapel. That is: How do we make a dauntingly large volume of content easily searchable?

As more and more of our personal content finds its way into digital form, graphics-intensive interfaces to that data, like Piclens and Delicious Library, will look less like visual frippery and will become essential tools for navigation.

In the end, the display may not be the computer, as Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang declared in a 2002 Wired magazine profile. But in today's computing environment, the pixel is definitely king. And that can only mean good things for the GPU's future.

Lostpedia lostpedia.com "The Lost encyclopedia" Episode synopses, island maps, fan theories, and flash-forward recaps. Nothing on Sleestaks, though — and they were, like, featured creatures, right?

Uncyclopedia uncyclopedia.org "The content-free encyclopedia" A parody site inspired by inaccurate but hilarious Wikipedia entries. Jimbo's creation is defined here as a massively multiplayer online editing game played by redundancy experts.

Chickipedia chickipedia.com "The wiki of hot women" Learn that Scarlett Johansson is known for "her popularity with up-and-coming celebrity men" ... and going-nowhere Web surfers.

Wookieepedia starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wookieepedia "The Star Wars wiki" Did you know that "snot vampire" is slang terminology for the Anzati species? Of course not. No one did.

Dickipedia dickipedia.org "A wiki of dicks" Sample entry: Gerald "Geraldo" Rivera is a TV journalist, noted egotist, former talk-show host, and a dick.

Dealipedia dealipedia.com "The business deal wiki" Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com, started this archive of M&A activities, IPOs, bankruptcies, and scoops on who made money (including him) on the deals.

Congresspedia sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congresspedia "The citizen's encyclopedia on Congress" Fourteen members of the US House and Senate are currently under investigation. Know of others who should be? Add 'em!

Pedialyte pedialyte.com "Helps kids feel better fast!" Flavors include grape, cherry, apple, and bubble gum!

These 10 finalists in our water photo contest submitted photos as refreshing as their subject. Over the past two weeks of voting we've received many truly excellent submissions, with these 10 superb photos gaining top ranking among voters. Javier Uclés won the contest with his photo "The One," at left. Javier will be receiving a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk.

Since we had so many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Water Photo Gallery.

Our next two-week photo contest is summer. Let us office schmoes live vicariously through your best summer photo. Check out the contest page for more information.

Left:

The One
Submitted by Javier Uclés

Photographer's comment:

"Photo taken at sunset in Conil, Cadiz. Used Sigma 10-20 + Cokin Filter ND8."

Split Image
Submitted by Matt

Photographer's comment:

"Calalin Island and reef in the Marshall Islands. Nikon N8008 in aquatica housing."

Waterfall
Submitted by Laura

Photographer's comment:

"Waterfall in Milford Sound, New Zealand."

Autumnal Warmth
Submitted by Adam P. Wilson

Photographer's comment:

"Taken in April on the northern edge of Lake Burley-Griffin looking towards the National Carillon. EOS 5D, ISO 50, 16mm, f/8, 1/40s."

Sea and sand
Submitted by Andrea Ferro

Photographer's comment:

"Crissy Field, San Francisco"

Miroir d'eau
Submitted by pneumeric

Photographer's comment:

"Miroir d'eau, Bordeaux, France"

Inside Out
Submitted by Neal Miyake

Photographer's comment:

"A 'fish-eye's view' of Sandy Beach on Oahu at dawn."

Rain on the Horizon
Submitted by Hana

Photographer's comment:

"An old Turk trying his luck one last time. Istanbul."

Faucets
Submitted by Joakim Lloyd Raboff

Photographer's comment:

"Located in southern Sweden, the Western Harbour is a newly developed oceanfront part of the city of Malmö. The faucets are part of a permanent installation."

Spray
Submitted by C Ray Dancer

Photographer's comment:

"Sunlight catching water on a fountain in Edinburgh, Scotland."

Subways are as much a part of big-city living as high-rises and gridlock, and they get about as much love. For many people, subways are crowded, noisy places only marginally better than being stuck in traffic -- and most of them are. But the best of them are not only efficient, they reflect the character of the cities they serve and the people they carry.

In honor of the first test run of Chicago's "L" train, we're touring the globe by subway. Please let us know about your favorite subways in this article's comments

Left: The Tokyo Metro and Toei lines that compose Tokyo's massive subway system carry almost 8 million people each day, making it the busiest system in the world. The system is famous for its oshiya -- literally, "pusher" -- who shove passengers into packed subway cars so the doors can close. And you think your commute is hell.

Photo: Associated Press/Itsuo Inouye

The Moscow Metro has some of the most beautiful stations in the world. The best of them were built during the Stalinist era and feature chandeliers, marble moldings and elaborate murals. The extravagance gave way to bland utilitarianism under Nikita Khrushchev but returned during the 1970s. With more than 7 million riders a day, keeping all that marble clean has gotta be a drag.

Photo: Jason Rogers/Flickr

Everything about New York is larger than life, and its subway system is no exception. It's got 468 stations, 842 miles of track and twice as many daily riders (5 million) as every other rapid-transit system in the United States combined. The city that never sleeps has a subway to match. It's one of the few in the world that runs 24/7.

Photo: Associated Press/Bebeto Matthews

Londoners call their subway the Underground, even though 55 percent of it lies above ground. No matter. When you've got the oldest mass-transit system in the world, you can call it anything you like. Trains started chugging through cut-and-cover tunnels in 1863 and they've been running ever since. Some 3 million people ride each day, every one of them remembering to "Mind the gap."

Photo: Associated Press/John D. McHugh

The Berlin U-Bahn (for undergrundbahn, or underground railway) opened in 1902 and grew rapidly until the city was divided at the end of World War II. Then things got complicated. The system was divided along with the city, with trains from East Berlin all but ceasing service to the west and trains from West Berlin bypassing railway stations in the east that became known as Geisterbahnhöfe, or ghost stations. The one exception was Friedrichstraße station, a transfer point and border crossing for entering East Berlin. The system was unified after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and now carries more than 400 million people each year.

Photo: Associated Press/Fritz Reiss

The Paris Métro stands alongside the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Louvre as an icon of the city. The system is renowned for its Art Nouveau architecture and is so ingrained in daily life that Parisians have a saying -- "Métro, boulot, dodo." (Metro, work, sleep.) And where else but Paris would you find museum pieces from the Louvre displayed on subway platforms? They're replicas, but still …

Photo: blond avenger/Flickr

Shanghai is the third city in China to build a metro system, and it has become the country's largest in the 12 years since it opened. Shanghai Metro has 142 miles of track and plans to add another 180 miles within five years. By that point, it would be three times larger than the Chicago L. The system carries about 2.18 million people a day.

Photo: Associated Press/Eugene Hoshiko

The Hong Kong MTR has the distinction of being one of the few subway systems in the world that actually turns a profit. It's privately owned and uses real estate development along its tracks to increase revenue … and ridership. It also introduced "Octopus cards" that allow people to not only pay their fares electronically, but buy stuff at convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants and even parking meters. It's estimated that 95 percent of all adults in Hong Kong own an Octopus card and they generate more than 10 million transactions each day.

Photo: Associated Press/Vincent Yu

The award-winning Metro Bilbao opened in 1995 and proves that even subway stations can be architectural masterpieces. The system was designed by Sir Norman Foster whose work includes the Gherkin in London, the Reichstag dome and Hong Kong International Airport. Foster embraced a modern design, favoring steel and glass, and Sarriko station won the 1998 Brunel Award for Railway Design. The station benches won the Spanish National Industrial Design Prize in 2000.

Photo: Samuele Silva/Flickr

It's old, it's crowded and it's noisy as hell, but Chicagoans love the L like they love deep-dish pizza. The nation's second-oldest rapid-transit system is one of the city's Seven Wonders, behind the lakefront and Wrigley Field but ahead of icons like Sears Tower. The railroad junction known as Tower 18 -- where lines converge from four directions -- was for decades the busiest in the world. The L was also the world's first elevated electric railway.

Photo: Associated Press/Charles Rex Arbogast

Giant whirlpools, 100-knot winds, some of Europe's mightiest tides: The icy waters off Scotland's northern tip are no place for pleasure craft. But they're ideal for power-generation systems that harness the restless fury of the sea — which is why the European Marine Energy Centre has set up shop in the Orkney Islands.

Think of it as the Bonneville Salt Flats of hydrokinetics: EMEC offers companies a place to try out their clean tech. The center's remotely operated vehicles film underwater, and microphones will eventually monitor for noise pollution. First in was Dublin-based OpenHydro, which recently began trials on its second turbine (shown here raised for inspection).

Carbon-free hydrokinetic power could ultimately provide up to 20 percent of the UK's electricity needs. But environmental concerns may still sink the effort: Critics warn of industrialized coastlines and harm to sea life.

The US faces similar challenges — without a testing facility. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has okayed a pilot marine-power project for Makah Bay, off the Washington coast, but environmental approval is still pending. By the time the inevitable court battles are resolved, the waves may be lapping at our doorsteps.

Maxwell Smart always "missed it by that much," but some of those dopey spy shows of the '60s were right on the money. "Many of the devices first seen in movies and on TV actually came about," says Robert Wallace, former head of the CIA's covert skunk works, the Office of Technical Services. "Remember the Cone of Silence? We built shielded enclosures that did the same thing. And the pen communicator in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.? That evolved, 10 years later, into short-range agent communication." Wallace, who was basically the agency's real-life Q, reveals these gadgets and more in his new book, Spycraft, the first comprehensive look at the technical achievements of American espionage from the 1940s to the present. "Here's the laboratory," Wallace used to tell new recruits. "The only thing that is going to limit what you can do is your imagination." It seems they took him at his word.

1940s Cigarette gun
Lipping this pistol disguised as a cigarette, an agent could easily release the safety pin. Rotating the filter end counterclockwise armed the gun, and a push of the thumb caused it to fire a single .22-caliber bullet. It really worked.

Illustration: Steve Sanford

An ordinary-looking bound notebook contained pages of Pyrofilm and came packaged with an incendiary pencil. To prevent notes from falling into the wrong hands, an agent could simply pull the eraser out of the pencil, causing the notebook to burst into flames.

Illustration: Steve Sanford

During an hour-long procedure, techs embedded a 3/4-inch transmitter in the skull of a live cat. An antenna made of very fine wire was woven into the cat's fur, and a microphone was placed in its ear canal. After setting the kitty free, agents could listen in on nearby conversations undetected. Cats being cats, however, the system proved unreliable.

Illustration: Steve Sanford

When it comes to a "dead drop" — a hiding place where spies leave messages — nothing's better (or deader) than a dead rat. Who's going to look inside unless they have to? CIA techs gutted a rat carcass, inserted secret missives wrapped in foil, and then stitched the animal back together. To ward off scavengers, the rodent was often doused in Tabasco.

Illustration: Steve Sanford

A working Seiko timepiece concealed the world's smallest point-and-shoot camera. The device held a 15-inch strip of auto-advancing film and could snap about 100 crisp shots. A quick twist of the watch face revealed a 4-millimeter-diameter lens. It was a successful and widely used spy tool in its day.

Illustration: Steve Sanford

A remotely piloted aerial vehicle disguised as a dragonfly could carry cameras and audio sensors right into the lion's den. This mobile eavesdropping bug never got off the ground.

Illustration: Steve Sanford