IT Insights Blog — Tom Cruise

The numbers are in and moviegoers have spoken. For the second weekend in a row, the No. 1 moving playing at U.S. theaters was Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the sixth film in the long-running series that features Tom Cruise as superspy Ethan Hunt. Ethan Hunt does all kinds of crazy things in Fallout, and since Tom Cruise like to do his own stunts, that means that Cruise himself did a lot of those crazy things, too.

Some readers of the IT Insights Blog may recall being young (or at least younger) and watching the old Inspector Gadget cartoon series. At the start of each episode, the ever-intrepid Gadget would receive his instructions from Chief Quimby in the form of a note programmed — Can you program a piece of paper? Maybe we should just say booby-trapped? — to "self-destruct" after he read it.

Technology has made a lot of things simpler, more effective, and more efficient. There are many different ways that all of us benefit from ongoing advances in the functionality and versatility of smartphones, tablets, and laptop and desktop computers. When you reflect that the weight of some early computers was measured in tons, it's clear that there's been a great deal of progress.

Round numbers almost always make people happy, so here's one to chew on: Exactly 30 years ago, Hollywood opened up a highway to the danger zone with the release of a little action movie about the elite training program for U.S. Naval Aviators. Not only that, but last year showbiz scuttlebutt emerged that the producer of Top Gun, the movie that turned Tom Cruise into a movie superstar, is ready to bring back that lovin' feeling. Top Gun 2 will not, apparently, be doing a flyby of the box office this year, but the movie is in development with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and star Cruise both aboard.