The brewing company’s Brazilian arm creates cups, which, if you clink them together to say cheers, turn both parties into Facebook friends. Oh, how difficult. [Read more]
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Budweiser’s intimate, dangerous way to make Facebook friends
Nerval’s Lobster writes “Back in January, when Wolfram Alpha launched an updated version of its Personal Analytics for Facebook module, the self-billed ‘computational knowledge engine’ asked users to contribute their detailed Facebook data for research purposes. The researchers at Wolfram Alpha, having crunched all that information, are now offering some data on how users interact with Facebook. For starters, the median number of ‘friends’ is 342, with the average number of friends peaking for those in their late teens before declining at a steady rate. Younger people also have a tendency to largely add Facebook friends around their own age — for example, someone who’s 20 might have lots of friends in the twenty-something range, and comparatively few in other decades of life—while middle-aged people tend to have friends across the age spectrum. Beyond that, the Wolfram Alpha blog offers up some interesting information about friend counts (and ‘friend of friend’ counts), how friends’ networks tend to ‘cluster’ around life events such as school and sports teams, and even how peoples’ postings tend to evolve as they get older — as people age, for example, they tend to talk less about video games and more about politics. ‘It feels like we’re starting to be able to train a serious “computational telescope” on the “social universe,”‘ the blog concluded. ‘And it’s letting us discover all sorts of phenomena.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Wolfram Alpha Drills Deep Into Facebook Data
Police in San Francisco decide on a new tactic to stop iPhone theft. Undercover officers are walking down streets offering to sell iPhones they claim are stolen. The idea is to kill the market for stolen phones. [Read more]
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Undercover cops’ devious new method to stop iPhone theft
As you may recall, Wolfram Research signed a deal with Microsoft a few years back that saw some Wolfram Alpha functionality integrated into Bing. As it turns out, it very nearly found its way into a certain other search engine as well. In an interview at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam today, Stephen Wolfram revealed that his company had tried to work with Google and “almost had a deal,” but it “blew up.” Unfortunately, he didn’t provide any further details about when those talks took place or exactly what the potential deal entailed, and it doesn’t sound like we can expect that deal to be revived anytime soon — especially considering Google’s own efforts that are increasingly overlapping with Wolfram Alpha. As Wolfram himself notes, though, the two companies do have something of a longstanding connection: Google co-founder Sergey Brin was actually an intern at Wolfram way back in 1993. Filed under: Internet Comments Source: The Next Web
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Stephen Wolfram says he almost had a deal with Google, but it ‘blew up’
Though Google Glass runs Android, it’s not exactly as wide open as your typical Android phone. And given its spot as the most futuristic tech available right now, you know hackers want to tinker with Google’s specs. Legendary hacker Jay Freeman, famously known as Saurik who created the Cydia app store for iOS jailbreak phones, did just that. He’s already gained root access to Google Glass. More »
Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked a bit about his goals for expanded service options in his interview with us earlier this month, and he’s today detailed some of those options that the company is ready to roll out. That includes one perk that’s been mentioned previously: the ability to get a Model S loaner to tide you over when you have to turn your car in for service. What’s more, that loaner will be a top-of-the-line Model S regardless of the car you turn in (there’s a fleet of 85 to start with, each with valet service to your location), and customers in “most markets” can also opt to get a Tesla Roadster as a loaner if they’d prefer to try out something sportier. Musk further explains that customers can even choose to keep that loaner car if they like it better, and simply pay the difference. Beyond that, Tesla is now making annual checkups entirely optional, meaning that your warranty will still be valid for the full term even if you never take your car in. And rounding things out is what Tesla describes as an “unconditional warranty” on Model S batteries, which will let owners get a factory reconditioned unit as a replacement even in the case of user error. You can find the full details on the new options in Musk’s blog post announcing the news linked below. Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Tesla
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Tesla announces new service details, unconditional warranty for Model S battery
The daily deals site LivingSocial has been hacked, revealing more than 50 million people’s usernames, names, birth dates, passwords, and email addresses. Here’s what you need to know. Read more…
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LivingSocial Hacked, Time to Change Your Passwords
Submitted by: Unknown Tagged: machines , videos , legos , g rated , there I fixed it Share on Facebook
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LEGO 360° Milling Machine
A Second Circuit Appeals Court judge has handed down a landmark fair use decision in Cariou v. Prince . Prince, a collagist, remixed some of Cariou’s photos and sold them for large sums. Cariou argued that the new works were not fair because Prince did not create his collages as a comment on the original (one of the factors judges can consider in fair use cases is whether the new work is a commentary or parody). The lower court agreed, and ordered destruction of the show catalogs and a ban on hanging the new works. But the appeals court overturned, and held that a use can be fair even when it doesn’t comment on the original. “We conclude that the district court applied the incorrect standard to determine whether Prince’s artworks make fair use of Cariou’s copyrighted photographs,” writes Judge B.D. Parker in the decision, which was released this morning. “We further conclude that all but five of Prince’s works do make fair use of Cariou’s copyrighted photographs. With regard to the remaining five Prince artworks, we remand the case to the district court to consider, in the first instance, whether Prince is entitled to a fair use defense.” “This decision absolutely clarifies that the law does not require that a new work of art comment on any of its source material to qualify as fair use,” attorney Virginia Rutledge told A.i.A. by phone this morning after a preliminary survey of the decision. “This is a major win for Prince on at least two counts,” NYU art law professor Amy Adler told A.i.A. via e-mail. (She consulted on the case but was speaking for herself.) “The court decided that artwork does not need to comment on previous work to qualify as fair use, and that Prince’s testimony is not the dispositive question in determining whether a work is transformative. Rather the issue is how the work may reasonably be perceived. This is the right standard because it takes into account the underlying public purpose of copyright law, which should not be beholden to statements of individual intent but instead consider the value that all of us gain from the creation of new work.” Richard Prince Wins Major Victory in Landmark Copyright Suit [Brian Boucher/Art in America] ( Thanks, Tim ! )
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Fair use decision: remixing is legal even when there is no intent to comment or parody original work
Images courtesy of the artist We were duly impressed with David Soukup’s painstakingly detailed stencils when we first saw them back in 2011 —I could hardly believe that some of those ultrafine lines were stenciled and not applied by an implement (or at least masked off). He’s pleased to announce a solo show at Maxwell Colette gallery in his current hometown of Chicago: “This show is one of my most personal to date, and marks a return to some of the imagery and technical precision that I became known for.” I hadn’t realized that he lost his way (the mural project , pictured above, dates to October of last year), but earlier this year, Soukup wrote that “I had been cutting stencils for so long that I really lost what made them most important to me, and why I started doing them in the first place.” In any case, we’re glad he’s back on track with his first exhibition in 16 months, featuring “over 20 pieces of new work (both stencils and screenprints).” The title, Perennial Escapism , is an obvious play on the subject matter, but the rather literal take on an exit strategy belies the integrity of the subject matter: the imagery is “derived from the artist’s own photographs of early 20th century wrought iron fire escapes in Chicago.” To hear Soukup tell it: This work represents a personal ‘escape’ so to speak. I went back to what first made me passionate. I drew inspiration not just from the city imagery itself, but from the textures, the grit, and the distress that makes up a city. Perennial Escapism marks the beginning of a new direction, one I’ve never been more excited to pursue. Where his previous work was more collage-y and surreal, the stark new compositions evoke film stills, superimposed on a baselayer of impasto on the wood panels to achieve the effect of a vaguely patina’d or otherwise weathered surface. Per the press release : Soukup’s paintings combine visual elements of graphic design and collage with the tactile elements of paint and reclaimed materials to create decidedly urban motifs. He hand-cuts the elaborate stencils, some up to four feet in length, that are utilized to create his paintings. The resulting latticework of iron bars and shadows echoes the visual experience of his everyday life, and reflects his obsession with meticulous detail. We’re pleased to present an exclusive preview of Perennial Escapism : (more…)
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Stunning New Stencil Work from ‘Escape Artist’ David Soukup – Exhibition Opens Tonight in Chicago