Yahoo yesterday announced that it's bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion to communicate to millennials cool, hip, relevant, and that it understands what GIFs are. But back in the early ages of the dot com-era, the company was saying that through a monthly publication called Yahoo Internet Life Magazine.

From 1995-2002, Yahoo's glossy was published by Ziff Davis, which licensed the Yahoo name. The mag featured regular columns from Roger Ebert, and get this—critical reviews of not just gadgets but also websites. Just look at some of the covers. With hallmark names and phrases of the 90s like Monica Lewinsky, Senifeld, e-mail, and web cam revolution, it's an incredible picture of the early years of the internet as a democratic concept. Hey, maybe if Yahoo was cool in the 90s, it can be cool again 20 years later. [BuzzFeed]

There are endless metrics a store has access to when it comes to when, what, and who is buying merchandise. But surprisingly, there's not a heck of a lot of data on why a customer decides not to buy something. So Fujitsu is hoping its new Kinect-based research tool provides more insight into how customers browse, and why they may decide against a purchase.

The system obviously can't tell what a customer is thinking. But through detailed analysis of their body language and how they respond to a given item, or multiple items, stores will get a bit of insight into their customers' decision making processes. And this in turn might help the store better display, or provide more information on a given product that could help further influence a customer's final purchase decision. [DigInfo TV]

Even if it's not quite as amazing as it could be, Google Voice does some wonderful things. That's what makes it hard to admit the truth: It's time for Google Voice to die.

A Problem Child

When Google Voice launched in 2009, it was straight-up awesome. The concept of re-inventing the basic systems of telephonery for the digital age came with a whole bunch of fantastic features, many of which still kick ass today. Getting a transcript of your voicemails in your inbox? Perfect. Phone calls ring all your phones instead of just one? Instant must-have. Sending SMS and making voice calls from your computer? How did I ever get by without it?

But Voice has never been able to live up to its sizable potential. Features like MMS support have been "in the works" for years without ever coming to fruition. Voice mobile apps have been slow to update on the rare occasion they've received meaningful updates at all. The Google Voice web interface is wonky and awkward and sometimes just doesn't work. And when it breaks, there's pretty much nowhere to turn.

Of course, it's doesn't help that Google lets its other services step on Voice's toes. Just like Google Talk's chat feature rendered Google+ Messenger chat bizarrely superfluous, Google Talk's voice calling was both at odds but also weirdly reliant on Google Voice.

Voice's greatest strength is that it makes phone calls easier, but its greatest weakness is that it almost always requires an actual phone. And when it doesn't, there's some weird handoff going on. Voice can't do PC-to-PC calling; that's a Talk's feature. Taking a call from a phone on your PC? Also Talk, but a Google Voice connection is mandatory. Calling phones from your PC? Talk again, but this time with optional Voice support. Sound convoluted? It is.

And when you add tablets—mobile devices but technically not phones, at least most of the time—to the equation, the distinction between devices that are phones and ones that aren't is more irrelevant—and more infuriating—than ever. Ever try to make a Voice call from a tablet? Don't. It will make you sad inside.

When something's this badly borked, you don't just tweak it. You blow it up and start fresh.

One Client to Rule Them All

That, of course, is where Google's new Hangouts come in. A single, unified Google chat service has been a long time coming, rumored for months before it finally burst on the scene at Google I/O last week. Assimilating Google communication services like a chat-client Borg cube, Hangouts is eating its predecessors alive; the really unnecessary ones—like Google+ Messenger—have already bit the dust in Hangouts' wake. This is a much needed culling, a big simplification.

And fortunately, Google Hangouts isn't a complicated mess; it's less than the sum of its parts, and better off for it. During the big merge, things like Google Talk's online/offline/invisible statuses got simplified right out of existence. And so did the ability to make Google Voice calls out from your computer through Google Talk. And while plenty of users have cried out in anguish, this was a long time coming. If this is going to be Google's One True Chat Client (and it is), it can't afford to be bloated from the start.

And sure enough, Google's Nikhyl Singhal has come out on Google+ to promise that features like outbound web calls are coming to Hangouts, just like SMS support. Voice will be coming to the party too:

Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls is just the beginning. Future versions of Hangouts will integrate Google Voice more seamlessly.

"Hangouts will integrate Google Voice." Just what everyone wanted, right?

Just Die Already

Google Voice integration may sound like more Hangouts features on the way (and who doesn't like more features?), but it's probably just another collection of problems in disguise. Google Voice has always been a great idea, but it's never been a great service. Its proposed features have always sounded idyllic, but they've never quite been functional or even existent. More literal Google Voice functionality in Hangouts will only ensure one thing: that Voice features that barely work now might continue to barely work down the line. We shouldn't settle for that.

The corruption is happening already; the Google Voice plague is spreading. Hangouts lost the ability to make outbound calls the way Talk could, but it can take inbound ones. How? By getting in bed with Google Voice. Less than a week into this brave new world, and Voice is already latching on to the new kid, bringing its arbitrary distinctions between phones and not-phones along with it like body odor.

So long as Google Voice is still around, its features—however awesome—are going to continue to be hamstrung by its faults. And as we've seen for the past three years, Google is never going to throw its weight behind Voice in the way it'd need to to make that service succeed.

Hangouts, on the other hand, is the search giant's great hope for the future of messaging. It'll get all the nurturing it needs and more. Just look at the unrelenting, like-it-or-not push Google has made behind its One True Social Network, Google+; Google will make Hangouts succeed through denial and sheer force of will if that's what it takes. So maybe if Google Voice shuffled of this mortal coil, the best features it had—and the ones it never got around to having—could roll into Hangouts in their purest form, instead of being haphazardly crammed in by way of forced cooperation with a broken legacy.

Sure, the risk is that Google Voice dies, and its best features never actually materialize in Hangouts. But the alternative—tying ourselves to a service increasingly held together by digital duct tape and shoved ever further in the corner—isn't much better. The best thing we could ask for is for Google Voice to die right now so that its best broken promises are free to go to Hangout heaven. And then we cross our fingers and hope they make it there.

After you've used your crazy robot intellect to crush puny meatbags definitively in a game of Jeopardy, it would seem like the world is your oyster. But Watson's not taking trying to take over the world or anything, no. After a trying out medicine and inventing a pastry, he's settling for a boring job in customer service.

Companies including Australia’s ANZ Bank, Nielsen, and Royal Bank of Canada plan to put this supercomputer to work answering questions by SMS, online chat, email, or through a compatible app. Watson will not only be saving humans from having to answer hundreds upon hundreds of inane questions about insurance plans and loan interested, but also help provide better information, since he doesn't zone out when reading fine print.

Watson doesn't have any voice recognition capability yet, but that could come later this year, putting him toe-to-toe with things like Siri and Google Now. IBM's likely to continue pimping out Watson's noggin to more companies as down the line, and really, we could all benefit from having more, smarter computers answering our questions for us. But it just seems like he's settling. We just hope he's happy, happy as a lifeless machine brain can be.

Pop quiz: what does a country on the brink of economic collapse, with dozens of unfinished buildings dotting its countryside, really need? A monstrous, phallic space hotel, of course!

Meet the 984-foot tall hotel proposed US-based firm Mobilona for an artificial island off the coast of Dubai Barcelona. Reachable by a walkway from the mainland, the hotel would feature things no one would ever need or want unless that person was a sheik with limitless funds: a zero-gravity spa (the world's first!), a vertical wind tunnel, and an "other worldly [sic] experience for guests wishing to travel to distant galaxies." It'll also be home to a 24-hour mall and a marina that can house your yacht as long as it's under 656 feet long.

Want to stay one night at the 2,000-room hotel? You'll spend anywhere from 300 to 1,500 Euro for a room. Want to stay for a week? You can pay 20,000 Euro a year for a timeshare. Want to own six-story penthouse mansion? Seventy million Euro will make the garish place, with its infinity pool, superyacht mooring, and optional helipad, yours.

So what's the problem here? One, this place is unnecessarily phallic. Two, Spain's economy is already massively screwed, and its construction industry is in an especially dire state. Dubai has similar versions of this real estate project, and they're pretty much falling into the sea.

Sure, Barcelona is known for crazy architecture, but not of this magnitude. But the good news? Barcelona's mayor, who saw the plans last week, is not on board with the 1.5 billion Euro lodgings. And neither is most, if not all, of the city council. Plus, Mobilona has proposed space hotels all over the world—and so far not one has come to fruition. [The Telegraph]

Thelma's, an Iowa-based cookie delivery service named after the founder's great-grandmother, contracted Saturday MFG. to create this utterly brilliant packaging that not only keeps the treats warm, but also gives the impression that they're fresh from the oven.

It's almost impossible to look at that box and not crave a batch of Thelma's snickerdoodle cookies. Even a batch made from Marmite would seem irresistible if this is how they were delivered. [Saturday MFG. via The Dieline]

While extreme weather events seem to come and go more often than ever, our ability to forecast them does at least help us minimize risk to human life. But an impending weather satellite outage could make events like yesterday's devestating tornado even harder to predict—for up to three years.

The US relies on two types of satellites to help it predict the weather. One orbits the Earth's poles, providing a global snapshot of weather conditions every morning and afternoon. A second set—known as geostationary satellites—maintain a constant position above the planet to continuously monitor a single area. Combined, they work fantastically; alone, neither provide enough data to form truly accurate predictions.

The problem is, officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have become aware that, soon, the United States' polar satellite is to reach the end of its life. No problem, right? Let's just launch another! But, sadly, its replacement has been severely delayed by cost increases, technical problems and—surprise, surprise—management challenges.

Thats leaves the US in a tricky situation, where it could be without a polar orbiting satellite—and all the useful data that comes from it—for a staggering 17 to 53 months. NOAA even admits that the gap will result in less accurate weather forecasts—and more difficulty in predicting extreme events like hurricanes. In turn, that doesn't just mean we need to carry a raincoat more often, but could place lives and property in danger.

So what to do? Well, fortunately the US Government Accountability Office is well aware of the problem, and has added it to its High Risk List in 2013. That should see the polar orbiting satellite project fast-tracked, and with any luck minimize the time we're without its data.

If that doesn't work out there are some other options—wave gliders that float on the ocean and monitor the weather, say, or perhaps even leveraging data from other satellites. But none of those options are as effective, and they'll also come at serious expense. So, for now, let's hope that satellite arrives sooner rather than later. [GAO via CTO Vision]

Image from NOAA under Creative Commons license

Who knew an artificial neural network could be so pretty? The winners of Princeton's annual science photography contest, Art of Science, were announced a few days ago. And boy, are some of these images beautiful.

Every year, a jury of Princeton professors gets together to hum and haw over the thousands of images its students produce during their studies. The great thing about the competition is that it's totally open—undergrads, grads, and doc students from nearly every department apply, ranging from computer science to architecture to biology.

It's the best of both worlds: we get to ogle the beautiful images that result from years of intense research, but we miss all of the hard academic labor. [Art of Science]

East-West, West-East by Martin Jucker

Ever wonder what the winds look like as they move across the globe? This image visualizes the strong West to East wind patterns that dominate earth's weather systems (in blue), plus the East to West wind, mainly at the poles, in red. "As a result," explains author Martin Jucker, "atmospheric phenomena can travel around the globe, exchanging information even from remote places of the Earth easily."

Cobalt Blue by Jason Krizan

Krizan is part of chemistry research group called Cava Lab, which cooks up new materials. To do so, he and his peers heat new materials to 1400 degrees Celsius in alumina containers—and just like with regular cooking, stuff gets stuck on the pan. The group will often use molten glass, which beads and condenses the materials. This blue is from black cobalt oxide, beading inside of the molten glass.

Maze Dweller by Chhaya Werner

"That sweet little face peering out of a coral labyrinth is that of a a goby fish," explains Chhaya Werner, the undergrad who took this photo. "A goby fish is dependent on coral for its home, and in turn will often clean algae that would otherwise smother the coral." Symbiosis!

C. instagram by Meredith Wright

The hilariously named C. instagram shows C. elegans worms eating E. coli, which they gorge on before clumping together in these patterns. Meredith Wright caught the phenomenon using her smartphone—hence the name of the photo. "I've since shared the photo on social networking sites and have had friends who've never been interested in biology ask me more about my work because of this photo," she explains. "To me, this image represents the simple pleasure of finding something beautiful when you don't expect to, and it shows how easy it is to connect science with new audiences by simply clicking 'share.'"

Brainbow Rainbow by Jess Brooks, Esteban Engel, and Lynn Enquist

These kidney monkey cells are infected with a herpes virus, which makes the cells express colors that turn a variety of neon colors. That makes it easier for scientists to identity individual neurons and the circuits they form.

Crushed Birch by Michael Kosk

Why don't trees rot more easily? Mainly because of its hyper-dense cellular structure, which was broken apart and photographed as part of a material research course by Michael Kosk. Those patterns? They're the pathways that distribute water and nutrients through each layer of the tree.

Cocoa Engineering by Alex Jordan, Sigrid Adriaenssens, and Axel Kilian

This structural component—and its chocolate-welded hinges—were made entirely out of chocolate by engineering and architecture students. "While it sounds like something out of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, the idea has a serious goal," explains the group, "to systematically understand how the process of design can interact with unexplored materials." The curved shape has a remarkable strength-to-weight ratio of 24 times less than that of concrete.

Mirror Sphere by Sema Berkiten

I don't completely understand the technology behind this beautiful image, so I'll let author Sema Berkiten explain: "In computer vision, there are several methods to create a 3-D model of an object. One of them, called “photometric stereo,” uses multiple images of the object under different light directions. In this 3-D reconstruction technique, we need to calculate surface normals of the object as an intermediate step, and this picture is the result of that step. The image depicts the surface normals of a mirrored sphere... The surface normals depicted in this image are not all geometrically correct because the algorithm assumes that the surface is not shiny like a mirror, so what we see in this image are actually some artifacts caused by highlights and shadows."

Light Eddies by Mitchell A. Nahmias and Paul R. Prucnal

Nahmias and Prucnal are interested in increasing the speed of global communication. They imagine an artificial neural network , combined with current laser technology, that would deliver information at speeds even the fastest computers couldn't compete with today. "Our brains are composed of billions of individual cells called neurons, which communicate along millions of billions of channels with electrochemical signals," the duo explain. "This computer model visualizes a laser that behaves like a neuron by plotting a so-called 'phase space...' Studying these trajectories helps us understand how our devices emit and receive pulses of light that mimic the way in which neurons communicate."

Exposed by Ohad Fried

This face came from a completely anonymized video—in other words, when it arrived, the tape contained a blurred and unrecognizable human face. Using "mutual data" shared between each individual frame, Fried was able to reconstruct the original face. "The result," Fried explains, "is an intriguing 'ghost image' of the subject."

In an effort to make how robots move and interact with humans feel less awkward and uncomfortable, Disney Research, working with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, are developing a more natural approach to the problem by thoroughly studying how humans interact.

In fact, using motion capture suits, the study was taken one step further. The goal of this particular research was to improve how a robot gives, or takes something from a human. So the researchers recorded two humans going through the motions of passing an object between them, and this was then compiled into a database that a robot can use to recognize when it's being given something, and automatically reach out to receive it without delay.

There's still quite a bit of finessing needed to make the actual handoff seem far more lifelike, but in addition to making the animatronic inhabitants at the Disney parks a little less creepy, the research promises to improve how our future robot maids and butlers interact with us. [Disney Research via Gizmag]

We're finding out about the new Xbox in just a few hours. But that doesn't mean we have no idea what's coming. Here's a rundown of everything we know, or think we know, about the next Xbox.

The Specs

We are pretty sure we know what the guts of the new Xbox look like. It'll have a 64-bit, 8-core, 1.6GHz processor made by AMD with x86 architecture and 8GB of DDR3 RAM. (x86 means, broadly, that it's a lot like the chips in your home computer, which is a change for Xbox, which had until now run on PowerPC.) The GPU is an 800mhz DirectX 11.x, and will be accompanied by custom hardware to accelerate certain Xbox-specific tasks. It's also got an ethernet port, an optical disc drive (reported Blu-ray), a default 500GB SATA 2 HDD, USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI out and in ports.

For reference, the current Xbox 360 has a 500MHz GPU, a 3-core 3.6GHz processor, and 512MB of RAM. The upcoming PlayStation 4 also has an 8-core 64-bit processor and 8GB of RAM.

Price

This one's tricky. There is zero official information out there. But we do have some clues. Microsoft supernerd Paul Thurott spitballed a "$500, $300 with subscription" number that hints at the real issue with the new Xbox: subsidized pricing.

Microsoft already offers a subsidized Xbox 360 + Kinect package for $100 up front, if you sign up for two years of Xbox Live Gold at $15 per month. That comes out to $360 for just the two years, which is more than you'd pay if you're bargain hunting for cheap subscription renewals.

A two-year subscription for a next gen Xbox probably wouldn't stick in the craw as much as being locked into two years with the current system (though there's no reason to think the current subscriptions won't work on a new Xbox). But the relative surety of the subsidized pricing implies two things. One, this is probably coming in higher than the $400/$300 levels of the 360. And two, Microsoft understands that a gaming console, no matter how many features you pack in, is a tough thing to swallow as that big of an up-front cost.

Availability

This seems like a no-brainer, but a Microsoft exec strongly indicated recently that the next Xbox would be in stores in time for your holiday shopping spree. Which is good! Not many people are looking to buy a gaming console as a President's Day gift.

Name

There's a popular rumor floating that the next Xbox is going to be called Xbox Infinity, but it's not based on much more than a clever mock-up made by a Redditor. While Xbox has trademarked Xbox 8 (which is an infinity sign turned upright), there's no real indication that that will be the name, any more than Xbox 720 or just plain old Xbox.

The Controller

Largely the same! Most of what we know about the new Xbox controller comes from our friends at Kotaku, who tell us the controller is mostly the same, if a little smaller.

According to Kotaku's sources:

The controller, according to Kotaku sources, actually seems quite similar to the current Xbox 360 one. Same two analog sticks in the same upper-left/lower-right position, same positioning of the d-pad and face buttons and forward and back buttons. Triggers. Bumpers. Top-center power button. It all seems to be the same, though we can't tell if any of these buttons have been improved-if, say, the d-pad responds more crisply, if the triggers pull more deeply, and so on.

More broadly, this means that you won't see new points of interface on the new controller, like the Wii U's 5-inch LCD or the PlayStation 4's touchpad.

Kinect 2: Mandatory

OK, so the part about the controller being mostly unchanged is only partially true. Why? The Kinect will be standard with every next gen Xbox sold, making it even more of a de facto controller extension than the current iteration.

The Kinect 2 will be upgraded significantly, to not just detect broad arm movements and laborious, seizure-like movements generously described as "dancing", but finer hand gestures sent from multiple users. It's also said to implement more natural language controls (think Siri), as well as features like wake-on-speech.

Which sounds great. But in reality, it's probably more realistic to expect the new Kinect to perform the tasks the original was meant to at a now-acceptable level, and for these new features to be at about the same level as the curent Kinect (that is, passable, at times). So look for refined gesture recognition and improved speech control accuracy, chiefly.

Other less certain rumored features include eye-tracking, which can be amazing in the right environment, and features like pausing videos or games when you turn your head (which might be the most pointless feature being adopted by multiple companies right now).

"Always On"?

This has been a major sticking point. Rumors have persisted that the new Xbox will require a persistent internet connection, presumably at broadband level, in order to play games. And the people have not been amused.

The move, which we've seen with individual games like Diablo 3 and SimCity, would presumably be to enforce stricter security and anti-piracy features. It would also prevent a smaller-every-day but still significant group of people from playing and enjoying Xbox games. But we've also heard that it could only pertain to entertainment features, which would make slightly more sense, since that would require constantly pulling down information about content.

Microsoft has kowtowed to public sentiment on other future-facing issues after backlash from the slow or unreliably networked, like its original musings about ditching the optical drive this generation in favor of downloaded games. So it could go either way.

Update: An internal Microsoft memo obtained by Ars Technica indicates that you'll be able to play Xbox games offline after all. Phew! Hopefully.

Xbox TV

One of the underplayed details is that the new console will reportedly have an HDMI in port. What does that mean? The Xbox is in all likelihood going to be used to control literally everything your TV does.

How would that work? The HDMI-out from your cable box would route through your Xbox, which would then apply its own interface on top of it. Theoretically, that would let Microsoft integrate all sorts of features into that. It's likely where the reports of the Kinect controlling your cable box came from.

Don't sleep on this as a major feature of the new Xbox. It could include capabilities ranging from deep content recognition to DVR to (hypothetically) picture-in-picture TV shows in games. This is especially interesting given the reported capability to "hot switch" between two games, effectively running both at once. The WSJ recently reported that Microsoft had definitely at least explored these options—though how many show up tomorrow is anyone's guess outside of Redmond.

And don't forget, Microsoft is also reported to have a cheaper, set-top-box-only version of these features coming later this year, too.

Original Content?

Back in September, Microsoft hired a CBS executive to head up production of "original video content" for the Xbox. We still don't really know what that means. (The UK Xbox is already getting into the business of distributing movies, for instance.) It could be that, like Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu, Xbox Live Gold and the Microsoft Video Store is going to get its own original series. Which would be sort of insane. But don't rule it out.

Windows Integration

This is based on speculation, but hear us out anyway. The new Xbox will probably integrate tightly into Windows 8, and the broader Windows Universe that Microsoft is building. It will do this as a gaming system, but also as a set top box.

The first thing to note is that this is actually possible this generation. The new Xbox has moved to an AMD x86 chip, meaning it's using the same type of chip that Windows PCs have. Rumors have the new Xbox running Windows 8, but even if it's not quite running the same operating system, the change of platforms should make developing games, especially for indie developers, a lot easier.

Consider: Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is hugely successful. It's a wonderful place to find and enjoy indie content. And that's exactly the sort of thing that Microsoft would love to get into its Windows Store, which is doing fine, more or less, but still hasn't reached the level Microsoft would like.

Further, tighter integration of apps like Xbox Music, Internet Explorer, and other Windows 8 features, would make sense for the central location of Windows 8 in your home. Of course, that doesn't mean you'd just fire up the Xbox and see the Windows 8 start screen. The Dashboard has been revamped a few times, but it's already in tune with the Windows 8 aesthetic (and, really, was the incubator for it), so figure that'll go along mostly untouched.

Goodbye, Used Games?

The biggest bummer to come out of the rumor mill is that the new Xbox might ditch the ability to play, and therefore buy and sell and trade, used games. It's unclear whether that will happen, but we do know that games will have to be installed to be played, though that will take place in the background over the course of play, instead of up front before you can even get into the game.

Xbox Tablet?

Microsoft is also rumored to have a 7-inch Xbox tablet coming this year, running on an ARM processor (possible Intel SoC in the future). Originally reported by the Verge, the tablet is supposed to be running a "custom Windows kernel" instead of Windows RT, which would make sense if it's to retain ties to older XBLA titles.

For a more hardcore gamer perspective on the new Xbox, check out Kotaku's rundown on what to expect.

Forget guns, here’s a 3D printing development that can’t be overhyped and pretty much anyone with the munchies can get behind. NASA’s sinking a chunk of change into 3D printing food—starting with the humble pizza—in a new project aimed at evolving the future of food for both space and back here on Earth. It’s not quite a replicator, but it’s a start.

The idea is that you wouldn’t cook your food in the normal manner; you’d simply print it out from the basic ingredients such as oils, water and carbohydrate powders. The cartridges would have shelf lives of decades apparently, so it’ll be a bit like a new version of canning, I guess. Sounds delicious.

Why is the project kicking off with pizza? Because of the multi-layered nature of the best fast food ever, which should be easier for the printer to produce as a first stab. Mind you, it should be able to spit out spaghetti pretty easily too, right?

I’m thinking this is likely to taste like stale cardboard, but hell, we’ve all had pizza that basically tasted like recycled paper at some point or other. Anyway, it’s the future of food apparently, until we get full-on replicators and can simply shout “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot” that is. [Quartz via SlashGear]

Image by Matthew Kenwrick under Creative Commons license

Our newest offspring Gizmodo UK is gobbling up the news in a different timezone, so check them out if you need another Giz fix.

Bad news for those seeking or offering cheap accommodation over the internet: a New York judge has determined that Airbnb is illegal in the city.

Despite Airbnb's attempts to persuade officials otherwise, the service has been found to violate the illegal hotel law—a statute which stops property owners from renting out their own homes on a temporary basis. The ruling comes out of a case which saw Aribnb host Nigel Warren issued with a $7,000 demand after complaints of building and zoning code issues were made against him. Judge Clive Morrick threw out those latter issues—but decided he should be fined $2,400 for violating the illegal hotel law instead. The judge wrote:

"While breech of the condominium rules is not of itself a ground for sustaining this (notice), respondent was in breach (through Warren's acts) and the existence of the rule against rental for transient, hotel, or motel purposes is evidence that the unit owners were to restrict their use to permanent occupation."

Interestingly, the rulling doesn't make all Airbnb listings illegal—just ones for which a complaint is filed. So, if you're an Airbnb host in New York, it pays to tread carefully from this point forward. [CNET via Fast Company]

Update: Airbnb got in touch with us to give its view on the ruling:

This decision runs contrary to the stated intention and the plain text of New York law, so obviously we are disappointed. But more importantly, this decision makes it even more critical that New York law be clarified to make sure regular New Yorkers can occasionally rent out their own homes. There is universal agreement that occasional hosts like Nigel Warren were not the target of the 2010 law, but that agreement provides little comfort to the handful of people, like Nigel, who find themselves targeted by overzealous enforcement officials. It is time to fix this law and protect hosts who occasionally rent out their own homes. 87 percent of Airbnb hosts in New York list just a home they live in — they are average New Yorkers trying to make ends meet, not illegal hotels that should be subject to the 2010 law.

An old Mac G5 case, some scrap aluminum—and you have the perfect geek's grill. OK, so there may strictly be more efficient ways to cook outdoors, but this scores maximum nerd points. [Imgur via Macgasm via Ubergizmo]

Photography often produces incredibly intimate results, but these self portraits by Erno-Erik Raitanen offer a different take—showing off his bacteria in fine detail.

The pictures weren't created using a camera, but his own bacteria, cultivated on the gelatin surface of film negatives. He explains:

“I have gathered the bacteria samples from my own body. The bacteria consumed the film surface producing photographic images that are entirely created by a chance. I have been removed from the process but, at the same time, the images are a product of my body; self-portraits.”

In reality, these aren't microscopic views of bacteria, but records of their activity on the surface of the film. The results are certainly bright, bold and colorful—but do you think they count as self portraiture? [Erno-Erik Raitanen via Photo JoJo via Peta Pixel]

Spotify has decided to take on the likes of Billboard with its own charts, making available a list of the top-50 most-streamed and most-shared songs to the public.

Wall Street Journal reports that, in a push to broaden its user base, the music streaming service is sharing the data—and the music to match. The top-50 lists will be embeddable and entirely free to listen to, so even non-subscribers will be able to listen to the songs that are currently topping interent playlists around the world. The service—called Charts—is already live. [Spotify via Wall Street Journal]

Most people think of Skype as a secure means of communication, with messages kindly delivered using end-to-end encryption. But a new report by Ars Technica suggests that's far from the case—and Microsoft is often dipping into your communications.

Having teamed up with security researcher Ashkan Soltani, Ars sent fresh web links across Skype, and found that half of them were accessed by a machine with an IP address belonging to Microsoft as they traversed the internet. That means that Skype messages are sent across the web in such a way that allows Microsoft to study plaintext within them, and clearly its a technique it uses regularly. Matt Green, a professor specializing in encryption at Johns Hopkins University, told Ars:

"The problem right now is that there's a mismatch between the privacy people expect and what Microsoft is actually delivering. Even if Microsoft is only scanning links for 'good' purposes, say detecting malicious URLs, this indicates that they can intercept some of your text messages. And that means they could potentially intercept a lot more of them."

It's not clear how the text is scrutinized by Microsoft: whole messages could be being scanned on Microsoft servers, end-user Skype installs could send snippets to be checked, or something else entirely could be happening. What is clear, though, is that the ability to extract content is very, very real.

Perhaps it shouldn't come as a massive surprise that Microsoft wants to keep tabs on what's being sent using its Skype service—it has a duty to make sure its services aren't being abused, after all. But it's important for end users to be aware that their communications aren't as private as they perhaps thought. Now you do. [Ars Technica]

Image by RoccoAlpha under Creative Commons license

This is awesome. Herman Miller has announced that it will start making the iconic Eames Molded Chair in fiberglass... again. The fiberglass chairs were discontinued from production in 1989 and ever since then, the iconic chairs that decorate modern houses have been made with recyclable polypropylene. But now we're getting back to the good stuff.

First introduced in 1950, Ray Eames decided to discontinue the fiberglass model of the Eames Molded Chair in 1989 because its material chemistry was "detrimental to the environment" and the fiberglass couldn't be recycled. Totally sensible reasons.

Not anymore. Herman Miller has developed a more sustainable way to make fiberglass. The new manufacturing process (which cribs from the car industry) eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) during production. Herman Miller describes the process of its new fiberglass:

The fiberglass is now formed and processed using a woven, “dry binder” method instead of the traditional “wet” process, eliminating wet glue adhesives and instead relying on a heat-activated, dry polyester. This has also eliminated the need for thermal oxidizers and other environmental control equipment in the production process. Combined with a new “monomer-free” resin, the production process for the new fiberglass chairs is emission-free and creates a safer environment for the workers handling it, as well as a greener, recyclable shell at the end of the chair’s useful life.

Even better, Herman Miller reformulated the color pigments to nail the vintage color options for the new old Eames Molded Chair. The nine vintage color options of the Eames Molded Chair and Side Chair will be available in Summer 2013. They'll come in wire, dowel leg, four leg, stacking and rocking bases.

Here's what the fiberglass version of the Eames Molded Chair looks like:

Classic beauty. [Web Wire, Cool Hunting]

This awesome 8-bit retro music video from Joe Presser is a classic tale of love: boy meets girl, boy runs away from girl, girl undergoes grueling training regimen to hunt down boy and deliver smooches. It's like Forrest Gump but in reverse.

Download the song on Soundcloud

Though building out the armor required for an Iron Man suit is obviously (some would say imposingly) impressive, re-creating the detailed webbing and lithe nature of Spider-Man's suit is just as incredible a feat. MoonSpider shared the Spider-Man suit he made and it puts all Halloween Spidey costumes to shame.

This is something Tobey Maguire Andrew Garfield Peter Parker would wear.

MoonSpider admits that he didn't actually make the suit himself but he connected all the right and talented people to get his creation off the ground. Still, it's impressive as hell. There are hidden zippers all around the suit, sneaky shoe uppers tied to the feet and incredibly detailed color representation. It's pretty much perfect.

The whole process is fascinating if you're into the DIY process (or appreciate thoughtfully detailed cosplay). MoonSpider first got the Spider-Man suit pattern in a digital painting file for printing on 4-way stretch lycra fabric at a dye sublimation printer. He describes the printing process, as basically "a giant printer that uses heat transfer to move fabric dyes from a printed color panel directly into the surface of the fabric by sublimating the ink from solid to gas."

The eyes are fantastic too. He got the frames made from black onyx and the lenses from flexible mirrored plastic with a white vinyl overlay. Perhaps the most important detail was to get the perfect seamstress since sewing in zippers to make the whole suit look like one piece is pretty difficult.

If you want to read more about the whole Spider-Man suit process (and you really should), head over here. It cost MoonSpider around $600, with a lot of the resources found from The Replica Prop Forum.

So, so good. [Imgur via Reddit via adafruit]

Given the fevered pace of China's infrastructure development, 16 years is ancient. That's why the two-lane concrete Zhuan-yang viaduct running through the town of Wuhan, Hubei in central China had to go—a bigger and better six-lane freeway was in the works. But to demolish the original roadway without harming the surrounding homes, engineers smothered the blast under a blanket.

The surrounding neighborhood tightly packed in around the viaduct wasn't the only concern for engineers in determining how to best bring down the structure—major, 100,000V power transmission lines, 30 local gas lines and the main national East-West gas pipeline ran underground parallel to the road as well. One misplaced stick of dynamite would sever power and light the area up like a giant Bunsen burner.

To prevent collateral damage along the 2.2 mile bridge—the longest longest reinforced concrete bridge demolition project ever attempted in China—engineers swaddled the Zhuan-yang viaduct with a cloth wrapper, secured it with wire then reinforced the covering with large water-filled bladders and sandbags. This wrapping prevented hunks of viaduct from exploding through surrounding homes and kept dust to a minimum as the structure fell, while the sandbags and bladders absorbed and dampened some of the blast's energy and noise.

The explosion itself lasted less than half a minute and, with the rubble neatly contained, the new mega-freeway should be up in no time. [ITV via The Atlantic - Cities]

A completely unknown guy in the world of math has made a breakthrough discovery that will help us understand numbers better. Basically, a guy who once struggled to find a job and had to work at Subway, is helping math geniuses understand the twin prime conjecture, one of math's oldest problems.

Now, Yitang Zhang, the mysterious man behind the discovery, isn't some chump on the side of the street. He earned a doctorate in 1992 from Purdue University and is now a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire but before his report was published, he was a complete unknown in mathematics. After he got his doctorate, he spent many years as an accountant and worked at Subway because he couldn't get a job in academia. Andrew Granville, a number theorist said:

“Basically, no one knows him... Now, suddenly, he has proved one of the great results in the history of number theory.”

What Zhang did is especially impressive because many number theorists thought the problem he's cracking was something no one was ever going to solve.

How did Zhang come out of nowhere? Simple. He just did his work and wrote it down. Zhang submitted a paper to a top journal, Annals of Mathematics, and when the editors ran through his paper, they discovered its genius calling it "first rank" and said that Zhang proved “a landmark theorem in the distribution of prime numbers.” The Simons Foundation says Zhang's paper was written "with crystalline clarity and a total command of the topic’s current state of the art, it was evidently a serious piece of work." Some guy no one knew of three weeks ago just solved an unsolvable problem.

For more detail on what Zhang helped make a breakthrough in (it involves proving that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers with some finite gap, a sieve and a hair's breadth), read the whole fascinating report at Simons Foundation. [Simons Foundation via Kottke, Image Credit: Shutterstock/AntonioGravante]