Rexfeng

More than two decades after the United States pulled up its final cables from Field Station Berlin, the ruins of the complex still hold a mystical attraction for history buffs, artists and tourists.

Chris Ashworth, CEO of Figure 53, has yet another twist in the increasingly ironic saga of FiftyThree and naming conflicts between larger and smaller companies:

We had one big thing going for us: we already had a registered trademark, and the USPTO agreed that FiftyThree’s application, as given at that time, conflicted with our mark.

In a final effort to be neighborly but also fair, we said: “Look, we still stand by our first idea: if FiftyThree stays focused on the kinds of things you’re doing now, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean we think anything you do is fine, and we sure as heck aren’t giving permission to do anything at all.”

After that, we waited. And I did my best to forget about it, and focus on our work, and sometimes I’d eat Tums at night.

We didn’t hear back, but we did see that they changed their trademark application, which followed the spirit of my original proposal of focusing on the kind of work they’re currently doing.

Kontra:

No merchandise is sold in the store. 

What sense does that make?

An old 2011 story from The Register:

But Reg sources close to Microsoft this week confirmed rumours circulating in June that Apple’s iCloud is running on Azure and Amazon. Customers’ data is being striped between the pair. iCloud was released as a beta in August and is expected by the end of this year.

Apple and Amazon did not respond to our requests to comment, while Microsoft told us: “At this time, we don’t have any comment around whether Apple is a Windows Azure customer.”

I’ve heard whispers that iCloud still makes heavy use of Azure behind the scenes, but nothing confirmed. Would be interesting to know.

What brings this to mind: Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella was the head of the company’s Server division, which Azure is a part of. (It’s a profitable and growing division, too.)

When Doom programmer John Carmack left the company he founded to go work on the Oculus Rift, the assumption was that Carmack had traded a stale job for an opportunity to pursue his hobby — virtual reality — instead. His former studio, id Software, suggested as much in a statement at the time he left, saying that Carmack had "become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id."

Apparently, that's not quite true. The real reason that Carmack left id, he tells USA Today, was because he couldn't work on virtual reality games while he remained at the studio. Originally, Carmack had championed virtual reality while still at id, going so far as to promise that Doom 4 would support the technology. However, it now...

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Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella has revealed the minimum specs for Titanfall on PC. As expected, you're going to need a decent rig to run the multiplayer mech shoot-em-up. Minimum requirements for Titanfall on PC: OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 8,...

Following months of speculation, Microsoft will be investing $15 million in Foursquare. The Wall Street Journal reports the investment comes with a "strategic partnership" between the companies, one that will help Foursquare sustain its business and give Microsoft access to a trove of location-based data.

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Flushing's gigantic 700,000 square foot shopping mall SkyView Center has skewed towards large American brands like Target, Applebee's and Bed, Bath & Beyond and now they've welcomed Mongolian restaurant Little Lamb, an international restaurant that operates nearly 600 locations throughout the world. It's the second location to open in the States—the first opened in Boston last year—and will be the flagship location in this country. [ more › ]

Dogecoin may have started off as a bit of a lark, but it's actually starting to gain value — and become the cryptocurrency of choice for some surprising fundraising activities. Last month, the Reddit Dogecoin community banded together to try and help the Jamaican bobsled team reach the Sochi winter Olympics, and now the same community is getting involved in a charity to benefit the currency's namesake. The "Doge4Kids" campaign is attempting to raise money that'll be donated to 4 Paws For Ability, an organization focused on providing service animals to kids around the world. These service dogs are bred to help children with conditions like autism, Down's syndrome, diabetes, mobility issues, as well as a number of other conditions

The...

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Great reporting by Adrianne Jeffries and Russell Brandom for The Verge:

A week ago, 24-year-old Charlie Shrem landed at JFK, home from giving a talk about the virtual currency Bitcoin at an e-commerce convention in Amsterdam.

The trip had gone well. Shrem’s speech made the front page of the Dutch Financial Times, his Icelandair flight had internet, and he was excited to be reunited with his girlfriend, Courtney. He did not expect to be arrested when he got off the plane. But as soon as he saw the agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and IRS waiting for him at the gate, he knew.

Whatever the trouble was, it must have something to do with Bitcoin.

Hey there, world traveller. Say you want to go on a cruise but can't afford a fancy oceanfront room on the Empress deck. No big deal! Royal Caribbean's got you covered.

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The Olympic Village in Sochi, Russia, on the shores of the Black Sea. ( Wikipedia)

Sochi is not the most obvious place to host the Winter Olympics.

The Russian resort, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, is humid and subtropical. Temperatures average out at about 52 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, and 75 degrees in the summer. Palm trees line the streets, and it's the only part of Russia warm enough to grow tea leaves. In other words, it's a lovely spot if you're planning a beach holiday — Stalin had his favorite summer house there — but it wouldn't be most people's first choice for a ski trip.

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When I reflect on the last 10 years, one question I ask myself is: why were we the ones to build this? We were just students. We had way fewer resources than big companies. If they had focused on this problem, they could have done it.

The only answer I can think of is: we just cared more.

Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s tenth anniversary, pondering the same question so many other people have asked.

Startups have a great disadvantage in resources yet consistently beat established companies in building new products that people want. This isn’t going to change.

Purveyors of luxury brands are stepping up their efforts to sell to Chinese tourists in Europe, where many prefer to spend their money.

Peace talks with the Taliban could explain why the Afghan president has held up a security deal, straining his relationship with the United States.

Hewlett-Packard completed the purchase of customer and data management software company Autonomy for $11.1 billion in October 2011. Just over a year later, the computer giant devalued the purchase by $8.8 billion, and alleged that the owners of the UK-based Autonomy used "accounting improprieties" to seriously misrepresent the company's actual worth. Now, thanks to an audit of Autonomy's 2010 and 2011 financial results performed by Ernst & Young, HP says it has significant evidence that the British company reported unrealistic revenue and profit values prior to its purchase.

Autonomy's financials had been audited twice prior to its purchase by external firms KPMG and Deloitte. Both firms found no irregularities. But HP says the more...

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It's official, Satya Nadella is Microsoft's next CEO, and on his first day on the job he's sent a letter to the whole staff. In the letter, Nadella speaks of what he thinks makes Microsoft a great company, and where he thinks it can go in the future. He warns that "While we have seen great success, we are hungry to do more. Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation." Nadella also lays out a bit of his plan for the company. He mentions that he requested Bill Gates to help out more than he has in the past few years, and perhaps more importantly, he speaks generally of focusing the company on what it does best. He says "We need to prioritize innovation that is centered on our core value of empowering users and...

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Somehow this slipped my attention back in 2011, when former TBWA/Chiat/Day creative director Rob Siltanen wrote it. Great story:

Jobs was quiet during the pitch, but he seemed intrigued throughout, and now it was time for him to talk. He looked around the room filled with the “Think Different” billboards and said, “This is great, this is really great … but I can’t do this. People already think I’m an egotist, and putting the Apple logo up there with all these geniuses will get me skewered by the press.” The room was totally silent. The “Think Different” campaign was the only campaign we had in our bag of tricks, and I thought for certain we were toast. Steve then paused and looked around the room and said out loud, yet almost as if to his own self, “What am I doing? Screw it. It’s the right thing. It’s great. Let’s talk tomorrow.” In a matter of seconds, right before our very eyes, he had done a complete about-face.

John Nack:

After nearly 14 terrific years at Adobe, it’s time for me to open a different chapter of my life, and next week I’ll be joining Google’s digital photography team.

I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that Google has big plans in the works for photography.

Internet service that is inexpensive and lightning quick has allowed the city to attract high-tech businesses, talent and capital.

Disney plans to lay off hundreds of people in their interactive-media department this week, the Wall Street Journal reports today.

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About 28,000 riders took New Jersey Transit to the game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., and more than 33,000 used it to leave.

Google's mystery barge that's been floating in San Francisco Bay since last fall? Yeah, it's gotta go because Google never secured any permits for it to be there in the first place.

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The total number of Grand Theft Auto 5 copies Take-Two has shipped to date now exceeds 32.5 million. The number comes from the company's fiscal third quarter 2014 earnings report, in which it declared its money-making game the "best-selling video ...

A handful of noteworthy restaurants allow you to sample a prix fixe menu of desserts without eating dinner first.

Poor numbers on factory orders and car sales left investors wondering if their view of the economy was too rosy, and the three major indexes each fell more than 2 percent.

A new pair of bills have been introduced to the Senate and House to protect Net Neutrality after a circuit court ruling struck down the FCC's previous rules earlier this month. A permanent solution will ultimately come from the FCC, which is still considering its next action, but the new House and Senate bills, led by Senator Edward Markey (D-MA), Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), would maintain a Neutrality-based status quo in the meantime.

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A few weeks ago, I was scouting office spaces during a particularly ugly snowstorm, and found myself heading to an option located at 220 East 42nd Street.

It wasn’t until I’d parked my car and was walking through the doors that I looked up and realized I was going into the Daily News building…

Home to one of the greatest lobbies in New York City:

In 1927, the Daily News, then the nation’s largest newspaper, began building its new headquarters on 42nd Street. While the building itself was considered an exercise in minimalism, the owners allowed architect Raymond Hood a whopping $150,000 to be spent on the lobby. The result was an art deco masterpiece, centered around a 12-foot rotating globe, as seen in this picture from 1931:

Here’s it is ten years later in a 1941 postcard…

…later still in 1958, decked out for the holidays…

…and yet again in 1978, when it was featured in Richard Donner’s Superman:

And here it is today, miraculously still turning over 80 years after it was built. As far as I’m concerned, this is as good as it gets.

The Daily News globe is 12 feet in diameter and weighs approximately 4,000 pounds. It makes a full rotation every ten minutes, moving 144 times faster than the actual planet.

But it gets even better. Above the globe, an enormous rotunda made of faceted black glass extends upward, intended to depict outer space:

Here it is rising up over the globe…

…leading to a gorgeous art deco depiction of the sun overhead:

If you look very closely, you’ll see an interesting solar motif etched into the space around the light:

Originally, this area was walled off from the rest of the lobby, giving the space more of a science museum-like feel.

These walls were removed during a renovation in the early 1960s, which significantly opened up the space:

Surrounding the globe is an enormous compass rose, which not only serves as a directional guide…

…but also features distance in miles to various world destinations:

This motif extends far beyond the globe to the bank of elevators around the corner…

…where directional lines continue to tell you how far it is to, say, Queen Maud Land, Antarctica (only 8,475 miles away!):

The globe is illuminated from below by several rings of lights…

…leading down a mirrored reflection at its base:

A close-up of the mirror:

Several glass panels, added during the renovation, give proportional comparisons of the globe to the universe, using New York City geography as a reference point:

Part of the fun is in closely examining the globe itself, which was last updated in 1967 – hence the existence of, say, East and West Germany:

I love the style and design of the map, which feels totally emblematic of its particular period of cartography. The Spanish Sahara no longer exists…

…and you’d be hard-pressed to find any modern map delineating an area as Manchuria:

On the wall behind the globe are a number of meteorological gauges…

…which offer up-to-the-minute readouts of current New York City weather:

It’s best to go on a particularly blustery day, when both the wind direction meter…

…and wind velocity meter will be whipping around like crazy:

Also on display in the lobby is this gorgeous time zone clock, which features New York City time in the center….

…surrounded by 16 miniature clock faces depicting time throughout the world:

Finally, as you exit the building, be sure to look up…

…where you’ll see a gorgeous period clock overhead, one of the last art deco bits not removed during the renoation:

I scout a lot of lobbies for my job, and most of them look like this:

The lobby of the Daily News building was created in a time when architecture had a meaning beyond nuanced minimalism. It’s exciting. It’s audacious. It literally posits 220 West 42nd Street as the center of the world.

And best of all, walking through the doors is like traveling back in time to the 1930s.

Want to visit? Just go right in.

-SCOUT

Valve's Steam Music beta will arrive soon for SteamOS users. The service is a new addition to the platform just announced last week, enabling players to listen to local music files from within the Steam client while playing games. To enter the closed ...

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Filmed by Audrey Kwok at Artstage 2014 in Singapore

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Courtesy Klein Sun Gallery

Currently on view at Klein Sun Gallery in New York, artist Li Hongbo (previously) has an exhibition of new and old work titled Tools of Study. Hongbo is known for his unconventional figurative sculptures made from thousands of sheets of flexible paper that twist and elongate in almost any direction, many of which take several months to complete. Via Klein Sun:

Li Hongbo’s stunning, stretchable, paper sculptures, inspired by both traditional folk art and his time as a student learning to sculpt, challenge our perceptions. With a technique influenced by his fascination with traditional Chinese decorations known as paper gourds—made from glued layers of paper—Li Hongbo applies a honeycomb-like structure to form remarkably flexible sculptures.

An investigation into expression through one of the oldest mediums in history, Li Hongbo invites viewers to experience paper and sculpture in a revolutionary and insightful new way. Utilizing his expert knowledge of paper’s natural strengths and weaknesses, the artist has transformed the media to stretch, twist, elongate and retract as if it were a giant slinky. Through this juxtaposition of playful mobility and a traditional aesthetic, Li Hongbo breathes a unique life into his works that stuns and awes the viewer.

You can see his work up close at Klein Sun through March 2, 2014 and Arrested Motion stopped by to shoot some great installation views.