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Fun fact: Thorin Oakenshield is devastatingly handsome in both male and female form.

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You may have seen graphics comparing the objects in our solar system by size, but this visualization offers a slightly different spin on the theme, by comparing objects by their total mass. Plus, it also features 460 tiny versions of former planet Pluto bouncing off of Earth like a game of interstellar marbles.

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Ashton Kutcher is helping Lenovo design a line of special edition smartphones. The Hollywood star and noted tech enthusiast was brought on board as a product engineer back in October, and you'll see the first devices influenced by Kutcher arrive sometime this year. According to Lenovo executive David Roman, Kutcher's role in shaping the company's hardware is very real. "I know on one level, it sounds corny," Roman said in an interview with Recode. But he insisted that Lenovo's partnership with Kutcher represents far more than a publicity grab. "He not only sees himself as an engineer, but he is an engineer. If he sees a problem, he wants to solve it."

Roman said that Kutcher's primary focus has revolved around user experience on the...

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Take a look at the foot stool pictured below. Notice anything different? If you did, it was probably the unusual grain on the legs. It’s not actually a natural grain; it’s the seams from the layers of wood attached to create it. This stool was 3D printed by startup 4 AXYZ, which hopes to use its technology to offer custom, affordable furniture made out of high-quality wood.

That means there are differences beyond just that layered look. For example, a stool made with current methods might be manufactured in nine pieces and then need to be hand-assembled. This stool is made of three pieces and no humans have to get involved in assembly.

Another difference: Without any extra manufacturing cost, a customer could increase or decrease the size of the object they order, or substitute in a different kind of wood. More interestingly, they could combine different types of wood and materials (think carbon fiber or Kevlar) to create composite items that would currently be very difficult to make.

Founder and CEO Samir Shah said that while machines have long been trying to catch up to humans with their woodworking abilities, “this time, hands can’t do this.”

When I spoke with 4 AXYZ last year, the company was closely guarding its product. But at the Launch festival Monday, Shah showed me a few printed wood pieces. Here are some examples of what 4 AXYZ can do:

Shah said 4 AXYZ has also since begun collaborating with Portuguese home company A Catedral. A Catedral is developing smart windows that can change their tint and color in response to light or detect atmospheric changes like smoke, but had trouble integrating electronics into the windows in an attractive and functional way.

Enter 4 AXYZ, which developed a system to embed electronics within the window frames. Its machine is capable of printing hollow objects or embedding objects directly in wood. It can make window frames with embedded layers of cork, which cut down on heat.

Shah said 4 AXYZ could eventually print “smart wood” studded with sensors. A smart railing could detect when people go up or downstairs and switch off lights on turn on heat. Smart floors could detect when a stranger enters a home and alert its owners or the authorities.

4 AXYZ’s printing method involves adapting an existing German woodworking machine to operate in 3D. It works by combining small, uniformly cut pieces of wood. Shah actually prefers to put the manufacturing technique under the broader term of “additive manufacturing,” as there is at no point any liquid “ink” involved, as is generally the case in 3D printing.

4 AXYZ is currently seeking funding to buy its own woodworking machine. With money in hand, it would be ready to set up shop immediately.

Shah said that while they have thought up major applications like furniture, he’s sure people will think of many more ways to use the machine.

“We have the technology and we don’t know how far someone else can take this,” he said.

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
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• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• A look back at this year’s CES and what it means for tech in 2014
• Why design is key for future hardware innovation

You can befriend a dog by letting it smell you, but you can make a cat love you by offering it your earwax. Is this kind of disgusting? Yes. Does it actually work? Apparently it does.

Redditor and former animal control worker sirdrizzzle makes the tantalizing suggestion:

Ex animal control person here. To win it over in a pinch, stick your finger in your ear and give it a twist, cats love earwax.

Of course, you also have to take your finger out of your ear and put it in the vicinity of the cat (but that's a given, right?). This may seem a little insane to those unfamiliar with cat quirks (like myself) but the cat-earwax phenomenon is apparently very common. If you look at Yahoo, the PetsWelcome blog, Ask.com, Answers.com, Is It Normal?, and The Cat Site, you'll find plenty of evidence. There's even a blog named this circumstance. You can also watch the video above for a real, live demonstration!

So, if you need to make friends with a cat, stick your finger in your ear. Seriously.

To approach a cat, extend a finger downwards toward it | Reddit

David Fincher, who directed the Facebook film The Social Network, may be coming on board to do the same for Sony's upcoming biopic of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Citing sources, both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter say Fincher is in "early talks" with the company to direct the film, which was penned by Aaron Sorkin and based off Walter Isaacson's 2011 authorized biography of Jobs. In an interview two years ago, Sorkin said he expected the film to play out in three scenes shot in real-time, and set before major product unveilings throughout the years.

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The Winter Olympics are over, but the massive stadiums, hotels, and roadways that were built for the event aren't going anywhere. And if history is any indicator that could be a major problem for host city Sochi.

Russia spent a record $51 billion preparing Sochi to host the games, transforming the seaside resort city into a winter wonderland in one of the most ambitious overhauls in Olympic history. Authorities have said they hope the investment will turn the region into a major tourist destination, though few specifics have been offered and experts are raising red flags.

"They don't seem to have made any real plans as to what happens after," says David Wallechinsky, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. This...

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So if you weren’t impressed by the phones that debuted this week at Mobile World Congress, there’s hope yet you might be happy. What if you could create your own smartphone instead of buying a cookie cutter model designed to sell to millions around the world? Your new phone would truly be your phone as you could pick different pieces, each with a function of your choice, and piece them together in a single handset. Google’s Project Ara is exactly that solution.

The effort was actually started by Motorola and is similar to earlier projects started by Modu and Phonebloks. Google has agreed to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion but Project Ara is staying with Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, also known as ATAP.

The Google ATAP team opened up to Time’s Harry McCracken this week, providing a closer look at the concept and suggesting that Google hopes to hit a $50 price point for Ara. That’s aggressive considering the bill of materials in today’s basic Android phones. The components in the Moto G, for example, are estimated to cost $123 and that’s a pretty low- to mid-range handset. Granted Google is hoping to have an actual Ara product on the market in about a year, so component costs will surely drop.

Even so, how good of an experience can a $50 phone built with modular components actually be? Don’t expect a high-resolution display at that price, for starters, and you may also be looking at a phone with a slower 2G or 3G mobile broadband connection. Google says for $50 it may not even have a mobile broadband connection, opting for a less-expensive Wi-Fi radio. I can see some potential here in emerging markets that have limited or no broadband infrastructure, but outside of those areas, you’ll have to pay more.

That has me wondering: How much would I pay for a modular phone that I’d actually be happy to use?

Well, I can live with a 720p display — I already do with my Moto X — and if I had to go back to a 3G connection, I suppose I could do that as well. Dropping down to a lower camera sensor would be tough and I certainly wouldn’t want a cheaper, small battery. Every little component boost over a $50 basic price is going to add up pretty quickly here. In fact, to get the phone I want with all of the features and functions that would make me happy, I wonder: Would I end up paying more for such customization ability?

Don’t misunderstand me: I think there’s merit to Project Ara and other similar efforts. Aside from aiming for a truly low-cost device that could help connect more people to the mobile web, there are other benefits. If one particular part of your modular phone breaks — the display is a perfect example — it could be more cost-effective to swap out that single part. And instead of buying a whole new phone every 12 to 24 months just to get a few new features, it might be more feasible to swap in a faster processor, more memory or a higher resolution display.

But lets not kid ourselves: The odds of Project Ara transforming the mobile industry are slim and the costs won’t be cheap. There’s always a premium price to pay for products that you create or customize yourself compared to an off-the-shelf product that enjoys huge economies of scale.

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
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• Analyzing the wearable computing market
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Meta’s MetaPro Glasses are coming this summer, and they look like they will be a big competitor in the augmented reality space. The Palo Alto startup released a video today showcasing how the glasses work, including a demonstration of how they can be used to design a 3D object and then begin making it on a 3D printer. An actor in the video also uses his hands to smash together a virtual sun and moon with fiery results.

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
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Lawrence Lessig is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School but is probably best known to readers for his work with Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation.

As a fair use advocate he seems a most unlikely adversary to quarrel with on those grounds. Nevertheless, that was exactly the path chosen by Australian music label Liberation Music in 2013.

The story began in June 2010 when Lessig delivered the keynote address at a Creative Commons conference in South Korea. The lecture, discussing cultural and technological innovation, included several clips from amateur music videos, some of them depicting people dancing to a song called “Lisztomania” by the band Phoenix.

The “Lisztomania” craze had developed when young people all around the world latched on to a video created by YouTube “avoidant consumer” and used the Internet and technology to develop and distribute their own derivatives. In his lecture, Lessig described the phenomenon as the latest iteration in the classic “call and response” tradition of communication.

In June 2013 Lessig’s video, which necessarily used snippets of the Lisztomania track, was uploaded to YouTube. On the last day of that month Lessig received a notice from YouTube warning him that the video had been blocked after it was deemed to contain content from Viacom. Liberation Music, the label behind the Phoenix track, then issued a DMCA notice and caused YouTube to shut down the video.

Lessig was subsequently warned by YouTube that further copyright breaches could lead to his account being closed down. In response Lessig submitted a counter-notice but was informed by Liberation Music that they would “commence legal proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts … for copyright infringement” if Lessig didn’t withdraw his notice.

While Lessig did retract his counter-notice, in August 2013 and with support from the EFF he sued Liberation Music, asserting his right to use the music clip under the fair use doctrine. Liberation acted in bad faith when it sent the takedown notice, Lessig’s lawsuit said, and “knowingly and materially” misrepresented Lessig’s video as infringing copyright.

Now, according to the EFF, Lessig has settled his dispute with Liberation after the label agreed to pay him damages and “fix” its copyright policies.

Liberation will pay Lessig an undisclosed sum for the damages it caused with the wrongful takedown. The money will go towards supporting the EFF’s work on open access and the label will also “adopt new policies” that respect fair use.

“Liberation Music is pleased to amicably resolve its dispute with Professor Lessig. Liberation Music agrees that Professor Lessig’s use of the Phoenix song ‘Lisztomania’ was both fair use under US law and fair dealing under Australian law,” the label stated in the settlement agreement.

“Liberation Music will amend its copyright and YouTube policy to ensure that mistakes like this will not happen again. Liberation Music is committed to a new copyright policy that protects its valid copyright interests and respects fair use and dealing.”

When Liberation took on Lessig they clearly picked the wrong person, but the professor hopes that the label’s mistakes will help others understand that fair use has its place, but copyright abuse does not.

“Too often, copyright is used as an excuse to silence legitimate speech,” Lessig said in a statement.

“I’ve been fighting against that kind of abuse for many years, and I knew I had to stand up for fair use here as well. Hopefully this lawsuit and this settlement will send a message to copyright owners to adopt fair takedown practices — or face the consequences.”

A Lisztomania mashup

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

Benedict Cumberbatch has said that he felt like a "boobie" in his motion capture suit for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but how did he actually look? This video shows us how Weta translated Cumberbatch's performance into the CG-animated Smaug.

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Instead of using hyper-fast cuts of characters looking ominously just past the camera YouTube user LadyDogTrailers cobbled together all the official Game of Thrones trailers HBO's released, and recut it so you can see what's actually happening, to Lorde's cover of the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." It is fan-fucking-tastic.

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If you’ve had your Android device for a while, you’ve probably started to notice some lag that wasn’t there before. Apps load a bit slower, menus take a bit longer to show up. This is actually (and unfortunately) normal—here’s why.

As we walk through our daily lives, we use visual cues to navigate and understand the world around us. We observe the size and shape of objects and rooms, and we learn their position and layout almost effortlessly over time. This awareness of space and motion is fundamental to the way we interact with our environment and each other. We are physical beings that live in a 3D world. Yet, our mobile devices assume that physical world ends at the boundaries of the screen. The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion. A privacy nightmare, obviously, but the technology is impressive, still.

Man, it must be pretty tough being Street Fighter poster boy and fighting game legend, Ryu. I mean, not only does this guy never get a break, having starred in every Street Fighter and Capcom Vs. game to date, but then he has to deal with our own Pete Holmes giving him the third degree on what he shouts during his Hurricane Kick attack.

This hilarious short from TBS’ The Pete Holmes Show, featuring Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Ryu, puts us in the office on that faithful day when Holmes attempted to uncover the mystery behind the famed  +  war cry:

Welp, it looks like were due for a couple of dialogue changes in the next Street Fighter game folks. Seriously, though, how many times have you seen/heard this move and wondered what in the hell Ryu (or Ken) was shouting? Holmes pretty much nailed every possibility we’ve ever considered, and his backwards comments about Ryu’s sexuality were definitely worth a chin-stroke or two. I deem this short seven golden letters of “perfect.”

Oh, and just for clarification, Ryu’s Hurricane Kick attack is actually called the “Tatsumaki Senpukyaku,” which is Japanese for “Tornado Whirlwind Leg.” Yeah, good to know, but still not as cool as “feel the wrath of my little piggies making contact with your punum.”

Vertical vs. horizontal is a huge debate in the online community. Due to YouTube aspect ratios, most people believe all videos should be shot with your phone on its side, creating the familiar horizontal image like you’d see in a movie theater. If you shoot the footage vertically and then upload to the web, there are huge black spaces on either side, making the footage look amateurish and small.

But there’s a movement embracing the vertical format, and nowhere is it seen better than Rotterdam in the Netherlands. There, a group of filmmakers have started the Vertical Cinema project – a traveling film festival featuring movies specifically shot with a vertical orientation.

Below, read more and see additional images and trailers for some of the films screened in the festival.

The Verge has an amazing article on this. Here are a few images of the event, which is currently traveling around Europe.

As you can tell, these events don’t take place in traditional cinemas. Most of the time, the ceilings simply aren’t big enough. Instead, the films screen in churches.

To read and learn much, much more about this event, visit VerticalCinema.org. Here’s how they describe themselves:

What we usually identify as the indisputable ‘temple of film’, the Cinema, is not really a given, especially not in the realm of experimental cinematic arts. Yet this is somehow sidelined in the process of re-thinking the possibilities of cinematic experience, mostly because the architectural frame is already there, if only as a convention established a long time ago within the theatrical arts. Actually, the history of experimental cinema and the art of the moving image suggests that the space might very well be the crucial aspect of the total audiovisual experience – something one should always question and take into consideration when producing a work for audiovisual, sensory cinema.

For the Vertical Cinema project we ‘abandoned’ traditional cinema formats, opting instead for cinematic experiments that are designed for projection in a tall, narrow space. It is not an invitation to leave cinemas – which have been radically transformed over the past decade according to the diktat of the commercial film market – but a provocation to expand the image onto a new axis. This project re-thinks the actual projection space and returns it to the filmmakers. It proposes a future for filmmaking rather than a pessimistic debate over the alleged death of film.

Vertical Cinema is a series of ten newly commissioned large-scale, site-specific works by internationally renowned experimental filmmakers and audiovisual artists, which will be presented on 35 mm celluloid and projected vertically with a custom-built projector in vertical cinemascope.

And here are two trailers for films that play the festival, and give an idea of how these movies are exhibited and made.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF HENRY CHRÉTIEN! from Sonic Acts on Vimeo.

CHROME from Sonic Acts on Vimeo.

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We never expected to find happiness in a film case, but a Tumblr from artist Michael Johansson has shown us the light. Thing Fitting Perfectly Into Other Things is an exploration of the unexpected physical correlation between unrelated objects. Through a variety of static images and animated GIFs, it'll take you on a cathartic journey where cherry tomatoes and avocados are intertwined, USB drives join in perfect union, and Snapple bottles are swallowed by Pringles cans. There are too many entries to recount, but its curator has neatly organized them into four categories of descending excellence: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

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A popular beauty queen became the fifth of six Venezuelans to die in the country’s ongoing unrest after she was shot in the head during a demonstration for imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.
Read Full Article at RT.com

Facebook Fraud (by Veritasium)

"Sites like these use clickfarms in developing countries like India, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Here, employees are routinely paid just 1 dollar per thousand clicks of the like button."

There's been plenty of fierce debate around Google Glass and general etiquette for using the device, and now Google is finally stepping in with its own take. The company has posted a list of do's and don'ts for participants in its Explorer program. "Our Glass Explorer community, which consists of people from all walks of life, actively participates in shaping the future of Glass," Google says. But these suggestions don't necessarily come from Google's senior leadership; instead, the company says its list of best practices is largely based on feedback from current Explorers.

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Penny Dreadful is the new show from Showtime and Sam Mendes, a Victorian-age horror tale that is a bit like an alternate League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, basically a collection of several famous pulp characters that lie in the public domain. It features Dorian Gray, Frankenstein’s monster, players from Dracula, and Eva Green. (The actress is not in the public domain, to be clear.)

The first teaser was brief, but this full trailer has a lot more of Green, plus blood, bodies tangled, twisted and mangled, insects and spiders, and all manner of creepy weirdo images. There’s a lot to take in, and it should be safe for work, though perhaps not for those in particularly sensitive jobs.

Penny Dreadful premieres on Showtime on Sunday, May 11th at 10PM ET/PT.

PENNY DREADFUL is a frightening psychological thriller that weaves together classic horror origin stories into a new adult drama. Some of literature’s most terrifying characters, including Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and iconic figures from the novel Dracula –are lurking in the darkest corners of Victorian London. PENNY DREADFUL is a frightening psychological thriller that weaves together these classic horror origin stories into a new adult drama.

• ‘Penny Dreadful’ Trailer: The ‘Skyfall’ Team Tries to Scare You Senseless
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Staying productive can be difficult at the best of times, but what do you do to stay productive when you're also battling depression? If you've got advice, jump in and help out a fellow reader!

Limited LHer writes:

Most of my life, I've had fairly severe depression. I've worked hard to get into a good place with my mental heath, but depression is the antithesis of productivity. My energy and willpower vary day-to-day, making it hard to form a routine outside of the bare essentials. Realistically I won't have the "perfect day" any time soon, but I'd be happy if I could just wake up at the same time, keep the house clean, and work towards improving. How can I try to be productive when I'm already at a disadvantage?

Have some advice for Limited LHer? Post it below!

UPDATE: Judging by the comments, it seems that many people are thinking that Limited LHer is asking for treatment advice for his depression. He isn't. As he says, he's worked hard at getting to a better place. But even with the best treatments, people are going to have good days and bad. He is specifically seeking some peer advice about how he might be more productive on those bad days.

Do you have a problem that needs solving and want help from the Lifehacker community? Email us at tips+wyp@lifehacker.com and we might post it. The best questions are broad enough to apply to other people and have many possible answers (so that you can get lots of opinions from your fellow readers). If you have a question that's specific to you or only has a single solution, send an email to tips@lifehacker.com instead.

Photo by ollyy.

Wearables are all the rage lately. Have you been eyeing the Pebble or one of the new smart watches lately but are not sure if it’s for you? With [GodsTale's] “Retro Watch” you can now build your own, allowing you to try out a smart watch without making a huge investment.

This smart watch uses very common and easy to obtain parts: Arduino Pro Mini, HC-06 Bluetooth module, Adafruit’s 0.96’’ OLED display, and a lithium battery. It is amazing how few parts can be used to make such a functional project. While the example packaging shown is a bit rugged around the edges, it gets the job done. Having such simple hardware allows [GodsTale] to focus on the software. One of the coolest aspects of this project is the Android app [GodsTale] provides. The app provides basic functionality, such as viewing RSS feeds and Android notifications. Check out the GitHub and a more detailed write-up for more information.

It would be great to see this project evolve in the future, it has so much potential. We would love to see a custom circuit board, or a model for a 3D printed case for this awesome smart watch. See a video of the Retro Watch in action after the break. If you thought this was cool, check out a few of these recent hacks.

Filed under: wearable hacks

"My name is Matt Foley, and I am a motivational speaker. Now, let's get started by me giving you a little bit of a scenario of what my life is all about. First off, I am 35 years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van down by the river!"

One of the most iconic characters from the late comedian Chris Farley is that of Matt Foley, a hyper-abrasive "motivational speaker" known for shouting off people's ears and clumsily falling into furniture. The character made its television debut on Saturday Night Live in May 1993 (with host Christina Applegate), but Farley had been playing Foley for years before on stage.

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The revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have caused shockwaves around the world and resonated in all corners of the online community. Today the leaked material is of particular interest to torrent site users.

Published on Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept, the new papers reveal internal NSA discussions over what can and cannot be monitored in various circumstances.

In Q&A‘s between NSA staff, Threat Operations Center Oversight and Compliance (NOC), and the NSA’s Office of General Council (OGC), torrent sites are mentioned on a number of occasions, with The Pirate Bay sitting front and center.

Tracking The Pirate Bay and its users

The first question concerns the querying of non US-based IP addresses which have been obtained from home soil.

“If we run across foreign malicious actors at home (spam email, router/IDS logs, torrent sites, etc) can we bring those IPs here and use the SIGINT [intelligence-gathering by interception] system to monitor these guys?” the member of staff asked.

“It might be okay,” NOC and OGC responded, “but wait for confirmation.”

The second instance came from a staff member asking questions over the monitoring of servers overseas, alongside the possibility that U.S. citizens may be using them.

“Is it okay to query against a foreign server known to be malicious even if there is a possibility that a US person could be using it as well? Example, thepiratebay.org,” the NSA employee wrote.

No problem, came the reply, but exercise caution.

“Okay to go after foreign servers which US people use also (with no defeats). But try to minimize to ‘post’ only, for example, to filter out non-pertinent information,” NOC and OGC wrote back.

From the documents it’s clear that the NSA sees both The Pirate Bay and Wikileaks as organizations that threaten U.S. security through their distribution of U.S. secrets. What follows is a question which seems to suggests that once a torrent has been released on The Pirate Bay, it’s possible to analyze traffic sent before the release was made in order to trace the leaker.

“[If a] list of .mil passwords [were] released to thepiratebay.org…can we go back into XKS-SIGINT (using a custom created fingerprint) to search for all traffic containing that password in foreign traffic just before the release? the NSA worker asked.

Tracking people using proxies to hide their activities

While many consider proxies as useful tools to mask their online activities, it has to be presumed that organizations such as the NSA have the ability to track individuals using even multiple instances. The next set of questions skip over the mechanics of how that might be possible (with the clear implication that it is) and jump straight to what is permissible.

[When an actor is]….posting to thepiratebay.org (a foreign web-server)….through multiple proxied hops, are we allowed to back-trace that communication even if it hops through US based proxies?” an NSA worker asked.

“In other words, back-trace the post from thepiratebay.org to a Chinese base proxy which came through a US based proxy, which came through another US based proxy, which came through a Russian based proxy etc”

“Assuming you mean via SIGINT metadata,” came the NOC response, “then SPCMA-trained [Supplemental Procedures Governing Communications Metadata Analysis] analysts would be able to use SPCMA-enabled tools to chain through U.S. based proxies. It is not authorized otherwise.”

While on the one hand these discussions suggest that some kind of effort is being made to protect US citizens from NSA spying, on the other it’s fairly obvious that they are being swept up en masse whether they like it or not.

Furthermore, the odds of being caught up in that dragnet only increase should U.S. citizens dare to become involved in organizations like Wikileaks or use torrent sites including The Pirate Bay. Worryingly, the threshold for becoming categorized as an associate of a “malicious foreign actor” appears to be lower than ever.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.