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Samsung Electronics plans to release a Galaxy smartphone next year with a three-sided display that wraps around the edges so messages can be read from an angle, two people familiar with the plans said Thursday.

The phone will use an upgraded version of Samsung’s technology called Youm, currently featured in the curved Galaxy Round handset, the people said, asking not to be identified because the plans haven’t been released. The display may be used in the S or Note series of premium handsets or may be the first in a new line, the people said. Samsung plans to have each side of the display operate independently. Read more...

More about Samsung, Smartphone, Tech, Display Screens, and Samsung Galaxy

Doctor Who fans got a surprise treat from the BBC Thursday as they wait for the 50th Anniversary Special later in November. The BBC released a special episode online that sets the stage for the special, and it brings back a star from the show's past.

Paul McGann, who starred as the Doctor in the 1996 Fox TV movie, returns to the role in a 7-minute mini episode called "The Night of the Doctor", written by Who's current showrunner, Steven Moffat (the upcoming feature-length special is entitled "The Day of the Doctor"). Although McGann played the Doctor onscreen only once before, his Eighth Doctor was accepted into the show's continuity, and he has lent his voice talents to several Doctor Who audio adventures produced by Big Finish. Read more...

More about Bbc, Doctor Who, Entertainment, and Tv

Part of their Movies in Real Life, Improv Everywhere gets 20 women to re-enact Meg Ryan's famous fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally, in Katz's Deli in NYC.


Improv Everywhere

Thanks Andrew R

 

(YouTube link)

You've heard the phrase "silent but deadly" all your life, and it wasn't always about ninjas. The difference between loud farts and silent farts would appear to have nothing to do with the smell, but there's an interesting way in which one could very well influence the other. Here comes the science! Are there any questions AsapSCIENCE won't tackle? I fear that asking that question just sets them up for a challenge. -via Laughing Squid 

Counter to everything you've ever been told, it appears that wrapping babies' heads in plastic bags may very well be the key to a full and happy life—at least for those born of obstructed labor, anyway. And what's more, this novel idea came about from one of the most unlikely sources: a car mechanic dreaming about wine.

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Today's Deal: Save 66% on Antichamber!*


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*Offer ends Saturday at 10AM Pacific Time

The eight-year-long legal battle over Google Books has finally come to a close. A judge ruled on Thursday that the search giant's scanning of millions of books falls under fair use and doesn't infringe the copyrights of the books' authors.

The ruling (.PDF), issued by U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin in New York, ends the legal scuffle among the publishing trade group The Authors Guild, several individual authors and Google, as first reported by GigaOM. Google began scanning books in 2004 with the goal of publishing snippets in search results

The ruling is a clear win for Google, which faced more than $3 billion in damages, not to mention the $40 million spent annually on the project. Judge Chin found that Google Books, which he defined as an "invaluable research tool," in fact helps authors Read more...

More about Lawsuit, Google Books, Fair Use, Copyright Law, and Class Action Lawsuit

A cyber-security expert says that his "air-gapped" computers have exchanged malware through ultrasound. If he's right, we'd better watch out

Simple, authoritative and funky, the upright bass is arguably the coolest instrument in music

Complex, extremely modern and highly technical, high shutter speed video recorders are some of the coolest media gadgets

Combine the two, and the result is pure video and music magic, as proven in the YouTube clip above.

The short video, posted by YouTuber Funnalong, shows a jazzy upright bass player performing outside. But he's being recorded at high shutter speed; while the clip is captured at regular speed, each undulation of his instrument's thick strings is caught in incredible detail, almost as if shown in slow motion. Check it out for yourself — you won't be disappointed Read more...

More about Music, Videos, and Watercooler

We weren't sure the NBA would be able to top its enormously successful 2012 holiday spot, featuring some of its biggest players performing "Carol of the Bells" using only bouncing basketballs. But this year, the league has taken its holiday spirit to the next level with its latest ad: a performance of "Jingle Bells," featuring a slew of NBA stars and five hoops affixed with sleigh bells.

The video stars James Harden (Houston Rockets), Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder), Steve Nash (L.A. Lakers), Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls) and Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors) shooting three-pointers at the hoops in a carefully planned pattern. The result is a remarkable rendition of the Christmas classic, concluding with a slam dunk by Miami Heat's LeBron James. The spot is a promotion for the Christmas Day uniforms that 10 teams will wear on Dec. 25 Read more...

More about Youtube, Advertising, Viral Videos, Nba, and Basketball

$50 – Available here 

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Wired magazine handed over its December issue to rookie guest editor Bill Gates, who helped to curate an issue focused on innovation to cure disease, save lives and end poverty

The issue, which Gates began working on in the spring, hit newsstands on Wednesday

The Gates-edited magazine includes stories on eradicating polio, mapping projects and "school-in-a-box" education solutions for Africa. In addition to the print magazine, Gates is featured in an online video package that also includes former President Bill Clinton.

"Bill read over almost everything in the issue multiple times and gave extensive notes on it," Wired's Editor in Chief Scott Dadich told Mashable." Read more...

More about Wired, Bill Gates, Social Good, Magazines, and Media

Thanks Gary S

 

It looks like most folks in the US have a long wait ahead of them before they can take Firefox OS for a spin. Despite ZTE's plan to design a bigger and better phone for release in the country in 2014, Mozilla exec Mitchell Baker tells CNET that there are currently no plans to launch in the US just ...

Whilst the site doesn't have the largest catalog of games, I always appreciate the effort GOG.com puts into making its sales interesting. Right now, there's an Insomnia sale happening which is taking a novel approach to flash deals. Each deal has a limited number of "copies" and once they're sold out, that's the deal over.

There's a counter on the main page of the site showing you how many copies are left and it's compelling viewing. I've just seen 200 copies of Fez and Baldur's Gate sell for a couple of dollars in less than a minute. It's a novel idea for a sale and I'm keeping a tab open all night to see if Privateer 2: The Darkening goes on sale.

A perfect GPA isn't cool. You know what's cool? Advancing an Open Source project. To help computer science students prepare for jobs (and boost its own recruiting efforts) Facebook today publicly launches Open Academy. The partnership with premier CS universities sets up a special class where students get college credit for contributing to Open Source projects. After a successful pilot at Stanford last year, Open Academy is expanding to 22 universities.

Open Academy students get paired with mentors and an open source project to which they'll add code. At the start of the semester, all the mentors and students come to Facebook's Menlo Park HQ for an intensive kick-off weekend. Then they work in virtual teams from back at their schools. Mentors teach students about open source, review students' code and may give lectures too.

Through the pilot and ‘private beta' with other universities including Waterloo and MIT, students worked on MongoDB, Mozilla Open Badge, Ruby On Rails and more Open Source projects. The expansion brings to program to schools including UPenn, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon.

In theory, the program will turn kids from theoretical students working on canned classroom coding challenges into real-world engineers building systems people actually use.

Facebook explains “Software development as a profession has many features that are distinct from computer science as an academic subject. Projects are often larger than the people who participate in them; project management and interpersonal relationships can have as much impact on software design as technical issues; and systems are ultimately evaluated by user satisfaction rather than technical merit.”

To be clear, Open Academy isn't entirely altruistic. Surely, the top-tier computer science students admitted to the program will be given a nudge towards working at Facebook after college. Facebook is in a constant battle for top engineering talent, and programs from computer science grants to college hackathons to the Open Academy seek to seduce young code ninjas as well as aid them.

Google Would Have Looked Like in the 80’s

If you've always wanted to explore a coral reef at a tropical location, but can barely stand even getting your head wet in the shower, then scuba diving and snorkelling isn't for you. What could be the solution, though, is the Zayak Sea Sled, a curvaceous kick board with a window that lets the rider peer into the murky depths below.

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