The Emirates 777, unable to land at a gale-lashed Birmingham airport in England, was successfully diverted to London Gatwick.

More than half of the world's fresh water! The data is from the British Antarctic Survey and NASA, including millions of measurements taken over 20 years using lasers and satellites. I'd like to see this with the sea level as it would be if all the ice melted. [Video Link via Flowing Data]

The Art of Rube Goldberg

Android: We've featured apps that bring Jerry Seinfeld's simple but effective productivity trick to the iPhone. If you've been feeling left out on Android, now's your chance to join the party.

Habit Streak Plan is as simple as the trick itself. Add a few habits to the app and it will ask you every day whether or not you did it, and show you how long your streak is. You can edit the habits to add your past streaks if you want to have some encouragement right off the bat. Otherwise, the app will start reminding you the day after you get started.

Habit Streak Plan | Google Play Store

Supermarket chain Aldi is the latest UK retail name to start selling super-cheap Android tablets in the run up to the holidays. This Sunday, Dec. 8, the store will offer the Medion LifeTab E7316 tablet for £79.99. It's an Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean slate with a quad-core 1.6GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal flash, expandable via microSD card. You also get front and rear cameras — 2MP and 0.3MP units — as well as 802.11n Wifi connectivity.

The specs are nothing spectacular compared to the likes of the Nexus 7. But this thing sells for less than half the price of Google's tablet, and on the face of it seems decent value for money. There is however no indication as to whether the tablet is Google Play certified — a process which has presented issues for some cut-price tablets in the recent past.

In any case, before parting with your cash it's worth remembering that not every cheap Android tablet is worth buying.

Source: Aldi; via: Eurodroid

For the past few years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's online production company HitRecord has facilitated the collaborative creation of thousands of multimedia projects. Now, the star is taking that content to TV through what he describes as a "half-hour variety show" featuring short films, music, animation, and live performances. Gordon-Levitt says the show has been made by "hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, and it's really different."

Although described as a production company, HitRecord is very different from the average studio. Each piece the company creates is made collaboratively by users under the direction of Gordon-Levvitt, with contributors sharing a cut of the profits. Music, film, and prose has been created...

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Spotify plans to make mobile access to its music service free, The Wall Street Journal reports. Now a source confirms with TechCrunch that the free mobile tier will launch December 11th at a press event in New York. We’ve also learned users won’t get unlimited on-demand access, but will be less restricted if they listen to playlists or collections they’ve previously created.

Spotify sent out invites for the December 11th event on December 3rd, but didn’t say what would be launched. It simply noted “We’re having a media event. Like to come? There will be donuts.” But now we’ve confirmed that unveiling limited free mobile access is a big part of the show.

Until now, Spotify has only allowed premium subscribers paying $10 a month to stream music from mobile devices. Free, ad-supported access was available on desktop and laptop computers, and for $5 a month users could remove the ads from those devices but not listen on mobile.

But those rules were put in place years ago when smartphone penetration was lower, high-speed wireless networks were less common, and there were fewer competitors. Now the world is going mobile, and shutting users out of listening on the go unless they pay over $100 a year seems restrictive. It could also endanger Spotify’s ability to grow its paying subscriber base beyond the six million customers it has today (out of 20 million total users).

Presumably, the idea before was that you’d get a taste of Spotify for free on the web, and that would tempt you to buy mobile access. However, now many people hardly use traditional computers, especially in developing markets where people never owned them and skipped straight to mobile. With no way to try out Spotify on mobile, the company had no way to upsell them to paid plans.

Meanwhile, Spotify’s advertising infrastructure has matured over the year. It may be able to more efficiently sell its audio ads, making them a more viable way of earning money or at least breaking even from ad-supported listeners. That means it may be more cost-effective to support free mobile users now than before.

Finally, the last year has seen Google launch a streaming music service while Apple launched iTunes Radio. It still faces competition from startups like Rdio, Slacker, and Deezer. And new music streaming services from Beats and YouTube are slated for next year, making music a crowded market. Spotify can’t risk going into the new year without a free mobile option.

As for how that option will work, The Wall Street Journal’s Hannah Karp reports Spotify has spent a year quibbling with major record labels Sony, Universal, and Warner about how much control free users would get over what they listen to on mobile. The WSJ says Spotify has successfully struck a deal with the labels but users will only be able to play a limited number of songs on demand. After that, it says they’ll be restricted to listening to Spotify’s Pandora-like radio service that’s based on their tastes and input.

A source gave TechCrunch more details on the restrictions, saying that users may have more freedom to listen to their previously compiled playlists or starred collection of songs. The reasoning may be that Spotify sees these subsequent plays of songs users have already shown interest in as less valuable than on-demand access to what they’ve never listened to before. Reserving infinite search-and-listen capabilities for premium customers ensures people don’t get the milk if they don’t buy the cow.

When the free tier launches, these limits may not be especially easy to understand, our source says. That could confuse users, leading to poor user experiences where people think they should be able to listen to something but they can’t. They’ll blame Spotify, but sadly, they should really be blaming the labels, as they’re the ones too stingy to realize a simple user experience creates the delight that keeps users coming back, and maybe even opening their wallets.

We’ll be at the December 11th event covering exactly how things shake out.

 

A fan has restored and released a new cut of the The Dark Crystal that closely resembles its makers' original vision. If you haven't seen it, the movie is a delightfully dark '80s fantasy created by master puppeteers Jim Henson and Frank Oz. The original cut was apparently far darker than the movie that was released in theaters, but after testing poorly, it was recut to be more family friendly. In an interview with Mental Floss, Christopher Orgeron explains how he pieced together early cuts and final footage to recreate the closest possible thing to a "directors' cut" of the movie.

Orgeron started with a low-quality VHS workprint, piecing in footage from the final movie wherever possible. He also processed all of the audio from...

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Director Bryan Singer has a penchant for using Twitter to reveal sneak peeks and upcoming news, and he just made a major announcement. According to the filmmaker, a new X-Men movie called X-Men: Apocalypse will be coming in 2016. The director is currently working on the highly anticipated X-Men: Days of Future Past, which will pair mutants from both the original X-Men series and the prequel X-Men: First Class in the same film.

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Photo: Nelson Mandela Foundation

The BBC reports that Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, died today at 95. Mandela, who spent 27 years in jail before leading the country out of apartheid, served from 1994-1999 after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. The Nelson Mandela Foundation released a statement, which follows.

It is with the deepest regret that we have learned of the passing of our founder, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela – Madiba. The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa will shortly make further official announcements.

We want to express our sadness at this time. No words can adequately describe this enormous loss to our nation and to the world.

We give thanks for his life, his leadership, his devotion to humanity and humanitarian causes. We salute our friend, colleague and comrade and thank him for his sacrifices for our freedom. The three charitable organisations that he created dedicate ourselves to continue promoting his extraordinary legacy.

Denizens of San Francisco may soon be able to add fresh produce to their Amazon orders as part of an expansion to the company's AmazonFresh program. That $299 a year service delivers grocery items overnight to customers, though is currently limited to Seattle and Los Angeles. San Francisco is the next city on that list, says All Things D, which adds that some of the company's signature green trucks have already been spotted around the city. The company refused to comment on the report, saying it had "nothing to share."

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A bipartisan bill that cracks down on potentially frivolous suits from "patent trolls" has passed the House of Representatives. Rep. Bob Goodlatte's (R-VA) Innovation Act passed committee in November and reached the House floor today, where it was approved in a vote of 325 to 91. It has gained wide support both in and outside Congress: the White House officially backed Goodlatte's legislation earlier this week and in fact proposed several of its elements in June, and a host of tech companies and venture capitalists, including Google, have thrown their weight behind it. The Patent Transparency and Improvements Act, a companion bill from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), was introduced in November. That bill is still in committee, but with...

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Sony has reset a number of PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network passwords in recent days, attributing the precaution to "irregular activity" detected by its security team. Two staff members at The Verge today received the below email, in which Sony says it "routinely monitors for any irregular activity, and if such activity is detected, we may sometimes reset passwords of affected accounts to protect consumers and their account information." The message also encourages customers to use strong passwords that are unique to Sony's services. "As always, we also encourage you to keep a close eye on your account for any unusual activity including emails about transactions you did not perform," the company says.

Such security...

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Competition for listeners among digital music companies is tough – and getting tougher. But while each builds a business that it hopes will stand out enough from the rest of the pack, a new startup called Bop.fm, incubated at Y Combinator this past summer, is blurring those distinctions a bit, with a platform that meshes all the services together on a universal platform — a “canonical home for music on the internet,” as Bop.fm’s co-founder and CEO Shehzad Daredia puts it.

Bop works like this: You can search for and listen to any song on Bop.fm. The service detects what music subscriptions you may have and provides tracks from those services first — currently it catalogues streaming services Spotify and Rdio, as well as free services like YouTube and SoundCloud, and paid-for download services like iTunes, Amazon and Google Play; it plans to add more.

In cases where you do not subscribe to Spotify or Rdio, or the track is not available on either, a user is given a YouTube link, or a SoundCloud link. You also get options to buy and download tracks. In each case, what Bop.fm has done is use the digital “fingerprint” of each track effectively to map each of these services on top of each other so that you get just one option for listening to it, and one for purchasing.

Then, you can create a link to that song to share with others. That link comes back to Bop.fm, and as with your original listening experience, Bop.fm detects which services you use before serving a result.

This is a service that has been built with users in mind: it can be annoying when something is shared by someone you can’t access. Living in London but connected to a lot of people in the U.S., I know this frustration firsthand. (I’ve lost count of the number of times that Twitter links to interesting video clips have taken me to static screens with a “sorry, not accessible in your region” message.) As Daredia tells me, “You don’t have to use the same JPEG viewer when you look at a picture, so why should I have to use the same music service?” (Note to Bop.fm: please do this for video next.)

There is also a B2B2C relevance here. Publishers or site operators who want to make sure that links that they are publishing, or allowing others to publish, work for everyone who sees them, not just those in a particular region.

As Geoff Ralston of Y Combinator describes it, “The ongoing proliferation of music services such as these make a service like Bop a near inevitability.” Indeed, without any obvious promotion, Bop.fm, in private beta, is already streaming 100,000 songs per day from consumer traffic and sites like RapGenius.com, one of Bop’s first partners, where it powers music playback.

(And now, for a little music break to demonstrate the service, a hat-tip to music services working together harmoniously:)

The Turtles – Happy Together

When I first heard about Bop.fm, I was very intrigued. It reminds me a bit of another startup called Soundrop, which is also integrating track playback across different music services. The difference is that it does so in communal “listening rooms” while Bop.fm offers the experience on a single-track basis, with options to purchase tracks alongside listening.

Like Soundrop, Bop.fm has piqued the interest of music portals, as well as labels. For the former, it’s a way of potentially bringing in more users to their platforms longer-term (free links can lead to paid subscriptions or paid downloads). For the latter, it will be yet another way of making sure that the marketing effort expended on an artist gets the biggest bang. In a digital music world that seems to have had fragmentation built into it, Bop.fm is providing a consumer- and business-friendly way out of that.

Between them, the two co-founders, Daredia and Stefan Gomez, know a thing or two about how to leverage the concept of aggregation to build successful, consumer-focused businesses. Daredia tells me that collectively they have worked at 11 sites built on search, including the travel juggernaut Kayak (where Daredia led user acquisition), Billshrink (eventually sold to MasterCard) and Foodily.

Longer term, you can see a lot of potential for Bop.fm — the addition of playlists, more siloed music services, advertising, other merchandising and special pages dedicated to particular artists, as well as Bop being used to power music on platforms that, like Bop.fm itself, want to see less friction and more grooving.

eBay has long been known as the defacto marketplace for buying and selling physical goods. But today the marketplace giant is making an interesting move into digital goods, launching a dedicated marketplace for digital comics. Via a limited beta test in the U.S., the marketplace allows you to purchase and read digital comics, in the same way you would via the App Store or through Amazon.

Previously, eBay allowed some digital items to be sold by merchants but it’s limited. Now eBay is actually taking a part in the curation and selling of content.

We’re told eBay is partnering with comiXology, an online marketplace for digital comics, to power the purchasing and reading experience. Via the new eBay Digital Comics marketplace you can browse and view collections by character. When you click on a comic book of interest, you are taken to the comic book’s page on the comiXology site. Purchasers will need to create a comiXology account or log in with an existing account to complete the purchase.

You need to buy on the desktop experience but you can access and read comics on a phone or tablet, we’re told. By next year, we hear that eBay will be launching a similar test in Europe. Obviously extending eBay’s presence in digital goods could even expand to other verticals like movies, books and more verticals are likely, we hear.

The company seems to be testing a number of out-of-the-box ideas over the past few months. This latest initiative is part of the eBay Innovations Group, which is also responsible for the company’s new Angie’s List-competitor, and its connected glass in physical storefronts.

Welcome back to Android Gaming Weekly, our weekly recap on new game releases. We still plan to cover upcoming releases and games we’re playing, but this column is dedicated to new games you can install and start playing right now. Check out our top picks and let us know if you have any suggestions for next week in the comments below.

Double Dragon Trilogy

Description: Enter Double Dragon Trilogy, a compilation specially optimized for mobiles that includes all three installments of the beloved arcade series: Double Dragon, Double Dragon 2: The Revenge and Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone.

 

Heroes of Dragon Age

Description: COLLECT THE HEROES. BECOME A LEGEND! Build a party of famous warriors and epic monsters from Dragon Age lore. Battle other players in strategic, CCG-inspired 3D combat. Fight bosses on engaging quests from the award-winning, dark fantasy RPG games.

 

Little Inferno

Description: Burn flaming logs, screaming robots, credit cards, batteries, exploding fish, unstable nuclear devices and tiny galaxies. An adventure that takes place almost entirely in front of a fireplace – about looking up up up out of the chimney and the cold world just on the other side of the wall.

 

RAVENMARK: Mercenaries

Description: Build your mercenary army and raise your banner to epic heights in a broken, ravaged world. Wage head-to-head battles against other players in the finest turn-based strategy wargame, RAVENMARK: Mercenaries!

 

Knightmare Tower

Description: Break through ceilings, rescue princesses and escape boiling lava as you slash your way to the top of the Knightmare Tower!

 

Ski Challenge 14

Description: Enjoy a little suspense, action and thrills? Then Ski Challenge 14 is right for you! The rapid 3D ski simulations game offers exciting races and spectacular downhill runs this winter. FOR FREE! Experience exciting events and fly down the slope at 130 km/h – your new personal best is within reach!

 

Assassin’s Creed Pirates

Description: Become one of the most feared pirates of the Caribbean in this exclusive Assassin’s Creed adventure on smartphones and tablets! Play as Alonzo Batilla, a young and ambitious captain, a pirate eager to take on the fiercest of enemies. Break all the rules, challenge empires and make your own fortune!

 

Dead Ahead

Description: The Dead are coming for you; it’s time to find a ride and drive for your life. With the relentless zombie hordes hot on your heels and hungry for flesh, can you fend them off whilst keeping your eyes on the road?

 

Warlords RTS

Description: Warlords RTS is a real-time strategy game set in the fantasy world Aldfarne. Upgrade your army, boost your Warlord with magic items and lead your troops to victory!

 

Scotchy Scotch Toss

Description: Hello friends, legendary anchorman Ron Burgundy here to describe the greatest app in the history of western civilization, “Scotchy Scotch Toss.” This mobile game, which I personally developed, combines my two favorite things: Scotch and playful exchanges with total strangers. Simply toss ice cubes into my glass of Scotch and I’ll offer neighborly encouragement.

 

COMING SOON

Cached music can now be handled on external storage

There's a new update for Google Play Music rolling out from today, and it brings a pretty big feature addition for anyone using Google's music app on a device with an SD card. The new Google Play Music version 5.3 introduces the ability to store cached or pinned music on external storage — i.e. a microSD card — as an alternative to internal storage. The app has always been able to play music from external storage, but until now cached music from online libraries was limited to internal storage.

It's a pretty big deal for the many users of Android phones with an SD card slot but limited built-in storage, for instance most Samsung phones and lower-end devices from other manufacturers. Cached music can quickly chew through precious internal storage, and so offloading it to an SD card wherever possible makes a lot of sense. It's a curious decision, however, given Google's stance on SD cards, and the lack of external storage on current Nexus devices.

As usual, the new version of Google Play Music is being pushed out to devices gradually as part of a staged rollout, so watch out for it in the days ahead. The new option to change your cache location can be found under Music settings > Download > Storage location.

Caltech physicist Ken Libbrecht wrote the book on snowflakes. In fact, he is the author of several, including the Field Guide to Snwoflakes and The Secret Life of a Snowflake. We've posted before about Libbrecht's work and now he's the subject of a Smithsonian profile, The Art and Science of Growing Snowflakes in a Lab. Below, a fantastic animated gif of a snowflake's growth, accelerated.

DJ Chris Holmes, who works with Paul McCartney and often performs deejay sets as an opening act for "Macca's" live shows, shares a real gem with us: a Soundcloud mix to beat them all. Chris says:

I finally had some time to put together a mix for all of you who've been asking over the years of my beatles/mccartney stuff for tour. It's about 2hrs long. I hope you enjoy. I've had the best time in the history of the world making the tracks and putting it together.

It starts off at 88bpm and speeds up until it loops around at 176 (88bpm) completing the cycle.

It's the first time I've shared this stuff in bulk, I hope you all enjoy it.

Here is four years of my Beatles/macca mixes.

I am the opening act for Paul McCartney (paulmccartney.com). This a collection of some of my favorite remixes I've made over the 4 years touring with paul. I want to thank Brian Liesegang and Cory Nitta for help tweaking and ironing out a bunch of these mixes and most importantly Paul McCartney and his amazing crew for giving me the opportunity to be able to play with him on tour. It is the best job, with the nicest boss in the world.

here is a tracklisting though most of the songs are my own personal and ashtar command mixes (brian liesegang, cory nitta)

1. venus and mars -langley school project
2. i've got a feeling -beatles
3. come together-ashtar parallel remix
4. why don't we do it in the road -beatles
5. get back- deirdre wilson tabac
6. uncle albert/admiral hamlsey- wings
7. no more lonely nights- paul mccartney
8. b side to seaside- paul and linda mccartney
9. seaside woman- paul and linda mccartney
10. carry that weight- dobby dobson
11. monkeyberry moon delight- screaming jay hawkins
12. memphis- the beatles
13. we can work it out- stevie wonder
14. hey bulldog (erol alkan edit)= beatles
15. say say say- paul mccartney and michael jackson
16. with a little luck- wings
17. goodnight tonight- wings
18. inner light/rain- beatles
19. here comes the sun- charles wright
20. i want to hold your hand- al green
21. getting better all the time- the beatles
22. silly little love songs/temporary secretary- paul mccartney
23. you can't do that- the supremes
24. la jour, la nuit- stone
25. help- dolly parton
26. tomorrow never knows- junior parker
27. daytripper- vontastics/nancy sinatra
28. paperback writer- rb greaves/beatles
29. i saw here standing there- little richard
30. Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand (I Want To Hold Your Hand)- beatles
31. taxman- don randi/beatles
32. ticket to ride- wee willie walker
33. please please me- mary wells
34. hard days night- otis redding
35. ballad of john and yoko- the electric cow goes moog
36. blackbird- r sweat and the paragons
37. back in the ussr- chubby checker
38. check my machine- paul mccartney
39. don't let me down- charlotte dada
40. hey jude- overton berry trio/beatles

After five months without any progress in the criminal case against Megaupload, Kim Dotcom’s legal team has discovered that the U.S. Government has been granted permission to share critical case evidence with copyright industry groups.

An ex-parte order was issued last month and filed under seal, which means that its exact contents remain hidden. The information available reveals that the Government intends to share MD5 hash values of Megaupload users’ files, among other things.

Megaupload’s legal team is not happy with the ‘secret’ order and TorrentFreak has obtained a letter in which they voice their concerns to the U.S. federal court.

“It has been brought to our attention by Mr. Dotcom’s New Zealand counsel that this Court issued a sealed ex parte order on November 22, 2013, which requires that the Government publicly disseminate, through trade organizations and a press release, certain information related to the above-captioned matter,” the letter begins.

The lawyers claim that with the covert filing the U.S. Government has deprived the defendants of their due process rights. The order was issued without proper justification, they claim, as there is no valid reason to conceal it from Megaupload and the other defendants.

“The defendants have been indicted, their assets have been frozen, their business has been destroyed, and their liberty has been restrained. Given these constraints, it is unclear what evils the Government fears defendants will inflict if provided notice of the Government’s submission, beyond having Defendants’ counsel come into court to make opposing arguments,” the lawyers write to the court.

According to the available information the U.S. Government is aiming to help copyright holders who may want to file civil lawsuits against Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. The Government fears that if this doesn’t happen quickly, the alleged copyright violations may expire due to the statute of limitations.

Megaupload’s legal team disagrees with this line of reasoning and points out to the court that over the past months the Government did not appear to be in a hurry at all.

“Any claimed urgency, however, is entirely manufactured, given that the Government first indicted the defendants on January 5, 2012 and has made no previous effort to publicize the information. Having sat on its hands for nearly two years, the Government cannot credibly claim that circumstances are sufficiently exigent to outweigh defendant’s due process rights,” they write.

“Now, after two years, the Government is suddenly reversing course and claiming it is imperative to get its biased, selective account of the evidence out to the public. The claim of emergency rings hollow.”

The legal team further points out that the request goes against the law. The Government cites the Crime Victims Rights Act (CVRA) as an authority, however, the Fourth Circuit has indicated that the CVRA is “silent and unconcerned” with the rights of supposed victims to file civil claims.

Furthermore, the disclosure of evidence is problematic because it allows the Government to carefully select information that can tip the balance in their favor when it becomes public.

“The Government’s request also substantially prejudices the defendants in the case. Permitting the Government to widely disseminate a one-sided, cherry-picked set of facts threatens to improperly infect the jury pool before defendants are afforded any opportunity to present their side of the story.”

Among the information the Government intends to release are MD5 hash values of the files Megaupload users have stored. The lawyers point out that this information “implicates important privacy rights” of the company’s former customers.

All in all Megaupload sees the latest filing as yet another attempt to put the defendants at a disadvantage.

“From the outset of this prosecution, the Government has sought to deny defendants any semblance of due process. The Government has frozen every penny of defendants’ assets, made frivolous attempts to disqualify defendants’ counsel of choice, and sought at every turn to block defendants from filing briefs in their own defense.”

“The instant effort to circumvent the adversarial process through an ex parte filing is merely the latest example of this troubling pattern.”

Considering the above, the lawyers ask the court to withdraw the November 22 order. In addition, Megaupload’s legal team wants to be able to access and oppose the filings that formed the basis of the order.

It is now up to Judge Liam O’Grady to evaluate whether Megaupload’s protest is warranted and how to proceed.

While the covert action by the Government is already quite significant in its own right, it also suggests that copyright holders are considering legal action against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom. Since the MPAA has been very involved in the case from the start, the Hollywood studios are the prime candidate for such a civil proceeding.

Previously the MPAA asked the court to retain the files stored on Megaupload for possible legal actions to be taken against the companies and those associated with it.

“Independent of the ongoing criminal proceeding, the Studios have civil claims against the operators of Megaupload, and potentially also against those who have knowingly or materially contributed to the infringement occurring through Megaupload,” MPAA wrote last year.

Thus far there has been no sign that the MPAA or any individual movie studios have concrete plans to file a civil suit, but this may change in the near future.

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

Update: Google has announced via Google+ that the update is rolling out today, and that in addition to speeding up focusing, it will add faster white balancing, less shutter lag, and the ability to pinch-zoom the viewfinder in HDR+ mode. The company also shared a handful of photos showing the difference between normal mode and HDR+ following the update.

 

 

Android 4.4.1 is scheduled to roll out to the Nexus 5 over the next couple of days, and when it arrives, expect an improved picture-taking experience.

• HTC One X Handily Beats The Galaxy Nexus And Xperia S In Camera Speed Test Video, Shows Off Burst Mode Just To Brag
• CyanogenMod To Add Time-Delayed and Voice-Activated Photo Capture Modes
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 To Receive OTA Update… That Isn’t Eclair Or Froyo
• Android Open Kang Project 4.2 Expands To Samsung Galaxy S III And Nexus 10 In Second Release

[Update: It's Rolling Out Today] Android 4.4.1 Will Improve The Nexus 5's Camera, Update Expected To Roll Out Over The Next Couple Of Days was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Peter Parker is returning to the big screen in May, and we're finally getting a real taste of what that'll look like. The first trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has just been released, and it reveals a movie that's packed with villains, super-sized action, and plenty of computer-generated effects. All three of the film's villains — Electro, Rhino, and the Green Goblin — make an appearance, and while some are just brief looks, the trailer closes with a (relatively) long shot of Spider-Man fleeing from bolts of electricity thrown by Jamie Foxx's eerie Electro. You can check out the trailer below.

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NASA announced this week that its Cassini spacecraft has managed to capture a first-of-its-kind film of the monstrous jet stream roiling at Saturn's north pole. The short GIF, using color filters, shows currents of air moving at 200 miles-per-hour in what's known as "the hexagon," a system unique to Saturn measuring about 20,000 miles across the planet's surface. The massive, Australia-sized hurricane at its center features prominently in the recording. According to NASA, there's no weather system in the solar system like it — and it has probably been active for decades, if not longer.

"The hexagon is just a current of air, and weather features out there that share similarities to this are notoriously turbulent and unstable," said...

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Posted by Nick Piepmeier, Software Engineer

Having access to your data and being able to take it with you is important, especially if that data contains precious memories like old love letters, your first job offer, or that 100-message thread discussing the merits of various cat videos. Starting today we're rolling out the ability to export a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data, making it easy to back up your data or move to another service.

You can download all of your mail and calendars or choose a subset of labels and calendars. You can also download a single archive file for multiple products with a copy of your Gmail, Calendar, Google+, YouTube, Drive, and other Google data.
The ability to download your Gmail messages will be rolled out over the next month while Calendar data is available to download for everyone today.

It's not something you might think about often, but your pee can tell you a lot about your body. This graphic from Cleveland Clinic shows what different urine hues might say about your health.

In particular, pee color—which ranges from completely clear to golden and even weirder colors like blue or green—can tell you if you're hydrated enough. It's useful to know that if you don't see any color you might be drinking too much water, while the darker yellow and amber colors are signs to go fill your water glass. Some health issues might also be suggested by more disturbing urine colors, but this is just one sign and, as usual, it's best to consult a doctor if you're concerned. Here's the color guide:

What the Color of Your Urine Says About You [Infographic] | Cleveland Clinic via Popular Science

Google's book store now available in 44 countries around the world

Google Play Books is expanding to five new countries starting today. If you're in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru or Venezuela, you'll now have access to the Google Play Books ecosystem, bringing the total number of countries up to a staggering 44.

If you're in one of the above countries and want to check out the reading collection that Google Play has to offer, head to the Play Store and pick up a couple of good reads.

Source: Google Play Support

And Universal releases a Paul Walker tribute

Following the shocking death of Paul Walker last weekend it was widely assumed that a lengthy hiatus in the production of Fast & Furious 7 would be necessary, while all involved emotionally processed the tragedy and figured out how to proceed. Universal have now formalised that decision in an official statement, confirming that, for the time being, Fast & Furious 7 has been shut down.

"Right now, all of us at Universal are dedicated to providing support to Paul’s immediate family and our extended Fast & Furious family of cast, crew and filmmakers," reads the missive. "At this time we feel it is our responsibility to shut down production on Fast & Furious 7 for a period of time so we can assess all options available to move forward with the franchise. We are committed to keeping Fast & Furious fans informed, and we will provide further information to them when we have it. Until then, we know they join us in mourning the passing of our dear friend Paul Walker."

The shoot, it seems certain, will not be back underway until the new year, and it would seem impossible for the film now to make its previously-announced release date of July 2014. Roughly half of F&F7's location shooting had been completed in Atlanta, but clearly much was left to do, including a sizeable portion in the Middle East. Walker's scenes were incomplete, necessitating either drastic re-writing or possible re-casting. Some have even suggested that the film will be started over from scratch, although all such details remain rumour and speculation.

Beyond the seventh installment, it seems that Universal currently has no intention of abandoning the $2.4bn franchise, although those decisions too seem premature.

In the meantime, Universal has announced that a percentage of the profits from home-media sales of Fast & Furious 6 will be donated to Walker's charity Reach Out Worldwide. Walker founded the organisation in 2010 following the earthquake in Haiti. It comprises a network of first-response professionals who can be shipped in to augment local expertise to accelerate relief efforts following natural disasters. 

"With the passing of Paul, the world has lost a man who spent a great deal of his life in service to others," explained Universal's chairman Donna Langley. "We keep Paul’s memory alive and honor his legacy through continued support of Reach Out WorldWide, the non-profit he founded to give hope to those who must rebuild.”

Universal have also released a video tribute for Paul Walker, which you can check out below.

Google is inviting existing Glass owners to swap their existing head-mounted display for a free updated version. While the new version of Google Glass looks identical, Google says it has made it “a bit faster and more durable.” Importantly, it’s also compatible with upcoming prescription frames for the device, and is designed for new accessories including the new shades and a mono earbud that’s included with the updated version. The wearable device isn’t expected to launch for consumers until early next year, but developers who joined the Explorer program have been invited to switch to the latest Google Glass version.

Google unveiled the new version of Glass on October 28th, and Explorers who purchased a unit prior to that...

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While no periodic table, we sometimes more simplistically look at the elements as ice, fire, wind, and earth—and they can make for some beautiful images. Check out these great wallpapers that put the elements on your desktop.

Ice Crystal

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Fire Crystal

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Earth

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Wind

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Thor's Lightning

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Rocks

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Windy Field

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Plowed Earth

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Caught in the Wind

Download This Wallpaper (1920x1200) | The Paper Wall

Four Elements of Earth

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For more great wallpapers, check out our previous Wallpaper Wednesdays. Got any great wallpapers you'd like to share? Email me a link with "Wallpaper Wednesday" in the subject line. Submitting your own work is highly encouraged!

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