firehose

Speaking with Dezeen about his new range of glasses, renowned designed Marc Newson took some time out to throw some serious shade at Google Glass. Although Newson, whose diverse designs have spanned products, furniture, aircraft interiors, and fashion, feels that wearable technologies are the future, he is whole-heartedly against Google's idea of what that future will look like. "What Google have done thus far, I wouldn't be seen dead wearing. It looks pretty stupid."

"It's a little bit like that wonderful invention called the Segway."

Newson goes on to compare to another impressive piece of technology that failed to catch on: the Segway. "It's a little bit like that wonderful invention called the Segway. It’s such a fantastic piece of technology but you just look like a complete dick when you drive around on it ... That's where the bridge to the world of fashion really doesn't, or didn't, work. That's precisely the moment when I think the fashion world laughs at the world of industrial design, justifiably."

The designer believes the fashion and industrial design worlds can learn a lot from each other. "Frankly speaking, the design industry is really pathetic in terms of how it approaches manufacturing and how it brings things to market." Newson goes onto explain that product designers could benefit from fashion's efficiency in bringing designs to the masses with "extraordinary efficiency," while fashion should adopt industrial design's material technologies and processes. "I do feel there's an enormous territory that they both share, that they should both embrace, but I agree that there is this real trepidation on both sides to broach that ground." For the full interview, head to Dezeen.

As House of Cards threatens to leave Maryland over tax credits, the state is fighting back — or at least one delegate is. Del. C. William "Bill" Frick (D-Montgomery) proposed an amendment that would allow state officials to use eminent domain to seize the show's sets, equipment, and other assets if they take production elsewhere.

While the amendment doesn't specifically mention House of Cards, it says that the state's Department of Business and Economic Development, "under certain circumstances," can acquire "certain property of certain film production entities that cease film production activity in the State." Frick sites the threatening letter from the Media Rights Capital as the final straw for him leading up to his proposal. "I literally thought: What is an appropriate Frank Underwood response to a threat like this?" Frick told The Washington Post. "Eminent domain really struck me as the most dramatic response."

"I literally thought: What is an appropriate Frank Underwood response to a threat like this?"

This isn't the first time Maryland has tried to keep a big name in the state: in 1984, eminent domain was also used to try to stop the Baltimore Colts football team from relocating to Indianapolis. The team responded by picking up their things and leaving during the night.

But even while the House of Delegates approved Frick's budget amendment, the state senate and governor would have to approve in order to make it law. Recently senators voted to increase the amount of available tax credits for production companies to $18.5 million for the next year, so it's unlikely that the state would go through with Frick's suggestion. The House still has to approve those tax credit increases before they can go into effect, and until then, House of Cards Season 3 production is still being delayed.

Amid widespread privacy concerns in the wake of a leak investigation, Microsoft has announced a change in the way it handles private customer accounts. Under the new policy, effective immediately, any investigation that suggests that Microsoft's services have been used to traffic stolen Microsoft intellectual property will no longer result in Microsoft accessing private account information. Instead, the investigation will be handed over to law enforcement agencies, and it will be for those agencies to demand access to necessary private information.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith also said that the company's terms of service will be updated to reflect this new policy in coming months.

Court documents last week revealed that Microsoft read private Hotmail e-mails of a blogger who received secret information from a disgruntled employee. Microsoft's terms of service, in common with those of Yahoo, Google, and Apple, give the company the legal right to access private information for such investigations. Nonetheless, the lack of transparency and oversight caused widespread alarm.

Photo by Ville Miettinen

According to a new paper authored by two Google security engineers, 21 out of the world’s top 25 news organizations have been successfully hacked by state-sponsored actors.

Reuters reported on the duo's findings, which were presented on Friday at the Black Hat Asia security conference in Singapore.

Among targets of hacking attacks, journalists were “massively over-represented,” Shane Huntley, one of the paper's authors, told the news wire. Google has been monitoring such attacks, which are often sponsored by foreign governments that seek sensitive information held by journalistic enterprises, in many cases related to secretive corporate and governmental operations.

Hey, remember Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire from 2001? It’s okay if you don’t, since it didn’t have Fox Robin Hood or someone singing about ice puns, which, for good or ill, tend to make for the most memorable Disney movies. What it did have, however, were concept designs by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, which have led to the movie becoming a cult favorite in recent years despite a poor initial showing at the box office.

With the Internet being what it is, these designs have of course found their way online, and they are predictably amazing. Check out a few of the best below, from Mignola’s take on the characters, locations and creatures of Atlantis!

For more, check out Flooby Nooby for the entire set, and if you want to see these designs in action, Atlantis recently came out on BluRay.

IDW ANNOUNCES ‘HELLBOY’ ARTIST’S EDITION