These amazing maps generated from Twitter metadata will blow your mind
Priceonomics analyzes the how much you’re really saving (if any) by staying in an Airbnb apartment, instead of a hotel.
“The last thing we want is to plop in banner ads.”
We’re counting down the seconds until the NYC BigApps 2013 Award Ceremony on the evening of Thursday, June 20th, where we’ll announce the winners of Mayor Bloomberg’s annual challenge to developers and designers to create apps that solve key city challenges.
This year’s competition…
You can build a shiny modern metropolis out of nothing, but how do you create the bustle of a city?
Photographer Matthias Heiderich captures the strange emptiness of Dubai in his series UAE.
FC Insider:
Meet our Co.Labs intern Lily Newman. A self professed lover of lunch, a science/tech journalist, and a part-time magical unicorn.
An apprehensive #unicorn #intern @fastcompany (at 7 World Trade Center)
Tumblr’s media director quits
Mark Coatney, Tumblr’s media director and “media evangelist,” left the building with a Mad Men reference.
“I love my devices and services, and I love being connected to the global hive mind. I am neither a Luddite nor a hermit, but I am more aware of the price we pay: lack of depth, reduced accuracy, lower quality, impatience, selfishness, and mental exhaustion, to name but a few. In choosing to digitally enhance, hyperconnect, and constantly share our lives, we risk not living them…”
Baratunde Thurston
From his piece #Unplug: Baratunde Thurston left the internet for 25 days, and you should too.
Here’s more about #unplugging.
Daily Fast Feed Roundup
Hello Tumblr! Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know today:
- Holograms are coming to the classroom thanks to a pair of doctors who built a system that displays model body parts.
- Performance artist Erdem Gunduz has become a symbol for the Turkish protests after he stood silent and motionless in Taksim Square for eight hours.
- From our NSA secret surveillance tracker: President Obama defended the NSA spying program yesterday in a PBS interview with Charlie Rose.
- Good news electric car drivers, soon you won’t have to schedule an hour of charging time into your commute. Tesla is giving a demo of its electric car battery swapping capabilities this week.
- Speaking of batteries, AT&T is installing 25 solar powered charging stations around NYC.
- Despite its precarious legal position, Airbnb is still a wise choice. According to Priceonomics, travelers save 21% if they rent an entire Airbnb apartment and 49% on a single Airbnb room.
- News Corporation and News International are facing their first civil lawsuit for phone hacking in the U.S., filed by a former stunt double for Angelina Jolie.
- The U.S. government’s super secret spy map establishment says the American intelligence system needs to redo its geospatial model (maps).
- The White House wants you to help NASA find killer space rocks.
- Photographer Kai Eiselein is suing Buzzfeed for $3.6 million.
- Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets after a protest over bus fares escalated to a whole new level.
Have a great week! —M. Cecelia Bittner and Jessica Hullinger
“There were movies, there were food trucks, there were friends, there was mulled wine. There was brief consideration of a mulled-wine food truck. Above all, there was an expansion of sensations and ideas.”
Google’s Project Loon (say ‘loon balloon’ five times fast) will use solar-powered giant devices hovering 12 miles above the ground to beam Internet down to places where it’s not possible to lay cable.
“I personally started unplugging one day a week, I’ve done it now for almost 3 years with my family, and it’s changed my life.”
Tiffany Shlain, digital filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards.
When is the best time to unplug? Here, some options.
A Turkish performance artist who says he is “nothing” has become a symbol of Turkish protests. Erdem Gunduz has been dubbed the “Standing Man” after he stood motionless in Taksim Square for eight hours, between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, when he and other silent protesters were dispersed by the police.
“Perhaps because I wasn’t always getting updates on events happening in faraway places, I focused on the world around me, especially nearby Vanderbilt Avenue, which turns out to be quite a place, especially for food. Late one night, I entered a restaurant called Cornelius, lured by large-print signs in the window advertising meat. Whiskey. Oysters. I could not resist.”
