FastCompany Magazine

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.

• A Facebook promotion has led to an upswing in organ donor registrations. 

• 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

Hello Tumblr! Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know today: 

• A million Samsung phone users are about to get Jay-Z’s new album three days early and for free! Those lucky ducks.  

• Google is combatting child porn with a number of measures including a new image identification system.

• Police in 26 states are using facial recognition technology to fight crime.

• Netflix is happy right now. The video streaming service is hooking up with DreamWorks for its biggest partnership to date.

• Local radio stations can now place targeted ads in their desktop and mobile streams.

• This week, a group of homing pigeons will tweet their way across Europe using tiny digital backpacks. 

• Word on the street is that Facebook is going to reveal a video functionality for Instagram. But that may not be a great idea…

• Today the Supreme Court made some big decisions pertaining to an Arizona voter registration law and a drug patent case.
  
  
• More from our NSA secret surveillance tracker: Edward Snowden says, “I did not reveal any U.S. operations against legitimate military targets.”

• Now you can use Skype’s video messaging app on your computer, iPhone, or Android device.

Have a great week! —M. Cecelia Bittner and Jessica Hullinger

• The French court ordered Twitter to hand over names of racist and anti-semitic tweeters to the French Union of Jewish Students.
  
  
• U.N. put the official death toll of the Syrian conflict around 93,000. This number includes 6,561 children.
  
  
• MTV has launched a new digital content-creation lab called MTV Other.
  
  
• A flying bike built in the Czech Republic had its first successful test flight.
  
  
• Lululemon Chairman Dennis ‘Chip’ Wilson sold $50 million in stock right before the CEO’s surprise departure this week. 
  
  
• Watch out Snapchat, you’ve got a copycat. Clipchat is an app that does the same exact thing… only maybe better?
  
  
• Facebook has opened its first international data center in Sweden. It is apparently ”one of the most efficient and sustainable data centers in the world.”
  
  
• TV startup Boxee is looking for around $30 million or a buy out from investors.
  
  
• Perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate its advertising potential (and potentially gain new revenue streams), Twitter is letting everyone use its data-analysis platform.
  
  
• An activist’s parody shows what may happen if the LA Times and a number of other papers are ‘Kochified.’

Have a great day! —M. Cecelia Bittner and Jessica Hullinger