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DIYsect. A series about the DIY Biology & Biology-Art intersection

The goal of this small and smart web series is to discuss the way biotechnology is changing our society: What are its political, social, and even philosophical implications? What happens when manipulating life becomes as simple as writing a line of code? And more importantly, what does this mean for average citizens and their future? continue

Staalplaat Soundsystem and the book that’s also a paper turntable and a music instrument

A quick post to let you know about the really REALLY nice book i received the other day. I can’t stop playing with it. The publication celebrates Staalplaat Soundsystem’s brilliant work continue

The 3D Additivist Manifesto + Cookbook

An invitation to artists, researchers, activists and critical engineers to submit ideas, thoughts, and designs for the future of 3D printing. The submissions should reflect on the current state of additive manufacturing, find the potential encoded into the most challenging 3D printed objects and push 3D printing to its most speculative and radical limits. Once collected, these submissions will form The 3D Additivist Cokbook continue

Networked Disruption. An interview with Tatiana Bazzichelli

The book and exhibition ‘Networked Disruption’ highlights the mutual interferences between business, art and disruption. Because it brings together the heterogeneous practices of hackers, artists, networkers, whistleblowers, activists and entrepreneurs, the concept is dense in reflections, provocations and references to contemporary society continue

Book review: Tactical Urbanism. Short-term Action for Long-term Change

Short-term, community-based projects–from pop-up parks to open streets initiatives–have become a powerful and adaptable new tool of urban activists, planners, and policy-makers seeking to drive lasting improvements in their cities and beyond. These quick, often low-cost, and creative projects are the essence of the Tactical Urbanism movement continue

Suohpanterror. Propaganda posters from Sápmi

Suohpanterror is an anonymous group of Sami artists who use wit, iconic images and humour as weapons to comment on the issues their people have to face on a daily basis: discrimination, racism, marginalisation, colonialism, dam building, logging, military bombing ranges, as well as exploitation by the tourism and energy industries. And of course, climate change continue

Flash crashes. Glitches in the trading system

Members of RYBN were participating to refrag, a series of workshops, talks and performances that explored Glitch Art. Their presentation looked at what happens when HFT algorithms slip, glitch and disrupt the trading system. They analyzed four famous ‘flash crashes.’ Their study was based on a rigorous analysis of documents available online continue

Interview with Cecilia Jonsson, the artist who extracts iron from invasive weeds

The artist harvested 24kg of an invasive weed from a highighly polluted area in Spain, extracted the iron ore from the plants and used it to make an iron ring. The innovative experiment brought together the biological, the industrial, the technological and even craft to create a piece of jewellery that weights 2 grams. The project also suggests a way to reverse the contamination process while at the same time mining iron ore from the damaged environment continue

Facta – Gambiologia magazine #3. Hacker poetics

Facta is an experimental publication orchestrated by Fred Paulino and the Gambiologia group. The first issue of Facta addressed the ‘science of Apocalypse’, the next one looked at people who accumulate, collect and re-purpose. This issue is all about the hacker culture, poetics and ethics in all their guises and deeds continue

World of Warfare, a day at the arms dealers fair

In February 2011, Julian Röder traveled to Abu Dhabi for the International Defense Exhibition and Conference. 50,000 military officers and arms dealers attended the fair. Some represent dictators. Others are mortal enemies: India, meet Pakistan. But here they meet and mingle, shopping for missile systems, assault rifles, and attack helicopters continue

Radioactive Ming vases echo our toxic dependency on electronics

Each object is made from the amount of toxic waste created in the production of three items of technology – a smartphone, a featherweight laptop and the cell of a smart car battery. Besides, the vases are sized in relation to the amount of waste created in the production of each item continue

Ebola, Molotov Cocktails and decaying discotheques. The Sony World Photography awards

This is the eight edition of the competition and, as usual, the Italians made a killing and take a large portion of the awards, there is a fair deal of suffering, at least one of the awards goes to an image featuring Palestinians living under occupation and facing discrimination (this year however, the photos are joyful), and it is always strange to look at the photos and realize that the main events of the year before have almost already been erased from consciences continue

The Grey Zone. On the (il)legitimacy of targeted killing by drones

The practice of targeted killing by drones raises many questions: “How many civilians have been killed as collateral damage during these strikes?” “And even if we’re talking about militants, how can the killings be justified when there has been judicial supervision? “If these drones can reach their targets anywhere, then how is the battlefield defined?” “Right now, only 3 countries use drones for targeted killings: the U.S., Israel and the UK. Where will this stop?” “And if these targeted killings are

These are the 11 best hacks from TNW Europe 2015

Every year at The Next Web conference there’s an epic hack battle held over the space of 36 hours during the event. It’s two days of coding, learning and meeting people. This year we had six API partners for the hack battle participants to leverage, including Zeef, Nexmo, Verisign, Braintree, Dropbox and Deezer. Here are the best hacks from the hack battle presentations this year. 1) Dropshop This year’s winner of the TNW hack battle, Dropshop was my favorite hack. It’s a little app that lets you choose a file from your Dropbox

Nexus 5 and 1-year Unlimited Talk-and-Text from FreedomPop: 65{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475} off

Google’s version of Android offers a great mobile operating system experience, and the Nexus series of phones matches it with great hardware. In particular, the Nexus 5 offers high-end looks and specifications at an affordable price. It runs on a 2.26 GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, powering a pixel-packed 1080 × 1920 display. It also sports an 8MP rear-facing camera, a 1.2MP front-facing camera, and a battery which can last for thirteen hours of talk time. Over at TNW Deals, it is currently being bundled with FreedomPop, a wireless service with generous allowances. It offers unlimited texts and&#

The secret psychology of Facebook

The post first appeared on Buffer. Whenever I hop onto Facebook to do something specific—find a link I saved for later or see what’s happening on Buffer’s Facebook page, perhaps—something strange happens. Despite my best intentions to stay on track and accomplish my goal, I get sucked in. Suddenly I’m checking my own notifications, looking at what’s been recently posted and generally forgetting why I came to Facebook in the first place. This isn’t entirely by accident. There is science and psychology that explains why so many of us are glued to Facebook. Researchers have discovered trends in the way that… This story continues at The Next Web

19 of the best Android apps from April 2015

April was a busy month for Android apps with the first proper arrival of Meerkat for Android devices, several new ways to navigate your presentation slides, the Chrome Dev browser and a number of other new arrivals to the Play Store, it can be hard to keep up. Luckily for you, we’ve pulled together a list of the best new and updated apps from across the whole month. It’s split across a few pages to make it easier to read, but if you’d rather view it on one page, you

21 of the best iOS apps from April 2015

April was a busy month for iOS apps, with clever new ways to mashup your photos, get a hand-drawn selfie delivered to your door or, err, book bus tickets. Also, Mattel’s Magic 8 Ball arrived. We’ve gathered the best new and updated apps below to save you some time. It’s split across a few pages to make it easier to read, but if you’d rather read it on one page, you can do that here. Fivrr Faces If what you’ve always wanted is a picture of your face painted by a proper real life artist, but you don’t ever want to… This story continues at The Next Web

10 best coding bootcamps for those on a budget

Rosie Allabarton is a writer who lives in Berlin. Her journalism specializes in technology, education, employment and women in technology. She works as a tech writer and content manager for CareerFoundry, an online educational platform that provides training in web development and UX design, providing career changers with the skills they need to launch themselves onto the tech scene. Web and software developers are among the most sought after on the job market today, so it’s no wonder

How to block the Kardashians from your news feeds

Let’s face it. It’s hard work getting away from the Kardashians on the Web these days. You can keep scrolling, but one of them is sure to pop up somewhere and send you over the edge. Well, now there’s a solution – KardBlock. KardBlock is an adblocker, specifically for the Kardashian clan.  The website for the extension explains that it simply makes them disappear. Its creator, James Shamsi, is currently working with growth hacking company Chameleon.la on a similar filter that obliterates Justin Bieber references. You can sign up now on the site to have your newsfeeds cleared of all things… This story continues at The Next Web

Vooza has discovered the ultimate lifehack

Ever get the feeling lifehacks have gone too far? Or maybe they just haven’t gone far enough… Vooza – a video comic strip about the tech world regularly shares a new video with you lovely TNW readers. Sign up for Vooza’s email list to get exclusive access to more funny videos like this one. Click here to support Vooza (and receive cool rewards). Don’t miss: What startups REALLY mean

Hands on with Microsoft HoloLens: My evening at the Holographic Academy

No doubt about it. HoloLens, the “mixed reality” headset under development from Microsoft, really lit up the company’s rather academic Build 2015 keynote. First unveiled at its Windows 10 event in January, HoloLens is a headset device that allows you to see high resolution 3D content at a 1:1 scale within the existing environment. Much of the HoloLens excitement is generated by the mystique surrounding it, amped with considerable precision by the staff of the Hologram Academy who expertly herded their

My Personal Transformation: 6 Life Lessons From 6 Years of Blogging

I launched erica.biz on December 4, 2007. This week, I’m celebrating 6 years of blogging here. Wow! It’s been just over 6 years since I sold my last company, as well, and I’m amazed at how much I’ve grown. This week, I figured I’d do something special, and share some of the deep, heartfelt lessons I’ve learned in the past 6 years. Some of these were tough for me to grok. All of them have changed me as a person. This may be a tough read for some of you…but I hope these lessons will have as…

Dear Investors, My Company Failed and We Lost All Your Money. Here’s What Happened.

Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. On the surface, it seemed like I had the best life. A popular blog with millions of readers. The perfect relationship with Brian, the most adoring fiance in the universe. A great set of supportive friends and a nice social standing in Austin, TX. And, last but not least, an awesome company, making marketing software, with a great team, that was making money and (finally!) shipping products. Yet something lurked just beneath the …