Sunday, March 31, 2013

'Actresses Without Teeth' Tumblr Will Send You Running for the Dentist

Teeth-nail2013-03-27 22:34:40 UTC

Chew on this: A terrifying new Tumblr page took the disturbing liberty of removing the teeth from famous actresses and musicians — in photos, not in real life.

Still, it's just something you need to see for yourself.

Cameron Diaz, Emma Watson, Taylor Swift and Beyonce all get the tooth-snatching treatment. Check out the gallery up top to see some of our favorites.

Stay up to date with the new posts here. And sleep tight, everyone.

[h/t Grantland]

Image courtesy of Tumblr, Actresses Without Teeth

Topics: Entertainment, Film, gallery, Memes, Photos, Pics, tumblr, viral photos, Watercooler if(window.pageChanged) window.omni({"channel":"watercooler","content_type":"article","top_channel":"watercooler","content_source_type":"Internal","content_source_name":"Internal","author_name":"Eric Larson","age":"0","pub_day":27,"pub_month":3,"pub_year":2013,"pub_date":"03/27/2013","isPostView":true,"post_lead_type":"Gallery"}); metaData = {"link":[["canonical","http://mashable.com/2013/03/27/actresses-without-teeth/"],["image_src","http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzAzLzI3L2I1L3RlZXRobmFpbC45OGI4Yi5qcGcKcAl0aHVtYgk3MjB4NzIwIwplCWpwZw/0fdc0432/e80/teeth-nail.jpg"]],"meta_property":[["og:url","http://mashable.com/2013/03/27/actresses-without-teeth/"],["og:title","'Actresses Without Teeth' Tumblr Will Send You Running for the Dentist"],["og:type","article"],["og:site_name","Mashable"],["og:image","http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzAzLzI3L2I1L3RlZXRobmFpbC45OGI4Yi5qcGcKcAl0aHVtYgk3MjB4NzIwIwplCWpwZw/0fdc0432/e80/teeth-nail.jpg"],["og:article:published_time","2013-03-27T22:34:40Z"],["og:article:modified_time","2013-03-27T22:34:49Z"]],"meta_name":[["description","Should've worn a mouth guard during the hockey game. A new Tumblr looks at actresses and musicians without their chompers. "],["keywords",["entertainment","photos","tumblr","uncategorized","film","gallery","watercooler","pics","memes","viral-photos"]],["twitter:title","'Actresses Without Teeth' Tumblr Will Send You Running for the Dentist"],["twitter:description","Should've worn a mouth guard during the hockey game. A new Tumblr looks at actresses and musicians without their chompers. "],["twitter:image","http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzAzLzI3L2I1L3RlZXRobmFpbC45OGI4Yi5qcGcKcAl0aHVtYgk1NjB4NzUwCmUJanBn/b20cb7cb/e80/teeth-nail.jpg"],["twitter:site","@mashable"],["twitter:url","http://mashable.com/2013/03/27/actresses-without-teeth/"],["twitter:creator","@mashable"],["twitter:card","photo"],["twitter:image:width","560"],["twitter:image:height","750"]]};

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10 Things on the Internet That Don't Make Any Sense

2013-03-28 00:00:18 UTC

The Internet can be a scary and confusing place filled with error pages, pop-up ads and nervous-looking cats. Navigating the world wide web without a map (or a helmet) can lead you to weird places.

YouTube puppet duo Glove and Boots reveal the 10 things on the Internet that just don't make any sense to them. Even though their brains are made of cotton, you can probably still relate.

What's something about the Internet that really confuses your noggin? Share your oddities in the comments.

God-wants-you-to-know-on-facebook Pot-farm Hemp-tycoon Mypill Catstickerz Amateur-surgeon-hospital-on-facebook Foldify Love-percentage_0 How-attractive Pass-a-joint Stat-shuffle

Homepage image courtesy of JimCarrey.com

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Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer Are an Unlikely Fighting Force in New Trailer

2013-03-26 15:24:51 UTC

How do you make golf — and particularly old timers like Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino — exciting to today's young gamers?

EA's solution was to cast Tiger Woods and Palmer as a couple of kick-ass fighters. The two square off against a group of nefarious dudes who are intent on stealing some trophies. Then Trevino parachutes in to save the day. The trailer, which promotes PGA Tour 14, comes at a good time — Woods just regained his No. 1 ranking after a slump that began in 2010.

The Hollywood studios may want to take a look at Woods' and Palmer's chemistry here, though. Could a golf-based action movie be in the offing? Suggested title: Fairway to Hell.

Image courtesy of YouTube, EA

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Listen: Arguments From Today's Gay Marriage Supreme Court Case

Supreme-court-prop-82013-03-26 17:27:28 UTC

The Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case involving California's Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 and banned the state from recognizing same-sex marriages. The audio of the back-and-forth between the justices and lawyers on either side of the case can be heard in its entirety here:

The Supreme Court won't deliver a ruling on Proposition 8 until later this summer. Oral arguments can give some faint clues as to what the justices might do — indeed, some reporters suggested the justices' comments and lines of questioning might indicate they will decide the case lacks standing.

If the court indeed decides the case lacks standing to be heard, that would mean the lower court's prior striking-down of Proposition 8 would stand. As New York Magazine's Joe Coscarelli wrote, the "nationwide consequences" of that outcome are still up in the air.

Regardless, no prediction based solely on oral arguments should be taken as gospel — anxious advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage will most likely have to wait until late June to hear the results of this case and the one surrounding the Defense of Marriage Act, for which arguments will be heard Wednesday.

Image via Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

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Apple Patents 'No Look' Technology

Applestorefor AppAdvice 2013-03-26 16:43:44 UTC

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 8,407,623 for "Playback control using a touch interface."

First filed in 2009, the patent covers a technology used on mobile devices that registers touch gestures when no content is displayed on the screen.

According to the invention, users are sometimes in situations when looking at a multitouch display isn’t feasible. For example, during a gym workout. The invention corrects this by offering “no look” controls, even when the device’s screen is dark.

From the patent summary:

To allow a user to control media playback using a touch sensing device without requiring the selection of displayed options, the electronic device can include a mode or configuration for which the touch sensing device can sense touch events, but not display any content on a display. For example, an electronic device with a touch screen can have a mode in which no content is displayed on the touch screen (e.g., the touch screen remains dark), but the touch screen is operative to detect touch events of the user.

Apple’s system includes a number of finger gestures that the user can initiate, including a single tap to play/pause music and clockwise circle to increase the volume. The patent credits Duncan Kerr and Nick King as its inventors.

Image via CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images

This article originally published at AppAdvice here

Topics: apple, Dev & Design, Gadgets, patent, patents, Tech, touchscreen AppAdvice is a Mashable publishing partner that offers news and reviews of iOS apps. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Apple Changes MacBook Pro 'Highest Resolution' Tagline

Macbook-pro-13-retina2013-03-26 15:08:52 UTC

The problem with using superlatives to describe your products is that there's always the possibility of someone better and bigger coming along.

Case in point: As 9to5Mac noticed, Apple recently stopped using the tagline "The highest-resolution notebook ever. And the second highest” to describe its 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Pro notebooks.

Instead, Apple is using a new tagline to describe the MacBook Pros: "High performance has never been so well defined".

The likely reason for this is Google's recently announced Chromebook Pixel notebook, which has a 12.75-inch, 2,560x1,700 pixel display. That's still lower than the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which sports a 2,880x1,800 resolution, but the 13-inch model, which has a 2,560x1,600 resolution, is no longer the "second highest."

Apple also changed the description for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which now claims its display is "just as impressive" instead of saying it's the "only thing that comes close" to the 15-inch model.

Similarly, as iPhone competitors' screens grew in size and resolution, Apple stopped focusing its copy on the resolution and the pixel density of the iPhone screen. It currently advertises the iPhone 5's screen as being "just right".

Image courtesy Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

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Cyprus Gets World's First Bitcoin ATM

NowThis News 2013-03-26 14:53:37 UTC

The world's first Bitcoin ATM machine will be installed in Cyprus, and it will accept both Bitcoins for cash and cash for Bitcoins. Cyprus recently accepted a bailout from the European Union totaling more than $12.8 billion.

Homepage image courtesy of NowThisNews

This article originally published at NowThis News here

Topics: bailout, Bitcoin, Bitcoins, Business, economy, europe, European Union, money, World NowThis News is video news for the mobile and social generation. It’s news, but fun. Download the free app: nowth.is/downloadforiOS

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SpaceX Dragon Cargo Capsule Heading Back to Earth

Spacexdragonfor Space.com 2013-03-26 17:09:41 UTC

A private SpaceX cargo capsule undocked from the International Space Station early Tuesday to begin the trip back to Earth after three weeks linked to the orbiting laboratory.

The unmanned Dragon space capsule was released from the space station today (March 26) at 6:56 a.m. EDT (1056 GMT), and is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean, about 214 miles (344 kilometers) off the coast of Baja California, at 12:34 p.m. EST (1634 GMT). The Dragon capsule is expected to fire its thrusters at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT) to leave orbit.

"Sad to see the Dragon go," said NASA astronaut and space station resident Tom Marshburn. "She performed her job beautifully, now heading back to her lair."

Dragon is returning to Earth with about 2,670 pounds (1,210 kg) of cargo, including a set of LEGO toys that have been on the station for the last two years. The equipment will be returned to NASA as soon as recovery teams return the Dragon capsule to dry land.

The spacecraft launched toward the space station atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on March 1 from the firm's launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to deliver about 1,200 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of equipment, supplies and scientific experiments.

Once Dragon splashes down it will mark the end of Hawthorne, Calif., based private spaceflight firm SpaceX's second complete cargo mission to the International Space Station commissioned by NASA. The space agency contracted the spaceflight company to make 12 trips to the space station for $1.6 billion.

SpaceX launched its first Dragon cargo mission to the station in October 2012 following a successful demonstration flight in May of that year. The company was founded in 2002 by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to develop low-cost rockets and spacecraft.

Dragon's splashdown was originally slated for Monday (March 25), but weather concerns and high seas at its splashdown point prompted NASA and SpaceX officials to delay the undocking. None of the returning experiments should be affected by the one-day delay, NASA officials said.

Currently, Dragon is the only operating cargo vessel that can bring supplies back to Earth as well as deliver them to astronauts in low-Earth orbit. Russia's Progress spacecraft, Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicles and Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicles burn up upon re-entry into the planet's atmosphere.

SpaceX is one of two private spaceflight companies with a NASA contract for unmanned cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station. The Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. signed on with the space agency to make eight unmanned flights with its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule in a deal for $1.9 billion. The Antares rocket's first test flight is scheduled for mid-April.

With the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011, the U.S. space agency is currently dependent on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronaut crews to and from the space station. NASA plans to use new private space taxis to launch American astronauts on trips to the space station once they become available.

SpaceX is one of four companies currently competing for the NASA crew launch contract. The company is developing a manned version of its Dragon capsule designed to ferry seven astronauts into low-Earth orbit and return them to Earth.

Image courtesy of NASA/SpaceX

This article originally published at Space.com here

Topics: NASA, space, SpaceX, SpaceX Dragon, U.S., US & World, World Space.com is a Mashable publishing partner that is the world's No. 1 source for news of astronomy, skywatching, space exploration, commercial spaceflight and related technologies. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Report: Tablets to Outship Desktops This Year

Apple-foxconn-2013-03-26 14:11:10 UTC

Tablet PCs will outship desktop PCs for the first time this year, catapulting us into a true "post-PC era," according to a report by researcher IDC.

Shipments of tablet PCs will surpass desktops as the former category grows by 48.7% and the latter shrinks by 4.3%, IDC estimates. In 2014, tablets will also outship portable PCs. "In emerging markets, consumer spending typically starts with mobile phones and, in many cases, moves to tablets before PCs," said Megha Saini, research analyst for IDC's Worldwide Smart Connected Device Tracker, in a statement. "The pressure on the PC market is significantly increasing and we can see longer replacement cycles coming into effect very soon and that, too, will put downward pressure on PC sales."

Meanwhile, "smart connected devices," a category that includes smarthphones, tablets and PCs, grew 29.1% vs. 2012 to more than 1 billion devices. The value of those shipments, according to IDC was $576.9 billion. The researcher predicts that by 2017 the segment will hit 2.2 billion units with revenues of $814.3 billion.

Looking at the fourth quarter, IDC also found that Apple had 20.3% of the smart connected devices market vs. 21.2% for Samsung. Apple had 30.7% of revenues for the segment compared to 20.4% for Samsung, according to IDC.

Image courtesy of Apple

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Wristband Keeps Track of How Well Doctors Wash Their Hands

2013-03-26 18:19:33 UTC

Nearly 2 million cases of hospital-acquired infections are reported each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors, nurses and technicians can spread germs during routine contact or invasive procedures. While the most adequate form of prevention is hand washing, it can be difficult to monitor.

One wristband may solve the problem by keeping tabs on your doctor's hygiene habits. A new bracelet developed by startup IntelligentM vibrates when the wearer has scrubbed enough and lets employers monitor their use.

The bracelet uses radio frequency identification to read tags on sanitizing and washing stations. An accelerometer detects how long someone spends cleaning their hands then sends an alert. One vibration signals adequate washing, while three buzzes indicate more time should be spent at the sink. Check out the video, above, for more.

The wristband could be a big improvement over the common alternative ways of ensuring good hygiene: secret observers implemented by hospitals to watch employees on the job, or patients asking all of their healthcare professionals to wash their hands every time they visit.

IntelligentM's wristband is less obtrusive and follows the wearer's motions to check whether they're adhering to proper hand hygiene standards. At the end of each shift, hospital administrators and staff can view collected data through a microUSB to monitor employee progress.

IntelligentM is targeting healthcare facilities with the device but is looking to expand to food service, another sector where hand washing can prevent the spread of diseases, according to MIT Technology Review.

What do you think of IntelligentM's wristband? Do you use any gadgets for hygiene? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Arlington County

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Google+ Now Lets You Use GIFs for Profile Pics

Googleplus2013-03-26 06:41:28 UTC

In what may be a sign of their resurgent popularity, Google+ announced Monday that members can now use animated GIFs for their profile photos.

The social network unveiled the update in a post on its Google+ page, alongside a link to a Google search for "How to create a gif."

Matt Steiner, a software engineer at Google, first made the announcement on his profile page. He said GIFs will animate on both desktop and mobile, "like newspapers in Harry Potter."

Steiner also changed his profile pic to a GIF of himself turning towards the camera and smiling. Check it out, below.

The update comes just a week after Google added a search filter for GIFs and transparent images. When users conduct an image search, they simply click on "Search tools" below the search box, then select "Animated" under the "Any tupe" dropdown menu to refine their results.

Earlier today, Google pushed out a new update to its iOS and Android apps, with photo editing and filters, as well as a new design that looks similar to its desktop layout.

Google+ users, what do you think of the update? Do you plan to change your profile photo to a GIF? Tell us in the comments, below.

Image via iStockphoto, maxphotography

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The Daily Show's Jason Jones Pans Cellphone Contracts in T-Mobile Ad

2013-03-26 16:35:24 UTC

T-Mobile announced Tuesday that it is ditching the much-loathed two-year cellphone contract and letting customers pay through an installment plan instead. To help explain why this is better for customers, the wireless company has enlisted Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones.

In the video above, Jones approaches people on the street asking whether a two-year contract is worse than getting a root canal (yes) and poking fun at pedestrians using old phones because they're stuck on a contract. At one point, he even starts whacking people in the face with his microphone, noting that wireless carriers are smacking around consumers with contracts.

"America is angrier than those birds and grumpier than any cat," Jones says in the video. "They want carriers to quit messing with them and provide them with a simple choice."

T-Mobile also released a 60-second spot online showing a group of cowboys getting fed up with "bossing people around," which you can watch below. The company also hopes to start a conversation online by including the hashtag #simplechoice with the new ads.

Image courtesy of YouTube, TMobile

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The Honest Truth Behind 'Les Miserables'

2013-03-26 16:04:22 UTC

Now that Les Miserables is off the Oscar docket, we can all freely speak our minds about the content of the movie without fearing retribution from film buffs.

Who better to wage war against musical plot holes and nonsensical casting than Honest Trailers? They are never going to let Wolverine live this one down. And, remind me, why was Borat in this movie?

But most of all, the notorious movie parodiers at Screen Junkies pick a bone about the never-ending sing-song dialogue, which is made especially awkward because it's Gladiator doing the singing.

Now we get what the French people were revolting against: musicals.

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Image courtesy of YouTube, Screen Junkies

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Play All Your Old Games on This Retro Console

for PSFK 2013-03-26 10:45:55 -0700

Many gamers have cartridges for old gaming consoles that are no longer in use. Now you can dust off those cartridges and play them on one console. Hyperkin's new RetroN 5 has five cartridge slots that enable you to play original NES, SNES, Genesis, Famicom and Game Boy Advance games.

You will also be able to use Super Famicom, Mega Drive, Game Boy Color and Game Boy cartridges as well. A new chipset ensures that region locks and compatibility are not an issue, and the RetroN 5 will play both PAL and NTSC cartridges.

The console features six controller ports, allowing gamers to use their original controllers. You can use any controller for any system, for example, you’ll be able to use a SNES controller to play Genesis games. The RetroN 5 will also come with a wireless controller that utilizes Bluetooth technology for a playable distance of more than 15 feet, and gamers can reassign the buttons.

The RetroN 5 will let you save your games at any point during gameplay and will feature an autosave feature upon shutdown. Wired notes that the price is yet to be confirmed but is reported to be around $100. The console will be available in July.

Images courtesy of Hyperkin

This article originally published at PSFK here

Topics: Entertainment, Game Boy, Gaming, gaming console, Nintendo, retro games, sega genesis PSFK is a Mashable publishing partner that reports on ideas and trends in creative business, design, gadgets, and technology. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.

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Why Mapping Your DNA Could Save Your Life

Dna-image2013-03-26 17:07:11 UTC

You may think you know yourself like the back of your hand, but unless you've been DNA tested, there's probably a lot you don't know about yourself. Within each of the 50 trillion cells in your body rests the microscopic DNA that programs your entire being — your hair color, your height, your freckles (or lack thereof), your likelihood of developing cancer and whether or not you can taste cilantro.

And yet, few people in their lifetime have actually unlocked this information via DNA mapping. For starters, it used to be quite expensive. And some people might not even realize they have access to this information, while others simply might want to know what their DNA has in store for them as life unfolds.


A refresher course on DNA and genetics

Crushing these barriers is Anne Wojcicki's 23andMe, a $99 DNA testing kit that requires just a few milliliters of spit. That's it, no blood tests or pesky skin pricks. Eight weeks after mailing the kit back, you'll receive a full genetic report that outlines your health risks and ancestry. During those two months, the scientists in 23andMe's lab extract DNA from the cells in your spit and amplify the DNA so they have enough to work with. From there, the DNA is genotyped, yielding your unique report of what makes you, you. (To get the full picture of their ancestry, though, women need to have their father or brother take the test — while everyone has mitochondrial DNA, paternal DNA is passed along through the Y chromosome, which women don't have.)

Thus far, more than 200,000 users have been genotyped via 23andMe, and 90% of those have opted to participate in the company's research efforts. Each survey question counts as a data point, and to date, 23andMe has collected more than 100 million data points, with 2 million more coming each week. The company's in-house research has studied life-threatening sarcomas, Parkinson's Disease and diabetes, as well as lighter topics, such as unibrows and why Shar-Pei dogs are so wrinkly.

With an eye toward revolutionizing health care, the company raised $50 million dollars last year to drop the price of the kits from $999 to $99 and dramatically grow its database. In her blog post about the price drop, Wojcicki writes, "This change is not just about a new price point for personal genetic testing. It is about an ambitious plan that could transform medicine for generations to come."

Mashable spoke with Wojcicki about empowering people with DNA, her favorite scientists, and her husband's curious new tech product (ahem, Google Glass).

Would you do the test, if it revealed that you have an increased risk for Parkinson's Disease or lung cancer? People have strong opinions either way, as seen in the video above, but the way Anne sees it, knowledge is power.

"We really didn’t start out to be a diagnostic company, we really started this to be very holistic, and we wanted to empower people with their genetic information," says Wojcicki, who worked on Wall Street investing in health care companies for 10 years. From that experience, Wojcicki walked away with a sad realization — you, the individual, don’t have a voice in the system. You're talked about as a human subject, with no agency in the health care system. You're simply told what you're going to get, and it's often dictated by your insurance company.

"The industry was filled with really, really good people who want to make a difference in health care, but the system is set up in such a way that we really don’t have optimal health care," explains Wojcicki. Take Type 2 Diabetes, for example. It's a preventable disease, but no one makes money until you actually develop diabetes and need to buy insulin and testing strips. "The system is set up so they make tons of money once you’re diabetic, but if you don’t develop diabetes, no one makes money," says Wojcicki, who deems this a fundamental flaw in the system.

" readability="88" wojcicki. says voice individual give is the and revolution a start to up set was>Because your genotype outlines your risks for developing various diseases and disorders, health care could one day focus on prevention. Patients would rather prevent a disease than treat it effectively, but in today's system, doctors are taught how to treat various conditions, not prevent them altogether. Her own husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, donated $50 million to fund the company's Parkinson's Disease research when 23andMe revealed that he's high-risk for the condition.

"I want to empower you with your genetic information, and it happens to include really important information about your health, really fascinating information about your ancestry, and the aggregate data of having millions and millions of people together will create this incredibly powerful database that's going to filter back to you and give you more information about you and make you healthier," says Wojcicki.

Interestingly, Wojcicki says, health care reform has piqued insurance companies' interest in prevention, because understanding your genetics could keep you healthier and prevent complications and costly side effects. But while insurance companies may want this information, it is firmly protected by federal law, and Wojcicki feels that the information — in essence, your identity, should be controlled by the individual at this point in time.

A chromosomal map on 23andMe

Though 23andMe has been around since 2006, its growth and database have skyrocketed since the $99 price point was introduced. With more people in the database, the company can provide a fuller user experience and tell you more about what your genes mean. "What we’re really focused on is growth right now," says Wojcicki, who spends her days in meetings with a wide range of people, from lab scientists to product designers to statisticians.

And as the customer base grows, so too do the volume of emotional stories Wojcicki receives from users. "The reason I wake up every day and do this is because people email me all the time and say, 'You saved my life' and 'Having my genetic information revolutionized things for me.'" One woman did 23andMe to see her sprinting gene and discovered she was high-risk for breast cancer.

"You wake up to that kind of email, and it’s a good day," says Wojcicki.

Wojcicki has a degree in biology from Yale, but you might say science is in her genes — her father is a particle physicist, and she grew up on Stanford's campus, going to particle physics meetings and listening to people who want to challenge Einstein's theories. "The particle physicist community is a really fabulous community, and they’re really about the pursuit of science for the sake of science and pursuit of truth," says Wojcicki. "It’s not a commercial entity, and I have a huge respect for them because they’re really passionate about what they do."

And Wojcicki's own science background comes in handy when she's hiring. She says she knows enough to speak the language, but also knows enough to know she knows nothing. "From a hiring perspective, that’s helpful, because I know I know nothing, and it enables me to feel confident to hire individuals who really know it," she explains, adding that a CEO's overeducation could potentially get in the way of hiring the right people.

As wife of Sergey Brin, Wojcicki has access to Google Glass, and she wore them to the Oscars (as seen in this hilarious TMZ video). She says 23andMe doesn't have any "immediate plans" for Google Glass, but hints at interesting applications of the technology. Glass could document what you ate (helping you monitor sugar intake, for example, which would be useful for Type 2 Diabetes prevention) and capture your environment (perhaps scanning for allergens you're vulnerable to). "It’s definitely going to be a really fun and fabulous tool for health care, and we’ll definitely play around with it to see how we might integrate," says Wojcicki.

Have you tried 23andMe? Would you want to know your genetic information? Tell us in the comments.

Thumbnail image via iStockphoto, cosmin4000 , article images courtesy of 23andMe, YouTube, TMZ

Topics: 23andMe, lenovo, Startups, Supported, Tech Innovators Series if(window.pageChanged) window.omni({"channel":"social-media","content_type":"article","top_channel":"social-media","content_source_type":"Supported","content_source_name":"lenovo","author_name":"Lauren Drell","age":"0","pub_day":26,"pub_month":3,"pub_year":2013,"pub_date":"03/26/2013","isPostView":true,"post_lead_type":"Default"}); metaData = {"link":[["canonical","http://mashable.com/2013/03/26/23andme/"],["image_src","http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzAzLzI2L2U3L0ROQWltYWdlLjMwMzQxLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTcyMHg3MjAjCmUJanBn/3b4aa4ca/fee/DNA-image.jpg"]],"meta_property":[["og:url","http://mashable.com/2013/03/26/23andme/"],["og:title","Why Mapping Your DNA Could Save Your Life"],["og:type","article"],["og:site_name","Mashable"],["og:image","http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzAzLzI2L2U3L0ROQWltYWdlLjMwMzQxLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTcyMHg3MjAjCmUJanBn/3b4aa4ca/fee/DNA-image.jpg"],["og:article:published_time","2013-03-26T17:07:11Z"],["og:article:modified_time","2013-03-26T18:33:33Z"]],"meta_name":[["description","You may think you know yourself like the back of your hand, but unless you've been DNA tested, there's probably a lot you don't know about yourself."],["keywords",["startup","features","uncategorized","tech-innovators-series","lenovo","tech-innovators","supported","23andme"]],["twitter:title","Why Mapping Your DNA Could Save Your Life"],["twitter:description","You may think you know yourself like the back of your hand, but unless you've been DNA tested, there's probably a lot you don't know about yourself. Within each of the 50 trillion cells in your body r..."],["twitter:image","http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzAzLzI2L2U3L0ROQWltYWdlLjMwMzQxLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTU2MHg3NTAKZQlqcGc/986b25ee/fee/DNA-image.jpg"],["twitter:site","@mashable"],["twitter:url","http://mashable.com/2013/03/26/23andme/"],["twitter:creator","@mashable"],["twitter:card","photo"],["twitter:image:width","560"],["twitter:image:height","750"]]};

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Beautiful Aurora Borealis Time Lapse Is Out of This World

2013-03-26 17:33:35 UTC

The Aurora Borealis is one of nature's most spectacular shows.

Freelance photographer Göran Strand captured the beauty of the cosmic light show in a time lapse video that will transport you without ever leaving your office chair.

Strand filmed the Northern Lights on March 17 over the snowy landscape of Östersund, Sweden. According to the video's description on YouTube, the clip contains more than 40Gb of data and took five days to process. So it's huge and stunning — a double win and, consequently, a must watch.

Homepage image via Rune Stoltz Bertinussen/AFP/Getty Images

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Atlas Genius Creates Music Videos With Vimeo's Top Filmmakers

Atlas-genius2013-03-26 14:43:06 UTC

Atlas Genius has held a top spot on the radio for the last three months with their hit single "Trojans."

A song so catchy and popular deserves a winning music video to go with it — so the Australian brothers decided to release four instead. The band partnered with Vimeo, producing unique music videos with top content creators on the platform.

"As an artist, you are always interested in how your audience interprets a song you wrote and in this instance we were able to dip into Vimeo's talent to create four amazingly different interpretations of 'Trojans,'" the band tells Mashable.

The first, shown above, is a claymation video by director Tyler Nicholson. Over the next month or so, the band will release the other three videos included in the project. Celia Rowlson-Hall created a live action love story which had a soft release during the album reveal. There will also be a hand drawn animation by Eric Funk and Pots N' Pans created a live action video with GoPro cameras, featuring Alexandra Miller from The Carrie Diaries.

SEE ALSO: Watch 3 Days of SXSW Concerts Online

The band signed with Warner Bros. Records in 2012, and is currently on tour with Imagine Dragons. Their debut album, When It Was Now released in February.

Vimeo's senior content and community manager Sam Morrill tells Mashable that this relationship with Warner Bros. has been a "really exciting opportunity." Warner Bros. sent the video-sharing platform, and Vimeo selected the four directors based on whose style would work best with the song. After they pitched their ideas to the band, Atlas Genius ultimately decided which videos were produced. Morrill says that everyone has been "thrilled" with the results so far.

Check out the first music video above and be on the lookout for the following in the next month.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Records

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Yelp Now Shows Businesses How Much Money They Make From Yelp

Yelp2013-03-26 14:12:05 UTC

Yelp released a new tool on Monday that helps small businesses estimate how much revenue they make through the review site.

The tool, called the Revenue Estimator, lets local businesses track the number of customer leads from their Yelp profile and provides an estimate for how much revenue the merchant generated from those leads, based on data from The Boston Consulting Group about average consumer spending in different retail categories.

The Revenue Estimator is free for businesses to use and available to any local merchant on Yelp. The goal, according to Matt Halprin, Yelp's VP of revenue and analytics, is to give businesses and advertisers a better way to evaluate the potential return from using Yelp.

"First, it helps quantify the revenue opportunity Yelp is already sending to each business," Halprin wrote in a blog post announcing the new tool. "Second, it establishes a revenue baseline for prospective advertisers, from which they can later evaluate the impact of their investment in Yelp Ads."

Yelp isn't the only Internet company providing better tools for businesses to assess revenue. Google just rolled out a new tool to help businesses measure their ROI from mobile ad spending.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gmutlu and Yelp

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Don't Call Africa's Tech Hub 'Silicon Savannah'

Nairobi2013-03-26 14:09:30 UTC

People have dubbed it "Nairobbery" for a reason. Crime is still a crushing reality in Kenya's capital of Nairobi. Yet life in the city is changing for its 3 million inhabitants.

While the city is still dangerous for those who behave naively or who display conspicuous wealth by wearing expensive watches, crime rates are going down in Nairobi, and in the country as a whole.

According to the Kenya police, violent robbery has declined by 36%, burglary rates have decreased 25% and car theft went down 32% over the four-year period between 2006 and 2010, the latest figures available.

Moreover, the recent presidential elections earlier this month passed peacefully, a marked improvement over the disastrous 2008 elections, when 1,000 people died and the country nearly tipped into civil war.

Aside from an improved crime rate, technology is up. The extraordinary success of Kenya’s mobile payments system M-Pesa is the vanguard of an amazing story, and has helped position Nairobi as the tech hub for the continent.

The M-Pesa phenomenon has changed the banking system in Kenya. Launched in 2007 by the operator Safaricom, it registered more than 20,000 customers in its first month.

Less than six years later, more than 60% of the adult population has an account, and in June 2012 the total value of mobile money transactions was equivalent to more than 60% of Kenya’s GDP.

Before M-Pesa launched, the "traditional" banking system served only a quarter of Kenya’s adult population and the country had less than two bank branches per 100,000 people. Today M-Pesa has more than 40,000 agents nationwide, and more than 75% of the country’s financial transactions are handled by the system.

Many investors perceive Africa as the final frontier for high-return speculation, and the competition is fierce. So the success of M-Pesa has given Nairobi an extra edge over its African competitors.

Accra in Ghana, Lagos in Nigeria and the South African cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town are all vying to be Africa’s major tech hub, but with the Kenyan elections over and investors pacified, a flood of money is expected to flow into the country.

These investors are not alone. Google’s Eric Schmidt recently dubbed Kenya the continent’s technology leader after a trip to sub-Saharan Africa. And January’s launch of the the U.S. $10 billion Konza Technology City just outside Nairobi is further evidence of the city's promising future.

Then there is the city’s iHub, where Google’s Schmidt visited on his recent trip. Based in the center of Nairobi, the co-working space, tech community and business incubator provides a space for entrepreneurs to receive mentorship and possible VC funding. More importantly, it also hosts the fastest Internet connectivity in the country. It has been described as "the unofficial headquarters of Kenya’s tech movement."

It is also home to Ushahidi, which means "testimony" in Swahili. Ushahidi was a website initially developed to map reports of the 2008 electoral violence in Kenya. After Kenyan journalists used the site to collaborate during crisis, Ushahidi has since become an open source platform for content collection, visualization and interactive mapping.

Spanning more than 220 countries, the GSMA trade association has brought together 800 of the world’s mobile operators with more than 230 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. GSMA will open an office in the iHub in 2013.

Chris Locke is the managing director of GSMA Mobile for Development. He is as passionate about Africa as he is enthusiastic about the opportunities that Nairobi offers.

“There are now twice as many mobile money users in Africa than there are Facebook users, and more transactions than on PayPal," says Locke. "What we’re seeing in countries such as Kenya is a phenomenal growth in innovation around mobile, where an entirely new industry is emerging.  

“Startups in Nairobi are outpacing Silicon Valley, creating products that could only exist in a country that balances extreme needs with the possibilities products such as M-Pesa offers. Places such as iHub in Nairobi have become the crucible for this, not only for the country, but as an example for the whole continent,” he says.

But it’s not all about M-Pesa, as the success of Afroes shows. Afroes is the first African company to win a Meffy at the prestigious MEF awards in London. Not only is its mobile game Moraba popular across the continent; it recently launched a mobile iterative game before the Kenyan elections to promote peace among Kenyan youth.

London-based Matthew Dawes is the founder and CEO of event organizing company All Amber, which has held 12 trade shows on the continent, in South Africa, Nigeria and most recently at Mobile Web East Africa in Nairobi.

“Strategically, Kenya is definitely the most important mobile destination in sub-Saharan Africa," says Dawes.

“Strategically, Kenya is definitely the most important mobile destination in sub-Saharan Africa," says Dawes. “That doesn’t make it the most exciting market, though – Nigeria holds that badge. It’s in the top 10 mobile markets on the planet in numbers of subscribers, has a low penetration rate, is unpredictable in terms of success and the people are very business-oriented."

Some have branded Nairobi as "Silicon Savannah" in the same risible way that other world cities try to brand themselves after the Silicon Valley model. But many African companies at the Mobile Web Africa deride this term.

While speaking on a panel in the city, I suggested Nairobi didn’t need to brand itself this way — the whole conference burst into applause.

One of the attendees, TMS Ruge, co-founder of Uganda-based incubation hub Hive Colab, was similarly scathing about Silicon Savannah. “It is misleading. We don’t have the right to call ourselves Silicon Savannah," he says. "We don’t produce silicon; we don’t make anything; we are emulators at best. And in a few ways we are innovators with products such as M-Pesa and Ushahidi. We need to go beyond hyping it with a cute name."

Whether Nairobi decides to brand itself as Silicon or Digital Savannah means little when it comes to its tech future. More importantly, now that the election has passed without violence, it will be investors, both foreign and African, that will decide its future.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Dan Kori

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Facebook Turns Red as SCOTUS Marriage Equality Hearings Begin

Marriage-equality2013-03-26 15:41:54 UTC

Marriage equality activists are protesting outside the Supreme Court Tuesday, as the nation's highest court begins two days of hearings about two same-sex marriage laws.

As can be expected in this day and age, the demonstrations are not only taking place in Washington. Facebook has become a hotbed for marriage equality supporters, as profile pictures change to a red version of the Human Rights Campaign's logo.

The HRC, the largest lobby group for LGBT rights, shared a pink and red version of its navy blue and gold equality symbol logo on Facebook Monday.

"Follow @HRC on Twitter and at www.hrc.org/blog for live-updates from the first day of at the Supreme Court hearings. Make sure you wear red to show your support for marriage equality. And make your Facebook profile red too!," the post says.

The logo has been hard to miss on Facebook news feeds, especially after George Takei's profile picture change garnered nearly 40,000 likes from his enormous fan base Tuesday morning.

"For those friends wondering, this special 'red' equality symbol signifies that marriage equality really is all about love. Thanks to the Human Rights Campaign for this effort. Please consider changing your profile today in support—esp if you are a straight ally," Takei wrote.

The HRC has also started an online petition, which it hopes will gain significant traction.

Image courtesy of Human Rights Campaign; composite by Mashable

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