Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Twitter Activity Will Affect Vampire Weekend's Concert Live Stream

Vampire-weekendBrian Anthony Hernandez2013-04-28 16:06:54 UTC

Indie rock band Vampire Weekend will share new music Sunday night during a concert at the Tribeca Film Festival, and fans not at the show can watch it on YouTube.

The concert live stream, directed by Boardwalk Empire star Steve Buscemi, airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET and is part of the American Express Unstaged concert series.

Viewers' Twitter activity during the concert will influence whether the band plays a digital encore.

Viewers' Twitter activity during the concert will influence whether the band plays a digital encore.

If enough viewers tweet reactions to the show using #AmexUnstaged, they will unlock online-only access to Vampire Weekend's post-show antics, which will include a backstage performance of "White Sky" alongside Buscemi and actor Fred Armisen's quirky character Ian Rubbish.

Leading up to the show, AmEx has released a series of funny videos showing Buscemi doing everything he can to promote the concert. AmEx exclusively gave Mashable the series' final video:

Each Unstaged concert pairs an artist with a well-known director: Kenny Chesney with Jonathan Demme, Usher with Hamish Hamilton, The Killers with Werner Herzog, Jack White with Gary Oldman, John Legend with Spike Lee and others.

Chesney did a fan challenge similar to Vampire Weekend's digital encore: The number of tweets viewers sent during his beach-side concert earned them a nine-song encore.

"We want to make sure we always have something special just for the digital audience," Susan Hammes, VP of social media marketing at American Express, told Mashable.

For Usher's Unstaged concert, people submitted digital avatars of themselves for a chance to be virtual backup dancers. For Jack White's show, fans were tasked with creating a digital mosaic by sending in photos of their faces.

The Unstaged concerts coincide with the artists’ album releases. Vampire Weekend's Modern Vampires of the City comes out May 14.

Image via Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella

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5 Games You Should Play This Weekend

Robot-unicorn-iconChelsea Stark2013-04-27 18:24:12 UTC

The weather may be getting nicer, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't spend part of this weekend playing some great games.

While there weren't really any major console releases worth noting this week, there were plenty of new games released for downloadable systems. All the games we highlighted are fun, charming and engrossing, and none of them cost more than $15.

Check out our list above for suggestions. What are you playing this weekend? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Homepage image courtesy Adult Swim Games.

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The Cost of Being Iron Man and Other Top Comments

Ironman321Jessica Fee2013-04-27 17:50:42 UTC

How much would it cost to fund the high-tech lifestyle of Iron Man 3? Being the "hero" in the third installation of the Iron Man series raised in price from $1.6 billion in the first movie to over $10 billion. This infographic breaks down the costs associated with being Iron Man, from the Tesla Roadster to the artificial intelligence computer in Tony Stark's home. In this week's top comments, many of our readers took to making their own financial assessments. But really, isn't being the real Iron Man priceless?

Would you watch a reality TV show about the Mars One pioneers? While it may sound far-fetched, it's not as radical an idea as you might think. Red Bull's Felix Baumgartner made YouTube history in a death-defying supersonic jump as more than 8 million people watched the live-streamed event. In general, our readers reacted to the idea of a reality show with skepticism and scorn. Let us know what you think in the comments section: Would you watch the show?

We've all had a bad day at work before, but nothing quite tops swearing on live tv on your first day. While some of our readers chastised A.J. Clemente for his colossal flub-up, many also defended him for the careless mistake. Do you think he will be given another chance?

Finally, this week the TSA invited people to weigh in on its controversial full-body scanners. Our readers were quick to point out that the scanners have been in place for the past five years, and that the majority of people have been "weighing in" ever since their implementation.

We've compiled a selection of comments from these stories in the gallery above. Let us know what you think of the stories in the comments section below, and you may see your name featured in our roundup next week.

Mashable composite: Images via Marvel, MoneySupermarket.com; Flickr, niiicedave; iStock, craftvision, Petrovich9, and CreativeGraphicArts

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Hilarious 'House of Cards' Spoof Opens White House Correspondents' Dinner

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2013-04-28 15:30:10 UTC

Kevin Spacey reprised his House of Cards character in a hilarious six-minute video that opened the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, also known as "Nerd Prom," Saturday in Washington, D.C.

In the skit, Spacey uses his character's Machiavellian maneuvers to complete the seating chart at the dinner and, in the meantime, pokes fun at a long list of personalities attending the dinner. A number of them even participated in the spoof, including Sen. John McCain and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Spacey even makes some tongue-in-cheek criticism. Referring to the night's host, comedian Conan O’Brien, he says that "it must be so hard to write jokes about a town that already is one."

"Democrats, Republicans, the White House, Congress, you all came together to make this spoof. That's what real bipartisanship looks like," he says at the end, addressing the camera. "I may lie, cheat and intimidate to get the job done, but at least I get the job done. So I hope some of you are taking notes."

Image via Pete Marovich-Pool/Getty Images

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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Joins the $1 Salary Club

Facebook-graph-searchfor Quartz 2013-04-27 21:03:00 UTC

Facebook confirmed in a filing that Mark Zuckerberg, the social network's founder and CEO, is taking a $1 salary this year, and foregoing any bonuses.

But he's not exactly taking a vow of poverty. When Facebook went public last year, Zuckerberg exercised 60 million stock options, then worth nearly $2.3 billion, buying those shares for next to nothing. (He sold half of the stock to cover his tax bill.) And he's still sitting on another 60 million stock options that can be exercised on Nov. 7, 2015, for the same dirt-cheap price of $0.06.

All of those shares give Zuckerberg plenty of incentive to keep Facebook in good financial health, although he is on record saying, "We don't wake up in the morning with the primary goal of making money," and isn't really beholden to shareholders, since he controls a majority of proxy votes.

The $1 salary is symbolic. Companies have to compensate all of their employees, so working for free is out of the question — and doesn't $1 sound better, anyway? Since the first dot-com boom, getting paid $1 has become something of a tradition among extremely wealthy executives whose compensation instead comes in the form of stock.

Steve Jobs famously took a $1 salary from the time he returned to Apple as CEO in 1998; he didn't take any stock grants after 2003, either. In 2005, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with then-CEO Eric Schmidt, all reduced their salaries to $1. Schmidt, now executive chairman, takes a salary of several million dollars these days; Page, now CEO, and Brin still make $1.

Other tech CEOs who belong to the $1 salary club include Oracle's Larry Ellison, Tesla's Elon Musk, Zynga's Mark Pincus, and HP's Meg Whitman. Yahoo's Jerry Yang was making $1 before he was ousted as CEO last year. Outside of Silicon Valley, CEOs of American companies who made $1 in salary last year include Capital One's Richard Fairbank, Urban Outfitters' Richard Hayne, Fossil's Kosta Kartsotis, Kinder Morgan's Richard Kinder and Duke Energy's James Rogers.

Among the $1 salary club, only Karsotis, the watchmaker's longtime leader, actually made nothing in 2012, according to a Bloomberg analysis of proxy filings. He owns 11% of the company but didn't receive any additional stock or stock options last year. "Mr. Kartsotis is one of the initial investors in our company and expressed his belief that his primary compensation is met by continuing to drive stock price growth,"the company explained in its filing.

That's generally how $1 salaries are explained, but sometimes they come in the form of punishment or self-flagellation. When Lee Iacocca was brought in to save Chrysler from bankruptcy in 1978, he took a $1 salary as a publicity stunt. Vikram Pandit's salary was reduced to $1 in 2010, as Citigroup struggled to recover from the financial crisis, and executive compensation packages on Wall Street were facing intense public criticism; he was still fired two years later.

Zuckerberg's $1 salary for 2013 was first revealed in Facebook's IPO filing, but the proxy filing yesterday confirmed the amount and added that he won't receive any bonus, either. It also revealed that Zuckerberg received a $266,101 bonus last year in addition to his $500,000 base salary. He also gets to use Facebook's private planes, of course. Professional trips don't count as compensation, but his personal trips on Air Facebook last year cost more than $1.2 million.

Image via AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

This article originally published at Quartz here

Topics: Facebook, Jobs, mark zuckerberg, Social Media Quartz is a Mashable publishing partner that is a new kind of global business news outlet.

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Hands-On With the Week's Top Apps

Emily Price2013-04-28 18:32:43 UTC

Some interesting apps launched this week. The long-rumored Draw Something 2 finally made its way into the App Store, and popular Android app Drippler finally made its way to iOS.

Amazon released a new version of its Kindle app for Android, borrowing some design elements from the Kindle version of the app, and Nike launched a new app for its Fuel Band that lets you share not only information about your latest run with friends but photos as well.

Curious what all these new apps look like? Check out the video above for a hands-on look at some of our favorites from the past week.

Have you tried any of this week's picks? Tell us about your own top apps in the comments.

Ds3 Screen-shot-2013-04-27-at-11-58-46-am Kindleandroid Screen-shot-2013-04-27-at-12-11-24-pm Screen-shot-2013-04-27-at-11-56-05-am Tumblr Screen-shot-2013-04-27-at-12-03-32-pm

Mashable Photo

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Budweiser 'Buddy Cup' Connects New Bar Friends to Facebook

Samantha Murphy2013-04-27 15:24:06 UTC

It's a universal ritual to clink drinking glasses together to make friends, but believe it or not, toasting is about to undergo a high-tech upgrade.

Budweiser Brazil is testing new concept called "The Buddy Cup," a beer glass integrated with Facebook. Thanks to a microchip embedded in the bottom of the glass, two people can instantly become Facebook friends when cups touch.

To get started, drinkers have to connect their cup to their Facebook profiles by snapping a picture of the chip via a smartphone app. Check out the YouTube video above to see how it works.

Although the company hasn't released many details about the Buddy Cup yet, it is intended to be used during the brand's sponsored events such as concerts and festivals. No word yet on if we could see this pop up in the U.S. anytime soon.

This would certainly make it easy to meet people and exchange information while out with friends — and perhaps, it's a more natural way to use technology in social settings than other connecting-concepts such as the QR-code Skanz bracelet or even the Bump app.

Well, just as long as there isn't that one person who runs around the bar clinking everyone's glasses.

Image via iStockphoto, kjschraa

Topics: Apps and Software, budweiser, Conversations, Facebook, Gadgets, Marketing, Mobile, Tech if(window.pageChanged) window.omni({"channel":"tech","content_type":"article","top_channel":"tech","content_source_type":"Internal","content_source_name":"Internal","author_name":"Samantha Murphy","age":"0","pub_day":27,"pub_month":4,"pub_year":2013,"pub_date":"04/27/2013","isPostView":true,"post_lead_type":"YouTube Video Lead"}); metaData = {"link":[["canonical","http://mashable.com/2013/04/27/budweiser-buddy-cup/"],["image_src","http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA0LzI3LzJlL0JlZXJHbGFzc2VzLmNhYjY3LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTcyMHg3MjAjCmUJanBn/22553481/a08/BeerGlasses.jpg"]],"meta_property":[["og:url","http://mashable.com/2013/04/27/budweiser-buddy-cup/"],["og:title","Budweiser 'Buddy Cup' Connects New Bar Friends to Facebook"],["og:type","article"],["og:site_name","Mashable"],["og:image","http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA0LzI3LzJlL0JlZXJHbGFzc2VzLmNhYjY3LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTcyMHg3MjAjCmUJanBn/22553481/a08/BeerGlasses.jpg"],["og:article:published_time","2013-04-27T15:24:06Z"],["og:article:modified_time","2013-04-27T15:24:16Z"]],"meta_name":[["description","It's a universal ritual to clink drinking glasses together, but believe it or not, toasting is about to undergo a high-tech upgrade, thanks to Budweiser."],["keywords",["mobile","facebook","marketing","budweiser","uncategorized","tech","apps-software","gadgets","conversations"]],["twitter:title","Budweiser 'Buddy Cup' Connects New Bar Friends to Facebook"],["twitter:description","It's a universal ritual to clink drinking glasses together to make friends, but believe it or not, toasting is about to undergo a high-tech upgrade."],["twitter:image","http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA0LzI3LzJlL0JlZXJHbGFzc2VzLmNhYjY3LmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTU2MHg3NTAKZQlqcGc/54cc12dc/a08/BeerGlasses.jpg"],["twitter:site","@mashable"],["twitter:url","http://mashable.com/2013/04/27/budweiser-buddy-cup/"],["twitter:creator","@mashable"],["twitter:card","player"],["twitter:player","https://www.youtube.com/embed/9FdnssHlcRk"],["twitter:player:width","435"],["twitter:player:height","245"]],"short_url":[["short_url","http://on.mash.to/Y4hc7t"]]};

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Teen Builds Incredibly Realistic-Looking Iron Man Suit

ThumbLorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2013-04-28 20:21:13 UTC

Fans can do all kinds of things to show their love for their favorite superheroes. In the case of Archie Whitehead, a 17-year-old high school student from Welwyn Garden City, a town 20 miles outside of London, that means building an amazing, highly realistic costume of Iron Man. The homemade suit is so good, you can barely distinguish it from the one used in the movie.

In January, Whitehead wanted to make an Iron Man suit. He saw somebody in the United States had made a DIY Iron Man costume in fiberglass, but that wasn't going to be possible. "That's real expensive," he thought. "At 17, obviously I don't have the kind of money to make something like that." But then he saw somebody else had made a Halo costume with foam, and he thought, "Why can't I make the suit out of that?"

Once he decided on the material, he downloaded some 3D files from online prop and costumes forums and used "loads of reference images" to modify the downloaded templates. He then printed the templates and used them to trace them on the foam, which he then cut with a knife. Once he polished all the corners, he glued everything together and used small bolts for the joints. He then sealed the foam with acrylic gel, which allowed him to keep the costume flexible but at the same time make it paintable. Finally, he colored everything with spray paint. Every part of the costume is made of foam, except for the helmet, which is made of resin fiberglass, and took him the most time to build.

The whole project took approximately four months. He put in a few hours of work every day during his spare time. The entire costume, counting all the materials, cost him about $500.

"I really didn't realize it would come out so well until it did," Whitehead told Mashable in an email.

Eventually, Whitehead wants to become a conceptual artist, but he also enjoyed building his first costume, so he says he will keep exploring his options now.

The results of his tireless work are in the slideshow above, and check out more pictures on Imgur.

All images courtesy of Archie Whitehead

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