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

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Teen Builds Incredibly Realistic-Looking Iron Man Suit

Lorenzo 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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Twitter for Mac Update Improves Photo Sharing, Adds Retina Support

Emily Price2013-04-25 19:06:40 UTC

Twitter issued an update on Thursday for Twitter for Mac for the first time since 2011, bringing a number of improvements to the Mac version of the app.

Most notably, the update improves photo sharing. Now to add a photo to a tweet, you can simply click on the camera icon in the lower-left corner of the box where you’re composing your tweet, and add a photo from your computer. An operation that works much like the experience on Twitter's mobile apps.

If you miss the drag-and-drop functionality, you can also still add photos that way from your desktop as well.

In addition to the photo improvements, Twitter also added Retina display support to the Mac application, and support for 14 more languages: Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.

The updated version of Twitter for Mac is available now from the Mac App Store.

Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, fonikum and Twitter

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Microsoft Office Ad Turns 'Forbes' Magazines Into Wi-Fi Hotspots

Seth Fiegerman2013-04-25 21:43:51 UTC

Like other tech companies, Microsoft has advertised some of its products in the past by offering free Wi-Fi in public places like subways and park benches. Now, the company is doing something a little more original and promoting a product by offering free Wi-Fi inside a magazine.

Yes, you read that right. In a new promotion, Microsoft is advertising Office 365 by installing a T-Mobile router into the latest issue of Forbes magazine, turning the print publication into a Wi-Fi hotspot for two weeks. The promotion was first reported by Engadget and has since been confirmed to Mashable by a Microsoft rep, who noted that it was only to included in a "limited number" of the magazines.

"The custom 4-page insert with WiFi Hotspot capabilities ran in the May 6, 2013 issue of Forbes and was sent to a limited number of technology and business professionals."

Entertainment Weekly did something similar a few months back when it installed an actual smartphone inside a print issue in order to feature live tweets and a video ad.

Here are some pictures of the Microsoft spread in Forbes:

Images via Getty, Andy Rogers and Forbes

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Aaron Swartz Documentary Seeks Funding on Kickstarter

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2013-04-26 00:19:24 UTC

When Internet activist and hacker Aaron Swartz committed suicide, his death resonated far beyond his circle of friends, family and acquaintances, touching technology's greatest minds, other Internet activists, and millions of people whom he never met.

His far-reaching influence is what motivated director Brian Knappenberger to decide to make a documentary on his life and death, and to launch a Kickstarter to fund it.

"I feel a real responsibility –- his story has touched so many people that I feel like I really want to [do] this justice," Knappenberger told Wired. "It’s touched people that didn’t really know him all over the world so, [the film] is about exploring why that is, why people knew about him and why he inspires people. … It’s not a memorial of him, either. It’s an investigative approach into what happened and who he was."

The feature documentary is currently titled The Internet’s Own Boy. The director, Knappenberger, also made the documentary about the hacktivist group Anonymous, We Are Legion. For the documentary, Knappenberger will interview Swartz's family and loved ones, as well as authorities like MIT officials.

At the time of his suicide, Swartz was facing criminal charges for downloading millions of articles using a laptop plugged into an MIT storage room. The articles were from JSTOR, an online academic database. Swartz's supporters and family have called the prosecution overzealous and unfair, and they argue it was one of the reasons he decided take his own life.

The Kickstarter project, which at press time has reached just over $40,000 of the requested $75,000, still has 29 days to go.

To find out more about the documentary, watch the video above.

Image via Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

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NFL Draft Fans Even Have Opinions on Players Who Don't Exist

Sam Laird2013-04-25 19:56:30 UTC

Fresh from the Jimmy Kimmel School of Blowhard Shaming comes this video of ever-expansive NFL Draft fans pontificating, as they do, on pro prospects' relative strengths and weaknesses. The catch? The players in this video, including a Buster Highmen and one Neil Antblo, don't exist.

Kimmel set a high bar this week when his show hilariously interviewed Coachella fans about bands that don't exist, but this video from FootballNation is a worthy follow-up indeed. As you'll see, the fact that a player is completely made-up doesn't stop many fans from eagerly breaking down his chances of NFL stardom. Except for the guy at the end. He gets it. Well done, guy at the end.

Homepage image courtesy FootballNation via YouTube

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Mobile Apps Are the New Network TV, Without the Ad Dollars

Todd Wasserman2013-04-25 21:55:26 UTC

Researcher Flurry reported on Thursday that the audience for mobile apps has hit 58 million in primetime — 8 p.m. — a figure that rivals that of the top three TV networks on a very good night, but revenues are still just a fraction of those of TV.

The IAB estimates that the U.S. mobile ad market brought in $3.4 billion in 2012. The IAB didn't break out revenues for apps vs. the mobile web, but Flurry has estimated that 80% of mobile activity occurs on apps. Comparatively, Kantar Media calculated that TV advertising accounted for $74 billion in ad revenues in 2012. Even if apps generated 100% of mobile ad revenues, the market would still be just 4.5% that of TV.

Meanwhile, Flurry also found that there are now more monthly users of mobile apps than there are for desktop computers and laptops. Yet the the desktop ad market is still 10 times the size of the mobile ad market in revenues, according to the IAB.

Why?

Michael Becker, managing director of the Mobile Marketing Association, says there are several reasons, but the main ones are a lack of a unified buying infrastructure for mobile apps and a comparatively fragmented market. "Reaching this audience isn't as easy as making a TV buy," he says. "That's the big difference."

To execute a mobile ad buy, you have to choose between various networks and exchanges and real-time bidding platforms. The ads themselves are also different since they're often designed to prompt users to take action relatively quickly, which mean fewer branding ads and more direct-response executions. To ensure that the ads are effective, it helps to tailor to them to individual users' demographics and geographic location. To make things even more complicated, while on desktop, there are basically two operating systems, in mobile there are at least 10, Becker says and "hundreds of browsers and screen sizes."

The disparity between the reach of advertising via mobile apps and the complexity of the buying process is "both the challenge and the opportunity" says Peter Farago, VP of marketing for Flurry.

Flurry projects that the install base for mobile apps will double over the next year, which might lead some to conclude that mobile is a black hole that is eviscerating the TV and desktop market and leaving behind a much less lucrative ad industry in its wake. Yet eMarketer predicts that TV will continue to grow — and outpace digital advertising — through 2017.

One argument is that even though TV ratings are down — Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne recently found that they fell 50% over the past decade — TV is still the last place where you can find 5 million or more people tuned in at the same time to an ad. You may be able to get in front of 5 million people on Facebook, but if you use a display ad, only about one in 1,000 people will click on it.

Paul Gelb, head of strategy at MoPub, a mobile ad exchange firm, makes a more optimistic argument. In Gelb's view, mobile ad revenues are still low because the industry is so new. Eventually, he says, mobile will be bigger than TV. "The dollars don't shift in a meaningful way that's sustainable overnight," he says. Yet Gelb points out that bigger advertisers are jumping into mobile — Mondelez (nee Kraft) pledged last year to put 10% of its ad budget into the segment — and that both marketers and advertisers are experimenting to see what works. "Sometimes a blank canvas is a challenge," Gelb says, noting that "even in TV it took the industry years to get to the 15- and 30-second commercial."

Image courtesy of Getty, Justin Sullivan

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