Encrypting Your Email Works, Says NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden. In the “ask me anything” format made famous by Reddit, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden returned to the Guardian’s website this morning to answer questions from the general public as part of a live event known as “AskSnowden.” It was a fascinating exchange, and you can see the whole thing here — and we’ll have a rundown of the full event here soon. But there was one standout bit of good news from Snowden along with the disturbing details of the government’s surveillance of our web activity: Encryption works as a method to keep your personal data private.
A commenter named Mathius1 asked (typos included here), “Is encrypting my email any good at defeating the NSA survelielance? Id my data protected by standard encryption?” Snowden responded: “Encryption works. Snowden doesn’t add more details, but in general some examples of well-reputed third party crypto systems would be the Gnu Privacy Guard, or “GPG,” and the Pretty Good Privacy program, or “PGP.” As Hardware Startups Take Off, Materials And Technology Marketplace Inventables Raises $3M. Chicago-based Inventables, a marketplace for technology and materials for developers and designers, has raised $3 million in new funding led by Tim Draper (via Draper Associates) with Dundee Venture Capital, Richard Yoo (founder of Rackspace), Georges Harik, and True Ventures participating.
This brings Inventables’ total funding to $5 million. Inventables launched in 2010 as a marketplace for software, hardware and materials for makers, designers and manufacturers to create prototypes and low-volume production runs. Essentially, Inventables sells the parts, machines and materials that many hardware developers or manufacturers need to build their products. The marketplace itself is similar to any other shopping site, where you can purchase supplies online that are shipped to you within a few days. Of course, Kaplan acknowledges that its a competitive market, with Inventables going head to head with AmazonSupply. Hypnotic Wind-powered Kinetic Sculptures by Anthony Howe.
In Cloud Light. Stainless steel. 224″h x 104″w x 52″d. Linked stainless disks rotating around a circular axis. Spins in ultralight winds but overbuilt to withstand strong. Octo. Stainless steel. 204″h x 48″w x 20″d. Linked stainless shapes rotating around a circular axis. Spins in ultralight winds but overbuilt to withstand strong. In-Out Quotient. About Face. Kinetic sculptor Anthony Howe lives and works in a rural area in Eastsound, Washington surrounded by little more than trees, wind, and other natural elements that inspire his incredible kinetic sculptures. The social network for professionals in entertainment - Animation, Movies, Visual Effects, Games, Illustration, Concept Artists, and more. If you make cool stuff, join us!
409_max.jpg (JPEG Image, 1100 × 619 pixels) Unconventional Art. Digital Art. Visualizing Major Causes of Death in the 20th Century. I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk by the provocative philosopher John Gray as he discussed his new book – The Silence of Animals: On Progress and other Myths. During the engaging talk (which you can listen to here) he made a strong case for the idea that, while technology has progressed substantially over the last centuries, society and human behavior has not. Are we all just animals with mobile phones and machine guns?
As we’ll see from this excellent graphic detailing the major causes of death in the 20th century, John Gray may be on to something. See Also Vintage Infographic: Napoleon's Tragic Russian March I recently saw the jaw dropping graphic featured at the Wellcome Collection in London. The bubble chart covers the main causes of death from the 20th century, a time of incredible growth in both world population and the technology that we can harness.
Some things stood out strikingly once visualized, and were hot topics of conversation as people observed the graphic. Visualizing Major Causes of Death in the 20th Century. Explore Crunchbase Visually to See Hidden Connections. If you have an idea for a startup, you’re an investor, or you’re a journalist looking for information on anything Web 2.0, this is visual research gold: you can now explore CrunchBase visually to find hidden investment connections. CrunchBase, the wiki-style database of Web 2.0 people, investors, and companies that include lists of their key employees – or key events in their business – is a go-to resource for many people doing research in the online investment world. Now, the company Wikisway is giving us the option of exploring the CrunchBase network visually, opening up a whole world of information previously hidden in the text.
See Also A Complex World of Microsoft Acquisitions To display the useful information the Wikisway visualisation uses a node-based chart populated by the individual, investor or business you’re researching. This is where it gets cool. Via info.crunchbase. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Drone Attacks Interactive. The US has been waging war in the middle east for over 10 years now, making the combination of conflicts in the region the second longest war in our history. This is due, in part, to something new to our war making stategy: drone attacks. These non-manned flying machines allow the government to wage war without the risk of losing American military, while at the same time lowering the financial cost to wage such a conflict due to fewer deployed soldiers.
Their are hidden costs to these tactics however, as this shockingly affective interactive graphic from Pitch Interactive makes abundantly clear. See Also Team BlackSheep Exposes Holes in Homeland Security As Pitch Interactive points out, there is another benefit to governments using drones, that – as the graphic is aptly titled – it puts the cost of war “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” The interactive opens shockingly, tracing the growth of drone attacks since their inception in 2004 using arcs and bomb like circles to represent each attack.
Climate-Friendly Sunken Pool Converts into Radiant Floor. Here’s a truly glamorous idea for a pool. A sinking pool! The apparently permanent stone floor in this room literally slowly drops to reveal the pool underneath. In the raised position, you can walk on the same surface radiantly warmed from beneath. And of course, having the swimming pool convert itself into a floor makes it child-friendly too: this is not a pool that a child can fall into. Once it is sunken it looks like any other indoor pool – as permanent as you could possibly want. You could design this so that it remains as just a shallow decorative pool when not in use, one that is only an inch or two deep. But the best thing about this idea is that it would also make keeping the pool warm a cinch. Radiant floors or the use of thermal mass is climate-friendly design because of the slow release of warmth – reducing energy needs for heating.
The super-rich with luxury housing do the most harm to the planet with their luxury high energy use architecture. Design - 2/65 - Visual News. Organize. 3D Paintings on Panes of Glass. Using multiple layers of clear glass, Canada based David Spriggs and Chinese born Xia Xiaowan, transform flat artwork into 3D sculptures.
Viewers are treated to different shifting perspectives of the works based on where they stand in the art space. Spriggs work revolves around powerful explosive imagery, often resembling storms, cosmic blasts or firework like explosions. Xiawan’s “spatial paintings,” which often feature distorted figures, are drawn individually using colored pencil on tinted glass. Only when these pieces are combined on their floor racks do the images create the whole hologram like effect. See Also INCREDIBLE 3D ILLUSTRATIONS JUMP OUT OF THE SKETCHBOOK For more on David Spriggs see his beautiful website at davidspriggs.com or for more on Xia Xiaowan see Wikipedia Above and Below: Xia Xiaowan’s distorted 3D figures Artist: Xia Xiaowan Below: David Spriggs beautiful paintings fill the room with stormy emotion.
Artist: David Spriggs.