Hasta La Gadget!

People were quick to name The Social Network the movie of the year, making some pretty bold pronouncements for the film, and bandying about titles like Citizen Kane a good deal. The Academy, it seems, didn’t agree. Not quite. 

If art always seemed a little bit too passive for your liking, we have a little something that might change your mind. Wall artist Alexandre Farto has been creating images without paint, pen or charcoal, opting instead for very precise explosions. He places charges into a wall and then detonates them, blowing off bits of plaster to create large murals, with the contrast between the exploded bits and intact wall forming the image. 

The murals can be found around London and Moscow and are part of a series called “Scratching the Surface”. His site contains images of other pieces he’s made with explosives, as well as links to his other works (mostly of the more tame, non-volatile variety).

The artist, also known as Vhils, collaborated with the musician Orelha Negra to create a video of the creation of the pieces, explosions and all. Watching the bits of plaster fly off the wall, leaving behind a simple slogan or picture is honestly breathtaking, especially given how carefully targeted these blasts had to be to make this happen. Can’t help but think that required art classes would be a bit more fun using his technique. Check out the video after the break.

[via Hack-a-Day]

On Thursday, Google announced two changes for search results: a “recipes” filter and improved search algorithms. Sounds pretty tasty, all around.

It’s first announcement helps your inner chef find the perfect recipe in now time. In Recipe View, when a user search for a specific or vague recipe or ingredients, Google only brings up recipe results. You can further narrow you search by selecting your ideal ingredients, cooking time, and calorie count. Note: things with more tend to taste better, so I’d avoid the calorie limiter, or not; it’s you’re choice.

The second announcement explained that Google tweaked their ranking algorithms to reduce rankings for low-quality sites and improve the ranking for high-quality sites. So which are which? On its blog, Google said low-quality sites are “low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful” and high-quality are “sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” The change impacts about 11.8 percent of Google’s queries and only affects the U.S. right now.

More ways to find the best cupcake recipes and less content farms and ranking gamers in search results sounds pretty good to me. I’m going to go make some banana cupcakes now.

Want to buy a slightly-used social network? Rupert Murdoch wants to know what he can do to get you to drive home in MySpace. News Corp. and representatives from investment bankers Allen & Co will be speaking with potential buyers for the once-dominate social network in the coming weeks. 

You’ve got to wonder if you’re not poking a red white and blue hornet’s nest when you ask the United States government to investigate your business practices. When China-based telecommunications company Huawei Technologies wrote an open letter to the US government on its Website it seemed to e doing precisely that. The letter comes in the wake of a government suggestion that Huawei divest assets recently purchased from U.S.-based 3Leaf. 

Unfortunately, over the past 10 years, as we have been investing in the United States, we have encountered a number of misperceptions that some hold about Huawei. These include unfounded and unproven claims of “close connections with the Chinese military,” “disputes over intellectual property rights,” “allegations of financial support from the Chinese government,” and “threats to the national security of the United States”.

We sincerely hope that the United States government will carry out a formal investigation on any concerns it may have about Huawei. The United States is an advocate for democracy, freedom, rule of law, and human rights. The United States government has demonstrated its efficiency in management, fairness and impartiality and we have been impressed by that ever since we made our first investment in this country some 10 years ago. We have faith in the fairness and justness of the United States and we believe the results of any thorough government investigation will prove that Huawei is a normal commercial institution and nothing more. 

Oh, and for good measure, the company also quotes Obama’s inaugural address in the letter, “On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics”