Mashable

Watch this video and tell me why you think there isn’t any other life out there.

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Though scientists have yet to invent commercial time travel, you can journey 13.7 billion years away (in HD!) on YouTube, thanks to user stormeindustries. It begins with the Himalayas and travels across the entire known universe, which you eventually see through the afterglow of the Big Bang.

If this video doesn’t make you feel small already, it also notes the amount of unknown territory that’s yet to be explored.

Recommendation: View with headphones or high quality speakers in 1080p.

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A YouTube channel that pokes fun at Reddit successfully pulled a viral prank using a quote and Neil deGrasse Tyson as bait.

The idea was to test the skepticism of Internet users, and the results might make you think twice about sharing a quote photograph before fact checking it.

The experiment began when redditor AHamWorker posted a photo to one of the most highly engaged communities, /r/atheism. The image, shown below, featured what appeared to be a quote from Tyson.

The made-up quote is about accepting fact when it’s reassured by a notable person, or suits preferred world views — regardless of whether it’s true.

AHamWorker even prefaced the set-up by adding “Well said, Neil,” in the subtitle. The post was upvoted more than a thousand times, and quickly spread to Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and other social platforms. A Google search for a snippet of text even has quote-collecting sites inaccurately attributing Tyson as the source.

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David Shearer is a big fan of Finland and of their hi-tech industry (well Nokia really)…he constantly says we should be following what they are doing.

Hmmm…I’m not sure we should. David Shearer put the politician’s hex on Finland the moment he expressed pride and joy in their country in just the same way a batsman goes out just when a commentator says they are set for their ton.

Nokia has announced it will close its factories in Finland, Germany and Canada and lay off up to 10,000 workers before the end of 2013.

In this “sharpening of strategy” Nokia will focus on “products and experiences that make Lumia smartphones stand out and available to more consumers,” invest in location-based services (Nokia Maps) and improve the competitiveness and profitability of its feature phone business.

On the cutting side, besides closing the R&D facilities in Ulm, Germany, Burnaby, Canada and the manufacturing facility in Salo, Finland (the R&D efforts in Salo will continue), Nokia plans to prioritize its key markets, streamline IT, corporate and support functions and reduce costs in its non-core assets.

“We intend to pursue an even more focused effort on Lumia, continued innovation around our feature phones, while placing increased emphasis on our location-based services. However, we must re-shape our operating model and ensure that we create a structure that can support our competitive ambitions,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO.

The announcement comes only four months after Nokia announced it will cut 4,000 jobs globally as it shifts device assembly to Asia.

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A SMOG of such epic proportions that only Trevor Mallard could be the one advising Sweden on their social media experiment that has gone spectacularly awry:

The Swedish government has been handing over the @sweden Twitter account to a different citizen each week, and this week’s owner is steering the car right off a social media cliff.

The project began in December, but an article in The New York Times brought the story to a new level of prominence Monday after a series of questionable tweets.

Tuesday, the current Swede behind the account, Sonja Abrahamsson, doubled down on the controversial tweeting, as seen below.

When the project began as a means to promote Sweden as a tourist destination, Thomas Brühl, CEO of VisitSweden, told Mashable “No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world.”

This may not have been what they were hoping for.

Go read the tweets and check the video…

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heh…360 no scope

Freddie Wong and his FreddieW Channel are something of a legend on YouTube. That’s thanks to his insanely well-produced videos, featuring Hollywood-level special effects. Most episodes are inspired by video games or action movies, but they’re also almost always laced with a bit of comedy. He’s so famous that he’s been able to get actors like Jon Favreau and Shenae Grimes to guest star.

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The BMW i8 Spyder hybrid concept car has been caught on video. It certainly isn’t a gay Prius.

The folks at Bimmerpost have managed to get a hold of the fully functioning BMW i8 Spyder and drive it on the road in several scenarios, including a daytime drive on a parking lot and a night drive on the road.

The footage is of excellent quality, and the car (unsurprisingly) looks and sounds amazing. The fact that it looks fully road-ready probably means BMW will soon show it in the flesh to the general public, perhaps even at the upcoming New York Auto Show.

BMW i8 Spyder is an electric-gas hybrid, powered by a 96 kW/131 hp engine on the front, and a 164 kW/223 hp gasoline engine in the back. It goes from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5 seconds and consumes 3 liters per 100 km (62 miles) on average, with 30 kilometres (19 miles) of autonomy on electric power alone.

Check out the rest of the videos, which include detailed exterior and interior shots, here.

Mashable put up this video on their site suggesting that Conan O’Brien had bought out Mashable:

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Mashable has featured this Kiwi made video as it’s Video of the Day.

If you’re a fan of the long-running UK sci-fi show Doctor Who and know your Internet memes, this video will strike you as a brilliant mash-up of both.

A literal version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was one of many literal music videos that circulated widely a couple of years back. For the unfamiliar, the idea is to take a well-known video and replace the lyrics with words that describe the onscreen action. The meme is said to have begun with this version of “Take on Me”.

Now one Doctor Who fan in New Zealand has taken the practice to a new level. In her “Literal Eclipse of the Heart,” YouTube user zeborahnz posted a video that keeps the literal lyrics, but replaces the original footage with clips from the show.

In the video’s accompanying notes, Zeborah says she wanted to do a literal music video, but had seen too many that were “fairly incompetent.”

“I wanted some kind of un-narrative going through it so decided to have the Doctor illustrating all the lyrics sung by PersephoneMaewyn (or Bonnie Tyler in the original) and various Companions illustrating the others,” Zeborah says. “I genderswitched large chunks of stuff accordingly.”

The result: Doctor Who Internet heaven, for about five and a half minutes. Let us know what you think!

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Indie-rockers the Vaccines are debuting their new video for “Wetsuit,” which was almost entirely crowdsourced from fan photos submitted through Instagram, the photo-sharing app for iPhone. The video follows a festival-goer in a red hoodie from daybreak to day-ending Vaccines concert. Other than brief video segments, the entire video is from Instagram.

Fans were asked to take pictures of themselves at festivals and submit them by tagging them with #vaccinesvideo. The band received nearly 3,000 photos and approximately 15,000 likes on Instagram. The project, put together by Anomaly, also had an international splash with people from 99 countries visiting the contest site. It was then up to director Poppy de Villeneuve to sort through and pick the best photos to use and in what order.

via Mashable