If you're a fan of time travel, exploring cities, history or virtual reality experiences, you're going to love the latest project from Dassault Systèmes. With the help of historians and archeologists, Dassault has created Paris 3d, an interactive model that transports any Internet user through two millennia of the city's history.

See how the French capital developed since its Roman conquest in 52 BC until the present day. Witness the construction of the Bastille and Notre Dame, navigate through winding stone streets in the middle ages and visit the 1889 World's Fair to see the revelation of the Eiffel Tower.

"This is the first time we have a digital model of Paris, and this virtu…
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Exactly one year ago, Oct. 5 2011, Apple's co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Today, Apple's home page is replaced by a video eulogy and a public letter to employees from the current Apple CEO, Tim Cook.

'One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple. No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself. Our values originated from Steve and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We share the great privilege and responsibility of carrying his legacy into the future,' writes Cook in the letter.

The video, which starts playing as you open Apple's website (it doesn't work in Firefox for…
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Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories.

Samsung Reports Record Quarter on Galaxy Phone Sales

Samsung has reported a $7.3 billion profit in another record quarter, driven by sales of Samsung Galaxy smartphones, Reuters reports.

This is a four straight record quarter for the company, and the projected yearly profit is also a record $25 billion. While the profits from Samsung's chip business diminished, strong Galaxy sales generated around $4.5 billion, which is around two thirds of the company's total profit.

M…
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Chanel has launched a dedicated microsite that invites visitors to explore the history of its founder and namesake, Coco Chanel, as well as its legacy products.

The site is housed at inside-chanel.com and can be accessed from Chanel's flagship site. For now, it is divided into two parts: A timeline of the house's history, dating from Coco Chanel's birth in 1883 to present, and a section containing a short film and a chronological succession of advertisements about Chanel's best-known fragrance, No. 5.

There's not a lot to explore at present, but what is there should engage those curious about the brand and its history. Additional sections accompanied by films will be introduced…
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Because of the increasing use of surveillance cameras, modern day UK is turning into Orwell's 1984 UK, said the british first ever Surveillance Commissioner.

In an interview with the newspaper The Independent, Andrew Rennison said the country is quickly letting technology go too far, putting privacy and other civil rights in danger.

"The technology has overtaken our ability to regulate it," he said. "It is the Big Brother scenario playing out large. It's the ability to pick out your face in a crowd from a camera which is probably half a mile away."

With HD cameras "popping all over the place," Rennison said there will be a justifiable outcry…
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More About: privacy, surveillance, video surveillance

Tumblr has finally given brands and marketers what they've long been asking for: An analytics dashboard.

During an Advertising Week event Thursday afternoon, the blogging network named Union Metrics a "preferred" third-party analytics provider. Marketers can use the service, which will remain in invite-only mode until November, to trace the sharing of individual posts, as well as track popular content, blogs and topics, engagement levels and trends, and influential contributors and curators, Tumblr said in an e-mailed statement.

Until now, Union Metrics has focused on Twitter analytics through its main product, TweetReach. The company recently licensed access to Tumblr's data through G…
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The anonymity of online shopping will soon be available in real time.

Starting Oct. 14, Target will tag the top 20 toys of the season in its stores with QR Codes. Perfect, the company says, for secretive mobile shopping.

All shoppers need to do is download the Target app and scan whichever marked toy they'd like to buy. They can opt for free shipping, too.

SEE ALSO: Why QR Codes Won't Last

Watch the video above to learn more. Should more stores offer this feature on their products?

Image courtesy of Flickr, j.reed.

More About: qr code, videos

Facebook announced that it had hit a billion active accounts Thursday; an extraordinary milestone, celebrated with a rather odd ad.

But that number, like that ad, is a sideshow. Another extraordinary stat got overlooked, and this is one that really gives you the scale of what the social network is building.

Or to put it another way: one billion isn't cool. You know what's cool? 140.3 billion.

As you can see from the infographic based on Facebook's internal data at the bottom of this article, 140.3 billion is the total friendships on Facebook. If you keep track of one thing about the company, make it this, not the user number or fluctuating stock price.

Friends: a Power…
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Patterns are everywhere — and not just because they're in style this season.

Everything on Earth is composed of patterns, from the building blocks of our DNA to the city streets we live on. Our modern lifestyle is built on the patterns of data that drive our laptops and smartphones. Humankind has always been dictated by the patterns of nature. Whether ancient or modern, patterns can make for some truly beautiful imagery.

This week's Photo Challenge asks you to share the most intricate and awesome patterns you've encountered. This could take the form of an amazing design, a piece of art you've created or a photo of a spectacular pattern you've found in the natural world. Are you…
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More About: Mashable Photo Challenge, community, photography

The studio version of Adele's theme song for the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, arrived Thursday night, along with a lyric video and more details on how the haunting ballad came to fruition.

"I was a little hesitant at first to be involved with the theme song for Skyfall," says Adele, who read the film's script before penning the track's lyrics with producer Paul Epworth. "There's a lot of instant spotlight and pressure when it comes to a Bond song.

"But I fell in love with the script."

A 77-piece orchestra backs Adele's vocals on "Skyfall," which she recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London.

"When we recorded the strings it was one of the proudest moments of my life,"…
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More About: Adele, Film, James Bond, Movies, Music, celebrities, trending

An errant tweet by KitchenAid resulted in a short-term pr disaster, but the brand minimized the damage with a quick apology, according to one researcher.

Simply Measured looked at @KitchenAidUSA interactions on Twitter at around 6:42 p.m. PST, the time of the tweet, and then eight minutes later when the brand issued its apology:

Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand's opinion. #nbcpolitics— KitchenAid (@KitchenAidUSA) October 4, 2012

As the chart below shows, activity spiked about an hour later, by which time the brand's apology was already part of the message. After that, there was a sharp drop in activity. In tota…
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RightThisMinute, a daily television broadcast that dissects viral videos, wants to create "the largest newsroom on Earth" -- starting with you and the videos you create or discover.

"If you've got a good video, we may want to have you on air," RightThisMinute creator David Miller tells Mashable.

To make this happen, the hour-long TV series has launched My Channel, where people can start a video page, upload their creations or embed existing viral videos. Producers will air any gems and give credit to the discoverers.

Some users may be asked to conduct a Skype interview for inclusion during broadcasts.

My Channel users can thumbs-up or thumbs-down other people's videos to hel…
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More About: Entertainment, TV, Viral, viral videos

Zynga's stock price fell 19% in after-hours trading -- to a new low of $2.27 per share -- after the company announced some brutal preliminary financial results for Q3 2012.

The company also updated its outlook for 2012, lowering its guidance for its projected bookings and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

For Q3 2012, the company expects to report a net loss of between $90 million and $105 million and and a diluted EPS (earnings per share) between $0.12 and $0.14.

As bad as that is what really stuck out to us is that Zynga will be taking an impairment charge between $85 million and $95 million "related to the intangible assets previously acqui…
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More About: Zynga, omgpop, quarterly earnings, social games

What would happen if voters treated presidential debates more like The Voice?

This video pretty much sums it up. Obama has a "great voice", and Mitt Romney has "badass hair".

SEE MORE: Carson Daly Tells All About 'The Voice,' Its Social Media Clout and 'TRL'

This video makes us wonder: if you could choose any format for the next debate, what would it be? Tell us in the comments below.

More About: Watercooler, viral videos

Craigslist introduced a new mapping feature on Wednesday that will allow its users to see what apartments are available in a particular area in a map view.

As of now, it's still in its "rolling out" phase, and is only available in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Ann Arbor, Mich., but more cities will have access in the near future.

SEE ALSO: This Might be the Best Craigslist Used Car Ad of All Time

The release comes at a peculiar time for Craigslist. In July, the organization filed a lawsuit against Padmapper and its data provider, 3Taps, for copyright infringement and breach of contract -- alleging that both organizations had illegally comp…
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Samsung's Galaxy Camera not only runs Android like a smartphone, it will also have a data plan much like your favorite handset.

It was announced earlier this year, but AT&T said Thursday that it will be bringing the smart camera to its network "in the coming weeks."

Like some of the newest smartphones on the block, the Galaxy Camera will come running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the latest version of Android. So in addition to snapping pictures, you'll also be able to run Android apps on the camera's display.

That means better Instagram photos -- and more importantly the ability to share the pictures you take with your camera instantly with friends on web.

"Wirelessl…
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More About: Galaxy Camera, Samsung Galaxy Camera, att, samsung, trending

Codecademy is expanding its catalogue of free, interactive programming tutorials with the launch of five Ruby courses.

The New York-based startup has also brought its Python track out of beta and added two new courses on top of the original six it released this summer.

In response to user feedback about its Python program, Codecademy has also "entirely rebuilt" its site architecture for backend courses, co-founder Zach Sims told Mashable in an e-mail. Site visitors should find things faster and more reliable going forward, Sims said.

SEE ALSO: A Day in the Life of Codecademy's 22-Year-Old Co-Founder

In addition to Python and Ruby, Codecademy also offers a few hundred u…
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Is electric car maker Tesla a "loser" company, as presidential candidate Mitt Romney charged in Wednesday's debate?

In a blog post written a few hours before the debate, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said no -- the company will in fact be profitable by the end of next month.

Musk felt journalists and analysts were reading too much into the company's forecast last week of slower manufacturing of its Model S sedan (pictured above), and says he thought the press also misinterpreted the reason why the company wanted to raise an additional $150 million.

While the financial world interpreted the additional round of financing as a weakness, Musk claims it was done for risk reduction, and doesn…
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PBS could teach other brands a thing or two about how to turn a meme into a marketing opportunity.

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Tobii Gaze is an experimental interface that uses what its maker calls the "most advanced and compact eye tracker in the world."

More About: Tobii Gaze, Windows 8, tablets, user interface

1. Ben LaBolt

Ben LaBolt is the national press secretary of Obama for America. One of his Twitter strengths is tweeting informative press pieces about the POTUS.

Click here to view this gallery.

This political season, presidential candidates are upping the ante, using social media like Twitter to connect with voters.

The forerunners hope that their 140-character tweets will potentially bring in millions of voters, but the outreach doesn't stop at official campaign accounts, such as @BarackObama and @MittRomney.

SEE ALSO: Can Social Media Really Boost Voter Turnout?

Keep the political party going by clicking through the gallery above for 12 individuals using Twitter to campaign for their candidates of choice.

Illustration by Jennifer Shore

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, Social Media, Twitter, barack obama, features

The HTC One X+ and HTC One VX are on their way exclusively to AT&T in the U.S. The flagship Android devices will join HTC's Windows Phone 8X on the carrier and will run on its 4G LTE network.

The two phones are the next-generation of the HTC One X, which was also an AT&T exclusive. Highly praised by reviewers, the phone was touted by many as the best Android phone on the market for some time.

HTC One X+
The HTC One X+ will be the first smartphone in the United States to feature HTC Sense 4+, the newest version of HTC's custom Android software, running on top of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The phone will come sporting a 1.7 GHz Tegra 3 NVIDIA quad-core processor, 64GB of intern…
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It's the best of times, it's the worst of times -- it's wedding time.

Every bride and groom wants to have the perfect wedding, but sometimes things don't work out according to plan. In this blooper reel of wedding disasters, each is funnier than the last.

SEE MORE: This App Crowdsources Your Wedding Photo Album

Take this video as a life lesson. No matter how bad things seem to be at the moment, you'll laugh about it later.

We hope the marriages worked out better than the weddings.

More About: Watercooler, viral videos

Healthcare is a hot-button issue in America right now -– partly because it's election season and partly because our healthcare system faces some legitimately major problems. On this episode of The Valley Girl Show, we sit down with Dr. Robert Pearl, the executive director and CEO of the Permanente Medical Group, to discuss the role that technology will play in the future of healthcare. And he is optimistic about new developments.

Pearl also talks about Kaiser Permanente's iPhone apps, which are designed to help patients manage their care. One allows you full access to your personal medical record, and another lets you schedule and modify…
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Bazaart is an iPad app that lets Pinterest users create colorful and clickable editorials out of their pins.

If you've ever dreamed of being a fashion blogger or magazine editor, this iPad app puts your creativity to the test. With the Bazaart app, users can effortlessly create look books and curate inspiration boards.

"We want to allow both brands and creative people to create amazing collage pages," Gili Golander, Bazaart co-founder, told Mashable in an email.

SEE ALSO: Pre-Order Fashion Retailer Aims to Take on Moda Operandi

Bazaart creations can be instantly published back onto Pinterest as an image. The upgraded app released this wee…
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More About: apps, ecommerce, fashion, ipad, pinterest

Delicious, the once popular social bookmarking site, is about to go through yet another redesign to improve the service's functionality.

More About: delicious, delicious 2.0, zeen

Wednesday night's debate saw 10.3 million tweets, setting a new political record on Twitter. But what were Twitter users actually tweeting about?

Of the more than 12.9 million opinions examined for Mashable by social media analysis firm Crimson Hexagon, about half were an analysis of the candidates' performance, while the other half were reactions to the debate discourse itself.

What did Twitter users make of the candidates? Twenty-six percent of tweets criticized Barack Obama for "looking rusty," as Crimson Hexagon put it, while 16% were in support of the president. Conversely, 22% said that Mitt Romney was "on his game," while 12% disagreed with the Republican candidate.

SEE A…
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More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, Politics, Twitter, US, barack obama

In the days following the Wisconsin TV anchor's on-air segment calling out her bully, support for anchor Jennifer Livingston has been pouring out on Facebook.

Her anti-bullying message comes at a perfect time -- October is National Bullying Prevention Month and recent events like this one have spotlighted the issues of hurtful comments that take place online.

Dennis Shaw, chief operation officer of i-SAFE, the leading publisher of online safety curriculum for grades pre-K-12, tells Mashable social media has shown to both help and hurt victims of cyberbullying. But what happened to the anchorwoman wasn't by definition bullying, he says.

"I don't think that the man who wrote the…
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You want explosions? You got 'em. Just watch the teaser trailer for A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth installment in the action-packed Die Hard series.

After the explosions, Bruce Willis channels his inner James Bond as John McClane, squeezing in a nice one-liner: "The double O seven of Plainfield, New Jersey."

SEE ALSO: Adele's 'Skyfall' Theme Song Leaks [AUDIO]

Will you watch this Die Hard flick when it comes out Feb. 14? Or is it time for this series to end?

BONUS: 295 Movies in One Epic Remix of 'Baby Got Back'

More About: Bruce Willis, Die Hard, Entertainment, Film, Movies, trending

Technology is all starting to look the same. The materials used to make computers, tablets and smartphones are not eco-friendly and are designed for obsolescence. What if instead of aluminum casings, our phones were surrounded by oak or hemlock? What about our keyboards?

A small team of designers and craftsmen have done just that by building Bluetooth-enabled portable keyboards from a more sustainable material: wood.

Through a mixed process of machining and final hand assembly and varnishing, the keyboards are made entirely from your choice of Maple or Walnut.

The team of three -- Franck Fontana, Christophe Della Signora, Julien Salanave -- f…
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