Typography is the foundation of design on the web. Back in 2006, designer and founder of iA Oliver Reichenstein even went so far as to proclaim "web design is 95% typography."

It's imperative, then, to have a thorough, grounded education in optimizing and utilizing typography to create a balanced, harmonious, accessible hierarchy of content, when working on the web

To help you improve and learn more about typography, we have compiled 25 useful tools and resources, from fundamentals to modular scales

Have we left out your favorite typography tool or resource? If so, please share your recommendations with other readers in the comments. Read more...

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Although developing apps for Google Glass isn't currently a very lucrative endeavor — ads aren't allowed, and the device costs $1,500 — developers are creating new ways to use the wearable device every day

Case in point: an app that lets Google Glass users take photos with the wink of an eye

Called Winky, the app is a simple affair; it lets you wake Glass from standby and take a pic with a slow wink of an eye

"Winking really changes things. You might not thing it's hard to say "Ok, Glass Take a Picture" or even just tap a button. But it's a context switch that takes you out of the moment, even if just for a second. Winking lets you lifelog with little to no effort. I've taken more pictures today than I have the past 5 days thanks to this. Sure, they are mostly silly, but my timeline has now truly become a timeline of where I've been," says developer Mike DiGiovanni on his Google+ page. Read more...

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Several of President Barack Obama's former top technology and political campaign staffers are launching a consulting firm to bring the data and analytics know-how of the Obama campaign to a variety of companies, advocacy campaigns and other clients.

Former Obama Deputy Campaign Managers Stephanie Cutter and Jen O'Malley Dillon and former Obama campaign Digital Director Teddy Goff, along with other Obama veterans, are joining the firm. Cutter and Dillon will remain on the board of Organizing for Action, an organization designed to support the president's legislative agenda (Cutter is also rumored to be in talks with CNN). Read more...

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Intel's upcoming processors, codenamed "Haswell," have an integrated "Iris" graphics chip that will deliver twice the performance of the Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip, integrated in the current "Ivy Bridge" processor line

This means laptops sporting Haswell chips — which will be launched under Intel's "Core" brand — will have decent video playback and gaming capabilities, even without a dedicated graphics chip.

For example, laptops running on Haswell chips will be able to play 4K (3840×2160 pixels) video; they'll have faster MPEG encoding and decoding capabilities thanks to Intel's improved QuickSync technology, and their 3D Mark scores are as much as doubled compared to machines running Ivy Bridge chips Read more...

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Recently, many iPhone and iPad users were incensed to learn that Siri — the personal digital assistant for iOS devices — has an eerily long memory. Unbeknownst to Apple customers, Siri sends all your queries directly to Apple's company’s servers, where it is kept for two years before being deleted

And while the truth about Siri is making headlines, it's not really shocking. Data retention policies have been aggravating Internet and cellphone users for years now. These policies are determined by individual companies and aren’t regulated by state or federal laws.

Shrinking your digital footprint requires a lot of diligence, but if you'd like to get started then it helps to know which companies are hoarding your data and how long they intend to hold onto it. Read more...

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"Kris Kross" became a worldwide trending term on Twitter after news of member Chris Kelly's death broke online Wednesday night.

Fans took to Twitter to mourn the loss of Kelly — also known as "Mac Daddy" — one half of the rap duo best known for its 1992 hit, "Jump." Chris Smith, known as "Daddy Mac," was Kris Kross' other member

"Chris Kelly" also trended worldwide, while #RIPChrisKelly trended in the United States. Fans and celebrities alike tweeted their condolences, along with memories of growing up to Kris' Kross music

Rest In Peace, Chris Kelly. Kris Kross lives forever. Thank you for the memories#AtlantasOwn

— Keri Hilson (@KeriHilson) May 2, 2013 Read more...

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Countering the stereotype of the web-surfing couch potato, a new study reveals that logging online may actually help people maintain their weight loss

Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center compared results from 20 overweight and obese individuals who embarked on a nine-month weight-loss program. The first three months focused on weight loss, followed by six months of weight maintenance. Participants were randomly divided into two groups:

• Those who attended weekly in-person clinics for weight-loss consultation, and then received weight-maintenance consultation via Second Life, a virtual-reality community.

• Those who received both weight-loss and -maintenance consultation on Second Life. Read more...

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For those that love the Keurig coffeemaker with those nifty little flavor cups, there is now a similar drink machine for soda.

Creator Michael Breault is raising funds on Kickstarter to further develop the SPRiZZi Drink Machine, which can dispense homemade soda with little cartridges, as explained in the video above.

SPRiZZi's Drink Machine is about the size of your coffeemaker and brings over 60 soda flavors to your home or office. Basically you can fill water from the top (or send a direct line from your faucet), add a two-ounce "flavor bullet" and push the top to dispense. Each bullet can dispense 16 ounces of beverage. Drinks can be carbonated (as long as you have the CO2 cartridge in there) or non-carbonated, and you can even dispense good ol', plain H2O. Read more...

More about Diy, Drinks, Drink, Food And Drink, and Kickstarter

What happens when you combine a hit television drama and your favorite childhood building blocks into a video game? LEGO Breaking Bad: The Video Game.

Animator Brian Anderson merged two beloved forms of entertainment, and displayed the results in an epic YouTube video, above. The four-minute-and-thirty-second "parody" is modeled after developer Traveller's Tales' LEGO video-game series, and features LEGO versions of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman and other Breaking Bad characters

Before you check it out, however, be warned that the video contains spoilers from the AMC show's first four seasons. Read more...

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The Launchpad is a series that introduces Mashable readers to compelling startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Zumper

One-Liner Pitch: Zumper is a high-quality apartment listings site without the spam.

Why It's Taking Off: With the launch of mobile app Zumper Pro, landlords can easily manage their listings inside Zumper and on other sites

It's a mobile-first world. Consumer apps are a dime a dozen these days, but some industries seem to be a step behind — in real estate, Zumper hopes to change that with its first iOS app, Zumper Pro. Read more...

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Social media has disrupted quite a few fields, becoming an integral part of many of them, such as journalism or marketing. And professionals in these fields have had to adapt, or, perhaps, perish. But everybody has a different way of using social media in the digital marketing world — and his or her unique own style

Or do they? According to Optify, a Seattle-based marketing software provider for digital marketing agencies, there are just seven types of digital marketers depending on how they use social media. And they've laid out these seven categories in an infographic, which can be seen below Read more...

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In the latest TV commercial campaign from UNICEF Sweden, the organization admits something few seem to remember in the age of social media milestones: Facebook Likes don't save lives.

In the most viral clip, which has received more than 40,000 views on YouTube, we meet a young boy named Rahim, who's sick, though he says he's not worried because of UNICEF Sweden's Facebook community.

"UNICEF Sweden has 177,000 Likes on Facebook. Maybe they will reach 200,000 by summer," he says.

His sardonic statement, as you can see in the above video, reflects many organizations' and brands' preoccupations with getting Likes. UNICEF Sweden informs viewers that Likes won't deliver life-saving vaccines to the children in need Read more...

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A near-Earth asteroid that will be visited by a NASA spacecraft in 2018 now has a more approachable name — "Bennu" — thanks to a North Carolina third-grader.

Nine-year-old Michael Puzio's suggestion beat out more than 8,000 other entries in an international student contest that sought to rename potentially dangerous asteroid (101955) 1999 RQ36, which is the target of NASA's Osiris-Rex sample-return mission.

"It's great!" Puzio said when told he won the contest. "I'm the first kid I know that named part of the solar system!"

Bennu (pronounced ben-oo) is an Egyptian god usually depicted as a gray heron. Puzio nominated the name because he thought Osiris-Rex's Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism arm (TAGSAM) and solar panels looked like Bennu's neck and wings, contest officials said. Read more...

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You might still have a vintage Polaroid camera lying around the house that you're glad you held on to for its modern-day cool factor. But is your Polaroid cool enough to be made out of LEGO bricks?

LEGO artist Chris McVeigh created a LEGO brick reproduction of the Polaroid Land Camera 1000, as shown in the video above. It's a pretty realistic depiction and includes the shutter button, the rainbow Polaroid decal and the extended rangefinder on the back.

Yeah, this LEGO Polaroid camera can't exactly take real pictures. But McVeigh did create a fake one that fits into the LEGO model: a guy in a chicken suit. Read more...

More about Lego, Legos, Polaroid, Replica, and Watercooler

Sports Twitter was thrown into a minor tizzy Wednesday afternoon when word got out that the NCAA had issued an edict banning the presence of hashtags on college football fields

The first on-field hashtag appeared in the endzone at Mississippi State's Davis Wade Stadium in November 2011. Since then, on-field hashtags — typically team mascots or school rallying cries — have become relatively commonplace in the college football world

But no more, according to a memo from the NCAA's Football Rules Committee. The memo discusses proper and improper variations of field markings, uniforms and other equipment. It reads, in part: "Except as noted herein, there may be no advertising on the field, which includes the end zones and sideline areas." Exceptions include the NCAA logo, school logos, conference logos and the names of commercial sponsors Read more...

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Work and travel may not seem like they go hand-in-hand, but being 40,000 feet up among the clouds might just be the best time to scratch some items off your to-do list before you try to catch some shut eye.

With airport waiting and even some flights offering Wi-Fi, it also might be an opportune time to clean out your email, or the free moment you've been waiting for to update your work apps.

Check out this handy graphic on travel essentials, tips for improving in-flight work efficiency habits and perhaps the hardest part of it all: Learning how to let go and just relax. Read more...

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Is your sexting so entertaining, so artful and inspiring that it should be in a museum? If you think so, now's the time to prove it. In an upcoming art installation, controversial artist Karen Finley asks museum patrons to sext her, and then she will create limited-edition paintings inspired by the erotic communications.

The sexting happens at "Sext Me If You Can," an interactive performance art installation and exhibition that starts with the performance on May 23 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the New Events Museum in New York City

You won't be able to just send her an erotic picture of yourself from anywhere you choose — you'll have to go to the museum, where you'll plunk down your money to buy one of the resulting canvases. Then, you'll be given a 10-minute appointment for a sitting, where you'll create your sext on your cellphone, and then send it to the artist's private phone number. Read more...

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Approximately 70% of brand engagement on Pinterest is generated by users, according to a recent study by Digitas and Curalate.

However, companies in the fashion retail and automotive industries aren't capitalizing on Pinterest's engagement. According to Digitas, the lack of brands using Pinterest leaves a gap in overall marketing strategies.

"Brands need to go forth and pin," said senior vice president of social, mobile, and content lead at Digitas Jordan Bitterman. "This study reveals the opportunity for brands to drive the conversation on visual platforms like Pinterest. By leveraging rich consumer insight, brands can take the guesswork out of their visual content strategy, and share the types of images their audience wants to see." Read more...

More about User Generated, Branding, Ugc, Brand Management, and Pinterest

Bang With Friends, the service for lusty Facebook users, is going mobile. It raised $1 million this week to help you get more friends with benefits. The influx of cash will be focused on helping you see, from the comfort of your phone, just which friends you might want to hook up with

The site's co-founder, who goes by C, revealed a little in an email exchange with Mashable, but still kept answers as murky as usual. 

"We'll be expanding BWF to enable even more honest offline meetings, helping our users break the ice and find more awesome opportunities," he said before revealing a true nugget. "We're taking it mobile soon, too." Read more...

More about Dating, Apps, Web Apps, Online Dating, and Dating Sites

Taco Bell is testing the waters for Snapchat, a hugely popular app with teens, but also a controversial one that most brands have steered clear of.

The fast feeder joined the platform Tuesday night and announced it with the following tweet:

We're on @snapchat. Username: tacobell. Add us. We’re sending all of our friends a secret announcement tomorrow! #Shhh

— Taco Bell (@TacoBell) May 1, 2013

Tressie Lieberman, director of social and digital for Taco Bell, says the brand has been "blown away" by the response it has gotten on Snapchat. Taco Bell is using the app to reintroduce the Beefy Crunch Burrito. "People are obsessed with Beefy Crunch Burrito so Snapchat seemed like the right platform to make the announcement," she says. "Sharing that story on Snapchat is a fun way to connect with the fans that we are thrilled to have. It’s all about treating them like personal friends and not consumers." Read more...

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The wrath of many a scorned liberal has been targeted at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg after his political group indirectly bankrolled ads praising two senators in part for their support of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Liberal frustration over the ads, summed up best by a ThinkProgress story headlined "Mark Zuckerberg’s New Political Group Spending Big On Ads Supporting Keystone XL and Oil Drilling" and a petition entitled "FWD.us: Stop Running Ads Supporting Fossil Fuels," seems amplified by a feeling of betrayal. A forward-thinking futurist Silicon Valley-type ought to be a progressive, right? Read more...

More about Mark Zuckerberg, Immigration, Us World, Politics, and Us

A Kickstarter project wants to change the way we produce light — with plantsGlowing plants, specifically.

The Glowing Plant Project, comprised of a team of biologists and engineers, is hoping to use synthetic biology and a program called Genome Compiler to genetically create plants that produce a natural light

The idea was inspired by firefly DNA.

The idea was inspired by firefly DNA. Antony Evans, one of the group's co-founders, said they'll be focusing instead on naturally illuminating marine bacteria. Here's how it works: The group will input the illuminating genes they want to manipulate into the software, which will re-trigger the genes so the plant itself can read them; then, they'll send their final design to Genome Compile, who will mail the genes back to the lab, where the team can begin growing Read more...

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As has been its custom, Facebook supplied some charts showing various stats related to the company's first-quarter performance on Wednesday, prior to its call with analysts

The stats show a steady increase in mobile users and users overall but also a dip in revenues vs. the previous quarter, which is fueled by holiday-based ad spending

Image courtesy of Getty, Justin Sullivan Read more...

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Soon, Google won't be the only one with self-driving cars — if U.S. carmaker GM has its way. Cadillac's "Super Cruise," a semi-autonomous driving system, is making progress in extensive testing, according to the car company

Last year, GM teased us with the promise of Super Cruise, and now the company says it's taken the technology out on "real roads," as well as tested on closed courses and sophisticated simulators. Designed to take control of the car when you need it most, the technology works only on freeways so far, offering what GM calls "semi-automated driving."

The technology builds on existing features such as GM's Safety Alert Seat, which I tested in its latest Cadillac XTS (pictured below). That technology works well, letting you know if you're drifting out of your lane by giving you an amusing vibration in the seat, buzzing the butt cheek that matches the wrong direction in which you're veering. It's like a kick in the pants to remind you to get your act together. Read more...

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In a mushy ad posted on YouTube last night, JCPenney is pleading for its former customers to come back.

It acknowledges that the department store chain has made mistakes but says JCPenney has learned to listen to its customer, “to hear what you need to make your life more beautiful.”

It’s unclear whether that will bring back the customers JCPenney lost under former CEO Ron Johnson’s tenure at the company. Johnson, who had been head of Apple stores, got rid of JCPenney’s popular discounts to simplify the pricing at the stores. That caused customers to flee, and sales plunged by $4.3 billion in his first year. Read more...

More about Youtube, Online Advertising, Advertisers, Video Advertising, and Jcpenney

Chances are the average Internet-goer hadn't heard of Arlen's Transmission in Burbank, Calif., before before this week. Now the local auto-repair shop is the talk of the web — or at least some of its more offbeat corners

Why? The music video ad you see above. Between the catchy beat, dancing women and suggestive lyrics, it's easy to see why the spot is getting shared far and wide on blogs and social media. Will all that attention actually get Arlen's Transmission more customers? Who knows, but either way it's some pretty good Internet Read more...

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After Facebook released its fourth-quarter earnings report in January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that Facebook had "become a mobile company." In the latest earnings report, the company further justified that claim.

Facebook had 751 million monthly active users on mobile as of the end of March, a 54% increase from the same quarter a year ago, the company revealed in its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. Overall, Facebook had 1.11 billion monthly active users in the quarter, a 23% increase year-over-year.

Mobile ad revenue now accounts for 30% (or about $375 million) of Facebook's $1.25 billion in total ad revenue. In the previous quarter, mobile represented 23% of the company's total ad revenue. Read more...

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"Sometimes," to quote a famous flick, "there's a man. Well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there."

Today, in our meme-obsessed world of globalized Internet culture, that dude is Korean pop star Psy

Eighty-five-year-old baseball legend Tommy Lasorda, however, is from a different era, one when hit musicians played actual instruments and "Gangnam Style" sounded more like a sex position or something you'd order at a restaurant

So when Psy appeared at Tuesday night's Dodgers game to perform the dance from his new song "Gentleman," we were presented with an interesting clash of times and places. Psy happened to bust his moves right next to where Lasorda was sitting at field level and, lucky for us, there's video of Lasorda's utterly befuddled reaction. That's him seated in blue: Read more...

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The mint julep is the staple drink of the Kentucky Derby. In anticipation of the annual race, the team at NowThis News designed an interactive website that pairs you — the Seabiscuit-cheering bourbon fanatic — with the perfect minty recipe

The premise is simple: "NowThis Julep" asks a series of mildly probing questions, like "The year is 1620 — Are you a rogue pirate or a spice trader?" It then sets you up with a recipe, one of 12, based on your interests. You even get to choose between three bartender-types: Jimmy Buffet, Don Draper and Zooey Deschanel

We gave it a shot, with Deschanel as the bartender, and ended up with a recipe for the Buzzworthy Julep — a coffee-infused delight with whiskey and chocolate shavings Read more...

More about Apps, Videos, Recipes, Diy, and Kentucky Derby

No, that's not a joke.

Rap Genius, the self-described "hip-hop Wikipedia," announced a spin-off service at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday called News Genius that intends to explain breaking news stories through user-generated annotations in the same way that it does with rap lyrics.

While this marks the first time that Rap Genius has talked about a news-focused section, the startup told Mashable that there has been news content on the site for years. Mahbod Moghadam, one of the the three co-founders, says that the first news story posted to the service was President Obama's State of the Union address in 2010, less than six months after Rap Genius launched. Since then, the service has featured many major speeches and pieces of legislation, as well as stories like Andrew Mason's farewell letter to Groupon employees. Read more...

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