Researchers from PlaceboEffect.com are raising funds through Indiegogo to create an app that administers a virtual placebo. No pills, no doctors — just pictures.

Here's how it works: You begin the experience by choosing which lifestyle aspect you'd like to change — say, quitting smoking or decreasing stress — before scheduling an alarm-like reminder to "take it" each day. Then, you can personalize it further by choosing exactly what you'll be taking (it doesn't need to be a picture of a pill)

The whole idea is to create a comfortable "happy place" to achieve the proper effect. With the right mindset, the group says, the act of routinely pressing buttons and watching your smartphone's screen will be equivalent to physically swallowing a sugar pill. Read more...

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The human race has had a profound effect on the planet. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been positive. One of the overlooked issues we've caused is overfishing. By fishing too much, we have diminished the population of fish in a way that, according to many scientists, can even threaten oceanic ecosystems

To highlight this issue, which is often poorly understood by the general public, Sam Slover, a 28-year-old student at the New York University Interactive Telecommunications Program has designed an interactive web aquarium that lets users see how the fish population has changed from 1910 until 2010. Read more...

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This isn't exactly your textbook bit of damage control PR

UFC fighter Nate Diaz (above) was suspended by the mixed martial arts body on Thursday night for earlier in the week using a gay slur against another fighter. That's typically where a manager or someone else would step in and get the athlete to apologize and talk about the perils of using inappropriate, insensitive language, right?

Wrong

Instead, Diaz's manager Mike Kogan directed offended parties to the slang terminology website Urban Dictionary to justify the slur

Diaz drew his suspension for a since-deleted tweet in which he criticized another fighter for taking bonus money that would have gone to fighter Pat Healy until Healy was ruled ineligible for the purse because of a positive marijuana test Read more...

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Yahoo looks to be very seriously eyeing a Tumblr acquisition, according to a report from AllThingsD

The tech blog is reporting that the Yahoo board plans to meet Sunday to mull a $1.1 billion all-cash bid for TumblrATD cautions that the deal could fall apart, but was on track as of Friday evening. If the board votes in favor of the deal, it could be announced Monday, a day in which Yahoo has already scheduled a major press conference.

Reps from Yahoo and Tumblr could not be reached for comment on the report.

The report goes on to say that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been intensely interested in Tumblr for the past six weeks and feels that the microblogging platform's young-skewing audience and mobile savvy are just what Yahoo needs to reinvent itself. Sources tell ATD that Tumblr CEO would continue to operate it as an autonomous, separate entity. Karp would be locked into a four-year deal that would reward him based on the business's performance. Read more...

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Nintendo will collect revenue from fan-made YouTube videos that feature content from its games, according to a statement by the company.

That means any time someone uploads a walkthrough or "let's play" video — a popular format where players demo the first 10 to 30 minutes of a game — Nintendo will be able to collect royalties on it.

"For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips," said a Nintendo statement to GameFront. "We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property." Read more...

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Think your network is fast? Getting a gigagbyte-sized movie over your local wireless network to your hard drive in a few seconds is old hat. Now there's a network that can push a 2-hour, high-definition movie to a computer a mile away in less time than it takes to read a single word.

At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, a new record has been set: 40GB per second over a distance of about .6 of a mile. That's like sending 10 high-def feature films

What makes this possible is a combination of better hardware and the use of higher radio frequencies, in this case, 240 gigahertz. That hardware is a set of chips developed at Karlsruhe that can process signals at higher frequencies. Higher frequencies mean smaller components, since a shorter wavelength can be picked up by a smaller antenna (which is why FM and AM radios need relatively large antennas, while Wi-Fi receivers can use small ones). These chips were only a few millimeters on a side. Read more...

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We might need to call it "Banned With Friends." A week after debuting the new mobile client for anonymous friend banging, the iOS version of Bang With Friends (BWF) was removed from the App Store by Apple.

Bang With Friends debuted in January and quickly took off in popularity. The concept is simple: Users log in with Facebook and select what friends they want to bang. Only friends that have mutually selected the other user show-up in a "down to bang" queue.

The app claims more than 1 million users, even though it's not without its share of controversy. In addition to questions about creepy factor, the anonymity of users has come into question. Earlier this month, it became possible to find out if some of your friends had signed-up for the service on Facebook. A mobile version for iOS and Android debuted last week. Read more...

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If you've tried every alarm clock app and gadget under the sun but waking up on time still proves difficult, a beside companion that dances and talks might do the trick.

No, it's not a human, it's a robot.

Southern California-based Nuts and Voltz has developed a working prototype for an iPhone- and iPod-compatible robot alarm clock that wakes you up in quite a unique way. The clock is called tim-E (pronounced "Timmy"), and you really only get a feel for its rambunctious personality by seeing it in action, as in the video above.

That's because tim-E talks weather and traffic out loud and can dance to your iPhone or iPod music. Choose to wake up to your own music or to tim-E's banter. The device even lives up to its "alarm clock with attitude" branding, since it can pose brain teasers to make sure you don't fall back asleep. You can also record voice reminders, which could be useful to take note of to-do lists or other random ideas that might pop into your mind at night. Read more...

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In the news business, when you start seeing enough reports about something, it usually means that at least part of those reports are true. That's why the media and tech worlds are in such a tizzy today, with multiple reports surfacing that Yahoo is close to acquiring Tumblr for as much as $1 billion.

Now even more reports are starting to suggest that Google, Facebook and even Microsoft are all also showing interest in the microblogging service

It makes sense that acquisition talks are circling around Tumblr. The company has taken more than $125 million in venture funding since 2007 and investors want to see a return on that investment. Meanwhile, Tumblr continues to try to find itself a business model — including native mobile advertising — without alienating its users. Read more...

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Google made a lot of announcements in its marathon keynote to kick off Google I/O on Wednesday, but its most buzzed-about product was almost a no-show at the eventGoogle Glass barely got a mention, even though this is the first I/O where the tiny wearable computer is actually in developers' hands.

The glaring omission didn't stop Glass from stealing the show for the rest of the conference, though. Day 2 of I/O was packed with sessions on Glass, including one where official Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr apps made their debut. The sessions themselves garnered the kind of lineups usually reserved Lady Gaga tickets. Many developers were walking around wearing Glass, but it was the looks of jealousy from the Glass-less that underscored just how much interest there is in Google's head-mounted gadget. Read more...

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The U.S. Air Force is expecting to save a serious amount of cash as a result of deploying 18,000 iPads.

With the iPads brought in to replace heavy, paper-bound flight manuals, a spokesman for the Air Force's Air Mobility Command has said that the deployment will save $750,000 per year on fuel alone and "well over $50 million" in total costs over the next 10 years.

"We're saving about 90 pounds of paper per aircraft and limiting the need for each crew member to carry a 30 to 40 pound paper file," Major Brian Moritz, manager of AMC's electronic flight bag program, when speaking to The Street.

"It adds up to quite a lot of weight in paper." The AMC exec revealed that this weight saving did vary significantly by plane — from a saving of 250 pounds on a four-person C-17 to 490 pounds on a C-5 with ten crewmembers. Read more...

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If there was ever any question that sports are one of Twitter's hottest, most passion-inducing topics, this week should have put those doubts to rest

The microblogging network on Friday announced a deal with the NBA to stream replay highlights directly to users through in-app video posts. The clips will debut during this year's playoffs with the hashtag #NBARapidReplay. They'll be monetized through ads from Sony, Taco Bell and Sprint that will be featured with the replays

Twitter's NBA news comes on the heels of a similar deal it announced on Tuesday with sports broadcasting giant ESPN. ESPN will soon begin posting short, ad-supported video highlights directly to Twitter from events including World Cup qualifiers, college football match-ups and the X-Games Read more...

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MetroPCS dropped its lawsuit challenging the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules Friday, leaving Verizon the FCC's sole legal opponent in the case.

T-Mobile purchased MetroPCS last month; T-Mobile is not involved with the net neutrality lawsuit.

The FCC's rules bar landline-based broadband providers from discriminating between different kinds of Internet traffic. For example: If you're a Time Warner Cable subscriber, TWC can't slow your connection speeds if you're trying to access a website run by NBC Universal, now owned by TWC rival Comcast.

Net Neutrality has been one of the most controversial legacies left by outgoing FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Supporters of the policy argue it's pro-consumer and pro-competition, while detractors say it's undue government interference with the Internet. Read more...

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Following rumors that Yahoo is in talks to buy blogging platform Tumblr for an estimated $1 billion, the company has sent members of the press invitations to a mysterious event it is holding next week.

The event, which will be held at 5:00 p.m. ET in New York City on Monday, includes the tagline on the invitation: "Join us as we share something special."

Company CEO Marissa Mayer is expected to speak at the product-related news event, according to CNBC.

The news comes as reports indicated this week Yahoo is closing in on a deal to buy Tumblr, which would make the transaction — if it's $1 billion — the largest since Facebook bought Instagram in 2012. Read more...

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With his New York Knicks locked in a back-and-forth NBA playoff showdown against the Indiana Pacers, struggling offensive specialist and enfant terrible of the social web J.R. Smith has a message for haters

Here it is:

JR Smith: "I'm not worried about Instagram. I'm worried about the playoffs."

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) May 17, 2013

That came in response to an Instagram rant the singer Rihanna reportedly posted in response to a follower's comment on this photo. After Rihanna and Smith were photographed partying together recently in New York, the commenter blamed her for Smith's poor post-season performance. To which Rihanna responded: Read more...

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Electronic musician Steve Aoki is a self-professed "Apple geek" and otherwise a big fan of technology.

For his new music video for the track "Singularity," which Mashable is presenting for the first time exclusively, he recruited futurist and technologist Ray Kurzweil to participate. Kurzweil, who became Google's Director of Engineering earlier this year, is famous for his predictions about the future in which human minds will be able to interface directly with machines. His 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology was a New York Times bestseller and was made into a movie, released in 2012 Read more...

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For one week in May, 45,000 Internet professionals come together in NYC to celebrate Internet business and culture at more than 400 events for Internet Week New York 2013, from May 20 to 27Mashable is proud to be a media partner for this year’s event.

You can see and hear from the Mashable team at these Internet Week events:

• Pete Cashmore, Mashable's founder and CEO, is kicking off Internet Week on Monday, May 20 at 1:30 p.m. with a keynote fireside chat with Robyn Peterson, Mashable's chief technology officer, about the importance of technology to a modern media company.

• Stacy Martinet, Mashable's chief marketing officer, will talk about Tomorrow's Media Landscape at 2:35 p.m. on Monday, May 20 at the Metropolitan Pavilion with Jim Bankoff of Vox Media and Joe Ruffolo of ABC News.

• Zoe Fox, Mashable content coordinator, is moderating a panel called Doing Well by Doing Good at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, May 20 at the Metropolitan Pavilion with panelists Zack Rosenberg of DoGoodBuyUs, Gene Gurkoff of Charity MIles, and Su Sanni of WeDidIt. Read more...

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Wearable gizmos are the next frontier in the world of technology. And fitness trackers like Fitbit or Nike+ FuelBand already give runners a great way to track their workouts. But what about swimmers? Until now, they've been left out of the gadget tracker fad. But Instabeat, a wearable accessory for swimmer's goggles, might change that.

Think of a mix between Google Glass and a Nike+ FuelBand and you get Instabeat

Instabeat is a device that attaches directly to a swimmer's goggles and displays, in real time, his or her heart rate, calories, laps and flip turns. Instabeat is adjustable to any pair of goggles and after the swim can be connected via USB to a computer to display the swimmer's results and track them on a dashboard Read more...

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In the new techno-thriller Upload, a young computer scientist with a sketchy past and distrust of society decides to take the ultimate leap forward by scanning his brain and uploading his memories, personality and consciousness into a simulated world of his own making.

Raymond wants to live forever, controlling his environment and interactions with other humans as a god-like being.

SEE ALSO: Techs That Make Us Stupid

The novel by author Mark McClelland is set in the Michigan of 2070 about the time that futurists like Ray Kurzweil predict that “singularity” will be reached, the moment when machine learning will surpass human intelligence. It’s not the first science-fiction tale to explore human-computer hybrids (see “What are Little Girls Made Of” in the first season of the original “Star Trek” series) or even the perils of virtual reality becoming too real (see the “Matrix” triology). But it does posit some questions that real-world researchers are just now tackling. Read more...

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Military family reunion videos are always a hit with Internet-goers happy to add some good feels to what may be an otherwise boring days. This one, however, puts a new — and especially heart-warming — twist on the genre

It features 9-year-old Alayna Adams from Dunedin, Fla., who was invited to throw out the first pitch at Thursday night's Major League Baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox. Before she did the honors, Alayna's dad, Lt. Col. Will Adams, gave her a message of encouragement that was relayed via the stadium video board from his current post in Afghanistan

Read more...

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Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is denying the reported existence of camera-phone footage showing him partaking in crack cocaine.

How is that video not online yet, you ask? Gawker's John Cook posted a story describing the video, but refused to pay the sources the $200,000 they demanded for the file. Cook — who broke the story Thursday — has turned to crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo to raise the cash for the footage.

Cook's "Rob Ford Crackstarter" has only raised $55 at press time, though three separate Ford-related campaigns have garnered approximately $2,500 between them

In a post about the campaign, Cook acknowledges $200,000 is "a lot of money," but says his sources "fear for their safety, and want enough money to pay for a chance to get out of Toronto and set up in a new town." He goes on to address concerns his sources may not be "reliable" kinds of people, but promises that if the deal falls through, whatever funds are raised will be donated to an unnamed Canadian non-profit that assists people with addiction. Read more...

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Google's deal-of-the-day service Google Offers is coming to its social network Google+, so users can see and share limited-time promotions directly with their news stream.

Companies participating in the Google Offers program, such as Zagat, Hello Kitty, Nook and Art.com are among the brands who can now share deals with their network on Google+.

"If you follow any of these brands, you'll soon see offers from them in your stream," Dennis Troper at Google said in a post on his Google+ page. "You can save these offers directly from the post." Read more...

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As Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, nears the end, it's time to take a look back at some of the biggest announcements the company made. The event kicked off with a 3.5-hour keynote which Mashable Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff noted solidified Google as "the world's most powerful and important company."

While there was no major sky-diving presentation that marked the Google Glass demo at Google I/O 2012, there were plenty of announcements that made consumers and developers alike eager to get their hands on new updates and products.

To wade through all the announcements and news coming out of Google I/O, Mashable is hosting a Google+ Hangout today at 2pm ET on its Google+ page. Join Ulanoff, Tech Editor Pete Pachal and Tech Reporter Emily Price as they discuss a range of topics from the new Google Maps to the redesigned Google+ platform. Read more...

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The moon has a new hole on its surface thanks to a boulder that slammed into it in March, creating the biggest explosion scientists have seen on the moon since they started monitoring it.

The meteorite crashed on March 17, slamming into the lunar surface at a mind-boggling 56,000 mph (90,000 kph) and creating a new crater 65 feet wide (20 meters). The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye, NASA scientists say.

"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before." Read more...

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Samsung's programmable TecTile technology is finally coming to the Galaxy S4.

TecTiles are Samsung's near-field communications (NFC) stickers that be placed around the house or car, so you can automate certain tasks

Want to dim the lights and not get up from the couch? How about activate a media player from afar? All you'll need to do is to tap your Samsung smartphone against the sticker after it's programmed within the accompanying app and life will be much better.

TecTiles first launched last year, but the new Galaxy S4 smartphone comes with an updated NFC chip, which isn't compatible with the previous TecTile tags. Read more...

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Mashable is excited to announce G-everyone, a 24-hour digital convening that will unite local groups around the world to discuss the pressing issues addressed at the G8 Summit.

Organized through Mashable’s Meetup Everywhere platform, G-everyone meetups will take place on the eve of the G8, a forum of the world's eight wealthiest Western countries. The goal of G-everyone is to make the G8 more accessible, and to brainstorm ways to solve the world's most challenging problems.

G-everyone will provide an open dialogue around the G8’s core themes of "Open Economies, Open Governments and Open Societies." Mashable will crowdsource the best ideas and thoughts from our community via Meetup Everywhere, and report back to the leaders at the G8. Read more...

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Building solar and wind projects in the wrong place is wasting billions of dollars in Europe.

Siemens says it would make sense to build solar power plants in sunny countries in Europe rather than in cloudy ones. And wind turbines should be built in windy places.

These blindingly obvious suggestions run contrary to what’s actually happening. For example, a solar panel in Spain generates about twice as much electricity as the same-size solar panel in Germany because the sun shines on it more. But last year nearly half of all solar panels installed in Europe were installed in Germany, and only a small fraction were installed in Spain (see "The Great German Energy Experiment"). Read more...

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A term called gamification has taken UX by storm over the past few years, a trend likely spurred by Foursquare's success with badges. Whether they understand it or not, app designers desire to create a gamified experience, a supposedly sure route to the elusive engagement that makes free apps valuable. Even in the news business there is a hunger for gamification.

For those unfamiliar, gamification has little to do with game design.

Also weird to see my book called "the bible of gamification".... that word appears exactly 0 times in the book. Game design /= gamification

— Jane McGonigal (@avantgame) May 2, 2013 Read more...

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Mr. Cook is going to Washington.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify before Congress Tuesday about the company's approximately $100 billion held overseas — more than double the estimated $45 billion it keeps in the U.S.

Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) wants to grill Cook on Apple's offshore accounts and on the general phenomenon of offshoring. However, Cook has revealed in several pre-hearing interviews that he'll use the opportunity to offer Congress a plan simplifying the U.S. corporate tax code.

"If you look at it today, to repatriate cash to the U.S., you need to pay 35% of that cash. And that is a very high number," Cook told the Washington Post. "We are not proposing that it be zero. I know many of our peers believe that. But I don’t view that. But I think it has to be reasonable." Read more...

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The original Sonic the Hedgehog is now available for Android through Google Play.

Sega released the port, which has been modified for touch controls, to Android Thursday. Along with all the original Sonic the Hedgehog goodness, players will also be able to unlock Tails and Knuckles, characters that originally appeared in later Sonic the Hedgehog games.

This Sonic port was previously released for iOS and already received the free update with Tails and Knuckles.

Sonic the Hedgehog was originally released for the Sega Genesis in 1991, making the franchise more than 20 years old. Sonic has appeared in dozens of games since then. Read more...

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