Asus has unveiled the stuff video professionals' dreams are made of: the PQ231, a 31.5-inch, 4K, professional grade monitor.

Besides its imposing size and the 3840x2160 pixel resolution, the PQ231 boasts 10-bit RGB "deep color" technology, LED backlighting, 350cd/m² brightness rating, an 8ms gray-to-gray reponse time, dual-HDMI ports and 176-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angle

Asus also points out the fact that the monitor is only 35mm thick at its thickest point, which makes it the thinnest 4K UHD monitor on the market today

Fun fact: even with its high pixel count, it still has only 140 pixels per inch — less than half of iPhone 5's 326 ppi resolution Read more...

More about Monitor, Asus, 4k, Tech, and Gadgets

Would you like to know what your Facebook profile looks like to other people?

Whether it's a job recruiter or a potential date checking out your online presence, it's a useful exercise to view just what you're putting out there via Facebook

Take a look through our walkthrough to see what your public Facebook profile looks like. Let us know in the comments if you're happy with what your profile says about you

1. View As

Head to your profile page and click on the cog icon that appears at the bottom right of your cover photo. Select the "View As" option Read more...

More about Facebook, How To, Social Media, Features, and Tips And Tricks

Thinking about buying a Galaxy S4, but you're not sure if its 5-inch form factor is too big for your hands? Maybe this video, captured by UK's mobile operator Three, will convince you to get an S4 mini instead

In the video, we get a close, detailed look at the Galaxy S4 mini, which was officially announced on Thursday. The device is directly compared with its older brother as well as the 6.3-inch Galaxy Mega, and it looks really tiny compared to the latter, even though its 4.3-inch screen is nothing to be ashamed about

Toward the end of the video, Three's Brendan Arndt says the Galaxy S4 mini brings the "premium and the best features" from the Galaxy S4 in a smaller package. Still, one has to keep in mind that the mini's specs are weaker than Galaxy S4's — an 8-megapixel camera instead of a 13-megapixel one, and a dual-core processor instead of a quad-core one. Read more...

More about Samsung, Tech, Mobile, and Galaxy S4 Mini

What's the go-to pose for a local newspaper portrait of an "area man" or "area woman"? Apparently, you can't go wrong with the "I Mean Business" arms-folded-across-the-chest stance.

The new Tumblr "Local People Arms Crossed" documents, well, just that. They took a look at several local newspapers and noticed a very common trend

How can readers take these bros, their towns and their stories seriously if they don't see some crossed arms? Clearly, arms hanging limply at one's side doesn't carry the same gravitas. Clearly, local news photographers need to tap their creativity a bit more too Read more...

More about Tumblr, Newspapers, Watercooler, and Pics

Labor-intensive Whopper eating is a thing of the past with the Whopper Holder.

The Hands-Free Whopper is an actual product, which was distributed by the chain to celebrate its 50th anniversary in Puerto Rico. As the video above shows, there are some practical advantages to the device.

However, the major function of the Whopper Holder is promotional, just like the burger-scented cologne the chain released in 2008

Image courtesy of YouTube, Burger King Read more...

More about Business and Marketing

Between pricey flights, hotels and foreign shopping sprees, travel may be one of the best indicators of consumer confidence. And with unemployment going down, and even real estate seeing a modest comeback, that confidence seems to be rising.

Last summer, one in five Americans said they planned on taking a vacation, according to a survey by the market research firm Harris Interactive. And almost half of them, 42%, said they planned on taking two or more trips. This year, the numbers are even higher. Now nearly one in four say they're planning on packing their bags, according to a survey conducted by TD Ameritrade. 'Tis the season. Read more...

More about Travel, Apps, Business Travel Apps, Tech, and Apps Software

Always on and constantly vigilant for those moments when the exceptional invades everyday life, dash cams are pretty awesome. Sometimes they catch 10-ton meteors crashing into Earth. Sometimes they catch heartwarming, inspiring moments of human kindness

And sometimes they catch...well, this. The video above shows a driver cruising down the highway, pumping some jams, when, suddenly, a big brown bear crosses the car's path

The car hits the ursine ambulator head-on with a thunderous crunch, sending the bear toppling head-over-paws off to the side of the road. But all's well that ends well, apparently — the bear doesn't seem to miss a beat, immediately getting up and continuing on its way like nothing happened. No word, however, on how the car fared Read more...

More about Viral Videos, Animals, Watercooler, and Videos

A new pregnancy app from a PayPal cofounder aims to use big data and machine learning to help couples get pregnant.

Max Levchin demoed Glow this week onstage at the annual All Things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

Glow, which tracks and forecasts fertility, according to Levchin, hasn't launched publicly yet.

"It's a big data or machine-learning-driven approach, where we look at our accuracy as the consumers ... users of the app enter their information, we adjust our weights on the formula," Levchin told AllThingsD's Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Women input details about their menstrual cycle and other personal data (e.g., emotional discomfort, basal body temperature) and the app can provide a fertility window. The app's calendar can show the likelihood of pregnancy on specific days. To share in the process, women can invite their partners to connect with them on the app. Read more...

More about Parenting, Parents, Baby, New Parents, and Pregnancy

If you've ever wondered why you can unlock your car by pressing a button, but still have to fumble for your metal keys to get in your house, then the August Smart Lock might be for you.

The $199 device, which will go on sale later this year, lets you secure your door over the Internet. Using August you can bar unwanted visitors and give access to friends and relatives — even for a short period. The base station attaches to your door and attaches to your deadbolt. The company claims the deadbolt adapters and faceplates accommodate 90% of locks on the market. There's also no wiring to worry about — the device uses standard batteries. Read more...

More about Startups, Tech, Gadgets, and Nest

Quincy Pondexter's Memphis Grizzlies were unceremoniously swept from the NBA playoffs earlier this week, but it looks like the third-year pro has found a pretty solid way to ease into the offseason

He recently scored a date with Chandler Lawson. But perhaps you know the blond bombshell better by another name: Miss Tennessee.

And how did Pondexter get his shot? Twitter, of course

It all started, as romance so often does, with a simple question:

Who won Miss Tennessee this year?

— Quincy Pondexter (@QuincyPondexter) May 29, 2013

To which Chandler replied: Read more...

More about Nba, Entertainment, and Sports

Could a sophisticated algorithm be the future of science? One innovative economist thinks so.

Phil Parker, who holds a doctorate in business economics from the Wharton School, has built an algorithm that auto-writes books. Now he's taking that model and applying it to loftier goals than simply penning periodicals: namely, medicine and forensics. Working with professors and researchers at NYU, Parker is trying to decode complex genetic structures and find cures for diseases. And he's doing it with the help of man's real best friend: technology.

Parker's recipe is a complex computer program that mimics formulaic writing. "What I have done is I’ve collected information," he says, saving researchers valuable time they would have spent in the lab. Parker is confident that all that work of collecting, surveying and estimating data can be automated, "meaning computer programs can accelerate discovery in the sciences faster than scientists can, if the computer is trained to behave like one." Read more...

More about Algorithm, Medicine, Us World, Social Good, and World

If you have no exciting vacation plans coming up, don't fret: Google Street View has you covered. It'll soon take you on a virtual journey through the Galápagos Islands.

The virtual views won't be live until later this year, but Google will then take you on a trip through these Pacific islands via Street View, as explained in the video aboveThe Guardian reported that a team of hikers captured the panoramic images on the Galápagos Islands by using 42-pound, backpack orb cameras and underwater gear.

These special backpack-mounted street view cameras from Google — called the Trekker — feature 15 lenses that are controlled by an Android device. The cameras automatically capture photos about every 2.5 seconds, and then they're stitched together to create panoramic images. Read more...

More about Google Maps, Google Street View, Galapagos, Lifestyle, and Travel Leisure

Stomach-churning drama. The heartbreak of defeat. The joy of victory

We're not talking about March Madness or the Super Bowl here. No, we speak of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which hit its semifinal round on Thursday afternoon. The field was winnowed from 281 contestants to just 42 on Wednesday. Then on Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT, the final round will broadcast live on ESPN with the ultimate winner taking home a trophy and $30,000 in prize money

We've already covered how incredibly tough many of the words contestants face really are. But the Bee is good for more than just proving that many of us, in fact, aren't smarter than a fifth grader. Yes, the spelling world's biggest event also produces a whopping batch of fantastic photos Read more...

More about Entertainment, Sports, and Watercooler

Summer's coming up, and if you go strutting around with an ice cold soda in your hands, everyone will be hoping you'll share it with them. Now some creative ad people have attempted to solve that problem with the Coke Social Can, a container that splits in two so you can share its contents.

Well, it doesn't actually split into two separate cans, but a specially designed cup twists off the top, allowing you to pour some of your soda into it, perhaps making a new friend at the same time. And just think, you can do all that without exchanging bodily fluids

Read more...

More about Advertising, Marketing, Sharing, Business, and Videos

Twitter lists got a refresh on Thursday, giving users the ability to create more lists on the social network and include more people on those created.

Previously capped at 20, now you can create up 1,000 lists on Twitter. Those lists can now include up to 5,000 accounts, substantially larger than the previous cap of 500 accounts.

Twitter announced the update via Twitter, of course, in a tweet from its @TwitterForNews account.

Update to Twitter lists: You can now make up to 1,000 lists (up from 20), and each list can include up to 5,000 accounts (up from 500).

— Twitter for News (@TwitterForNews) May 30, 2013 Read more...

More about Twitter, Twitter List, and Social Media

Patrick Stewart has been a longtime advocate for victims of domestic violence. But at Comicpalooza 2013, audience member Heather Skye got a personal message from the actor about the topic

During a Q&A, Skye told Stewart she was inspired and healed by a speech about violence towards women that he made to Amnesty International. She then asked him about his proudest life accomplishment outside of acting.

Stewart replied, saying that the work he does for organizations like Refuge — which provides safe houses for women and children in the UK — is an important part of his life because of his personal connection to the cause. Stewart went on to explain that he often witnessed his mother enduring violence at the hands of his father and how he was helpless as a child to stop it Read more...

More about Viral Videos, Celebrities, Watercooler, Videos, and Family Parenting

Mashable's Events Board is a great place to find the leading conferences in your industry — whether that's advertising, technology, media or public relations. This week, we're highlighting five events that we think can help move your career forward. Our picks below include events in New York, Chicago and London. If you don't find something that's a fit for you, you can check out more than 40 events in our complete listings.

On the Events Board, you can sort listings by date added, get discount codes for Mashable readers and, in some cases, watch a video of a past event so you can know what to expect. You can also subscribe to the events newsletter or follow our events account on Twitter so you'll catch the best events before they sell out. Read more...

More about Events, Business, Advertising, Marketing, and Media

Good news, denizens of the Lone Star State: You might be about to get some of the best email privacy protection in the country.

Earlier this week, Texas legislature passed a bill, HB 2268, requiring state police to get a warrant based on probable cause before reading emails, regardless of how old they are. That goes a step beyond the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which requires a warrant only for unopened emails younger than 180 days.

HB 2268 spells out specific rules defining when police will be authorized to collect suspects' data and places limits on the amount of data that can be acquired. As a state law, it would not apply to federal investigations of Texas residents. Read more...

More about Texas, Privacy, Us World, Us, and Ecpa

Manchester United and Netherlands star Robin van Persie hosted his annual soccer festival for kids recently in Rotterdam. At one point during the event, he and two other pros — Karim Touzani and Tonny Vilhena — took some time for a quick game of keep-away with a few of the young players. The result — the video, above — has become a hit on the sports web with more than 400,000 views in just two days

The video has captured sports fans' imaginations for two main reasons. First: van Persie's jaw-dropping skills as he shows off and messes around in ways we don't typically see in his more serious matches. Second, and perhaps even cooler: the joyful reaction of spectators and the kids at getting such an up-close encounter with one of their soccer heroes Read more...

More about Soccer, Entertainment, Videos, and Sports

Fan TV, unveiled on Thursday, lets viewers concentrate on TV shows and movies rather than apps or content providers. The two-part device consists of a gently curved base component that plugs into the TV, and a smaller companion remote with a touch surface

The hook: Fan TV helps you quickly and easily find your favorite programs, regardless of origin. It then delivers the shows via streaming video or live TV, and can even record like a DVR.

Fan TV was released by Fanhattan, a company founded by Gilles BianRosa, who also helped pioneer BitTorrent and media hub Vuze.

The Fan TV hardware runs software that looks like an extension of the Fanhattan app, which famously lets you identify your preferred programs — then shows you where to find them, no matter the online video service or network provider. Read more...

More about Streaming Video, Set Top Box, Tech, Apps Software, and Gadgets

If you like a little tabletop gaming mixed in with your first-person shooters, and are itching for more Borderlands 2 content, you'll be excited about the upcoming final downloadable expansion for the game, coming in June.

In Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep, your previously leveled-up characters take on a whole new adventure, packed full of gaming and fantasy tropes. It's styled like a tabletop role-playing game, where your characters are acting out directions from an omnipotent dungeon master and the characters from the previous Borderlands game.

More about Gaming, Dlc, Entertainment, Film, and Borderlands 2

The After Earth mobile game arrives Thursday to iOS and Android, just a day before its movie namesake hits theaters.

The After Earth game is an endless runner, similar in feel to Temple Run. The game's main character has all the tools and skills of the film's characters, and as such, the gameplay goes beyond just running. You'll have to glide, freefall and zipline through a variety of terrain on this far-future, desolate earth.

The game also includes a combat mode, in which you can fight enemies by striking them with a variety of taps. There are even tougher boss battles in the game. Read more...

More about Gaming, Android, Film, Mobile Games, and Ios

In case you've never been able to relate to the Captain of the Starship Enterprise, you now can — you've both had hangover-induced pizza binges

Patrick Stewart, better known as Capt. Jean Luc Picard to Trekkies, shocked the world Wednesday when he admitted he was enjoying his first ever pizza "slice."

My first ever pizza "slice". Please note: the authentic NY foldtwitter.com/SirPatStew/sta…

— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) May 29, 2013

Stewart spoke with New York Magazine on Thursday to explain how he went 72 years avoiding the gooey, cheesy awesomeness. Turns out, Stewart had eaten pizza in the past, just not a typical "slice." But it's what led him into that Brooklyn pizzeria that's really the clincher. Read more...

More about Celebrities, Star Trek, Pizza, Film, and Watercooler

Khoa Phan, known for his stop-motion animations on Vine, has finished his first creation for Peanuts Worldwide as part of a 12-Vine deal he inked with the company to promote Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip and various projects behind the brand.

"It just made sense to start with Snoopy, everyone's favorite beagle, and move on from there," Cory Cole, social media director for Peanuts Worldwide, told Mashable. "Partnering with someone like Khoa in the social space keeps Peanuts relevant to new audiences."

Peanuts Worldwide shared the Vine first with Mashable. Here is the six-second creation: Read more...

More about Vine, Entertainment, Film, Apps Software, and Peanuts

A man indicted on murder charges set up a fake Facebook page to lure a teenage girl before kidnapping and killing her, according to police.

Kyle Dube, 20, is accused of using Facebook in a bizarre scheme to kidnap 15-year-old Nichole Cable and later pose as a hero when he would "find" Cable. The plan went horribly wrong: After Dube got Cable to leave her house by posing as her friend, he jumped at her from the woods near her family's Glenburn, Maine, house, duct-taped her and shoved her in his dad's truck

Dube later discovered Cable was dead and dumped her body in the nearby woods, according to the police affidavit as reported by the Associated Press. Read more...

More about Facebook, Us, and Us World

Julian Assange "has become everything he originally, rightly, despised," according to former Wikileaks spokesperson James Ball.

Ball wrote about working for Assange and his decision to leave Wikileaks in an essay posted Thursday in The Daily Beast. The piece comes days after the release of We Steal Secrets, a Wikileaks documentary in which Ball dishes about Assange and working for Wikileaks.

Ball describes Assange as an egomaniac who destroyed Wikileaks by failing to separate the organization from the sex crime allegations made against him as an individual — for example, he says Assange tried to use Wikileaks' cash reserves (limited by financial embargoes) to post bail. Ball says he ultimately decided to leave Wikileaks after Assange and other members tried to make him sign a non-disclosure agreement limiting what he could say about the organization's work. Read more...

More about Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Us World, and World

Snoop Lion, fresh off teaming up with Mashable for a Twitter chat Q&A, has unleashed his somber "Ashtrays and Heartbreaks" music video, featuring Miley Cyrus.

Together, they rap and sing about filling up ashtrays, with the remnants of whatever they're smoking, to cope with the loss of loved ones

"Ashtrays and Heartbreaks" is the first single from Snoop's new Reincarnated album, which debuted in April at number 16 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Some people scratched their heads in confusion at the unlikely collaboration between Snoop and Cyrus when the song premiered online in April, and even funny gal Ellen DeGeneres jokingly renamed the songstress as Miley Siberian Tigress. Read more...

More about Music, Entertainment, Miley Cyrus, Music Videos, and Snoop Dogg

A pair of Los Angeles filmmakers are raising funds through Kickstarter for a documentary about Kickstarter — or, more specifically, about crowdfunding.

The project, called Kickstarted, will focus on crowdfunding's recent rise as the go-to platform for creative projects, and will follow three artists and entrepreneurs extensively throughout their respective processes, from start to finish.

"We are in the midst of a revolution of entrepreneurial and creative freedom ... [and it] is fueled, in a large part, by crowdfunding," Jason Cooper, one of the project's cofounders, told Mashable

"Over a million projects were launched through crowdfunding last year to the tune of $2.7 billion. The market is on pace to double this year — and has no signs of slowing down." Read more...

More about Films, Documentary, Crowdfunding, Filmmaking, and Kickstarter

When President Barack Obama signed a new open data initiative earlier this month, he argued that providing government data to entrepreneurs enables them to create new businesses and strengthen the economy

What kinds of businesses are being built with open data? A report from a White House task force on open data and "smart disclosure" released Wednesday highlights several commercial and non-profit operations built around open data. The report stripped specific company names to avoid the appearance of favoritism — if you recognize any of them, let us know in the comments.

1. Education

Image via Matt Cardy/Getty Images Read more...

More about Small Business, Open Data, Us World, and Us

Pro tip: Don't mess with Justin Bieber online — even if you're an NFL legend and Hall of Fame running back

Scores of Justin Bieber fans have unleashed a digital fusillade of Twitter barbs, rebukes and general haterade unto 52-year-old retired football star Eric Dickerson over the past two days. And all because Dickerson had the temerity to publicly rebuke the Biebster for driving fast in the tony SoCal suburb of Calabasas, where they both live

The beef began with a Tuesday morning TMZ report that Bieber and another retired football star — Keyshawn Johnson — had a near altercation after Johnson saw Bieber tearing about town in his Ferrari. Johnson reportedly tracked the pop star down in his Prius (yes, Prius) and "got out of his car to confront Justin face-to-face ... but Justin ran inside of his house and refused to come out." Read more...

More about Twitter, Nfl, Justin Bieber, Entertainment, and Sports