Web Trends

App Delivers 'Virtual Placebo' to Improve Your Health

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...

Learn About Overfishing With This Interactive Web Aquarium

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...

Manager Uses Urban Dictionary to Defend UFC Fighter's Gay Twitter Slur

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 SEE ALSO: NBA Star J.R. Smith: 'I'm Not Worried About Instagram'...

Report: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Mull $1.1 Billion Tumblr Purchase

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...

Nintendo Will Get Revenue From All YouTube Videos Featuring its IP

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...