Recommended from Around the Web (Week Ending November 29, 2014)
Google Doesn’t Need a New Mission
Explaining moon shots and Nest: how organizing large amount of data remains Google’s unifying objective.
—Nanette Byrnes, senior editor, Business Reports
Facebook’s Auto-Playing Videos In an ISIS Era
This was well worth the call-out: if a Facebooker posts video showing the machine-gun massacre of children, it might auto-play, and you can’t tag it as violent or offensive.
—David Talbot, chief correspondent
Drone Flights Face FAA Hit (Note: Paywall)
Drone makers’ dreams of skies swarming with tiny aircraft have been tempered by suggestions that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration will place strict controls on who can fly even small crewless planes.
—Tom Simonite, San Francisco bureau chief
If You Keep Texting, Your Head Will Fall Off
This is a fun read—refuting the idea that texting is really horrible for your neck and spine.
—Rachel Metz, senior editor, mobile
What North Dakota Would Look Like if Its Oil Drilling Lines Were Aboveground
Very cool visualization of the oil shale drilling lines in North Dakota.
—Kevin Bullis, senior editor, materials
Stop Trying to Save the World
Why efforts to bring innovations to poor countries so often fail.
—Will Knight, news and analysis editor
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Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023
These exclusive satellite images show that Saudi Arabia’s sci-fi megacity is well underway
Weirdly, any recent work on The Line doesn’t show up on Google Maps. But we got the images anyway.
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