By The Editors 12/07/12 5:59pm

shameless rumormongering

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Rumor Roundup: Artsy’s Art Basel Bust and the $50,000 Tip That Wasn’t

Basel Bust? Artsy’s invite for its Art Basel party this year–thrown by Chanel–was positively littered with enticing cohosts. “On behalf of Carter Cleveland, Larry Gagosian, Wendi Murdoch, Peter Theil & Dasha Zhukova, we invite you to a beachside barbecue on Wednesday, December 5th in Miami Beach,” the invite said. Perhaps too enticing. “I ended up not going because it was such a shit show,” said one would-be guest. The tipster blamed the venue, noting that “the same thing happened last night at Amfar. It was a mess trying to get into the after party and there were 400 people waiting outside and inside it was a crowded mess.”

Typical for Art Basel, said the source, brushing off complaints. “Less so for tech startups ” Too bad they missed Demi Moore’s highly gif-able turn on the dance floor next to Lenny Kravitz. Perhaps our partier will have better luck with Tumblr, which is hosting its own Art Basel extravaganza tonight. Read More

By Jessica Roy 10/01/12 8:07am

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(Photo: Reddit)

Booting Up: Piracy Machines Edition

Microsoft is grooming high school kids in Seattle to become programmers. The bad news is that once they have those comp sci skills, the kids will probably want to work at Google. [New York Times]

Good news for everyone without TV: YouTube will stream the presidential debates for the first time. [Fast Company]

A fascinating look into the future of 3D printing, and how manufacturers will seek to slow the growth of 3D printers and brand them “piracy machines.” [The Economist]

Asshole thinks her DUI is LOL-worthy; judge demands she delete her Facebook for being an asshole. [TechDirt]

Some guy dressed up like a crazy mindreader, only to reveal that he found everything out about his subjects via the Internet. [SingularityHub]

By Jessica Roy 9/04/12 12:28pm

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Wiki Weapon Project Continues to Raise Money for 3D Printed Guns via PayPal and Bitcoin

A couple of weeks ago we told you about the Wiki Weapon Project, the brainchild of a group called Defense Distributed that was initially raising money on Indiegogo to develop open source blueprints for a 3D-printable gun. Indiegogo suspended the campaign and refunded all the backers, but never gave an explicit reason for doing so.

“I put in the basic appeal with Indiegogo once they sent me the email that all of our funds were being refunded to contributors,” Cody Wilson, a student at the University of Texas School of Law and cofounder of Defense Distributed, told Betabeat by email. “I got a thank you and a help ticket, but no word back. Basically TOS violation is the reason I think they’re sticking with.” Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/23/12 1:21pm

Crowdpower

(Photo: Indiegogo)

WikiWeapon Campaign to 3D-Print Your Own Gun Suspended by Indiegogo

Though Indiegogo has largely been the go-to campaign site for non-artistic endeavors and bullied bus monitors, it turns out that there actually are some projects that the site will not allow. Forbes reports that a group of 20-somethings called Defense Distributed collaborated on a campaign called the Wiki Weapon Project to develop open source blueprints for a gun that can be made with a 3D printer. Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/16/12 7:47am

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Hey girl. (Photo: Tumblr)

Booting Up: A Museum for Tesla Edition

Google Maps updated its transit layer and now has scheduling info for more than a million public transportation stops, but that still won’t make the F train come any faster. [Google]

Speaking of Google, its Mountain View campus has a 3D pasta printer for its employees. We’re not jealous or anything… [TechPP]

What’s the deal with Obvious Corporation’s new publishing platform, Medium? Nieman Lab breaks it down for you. [Nieman Journalism Lab]

Fresh off the heels of his amusing lawsuit debacle with Charles Carreon, The Oatmeal is putting his efforts into building a museum for Nikola Tesla. [The Oatmeal]

People pirate because it takes three years for Avatar to come out on 3D Blu-ray, apparently. [Gizmodo]