Hot. (Photo: NickolayLamm.com)

A geneticist has predicted that in the future we really will have the cartoonishly huge eyes of the Jetsons, all the better to take in the dark Martian colonies we'll call home. Science!

Forbes summed up the results of a hypothesis formed by artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm, who, along with computational geneticist Dr. Alan Kwan, reasearched and illustrated what humans--specifically, white ones--might look like 100,000 years in the future.

To start with, he says the human forehead has been expanding since as early as the 14th century, so we will probably have full-on fiveheads millenia from now to accommodate our brains.

Dr. Kwan believes humans will have control over the genome and live on other planets starting 60,000 years from now, Forbes reports, so we'll want larger eyes to take in our dimly lit outer-space surroundings. Also, skin will need to be more darkly pigmented to protect us from planets without ozone layers. In the renderings, Mr. Lamm's two Caucasian models sport perma-tans that would make Snooki jealous.

And 100,000 years from now, Dr. Kwan believes we'll engineer our faces with a heavy bias toward "features that humans find fundamentally appealing: strong, regal lines, straight nose, intense eyes, and placement of facial features that adhere to the golden ratio of left/right perfect symmetry," he says, as reported in Forbes. Also, he's pretty sure high-tech contacts will replace Google Glass.

Unfortunately, those "intense eyes" skew more Bratz doll than Robert Pattinson, according to Mr. Lamm's illustration.

Thankfully, not everyone agrees with Dr. Kwan's bug-eyed assessment. Forbes staffer Matthew Herper calls the prediction "science fiction that belongs in the same category as the big-headed aliens from the first Star Trek pilot." Mr. Herper conducted a Twitter survey of some geneticists, one of whom dismissed Dr. Kwan's work as "horseshit."

Dr. Kwan shot back, defending the project as "purely speculative," not an actual scientific experiment. Well, while we're at it, we'd like to speculate that one day, the ideal Caucasian female will be a shade of pale currently considered sickly, with a body that's never been ravaged by the evils of exercise. Wouldn't that be nice.

Photo: Wikipedia

Everybody knows you shouldn't get into a car with a stranger. And if hackers can find a way to mimic the work of three Georgia Institute of Technology researchers, you may want to reconsider using a stranger's iPhone charger, too.

To test iOS security, Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang and Chengyu Song created a malicious phone charger with the power to hack the iPhone. They'll unveil the diabolical equipment at the Black Hat security conference from July 31 through Aug. 1 in Las Vegas.

The charger slot on an iPhone doubles as a USB port through which the phone is updated and backed up, so it's not a huge shock that, er, sticking a foreign object in there could be risky.

The researchers have dubbed the wily wire "Mactans," which Forbes points out is the species name for the Black Widow spider.

Despite iOS's abundance of security measures, all iPhones could be affected, regardless of whether they've been jailbroken. An attacker could hide software inside the phone in the same way Apple hides its own built-in applications, they say.

Hackers could build a Mactans knockoff to look just like a typical iPhone charger, and malware could be transmitted after just one minute of charging. But the good guys at Georgia Institute of Technology will be recommending digital infection protection measures -- perhaps there's an iCondom app in the works?

Congratulations, David Karp! The Tumblr founder will grace the cover of the January 21 issue of Forbes, headlining the magazine's "30 Under 30" issue, in which pages he reveals his "Jason Bourne or James Bond fantasy" and holds forth on his minimalist proclivities.

It's a fine honor for the Williamsburg loft-owner, but the occasion left Betabeat with a feeling of déjà vu. Hadn't we seen his name in a litany or two before?

That's no ill reflection on Mr. Karp: It's not his fault he launched Tumblr at 21. But we worry about how publications will write about him once he ages out of the category.

In the meantime, in honor of Mr. Karp’s 26 years on earth, 26 lists in which he’s appeared:

1. 30 Under 30 (2012): "'I don’t have any books. I don’t have many clothes,' Karp shrugs. 'I’m always so surprised when people fill their homes up with stuff.'" [Forbes]

2. 40 Under 40: "When he was 11, the Manhattan native read HTML for Dummies." [Crain's New York Business]

3. The New Establishment: "Ride: A World War II–era reproduction Ural motorcycle, complete with an olive-green sidecar for Karp’s longtime girlfriend, Rachel Eakley, and the couple’s French-English bulldog, Clark." [Vanity Fair]

4. Innovator's Under 35: "'I can always move back in with my parents,' [Karp] says." [MIT Technology Review]

5. The Time 100 Poll (2012): "The tech world is full of college dropouts, but serial risk taker Karp ended his formal education at 15 and took a job as CTO of Urban Baby before he was even allowed to vote." [Time]

6. Digital Power Index: "He dropped out of high school after the ninth grade, lived in Tokyo while working as the CTO of parenting site UrbanBaby, and founded the über-popular blogging site Tumblr when he was just 20." [Daily Beast]

7. 5 Inspirational Young Internet Entrepreneurs: "The then 21-year-old Karp founded Tumblr in 2007 out of his bedroom in his mother's apartment in New York City." [Jakarta Globe]

8. The World's Five Youngest CEOs: "Tumblr’s David Karp brings up the rear of our list at 25 years old, barely edging out  Globals Incs.’s Suhas Gopinath, who took the top spot last year." [Business Pundit]

9. The 25 Richest Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30: "New York City's brightest high school dropout flipped his earnings from working as a software consultant at UrbanBaby to fund his microblogging empire, which accounts for over 64.7 million blogs and 27.5 billion total posts." [Complex]

10. The Time 100 Poll (2011): "At just 20, Karp created the trendy blogging platform after finding other services less than desirable." [Time]

11. 30 Founders Under 30 Who Are Shaking Up Industries: "David started Tumblr in 2007 with his own savings from previously held jobs in the software industry." [Business Insider]

12. 30 Under 30, Social/Mobile (2011): "He created Tumblr, currently the most popular blogging platform on the Internet." [Forbes]

13. 30 and Under: 9 Young Founders Who Running Billion-Dollar Companies "David Karp founded Tumblr when he was 21. Now it's worth nearly $1 billion." [Business Insider]

14. The Disrupters: "'So when we released our platform, we took it straight to the tumblelogging community and said, 'Hey, look, we built a real tool to make all the neat stuff you guys are doing available to more people.'" [Fast Company]

15. 27 Inspiring Young Internet Entrepreneurs: "Tumblr is a free online service that lets you effortlessly share anything." [Young Entrepreneur]

16. 8 Well Known Entrepreneurs Who Made a Million Dollars in Their First Month of Business: "In real terms though, David  Karp made millions instantly, as his net worth was in the millions as soon as Tumblr took off." [Addicted2Success]

17. The 10 Most Eligible CEO Bachelors: "He dropped out of high school at the age of 15 and was home-schooled after that." [Business Insider]

18. The Sexiest 50 CEOs Alive: "He considers himself 'antischedule,' except for board meetings, and rides to Tumblr's Manhattan office on his Vespa." [Business Insider]

19. Youngest Richest Internet Entrepreneurs: "David Karp brought blogging to the younger generation with Tumblr, with this very easy to set up blogging platform, that’s available for free." [Income Diary]

20.  Best Young Entrepreneurs: "But he expects the company to generate revenue this year by customizing its platform for big media companies and by charging regular users who want extra services, such as more visibility for their pages." [Businessweek]

21. NYC's New Wunderkinds: "The Internet's boy wonder." [Page 6 Magazine]

22.  Super Rich List: 20 Entrepreneurs Without Degrees: "Young entrepreneur founded and CEO of Tumblr, which launched in early 2007." [Work Awesome]

23. 100 Top Entrepreneurs Who Succeeded Without a College Degree: "Dropped out of school at 15, then homeschooled. Did not attend college." [Young Entrepreneur]

24. 20 Big Name Stars Under 25 That Are Making a Name for Themselves in the New York Tech Scene: "Karp founded Tumblr, a social blogging platform that’s reportedly raising a massive round." [Addicted2Success]

25. The 10 Most Young Richest Internet Entrepreneurs: "Tumblr is younger generation’s most widely used blogging platform and David Karp is its founder. It is a free and handy platform where you can post text, images, videos and audio and re-blog other people’s content on your blog, while providing credit." [Top Ten Things]

26. 27 Great Web Geeks: "As the 23-year-old founder and CEO of Tumblr, David Karp has had to endure being called a 'boy genius' for the bulk of his legally drinking life." [Geekosystem]

Boss. (Photo: flickr.com/jurvetson)

Forbes has just released its rankings of the world's 100 most powerful women. Many of the honorees are exactly those you'd expect--German chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. However, the list also serves a kind of unofficial assessment of who's in and who's out in the tech business, as well.

Numero uno is, no big surprise here, Sheryl Sandberg (who comes in at no. 10 overall). The brief accompanying profile of Ms. Sandberg notes:

The first runner-up to Facebook's resident adult is Virgina Rometty (no. 15 overall), the first female CEO of IBM. (And yet the Augusta National still hasn't made her a member, an honor it traditionally extends to the head of IBM). Next are Usyla Burns (no. 17), CEO of golden oldie Xerox, followed by Meg Whitman (no. 18), CEO of the rambling wreck that is HP. Marissa Mayer (no. 21) rounds out the top five as CEO of Yahoo.

Outranking them all, however, on the big list? Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and, of course, wedded wife of the founder of Microsoft.

Get outta here. (flickr.com/orcmid)

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently topped a Forbes list naming the CEOs who should have already been fired, calling him "the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Ouch.

We leave ranking his leadership abilities up to the glossies, but what we do consider ourselves experts in is his hype man skills. In fact, we dare say that Mr. Ballmer is the Best Hype Man of All Time. YouTube is an unending well of Ballmer gold. And as Deadspin editor Erik Malinowski put it, "He really is a national treasure."

So without further ado, we present to you the five best Steve Ballmer videos of all time.

5. Ballmer sells Windows 1.0

Jim Cramer has nothing on Steve-o.

4. Ballmer Laughs at iPhone

Oh, the irony!

3. Steve Ballmer Sells Windows XP

Like Windows 1.0, but with an uglier blazer.

2. Steve Ballmer going crazy

If he were Howard Dean, this would have cost him an election.

1. Steve Ballmer - Developers

This is our all time favorite. We're guilty of watching it at least once a week. DEVELOPERS.

Chaouki Bekrar, chief executive of VUPEN. (topnews.in)

Some do it for the lulz, others do it for the Benjamins. In a piece published today in Forbes, Andy Greenburg introduces us to VUPEN, a company that is apparently a proponent of the latter. VUPEN sells hacking secrets to government agencies for big bucks, and a host of Internetty folk are terrified of the implications.

VUPEN calls itself the "Leading Provider of Defensive and Offensive Security," and it's that "Offensive" part that has some in a tizzy. The company has become an expert at mining software like Google Chrome for security vulnerabilities, then making crazy amounts of cash selling their hacking secrets to parties willing to shell out a handsome fee.

And usually, people with the cash and desire to purchase hacking secrets aren't exactly the most innocent of characters. "In that shady but legal market for security vulnerabilities, a zero-day exploit that might earn a hacker $2,000 or $3,000 from a software firm could earn 10 or even 100 times that sum from the spies and cops who aim to use it in secret," writes Mr. Greenburg.

Privacy experts are rightly concerned about the havoc VUPEN's transactions could wreak on the Internet. Though VUPEN claims to refuse to sell to "nondemocratic nations," they're essentially playing Russian roulette with backdoor hacks. With so many different clients with opposing interests, and without a way to keep track of where their information goes once an agency pays for it, the whole shebang is bound to implode at some point.

Forbes quotes privacy activist Chris Soghoian with a little more insight: "Vupen is the Snooki of this industry," he said. "They’re the Jersey Shore of the exploit trade."

So VUPEN is a collection of famewhoring orange monsters comprised of 80 percent tequila and 20 percent cheap body glitter? Got it.

Aside from describing Mr. Parker as "flighty, manic and unpredictable" and noting conflicting stories about Mr. Parker's departure from Plaxo, the article speaks in reverent tones about Mr. Parker's "drive to disrupt" and the difference between Aaron Sorkin's fictionalized version and Mr. Parker IRL.

Boiled down, Sean Parker is a human accelerant, an idea catalyst who, when combined with the right people, has fueled some of the most disruptive companies of the last two decades.

However, Mr. Parker's Facebook page, where he shared the article, suggested that other insights might have been left on the cutting room floor:

This is a better source article, please share this one! Overall, I'm generally happy with this piece. One can only keep up appearances for so long, and it took Steve, the reporter, quite a bit of time with me to capture all the insights in his article--so he probably saw a lot more of me that he was kind enough to exclude. Please share this far and wide!

Hmm, wonder what we missed.