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Each week, TEDx chooses four of our favorite talks, highlighting just a few of the great speakers from the TEDx community and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Below, give this week’s talks a listen.

Let’s find the strength to change our slums: Boniface Mwangi at TEDxKibera
While working as a photographer for a Kenyan news service, Boniface Mwangi bore witness to some of the most horrible atrocities in the country’s recent history. Overcoming self-doubt and thoughts of suicide, Mwangi decided to use photography to inspire change within Kenya’s toxic political structure. (Filmed at TEDxKibera)

Born into a prison camp: Blaine Harden at TEDxRanier
Shin Dong-Hyuk, raised by guards to be an informant in a North Korean prison camp, escaped and found freedom in the outside world, but soon realized living with freedom wasn’t easy. At TEDxRainier, Blaine Harden shares Shin’s story to explain the effect of totalitarian governments on their citizens’ mental health, and to raise awareness that — someday — integrating millions of North Koreans into free society might not be as easy as we think. (Filmed at TEDxRainier)

The first school for Maasai girls: Kakenya Ntaiya at TEDxMidAtlantic
Growing up in the Maasai culture, Kakenya Ntaiya faced genital mutilation and forced marriage; her education might have ended at age 13. Against the odds, Ntaiya convinced the men of her village to allow her to attend college, and in this talk at TEDxMidAtlantic, she explains how she returned to her village to start its very first all-girls school. (Filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic)

The three sides of corruption: Afra Raymond at TEDxPortofSpain
From pork-laden congressional bills to revolving-door lobbying jobs, corruption is an all-too-familiar aspect of political behavior. Afra Raymond insists on eliminating it. In this passionate talk from TEDxPortofSpain, he lays bare the rampant corruption in his nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and shares important lessons for every concerned global citizen. (Filmed at TEDxPortofSpain)

And here, some of the week’s highlights from the TEDx blog this week:

• TEDxChicuque, the first TEDx event in Mozambique, shines a light on Mozambiquan stories
• Introducing TEDx ice cream
• Say cheese. Portraits from Benjamin Borley’s photo series “The faces of TEDxExeter”
• TEDx speaker running for president in the Czech Republic
• Pixels rule at TEDxRiodelaPlata

After the suicide of Aaron Swartz in early January, Rep. Zoe Lofgren got to work on an amendment to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to prevent another tragedy like Swartz’ from happening again. That original amendment was submitted to Reddit and the Internet at large to help her fine tune it before submitting it to the House Judiciary Committee. Now that revised amendment is ready for your perusal.

In an AMA posted to Reddit a few hours ago, Lofgren published the latest version of Aaron’s Law for Reddit to look over. You can read it here. If legalese is not your strong suit, Lofgren has also laid out in plain speak the core essence of Aaron’s Law:

Like the first draft, this revised draft explicitly excludes breaches of terms of service or user agreements as violations of the CFAA and wire fraud statute. This revised draft also makes clear that changing one’s MAC or IP address is not in itself a violation of the CFAA or wire fraud statute. In addition, this draft limits the scope of CFAA by defining “access without authorization” as the circumvention of technological access barriers. Taken together, the changes in this draft should prevent the kind of abusive prosecution directed at Aaron Swartz and would help protect other Internet users from outsized liability for everyday activity.

As our discussions have continued, it is clear that many believe a thorough revision of the CFAA and substantial reform of copyright laws are necessary. I agree. “Aaron’s Law” is not this complete overhaul, but is a first step down the road to comprehensive reform. If we succeed in getting this draft bill enacted into law, it will be in honor of Aaron Swartz, and should be seen as a beginning of a concerted effort to bring reform to these broader issues. To be successful, that effort will likely take substantial time and require sustained and intense support from all of you in a push that will need to exceed our stoppage of SOPA.

I see “Aaron’s Law” as common sense fixes that should be enacted to stop the kinds of abuse Aaron was subjected to from affecting others. I intend to introduce a final version of “Aaron’s Law” as legislation soon, and in talking with my friend Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, I understand he wants to introduce it in the Senate as well. I will be urging my colleagues in the House of Reps to become cosponsors. The chances of success – whether for “Aaron’s Law” or other proposals – will depend greatly on the degree of positive public engagement and support to change the law. As SOPA showed, when the Internet speaks, lawmakers listen. I think with enough constructive support we can have an opportunity to pass “Aaron’s Law.”

In the comments, Senator Ron Wyden showed up to offer his support for the bill, and said that he would be “taking the lead in the Senate” if the bill passes the House.

The executive director of Demand Progress, the organization founded by Swartz, also announced their newest campaign in the comments. It’s asking U.S. citizens to request their representatives back Aaron’s Law when it hits the floor.

As Logren points out, Aaron’s Law, and any other legislation like it, faces an uphill battle in Washington. The CFAA is a very old law that was introduced when the Internet was new and Machintosh was still king of home computing. Technology has drastically changed since then, but lawmakers’ perception of it has not. That’s going to be a problem as we go into a year where supporting any loosening of cyberlaws is tantamount to letting cyberterrorists just waltz right in.

Foursquare is making a small tweak that could make a big difference for businesses trying to connect with their patrons (and wishing to court new patrons).

Starting today, businesses will be given the option to connect their Twitter accounts with check-ins shared on Twitter.

This mean that your businesses’ Twitter account will be mentioned in check-ins when any user shares that check-in on Twitter.

Up until now, Foursquare check-ins cross-posted to Twitter take on this format: “Blah blah I’m doing this blah blah (at Butter Lane w/ 19 others).”

If a business decides to link their Twitter account, the tweet would mention their Twitter account instead of simply their name. “”Blah blah I’m doing this blah blah (Butterlane w/ 19 others).”

“It’s a small change to help you better reach out to and connect with people who love your business,” says Twitter.

And they’re right. It makes it easier for someone who sees the check-in tweet to find your business.

Foursquare says that if you’ve claimed your business and already linked your Twitter account, this change will happen automatically. Otherwise, head here to turn on the new feature.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man who allegedly fooled Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o into thinking he was a woman for over a year, says he was molested as a child by a family friend, and the experience changed him profoundly.

In a recent interview with Dr. Phil, Tuiasosopo claimed that at the age of 12, he became the victim of sexual molestation by a person close to his father, who was a church pastor. There was more than one incident, he says, and they usually happened when he was accompanied by the person on trips away from his parents. His father says he was heartbroken to hear what his son went through, and while he never witnessed any wrongdoing, remembers specific times Tuiasosopo claims the incidents happened.

“When he told me the location, the time, I could go back and vividly remember those trips, the times that these guys came over,” he said. “That part, right there, was kind of gut wrenching for me.”

Tuiasosopo claims the molestation had a lot to do with why Tuiasosopo created the false identity of Lennay Kekua and subsequently began an online/phone relationship with Te’o, who claims he had no idea he was speaking to a man. Tuiasosopo eventually decided to kill off his character, leading Te’o to believe his long-distance girlfriend lost a battle to leukemia.

“I felt that I couldn’t do things, accomplish things, pursue things, live out as Ronaiah,” Tuiasosopo said. “And I felt the need to create this. It has everything to do with what I went through as a child.”

When news broke recently that Lennay Kekua wasn’t real, rumors and speculation began to fly that Te’o was in on the hoax just to gain popularity in his quest for the Heisman, but he still contends he had no part in the deception and believed the entire time that he was speaking to a real woman he’d never met.

With eSports becoming more popular and accepted every year, it is only a matter of time before professional gamers will be making money comparable to professional athletes.

Activision today announced the Call of Duty Championship, which will feature a Call of Duty: Black Ops II tournament with a $1 million prize pool. From April 5-7 in Hollywood, California, 32 teams of four players will compete in a live-streamed tournament for their share of the $1 million. The top eight teams will receive a share of the money, with the first place team taking a $400,000 prize.

“More people play Call of Duty multiplayer every day than watch the average regular season game of the NBA,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision. “The scale and passion of the Call of Duty fan base is simply humbling, and yet there is no formal way to find out who amongst those millions of players is the best of the best, until now. Watching the performances of the very best Call of Duty players is already a mass spectator sport on YouTube and Call of Duty Elite. We are going to bring the best players in the world to Hollywood to compete on the ultimate stage, for the ultimate prize. And we are going to invite our entire worldwide fan base to join in the fun.”

Registration for the tournament has already begun. Teams will compete for a spot in the tournament via Call of Duty: Black Ops II‘s February League Play on Xbox LIVE. The top eight teams in the League Play season will gain entry into the tournament. Eight more teams will come from Major League Gaming’s (MLG) Winter Championship on March 15-17, as well as eight others from the Electronic Sports League’s (ESL) European Finals that same weekend. The remaining teams will come from Asia, Australia, and Brazil.

BlackBerry 10 is all about communication and keeping you moving when you’re on the go. The new BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones feature amazing and innovative technology that allows you to share your screen with your BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) contacts using BlackBerry 10. This was demoed for the first time at the BlackBerry 10 launch event, and it was undeniably a crowd pleaser.

To find out more about about this exciting news and the future of BBM, I met with T.A. McCann, VP, BBM and Social Communities of BlackBerry at the BlackBerry 10 launch event. He also let me know what his favorite sleeper feature in BlackBerry 10 is. Curious? Watch the interview here to find out.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Big thanks to T.A. for the interview – I’m sure Matthew and the browser team appreciate the shoutout. What’s your favorite BlackBerry 10 sleeper feature?

Between their many universities, research centers and publishing companies, New York and Boston are already considered leaders in education, but two new startup accelerators want to make their cities as prominent in education technology.

On Friday, Boston-based LearnLaunchX made its debut, announcing that it would kick off its first session in June. And, next week, Socratic Labs, an accelerator program in New York, will officially launch with its inaugural class of startups. Along the lines of other incubators, the two programs each give accepted startups a small amount of capital ($15,000 to $25,000 at Socratic Labs and $18,000 at LearnLaunchX) in exchange for some equity, as well as mentorship, guidance, space and other benefits.

In the past few years, accelerator programs have become more ubiquitous across the country, as have those in specific verticals. General accelerator programs like TechStars and Y Combinator, which backed startups Codecademy and Clever, are open to ed tech startups. But over the last few years, ed tech-specific incubators, including Silicon Valley-based Imagine K12 and 4.0 Schools in New Orleans (which has a slightly different model), have emerged to support education entrepreneurs exclusively.

While those programs focus on k-12 education, both LearnLaunchX and Socratic Labs say they are focused on learners of all kinds and both argue that their local networks of educators, school districts, institutions and corporations will give their startups an edge.

“We expect to see quite a lot of involvement from industry in helping set up beta tests for our cohort,” said Jean Hammond, a LearnLaunchX co-founder and Boston angel investor. “We have lots and lots of publishers that need to acquire to survive and we have amazing college and university resources, as well as a general entrepreneurship community.”

But New York is also a particularly interesting place for education right now.  Not only is it home to top publishers, media companies and a strong startup community, it has the country’s largest k-12 district and a dedicated subset of schools focused on experimenting with new technologies, through the iZone project.

“We have this awesome convergence of factors,” said Heather Gilchrist, a founding partner of Socratic Labs who previously worked at ed tech company Grockit,. “There’s a different chemistry in the city.”

Both programs plan to draw from their local communities, as well as startups from elsewhere.  But now that ed tech entrepreneurs have more options than ever, it will be interesting to see how the different classes shake out. ImagineK12, with its Palo Alto location and Silicon Valley veteran founders, could attract more consumer web-inspired companies, while the East Coast accelerators could appeal to those who want to sync up more closely with school districts and institutions. But obviously, aside from their geography, the programs differ in terms of the backgrounds of their founders, the networks of people they provide access to and their structure and curriculum. As ed tech founders assess those options, they’ll just need to weigh those factors against their priorities and goals.

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Members of President Obama’s administration have been participating in a series of “fireside hangouts” on Google+. Vice President Joe Biden recently discussed gun violence in one, for example.

On Thursday, Cecilia Muñoz, the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, participates in one about immigration reform, along with journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, America Ferrera, Jim Wallis, Cristina Jimenez, and Shervin Pishevar. The video is currently available via the White House YouTube channel.

Immigration reform is a topic that Google is particularly interested in, as the company also released a blog post discussing it earlier this week.

You may have heard of Google Glass — a new venture by Google, where a user wears a head-mounted display (think, futuristic sunglasses) that overlays digital information and images onto the physical world.

Tom Chi was on the team that developed Google Glass, and spoke about the experience at TEDYouth. In this newly released TED-Ed lesson, “Rapid prototyping Google Glass,” Chi shares how the team greatly sped up their process of creation.

This method goes by the name of “rapid prototyping,” and it is just what it sounds like. While you might guess that Google Glass took months, even years, to create, the prototype for the headset was made in a single day. And when it came time to take the technology to the next level and prototype projections for the device, Chi’s team did so in just 45 minutes.

Chi’s team made these prototypes using some very unsophisticated materials– ones that expedited the process and didn’t require overthinking. For the headpiece, Chi used pieces of clay that weighed the same amount as the electronic pieces that would be used in the product. He wrapped the clay in paper and attached it to the modeling wire — and voila, makeshift glasses. From this, he was able to determine how the weight needed to be distributed between the nose and ears on this distinctive headpiece.

To prototype the projections, Chi’s team used binder clips, hairbands, a white board and chopsticks. Thanks to these materials, the team was able to practice the movements of playing with the projections, and realized that they weren’t something they wanted to include in the final Google Glass product after all.

“Doing is the best kind of thinking,” says Chi of rapid prototyping, “They teach you to think in school, but I think it’s a little bit overrated.”

Rapid prototyping isn’t just useful for the scientist, Chi emphasizes, but also for poets, artists and musicians – anyone who feels they want to share something and needs to build an instant framework for it. It’s as simple as using some paper, clay and tape to advance the idea.

Read more about technology on the TED Blog » 

As you may know, Coachella released its lineup last week. If you were on the interwebs at all, you probably heard a lot of “Stone Roses? Stone Roses?” You wanna be adored? You may want to stay home from Coachella, as most of the 18 year-olds have no idea who you are. Of course, that’s not a rip on The Stone Roses, and more of a rip on the dumbasses who bitch about them on Twitter.

But I digress. Any festival lineup is going to have its supporters and its detractors. Coachella 2013 has some great acts, and some less inspiring acts. That’s the way it’s gonna be.

Luckily, we can use the Coachella lineup to determine a person’s hipster cred, although we can’t really figure out which end of the spectrum is more desirable. Sometimes it’s nice to be a “disgusting mainstream whore.” Unless you’re “pure filth hipster scum,” in which case it’s so mainstream to kind of like the mainstream.

It’s simple – you’re assigned positive of negative points for every band in the festival that you like. Red Hot Chili Peppers are the most offensive to hipster, with a score of -10. If you find yourself liking bands like the Wombats, Cassy, and Sam XL Pure Filth Sound, you’re going to skyrocket up the hipster chart.

[Endless Origami via The Daily What]
[Photo courtesy JohnnyCashsAshes, Flickr]

The major tech at CES 2013 wasn’t the 4K HD TVs or that awesome water display, but rather mobile processors. Nvidia, Qualcomm and Samsung all announced their respective next generation processors that will be powering smartphones and tablets in the near future. One of the companies, however, may be having some trouble in getting companies to support its latest processor.

Digitimes reports that demand for Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor has been weak among OEMs. In fact, the only OEM confirmed to use the processor so far is Toshiba. The other major players, like Asus and Acer, are reportedly still undecided on which processors they will be using:

Asustek Computer and Acer, which have been aggressive about the tablet market, have not yet decided whether to place orders for Tegra 4 as their focuses have already turned from 10-inch and above tablets to the 7-inch entry-level segment.

Nvidia’s previous mobile processor – the Tegra 3 – is being used in devices like Google’s Nexus 7 and Microsoft’s Surface. It still enjoys relative popularity among OEMs so Nvidia may start focusing more on its previous generation processor while it waits for Tegra 4 demand to increase. To do this, the company is reportedly considering dropping the price of the Tegra 3 so that more OEMs start using it.

Relying on the Tegra 3 is only a temporary solution, however, as Nvidia needs to kickstart Tegra 4 demand. It may be able to do this by working with Google again on the Nexus 7 refresh that’s rumored to becoming later this year. Having the Tegra 4 in such a high profile device would only help Nvidia’s case.

Of course, all of this is rumor for now, and Tegra 4 devices won’t even start popping up until later this year. Nvidia still has some time to get people behind its latest mobile processor.

To help you interact with a BlackBerry 10 smartphone, you’ll need to learn several gestures that I’ve listed below. For a visual overview, check out the BlackBerry Z10 How To Demos Touch Screen Gestures Overview

Peek and/or Access BlackBerry Hub – All of your email, text messages, social networking notifications, missed calls, and voice mail messages can be found in the BlackBerry Hub. To peek at notifications, from the bottom of the screen, slide your finger up just a little bit and the view shrinks to show your notifications. To get to the BlackBerry Hub continue sliding your finger to the right. To return to what you were doing originally, slide your finger back to the left.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

The U.S. Justice Department this week filed a civil antiturst lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch Inbev’s (ABI) acquisition of Grupo Modelo. ABI is the maker of the best-selling beer in the U.S., Bud Light. Modelo sells the best-selling import beer in the U.S., Corona Extra.

ABI has proposed buying Modelo for $20.1 billion dollars. Of the $80 billion Americans spent on beer in 2012, around 39% of that amount went to ABI, while Modelo accounts for around 7% of U.S. beer sales. The companies are the largest and third-largest beer companies in the U.S. The justice department claims that the proposed merger would “substantially lessen copetition in the market for beer in the United States” and result in rising beer prices.

“The department is taking this action to stop a merger between major beer brewers because it would result in less competition and higher beer prices for American consumers,” said Bill Baer, assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice antitrust division. “If ABI fully owned and controlled Modelo, ABI would be able to increase beer prices to American consumers. This lawsuit seeks to prevent ABI from eliminating Modelo as an important competitive force in the beer industry.”

The Justice Department’s complaint makes the case that the U.S. beer market is already highly concentrated, and that ABI “generally” acts as a price leader. It points out that while other beer companies such as MillerCoors, the second-largest beer seller in the U.S., generally follow ABI’s yearly price increases, Modelo has priced its imports “aggressively,” keeping ABI’s price increases under pressure.

I know that it would be really cool to be verified on Twitter. It would mean that you were important – important enough to need a verified account because of all the jokers out there that want to create fake accounts because they want to be you. You’re that cool. At least it would be cool to have the illusion of social media relevance, right?

But if you run across a Twitter profile claiming to offer quick and easy verifications if you only retweet their posts, don’t fall for it.

The Verge ran a story on a particular bogus Twitter account, @PrivateVerified, that had amassed over 22,000 followers in less than a day. How did it become so popular? Simple – by asking users to follow and retweet in order to receive verification.

That account was quickly suspended, but it led to readers finding tons of other fraudulent accounts that promised verification. It’s kind of an epidemic, actually. Take for instance @VerifiedTwitter, @requestVerified and @NextVerified, all of which has thousands of followers but are now shut down.

Of course, these types of accounts keep popping up in place of the ones Twitter catches onto. It’s like a giant game of whack-a-mole. Take @freeverifiying for instance, which has over 16,000 followers.

Follow @FreeVerifying

Verified Accounts
@FreeVerifying

RT this if you want to get verified in the next hour or so!

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
2 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

Don’t do it. They can’t verify you. No. Don’t click it. What are you doing. Dont. Stahp.

Here’s what Twitter has to say about the verification process:

Twitter proactively verifies accounts on an ongoing basis to make it easier for users to find who they’re looking for. We concentrate on highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, advertising, business, and other key interest areas. We verify business partners from time to time and individuals at high risk of impersonation.

We do not accept requests for verification from the general public. If you fall under one of the above categories and your Twitter account meets our qualifications for verification, we may reach out to you in the future.

Twitter is not going to ask you for retweets in order to verify your account. Twitter is especially not going to ask you for retweets from a non-verified account in order to verify your account (all of these bogus accounts are un-verified themselves).

There is one real Twitter account dealing with verified accounts, however. It’s @verified and yes, it’s verified by Twitter. Although it has over 730,000 followers, it hasn’t tweeted since August. And even though it’s an official Twitter account, it never offered quick verifications to anyone – it simply tweeted out helpful links.

At the BlackBerry 10 launch event, I had the opportunity to catch up with some of the people that have been working hard to create BlackBerry 10. One of my favorite new features is the browser on the BlackBerry Z10. It is fast and brings me the information I’m looking when I need it on the go. I caught up with Matthew Staikos from the browser team to learn even more about this great browser.

[ YouTube link for mobile version ]

So there’s some great highlights of the new BlackBerry 10 browser – and isn’t it cool that Matthew also loves BlackBerry Remember? What do you love most about BlackBerry 10?

Google has come to an agreement with French publishers who wanted the search giant to start paying them for linking to their content.

In a blog post Friday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced two new initiatives to appease France: “First, Google has agreed to create a €60 million [USD $82 million] Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to help support transformative digital publishing initiatives for French readers. Second, Google will deepen our partnership with French publishers to help increase their online revenues using our advertising technology.” Google won’t pay for links, however.

As paidContent’s Jeff John Roberts reported recently, French publishers had wanted more money, between €70 and €100 million euros. And a tweet from Frédéric Filloux suggests that more details still have to be worked out. The agreement is similar to one that Google reached with Belgian publishers in December; in that deal, Google agreed to buy around $6 million worth of advertising.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Shutterstock user alp33.

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Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Slingshot Racing ($0.99 Universal) is not your typical racing game on a touch device. You don’t steer, you don’t brake, you don’t even step on the gas to accelerate. Instead you use a cable attached to various towers situated around the race track to pull your car to victory.

Driving your race car around a course is more about timing than it is about control. At each turn along the course there is a tower used to steer all of the cars in the race. When you tap and hold on the screen, a cable is shot out from the car and attaches itself to the nearest tower. This cable, when pulled tight, will turn your car inward toward the tower in a circular motion. Very much like swinging a toy plane attached to a string around your head. If you tap too soon, you may latch on to the tower behind you; too late and you will miss the tower completely.

Once you are attached, you continue to press on the screen to keep your race car tethered to the tower.  The longer you hold your finger on the screen, the longer your race car remains attached to the tower via the cable. If you remain connected to the tower for too long, you will eventually circle around the tower entirely. The key is to release your race car from the tower before you turn too far and wreck into the wall.  It’s all about timing your slings to maximize your shots.

Just like in physics, the shorter the cable the faster your race car will accelerate around the course. If you end up attaching your cable too soon, you will end up making a wide turn an proceed more slowly towards the next turn. Higher speeds are achieved by attaching to multiple towers with shorter and shorter cables. Missing your cables at just one turn can drastically slow you down.  How close to the tower you are when you attach will affect the path you take when circling around the tower.  Mastering this technique is key when you are racing to pick up various objects placed around the track.

There are two main game modes to choose from: Career and Tournament. There are several different challenges in Career mode, where it is you against the computer. Each course is designed for a different style of race.  There are courses where you can race against other cars like a traditional race. There are also more challenging courses where you need to collect gears, complete multiple laps in record time, or race against the chopper which will demolish your car if you fall too far behind. Collecting the gears laid out in various positions around the track will prove to be more difficult, as you have to exercise more exacting control of your car.

The second game mode, Tournament mode, is where you can race against your friends. You can either set up a local game and challenge players that are sitting in the same location as you, or you can elect to play against GameCenter opponents. You can either invite specific friends or let GameCenter auto fill your opponents for you.  In local challenges, all of the players use the same device. Up to four players can play in local challenges as each player has their own color-coded corner of the screen to tap to control their car.

There are over 80 different courses to play when you include the bonus courses. You either have to unlock additional courses by achieving a certain number of gears, or you can unlock all content through an in-app purchase. Each course sets up a unique new pattern to master: some include so many turns, tunnels and dark patches of track that it becomes challenging to know exactly where your cable is going to be attached the first time you make it around a course. There is definitely enough variation in gameplay to sharpen your sling racing skills, before you start challenging your GameCenter friends online this weekend.

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IBM is buying still more analytics expertise, picking up the software portfolio of Star Analytics, a company with expertise in automating the movement and management of workloads in hybrid computing environments.

The company’s Star Command Center is certified to run on Amazon Web Services, Oracle on Demand and Microsoft Azure infrastructure.

According to IBM’s statement announcing the deal on Friday, Star’s software helps “automatically integrate essential information, reporting applications and business intelligence tools across their enterprises, on premise or from cloud computing environments.”

As my colleague Derrick Harris wrote last month, the buzz around big data could be more about automation than discovering insights on the data.

Since 2005, IBM has spent $16 billion in 35 acquisitions of companies that deal in big data or analytics, a spokeswoman wrote in an email. Terms of this deal were not disclosed.

In 2011, IBM picked up the supply-chain and contract-management analytics company Emptoris. And last year it bought Varicent Software, which analyzes sales data, and Vivisimo, a provider of federated discovery and navigation software.

Currie Boyle, an IBM distinguished engineer who works on analytics of unstructured content, and other data luminaries will speak at GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York in March.

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Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder what my thoughts look like?” It’s the kind of meta-question that you normally would never ponder, but some scientists have captured the birth of a thought on video for the first time.

The Epoch Times reports that researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Genetics recently captured video of a thought as it emerged in the brain of a zebrafish. The thought in question? Food. Check out the video below, which captures thought activity thanks to a sensitive fluorescent probe inserted into the fish’s genes via its genes.

As you can see, thoughts in the form of neurons start firing everywhere as soon as food crosses the path of the zebrafish. Being able to trace the path of these neurons will help researchers “interpret an animal’s behavior, including learning, memory, fear, joy, or anger, based on the activity of particular combinations of neurons.”

The research isn’t just being used to study animal behavior, however, as it can also be used to understand how psychiatric drugs affect the brain. A human’s brain functions in much the same way as a fish’s so researchers will be able to test out new drugs on fish and directly observe any abnormal effects new drugs have on the brain.

As an added bonus, here’s a video from the outside that shows the thought of food moving through the brain in real time:

If you want to ready the study in full, it’s been published in Current Biology.

For more fun with brains, check out today’s AsapScience video that explains why your brain works the way it does.

If you’re like me and most of the U.S., you’re addicted to “Downton Abbey” like a fat kid’s addicted to Cheetos. No one can really pinpoint what makes the show so great, but personally I think it’s the atmosphere, the cinematic quality of the camerawork, and the way the characters interact with one another that keeps us tuning in. It’s hard to describe what’s so awesome about a British show featuring some stuffy 1920′s rich people and their land dispute, but it just works, guys. Also, the Dowager Countess has some wicked one-liners.

At any rate, the writers over at Sesame Street know a hit when they see one, and over the years they’ve spoofed “Mad Men” and “True Blood” without even batting an eye, even though I doubt any of their core audience is familiar with either of those shows. I’m not sure my four-year old could appreciate Vampire Bill’s affinity for bottled blood, but when it’s incorporated into a skit with a cow and a rhyme scheme, she’s all over it.

It seems the peeps over at Sesame Workshop realize there are probably a lot of parents watching along with their kids, because they keep giving us little bright spots of adult humor sandwiched in between Elmo skits and cartoons. The latest, of course, is based on “Downton” and makes good use of a pun. Like most Sesame Street sketches, it’s a bit repetitive, but the guy doing Carson’s voice is pretty good, and if that’s what’s holding you over until you get the next disc from Netflix, so be it.