Mashable

1. Well well well, looks like an Amazon office is coming to NYC after all

   

   Does anybody have the Dashboard Confessional song "Vindicated" on hand?

   A report from the Wall Street Journal says that Amazon has leased new offices in Manhattan for 1,500 employees. 

   The news comes 10 months after Amazon abandoned its plans to build its second headquarters ("HQ2") in Long Island City, Queens. The company reversed course thanks to protests from residents and local officials who objected to the $3 billion it would receive in tax credits, and the gentrification, raised rents, and commuting mayhem it promised to bring. 

   Among those critics was Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who objected to what she saw as a government handout. Some people in turn criticized AOC for denying people jobs, and ostensibly scaring off the tech industry.  Read more...

   More about Amazon, Aoc, Hq2, Tech, and Big Tech Companies

2. A Border Patrol janitor turned migrants' confiscated stuff into a photo exhibit

   

   A hairbrush is just a hairbrush, except when it represents the person to whom it once belonged.

   That realization is the impact of a new collection of photographs now being shown at the Skirball Cultural Center museum in Los Angeles. And while it's rare to mention Border Patrol in 2019 without also referencing Donald Trump's regressive immigration policies, this show covers a stretch of time that actually predates the current president's time in office.

   The photos depict everyday objects — toothbrushes, medication, love notes — that U.S. Border Patrol confiscated from migrants and asylum seekers as they attempted to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. They were all photographed by a former janitor who rescued them from the trash. Read more...

   More about Photography, Immigration, Social Good, Politics, and Activism

3. Hubble offers the most perfect view of a gorgeous spiral galaxy

   

   Put it on a postcard.

   We can't guarantee a perfect photo opp from our fixed vantage point of the floating space rock called Earth. Space is vast, and three-dimensional. Things don't always line up as well as NGC 5468 does in this image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

   Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Li et al. Acknowledgements: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

   The spiral galaxy that NASA highlighted in a Friday post is situated over 130 million light-years away from the point in space we call home. Our face-on look at NGC 5468 makes it easier to spot the massive explosion created collapsing stars, or supernovae. Read more...

   More about Nasa, Hubble Space Telescope, Science, and Space

   

4. The more we've embraced smartphones, the more they've hurt us

   

   We all walk and text, but maybe we shouldn't.

   At least, one could reasonably come to that conclusion after checking out a new study from Rutgers University. The study found that head and neck injuries as a result of cell phone use, whether it came from being hit by a phone or distracted walking or driving, steadily rose between 1998 and 2017.

   The full study was published in the journal AMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery. Author Boris Paskhover said he was inspired to examine this phenomenon after, among other things, treating a woman who broke her nose by dropping a phone on her face. The most commonly reported injury types in the study were lacerations, contusions, and internal organ injury in the head and neck areas. Read more...

   More about Smartphones, Pokemon Go, Rutgers, Cell Phones, and Rutgers University

5. Google finally ends support for the old Google Glass after a controversial life

   

   One of the first high-profile wearables is finally about to kick the bucket, several years after a short rollercoaster ride atop the tech news cycle.

   Google recently updated the support page for Google Glass Explorer Edition with information about the product's final update. The patch will essentially divorce Google Glass from any of Google's backend services after Feb. 25. Once it's installed and that date rolls by, Glass users won't be able to log in at all with their Google accounts on the device.

   After that, the old version of Glass will still work as a sort of husk of its former self. It'll still connect to phones via Bluetooth, support sideloaded apps, and allow photos and videos to be taken with the camera. But mirror apps such as Hangouts, YouTube, and Gmail won't work anymore, per Google's support page. Read more...

   More about Google, Privacy, Wearables, Google Glass, and Google Glass Banned