• How mobile phones are making cash obsolete in Africa - The Globe and Mail: The system is impressively simple and secure. Subscribers give an occasional lump-sum payment to Telesom and then use this balance to pay merchants digitally. To make a purchase, they dial a three-digit number, enter a four-digit PIN and then enter the merchant's Zaad number and the amount of the payment. Every merchant - even street vendors - keeps their Zaad numbers prominently displayed. Within moments, the customer and the merchant both receive text messages to confirm the payment and the transaction is done. I've heard about Zaad and M-Pesa before, but never known the specifics of the interaction. It's amazing really - quick, easy, with confirmation for both sides of the transaction.
• The Offline Glass on Vimeo - beer glasses that only stand when placed on your mobile phone.
• Rick Rubin on Crashing Kanye's Album in 15 Days - Newsweek and The Daily Beast: Rick Rubin got Black Sabbath to return to its roots. He crashed Kanye's new album in 15 days. From Def Jam to Adele, the hit-maker gets intimate about his last 30 years%u2014and how he's about to make history.
• Obvious Winner - Magical American Soldiers Playing Quidditch in the Deserts of Afghanistan: Bonus points for dropping the snitch with an AR-15.
• Architizer Blog » Artist Captures The Ruins Of Stars Wars
• This Guy Reinvented the Wheel ... by Turning It Into a Cube - Megan Garber - The Atlantic

And lastly... I feel the world is a better place because someone made this happen:

I just like to think of the night he turned around to his girlfriend or flatmates or whoever and said "hey I've got an idea..."

• Gillard moves to ban live odds, restrict gambling ads during games: [Prime Minister Gillard] formally announced the government's demand that TV and radio networks ban the promotion of live odds and restrict gambling advertisements during sporting matches in a press conference at Kirribilli on Sunday afternoon. ... "Younger Australians in particular should continue to talk about which is the best football team … not which team is at the shortest odds to win a game."
• nine inch nails 'the fragile' production journals (revived from 1999 version of nin.com)
• Liberator | Police Warn About 3D Printed Gun | Photos: Police have warned of the threat from a plastic gun that "will kill at both ends". Previous 3D gun freakouts haven't been particularly concerning, as you still needed to have most of the real gun. This, however, is footage of a genuine entirely 3D printed gun. It seems almost equally likely to kill the person holding it as the intended victim, which is probably why the Police were willing to share the footage - as a deterrent. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing calls for bans or at least licensing for 3D printers.

• What laws of physics?

• We will eventually get a great compact camera with phone, instead of a phone with a compromised camera... Attack of the camera-phones: Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy NX and S 4 Zoom | Ars Technica

• Black Hole: "Black Hole" is a series of images which shows paint modeled by centripetal force.
• Twitter / Earth_Pics: #21 Santorini, Greece. (water so clear the boat appears to be flying - rather than "floating" as per the original caption ;))
• Lensaloft - Brisbane Aerial Photography (interactive high res aerial panos of Brisbane)
• Climbing High In Dubai | English Russia
• These Photos Of NYC's Subway Project Are Astonishing