GCHQ and NSA intercepted Yahoo users' private photographs

RT.com - British and American surveillance agencies teamed up to develop a system that collected millions of images from the webcams of unsuspecting and innocent internet users, new leaked documents reveal.  Read more.

Mapping Arts Project connects Providence to 100 years of black artistic legacy

Brown Daily Herald (Brown University) - The Mapping Arts Project recently launched a digital map of Providence that marks locations relevant to African diasporic art history from the 1860s to the 1960s. The project was developed by Lara Stein Pardo, an artist, cultural anthropologist and postdoctoral research associate in the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, and organized by the nonprofit Blackbird Arts and Research, a nonprofit organization founded and directed by Stein Pardo

“The inspiration behind the project is to connect real places to histories that might seem kind of detached from reality (and) make them more real by connecting them to places we can visit now,” Stein Pardo said, adding she was inspired to start the project while doing ethnographic fieldwork in Miami.  Read more.

Artists use 3D printers to turn plastic into organic-like materials

Digital Trends - Despite a massive snowstorm that hit New York City last week, the 3D Printshow New York came to town anyway, bringing together creatives, companies, and other exhibitors centering on this emerging technology. Adobe, which recently announced support for 3D printing within Photoshop, collaborated with 3D-printing marketplace, Shapeways, to sponsor an art gallery exhibition that demonstrated 3D printing’s capabilities from an artist’s POV.  Read more.

Turn Your Photos Into Watercolor Works of Art

Slate Magazine - Too busy to pick up a paintbrush? Waterlogue, a photo app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, uses your snapshots as rough drafts for watercolor-inspired works of digital art.  Read more.

Museum of Modern Art Taps Digital Chief

Wall Street Journal - The Museum of Modern Art has plucked a former game designer from London to fill a newly created position aimed at defining and energizing its digital strategy.  Read more.

Pricing Pixels: Breaking Down the Barriers of Selling Digital Art

Complex Art + Design - On October 10, the Internet showed up at the door of Phillips auction house. Over 600 people packed the Park Avenue room to capacity, likely the biggest crowd the contemporary art-focused company has ever drawn, and the youngest, in the aging world of high-end art sales. The guests had arrived for a history-making event: Paddles On!, the world’s first major commercial auction of work by digital artists.  Read more.

Artkick founder brings Bill Gates' digital art dream to life, finally

Upstart (Business Journal) - Sheldon Laube was the first chief information officer at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and later, its first chief innovation officer. He's started and sold startups since the beginning of the Internet.

But his latest venture is only partially as pioneering. With Artkick—a kind of Spotify for digital art—he's the first to bring digital art into the living room, but only by building a business around an idea Bill Gates dreamed up 25 years ago.  Read more.