Google says it’s the most comprehensive picture of the planet ever made available to the public.

“The images were collected as part of an ongoing joint mission between the USGS and NASA called Landsat,” explains Rebecca Moore, Engineering Manager, Google Earth Engine & Earth Outreach. “Their satellites have been observing earth from space since the 1970s—with all of the images sent back to Earth and archived on USGS tape drives that look something like this example (courtesy of the USGS).”

“We started working with the USGS in 2009 to make this historic archive of earth imagery available online,” she adds. “Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year.”

Finally, Google worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon Uinversity to convert the Earth images into HTML5 animations.

The imagery is constructed from millions of satellite images, and is even zoomable. Here are some examples:

Here’s Google’s Timelapse site. Here’s Time’s.

And this year’s list seems to be full of techies – more so than past year’s lists.

In no particular order, here are some of the tech names that grace this year’s TIME 100:

• Elon Musk, founder of both Tesla and SpaceX, who Richard Branson calls”a man who can see many things at once”
• Oh-Hyun Kwon, CEO of Samsung
• Kevin Systrom, Instagram co-founder
• Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Chinese telecom giant Huawei
• Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, who Jeffrey Tambor says is “helping create the future of entertainment”
• Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten, Minecraft developers
• Sam Yagan, OkCupid co-founder and CEO of Match.com
• David Einhorn, President of Greenlight Capital
• Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO
• Jony Ive, Apple design leader
• Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, co-founders of Coursera
• Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, who Google’s Eric Schmidt calls “pathbreaker and a trailblazer and an inspiration to women everywhere
• Perry Chan, CEO of Kickstarter
• Kai-Fu Lee, tech incubator

If you want to check out this year’s and previous TIME 100 lists, they’ve got every list all the way back to 2004 available on the Time 100 hub.

That title belongs to Jesus – at least that’s what a recent tweet suggests.

“There is only one savior, and it is not me. #Jesus,” tweeted Rubio early Thursday morning.

There is only one savior, and it is not me. #Jesus

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 7, 2013

Rubio is undoubtedly responding to a new TIME magazine cover story that labels the junior Senator “The Republican Savior.”

The tweet is a bit vague, however. Either Rubio is simply speaking out against the use of the word “savior” in a non-biblical fashion, or he’s implying that Jesus is the savior of the Republican party.

Damn those hashtags. They can be a bit opaque in their meaning.

TIME has responded to Rubio:

@marcorubio Point taken, but we just said you’re the ‘Republican savior.’

— TIME.com (@TIME) February 7, 2013

They have partnered with TIME magazine to help those who are attending the RNC and the DNC find the important stops in Tampa and Charlottle, respectively. TIME has curated their own “Guide to the the Democratic National Convention” and “Guide to the Republican National Convention” on Foursquare Lists. They contain over 20 must-see locations each, complete with historical facts and other convention information.

And if you’re tired of all the politics, TIME has also made Foursquare Lists to escape the convention. These contain must-see places in the respective areas away from the hustle and bustle of the parties, like the Museum of Fine Arts and Pier in St. Petersburg.

TIME is also running an interactive map that features Foursquare updates from he likes of Mitt Romney, Chris Christies, and TIME reporters this week at the RNC. You can access the RNC map here or connect the TIME Political Convention app to your Foursquare account.

And if you follow TIME magazine on Foursquare and check in at various locations on their Lists, you can receive special Convention badges.

Of course, not everyone can attend the conventions. If you’re watching the action from home, there are a lot of ways to do it this year, live.

Other nominees for the magazine of the year award were Esquire, New York, The New Yorker, and Popular Mechanics.

O, The Oprah Magazine, for general excellence among women’s magazines, Inc., for active- and special-interest magazines, House Beautiful, for lifestyle magazines, and IEEE Spectrum, for thought-leader magazines were all first time winners of the General Excellence awards which were the best awards before the all encompassing Magazine Awards was created.

New York magazine took home the most awards with 4, including a Single topic award for a piece called “The Encyclopedia of 9/11.” The piece is one of the more extensive pieces I’ve ever read and deserves all the praise it can get.

Here is the full list of this years winners and finalists:

MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

Winner: TIME
Finalists: Esquire; New York; The New Yorker; Popular Mechanics

GENERAL EXCELLENCE, PRINT

General-Interest Magazines

Honors large-circulation weeklies, biweeklies and general-interest monthlies

Winner: Bloomberg Businessweek
Finalists: GQ; New York; The New Yorker; Vice

Women’s Magazines

Honors women’s magazines, including health and fitness magazines and family-centric publications

Winner: O, The Oprah Magazine
Finalists: Glamour; More; Real Simple; W

Lifestyle Magazines

Honors food, travel and shelter magazines as well as city and regional publications

Winner: House Beautiful
Finalists: Bon Appetit; Country Living; Garden & Gun; Texas Monthly

Active- and Special-Interest Magazines

Honors magazines serving targeted audiences, including enthusiast titles
Winner: Inc.
Finalists: The Fader; Field & Stream; Men’s Health; Popular Mechanics

Thought-Leader Magazines

Honors literary, scholarly and professional publications as well as small-circulation general-interest magazines

Winner: IEEE Spectrum
Finalists: The American Scholar; Aperture; The New Republic; Virginia Quarterly Review

DESIGN

Winner: GQ
Finalists: Bloomberg Businessweek; Interview; New York; Wired

PHOTOGRAPHY

Winner: Vogue
Finalists: GQ; Interview; National Geographic; Virginia Quarterly Review

NEWS AND DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

Winner: Harper’s Magazine for “Juvenile Injustice,” October
Finalists:
Harper’s Magazine for “Uncertain Exodus,” July
National Geographic for “Too Young to Wed,” June
The New York Times Magazine for “From Zero to 104,” September 4
TIME for “Birds of Hope,” January 17

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

Winner: The New York Times Magazine for “Touch of Evil,” December 11
Finalists:
National Geographic for “Taming the Wild,” March
TIME for “Portraits of Resilience,” September 19
Vogue for “Lady Be Good,” March
W for “Planet Tilda,” August

SINGLE-TOPIC ISSUE

Winner: New York for “The Encyclopedia of 9/11,” September 5-12
Finalists:
Bloomberg Businessweek for “Steve Jobs,” October 10-16
ESPN The Magazine for “NFL Preview: The Vick Issue,” September 5
Garden & Gun for “Southern Food,” October/November
Wired for “Underworld,” February

MAGAZINE SECTION

Winner: New York for “Strategist”
Finalists:
Bicycling for “Know/How”
Esquire for “Man at His Best”
Real Simple for “Food”
Wired for “Start”

PERSONAL SERVICE

Winner: Glamour for “The Secret That Kills Four Women a Day,” June
Finalists:
Good Housekeeping for “Fractured,” July
Real Simple for “Your Holiday-Spending Survival Guide,” November
Redbook for “Would You Get a ‘Mommy Tuck’?” April
San Francisco for “The New School of Fish,” February

LEISURE INTERESTS

Winner: Saveur for “Italian American,” December
Finalists:
New York for “The Urbanist’s Guide To . . . ,” April 25
Outdoor Life for “Sniper School,” March
Texas Monthly for “Home Plates,” April
Wired for “The Wired Travel Optimizer,” October

PUBLIC INTEREST

Winner: The New Yorker for “The Invisible Army,” June 6
Finalists:
5280 Magazine for “Direct Fail,” December
Harper’s Magazine for “Tiny Little Laws,” February
Marie Claire for “The Big Business of Breast Cancer,” October
Men’s Health for “The Signature Wound,” November

REPORTING

Winner: The New Yorker for “The Apostate,” February 14 & 21
Finalists:
The Atlantic for “Our Man in Kandahar,” November
Los Angeles for “What Happened to Mitrice Richardson?” September
The New Yorker for “Getting bin Laden,” August 8
Vanity Fair for “Echoes From a Distant Battlefield,” December

FEATURE WRITING

Winner: Esquire for “Heavenly Father!” October
Finalists:
GQ for “The Man Who Sailed His House,” October
The New York Times Magazine for “You Blow My Mind. Hey, Mickey!” June 12
The New Yorker for “A Murder Foretold,” April 4
Rolling Stone for “Arms and the Dudes,” March 31

PROFILE WRITING

Winner: D Magazine for “He Is Anonymous,” April
Finalists:
ESPN The Magazine for “Game of Her Life,” January 10
Men’s Journal for “The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See,” March
Rolling Stone for “Santiago’s Brain,” December 8
Sports Illustrated for “Dewayne Dedmon’s Leap of Faith,” November 14

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM

Winner: New York for “Paper Tigers,” May 16
Finalists:
Esquire for “The Loading Dock Manifesto,” May
GQ for “Too Much Information,” May iPad Edition
The New Yorker for “The Aquarium,” June 13 & 20
Slate for “The Stutterer: How He Makes His Voice Heard,” February 22

COLUMNS AND COMMENTARY

Winner: Vanity Fair for columns by Christopher Hitchens
Finalists:
The Atlantic for columns by James Parker
Field & Stream for columns by Bill Heavey
Los Angeles for reviews by Steve Erickson
TIME for columns by Joel Stein

FICTION

Winner: Zoetrope: All-Story for “The Hox River Window,” Fall
Finalists:
The Atlantic for “Scars,” Summer 2011
McSweeney’s Quarterly for “Ambition,” April
McSweeney’s Quarterly for “The Northeast Kingdom,” August
Virginia Quarterly Review for “La Moretta,” Fall

Time Red X Covers are courtesy of time.com

Anonymous has been inducted into the 2012 TIME 100 as being one of the most influential forces in the world. Some people might argue that the TIME 100 list is for the people who make an influence in the world, not some collective of hackers who take down Web sites for fun.

If this is your thought process, I would caution you to slow down. You’re probably still thinking of the old Anonymous spanwed from 4Chan that would take down Web sites and attack Justin Bieber fans just for the lulz. The Anonymous of today is a simultaneously organized yet disorganized band of hackers, activists and supporters who use the anonymity of the Internet to carry out more than just DDoS attacks.

In the past year, they have had a hand in supporting the Arab Spring, attacking the Vatican and other religious groups, wiretapped the FBI, leaked Stratfor’s files to Wikileaks and even took control of a U.S. railway. To say that Anonymous is not a force of nature in today’s Web ecosystem is either the result of ignorance or a refusal to believe in the power they wield.

While they do have a lot of power, this year also showed that they vulnerable. Many members of LulzSec were arrested after their ring leader betrayed the group to the FBI. Interpol arrested another 25 members in a global sting operation.

These events didn’t stop the group, however, as they seem to be more active than ever. They are involved in multiple operations all over the globe that seek to bring attention to child abuse, the violence in Syria and extradition laws, among others.

This all leads up to what may be Anonymous’ biggest operation yet though. They are now attempting to bring down the Great Firewall of China. While the success of such an operation is still up in the air, just the fact that they’re trying proves they’re still a force to be reckoned with.

You can agree or disagree all you want on whether or not Anonymous deserves to be in the TIME 100, but they have already made their mark on history and will continue to do so. As TIME themselves put it: “Anonymous earned its place on the list, one way or the other.”

[h/t: The Inquirer]

The answers to these questions may surprise you. As this infographic suggests, people are becoming more impatient by the second. 1 in 4 people will close a webpage that takes more than 4 seconds to load. Half will close a mobile page that doesn’t load in 10 seconds, and over half won’t go back to that page. Google found that slowing search results by 4/10ths of a second reduced the number of queries by 8 million a day. These are just a few of the ways in which American’s are becoming increasingly demanding…

Created by: Online Graduate Programs

Beginning today, Sports Illustrated "All Access" includes new magazine apps for the Samsung Galaxy and Android smartphones (OS 2.1 and higher); web access to the issue (after log in). The plans are:

*Print/Digital (Samsung Galaxy/Android Smartphone/Web): $48 annually or $4.99/month

*Digital Only: $3.99/month

*Current print subscribers have free access to the digital package throughout the remainder of their subscription

 In the last eight months SI has introduced a new magazine iPad app, SI Snapshot (developed in HTML5) for Google Chrome and a new SI Facebook Fantasy Football game.

"We view every new technology as an opportunity to provide our long-time subscribers with digital access to the magazine and at the same time attract new readers," said Terry McDonell, Time Inc. Sports Group Editor.

"Our editors and designers have stepped up to customize the best-possible version of SI for various platforms and technologies."

Being named as TIME Person of the Year is a real honor and recognition of how our little team is building something that hundreds of millions of people want to use to make the world more open and connected. I’m happy to be a part of that.

Original Article: Time has named Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg its person of the year. "For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year," the publication proclaims. 

It’s very interesting to see Zuckerberg get this high honor, as much of Facebook’s press over the year has been less than positive. Much of this has been about privacy concerns, but the company has, in all fairness, addressed these repeatedly.

There’s no question, however that Facebook has indeed made a huge impact on the web and culture in general in 2010 – more so than in years past. The big open graph announcement and social plug-ins have been huge in shaping the current state of the web as well as the future state. Facebook’s just getting started.

The company looks to become a central hub for messaging, and will continue to expand into payments. Facebook wants to be the centrul hub for you – your identity, and so far, it’s doing a pretty good job of progressing towards that goal. How many of you have your phone contacts synced to your friends’ Facebook profiles. Of those same friends, how many of them do you know their actual phone numbers?

Then there was The Social Network, the critically acclaimed film destined for numerous awards that paint a complicated picture of Zuckerberg, which the man considers fictitious, but whom audiences have embraced. 

2010 has also been a big year for Zuckerberg and charity. Not only did Zuckerberg announce the donation of $100 million to public schools, but just this month he pledged the majority of his wealth to charity. The company has also been sending out Christmas cards with gift cards for donating to the eduacation-related charity of the recipient’s choice. 

Time has ten pages worth of explanation of why they gave him person of the year. According to CNN, Time’s readers chose Wikileaks’ Julian Assange. 

Do you think Zuckerberg should be person of the year? If not, then who? Comment here.

After accounting for potential cannibalization of some print subscriptions, the industry could realize $1.3 billion in incremental revenue, the consortium says.

The study dealt with about 230 periodical titles and surveyed 1,800 consumers in the U.S. It looked at "likely formats and features of emerging interactive periodicals" and did not take into account advertising, commerce or single copy sales. In other words, we’re talking subscriptions only.

"The landscape for digitally distributing magazines and newspapers is about to rapidly change," said Martin Kon, partner and head of the global media and entertainment practice at Oliver Wyman, which conducted the study for Next Issue. "Our Future Marketplace Simulation shows significant consumer enthusiasm for interactive periodicals that offer enhanced features, personalization, multimedia content and optimized layout and navigation."

Next Issue lists the following as "key findings that underpin the revenue projections" in the study:

1. Among device-owning subscribers, the availability of interactive editions at the point of renewal, at the same price as today’s print editions, drives a 9 point increase in the overall subscription renewal rate, from today’s 55% industry average to 64%.

3. The interactive format enables effective cross-selling via recommendation engines and browsing features; 17% of current subscribers make additional purchases.
 
4. Automatic renewals eliminate the traditional "bill-me later" model and greatly reduce churn, from an average of 45% today to 25%.
 
5. The introduction of interactive editions in an online store setting, at the same price as today’s print editions, triples uptake rates among device-owning non-subscribers, from 5% to 15%.

The findings can be perused in a white paper available here (pdf).