Why Would a Company Spend $200 Million to Build a 20-Mile Ghost Town for 35,000 Invisible People? [Cities]

New Mexico, where people go to cook Crystal Meth and disappear into the maw that isn't quite Mexico, is going to get another claim to fame: a brand new, $200 million 20-square mile city with no residents. A modern day ghost town.

It could fit 35,000 people if people were allowed to live there but that's not the point for this ghost town. Instead, the purpose is to let anyone test anything on a city wide scale without the interference of nosy citizens. Think of it as one gigantic lab, only it'll have highways, houses, old buildings, new buildings instead of coats and beakers.

The ghost town, which they refer to as The Center, is the brain child of Pegasus Global Holdings, a Washington DC-based company. There won't be any people living at The Center but other companies can see how their solar panels play out on a larger scale, how new traffic systems work in real life simulations, how Wi-Fi will translate between old and new buildings and so much more. It's an actual blank slate city to manipulate however they'd like. A playground for research.

The Center is supposed to be the first of its kind 'round the US and will be finalized in the next few months. I wonder how quick it'll transform to a squatter town though. [Washington Post, Image Credit: upthebanner/Shutterstock]

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7 Tools to Build the World's Greatest POLICE DOG [Toolkit]

Contrary to popular belief, DOGS (of either the WAR or POLICE variety) are not impervious to bullets. And yet! Man's best friend still throws caution to the wind in order to serve and protect.

In honor of these proud beasts—for whom Super Bowl MVP and True American Hero Ben Roethlisberger just bought some swank kevlar vests in Montgomery County, MD—here are seven pieces of awesome gear to create an unstoppable K-9 canine.

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Music Needs ‘Connective Tissue’ and Facebook Wants To Build It [Facebook]

As details emerge about Facebook's plan to integrate with music services to let friends share their listening experience, one thing is abundantly clear: Music fans and the music industry desperately need this—or something like it—to happen.

Here's the core of the problem. When music fans use an online music service, whether that means free music on YouTube or a paid subscription from Spotify or another subscription service, they're more-or-less alone. If I use Spotify, you use Rhapsody, and our friend Bob uses MOG, the three of us might as well be in different universes when it comes to sharing and talking about what we're listening to. Our playlists, comments, and "likes" don't translate.

The inability to share music degrades the experience for all three of us—perhaps to the point that we won't renew our subscriptions, or would never sign up in the first place.

It reminds me of when I used to DJ a small room in San Francisco. We weren't too serious about it—this was basically a way for us to play music we liked over big speakers and showcase our friends' bands. Still, we had a problem: People would show up throughout the night, and leave when they saw a mostly-empty floor. Another group would do the same thing, and so on. If they all arrived at the same time, that night may have gelled.

Likewise, when people try a paid music service today, they are isolated. The chance that all of their friends will decide to subscribe to the same music service is virtually nil. If you share a Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, or other link on Facebook or Twitter, only your other friends who have that service can play it. YouTube is a cross-platform exception.

There's not much "connective tissue," as Reuters' anonymous source described Facebook's upcoming music strategy, to bring these paid services together. (See also "4 Ways One Big Database Would Help Music Fans, Industry.")

Facebook will announce an initiative to integrate tightly with multiple music services on September 22, according to various reports. Apparently, and here GigaOm's June 19th report is particularly instructive, the company plans to introduce new sections that show us what our friends are listening to, giving us something else to talk about, which is a reason to stay logged on. Nice move.

You can already share songs on Facebook with multiple services, but the upcoming reported integration would show you what I'm listening to in real time among other things.
We should be able to comment on what they've been doing, in classic Facebook style, and listen to their songs if we use the same service, which is already possible with Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio, and others (screenshot to the right).

We might even be able to chat about the same song as we listen, which we've termed "synchronous group listening," and which is already possible on "Google+YouTube".

Hopefully for music fans, Facebook will also figure out a way for people to share songs across music services so more of us can hear shared tracks in full. Even if it doesn't, people will reportedly be able to track each other's listening and figure out how to hear stuff by searching on their own.

We've seen similar functionality elsewhere, but Facebook is massive. People use it daily. Prominent music sharing features there could bring to the mainstream all sorts of formerly nerd-like behavior—stuff like scrobbling music from Turntable.fm.

Social music on Facebook could be big. What will it look like?

First, it will be cool, because the non-stop hangout on Facebook would have a socially-customized soundtrack for those who want it. We can already sit near our Facebook friends at shows courtesy of Ticketmaster, so we should be able to listen together at home, too.

The Social Network makes no secret of letting app developers and outside marketers see what we do there. Earlier this year, we learned that our faces could end up in Facebook ads if we don't set our preferences right, among other seemingly-periodic issues. If Facebook's reported music plan succeeds, it will know who listens to what, who influences them, who they influence, what they did while they listened (to an extent), and more.

That might be fine. Apple won't even tell the Financial Times or any other app developer who their customers are. But for Facebook, that sort of user information appears to be the name of the game, and music is another way to get a lot more of it.

On the other hand, who cares? Many of us (present company included) like using Facebook today despite the privacy issues. Group listening among so many people can only add to the fun. Who knows, it might make more people pay—happily—for music.

Image: Flickr/Jason Steinschaden

Evolver.fm observes, tracks and analyzes the music apps scene, with the belief that it's crucial to how humans experience music, and how that experience is evolving.

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New Zealand Plans to Build a Recyclable Church [Architecture]

The magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand in February demolished the town's cathedral, which had stood since 1864. Now, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is building them a temporary replacement—out of cardboard.

The structure will stand nearly 80 feet tall—roughly the same height as the original cathedral—accommodate up to 700 people, and be used by community and musical groups. Each of the 86 water- and fire-resistant cardboard tubes that make up the roofline weighs over 1000 pounds and will be built locally—as will the main stained glass window—while the foundation will be constructed from shipping containers.

The Christchurch city council has yet to decide on a location for the building but hope to have the $3.5 million structure erected by the one year anniversary of the earthquake on February 22nd, 2012. It will take about three months to assemble and is expected to stand for about a decade, until the original Anglican church can be rebuilt. [The Telegraph via Architectizer]

You can keep up with Andrew Tarantola, the author of this post, on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Related Stories

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