Walt Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger has announced an end to depictions of smoking in its Disney-label movies.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

For Disney and Iger, the decision is virtually no-lose. By making a major public announcement, Disney moves in front of the issue and further burnishes its family-friendly image. What's more, the ban extends to Disney's family films, which rarely feature smoking anyway.

Not showing smoking in Disney films may not be such a hardship for the company, but Walt Disney also owns Touchstone Pictures and Miramax, which cater much more to adult audiences. Iger said they’re also planning to discourage smoking depictions in Touchstone and Miramax films but that an all-out ban in this arena is not happening at this time and would be tougher.

Perhaps even more interesting than banning smoking in Disney films, Iger also said the company will put anti-smoking public service announcements on DVDs that depict smoking (including those from Touchstone and Miramax).

Disney’s move comes just several months after the Motion Picture Association of America decided to consider smoking as a ratings factor alongside violence and nudity.

Any member of MySpace has probably received friend requests from what’s essentially a fake profile set up for the sole purpose of spamming you and even putting spyware on your computer. Help in cleaning this up could be on the way. The New Scientist reports that some folks from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with software that would determine whether or not a profile is “real” by looking at factors like how personalized a page is and how many photos and videos it has.

The software will be presented in August at an anti-spam conference. Its development is notable as spam blockers have yet to be available on sites like MySpace or Facebook.

The problem could overwhelm social networking sites. While there are filters that can distinguish spam emails from legitimate mail, it is hard to distinguish between spammers and legitimate users on a social networking site. "We can't rely on any existing schemes for this environment," says Aaron Zinman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When you live in New York, one thing you can count on is being able to find a Starbucks virtually anywhere—and sometimes even several of them at the same intersection. Filmmaker Mark Malkoff took this observation a step further as he visited every Starbucks in Manhattan in the course of a day, documenting the experience along the way.

In a little more than 20 hours, Malkoff went to, purchased and consumed something at all 171 Starbucks in Manhattan. That meant hitting a Starbucks about every seven minutes and spending $369.14 (which includes $80 for a piece of pound cake after a Starbucks at 96th and Madison had already closed its register).

Starbucks had a good attitude about Malkoff’s endeavor, according to the New York Daily News:

"We appreciate Mr. Malkoff's passion and we applaud his creativity and commitment," said Dan Lewis, Starbucks regional spokesman.

Commitment is one thing it did take. Over the span of his 10-minute video, viewers can see Malkoff planning the day, trekking around the city on a bike and getting increasingly caffeinated and dehydrated. It’s hard to imagine how he slept after downing at least 50 caffeinated drinks in 20 hours. Or maybe that’s just what it takes to become the next big viral video star these days.

There have been many breakthroughs in photography in the past decade or so--the digital camera, compact flash memory, and Photoshop just to name a few. We can now add HDR photography to the list.

HDR (which stands for High Dynamic Range) is a technique that combines multiple exposures of the same image in to a single image. There are many benefits to this technique, the biggest of which is that a photographer or art director can create images that have never been seen before.

Here is a brief example of a before and after of an HDR image. The first three images are the different exposures, and the final image is the HDR composite.

In the midst of iPhone mania, a new service from T-Mobile has gone somewhat unnoticed in the tech world but it deserves some attention. T-Mobile's “Hot Spot At Home” allows customers to tackle the sometimes tricky problem of making cell phone calls at home. Using a wireless router and a properly equipped handset, customers can make calls via a wireless Internet connection (It’s a similar concept to VoIP except with a cell phone).

Gary Krakow points out in his MSNBC.com column one drawback to the system—the phones currently available.

Aside from the Wi-Fi calling feature, the two handsets that T-Mobile initially is offering are very basic. But, they were designed that way for a reason. Cell phone buyers prefer flip phones, which cost less than 50 bucks. If, like me, you prefer smartphones, T-Mobile hears you. Expect an announcement or two in a few months.

Other telcos are likely keeping an eye on this one, as well.