3D modeling is an essential part of being a Maker or Modder in today's world. We use it for everything from mocking up projects, to designing objects that our 3D printers will make into physibles. Many of us use SketchUp to do these task for its ease of use, and free price tag. As a result, many plugins and scripts have been written to ease certain task in the program.

The problem with those plugins is that generally they are hard to find, or often difficult to install due to version requirements. Fortunately the SketchUp educational community, known as SketchUcation, has released a plugin of their own that makes finding, downloading, installing and managing those plugins a breeze.

The SketchUcation Plugin Store is a plugin that you download and install into SketchUp 8, which gives you instant access to over 600 SketchUp plugins from within one tool. The best part is that the plugin is entirely free and only requires that you sign up for a free account in the SketchUcation forums.

At this morning's launch event, Acer announced that it was teaming up with world famous DJ Tiesto and his personal assistant Vernon. This new campaign is a continuation of the 2012 campaign starring Kiefer Sutherland and Megan Fox in which they use Acer products to explore beyond limits and to uncover a different side of themselves.

The campaign focuses on Tiesto's personal assistant, Vernon. We follow Vernon, who's using the new Aspire P3 Ultrabook to do both his day job and to follow his hidden passion of becoming a DJ. His newfound Djing skills come in handy when he has to come to Tiesto's rescue when a live gig temporarily goes wrong. You can check the full advert on Acer's YouTube channel. As of this writing, the video is set to private, though.

Michael Birkin, Chief Marketing Officer at Acer, commented:

This morning Acer officially unveiled four new product lines for the US market. A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a "revolutionary" new notebook that Acer teased in a Star Trek Into Darkness trailer mashup. This morning we got a full look at the device, and boy did it deliver.

The new Acer Aspire R7 is a very USS Enterprise-esque 15.6-inch notebook that features a full 1920x1080 touchscreen display. The unique repositionable design of the R7 revolutionizes the notebook computing experience by seamlessly merging the touch and typing experience into something that just feels natural. Customers who pre-order the Aspire R7 will receive a copy of the new Star Trek The Video Game for free.

"With the Aspire R7, Acer has redesigned the laptop with an approach that's based on how people interact with their notebooks and other devices," said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president, product marketing, Acer America. "Its progressive design redefines the computing experience, so whether consumers are touching or typing, the R7 adapts to allow consumers to create, browse and share content in ways they never have before."

Johannes Knapp is over in New York for us at the moment covering an Acer press event, which introduced several new mobile products today.

He has first delivered us with a hands-on video of the Aspire R7 laptop. What's interesting about this laptop, and the first thing you'll no doubt notice, is that the keyboard and touchpad have been switched of their usual locations. That of course means the touch pad is on top and the keyboard is below. Acer has done this since the unit features a special hinge that allows you to position the screen at different angles and also flip it over to show your lunch date what's on your screen. You can set the screen down to act like a tablet, it's rather nifty indeed.

There are several different configurations of the R7 including one with an Intel Core i7-3537U CPU or Intel Core i5-3337U CPU. Storage options are aplenty including 500GB, 750GB or 1TB HDD or if you like speed, a 120GB or 256GB SSD. There is support for up to 12GB of DDR3 RAM and you can opt to add in an NVIDIA GeForce GT750M 2GB GPU over the standard embedded Intel HD 4000 graphics.

The two popular internet memes, Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat, are both making even more internet headlines this morning after word that their trademark holder has filed suit against Warner Bros for unauthorized use. The memes were featured in the popular online children's game Scribblenauts.

Scribblenauts is developed by 5th Cell Media, which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros, and is said to have used the memes without any permission from the trademark holder. While this is a very serious matter, one cannot help but sit back and laugh as they watch Warner Bros get a taste of their own copyright lawsuit medicine.

Since it is Friday, I have included a video below of the original Keyboard Cat below for your enjoyment!

We had a very nice look at Gigabyte's Z87 G1-Killer motherboard yesterday and now we get to have a glimpse at their UEFI DualBIOS, which is looking absolutely gorgeous. It features the orange and black theme that we know and love from Gigabyte's high-end boards, which looks amazing.

There seems to be something I think Gigabyte should patent here, something along the lines of 'everything but the kitchen sink' when it comes to BIOS options. The new UEFI DualBIOS looks incredibly detailed, and should cater perfectly to enthusiasts and power users. I can't wait to get my hands on a few of these bad boys.

The FBI thought they had another Chinese spy on their hands when they boarded a plane at Dulles International Airport to arrest Bo Jiang, a Chinese national with a doctorate in electrical engineering from Old Dominion University.

Jiang was a former contractor with NASA at their Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and was fired because of pressure from Republican congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia. Wolf claimed that Jiang and other Chinese engineers employed by NASA contrators were a security risk, and the day of his flight back to China, he had a NASA-owned laptop in his possession.

All that Jiang did wrong, was violate NASA policies, as there was no evidence of any sensitive material on his laptop, and Jiang had not had clearance to the secret projects at Langley as an employee of the National Institute of Aerospace. Investigators did find the laptop filled to the brim with porn and pirated movies. There was a press release issued by Wolf after the arrest, with a copy of Jiang's arrest warrant disappearing off the congressman's website. It was cached by Google though, where Wolf said:

Instagram has been updated, reaching version 3.5 and now includes the new feature of photo tagging. You've been able to use hashtags up until now, but tagging your friends in your photos is a great new addition.

You can take your picture, drop it, apply whichever filter you like best, then tap the tag button to select one or more friends in your photo. You can add any of your friends, as well as other accounts you follow such as a restaurant or business. The person who took the photo is the only one who can tag others, which will help with spam, thankfully.

If you're tagged in one of your friends' photos, it will turn up in your profile as "Photos of You", where you, or anyone else, can see them in one single spot.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix's Chief Content Officer, recently completed an interview with Stuff.tv. Most of the information was rather boring, though you can read the full interview at Source #1 below. The one interesting piece, at least to me, is that Sarandos says piracy drops in a region shortly after Netflix launches.

One of the things is we get ISPs to publicise their connection speeds - and when we launch in a territory the Bittorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows. So I think people do want a great experience and they want access - people are mostly honest. The best way to combat piracy isn't legislatively or criminally but by giving good options. One of the side effects of growth of content is an expectation to have access to it. You can't use the internet as a marketing vehicle and then not as a delivery vehicle.

It does make quite a bit of sense. Often times people are forced to turn to BitTorrent to get the content they want to watch. However, most people are willing to pay for that content if the content providers would just license it to the region. This is similar to what has been seen with Spotify and other offerings. People are willing to pay as long as they can get the content they want.

It's not just you, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 is proving to be massively popular with consumers, rocketing up to the fourth most popular device in the UK in a mere four days. According to data by uSwitch.com Mobile Tracker, the Galaxy S 4 proved to be the fourth most popular smartphone in April.

The iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S came in number one and two, respectively, but Samsung is hot on their heels. After all, those devices have been out for six or more months and the Galaxy S 4 has been out for just four days. The top five spots are rounded out with the HTC One and Galaxy S III.

Impressively, eight of the top 10 sports are held by either Apple or Samsung. Ernest Doku of uSwitch.com: