Pictures of the Week (pictures)

From "Star Wars" fashions to glowing bacteria art and protests, these are the best tech photos of the week.

James Martin

Feb. 15, 2014 4:00 a.m. PT

James Martin

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1 of 8 BrightSource Energy

World's largest solar thermal plant

The Ivanpah solar thermal plant, which has more than 300,000 software-controlled mirrors that reflect sunlight to boilers at the top of three massive towers, has started delivering electricity to customers in California.

2 of 8 Video screenshot by Michelle Starr/CNET

Puzzle solving crow

A BBC Two program about animal intelligence has once again demonstrated the incredible power of the corvid mind.

3 of 8 Rodarte, Copyright and trademark Lucasfilm Ltd

'Star Wars' runway fashions

Yoda, Jedi, and droids invade New York Fashion Week with geek yet chic dresses designed by Kate and Laura Mulleavy at Rodarte.

4 of 8 Zachery Copfer

Glowing art grown from bacteria

Bacteria artist Zachery Copfer is creating glowing bacterial art, called "bacteriographs," that you can hang in your home. The flagship piece is a glow-in-the-dark bacteriograph based on a transgenic piece of art created by Eduardo Kac, a rabbit called Alba he injected with bioluminescent genetic material to make it glow. Copfer's take is the Albasaurus, a glowing velociraptor-bunny hybrid.

5 of 8 Andrew Hoyle/CNET

A skirt from Lumia smartphones

During the Fyodor Golan show at London Fashion Week, Nokia showed off a futuristic-looking skirt made from 80 of its Lumia 1520 and 1020 smartphones.

6 of 8 NASA

Sochi, Russia seen from the ISS

From the International Space Station, high above the Earth, the Fisht Olympic Stadium and the Olympic flame are visible as athletes compete in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

7 of 8 James Martin/CNET

Stop spying

An AT&T whistleblower, who leaked documents in 2006 that showed the company opened up its systems to the National Security Agency, took center stage at a "The Day We Fight Back" protest in San Francisco.

8 of 8 NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

Jelly doughnut mystery solved

Researchers have finally figured out the mystery of a Martian rock known as "Pinnacle Island" which resembles a jelly doughnut. The rock isn't some alien being or the result of a cosmic anomaly. The rock is simply a piece of a larger rock broken and moved by the wheel of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity in early January.

This image from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on the Mars Rover shows where the rock had been before it appeared in front of the rover in early January 2014.