It’s unclear exactly why Apple will no longer sell the devices, which track steps and other health metrics, in its retail stores. But the move comes a week after Fitbit issued a statement saying it was still “evaluating integration with HealthKit,” Apple’s new software application that acts as a central repository for health and fitness data on iPhones.
Italy learned it was no longer in a recession on Wednesday thanks to a change in data calculations across the European Union which includes illegal economic activities such as prostitution and drugs in the GDP measure.
Winner of both the public and juried vote of artprize 2014, pakistani artist Anila Quayyum Agha exercises the architecture of the grand rapids art museum in Michigan by infilling it with a dynamic interplay of shadow and light.‘Intersections’ comprises a 6.5-foot laser-cut wooden cube pierced with carefully crafted patterns and illuminated from the inside, which casts expansive, lace-like geometries onto the surrounding walls, ceiling and floor.
For its latest Kinoya, interior designer Jean de Lessard has tapped into the sources to emulate in his design the primary spirit, function and aesthetics of the izakaya, as the latter was originally an informal place where people drank beer and sake. The transformation is particularly unusual that it explores through extreme design intimacy in relationships between people, making of Kinoya a true representation of the unique approach the designer has developed about the different ways of occupying a space.
"I do not believe there would have been an invasion, of course, in Ukraine. I believe Putin would have known there would've been consequences to that."
The former GOP candidate's wife says there are no plans right now for her husband to run again, despite encouraging poll numbers that show him as a leading candidate.
(Est. 1999) "Salesforce.com Inc. is a global cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Though best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) product, Salesforce.com has also expanded into commercial applications of social networking through acquisition. It is currently ranked the most innovative company in America by Forbes magazine, as well as number 7 in Fortune magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2014." (Source: Wikipedia)
Design by: N/A
Opinion/Notes: Not much info about this one but it doesn't get more straightforward than this. Before: fuzzy and gradienty and serif-y. After: sharp and flat and sans-serif-y. It's the same cloud approach but now it's easier to read and more efficient to use. Is it great? No, not by any measure. But it's perfectly competent and durable. And the hoodie shown below is actually kinda cool.
Related Links: N/A
Logo detail.Some Salesforce employees rocking new swag.Really long video introducing the new Salesforce.
Batman V.Superman: Dawn Of Justice directed by Zack Snyder (2016) Suicide Squad directed by David Ayer (2016) Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot (2017) Justice League Part One directed by Snyder, with Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams reprising their roles (2017) The Flash starring Ezra Miller (2018) Aquaman starring Jason Momoa (2018) Shazam (2019) Justice League Part Two directed by Zack Snyder (2019) Cyborg starring Ray Fisher (2020) Green Lantern (2020)
Ending years of speculation and kicking off years of speculation, Warner Bros. has finally, officially announced a slate of DC comic-book movies that will take the studio and its audience all the way up to 2020—a far-off year when the demand for superhero movies and potable water will have become so great, we’ll be recycling both our urine and Green Lantern. Here are all of the pertinent dates, so you can go ahead and imagine having petty debates over costumes and the like, as a person six years older than you are now.
Batman V.Superman: Dawn Of Justice directed by Zack Snyder (2016)
Suicide Squad directed by David Ayer (2016)
Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot (2017)
Justice League Part One directed by Snyder, with Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams reprising their roles (2017)
For the first two days of Thomas Duncan's stay at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, healthcare professionals didn't wear the necessary protective gear. This gear usually includes goggles and a face mask, but staffers reportedly stuck to their scrubs and gloves while waiting for Duncan's Ebola test results. This delay may have exposed dozens of hospital staffers to Ebola, reports Dallas News. It may also explain why two healthcare workers who were caring for Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the US, have now been diagnosed with the disease.
They only wore scrubs and gloves while waiting for Duncan's test results
Duncan, a Liberian citizen who died on 8 October, was admitted to the hospital in Dallas on 28 September because of a suspected Ebola infection. Upon his admission, his doctors made him take a blood test that didn't return results until 30 September. During that time, Duncan's caregivers didn't wear protective gear recommended by the CDC. Eventually, they were offered more protective gear, reports the CDC, but the guidelines they were given kept changing.
"[Hospital officials] kept adding more protective equipment as the patient [Duncan] deteriorated. They had masks first, then face shields, then the positive-pressure respirator," Pierre Rollin, a CDC epidemiologist, told The Washington Post. "They added a second pair of gloves" — a practice that CDC director Tom Frieden doesn't recommend because wearing two pairs make them harder to remove.
This raises the likelihood that more hospital workers will be diagnosed with Ebola in the coming days. According to hospital officials, a total of 70 hospital workers cared for Duncan before his death, but they have yet to reveal how many were involved in treating Duncan during those first two days.
Yesterday, the CDC announced new guidelines for protective equipment. These include wearing a hood that covers the neck area — a part of the body that was previously exposed. The CDC has also sent a team to Dallas to oversee the care of Nina Pham, the 26-year-old nurse that marked the first case of Ebola transmission in the US, as well as the treatment of an unidentified female hospital worker who's infection was revealed earlier this morning.
70 hospital workers cared for Duncan before his death
So far, the Ebola outbreak has been concentrated in three African countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. A total of 8,400 have been infected, and more than 4,000 have died. Ebola can be controlled through hand-washing, and by using gloves and other barriers to prevent contact with infectious bodily fluids. Only direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is showing symptoms of Ebola spreads the disease. Ebola isn't airborne.
An anonymous reader writes Drupal has patched a critical SQL injection vulnerability in version 7.x of the content management system that can allow arbitrary code execution. The flaw lies in an API that is specifically designed to help prevent against SQL injection attacks. "Drupal 7 includes a database abstraction API to ensure that queries executed against the database are sanitized to prevent SQL injection attacks," the Drupal advisory says. "A vulnerability in this API allows an attacker to send specially crafted requests resulting in arbitrary SQL execution. Depending on the content of the requests this can lead to privilege escalation, arbitrary PHP execution, or other attacks."
Over the last two months, the Gamergate movement has consistently harassed women out of both the gaming industry and their homes. After Anita Sarkeesian was forced to cancel a speech in Utah due to terror threats, she called for the media and the gaming industry to take a strong stance against the “movement” – and now, some of gaming’s biggest players are taking up the charge.
The Entertainment Software Association, better known as the ESA, is “the U.S. association exclusively dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies that publish computer and video games for video game consoles, personal computers, and the Internet.” Each year, the ESA publishes essential facts about the gaming industry; this year’s fact sheet included interesting tidbits like:
48% of gamers are women
Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (36%) than boys age 18 or younger (17%)
The number of female gamers age 50 and older increased by 32% from 2012 to 2013
50% of game purchasers are women
Today, a spokesperson for the ESA told The Washington Post in a statement that they believe the harassing actions of Gamergaters need to be stopped:
“Threats of violence and harassment are wrong. They have to stop. There is no place in the video game community – or our society – for personal attacks and threats.”
“The irony of this movement is that they want journalistic integrity, but are looking to squash the voices of women at all costs. The logic is completely lacking.”
Edwards added that the industry is partially to blame for the current environment, since “the industry has catered to that [demographic] in their marketing.” Edwards said the Gamergaters are “out of touch. The whole community, the world around them has changed, but they think that’s not the case.” She also mentioned that we all have to support women in tech at all times, and that perhaps the only good thing to come out of Gamergate is it has “tied developers together.”
There are many members of the “movement” who truly believe Gamergate is supposed to be about journalistic integrity, and decry the harassment of women in the industry. But the fact of the matter is, the unfortunate and unavoidable side effect of aligning themselves with a hashtag founded around the character assassination of a female game developer is that their motives and message will consistently be clouded by the violent, vitriolic actions of the worst amongst them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you truly believe harassment and threats are wrong, drop all connections to the Gamergate movement and take up your “corruption in journalism” cause elsewhere.
Asked if voting for Barack Obama and the Democrats have helped the minority community, Dash answered with a quick "no, not at all." "It still keeps them stuck. They are getting money for free. They feel worthless. They are uneducated," Dash said of minority neighborhoods. "I mean, as long as you are that way, they (Democrats) can keep you under their control," Dash noted.
Hannity attempted to clarify Dash's remarks and asked her if she felt like the Democratic party created a sense of dependency. Dash responded that Democrats have a "plantation mentality" and think that if they keep giving services and money to low income voters, they won't want to think for themselves.
Stacey Dash, the actress and star of the hit film "Clueless," has been employed by Fox News for less than six months, but this isn't the first time that she has made controversial remarks. Earlier this week, Dash suggested that each city in America set up Ebola "quarantine" centers to hold patients who could be at risk for virus.
that is the most baller magnifying glass I've ever seen
Filipino artist Jordan Mang-osan burns beautiful illustrations into wood using a most unusual tool: the Sun. Mang-osan creates the illustrations with a magnifying glass and an impressive degree of patience. His work is a form of pyrography. Mang-osan’s illustrations are available to purchase through Fine Art America.
'The [shuttle] was so maneuverable that it proved simpler to just fly the orbiter over to an object or person and grab it, either with the robot arm or a gloved hand. This became clear even during the MMU's inaugural mission. During one spacewalk when McCandless was not wearing the jetpack, he accidentally let a foot restraint float out of the cargo bay. Commander Brand told him and Bob Stewart to hang on, then steered the orbiter to within a couple of feet of the object so McCandless could retrieve it. After Pinky Nelson's failed attempts to grapple Solar Max on the next flight, STS-41C commander Bob Crippen, using the shuttle's thrusters in a special low-impact mode, was able to fly Challenger and its robotic arm right up to the satellite without disturbing it.
Following the 1986 Challenger disaster, safety regulations were instated that would have required the jetpack to undergo an expensive re-qualification; program managers, grappling with the cost of returning the shuttle to flight, were unwilling to spend the money.'
On February 7, 1984, astronaut Bruce McCandless made history as the pilot for the test flight of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). On live TV, he backed away from the Space Shuttle Challenger, venturing 320 feet into space, becoming the first human satellite. But, by the end of the year, the MMU was mothballed.
'iPad sales may be slowed by larger, more capable smartphones, both from Apple itself and rivals like Samsung. Also, iPad app development seems anemic—Apple’s big Newsstand push, for instance, has been a dud. And many big developers have either avoided the iPad altogether—there’s no iPad-specific app for Instagram, for example—or given their apps only modest updates over the years (see Twitter).'
Apple is expected to unveil its latest iPads tomorrow at an event in California. According to leaks, the new tablets look almost identical to their predecessors. Barring any surprises, they’re not likely to relaunch iPad sales, which, after a huge start, have recently flattened.
The iPad—which defined the entire tablet category—has become a real question mark for Apple. During four of the past five reported quarters, iPad sales have either declined or been flat over the prior year. For comparison, the iPhone has never had a down quarter on a year-over-year basis, and continues to grow.
There several headwinds going into 2015 and beyond. For instance, to some extent, iPad sales may be slowed by larger, more capable smartphones, both from Apple itself and rivals like Samsung. Also, iPad app development seems anemic—Apple’s big Newsstand push, for instance, has been a dud. And many big developers have either avoided the iPad altogether—there’s no iPad-specific app for Instagram, for example—or given their apps only modest updates over the years (see Twitter).
While phones will continue to be the most popular “personal computer” devices for the foreseeable future—with wearable devices perhaps growing into second place—Apple’s tablet business nonetheless looks like a problem worth solving. A few things the company could do to play more toward the iPad’s strengths:
Emphasize that iPads and tablets are more likely to be shared devices than entirely personal, and make iOS better for sharing. This has already started—Apple recently debuted Family Sharing in iOS 8—but it should be easier for multiple people to share iPads, toggling between their personal settings, accounts, and media.
Create larger iPads. This also is supposedly underway already—Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on a 13-inch iPad for next year. This could enable more serious productivity apps, or at least be more engaging on the living-room couch.
Focus on what people are really using tablets for, especially relative to other mobile devices. According to comScore, that’s generally movies, gaming, and kids/youth content. What’s Apple doing to make those experiences even better? Why doesn’t the iPad already have stereo speakers for widescreen-movie mode, for example? Is there something Apple could do to make iPads even better suited for kids?
Try harder in the corporate market. “I suspect iPad sales to the enterprise may represent a growing share of iPad sales,” long-time (pseudonymous) Apple watcher Sammy the Walrus IV writes. “In this context, Apple’s recently announced partnership with IBM takes on a new light—one of offense to find use cases for iPad.” The iPad has taken on some interesting, unconventional “enterprise” roles, ranging from retail point-of-sale devices to airplane cockpit companions. Surely there are more opportunities here.
Big picture, iPad sales are unlikely to sharply accelerate again or collapse any time soon. It’s probably more important over the next year for Apple to nail the Watch than to generate incremental iPad sales. But long-term trends still favor the iPad and tablets over things like desktop PCs—so it seems a business that easily merits Apple’s continued investment.
'The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.'
City Of Houston Demands Pastors Turn Over Sermons WZTV (FOXNEWS) -- The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city's first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be ...
ISIS may have chemical weapons stockpile TVNZ ISIS could be in possession of a chemical weapon arsenal after it was revealed the terrorist group have control of a former chemical weapons factory. The terrorists took control of the factory containing 2500 rusting chemical weapons near Baghdad back in ...
San Francisco Bay Area cake designer Debbie Goard (see previously) creates wonderfully realistic sculptural cakes through her company, Debbie Does Cakes. Each cake is custom made to the customer’s specifications — over the years she has made everything from a Star WarsAT-AT to a DJ turntable.
"OpenBiome is turning pooping into a game, awarding Super Pooper nicknames—such as Vladimir Pootin, King of Poop, and Winnie the Poo—to those donors with the most samples. (These heroes remain anonymous.) The more doo you donate, the higher your Super Pooper character will climbs in the rankings."
Are you under 50 years old, willing to make daily trips to Medford, and have regular bowel movements? You, my friend, could be earning $40 a day—just for pooping.
All you have to do is visit OpenBiome, launched in 2012 as the only independent nonprofit stool bank in the country. The brainchild of MIT postdoctoral associate Mark Smith, OpenBiome collects, tests, and provides fecal samples to 122 hospitals in 33 states for one of the most interesting medical treatment innovations today: fecal microbiota transplantation.
Mark Smith packages the samples for shipment on dry ice with a colleague Laura Burns.
Carolyn Edelstein / OpenBiome
“Think of us as a blood bank, but for poop,” said Smith, who developed OpenBiome when he saw the gap in the medical structure to provide many patients with the life-saving fecal samples. “You shouldn’t have to fly across the country to get poop.”
Smith works with a team of full-time and part-time researchers, graduate students, gastroenterologists, and business minds to ensure that fecal samples are in every city and town and within a two-hour radius for every person who needs them. Smith said that they’ve hit the four-hour radius so far.
Wait, who wants someone else’s poop?
To keep your digestive and immune systems functioning properly, your body needs to maintain a natural balance of bacteria in your gut. But antibiotics taken to treat infections kill both “good” and “bad” bacteria indiscriminately. They kill it all, upsetting the balance and making the gastrointestinal tract susceptible to C. difficile, a “bad” bacteria. The resulting infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, affects more than 500,000 Americans per year, causing fever, nausea, abdominal pain, and serious diarrhea—and kills 14,000 Americans per year, especially in hospitals and long-term care facilities.
There are antibiotics that treat C. difficile, but as many as 20 percent of the infections return.
Our poop, it turns out, is a plentiful source of this good bacteria, and how do you get one person’s good-bacteria-filled poop into an ailing person? A fecal transplant.
“From the cost perspective, it’s a really efficient treatment for patients who aren’t responding to antibiotics,” said Smith. Including the donor screening costs, research has shown that fecal transplants save on average $17,000 per patient compared to treatment with antibiotics.
Here’s what a sample of fecal microbiota looks like .
Carolyn Edelstein / OpenBiome
While large hospitals and health systems have their own stool banks, many independent physicians and hospitals often do not. This is where OpenBiome comes in, selling them poop at $250 per sample. That’s one price point for a 250mL sample of fecal microbiota prepared for a lower transplant delivery (yep, that low) or a 30mL sample for an upper transplant delivery (through your nose).
While health insurance companies cover some of the cost, Smith said the price tag is key to paying for the processing and distribution of the samples, finding and screening the donors, while still keeping it affordable for patients paying out of pocket.
“The real challenges is that right now it’s still categorized as an explorational drug by the FDA. Until that changes it’s really not going to find universal adoption because there’s still challenges with how insurance companies reimburse it,” said Smith.
Unfortunately, the fecal transplantation process tends to be very uncomfortable and invasive. Physicians traditionally transplant the stool samples through a colonoscopy, enema, or a nasogastric tube that runs from the nose into the digestive tract.
Soon, however, poop may come in the form of a pill. The latest research by doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, and published in JAMA Internal Medicine in October 2014 has shown frozen capsules of fecal material to be 90 percent effective in treating the C.diff infections. OpenBiome has collaborated with many hospitals across the country in developing and manufacturing these capsule-size samples for treatment.
Where do I sign up to donate?
To become a paid donor to OpenBiome, you have to undergo thorough screenings, from a 120-question health history with a physician to a travel history analysis and, of course, recent use of antibiotics. Once a donor’s sample dump is reviewed by the lab for any infectious agents and the health of the bacteria, the donor’s blood is tested for standard blood borne diseases as well as hepatitis A, B, C, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS. All of these screening costs (which total more than $1,000 per donor) are covered by OpenBiome, so the markup on the poop donations seems pretty reasonable.
Vladimir Pootin icon, a nickname for one of OpenBiome’s anonymous donors.
Carolyn Edelstein / OpenBiome
OpenBiome targets younger adults, since they tend to be a lot healthier, with the average donor’s age ranging from late 20s to early 30s. The company has also focused its recruitment efforts on nearby Tufts University’s student population.
Once a donor’s sample passes the medical exam, he or she is enrolled and scheduled to visit the Medford facility every day. Each visit takes 30 minutes, during which the donor produces a sample into a hat-shaped bowl that rests over an ordinary toilet. Then the donor walks out with $40.
The cold, hard cash is not, however, the only reward. To further encourage new donors to sign up, and current donors to donate more often, OpenBiome is turning pooping into a game, awarding Super Pooper nicknames—such as Vladimir Pootin, King of Poop, and Winnie the Poo—to those donors with the most samples. (These heroes remain anonymous.) The more doo you donate, the higher your Super Pooper character will climbs in the rankings. So eat your fiber!
“These donors may seem very mild-mannered and think going to the bathroom is a humble thing,” said Smith, “but each sample they bring in can treat four or five patients.”
'A secretary at nearby Markham Elementary School said she and others in the office heard the explosion, but didn't have any idea what caused it. Police later reported that it occurred in the back parking lot of the Terri Lee Manor apartments and damaged two cars.
"We do know it was a device of some sort," said police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson. "These types of incidents are pretty rare for a device to be detonated."
Police said they don't know if the device was inside or outside the vehicles. They also don't know the motive. Arson detectives are taking the lead in the investigation.'
Richard Plepler (HBO CEO) announced that next year you’ll finally be able to watch HBO without a cable subscription.
HBO will relaunch a "standalone, over-the-top" HBO Go subscription (their streaming service) for those who are not subscribed to a cable company in 2015.
This service will be offered in the United States, but there are also plans to bring it overseas too.
Here's the full press release, from HBO:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2014
HBO CHAIRMAN AND CEO RICHARD PLEPLER ANNOUNCES HBO TO OFFER A STAND-ALONE HBO STREAMING SERVICE IN 2015
Speaking at the Time Warner Inc. Investor Meeting today, Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, HBO, announced that the company will offer a stand-alone HBO streaming service in 2015. Following a portion of his presentation focused on HBO’s domestic business, during which he cited significant growth opportunities inside the pay-TV universe, Plepler then turned to the current ten million broadband-only homes, which is projected to grow.
Plepler then added:
“That is a large and growing opportunity that should no longer be left untapped. It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO.
“So, in 2015, we will launch a stand-alone, over-the-top, HBO service in the United States. We will work with our current partners. And, we will explore models with new partners. All in, there are 80 million homes that do not have HBO and we will use all means at our disposal to go after them.”
DALLAS—Following news of a second confirmed case of Ebola in the city, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones assured local residents, as well as the nation at large, that AT&T Stadium is prepared to serve as the most spectacular Ebola quarantine cent...
For the first time ever, psychologists have treated an individual for internet addiction disorder caused by overuse of Google Glass. The patient had been exhibiting withdrawal symptoms when not using the device, and even dreamt he was wearing it.
