In "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games," three researchers from the University of Oxford's Said Business School examine the cost estimates and actual costs of every Olympic games since 1960, and finds that they are the most likely of all megaprojects to exceed their estimates, and also exceed those estimates by the largest amount of any megaproject. (more…)
NYPD officer Michael Birch recorded a meeting with a superior officer who complained to him he wasn't stopping enough black men. Gawker posted the tapes and transcripts, given to them by Birch after a judge dismissed the officer's complaint against the force.
In January, Birch filed a federal lawsuit against the city and several individual NYPD officials, alleging that he was retaliated against for speaking out about what he calls an illegal quota system. A judge dismissed his complaint, and he filed an appeal with a higher court last month.
Since the Reagan years, infrastructure spending has been so politically unpopular in America that the nation's roads, ports, power grid and other hallmarks of an advanced society are crumbling, sometimes beyond repair. (more…)
Google has announced that in September the company will hold its first Google Play Indie Games Festival in San Francisco. The event is aimed at showcasing recent and upcoming releases of top indie games in front of consumers and industry influencers and give them the chance to try them out. This will allow the indie developers an opportunity to expand their networks, gain real-time feedback and improve discoverability in Google Play for their app.
If you are an interested developer, you can submit your app now for a chance to attend the event. There are some limitations as to who can submit though. You will need to be a U.S. or Canadian developer with less than 15 full-time staff members, and games have to be published after January 1, 2016 or anticipated to be published before December 31, 2016.
eMusic, the veteran digital music company that was acquired in 2015 by Israeli media startup TriPlay, is expanding its horizons. Today the company is launching eStories, an audiobook service that will offer 80,000 titles at a cost of $11.95 per title to use, plus 33 percent off additional purchases. The service aims to compete with the likes of Audible, which is owned by Amazon and dominates… Read More
Pokémon is everywhere. Here's how to put a stop to it.
So all the cool kids are playing this Pokémon Go thing. It's likely the most successful launch of any mobile game in the history of mankind, and it's infected lovingly found it's way into a bazillion websites on the internet. I get it. Popular is popular, and the people enjoying the game like to read about it and discuss everything. That's what the internet was made for. After porn.
But some of us need to take a break from Pokémon. It's not the little monsters' fault, it's us. We just need some time apart. That's where the Pokémon NO Chrome extension comes in.
Install it on your Chromebook or in the Chrome browser on any other computer. Click OK. Say goodbye to Pokémon. Thanks, developer.
If you're yet to invest in one of the more premium VR experiences, the HTC Vive is now available for order from GAME in the UK for £689. The company's VR experience makes use of a headset and a pair of controllers to interact with what's being displayed on-screen.
As an added bonus, GAME is offering free UK Express Delivery, a total of three games worth over £75 thrown in for free, as well as 5512 GAME Reward points (worth around £14). That doesn't sound like such a bad deal, especially if you're looking to take your gaming to the next level. Hit the store link below for more details.
The European Union has a fresh target in its antitrust battle with Google: the company's lucrative ad business. This morning, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager filed a statement of objections accusing the US company of abusing its control of the digital ad world. The complaint specifically targets AdSense, a service Google offers to other firms to help them place adverts on third-party websites. Supplementary objections to an existing antitrust complaint against Google's shopping services were also filed.
Google faces fines of up to 10 percent of annual revenue
As with other ongoing antitrust complaints, Google faces fines of up to 10 percent of its annual revenue (a penalty of up to $7 billion) and could be forced to...
Decluttering is all about getting rid of the things you don’t need or want anymore. If you’re having trouble with the process, this mental trick can help you narrow things down quickly.
When you’re out shopping, you show your desire for things by forking over your hard-earned money to purchase them. Tarryn Williford at Apartment Therapy suggests you go through a similar process in your home. Imagine that you’re in a store and the item you’re holding in your hand was just pulled off of a shelf. Now imagine you don’t own the item and ask yourself if you would buy it right in that moment (assume it’s new and that it’s priced accordingly). If you would, then it’s worth keeping. If not, it’s time to say goodbye, or at least reconsider it’s value to you. At the end of the decluttering process, you should be left with only the items you truly want and need.
http://lifehacker.com/the-quickstart…
Declutter (In a Big Way!) by Asking Yourself One Simple Question | Apartment Therapy
Photo by Lee Simpson.
Taking a little time on Sunday to organize the coming week is a great way to get ahead. But Sundays should also be relaxing so you’re primed for the Monday morning rush. Here’s a way to have the best of both worlds.
If you usually wait until Sunday evening to get everything prepped for the week, Stephanie Booth at Fast Company suggests you flip things around and do it first thing in the morning. Wake up and do house chores, cook next week’s meals, plan out your outfits, fill your schedule, and shoot off a few quick emails. Now you won’t have anything hanging over your head all day, and you can truly relax and rest up. You’ll avoid the dreaded “Sunday night blues,” and you can call it a night whenever you start to feel tired instead of as soon as you get some work stuff done. Best of all, you’ll be ready to take on the week.
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-beat-th…
Six Simple Sunday Habits To Set You Up For A Productive Week | Fast Company
Photo by Laura.
Despite lots of talk about smart city initiatives, a recent study found municipalities across the U.K. are not walking the walk.
New Electronics reports the results of a survey of 187 councils from across England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland by DJS Research.
The survey found that many local governments across the U.K. lack the capability, leadership and budget to implement smart city projects. This comes as an increasing number of cities worldwide throw resources behind smart city projects to improve their budgets and livability.
More than 80% of the councils had minimal to no engagement with smart city planning, with few assigning managers or teams to undertake smart city projects.
From a broader perspective, the report predicted U.K. municipalities face the risk of segmenting into three smart city tiers: early adopters that are powering ahead and securing funding; councils with stated interest in smart city projects but no resources to progress; and those with little recognition of smart city benefits.
“It is evident that we need leadership to make smart cities work,” said John Fox, managing director of street lighting firm Lucy Zodion, which commissioned the study.
Fox added that there was also needed “leadership from government to provide a clearer path to delivery and leadership from local authorities to create an over-arching strategy to suit individual cities.”
The report identified five key barriers to the delivery of smart city projects. They include: poor funding; poor internal prioritization among city leaders; little evidence; insufficient collaboration; and little confidence in smart projects.
“It is only when councils are able to make smart cities a strategic priority and work together to implement them efficiently, putting the citizen at the centre of their plans, will we be able to realize the potential of our future cities,” said Fox.
The report found that the U.K. risks falling behind global leaders without local governments identifying clear smart city goals and committing the funding to see them through.
The post Most U.K. councils’ smart city projects just hot air appeared first on ReadWrite.
More than 71 US agencies -- mostly under the DoD and State Department -- run expensive, unaudited, chaotic, overlapping military and police training programs in more than 150 countries on every continent except Antarctica, with no real oversight and only pro-forma checks on the recipients of this training to ensure that they aren't human rights abusers or war criminals. (more…)
Milan barber Franco Bompieri, proprietor of Antica Barbieria Colla, cuts hair with fire.
"Burning the ends... the hair evolves," he says. "It becomes bigger, the hair gets stronger and doesn't fall out anymore."
Some Kind of Quest is an 11-minute documentary short about Bruce Zaccagnino, whose model train installation near NYC is one of the world's largest.
"What happens when artwork becomes life’s work? When creator becomes a caretaker? SOME KIND OF QUEST, from Sylvain Labs, Greencard Pictures and director, Andrew Wilcox, is a film that invites you into the singular world of Northlandz, a 52,000-square-foot model train installation just 75 minutes outside of Manhattan, and into the ornery mind of the man—and steadfast wife—who brought it all to life."
An update is now rolling out to Adobe Lightroom, bringing mobile photo editing aficionados an all new pro mode for the built-in camera. This update also packs a couple of other notable tweaks that should make using the app much nicer.
Here's the full skinny on what's new in Adobe Lightroom version 2.1 for Android:
In addition, there's a new Lightroom Camera widget that will let you launch Lightroom directly into the built-in camera from your home screen.
If you're interested in checking out everything that's new, you can grab Lightroom 2.1 on Google Play now.
It's Wednesday morning and the world has been grim (this last week and generally always) and the coffee I'm drinking is foul and I didn't shower. And yet, there is a video of mountain lion kittens to look at.
These mountain lion kittens are deeply precious. They are the definition of precious. They are a joy to behold, and they look kind of like my cat that lives with me in my house, whom I love very much but don't get to spend my days with because I have a job. They are rare, and considered a beacon of hope by biologists who study mountain lion populations in southern California.
The proliferation of highways and suburban development near Los Angeles has limited the habitat options for mountain lions, which generally...
We live in an age with no shortage of robot animals — they seem to multiply like little unstable rabbits, except they're hardly ever rabbits — but none have proven themselves quite so relatable as this one. This is PneuHound, and while its name doesn't quite slide off the tongue, its body is definitely doing some sliding... whenever it tries to move in any way at all. Haha, same!
As Gizmodo points out, PneuHound (or PH, as I will refer to him from here on out to indicate an intimate relationship) was built at Hosoda Laboratory at Osaka University, and it's much smaller than other robot dogs, like Boston Dynamics' SpotMini. But I'm not interested in PH's size, although its lack of bulk does contribute to its overall aesthetic, which...
Copyfighting nerdcore rapper Dan Bull (previously) stayed up all night ringing in the new UK Prime Minister Theresa May by editing together this video in which she performs the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (more…)
In The Biggest Lie on the Internet: Ignoring the Privacy Policies and Terms of Service Policies of Social Networking Services, a working paper by a pair of university communications professors, students were asked to try out a new social networking site as beta-testers; in reality they were being evaluated to see whether they reviewed the site's terms of service and privacy policy in any detail. (more…)
The most basic money skills aren’t all that complicated, even if we make it so. To prove the point, Napkin Finance fits the basics into the space of a small napkin.
The site, which aims to educate its users on the principles of personal finance, uses handy abbreviated graphics to explain concepts like budgeting, interest, investing, loans, and credit cards. If you’re not familiar with the basics of personal finance, this is a great place to start.
If you are familiar with the basics, you’re still in luck. Each graphic is accompanied by a longer text post explaining the concepts in more detail. Here you can find charts, explanations, and links to more resources to keep learning.
Napkin Finance via Rockstar Finance
We've been expecting some changes to SMS functionality in Hangouts for some time, especially after Google started pushing Messenger as an SMS alternative inside Hangouts. As of Hangouts v11, it looks like the other shoe has dropped. This version of the app removes merged conversations as an option.
To be clear, Hangouts can still send SMS in v11. What it will not do is let you switch between Hangouts and SMS within a single conversation thread.
Read MoreHangouts 11 does away with merged conversations was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Hangouts 11 for Android is here! Can you guess what it adds? No, not Allo, silly: it adds video messaging. Finally. Hangouts for iOS has supported the sending of video messages (or attachments, whatever you want to call them), and Android has mysteriously missed out on this feature to date. As of today, that changes - and we've got the APK for you to download. (Note: at the moment, we only have the arm64 aka 64-bit APK, so this will only work with 64-bit devices.
Read MoreHangouts 11 for Android finally adds support for video messaging (APK download) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
Several users are receiving an update message in Spanish on the Nexus 7 (2013) configured for English. The update includes the July security patch and comes in at 12.1MB, but the description is in Spanish and it looks like there isn't a way to clear the update notification. According to Google's issue tracker, the update is being received by users across regions.
Per the discussion in our forums, Google is aware of the issue:
Just got off the phone with a Google representative about the same issue. After contacting a specialist with the details of the problem, they recommended that I wait to install the update until further information. After hearing that others on the forums are having the same problem, she said she would bring it to Google's attention that multiple Nexus 7 marshmallow users were having the same issue.
We'll update the post once we hear back from Google, but for now, hold off on updating your Nexus 7 (2013).
Continue the discussion in the Android Central forums
Thanks Charlie!
Not one, but two X-Men TV shows are now in the works, with Variety reporting that 20th Century Fox with partner with Marvel for a series that will follow parents of mutant offspring. Longtime X-Men movie director Bryan Singer is reportedly on board for the still-unnamed project, which — if brought to full series from a pilot episode — would represent Marvel's mutant crew on the small screen alongside FX's Legion.
Details about the pilot deal are still scarce, but Variety says the 20th Century Fox show will be written by Matt Nix, and will feature a couple who join an underground band of mutants after discovering their children have superhuman powers. Singer, most recently the director of X-Men Apocalypse, will join in an executive...
YouTube and the music industry are frenemies of the first order, a mutually dependent couple that can’t stop bickering in public. The major record labels are currently renegotiating their contracts with the world’s largest online video platform, and so the war of words has been heating up of late. Today, Google added a fresh data point to the back and forth, announcing in a new report on piracy that its Content ID system has paid out $2 billion to copyright holders, double what it announced back in 2014.
Content ID is actually at the heart of the music industry’s current beef with YouTube. The system asks copyright holders to upload a file, say a music video, and then tries to automatically detect any copies of that work which are...
Decluttering is hard. If it weren’t, we’d all be perfectly organized, with all the space we need—but one thing that stops many of us is the worry that if we sell, trash, or donate an item, we may need it someday. Over at Unclutterer, they suggest when we run up against that wall, we ask ourselves a simple question.
David Caolo explains:
Instead of asking yourself, “Will I need this some day?” consider the alternative question: “Is this stuff affecting the organized life I want?” If the answer — the honest answer — is yes, it’s time to let it go.
It’s a simple question, and a bit more esoteric, but it does demand thought. You should also cover your bases though, and ask yourself whether the item would cost more to keep than it would be to replace, or whether you could easily afford to replace it if you had to—in which case you’re probably better off stashing the cash somewhere and getting your space back instead. If it’s a one-of-a-kind or prohibitively expensive thing though, obviously it’s harder, but that brings us back to the original question of whether it’s affecting the life you want to have—and if it is, you know you’re better off without it.
Dealing With I-Might-Need-It-Some-Day Thoughts | Unclutterer
Photo by Gabo Halili.
Google is going to allow you to share the movies, music, and apps you purchase from its Play store amongst up to six of your family members, Gizmodo and Cnet report. Content you buy from those stores can be shared across Android devices, Google's websites, and the Google Play apps on iOS. Android apps, of course, only work on Android (and, soon enough, Chromebooks). It's called Google Play Family Library, and it works pretty similarly to how Apple's family share program operates.
Last December, Google Play Music announced a family share plan at $14.99 per month for streaming music, which also works for up to six people. This plan is similar, though of course it doesn't cost extra. It seems like it will be a relatively full-featured...
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has a plan to save the endangered black-footed ferret, and it involves candy. The agency has proposed delivering vaccines to a ferret colony in Montana using drones capable of shooting vaccine-laced M&M's, The Guardian reports.
According to the USFWS, the black-footed ferret has been endangered since 1967, and remains very rare (only around 300 live across the US). One of the threats to the ferret population is the Sylvatic plague, a bacterial disease transmitted by fleas. The plague is lethal to both ferrets and prairie dogs, who provide ferrets with a source of food and tunnels for shelter. An oral Sylvatic plague vaccine has already been developed and approved for prairie dogs and ferrets, and...
