Bcstevieb

An innocent man was minding his own business one day in 2014, walking out of an Atlanta Wal-Mart with a tomato he'd just bought. An off-duty Atlanta police officer who moonlit doing security at Wal-Mart on the side accused the man of stealing the tomato on his way out of the store, and beats the man so severely that he breaks his leg and severs his artery. More than $75,000 in medical expenses later, the victim now walks with a titanium rod in his leg, with a limp.

(more…)

Douglas County, Colorado, is to arm its security guards with Bushmaster rifles, reports the Denver Post, at a cost of more than $12,000 to the 67,000-student district.

"We want to make sure they have the same tools as law enforcement," Payne said Monday of his eight armed officers. The first few rifles should be ready for use within a month's time once officers have gone through a 20-hour training course, the same one that commissioned police officers take. The rest of the guns will be deployed in August, he said.

Spray 'n pray.

Just say the word Australia, and people immediately think of the elegant sails of the Sydney Opera House, jutting out into the water of Circular Quay. An Australian icon, this architectural wonder transcends its location. And starting today it’s easier for anyone, anywhere in the world to experience the many sights and sounds of this masterpiece, with the opening of the Sydney Opera House on the Google Cultural Institute.

The Google Cultural Institute provides a new digital home for the Sydney Opera House, bringing together more than 1,000 artifacts and 60 years of history in a single online platform. From architect Jørn Utzon’s early designs, to the inner workings of the world’s biggest mechanical organ, to spectacular late night shows, these 50 online exhibits capture the Sydney Opera House from every angle.
“The Story Begins Here” exhibit explores the history of the building, the performances and events that have taken place on Bennelong Point.

This new collection showcases the variety of culture on offer at one of the world’s busiest performing arts centers, and brings many treasures out of the archives and into the spotlight for people to appreciate. Some of the rare content includes photographs of the opening with Queen Elizabeth II in 1973, roof design sketches from master builder and lead engineer Ove Arup, the diaries of architect Peter Hall, and Utzon's personal collection of photographs from the project, spanning nearly a decade.

The sculptural elegance of the Opera House has made it one of the most recognizable buildings of the 20th century. In addition to exhibits which tell the stories of the history and development of this architectural masterpiece, today’s launch includes a brand new 360° experience offering insights into the between-the-acts magic of the House. Starting at dawn beneath the sails, you can continue on to enjoy incidental performances by Soprano Nicole Car and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and then journey to many seldom seen areas of the House.


With new Street View imagery, you can virtually wander in and around the Opera House at your own pace, taking in stunning views from all angles. Gaze at the white sails overlooking Sydney’s picturesque harbor, feel what it’s like to stand on the Joan Sutherland Theatre stage and look up at the acoustic clouds of the Concert Hall.


The new collection opens today at g.co/sydneyoperahouse on the Google Cultural Institute website and is available for anyone on mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers. You can also view it via the new Google Arts & Culture mobile app from your iOS or Android device. We hope you enjoy experiencing the past, present and future of this World Heritage masterpiece.

Posted by Kate Lauterbach, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TnmEizYVMP4/VyAIxNRpBcI/AAAAAAAASPA/8yZNyjpTQgghp7DVngmJLS9WlISJwzJxwCLcB/s1600/dusktodawn.png Kate Lauterbach Program Manager Google Cultural Institute

 Amazon is spreading the Alexa love. The voice service is now available on the Triby. This small, family-focused message board, internet radio and VoIP device is the first device available for purchase not made by Amazon to feature the company’s clever voice service. Using the Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS), Invoxia, the maker behind the Triby, built the voice capability into the device. Read More

 As Yahoo continues to weigh up acquisition offers, the company has announced that it’s reached a deal with activist investor Starboard, which had written one of its famous letters to the troubled Internet company calling for the whole board to be replaced. It’s a compromise in the end: four new board members are getting added effective immediately, including Starboard’s CEO… Read More

 Spotify has made another acquisition to build out the tools that it provides to artists who use Spotify’s streaming platform to grow their listeners and overall business. It has bought CrowdAlbum, a company that aggregates photos and videos from music events that have been shared on social media to create what it describes as “visual histories.” Sometimes these hold a lot… Read More

Getty Images, the US photography agency, has accused Google of enabling photo piracy and undermining its business. Getty will file a formal complaint with the European Union's antitrust commission today, Time reports, marking a new chapter in Google's ongoing legal troubles in Europe. Last week, the EU antitrust commission filed formal charges against Google, targeting the company's Android mobile operating system.

Getty is targeting Google Images in its complaint, arguing that the service scrapes images from third-party sites and promotes piracy by making them available to download. In a statement provided to Time, the agency said that the way copyrighted photos are displayed in Google Images — in large, high resolution formats —...

Continue reading…

Last week, Mitsubishi admitted that it had cheated fuel economy tests for some 625,000 vehicles. Now, the Japanese carmaker says its history of improper testing goes back 25 years. It's unclear at the moment how widespread this manipulation was, or how many vehicles it affects, but the backlash against Mitsubishi has been swift. The company has lost half its market value since it first admitted fault (roughly $3.9 billion), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered the company to re-test its vehicles.

Mitsubishi's fuel economy tests deviated from Japanese standards from 1991 onwards. Specifically, the company neglected to update how it conducted coasting tests, in which a car slows to a standstill to measure its air...

Continue reading…

As we wait patiently, ever so patiently, for the next generation of video cards from Nvidia and AMD to arrive, AMD has treated us to one more hurrah for the 28nm era. Its new Radeon Pro Duo is literally two top-end Radeon R9 cards crammed onto a single board, giving it double the stream processors, double the texture units, and double the RAM of AMD's top-end Radeon R9 Fury X. It's also more than double the price at $1,499. All this adds up to what AMD dubs "the fastest gaming card in the world."

AMD is pitching this 350W monstrosity at "VR content creators" which makes sense, but is including both professional-oriented FirePro drivers and gaming-oriented Radeon drivers. Content creators need to take breaks, after all.

Continue reading…

Don't say they didn't warn you. Apple posted a year-over-year decline in revenue today, the first time the company's failed to grow its business in 13 years. It brought in $50.6 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2016, and $10.5 billion in profits. That compares with $58 billion in revenue and $13.6 billion in profits during this period last year, a drop of 13 percent for the revenue.

Apple isn't doing badly, it is still one of the most valuable and profitable companies in the world. But it hasn't found a new blockbuster product to pick up the slack as iPhone sales have slowed in many parts of the globe.

The iPad seemed like a promising new device at first, but sales peaked in 2014, and have been in decline ever since. The...

Continue reading…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_SmM9KuhIQ

A UK inquest determined Tuesday that the Hillsborough disaster, a 1989 stadium crowd crush that claimed 96 lives, was the fault of police. The jury's verdict follows decades of tabloid lies and police cover-ups that began immediately after the incident in Sheffield, England, attempting to blame the victims for their own deaths.

After a 27-year campaign by victims' families, the behaviour of Liverpool fans was exonerated. The jury found they did not contribute to the danger unfolding at the turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday's ground on 15 April 1989. Nine jurors reached unanimous decisions on all but one of the 14 questions at the inquests into Britain's worst sporting disaster. The coroner Sir John Goldring said he would accept a majority decision about whether the fans were unlawfully killed - seven jurors agreed they were.

The incident, at a huge and decrepit stadium, saw countless fans admitted by police to a standing-only zone with few points of escape. As the situation worsened, according to the jury's verdict, police failed to open gates, caused the crush on the terraces, responded slowly to the emergency, and exacerbated it through their actions.

In the aftermath, police blamed fans and stonewalled the first inquiry, which forced changes to stadiums but lacked the remit to condemn the authorities. Here's how the UK's largest-circulation daily tabloid, The Sun, reported the incident (with its decades-late apology on the right.)

As part of the verdict, police Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield was held "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence."

The video above shows the horror of the crush in still images. Below is coverage of the game from the BBC and Irish broadcaster RTE; the crush can be seen in the margins of footage, getting worse and worse, until cameramen and the referee notice the seriousness of the situation as the crowd spills onto the field.

https://youtu.be/4z2HDjuu8Cw?t=6m25s

https://youtu.be/4SdGtCWrvlo?t=5m25s

Here's a 2013 BBC documentary about the disaster and its aftermath:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaBnY-SnwxA

Today, Google is doing one of the things Google likes to do — introducing a new standard. This time it's for watchbands. It's called "Mode" and the idea is pretty simple: Google is hoping to make it as easy to switch watch bands on Android Wear smartwatches as it is on the Apple Watch.

The first set of Mode bands from Hadley-Roma start at $49.99 for silicon bands and $59.99 for leather ones. They'll be compatible with any watch that uses standard lugs to attach the watch band. In fact, Mode just simplifies that standard lug system a bit. You attach the pins to your watch, and then each band simply has a small latch that you can open and close with a switch.

The Mode system is basically universal, though you will still have to...

Continue reading…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig6f5fT0Xho

Rob Brydon explains that you're probably quoting Shakespeare day-in, day-out; the Bard is responsible for countless idioms and phrases that still infest the English language. Tut tut!

 YouTube announced a new ad format today that’s all about brevity. In a blog post, Product Manager Zach Lupei said YouTube has been exploring formats that are better-suited for smartphone video watchers. Hence the creation of Bumper ads — video ads that are only six seconds long. The idea of a really short ad isn’t new — the name suggests that the inspiration comes… Read More

Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection are teaming up for FilmStruck, a streaming service focusing on indie movies and Criterion's library of licensed properties. The service will become the Criterion Collection's exclusive streaming home when it starts operating this fall, and many of its films are going to be coupled with "rare footage and special features." Turner hasn't announced pricing details or a specific launch date for the service yet, but it's going to be ad-free and available before the end of the year.

The best point of comparison for FilmStruck is probably MUBI, the boutique service that offers subscribers a continuously rotating selection of 30 indie movies. MUBI's success has proven there's plenty of room for...

Continue reading…

Nokia has announced plans to acquire Withings — a French consumer electronics company focused on digital health — for €170 million ($191 million) in cash. The acquisition will significantly boost Nokia's portfolio of wearables and fitness devices, bringing 200 Withings employees and various products such as its Activité smartwatch, E-ink fitness tracker, and Bluetooth thermometer into Nokia's advanced technologies division.

"We have said consistently that digital health was an area of strategic interest to Nokia, and we are now taking concrete action to tap the opportunity in this large and important market," said Rajeev Suri, president & CEO of Nokia in a press statement. "With this acquisition, Nokia is strengthening its position in...

Continue reading…

Dropbox is previewing a new feature that will make owners of small laptop hard drives very happy. Codenamed Project Infinite, Dropbox is planning to enable desktop placeholders for files stored on the cloud storage service. If you've got 20GB of Dropbox storage then you'd typically sync that all to your desktop to get immediate access to your files, but Project Infinite will just produce shortcuts to your files that don't use up any local storage space.

While files will look like they're still stored locally, a cloud icon indicates they're actually still stored on Dropbox's servers. In a demo, Dropbox notes you can choose to sync specific files and folders to have them stored locally, and any remote files will be fetched immediately as...

Continue reading…

When Jennie Rose Halperin left her job as a product engagement manager and researcher last month, she applied for unemployment benefits via Massachusetts Department of Unemployment website. She says, "I soon learned that a masters degree in Information Science and several years of work on systems and usability could not prepare me for the excruciating process of applying for unemployment in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

(more…)

In a 2013 episode of New Girl, the characters were invited to a party hosted by Prince. When Prince was made aware of the intended plot, he sent the producers a list of jams he played at his real parties. Damn it's a smoking mix. Spotify playlist below.

“City in the Sky,” The Staple Singers
“Country John,” Allen Toussaint
“Fire,” Ohio Players
“Happy House,” Shuggie Otis
“Higher Ground,” Stevie Wonder
“I Was Made to Love Him,” Chaka Khan
“Listen to the Music,” The Isley Brothers
“The Lord is Back,” Eugene McDaniels
“Lost in Music,” Sister Sledge
“The Pinocchio Theory,” Bootsy Collins
“Rubber Duckie,” Bootsy Collins
“Rumpofsteelskin,” Parliament
“Skin Tight,” Ohio Players
“We’re Gettin’ Too Close,” The Soul Children
“Wild and Free,” Curtis Mayfield
“After The Love Has Gone,” Earth, Wind & Fire
“Back in Baby’s Arms,” Allen Toussaint
“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” The Isley Brothers
“Don’t Take My Sunshine,” The Soul Children
“How Could I Let You Get Away,” The Spinners
“I’ll Be Around,” The Spinners
“Push Me Away,” The Jacksons
“Stay With Me,” Shirley Brown
“The Thrill Is Gone,” Aretha Franklin

(via Dangerous Minds)

Money is a tool, not a goal, and you get more out of it when you spend it on the stuff that matters to you most. The problem is, it’s easy to spend without giving it much thought. To get a better idea of your habits, try author Carl Richards’ 30-day, three-second experiment.

http://twocents.lifehacker.com/think-of-money...

To pay more attention to your discretionary spending, Richards suggests trying an experiment for 30 days in which you take a few seconds after every purchase, look at your receipt, and simply state what you’ve spent.

This isn’t designed to get you to stop spending money at all. It’s just designed to get you to notice. We’re trying really hard not to resist spending, not to judge spending. We just want to notice it for 30 days. Just take three seconds...You just look at the receipt and go, “Interesting. I just spent $79 at Whole Foods.” That’s it. That’s the end of the exercise...It needs to be immediately right as you’re doing it, or right after you’re doing it.

It’s so simple, but that’s the idea: to take a short moment to process what you’ve spent. Ideally, after a month of doing this, you’ll be a little more aware of your habits. Sure, you could just review your budget and do the same thing, but this forces you to think about it a bit more in the moment, as it’s happened. For more detail, listen to the podcast episode at the link below.

Look At the Root of Your Money Problems | Behavior Gap via Purple Sweatpants

Photo by Tax Credits.

The bad news: it's Monday. The good news: Twitter user @sakata_77 uploaded a handful of images of cats performing their own form of dance. In the word of Nippon.com, the cats have "ballet ambitions."

Who are these cats? What are their stories? How did they come to master the art of movement?

I believe this orange-striped kitty is Garfield, and he recently adopted a more active lifestyle.

謎の猛者感

強い（確信） pic.twitter.com/deU3R384AA

— アクセント (@sakata_77) April 24, 2016

This collection of cats, they are a band of interpretive dancer students performing an adaptation of Neko Atsume for their MFA thesis.

今日は動きのあるカットを目指して猫飛ばしまくりました pic.twitter.com/bdYciRtwmf

— アクセント (@sakata_77) April 24, 2016

And this white...

Continue reading…

Windows/Mac/Linux/Android: One of Microsoft’s Office 365 program chief advantages over open source alternatives is the ability to sync documents via the cloud so you can edit them everywhere. Open365 has stepped up to finally match this feature set.

Open365 works a lot like Office 365 does. The suite builds on LibreOffice Online to let you open your documents in the browser, or use any of the client apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android to open them. Open365 also gives you 20GB of cloud-based storage to store your files on that will be synced across your devices.

Currently, the service is in beta, however the developers also plan to release tools to allow you to host your own servers. This helps it stand out from services like Office 365 and Google Docs by giving you a comparable feature set without sacrificing control of your data.

Open365 via Ghacks

"It honestly took every bit of strength in me to get through all 50 donuts as they were incredibly sweet but I'm so glad I did," said competitive eater Nela Zisser.

Lax enforcement from the SEC has allowed the biggest companies in America -- 90 percent of the companies in the S&P 500, led by the faltering energy sector -- to ignore the "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" (GAAP) in presenting their financial information to investors, manufacturing nonexistent profits in quarters where they suffer punishing losses. (more…)

Jeremy Buckingham, a Green Party MP, took a dingy out on Queensland's Condamine River, about 220km west of Brisbane, and set the river on fire with a barbeque lighter. (more…)

The Hunger Games, Twilight, and more big Hollywood movies are now available on Steam, Valve's PC-gaming platform. Today Valve announced a deal with Lionsgate, which will bring more than 100 films to the service, and it includes some of Lionsgate's biggest franchises, like Saw, Crank, and Divergent (there's also the entire Leprechaun series, if that's your thing).

At present the titles are available as streaming rentals only, and not for download. You will, however, be able to watch them on all platforms Steam is available on, including PC, Mac, Linux, SteamOS, and even SteamVR. While Valve has previously dabbled in releasing films on the platform, including documentaries like Indie Game: The Movie, this marks the company's first big...

Continue reading…

On April 20th, 2016, the European Commission announced that its year-long investigation of Android had led it to believe that Google might be violating European Union antitrust laws. The Commission issued a statement of objections to Google and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), launching a formal antitrust case against them, along with a brief public statement that represents the best window into what is going on.

The EU believes that Google holds a dominant position in three related markets, and that it is using that position to distort competition. The EU claims that Google limits access to key aspects of the Android ecosystem by insisting that phone makers install Google search apps and Chrome. The EU also said that Google blocks...

Continue reading…

In 2014, Google brought a few Android apps to Chrome OS - at first it was a trickle, and then more and more came, until an astounding 29 apps were available. Google then released ARC Welder, a tool that allowed developers to port their apps without Google's involvement. But Android apps on Chrome OS have always felt like they didn't really belong on Chrome. Now, Google might be about to change that.

Read More

The Play Store Is Coming To Chrome OS, Complete With All The Android Apps You Could Ever Want was written by the awesome team at Android Police.