We've seen Jimmy Kimmel orchestrate some majorly elaborate stunts — but this is probably his most unsettling yet
On Thursday's Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel played with the idea of anthropomorphic animals in pop culture and dressed as a real-life talking pig. Exactly how would a kid respond to a talking pig if they stumbled upon one in, say, a state fair?
Well, if this video is any guide, the answer is that kids would be pretty unfazed by the whole ordeal, promising to keep the "talking thing" a secret. That is, until money entered the equation.
Anybody can throw together a five-minute Halloween costume, but if you want to avoid being outdone this year, you'll have to bring your A-game.
It's time to dust off that sewing machine and brush up on your papier-mâché skills, because there is no time for procrastination this year. Your costume won't be some run-of-the-mill scary ensemble — it will be a work of art.
Sometimes it can be easy to overlook how beautiful it is to live here on Planet Earth. If your face is constantly buried in a phone or PC you can miss out on the beauty of nature. Why not bring a little of the natural world into your digital life? Today we’re taking a trip to the great mountains. Most people don’t get a chance to climb these massive natural monuments, but you can conquer them with these wallpapers.
For your viewing pleasure we have six HD wallpapers that will look great on your homescreen. To get one of these wallpapers on your phone, tablet, or even PC, simply tap or click on the image to see it at full resolution. The long press or right-click to save the image. Let us know which one is your favorite, and be sure to share a screenshot if you use one of these wallpapers! Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Google is long overdue for another tablet in the Nexus lineup, and rumors say to expect them to introduce that tablet alongside HTC at some point this year. We haven’t heard a ton about the device and what it’s expected to bring to this point, but we might finally have our first glimpse at the thing.
Up and coming leakster @upleaks obtained a purported photo of the Nexus 9. We obviously want to approach this leak with a bit of caution as even the most reputable of leaksters have been duped with falsified renders and information before.
But if this is indeed real, what does it tell us? Not much, honestly. There’s an HTC logo sitting beneath the familiar Nexus stamp on the back. It’s big and square. And it appears the camera is being accompanied by an LED flash, which may or may not be noteworthy depending on who you are.
Even more noteworthy is that the camera ring design looks pretty similar to that of the Nexus 5’s. That’s all we can tell for sure. If my eyes don’t deceive me, though, it looks like the tablet could be sporting the same soft-touch material on the back that the Nexus 5 launched with. Heck, it’s almost as if this could be a really stretched out Nexus 5, but we won’t sound the alarms on a potential fake just yet.
Google and their partners have yet to disappoint when it comes to introducing smartphones and tablets with impressive specs so we’re sure we’re in for a treat with the Nexus 9. Unfortunately there isn’t enough information out there about the Nexus 9 so we’re still left in the dark. Perhaps that’s all for the better — knowing how much of a beast it might be would make the wait that much harder to bear.
Can’t say we didn’t see this coming. Redbox has announced that their instant streaming service, one they made in conjunction with Verizon, will be shutting down beginning tomorrow, October 7th, at 11:59pm Pacific. The reason? They have no problem telling you that it just hasn’t worked out:
The service is shutting down because it was not as successful as we hoped it would be. We apologize for any inconvenience and we thank you for giving us the opportunity to entertain you.
The service is one of many that have attempted to step up and challenge Netflix to a game that they have mastered at this point. Redbox’s issue was like many others’ — there simply wasn’t enough content. Asking folks to pay $9.99 per month for a significantly smaller library of movies with minimal additions each month simply doesn’t appeal.
Yours truly gave the service a pretty good spin for its first few months of existence, but Netflix’s vast array of content — bolstered mostly by the company’s critically acclaimed original series — ultimately won out.
Netflix had some growing pains of their own when they first launched too, but they had the distinct advantage of offering you unlimited DVD and Blu-Ray rentals (well, as many as you could get shipped to you and get shipped back within a month’s time, anyway) to go along with the streaming video side for one low monthly price.
Redbox attempted to offer similar value by giving you rental credits for movies at physical kiosks, but the credits were only good for about 2 to 3 movies at most. They also offered something Netflix still hasn’t — streaming rentals and digital movie purchases “But why rent or buy a streaming movie if you have the monthly service,” you ask?
Well, a pay-per-rental or pay-to-own streaming model still holds value considering you tend to get more recent movies faster. The all-you-can-eat stuff is subject to strict licensing deals that take a great deal of work to establish and maintain. Even with that, Redbox wasn’t able to put together a streaming rental and purchasing library as compelling as the likes of Amazon and VUDU.
So what happens for folks still hanging in there? For those on monthly subscriptions, Redbox says you’ll receive a refund for one month of service if you haven’t received a full month of service since September 8th. The refund is automatic and should be appearing on your bank or credit card statements as early as this Thursday and no later than October 24th.
Additionally, any Redbox Kiosk credits that have gone unused must be used by the aforementioned October 7th at 11:59pm cut-off date, so be sure to zoom over to your local Redbox to rent a couple movies if you have any left. Finally, folks who purchased a streaming rental and weren’t able to watch that rental before tomorrow’s cut-off will be fully refunded for it.
For those who’ve purchased digital movies, Redbox says they’re still exploring options for you to maintain access to the content you’ve purchased after the service has shut down. Redbox says to expect an email with more details in about two weeks’ time so sit tight and wait for them to deliver the goods.
It’s been a decent ride, but ultimately they just couldn’t keep up. Good on them to continue to focus on what they know how to do best. Be sure to check out the full FAQ at the company’s website regarding the shutdown using the source link straight ahead.
Two Ole Miss fans in search of something real find love on the turf at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. This fall: Rebels On The Field. Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks.
This Bama fan was sour after the Crimson Tide lost to Ole Miss, so he threw a cup at the jeering crowd. Bad idea. An overeager security guard took him down, because tossing a cup is apparently an offense worthy of a takedown on concrete steps. Everyone should take a lesson from the unfazed guy in the red shirt, and chill.
Bose is now "the official sound of the NFL," apparently replacing the confused whimpers of retired defensive tackles with CTE. That means that you're not going to see many more pictures like the one above, because players now must wear the NFL's preferred brand of oversized, overpriced headphones at any event having anything to do with the NFL.
by Timothy Burke on screengrabber, shared by Timothy Burke to Deadspin
When the Jaguars announced they were adding swimming pools to EverBank Field, we all prepared for the inevitable bottomless moon shot on TV. Little did we know, the opposite of nudity was in store for the sad souls watching a game from Jacksonville.
When the Patriots are doing well, Tom Brady doesn't get mad, and instead does fun stuff like play hot potato with Julian Edelman before spiking the ball.
Apple is expected to show off the next generation iPad Air and iPad Mini at the event. The upcoming iPads are said to have faster processors, likely the same A8 chip in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and quite possibly Apple's Touch ID system — which first launched more than a year ago on the iPhone 5S, but has not yet shown up on an iPad Read more...
Google's pushing out a new update to the official Google+ app. The red's a little redder, the floating action button's gone red with a redesigned white pencil, instead of white with a red pencil, and the shadow gone.
Update: Ah, and the Photos end of things has gotten a pretty good redesign. So it's still duplicative, but it also looks much better now.
by Kyle Wagner on Regressing, shared by Kyle Wagner to Deadspin
The New York Timeshas a new interactive showing which college football teams the country roots for, according to data it has exclusively from Facebook. Fandom is broken down into ZIP codes, which you can zoom in and mouseover to see in detail.
Apple could do to music what Amazon has done to books: start a price war.
The iPhone maker is negotiating with music labels in an attempt to break the $10 per month price point that has become standard for streaming music services, according to a report from Re/code.
The news comes on the heels of reports that Apple is planning to revamp and rebrand Beats Music, the streaming service Apple acquired as part of the $3 billion deal for the headphone company.
Whatever the form of a relaunched Beats Music, a price point below competitors like Spotify and Rhapsody could help it attract customers, few of whom joined the service after its initial release. Read more...
Google still has work to do, but you couldn't pay me to go back to the way things were before
I'm just finishing a two week experiment where I've gone "all in" on Google Hangouts for my calling and texting. After dabbling around with things and watching bugs get fixed for a week after Hangouts and Google Voice began integrating with one another, I decided to see if Google's new VoIP calling and Voice SMS integration was the real deal.
Being someone who already was a full-time Google Voice user and heavy Hangouts user the transition was supposed to be theoretically simple — Google controls the whole stack, so why wouldn't it be? Well as you might expect there's still a good bit of tweaking to be done in this process. But much to my surprise, this experiment has turned into the only way I'll be doing calls and texts going forward.
An American freelance cameraman working for NBC News has tested positive for Ebola and is returning to the U.S. for treatment.
The 33-year-old freelancer tested positive for the deadly disease on Thursday while on assignment in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, NBC News said in an e-mailed statement. The cameraman, whose identity is being withheld by NBC at the request of his family, was working with a three-person crew working alongside Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the network newscast's chief medical editor and correspondent.
NBC News says the man is the fourth American to have contracted Ebola in Liberia, a West African country hard-hit by the largest-ever outbreak that has already claimed more than 3,300 lives. The freelancer, who is also a writer, has been working on various projects for the past three years, according to the statement. He was hired by NBC News on Tuesday to be a second cameraman and came down with symptoms on Wednesday, feeling tired and achy. As part of a routine temperature check, he discovered he was running a slight fever. Read more...
A few blocks from the water in Burlington, Vermont, you'll find a large Civil War-era brick building that once served as a warehouse. It's now home to an artsy cafe, a tattoo parlor and a luxury bicycle shop called Budnitz Bicycles, which sells titanium city bikes for as much as $8,000. In the basement of that building, you'll find Paul Budnitz, the bike company's founder and a man whose wheels never stop turning.
Budnitz, now 47, started building titanium bicycles for himself in 2002 because he couldn't find the bike he wanted. He decided to turn that bike project into a proper business in 2010 while living in Boulder, Colorado, and three years later relocated it to the warehouse in Burlington to be part of the city's growing bike culture. Yet, within a few months of moving he began tinkering in his basement office with a new idea, something that had nothing whatsoever to do with bicycles Read more...
Destiny is arguably the first big event game of the new console generation. It’s a multiplayer shooter from the original creators of Halo, and it combines easy-to-learn, hard-to-master gunplay with an online RPG-like progression system and mission structure.
There are so many ideas going on in the game, it can be daunting for new players. And it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the large swarms of enemies, especially in the Strikes or in the harder difficulty levels.
The market got some good news Friday morning as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 5.9% — the first time it's dipped below under 6% since 2008.
The BLS reported that the economy added 248,000 new positions in September. In August, it added 180,000 and in 243,000 in July.
August's meager 142,000 reading was revised up to 180,000, while the July number came up from 212,000 to 243,000. September is often a below-trend month.
Despite the good news, wages remained stagnant; the average hourly wage dropped $0.01 to $24.53. The average work week edged higher to 34.6 hours. The U.S. labor force participation rate is also at a 37-year low, indicating that many people have given up looking for jobs, though it may also be a reflection of the aging populace. Read more...
Despite gaining $22 million in series B funding last year, Cyanogen Inc’s has yet to generate any sizable revenue. Sure they’re partnered up with Oppo and the folks at OnePlus to launch a few devices with their custom Android OS pre-installed, but other than that what have the one time Android modders been up to? Well, we know they were said to be in talks with some of the biggest firms in tech, companies like Microsoft and Yahoo looking to take the startup under their wing.
Now, as we approach the eve of their series C funding, it appears Cyanogen Inc could be seeking a breathtaking valuation, hitting upwards of a $1 billion. We know what you’re thinking: just how the heck did they arrive at that number? According to The Information, potential investors recently learned from Cyanogen’s chief executive that the Seattle-based software company recently met up with Sundar Pichai — the man in charge of Google’s Android division — for acquisition talks, but walked away.
Even with talks of a Google buyout, that number is almost dumbfounding. That’s not to diminish the talented team at Cyanogen or the amazing work they’ve produced throughout the years. Some would argue Android wouldn’t be where it’s at with all the features Cyanogen and their team added to the OS over the years (only to be later replicated in official Android builds).
Once again, we should warn you. Reports out The Information can sometimes be hit or miss, so take it with a grain of salt. This is still very much a rumor. As an Android fan who has followed CyanogenMod since its humble beginnings, I’d have to say it’s inspiring to see men (and women) who once worked from their basements gaining the level of success they have in such a short amount of time.
To help you visualize a billion dollars, here’s what it would look like if stacked onto wood pallets.
