NEW YORK — The company that measures television viewership said Thursday it will soon begin counting people who watch programming through broadband in addition to the traditional broadcast or cable hook-up.
Nielsen’s move is a significant step toward recognizing a world where the definition of TV viewing is swiftly changing and toward satisfying clients concerned that the company isn’t keeping up with those changes. Separately, Nielsen is developing ways to track content on tablets and mobile phones.
With the sequester imminent and no substantial progress made, conservatives took a break from stockpiling guns and switched to stockpiling canned goods. Asked about running for reelection, Harry Reid replied, “Sure, why not?” which is an OK answer if someone offers you half a Twix. And a House member is inviting his colleagues to “Grab free donuts and coffee before Obama grabs your gun!” Attention FBI: All the members of Congress who come to work ARMED will be gathered in the same room soon. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, February 21st, 2013:
OPPOSITION POLS SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER, WASHINGTON OVERJOYED – “With just more than a week before automatic spending cuts hit, President Barack Obama called Speaker John A. Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday morning in what Republicans say were his first substantive conversations with the GOP leaders this year. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Republican aides declined to comment on the substance of the conversations — usually a good sign in Washington — even as they continued to trade talking points over who is to blame for the sequester and who is holding the military and other government programs hostage for political advantage.” [Roll Call]
CHUCK GRASSLEY AFRAID OF NATIVE AMERICAN COURTS – Chuck Grassley, who is already the closest thing Congress has to a crotchety 1860s homesteader, does not trust America’s indigenous population. Jen Bendery: “Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) didn’t vote for the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill when it passed the Senate last week. And on Wednesday, he gave a blunt reason why: he doesn’t think tribal courts are capable of giving a fair trial to non-Native Americans. Grassley was holding a town hall meeting in Indianola, Iowa, when a constituent asked him about his VAWA vote. Think Progress reported on the meeting and posted a video of Grassley’s response, during which he argued that, since reservations are made up of Native Americans, those jurists wouldn’t be fair to a non-Native American. ‘If you have a jury, the jury is supposed to be a reflection of society,’ Grassley said. ‘Under the laws of our land, you’ve got to have a jury that is a reflection of society as a whole, and on an Indian reservation, it’s going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial.’” [HuffPost]
With the Google-made Chromebook Pixel we’ve got several points that the company hopes will be made right from the start – the first being an erasure of the hardware from our experience. They say this in the “Chromebook Pixel: For What’s Next” presentation video provided today at the launch of the product – Andrew Bowers, Group Product Manager on the Chromebook project with Google literally says, “we basically wanted the hardware to disappear.” If that’s the case, does it really make sense to release the Pixel at all?
Google is once again attempting to release a product in the Chromebook Pixel that’s representative of their Nexus state of mind. With the Nexus line of Android products, Google works with a manufacturer to create a smartphone or tablet (or other devices, in some cases) that presents a Google-only iteration of their software. With the Chrome operating system, Google already offers this experience on every single Chromebook that’s been released – so the job is already done.
So why release the Chromebook Pixel?
Google has already been working on Chrome (the web browser) for a touchscreen-friendly universe – they’ve even gone so far as to suggest dominance on Windows 8. It’s in that touch environment that we’ve already seen Chrome working… generally ok.
The internet is not ready for touch. The web was built – and continues to be built – with work in mind. Work and play, but play through a work-friendly interface. Chrome is attempting to change the way the internet is used by creating a home screen with a collection of icons that are large enough to easily be tapped by a human finger. There are touch-friendly web apps out there, but there’s a step between easy and confusing that still exists between the user and a fully touch-friendly Chrome OS.
If you’ll look back to October 20th, 2010, also known as the reveal date for Apple’s OS X 10.7 Lion, you’ll find that “Mac Meets the iPad” was without a doubt a theme of the day. The photo you see here of a real-deal touchscreen MacBook was seen once – and never heard from again.
There’s a reason for that.
With the Chromebook Pixel, Google has stepped out ahead of itself. Chrome has not yet proven itself as an operating system that’s ready to take a foothold in the modern work-oriented world, yet a $1,299 container for it seemed reasonable somehow or another. Google must have a special order ready for these machines or they’ve got something to prove to someone about their manufacturing finesse, because this is a machine I’d definitely not mind using with Ubuntu.
I’d recommend checking the Chromebook Pixel out at Best Buy, giggling, and thinking twice.
Bad news first. Guys—Keyboard Cat is dead. The same cat you’re still splicing into videos and GIF-ing as fast as your little fingers can fly is, in all likelihood, rotting 6 feet below some nondescript, Midwestern backyard. It all happened one night in 1987; our beloved Keyboard Cat (formerly known as Fatso) raised his paw to his keyboard to sound one final, solemn note before slipping into eternal, musically-inclined kitty slumber. More »
Chrome OS being a web-based platform doesn’t preclude the existence of power users — see the Chromebook Pixel. Google wants to encourage them with software, too, which is why it’s rolling out a new update to the stable Chrome OS code. The new version automatically positions windows to show more whenever a user hasn’t customized the look, and there’s now official support for extending a desktop across multiple screens. Other additions are subtler: copy protection is a bigger deal with both an HTML5 decryption module and support for Encrypted Media Extensions, and exacting users can both re-order the app launcher as well as set tap-to-drag as a preference. The refresh is pushing out over the next few days to all devices save for Samsung Chromebooks. It’s not the first time a Chrome OS update has glossed over Samsung portables, but everyone else should enjoy the extra screen real estate.
On the heels of the one-year anniversary of the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” U.S Marine Corps Captain Matthew Phelps made history when he became the first gay man to propose marriage to his boyfriend Ben Schock at the White House.
Now the newly engaged couple are featured in a new video that demonstrates how the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, counteracts many of the benefits same-sex military spouses should be receiving in the wake of the DADT repeal.
“There are a lot of people who think that after ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was repealed, that that’s it. That everything is fixed,” Phelps says in the heartbreaking clip. “The reality of it is the lives of the individual gay and lesbian service members was fixed, but repealing DADT didn’t change anything for our families.”
DETROIT — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says some people are already saying they don’t want the job of fixing Detroit’s financial woes.
Snyder hasn’t even decided if he’ll appoint an emergency manager. But he says his office has spoken to “a lot of people” about taking over Detroit’s financial reins.
We’ve heard of moms in labor tweeting from the delivery room, but until yesterday, we had never witnessed surgeons sending minute-by-minute updates during a patient’s cesarean section.
Starting early Wednesday morning, Dr. Sherri Levin at Houston’s Memorial Hermann hospital live tweeted a Caesarean section being performed by her colleague, Dr. Anna Gonzalez. Using tweets, photos and videos (with fair warning of their graphic nature) Levin guided viewers through the procedure, while also answering their questions about the surgery. The hospital’s social media manager Natalie Camarata told the Associated Press that over 72,000 people from 60 countries watched the procedure as it happened. “It’s fascinating to pull back the curtain on the mystery of the OR,” Camarata said.
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