Hasta La Gadget!

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) demanded more answers from Huma Abedin on Friday, after the wife of scandal-plagued New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner provided what the senator is calling insufficient information about her consulting work for both the State Department and outside employers.

In June, Politico reported that Abedin, a former aide and close personal friend to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, worked the larger part of her last year at the State Department as a part-time consultant who at the same time was allowed to represent clients in the private sector. She left the department in February 2013, but in the eight months between stepping down as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and her departure, Abedin reportedly worked for clients including the State Department, Hillary Clinton, the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and Teneo, the firm co-founded by former Bill Clinton counselor Doug Band.

After the report, Grassley mounted an inquiry asking Abedin and State whether her dual roles at the department and with Teneo had been “adequately disclosed to government officials who may have provided her information without realizing that she was being paid by private investors to gather information.” Grassley pointed to financial disclosures, which showed Abedin had earned approximately $135,000 from the State Department while receiving $355,000 in consulting income, requesting documentation and responses to 17 questions about her tenure as a “special government employee” at the department.

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Google does seem to have dipped their fingers into a slew of different projects, and this time around, we have word that their very own real-time translation project for the spoken – take note, spoken, and not written, word over smartphones are inching closer and closer to the 100% accuracy mark, which is something that ought to make everyone else sit up and take notice. In an interview with Android’s Vice President Hugo Barra, he revealed that hardware prototypes (of the Android-powered variety, of course) are currently being tested, and these have achieved “near perfect” results where some language pairs are concerned.

Of course, there is also the fact that this real-time speech translation work is a very delicate and tricky one to be part of since it is tested in a controlled environment, and the bottleneck happens to be speech recognition in real-life conditions, where you have all sorts of background noise and accents to deal with, but all of those kinks should be worked out in due time. Who knows, one might even find real-time speech translation being thrown into a future version of Android, and it might be more difficult for language teachers to earn a living after that.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | Google Now Real-Time Speech Translation Reaches Near 100% Accuracy original content from Ubergizmo.

Zna Gresham may not think of herself as a hero, but she is certainly being hailed as one.

In a lifesaving catch, the 10-year-old girl caught a baby that was dropped from a second-floor apartment in Decatur, Ga., after the building caught fire, the Associated Press reports.

The family living in the apartment was trapped by the fire, which reportedly started on the ground floor. DeKalb County Fire Battalion Chief Christopher Morrison said the mother had no choice but to drop her three children out the window.

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Over the last decade, it has become standard for virtually everyone to carry a camera in their pocket. Sure, your cell phone might not take the most impressive pictures in the world, but they’re pretty good for taking everyday shots. Unfortunately since most phones are touchscreens these days, it’s really hard to tap the spot that controls the shutter. Some phones do have a dedicated button on the side, but even that can be hard to reach, depending on how you’re holding it. What’s worse is that when you do try and hit the button, you often move the whole camera, resulting in a blurry shot. What if you were able to control the camera from another simple device?

The ShutterBall is a simple gadget that controls the shutter on your Android or iOS device. It connects via Bluetooth, so it can be used up to 60 feet away. Since it’s shaped like a small ball, you can cup it in the palm of your hand as you pose for your next profile pic, and give it a squeeze. Or, you can set your phone down, if you want to be in a group shot, and with a click, make sure that you’ve got the perfect photo.

The ShutterBall uses a coin cell battery, and has a 5-year battery life. Unfortunately we do not currently have information on pricing or availability.

Source: ChipChick
[ ShutterBall helps you take the perfect shot with your phone copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

We did hear of the BlackBerry 9720 a few days ago, when it was called the BlackBerry Bold 9720 and shown off on a YouTube video. If you love a blast from the past, then the BlackBerry 9720, also known as the Samoa if codenames are part of your interest, is set to keep you excited. Why do we say that? Well, the BlackBerry 9720 Samoa is said to be running on the now obsolete BlackBerry 7 platform, where it will target those who happen to live in emerging markets, instead of mature markets that are always on the lookout for high end devices.

@evleaks are the ones behind the BlackBerry 9720 Samoa press render leak, living up to their name along the way. The press render does seem to jive with the leaked video that we looked at a few days back, where it will feature a QWERTY keypad as well as an optical trackpad, complete with Send, Menu, End and Back keys to keep it company. Apart from that, it does seem as though the BlackBerry 9720 will feature a bunch of dedicated buttons that are located on the sides of the smartphone, while other rumors point to a measly 480 x 360 pixel display.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | BlackBerry 9720 Samoa Press Render Leaked original content from Ubergizmo.