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Does the whole “God’s wrath” line ever get old? Not at all, according to the latest screed from the controversial evangelical Christian leader who hosts the daily “700 Club” television show.

Pat Robertson told his audience Tuesday that he believes God will punish America with natural disastersif it continues to push for a compromise in Middle East peace talks.

“[F]rom a prophetic standpoint, every time the United States gets involved in some kind of a pressure on Israel to split their land, there’s some natural disaster that happens here in America,” the televangelist said. “There was a very cogent book written about … disasters that come on America. Jerusalem was given to the Jews, it is their capital, and the whole idea of splitting that capital is just folly.”

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Mayor Rahm Emanuel today announced several changes to the $500 million plan to renovate Wrigley Field, paving the way for approval at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

The administration said a bridge the Cubs want over Clark Street will not be built for the foreseeable future, and indicated no new signs will be built in the outfield for the next 10 years beyond the two large signs already approved.

Those changes were enough for Ald. Tom Tunney to announce he’s now supporting the plan after he spent the day behind closed doors with the rooftop owners, mayor’s office and the team.

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There is something about the infinite beauty of space that draws our attention. My favorite times are when I’m out in the middle of nowhere on a moonless night. Without the light pollution of the city, you can see so many more stars than you ever thought possible. Unfortunately, most people aren’t lucky enough to see these beautiful sights outside. But what if you could see them in your bedroom?

The Starry Light is a special lamp that has been designed to show off a selection of constellations that one might normally see in a specific area of the world, on a specific time. It’s different from most such star lamps in that it’s meant to be used during the day, and not just at night. It has a strong downward-focused light that will illuminate a specific area, but will keep the top portion of your room dim enough that the stars drilled into the dome can shine through.

The Starry Light can be ordered to show the constellations during the equinox’s, or the solstices in the northern hemisphere. But if you want to get really specific, you can specify a location and a date, to show exactly how the stars looked in that place and time. Want to commemorate that first date with your wife where you went stargazing all those years ago? You can do exactly that. Unfortunately, it will cost you around $1300 to do so.

Source: RedFerret

 
[ Starry Light lets you gaze at the constellations inside your home copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

The Syrian Electronic Army isn’t happy with VoIP app developers as of late — following an attack against Tango last week, the politically motivated hacking group has compromised Viber’s support page. The SEA claims to have downloaded database backups from Viber that include phone numbers, device IDs and push notification tokens. However, the company believes that the attack was largely harmless for regular customers; SEA’s team got access to top-level support systems, but not the all-important user databases. They’re kept in a system that can’t be reached by attacks like these, according to Viber. While that news is reassuring, we’d advise playing it safe by watching for any suspicious account activity.

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: AppleSpot (translated)

Apple’s quarterly results are up, and the one thing that many of the financial big brains are paying attention to is the average selling price of the iPhone: It currently sits at around $580, compared to $613 last quarter, which is a big change sequentially. There’s a couple of reasons that could be happening, and they aren’t necessarily bad for Apple.

AT&T introduced some considerably aggressive pricing promotions this past quarter, including giving away free iPhone 5 devices with iPhone 4S trade-ins. AT&T said on its earnings call that it sold more iPhones this quarter than in the year ago quarter, even though it isn’t revealing exactly how many it sold. That likely means it did very well, which means it may have given away a lot of free iPhones. Recall also that T-Mobile introduced the iPhone 5 this past quarter, and that it initially began selling the iPhone at a reduced price compared to its competitors (though it isn’t clear who was absorbing the loss).

This could also be a strong indication that Apple is selling a lot of older devices, like the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, which are still available. Apple charges considerably less for these, and ASP on those are often lower, too. Walmart discounts on iPhone also began in late June, on iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S models, which would also result in lower ASP.

So why would that be good for Apple? 31 million iPhones is one very good reason. Apple increases its market share by pushing ASP lower, which is a long-term boon for the platform and for its overall device sales, since the company finds a halo effect for iPhone owners who tend to buy other Apple kit. And lower ASP could mean it’s making bigger inroads into new and emerging markets, which is also a long-term benefit for the company. Should it introduce iPhone models that are lower cost and cheaper to produce in the fall, that market could open up further, too.

Still, Apple said on its earnings call that “iPhone 5 remains by far the most popular iPhone,” but also noted that they “were also very happy with our sales of iPhone 4 and 4S.” So promotions, more than older devices, may have been a bigger part of the ASP change.