Hyundai has something to prove in the midsized segment, and the 2015 Sonata is the car it’s aiming to do that with. Dropping the droopy design for a tauter, more sturdy appearance, and stepping up its game with more usable performance, clever electronic toys like smart cruise control, and interior space that belongs with a class above, the new Sonata … Continue reading
It goes without saying that most of us own a plethora of wall chargers these days – there is no escaping from that fact, considering the number of portable devices that are in our possession. After all, there is one for the smartphone, another for the tablet, oh yeah, how about the notebook? Do not forget about the GPS as well if you are about to venture into unfamiliar territory! Having said that, it would be nice if the chargers that we own at the moment would be able to come in smaller form factors, but this is not the case all the time, although some manufacturers have already done their part to make sure that they squeeze down and miniaturize as much as possible. The superCUBE from Scosche has just been announced, where it claims to be the smallest universal 12W (2.1A) USB wall charger on the market.
The Scosche superCUBE is touted to be 40% smaller compared to the other 12W chargers in the market, and there is also the superCUBE flip that is a wee bit larger, where it features flush folding prongs. Regardless of which particular superCUBE model that you decide to pick up, they will both be iOS and Android compatible, making use of intelligent charging circuitry in order to juice up USB powered devices at the fastest rate possible, without being affected by the make or model, now how about that?
These are true blue clever wall chargers that can immediately recognize the draw and supply the necessary power accordingly, doing all the thinking while epitomizing the drawing power of it being a ‘plug and play’ mobile accessory. Since the Scosche superCUBE is so small, it takes up very little space when plugged in, which would provide easy access to other outlet ports, in addition to making them an ideal travel partner. Both the Scosche superCUBE and superCUBE Flip will retail for $19.99 a pop if you are interested.
Press Release
[ Scosche announces the superCUBE USB universal wall charger copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
How many of you still have your collection of film strips at home, stored away carefully to make sure that the passage of time does not end up destroying the template of whatever precious memories that you have left? Since we are living in a digital age right now, how about taking advantage of technology and turning things around? You can do so with the Sanwa 400-SNC024 Film Scanner. This particular device will come with a 14-megapixel CMOS imaging sensor alongside a 2.4” LCD display that lets you check out scans even as they are being made at the moment.
It has been specially designed to convert 35mm slides and negatives into color or monochrome image files, all without requiring the use of a computer as an intermediary device, now how about that? The Sanwa 400-SNC024 itself will rely on a trio of white LEDs in order to deliver quality scanning at 3,200 dpi, whereby all of the scanned images will be stashed away on an SD memory cards, although you might want to take stock of the remaining capacity from time to time since it maxes out at 32GB in this case.
Expect the Sanwa 400-SNC024 film scanner to retail for $1,160 (after conversion) a pop. Expensive? Yes, but how much money would you place on the value of your memories?
Sanwa 400-SNC024 Film Scanner , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
There were rumors flying around in February last year that talked about how the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Star back then is set to make a splash in the entry level smartphone market, while the handset made its debut a couple of months after those rumors. Having said that, the Samsung Galaxy Star 2 will continue in the footsteps of its predecessor, bettering it in just about every other way as you will find out right after the jump.
For starters, cheap does not have to mean looking awkward, and the Samsung Galaxy Star 2 comes in a stylish and portable design which will go down well with those who hate the phablet form factor, but prefer a smartphone that can be operated with just a single hand for that no-frills experience.
One will find the Samsung Galaxy Star 2 being powered by Android 4.4 KitKat, while it runs on a single-core 1.0GHz processor, is accompanied by a 2MP camera at the back, has 512MB RAM alongside 4GB of internal memory which can be further expanded up to 32GB via its microSD memory card slot, a 3.5″HGVA TFT display, a 1,300mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi connectivity thrown into the mix. Expect the Samsung Galaxy Star 2 to keep you entertained right from the get go thanks to the presence of eight downloadable Gameloft games right out of the box with each purchase. [Press Release]
Samsung Galaxy Star 2 Breaks Into The Entry Level Smartphone Market , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
The Los Angeles (LA) school district seems to have stepped on the brakes when it comes to placing an iPad in the hand of every student, and not just to expand the program to include laptops and hybrids. In fact, voters did approve of a bond sale to spend a whopping $1 billion when it comes to upgrading the school district’s technology assets, with a first approval of $30 million to pick up 30,000 iPads in order to kick off a trial of the new technology, alongside expectations that this particular contract could eventually increase to the tune of $500 million after a complete roll out of the program.
It looks like the iPad roll out is now stopped at the moment, where some of the hybrid and laptops that are being tried out include machines from Lenovo, the Surface Pro 2 from Microsoft, Chromebooks being a possibility, as well as other options from Dell.
I would not be too worried if I were Apple concerning the iPad purchase program come grinding to a halt – there is always the bigger market out there in other countries, but certainly half a billion dollars in sales is a nice figure to add to the company’s bottom line at the end of the day under the sales column. However, this incident goes to show that healthy competition does bring about the best in different companies.
LA School District’s $500m iPad Trial Halted , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
As graduation celebrations pass, you may be left with a plethora of self-guidance books given to you by various people as gifts. If you haven’t found one that you like, there’s no need to fear. I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe will provide you an accurate portrayal of college, freshman through senior year.
The story features a multitude of characters, raging from ages 18 to over 20, who all attend Dupont University, a fictional college. Charlotte Simmons — one of the main characters — first appears in the novel as she is graduating high school. A small town girl, she is hailed as a prodigy, due to the fact that she is the valedictorian of her high school. Throughout the novel, we see Simmons transition into college. She comes face-to-face with adversity of all kinds: roommate troubles, money issues and rigorous classes.
Other characters are weaved into the novel: Jojo Johansson, Adam Gellin and Hoyt Thrope. Jojo gives us the perspective of being an athlete in college, and the corruption that can occur from that title. Adam is a senior, sulking in his state as a young adult, and how much he has had to sacrifice to be where he is today. Hoyt Thrope fits the description of the typical frat guy: rich, popular and powerful. Yet, he is at a crossroads of his life, when the future is lurking ahead.
The novel discusses themes of peer pressure, stereotypes and the overriding gap between the rich and the poor. To me, I treat these characters as people. I Am Charlotte Simmons made me believe that these characters are people, because each of them deals with real challenges.
While the novel was written in 2004, the story is still relatable and credible. Though the book is lengthy, you will learn more about the college experience than you will with any other book.
“No, pigeon, breeding with me would be counterproductive. We have incompatible genitals, pigeon.”
To an outside observer, any mating ritual might seem a little strange.
The exchange of a drink for a date, the yawn choreographed inside the movie theater just so you have an excuse to lean in, the significance of placing your lips on theirs when their usual job is keeping food inside your mouth and pushing words out: it all only works because the rituals are played by humans for other humans.
Unfortunately, the gallant young pigeon really doesn’t get his target audience.
My Drunk Kitchen star, Hannah Hart joined us live at VidCon 2014 to chat about engaging her community off of YouTube.
Her new book, “My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut “, which is currently available for pre-order and comes out in August is a self help parody.
“It’s all just one big wild ride. I’m so grateful that the community that’s been built around this cooking show is made up of people that are likeminded about the things that matter,” Hart told us.
How did Curiosity snap that “selfie” without getting its robotic arm in the picture?
That’s what curious folks have been asking about the amazing self-portrait the rover recently took to mark its first anniversary on the Red Planet.
HuffPost Science asked you to weigh in with your theories, and you came up with some that were, well, pretty weird.
@huffpostscience @huffpostscience @huffingtonpost The Rover took the photo of itself in a bathroom mirror… On Mars.
— PK (@paymanofficial) June 27, 2014
@HuffPostScience @HuffingtonPost Sit on table delay 2 second and run very fast? #rover
— Chad W. Eaton (@chadweaton) June 27, 2014
(See slideshow below for more).
For the real explanation, we turned to the scientist who created the “selfie” image, Michael Ravine, advanced projects manager at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego:
“We stuck the arm out in front of the rover and used the arm to shoot enough images to cover the entire rover and all the terrain around it,” Ravine told HuffPost Science in an email.
Okay, so the selfie isn’t a single image but a mosaic of many separate images. We get that. But why is it that the arm “holding the camera” — the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI — doesn’t appear in the picture?
Ravine answered that question with one of his own:
Q: Why isn’t Bill Clinton’s arm in this picture?
A: He bent it at the elbow away from the camera, so it’s outside the camera’s field of view. The explanation for the self-portraits we’ve shot of Curiosity is the same. For the sequence that took the self-portrait mosaics, the arm is mostly crooked at its “elbow.” If you were standing next to the rover when these images were taken, it would have looked something like this simulation:
And as Ravine went on to explain, “It is easier to keep the robotic arm out of MAHLI’s field of view that with a typical cell phone camera because MAHLI has a narrower field of view than a typical mobile phone.”
Now you know!
The energy is frenetic, the pace is furious — one bounce off the post or ricochet off the crossbar and chaos ensues — producing a pinball-like effect, sending players scrambling, sliding, diving, even hurling their bodies about — anything to score or more importantly to protect their own goal.
Since early spring (and ending in mid-July) this high-quality, edge-of-your-seat and heart-stopping action has been taking place on the field, on the ice and on the pitch. While each of these sports is unique they possess a number of similarities. The most interesting being their coming of age in the U.S. sports world resulting in a dynamic shift in how Americans now perceive them amid the landscape of this multi-sports nation.
Lacrosse, hockey and soccer have been on full display over the past few months, captivating TV audiences, setting records and proving why they have been the choice of so many young athletes across the country for more than a decade. And it’s easy to see why since these sports are built around speed, relentless pressure, wicked skill sets, modern-day grit and rabid fan bases.
For so long confined to specific geographical regions, these sports with foreign roots and Native American heritage have lived in the shadows of their more popular counter-parts: football, basketball and baseball. Yet each year they gain momentum, receiving greater exposure among the masses due in large part to expanded media coverage and the continuing evolution of social media.
The year 2014 has been kind to these sports, with ice hockey and soccer getting a huge adrenaline shot on the international stage thanks to the Sochi Winter Olympics and the World Cup in Brazil. Along with lacrosse and their respective national organizations and professional leagues a conscious decision was made in the late 1990s to infiltrate the sports culture by targeting early adopters — otherwise known as kids. But to be successful it would require patience and money — two precious and hard to come by commodities, especially when going up against the Goliaths of American sports.
Beginning at the grassroots level, soccer, lacrosse and hockey wove their way from coast to coast, stealthily maneuvering through the crowded field competing for the attention of America’s youth. Bit by bit, town by town, city by city these three sports began making inroads — often igniting a ground swell of interest with boys and girls in the most unlikely places. Lacrosse in the inner city, ice hockey in South Florida, soccer in cattle country, not only had this trio managed to score a relevancy trifecta they were becoming a force in determining the future of sports in this country.
Once hard-pressed to find schools, leagues and recreation centers participating in these sports, it is now difficult to find places where they aren’t being played. In many states they’ve become the fastest growing sports with a large contingency of these athletes now playing year round and on elite travel teams. Youth soccer, lacrosse and ice hockey have thrived in this social media driven generation helping to propel them toward the forefront of teen and young adult culture. While sports they’d worked so hard to even be mentioned in the same breath with — baseball, tennis and even football — are now facing their own set of struggles.
Soccer, lacrosse and hockey have become big business from the local youth leagues to the professional teams many of these kids aspire to someday play for. Seeing the vast financial opportunities these sports present, television networks, global brands and Madison Avenue have jumped into the fray. Their popularity is no longer an aberration as all three sports continue to trend upward across all demographics and socio-economic classes.
Need evidence? Look no further:
• World Cup 2014: To date both ESPN and Univision continue to set ratings records, according to Nielsen. The U.S. vs. Portugal game now ranks as the most-watched soccer match ever on ESPN. It also became the most-viewed soccer match ever in the United States across any network. (Germany vs. USA likely to deliver even greater ratings.)
• Mexico vs. Croatia became the most watched group stage match ever for Univision Deportes.
• Not surprisingly this is the most social World Cup producing an increase in followers of more than 80 percent. Brands like Budweiser, Adidas, Puma, Nike, Dunkin Donuts and Volkswagen have engaged in real-time digital and social marketing — while sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have registered more than impressive numbers when it comes to views, posts and tweets.
• Multi-screen viewing and app downloads (favored by 12-17 year olds and 18-29 year olds) have already surpassed 2010 numbers along with early projections for 2014 according to Mashable.com.
• Over 750,000 played lacrosse in 2013, according to U.S. Lacrosse, an increase of 25,000 plus from the year prior.
• It is the fastest growing sport in both high school and college with over 36,000 athletes playing NCAA lacrosse on 60 different teams. Another 39 teams have been added to the 2014/2015 seasons.
• ESPN continues to air more college lacrosse games than any other sports network. It also broadcasts the entire NCAA D1 Men’s lacrosse tournament, the D2 and D3 Men’s lacrosse championship and the Women’s D1 lacrosse semifinals and finals.
• NBC Sports Groups’ airing of the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs saw increased ratings according to Nielsen, across all rounds from those of previous years.
• Ratings increased 57 percent from 2013 in round one play.
• Game seven of the Western Conference finals was the highest rated non-Stanley Cup finals game since 1996.
• NBC saw a strong ratings increase in the 18-34 year old demo across the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs. Can you say advertisers dream?
• Stanley Cup Finals — game one, game four and game five saw record ratings in local markets translating into strong national numbers.
These statistics tell only part of the story, as does the continued investment into these sports on the professional, collegiate, high school and youth league levels from heavy hitters like TV networks, top brands and advertisers.
Judging from the raucous crowds during the Stanley Cup playoffs, the 79,000 plus in attendance for the 2014 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Final Four and the unbridled excitement and emotion that has been on display for the US Men’s National Soccer Team at the World Cup it’s hard not to believe the real story is about what kids have known and parents have said for years… soccer, lacrosse and ice hockey are here to stay and they will continue to be influential sports for future generations.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
