You can’t exactly use Google Wallet everywhere you go just yet, but if you do use it often enough to warrant semi-regular transfers from your bank, then you’ll love its latest update. Now, you can activate recurring bank transfers, even pick the…
Facial recognition – it does sound as though there is a certain magical element about it. How about when it comes to facial recognition for cats? It looks as though the world of biometric security systems have now arrived for your feline friend, and who knows? In the near future, one might even see the use of paw prints in order to access their trust account just in case anything happens to you. I jest on the last bit, but facial recognition for cats is very real. Enter the Bistro face recognition food bowl.
This is one unique, and if one will be able to say it, a smart food bowl, since it is capable of actually weighing the amount of leftover food in addition to water. In other words, the Bistro is capable of actually keeping track of just how much your favorite cat has eaten over the course of time. With this kind of benchmarking ability, you will be alerted to know whether you ought to send your cat to the vet if its appetite level has dropped, or perhaps even increased. Those who are interested in picking up the Bistro face recognition food bowl for cats will be pleased to know that it is set to roll out later this coming spring 2015, and a pre-order will cost $199 a pop.
Bistro Face Recognition Food Bowl For Feline Lovers
, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
I suppose it is just a matter of time before someone would come up with the idea of actually riding the wearable technology wave, and to work on a battery that will be able to recharge itself – through the use of kinetic energy, of course. Hence, here we are with what they call “Ampy”, where Ampy happens to be a spare battery pack that will certainly come in handy during times of trouble. It is currently a Kickstarter project, so if you would like to see it in the flesh, perhaps it would be best to rope in the rest of your circle of influence as well as family members to contribute their fair share of investment, too.
Ampy works this way – all that you need to do is to strap it to yourself, and it will start to charge itself up based on the amount of human movement within. I would like to think that this works best for those who are constantly in motion, especially when you are involved in a pretty rigorous exercise session. At least all of the number of steps taken, or miles ran, can juice up Ampy which in turn, will power your “thirsty” devices through USB. Hopefully, the final design will be something that is worth checking out in the end, since it does look a wee bit too bulky at this point in time.
Ampy Wearable Battery Juices Itself Up Via Kinetic Energy
, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Drones might have come into negative light recently, including an instant where it reportedly came close to crashing into an aircraft – which could end up in disastrous results, not that the world needs another aviation disaster to round off the coming to the end of 2014. However, there are positives to be drawn from the use of drones for sure, where a Dutch-based student has recently unveiled a prototype of what is known as an “ambulance drone”. This particular drone happens to be a flying defibrillator which is capable of reaching heart attack victims within minutes – as there is no need to weave through rush hour traffic, buying perhaps some precious life-saving minutes in the process.
Belgian engineering graduate Alec Momont is the one behind this unique drone, where it is capable of actually flying at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour (60 miles per hour). Momont shared, “Around 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the European Union every year and only 8.0 percent survive. The main reason for this is the relatively long response time of emergency services of around 10 minutes, while brain death and fatalities occur with four to six minutes.”
This ambulance drone of his is capable of delivering a defibrillator to a patient within a 12 square kilometer (4.6 square miles) zone in just a minute, and hence increasing the chance of survival from 8% all the way to 80%. It will be easily spotted, having being painted in a shade of emergency services yellow, and will have half a dozen propellers driving it while it brings along a 4kg load.
Ambulance Drone Could Help Save Heart Attack Victims
, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
It goes without saying that from time to time, companies would update their fair share of apps online in order to bring them up to speed, and to make them relevant with the rest of the industry, and for the users as well. It seems that Google Play Books for Android has just been updated, and to make sure that your eBook reading experience will be more parallel to that of reading actual paper-based books, this update allows you to skim through eBooks now.
If you feel the need to actually go back by a few pages in order to refer to something, or you would like to come up with some sort of temporary bookmark using your finger while you read the pages ahead, those are now translated to Google Play Books for Android. These used to be extremely tough to handle with eBooks in the past, and it does not matter too much if you happen to be reading a book page by page, all the way from the beginning to the end.
With the likes of cookbooks, textbooks, language learning books and other non-fiction material which requires you to reference other pages to double check something, that can be rather challenging with an eBook. This redesign of Google Play Books for Android allows skimming, skipping, and letting you read things at random without following a set number of pages, now how about that?
Google Play Books For Android Updated To Allow Skimming
, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
It was just yesterday when we brought you word on how the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as well as the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) has decided to advise movie theaters to utilize a zero tolerance approach when it comes to wearing various “intelligent” devices to the cinemas. In other words, all wearable technology with video recording capabilities oughto to be banned. Does this include the budding segment of devices known as smartwatches? It really depends on the individual theater operator, really.
These are all just best practices guidelines, and theater operators do have the amont of freedom to actually embrace or ignore this particular piece of advise. Apart from that, it must be stressed that smartphones ought to be “turned off and put away at show time.” I am not quite sure just how they are going to go about enforcing this particular piece of advise, and neither did either association mention Google Glass specifically, and neither were there mentions of any other wearable device named in the policy update.
It all really depends on the good conscience of the wearer of the piece of wearable technology, and if people are aware that such a rule or recommendation is in place, I am quite sure that it will become a habit – not just in this generation, but in future generations to come, too.
Smartwatches Could Be Banned From Movie Theaters, Too
, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Richard Berman, the political consultant called Dr. Evil for his below-the-belt tactics, told energy executives in June that they needed to play dirty to expand areas where they can drill for oil, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Berman, trying to sell a $3 million, pro-drilling campaign to the executives in June, told them that they needed to exploit human fear, love, anger, greed and sympathy to win public support, according to a recording of his remarks provided to the Times.
“If you can tap into two of them, you are that much better off,” Berman told the executives. “The two that resonate the most with people, and that we’re trying to use in this particular campaign, are fear and anger.”
Berman and a colleague suggested digging up embarrassing information on opponents, then framing them as hypocritical. A successful campaign, Berman said, can include reframing the issue for the public and diminishing the “moral authority” of opponents.
Berman told the executives they wouldn’t have to worry about being exposed for funding a nasty campaign.
“We run all this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity,” Berman said. “People don’t know who supports us. We’ve been doing this for 20-something years in this regard.”
Berman was able to provide that kind of secrecy to beverage companies that funded the American Beverage Institute, which he started in 1991. The group lobbied against tougher restrictions on drunk driving, but didn’t have to disclose donors, which included Coca-Cola North America, because it was a 501c6 organization. Berman also headed the Center for Union Facts, which led a $10 million anti-union campaign without disclosing donors.
Berman used his anti-union campaign as an example to show the importance of thinking offensively.
“I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions — that’s my offense,” he said.
Berman told the executives a successful campaign against environmentalists should be prepared to get nasty.
“In diminishing moral authority, sometimes in this case you have to be tougher because you are going after someone that’s got a crown on their head,” he said. “If you … were going to attack Mother Teresa, you better have a very unusual campaign.
“So hardball is something that I’m a big fan of, applied appropriately.”
WASHINGTON — Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) vowed Thursday to keep fighting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriage in his state, even as that effort costs Idaho tens of thousands of dollars.
“I’m not ready to surrender to a few folks in black robes,” Otter said during a gubernatorial debate. “I’m not ready to surrender the will of the people in the state of Idaho, as they expressed in 2006 in an overwhelming majority.”
The Supreme Court ruled this month that same-sex marriage could proceed in Idaho, a response to an appeal to a federal court decision striking down the state’s ban. Otter has since spent $10,000 on outside attorneys to keep appealing. His fight on the matter has cost the state about $90,000 in total.
During Thursday’s debate, Otter said his job is to defend “the entire Constitution,” and that states should decide marriage laws, not the federal government.
When Idaho adopted a constitutional amendment in 2006 banning same-sex marriage, “those people were voting for a value that they had and they were expressing that,” he said.
A.J. Balukoff, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, said Otter was fighting “a losing battle.”
“At this point, the ship has sailed,” Balukoff said. “You’re not going to win that battle in federal court. You might as well start arguing about interracial marriage.”
Curiously, Otter said he would sign a bill banning discrimination in housing, jobs and education based on a person’s sexual orientation. Idaho LGBT rights advocates have been trying for years to pressure the state legislature to move on the issue, to no avail. In the meantime, nine cities have passed related ordinances.
“Yes,” Otter said about signing such legislation. “If that bill were to pass, yes.”
“Many countries go to war and then towards reconciliation. The history of mankind is full of stories of wars between people and states that have come together after fighting for long. Why can’t Arabs be like them?” — H.H. Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
There are two obvious threads running through the selection of world cinema showcasing in this year’s Abu Dhabi Film Festival. One is undeniably the alienated solitude we’ve managed to back ourselves into the corner of through our addiction to social media, celebrity news and sharing everything from what we eat, to when we sleep on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. All I had to do was watch the Taiwanese film Exit by Chienn Hsian to realize the filmmaker’s themes hit too close to home for comfort. I walked out at the end of the screening with a deep sense of desperation.
A still from Queens of Syria by Yasmin Fedda
The other thread has to do with the politics of cinema. Even though most filmmakers agree that political agendas are best kept out of their films, somehow there cannot be a film made about the Arab world, the Middle East today that does not in some way, shape or form bear the unfortunate task of heralding the politics of a nation, or a people. I say unfortunate because I wish stories could be simply human these days, but it seems that even to be so, they have to pass through the political geography in the process. Films such as the documentary Queens of Syria by Yasmin Fedda and the Georgian drama Corn Island by Giorgi Ovashvili are perfect examples. Beautiful stories, ideas, set within the struggles of war and desperation.
How ugly our world is becoming.
But then there are meetings like the ones I’ve been fortunate enough to have at ADFF. Inside the cocoon of the Industry and Press Lounge at the Emirates Palace, I sat with and heard the genius of such personalities as Iraqi-Canadian rapper The Narcicyst, Swiss-Iraqi documentary filmmaker Samir and world cinema actor Ali Suliman, who was born in Nazareth, my favorite city in Palestine. I even had lunch with the director/producer team of the poetic Bengali film Labour of Love, sitting next to Indian actor Irrfan Khan. Now that’s enough to give a girl renewed hope in the world around her.
A still from Labour of Love by Aditya Vikram Sengupta
Perhaps H.H. Sheikh Zayed, the beloved founding Father of the UAE, said it best when he uttered the above quote. It’s out of the deepest conflicts and biggest fights that peace is finally achieved. How many times I’ve argued with someone, really let all my feelings out, only to find in that person my closest friend and strongest ally. Because the only danger in today’s world are hidden alliances and suppressed beliefs.
A piece about the wonder that is the Abu Dhabi Film Festival cannot be complete without mention of the festival’s talented Arab cinema programmer, Intishal Al Timimi, who this year also selected films from Iran and Turkey. He’s the reason I ended up on the Netpac jury and met my amazing co-jurors, our president Vietnamese filmmaker Dang Nhat Minh and Dale Hudson, a beloved professor at NYU Abu Dhabi. It is seldom that there is a true meeting of the minds, especially among three people, but when we put down our selections for our favorite films, it was otherworldly to see three titles all on that list, voted by each of us. The final result will be revealed in just a few hours… But back to Al Timimi.
A still from Memories on Stone by Shawkat Amin Korki
The programmer’s passion for cinema is obvious, and infectious. When he talks about a film he selected, either for the festival or followed since its inception through the SANAD funding arm of ADFF (which he also oversees), Al Timimi shows the kind of love for, and belief in cinema from this Region that can, and will, create an industry. Projects like Theeb, Ghassan Salhab’s The Valley, Shawkat Amin Korki’s Memories on Stone and even the languid Sounds of the Sea by Emirati filmmaker Nujoom Al Ghanem all present the future of cinema, in and from the Arab world. They are projects that open the door to cultures unknown, give voice to the unheard and help build that bridge across misunderstandings and stereotypes, which, lets face it, abound from every side.
I rediscovered my love of life and passion for cinema here in Abu Dhabi. And if I sound like I’m gushing, make no mistake. I am.
Top image by E. Nina Rothe, all images courtesy of ADFF, used with permission
Holy crap, this is amazing. Imgur user grouchymcsurly made this incredible size comparison between the stinky comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and a Boeing 747-400. It really puts it in perspective. This thing is incredibly huge!
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.
