Samsung’s bright idea with the Galaxy S4 Active was simple: Take a Galaxy S4, and shove it in a body that didn’t shy away from drops, dust and water. When our Sarah Silbert put the device through its paces, she found that the device was…
When it comes to the world of smartwatches, there definitely has been a fair number of improvements and strides made in this particular segment. After all, it is a growing niche market that might just explode eventually when the long awaited Apple Watch hits the market. Having said that, the Samsung Gear S Wi-Fi only smartwatch has been released over in Japan, making this a very, very different smart timepiece that has already been introduced not only in the U.S., but also in other parts of the world, where those versions of the Samsung Gear S do come with a SIM card slot as well as support for cellular data from wireless carriers.
It is, however, rather interesting to take note that majority of the smartwatches out there do come with Bluetooth connectivity, although there will be no Wi-Fi. Hence, the new variant of the Samsung Gear S will still be able to handle is still able handle Internet-dependent tasks even without a SIM card slot. Right now, the Samsung Gear S Wi-Fi only version would be made available over on the Japanese carrier KDDI au. It remains to be seen whether Samsung will release this particular version of the smartwatch in different markets elsewhere.
Samsung Gear S Wi-Fi Only Model Hits Japan , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
If you would like to get your gaming kicks in where the desktop PC is concerned, most of the time, enthusiasts would have stuck to building such a machine from scratch, since it offers them the flexibility to play around with a certain budget, not to mention being able to know just what exactly is going into the chassis. Well, Alienware, a name that is synonymous with quality gaming hardware, has just introduced a brand new small form-factor gaming desktop PC known as Alienware Alpha.
First designed to be a Steam Machine, the Alienware Alpha will run on Valve’s Linux-based Steam operating system. Right now, the Alienware Alpha will ship with Windows, and I would suppose that up to a certain extent, Valve’s decision to delay the Steam OS launch until 2015 has something to do with that. As for its pricing details, the Windows-powered Alienware Alpha is not going to burn a hole in your pocket, as prices start at $550 onward.
With Windows 8.1 as the operating system of choice, it will also be accompanied by the Steam game client and Steam Big Picture user interface, where this is being marketed as a game console that also doubles up as a fully functional PC. Other hardware specifications include an Xbox 360 wireless game controller, Intel Core i3 all the way to Core i7 Haswell processors, up to 8GB RAM, up to 2TB of internal memory, 802.11ac WiFI, and NVIDIA Maxwell graphics. [Press Release]
Alienware Alpha Small Form Factor Gaming Desktop , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Birthdays are supposed to be a joyous occasion, and hence, it is no surprise that we hear of Microsoft marking the official birthday of the Xbox One with a fair number of treats, being one of the ways that Microsoft is able to say “thank you”. It seems that one of the perks is set to arrive for those who actually picked up the Xbox One console right from the get go. Yes, you read that right – early adopters of the Xbox One will be on the receiving end of a free copy of Limbo.
Here is a little bit of background information – Limbo happens to be a critically-acclaimed indie title which debuted on the Xbox 360 through the Xbox Live Arcade, and it will be making its way over to the Xbox One in the form of a free downloadable title. Only select gamers will be able to enjoy this particular “offer”, as those selected will be notified through the Xbox Live messaging system.
The congratulatory message reads, “Thanks for being an Xbox One early adopter. To celebrate Year One, we’re giving you Limbo when it’s released. Stay tuned, your free code will arrive here.” There you go – there is value to being the early bird, isn’t it?
Microsoft Offer Xbox One Early Adopters with Free Limbo Copy , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Selena Gomez performed “The Heart Wants What It Wants” for the first time live at the AMAs on Sunday. Earlier this week, she posted a photo from rehearsals, and wrote, “Wasn’t prepared for how nervous I’d be, I mean I’ve done this before. But now it’s just me. All of me.”
She performed in a nude gown in front of an overly sentimental montage (think flowers, eclipses, tearful eyes, wings, and creepy shadows).
BONUS: She moved her bestie Taylor Swift to tears
Gomez released the new single and its music video earlier this month. The emotional track is about her ex-boyfriend, Justin Bieber, who reportedly just unfollowed Gomez on Instagram. The heart does not want your Insta fave, Swaggy Biebs.
After the hot mess that was last week’s episode, Saul is still being held tight in the Taliban’s (re: Haqqani’s) grasp and the embassy is going through with Haqqani’s trade. Five imprisoned members of Haqqani’s guard are being given over in exchange for Saul and everyone is less than enthused. Aggravated by it all, Lockhart is fuming at Carrie when she keeps mentioning an alternate plan that she has yet to flesh out. In addition, Lockhart highly doubts the veracity of Aasar Khan’s claims that Dennis Boyd is the embassy leak. All I know is that someone needs to wring Dennis’ neck soon because that guy is awful — in every facet of his life.
In the first attempt to get Dennis to admit his treason, Redmond gets him into the office under the guise of asking him a personal question. Redmond quickly jumps into talking about Sandy, illegal transfers of information, and how the information has been sourced back to Martha’s, the ambassador, computer. He gives Dennis ample opportunity to come clean and presses him ever so gently to come out with it, but Dennis refuses to take the bait. As Carrie says after the meeting, he knows their evidence is weak so he’s stonewalling them. Carrie is determined, as she always is, and I’m just hoping she doesn’t crash and burn on this effort like she did in trying to save Saul last week.
Speaking of Saul, he’s recovering from a pretty bad beating after his escape attempt. An unknown amount of days after his recapture, Haqqani’s men have a young woman clean Saul up and they throw him in the back of a van. They drag Saul to a room equipped with bright lights and a camera, the latter of which they put him in front of while he is bound and gagged. Haqqani’s men film Haqqani next to Saul as he discusses what he plans to do when he’s reunited with his once-imprisoned comrades. He talks about “taking back” Kabul and his men all cheer as he speaks. Saul starts crying amidst the chatter and I just want to hug the poor man. He doesn’t deserve this.
Carrie’s second attempt to crack Dennis goes straight up interrogation-style. She throws all the incriminating information she knows about Dennis at him and he looks at her stoically and incredulously. Dennis gives no indication that he’s going to relent and doesn’t even show moderate emotion when Carrie says she could have died from the drug swap he enacted. At this point, yeah, I’m thoroughly frustrated with Dennis, but I’m also frustrated with the CIA and how they’re handling this. In all actuality, do they really think someone who is working with ISI and double-crossing the U.S. is going to come clean without any assurance that he’ll be provided safe house? I’m just saying, they’re not really giving Dennis much incentive to break free of his clutches because he knows he’s screwed regardless. You’ve got to give the guy an inch to get a mile, Carrie, even if he is a sociopathic scumbag. Anyway, Dennis releases no intel and Carrie locks him in the interrogation room overnight. #SorryCarriesNotSorry
After leaving Dennis, Carrie gets a call from Saul’s wife, Mira. Her character has become much more likable in later seasons because she’s so incredibly human. In this call with Carrie, Mira reminds her that Saul is not just a part in this large puzzle that the CIA is trying to solve. That he is a man, with a family and a home and a life all his own outside the CIA walls. Mira knows Carrie’s erratic behavior and ability to constantly look at the larger picture. It’s a tender moment and you know that both of these women care about Saul very deeply. I’m glad Mira made the call, but I don’t know if it was immediately necessary. As much as Carrie can be rather irrational with her snap judgments, I think that when it comes down to it she wouldn’t let Saul die. Or, at least, I hope.
Back in the interrogation room, Carrie subjects Dennis to the video of Sandy being beaten, trying to get him to crack. Dennis looks a bit more worn this time around than he did the first time, but he’s still sticking with the “I can’t say what I don’t know” routine. Carrie gets extremely heated and starts threatening Dennis with what she’ll throw at him if he doesn’t comply with her or tell her what he knows. Just when Carrie says her last word and you think she’s done, the door swings open and the ambassador comes sweeping in. Infuriated at Carrie for doing this without consulting her (I mean … rightfully so. It wouldn’t have gone so well, Martha, if Carrie had gone in to your office and said “I’m interrogating your husband because we think he’s treasonous, okay, bye!”). The ambassador grabs Dennis and leaves the room, but not before forcefully telling Carrie that she’s “done here.”
In the ambassador’s office, Martha and Dennis discuss what happened. Martha is fuming at Carrie and asks Dennis what could’ve prompted this and Dennis, yet again, denies knowing anything. She leaves him to go to a briefing about Saul’s release and tells him to stay put. Then, in perhaps one of the greatest twists-you-probably-didn’t-see-coming, she enters a room with Carrie and Lockhart and just when you think she’s going to rip Carrie’s head off, she instead sits down and very calmly tells them that Dennis didn’t say anything. She’d been working with them the whole time and the whole explosion in the interrogation room was a ruse. It’s finally nice to see that Martha isn’t dealing with her husband’s antics anymore. Well played, Martha, you’re a total badass.
Quinn attempts to convince Carrie that he should go with her to the exchange for Saul, but Carrie pushes back and says no. She insists she needs Saul watching on standby because she has the feeling that “there’s something else going on.” Clearly, they’re not going to give Haqqani his men back and Carrie’s concerned that they may kill Saul. Her sixth sense is tingling.
Carrie and Redmond meet with the ISI to discuss the exchange with Saul, with an unsurprising icy reception from Tasneem. Mid-briefing, Carrie feigns a call from Lockhart and calls Aasar Khan from across the room. She knows that the whole exchange process feels weird and wants to know why it feels off. Carrie asks Aasar Khan what’s going to happen during the exchange and we don’t hear his answer. To add further alarm to the already worrying situation, the next scene is a young boy gearing up with a bomb vest and getting into a van with Saul. The van heads to the exchange.
Equipped with a bag of clothes, money and his passport, Dennis attempts to leave his house under the guise of going to his office to grade papers. He’s stopped by the guards around the house who insist it’s no safe for him to leave. As he argues with one guard, Martha arrives and it all comes out: she knows he’s a massive liar and she’s not letting him get away with it. Unrelenting, Dennis acts like he doesn’t understand where this is coming from. Upset and aggravated, Martha has the guard take Dennis to a cell so he cannot leave.
The exchange begins with more tension than can possibly be measured. Redmond and Carrie run everything on the embassy’s side of things and have a team controlling the prisoners. In the ISI corner, Tasneem has taken the reigns and is communicating all movements with Carrie via walkie-talkie. The prisoners have been shown to ISI, who is communicating with Haqqani, and Saul has been forcefully removed from the van to be shown to Carrie and Redmond. Carrie insists that the van leave before they start walking the prisoners toward the ISI members. The van drives away but leaves the boy with Saul. Carrie flips out when she sees the vest and refuses to let the prisoners go until the boy is out of Saul’s reach. Saul, exasperated and exhausted, sits down and refuses to move, putting his head in his hands. He wants to die so that the Taliban doesn’t reclaim the five prisoners. It’s a noble cause, there’s no disputing that, but Saul is too much like Carrie in the sense that he sometimes lets the bigger picture cloud his judgment. They wouldn’t just let him die and he needs to grasp that. Anyway, Tasneem is infuriated by Saul’s behavior and allows Carrie, alone, to go over and talk with him so that the exchange can come to fruition. Carrie and Saul share an emotional moment and eventually, Saul relents and they walk off together. The prisoners are released to ISI and the exchange is complete. Ugh.
The ambassador goes to the cell Dennis has been kept in during the exchange to get Saul back. She tells him how it went, much like most couples discuss how their days went, and then calmly asks him how they got here. Their marriage has fully deteriorated at this point and even now, when everything is past the point of being up in flames, Dennis can still not take responsibility for his actions.
Post-exchange, Redmond, Carrie and Saul sit silent in a car back to the embassy. Redmond’s phone rings and it’s Mira. It takes a few moments for Saul to regain composure, but in the second that he does and he grabs the phone, there’s a massive explosion. The convoy has been hit. Several seconds later, there is another explosion. There are flames and no sign of Carrie, Redmond or Saul. To quote Lockhart after he hears the news of this: “WHAT THE F–KING F–K?!” News of the convoy hit travels fast, as the explosion happened mere blocks from the embassy. Lockhart deploys all the Marines to the explosion site. One Marine goes down to the cell Dennis and Martha are in to tell Martha what has happened and as she goes to leave, Dennis asks if all the Marines have been deployed and, FINALLY, out it comes: Tasneem is his ISI connection. He tells Martha that he’s also told her about the hidden passageway under the embassy.
In the last, and most chilling scene, Haqqani and his fully armed men break into the passageway underneath the embassy. Under flickering basement lights, we see the menacing face of Haqqani as his full-fledged attack on the embassy is about to begin.
Did anyone else find themselves nearly out of breath after this episode or was that just me?
Keep up with “Homeland” recaps here every week. “Homeland” airs on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET on Showtime.
Nicki Minaj Gets Emotional In 'Bed Of Lies' Performance At The AMAs With Skylar Grey
Posted in: Today's ChiliMost Nicki Minaj performances feature a lot of butts and backup dancers, but the rapper decided to slow things down for her performance at the American Music Awards on Sunday. For “Bed of Lies,” the latest single off her upcoming album, “The Pinkprint,” Minaj was joined on stage by Skylar Grey who sings the song’s hook.
Grey, in all white, sat by the piano as Minaj, in an impressive bridal-looking gown, did what she does best. The performance got the two a standing ovation.
Queen of the #Barbz. @NICKIMINAJ, we bow down. #BarbzTakeoverAMAs pic.twitter.com/RXAWZJpeEN
— AMAs (@TheAMAs) November 24, 2014
.@NICKIMINAJ looking divine for “Bed Of Lies” with @SkylarGrey. #AMAs pic.twitter.com/rRMuQ3REW1
— The FADER (@thefader) November 24, 2014
Minaj debuted “Bed of Lies” earlier this month during her performance at MTV’s European Music Awards. A studio version of the song leaked online last week.
Lil Wayne debuted a new track, “Start A Fire,” featuring rumored girlfriend Christina Milian at the American Music Awards on Sunday. ABC censored some of rapper’s verses, but, for the most part, the duo kept the performance pretty tame for broadcast.
The song, which appears on Lil Wayne’s forthcoming album, “Tha Carter V,” was only added to the AMA lineup this week, when the LA Times reported that he and Nicki Minaj would both premiere new singles at the ceremony.
“This is going to be a big night,” Milian told E! News last week. “Wayne is premiering his single and there’s a lot that falls on this because his album is about to come out, the world is going to hear his single for the first time and I have the honor of being on the record and actually brought the record to him which is really cool.”
When John Carney (Once) decided to make a follow-up film about three people trying to maintain passion and artistic integrity in the music business, there was just one ideal choice to write the songs. Gregg Alexander was co-creator and lead singer of The New Radicals, which had a blockbuster hit in 1998 (“You Get What You Give”), before Alexander decided that he did not want to be a big rock star. He dissolved the group to focus on production and song-writing, winning a Grammy for “The Game of Love” in 2003. He has something in common with all three of the lead characters in the film, Keira Knightley’s songwriter, Mark Ruffalo’s record producer, and, as the rock star who has just hit it big, real-life pop star Adam Levine of The Voice and Maroon 5. The songs Alexander wrote for the film are not just gorgeously melodic; they reveal the characters and move the story forward. Lost in the Stars is almost certain to be an Oscar nominee.
In an interview. Alexander and I agreed that we much preferred the movie’s original title, “Can a Song Save Your Life?” to the more generic release title, Begin Again. So of course I had to ask him if a song had ever saved his life.
Absolutely! Yes, look at me now. I would have been back in Detroit probably, maybe, who knows? I could have been working for Target, I could have been a dentist. I think that music is one of those few things that can save your life, and can change your life. I know from personal experience there have been times when I’ve been really upset about something. Just the other day I heard Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie and it completely changed my mood. I went from being a little bit, “what things are bugging me and what’s troubling me right now” and all of a sudden I was like “everything is pretty alright, we have got worse things to worry about than the things that we worry about in Western society.”
His go-to save-your-life songs include “Tenderness” by The General Public and “Just like Heaven” by The Cure. “That always puts me in a good mood. I just love that record.” He also loves “Just Got Lucky” by the JoBoxers and “The Ghost In You” by the Psychedelic Furs, “If you start talking about my favorite songs I’ll be here all day. I can go on for like literally three hours.”
Alexander’s songs are central to the plot of Begin Again. Keira Knightley’s character is very unhappy when the “delicate” song she wrote for her boyfriend gets amped up by Levine’s character for arena performance. So Alexander had to write a song that would be performed in three very different versions.
Interestingly enough, the song was written just on the acoustic guitar and had a really stripped-down energy to it. So in that context it maybe lent itself to the version Keira did because that’s how it was written. It was just in a room like that. But the Adam version gets really big, and has a little bit more life force of its own. It just kind of goes into this kind of wild place and stuff like that. Almost like “Hey Jude”, the way it just kept building and building and building. That was kind of what we were hoping to achieve with the Adam version in terms of building the rock ‘n roll energy of it.
We were taking it from a stripped-down song to a big, big tour de force. When the two versions were both finally recorded and we listened to them back-to-back we could see there was a way for this progression to make sense. Sometimes when you are singing a song that you believe in, if it’s a sentiment that touches you or is true to you for whatever it is that you’re thinking or feeling or going through that particular day or month or year. The idea is, even if you are just seeing the acoustic guitar there is this part of you that wants to believe that there’s a way for literally the whole world to hear. It’s almost like there was a sound system big enough, which God knows will never happen, it would be fun if it did. Because now it would just be headphones. That’s the dream, though, that you would be able to build on it with instruments, the drum, the guitar and bass.
The fact that we were given the opportunity to do that was really exciting. To have the freedom to be able to build on it and made the music bigger was something that we were grateful for. Because it was ultimately John’s film so we had to serve what his desires were in terms of where we would go to, the bombast versus the subtlety. So what we settled on was a nice middle ground. You get to have the best of both worlds.
When Alexander wrote the song, he did not know Adam Levine would be in the film.
So we just wrote the song from the heart. Then when we found out that we were going to have this iconic pop singer deliver goose bumps-level vocals, we were just beside ourselves. And when he came in and it was the right key and everything came together we were just beside ourselves, we were like ‘holy moly the gods up above are looking down on us right now!’
21 days. That’s the time it will take to complete the largest train journey in the world. 6,200 miles (9977 kilometers) that go from Yiwu, China, to Madrid, Spain. It’s also part of the New Silk Road, a Chinese project to gain control over transcontinental cargo transportation between Asia and Europe.