The current crop of Android Wear smart watches certainly isn’t perfect, but the LG G Watch was actually a pretty good first attempt . If you’re curious how a smart watch might fit into your life, you can score one from Verizon’s online store right now for just $100. [LG G Watch, $100]
Challenging a sibling or cousin to a wishbone breaking contest is as much a Thanksgiving tradition as stuffing, pumpkin pie, and awkward family conversations. And thanks to some important research recently conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan, we now have some actual strategies to help ensure you always break off the biggest piece and *have your wish come true. (*Wish may not come true.)
The Syrian Electronic Army, a group of pro-Assad-regime hackers, has decided to celebrate today by infesting a bunch of popular news websites with cheery Thanksgiving popups informing people that they’ve been hacked (spoiler: they haven’t).
It’s the time of year where we all give thanks, and among many other things, we here at Lifehacker are thankful for all the free apps out there that improve our lives (and the developers that make them!). Here are 50 of our favorites.
Microsoft will hold an event this January to show off the new features of Windows 10, according to The Verge. Although January is traditionally dominated by the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Redmond is apparently planning a standalone event later …
If you hear any of these today, RUN.
Just for the record: I’m thankful for my family, my work, my country, and those fighting to keep
me safe. I deeply appreciate the gift of a beautiful sunrise, a long walk on the beach, a swim in the ocean, and every day I get to be on the planet with my three over sized, goofy dogs Polly, Dorothy and Hank.
But I want to offer a special thanks to the technologists of the world — all those who work
anonymously in the world’s labs and engineering departments to come up with the circuits, code
and contraptions that have combined to change life as I know it.
I know that technology sometimes cheapens our lives, diverts us from deeper meanings, pollutes
our world and, in the wrong hands, even threatens our lives. (It can also break our hearts, as I
learned when my hard drive crashed, taking with it months of work that even computer geniuses
working in a “cleanroom” in California could not bring back to me. Back up your files, people.)
I like it anyway.
I know that science is making people healthier, the world cleaner, societies safer, transportation
faster, humanity more hopeful. And I appreciate all of that. I really do. But this thank you is all about me, a member of a generation that knows that “CC” on your email actually stands for carbon copy (those sheets of paper with ink on them that you put between two pages of blank paper in a typewriter are thankfully all gone).
In ways my children never can because they were swaddled in technology’s benevolence
I have points of reference. I remember the heady liberation of my first three-minute-a-page fax
machine, and my first cell phone that was the size of a brick. I’ve been in line at the post office.
In no particular order, to all the technologists who have made my life easier, faster and better,
thank you for:
Not having to get out of the chair every time I want to change a channel.
More than 600 channels beamed from space. I only watch seven of them, but I like knowing they’re there. You never know when you’ll want to see a cheetah chase a wildebeest.
Putting the great, global brain of the internet at my fingertips. Need the current population of Zimbabwe? 15 149 838.
GPS maps and the soothing voice of the lady who tells me when and where to turn. She’s a genius.
Cable television programming which gives me “The Honorable Woman” instead of “Wife Swap”.
One device that can be smaller than a deck of cards holds my appointments, my work and
everybody I know. When necessary, I can use it to make a phone call.
Text messaging and Snap Chat. Sure, it’s ruining the English language, faces look freaky and it’s not very personal. But with a husband constantly traveling, a son running his own business, a daughter at college and me walking the quiet halls of an empty nest, I’ll take it. After all “Luv U” is now a universal language.
Twitter is great and so important to let as many folks who sign up on my site what I had for lunch and where I ate it. I can even post a picture of the food.
Instagram shows important people in my life (and some I don’t even know or would care to know) the most private parts of it — even if they are not particularly interested.
Being able to find the perfect pair of shoes without leaving the house. And then sending them back for free when I realize they aren’t as perfect as they looked.
Giant TV screens and theater quality sound, with nobody munching popcorn right behind me or
with a giant head right in front of me. Just 3 big dogs in my lap. Snoring.
Letting me buy the two songs from a CD that I want without paying for the eight that I don’t.
Most of all dear technologists ….
Thank you for putting me in charge. You have moved power from the center to the edge. You have broken down the barriers. You have removed the filters. You have created an electronic democracy that Thomas Jefferson would have loved.
I look forward to hydrogen cars, household robots, and moon colonies.
Until then, thanks again for my iPad.
CLEVELAND (AP) — The family of a 12-year-old boy fatally wounded by a Cleveland police officer said surveillance video of the shooting shows that if the officer had not acted so quickly the youngster would still be alive.
The video made public on Wednesday shows Tamir Rice being shot within 1½ to 2 seconds of a patrol car stopping near him at a park in Cleveland on Saturday. It shows the boy reaching in his waistband for what police discovered was a pellet gun that shoots non-lethal plastic projectiles. He died the next day. Tamir’s family said in a statement released by their attorneys that they hope Cleveland police and Cuyahoga County prosecutors “thoroughly examine” what happened at the park that day.
“It is our belief that this situation could have been avoided and that Tamir should still be here with us,” said the family. “The video shows one thing distinctly: the police officers reacted quickly.”
The patrol officer who shot Tamir was identified Wednesday as Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old rookie who began his career in Cleveland on March 3. He previously spent five months in 2012 with a department in suburban Independence, but four of those months were in that city’s police academy.
Loehmann’s partner that day was identified as Frank Garmback, 46. He has been with the department since 2008. Both are on paid administrative leave pending a decision by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office whether to pursue any criminal charges.
Much of the video footage shows Tamir alone in a park on an unseasonably warm November afternoon. He is seen pacing, occasionally extending his right arm with what appears to be a gun in his hand, talking on a cellphone and sitting a picnic table with his head resting on his arms.
The gun wasn’t real. It can be bought at sporting goods stores for less than $20. Tamir’s was lacking the orange safety indicator usually found on the barrel and, from a distance, was indistinguishable from a real firearm.
At one moment, Tamir is sitting at a picnic table in a gazebo. He stands and a police car zooms into the frame from the right and stops on the grass, just a few feet from Tamir. The passenger door opens and Loehmann shoots Tamir before Garmback can get out the driver’s side door.
It’s unclear how far Tamir was from Loehmann when the officer shot him, but Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said Wednesday that it was less than 10 feet.
The low-resolution video shows Tamir reaching to his waistband and then bending over after being shot. His body is mostly obscured by the patrol car when he falls to the ground. Garmback can be seen walking around the car and kicking what is said to be the airsoft gun away from Tamir.
Tomba told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that an FBI agent who was working a bank robbery detail nearby arrived within a few minutes and administered first aid to Tamir. Paramedics arrived three minutes later. The boy died on Sunday at a Cleveland hospital.
Tomba said the city was releasing the video at the behest of Tamir’s family.
“This is not an effort to exonerate. It’s not an effort to show the public that anybody did anything wrong,” Tomba said. “This is an obvious tragic event where a young member of our community lost their life. We’ve got two officers that were out there protecting the public that just had to, you know, do something that nobody wants to do.”
On Saturday, a person had called 911 about a male pointing a gun at others at the park. The caller told the 911 dispatcher that the gun was “probably fake,” then added, “I don’t know if it’s real or not.”
Tomba would not discuss statements the two officers gave after the shooting, saying they were part of the investigation. Nor would he discuss details of the radio conversation between the officers and a dispatcher except to say they were apprised that they were on a “gun run.”
David Malik, one of the attorneys representing Tamir’s family, said Wednesday that he hoped the shooting of Tamir would lead to reform. He cited Cincinnati, where he said the police department, police union and the community worked collaboratively.
“Hopefully, incidents like this won’t occur again,” Malik said.
___
Associated Press writers Jennifer Smola in Cleveland and Kantele Franko and Ann Sanner in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s top leader on Thursday said he would not stand in the way of continued nuclear negotiations with world powers and would accept a “fair” agreement, but vowed not to bow to bullying by the United States.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke on Iranian state television, saying “I am not opposed to the extension of the talks, for the same reason that I wasn’t opposed to the talks per se.” Khamenei said Washington frequently changes its stances toward Iran in the talks because of its domestic problems, a reference to differences between President Obama and Republicans who now control the U.S. Congress.
“They raise a word today. The other they withdraw from it, because of domestic problems,” said Khamenei.
He said Iran would accept a fair and sensible outcome of the talks, but would not be intimidated.
“We accept rational words; we accept fair and sensible agreements. But if there are bullying and excessive demands, no we won’t accept. The Islamic Republic from top to bottom and neither the people nor the authorities will accept such remarks,” he said.
Referring to the waning popularity of President Obama, low turnout in the recent congressional election and racial protests in Ferguson, Missouri, Khamenei said, “The U.S. leaders need a big victory,” to overcome their domestic problems.
Khamenei has the final say on all Iranian matters of state.
Iran and the major powers agreed Monday to decide by March 1 about what steps must be taken and on what schedule. A final deal is meant to follow four months later.
The Western powers suspect that Iran’s nuclear research has a military dimension, but Tehran continues to insist the program is peaceful, focusing on power generation and medical research.
HuffPost Live shares four guiding rules that hope to make your Black Friday shopping experience more fruitful and less taxing.
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