Ever since I first played Goldeneye 64, I’ve been fascinated by exploring 3D cyber-versions of my favorite fictional places. The Oculus Rift makes that pursuit cooler than it’s ever been. It’s one thing to see static shots of Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment from the same never-changing angles. It’s another to be in there, as if it were actual real.
Just days after Amazon showed off its autonomous Kiva warehouse robots, the mechanized minions are already showing signs of revolt. A pair of Texas goat farmers say they received what appears to be a piece of a conveyor belt from the retail giant, instead of the book about chickens they were expecting.
A month after the FTC announced that it was suing AT&T for throttling the mobile internet speed for unlimited data customers, a new report shows that the wireless company is throttling even more customers than previously thought. It looks like 4G LTE customers now get to enjoy half-megabit speeds. That’s so slow it basically renders your phone useless.
Disney Research has found a way to preserve the awesome quality of high-dynamic range or HDR videos when they’re shown on consumer-level TVs and displays. See, HDR videos can show shadows and light better than footage taken by conventional equipment …
Thanks to a prematurely posted trailer, we now know that Capcom’s Street Fighter V is heading to PlayStation 4 and PC exclusively. The video (which has been pulled) is more of the teaser sort, so it doesn’t delve into whether is this is a timed exclu…
If you haven’t heard the This American Life podcast Serial, then you’ve probably heard people endlessly banging on about how great it is. Despite its massive popularity in the US, the first country to syndicate the real-life murder mystery show will …
When the typewriter was invented, it certainly made it a whole lot more efficient when it comes to writing letters and documents, official or otherwise. However, typewriters can still make mistakes – as in, grammatical errors which boil down to the human using it. When we migrated to using word processing software to get the job done in double quick time, without having to waste paper and use correction fluid, there was also another potent “weapon” in the digital arena, which is that of a built-in spell checker. Well, here is an updated typewriter that might help bridge the gap between the old and new school items. Namely, the $199.95 Typo Preventing Electronic Typewriter.
The Typo Preventing Electronic Typewriter happens to be an electronic typewriter that sports a built-in typo-flagging dictionary alongside a full-line memory which would allow you to correct your work prior to committing it to paper. It is ideal for those who actually prefer the feel of a traditional typewriter, and yet appreciate the helpfulness of word processors. When you are in “display” mode, your typing can be previewed on a 16-character LCD panel and it will not print until you arrive at the end of the line. There is a 78,000-word electronic dictionary that will release an audible alert each time it detects a misspelling, so that you can correct that mistake before it is printed. Even if a typo slip through, there is the built-in lift-off correction system which allows you to right the wrong.
[ Typo Preventing Electronic Typewriter lets you compose a better document, always copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
The Juneau School District superintendent on Thursday said he will remove four books from the fourth-grade curriculum that members of the public called into question this year, saying the controversial material distorted Native American history.
The books from McGraw-Hill Education tell stories of Native experiences, presenting topics like boarding school and the Trail of Tears through a fictional lens.
“It was a matter of looking at the material and saying, ‘Is this the best we can do or can we do better?’ ” said Mark Miller, district superintendent. “It’s just so important that we leverage every minute we have with our kids.”
In May, the district adopted a new language arts curriculum that included the four questioned books — together, they’re considered one week’s worth of supplemental material for the fourth-grade students, Miller said. But, he said, back in the spring, the publisher did not include the books in the district’s packet for review.
When Wild author Cheryl Strayed embarked on her 1,100-mile solo hike across the Pacific Crest Trail in 1991 following the dissolution of her marriage and the death of her beloved mother, she expected to face more than a few challenges. As she wrote in her memoir of the experience, Strayed encountered a rattlesnake, unsavory hikers and even a bear, but there was one truly terrifying moment that was far worse than all the rest.
When she sat down with Oprah to discuss Wild, a pick for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 in 2012 and now a film starring Reese Witherspoon, Strayed described exactly what it was that truly frightened her to her core.
“It was this very hot day and I had come to this pond, basically this oversized mud puddle,” Strayed recalls. “I was so exhausted… I fell asleep on my tarp right next to the pond.”
Suddenly, she was awoken from her slumber under the stars by a very strange sensation.
“I have this sensation that someone is touching me. Just little hands all over. Cool, wet hands,” Strayed says. “I wake up slowly and I realize that I am absolutely covered… in little frogs.”
The tiny creatures had been in the pond beside Strayed, and after the sun set, they emerged from the water. She was in the direct path of their migration.
“I’m covered with black frogs and I jump up shrieking. Shrieking! Running!” Strayed says. “As I’m going, I’m trying not to step on them and kill them… [But] of course I do. I’ve never forgotten the feeling underneath my feet… As I’m running, I’m screaming, stepping on them, trying to get them off, out of my clothes. And I also have to drag all my gear… And I’m dragging all these frogs with me. It was terrifying. “
Oprah squirms and shutters repeatedly as Strayed tells the story, visibly sharing in the author’s squeamish fear over the incident. But not everyone who read Wild understood why Strayed had such a reaction to the small amphibians.
“It was the animal that frightened me the most on my hike. Without question,” Strayed says with a laugh. “I’m glad to hear you’re a girl after my own heart because everywhere I’ve been, they’re like, ‘Why were you afraid of those frogs?'”
“Oh, my gosh,” Oprah says. “I think I would be forever traumatized by it.”
Related: 7 things that didn’t make it into Wild
“Super Soul Sunday” airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET on OWN, with all-new episodes returning in February. Find OWN on your TV.
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By Charles M. Sennott
The war on journalism continues.
On Thursday, Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch published a video of a man identifying himself as Luke Somers, 33, a freelance photojournalist who was reportedly abducted in the capital of Sanaa last September.
In the video, a member of the group, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQA) – which has fueled its operations through millions of dollars in ransoms received for European hostages, US security officials say – attacks US foreign policy.
The man featured in the video also issues a stark warning: “We give the American government a timeframe of three days from the issuance of this statement to meet our demands about which they are aware; otherwise, the American hostage held by us will meet his inevitable fate.”
On the same day, news emerged that Iran’s judiciary has extended Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian’s pretrial detention for another two months while he remains in solitary confinement inside the notorious Evin Prison, which is controlled by Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guards. Rezaian, a dual Iranian and American national, has been detained for more than four months without any formal charges.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other advocacy organizations have called for his immediate release: “If authorities had evidence that Rezaian has committed a real crime, they should have charged him shortly after his arrest,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East and North African Director. “At this point, they should simply release him.”
Before joining the Washington Post, Rezaian was a freelance contributor to GlobalPost in 2010. He was a courageous and insightful journalist who was fascinated by the story of Iran. We met on several occasions in Boston and he often said that he was aware of the perils of reporting in Iran, but felt compelled to tell the story. Rezaian is among 41 members of the media who are currently incarcerated in Iran, according to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
Rezaian, like many correspondents in the region, was keenly aware of Iran’s history of arresting and detaining Western journalists. In June 2009, Iason Athanasiadis filed written dispatches and photo essays for GlobalPost during Iran’s street protests. He was detained at the airport, arrested and held for three weeks in Evin Prison before we were able to work with his family and friends to help secure his release. NPR’s Roxana Saberi and Newsweek’s Maziar Bahari were also detained and eventually released.
The steady pace of arbitrary arrest and detention as well as the kidnappings and beheadings of American freelance journalists James Foley in August and Steven Sotloff in September has galvanized the global journalism community. A group of international news editors, journalists and advocacy groups, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, the Overseas Press Club, the International Press Institute, The Frontline Club of London, The GroundTruth Project and others, have dedicated ourselves to a shared commitment to standards for safety for journalists in the field and to draw on lessons that need to be learned.
A draft document, which we have been passing around and working to finalize, is intended to clarify a new set of shared expectations and responsibilities for news organizations and field correspondents – whether staff or freelance or local hires – in a time of unprecedented peril.
At the CPJ annual dinner last week, Alberto Ibarguen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, delivered a powerful address on the reality journalists are facing these days.
“There is a new war on journalists,” said Ibarguen, one that is producing unprecedented casualties.
The years 2012 and 2013 amounted to the worst two-year period on record for the CPJ: 144 journalists were killed and some 200 more were behind bars at any given time.
So far in Syria, 73 journalists have been killed. More than 90 have been abducted since 2011, of whom 20 are still missing, the CPJ estimates.
“Not just new battles, but an entirely new war … a 21st century war, with blurred geographic lines and intense digital media. Terrorists are the shock troops in this new war. They are not like the old censors. Today’s terrorist will kill a journalist not to stop a story, but to create one. They recruit in social media. They practice press release by execution,” Ibarguen said.
“They see traditional media struggle to adapt to the new digital age. They see the number of well-resourced international correspondents dwindle. They seek to exploit those weaknesses and they prey on the freelancer and the local reporter,” he said.
We are both sobered and saddened by this steady drumbeat of horrific news about our colleagues trying to do their jobs. We realize that the rules of field reporting, particularly in places such as Iraq and Syria, have radically changed.
But we are also inspired by the lives of these colleagues, by their passionate commitment to telling stories in the under-covered corners of the world and to bearing witness to people, the non-combatants, who suffer the most in any war.
Their work – our work – as journalists is necessary and invaluable, and never before has it been so relentlessly under attack.
GlobalPost Co-founder Charles M. Sennott is Executive Director of The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit initiative whose mission is to train and mentor the next generation of international correspondents to do social justice reporting that can make a difference, and to do it safely.
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