Jan 11
Did you know that you can hack toasters to play Doom? Well, with this four-minute clip of hacker fiction you can!
Jan 11
Since the PlayStation 4 was launched it has performed better than its rival, the Xbox One from Microsoft. The momentum continued throughout 2014 as Sony’s console took in the bulk of sales. Microsoft countered with price cuts, bundles and discounts to claw back some sales over the holiday season, and that worked, but the price cut has now been reversed. In an interview Sony Computer Entertainment President Andrew House explained how he expects 2015 to be a strong year for PlayStation 4.
House was talking to Nikkei Shimbun, a popular Japanese public, and he first reiterated that PS4’s total sales have now crossed 18.5 million units. The market performance was surprising for Sony itself as PS4’s outperformed PS2’s first year, only 10.6 million units of that console were shipping during the first year, Sony’s current console is selling far better than that. He remains console that PS4 sales will outperform PS3.
Sony will particularly focus on improving software services this year. The official launch of PlayStation Now will take place this year and it will be expanded to non-Sony devices, it was announced recently that new smart TVs from Samsung will be able to access PlayStation Now, and House says that this is just the first step.
On first party development he pointed towards much awaited titles like The Order 1886 and Bloodborne which are expected to drive PS4 sales as well. Sony also wants more casual games which the whole family can participate in.
Sony has had to delay PlayStation 4 launch in China. House clarified that this had to be done because the local government asked for a change in the business plan. So far no new date has been provided.
House did touch upon the DDoS attack that took down PlayStation Network over Christmas. Rightly pointing out that this affected Microsoft’s Xbox Live as well, House said that these attacks are a threat to content business and while these threats can’t be eliminated completely, Sony will make investments to reduce the possibility of something like this happening again.
PlayStation Chief Expects Strong Year For PS4 , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jan 11
The Pew Research Internet Project has released some new data which shows that Instagram was the fastest growing major social network, particularly among adults, in the U.S. last year. Instagram’s growth rate was found to be greater than its competition which brought its total userbase to cover 26 percent of the adult population in the country.
Data showed that there was a nine percent increase over 2013 in the segment of U.S. adults that use this popular photo-sharing social network, which so happens to be owned by the world’s largest social network, Facebook. The report showed that there wasn’t much change in Facebook’s position. It retained its position as the number one social network among U.S. adults with 71 percent having a Facebook presence.
The rise in Instagram’s popularity was also noticed among young adults who are aged between 18-29 years. According to the Pew Research Internet Project as of 2014 over 53 percent of young adults in the U.S. are on Instagram.
The report doesn’t include teenage users who happen to have a big presence on Instagram and it contains no data on Snapchat which has a predominantly teenage and young adult userbase. It also doesn’t consider users outside the U.S.
It goes without saying though that Instagram is on the rise. Last month Instagram announced that it had 300 million active users, registering a 50 percent increase from just nine months back, an impressive feat to say the least.
Instagram Was Fastest Growing Social Network In 2014 , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jan 11
You could hardly walk five paces through the halls at CES 2015 without stumbling over a wireless light bulb. Connected lighting seems determined to be the point of entry to domestic home automation, and there are plenty – startups and larger – hoping to corner the market. Ironically, then, the company which arguably created the market, Philips, had decamped to … Continue reading
Jan 11
SAO PAULO (AP) — A bus has plunged off a mountain road in southern Brazil and into a river bank, killing 9 people and injuring at least 25 others, including children.
The bus company Reunidas says the driver was also killed in the Sunday accident after the vehicle veered off the road near the city of Alfredo Wagner and fell 165 feet (50 meters) down the bank. Seven people died at the site, including a boy, and two more perished later at the hospital. Reunidas’ lawyer Vinicius Marins says the cause is not known yet. The 25 people who were injured remained in local hospitals, he says.
The bus was traveling from the city of Posadas in Argentina to the southern coast of Florianopolis in Brazil. All of those killed and injured were Brazilian.
Jan 11
Top executives at Hawaiian Electric Industries could get payouts totaling more than $17 million if the company’s acquisition by Florida-based NextEra Energy goes through.
Known as “golden parachutes,” the compensation packages are negotiated into employment contracts and paid out in the event that an executive is terminated after a merger or takeover.
HEI CEO Constance Lau would receive $10.6 million in cash and other benefits if she is let go from the company, with or without cause, within two years of the merger, according to her change-in-control agreement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Jan 11
I hate taking the Christmas tree down. I hate the actual boring process, but I also hate the fact that the tree is down. Not so much because the holidays are over, but because I like the tree and now it won’t be there all lit up at night.
There have been so many times in the middle of summer when I’ve walked into the living room at night and I expected to see the tree all lit up in the corner, then I’m disappointed when I realize it’s not there.
I don’t know why this happens, it’s not that I don’t know it’s June or July, but I realized that it might have to be with tv shows in the summer — a lot of them show Christmas in June or July, especially reality shows, because they are usually shown six months after they are filmed, so it would be the Christmas time episodes we’re watching in June or July and I guess this puts the idea in my head that it’s winter, when it’s summer. I guess I get so into the show I’m watching that it transports me into that season. After watching an hour or so of the ladies on The Real Housewives of New Jersey skiing, or snow fighting, or opening holiday gifts, this can put you in a wacky frame of mind.
In real life, I’ve been in San Francisco and thought I was in in New York until I’ve walked outside and saw the Transamerica pyramid building and was shocked back into reality and I’ve been in Key West thinking I was in New York until I stepped outside into the humidity and palm trees. It’s interesting how your mind, or my mind, plays tricks on me. In Key West, I had been watching reruns on New York’s WPIX Channel 11 all night, which for some reason, was part of their cable system in Key West; so after a night of The Odd Couple and The Honeymooners and Cheers, with all the New York commercials shown, and the WPIX New York news thrown in, I just naturally thought I was in the Big Apple when I stepped outside.
Recently I was in a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I thought I was in Boston, it just looked and felt like a place I had been somewhere near Fenway Park, then I was brought back to reality when the bartender spoke in his thick Brooklyn accent. He wanted to know if we wanted more Pickle Backs. We did.
So now that the Christmas tree is gone for the year, I’m sure one night in mid-July, after an episode or two of some tv shows which takes place at Christmas time, I’ll go into the kitchen for a drink, pass the living room on the way, and sneak a peak of the lit Christmas tree, which of course, won’t be there. I’m tempted to leave the tree up all year, I’ve had friends do that. But I can’t, I think by doing that you’ll get so used to seeing it that it’s not a treat anymore. You have to have the summer let down in order to have the December excitement, I think.
Jan 11
After his young daughter looked really, really disturbed when Vice President Joe Biden leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek last week, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) clarified on Sunday that his daughter isn’t creeped out by Biden.
Asked by “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace whether his daughter found the vice president creepy, Coons laughed and said that his daughter, Maggie, did not.
“He’s known my kids their whole lives. Joe was just being thoughtful,” Coons said. “I could hear him, he was leaning forward and whispering some encouragement to her about how when he was sworn in, and his own daughter Ashley was 13 she felt awkward and uncomfortable and he was encouraging her about how to get through the day with lots of cameras and lots of folks watching.
“He was being Joe,” he said. “He was being thoughtful and he was being sweet.”
Biden was in top form as he performed the ceremonial swearing-in ceremonies for senators on Tuesday. He took selfies with the senators and their families and accidentally mixed up Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) with her husband, Gail.
Biden represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 36 years before being elected vice president in 2008. Coons was elected to the Senate in 2010.
Jan 11
Universal took advantage of Golden Globes Sunday to debut the first teaser for “Sisters.” The 20-second clip features Tina Fey (“Y’all ready for this jelly?”) and Amy Poehler (“Oh”) playing siblings. Revelry ensues. This is our new favorite movie. “Sisters” is out on Dec. 18; Fey and Poehler host the Golden Globes beginning Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.
Jan 11
Barely a week after taking effect, a novel state law that makes it easier for gun-rights groups to challenge local firearms measures in court is already sparking change: Nearly two dozen Pennsylvania municipalities have agreed to get rid of their potentially problematic ordinances rather than face litigation.
Joshua Prince, an attorney for four pro-gun groups and several residents, cited the new law in putting nearly 100 Pennsylvania municipalities on notice that they would face legal action unless they rescinded their firearms laws. At least 22 of those municipalities have already repealed them, or indicated they planned to do so, according to Prince, who specializes in firearms law and is based in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania, which has a strong tradition of hunting and gun ownership, has long prohibited its municipalities from enforcing firearms ordinances that regulate the ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of guns or ammunition.
Gun-rights groups complained that scores of municipalities have ignored the 40-year-old prohibition by passing their own, mainly unchallenged gun measures.
Under the new state law, gun owners no longer have to prove they have been harmed by the local measure to successfully challenge it, and “membership organizations” like the National Rifle Association can stand in to sue on behalf of any Pennsylvania member. The challenger can also seek damages.
At least one other state, Florida, also permits a membership organization to file suit over local gun regulations.
The cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Lancaster have sued to overturn the Pennsylvania law, saying the legislation was passed improperly. That lawsuit is pending in Commonwealth Court.
Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, is encouraging municipalities with gun laws to stand pat, at least until the legal challenge is resolved.
“We certainly understand that they feel threatened and concerned. We feel like they have been put in a terrible position by their representatives in Harrisburg,” she said.
Reading City Council signaled last week it intended to repeal laws that ban firing weapons within city limits and require owners to report lost or stolen weapons. Officials said the city could ill afford a legal battle.
“We get ourselves in trouble in terms of trying to circumvent a state law,” said Councilman Jeff Waltman. “We’re not going to solve this with a local gun law anyway.”
The city of Harrisburg plans to defend its ordinances, asserting they comply with state law. The measures ban gunfire anywhere in the city and weapons possession in city parks. There’s also a reporting requirement for lost or stolen weapons.
Harrisburg’s laws are intended to combat gun violence and have the support of the police chief, said Mayor Eric Papenfuse.
“I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all of public safety, but I think it’s an important tool to have, and it absolutely sends the wrong message to try to rescind those ordinances, especially given the epidemic of gun violence we have in cities like Harrisburg,” he said.
Papenfuse denounced the new state law as representing “a fringe ideological view.”
But gun activist Dave Dalton said no municipality has a right to flout Pennsylvania law. He said the law gives gun owners a tool to hold municipalities accountable.
“What gives a town or a city the authority to say, ‘We’re in Pennsylvania, but we don’t care about Pennsylvania law?’ It’s laughable,” said Dalton, founder of American Gun Owners Alliance in the Pocono Mountains, one of the groups represented by Prince.
The local laws have violated gun owners’ rights without making anyone safer, said another of Prince’s clients, Kim Stolfer, founder of Firearms Owners Against Crime.
“I think all of us are pleased it’s a good start, that communities are starting to look at this,” Stolfer said. Before gun groups were given standing to sue, he said, municipal officials “were just going to thumb their nose at a system that wasn’t going to hold them responsible.”
The NRA has not yet contacted any municipality, but said it’s reviewing local ordinances to ensure they comply with Pennsylvania law.
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