After a long exclusive spell on Windows Phone, MixRadio is finally expanding outside of Redmond’s mobile platform. The music-streaming service, which Microsoft sold to messaging company Line last year, announced today that its app will be available o…
Panasonic and their range of digital cameras have graced the market for quite some time already, where we have seen some rather tough cookies like the LUMIX TS6 grace the scene. This time around, however, it would be more of the photo taking experience than to have a tough camera that can handle more than the usual roughness, and we are talking about the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G7.
This unique shooter will feature an exclusive 4K PHOTO feature which will tap into the high resolution of 4K Ultra HD video in order to improve the speed of photo capture. As mentioned, the exclusive 4K PHOTO feature will let you pause and extract high resolution pictures from 4K video in order for you to enjoy every single moment, meaning there is no more risk of missing that special moment ever again. Apart from that, the LUMIX G7 will have a great degree of flexibility since it is compatible with more than 24 compact lens options, and it has been specially built on the next generation interchangeable lens camera standard (Micro Four Thirds).
Not only that, the “mirrorless” Micro Four Thirds design would also pave the way for a lighter, more compact camera body, and at the same time, offer cutting-edge 4K video, audio, creative controls, wireless, super-fast intelligent-focusing and exposure technologies that are not able to be pulled off by traditional DSLRs. In addition, the LUMIX G7 will also have the ability to record stunningly smooth, high-resolution QFHD 4K video in 3840×2160 at 30p or 24p in MP4 in addition to the Full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 60p video in AVCHD Progressive or MP4 (MPEG-4 / H.264) format with practical full-time Auto Focus (AF).
There is also a failsafe of sorts, where recording stops when the continuous recording time exceeds 29 minutes and 59 seconds, or should the file pass the 4GB mark. A 16MP Digital Live MOS Sensor is incorporated to achieve higher resolution and higher sensitivity image recording with minimum noise, letting shutterbugs hit the ISO 25,600 mark, too.
It will be able to take in UHS-II SDXC/SDHC memory cards, and will arrive in the middle of next month in a trio of configurations – black with a 14-42mm kit lens, pewter/ gun metal with 14-42mm kit lens at $799.99, as well as in black with a 14-140mm kit lens at $1099.99.
Press Release
[ Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7 delivers 4K photo shots without missing a beat copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
By day you are a mild-mannered everyman, but at night you can become a superhero while lying in bed. Forget about fighting crime. Your superpower is catching some Zzzzs.
Each of these Heroes Never Sleep masks features a high quality cartoon-like design that makes it look like the superhero is half asleep. You can choose from The Hulk, Spider-Man and Batman for $15 or $17(USD) each or get all three for $47. You might as well sleep in geek style.
These masks are a fun gift and they would definitely make your spouse or roommate laugh. Superheroes look funny trying to stay awake so they don’t miss any villains. The Batman one is the best.
[via This Is Why I’m Broke]
I’ve been helping people with problem debt for decades and for that entire time a constant question has been the guilt or demand to donate when dealing with debt. It’s a loaded subject.
For example, those who feel compelled to donate first to their religious organization feel a moral imperative to do so. Yet others feel people have a moral imperative to first repay creditors. Which choice is more moral? See, it’s a damn slippery slope. Neither is but both are just as important. Or are they?
What about the need to donate to yourself for retirement? That’s important too. See my cost of getting out of debt calculator to see what those donations will cost you in lost retirement income.
But recently Howard Dvorkin of Debt.com published a great Q&A on this very subject and he gave some great advice about how to evaluate who you give money too. It’s a tip I’m aware of but I would never have thought about writing about.
Here is what Howard had to say.
As chairman of Debt.com, I answer many reader questions about money. However, those questions often involve…love.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows that couples fight often about money. I’d guess that half my questions fall into this category. Here’s one I just received the other day:
Question: My wife and I are finally trying to buckle down and fix out finances. We have around $7,000 on two credit cards, and we’ve drawn up a really tight family budget. We’ve each given up stuff we really like – craft beer for me, premium cable channels for her. But she still wants to give money to every charity that mails us something, especially if they come with a magnetic calendar for the fridge or return-address labels. We spend a couple hundred dollars a year on this, but she says it’s off the table. I say it’s ON the table. What do you say?
Answer: I believe you should give to charity with the same scrutiny you’re giving to your budget.
In other words, you can learn how to spend wisely, you can learn how to save wisely – and you can learn how to donate wisely.
I applaud your wife for wanting to help people. She’s not alone. Just this month, a study from TD Bank showed, “72 percent of Americans said they would be happy to donate loose coins each week to support a favorite cause,” while “94 percent are willing to sacrifice personal spending (on new clothing, coffee or a meal out) to support a charitable cause.”
However, donating to charity by simply stuffing a check in an envelope that comes to your door isn’t the proper way to be charitable. How much do you really know about these places? Think about it this way: You don’t buy clothes without trying them on first.
Just as you’ve devised a spending plan, do the same for your charitable giving. The TD Bank survey shows 72 percent of want to “assist local charities over national or international causes.” Why? One reason is to simply see the effects of your money in action.
I’d also recommend you check out Charity Navigator. This site offers a wealth of information on a charity’s financial health and its transparency. For instance, I’m a big fan of Junior Achievement, so I checked out its Charity Navigator page and found a four-star rating and a 94.59 out of 100.
Finally, I’d set a dollar limit on how much you can afford to give to charity each year, then take some time ensuring you’re spending wisely on the charities whose causes move you. Remember, you should stretch every dollar not only on what you spend for yourself and your family, but for what you spend on others, too.
Howard Dvorkin is a CPA and chairman of Debt.com, an educational resource for those who want to conquer all forms of debt in their lives.
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Asians Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States; their population is expected to double to more than 47 million by 2060. Yet the needs of these communities are rarely discussed, because AAPIs, in the aggregate, are also the highest-earning and best-educated ethnic groups in the United States. A common perception is that they are the model minority: the doctors, techno-wizards, and successful business owners.
However, the success isn’t evenly distributed, and these communities face serious problems, just as other minority groups do. The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI) often cites compelling data to make this case: Asian-American and African-American students have the highest rates of remedial coursework; one out of four Korean Americans goes without health insurance; one out of every three AAPIs is limited in English proficiency; and only 18 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders over the age of 25 hold a college degree.
The “model minority” label makes things worse for large sections of these communities, because their needs are often overlooked or misunderstood and then rarely addressed in government programs and by social-service organizations. Lack of disaggregated data perpetuates this label.
Last Monday WHIAAPI convened a meeting of AAPI leaders at the White House to discuss this issue and set the wheels in motion to correct it. The attendees included secretaries and senior administration officials from a range of government agencies. A handful of congressmen were in attendance. I was also present.
The consensus was that we needed to start by recognizing the hardship that AAPI groups face; correct the dearth of research and data; increase educational opportunities, especially for certain AAPI subgroups; improve access to health care; boost entrepreneurship; and use new technologies to reach them.
Frank Wu, the dean of the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, pointed out, for example, that AAPI students face an extra burden because of the stereotype that they are mathematics and science geniuses. Most are not, so there needs to be an effort to correct the misperceptions. In fact, Wu noted, most AAPI students are enrolled in community colleges, not four-year private institutions. Many of them are first-generation students, and some face language barriers, financial burdens, and significant family responsibilities.
I highlighted the opportunities to use technology to bring together and uplift communities. Most apps that Silicon Valley is building, for example, are for the elite: to hire people to do chores such as laundry and grocery shopping; to rent vacation homes; to share photos; and to stream video. There is not enough focus on apps for social welfare, for teaching culture and languages, and for guiding new immigrants. We should be mentoring and supporting AAPIs in starting companies that address their community needs.
I also advised the meeting to help minority groups build networks that allow them to help themselves. This is how Indians went from being perceived — and positioned — as low-level engineers to being overrepresented in the ranks of CEOs in Silicon Valley in the 1990s.
In the 1980s there were hardly any firms founded by people born in India, despite tens of thousands of engineers’ having immigrated to the region. In 1999 some 7 percent of Silicon Valley’s start-ups were founded by Indians, according to U.C. Berkeley Dean AnnaLee Saxenian. My research at Duke and Harvard showed that this proportion had increased to about 15 percent by 2005. An immigrant group that constituted hardly 6 percent of the valley’s workforce was achieving disproportionate success in a land and culture that was foreign to them.
How had this happened?
In short, it was through immigrants’ recognizing the disadvantages that they had, learning from one another, and helping the next generation. One networking organization, the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), played a major role in the success of Indians. TiE helped mobilize the information, knowhow, skill, and capital needed for starting technology companies, and its members provided seed funding to start-ups. They came together to uplift their community and give back to the country that had enabled them to achieve so much success.
This is what all minority communities need to do.
Led by Kiran Ahuja, WHIAAPI also staged a magnificent event at The George Washington University the following day. It drew nearly 2,000 community members, federal officials, and others to share experiences and stories and gain tools with which to mobilize their communities. President Obama inaugurated the White House Summit on AAPIs via video. It was a great start to the networking that AAPI communities need in order to uplift themselves, and it underscored the importance of showing up in D.C. to flex some AAPI muscle.
My hope is that entrepreneurs can take the baton from Ahuja and perform the same magic for their communities that TiE did for Indians in Silicon Valley.
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Phones are getting smarter, drivers seemingly less so.
A survey released this morning shows that many motorists have expanded their behind-the-wheel activities beyond texting to include using Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, taking selfies and even shooting videos.
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‘m surprised at just how little teens know about basic banking these days.
I recently opened a checking account for my 18 year old at our credit union. It was a real eye-opener. I think she was more excited about the ability to choose picture on the debit card versus the freedom of having the account!
Here’s what I’ll go over with my teenager about basic banking:
1. Checking and savings accounts. Checking and savings accounts are the basics of your financial life. It amazes me just how many adults cannot balance a checkbook these days. Instruct your teen that when they write a check or go to the ATM, remember to record it in the register as soon as possible. It’s an absolute must in a consumer based economy that we teach our kids that they cannot spend more than they have in their checking account.
Plus, they need to learn to save a portion of everything they earn. Start with 10%. Have them deposit 10% of everything they earn from the first day. Make it a habit. Money from that part time job will add up over time. It will be the best advice they ever get. I wish I had 10% of every dollar I earned from age 15. I probably wouldn’t be working!
2. Online banking. You might think this is fairly simple. Even for a generation that was raised on technology like Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. It’s not. You need to sit down with your teen and show them how to transfer money to their savings (don’t show them how to move it from savings to checking!). Hopefully they don’t need bill pay yet, but you could show them how you do it.
3. Balance a checkbook. There are a few tricks to getting this to the penny. Make sure you show them how to do it. When I was young I recorded everything that I did in the register as I spent. That way at the bottom of the register, I had a true balance of what was available. There are lots of ways to do it, but make sure you show them a way that makes sense.
4. Using a debit card. Debit cards are really simple. The money comes right out of your checking account just like a check, but with the convenience of plastic. Show your teen how to use it at gas pump. I did and it was pretty cool to watch. Don’t forget they need to record these purchases in the register right away. The main point here is show them how to be responsible with the card. It will be their training ground for a real credit card later on.
5. Reading bank statements. Reading a bank statement can be daunting, even for adults. When the statements come, sit down with your teen and show them how to read it. As you know, it will be divided into sections that will make it easier. This is where the rubber meets the road. It will show you if they’ve been diligent about recording their activity.
It will be a little work to teach your teen about basic banking. It will payoff in the long run though, and it will give them a skill set they’ll use the rest of their lives. So don’t take it lightly. I just hope you can pry that small idiot box from their hands long enough!
If you liked my article, you can subscribe here for free. I’ll have my virtual paperboy toss one in your inbox every Friday.
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DUBLIN (AP) — A Northern Ireland bakery was found guilty Tuesday of discrimination for refusing to make a cake bearing the slogan “Support Gay Marriage,” a verdict welcomed by human rights activists but denounced by Christian conservatives in the British territory.
In her ruling, Belfast Judge Isobel Brownlie called the bakery’s cancellation of the order “direct discrimination for which there can be no justification.” The judge said the bakery was a business, not a religious organization, and therefore had no legal basis to reject an order based on a customer’s sexual orientation or beliefs. She said the bakers knew the customer, Gareth Lee, was gay and they would have provided him a cake bearing a message that supported traditional heterosexual marriage.
The judge ordered the family-run Ashers Bakery to pay Lee 500 pounds ($775) and legal costs, which have run into the tens of thousands.
Northern Ireland’s Equality Commission pursued the lawsuit on behalf of Lee, who had ordered the cake for a gay rights event. Same-sex marriages were legalized last year in the rest of the United Kingdom but remain unrecognized in Northern Ireland.
“This is not about the cake,” said Michael Wardlow, chief commissioner of the Equality Commission. “It’s about whether someone like Gareth must walk into a shop or hotel or restaurant and wonder: Can I be served here because they may have a different religious opinion of me?”
Ashers Bakery initially accepted Lee’s order but called him two days later to cancel it, citing the bakery owners’ evangelical Christian beliefs. Lee had wanted the cake to depict “Sesame Street” characters Bert and Ernie alongside the pro-gay marriage slogan.
Opinion polls indicate majority opposition to gay marriage in Northern Ireland. In March, thousands rallied in support of Ashers Bakery.
The bakery owners’ son, Daniel McArthur, said their family would refuse to make the cake if asked again.
“We just want to live and work in accordance with our religious beliefs,” he said. “We know we’ve done the right decision before God, and we’ve no regrets about what we’ve done.”
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Emojis are the language of the Internet, so when we went to the Webby Awards on Monday night we had to ask some of the stars there about their favorite emojis.
There are more than 700 emojis on the iPhone, but those don’t always express the fullest range of human emotion. Sometimes you have to invent your own.
The stars of the Netflix comedy “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” told us which emojis were their favorites and which ones they felt were missing. We have a feeling the titular character would be both obsessed with and confounded by emojis, but actor Ellie Kemper simply loves them.
“It’s so weird how they look exactly like people,” Kemper told The Huffington Post backstage at the Webby’s. “I always do one to my husband that’s like ‘I’m sorry!'” she said. “It’s like ‘I messed up.'” Of course, we asked her to act it out:
If Kemper could create an emoji, it would be one that means “hurry!” she says. Here’s what it would look like:
That face would definitely make us step on the gas.
Tituss Burgess, who plays Titus Andromedon on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” told HuffPost that his favorite emoji is the “praise hands.”
“When something is so good, it’s like ‘hallelujah!'” he said. Here’s his impression of that emoji:
When asked what emoji he wished existed, Burgess didn’t hesitate for a second before saying “hair toss.” There aren’t enough emojis with attitude. Here’s what that would look like:
We’re looking forward to a second season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” next year.
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In the aftermath of the Baltimore riots, our politicians unfortunately have failed to articulate any big vision about the underlying cause of the problem and the existence of a poor underclass in America.
So why do we have a poor underclass? Why does a poor underclass exist in our society?
It is not due to single moms. It is not because schools are substandard in poor neighborhoods. It is not the product of white racism against black people. It is not a result of police officers shooting black citizens without justification.
While these various issues may exist and may warrant mitigation, this is not what created such a large underclass. Solving these various issues, while important, will not solve the overall problem. Even if all illegal police violence were magically ended this instant, the underclass would still exist, and it would still be plagued with all the same problems of poverty, crime, blight, and lack of opportunity. The current focus on police misconduct is merely treating a symptom of the disease while ignoring the cause.
If we wish to get serious about helping the poor underclass instead of just policing it, then we must be honest about what is causing it. We must be willing to face our own imperfections as a society. It’s time. And we can handle it.
So let’s face facts and call a spade a spade. The problem is, in fact, “systemic.” It is not just a little wrinkle here or there that can be quickly ironed out. The problem is that we have a very serious flaw in our overall system.
Our beloved economic system of free-market capitalism based upon competition leaves a significant number of people behind.
Yes, it’s true. And it is plain to see. Now, this is not to say that we should scrap our entire economic system and start over from scratch. No. Our system has plenty of positive aspects so let’s not throw out the baby with the bath. But we must stop pretending that our system is a model of perfection that offers equal opportunity to everyone. It does not. Instead, we need to openly address the critical flaw in our system and begin a national discussion about solutions, particularly during this upcoming presidential campaign.
The essential problem is that our entire economic system is based upon the massive underlying assumption that whatever activities earn the most money, will also deliver the greatest benefit to society. While this may have been largely the case a couple hundred years ago when our system was established, it is hardly the case today. We now know full well that highly profitable activities can inflict enormous damage upon society, like polluting the environment, engaging in monopolistic practices, selling cigarettes and on and on.
Today, corporations have hit upon a new bonanza for increasing their profits, which is to cut expenses from the workers. It is like a modern day gold rush. And who could blame them? After all, they are just doing what corporations are supposed to do. Namely, make more money. This is what our system incentivizes them to do. As a result, the corporate shareholders and senior executives become ever more wealthy by cutting expenses from the workers down below and redistributing this money up to themselves at the top.
This has caused the great population of workers in the middle and lower classes to fall further and further behind. Corporations have imposed upon workers measures like freezing or cutting wages, increasing the employee share of health insurance, ending 401(k) matching programs, eliminating pension programs, rightsizing, outsourcing, downsizing, centralizing, and just plain old layoffs. Globalization has been an enormous factor with corporations eliminating high-paying U.S. jobs and relocating them overseas to exploit ultra-cheap foreign labor. As a result, money is shifted away from the workers and into the pockets of wealthy shareholders and executives. We see this reflected very clearly in the statistics of income inequality with the rich growing ever richer and the vast majority of the people growing ever poorer.
Let’s face it, this failure is a systemic failure. Our system does not prohibit this destructive behavior, but in fact, our system actually incentivizes this behavior. Our system rewards people with fabulous wealth for engaging in activity that clearly harms society. This is not how our system is supposed to work. Our system is supposed to reward only activities that benefit society, not that tear it apart.
The situation in Baltimore illustrates the result of the systemic flaw in our economic system. We clearly see that a significant portion of our society is being left behind to struggle.
The vast underclass in this nation was not caused by single moms, and it will not be fixed by enhanced training of police officers. We need to start addressing the bigger picture here that our system of free-market capitalism and competition is failing to adequately distribute wealth to the middle and lower classes. We need a more fair economic system that does not incentivize exploitation, but instead, that prioritizes financial security for all human beings throughout our society, regardless of color or test scores.
We need a system that works not only for a privileged few, but that works for all of us together.
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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.
