Jun 27
Yes, Amazon is still trying to make the Dash Button happen. The company plans to add dozens of new push-to-buy Dash options this week, ignoring the fact that they never really caught on.
Jun 27
It’s rare that a PC game is still remembered 20 years after its launch, so many of them are forgotten. Not Quake though, this game was of the most influential PC games and one of the first massively popular first person shooter games that helped to spawn the category. It’s been 20 years now since Id software launched Quake the … Continue reading
Jun 27
A new smartphone running the Ubuntu operating system appears to be in the works carrying codename Midori. The first grumblings about the new device have surfaced from a bug report about a trust prompt issues with the device via the Ubuntu Touch IRC and on Launch Pad. According to the chatter, the trust prompt issue causes the mystery Midori device … Continue reading
Jun 27
Not all Twitter bots are racist — some are genuinely creepy, (but in the best possible way). Take @smilevector, an algorithm created by New Zealand neural network researcher Tom White. If you submit a photo of your favorite celebrity in a glum or ne…
Jun 27
Pretty much every phone out there comes with a home button. This lets users return to the main screen to access other apps and functions of the device. Some OEMs opt to create a physical home button, like Apple and Samsung, while others opt for soft/onscreen buttons which some argue is better due to the fact that it isn’t a moving part, meaning less wear and tear.
That being said for those who are fan of the onscreen home button, you might be interested to learn that Google could be making some changes. According to Android Police, they have been tipped off that a redesign home button could be in the works, which you can see for yourself in the mockup above.
From what we can tell, it also seems that not only will the home button be redesigned, but the “back” back has also been changed, along with the multitasking button. The home button is probably the most interesting as it is colored, but we’re not sure why. Perhaps there’s more to this home button than meets the eye.
Perhaps it could be used to launch Google Assistant, or maybe it could animate and change depending on the activity at home. It is also unclear if this will be a feature that will be launched in Android N, so we guess we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime what are your thoughts on its design?
Google Could Be Redesigning The Android Home Button , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jun 27
These days, companies like Qualcomm and Samsung are introducing fast charging technology to their hardware. The idea is that while we are still quite a distance away from smartphones that can last an entire week without charging, having a phone that charges to 100% in an hour would be a welcome alternative.
However if you’ve ever tried fast charging before, or if you’ve tried charging an iPhone with an iPad charger, you know that sometimes it gets a bit hot. Interestingly enough it seems that Sony has decided that maybe slow and steady would be a better idea. It has been discovered in the latest Sony Marshmallow AOSP beta that Sony has introduced the option to charge devices slowly.
Like we said, fast charging can lead to devices getting a bit hot which can’t be too good for the battery. If you’re planning on keeping your phone around for the next 2-3 years, then obviously you’ll want to take care of your battery’s lifespan, and we guess slow charging it would be one way to do so.
Of course you’ll probably take advantage of this feature when you don’t need the phone right away, like if you’re planning on staying home, or if you want to leave your phone charging overnight while you sleep. It’s an interesting idea, but what say you?
Sony’s Marshmallow Beta Has A ‘Slow Charging’ Feature. , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jun 27
Several months ago it was rumored that Samsung could be working on an Olympic Edition version of the Galaxy S7 Edge. Turns out the rumors were right, or at least close to being right as Evan Blass has recently tweeted out an image of the alleged handset, which you can see for yourself in the image above.
The handset’s design is more or less the same as the regular Galaxy S7 Edge. However it does appear to come in a jet black finish that as far as we can tell, has a matte finish to it. The home button and ear pieces have gold accents, and the back of the phone where the camera is has a blue accent which is accompanied by the blue Olympic rings at the bottom.
Unfortunately there is no word on when the Olympic Edition handset will be announced, but with the Rio 2016 Olympics coming up in the next couple of months, we reckon it probably won’t be too long before the handset is officially announced. Given that Samsung does seem to love their themed handsets, it wouldn’t be surprising if this handset is the real deal.
Apart from the new coat of paint, chances are we are probably looking at the same hardware specs under the hood, so don’t expect too much.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge ‘Olympic Edition’ Leaked , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Jun 27
Little Spot is a pretty big winner.
The village of Ramygala, Lithuania held its annual goat beauty pageant on Sunday, and the winner was a female goat named Demyte, a.k.a. “Little Spot.”
“When you have free time, it’s very pleasant to take part in such ceremonies,” one unidentified attendee told the BBC. “It’s as if we’re in a fairy tale.”
After a parade, six goats were selected to be finalists. They were then judged based on aspects such as nicest skin, the news agency reported.
The goats were also dressed up for the occasion.
“The only thing we didn’t do to prepare the goat for the pageant is we didn’t polish its nails — because we thought of it too late,” Demyte’s owner, retired veterinarian Ferdinandas Petkevicius, 74, told Reuters.
Turns out nails don’t make the goat. Even without polish, Demyte took the top prize in the pageant.
Reuters reported that several of the finalists flat-out refused to participate and wouldn’t walk. They had to be carried by their owners instead.
Maybe that makes them the real winners here.
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Jun 27
Despite being the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history, Shannon Miller’s favorite workout these days is decidedly low-impact.
The 39-year-old mother of two is a self-described walker.
“People are always surprised that I don’t do four-hour sweat sessions, or even two-hour sweat sessions,” Miller said. “I don’t have that kind of time and I don’t know many people who do. For me, it’s fitting it in. Like right now, I’m on the phone and I’m pacing around the house getting my steps in.”
It’s a solid strategy. Walking can have huge health benefits, including decreasing obesity risk, lowering blood sugar levels and improving sleep. And it’s government-sanctioned, too: In September, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recommended walking as a gold-standard form of exercise. Murthy a getting at advised walkers get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or five 30-minute exercise sessions, weekly.
Miller, a woman and children’s health advocate who runs her own lifestyle brand and travels around the country for motivational speeches, is a proponent of working manageable 10-minute exercise blocks into her day — some which she films and uploads to her YouTube channel.
“If you are at home, all is not lost. You can get a great workout just with the things in your house and body,” explained Miller, who creates family-fitness challenges for her kids during TV commercial breaks and attributes her toned arms to lifting her 2-year-old daughter. “It’s about really focusing on those baby steps.”
Miller chatted with HuffPost Lifestyle about her diet, her 2011 ovarian cancer diagnosis and how she stays calm and motivated under pressure:
Q: Between giving talks and being a parent, it seems like you’re constantly on the go. What’s your go-to snack when you don’t have time to cook?
A: I’m not a chef by any stretch of the imagination. I tend to say I eat like a 5-year-old. I’ll have an apple with cheese and almonds or fruit and string cheese. I always have nuts on hand, because it’s good protein and sticks with you. If I’m in a crunch, I’ll just have what I call a peanut-butter lollipop, which is just a big old scoop of peanut butter on a spoon. I’ll pair that with fruit or vegetables.
I almost always have a bag of carrot sticks to munch on when I travel. My husband laughs at me because I’m literally that person who always has food in her purse.
Q: Whether it’s competing in the Olympic games or speaking to a packed auditorium, how do you stay calm and motivate yourself to perform?
A: If you’ve done the work, then there’s nothing to worry about. My parents helped me understand that from an early age, and that always made me feel better when I got up to salute the judge before a balance beam routine. I knew that no matter how the routine went, there was nothing more I could have done to better prepare for that moment.
Take a deep breath and say a prayer (which is what I always did), or think about one positive thing in that extra beat breath you take before you go up.
I always pictured butterflies in my stomach. I would picture those butterflies in my stomach and as I breathed in, the butterflies went up to my chest. And then as I breathed out, the butterflies would fly out my fingertips. It’s okay, the butterflies are gone. Let’s go.
Q: How does that translate to your post-Olympics life? How do you handle unexpected situations that you can’t prepare for?
A: I’m a workhorse. I like to be prepared. But at the same time, life is preparation in a lot of ways. You’re always preparing for those things that you can’t prepare for. For me, it’s understanding what I can control, what I can’t control. I prepare the best I can for those things I know about.
That’s how it was in gymnastics as well. You can’t prepare for every situation that happens at a competition, whether they changed the lineup on you, or the gym floods and it’s different than you thought it was going to be. You just have to rely on the training that you had.
I always pictured butterflies in my stomach. I would picture those butterflies in my stomach and as I breathed in, the butterflies went up to my chest. And then as I breathed out, the butterflies would fly out my fingertips. It’s okay, the butterflies are gone. Let’s go.
7-time Olympic medalist Shannon Miller on staying calm under pressure
Something I thought about during my cancer journey, but learned as an athlete, is to get back up. You are going to make mistakes. You are going to have falls. I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at understanding that it’s not about being perfect. It’s about moving through the journey and really learning from your mistakes to be the best you can be each day.
Q: Did being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2011 change the way you thought about your health?
A: You realize you aren’t invincible and things can happen no matter how hard you try. For me, it was doubling down on the importance of making my health a priority and not brushing it off, like a lot of women do. We get busy. We have crazy lives and we focus on everything but us.
Now I don’t take it for granted. I have an issue, I get it checked out, or at least I pay attention to it in a different way than I did before. In your 20s, you’re invincible and nothing can ever happen to you. When something happens to you like cancer, you really start to pay attention.
I hit a rut several years back of getting too crazy with my time. You have two kids and time is even less. One of my non-negotiables is that when I get up in the morning, I take five, usually 10 minutes, to focus on my day.
I use a few of those minutes to be appreciative and grateful for all of the opportunities I do have. I say my prayers, and then I take few minutes to think about my day and look at my schedule. Then I take a few minutes to focus on bigger-picture goals and what I ultimately want to achieve with that day.
It helps set the stage and put me in the right mode.
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Jun 27
SEC Accuses Texas Oil Man Chris Faulkner Of Bilking Investors Out Of Millions
Posted in: Today's ChiliNEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) – Texas oilman Chris Faulkner built a high-profile public persona, raised millions for his oil and gas ventures and courted politicians. But the SEC has alleged that behind the scenes, he cheated investors out of $80 million to fund a “debauched” jet-setting lifestyle.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday filed a lawsuit that alleges a stunning failure of corporate governance at Faulkner’s Dallas-based Breitling Energy Corp and other companies he helped to create.
Based upon inflated estimates of the oil and gas that his companies controlled, the charges said, Faulkner lured hundreds of U.S. investors to back his firms. Their investments were largely used to pay personal expenses for Faulkner, his associates, family and friends, the SEC alleged.
Faulkner, 39, faced a spate of lawsuits in the early 2000s in connection with his previous web hosting business.
The businessman turned his attention to energy drilling during the U.S. shale boom in the last decade. His companies boasted of holding prime drilling real estate in regions like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota.
But after raising funds, Faulkner did little drilling and instead racked up millions in credit card charges, the SEC said.
The lawsuit charged Breitling CEO Faulkner, three related companies and seven other people for activities starting in 2011.
Faulkner, the self-proclaimed “Frack Master,” was frequently featured in the media, including Reuters, offering rosy projections about shale drilling and his own companies’ prospects.
Faulkner used investors’ cash on extravagances including lavish meals, chartered planes, jewelry, strip clubs and female escort services, according to the SEC complaint.
Along the way, Faulkner, his friends and associates violated various securities laws, it said. Breitling and related firms sold investments in more than 20 oil and gas prospects in several states. The SEC said they exaggerated the prospects’ earnings potential and also booked fictional drilling costs.
Solicitations to investors were “replete with material misrepresentations and omissions,” the SEC said.
The SEC’s allegations are “inaccurate and untrue,” said Larry Friedman, a lawyer for Breitling and Faulkner. The companies raised hundreds of millions of dollars for legitimate ventures and they have not been subject to investor complaints, Friedman said.
Faulkner, Breitling and other companies named in the complaint did not respond to separate requests for comment.
Among the red flags that prompted an SEC investigation: Breitling Energy, Faulkner’s publicly traded company, has not filed detailed quarterly or annual financial statements with the agency since 2014, when its former auditor quit.
Breitling has continued to tout drilling plans, but it was not clear how much energy Faulkner’s companies have produced.
The CEO personally misappropriated at least $30 million, according to the SEC suit filed in the Northern District of Texas. He then used business and personal credit cards to spend millions on personal activities, the suit said.
Executives and board members at Faulkner’s companies did not adequately question the expenses, which were not disclosed to investors, the SEC said.
Faulkner dubbed one of his corporate credit cards the “whore card,” the SEC said. During two months in 2014, he used it to charge more than $1 million on travel and entertainment including visits to strip clubs, according to the suit.
Faulkner also spent nearly a million dollars with Status Luxury Group, a New York-based private concierge service, the suit said. Status, which arranges travel, meals and events for clients, last year sued Faulkner and Breitling for around $240,000 in unpaid bills, including a women’s shoe-shopping spree.
Faulkner’s lawyer says the SEC’s personal expense allegations don’t add up.
“Nobody can spend $30 million on steak and travel,” Friedman said. “But this is a competitive business and you spend money to make money. There’s entertainment, there’s international travel.”
BOOM TO BUST
Faulkner has long had a knack for fundraising, capturing media attention, and rubbing shoulders with powerful lawmakers.
Despite a lack of drilling experience, he became a highly public evangelist for fracking and employed a coterie of PR people.
He also courted and contributed to several big-name U.S. politicians, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who visited Faulkner at Breitling headquarters in September 2014.
Faulkner took Breitling public that year. Its shares traded as high as 95 cents but have since tumbled to 2 cents.
After investors had plowed funds into various other companies Faulkner created, the proceeds were illegally shifted back through Breitling, the SEC said. Some went to a friend and to Faulkner’s ex-wife, the SEC said, while Faulkner also used funds to covertly trade in Breitling’s shares, creating the false appearance of heavy investor interest.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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