Twitter’s attempt at automatically fighting abuse hasn’t worked flawlessly. However, you might not mind the missteps quite so much now that it’s implementing some (arguably overdue) improvements to both mute controls and abuse report feedback in its…
Nintendo’s long-awaited Switch has arrived, alongside the even more long-awaited New Zelda. The Switch combines the convenience of a handheld with the power of a home console — at least, that’s the pitch. And while the two roles make compromises in order to accommodate one another, the result may be said to be more than the sum of its parts. Or at least it could be once a… Read More
For years, tanning beds, booths, and sunlamps have been linked to an increased risk of skin cancer, yet the number of people using tanning devices continues to rise. An alarming new study shows that indoor tanning costs the US $343 million a year in medical bills, highlighting the severity of this growing health issue.
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Major League Baseball is experimenting with chemically treated balls that will be easier to grip ― and they could be put into play as soon as next season.
“We think we’re close now,” Mike Thompson, executive vice president at baseball manufacturer Rawlings, told Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. “We’re just waiting for MLB to give us the go-ahead on when they want it.”
The balls are whiter because they don’t need to be rubbed with mud before each game to make them easier to grip. And because they are easier to grip, the league hopes the balls will cut down on pitchers cheating by secretly using their own gripping substances.
When the new balls were used for three games during the Arizona Fall League, players gave them mixed reviews.
“As a hitter, I liked them because they traveled further and you could see them better,” Tigers prospect Grayson Greiner told MLB.com. “From the pitcher’s standpoint, they probably get a little more movement on it.”
But pitcher Austin Voth, a Nationals prospect, wasn’t as happy about the change and did his own rubbing to make up for it.
“They were definitely different,” Voth was quoted as saying. “Those weren’t my favorite. It felt like a big league ball not rubbed up and it felt like it was slippery. Every ball I had, I rubbed it up with dirt. And after that, if felt about the same.”
The website said the balls were treated with a “proprietary chemical” to make the ball “tackier.”
Right now, every ball used in a Major League Baseball game is rubbed with mud ― specifically Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud, a blend of silt and clay taken from a secret location along a tributary of the Delaware River in New Jersey ― to comply with rule 4.01 (c):
“The umpire shall inspect the baseballs and ensure they are regulation baseballs and that they are properly rubbed so that the gloss is removed. The umpire shall be the sole judge of the fitness of the balls to be used in the game.”
Oakland A’s bullpen catcher Phil Pohl showed the East Bay Times how it’s done early in spring training:
The new balls could be used as early as next season, Yahoo reported, but it may take longer before there’s any change.
“It requires a lot of R&D and time and testing to land where we want to be,” Thompson told Yahoo. “We’ve got several formulations that are being tanned into the leather, and there’s another process where we’re spraying it on the leather. We’re trying to see which gives us the best outcome.”
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Snap, the parent company and developer of Snapchat has been pretty much known for only one product, and that is Snapchat which kind of what helped propelled them to fame in the first place. That and their rejection of buyout offers from the likes of Facebook. However in recent times the company has expanded their offerings.
One of those offerings is Spectacles which is basically a pair of augmented reality glasses that looks like a more fashionable version of Google Glass. Now according to a report from the New York Times, it seems that Snap has at one point or the other worked on a drone of their own. However the report is unclear if Snap is still working on the drone or if this was simply one of the company’s many projects and experiments.
The report says “worked” as in past tense, so it would seem to suggest that this is something the company has previously explored but aren’t doing so anymore. Unsurprisingly a Snap spokeswoman declined to comment when asked about it. We’re not sure how a drone would fit into Snap’s product lineup which seems to deal quite a bit with augmented reality, but perhaps it’s just the company’s way of branching out.
In any case take it with a grain of salt since it’s hard to say if this alleged drone will ever materialize, but what do you guys think? What kind of drone do you think Snap would have made, and how do you think it might have tied into their existing products/services?
Snap Apparently Had Worked On A Drone Of Their Own , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
You might have heard or read about it, but in case you haven’t, back in January a 14-year old girl from Miami committed suicide. While suicide isn’t exactly rare, what made this suicide even more unfortunate was the fact that she had broadcasted it live, and that no one seemed to be able to get her in time.
This is why Facebook has recently announced that they will be rolling out new tools aimed at identifying and helping users who might be feeling suicidal, although the company claims that these tools were already in the works before the video. This will be done by using a pattern-recognition algorithm that will try to recognize if a user’s post might indicate that they are struggling. This system will be further enhanced by previous posts that have been flagged, and it will also be on the lookout for comments by other users that might ask, “Are you OK?” or “I’m worried about you”.
Speaking to the BBC, the director of the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Dr. John Draper suggested that Facebook could go further by actually contacting those that can help. “It’s something that we have been discussing with Facebook. The more we can mobilise the support network of an individual in distress to help them, the more likely they are to get help. The question is how we can do that in a way that doesn’t feel invasive. I would say though that what they are now offering is a huge step forward.”
As for those who might be showing tendencies of suicide on live streams, viewers can flag those videos to declare that they are concerned, and Facebook will pop up some advice to the user in question about how they can seek help.
Facebook Launches Tools To Help Users Who Might Be Suicidal , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Whenever you buy a new smartphone, there’s a good chance that new wallpapers will be bundled with the smartphone as well. We have to admit that these wallpapers aren’t really something that we think too much about and more often than not, we end up picking something of our own choosing anyway.
However if you are planning on getting your hands on the upcoming LG G6, then you might be interested to learn that LG appears to have put in quite a lot of time and effort into designing the wallpaper for the smartphone. So much so that they have released the video above which shows the process of them designing and capturing the wallpapers that will come bundled with the device.
Now we know that it’s probably easy to think that these wallpapers were simply drawn up on a computer, but if you were to watch the video above, you’ll find out that quite a lot of effort was put into it, and that the LG G6’s main wallpaper was actually drawn out by hand, measured in terms of the angles and curves, and cropped to ensure that it would fit the LG G6’s 18:9 display perfectly.
If you have a few minutes to spare then perhaps you’ll want to check out the video above, and maybe this should give you some pause the next time you see wallpapers on your phones.
This Is How The LG G6’s Wallpaper Was Created , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
As promised, Xiaomi unveiled at MWC 2017 its first in-house application processor or SoC, the Surge S1, along side the first smartphone to be powered by it, the Xiaomi Mi 5c. It will probably be a while before we see it in action in the real world, but, for now, we have to take Xiaomi at its word. Amusingly, it … Continue reading
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