It’s been a tough week for farewells. We’ve seen the NES Classic get canceled, Microsoft pull the plug on Vista, and the impending end of free registration for California’s electric vehicles. Numbers, because how else would we know how much time we h…
Breathable boxer briefs, Apple’s PowerBeats3, and popular adjustable dumbbells lead off Sunday’s best deals.
We came across a leaked trailer of the upcoming Star Wars game a few days back and it was later confirmed that the official trailer for this game will be released over the weekend. EA has now released the official Star Wars: Battlefront 2 trailer. It’s not just an official version of the trailer that was leaked online earlier this week, it offers more than what the leaked version did.
The official Star Wars: Battlefront 2 trailer reveals some key details about the game’s single-player campaign which is going to focus on a TIE Fighter pilot who swears vengeance against the Rebellion after she witnesses the second Death Star being blown up while she’s on the forest moon of Endor.
It appears that the game is going to assign the role of hero to the Empire, a role that’s traditionally been limited to the Jedi or particularly to characters like Han Solo. Characters like Rey and Kylo Ren all make cameo appearances in the expanded multiplayer version of this game.
It’s also evident from the trailer that the game is going to focus a lot on space battles which will not only be challenging but a hell of a lot of fun as well. A release date hasn’t been confirmed as yet but Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is expected to be released in the fall this year.
Official Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Trailer Released , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
There have been countless reports about LeEco’s ongoing financial troubles. The company recently confirmed that it was giving up on its Vizio acquisition. It just can’t seem to catch a break. Despite launching with much pomp and circumstance in the United States late last year, the company’s products haven’t really performed that well in this market. It has now decided to discontinue its EcoPass video and content service in the United States.
LeEco offered a three-month free trial of its EcoPass service to all customers who purchased one of its smartphones. EcoPass brought together content from a wide variety of services and offered it alongside a warranty and cloud storage.
It may have viewed EcoPass as the key to breaking into the U.S. market, offering it as an added incentive to those who picked up products like TVs and smartphones from LeEco. The plan hasn’t worked out as well as the company would have hoped, though.
LeEco confirmed to TechCrunch that it has already discontinued EcoPass. “We are replacing EcoPass with 3-months of DirecTV Now with every purchase of a LeEco ecophone or ecotv.”
DirecTV Now’s is AT&T’s standalone online TV streaming service. It offers live streaming of more than 60 channels on a wide variety of platforms. “We believe this provides greater value to our customers since it has over 60 channels that include the latest movies and shows,” LeEco adds.
LeEco EcoPass Content Service Discontinued , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
If you rely on just a password to protect your online presence then you’re taking a big risk. It’s not uncommon for passwords to get leaked or online services to get breached. That’s why there are additional options one can consider to add another layer of security. Two-factor authentication provides one such additional layer of security and now Twitter has gained support for two-factor authentication apps.
Almost all major online services like Facebook and Twitter offer support for two-factor authentication on their own. However, the feature can be a bit difficult to configure on some services which is where two-factor authentication apps come in handy.
Twitter allows users to generate a one-time login code using its app’s built-in tools or through SMS. Using this wouldn’t make a lot of sense to people who use authentication apps like Authy or Google Authentication. Now though, it will be easier as Twitter has support for such apps.
It appears that Twitter added support for these apps rather quietly. The folks at AndroidPolice hear from a developer over at Twitter that this feature actually went live late last year or early this year.
Those who want to use these apps to further protect their Twitter accounts will first have to enable two-factor authentication on their phone number and open Twitter on the web to access the Settings menu. Under Account, they’ll find a button titled “Setup a code generator app.” This QR code needs to be scanned with the relevant two-factor authentication app to enable the feature.
Twitter Now Supports Two-Factor Authentication Apps , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Tesla is gearing up to launch its first mass-market all-electric sedan in July this year before it starts mass producing them to meet the outstanding demand of hundreds of thousands of units that have already been pre-ordered by customers. That’s not all the company has up its sleeve, though. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the company is going to unveil its electric semi truck this September.
“Tesla Semi truck unveil set for September,” Musk tweeted, adding that the “Team has done an amazing job. Seriously next level.” Musk has also said that the company is going to unveil an electric pickup truck in about 18 to 24 months.
The company referred to its plans for a truck in the Master Plan that was made public in July last year. “We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate,” it said.
Tesla hasn’t revealed much about the company’s first all-electric semi truck. A spokesperson for the company has said that no further information will be provided at this point in time beyond what Musk has already shared in his tweet.
It goes without saying that many will be interested in finding out what sort of range will this semi truck provide, what the charging times are going to be, and most importantly how much it’s going to cost.
Tesla Electric Semi Truck Will Be Unveiled This September , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
ANKARA/ISTANBUL, April 16 (Reuters) – Turks cast their votes in a referendum on Sunday that would give sweeping new powers to President Tayyip Erdogan and herald the most radical change to the country’s political system in its modern history.
Opinion polls have shown a narrow lead for a “Yes” vote, which would replace Turkey’s parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency and may see Erdogan in office until at least 2029.
The outcome will also shape Turkey’s strained relations with the European Union. The NATO member state has curbed the flow of migrants – mainly refugees from wars in Syria and Iraq – into the bloc but Erdogan says he may review the deal after the vote.
A crowd chanted “Recep Tayyip Erdogan” and applauded as the president shook hands and greeted people after voting in a school near his home in Istanbul. His staff handed out toys for children in the crowd.
“God willing I believe our people will decide to open the path to much more rapid development,” Erdogan said in the polling station after casting his vote.
“I believe in my people’s democratic common sense.”
Some 55 million people are eligible to vote at 167,140 polling stations which opened at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) in the east and 8 a.m. in the rest of Turkey. Voting ends at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Turkish voters abroad have already cast their ballots.
DIVISIVE VOTE
The referendum has bitterly divided the nation. Erdogan and his supporters say the changes are needed to amend the current constitution, written by generals following a 1980 military coup, confront the security and political challenges Turkey faces, and avoid the fragile coalition governments of the past.
“This is our opportunity to take back control of our country,” said self-employed Bayram Seker, 42, after voting “Yes” in Istanbul.
“I don’t think one-man rule is such a scary thing. Turkey has been ruled in the past by one man,” he said, referring to modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Opponents say it is a step towards greater authoritarianism in a country where some 47,000 people have been jailed pending trial and 120,000 sacked or suspended from their jobs in a crackdown following a failed coup last July, drawing criticism from Turkey’s Western allies and rights groups.
“I voted ‘No’ because I don’t want this whole country and its legislative, executive and judiciary ruled by one man. This would not make Turkey stronger or better as they claim. This would weaken our democracy,” said Hamit Yaz, 34, a ship’s captain, after voting in Istanbul.
Relations between Turkey and Europe hit a low during the referendum campaign when EU countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, barred Turkish ministers from holding rallies in support of the changes. Erdogan called the moves “Nazi acts” and said Turkey could reconsider ties with the European Union after many years of seeking EU membership.
GUARD KILLED
Kurdish militants overnight killed a guard in an attack on a vehicle carrying a district official from Yildirim’s ruling AK Party in southeast Turkey’s Van province, security sources said.
They said Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants staged the attack in Van’s Muradiye district. A second of the AKP official’s guards was wounded and 17 people were detained over the attack, they added.
In the southeastern Diyarbakir province, two people were killed and one wounded in a gunfight in a village schoolyard which was being used as a polling station, other security sources said. The cause of the clash was not immediately clear.
On Saturday, Erdogan held four separate rallies in Istanbul, urging supporters to turn out in large numbers and saying it “will be a turning point for Turkey’s political history.”
Erdogan and the AK Party have enjoyed a disproportionate share of media coverage in the buildup to the vote, overshadowing the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Erdogan has sought to ridicule CHP’s Kemal Kilicdaroglu, playing videos during rallies to illustrate what he describes as the opposition leader’s ineffectiveness, and has associated the “No” vote with support for terrorism.
Kilicdaroglu has accused Erdogan of seeking a “one-man regime,” and said the proposed changes would put the country in danger. “This is not about right or left… this is a national issue… We will make our choices with our children and future in mind,” he said during his final rally in the capital Ankara.
Proponents of the reform argue that it would end the current “two-headed system” in which both the president and parliament are directly elected, a situation they argue could lead to deadlock. Until 2014, presidents were chosen by parliament.
The government says Turkey, faced with conflict to the south in Syria and Iraq, and a security threat from Islamic State and PKK militants, needs strong and clear leadership to combat terrorism.
The package of 18 amendments would abolish the office of prime minister and give the president the authority to draft the budget, declare a state of emergency and issue decrees overseeing ministries without parliamentary approval.
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WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is set this week to hear a closely watched case testing the limits of religious rights, and new Justice Neil Gorsuch’s judicial record indicates he could tip the court toward siding with a church challenging Missouri’s ban on state funding of religious entities.
Trinity Lutheran Church, which is located in Columbia, Missouri and runs a preschool and daycare center, said Missouri unlawfully excluded it from a grant program providing state funds to nonprofit groups to buy rubber playground surfaces. Missouri’s constitution prohibits “any church, sect or denomination of religion” from receiving state taxpayer money.
Gorsuch, who embraced an expansive view of religious rights as a Colorado-based federal appeals court judge, on Monday hears his first arguments since becoming a justice last week. He will be on the bench on Wednesday when the justices hear the Trinity Lutheran case, one of the most important of their current term.
Gorsuch, appointed by President Donald Trump, restored the Supreme Court’s 5-4 conservative majority.
Trinity Lutheran wanted public funds to replace its playground’s gravel with a rubber surface made from recycled tires that would be safer for children to play on.
The U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state and guarantees the free exercise of religion.
At the very least, a victory for Trinity Lutheran would help religious organizations nationwide win public dollars for certain purposes, such as health and safety.
But it also could bolster the case for using public money for vouchers to help pay for children to attend religious schools rather than public schools in “school choice” programs backed by many conservatives. For example, Colorado’s top court in 2015 found that a Douglas County voucher program violated a state constitutional provision similar to Missouri’s.
Trinity Lutheran’s legal effort is being spearheaded by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative Christian legal activist group, which argues Missouri’s policy violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of free exercise of religion and equal protection under the law.
If the church wins, “religious organizations cannot be excluded from general public welfare benefits that apply to everybody,” said Erik Stanley, an alliance lawyer representing the church.
Referring to Gorsuch, Stanley said, “He has definitely been a friend of religious liberty. So we are hopeful that will continue when he’s on the court, and we’re grateful he gets to participate on this important case.”
In 2013, Gorsuch sided with the evangelical Christian owners of arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby and allowed owners of private companies to object on religious grounds to a provision in federal healthcare law requiring employers to provide medical insurance that pays for women’s birth control.
Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion that Hobby Lobby’s owners faced a choice “between exercising their faith or saving their business.” The Supreme Court later affirmed the ruling.
Missouri said there is nothing unconstitutional about its grant program.
“Trinity Lutheran remains free, without any public subsidy, to worship, teach, pray and practice any other aspect of its faith however it wishes. The state merely declines to offer financial support,” the state said in legal papers.
The church has drawn support from the religious community including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Mormon Church and Jewish groups.
‘OPEN THE FLOODGATES’
Groups filing legal papers opposing Trinity Lutheran, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said government funding of churches is precisely what the Constitution forbids.
“Forcing states to provide cash to build church property could open the floodgates to programs that coerce taxpayers to underwrite religion,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s program on freedom of religion and belief.
Mach said three-quarters of the U.S. states have provisions like Missouri’s.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which also opposes gay marriage, transgender protections and abortion, has another major case involving religion that the Supreme Court could take up in its term beginning in October. It represents a Colorado bakery’s Christian owner who argues the Constitution’s promise of religious freedom means he should not have to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
Trinity Lutheran sued in federal court in 2012. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2015 upheld a trial court’s dismissal of the suit. The appeals court said accepting the church’s arguments would be “unprecedented,” noting the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in the case Locke v. Davey that upheld a bar on Washington state scholarships for students preparing for the ministry.
The justice who Gorsuch replaced, the late fellow conservative Antonin Scalia, was one of two dissenters in the Locke ruling. When a state withholds a generally available benefit solely on religious grounds, it is like an unconstitutional “special tax” on religion, Scalia said.
Judicial observers have described Gorsuch as very much in the mold of Scalia.
Missouri’s grant program was meant to keep tires out of landfills while also fostering children’s safety. The church’s brief to the high court stated, “A rubber playground surface accomplishes the state’s purposes whether it cushions the fall of the pious or the profane.”
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
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Reality TV contestant Jeff Varner spent much of last week apologizing for making the “worst decision” of his life on “Survivor: Game Changers,” and now he’s facing the consequences of that decision in the real world.
Varner claims he lost his position at Allen Tate Real Estate on Thursday because he outed fellow tribe member Zeke Smith as transgender during Wednesday night’s episode of the reality TV competition.
“I didn’t even find out from my company,” Varner told EOnline.com on Saturday. “Suddenly my real estate license was inactive and my current clients [were] left in the dark.”
Varner added, “It took hours after my press junket to get anyone with the company on the phone to tell me personally and even longer to calm my clients, all of whom, by the way, are coming with me to my new firm.”
Allen Tate Real Estate did not immediately respond to The Huffington Post’s request for comment about Varner’s story.
The 51-year-old, who has appeared on “Survivor” three times, said his termination was directly related to the controversy that instantly erupted after the outing episode aired.
“My former boss told me that I was in a news story they wanted nothing to do with,” he told EOnline.com. “I was devastated.” He said he’d warned the firm that headlines might be coming, “but apparently not the people who needed to hear it.”
Varner has faced intense scrutiny and backlash since he tried to save himself from being voted off “Survivor” by asserting that Smith was being “deceptive” by not discussing his gender identity and history with the other competitors.
“There is deception here. Deception on levels … that these guys don’t even understand,” Varner told his teammates. “Why haven’t you told anyone that you’re transgender?”
Smith, a 29-year-old gay asset manager from Brooklyn who has appeared twice on the show, used the shocking moment to draw attention to the danger that trans people face and the potentially deadly consequences of being outed.
“I think he hoped others would believe that trans people are dangerous and fraudulent,” Smith told People magazine. “That reasoning is infinitely worse than him outing me because it’s the same one used to discriminate against, attack and murder trans people. What’s great is that nobody bought it.”
Smith, who worked with CBS and GLAAD in the months between the filming of the episode and its airing on Wednesday, offered more thoughts about his very public outing in an op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday, including his current feelings about Varner.
“If we’re being perfectly honest with one another, I’ve struggled with that forgiveness in the months following,” Smith wrote. “I can’t foresee us sipping martinis together in Fire Island. While I can reconcile the personal slight of him outing me, I continue to be troubled by his willingness to deploy such a dangerous stereotype on a global platform.”
Varner, who posted an apology on Instagram just moments after the episode aired, said he has been in therapy during the 10 months since filming to deal with the aftermath of the outing.
“I probably sent all the red flags up that I was going to kill myself over this, which, of course, I would never do that as much as I felt like I probably deserved it,” Varner told EOnline.com. “There was a psychologist outside at the path that I walked down and I fell into her arms. It was just great for me.”
Ultimately, he’s just happy to have it out in the open.
“I knew that it would be emotional,” Varner said. “I cried a lot. I sat numb a lot. There was relief that this is finally out there.”
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April 16 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday defended his reversal on whether to call China a currency manipulator, saying on Twitter that China was helping with the North Korean problem.
“Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem? We will see what happens!” Trump said on Twitter. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Alison Williams)
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