Hasta La Gadget!

It has been a month since Sling TV announced its Cloud DVR “First Look” program which provided subscribers on an Amazon Fire TV or Fire tablet to get 50 hours of cloud storage for $5 per month. A month after coming out with this feature for the very first time, Sling TV today announced that it is expanding the Cloud DVR First Look to other platforms. It’s now available for users on Android and Roku as well.

Everything else remains the same as it has been for Amazon device owners for over a month. Sling TV subscribers on Roku and Android can also purchase 50 hours of storage for all of their content for just $5 per month with any Sling TV subscription.

The Cloud DVR feature will enable users to watch their favorite shows, movies, games, and more on their own time by automatically having the show saved and available for streaming from the cloud.

The feature makes room for new recordings by automatically deleting old records once the 50GB capacity is hit, it starts by copying over the oldest watched recording to make more space for new content.

Dish-owned Sling TV has also confirmed that it’s soon going to expand Cloud DVR to the Apple TV, this is going to happen in the coming weeks. More devices will get Cloud DVR in the coming months as well.

Sling Cloud DVR Expanded To Users On Android And Roku , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Mobile devices have changed not only our lifestyles but has even changed the nature of our work. Some are no longer tether to any desk, office, or even city while others have some amount of freedom to be out and about, as long as they check in from time to time. These road warriors and digital nomads have also created … Continue reading

North Korean state media on Tuesday warned of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of U.S. aggression as a U.S. Navy strike group steamed towards the western Pacific.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has urged China to do more to rein in its impoverished neighbour, said in a Tweet North Korea was “looking for trouble” and the United States would “solve the problem” with or without China’s help.

Tension has escalated sharply on the Korean peninsula with talk of military action by the United States gaining traction following its strikes last week against Syria and amid concerns the reclusive North may soon conduct a sixth nuclear test.

North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the country was prepared to respond to any aggression by the United States.

“Our revolutionary strong army is keenly watching every move by enemy elements with our nuclear sight focused on the U.S. invasionary bases not only in South Korea and the Pacific operation theatre but also in the U.S. mainland,” it said.

South Korean acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn warned of “greater provocations” by North Korea and ordered the military to intensify monitoring and to ensure close communication with the United States.

“It is possible the North may wage greater provocations such as a nuclear test timed with various anniversaries including the Supreme People’s Assembly,” said Hwang, acting leader since former president Park Geun-hye was removed amid a graft scandal.

Trump said in a Tweet a trade deal between China and the United States would be “far better for them if they solved the North Korea problem”.

“If China decides to help, that would be great,” he said. “If not, we will solve the problem without them!”

Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, met in Florida last week and Trump pressed Xi to do more to rein in North Korea.

The North convened a Supreme People’s Assembly session on Tuesday, one of its twice-yearly sessions in which major appointments are announced and national policy goals are formally approved. It did not immediately release details.

But South Korean officials took pains to quell talk in social media of an impending security crisis or outbreak of war.

“We’d like to ask precaution so as not to get blinded by exaggerated assessment about the security situation on the Korean peninsula,” Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-kyun said.

Saturday is the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the country’s founding father and grandfather of current ruler, Kim Jong Un.

A military parade is expected in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, to mark the day. North Korea often also marks important anniversaries with tests of its nuclear or missile capabilities in breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Men and women in colourful outfits were singing and dancing on the streets of Pyongyang, illuminated by better lighting than that seen in previous years, apparently practising for the parade planned.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a message of congratulations to mark the event, lambasting “big powers” for their “expansionist” policy.

“The friendly two countries are celebrating this anniversary and, at the same time, conducting a war against big powers’ wild ambition to subject all countries to their expansionist and dominationist policy and deprive them of their rights to self-determination,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted the message as saying.

The North’s foreign ministry, in a statement carried by KCNA, said the U.S. navy strike group’s approach showed America’s “reckless moves for invading had reached a serious phase”.

“We never beg for peace but we will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms and keep to the road chosen by ourselves,” an unidentified ministry spokesman said.

North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy the South and its main ally, the United States.

RUSSIAN WORRIES

North Korea is emerging as one of the most pressing foreign policy problems facing the Trump administration.

The North has conducted five nuclear tests, two of them last year, and is working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the United States.

The Trump administration is reviewing its policy towards North Korea and has said all options are on the table, including military strikes, but U.S. officials said non-military action appeared to be at the top of the list.

Russia’s foreign ministry, in a statement ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said it was concerned about many aspects of U.S. foreign policy, particularly on North Korea.

“We are really worried about what Washington has in mind for North Korea after it hinted at the possibility of a unilateral military scenario,” the ministry said.

“It’s important to understand how that would tally with collective obligations on de-nuclearising the Korean peninsula, something that is underpinned in U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

Russia condemned U.S. cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base on Friday, calling them an illegal attack on a sovereign state.

The U.S. Navy strike group Carl Vinson was diverted from port calls to Australia and would move towards the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula as a show of force, a U.S. official told Reuters on the weekend.

U.S. officials said the strike group would take more than a week to reach waters near the Korean peninsula.

China and South Korea agreed on Monday to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea if it carried out nuclear or long-range missile tests, a senior official in Seoul said.

On Tuesday, a fleet of North Korean cargo ships was heading home, most of the vessels fully laden, after China ordered its trading companies to return the coal to curb the trade, sources with direct knowledge of the trade said.

The order was given on April 7, just as Trump and Xi were set for the summit where they agreed the North Korean nuclear advances had reached a “very serious stage”, Tillerson said.

Following repeated missile tests that drew international criticism, China banned all imports of North Korean coal on Feb. 26, cutting off the country’s most important export product.

The North is seen ready to conduct its sixth nuclear test at any time, with movements detected by satellite at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Idrees Ali in Washington and Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie)

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It had been nagging at us: Despite the pleasure we take in opera tourism, Jackie and I had never been to the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, except on a guided tour soon after the theater had been rebuilt following a disastrous arson fire in 1996. None of our handful of trips to the city had coincided with productions at the theater. Finally, though, the opera calendar and our travel calendar overlapped, and we spent three nights in Venice in the latter part of March. The show was Bizet’s Carmen, in a riveting production by the Catalan director Calixto Bieito. We’d seen it before, five years ago in London, but were knocked out anew by its power and intelligence. The (mostly) gritty sets, costumes and staging were quite a contrast with the glittering gilt ornamentation covering every square centimeter of the auditorium, whose lively acoustics enhanced the musical experience: We nearly jumped out of our seats at the overture’s opening cymbal crash. The Fenice is a blessedly small theater, and seats sell quickly, but anyone who’s fond of opera should get on line, see what’s playing and try to buy tickets – then, build a trip around the show.

Luxurious Accommodation

Another of our unmet Venice wishes had been to stay at the Hotel Danieli, centered on the fourteenth-century Palazzo Dandolo and sprawling over three buildings along the Riva degli Schiavoni, a one-minute walk from Piazza San Marco and convenient to several useful water-bus lines. The vast lobby, with its galleries and stone staircases, used to be the palazzo’s internal courtyard; if you didn’t know it was old, you could be forgiven for thinking it the fantasy of a well-traveled nineteenth-century robber baron. (At the moment, part of the lobby is under refurbishment, so the space is not as expansive as it normally is.)

We had a moment’s disappointment when we were told that our room was to be in the newest part of the hotel – “newest” meaning it was built in the 1940s – but were gleeful when we saw our lodgings. Along with the rest of the hotel, they’d been redone by the French designer Jacques Garcia, the author of some of our very favorite hotel décors, including at the Metropole in Monte Carlo and the Costes in Paris. Mr. Garcia has a way of making you feel bonelessly relaxed in his richly, deeply colored and finely detailed interiors, which fall somewhere along the path between a Parisian literary salon and a bordello de luxe. This part of the Danieli creates exactly that embracing feeling; the other, more traditionally decorated buildings do not moan “Garcia” quite so seductively. Whenever we got tuckered out with tourism, we’d spend a few minutes trying to figure out how the billowing draperies and extraordinarily complex tassels were conceived and manufactured.

Members of the Danieli staff – from receptionists to concierges to waiters – are friendly, knowledgeable and forthcoming; the bar makes good drinks and post-opera sandwiches; and breakfast is served on a top-floor terrace with perfect views of San Giorgio Maggiore and its Palladian church of the same name. We had a grand time there.

Dining

Because one evening was filled with opera, we ate only two real dinners on this trip (plus our late-night sandwiches at the hotel bar). The first was at a restaurant I had read about in The New York Times: Local. That brief review does a good job of conveying the background and spirit of the place, so I’ll limit myself to saying that we had a marvelous, interesting meal there, in which local produce was treated with skill, intelligence and respect. While combinations were innovative, with well-integrated hints of Asia (not really incongruous in Venice, much of whose wealth was long ago amassed through international trade), flavors were unfailingly clear and all that we ate was delicious, notably tortelli of artichoke with a light-handed accompaniment of capers and stracciatella (like a mixture of mozzarella and cream); and beautifully fatty, lightly smoked glazed eel from the Venetian lagoon with a mango-miso puree. Charming people work at Local, all of whom speak good English.

Our second dinner was at a restaurant we had visited – twice – during our last stay in Venice, in 2014: Al Covo, which is not far from Local (or the Danieli), as it happens. It is operated by Cesare Benelli and his American wife, Diane Rankin, and its ample season-appropriate menu is always supplemented by treats from the market. On the night we were there, these included spider crab meat removed from the shell and simply dressed with great olive oil to bring out its subtle oceanic flavor; monkfish wrapped in paper-thin slices of pancetta and grilled; and the tiny soft-shell crabs called moeche. We ate them all, plus a dish of burrata, salsa verde and anchovies, and one of rigatoni in a deceptively simple sauce based on shreds of salt cod. That sounds like a lot of food, doesn’t it? And yes, it is unusual for us to order antipasti, pasta and a main course. But that’s the beauty of Al Covo: we did have an antipasto apiece, but our rigatoni and our monkfish were shared, and the deep-fried moeche were a mere tasting portion to start with. Our waiter suggested this approach (and indeed, tried to stop the people at the next table from over-ordering, which they did anyway), and also made it clear that if we didn’t like the wine we’d ordered, they’d swap it for something else. Good restaurants will often do that, no questions asked, but they don’t usually advertise the fact.

For someone who’s in Venice for only a few days, these two restaurants plus some stand-up cichetti and one simple, totally traditional restaurant/trattoria/osteria/bacaro will cover the ground: unreconstructed Venetian cooking at a bacaro; tradition combined with imagination, all in a Venetian context, at Al Covo; and a more international approach to tradition at Local.

* * *

Hotel Danieli. Castello 4196, Venice; +39 041 522 6480; http://www.danielihotelvenice.com/. Depending on season and availability, you can find a double for as little as $415, but typical rates are higher.

Local. Salizzada dei Greci 3303, Castello, Venice; +39 041 2411128; info@ristorantelocal.com; http://www.ristorantelocal.com. Prix-fixe dinner, three dishes for €60; ordering à la carte is also possible. Closed Tuesday and at lunchtime on Wednesday.

Al Covo. Castello 3968, Venice 30122; +39 041 5223812; info@ristorantealcovo.com; http://ristorantealcovo.com/. Our meal cost €100 for two, including wine, with two antipasti, one pasta, one main dish and one dessert. Closed Wednesday and Thursday.

There are many options for cichetti and for traditional informal restaurants. I like All’Arco for morning or afternoon snacks (Sestiere San Polo 436, Venice, near the Rialto market; +39 041 520 5666) and have eaten well, both standing and sitting, at Cà D’Oro alla Vedova (Calle del Pistor, Cannaregio 3912; +39 041 5285324; reservations taken for dinner only). If you are looking for a cup of coffee or a drink on a canal-side terrace open to the water that is neither crowded nor expensive, try the café in the Ca’Pesaro art museum, well worth a visit and just beyond the area most heavily frequented by tour groups.

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Nurses in Denmark benevolently broke their hospital’s regulations last week to grant a 75-year-old man his dying wish.

After doctors at Aarhus University Hospital told Carsten Flemming Hansen that he was too sick for surgery and would die within days from internal bleeding following an aortic aneurysm, he revealed the final thing he wanted to do.

And that was to smoke a cigarette and drink a glass of cold white wine outside, while watching the sun set.

According to a post on the hospital’s Facebook account, nurses wheeled Hansen out onto a balcony on a bed last Tuesday and broke the building’s strict no-smoking policy by allowing him to light up.

He then enjoyed a spectacular sunset as he sipped his drink, surrounded by close family and friends.

“It was a very cozy and relaxed atmosphere,” said one of the nurses, Rikke Kvist. “Of course they were relatives also affected by the fact that he was going to die, and they were sad.”

The hospital shared a photograph of Hansen online Friday, shortly after he died. It’s since gone viral, with many people praising the nurses’ compassionate deed:

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