Hasta La Gadget!

When the concept of ebooks first surfaced, it seemed like the natural progression of things and it also felt like maybe physical printed books were doomed to go the way of the dinosaur. After all ebooks tend to be cheaper, more accessible, more convenient, not to mention green since it doesn’t require paper or inks to be made.

Unfortunately it doesn’t really seem that way, or maybe we’re not quite there yet because according to a report from The Guardian, it seems the ebook sales in the UK have dropped. The report claims that consumer ebooks have seen a decline in sales of 17% last year, making it the lowest level in ebook sales since 2011.

According to Stephen Lotinga, chief executive of the Publishers Association, he blames it on screen fatigue. Lotinga was quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t say that the ebook dream is over but people are clearly making decisions on when they want to spend time with their screens. There is generally a sense that people are now getting screen tiredness, or fatigue, from so many devices being used, watched or looked at in their week. [Printed] books provide an opportunity to step away from that.”

Interestingly enough, some are saying that the rise in larger smartphone displays could be the reason why ebook sales are on the decline. Apparently the larger displays led to ereaders such as the Kindle losing its popularity, but then consumers found out that reading ebooks on smartphone displays or tablets isn’t as conducive to reading and have turned to printed books as a result.

UK Ebook Sales Experience A Drop , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

While a two-year old smartphone isn’t exactly what you would consider “old” in terms of usability and features, as far as OEMs are concerned, such devices are typically viewed as “ancient” and it isn’t often that we see OEMs support devices that are older than two years. Google is no different but the good news is that at least Pixel/Nexus owners have an expiry date to look forward to.

Google has recently published updated timeframes on its website in which they indicate when support and updates for its Pixel and Nexus devices will end. Starting with the Nexus, owners of the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X can expect that Android version updates will no longer be guaranteed after September 2017, and that there will also be no guaranteed security patch updates after September 2018.

As for the Pixel and Pixel XL, Google says that there will be no guaranteed Android version updates after October 2018, and no guaranteed security patches after October 2019. Note that Google’s wording says that there is no guaranteed updates, meaning that while there is a chance that the Pixel and Pixel XL could see an update to 2019’s Android, it is not a guarantee that it will.

We suppose this is normal especially given the nature of carrier contract lengths in which users are usually given options to upgrade to a newer handset, sometimes even after the first year.

Google Posts Dates Of When Support Will End For Nexus/Pixel Devices , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

I travel a lot, which means I spend much of my time in airports waiting to catch a flight. I use most of that time to work or catch up on email, but sometimes, when it’s really early in the morning or really late at night, I just sit at the gate and watch the people go by. And not too long ago I saw something that broke my heart.

It was a couple my age, maybe a few years older. They were making their way to the gate. They were ordinary-looking folks, but as I looked at them closely I noticed that something wasn’t quite right. The man seemed confused, disoriented, distressed. The woman seemed stricken, sad. She was holding his hand, leading him to a chair. He was asking her questions, softly at first and then more and more loudly. She was speaking softly, begging him to calm down. She kept telling him again and again where they were going and why. Little of it seemed to make sense to the man, though, and eventually he gave up, sat down, and closed his eyes. The woman sat down next to him. Tears were rolling down her eyes.

As a physician who has seen many similar cases, it wasn’t too hard for me to figure out what was going on. It was most likely Alzheimer’s, robbing this relatively young man of his memory, his mind, and his life. And it was taking a great toll on his wife, who was no longer just partner and spouse but caregiver as well.

According to the Alzheimer Association, an American develops the disease every 66 seconds, which means that while we have five million Alzheimer’s patients now, we may have as many as 16 million by 2050. Last year, families of patients spent an estimated 18.2 billion hours caring for their afflicted loved ones, care valued at $230 billion. By 2050, the toll care for Alzheimer’s patients takes on the economy may be as high as $1 trillion. It’s clear, then, that we’re looking at a crisis.

Can we stop this disease? Can we help that man I saw at the airport, and his family, and the millions who suffer from the same terrible disease? Recent scientific and medical history suggests that we can. When the AIDS epidemic first broke out, not that long ago, the virus was considered a death sentence. Today, the disease is a manageable condition, a breakthrough that was achieved by bringing together smart people from a wide array of disciplines and starting conversations that, we hope, will lead to innovations in research and to new and life-saving discoveries.

But before we can begin, we need to know exactly what it is we’re trying to do. What is brain health? How do we propose to study it? Let’s begin with the term itself, brain health. Because our brains and our bodies work together to keep us healthy, we cannot really talk of brain health without talking of body health and vice versa. We already know about how sleep, say, impacts our ability to learn, about how emotional pain and physical pain rely on the same exact regions in our brain, or about how our brains use prior knowledge and experiences to make future predictions. The more we study the brain, the more we learn about the factors impacting our health, and the better we can be about disease detection, intervention, and prevention.

Here, then, is our first marching order: We ought to be infinitely curious, not just about the narrow confines of our highly specialized research but about anything and everything that may give us some clue and some insight into the ways our bodies and our brains work in tandem. There’s no better way to do this than collaboration, and I’ve been very fortunate, in my own career, to enjoy some of the most wonderful partnerships I could imagine. A few years ago, for example, when working to help a young man named Ian with quadriplegia become the first person in history to regain motion in his arms, I had the pleasure of partnering with Battelle, an organization I had not previously worked with even though their headquarters are less than half a mile down the road from my office here in Columbus. Together, our teams helped Ian control his arms with his mind, using a brain implant and a neuro-sleeve that allowed his brain to bypass the damaged neural circuitry and communicate directly with his muscles. I hope that similar partnerships will be struck here this weekend.

And when I say “partnerships,” I mean it in the broadest sense possible. A few weeks ago, the popular press was giddily reporting that Elon Musk, America’s favorite billionaire inventor and the man behind the Tesla electric car and behind SpaceX, was entering the field of brain research to focus on brain-computer interaction. Similar interest is taking place by other the Silicon Valley giants and other major companies worldwide. We welcome the Silicon valley giants and what they bring to the table and we look forward to the energy, the skills, the brilliance, and the resources that Elon Musk and others will bring forward —such audacious and groundbreaking research isn’t the future but very much the present in Ohio and the Midwest, and we look forward to the innovators like Musk joining us in the heartland, and inviting private enterprise, academia, government, and the non-profit world to all come together and come to task.

The challenges that face us are greater than any one disease. They include anything from addiction to depression to the sinking understanding those of us who study it have that the human brain is struggling to process the torrent of cognitive stimuli it’s receiving anywhere from non-stop cable news to social media to a plethora of screens and smart devices. To grapple with these challenges, we need the scientific equivalent of the Avengers, a heroic team of committed scientists, each with her or his own outlook and expertise. If we work together, maybe the next time we see a person suffering from some previously incurable brain condition, we could successfully do what we’ve dedicated our lives to doing and offer them a cure and some hope.

This piece is part of a special brain health initiative curated by Dr. Ali Rezai, Director of Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Stanley D. and Joan H. Ross Center for Brain Health and Performance. For more, visit The Huffington Post’s Brain Health page.

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Today is Take Your Child to Work Day, an annual tradition where working men and women let their children leverage their parents’ political and business connections to avoid paying Chinese import tariffs on their line of shoddy jeggings. A con artist is operating in Mar-a-Lago and people are shocked to learn it’s someone other than the president. And “Sheeple” has been added to the dictionary, but if you aren’t asking why “chemtrail” wasn’t also added, then wake up sheeple. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, April 27th, 2017:

IF YOU LIKE YOUR HEALTH CARE…THE FREEDOM CAUCUS MIGHT REALLY RUIN YOUR WEEK – Laura Barrón-López: “House Democrats will vote against a short-term spending bill to keep the government open if Republicans try to move on a bill to repeal Obamacare this week. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that if Republicans try a second time to rush their latest bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act out the door, they will have to pass the one-week continuing resolution without Democratic votes…. The move by Democrats is a big threat as Republican leaders know they will likely need Democratic votes to pass the short-term resolution. If Congress fails to pass the stop gap measure, the government will shut down Friday at midnight…. If Republicans go forward with a vote on their health care bill, they’ll be putting a ‘tattoo on their forehead,’ Pelosi said, indicating they will likely pay a political price later. ‘The minute they cast that vote they are putting doo-doo on their shoe,’ she said.” [HuffPost]

Yeah, but that health care vote’s probably not happening anyway.

Don’t forget Trump is still threatening to destroy the health insurance market! “Many people in the insurance industry believe that if the government doesn’t fund this and doesn’t pay the insurance plans, that they will have breached their contract with the insurance plans, and this could result in millions of Americans losing their insurance coverage this year.” [HuffPost’s Jeffrey Young]

ART OF THE (ARE YOU FOR REAL?) – World’s worst kabuki theater. Arthur Delaney and Daniel Marans: “President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was on the verge of withdrawing the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement until the leaders of Mexico and Canada talked him out of it. ‘I was going to terminate NAFTA as of two or three days from now,’ Trump said at the White House. But then, Trump said, he got phone calls from the leaders of Canada and Mexico, two men he likes very much. ‘They called me and they said, rather than terminating NAFTA, could you please renegotiate?’ Trump said. ‘I respect their countries very much. The relationship is very special and I said I will hold on the termination, let’s see if we can make it a fair deal.’” [HuffPost]

POTUS IS A GIANT BABY – Josh Dawsey, Shane Goldmacher and Alex Isenstadt: “The 70-year-old leader of the free world sat behind his desk in the Oval Office last Friday afternoon, doing what he’s done for years: selling himself. His 100th day in office was approaching, and Trump was eager to reshape the hardening narrative of a White House veering off course. So he took it upon himself to explain that his presidency was actually on track, inviting a pair of POLITICO reporters into the Oval Office for an impromptu meeting…. It was classic Trump: Confident, hyperbolic and insistent on asserting control. But interviews with nearly two dozen aides, allies, and others close to the president paint a different picture — one of a White House on a collision course between Trump’s fixed habits and his growing realization that this job is harder than he imagined when he won the election on Nov. 8.” [Politico]

Well-oiled machine. “For a few brief moments Thursday afternoon, it appeared as though the White House might be targeting your 401(k)s. Asked whether deductions for retirement savings would remain intact in its new tax reform package, White House press secretary Sean Spicer seemed to say no. ‘The current plan right now protects both charitable giving and mortgage interest, and that’s it,’ Spicer said, conspicuously leaving out those retirement savings…. It turns out the White House isn’t going to actually do this.” [WaPo’s Aaron Blake]

Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

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MICHAEL FLYNN AND THE BAD JUDGEMENTS WOULD BE A GREAT BAND NAME – Like, for a really stellar Nick Cave cover group. Willa Frej: “President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, failed to heed warnings from the Pentagon about accepting foreign funds for a trip to Russia in 2015, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee announced Thursday. The Department of Defense sent classified documents to committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), said ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) at a news conference on Thursday. One of them, which is being prepared for public release, is a letter from the Defense Intelligence Agency to Flynn. ‘This letter explicitly warned General Flynn, as he entered retirement, that the Constitution prohibited him from accepting any foreign government payments without advance permission,’ Cummings said. ‘DIA did not locate any records of Lieutenant General Flynn seeking permission or approval for the receipt of money from a foreign source.’ But Flynn did accept the funds from Kremlin-backed news agency RT and failed to disclose them when he applied for a security clearance last year, Cummings and Chaffetz said Tuesday. He may have broken federal law.” [HuffPost]

Obama derangement syndrome proving incurable. “Sean Spicer, who blamed Barack Obama’s White House on Thursday for signing off on Flynn’s security clearance. ‘[General Flynn’s] clearance was last reissued by the Obama administration in 2016 with full knowledge of his activities that occurred in 2015,’ Spicer said during Thursday’s press briefing, responding to a question about Flynn possibly breaking federal law by accepting foreign funds for a trip to Russia in 2015.” [HuffPost’s Ryan Grenoble]

FRAUDSTER OPERATING IN MAR-A-LAGO – It’s funny how much we lost it over Michaele Salahi back in the day because this whole administration is just a never ending sequence of Michaele Salahis. Tarini Parti: “An admitted fraudster who owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to his victims has had access to President Donald Trump through his wife, who is the guest reception manager of Mar-a-Lago, the Winter White House. Heather Rinkus is such a familiar figure at Mar-a-Lago that senior administration officials fondly call her the club’s ‘house mother.’ Her husband, Ari, is often on hand, too. There he was in February, waiting to greet President Trump in the special access area on the tarmac of Palm Beach International Airport, a few yards away from Air Force One. But it wasn’t that long ago that Ari, whose real name is Anthony Donald Rinkus, pleaded guilty in federal court to felony wire fraud for a complex financial con job. That guilty plea came on the heels of a previous one in state court for conducting a car-theft ring.” [BuzzFeed]

WARREN CAUTIOUSLY CRITICIZES OBAMA FOR WALL STREET SPEECH – Then again, you don’t want to too sharply criticize the guy who will give day two of your 2020 nominating convention pretty good ratings. Victoria McGrane: “Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren gently criticized former president Barack Obama Thursday for his decision to accept $400,000 from a Wall Street firm to speak at a health care conference this fall. Warren was asked about the controversy during an interview about her new book on the SiriusXM radio show, ‘Alter Family Politics.’  ‘I was troubled by that,’ she said. That was the extent of her comments aimed directly at Obama. She quickly launched into a broader discussion of her views of the corrupting influence of money in Washington.” [Boston Globe]

Looks like Obama gave another one of those $400K speeches.

FIX THE DEBT SUDDENLY NOT TOO CONCERNED ABOUT FIXING THE DEBT – It’s like if Social Security Works changed its name to “Social Security: A Little Uneven At Points.” Ben Walsh, Alexander Kaufman and Emily Peck: “HuffPost asked every single member of Fix the Debt’s CEO council for a response to the president’s tax outline, and as of press time, not a single one of the executives denounced it. Why won’t executives who want less government debt condemn a proposal that dramatically increases government debt? Most of the executives on Fix the Debt’s CEO council either declined to comment or did not respond to HuffPost’s requests. But the executives who were willing to go on the record are pretty clear-cut about what is going on: It’s a corporate tax cut, so they think it’s good. For instance, a Deere & Company spokesman said on behalf of CEO Samuel Allen that the company ‘supports efforts to improve the corporate tax code to make U.S. business and investment more competitive in today’s global marketplace.’ That’s a not-even-well-disguised way of saying ‘it’s a tax cut, so it’s good.’” [HuffPost]

About Trump’s middle-class tax cut…

EAST WING STILL PRETTY EMPTY – Marina Fang: “Nearly 100 days into President Donald Trump’s administration, first lady Melania Trump has been reluctant to embrace her new role, and it’s unclear how she will define what can be a somewhat nebulous, arcane and sexist position…. Trump hired a communications director only a month ago. Leaving the key post unfilled for the first two months of her husband’s administration was particularly glaring, [author Kate Andersen] Brower said. Without someone to coordinate her message, Trump remains mostly unknown to the public, generating further speculation about her.” [HuffPost]

DAMN, THOSE ARE SOME STRONG NUGS – Sebastian Murdock: “As North Korea continues to threaten the West with a nuclear attack, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) suggested the isolationist nation could simply smuggle in a nuke through a ‘bale of marijuana.’ Sherman raised the issue Wednesday afternoon, when the entire U.S. Senate was called to a White House briefing on North Korea…. Sherman said at the briefing, and again in a tweet, that North Korea ‘could smuggle nuke into U.S. rather than use ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missiles]. Could smuggle inside a bale of marijuana.’” [HuffPost]

CHECKING IN WITH THE ALWAYS EXCITING WORLD OF FAR-RIGHT THOUGHT – This little gem from Erick Erickson takes hate-crime apologism — and who knew that was still a thing?!? — to tremendous new heights: “You know, I’m really damn tired of all the people running around making other people extremely uncomfortable then screaming about their rights and privileges when called out. If you want to go around making people uncomfortable, you’ve got the problem, not the rest of us. It all starts with Mike Enzi who has enraged the BLT&GQ community by declaring a simple fact. If a guy walks into a bar in Wyoming, he’s probably going to get punched. Enzi said the person would deserve it, which he apologized for, and the guy would not deserve it. But it is probably going to happen and yes, the dude wearing the tutu shoulders some of the responsibility. He should have known better. And spare me the tirade about Matthew Shepherd.” [The Resurgent]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR – Here’s a puppy trying to make sense of a garden hose.

ET’S FAKE GREEN CARD FINALLY GOING TO CATCH UP TO HIM – This is top-notch trolling. Avalon Zoppo: “Aliens are here and up to mischief — if the prank calls to a newly established government hotline are to be believed. Reports of space aliens and UFOs may have tied up lines at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s newly launched office for victims following a frenzied Twitter campaign on Wednesday. The VOICE hotline, established on Wednesday through an executive order, aims to provide public information and resources to the victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.” [NBC News]

COMFORT FOOD

– How human life expectancy would be impacted if people didn’t die from natural causes.

– How to make the boeuf bourguignon from “Julie and Julia.” 

– A deep dive into dog fashion.

TWITTERAMA 

Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com)

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Anthony Levandowski, the head of Uber’s self-driving car unit once described by CEO Travis Kalanick as his “brother from another mother,” is stepping down from his position for a different role at the company.

Levandowski’s new job will remain in Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, which researches self-driving technology. But he will no longer be involved in a key technology that allows autonomous vehicles to navigate, a company spokesperson told HuffPost. Eric Meyhofer, an Uber engineer and co-founder of Carnegie Robotics, will take over the division, Uber said.

The shift comes as a potentially devastating lawsuit against Uber involving Levandowski heads toward trial. The suit, filed by self-driving car rival Waymo, accuses former employee Levandowski of stealing trade secrets. 

Levandowski played a key role in Google’s self-driving car program, later spun off into Waymo. Central to the lawsuit is the design of a circuit board for an essential technology called LiDAR, which helps driverless cars map their surroundings.

Waymo claims Levandowski brought that circuit board design with him to Uber, giving the company a critical ― and illegal ― advantage. Uber has dismissed the claim.

In an email to his team on Thursday (read it below), Levandowski wrote that Uber’s technology was built “independently, from the ground up.”

A court hearing is scheduled for next week. The judge potentially could halt Uber’s self-driving program until the outcome of the trial.

Here’s Levandowski’s email to Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group announcing the leadership change, first obtained by Business Insider. Uber confirmed the email:

Team:

I want to let you know that Travis and I have decided that I will be recused from all LiDAR-related work and management at Uber, through the remainder of the Waymo litigation. This change means that Eric Meyhofer will be the head of ATG, reporting to Travis, and I will report to Eric. My other responsibilities will not change.

As you know, I currently don’t provide input on detailed LiDAR design choices. But making this organizational change means I will have absolutely no oversight over or input into our LiDAR work. Going forward, please make sure not to include me in meetings or email threads related to LiDAR, or ask me for advice on the topic.

We all know the hard work that Eric, James and the LiDAR team have put into independently developing our technology over the past few years.

We should all be proud that our self-driving technology has been built independently, from the ground up. With this move, I hope to keep the team focused on achieving the vision that brought us all here.

Thanks,

Anthony

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