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A firm in Slovenia are giving tombstones a 21st-century makeover, with 48-inch interactive screens that can show pictures, video and other digital content.

The Pobrezje cemetery on the outskirts of Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city, recently set up a prototype of a weather-proof and vandal-proof digital tombstone that can interact with visitors.

At first glance, it looks like any other but standing in front of it for a few seconds activates its sensors and brings it to life, turning it into an interactive screen capable of playing just about any kind of digital content.

“This tombstone makes it possible to put anything next to the deceased person’s name and surname, you can write an entire novel if you like. You can put pictures, or a film there,” Saso Radovanovic, head of the company Bioenergija which sells the tombstones, told Reuters.

“The tombstone has a sensor so that when nobody is around it only shows the person’s name and the years of their birth and death… This saves energy and the screen itself, and helps extend the tombstone’s lifetime,” he added.

The tombstone was developed with the help of Milan Zorman, a professor of computing at the University of Maribor who said that they are working on a special smartphone application, which will further increase the tombstone’s interactivity.

“We intend to bring the sound to earphones connected to a mobile phone running the app. That way visitors would be able to listen to videos displayed on the screen,” said Zorman, adding that speakers would be too loud for the cemetery.

The cemetery claims the 48-inch-screen version they put up is the first digital tombstone in the world. Radovanovic said they have already received a few orders for the product which costs 3,000 euros ($3,189). 

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WASHINGTON – The lives of American troops in Syria to fight the Islamic State may have just gotten more dangerous, with President Donald Trump’s missile strikes potentially making them the targets of the Syrian military as well.

“Hopefully that was in the forefront of the president’s and his military commanders’ minds when they decided to do this,” said Luke Hartig, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council under former President Barack Obama.

The dozens of cruise missiles launched into Syria on Thursday night also mark the latest military escalation by a commander-in-chief who had promised fewer such engagements, not more of them, on the campaign trail.

Since taking office 11 weeks ago, Trump has ramped up military involvement in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. In Yemen, where the United States previously had little presence, he expanded a bombing campaign after a botched special forces raid ended in the death of a Navy SEAL and dozens of civilians. Meanwhile, troop levels in both Iraq and Syria have increased as well.

All this occurred under the rubric of fighting terrorism ― that is, until Thursday night, when Navy destroyers fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian military base from which U.S. officials believe the Syrian regime launched a chemical weapons attack that killed at least 87 civilians in Idlib on Tuesday.

“It was aimed at this particular airfield for a reason ― because we could trace this murderous act back to that facility,” National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters late on Thursday.

Now, U.S. service members in Syria as part of the campaign to defeat ISIS may face new threats from Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s forces, which are backed by Russia.

“Whether this leads Syria to escalate things, whether this leads Russia to escalate things, we just don’t know,” Hartig said. “We’re still waiting to see how the dust settles.”

Whether this leads Syria to escalate things, whether this leads Russia to escalate things, we just don’t know.
Luke Hartig, former National Security Council official

It’s not clear exactly how many U.S. service members are currently in Syria. The Department of Defense was floating a plan to deploy 1,000 troops last month, adding to the roughly 1,000 already there to help Syrian rebels attack the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. Most of these troops are stationed far from Assad’s military, which does not have much of a presence in the northeastern part of the country.

It’s also unknown whether Assad would directly attack U.S. troops when his primary concern is defeating an insurgency trying to overthrow him. Doing so could wind up leading to his ouster and potential arrest for war crimes.

In any event, the fragile dialogue between U.S. and Russian forces in Syria to avoid inadvertent conflicts has collapsed. Russia announced it was suspending the “de-confliction channel” established under Obama to enable communication between Russian and American battlefield commanders.

Trump scolded Obama in 2013 for considering military strikes against Assad for using chemical weapons, arguing that it was a bad idea to get involved in Syria’s civil war. Obama had pushed for strikes on dozens of targets, not just one, but decided against them when both Republicans and Democrats in Congress expressed opposition.

Trump’s anti-interventionist attitude toward Syria continued throughout his campaign for president, when he repeatedly said that as bad as Assad was, ISIS was worse. He also said he would try to cooperate with Russia and possibly Assad in the fight against the terrorist group.

As late as last week, the U.S. was signaling that it was not interested in Assad. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, traveling in Turkey, said Assad’s fate “will be decided by the Syrian people.”

But faced with the televised images of children who had died in Idlib, Trump ― who is known to get much of his information about world affairs from cable news ― reversed course. On Wednesday, he called the civilian deaths “an affront to humanity,” saying, “These heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated.”

The Trump administration has not definitely said what it will do next. In the aftermath of the missile strikes, a Department of Defense official told Reuters there are no plans for additional attacks against Assad’s forces. But Trump’s national security adviser, speaking with reporters at Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, said Assad should take note of what happened.

“This was not a small strike,” McMaster said. “What it does communicate is a big shift, a big shift in Assad’s calculus.”

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Walt Disney World guest Tabbatha Kaye Mature wasn’t acting in a very mature manner when she allegedly choked a teen who blocked her view of a fireworks display, according to cops in Florida.

According to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit, Mature, 41, of New Baltimore, Michigan, was seated in front of the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday for the nightly fireworks display. When the fireworks started, a group of high school students seated in front of Mature stood up and blocked her view.

Mature, police said, “became aggravated” and demanded the teenagers sit down. When the teens instead decided to leave, a girl in the group told Mature, “You can take our spot.” The victim claims Mature responded by attacking her.

“She wrapped both hands around my neck and began squeezing,” the girl told police, according to the arrest affidavit.

The teen said Mature released her when she started screaming and told her, “You don’t want to mess with me.”

The alleged attack was reported to Disney employees, who alerted sheriff’s deputies.

Mature was arrested late Wednesday and charged with felony child abuse. She was released from the Orange County Jail after posting $2,000 bond. It wasn’t clear Friday whether she has an attorney.

The affidavit indicates Mature also gave a statement to police, but for reasons that remain unclear, it was blacked out in the copy released by the sheriff’s office.

“If it is exempt from disclosure, it gets redacted,” a spokesperson said in an email to HuffPost.

David Lohr covers crime and missing persons. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow him on Twitter.  

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Uber has finally responded via the courts to Waymo’s allegation that it’s using the Alphabet company’s Lidar technology. The ride-hailing company called Waymo’s injunction motion to stop using technology that was allegedly misappropriated from Google…

Sometimes we wear scarves or gloves to be fashionable, but not every accessory was meant to wow onlookers. It’s not unreasonable to want to feel like you’ve got the upper hand if a bad situation were to land in your lap. This is especially the case if you live a bit of a rough-and-tumble life, with a penchant for injuries.

While these Kevlar Cut-Resistant gloves can’t save you from everything, they’ll certainly guard you against scratches, cuts, and scrapes. These are DuPont Kevlar brand, and double-ply knitted to give you seamless construction and make them more than able to conform to any arm. They stretch comfortably so that they’ll stay in place even when you’re in a constant state of motion such as riding a bike or working in the garden.

These come in medium or full-sized, and will additionally provide you some light protection from heat. They’re 18” long and come in a pair at $19.99 regardless of what size you choose. These were made to be multi-purpose, so whether you find yourself doing work such as glass or knife handling, food service, warehousing, gardening, or any other instance where you might get a cut or scrape, these could be quite useful. If yellow is your color, then you could always sport them in the winter, especially if you have long walks home at night in less-than-desirable areas.

Available for purchase on Amazon
[ These Kevlar Cut-Resistant Sleeves laugh in the face of a knife-fight copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]