There have been plenty of civil cases against architects over the years, for all manner of negligence. But, today, an extremely rare criminal case was decided: An architect was sentenced to a year in LA county jail after pleading no contest to the manslaughter of a firefighter who died while trying to contain a fire in a home the architect had designed for himself.
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On my way to the theater, I asked Siri about the movie Her, and she got confused. "What kind of businesses are you looking for?" Siri replied in her always off-kilter robotic murmur. I barked back some line about Siri being stupid. She cracked some stupid joke. And my phone went back into my pocket.
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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Just a week after it began the first phase of putting iPads in the hands of all 640,000 students in the region, the Los Angeles school district already has a fight on its hands. In a matter of days, 300 children at Theodore Roosevelt High School managed to work around protective measures placed on the Apple tablets, giving them complete access to features — including Facebook, Twitter and other apps — that should otherwise have been blocked.
Students bypassed the security lock on the device by deleting a personal profile preloaded in the settings — a simple trick that has the school district police chief recommending the board limit the $1 billion rollout (including hardware and other related expenses) before it turns into a “runaway train scenario.” For now, officials have banned home use of the iPads while they assess ways to better restrict access — they would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.
[Original image credit: flickingerbrad, Flickr]
Via: Fox News
Source: LA Times
Adidas isn’t shy about embracing technology. In fact, sometimes it takes that a little further than you might expect. Today, however, it’s very much about genuine performance enhancement as we were invited down to a not-so-secret location in central London to look at its latest innovations in (to use the local parlance) football. Think you’ve got Premier League potential? Even if you don’t, Adidas thinks its got a few tricks that might help you at least get a few steps nearer, so to speak. Jog past the break to find out what it’s been working on.
Los Angeles isn’t generally famous for its innovative urban design. But there have been many attempts to transform the city into a modern metropolis through visionary architecture and transportation projects. In their exhibition Never Built: Los Angeles, the Architecture and Design Museum is showing off the coolest of what LA could have become. More »
Stuck in traffic? Get off your phone, then update your TomTom — the company announced today that its latest traffic service update, HD Traffic 6.0 is ready to get you out of that traffic jam. The updated service sources real-time data anonymously collected from other TomTom users, and promises to identify 65 percent more road closures than its previous system. Culling data from the service, TomTom was even able to identify Los Angeles as the most congested city in North America — though we’d hardly consider a call that obvious roadway clairvoyance. On the other hand, we’re not about to argue with anything that gets us off the road faster. Read on for TomTom’s official press announcement.
Penguin will refresh its ebook lending system later today, according to a report from the New York Times. The publisher will start lending out its titles in Los Angeles and Cleveland, mimicking the program that trialled (despite some DRM issues) in New York. Public library users can even expect downloadable audiobooks to join the lending list soon, through a team-up between Penguin and OneClickDigital. Expect the same lending rules, with new books appearing six months after their first release and the bizarre ‘one copy at a time’ system, in which each title can only be rented at one person at any one time. Worse still, at least for libraries, at the end of each year they must buy each title again or lose access to the digital copy.
[Image courtesy Sten Rüdrich]
Via: The Verge
Source: The New York Times
The space shuttle Endeavour finally bid adieu to its fans in Southern California last weekend, not in the air, but on city streets. The L.A. Times captured this remarkable feat in a time-lapse video, and it’s quite a sight to see the orbiter sailing past suburban houses and fast food drive-thrus. Along its 12-mile crosstown trip from LAX to the California Science Center in Exposition Park, the shuttle atop a special transporter had to maneuver past trees, utility poles and of course hundreds of enthralled residents. This came weeks after it made its farewell tour over the California coast perched on a Boeing 747. Take a peek at the Endeavour’s final fascinating journey at the source.
Filed under: Transportation
Visualized: Space shuttle Endeavour goes on a crosstown journey through LA streets originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Check out this animated GIF. It’s the toughest moment of the space shuttle Endeavour’s drive across Los Angeles, en route to its permanent retirement place, at the Science Center. More »
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