February 17, 2015

Top News Stories –

Haitian carnival accident kills 16 –
At least 16 people are killed when a power-line connected with a carnival float in Haiti’s capital Port au Prince. Some died through electrocution, others in the panic that ensued. Around 78 others were injured.

Where there’s make-up, there’s brass –
YouTube beauty blogger Zoe Sugg, known as Zoella, buys a five-bedroom £1 million home in Hove, East Sussex, England, with her boyfriend Alfie Deyes. Zoella has seven million subscribers on her beauty blogs and charges advertisers £20,000 a month to place ads on her vlogs. She also features in the celebrity edition of The Great British Bake Off.
Zoe_SuggZoe Sugg A.K.A. Zoella

Sony start taking orders for SmartEyeglass –
Sony announce that their “augmented reality” smart glasses will go on sale in ten countries in March 2015 and pre-orders for the SmartEyeglass, costing $840 (£620), are now being taken in the UK and Germany. The glasses work with recent Android operating systems but also come with a software kit so developers can design apps for it. It includes an accelerometer, gyroscope, electronic compass, brightness sensor and two microphones.
Sony SmartEyeglassSony SmartEyeglass

Apple Watch not that exclusive –
Apple orders between 5 and 6 million Apple Watches to be produced in time for their release in April 2015. The Apple Watch is the first unique product Apple has launched since the iPad in 2010. There are 3 versions – Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition.

Video of the Day –

The Apple Watch trailer

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April 7, 2015

Top News Stories –

American Pie lyrics sell for $1.2m –
The original manuscript of Don McLean’s American Pie has sold for $1.2m (£806,000) at a New York auction. The 16-page draft had been expected to fetch as much as $1.5m (£1m) at the Christie’s sale. McLean had hinted in February the original manuscript would reveal the song’s lyrical meaning – which had always been kept a mystery. “The writing and the lyrics will divulge everything there is to divulge,” he said. The 69-year-old previously acknowledged the beginning of the song is about the death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper – Jiles P Richardson – in a plane crash, but has remained elusive about the rest of the track. (See List of the Day) [BBC]

Lindsay Lohan Attempts to “Break the Internet” With Her Clothes On in Racy Jumpsuit –
Step aside, Kim Kardashian, there’s another former Hollywood party girl looking to effectively “break the Internet.” On Saturday, March 7, Lindsay Lohan posted a shot of herself in Paris on Twitter, wearing a revealing black lace jumpsuit and hat. [US Magazine]
Lindsay Lohan Tweet - Break The Internet Lindsay Lohan Tweet – copyright @LindsayLohan Twitter

US judge strikes out Prince Andrew sex claims –
Claims that a woman was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 are to be struck from the record of a civil case in the US, a judge has said. The Duke of York was named in court papers in Florida by a woman alleging financier Jeffrey Epstein forced her to have sex with the duke three times. But Judge Kenneth Marra said the “lurid” claims were “unnecessary” to decide the civil case. Buckingham Palace has previously “emphatically” denied the allegations. [BBC]
Prince Andrew August 2014 (cropped)

Rand Paul announces 2016 White House bid –
Senator Rand Paul has announced he is launching a 2016 presidential election campaign on the Republican ticket. “Today begins the journey to take America back,” he said in a campaign event in Kentucky. Mr Paul, a Kentucky senator, stands out from the Republican pack because of his comparatively libertarian views. He becomes the second Republican to enter the contest that concludes in November 2016.
Rand-Paul

Apple wants to stop fans queuing outside stores for its watch –
Internal memo urges staff to tell customers to order Apple Watch online instead of waiting outside stores. Apple wants to stop hundreds of people queuing outside stores when its smartwatch goes on sale later this month. The technology giant has adopted a “significant change in mindset” and urged staff to tell customers to order the Apple Watch online, an internal memo stated. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Dark Horse: An all-electric ’68 Mustang’s quest to shatter records from The Verge on Vimeo.

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April 8, 2015

Top News Stories –

South Carolina policeman charged after black man shot dead –
A white South Carolina police officer has been charged with murder after video emerged of him shooting a black man, running away from him. State investigators arrested North Charleston police officer Michael Slager on Tuesday after viewing the mobile phone video of the shooting. Authorities say victim Walter Lamer Scott was shot after the officer had already targeted him with a stun gun. #WalterScott is top trending hashtag Worldwide and UK (See Top Twitter Trends) [BBC]

The Interview: Activist ‘sends DVDs into N Korea by balloon’ –
A South Korean activist says he has flown thousands of copies of controversial Sony film The Interview over the North Korean border. Sony initially pulled the film after a hacking attack and threats to attack cinemas which were screening it.Lee Min-bok said he had carried out the launches at night four times since January, most recently on Saturday. Mr Lee, a defector from the North, said he had tied the DVDs to balloons along with bundles of US dollars and leaflets criticising Mr Kim’s regime. He told AFP news agency: “I launched thousands of copies and about a million leaflets on Saturday, near the western part of the border.” [BBC]

Narendra Modi: Bus tours to India PM’s Vadnagar tea stall –
A private tour operator in India plans to lay on daily bus trips to the town where PM Narendra Modi was born and worked at his father’s tea stall.
The day-long tour of Vadnagar in western Gujarat state has run once a week since starting in February and has proved a big draw with visitors.
The operator expects tens of thousands to sign up for the tour this summer. Mr Modi was Gujarat chief minister for more than a decade before his landslide general election win last year. The tour of the BJP leader’s birthplace includes visits to the street where he once lived, his former school, the railway station where he sold tea and a local lake where, according to reports, he once “caught a baby crocodile” [BBC]
PM-Modi

Hatton Garden raiders plunder jewels worth up to £200m from safety deposit boxes –
Jewels worth tens of millions of pounds were stolen during a raid on hundreds of safety deposit boxes in Hatton Garden, London’s most exclusive jewellery district. Burglars are believed to have used heavy cutting equipment to cut through the roof before abeiling down a lift shaft to access the vault over the Easter weekend. They disabled the alarm system, leaving them four days to plunder around 300 boxes in the vault over the Bank Holiday. Former Flying Squad chief Roy Ramm said he “would not be surprised” if the stolen gems were worth £200 million, although he said the figure would probably never be declared in full. (See List of the Day) [Daily Telegraph]

Apple releases Mac app to store photos in iCloud –
Apple has released a new photo storage app for Macs, which can automatically store full-resolution images online. The iCloud Photo Library syncs photos across devices while managing storage. Users can opt to keep original high-res photos in the cloud with lower-res version on a Mac, PC or iOS device. But critics highlight recent online photo security breaches and say Apple’s storage fees are much higher than some of its competitors.
The iCloud Photo Library app responds to how much storage is left on each device. It automatically downgrades the resolution of images held on a device as its storage space starts to run out – starting with the oldest images first – while ensuring they are still of suitable quality to be viewed full-screen. [BBC]

Video of the Day –


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April 30, 2015

Top News Stories –

Apple says tattoos can cause watch problems –
Apple has said some of the functions on its new smartwatch may not work properly when its worn over tattoos. Darker-coloured artwork and even changes in darker coloured skin types can fool the light sensors on the back of the watch. The problem is not exclusive to the Apple Watch, which performed well in independent tests. But it does show the manufacturer has not solved the sensor problem. “Permanent or temporary changes to your skin, such as some tattoos, can… impact heart rate sensor performance,” Apple said on a support page on its website. “The ink, pattern, and saturation of some tattoos can block light from the sensor, making it difficult to get reliable readings.” [BBC]
apple-watch-picturesThe Apple Watch range

Tesla’s $3,000 Powerwall Will Let Households Run Entirely On Solar Energy –
Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk unveiled ‘Tesla Energy’ — a new business arm that is focused on ending our dependence on grid power and switching instead to solar energy. The first Tesla Energy product is ‘Powerwall Home Battery,’ a stationary battery that can power a household without requiring the grid. The battery is rechargeable lithium-ion — it uses Tesla’s existing battery tech — and can be fixed to a wall, removing much of the existing complexity around using a local power source. For one thing, the company’s batteries cost $3,500 for 10kWh and $3,000 for 7kWh. They are open for pre-orders in the U.S. now; the first orders will be dispatched “in late summer.” [Techcrunch.com] On March 31 2015, Musk tweeted about a new product and shares in the electric car jumped to nearly 4 percent in just 10 minutes – adding a staggering $900 million (£600 million) to the company’s market cap in just 115 characters.
Elon Musk - The Summit 2013Elon Musk

Messenger’s Mercury trip ends with a bang, and silence –
Nasa’s Messenger mission to Mercury has reached its explosive conclusion, after 10 years in space and four in orbit. Now fully out of fuel, the spacecraft smashed into a region near Mercury’s north pole, out of sight from Earth, at about 20:00 GMT on Thursday. Mission scientists confirmed the impact minutes later, when the craft’s next possible communication pass was silent. Messenger reached Mercury in 2011 and far exceeded its primary mission plan of one year in orbit. That mission ended with an inevitable collision: Messenger slammed into our Solar System’s smallest planet at 8,750mph (14,000km/h) – 12 times quicker than the speed of sound. The impact will have completely obliterated this history-making craft. And it only happened because Mercury has no thick atmosphere to burn up incoming objects – the same reason its surface is so pock-marked by impact craters. [BBC]
NASA-Messenger-craftArtist’s rendering of the MESSENGER spacecraft orbiting Mercury Date Source

Video of the Day –

Biggest Trick In Action Sports History – Triple Backflip – Nitro Circus – Josh Sheehan

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August 28, 2015

Top News Stories –

Someone has invented the first Apple Watch sex toy – and it’s a sell-out –
When you heard about all the apps you could get on an Apple Watch, was the first thing that sprung into your head an Apple Watch operated sex toy? As unorthodox an idea you may think it is, a lot of people want the piece of tech – it reached its $10,000 crowdfunding goal in just 24 hours. The $39 early bird special is sold out already, as is the reseller’s special, for people and websites who want to sell the sex toy to other customers. ‘Blush’ works by remote control, and is attached to a vibrating sex toy, that would be either controlled by you or your partner. The sex toy has three speed settings, can be recharged via a USB port and has up to two hours of battery life, and can either be directly controlled by Bluetooth for up to 30 feet or internet controlled, which can make it reach long distances. [Daily Telegraph]

Ashley Madison founder and chief executive Noel Biderman quits following hack –
The founder and chief executive of cheaters’ dating website Ashley Madison has stepped down just weeks after it was hacked. Noel Biderman, who heads the Canadian business’s parent company, Avid Life Media, is no longer employed at its headquarters, a spokesman said. It comes after a hacker group named The Impact Team stole the personal details of 37m Ashley Madison clients and posted them online. UK victims allegedly included 124 civil servants, 92 Ministry of Defence staff, around 50 police officers, 56 NHS workers, 65 local education and school staff and 1,716 people at universities and further education colleges. The data contained addresses, ages, phone numbers, credit card details and even sexual fantasies of users. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Freed Of London from Jack Flynn on Vimeo.

Top Twitter Trends –

Worldwide USA UK
1 #BuyWhatDoYouMeanTOMORROW #WhatDoYouMean #ShesKindaHotEP
2 #BuenViernes #HappyBirthdayLiam #BankHolidayWeekend
3 #HappyBirthdayLiam #YouKnowYouHaveAProblem #WhatDoYouMean
4 #WhatDoYouMean #NationalBowTieDay HSBC
5 Garra Y Corazon VAMOS ROJO #beautybehindthemadness #FridayFeeling
6 ULTIMO ESFUERZO BRUGRAVIGNA Al Arbour #askcrystal
7 #BADLANDS #BADLANDS #JanoskiansToNumber1
8 #النصر_القادسيه Sarah Palin Rebekah Brooks
9 Hayırlı Cumalar Tim Beckman #BADLANDS
10 #ExtrañoMuchoEsoDe #InjureAFilm Badlands

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