Hit and miss snow fun –
New York “dodged a bullet” according to Mayor Bill de Blasio after the huge expected snowfall skirted the city. All vehicle movement apart from emergency vehicles had been banned and the subway was shut down. However in Massachusetts the Emergency Management Agency (Mema) shut down the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth “due to loss of offsite power”.
Auschwitz remembered –
70 years since the day that the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland was liberated in 1945 sees ceremonies performed at the camp and around the world. Birkenau Gate, Auschwitz
Twitter gets video and group DM –
Twitter launch a video function so 30 second mobile video uploads can be played directly in timelines. The platform is also adding a group direct messages function. The video function uses the devices build in camera to produce Vine style clips but longer.
And Snapchat become a “news” outlet –
Snapchat is making content from the news sevices of Vice Media and CNN available to its users and DailyMail.com will offer Snapchat users 10 to 15 of its “highly addictive stories” news, showbiz and lifestyle stories selected by a special editorial team. Each edition will be available for 24 hours.
‘Buy button’ to be added to Google search results –
Google has confirmed that it is to introduce a “buy button” to its search results imminently. The button would give Google Search users the option to purchase without needing to visit a separate website. The company’s chief business officer, Omid Kordestani, said he wanted to reduce “friction” for users so they buy more things online. Google faces significant competition from Amazon, where many people now begin their search to buy products. [BBC]
Hashtag is ‘children’s word of year’ –
Hashtag has been declared “children’s word of the year” by the Oxford University Press. OUP analysed more than 120,421 short stories by children aged between five and 13 years old, submitted to the BBC’s 500 Words competition. According to the OUP, new technology is increasingly at the centre of the children’s lives but how they are writing about it is changing fast. Words including email, mobile and Facebook are in decline, it said.
They are being replaced by the likes of Instagram, Snapchat and emoji. And the word television has now been superseded by phone. The report also notes a sudden new arrival in children’s sentences. The use of the hashtag symbol # to add an extra meaning or comment at the end of a sentence has become commonplace. #IblameTwitter #AndInstagram. [BBC]
Video of the Day –
The A-Z of YouTube: Celebrating 10 Years | #HappyBirthdayYouTube
The death toll from the recent storms in the American states of Texas and Oklahoma rises to 21 with 11 people missing. Fourteen more people have been killed in northern Mexico. (AP via ABC News)
Cecil the lion’s killer revealed as American dentist –
Cecil the lion – the most famous creature in one of Zimbabwe’s national parks – was killed by an American hunter who has boasted about shooting a menagerie of animals with his bow and arrow. Walter James Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, is believed to have paid £35,000 to shoot and kill the much-loved lion with a bow and arrow. The animal was shot on July 1 in Hwange National Park. Two independent sources have confirmed the hunter’s identity to the paper, which has also seen a copy of the relevant hunting permit. [Daily Telegraph]
Yahoo launches Livetext messaging app to rival Snapchat and WhatsApp –
Yahoo’s unveiled a messaging app to take on the likes of Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Livetext will allow users to exchange live video, text and emoticons, but without audio. The app is available now for Apple and Android devices in the UK, US, Canada, Germany and France. Yahoo says video calls can be better than texts for expressing emotions, but their audio component makes private conversations public. With Livetext, you message friends by typing, just like texting, but you see video of friends without the audio. [BBC Newsbeat]
Clive Rice: Former South Africa and Notts captain dies aged 66 –
Former South Africa and Nottinghamshire captain Clive Rice has died aged 66.
Rice was South Africa’s first skipper in one-day cricket after their readmission in 1991 following their sporting isolation during apartheid. The all-rounder played for Nottinghamshire between 1975 and 1987, winning the County Championship in 1981 and 1987, and was later appointed coach at Trent Bridge. He had been ill with a brain tumour. Rice was 42 when he made his official international debut and played only three ODIs, despite an outstanding first-class record which saw him average 40.95 with the bat and 22.49 with the ball. [BBC] (See List of the Day)
Police in Santa Cruz, California, find what they suspect is the body of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton, who was last seen on footage on the afternoon of Sunday, July 27, riding her new scooter. A 15-year-old male minor has been arrested on suspicion of homicide. (MSN)
Joyce Mitchell, who had smuggled hacksaw blades inside frozen meat to Richard Matt and David Sweat in prison, before withdrawing as their getaway driver, pleads guilty to a first-degree felony of promoting prison contraband and to a misdemeanor count of fourth-degree criminal facilitation. She faces up to 7 years in prison when sentenced. (MSN)
Barack Obama is the first US president to speak in front of the African Union (AU). He encourages the world to strengthen economic ties with the continent, but also criticises the lack of democracy. (WSJ)
Edinburgh Fringe: Mobile phone joke voted funniest –
A pun by comedian Darren Walsh has scooped the prize for funniest joke of the Edinburgh Fringe. The 39-year-old, whose show Punderbolt is on at the Pleasance, took first place in the vote by TV channel Dave. The winning joke was: “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free. Walsh, from Peterborough, who won the first UK Pun Championship last year, said he was delighted. “What a punderful feeling,” he said. [BBC] See List of the Day
British IndyCar Driver Justin Wilson Dies of Injuries From Pocono Crash –
Justin Wilson, a British racecar driver who was struck by debris from another car during the closing laps of the penultimate race in the IndyCar Series season, died Monday, racing officials said. He was 37. Wilson was struck in the head on Sunday at Pocono Raceway by a piece of debris that broke off from the car of Sage Karam, who was leading the race before he crashed. Wilson had tried to avoid the subsequent pileup, but his car hit the debris and veered into an interior wall. He was airlifted to a hospital in Allentown, Pa., where he was in a coma in critical condition before he died. [NY Times] Justin Wilson in 2008
China’s ‘Black Monday’ sends markets reeling across the globe –
China has been a major contributor to economic growth and low global inflation for more than two decades. But tonight, investors around the globe are catching their breath after one of the worst day’s trading in many years. They’re now pondering whether today marks the start of a new and alarming phase of the crisis which began some eight years ago. And while today’s losses are sizeable, they’re not among the worst losses in market history. For all the talk of Black Monday in China,and gloomy photos to match, this was more of a correction in Western markets. [The Guardian]
Windows 95 turns 20 –
Windows 10 might be the current OS of choice for many, but 20 years ago today (August 24) the world of home computing underwent a seismic shift as Windows 95 rolled off the production lines and into people’s lives. The basis for many consumers’ first computing experience, Windows 95 revolutionised the computing space not only on the surface, but beneath it too. From an all new graphical user interface to a switch to 32-bit foundations, it’s hard to overstate the impact this Start menu introducing software has had on the world. If you can even remember the days of floppy disks then you’ll know how much of a nightmare the Windows 95 update must have been to install, compared to today when waiting 17 seconds for a film to buffer on Netflix seems outrageous. For those without a CD-ROM drive, each of the 3.5-inch cartridges held a measly 1.44MB of data. Later updates, for those refusing to accept CDs had taken off, jumped to 26 floppy disks. [Digital Spy] See Top Twitter Trends
Video of the Day –
Guy annoys girlfriend with puns at Ikea – We moved in together recently so had to make the unavoidable trip to IKEA; I figured out how to get through there as quickly as possible.
Yeah, yeah I know, vertical video and all that. I filmed it in Snapchat, you’ll survive.
List of the Day –
The top 10 funniest jokes of the Edinburgh Fringe
“I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free” – Darren Walsh
“Kim Kardashian is saddled with a huge arse … but enough about Kanye West” – Stewart Francis
“Surely every car is a people carrier?” – Adam Hess
“What’s the difference between a ‘hippo’ and a ‘Zippo’? One is really heavy, the other is a little lighter” – Masai Graham
“If I could take just one thing to a desert island I probably wouldn’t go” – Dave Green
“Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fishes and a loaf of bread. That’s not a miracle. That’s tapas” – Mark Nelson
“Red sky at night. Shepherd’s delight. Blue sky at night. Day” – Tom Parry
“The first time I met my wife, I knew she was a keeper. She was wearing massive gloves” – Alun Cochrane
“Clowns divorce. Custardy battle” – Simon Munnery
“They’re always telling me to live my dreams. But I don’t want to be naked in an exam I haven’t revised for…” – Grace The Child
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, says that Turkey and the United States will launch a “comprehensive” campaign to flush out ISIL from a zone in northern Syria near the border. In effect this means creating a “security zone” by sending foreign soldiers into former territory of Syria. (Reuters)
Snapchat is assembling a super team to build smart glasses –
Today, you use your smartphone’s cameras to take snaps and creates stories on Snapchat. But in the future, you could be Snapchatting with a pair of Google Glass-like smart glasses on your face. According to CNET, Snapchat has aggressively assembled a team of wearable experts to work on some kind of smart eyewear device. Now, imagine being able to put on a pair of smart glasses and then see these effects overlaid on top of your friends’ faces using augmented reality. It would be insane. Of course, this is just one far-flung idea. For all we know, Snapchat could be building something entirely different. [Mashable UK]
Woman sues after toilet ‘exploded’ while she was sitting on it –
A woman is suing for damages after being “blown off” her toilet when workmen used high-power hoses to clean out sewer lines in her neighbourhood. Angela Wright of Baltimore, Maryland, says the incident, which took place in October 2014, left her suffering physical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident. Both Ms Wright and her bathroom were “covered in filth and excretion,” following what she described as an “explosion”. In an interview with Fox 45 she said: “I was literally covered in faeces. Are you kidding me? Who wants that?” [Daily Telegraph]
Airstrikes on the Al-Qaeda-held Al-Mansoura district in the port city of Aden, kill at least 17 militants and injure 20 civilians, according to local medics and a Yemeni security official. (Reuters)
Business and economics
Reuters reports, on the basis of unnamed sources “familiar with the matter,” that Energy Transfer Equity, a private equity concern, is in talks to sell Sunoco, a deal which would be valued at more than $2 billion. (Reuters)
A protestor attempts to storm the stage as Donald Trump was talking at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, causing Secret Service agents to jump on the stage and form a wall around the presidential candidate amid the chaos. The suspect was identified as Thomas Dimassimo, 32, and was charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic, according to Chief Mike Etter of the Dayton Police Department. Dimassimo is a Black Lives Matter activist. (NBC News).
Thousands of people take to the streets of Warsaw and other cities in Poland in protest against the government after it refused to publish the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the government cannot change how the court works. (BBC)
Birkenau Gate, Auschwitz
