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The Eternal Return of BuzzFeed
What the online juggernaut can learn from Time, USA Today, and MTV
Iron Man dukes it out with Ultron in new clip from Avengers: Age of Ultron
The evil android Ultron squares off against Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers in the latest clip from Marvel's upcoming movie Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Tennessee House votes to make the Bible its official state book
The Tennessee state House ignored serious constitutional concerns in voting to make the holy Bible the official state book.
Cheery Robot Helps Kids Cope With Pain During Hospital Procedures
A delightful-looking robot called "MEDi," or Medicine and Engineering Designing Intelligence, is being used to help make doctor's visits less painful -- literally.
The Alberta Children's Hospital in Canada purchased four of the MEDi rob...
Goodbye, Canadian Target. This 'Closing Time' cover is for you.
Target employees in Canada sing a rendition of Semisonic's "Closing Time" in honor of their last day at work.
Neil Sloane: the man who loved only integer sequences | Alex Bellos
Alex Bellos: The man who founded the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences 50 years ago has been called the most influential mathematician alive. To celebrate his 75th birthday, here he shares some recent favourites
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1
The Flash: "All Star Team Up" Review - IGN
“All Star Team Up” didn’t disappoint when it came to the actual superhero team-up, either. As with his recent Arrow appearances, it’s impressive to see just how robust the special effects are when it comes to Atom’s suit. The dual-front battle against the Bug-Eyed Bandit’s bees wasn’t this show’s most memorable action sequence, but then again, The Flash has set a pretty high bar for that sort of thing. At the very least, this villain was a good choice in terms of how her robo-bees offered a clear and believable (if slightly goofy) threat to both a speedster and an armored techno-hero.
2
Chinese Video Streamer Letv Launches Smartphone, Opens Up US Headquarters
Billionaire Jia Yueting got some attention in the US tech press last month when he outrageously compared Apple to the Nazis in a post on popular Chinese social media site Weibo. He quickly apologized. It may not have exactly been the attention he was looking for, but he’s hoping to somehow get the attention of American consumers.
3
The British Couple Who Began Google’s Antitrust Battle
A husband-and-wife team based in a small English village is the unlikely instigator of Google’s antitrust woes. Shivaun and Adam Raff set up their company, comparison-shopping website Foundem, in Berkshire, England, in 2005. Four years later, Foundem became the first company to file an antitrust complaint against Google in Brussels after a 3½-year battle to get the California-based company to lift penalties that the Raffs say...
4
1Password, Workflow iOS apps update with Apple Watch support
Both the 1Password and Workflow iOS apps were updated on Tuesday with new Apple Watch extensions, enabling special companion functions when used alongside Apple's upcoming wearable.
5
All about Action buttons, your handy helpers in iOS
Even better, you can also choose which sharing and "actionable" buttons you want to appear front and center. Not interested in, say, Reading List (Apple's lackluster answer to Instapaper)? You can easily tuck the "Add to Reading List" button in the Action pane out of sight. Rather share web pages on Tumblr than Facebook? No problem. Wish there were an easier way to fax documents (yes, some people still prefer faxing) using a third-party app? You might be able to add an Action button for that.
6
http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/15/alcatel-onetouch-smartwatch-review/
I think you’re going to have a love-hate relationship with the OneTouch Watch’s LCD display. On the bright side, it’s bright! And crisp too. It’s readable in both dim and bright environments, and you can cycle through three levels of brightness to suit your taste. However, in order to read it, it needs to be turned on, and that’s something the OneTouch Watch is only willing to do for up to 15 seconds at a time once activated. You can activate it at any time by pressing the power key located on the side, or you can use the built-in accelerometer. You trigger this by executing a sharply defined move with your arm – almost any movement will do, but it cannot be gradual. There needs to be a distinct stopping action in order for the display to come to life. Gentle rolls of the wrist aren’t enough to trigger it, and there’s no way to configure the sensitivity. I found myself having to repeatedly (and using increasingly exaggerated movements) bring the watch into position to get it to respond.
7
Cheap Danish Design Comes To America
"Our mission is to make high design accessible for everyone,” Tina Kanter, managing director of Flying Tiger Copenhagen (and daughter of former Ikea U.S. president Steen Kanter), says in a phone interview.
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Apple's iOS 8.3 reportedly causing problems with Bluetooth GPS receivers
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A
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Apple's iOS 8.3 reportedly causing problems with Bluetooth GPS receivers
By Roger Fingas
Tuesday, April 14, 2015, 02:30 pm PT (05:30 pm ET)
A glitch in iOS 8.3 is preventing some Bluetooth GPS receivers from properly transmitting data to iOS apps, according to flight navigation software maker ForeFlight.
The company said on Saturday that some early GPS accessories, such as the Dual GPS 150 and Bad Elf Pro, aren't working properly with ForeFlight Mobile or other iOS apps. Other receivers, such as Stratus and Bad Elf Pro+ models, are apparently unaffected.
ForeFlight advised customers with 4G-capable iPads to disconnect Bluetooth accessories and use a Stratus or their iPad's built-in GPS receiver. Wi-Fi iPads only have a Stratus as an option, since they lack internal GPS.
Bad Elf is said to have brought the problem to Apple's attention, but there's no indication of when a patch might arrive. In the meantime, ForeFlight suggests not upgrading to iOS 8.3 if users rely on Bluetooth GPS functionality.
9
47% off Zerolemon Solarjuice 10000mAh Battery - Just $26
We’ve featured a lot of nifty power banks on TNW Deals, but this one’s truly special. The ZeroLemon SolarJuice packs a powerful 10,000 mAh battery for all your mobile charging needs, and can recharge itself with the power of the sun!
10
iZombie: "Flight of the Living Dead" Review - IGN
Liv and Lowell's (and if you can't place Bradley James, he played King Arthur in Merlin) initial zombie talk was interrupted by Major, but how is it that she hasn't asked Lowell how he was turned? It seems like an important question that would help her understand her zombie self more. What if he's not even being truthful about being undead? Liv's too smart to not consider those possibilities so her interactions with Lowell go a long way towards showing how much she's missed connecting on that level with someone or how much Holly liked Lowell -- probably a combination of the two. I hope she becomes more skeptical when the brains wear off.
11
Smartwatch showdown: Moto 360 vs. Apple Watch
Motorola has Apple beat in the pricing department with the Moto 360 retailing for $250, though you can pick one up for as low as $165 this week as part of a sale at Google. The Apple Watch, on the other hands, starts at $349 for the Sport edition and climbs to $549 for the Apple Watch and up to $10,000 for the Watch Edition.
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The Toughest Monsters You've Ever Fought - IGN
Some aren't as difficult as others, though, and we started thinking about the most fearsome baddies we've faced in all of gaming. We were curious about which enemies had the worst reputations, so we took to Twitter to ask you: What's the toughest monster you've ever fought?
13
Cow Milk Without the Cow Is Coming to Change Food Forever | WIRED
At least, that’s the theory. So far, the group has managed to splice 10 of the 11 DNA snippets into the yeast, and they they are testing to confirm their hacked microbes are producing milk proteins. Even when they do, other problems will remain. Though the proteins provide a foundation, the group still will need to find vegan substitutes for the naturally occurring animal fat and milk sugar (lactose) that are the other essential ingredients in cheese. This is where Real Vegan Cheese goes from biotech to food science. Will palm oil give Real Vegan Cheese the bulk to make it indistinguishable from the non-vegan variety? Cocoa butter?
14
Tim Ferriss - How to Master any Skill by Deconstructing it - TNW Video
Tim Ferriss calls himself the human guinea pig. In his pursuit of constant self-improvement, he even undertook a muscle biopsy with a scalpel, cutting down his leg. In his keynote, he explains how to become world class master at any skill. The essential ingredient is to never stop questioning the obvious – you can even reverse the learning steps, which sometimes can be extremely beneficial. He demonstrates on himself that there is no such thing as being bad at languages - but there are bad methods of learning. And what is the worst time to learn a new skill? Watch the video to find out.
15
Google charged with monopoly abuse
Google has been charged with monopoly abuse by European competition watchdogs over the way it promotes its own shopping comparison service in general web search results.
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The Verge on Twitter
Netflix renews Orange is the New Black for a fourth season before the third even starts http://theverge.com/e/8183988?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter … pic.twitter.com/F0XCKC04HJ
17
Facebook tests its own version of the away message
Starting Wednesday, the social network began experimenting with what it calls the sidebar status, which is an away message that shows up in the current sidebar pane of Facebook's mobile apps and disappears after 12 hours or whenever someone updates their status. Facebook confirmed the news via email.
18
Arizona officer who rammed car into robbery suspect cleared of wrongdoing
The police officer in Marana, Arizona who can be seen ramming into a gun-toting robbery suspect with his patrol car in a graphic dash cam video released Tuesday has been cleared of any wrongdoing, according to The Associated Press.
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NASA's New Electric Vehicle Looks Like a Lot of Fun to Drive
NASA’s new Modular Robotic Vehicle prototype is a new type of rover developed in conjunction with the car industry—and it looks like a hell of a lot of fun to drive, on this planet or any other.
20
Microsoft makes debugging PHP less painful with new Azure tool
The service “offers in-depth insight into how an application is performing,” said Andi Gutmans, who is the CEO of Zend Technologies and one of the original developers of PHP. Zend is supplying the debugging tool, called Z-Ray. The software “exposes a huge amount of information to the developer through the Web browser,” he said.
21
NEA Raises North Of $3B For Its New Fund
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) partners with entrepreneurs to build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. As one of the world's largest and most active venture capital firms with more than $13 billion in committed capital, the firm's long track record includes more than 190 portfolio company IPOs and more than 300 acquisitions. Among its historical investments …
22
Apple’s latest acquisition could revolutionize iPhone camera
Rather than chasing pixels, LinX says its ultimate goal is to let us ditch our DSLRs. LinX’s impressive pictures are made possible by replacing larger sensors with multiple cameras. Its products include arrays of two, three or four cameras on a system.
23
Binge-watch 'Orphan Black' for free this Friday - CNET
It's a marketing ploy, of course, as "Orphan Black" Season 3 debuts this weekend on BBC America, and Amazon's Prime Instant Video happens to be the exclusive streaming home of seasons one and two. The show is not available on Netflix.
24
Common Lisp as a Scripting Language, 2015 edition
The first computer I used
had about 2KB of RAM.
The other day, I compiled a 2KB Common Lisp script into a 16MB executable
to get its startup (and total execution) time
down from 2s to subjectively instantaneous — and that didn't bother me the least,
for my current computer has 8GB of working memory and over 100GB of persistent memory.
But it did bother me that it didn't bother me, for
16MB was also the memory on the first computer in which I felt I wasn't RAM-starved:
I could run an X server, an Emacs editor and a shell terminal simultaneously without swapping!
Now an entire comfortable software development universe could be casually wasted over a stupid optimization
— that I have to care about because software systems still suck.
And to imagine that before sentientkind reaches its
malthusian future ,
code bumming
will have become a popular activity again...
25
The art of stillness
The place that travel writer Pico Iyer would most like to go? Nowhere. In a counterintuitive and lyrical meditation, Iyer takes a look at the incredible insight that comes with taking time for stillness. In our world of constant movement and distraction, he teases out strategies we all can use to take back a few minutes out of every day, or a few days out of every season. It’s the talk for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the demands for our world.
26
The psychology of evil
Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials. Then he talks about the flip side: how easy it is to be a hero, and how we can rise to the challenge.
27
What the people of the Amazon know that you don’t
"The greatest and most endangered species in the Amazon rainforest is not the jaguar or the harpy eagle," says Mark Plotkin, "It's the isolated and uncontacted tribes." In an energetic and sobering talk, the ethnobotanist brings us into the world of the forest's indigenous tribes and the incredible medicinal plants that their shamans use to heal. He outlines the challenges and perils that are endangering them — and their wisdom — and urges us to protect this irreplaceable repository of knowledge.
28
The Golden Ratio: Design's Biggest Myth
I agree with Brownlee's article even when it shattered my own belief in the golden ratio. Why? because it's easy to show that most beliefs in the golden ratio are the result of confirmation bias coupled with cultural cues. Working with cultures where Western influence was negligible, I saw what I thought were examples of the GR in many popular forms of art of the people, yet now that I look at them, I realize i too wanted to see patterns where none existed. I recall showing the patterns to those who made them and they found different aesthetic patterns unrelated to the GR. I didn't think much of it, but now I realize we each identify patterns according to our own culturally-cued focus coupled with a bit of evolved archetypes (Waist-hip ratio, head-body size ratio, eye-face ratio) that actually have a basis in evolution and mating. It's easy enough to establish whether the GR has any persistence in our preferences by setting up an experiment to FALSIFY the claim.
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Strange answers to the psychopath test
Is there a definitive line that divides crazy from sane? With a hair-raising delivery, Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath Test, illuminates the gray areas between the two. (With live-mixed sound by Julian Treasure and animation by Evan Grant.)
30
What's wrong with what we eat
In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk.
31
Google presents Inside Abbey Road
For the best experience use your headphones
32
How AeroPress Fans Are Hacking Their Way To A Better Cup Of Coffee
Tweaking these factors will affect how your cup tastes. For example, stirring thoroughly will increase the effectiveness of the extraction, where underextraction can be acidic. A slow, steady press also reduces acidity. Choose to bloom and you'll saturate the grounds evenly to get a sweeter-tasting result. Using water at higher temperatures produces a more bitter taste. Finer grinds are saturated faster, but may leak through the filter more quickly and tend toward a bitter cup. Adding more water and less pressure will get you closer to brewed coffee. Or you can make a stronger cup with less water and more steep time as a base for a latte or Americano.
33
Micro-Investment App Acorns Raises $23 Million Led By Greycroft, e.Ventures
Acorns , the micro-investment app that sets up a portfolio for you by collecting your spare change, has today announced the close of a $23 million Series C financing, led by Greycroft Ventures and e.Ventures, with participation from Sound Ventures, Garland Capital, and MATH Venture Partners.
34
Why I taught myself 20 languages -- and what I learned about myself in the process
I began my language education at age thirteen. I became interested in the Middle East and started studying Hebrew on my own. For reasons I still don’t quite understand, I was soon hooked on the Israeli funk group Hadag Nachash, and would listen to the same album every single morning. At the end of a month, I had memorized about twenty of their songs by heart — even though I had no clue what they meant. But once I learned the translations it was almost as if I had downloaded a dictionary into my head; I now knew several hundred Hebrew words and phrases — and I’d never had to open a textbook.
35
Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015
Much of this frenzy of access is facilitated by mobile devices. Nearly three-quarters of teens have or have access 1 to a smartphone and 30% have a basic phone, while just 12% of teens 13 to 17 say they have no cell phone of any type. African-American teens are the most likely of any group of teens to have a smartphone, with 85% having access to one, compared with 71% of both white and Hispanic teens. These phones and other mobile devices have become a primary driver of teen internet use: Fully 91% of teens go online from mobile devices at least occasionally. Among these “mobile teens,” 94% go online daily or more often. By comparison, teens who don’t access the internet via mobile devices tend to go online less frequently. Some 68% go online at least daily.
36
World’s oldest stone tools discovered in Kenya
Until now, the earliest known stone tools had been found at the site of Gona in Ethiopia and were dated to 2.6 million years ago. These belonged to a tool technology known as the Oldowan, so called because the first examples were found more than 80 years ago at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by famous paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey. Then, in 2010, researchers working at the site of Dikika in Ethiopia—where an australopithecine child was also discovered—reported cut marks on animal bones dated to 3.4 million years ago; they argued that tool-using human ancestors made the linear marks. The claim was immediately controversial , however, and some argued that what seemed to be cut marks might have been the result of trampling by humans or other animals. Without the discovery of actual tools, the argument seemed likely to continue without resolution.
37
How to turn small talk into smart conversation
Go ahead, be bold. Upend the dinner table conversation! Turn small talk into big ideas at the next summer wedding reception you’re forced to attend! You never know which ideas will be worth spreading next.
38
A choreographer's creative process in real time
We all use our body on a daily basis, and yet few of us think about our physicality the way Wayne McGregor does. He demonstrates how a choreographer communicates ideas to an audience, working with two dancers to build phrases of dance, live and unscripted, on the TEDGlobal stage.
39
When people of Muslim heritage challenge fundamentalism
Karima Bennoune shares four powerful stories of real people fighting against fundamentalism in their own communities — refusing to allow the faith they love to become a tool for crime, attacks and murder. These personal stories humanize one of the most overlooked human-rights struggles in the world.
40
3 Ways To Train Yourself To Be More Creative
Become an explainer is a very good suggestion, not only as a way to train one to be more creative, but to make sure that one's daily learning pursuit is progressively complete with constant personalisation and continual understanding of what's is learned or taught. A lot of folks today think that, just because Google is around, we just need to know superficially but not thoroughly understand it. Einstein was absolutely right when he said, "if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well." In today's knowledge economy, one must always be ready at all times to have the adequate knowledge to produce the anticipated results with what we already have stored in our head. This is the essence of productivity. Hence, I fully concur with the observation in the article, "if you have to interrupt your flow of work whenever you need to look something up, you can't follow ideas to new places."
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Business
is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's record 42 million unique visitors worldwide and 21 million social media followers are one of the most influential and engaged online communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.
42
15 tiny design features that show Apple’s insane attention to detail
Above: The shine.Image Credit: Steven Tweedie
After people got used to using an iPhone’s slide-to-unlock button, Apple removed the arrow button and guiding rail. While the new version is much more minimal, Apple still guides new users in the left-to-right motion by causing the text instructions to shine from left to right.
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A Proof That Some Spaces Can’t Be Cut | Quanta Magazine
Once Manolescu understood the connection between his dissertation and the triangulation conjecture, he moved quickly. “I was very excited, and I wanted to write it down as fast as possible,” he said. “I was kind of working around the clock.” It took him a month to lay out his full refutation of the triangulation conjecture. He created a new invariant, which he named “beta,” and used it to create a proof by contradiction. Here’s how it works: As we have seen, the triangulation conjecture is equivalent to asking whether there exists a homology 3-sphere with certain characteristics. One characteristic is that the sphere has to have a certain property — a Rokhlin invariant of 1. Manolescu showed that when a homology 3-sphere has a Rokhlin invariant of 1, the value of beta has to be odd. At the same time, other necessary characteristics of these homology 3-spheres require beta to be even. Since beta cannot be both even and odd at the same time, these particular homology 3-spheres do not exist. Thus, the triangulation conjecture is false.
44
No Internet, No Credit Cards, No Problem: How Airbnb Launched In Cuba
The company partnered with a handful of what it describes as "Internet cafes for hosting" that were already facilitating bookings online. These small businesses already had connections with most of the homes for rent on the island, and already charged them a fee for management services. Now they will handle Airbnb listings. Even for hosts who have bank accounts, Airbnb needs to work with intermediaries to deposit funds into their accounts. For the many hosts without access to bank accounts, it partnered with third parties who, in some cases, will deliver cash to their doorsteps (Henken says Airbnb is likely using an established money transfer service to handle payments to unbanked hosts, Airbnb declined specify who's providing the service for them). All of these are informal partnerships.
45
Dove Is Really Reaching With This New Stunt That Forces Women To Label Themselves "Average" Or "Beautiful"
I believe that Dove message is much deeper then just a public assessment of their physical beauty. It is about labeling ourselves. Of course there are women who are absolutely confident about who they are but quite often we put labels on us without even realizing it. These labels are rarely that dependent on the body but mostly on how much worthy we feel we are and sometimes just on our mood. As you can see from the video that many women after choosing average decided to go next time to the beautiful door because they digged into themselves and saw that there is no real reason to label them in such a negative way as everyone has so many qualities, skills and life experiences (like giving birth to a baby, for example) that make them absolutely stunning :) Well done, Dove! :)
46
Explore Shakespeare's London With This Interactive 16th Century Map
Jenstad's interactive version pulls information from databases with names of locations , people , organizations in the city at the time, as well as reference material about the early modern period in London. These data are layered on to the "Agas" base map. So if you click on the Middle Temple building (below), for example, the map will give you an idea of what it is and how it was used, back when Shakespeare was around:
47
How Introverts Can Network Without Changing Their Personalities
For an introvert, their community may only consist of a small group of friends and family. But, White argues, introverts need to move beyond this small private circle and into the community. While introverts may rather eat a mouthful of hot peppers than be forced to join community events, White says introverts often avoid community activities because they fear they won’t fit in. "Broader community ties can offer us socialization or ways of being with people that are actually in sync with out personalities if you find the right group," she says.
48
The 10 Most-Pirated Movies
Before I discuss the week's most-pirated movies, however, allow me to state that PCMag doesn't condone piracy in any way, shape, or form. Our mission is a simple and pure one—to inform you about what's happening in the online digital media world. Besides, tracking stolen movies is a way to gauge a movie's popularity beyond ticket sales. Shout out to our friends at TorrentFreak for compiling the data.
49
What humans can learn from semi-intelligent slime
Inspired by biological design and self-organizing systems, artist Heather Barnett co-creates with physarum polycephalum, a eukaryotic microorganism that lives in cool, moist areas. What can people learn from the semi-intelligent slime mold? Watch this talk to find out.
50
4 lessons in creativity
Radio host Julie Burstein talks with creative people for a living — and shares four lessons about how to create in the face of challenge, self-doubt and loss. Hear insights from filmmaker Mira Nair, writer Richard Ford, sculptor Richard Serra and photographer Joel Meyerowitz.