5 SECONDS OF SUMMER

Michael Clifford Fires Back at Abigail Breslin's Diss Track

Stars Most Stylish Selfie of the Week

Stars Most Stylish Selfie of the Week

GMAIL BLOCKED IN CHINA

5-Minute Outfit Idea

5-Minute Outfit Idea: An Effortless, Polished Look to Try This Weekend.

Facebook suffers outage

Facebook suffers outage affecting users worldwide!! .

Monday 11 August 2014

Is Demi Lovato Fighting With Kendall & Kylie Jenner?

Is Demi Lovato Fighting With Kendall & Kylie Jenner?


Reports are stirring that Demi getting into more drama on the friendship front. We all know about her rocky friendship with Selena Gomez, but Demi is now rumored to be fighting with Kendall Jennerand Kylie Jenner!
However, Demi says the rumors are totally false, even tweeting her disbelief, "What kind of rumors are spreading right now?! Stop with the drama y'all. I got nothing but tons of love for the K&J sisters!!!!"

In fact, Demi called it the most ridiculous rumor she's heard in a while.
Since it seems like Demi is going for a drama-free life. We didn't realize they even knew each other! In fact, the only common thread we can think of is that they've both had rough friendships with Selena.

What Apple’s secret in-house university teaches employees about good design

What Apple’s secret in-house university teaches employees about good design

Adam Pasick
Quartz 
At the top-secret internal training sessions that Apple offers to its employees, the message boils down to this: Be more like Picasso and less like Google. That’s the takeaway from an excellent New York Times report on Apple University, as the iPhone maker’s training program is known, which drafts in Ivy League professors and features tailor-made courses for incoming acqui-hires like Dr. Dre of Beats.
Drawing on interviews with three anonymous Apple employees, the Times’ Brian Chen writes that the program is “an especially vivid reflection of Apple and the image it presents to the world. Like an Apple product, it is meticulously planned, with polished presentations and a gleaming veneer that masks a great deal of effort.” It is also, like most of Apple’s initiatives, compulsively secretive—the company declined to comment to the Times on the program’s existence.
Steve Jobs’ admiration of Pablo Picasso is well documented, from the painter’s inclusion in Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign to the Picasso homage within the Mac OS “Finder” icon. For an internal course called “Communicating at Apple,” former Pixar employee Randy Nelson uses the example of Picasso’s lithograph series “The Bull,” which shows the painter gradually paring down his representations of the animal until he uses only a few lines.
How does that apply to Apple? “You go through more iterations until you can simply deliver your message in a very concise way, and that is true to the Apple brand and everything we do,” one employee told the Times. The impulse to ruthlessly pare down designs to their most essential forms is seen in the evolution Apple products over time, from the mouse to the iPhone.
In another class taught by Nelson, “What Makes Apple, Apple,” he brings up the different design philosophies that gave rise to the Apple TV remote (a sleek sliver of aluminum with only three buttons) and the Google TV remote (78 buttons, including a QWERTY keyboard—presumably this one manufactured by Sony). Nelson explains that the simpler remote is an outgrowth of Apple’s pervading culture of minimal design:
How did Apple’s designers decide on three buttons? They started out with an idea, Mr. Nelson explained, and debated until they had just what was needed—a button to play and pause a video, a button to select something to watch, and another to go to the main menu.
Apple University practices what it preaches down to the smallest details. “Even the toilet paper in the bathrooms is really nice,” one of the employees said.

Taylor Swift And Selena Gomez Just Made A Nature Documentary On Instagram

Taylor Swift And Selena Gomez Just Made A Nature Documentary On Instagram

 Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez. The two girls — who are BFFs again, apparently! — made a video on Instagram of some seriously unruly coyotes howling at the moon, narrated by Swift herself.
“What you are witnessing,” Swift begins, “Actually hearing, is coyotes freaking out over a full moon.”
“I didn’t know that was a real thing. I thought it was just a wolf thing,” she continued before the duo fell into a fit of goofy giggles. The brief clip was then posted on Gomez’s Instagram account.
“Guys, that happened in real life and not just in movies,” Gomez’s caption reads.

Sunday 10 August 2014

Riders rescued from atop roller coaster at Six Flags in Maryland

Riders rescued from atop roller coaster at Six Flags in Maryland

By Scott Dance and Matthew Hay Brown
Baltimore Sun


















Aug. 10- Firefighters have rescued all of the riders who were stranded for hours atop a roller coaster at Six Flags America in Largo, Md., officials said Sunday evening.
"All riders safely on the ground," the Prince George's County Fire Department tweeted shortly after 7 p.m.
Earlier, Fire Chief Marc Bashoor reported: "Operation going as smooth as can be expected. Patrons being evaluated."
The Joker's Jinx stalled at about 3 p.m., park officials tweeted, stranding the riders on a high curve.
"All riders are safe, upright and being helped off the ride with PGCo Fire support," officials reported.
A short time later, Bashoor tweeted that firefighters had "made face to face access with first riders." He called the operation a "high angle" and "long term" rescue.
"Riders being strapped in place within each car, before cars passenger restraint can be released," Bashoor tweeted. "Then pulled 1 by 1."
Photographs on Bashoor's Twitter account show a cherry picker extending up to the top of the coaster, and what appear to be rescue workers walking along the track toward the stalled train.
Bashoor said an additional tower ladder was in place to assist. He said riders would be evaluated by emergency medical technicians before being reunited with their families.
"All riders safely disembarked from Jokers Jinx," the park tweeted. "Ride closed for now. Thanks Prince George County Fire Dept for your help!"
The Joker's Jinx, named for the Batman villain, is a 2,700-foot-long roller coaster that reaches speeds up to 60 mph, according to the Six Flags website.

Security Experts Call for Government Action Against Cyber-Threats

Security Experts Call for Government Action Against Cyber-Threats


Alarmed by mounting cyber threats around the world and across industries, a growing number of security experts see aggressive government action as the best hope for averting disaster.
Even though some experts are outraged by the extent of U.S. Internet spying exposed by former NSAcontractor Edward Snowden, they are even more concerned about technologically sophisticated enemies using malware to sabotage utilities, wipe out data stored on computer drives, and steal defense and trade secrets.
Such fears and proposals on new laws and executive action to counter these threats were core topics this week in Las Vegas at Black Hat and Def Con, two of the world's largest gatherings for security professionals and hackers.
At Black Hat, the keynote speech by respected researcher Dan Geer went straight for national and global policy issues. He said the U.S. government should require detailed reporting on major cyber breaches, in the same way that deadly diseases must be reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Critical industries should be subjected to "stress tests" like the banks, Geer said, so regulators can see if they can survive without the Internet or with compromised equipment.
Geer also called for exposing software vendors to product liability suits if they do not share their source code with customers and bugs in their programs lead to significant losses from intrusion or sabotage.
"Either software houses deliver quality and back it up with product liability, or they will have to let their users protect themselves," said Geer, who works for In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm serving U.S. intelligence agencies. Geer said he was speaking on his own behalf.
"The current situation - users can't see whether they need to protect themselves and have no recourse to being unprotected - cannot go on," he said.
Several of Geer's proposals are highly ambitious given the domestic political stalemate and the opposition of major businesses and political donors to new regulation, Black Hat attendees said. In an interview, Geer said he had seen no encouraging signs from the White House or members of Congress.
But he said the alternative would be waiting until a "major event" that he hoped would not be catastrophic.
Chris Inglis, who retired this year as deputy director of the National Security Agency, said disaster could be creeping instead of sudden, as broad swaths of data become unreliable.
In an interview, he said some of Geer's ideas, including product liability, deserved broader discussion.
"Doing nothing at all is a worse answer," said Inglis, who now advises security firm Securonix.
Software flaws
Some said more disclosures about cyber-attacks could allow insurance companies to set reasonable prices. The cost of cyber insurance varies, but $1 million in yearly protection might cost$25,000, experts say
High-profile data breaches, such as at Target Corp and eBay Inc, have spurred demand for cyber insurance, but the insurers say they need more data to determine how common and how severe the intrusions are.
The ideas presented by Geer and other speakers would not give the government more control of the Internet itself. In that area, security professionals said they support technology companies' efforts to fight surveillance and protect users with better encryption.
Instead, the speakers addressed problems such as the pervasive number of severe flaws in software, which allow hackers to break in, seemingly at will.
Geer said the United States should try to corner the market for software flaws and outspend other countries to stop the cyber arms race. The government should then work to fix the flaws instead of hoarding them for offense, he said.
Black Hat founder Jeff Moss said he was reminded of the importance of data security while advising a government agency that had no way to tell which of its millions of records were accurate and which had been tampered with.
In the security industry, Moss said, "we're so day-to-day that we forget we're a piece of a bigger system, and that system is on the edge of breaking down."
Dire projections have led some professionals to despair, but others say the fact that their concerns are finally being shared by political leaders gives them hope.
Alex Stamos, who joined Yahoo Inc earlier this year as chief information security officer, said the Internet could become either a permanent tool of oppression or a democratizing force, depending on policy changes and technology improvements.
"It's a great time to be in the security industry," Stamos said. "Now is the time."
© Thomson Reuters 2014

Selena Gomez Receives Biggest 2014 Teen Choice Awards Honor

Selena Gomez Receives Biggest 2014 Teen Choice Awards Honor


The 2014 Teen Choice Awards show hasn't even happened yet, but Selena Gomez has already won an award! Selena nabbed this year's Ultimate Choice Award, the biggest honor at the TCAs.
It's been a rough year for Selena, but we're so proud that she's being recognized for her acting and music. Plus, she's also nominated for other awards: Choice Instagrammer and Smile.


Disney Research's latest tech will accurately 3D print your mullet

Disney Research's latest tech will accurately 3D print your mullet


Printing in three dimensions allows for a ton of really cool (and life-saving) stuff, but one area it apparently hasn't conquered just yet is realistically reproducing human hair. The masterminds at Disney Research think they have a solution for that conundrum. Instead of trying to capture individual strands of someone's coif, the team is taking a similar approach to that of Michelangelo, and attempting to capture an overall "essence" of a person's hairstyle by fitting it on a bust like a helmet. And while the applications for most of what Walt's science department cooks up are a bit ambiguous, it seems pretty likely this tech'll be found in the myriad souvenir shops lining The Magic Kingdom. Disney says that the ultimate goal is to make more realistic (and possibly nightmare-inducing) figurines that accurately capture the subject's personality. What's more, the outfit has pointed out that it's even capable of accurately capturing facial hair. I might be a tad biased, but here's to hoping that means sideburns too.

Smart collar turns your cat into a WiFi hacking weapon

Smart collar turns your cat into a WiFi hacking weapon

Jon Fingas
Engadget
















Forget Trojan horses -- it's the cats you have to worry about. Security engineer Gene Bransfield has developed WarKitteh, a tech-laden collar that turns feline companions into scouts for WiFi hackers. The innocuous-looking accessory hides a Spark Core board that maps wireless networks and their vulnerabilities wherever the pet wanders. If used in the field, the technology would be pretty sneaky; the cat stalking mice in your backyard could represent the prelude to an attack on your wireless router.

Thankfully, Bransfield doesn't plan to weaponize the Siamese next door any time soon. WarKitteh was developed on a lark, and it isn't getting much more exposure than a panel at the Defcon hacking conference. However, the experiment in pet-based network penetration also serves as a friendly reminder to lock down your home's WiFi access point. The engineer discovered that many of his neighbors were either using weak security, or none at all -- it wouldn't have taken much for someone with more sinister intentions to either "borrow" those connections or spy on their users.

Angry Birds Stella Releases on September 4

Angry Birds Stella Releases on September 4

Rovio has rolled-out two new trailers for the upcoming instalment of the Angry Birds franchise, dubbedAngry Birds Stella. The smartphone game was first teased in February this year, and will launch on September 4.
The Finnish mobile gaming giant announced the release date of the first all-female Angry Birds game via its Angry Birds Twitter handle on Tuesday, along with a link for the first trailer.
The first trailer focuses on the game's main character, Stella, and hints what powers she possesses in the game. The second trailer introduces Stella and others characters present in the game. It also hints the powers of other characters in the game. To recall, the other characters that are included in the game are Luca, Poppy, Dahlia, Willow and Gale



Angry Birds Stella will be similar to most of its previous Angry Bird game instalments as seen in some previous snapshots of the game via Angry Bird's official Twitter account.
The gameplay for Angry Birds Stella, as described on the official site, will be based on the Golden Island in the Angry Birds universe. Stella will be teaming up with four of her friends pitted against Gale and her Hog servants. On the Angry Birds site, a detailed backstory reveals that Stella and Gale, once friends, have fallen out, with Gale opting to go 'down a darker path. 
Based out of the Big Tree, Stella and her friends will be catapulting off trees on the Golden Island to battle Gale, in what is being described by Rovio as a story that 'will engage and entertain everyone.' Rovio further mentions that the game is about courage, fun and daring to be you, with a spirit of female heroism and friendship.
Rovio in June announced Angry Birds Transformers, a game that features a battle between the Autobirds (inspired by the Transformer's Autobots) and the Deceptihogs (Decepticons). Days before the Angry Birds Transformers announcement, Rovio also launched Angry Birds Epic for Android and iOS devices.

iPhone 6 Purportedly Pictured in Retail Packing

iPhone 6 Purportedly Pictured in Retail Packing
NDTV

Some new leaked images purportedly showing the anticipated next-generation iPhone from Apple, expected to be called the iPhone 6, along with its retail box, have surfaced online.
Adding to the flood of leaks we have been witnessing for the past few months, the three new images show the Silver White colour variant of the anticipated iPhone 6, its startup screen with the monochrome Apple logo, and a close-up view of the alleged retail box. The images do not make it apparent if it is the anticipated 4.7-inch or 5.5-inch model that has been leaked.



As seen in the alleged iPhone 6 images leaked by Techradar, the retail box of the upcoming Apple iPhone 6 is similar to that which ships with the iPhone 5s. The box is seen with an image of the iPhone 6 handset on the front, with 'iPhone 6' written on the sides.
While the images fail to confirm any of the anticipated iPhone 6's specifications or features, the design of the smartphone is in-line with previous leaks, and we can see what appears to be the iPhone 5s-style Touch ID fingerprint sensor. 
The authenticity of the alleged leaked iPhone 6 and its retail box images cannot be confirmed for now, and should be taken with a pinch of salt. Apple has not made any official statements about the iPhone 6 yet.

The much-anticipated iPhone 6 smartphone is said to come in two screen size variants, 5.5-inch and 4.7-inch. A few days ago, a report indicated the 4.7-inch model will arrive with a 2100mAh battery, however earlier leaks hinted an 1800mAh and 1900mAh battery. There is no new word on the battery capacity of the anticipated 5.5-inch iPhone 6 handset.
The yet-to-be-announced iPhone 6 is expected to launch on September 9, as per the latest of the recent release date rumours. The rumoured date falls in-line with previous leaks as well as Apple's traditional Tuesday launch.

Saturday 9 August 2014

The American Attitude to Self-Driving Cars

The American Attitude to Self-Driving Cars

Alexis C. Madrigal
The Atlantic
















Self-driving cars will bring a variety of benefits, say a majority of Americans. More than 60 percent of surveyed Americans think autonomous vehicles are very or somewhat likely to lead to fewer crashes, reduced severity of crashes, improved emergency response to crashes, lower vehicle emissions, and better fuel economy.
And yet, Americans are also more "concerned" than citizens of Australia and the United Kingdom about the potential problems autonomous vehicles could cause, according to a new cross-country survey by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute.
Americans were more concerned about almost everything: legal liability, data privacy, interactions with non-self-driving vehicles, system performance in poor weather, and the self-driving cars, in general, being worse than humans. 
It's only fitting for the United States to have this two-faced reaction to new technologies. We are the country, after all, that spawned the semiconductor and computing industries right alongside the modern environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
Across countries, people who had more automatic technologies installed on their current vehicles—such as advanced speed control—were both more interested in self-driving car technology and more worried about the downsides.
Proximity to new technologies doesn't necessarily breed contempt, but rather familiarity, a realistic sense of what new technologies can and cannot do for us. The closer we are to technologies, the less likely we are to see them in purely optimistic terms.
That was also the conclusion our Adrienne LaFrance came to in examining a Pew survey about Americans' views on the next 50 years of technological development. "The survey revealed that people are mostly optimistic about how tech will change our lives in the long run," she found. "But they’re apprehensive about specific technologies that are closer to reality."
If ever there was a time when people were unreservedly excited about new technology, it is over. But the excitement remains, it's just complicated by the trajectory of the 20th century. No matter how much mechanical or computational power a country possesses, utopia keeps retreating into the future.

T-Mobile Is Testing An App That Unlocks Your Smartphone With A Single Button

T-Mobile Is Testing An App That Unlocks Your Smartphone With A Single Button

Greg Kumparak
TechCrunch 






















The good news: T-Mobile is playing with the idea of letting you unlock your phone (so that it can run on other carriers) with a single click. Hurray! No more convincing customer service to help you, or digging through endless forums for a tutorial that may turn your phone into a fancy paper weight.
The not-so-good news: they’re only testing it on a kind-of-meh Samsung phone for now — and even there, there are some catches.
The biggest catch is a fair one: to unlock your phone permanently, it has to be completely paid off. So, no, you can’t pop into a T-Mobile store, get the phone at a discount on an installment plan, then unlock it, cancel your plan, and ride off into the sunset.
You also need to have been with T-Mobile for at least 40 days, and your account must be in good standing.
But what if you only need the phone to be unlocked for a while, like when you’re traveling? Though it seems like T-Mobile is still working out exactly what the guidelines for a temporary unlock are, a second button within the app allows you to unlock the phone for up to 30 days without quite as many rules.
Alas, as mentioned, T-Mobile is currently only testing this on a phone that you probably haven’t even heard of: Samsung’s Galaxy Avant. If you’re on some other locked down T-Mobile phone, you’re stuck doing it the old way.
Our buddies over at Android Central checked what happened when they stuffed the app into other Android phones, and it’s about what you’d expect: the app itself boots up just fine, but the unlock buttons are worthless.