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!! .

Friday 15 August 2014

Dust from beyond our solar system fell to Earth from space probe

Dust from beyond our solar system fell to Earth from space probe

Ian Sample, science editor
The Guardian 

It could be the most exotic material on the planet. Seven particles of dust brought back to Earth by a spacecraft nearly a decade ago appear to have come from beyond our solar system.
The specks have all the hallmarks of being created in interstellar space. If confirmed, it would make them the first material from outside the solar system to be brought to Earth for study.
Scientists found the tiny particles – including some shaped like fluffy snowflakes – on detectors carried by Nasa's Stardust probe which launched in 1999 on a mission to capture dust from interstellar space and the tail of comet Wild-2.
The detectors were dropped to Earth by parachute when Stardust flew past in 2006. Each detector worked like cosmic fly-paper and collected particles as they hurtled past the spacecraft.
The dust might have been created in a supernova explosion millions of years ago and shaped by their exposure to the harsh extremes of space. "These are very precious particles," said Andrew Westphal, a physicist at the University of California in Berkeley, who worked on the dust.
The two largest fluffy particles contain a crystalline magnesium-iron-silicate mineral called olivine, which suggested that they came from the discs around stars and were altered by the interstellar environment, Westphal said.
If the nature of the dust is confirmed, then studies of the material could shed light on the origins of interstellar dust. Almost everything known about interstellar dust has come from observations, either with ground-based or space-based telescopes. "We seem to be getting our first glimpse of the surprising diversity of interstellar dust particles, which is impossible to explore through astronomical observations alone," Westphal added.
The international team of scientists sought help from more than 30,000 citizen scientists to scan thousands of microscope images in search of the particles. The largest of the particles was only a few thousandths of a millimetre across, considerably smaller than this full stop. Most of the specks weighed a few millionths of a millionth of a gram.
Two particles, named Orion and Hylabrook by their discoverers, were found from the tracks they left in detectors made from aerogel, an ultra-light and porous material. Scientists found a third track from a particle moving in the same direction, but it was evidently moving so fast, at more than 15km per second, that it vapourised on impact.
Four more particles, with the right chemical make-up for interstellar dust, were found at the bottom of pits left in thin aluminium foils built into the detectors. "They were splattered a bit, but the majority of the particles were still there at the bottom of the crater," said Rhonda Stroud at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. More tests are planned on the particles to confirm or rule out their interstellar origins.
Besides the exotic dust particles, researchers identified more than 50 other particles of spacecraft debris in the Stardust detectors, according to a report in Science.
Anton Kearsley, a microanalyst who took part in the study at the Natural History Museum in London, said recognising interstellar dust was a huge challenge.
"In the end, 30,000 people around the world worked through thousands of digital microscope images of the main part of the collector, the aerogel, and eventually found the tracks that included interstellar dust particles," he said.
"As the results came in, the numbers and sizes of dust grains were not what we'd expected, and many seemed to have come from strange directions," he added. "Only by careful plotting of impact directions was the team able to identify the seven particles that must have come from outside the solar system."

New health apps, games reward patients who take their meds

New health apps, games reward patients who take their meds

By Christina Farr and Malathi Nayak
Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO - A group of ex-gaming industry executives say they can use their design chops to solve a major health challenge: Sick patients neglecting to take their medication and costing employers and insurance providers billions of dollars.
Jason Oberfest began thinking about applying game design tricks to complex medical problems in 2011, while at mobile game company ngmoco.
Oberfest built the app to engage users in their health, but he maintained some of the most viral aspects of mobile games, such as gifts, and a feature to see how friends are faring in their treatment. The app also includes a drug database and sends refill alerts to patients.
"Drug adherence may not be sexy, but it's a $300 billion-a-year problem," said Oberfest. An analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that Americans are failing to comply with prescriptions and it is costing the U.S. health system between $100 billion and $289 billion annually. The study found that up to 50 percent of medications for chronic disease are not taken as prescribed.
Mango Health has raised more than $8 million from prominent investors, including Kleiner Perkins partner Bing Gordon and Zynga cofounder Mark Pincus.
From smart pill bottles to smartphone apps, entrepreneurs have been experimenting for years with ways to motivate patients to take their meds.
Vancouver, Canada's Ayogo Health draws tactics from game design by using points as indications of progress. One of its games, "Monster Manor", is targeted to children with diabetes.
Omri Shor, chief executive of MediSafe, an Israeli medication management company, focuses on keeping patients on track by making them accountable to family-members.
Oberfest expects to see a spike in health apps in the wake of Apple Inc announcing its HealthKit service this June.
"No one has cracked the code -- yet," said Carla Brenner, a former consultant for pharma companies such as Eli Lilly and Gilead Sciences. But Brenner said drug companies are optimistic about these new smartphone apps.
"Medication adherence is a big issue for pharma," she said.
For game makers, entering health care means navigating privacy and regulatory requirements, as well as occasionally conflicting demands of payers, providers and pharmaceutical companies.
Moving forward, Oberfest will collaborate with drug makers, but he is "cautious" to take their money. The company is amassing information about health, but claims to meet the standards of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, meaning that personally identifiable health information isn't shared with a covered entity, like a health provider.
Instead, Oberfest is reaching out to employers and hospitals to potentially sell them custom or premium versions.
But while game-like health apps may work with women, who make up the largest group of mobile gamers, and youth, Skip Fleshman, a health investor at Asset Management Ventures, warned that they may fail to reach a majority of other patients.
"I doubt this would be effective for people who can't afford to take drugs or suffer from side effects," he said.

Thursday 14 August 2014

Kendall Jenner Fights Back Against Waitress

Kendall Jenner Fights Back Against Waitress


After Kendall Jenner vehemently denied that she threw money at former Skins actress and waitressBlaine Morris, she's fighting back in other ways besides Twitter! According to documents obtained by E! Online, Kendall's lawyer threatened Blaine to retract her "completely false, fabricated and defamatory" statements — or else she'll be sued.
"Although you are working as a waitress at Mercer Kitchen, I understand you are also a struggling actress," Kendall's lawyer reportedly wrote. "You no doubt concocted a fictionalized account of your encounter with my client in order to create publicity for yourself."
Kendall's lawyer says that she did indeed eat at the restaurant where Blaine worked — and forgot to pay the check before leaving — but that Kendall "politely handed" her $40 for a $33 bill.
Even though Kendall admitted to lying as a child, we don't think she would cause such a big ruckus if she was lying now. Even if it was an exaggerated joke at first, now things are serious!

Taylor Swift Is Unrecognizable After Her Nerdy Makeunder!

Taylor Swift Is Unrecognizable After Her Nerdy Makeover


We're so used to seeing Taylor Swift looking impossibly glam on red carpets and totally chic rocking trendy street style fashions, so we were floored when we saw her nerdy makeover for a role in aTonight Show skit!

 Rocking huge glasses, tons of colorful throwback hair scrunchies, braces, and an over-the-top outfit, Taylor completely transformed into an awkward but totally cute young girl named Natalie!

Microsoft Urges Reform Of U.S. Government’s Surveillance Practices

Microsoft Urges Reform Of U.S. Government’s Surveillance Practices

Alex Wilhelm
TechCrunch

In a set of comments regarding “big data,” submitted in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) request for public input, Microsoft listed a number of changes to how the U.S. government handles surveillance and digital privacy that it thinks would help build “confidence in the cloud.”
Its list, while not surprising in its content, is worth noting as it puts the weight of Microsoft’s stature in the technology industry, a group of companies that have been somewhat muted in their public response to sweeping revelations regarding pervasive government surveillance.
Here’s Microsoft’s list of what it calls a “minimum” set of steps that the government should follow:
  • Update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to address changes in technology.
  • Reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ensure that its proceedings are the product of the adversarial process that is the hallmark of our judicial system.
  • Commit not to hack data centers or cables.
  • Increase transparency about the amount and types of information collected through intelligence surveillance.
  • End bulk collection of data of telephone records.
  • Work with our international allies to improve the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process, and use that process to obtain digital evidence stored overseas, rather than using unilateral processes.
Quickly: Reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) would give greater protection to email; adding an adversarial element to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would give presented cases two sides; not hacking data centers or cables would knock the NSA’s MUSCULAR program offline; ending the bulk collection of telephone records would grant American citizens greater privacy in their communications; and improving the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty would, perhaps, end the current practice of the U.S. government using national warrants to command access to data stored abroad.
It’s a decent list.
Microsoft also called for quick movement on privacy legislation, which is the main point of its set of comments.

Wednesday 13 August 2014

The Virtual Assistant Could Be The Next Interpreter Of Enterprise Data, Starting With Google Now

The Virtual Assistant Could Be The Next Interpreter Of Enterprise Data, Starting With Google Now

Darrell Etherington
TechCrunch


You can ask Siri, Google Now and Cortana about movies, weather and sports, but you can’t yet ask them about your company’s budget for the fiscal year, or your department’s sales performance last quarter. That may be about to change, however, as Google is said by The Information to be in talks with HP about giving Google Now access to enterprise data, effectively creating a virtual assistant with corporation- and institution-specific smarts. And that could open a gateway to an entirely new kind of enterprise mobile computing.
Apple has also previously discussed a potential partnership with HP for enterprise computing (ahead of Apple closing the deal with IBM), with a workplace specific Siri making up part of the discussion, according to the Information, and HP is also working on its own to create a mobile search product aimed at business customers that it calls ‘Enterprise Siri.’ A partnership with Google would definitely help HP hurry its efforts to build a new breed of enterprise search with virtual assistant capabilities, however, as Google has a big head start thanks to its consumer facing product.
Making any digital assistant compatible with enterprise apps and data on authorized devices has huge potential in terms of corporate-issued and approved computing. The enterprise is a new battleground for Apple and Google, both of which have begun increasing their efforts to get their mobile platforms even more deeply embedded in workplaces, following an initial uptake driven mostly by the bring-your-own-device trend.
Adding enterprise smarts would allow employees to tie in appointments, contact databases, company data and other crucial information with their existing calendars, calls and location information, and you can see how that might be handy if you were preparing for a meeting, discussing project performance with a colleague or otherwise looking for a way to quickly access and synthesize information that otherwise might require logging into a specific dashboard and running a complicated query.
Much of the advantages offered by mobile virtual assistants today is in presenting contextually relevant information when needed, unasked for, and in making it easier to call up what you’re looking for with natural language, rather than having to use booleans and other archaic database search commands. In the enterprise, offering these and combining it with the increasingly valuable field of big data would be a carrot virtually every sizeable business would covet.
HP could definitely stand to do more in the enterprise software and services aspects of its business to try to shore up losses from the declining fortunes of PCs and printers, but the report doesn’t say how far along these discussions have progressed. Still, it’s an interesting area for exploration, and one that other companies like Microsoft (which already offers some developer access to Cortana) have clearly begun to mull as well.

Bing gets smarter with Cortana-like conversation capabilities

Bing gets smarter with Cortana-like conversation capabilities

by Brad Sams
Neowin

One of the defining aspects of Cortana is the ability to interact with the personal digital assistant in a way that feels natural. To build on this type of interaction, Bing has announced an update to its service today that brings a similar level of functionality to the search service.
What the Bing team has announced today is a text-based application for searches that has undertones of Cortana's functionality. For example, if you search "who is the President?" and your next search is "who is his wife?", Bing will know that you are looking for Michelle Obama based on your prior search. The idea is that you can ask questions to Bing in the same way that you would during a conversation where prior context is key to understanding the task that you are trying to accomplish.
It's small features like this that has allowed Bing to make small gains against Google, and with their constant roll-out of improvements, it would make sense that they will keep chipping away from Google's massive lead in the search market.
This update is one of many that will make its way into Bing, and Microsoft said that the road to be able to introduce this type of feature has been a long journey, but the labor is now starting to create the fruit that we see today. Expect to see more features like this in the near future as Bing works to differentiate itself from Google by finding new ways to make searching feel more natural.

With sharp focus, quantum dot makers scale up to meet demand

With sharp focus, quantum dot makers scale up to meet demand

By Soham Chatterjee and Lehar Maan
Reuters

- When Amazon.com Inc was developing its most advanced tablet to date, it asked a little-known company to solve a tricky problem with the screen: how to produce rich colors without draining battery life.
With the help of Milpitas, California-based Nanosys Inc, the Kindle Fire HDX 7 became one of Amazon's best-selling tablets, winning critical acclaim for its vibrant display.
The answer? Quantum dots, which are semiconductor crystals 10,000 times finer than a human hair. They convert electrical energy into light and can be manipulated to produce precise colors.
"If you put a regular LCD display next to a quantum-dot LCD display, your grandmother can tell the difference," said Jason Carlson, chief executive officer of QD Vision Inc, which makes quantum dots for Sony Corp's Triluminos TV.

So explosive is demand for this technology that the few companies able to make quantum dots are struggling to keep up. Most are partnering with big display makers to set up industrial-scale manufacturing.
QD Vision and Nanosys are considering going public in the next year or so.
But while quantum dots are cheaper and consume less power than organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), their rival technology at the sharp end of the display business, they cannot yet be produced in the same quantities.

Quantum dots from most suppliers also contain cadmium, a toxic metal whose use is restricted in many countries.
A recent survey by DisplayMate Technologies rated Amazon's Kindle Fire display as the clear winner in color reproduction against Apple Inc's iPad mini and Google Inc's Nexus 7. (http://bit.ly/1tn58ze)
Smartphone and TV consumers also like quantum dots for their low price. A 65-inch quantum-dot display TV would cost about $3,500, half as much as an OLED-display model of the same size, said Nutmeg Consultants founder Ken Werner.

Werner said quantum dots would retain that pricing advantage for at least three years.
For that reason, the OLED market cannot match the growth rates forecast for quantum dots.
Touch Display Research analyst Jennifer Colegrove said she expected a $9.6 billion market for quantum-dot displays and lighting components by 2023, compared with sales of just $75 million last year. (http://bit.ly/1mceJ7j)
By contrast, Transparency Market Research projects annual sales of OLED displays at $25.9 billion by 2018 versus $4.9 billion in 2012.

QUANTUM LEAP
Although quantum dots have been in development since the 1980s, they have only made the leap from laboratory to market in the last decade.
Nanosys shelved its plan to go public in 2004 for want of a viable product. Now the company says an initial public offering is its next step.
Lexington, Massachusetts-based QD Vision considers an IPO to be a possibility in 2015, Carlson said.
Two other quantum dot makers plan to shift their listings to larger exchanges, their CEOs told Reuters. Nanoco Group Plc will move to the London Stock Exchange from the bourse's AIM, and San Marcos, Texas-based Quantum Materials Corp will go to the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq from over the counter.

To supply the volumes needed for large-scale manufacturing, QD Vision has partnered with LG Display Co Ltd, while Nanosys has a manufacturing partnership with a unit of 3M Co.
The shift from OLED technology toward quantum dots has been especially prevalent in TV, where OLED panels have proven expensive for large screens.
Sony and Panasonic Corp, Japan's two largest consumer electronics companies, in December announced an end to their joint development of OLED TV screens.

PATENT POWER
Patents on the technology used to make quantum dots will make it tough for new entrants to unseat existing producers, said IHS Technology analyst Brian Bae.
Apple last year filed patents on quantum-dot technology, but they involve improving the brightness and quality of displays rather than manufacturing.
Even cadmium, which the European Union and other countries restrict for use in electrical and electronic equipment, may not be much of a problem.

Oeko-Institut, an independent research institute hired by the EU, has recommended that quantum dots be exempt from wider legislation on hazardous substances until July 1, 2017, provided the cadmium content per square millimeter of display screen is below 0.2 micrograms.
That is above what is contained in displays with Nanosys and QD Vision's technologies.
For Nanoco, however, the prospect of stricter regulation beyond 2017 might be an advantage. It is the only producer of cadmium-free quantum dots and has recently doubled capacity at its Runcorn plant in northwest England.

The company has a licensing deal with a unit of Dow Chemical Co, which holds exclusive worldwide rights for the sale of its quantum dots for use in electronic displays.
Nanoco CEO Michael Edelman said Dow Electronic Materials had "the engineering strength and muscle to scale into the volumes that are necessary - and quickly."

Apple bans use of 2 chemicals in iPhone assembly

Apple bans use of 2 chemicals in iPhone assembly

Associated Press 

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is banning the use of two potentially hazardous chemicals during in the final assembly of iPhones and iPads as part of the company's latest commitment to protect factory workers who build its trendy devices.
The decision announced Wednesday comes five months after the activist groups China Labor Watch and Green America launched a petition drive calling on Apple Inc. to abandon the use of benzene and n-hexane in the production of iPhones.
Apple says a four-month investigation at 22 factories found no evidence that benzene and n-hexane was endangering the roughly 500,000 people who work at the plants.
The Cupertino, California company nevertheless decided the substances should no longer be allowed during the final assembly process.
Benzene can cause leukemia and n-hexane has been linked to nerve damage.

Apple, Google, VCs invest in health technology

Apple, Google, VCs invest in health technology

By Brandon Bailey
San Jose Mercury News

  It's no coincidence that archrivals Apple and Google launched competing software initiatives this summer for wearable gadgets that track fitness and health.
Health technology is hot in the Bay Area, where some of the biggest tech companies and a swarm of startups are working on everything from doctor-recommendation apps and video diagnostic services to data-crunching analytics and cutting-edge DNA sequencing.

Hoping to capitalize on the power of mobile computing, artificial intelligence and new analytics software — as well as new laws and the sense that a bloated health care industry is ripe for new efficiencies — venture capital firms and big tech companies are pouring vast sums into new medical technology.
The pending "collision of new technology and the life sciences" will bring radical change to "what health care means and what it looks like, in the next 20 years," said Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures, the Internet giant's in-house investing arm.

Some entrepreneurs want to change the way people interact with doctors and insurance companies. Others believe they now have the tools to unlock the genetic secrets of health and serious disease, and to identify effective treatments by analyzing mountains of data. And some just want to help you lose a few pounds.
In just the first six months of 2014, investors put a record $2.3 billion into digital health startups — or slightly more than the $2 billion invested in all of 2013, according to a survey by Rock Health, which funds health tech companies.
Health companies are also hot on Wall Street: The Ipreo research firm counted 52 initial public offerings in the first half of 2014, compared with 53 in all of last year.
Some of the valley's commercial tech giants have dabbled in health before. Intel has long promoted its processors for specialized devices that monitor patients at home and in clinical settings. Hewlett-Packard has sold commercial computer systems tailored to the needs of hospitals and biotech labs. IBM has studied public health data at its San Jose research lab.

Now, major tech companies are seeing gold in new consumer health products.
At its annual developer conference in June, Apple introduced a new "Health" app for tracking a user's heart rate, sleep patterns, calorie intake and other health metrics. Apple also launched "Health Kit," an Internet platform for app developers that can store data from different devices and share it with a user's doctor or health system. Three weeks later, Google announced its own initiative, called "Fit," which includes developer tools and an online platform for collecting data.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin also have a long-standing interest in health research. Google Ventures is a longtime backer of 23andMe, the personal genetics startup led by Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki. While that firm has run into regulatory hurdles, Google launched a spinoff company last fall with the ambitious aim of combating "aging and associated diseases" on a cellular level.
Meanwhile, researchers at Google's secretive X division are working on wearable medical devices, including a "smart" contact lens that monitors a wearer's glucose level. The same team is building a database of genetic and molecular information from healthy volunteers, which they hope to analyze for useful medical knowledge.
Google Ventures is backing at least a dozen other life science companies, ranging from Doctor on Demand, a consumer service that arranges online video consultations, to Flatiron Health, which is hoping to mine useful information from digitized data collected by cancer-treatment providers and researchers.

Data-driven medicine is a key element of the Affordable Care Act, the federal law that implemented President Barack Obama's health care reforms, which experts say is a major force behind the boom in new health technology. At Rock Health, managing director Malay Gandhi said he's seen the impact in two ways:
First is the wave of new online startups that provide ratings and information or help consumers find health-related services in new ways. These include startups such as San Francisco's Stride Health, a Web service that compares and recommends insurance plans, and Studio Dental, which describes itself as an "Uber for your teeth" because it lets users make appointments online with a dentist who comes to their workplace with a fully equipped van.

Second, Gandhi said, the law provides powerful financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to show the effectiveness of their care, which is sparking demand for new software to track and analyze patient data. Currently, experts believe as much as a third of health spending in the United States is wasted or unnecessary, said Ed Yu, a health industry expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
In yet another trend, Yu said he's seeing a wave of new Bay Area startups that help drug retailers and other companies operate "social listening" websites, where patients and their families can share information with others who are affected by a particular disease.

Surveys show many consumers still have reservations about sharing health information online. The Federal Trade Commission has also raised concerns about health apps sharing data with advertisers or other third parties.

But tech companies are working on that, too. Mountain View, Calif., startup TrueVault makes software that helps app developers meet privacy and security standards required by federal health law.
———
HEALTH TECH FUNDING
Venture capitalists poured a record $2.3 billion into digital health companies during the first half of 2014, according to a report by startup accelerator Rock Health, which identified six major types of health technology being funded:
—Digital medical devices ($206 million)
—Data collection and analytics ($196 million)
—Consumer tools for buying health care or insurance ($193 million)
—Software to help providers track patients' health and treatment effectiveness ($162 million)
—Software for tailoring treatment to patients' genetic information ($150 million)

Was Kendall Jenner Totally Rude to a Waitress?

Was Kendall Jenner Totally Rude to a Waitress?


Kendall Jenner has been a magnet for drama lately, spurring rumors that she's fighting with her sister Kylie Jenner over Justin Bieber and even feuding with Demi Lovato at the Teen Choice Awards. This time, her alleged adversary isn't that well-known, but it's still causing major waves. Kendall reportedly threw money at Blaine Morris, a waitress who used to be an actress on the MTV show Skins.
According to a now-deleted tweet, Blaine accused Kendall of rudely throwing money in her face after she chased Kendall down the street to get her to pay her dinner bill.

Soon after, Kendall took to Twitter to strike down the rumors, saying they were completely false.

This looks like it's another case of 'she-said, she-said,' so we'll probably never know what really happened. 

You Will Never Believe What Daniel Radcliffe Revealed About Harry Potter

You Will Never Believe What Daniel Radcliffe Revealed About Harry Potter


Potterheads, you may have thought you knew everything about Harry Potter, but Daniel Radcliffehas something new to reveal! The actor made a jaw-dropping statement recently — Harry didn'tactually need glasses.
In a recent interview, he claims, "That was just a fashion statement."
Since Harry's round glasses are part of his signature look (along with his lightning bolt scar), we can see where Dan is coming from. But we still think he's just joking — obviously, Harry's eyesight is up to JK Rowling. Who knows? Maybe Dan just revealed a major secret!