An opposition member of Ukrainian parliament said he and his four colleagues from the Batkivschyna Party have been hospitalized after a violent scuffle in parliament between opposition and pro-government legislators. (Dec. 16)
Continue reading …
You know that killer new app you just got for your iPhone? Could you beam us a copy to try? Of course you can’t — it doesn’t work that way — but someday soon it might . The fine folks at Patently Apple recently unearthed an Apple patent app that describes a way to transfer apps over peer-to-peer Bluetooth or shiny, star-filled WiFi . The idea goes that if a company wants to spread a program by word of mouth, it might as well make it shareable too, and so the owner of an app could transfer an “application seed” to friends and associates with a similar device. You’d pick from a menu of apps to beam over, where only those greenlit by their developer would be available to send, and your recipient would receive a trial version — or somewhat less excitingly, a link to the App Store — over the air. The patent app suggests that recipients could even share the demo in turn, generating generation after generation of word-of-mouth sales, and that companies might even reward particularly influential sharers in some way. What’s that rumbling we hear? Just the gears turning in the minds of men plotting the next great pyramid scheme. Apple looking to patent sharable apps, considers calling them ‘seeds’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Thanko’s monitor hub takes all your desk clutter and hangs it from your LCD
December 17, 2010 No Comment
Your desk is a mess. Didn’t your mother teach you anything? I mean, really, wouldn’t that pen be better off in a drawer or something instead of tossed haphazardly behind your keyboard? And how long are you going to keep those empty soda bottles there? Maybe you should organize yourself a little, and maybe Thanko can help with its LCD monitor hub. It attaches to the sides and bottom of your LCD, giving you a four-port USB replicator below to help reduce cable-clutter and a series of tilt-out drawers on either side of your display where you can stuff the pens, pencils, cables, candies, thumb drives, screwdrivers, utility knives, digital cameras, toy cars, Gorillapods , memory cards, stickers, scissors, headphones, Wiimote wrists straps, and everything else that might not otherwise have a home. Or maybe that’s our desks and we’re just projecting. Thanko’s monitor hub takes all your desk clutter and hangs it from your LCD originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …
ELLINGHAM, England (Reuters) – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, fighting extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes, walked free on bail from a British jail on Thursday protesting his innocence and pledging to continue exposing official secrets. Assange spoke to a crowd of journalists and supporters waiting in outside the High Court in London five hours after a judge said he could be released on 200,000 pounds ($312,000) bail under stringent conditions. “It's great to smell fresh air of London again,” Assange, illuminated by a blizzard of photographers' flashes, said. WikiLeaks has angered U.S. authorities by publishing hundreds of a trove of 250,000 U.S….
Continue reading …
Look, y’all know that TRON : Legacy comes out in just a few painful hours.You’ve probably seen those Daft Punk headphones , a blue-glowy Razer mouse , and the obligatory armchair , among other insane promotional items . But those earthly objects definitely weren’t enough to fulfill the geeky capacity of the branding opportunities that such a cinematic event — nay, spectacle — creates. Melbourne-based interactive design company Eness went ahead and built an interactive projection-mapped skate ramp to commemorate the premiere. The Aussies who got to shred in this thing created and destroyed light trails, exploded through galaxies of color and shapes piped straight from the Grid, and had their airtime measured in real time and projected onto the ramp. It’s not quite a real-life light cycle battle, but we’ll take it. Must-see video after the jump. Continue reading TRON: Legacy gets its very own interactive halfpipe (video) TRON: Legacy gets its very own interactive halfpipe (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …
Californians are more burdened by housing costs than are residents of any other state, an analysis of new census data shows. More than half of the state's homeowners with a mortgage – 51.4 percent – spend more than 30 percent of their monthly income on housing costs, according to 2005-2009 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Renters in California are in the same boat, with 51.8 percent spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. The 30 percent threshold for housing costs has long been a conventional marker of affordability [PDF] . The estimates , released Tuesday, show that housing costs exceed 30 percent for 36.7 percent of mortgaged owners and 46.2 percent of renters
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media Joe Scarborough apparently wasn’t too happy with Chris Van Hollen’s op-ed in the Washington Post — First, fix the estate tax giveaway : House Democrats think this trade-off should be debated and voted on in the light of day. With Washington Republicans sharpening their budget knives to cut spending on national priorities such as education, border security and public safety, it is hard to believe they think it’s wise to give a windfall to heirs such as Paris Hilton. Let’s find out if Republicans really want to jeopardize income tax, payroll tax and estate tax relief for every American in order to provide a budget-busting bonanza to the country’s richest estates. Scarborough didn’t like Van Hollen pointing out that it is primarily people who don’t work for a living, who just happened to get lucky by being born into the right family that will be benefiting from lowering that rate. Instead, as Media Matters pointed out , he joined the Fox yappers who have been demonizing the estate tax and pushing the family farm myth. Hey Joe… you can’t pay any taxes if you’re, you know… dead. The children of those who are passing that money on didn’t “earn” that money, they inherited it. So they haven’t already been taxed on it.
Continue reading …
As you can imagine, the call for a community to be the recipient of Google Fiber’s 1Gbps network was met by an overwhelming response. Indeed, the response was so great that while the recipient of all that bandwidth was to be announced at the end of this year, it looks like they won’t have a decision until early 2011. In the meantime, the project will continue to offer insanely high download speeds to Google’s campus and an 850 home beta network in Stanford. Google Fiber’s 1Gbps ISP ‘test community’ selection delayed until 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Olbermann Suspends Twitter Account to Avoid Criticism for Assange Rape Charge Remarks
December 17, 2010 No Comment
Keith Olbermann suspended his Twitter account Thursday as a result of a torrent of criticism over comments he made about the rape charges filed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The trouble started Tuesday when schockumentary filmmaker and Assange supporter Michael Moore was Olbermann's guest on “Countdown”: read more
Continue reading …
Washington – President Barack Obama told war-weary Americans on Thursday that enough progress was being made in Afghanistan to begin withdrawing US troops in July, even as he faces growing doubts about his war strategy. Obama, under pressure to show results after criticising his predecessor George Bush for neglecting the war, insisted that US-led forces were scoring gains against the Taliban and al-Qaeda but warned they were fragile…
Continue reading …