Andy Murray wins Wimbledon, ends 77-year British drought

WIMBLEDON, England — No need to chin up, England. Wimbledon is yours again.

On a brilliantly sunny Sunday afternoon, No. 2 Andy Murray knocked off top-ranked Novak Djokovic 6-4, 7-5, 6-4, ending 77 years of British anxiety.

Scotland's Murray, 26, is the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry won the last of three consecutive in 1936.

One year after a crushing defeat to Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final, Murray returned to the All England Club lawns to capture his second Grand Slam title after last year's U.S. Open, where he beat Serbia's Djokovic in five sets.

Murray also won last year's Olympic gold medal at Wimbledon, and ran his unbeaten string on grass to 18-0.

Meeting in their fourth major final — and third in less than a year – the world's top two players and defensive standouts exchanged many grueling groundstroke rallies. A few went 30 shots or more.

Murray was steadier, taking advantage of the Djokovic's lackluster serving and bouts of error-prone play.

He seemed energized by the nearly 15,000 fans on sold-out Centre Court and thousands more watching the big screen from the grounds, storming back from a 1-4 second set deficit to put six-time major winner Djokovic on the ropes.

After dropping his first four Grand Slam finals, Murray, who skipped the French Open with a bad back, ran his record to 2-6, having lost to Djokovic in January's Australian Open final.

Read More

'Supermoon' Full Moon Rises Tonight: Watch It Live Online

The biggest and brightest full moon of 2013 graces Earth's skies tonight (June 23), and armchair astronomers can get great views of this "supermoon" without even leaving the comfort of their homes.

The online Slooh Space Camera will air a free supermoon webcast tonight at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT on June 24), featuring live high-definition views of Earth's nearest neighbor as seen by an observatory in the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa.

You can watch the Slooh supermoon webcast on SPACE.com, or follow the action at Slooh's website.

Supermoons occur because the moon's path around Earth is slightly elliptical. Distances between the two bodies vary from 225,622 miles (363,104 kilometers) at the closest lunar approach — known as perigee — to 252,088 miles (405,696 km) at the most distant point, called apogee.

When perigee and a full moon coincide, the result is a supermoon, which appears about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than a full moon at apogee.

"This unusual perfect confluence of lunar perigee and full moon will create the highest tides of the year," Bob Berman, contributing editor and monthly columnist for Astronomy magazine, said in a statement. Berman will participate in Sunday's hourlong show, along with a Slooh broadcast team.

"We can expect expose-the-sand lows and lap-the-boardwalk highs on Sunday and especially Monday, since the oceans usually require a day to catch up with the behavior of the moon," Berman added.

Tonight's supermoon comes just two days after the northern summer solstice, when the sun appeared to shine farthest to the north of the equator. Friday (June 21) was the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and marked the start of summer there. (It signaled the beginning of winter for folks in the Southern Hemisphere).

"This is thus a 'solstitial moon' as well. The visual effect is to make this the lowest-down full moon of 2013," Berman said. "And since lower moons tend to be orange-yellow or amber, shining as they do through more than twice as much reddening air and moisture, this lunar experience should give us a true 'honey moon' all night long. Moreover, lower moons look larger thanks to the famous 'moon illusion.'"

The "moon illusion" is a mysterious optical effect that makes the moon look much bigger when it rises behind objects on the horizon than it does high up in the sky.

Read More

'The Sopranos' Star James Gandolfini Dead at 51

Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano in The Sopranos has died. He was 51.

HBO confirmed to on Wednesday that Gandolfini died while vacationing in Rome, Italy. Reports suggest the cause was a possible heart attack.

"We're all in shock and feeling immeasurable sadness at the loss of a beloved member of our family. He was [a] special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect," the network wrote in an emailed statement.

"He touched so many of us over the years with his humor, his warmth and his humility. Our hearts go out to his wife and children during this terrible time. He will be deeply missed by all of us."

Mark Armstrong and Nancy Sanders, Gandolfini's managers, also expressed their sadness.

"Our hearts are shattered and we will miss him deeply. He and his family were part of our family for many years and we are all grieving."

Gandolfini garnered widespread acclaim and three Emmy awards for his turn as the mercurial head of the Sopranos family. The HBO drama aired for eight years, from 1999 to 2007.

Read More

Facebook Gets Hashtag Support

Hashtags are coming to Facebook to help users better surface conversations.

Support for the all-but-ubiquitous topic organization system was rumored in March and will roll out to a small percentage of users Wednesday. Facebook will roll out hashtags to more users in the coming weeks.

The social network wants to make it easier for users to find content already on Facebook, and functional hashtags are the first step. According to Facebook, many users already post hashtags anyway, so why not make them work. Hashtags will be both clickable and searchable, so, for example, topics like #NSALeaks or #NBAFinals will now exist.

Hashtags from other services, such as Instagram, are clickable as well. Users will also be able to compose posts directly from a hashtag feed and search results. That could make adding real-time content to specific streams easier than before.

Twitter user Chris Messina created in 2007 the hashtag as we know it today. Twitter eventually adopted the system of organizing tweets around a certain subject into its API and its broader ecosystem. Since then, the hashtag has been adopted by other services, including Flickr, Tumblr, Google+ and even Facebook-owned Instagram.

Read More

Eyeball Licking: Fetish that makes teenagers sick

The popularity of the bizarre practice, sometimes called 'worming', has been blamed for a rise in cases of conjunctivitis. And it freaks us out just to think about it.

Warning: don't read this if you're eating, prone to sudden bouts of queasiness or unable to even think about Un Chien Andalou without simultaneously bursting into tears and dry-heaving. Believe me, I'm speaking from experience here.

Because this is an article about oculolinctus, an eye-licking fetish that is currently sweeping across the schools of Japan like, well, like a great big dirty bacteria-coated tongue sweeping across a horrific number of adolescent eyeballs.

Sometimes known as "worming" – which somehow makes this whole thing worse – oculolinctus is being blamed for a significant rise in Japanese cases of conjunctivitis and eye-chlamydia, which is actually a thing. It's apparently seen as a new second-base; the thing you graduate to when kissing gets boring.

The craze is thought to stem from a music video by Japanese emo band Born (there's a chance that the eyeball-licking scene was only included to distract everyone from the fact that the song sounds like it belongs on a menu screen for an EA Sports game about snowboarding from a decade ago, but at this point that's just speculation).

Tumblr, inevitably, is filling up with drawings and unnecessarily close-up photographs of the act, and YouTube is no stranger either. One theory about why it has taken off so spectacularly is down to the sheer number of nerve endings in the cornea. The eyeballs are incredibly sensitive because they need to detect grit and other small particles, and the sensation of oculolinctus is supposedly akin to that of toesucking.

Unwilling to try it myself – because my tongue isn't long enough, I don't want eye-chlamydia and just writing about this has made me retch uncontrollably – I can't tell you firsthand if that's true. Luckily, one student from the US Virgin Islands with an oculolinctus fetish has explained: "My boyfriend started licking my eyeballs years ago and I just loved it. I'm not with him any more but I still like to ask guys to lick my eyeballs ... it turns me on."

However, the dangers of oculolinctus are very real. As well as spreading pink-eye like nobody's business, there's also a risk of corneal scratching, which can lead to ulcers and blindness. Plus, there's a strong chance that you'll have to go to school the next day in an eye patch. At least with lovebites you could just throw on a poloneck jumper and be done with it.

Hopefully oculolinctus won't catch on here and will remain one of those peculiarly Japanese fads such as bagelheading (injecting saline into your forehead until it swells out of all proportion, yaeba (undergoing dental surgery to give you crooked teeth) and shippo (wearing a neurologically controlled tail that reveals your moods). Because frankly, if oculolinctus does ever make it to these shores, I'm never going to be able to look at a lychee again.

Read More

All About the iOS 7

There is, I believe, a perfect mobile operating system, one ideal way of handling mobile activities on a smartphone or tablet. Apple, Google and Microsoft, maybe even Blackberry, are all headed to this common destination.

But on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Apple proved that it’s the furthest down that road. And that should surprise no one.

iOS 7, the most radical reimagining of iOS since its inception in 2007, was met with cheers of approval and, in some spots in the cavernous Moscone hall, standing ovations. From where I sat, it was deserved.

We all knew this was coming: A flattening of the interface: Less overt polish and skeuomorphism, a new look and feel brought to you by the architect of Apple aesthetic, Jony Ive. Personally, I was worried. Apple’s iPhone interface remains my favorite among smartphone platforms. I didn’t see enough wrong with it to require a rethink, but then I probably wasn’t thinking deeply enough about the mobile OS.

Taking away reflections and make-believe bubblish curves is not exactly a major accomplishment. In the case of iOS 7, it appears to be in service of radically different approach to interface mechanics. The new iOS is quite lovely — the new color palette manages to make a nearly entirely flat interface bright and bold. But clearly, the goal is for it to get out of the way.

By stripping away more than one layer of artifice, the user gets that much more quickly to what they really care about: the content, their contacts, the music, and their photos.

iOS 7 is not averse to a bit of flash. The new Safari method of handling browser tabs is both smart and spectacular. It’s like a rolodex with unlimited cards. Similarly, the new wallpapers don’t just sit behind your newly flat icons: You can turn the phone one way or another to see more of the wallpaper image behind the icons. It’s a neat trick, and about as glamorous as the new iOS gets.

Apple also manages with iOS 7 to undo its biggest design mistake: Game Center. I have no idea why they thought it should look like a craps table. Now it’s mostly white space and bubbles. That’s better, though I still think it was the one iOS 7 area that looked somewhat out of step with the rest of the OS.

Destination: Awesome Mobile OS

There’s a concerted effort in iOS 7 to not waste space or your time. More system apps, like Safari, are full screen. The new Control Center offers instant access to system features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Airplane mode, ones I probably access multiple times every day. I usually have to dig into iOS settings to get to them. In iOS 7, you just swipe from the bottom. It's plain smart.

Speaking of smart, I’m excited to try out the new Photo app. It looks miles better than the current version, mostly because Apple seems to really understand how we use our iPhones and what happens with our overwhelming collection of on-device images. I want my phone to organize my images for me, because I know I never will.

Even Siri’s relatively minor enhancements were music to my ears. I love that she (or he) can now act on a system level. For as aware as the voice assistant was of the content on my phone and the web, I was always disappointed that Siri didn’t seem to know her own home –- the iPhone. Now I can tell her to change the brightness settings. I expect to be able to enact all sorts of hardware-level changes through voice control.

I also know I’m not the only iPhone user who will thank Apple for introducing auto-app updates. Yes, I know that those updates will probably have to happen when Wi-Fi is available. If it’s really smart, the phone won’t update big-ass apps like Asphalt 7 until you plug it in at night. Still, I won’t shed a tear when I say goodbye to that little AppStore message reminding me I have 57 apps updates to download and install.

There are plenty of under-the-hood enhancements, most notably smart app management (more cycles for your most-used apps) and multi-tasking across all apps. When we quizzed a developer about the day’s most important iOS enhancements, the first thing he mentioned was multitasking.

The Road to Perfect

Yes, there were moments when I recognized a little bit of other mobile OS’s in iOS 7 — probably no more so than when Apple showed off “Today.” The dark screen, crisp, white typography, and the effort to bring together all you should know about that day in one place: it reminded me of the way Windows Phone 8 collects all that you need to know about, say, connection activities.

The more these mobile OSes change, the more they become the same as each other. It's a sign that the mobile space is no longer fresh. It’s a mature business where consumers have a set of expectations about how things should work.

Each mobile OS I’ve seen this year is getting to that destination of the perfect mobile OS. I truly believe they’ll all meet in the middle. Visually, there will always be differences, but the way our smartphones work will be more and more the same.

The only question is how fast Apple, Google, Microsoft and Blackberry get there. Some come on a galloping horse, others a race car. And Apple? I think they may just have strapped a rocket ship onto iOS.

Read More

Google Close to Buying Waze for $1.3 Billion

The bidding war for crowdsourced navigation app Waze has reportedly been won by Google, which will pay "more than $1 billion" for the startup, according to Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Update: The newspaper later added that the deal will be worth $1.3 billion.

The deal hasn't been finalized yet, but according to the report, Google agreed not to lay off Waze workers at its development center in Israel, and will allow the company to continue its development in Israel "for at least three years."

According to the report, the conditions of the deal will keep Waze CEO Noam Bardin at the helm of the company, and Waze will retain its brand and won't be integrated into Google.

A deal for the free social-powered navigation app for iPhone has been in the works for a few months, with the bidding for Waze reportedly involving Facebook and Google.

On May 24, Apple was also rumored to be considering a bid for Waze earlier this year, but on May 28, Apple CEO Tim Cook denied that Apple made a bid for Waze.

Read More

Game of Thrones Red Wedding

Did it feel like everyone was talking about the "Red Wedding" episode of Game of Thrones on Monday? Actually, they weren't.

The show got 367,000 mentions on Twitter, according to Twitter. That broke the previous record of 277,000 mentions for the show's season premiere, and is a high number of tweets for scripted dramas — but doesn't come close to the number of mentions of live shows like sports and award ceremonies. For instance, this year's Super Bowl got 24 million mentions, more than 50 times the "Red Wedding" mentions. Twitter's data on scripted shows isn't hugely extensive, and the platform's audience grows each year — making the concept of keeping a record moot.

Facebook didn't release any stats for "Red Wedding."

The episode, which featured the brutal murder of several of the show's main characters, drew 5.2 million viewers Sunday night, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Read More

Eye-Fi Launches New, More Affordable Mobi Memory Card

Eye-Fi — a wireless SD card maker — launched a new memory card for photographers on Monday that can send photos and videos to your smartphone or tablet device at a lower cost than its predecessors.

The new Eye-Fi Mobi replaces the standard SD memory card in your digital camera, and with its built-in Wi-Fi, the card sends photos to your smartphone even without a Wi-Fi network or Internet connection. This ability to send photos to smartphones is nothing new: Eye-Fi added that functionality back in 2011. But with Mobi, the whole process to transfer photos is more streamlined. The card pairs with an iOS or Android app through a unique 10-digit code, and photos are then shared in real time.

The new Mobi card's price — $49.99 (8 GB) and $79.99 (16 GB) — is lower than its more robust sister product, the Pro X2 ($99.99 for 16GB), making it appear that Eye-Fi is positioning it for the recreational photographer. The pricier Pro X2 has all the same features but can also transfer photos in RAW format and can connect with desktops.

These wireless SD cards are useful for professional photographers who might have real-time deadlines or for anyone wanting to share a DSLR photo quickly on social media. If you've ever accidentally formatted or deleted your card's contents, Eye-Fi cards are also convenient for automatically sending a backup of your photos to another device.

However, if you're simply a casual, point-and-shoot camera user, it may not be as worthy of an investment, considering many modern smartphone cameras rival standard digital camera photo quality and already have Internet connectivity.

Read More

Yahoo Shuts Down Mail Classic and Forces Users to Upgrade

Yahoo is discontinuing older versions of its email client — including Mail Classic — starting this week, the company announced.

"Beginning the week of June 3, 2013, older versions of Yahoo! Mail (including Yahoo! Mail Classic) will no longer be available," it said in a Yahoo! Help post.

After Monday, users can only access their Yahoo email accounts if they upgrade to the new version. The company said users should have received an email informing them of the mandatory upgrade.

Getting the new version of Yahoo Mail means that users accept its Communications Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which includes "the acceptance of automated content scanning and analyzing of your communications content, which Yahoo uses to deliver product features, relevant advertising and abuse protection," the post said.

Those who want to opt out of contextual ads can do so by changing their settings on Yahoo's Ad Interest Manager.

Yahoo lays out two options for users who don't want to use the latest version of its email client: downloading Yahoo Mail using IMAP or simply closing their account.

Last December, Yahoo Mail underwent a major redesign, unveiling changes to its web, iOS, Android and Windows 8 apps. Its web-based version includes fewer buttons crowding the screen, search improvements, as well as more space to view and compose emails.

"We've redesigned the new version of Yahoo Mail with speed in mind — getting through your emails is faster than ever before," CEO Marissa Mayer said in a blog post at the time.

Read More

LG Won't Make Another Google Phone

LG will not make Google's next Nexus device, the Nexus 5, despite previous rumors.

In an interview with Dutch website All About Phones, Won Kim, vice president of LG Mobile Europe, indicated that the company has no plans to produce another Nexus device, in part it seems because the company doesn't need to.

"The Nexus 4 was a great success, despite the production problems for us and Google. However, we do not need such a marketing success again," Kim said in the interview.

Furthermore, Kim said, LG doesn't plan to make any of its future devices available as “Google Editions" without the preinstalled LG software.

There is "no added value" for LG without its own skins, Kim said.

Samsung announced a Google Edition of the Galaxy S4 earlier this month at Google’s annual I/O developer conference. This Google Edition will ship running stock Android, without any preinstalled Samsung software.

Nexus devices run a pure version of Android without manufacturers' skins. In 2010, HTC produced the first Nexus device, the Nexus One. Samsung released the next two Nexus phones, the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus.

Read More

Wordpress 10th Anniversary

Ten years ago today, the first public release of WordPress became available. Initially started as a fork of the little-known blogging platform b2/Cafelog, WordPress has grown to be the largest CMS in the world, powering an astounding 18% of the web.

Nearly 70 million websites run WordPress and it's hard to understate the impact that the software has had on the world of digital publishing. Hundreds of high-profile websites, including blogs from CNN, The New York Times and Reuters, all use WordPress.

WordPress was started by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little and the open-source software has grown to include thousands of contributors. Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and one of the biggest stewards in the development of the platform as a whole, announced last week that it had raised $50 million in a secondary stock transaction.

WordPress started as an easy, free way for users to publish their own content. If you had a web host that supported PHP and MySQL and you knew how to use FTP, getting WordPress installed took, famously, under five minutes. Today, most web hosts have one-click install buttons so that users don't even have to bother with FTP. Hosted offerings from WordPress.com and others are also abundantly available.

Moreover, WordPress is no longer just about blogging or personal publishing. As recently as 2010, I was reticent to call WordPress a true CMS but that's clearly no longer true. Full web applications are run on WordPress. Shopping cart systems, Twitter analytics services and even robust WordPress site management solutions can all be built on WordPress.

Plus, the larger ecosystem around WordPress — including plugins, themes, specialized hosting providers and custom solutions builders — is mammoth and still growing. Mullenweg told me earlier this year that his goal for WordPress is for it to be the "platform or operating system" for the web. That goal is coming closer to fruition with every passing month.

What's interesting is that, as WordPress has become more powerful, it has created room for more writing-focused platforms such as Medium, Svbtle and Ghost.

To celebrate 10 years of WordPress, the WordPress community is having special Meetup events across the globe. There is also a special microsite dedicated to tweets, photos and memories associated with WordPress.

Read More

Orange Champion Foursquare Badge is Active

Orange is releasing their  new Orange Champion Foursquare badge this weekend.  The badge will be available beginning on May 26th and can be unlocked at events like Tour de France and the French open, which starts on Sunday.

1. Follow Orange France on Foursquare
2. Checkin at a sporting event Orange is partnered with
3. Make sure to select event before checking in.

Venues:


The Orange's partner sport events
(Roland Garros, Tour de France, Soccer & Rugby Championship)

Location: France [BST GMT+1]

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/stade-roland-garros/4bb7179b2ea19521f38aac2f
Upcoming Events
Roland Garros 2013 : 1e tour
9:00 AM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)
Roland Garros 2013 : 2e tour
9:00 AM on May 29, 2013 (3:00 AM, 29 May 2013 - GMT+7)
Roland Garros 2013 : 3e tour
9:00 AM on May 31, 2013 (3:00 AM, 31 May 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/court-suzanne-lenglen/4beb9e890acf76b0e88e3cc8
Upcoming Events
Roland Garros 2013 : 1e tour
9:00 AM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)
Roland Garros 2013 : 2e tour
9:00 AM on May 29, 2013
Roland Garros 2013 : 3e tour
9:00 AM on May 31, 2013

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/court-philippe-chatrier/4be3d3e6cbdbef3bf8a360d8
Upcoming Events
Roland Garros 2013 : 1e tour
9:00 AM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)
Roland Garros 2013 : 2e tour
9:00 AM on May 29, 2013
Roland Garros 2013 : 3e tour
9:00 AM on May 31, 2013

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/court-n1/4bed27ae91380f47b0789f18
Upcoming Events
Roland Garros 2013 : 1e tour
9:00 AM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)
Roland Garros 2013 : 2e tour
9:00 AM on May 29, 2013
Roland Garros 2013 : 3e tour
9:00 AM on May 31, 2013

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/court-philippe-chatrier/4be3d3e6cbdbef3bf8a360d8
Upcoming Events
Roland Garros 2013 : 1e tour
9:00 AM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)
Roland Garros 2013 : 2e tour
9:00 AM on May 29, 2013
Roland Garros 2013 : 3e tour
9:00 AM on May 31, 2013

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/stade-vélodrome/4b117d42f964a520a77d23e3
Upcoming Events
Marseille vs Stade de Reims
9:00 PM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)


https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/stadium-municipal/4b839d05f964a520410b31e3
Upcoming Events
Toulouse vs Montpellier
9:00 PM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/stade-françois-coty/4bd6e3fdcfa7b7139c3628da
Upcoming Events
AC Ajaccio vs Nice
9:00 PM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/grand-stade-lille-metropole/4c1f824deac020a1632c4bc2
Upcoming Events
Lille vs St Etienne
9:00 PM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/stade-de-gerland/4cf62ada69aaa0909508822c
Upcoming Events
Lyon vs Stade Rennes
9:00 PM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/stade-yves-allainmat/4bc0ba8174a9a5937688d0f6
Upcoming Events
Lorient vs Paris Saint-Germain
9:00 PM on May 26, 2013 (3:00 AM, 26 May 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/stadefrance
Upcoming Events
Finale du Top 14 saison 2012-2013
8:00 PM on June 1, 2013 (2:00 AM, 1 June 2013 - GMT+7)

https://foursquare.com/mobile/v/avenue-des-champsélysées/4af1cb50f964a5203ae321e3
Upcoming Events
21e étape du Tour de France 2013
9:00 AM on July 21, 2013 (3:00 AM, 21 July 2013 - GMT+7)

Read More

Champions League Final: Bayern Munich Champions

Bayern Munich beat Borussia Dortmund, 2-1, at Wembley on Saturday to win the Champions League title, ending three years of bitter disappointments in the first all-German final in the tournament’s history. The title game was a thrilling affair, even if the winning goal wasn’t much to look at.

Arjen Robben’s scored the winner in the 89th minute, darting through the Dortmund defense to snatch a free ball before clumsily redirecting a dribbling shot under goalie Roman Weidenfeller and across the line.

Robben also set up Bayern’s first goal, in the 60th minute, by dribbling to the end line — seemingly one touch too far — before crossing to the Croatian striker Mario Mandzukic. Ilkay Gundogan tied the score from the penalty spot eight minutes later after Bayern defender Dante fouled Marco Reus in the penalty area.

In many games the teams would have gone conservative at that point, but Saturday was different. The German rivals played a breathless final 20 minutes, with chance after chance at either end denied by Weidenfeller and his Bayern counterpart, Manuel Neuer. At one point, Dortmund defender Neven Subotic swept a sure goal for Thomas Muller off his goal line with a last-ditch dive.

The title was Bayern’s fifth in the tournament over all, and it helped atone for bitter losses in the final in 2010 (to Inter Milan) and 2012 (to Chelsea).

Read More

Twitter Introduces Two Step Authentication

Twitter has finally introduced two-factor authentication to more securely protect accounts, the company announced Wednesday.

The move comes after a number of hacks of high-profile Twitter accounts, including The Onion, the Associated Press and E! Online.

Jim O'Leary from Twitter's product security team announced the new feature via a blog post, saying it is in response to accounts "occasionally" being compromised by phishing schemes or password breaches on other sites.

The move will likely be of most interest to major brands with a presence on the site as a part of an effort to ward of hackers. By implementing the feature, it will make it more difficult to gain control of an account.

Twitter is calling the new feature "login verification." It works similarly to other two-factor authentication systems, especially Google's feature: After the account holder logs into an account, Twitter will send a special code to the user via SMS text message that the person must enter to gain access to the account.


Users can enable login verification via their Twitter settings page. You'll need both a confirmed email address and a verified phone number on your account to use the feature, and the system will send a test message to finish the activation.

Importantly, apps that you've linked to Twitter will continue to work "without disruption," O'Leary wrote. For apps other than a browser that require you to log into Twitter, you'll need a one-time password, available on Twitter's application page (this is also similar to how Google two-factor authentication works).

Twitter built login verification out of its Twitter for SMS feature, which was actually what the service was initially based on when it debuted in 2006. O'Leary says the work the company put into login verification will enable more security enhancements in the future.

Calls for Twitter to introduce some kind of two-step verification service grew louder after account hacks became a frequent occurrence. Besides the companies mentioned earlier, the BBC, the Financial Times, Burger King and Donald Trump have all experienced Twitter hacks in recent months.

Read More

There's Not Much Tumblr Advertising for Yahoo to Screw Up

In her now-famous tweet, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer promised not to "screw up" Tumblr. While it remains to be seen whether the site's users will soon be fleeing, Tumblr's advertising is a different story.

Simply put, there's not much to screw up at this point.

Partially, that's because the company's ad units are so new. But Tumblr faces other obstacles as well including an ambivalence towards advertising, a lack of metrics and a platform that lets you do lots of marketing outreach for free.

Tumblr introduced its ad program last May and was so conflicted about the decision that it couldn't quite bring itself to call the units "ads." (It preferred the term "sponsors.") CEO David Karp had also gone on record stating that Tumblr was "pretty opposed to advertising," a stance he later regretted.

After viewing advertising as a necessity, Karp's compromise was to be particular about the placement and quality of the advertising. The ads can only be found on the user dashboard rather than on the blogs themselves and Tumblr screens potential ads to avoid a "yucky big change" in the user experience.

As a result, despite Tumblr's huge reach — the platform claims 18 billion pageviews a month — the ads only brought in $13 million or possibly even less last year. Though it hoped to make $100 million on ads this year, the company was on track to make just $15 million this year, according to Referly CEO Danielle Morrill. To put that in perspective, consider that Facebook reported revenues of more than $5 billion in 2012. (Tumblr reps could not be reached for comment for this story.)

Beena Kalaiya, associate director, strategic insights and social media at media-buying firm Optimedia, says that Tumblr doesn't provide the sort of metrics that advertisers are used to. "The analytics are better than they used to be, but not robust enough," she says. "I'm hoping that Yahoo helps in that respect." Instead of letting advertisers target their buys based on demographics, Tumblr requires them to buy based on the target consumer's interest. "People who are used to buying that way are challenged," Kalaiya says.

Tumblr's other issue is one that plagued Facebook to a certain extent: The perceived inessential nature of advertising on the platform. General Motors, for instance, pulled its ads from Facebook in 2012 after it realized that it could communicate well enough with fans for free. (The company recently came back for a test program.)

In Tumblr's case, though Kalaiya notes that top-tier brands are on the platform, they aren't necessarily advertising. Tyler Fonda, strategy director at ad agency Gotham in New York, also notes that his client, Denny's has been having great success creating engagement on Tumblr, the brand hasn't yet bought any ads. "We make a lot of content and it works well there," he says. Fonda plans to buy some Tumblr ads in the near future.

If so, Denny's will be joining a few dozen Tumblr advertisers including Adidas, Pepsi, GE and ABC Family. The relative scarcity of advertisers is a blessing in disguise for Tumblr in one respect, says Kalaiya: The chances of having your ad run next to one of the many porn sites on the platform is low. "It's a concern, but Tumblr has done their best to assure advertiser that that won't happen," he says. "There's not that many [advertisers] on the site, so it's easier to manage that."

Read More

Linkin Park Frontman Joins Stone Temple Pilots for New Song

It's never too late for an aging rock outfit to reinvent itself, as Stone Temple Pilots set out to prove by inviting Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington to perform with the band in the studio and in concert.

Bennington made a surprise performance with STP at KROQ's annual Weenie Roast concert Saturday night, according to Rolling Stone. He sang some of the band's biggest hits from the '90s like "Vasoline," "Plush" and "Interstate Love Song."

Stone Temple Pilots also performed its new song recorded with Bennington, "Out of Time." A teaser of the song was put on YouTube Saturday, before the band released the whole thing for download.


“Chester has a one-of-a-kind voice that we’ve admired for a long time,” said Dean DeLeo in a statement on the band's website. “We know Linkin Park will always be his priority, but we thought it would be cool to try something together. We managed to find the time to record a song and we’re all really happy with the result.”

The band fired Scott Weiland, its lead singer for 20 years, in February.

Read More

Angelina Jolie has double mastectomy due to cancer gene

Actress Angelina Jolie thrust a frightening, personal and often misunderstood issue into the worldwide spotlight with her disclosure that she recently underwent a preventative double mastectomy.

Many in the medical community are praising Ms. Jolie’s account of the genetic mutation that dramatically increases her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer and her subsequent decision to have the double mastectomy. They say Ms. Jolie is helping to raise awareness and erase many misconceptions surrounding a medical dilemma faced by thousands of Canadian women.



“I think her message is incredibly helpful and inspiring to all women,” said Jennifer Blake, president and CEO of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.

Ms. Jolie revealed in a piece authored for The New York Times that she has a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which sharply increases a woman’s risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. She opted for surgery as a precaution.

“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made,” Ms. Jolie wrote. “My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 per cent to under 5 per cent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

While some may view a preventative double mastectomy as extreme, individuals with mutations of either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene have much higher cancer risks than the general population.

The BRCA genes are considered tumour-suppressor genes and are supposed to prevent uncontrolled cell growth. But in individuals with the mutations, the genes don’t function properly and the risk of cancer is increased.

About 5 per cent of all breast-cancer cases and between 4 and 11 per cent of ovarian cancer cases stem from BRCA mutations. But for women with the mutation, the risks are significant: The Canadian Cancer Society says that women with BRCA mutations have between a 40- to 85-per-cent chance of developing breast cancer in their lives. Women with a BRCA1 mutation face a 25- to 65-per-cent chance of ovarian cancer, while women with a BRCA2 mutation have a 15- to 20-per-cent chance of developing ovarian cancer.

Women at risk include those with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer or of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Women who test positive for the mutation are typically counselled about their options, which include removal of breasts and/or ovaries, taking medication to ward off cancer or undergoing routine screening.

The number who opt for mastectomies is relatively low. Steven Narod, director of the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit at Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto, recently conducted research looking at 1,400 Canadian women with the mutations. Of those, fewer than 30 per cent went for a double mastectomy.

Reconstruction rates are also low across Canada. Toni Zhong of the Breast Restoration Program at Toronto’s University Health Network led research that found the rate of reconstructive surgery immediately following a mastectomy was only 16 per cent in Ontario, whereas it is more than double that in the United States. She attributes the difference to lack of awareness by patients and restricted access to plastic surgeons in some geographical areas.

Although some have expressed concern that Ms. Jolie’s announcement will lead a crush of women pressing for BRCA testing, many doctors and breast cancer advocates are more positive, saying her star power can raise awareness of the mutation’s existence in women who may not realize they are at risk.

“Those women could be referred for genetic counselling,” said Andrea Eisen, medical oncologist and head of the familial cancer program at the Odette Cancer Centre at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. “I think awareness-raising for that is quite positive.”

Numerous medical experts also believe Ms. Jolie’s article serves notice that Canada needs to do more to ensure at-risk women have access to genetic testing and understand their options to reduce their risk of disease. While some provinces, notably Ontario and B.C., have sophisticated programs in place to help women undergo BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing, some oncologists say programs in smaller provinces or remote geographical areas tend to be spotty. Although the incidence of the mutations are relatively rare, this still means a small segment of the population may not understand their risks.

“Certainly there are organized screening programs, but Canada is a big country,” Dr. Blake said. “Getting access to screening is not always as easy. ... I think there is still a distance to go.”

Ultimately, women with the mutation need to make up their own minds about how to proceed, said Mark Basik, a surgical oncologist at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital and associate professor of surgery and oncology at McGill University.

“It’s a very personal matter,” he said, adding that he saw a patient Tuesday with a BRCA mutation who was fully aware of Ms. Jolie’s piece and has no intention of getting a mastectomy.

And there’s also the issue of what Ms. Jolie didn’t do. She opted for a preventative double mastectomy and left her ovaries intact, although her piece hints that she may revisit that decision in the future. The discussion of BRCA mutations typically revolves around breast-cancer risk, as it is much more common. But ovarian cancer can be a much more devastating diagnosis, because it is difficult to detect, hard to treat and is often fatal. And among women with a BRCA mutation, removal of the ovaries can also help reduce a woman’s breast-cancer risk.

Mona Gauthier is a cancer researcher as well as a patient at the Princess Margaret Hospital. Like Ms. Jolie, she lost her mother to cancer early in her life and opted for a double mastectomy after learning she had the BRCA1 mutation. She believed she had time to have her ovaries removed, as many women are diagnosed in their 50s. But she learned in her early 40s that she had ovarian cancer. Several years later, she is still living with the disease and says it will ultimately take her life.

“We can’t ignore that part of it, we really can’t,” Dr. Gauthier said. “[Ovarian cancer] needs the awareness that breast cancer had and has.”

Read More

LinkedIn Bans Users From Promoting Prostitution, Escort Services

LinkedIn is used by professionals of all types, but it looks like prostitutes and escorts will have to find another social network to promote themselves.

The social network updated its user agreement terms on Monday, adding an interesting clause, which caught the attention of one of our readers. Under a section entitled "Don't undertake the following," LinkedIn now includes this statement:

"Upload, post, email, InMail, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that: Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution."


A LinkedIn rep confirmed that the wording is new, but noted that the social network has always prohibited users from "unlawful" activities. The reason for the new wording, according to the rep, is that there are some countries in which LinkedIn operates, where prostitution is actually legal.

"In the old [user agreement], we had it covered by saying that one could not use a profile to promote anything 'unlawful,'" the rep said. "However, in some countries, that activity actually is lawful." With that in mind, LinkedIn decided to be a little more explicit about banning these professions from the site, regardless of what a country's laws might be.

Read More

New Expertise Foursquare badges for you foodies out there

Foursquare released a handful of Expertise badges today that are based around food. The restaurant categories for these badges include Chinese, Seafood, Sandwich Shops and Italian. Previous check-ins seem to count so you very well may unlock some new badges when you go out to eat soon.

---

Sweet n' Sour Check In

---

How to Unlock:
Visit 3 different Chinese Restaurants or the same venue 5 times. You can unlock the additional levels by checking into 5 more.

Unlock Message:
Scallion pancakes. Soup dumplings. Stinky tofu. Whether you're slurping chow mein from a greasy takeout box or reaching for more dim sum off the lazy susan, just be sure you're using chopsticks!

---

The Life Aquatic

---

How to Unlock:
Visit 3 different seafood restaurants or the same venue 5 times. You can unlock the additional levels by checking into 5 more.

Unlock Message:
Who needs chicken when you can have chicken of the sea? It's a crustacean sensation!

---

Earl Of Sandwich

---

How to Unlock:
Visit 3 different Sandwich Shops or the same venue 5 times. You can unlock the additional levels by checking into 5 more.

Unlock Message:
Cold cuts to artisanal paninis — any way you slice it, it's still a sandwich.

---

Molto Bueno

---

How to Unlock:
Visit 3 different Italian Restaurants or the same venue 5 times. You can unlock the additional levels by checking into 5 more.

Unlock Message:
Pasta, lasagna, fettuccine, linguine, those ones shaped like little wheels. Now grab your better half and pull a "Lady and the Tramp." Mama mia!

Read More

Mother's Day Google Doodle

Google's Mother's Day 2013 doodle is not one to be missed. The search giant has gone to great lengths in posting an elaborate doodle designed no doubt to remind you to call or visit your mother this Mother's Day, no matter where you are.

The origin of Mother's Day as the world knows it today can be traced back to the United States. In 1908 Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in the US. She then began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognised holiday in the United States. Her attempts bore fruit in 1914, and since then the day is celebrated every year.

Most countries celebrate the day on the second Sunday of May, while others observe Mother's Day on different days, with 8th March and 21st March the other popular dates, across the world. The countries that recognise the second Sunday of May as Mother's Day includes Canada, Australia, most parts of Europe, India & other parts of Asia, Brazil and other parts of South America, as well as many countries in Africa.

In some countries Mother's Day is celebrated on a day that is significant to the majority religion, such as Virgin Mary day in Catholic countries. Other countries selected a date with historical significance, minus the religious context. For example, Bolivia's Mother's Day is the date of a battle in which women participated. In many Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, a special prayer service is held in honour of the Theotokos Virgin Mary.

Ex-communists countries usually celebrated the socialist International Women's Day and distanced themselves from the more commercialised Mother's Day. Some ex-communist countries, like Russia, still follow this custom, while others like Ukraine simply celebrate both holidays.

While commercialisation of Mother's Day has disappointed many, it's hardly a modern phenomenon, with Jarvis herself becoming an opponent of the holiday due to the rampant commercialisation as early as the 1920s.

Read More

Sir Alex Ferguson to retire from Manchester United

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson is retiring after more than a quarter of a century at the helm, the soccer club announced Wednesday.

The 71-year-old Scot has managed the English club -- which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has millions of fans around the world -- since 1986.

During more than two decades at the helm, Ferguson has won more than 30 trophies, including 13 league championships.

Ferguson will bow out after the club's last game of the season, an away fixture against West Bromwich Albion, on May 19, a statement from Manchester United said.

Before then he will have one more home game at Old Trafford Sunday, against Swansea City.
It's not clear who Manchester United will choose to step into his shoes. Ferguson will remain involved with the club as a director and ambassador, it said.

Announcing his decision to retire, Ferguson said: "The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time.

"It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so.

"The quality of this league winning squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level whilst the structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one."

Read More

Budget iPhone Is Reportedly Launching This Year

A new budget version of the iPhone is set to launch this year, according to an ETrade Supply source.

The cell-phone parts supplier has been correct about a number of Apple rumors before, and most recently obtained parts of the iPhone 5 prior to its release.

Beyond the budget handset's existence, however, ETrade’s sources weren’t able to share any more details.

Based on previous rumors, the budget iPhone is expected to look like a cross between the iPhone 5, the latest iPod touch and the iPod classic. In terms of materials used, some reports suggest the phone will be made mostly from plastic — making it cheaper to manufacture, but also less durable.

While the budget handset may be priced lower than the original iPhone 5, less expensive doesn't necessarily mean cheap. The rumored phone may actually fall into the mid-range category when it comes to specs and quality.

Read More

Billboard Shows Different Messages for Kids and Adults

A billboard in Spain created by an organization dedicated to aiding abused children shows a different message to children and adults, even if both see the ad at the same time.

The feat is achieved by use of lenticular printing, which allows different images to be seen depending on the vantage point. In this case, if the billboard is seen by children under 1.3 meters (about 4 feet 3 inches), then the message, "If somebody hurts you, phone us and we'll help you" appears along with a phone number for the ANAR Foundation (Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk). There's also a message just for adults, a warning saying, "Sometimes child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it."

The idea, as ad agency Grey explains, is that abuse victims might see the message as they're walking down the street with their abusers.

Read More

Malaysian Election (PRU13) Results

The final tally is BN - 133, Pakatan Rakyat - 89. Pakatan scores a net gain of seven seats.

Here are some quick observations:

1) Pakatan lost Kedah. The three states that Pakatan Rakyat has retained - Selangor, Penang and Kelantan - were all won with a two-thirds majority:

Selangor - Pakatan 44, BN 12;
Penang - Pakatan 30, BN 10;
Kelantan - Pakatan 33, BN 12 (reduced majority but retains 2/3rds majority)

2) MCA is left with six parliamentary seats (down from 15), while Gerakan is left with one (down from two). The sole Gerakan seat is Simpang Renggam in Johor, which was successfully defended by Liang Teck Meng.

3) DAP is the biggest winner (it gained 10 seats overall), while PKR and PAS lost one and two seats respectively compared to the 2008 results.

DAP - 38
PKR - 30
PAS - 21

4) The seven additional seats gained by Pakatan are from Sabah (two seats) and Sarawak (five seats).

5) Early calculations indicate that Pakatan Rakyat has won slightly more of the popular vote than BN nationwide - 50% against 49% (1% others).

Read More

Call of Duty: Ghosts' Coming Out Nov. 5

Call of Duty: Ghosts, the next game in the annual franchise, will be released Nov. 5, according to an announcement from publisher Activision.

Activision calls Call of Duty: Ghosts the "next generation" of the realistic military first-person shooter franchise. Developed by Infinity Ward, the game is reportedly built on a "next generation" engine.

Activision said players will get to check out gameplay footage of Ghosts running on the next-generation Xbox at Microsoft's headquarters during the new console announcement May 21.

“Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we're not resting on our laurels,” Mark Rubin, executive producer of developer Infinity Ward, said in a press release. “We saw the console transition as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter for Call of Duty. So we're building a new sub-brand, a new engine, and a lot of new ideas and experiences for our players. We can't wait to share them with our community."

The Call of Duty: Ghosts announcement was rumored earlier this week, when fans found images of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Simon "Ghost" Riley in art on CallofDuty.com.

The above trailer shows several different warriors in masks, from modern-day fighters to medieval knights, and implies that everyone wears masks for different reasons. It closes with the same masked "Ghost" closeup.

Call of Duty: Ghosts will come to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and "next generation consoles" on Nov. 5.

Read More

You May No Longer Own Your Instagram Photos

If you live Britain, your Facebook and Instagram photos may now be free for the taking.

The U.K.’s Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act passed parliament and last week received Royal Assent to become a law, according to The Register.

“The Act,” explains The Register’s Andrew Orlowski, “contains changes to U.K. copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called ‘orphan works,’ by placing the work into what's known as ‘extended collective licensing" schemes.’”

Since the overwhelming majority of photos online do not have that identifying information, being neither marked nor retaining metadata in most cases, a company or individual can claim it as an orphan, after making a cursory search (technically a “diligent search”) to match the photo to an owner. They will subsequently be able to sublicense it.

So if you take a picture of, say a riot or a kitty, a media company can steal it, use it online and in print, sell subscriptions and advertising against it, then sell it multiple time to other media companies, without crediting you and without giving you one red pence.

Your only alternative to being the constant victim of legalized theft is to register every single photo. The problem with that, in addition to the cost in time lost, is that there is a grand total of one registry available that you can use, PLUS. The bill was rushed through at such speed and with so little comment that no other registry in the country was able to get themselves set up to accommodate the law.

Under British legal process, a law, once it has passed parliament, then receives Royal Assent and needs to be expressed in “statutory instruments.” That is to say, it needs to be turned into laws by the ministers of parliament. As Orlowski notes, however, parliament has not voted down a statutory instrument in the last 34 years.

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act is likely to put British photographers, professional or otherwise, at a disadvantage compared to those outside the U.K. It is also possible that the courts will see a significant increase in lawsuits against those who take “orphaned” works, asserting that the “diligent search” was instead a cursory one.

The key may be whether the big companies that make off with what most other countries still consider private property make more money that way than the country as a whole loses from the law.

Additionally, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, whose signatories include most of the world’s countries, are required by law to recognize the makers’ rights of ownership for works such as posted photos in a way this new law skirts. How the Berne Union countries will respond to British products using photos obtained according to this new law is uncertain.

Read More

Police Shot as Italy gets new government

ROME — Two military police officers and a passer-by were shot and wounded on Sunday in a crowded square outside the office of Prime Minister Enrico Letta and near the presidential palace, where his new government was being sworn in.


The shooting was shown live by the state broadcaster RAI, which had a television crew in the square in front of Mr. Letta’s office, Palazzo Chigi, where the new ministers were to go after the swearing-in ceremony.

What was supposed to be a day of celebration, marking a government that took nine weeks after the elections to assemble, quickly turned into a national drama. The square in front of Palazzo Chigi was cordoned off, and ambulances and police cars blocked traffic in one of Rome’s busiest downtown areas. Inside the palace, the ceremony continued undisturbed, and most of the ministers were not told of the shooting, which occurred about half a mile away, until after the ceremony.

A man, identified as Luigi Preiti, who is unemployed and is from the Calabria region, was detained and accused of the shooting, the authorities said.

“I heard seven or eight shots,” said Enrica Agostini, a RAI reporter. “I was pushed back into Palazzo Chigi. The police was screaming, ‘It’s an attack, it’s an attack.’ ”

Doctors at Rome’s Umberto I Polyclinic said Sunday evening that one of the military police officers, Giuseppe Giangrande, was shot in the neck and was in critical condition after undergoing an operation. The bullet injured his spinal column, causing “important damage,” doctors said in a televised news conference, adding that they would not be able to discuss his prognosis for 72 hours.

The other officer, Francesco Negri, was shot in leg, but his injuries were not life-threatening, officials said. A woman who was passing by was also hit but was not seriously injured, according to news reports.

At a news conference, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said an investigation would be conducted, but that the shooting appeared to be an “isolated gesture.”

Mr. Alfano said it also appeared that Mr. Preiti had intended to commit suicide, but told officers that he had run out of bullets.

A prosecutor working on the investigation said that Mr. Preiti had intended to target politicians. “He’s a man full of problems who has lost his job, he’d lost everything, he’d had to move back home, he was desperate,” the prosecutor, Pierfilippo Laviani, told the news agency ANSA. Mr. Preiti had planned the attack 20 days ago, according to news media reports.

“He wanted to strike politicians, but when he couldn’t reach them, he shot the police,” Mr. Laviani said.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Mr. Letta met with his ministers for a cabinet meeting that had been scheduled beforehand. The new government will face a confidence vote in Parliament this week.

The former interior minister, Anna Maria Cancellieri, who was sworn in on Sunday as justice minister, told reporters that the shooting had been carried out “by someone who is unbalanced.”

The shooting rattled Italy, already unsettled by a period of instability after the inconclusive national elections, which hobbled efforts to form a government. It also brought back memories of the “years of lead,” the period of social and political turmoil in the 1970s and early 1980s marked by dozens of acts of terrorism that were carried out by left-wing and right-wing radicals.

In recent years, groups that modeled themselves after the Red Brigade terrorists of that time have carried out sporadic attacks and have killed two Italian labor reform specialists. And tax agency offices have been bombed, a protest against a fiscal system that many consider to be onerous. But there has been little social tension.

Read More

Baby Mugging Memes

Got some kids laying around? Just throw 'em in dishware and they'll keep for an extra few days.

"Baby mugging," the latest photo fad sweeping Instagram, has nothing to do with stealing kids' cookies, but is a goofy illusion that makes little ones look like they're peeking out of your favorite mug. The concept was created by blogger Illana Wiles of Mommy Shorts who snapped a pic of her baby, Harlow, in a black mug and posted it to her Instagram (@mommyshorts) earlier this week.

The deliciously adorable hashtag #babeinamug quickly started trending as creative parents worldwide hopped on the fad. And don't fret if you have no kids — dogs and older people fit just as snuggly in ceramic.

Read More

Pictorious Adds Branded Photo Challenges And Photo Showdown

Pictorious is a photo sharing startup that is faced with the unenviable task of crawling its way out of Instagram’s gigantic shadow. Today they’re releasing a bevy of updates to their iOS app, which will hopefully help it mount a better challenge against the photo sharing juggernaut.

Pictorious distinguishes itself as more than just an ill-advised Instagram clone with their photo challenges feature. Users can invite their friends to photo challenges on any given topic and earn points and rewards as they upvote or downvote pictures.

Today their update adds branded challenges to the mix, which can be used by companies to create photo challenges for their advertising campaigns. Pictorious has partnered with Popchips for the first of these branded ad campaigns, which challenges their users to build “artwork” with Popchips.

Full disclosure, we received several boxes of chips from Popchips to participate in this photo challenge. You can view my own handiwork below.

Another new feature is Photo Showdown, which you can use to vote between two randomly selected photos taken from a photo challenge. The more pictures you vote on, the more points you acquire. It’s addictive in a stupid way, but it really doesn’t accomplish anything. It wasn’t long before I was presented with two pictures that were both equally boring.

Despite the updates, Pictorious is still a little like what Instagram would be if all of your followers were complete strangers. Pictorious desperately needs a larger user base, and in spite of their best efforts, I’m pretty sure potato chips aren’t going to help them get there.

Read More

Tyson Follows Suarez On Twitter

Only on Twitter, folks. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Luis Suarez, our antagonistic protagonist here, is something of a bad boy in the soccer world — that is, not necessarily known for his sportsmanship or sense of fair play. Suarez's latest misstep? Biting an opponent during his Liverpool squad's 2-2 draw with Chelsea over the weekend.

The bite, of course, drew all sorts of criticism and outrage. But it also gained Suarez a very famous new Twitter follower: ex-boxer Mike Tyson, a notorious biter in his own right.


Tyson famously took a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear during a 1997 fight (then last year tweeted a reference to the carnage while pimping Holyfield's barbecue sauce).

Media reports over the weekend said Tyson's follow came just minutes after Suarez's chomp. We haven't been able to confirm that, but the uncertainty does raise a juicy conspiracy theory: What if Tyson in fact followed Suarez just before the bite and recruited him into his carnivorous cabal? Now that'd be a meaty sports story, indeed.

Read More

iPhones Returned Due to Problems

Apple returned up to 8 million iPhones to Foxconn “due to appearance of substandard or dysfunctional problems.” This could cost Cupertino’s top manufacturer up to $1.6 billion, according to a report from China Business.

The report doesn’t mention specific problems with the handsets. Additionally, we don’t know which models were returned.

If the batch was made up of existing models, such as the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S, this could eventually show up as a hole in Apple’s supply chain. However, if these defective models were in fact “iPhone 5S” models, Apple may be forced to delay the launch of its newest handset.

Foxconn reportedly began production of the iPhone 5S earlier this month. As of now, Apple is expected to announce the seventh-generation iPhone at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Read More

Durex Fundawear - The Technology

Put on a pair of these magic underpants called Fundawear, and you'll be able to feel your lover's touch from anywhere on the planet.

Fundaware is a clever combination of a smartphone app and tiny vibrating motors sewn into female lingerie and male underpants. It accomplishes the task of "transferring touch across vast distances," said the project's technical director, Ben Moir in a YouTube video:

Commissioned by the Australian division of condom company Durex, Fundaware uses tiny vibrating actuators similar to those that give your finger that buzzing "haptic feedback" on smartphones. The intensity of Fundawear's vibrations correspond to the movements of the person's finger touching the smartphone screen from afar.

Imagine the possibilities.

The project is in the experimental stage thus far, with the company's Facebook page inviting adventurous test subjects to get their hands on Fundaware by telling the company how their would use the product with their partners.

Is this teledildonic breakthrough the next step in sexting, or will it be too much of a tease to be worthwhile?

Read More

Larry Page Says Google Glass Runs on Android

Google’s CEO Larry Page revealed something during today’s earnings call that his company doesn’t seem to have actually spelled out before: Google Glass runs on Android. In response to a question about how much people can expect to see engagement increment with new products like Glass, he said that “obviously, Glass runs on Android, so [Android] has been pretty transportable across devices, and I think that will continue.”

Many have speculated that Google Glass would run on an Android-based OS, but to date, Google hasn’t come right out and said so. Recent reports suggested that it would be ore of a proprietary system separate from Android, but Page’s statement today seems to indicate that in fact it will at least be a version of Android.

And Android-based Glass, even if it’s a modified version of the original OS, is good news for developers, since it means they share at least a common language. That should make integration, at least between Glass and Android-powered smartphone apps easier. The comment about portability also strongly suggests that Android has the potential to power a range of devices in the future, including the smart watch it reportedly has in development.

Read More

Samsung Officially Announces Galaxy S4 in the U.S.

Samsung has officially announced its Android flagship, the Galaxy S 4, for the U.S.

One of the most powerful smartphones around is coming to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, U.S. Cellular, Cricket and C Spire in April.

It will also be available at the following retailers: Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile, Costco, Radio Shack, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target and Wal-Mart.


Exact pricing and availability will be announced by carriers and retailers themselves in the coming weeks. AT&T, however, already put the Galaxy S 4 up for pre-order, with the shipping date being listed as April 30.

And in Canada, the Galaxy S 4 is available for pre-order at Rogers since Monday.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 has a 1.9Ghz quad-core processor, a 5-inch, full HD display, 2GB of RAM and a 13-megapixel camera.

Read More

Twitter Donates Promoted Trend to 'One Boston'

Entertainers, athletes and ordinary citizens aren't the only ones aiding Boston residents after Monday afternoon's deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon. Twitter lent a helping hand of its own on Tuesday in the form of a donated promoted trend on the microblogging network.

That's the #OneBoston hashtag you can see at the top of Twitter's list of worldwide trends.

The hashtag has been used as a rallying cray for support for the city since Monday's bombings. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino on Tuesday announced the formation of the The One Fund, a organization that takes donations and seeks "to help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013."


Twitter's hope is that the promoted trend will increase the amount of eyeballs — and dollars — that go toward the newly established fund. It should also get more users around the world thinking of other ways to help the city and its residents.

The promoted trend is no small gesture, either. Brands are said to pay around $200,000 per day for a promoted trend.

Twitter announced the donation with this Tuesday afternoon tweet:

" We've provided the City of Boston the Promoted Trend today free of charge through Twitter Ads for Good. Learn more: http://bit.ly/171q0O9 "



Two bombs went off near the finish line of Monday's race, killing three people and injuring 176.

Since then, support for victims and survivors has poured in from all over. Hundreds of local residents offered couches, beds, showers and more in a stirring Google Doc. Cities including New York paid tribute with public displays. And the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated honors first responders to the attack.

Read More