Astronomers Are Getting Ready To Take The Image Of The Century | ||
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Researchers studying the universe are ramping up to take the "image of the century" — the first ever image of a supermassive black hole. Since the 18th century, astronomers have discussed the possibility of exotic objects in space so massive that their gravitational grip swallows everything that dares to get too close, including light. We call these objects, black holes, but in truth we do not know what a black hole really is because we've never actually seen one. While the evidence for the existence of black holes is compelling: "We have abundant evidence that black holes — or something very much like them — exist," Todd Thompson, astronomy professor at Ohio State University, told Business Insider earlier this year. "This evidence comes from the orbits of stars around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy." Scientists will continue to argue the contrary until physical, observational evidence is provided. Now, a dedicated team of astrophysicists armed with a global fleet of powerful telescopes is out to change that. If they succeed, they will snap the first ever picture of the monstrously massive black hole thought to live at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. It will be the "image of the century" according to scientists at the MIT Haystack Observatory, one of the 13 institutes from around the world involved with the project. This ambitious project, called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), is incredibly tricky, but recent advances in their research are encouraging the team to push forward, now. The reason EHT needs to be so complex is because black holes, by nature, do not emit light and are, therefore, invisible. In fact, black holes survive by gobbling up light and any other matter — nearby dust, gas, and stars — that fall into their powerful clutches. How to glimpse a black holeSo, how do you see something that is invisible? The answer leads us to the most advanced sub-millimeter telescopes in use today — telescopes that detect wavelengths of light longer than the human eye can see. The EHT team is going to zoom in on a miniscule spot on the sky toward the center of the Milky Way where they believe to be the event horizon of a supermassive black hole weighing in at 4 million times the mass of our sun.
We can still see the material, however, right before it falls into eternal darkness. The EHT team is going to try and glimpse this ring of radiation that outlines the event horizon. Experts call this outline the "shadow" of a black hole, and it's this shadow that the EHT team is ultimately after to prove the existence of black holes. "If we see the shadow, that will be the most powerful evidence we have that [black holes] do exist," MIT's Shep Doeleman told PBS. A difficult taskThis shadow, however, is incredibly small from our perspective. The spot on the sky where the team is looking is the size a grapefruit would appear on the moon, as seen from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope couldn't even see something this small. That's why the EHT team turned to radio dish telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, California, Chile, and Spain that, when combined, can resolve details more than 2,000 times finer than Hubble. Recently, other EHT researchers, at the University of Arizona, simulated what our galaxy's central black hole and its shadow should look like, to get a better idea of what they might expect from their observations. "That ring of light makes the black hole easier to find than if we were looking for complete blackness," Dimitrios Psaltis, of The University Of Arizona, said in a statement. "These simulations also help us find ways to distinguish this signature from all this swirling plasma around the black hole." As shown in the clip below, the black hole at our galaxy's center is emitting jets of extremely hot plasma in confined columns at opposite ends. These columns are known as jets and have been observed around other objects throughout the universe. The EHT team wants to see beyond these jets, to the event horizon.
"Our team of four here at the UA can produce visuals of a black hole that are more scientifically accurate in a few seconds," Feryal Ozel, also of the University of Arizona, in the statement. Some of the visuals in "Interstellar" took a special-effects team of 30 and up to 100 hours for the computers to process. Building the telescope teamTo further improve their chances of seeing a black hole's shadow, the EHT team is continuously adding new telescopes to their global network. This is because the sensitivity of their measurements increases with each additional telescope, allowing them to measure finer and finer detail.
Last July, scientists installed the world's most precise atomic clock, costing $250,000, at ALMA's Operations base. The clock will sync ALMA's telescopes to other observatories of the EHT to ensure their recordings are accurate to within milliseconds. In fact, this atomic clock is so precise it will still be accurate to within a second 100 million years from now. "The Event Horizon Telescope is the first to resolve spatial scales comparable to the size of the event horizon of a black hole," University of California, Berkeley astronomer Jason Dexter told Universe Today. "I don't think it's crazy to think we might get an image in the next five years." CHECK OUT: These Incredible Images Show What Humanity Will Look Like When We Colonize The Solar System READ MORE: The Incredible Story Of The Women Who Were Meant To Be The First Astronauts But Were Left On Earth Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Every black hole has a point of no return, called the event horizon. Once light, or anything else in the universe, passes the event horizon, it never escapes and is swallowed up. Forever.
Using the university's powerful supercomputer, they created a black hole that is even more scientifically accurate than the visually stunning black hole in Christopher Nolan's latest film "Interstellar."
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — the world's most powerful submillimeter array — is slated to join the EHT project soon, along with additional telescopes in Mexico and the South Pole. BuzzFeed Is Going To Spend At Least $245,000 To Buy Every Employee An Apple Watch | ||
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All 700+ BuzzFeed staffers will get a free Apple Watch when the product launches next year. The gizmo is a reward for hitting traffic goals set by BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti last month. Those goals included reaching 200 million unique visitors and 750 million video views in a single month. On Thursday during a staff meeting, Peretti told the staff that the site passed those goals, a source told Business Insider. Peretti later confirmed it to the world in a tweet: NOW WATCH: Your Facebook App Is Quietly Clogging Up Your iPhone
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The 10 Most Important Differences Between Macs And PCs (AAPL, MSFT) | ||
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Macs and PCs have been locked in an epic battle for many years. PCs were once the go-to computer because developers used to write the best apps for Windows first. But over the last several years, that's changed. Now it's almost impossible to find an app on Windows that isn't also on Mac. Now that Windows 8 has been available for about two years, Apple and Microsoft's platforms seem even more different than ever. We put together some of the key differences between Macs and PCs to help you out. This is an update of an article originally written by Kevin Smith. Apple prides itself on design. Apple spends years working on how its products look. The company is all about the details, even the internals of its computers are beautifully constructed. PC design depends on the company making them, but they're usually not as attractive as Macs. However, we have seen some nice copycats like this Dell laptop from 2012. Macs are usually more expensive. On average, Macs tend to be noticeably more expensive than their PC counterparts. Although there are some high-end Windows PCs that cost about the same as a MacBook Air (or more), there aren't really any super cheap budget options like there are with Windows computers. You can get a Windows laptop for as cheap as $200, which is a fraction of what you would pay for a Mac. Windows is better for hardcore PC gamers. Because of how highly customizable Windows machines are, gamers tend to prefer them. You can boost up your computer's performance with a better graphics card or add more memory to handle power-hungry games. Macs typically can't compete on the gaming side unless you're willing to spend a huge amount of money. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Silicon Valley's Massive Homeless Camp Is Being Shut Down For Good — Here's What We Saw When We Visited Last Year | ||
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Despite Silicon Valley's remarkable wealth, the area is home to more than 7,500 homeless people and one of the biggest homeless camps in the United States. Nicknamed "The Jungle," the 65-acre encampment is located in a middle-class neighborhood in San Jose and at times has been home to more than 200 people. Now, after years of cleanup attempts, authorities are shutting the The Jungle down for good, the Los Angeles Times reports. While around three-quarters of residents have been relocated, around 50 still have not found a new place to live despite rent subsidies and assistance from the city, according to the LA Times. Business Insider visited The Jungle over the course of a week in July 2013. Robert Johnson wrote an earlier version of this story. Welcome to the Jungle, the largest homeless camp in the Silicon Valley and continental United States. It's relatively close to the headquarters of tech giants like Apple and Google, but a world apart. Locally, the gap between these massively successful companies and a vast homeless camp like The Jungle is called "The Great Divide." Business Insider visited The Jungle several times in July 2013 to talk to the people who lived there and see what their lives were like. The conditions were deplorable. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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The Sony Hack Is A Watershed If North Korea Was Involved | ||
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The hack on Sony Pictures Entertainment is one of the most debilitating ever targeted at US corporate servers. The Nov 24th incident didn't just result in the theft of proprietary data, including unreleased films and employee information. It is reportedly the first to use "a highly destructive class of malicious software that is designed to make computer networks unable to operate" into a company's computer system in the United States, according to Reuters. North Korea has emerged as a leading suspect in the hack. Pyongyang had already vowed "merciless" retaliation over "The Interview," a Sony release in which James Franco and Seth Rogan play talk show hosts that the CIA enlists for an assassination plot against North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. And it has greatly developed its cyber-offensive capabilities over the past decade. An unnamed security source told Reuters that North Korea is currently the "principal suspect." If the Hermit Kingdom really is involved, it would make the Sony incident a potential turning point in the history of cyber-warfare. For the past several years, states have started to compromise the computer systems of rival governments and private companies to further political or strategic aims: think China's infiltration of computers at the New York Times in response to a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning reports in 2012 on the private wealth of the country's top leadership, or Russia's "cyber-invasion" of Estonia in 2007. But according to Dave Aitel, a former NSA research scientist and CEO of the cyber-security firm Immunity, the severity of the Sony attack, along with its nakedly political motives, would put the incident in its own unique category assuming it was North Korea's handiwork. "If it was North Korea, these attacks against Sony would indicate that foreign powers are going beyond the traditional information-stealing attacks to enforcing their own law against American companies via what we would consider cyber terrorism," Aitel told Business Insider by email. "It would be a watershed moment in how the world handles cyber policy and reaction."
Aitel says the hacks are potentially "a ‘near red-line moment’" since they represent the kind of incident that would almost require a US policy response assuming a rival state was behind it. As Aitel says, "This is the first demonstration of what the military would call Destructive Computer Network Attack (CNA) against a US Corporation on US soil ... a broad escalation in cyberwarfare tactics" that would demand some kind of American response. It would also signal an increased willingness for North Korea to deploy its developing cyber-offensive capabilities against American targets. An August 2014 report from Hewitt Packard Security Research explained Pyongyang's longstanding policy of attempting ot integrate cyber attacks into its doctrine of "asymmetrical warfare" — namely, North Korea's attempts at closing the defense gap with its more conventionally capable enemies, like South Korea and the United States, in whatever ways it can. "Cyber warfare allows North Korea to leverage the Internet’s inherent flaws for offensive purposes while maintaining its defenses, primarily via air-gapping its most critical networks from the outside world," the report explains. To that end, North Korea established a group of hackers within its military special forces architecture, called Unit 121, that is trained in a hotel in eastern China. Early results were alarming: as early as 2004, North Korea "reportedly gained access to 33 of 80 South Korean military wireless communication networks;" in 2006, "an attack on the US State Department originating in the East Asia-Pacific region coincided with U.S.-North Korea negotiations over the regime’s nuclear missile testing."
There's evidence that North Korea was attempting ambitious attacks on private sector entities as well. According to the HP report, in February of 2013, a private security firm called Solutionary recorded 11,000 "touches," or electronic attempts to steal deal, on "a single financial institution," all originating from North Korean IP addresses. Solutionary noted that North Korean IPs only attempted 200 touches a month at a time, suggesting this rapid uptick was part of a concerted attack on the institution, which goes unnamed in HP's report. North Korea has been developing its hacking capabilities from the safety of a web infrastructure that's largely cut off from the rest of the world. And it might feel like it can afford to gamble a bit, given successful nuclear tests and rocket launches in the last couple of years. The international community responded with trade sanctions and a policy of diplomatic isolation — but not the point where the regime's control over the country has ever been all that seriously in question. It would be unsurprising if North Korea believed it could get away with something of the Sony hack's magnitude. The question now is how the US might respond if Pyongyang's responsibility is more conclusively proven. Michael B. Kelley contributed to this report. SEE ALSO: South Korea is building a giant Christmas tree near the DMZ Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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A Software Developer Made The Most Beautifully Detailed Map Of Every Tweet From The Last 3.5 Years | ||
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Fischer says he’s been tracking any tweets that have been geotagged for the last three and a half years, thanks to Twitter’s public API. He collected about 10 million public tweets each day (120 per second) — the accumulated history of tweets takes up a whopping 3 terabytes of compressed data “and is growing by 4 gigabytes a day,” he says. In total, Fischer put his 6.3 trillion tweets onto an embeddable map, which is also open source so you can make one for yourself. Check it out below.
To learn more about Fischer’s process, check out his blog post on Mapbox. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Data artist and software developer Look How Awful The App Situation Is For Windows Phone (MSFT) | ||
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Microsoft's Windows Phone is a fine platform with a huge app problem. Popular apps available for iOS and Android simply aren't there for Windows Phone. Worse, Microsoft's app store is filled with fakes and ripoffs — and some of those are among the 100 most popular. A 30-page report published today by Jackdaw Research highlights how bad the situation is. For instance:
The paper also suggests that Microsoft may never be able to turn it around. Because Windows Phone's market share is so low — it peaked at 3.4% in the last quarter of 2013, and has since fallen to 2.8%, according to IDC — that developers see little reason to build apps for it. The lack of apps drives people to other platforms, which keeps popularity low, which keeps app count low, and so on, into a death spiral. The researchers don't think Windows 10 will help. Microsoft says with Windows 10, programmers will be able to make apps for PC,s tablets, and phones without much extra work for each platform. But the types of apps that are needed on Windows Phone typically aren't the same kinds of apps made for PCs, and developers may not do the work necessary to customize their apps for the smaller screen because, again, there's not enough opportunity to justify the cost. Jackdaw's recommendation for Microsoft? Build a great flagship phone, explain what Windows Phone actually stands for, and somehow convince developers that they can make money on the platform. Easier said than done. SEE ALSO: Microsoft Dumps 1,500 Apps From Its Windows Store Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Facebook Just Gained A Big Ally In Its Battle With Cisco (CSCO, JNPR) | ||
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Last summer, an organization led by Facebook fired a huge shot at Cisco. On Thursday, one of Cisco's oldest rivals, Juniper, jumped in to back Facebook in a big way. And the threat to Cisco from Facebook went from huge to enormous. It won't kill Cisco, but it will shake the trees a little bit and force Cisco to make some uncomfortable choices. The shot was a new piece of networking equipment called the Wedge, which pushed Facebook into the $23 billion Ethernet switch market, currently dominated by Cisco. This new switch wasn't an actual product. It was a design for a new product, one that Facebook gives away for free through its Open Compute Project (OCP). OCP is a radically new way to build and buy computer hardware. Anyone can contribute to the designs and use them for free, ordering them from a contract manufacturer. Now, Juniper has done exactly that. It designed its own version of the OCP switch, which works with its operating system, Junos OS. It ordered this design from a contract manufacturer, Alpha Networks, and Juniper will sell this switch to enterprises with big data centers. There are a few important things about all of this. Facebook's switch isn't just a radically new way to buy a piece of hardware, it's also part of a radically new way to design networks called software-defined networking (SDN). SDN takes all the fancy features found in networking equipment and puts them into software that runs on servers. You still need the network equipment, but you need less of it and less expensive varieties. It will almost certainly cause a price war one day, if companies start to experiment with it and like it. Facebook's involvement with SDN will encourage them to do just that. If it works for Facebook, it could work for them. The Wedge, and Juniper's version of it (named the "OCX1100"), is designed to work with lots of open source software, too. People can program it with a common language like Python. It works with popular open source management tools from Chef and Puppet Labs. All the network equipment makers are creating SDN switches, Cisco included. In fact Cisco says that its SDN product released last year is selling well. But Cisco's gear is not like the Wedge. Traditional switches from Cisco or Juniper are a single piece of equipment. They look like this:
The Wedge is designed to stitch together standard bits of hardware, that you can change as you see fit. It's like Legos, only for a computer server, like so:
Facebook has no interest in competing with Cisco. It just wants to build reliable, low-cost and easy-to-maintain equipment to use in its own data centers. OCP hardware saved Facebook over $1 billion in its first three years, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. Many other companies want the same. Most enterprises, even big telecom companies, don't want to deal with designing and building their own Lego-like servers. That's where Juniper comes in. They can buy a Wedge from Juniper. Cisco is well aware of the Wedge. In October, a few months after the Wedge launched, Cisco joined the OCP as a a Gold member. It told its customers that if they want OCP products, they can come to Cisco. They don't need to go to Alpha Networks or Juniper. Still, should Juniper's OCP switch become popular, this should put Cisco in an uncomfortable position. Should it jump on the bandwagon, create its own Wedge, and put a knife in the back of its own SDN switch, which is selling well? Cisco has spent about $1 billion to create that product. Or should it watch customers go to Juniper and its other competitors involved with OCP, like Arista? Cisco had no comment on the Juniper switch, but did tell us, "Cisco has been a leader in advancing multiple open source programs, including the Open Compute Project." SEE ALSO: Why Cisco Has Showered These 3 Men With Billions Of Dollars Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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What It's Like To Be The Father Of A Teenage Girl Who Has 8 Million YouTube Followers | ||
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Bethany Mota has achieved more by age 19 than most people achieve in a lifetime. When she was 13, she began posting videos of herself on YouTube. Now she has nearly 8 million subscribers and she gets between 2o and 30 million views per week there. Mota also has about 4 million followers on Instagram, where her average photo gets 500,000 likes. Additionally, Mota runs a clothing line with Aeropostale, which will generate more than $50 million in sales in 2014. But 13 is young to start posting videos on YouTube. Mota spoke at Business Insider's IGNITION conference on Tuesday, and her father Tony (who is also her manager) was there to support her. We asked him: "It must be tough to watch your teenage daughter post videos online. How did you cope with that?" At first, it was difficult, Mota's father explained. But he quickly realized the videos were actually good for his daughter's health and self-esteem. When Mota was 13, she was depressed. Her parents didn't realize it at the time, but she was being cyber bullied. Her father says she was losing a pound a day and was often curled up in bed. "I was kind of going through a rough time in my life," Mota explained when she was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. "I was being bullied and I didn’t have a lot of confidence and I always wanted to make videos." On June 12, 2009, she posted her first video with encouragement from her friend Alison. Mota was shy and soft-spoken, not the vibrant, smiling trendsetter viewers watch now.
While it was tough for Tony to see his 13-year-old buy and wear makeup, he loved seeing his daughter flourish and build confidence. He realized the videos were therapeutic for Mota. Now, Tony likens his support of Bethany's videos to a parent who attends a child's baseball or football games and cheers. He couldn't be prouder. Here's Bethany's first-ever video below, when she was coming out of her depression. And here's Bethany now. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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One Of The Biggest Swiss Watch Brands May Unveil An Intel-Powered Smartwatch Next Month | ||
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Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer may be planning to unveil its first smartwatch next month, and it's likely to be powered by Intel, a source told Business Insider. The watch will probably debut at the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES) that takes place in Las Vegas between Jan. 5-9, but there's a chance it will be revealed later during the first quarter of 2015. The watch will run on an Intel processor, and will probably look similar to something like the Withings Activite — a sleek, classy watch that can measure your steps, burned calories, and how you sleep. TAG Heuer's watch will look similar to a regular wristwatch, unlike most smartwatches today that come with touch screens and look more like gadgets than timepieces. The move wouldn't be too surprising — TAG Heuer said it was working on a smartwatch back in September after rumors suggested it was working on a watch with Apple. Last month, Jean-Claude Biver, the head of the wristwatch division for TAG Heuer's parent company LVMH, also brought up the possibility of a TAG Heuer smartwatch when speaking with Bloomberg. SEE ALSO: BENEDICT EVANS: Here's What Google Is Doing Wrong When It Comes To Smartwatches Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Google’s Revenue Dwarfs All The Biggest Media Companies (GOOG) | ||
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As Business Insider’s founder and CEO said at Tuesday’s Ignition conference, “There is one law of media: money follows eyeballs.” To prove his point, Henry Blodget showed off this chart, which shows just how much Google dwarfs all the biggest media companies, from older companies like The New York Times to newer ones like Facebook. Based on company filings charted by BI Intelligence, Google’s estimated $70 billion in revenue is more than twice that of Time Warner's ($30 billion), five times that of Viacom's ($14 billion), and 14 times more than Yahoo’s expected revenue this year. Even more impressive: Its revenue is almost half the size of all TV advertising around the globe ($174 billion).
SEE ALSO: Young People Don't Care About Newspapers, Old People Don't Care About Smartphones Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Man Builds Machine To Endlessly Swipe Right On Tinder To Meet New Women | ||
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One enterprising engineer decided to maximize his chances of obtaining a Tinder match by building a battery-operated robot to endlessly swipe right for him. The Java developer, James Befurt, constructed the apparatus by writing a computer program that hooks up with what appears to be some type of microcontroller, a small piston, and stylus. Right swiping on Tinder indicates interest in your potential match. So by right swiping on every match Befurt is essentially maximizing his options by automatically saying "yes" to anyone who might be interested. He can leave the machine running for as long as he decides while the robotic finger flips endlessly though women. This isn’t the first time a users has tried to hack the app. Back in September, one man built a Google Chrome extension that transforms Tinder into a desktop interface to more easily swipe though and like or dislike matches. Some users, however, prefer the old fashioned method.
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How The Netflix Model Is Poised To Destroy Traditional TV | ||
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The traditional linear TV model doesn't make sense in the digital, streaming age. And now the Netflix model is well on its way to destroy it. Produced by Sara Silverstein and Alex Kuzoian. Follow BI Video: On Facebook Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This Huge New Group Wants To Kill The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger Once And For All | ||
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The StopMegaComcast coalition, which was officially announced on Wednesday, is made up of 15 groups that have previously come out against the deal. Members include Comcast competitor Dish Network, as well as interest groups like The Consumer Federation Of America and the Parents Television Council. StopMegaComcast tries to spell out exactly how big Comcast would be were it to succeed in its acquisition bid. The group asserts that Comcast would “control 50% of the high-speed broadband market,” and thus “serve as the gatekeeper of the Internet.” It would also control 44% of all regional sports networks and 20-plus cable channels, as well as NBC-Universal, which is owned by Comcast. “Those who want their content to flow quickly and freely will have to submit to Mega Comcast’s terms,” the coalition says on its website. “Those that compete with Mega Comcast or refuse its demands could be slowed down or shut out. Mega Comcast would have the power and the incentive to increase their prices at the expense of consumers, content creators and innovation.” The group also claims Comcast and Time Warner combined would “reach more than 91% of Latino households,” effectively controlling the programming in those markets and communities, and it would also seize 71% of the local advertising market, which the group claims is critical for small businesses. In all, StopMegaComcast says Comcast and TWC — which would have substantial control in the broadband, pay-TV, set-top box and local ad markets — would raise prices and costs for consumers, small businesses, and content creators. Comcast, for its part, has long argued that a merger would have an opposite effect. Here’s what a Comcast spokeswoman had to say: Hundreds of community organizations, programmers, lawmakers and diversity groups have praised the pro-consumer benefits of this transaction. It is no secret that some companies that want billions of dollars in higher fees for consumers are paying lobbying firms to organize against this transaction. But many companies, particularly those represented by StopMegaComcast, believe a deal would indeed be bad for consumers, and they don’t believe it can be easily fixed with a Band-Aid. Jeffrey Blum, deputy general counsel for Dish Network, told Re/code in July that all possible merger conditions “are inadequate.” “The breadth and detail of the opposition is significant,” Blum said. If you want an idea of how “substantial” the opposition to this merger is, check out StopMegaComcast’s full list of congresspeople, consumer advocates, telecom organizations, and academics that have expressed concern over the Comcast-Time Warner Cable acquisition. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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A new group called This New Microsoft App Highlights The End Of The Windows Empire (MSFT) | ||
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One of the ways Microsoft grew itself into a $87 billion company is by making people pay to use Windows on each device they used. Today, Microsoft quietly announced a new service that radically changes that. With the geeky sounding name of Microsoft Azure RemoteApp, this app is not a dramatic new technology. In fact, it's a pretty hum-drum tech that's been available for years. It allows business customers to stream any of their Windows apps to any device (Android, iOS, Mac, Windows) over the cloud. The change is how Microsoft will sell it. Microsoft is charging "per user" not "per device." To unpack that: the same employee can use this app to access Windows apps on an iPad at home and on their Windows PC and Microsoft won't charge extra for that. In the past, Microsoft charged separately for both. Microsoft is also using "pay as you go" pricing with Azure RemoteApp. Companies pay a set fee for up to 40 hours a month, then additional fees for each hour, up to a maximum of $23 per user per month. This is how a lot of cloud products and consumer services work, but it's brand new for Windows. Back in the old days, if you wanted to use a Windows app, like Office, you had to pay a set fee for Windows for every PC you bought. When new app streaming technologies were developed, Windows no longer had to be loaded onto the actual device. So Microsoft set up some new pricing plans to protect its Windows revenue. Companies were still required to pay Microsoft for a Windows license for every device that used Windows apps. This made it pretty expensive for some companies to stream Windows apps, and opened the door to cloud-based operating system competitors like Google Chrome. As Microsoft sells more cloud services like this app, it makes money even if the device isn't Windows. In fact, the more non-Windows devices using Microsoft's cloud software, the better. Microsoft's new CEO Satya Nadella understands this. So he's beginning to unwind the licensing traps that have prevented enterprise customers from using the cloud, even Microsoft's cloud. This app isn't the first one to experiment with per-user licensing. That change happened quietly in October, when for the first time ever, Microsoft changed some of its other enterprise licenses to allow Windows to be streamed by the same user to unlimited devices. There are still plenty of licensing complications that make buying Microsoft's software expensive. But this is a solid step towards turning Windows into a cloud service. And after that, who knows? Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Before He Left The Country, Russia's Mark Zuckerberg Had A SWAT Team With Guns Banging On His Door | ||
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Pavel Durov — who has often been referred to as "Russia's Mark Zuckerberg" since the social network he founded became bigger than Facebook in Russia — fled his home country in April. He says he did this in part because of the government's increasing interference in his business, V Kontakte ("In Contact"). Durov told The New York Times' Danny Hakim that he first started thinking about leaving Russia in 2011 when a SWAT team showed up at his door with guns after he refused to shut down the profiles of opposition politicians. He didn't answer the door, but they remained outside for over an hour. "They seemed to want to break the door," he says. Two years later, Durov realized that allies of President Vladimir Putin had bought 48% of his company, despite the fact that he was supposed to have the right of first refusal. In total, allies of Putin controlled around 88% of the company, according to Quartz.After the government tried to force him to release the data of Ukrainian protest leaders (he resisted), Durov decided to sell the remaining stake of his own company in December. He wouldn't give a concrete figure, but at the time, it was estimated to be a few hundred million dollars. Durov, an iconoclastic libertarian, told Hakim that he's wary of the way Putin views the internet and how he has started cutting Russia off from the rest of the digital world. "Since I’m obviously a believer in free markets," Mr. Durov says, "it's hard for me to understand the current direction of the country." Durov is now working on a secure messaging app called Telegram. Read the rest of the profile here.
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This Story Tells You Everything You Need To Know About The Hottest Tech Startup In China Right Now | ||
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At our Ignition conference, one of the companies people talked about backstage was Xiaomi. Xiaomi, for those who don't know, is one of the hottest smartphone companies in China right now. It's the number one smartphone maker in China. It's a private company that's reportedly raising funding at a $50 billion valuation. We knew it was a successful company, but one story from the conference illustrated how crazy hot the company is right now. A person familiar with the company told us it is selling about four million units of its 10,400 mAh Power Bank each month. On the record, Xiaomi tells us it's been selling more than one million units per month, and that the company has sold 10 million of its 10,400 Power Bank to date since it launched one year ago. That number sounds pretty low compared to the company's smartphone sales — in 1H14 it sold 26.11 million phones — but remember, it's just an external battery! Xiaomi's $20 battery pack saw incredible success before it even launched, too. The company recieved 10,000 preorders in a single day via India-based online retailer Flipkart, according to a report from BGR India. So why is the 10,400 mAh Power Bank so insanely popular? We're not really sure, but reviews of the device have been pretty positive so far. Gizmodo Australia described it as "ridiculously powerful," and Hardware Zone praised it for being so light and compact for such a high capacity charger. The battery pack is also very cheap for it's size when compared to competitors. The Sanho HyperJuice Plug, for instance, sells for $99, while the Aluratek Dual USB 10400 costs $52. But, the real reason it's successful is because it's Xiaomi. The company has tapped into something huge in China. Another person at the conference said Xiaomi is a brilliant marketing company that has figured out how to get consumers excited. SEE ALSO: People Are Raving About This iPhone-Like Android Phone From China's Hottest Smartphone Company Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This $599 Winter Jacket Comes With Solar Panels So You Can Keep Your Phone Charged At All Times | ||
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Tommy Hilfiger is selling a unique jacket for men and women for the cold winter months. It's designed to keep you warm and your phone fully charged at all times.
These wool and nylon jackets are adorned with 7-10 solar panels on the back, which charge a battery that gives juice to your mobile devices. The solar pack is totally removable, and the jacket also comes with a removable bag to stow the solar panels when you’re not using them.
According to Tommy Hilfiger, the jacket can charge “most smartphones” beyond their capacity.
You can check out the jackets (mens and womens) on Tommy Hilfiger’s website. If you're so inclined to purchase this item, 50% of all net proceeds from this particular jacket go to support the Fresh Air Fund, which sends inner city children to host families to experience country life. SEE ALSO: 21 Video Games We Can't Wait To Play In 2015 Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Here's The Latest Airline With An Insanely Fancy Business Class | ||
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For its new jets, China Airlines has given its premium business class cabin and its premium economy seating a luxury facelift. The new premium business class features 78-inch long lie-flat seats, wood-grain accents, and a state-of-the-art Panasonic in-flight entertainment system. The first aircraft will start flying between Taiwan and Los Angeles soon. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This New 'Tinder For Parties' App Is A Parent's Worst Nightmare | ||
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It's being called the "Tinder for Parties" app — Kick On will allow users to swipe right on events nearby. The host of the event will then decide whether to include the swiper in the festivities and can share the address of the goings-on. And parents in Queensland, Australia are calling it "a nightmare" because it's opening the doors for their kids to rowdy parties. The Courier reports the app was founded by Brisbane-bred Charles Stewart "who said the app was a 'fun new way to discover parties near you.'" “It’s completely gone off. We knew there was going to be interest – but never like this,” he told The Courier. But critics of the app say it's not about the app itself, but the people who use it for all of the wrong reasons. Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg told The Courier parents should not allow their children to use the app, calling Kick On “a perfect digital storm with the immature teenage brain and a technology that’s in the moment and of the moment.” In Queensland, the penalties for organizing a party that ends up getting out of hand, regardless of the host's original intent of the event, are harsh. Under the new laws, a person who organizes a party that becomes an out-of-control event, their parents or gate crashers, face a maximum penalty of 12 months jail or $12,100. The spokesman said if police faced aggravated and violent circumstances when shutting down wild parties, the party organisers may be faced with fines up to $18,150 and three years in prison. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ailing Malaysia Airlines to suspend shares December 15 | ||
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Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Malaysia Airlines said its shares will be suspended from the country's stock exchange on December 15 under a government plan to rescue the beleaguered carrier after two devastating aviation tragedies this year. The national flag carrier, whose loss of both flight MH370 and MH17 compounded years of hefty financial bleeding, said the stock's final day of trading would be December 12, followed three days later by the full suspension. The airline made the announcement in a filing with Kuala Lumpur's stock exchange late on Thursday. State investment fund Khazanah Nasional, which owns around 70 percent of the carrier, plans to acquire all remaining shares and take the carrier private in a bid to resuscitate the national brand. Khazanah has already announced restructuring plans, which include pumping 6 billion ringgit ($1.73 billion) into the airline, slashing 6,000 jobs -- or 30 percent of its workforce -- trimming its route network and replacing its chief executive. Malaysia Airlines has been kept aloft for years by transfusions of public money while posting huge losses, with analysts blaming poor management, unwise business decisions and government meddling. Its losses have ballooned further in the wake of this year's air disasters. MH370 disappeared in March after inexplicably diverting from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing course. The airliner, carrying 239 people, is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, but no trace has been found. MH17 went down in July in rebellion-torn eastern Ukraine -- believed hit by a surface-to-air missile -- killing all 298 aboard. Malaysia Airlines previously had a solid safety record. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things You Need To Know Before European Markets Open | ||
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The ECB Is Gearing Up For QE. Despite falling short of promising a more serious asset-buying programme in their meeting on Thursday, two senior European central bankers told Bloomberg a parcel of purchases including government debt is being prepared for next month. JP Morgan Held The Top Spot As Best-Performing Investment Bank In 2014 So Far. According to analytics firm Coalition, JP Morgan comes top by revenue, followed by Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Citi and BAML in that order. Blackouts Are Hitting Venezuela Again. Parts of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, are experiencing blackouts. Venezuela is particularly dependent on oil exports, revenues from which are crumbling as the international price falls. German Factory Orders Bounced In October. Orders rose 2.5% from September, beating expectations for a 0.5% increase, and calming concerns about Europe's biggest economy. Asian Markets Are Up. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.19%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng is currently up 1.09%, and the Shanghai composite index is currently up 1.32%. Cadillac Wants To Sell 500,000 Cars A Year By 2020. General Motors Co's Cadillac aims to increase its global annual sales to over 500,000 cars by 2020, a senior executive said at an event in Shanghai on Friday. Another Saudi Price Cut Sent Brent Back Below $70. Saudi Arabia cut monthly prices for crude it sells to the United States and Asia, while Iraq is set to export more oil, preventing Brent from staging a recovery after a near 13-percent plunge last week, and sending the price back to $69.28. Asset Managers Think China's Bad Loans Have Been Underestimated. According to Bloomberg, China Orient Asset Management thinks that China's share of bad loans could be around 1.5%, rather than the 1% that officials state. European GDP Is Coming. The second reading of eurozone GDP is out at 10 a.m. GMT, with no change from the 0.2% rise in the first reading expected. But the country-by-country and sector-by-sector detail of the economy in the third quarter will also be revealed. Shanghai's Stock Exchange Saw Volatility At A Four Year High. Stocks on China's biggest exchange plunged from a 2.7% increase, to a 3% drop today, the most volatile swings since 2010, according to Bloomberg. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Good morning! Here are the major stories you need to hear about before markets open in London and Paris Friday morning. Manchester City join Real Madrid in Australia tournament | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - English Premier League champions Manchester City will join European champions Real Madrid at next year's International Champions Cup in Melbourne, organisers said on Friday. Manchester City is the second team announced for the three-team tournament to take place at the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground from July 18-24. The third team for the series has yet to be confirmed, but reports have linked Italian Serie A side Inter Milan. Owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan has invested over £1 billion ($1.5 billion) since acquiring Manchester City in 2008. Since Mansour's arrival, City have won two Premier League titles, in 2012 and 2014, as well as the 2011 FA Cup and this year's League Cup. Manchester City also have a stake in Australia's A-League after the club's Abu Dhabi-based owners purchased and re-branded Melbourne Heart as Melbourne City early this year. "We are looking forward, once again, to being a part of the tournament," Ferran Soriano, chief executive of Manchester City, said in a statement. "We are particularly excited to be visiting Melbourne, which is home to our sister club, Melbourne City." With the securing of Real Madrid and Manchester City's huge box-office appeal, organisers are hoping to build on the local appetite for top European clubs after a crowd of 95,000 watched English Premier League Liverpool's 2-0 win over Australia's Melbourne Victory at the MCG last year. Ten-time European champions Real Madrid were named FIFA's Club of the 20th Century and are worth an estimated 500 million euros ($618 million). Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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NASA's deep space capsule poised for 2nd launch bid | ||
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Cape Canaveral (AFP) - NASA counted down Friday to its second try at test-launching the deep space Orion capsule on its first journey into orbit, after wind gusts and rocket problems delayed Thursday's attempt. The unmanned four-hour flight aims to test crucial systems like the heat shield and parachute splashdown on a spacecraft that could one day transport humans to an asteroid, the Moon or Mars. The window for liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida opens at 7:05 am (1205 GMT) and lasts for two hours, 44 minutes. The weather forecast for Friday was 60 percent favorable, but winds were expected to be in a slightly better pattern than they were Thursday, when some gusts led to delays that were followed by a scrub due to technical problems with the rocket, NASA said. The launch is the first in more than 40 years of a US spacecraft intended to carry humans beyond the Moon. It has reinvigorated a US human exploration program that has been stagnant for more than three years since the last American space shuttle carried a crew of astronauts to the International Space Station. The 30-year shuttle program ended in 2011, leaving the United States no other option but to pay Russia to carry astronauts on its Soyuz capsules to the orbiting research lab at a cost of $71 million per seat. - Launch window - Friday's launch attempt will propel the Orion capsule into two loops around the Earth. The first orbit is to be about as high as the International Space Station, which circles at an altitude of about 270 miles (430 kilometers), but the second would soar 15 times higher, to an apogee of 3,600 miles above the Earth. Then, the spacecraft is supposed to plunge into the waters off San Diego, California to be retrieved by the US Navy. An analysis of sophisticated sensors on the capsule should let NASA know if the temperature inside remained survivable for a potential crew, even as the spacecraft itself heated to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius) during its re-entry to Earth's atmosphere at a velocity of 20,000 miles per hour. Potential future missions for Orion, which can fit four people at a time, include a trip to lasso an asteroid and a journey to Mars by the 2030s. NASA has already spent $9.1 billion on Orion and the powerful rocket meant to propel it with crew on board, the Space Launch System (SLS). Another unmanned test flight is slated for 2018. The first Orion test flight with people on board is scheduled for 2021, when total costs are projected to reach $19-22 billion. United Launch Alliance chief operating officer Dan Collins said he was confident that the sluggish fuel valves that delayed Thursday's launch attempt could be resolved in time for Friday morning's bid. "We're going to make sure we have a happy rocket, and we're going to send Orion off on a successful mission," Collins told reporters. About $370 million dollars in equipment is at stake in Friday's launch. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Airlift to ease Japan french fry shortage | ||
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Tokyo (AFP) - Restaurants in Japan are rushing to secure supplies of french fries after shipment delays from the US, with one chain readying to airlift 200 tons of chips. Giants of the fast food and "family restaurant" sectors, which serve Western style meals with a Japanese twist, are dependent on imports, Kyodo News reported, citing the chains and the Japan External Trade Organization. But a dockworkers' dispute on the US West Coast has caused a months-long slowdown, creating a backlog and crimping imports to Japan. The Japanese arm of McDonald's has been having problems since mid-November, Kyodo said, while Royal Holdings, which runs several family restaurant chains, said it has a few months' worth of stock, but was keeping a close eye on things. Meanwhile, the operator of the Gusto chain said it planned to fly in around 200 tons of french fries to avoid running short, the agency reported. News of the chip woes came with Japan already in the throes of a butter shortage that is threatening to ruin Christmas for millions of cake-baking Japanese housewives. Supermarket shelves have been empty for weeks, with any new stock disappearing almost as fast as it arrives, despite store-imposed limits of one pack per customer. However, there was a glimmer of hope Thursday, with the farm ministry announcing four of Japan's major butter producers would up their output by a third to meet demand. "Sufficient supply of butter will be ensured at stores before the Christmas season," a ministry official said. The ministry earlier said a sweltering summer had left the nation's cows exhausted, and sapped their milk-producing ability.
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Fear as typhoon bears down on Philippines | ||
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Manila (AFP) - Thousands of people in the Philippines sought shelter in churches, schools and other makeshift evacuation centres on Friday as Typhoon Hagupit bore down on the disaster-weary nation. The storm, which would be the strongest to hit the country this year, is forecast to impact eastern provinces devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan last year although there are conflicting projections from various weather agencies over its direct path. People across the Southeast Asian archipelago were heeding government warnings to make early preparations as the state weather agency PAGASA said the typhoon was expected to generate winds of 215 kilometres (133 miles) an hour and giant storm surges. Communities in the eastern Philippines that are yet to recover from Haiyan, the most powerful storm ever recorded on land which killed more than 7,350 people in November last year, were warned they could be among the first hit. In Tacloban, a major city in the eastern Philippines where many buildings still lie in rubble after being destroyed in Haiyan, hundreds of people sheltered in a sports stadium on Friday. "We've learned our lesson from Yolanda (Haiyan)," Rita Villadolid, 39, told AFP as she sat inside the stadium with her family. "Everyone here is gripped with fear." Elsewhere in Tacloban, hundreds of people sheltered in churches and schools, some of the sturdiest buildings in the city while wealthier residents checked into hotels. Similar preparations were occurring across the country, after the government warned Hagupit's weather pattern was 700 kilometres wide and would affect 55 of the nation's 85 provinces. There was also confusion as to where the eye of the typhoon would pass, with Pagasa and various foreign government typhoon monitoring agencies projecting different paths. Pagasa predicted the worst of the typhoon would hit the eastern provinces of Samar and Leyte, which were the most badly damaged during Haiyan, then cut across the central Philippines. But the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center predicted it would travel slightly north of Samar, then cut west and pass directly over Manila, the nation's capital with a population of more than 12 million people. The US agency on Friday downgraded Hagupit from the maximum super typhoon category to typhoon status, reporting its wind strength had weakened from Haiyan-like 300 kilometres an hour to about 230 kilometres an hour. Still, this would make the Hagupit the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year. The previous strongest was Rammasun, which killed more than 100 people when it cut across Manila and other parts of the main island of Luzon in July. The Philippines is often the first major landmass hit by typhoons and major tropical storms that are created in the Pacific Ocean. It endures about 20 major storms a year, many of them deadly.
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Game Ends On Crazy Hail Mary When Defender Thinks Play Is Already Over | ||
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The University of Central Florida won a share of the American Athletic Conference after a crazy final minute that culminated in a Hail Mary that may never have happened if one defender didn't think the play was already over. The bizarre ending started with about a minute to go when East Carolina had the ball deep in UCF territory. Even though a field goal would given East Carolina a 7-point lead and almost certainly guarantee they wouldn't lose in regulation, they decided to try and run out the clock by taking a knee.
Interestingly, for those who track such things, East Carolina was favored by 6.5 points in many circles. Unable to run out the clock completely, East Carolina tried to run out as much of the clock as possible by having the quarterback scramble around, even taking a sack on 4th down. This gave UCF ten free yards with ten seconds remaining.
After the turnover on downs and a quick pass to the sideline, UCF had the ball at midfield with just five seconds remaining. That's when the Hail Mary happened.
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IOC members set to consider revolutionary reforms | ||
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Monaco (AFP) - IOC president Thomas Bach on Friday enters the final straight in his campaign to pass some of the most revolutionary reforms in the history of the 120-year-old Olympic movement and set his stamp on the IOC just over a year after taking office. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board and its full membership will over five days consider 40 proposals to curtail the cost of the Olympic Games while adding more sports without increasing athlete numbers. Bach, who will also announce the launch of an Olympic television channel at the Monaco meeting, says the IOC must act now to protect "the uniqueness of the Olympic Games." Under his Agenda 2020, joint bids from different cities and even countries could be considered to stage the Olympic Games. Bach, who acted quickly to put his stamp on the Movement after he was elected to succeed Belgian Jacques Rogge in Buenos Aires in September 2013, said this could help smaller countries to stage the Summer and Winter Games. Among the other 40 propositions are: + Measures to cut the cost of bidding for the Games by reducing the number of presentations and giving IOC subsidies. + Increasing the number of sports from the current 28 -- a new sport could be invited every year -- while capping the number of athletes and individual disciplines. + Calling on candidate cities "to present a project that fits their sporting, economic, social and environmental long-term planning needs" putting a new emphasis on sustainability. + Adding "non-discrimination on sexual orientation" to the Olympic Charter. This is one of the most controversial items for many conservative states. - Bach's Olympic Jigsaw - The new digital Olympic TV channel would operate worldwide, 365 days a year aiming to get the IOC message across during the long months when there is no summer or winter games. The 15-member IOC executive board, which will meet on Friday and Saturday, has already backed Bach's Agenda 2020. The IOC's general membership will vote on the reforms on Monday and Tuesday. "These 40 recommendations are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle," said 60-year-old Bach, who won team fencing Olympic gold for the then West Germany in the 1976 Games in Montreal. "When you put them together, a picture emerges that shows the IOC safeguarding the uniqueness of the Olympic Games and strengthening sport in society." The 2012 London Olympics was widely hailed as a success and the summer Games remains a huge money earner with US channel NBC paying $7.75 billion for the broadcasting rights to the next six Games. But the Winter Olympics -- which is coming off the most expensive one ever held in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi held earlier this year -- is slumbering. There are only two candidates -- Beijing and Kazakh city Almaty -- for the 2022 Games after several key European cities pulled out either because the public voted against their candidatures in referenda or fears over the costs. Several federation chiefs have said the Winter Olympics has strayed too far from its snow and ice sport roots. Bach is also in a showdown with football's governing body FIFA over the timing of the 2022 World Cup to be hosted by Qatar. With the football finals expected to be moved to the winter months, Bach has repeatedly warned his FIFA counterpart Sepp Blatter -- who is an IOC member -- against a clash with the Winter Olympics in January-February. He says he has been assured there will be no clash, but told the BBC this week that "a clash would be bad for the international audience who would have two major sports programmes broadcast worldwide, so the public's attention would be divided." Bach also warned of a backlash from the sponsors that bankroll the Olympics and the World Cup. "To manage these two kind of programmes at the same time would be very difficult, so in the end there would be no winners." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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French shipyard in $1.5 bn deal for new cruise liners | ||
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Saint-Nazaire (France) (AFP) - Royal Caribbean Cruises subsidiary Celebrity Cruises has signed a preliminary deal with the French arm of Korean shipbuilding giant STX for two new vessels valued at 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion). The 1,450-cabin ships are due for delivery in 2018 and 2020, the president of STX France, Laurent Castaing, said, announcing the signing of the letter of intent on Thursday. The deal will come as a major boost for the Saint-Nazaire yard in western France, which has struggled to secure new orders in recent years. The shipyard is also facing uncertainty over the French government's decision to suspend delivery to Russia of a warship being built in Saint-Nazaire in a row over the Ukraine crisis. The new 300-metre (nearly 1,000-foot) cruise liners will be able to carry 2,900 passengers and could be put into service anywhere around the world, Castaing said. STX is already engaged in building two giant cruise ships for Royal Caribbean. The Oasis-class ships, the largest of their type in the world, are capable of carrying 8,000 passengers and crew. The order marked a turnaround for the yards at a time of falling orders and rising unemployment. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Warren Buffett Makes His First Donation Ever To An Independent Political Group | ||
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Warren Buffett has just done something he's never done before. The third richest man in the world just gave $25,000 to "Ready For Hillary," a group raising money to help Hillary Clinton get to the White House, according to Bloomberg. That is the maximum amount of money the organization allows an individual to give. As Bloomberg notes, he's given lots of money in the past to party committees and candidates, but he's stayed away from political action committees — until now. This is his first ever donation to an independent political group. Back in the last election cycle, super-PAC's supporting the president's re-election tried to get Buffett to support them financially. As Bloomberg notes, Buffett said "I don't want to see democracy go in that direction," when asked about the issue at an annual shareholders meeting. Apparently he's changed his tune. This is not, however, the first we're hearing about Buffett's support for Clinton. As CNN notes, he told them in 2012 that she was the most qualified candidate for 2016. "I don't see how you could have anybody better qualified," Buffett told CNN's Poppy Harlow. "I like what she believes in ... I think she's extraordinarily able and energetic for that matter in pushing those beliefs." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ailing Thai king advised not to appear for 87th birthday | ||
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Bangkok (AFP) - Thailand's ailing but much adored King Bhumibol Adulyadej has been advised by doctors to cancel an annual appearance to mark his 87th birthday Friday, the palace said. The king, who is the world's longest-serving monarch, has spent most of the last few months in hospital as fears over his health mount in a nation where he is seen as unifying, father-figure throughout a turbulent six-decade rule. "A team of royal physicians examined the king on Thursday evening... and agreed that he is not ready to grant a royal audience therefore they have recommended he cancels royal activities," the Royal Household Bureau said in a statement early Friday. In October the king underwent an operation to remove his gall bladder after tests revealed it was swollen. He was last seen in public in early November. The king's birthday -- also known as "Father's Day" in Thailand -- is a public holiday and Thais traditionally wear the royal yellow as a sign of devotion to the monarch, while roads are lined with royal flags. Elaborate celebrations were expected at the royal palace in Bangkok, where the king traditionally makes an appearance and gives a brief statement to his subjects. He last failed to make an appearance in 2008 for his 81st birthday celebrations following ill health. Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn was already expected to carry out some official ceremonies to mark his father's birthday. Most Thais have only known King Bhumibol on the throne and anxiety over the future once his six-decade reign ends is seen as an aggravating factor in Thailand's bitter political divide. His period as a constitutional monarch has been pock-marked by nearly 20 attempted or successful coups, the last in May which saw the army topple the elected government. Thailand remains under martial law, a condition the arch-royalist army says is necessary to keep the peace as it vows to expunge the kingdom of corruption and reboot Thai democracy. Critics of the military say it has used its status as the defender of the monarchy as a pretext to grab power from the elected government aligned with Thaksin Shinawatra -- the billionaire self-exiled former premier whose emergence as an electoral force in 2001 shook up Thai politics. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Vuvuzelas, silence to mark one year since death of Mandela | ||
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Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africans mark one year since the death of Nelson Mandela on Friday with commemorations including blasting vuvuzelas and reminders of his enormous legacy as an anti-apartheid icon and global beacon of hope. Official commemorations are to include an interfaith prayer service early Friday, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony by veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle, as well as a cricket match. Bells, hooters, vuvuzelas and sirens will chime, honk, blow and wail for three minutes and seven seconds -- followed by three minutes of silence: a six-minute and seven-second dedication to Mandela's 67 years of public service. A long list of other events were set to take place into the weekend and beyond dedicated to Mandela, including motorcycle rides and performances. South Africans were also finding their own ways of remembering the former president who led their country out of the dark days of apartheid after enduring 27 years in prison. For example, tattoo studios in the country have reported an ever-growing demand for Mandela-inspired ink. Fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu called on South Africans to emulate Mandela's example in a statement to mark the anniversary. "Our obligation to Madiba is to continue to build the society he envisaged, to follow his example," Tutu said, referring to Mandela by his clan name. "A society founded on human rights, in which all can share in the rich bounty God bestowed on our country. In which all can live in dignity, together. A society of better tomorrows for all." - Motorbikes for Mandela - Friday's wreath-laying ceremony in Pretoria will kick off events to mark one year since the iconic leader passed away at the age of 95 after a long illness. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa will lead the three-minute moment of silence at 0800 GMT, followed by a friendly cricket match, dubbed the Mandela Legacy Cup, between South Africa's national rugby and cricket teams at 1300 GMT. At the weekend, artists and performers will hold centre stage at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which has launched an exhibition in honour of the life and work of its namesake. Motorcyclists across the country have also been called on to dedicate their traditional Sunday morning rides to the anti-apartheid hero. A five-kilometre (three-mile) Nelson Mandela Remembrance Walk will be held in Pretoria on December 13, passing some of the city's historic landmarks, including the Union Buildings, South Africa's seat of government. The next day, the city's inaugural marathon will dedicate its last mile to Madiba. Mandela's death was met with a worldwide outpouring of grief. He had set South Africa on a course towards reconciliation after he emerged unbowed from nearly three decades in prison in 1990 and became the country's first president to be elected by universal suffrage in 1994. His one-time jailer FW de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, called on South Africans to honour his legacy. "Although Nelson Mandela is no longer physically with us his legacy remains to guide us," he said in a statement marking the anniversary. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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New York City Protests Grow Huge For Second Day In The Wake Of Garner Decision | ||
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For the second straight day, protesters are gathering in large numbers across New York City. On Wednesday, a grand jury announced its decision to not indict the white police officer who killed a black man in Staten Island. NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo held Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, in an apparent chokehold during an arrest in July. Garner was being arrested for allegedly selling illegal, untaxed cigarettes in the New York City borough. Garner died on scene while several officers crowded around to subdue him. Thousands of marchers snaked through the streets of Manhattan for a second night on Thursday, beginning at the evening rush hour and picking up recruits along the way, often weaving between cars and trucks and bringing traffic to a near standstill.
As they paraded through lower Manhattan, protesters staged sporadic sit-ins at intersections before police in riot gear approached and warned them to move along or face arrest. Most demonstrators complied, and the atmosphere among the racially mixed crowd remained boisterous, upbeat and mostly peaceful. Sharon Gordon, 52, of Matawan, New Jersey, told Reuters that said she hoped politicians would take heed of the public outcry. "There's been a confluence of social media and outrage," she said. "I do believe for the first time we're about to make a change."
The main group of demonstrators, meanwhile, headed west and briefly closed the West Side Highway along the Hudson River, resulting in at least a handful of arrests, before turning north again through Greenwich Village and Chelsea. A smaller crowd confronted police along the highway with taunts. Chesray Dolpha, 31, yelled at the officers: "We are not violent. We are not touching you. What are you doing with that baton, brother?" The police made eye contact but did not reply. Here are some tweets we're seeing that show people are gathering all over the city: SEE ALSO: Photos Of The Massive Police Protests That Took Over New York City Last Night Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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A second and third wave of marchers later crossed two bridges into Manhattan from Brooklyn, briefly closing both spans to traffic, then converged on Manhattan's southern tip, at the ferry terminal for Staten Island. Obama to nominate Pentagon chief Friday | ||
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Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Friday will announce his choice to replace Chuck Hagel as Pentagon chief, the White House said. Favored for the post is Ashton Carter, a former deputy defense secretary under Leon Panetta from October 2011 to December 2013. While stopping short of confirming the pick, the White House has hailed Carter's "detailed understanding" of the Pentagon's inner workings, and recalled that the Senate had unanimously confirmed his nomination as the Defense Department's number two in 2011. However, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest: "It's actually the president's nominee, and he will announce it tomorrow." Hagel, the outgoing Pentagon chief, announced his resignation last month. Officials privately said he was forced out after losing the confidence of the White House, as the United States wages an air war against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria. At a news conference Thursday, Hagel rejected accounts that he was bundled out of his position and said it was a mutual agreement with the president. "We both came to the conclusion that I think the country was best served with new leadership," Hagel said in his first news conference since his resignation announcement. "But I think you have to know when to leave, too." Carter, 60, has gained a reputation as an expert on hi-tech weapons and military budgets, portraying himself as a reformer intent on making the vast Pentagon bureaucracy more efficient. But he has less experience overseeing war strategy and has never served in uniform -- unlike Hagel, who was wounded in the Vietnam War. When Carter stepped down last year, officials denied reports he had clashed with Hagel. Former number three Pentagon official Michele Flournoy took herself out of the running for a post that would have made her the first woman to lead America's military. She cited family reasons. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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5 Outrageous Tactics The ATF Has Allegedly Used | ||
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In a recent segment of public radio program "This American Life," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters John Diedrich and Raquel Rutledge spoke about their investigation into a Milwaukee ATF sting they say horribly wrong. That operation, called "Operation Fearless," set up fake storefronts for felons to sell their guns that allegedly used questionable tactics like paying huge sums for guns. The Sentinel reporters say they uncovered similar problems in ATF stings nationwide, including in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Pensacola, Portland, and Wichita. Ultimately, the ATF's methods prompted a Congressional investigation earlier this year. To be fair, the ATF said in a statement that its Milwaukee sting was a "short-term operation" that ended more than two years ago. "Since that time, based on our own lessons learned, input from our law enforcement partners, oversight entities and others," the statement continued, "ATF has made many substantial improvements and strengthened accountability for local operations." Still, the findings from the Sentinel reporters are alarming. Here are the five most outrageous tactics the ATF used in Milwaukee and other cities, according to their report. 1. Set up a fake business to buy guns and drugs from unwitting individuals. Fearless Distributing, a store set up by ATF agents in Milwaukee, sold clothing and drug paraphernalia, but "its real goal was to actually buy guns and drugs," Rutledge told host Ira Glass. The idea behind this was to get guns and drugs off the street and to catch people selling them illegally in the process. Agents reportedly lured in sellers by distributing flyers with the store's logo — a skull with angel wings made from assault rifles and knives — and the words "Buy, Sell, Trade." In the infamous "Fast and Furious" operation run out of Arizona from 2006-2011, ATF agents allowed sales of weapons in the hopes of tracking the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders and arresting them. The agents soon lost track of the weapons and many of them showed up at crime scenes in Mexico. 2. Paid an insane amount of money for a weapon. The ATF paid extremely high prices for weapons, according to the Sentinel reporters. "There was one gun that they paid $2,100 for, and just the day before the individual had bought it for $700 at a store," Diedrich said. People began stealing weapons just to sell them back to the ATF for those high prices, according to the reporters. "Neighbors we talked to around River West said they also saw an uptick in burglaries in their neighborhood," Rutledge said. Fearless Distributing itself was robbed of $39,000 in merchandise, according to the Sentinel reporters, and three guns were stolen from an agent's car while he was parked at a coffee shop — including a fully automatic rifle. The ATF store in Pensacola was reportedly robbed just like the Milwaukee store was, twice. 3. Set up its fake business near schools and churches. The ATF operated one sting within 1,000 feet of a school in Lakeland, Florida, according to the Sentinel. "This particular location was chosen based upon an assessment of the buildings in the area located on a major thoroughfare, in a high-crime area," ATF spokeswoman Ginger Colbrun told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in August of this year. For his part, Diedrich speculates that setting up stings near protected places is a tactic used by the ATF to enhance criminal charges. "Selling guns or drugs within 1,000 feet of a school, a church, or other protected place is an enhanced penalty," he told Glass. "It's also eligible for federal prosecution." 4. It has hired people at its fake stores who are developmentally disabled or mentally impaired. Diedrich and Rutledge found this happens in several cities, including Wichita, Milwaukee, and Portland. They tell the story of Tony Bruner, a 20-year-old in Wichita who was hired by the ATF to work at "Bandit Trading," cleaning the store and stocking shelves. "He [Bruner] trusted them. And they would buy him McDonald's and tell him he was doing a great job," Rutledge said. An ATF sting in Portland, Oregon also hired mentally disabled individuals to promote their operations, according to the Associated Press. The ATF sent us a statement that denies targeting disabled people. "ATF does not target specific people based on their IQ or other mental health status," the statement said. "We target violent criminals who violate the law and the criminal organizations that are responsible for violence in local communities." 5. It has convinced people to openly advertise the ATF's gun- and drug-buying operations. Diedrich says agents at Fearless Distributor hired another man who had been brain damaged as a baby, Chauncey Wright, to hand out flyers and let people know that the store was buying guns. When the sting was over, Chauncey was charged with eight federal gun and drug counts and spent nine months in jail. After his release, he was given four years probation and spent a further six months on house arrest. One agent convinced two teenagers to have the name of their fake store, Squid's, tattooed to their necks so they'd be like a walking advertisement for the store, according to the Sentinel reporters. The tattoo came complete with a picture of a squid smoking a joint. Here is a full statement from the ATF in response to the "This American Life" report: "ATF's mission is to protect communities from violence. We do this by using all investigative tools and techniques available to us to prevent and respond to violent crime. One tool that ATF and many other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies use to prevent and respond to violence is undercover operations. To achieve this, we work closely with our law enforcement partners to conduct crime assessments that determine the high-crime locations and target the source, thus producing results that significantly impact violent crime. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Agents from the Ryan Reynolds Is In Final Negotiations To Play Marvel Antihero Deadpool | ||
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There is a lot of movie news today. The latest is that Ryan Reynolds is set to reprise his role as Marvel anti-hero Deadpool in 20th Century Fox's upcoming movie of the same name. Both The Wrap and Deadline report that it's basically a done deal. Reynolds all but confirmed the news as well. Earlier Thursday, Reynolds teased his return to the role on Twitter with an image of the anti-hero's favorite food, Chimichangas. For those unfamiliar with the character, Deadpool is a mercenary named Wade Wilson known for breaking the fourth wall in his comic books. Essentially, he's a comic book character who knows he's a comic book character, and is a favorite of fans to dress up as at Comic Con conventions. Reynolds played the character in 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" movie. Since then, the actor has claimed the character as his own, trying to get a "Deadpool" movie filmed. He even went so far as to film test footage of himself playing the character. The footage leaked online earlier this year and was positively received. The "Deadpool" movie is set for a Feb. 12, 2016 release. Watch the footage of Reynolds as Deadpool below. SEE ALSO: Benedict Cumberbatch officially cast as Doctor Strange Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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HACKED: Sylvester Stallone's Social Security Number | ||
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The fallout from the Sony Pictures hack just keeps getting worse. In addition to salary data for Sony execs and accounting managers at Deloitte, the hack included more than 47,000 Social Security Numbers reports the Wall Street Journal. Some of the numbers belong to celebrities like Sylvester Stallone and Judd Apatow, but most of the numbers belong to current and former Sony employees. Once criminals get their hands on SSNs, that paves the way for full-on identity theft, as people use those numbers as IDs for a lot of services. The hack is being widely blamed on North Korean operatives because it used similar methods as past breaches attributed to North Korea, but the country has denied responsibility. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Why Increasing Antarctic Sea Ice Doesn't Mean Climate Change Isn't Happening | ||
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Antarctic sea ice reached a record high this year, topping 20 million square kilometers (nearly 8 million square miles) in September — a milestone it hadn't touched since 1979. It's a fact climate change deniers are fond of repeating. If the planet is warming, shouldn't sea ice be melting away rather than growing?
The first thing to note is that sea ice and land ice are two completely different things. Sea ice is simply frozen ocean water, which forms a layer of ice on top of the sea. Land ice originates on land, forming from compacted snow to form glaciers and ice sheets. Land ice melting into the oceans is what causes sea levels to rise. While sea ice has been steadily growing in the Antarctic, land ice has actually been shrinking. In fact, a new NASA report shows that the melting rate of land ice in West Antarctica, the fastest-melting region on the continent, has tripled during the last 10 years. Researchers found that between 1992 and 2013, the region lost an average of 83 gigatons of ice every year. Meier believes all this melting land ice might actually be causing the increase in sea ice. As glaciers melt, they pour cold freshwater into the ocean. Freshwater is easier to freeze than salty seawater, so the influx from the melting glaciers could be adding to Antarctica's sea ice.
It's unclear how much snowfall has fluctuated over the past few decades in Antarctica, but experts believe it will increase as the climate continues to warm. Numerous climate studies, including reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have warned that climate change will lead to increases in heavy precipitation events and more frequent and intense storms.
Meier says these winds can carry cold air from the icy continent out over the ocean, where they aid in the freezing process out in the open ocean.
It's not so strange that different part of the world would react differently to global warming. And we have very strong evidence that sea ice is quickly disappearing in the Arctic, wreaking havoc on animals such as seals and polar bears who need it for their hunting and breeding grounds.
SEE ALSO: Why Cold Weather Doesn't Mean Climate Change Isn't Real SEE ALSO: 17 Shocking Photos That Show How Global Warming Is Everywhere Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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It's true that the phenomenon is a confusing one — but it's no proof that climate change isn't happening. In fact, scientists believe that climate change is actually responsible for the strange events down in the Antarctic. Walt Meier, a scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, explains how this is possible in a 
Snowfall could also be a factor. As snow falls onto the existing sea ice, Meier explains, it weighs the ice down and causes it to sink just beneath the water's surface. Cold ocean water then seeps up and mixes with the falling snow, creating a slushy mixture that eventually freezes, thickening and expanding the sea ice.
Even wind could be part of the answer. Climate change is altering weather patterns all over the globe, causing air flow to shift around the planet and storms to become more frequent and intense. This phenomenon is evident is Antarctica, which is becoming increasingly windy.
Differing conditions and weather patterns around the world can lead to different outcomes — an impact of changing climate that we are literally seeing everywhere around us, from droughts in California to extreme November snow storms in Buffalo, NY.
So while the Earth's natural processes may sometimes be strange and confusing, there's no reason to doubt that climate change is really happening. In fact, as Meier suggests, science indicates that it may be responsible for some of the most surprising phenomena we're observing on the planet. ILO warns over flatlining wages in developed nations | ||
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Geneva (AFP) - Wages in developed countries are flatlining and even falling in some places, holding down economic growth after the financial crisis and increasing the risk of deflation, the International Labour Organization said Friday. The UN agency said that tax and welfare interventions were not enough to address the resulting inequality, and urged governments to introduce or boost national minimum wages and strengthen collective bargaining. In its latest biennial update on world trends, the ILO said wage growth in developed economies was just 0.2 percent last year and 0.1 percent in 2012, down from around 1.0 percent before the global financial crisis. By contrast, strong wage growth in Asia helped push up the global average to 2.0 percent in 2013 and 2.2 percent in 2012, down from 3.0 percent before the financial crisis. In Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain and Britain, real wages actually fell below 2007 levels in 2013. "Wage growth has slowed to almost zero for the developed economies as a group in the last two years, with actual declines in wages in some," said Sandra Polaski, the ILO's deputy director-general for policy. "This has weighed on overall economic performance, leading to sluggish household demand in most of these economies and the increasing risk of deflation in the eurozone." Cutting wages has been a key element in the international bailouts of eurozone members, and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi called last week for wage cuts to strengthen the viability of the single currency. However, there are concerns that exceptionally low price rises in the 18-countries sharing the euro could augur a long period of slow growth and falling prosperity. - Strong wage growth in Asia - The modest global growth in wages was driven almost entirely by emerging economies, where salaries rose by 6.7 percent in 2012 and 5.9 percent in 2013. But among emerging nations there were major regional variations -- Asia saw growth of 6.0 percent in 2013, compared to 0.8 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Removing China from the 2013 global wage figure cuts it almost in half, to 1.1 percent. Real wages in the Asia Pacific region are now 2.4 times higher than they were in 1999, the ILO figures revealed. And across the world, the slow trend towards a convergence of wages between developed and emerging countries continues. But Polaski cautioned that lower wages in Europe and Japan did not necessarily mean more money for workers elsewhere. While company profits had recovered after the crisis, many were guarding the money instead of reinvesting it in a way that would benefit labour, she said. - Impact on inequality - The wage stagnation in developed countries comes despite an increase in productivity, with the result that workers are receiving a smaller share of economic growth compared to the owners of capital. The ILO warned of the importance of wages in combating inequality, and Polaski said governments must address the issue "as a matter of fairness and of economic growth". Taxes and social protection policies were part of the solution, but "a comprehensive strategy" was needed that includes minimum wage policies, collective bargaining and anti-discrimination measures, she said. The report also highlighted how the gender pay gap persists worldwide even when different circumstances such as education levels are taken into account. Averaging between four and 36 percent, the gap widens for higher earning women, while mothers also earn less than women without children, the ILO found. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Astronomers Are Getting Ready To Take The Image Of The Century | ||
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Researchers studying the universe are ramping up to take the "image of the century" — the first ever image of a supermassive black hole. Since the 18th century, astronomers have discussed the possibility of exotic objects in space so massive that their gravitational grip swallows everything that dares to get too close, including light. We call these objects, black holes, but in truth we do not know what a black hole really is because we've never actually seen one. While the evidence for the existence of black holes is compelling: "We have abundant evidence that black holes — or something very much like them — exist," Todd Thompson, astronomy professor at Ohio State University, told Business Insider earlier this year. "This evidence comes from the orbits of stars around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy." Scientists will continue to argue the contrary until physical, observational evidence is provided. Now, a dedicated team of astrophysicists armed with a global fleet of powerful telescopes is out to change that. If they succeed, they will snap the first ever picture of the monstrously massive black hole thought to live at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. It will be the "image of the century" according to scientists at the MIT Haystack Observatory, one of the 13 institutes from around the world involved with the project. This ambitious project, called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), is incredibly tricky, but recent advances in their research are encouraging the team to push forward, now. The reason EHT needs to be so complex is because black holes, by nature, do not emit light and are, therefore, invisible. In fact, black holes survive by gobbling up light and any other matter — nearby dust, gas, and stars — that fall into their powerful clutches. How to glimpse a black holeSo, how do you see something that is invisible? The answer leads us to the most advanced sub-millimeter telescopes in use today — telescopes that detect wavelengths of light longer than the human eye can see. The EHT team is going to zoom in on a miniscule spot on the sky toward the center of the Milky Way where they believe to be the event horizon of a supermassive black hole weighing in at 4 million times the mass of our sun.
We can still see the material, however, right before it falls into eternal darkness. The EHT team is going to try and glimpse this ring of radiation that outlines the event horizon. Experts call this outline the "shadow" of a black hole, and it's this shadow that the EHT team is ultimately after to prove the existence of black holes. "If we see the shadow, that will be the most powerful evidence we have that [black holes] do exist," MIT's Shep Doeleman told PBS. A difficult taskThis shadow, however, is incredibly small from our perspective. The spot on the sky where the team is looking is the size a grapefruit would appear on the moon, as seen from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope couldn't even see something this small. That's why the EHT team turned to radio dish telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, California, Chile, and Spain that, when combined, can resolve details more than 2,000 times finer than Hubble. Recently, other EHT researchers, at the University of Arizona, simulated what our galaxy's central black hole and its shadow should look like, to get a better idea of what they might expect from their observations. "That ring of light makes the black hole easier to find than if we were looking for complete blackness," Dimitrios Psaltis, of The University Of Arizona, said in a statement. "These simulations also help us find ways to distinguish this signature from all this swirling plasma around the black hole." As shown in the clip below, the black hole at our galaxy's center is emitting jets of extremely hot plasma in confined columns at opposite ends. These columns are known as jets and have been observed around other objects throughout the universe. The EHT team wants to see beyond these jets, to the event horizon.
"Our team of four here at the UA can produce visuals of a black hole that are more scientifically accurate in a few seconds," Feryal Ozel, also of the University of Arizona, in the statement. Some of the visuals in "Interstellar" took a special-effects team of 30 and up to 100 hours for the computers to process. Building the telescope teamTo further improve their chances of seeing a black hole's shadow, the EHT team is continuously adding new telescopes to their global network. This is because the sensitivity of their measurements increases with each additional telescope, allowing them to measure finer and finer detail.
Last July, scientists installed the world's most precise atomic clock, costing $250,000, at ALMA's Operations base. The clock will sync ALMA's telescopes to other observatories of the EHT to ensure their recordings are accurate to within milliseconds. In fact, this atomic clock is so precise it will still be accurate to within a second 100 million years from now. "The Event Horizon Telescope is the first to resolve spatial scales comparable to the size of the event horizon of a black hole," University of California, Berkeley astronomer Jason Dexter told Universe Today. "I don't think it's crazy to think we might get an image in the next five years." CHECK OUT: These Incredible Images Show What Humanity Will Look Like When We Colonize The Solar System READ MORE: The Incredible Story Of The Women Who Were Meant To Be The First Astronauts But Were Left On Earth Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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