Saturday 30 May 2015
Friday 29 May 2015
Tuesday 26 May 2015
Monday 25 May 2015
Saturday 23 May 2015
T3 Awards 2015
"Welcome to the T3 Awards 2015. It's the Oscars of Tech. The Olympics of Gadgets. The Eurovision Song Contest of widgetry. Cast your vote for the tech you love and not only can you help it win, you may also win one of five Acer Chromebooks (UK residents only, full terms and conditions) Longlist voting runs until July 9. Your favourite tech needs your vote".
Tuesday 19 May 2015
Netflix vs. Amazon Prime: Reality shows not high on their lists | BGR
Netflix vs. Amazon Prime: Reality shows not high on their lists | BGR
15 years ago, the reality TV craze took off in America and many people assumed that quality television programming was doomed to extinction. The reasons for this were simple: Reality shows were very cheap to produce and were hugely profitable for the major networks. After all, why bother paying professional writers when some gap-toothed goober from Chigger Creek, Texas would happily stuff fistfuls of maggots into his mouth for relative pennies? However, ever since Survivor and Big Brother made reality TV a major force in the entertainment world, something unexpected has happened: Quality scripted TV has gotten bigger, better and more ambitious than ever.
And the good news is that high-caliber scripted shows such as Mad Men, Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black look to be a huge part of TV’s future. Why? Because they look like the kinds of shows that cord cutters love to watch more than anything.
Bloomberg reports that both Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant are cool to the idea of producing their own reality TV shows because they just don’t think interest in such content holds up over long periods and thus isn’t useful for building audience loyalty.
“The kind of disposable nature of reality, basically doesn’t have much of a long shelf life,” Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix said at an investor conference this week. “It hasn’t been a great category for us.”
So it looks like cord cutters are much happier with programs such as Daredevil, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and House of Cards than they are with a new season of Temptation Island. Those of us who suffered through the early wave of reality TV are more than grateful.
Monday 18 May 2015
Xbox at E3 2015 - Xbox Live's Major Nelson - June 15
Xbox at E3 2015 - Xbox Live's Major Nelson - June 15
Xbox Daily: LIVE @ E3
Who: Hosted by me and Graeme Boyd, Xbox Live’s Acey Bongos. Includes guest stars and industry elites, including Head of Xbox Phil Spencer and guests from 343 Industries, Turn 10 Studios, Crystal Dynamics, and others.
What: A one hour show featuring breaking news, exclusive announcements, trailer reveals, game demos, and interviews with game creators.
When: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 7p ET/4p PT – 8p ET/5p PT.
Where: The show will be streamed live on Xbox One, Xbox.com both on your desktop and mobile, and Xbox 360. Each show will also have interactive experiences created just for fans watching live on Xbox One.
And finally, if you’re in the LA-area, we have something even bigger for you – Xbox FanFest: E3 2015.
Xbox FanFest: E3 2015
Xbox will give 500 lucky fans a one-of-a-kind ticket for E3 week, the gaming industry’s biggest showcase. The Xbox FanFest Ticket will include:
Sunday, June 14th through Thursday, June 18th.
Where Do I Get Tickets?
Exact time and place to be announced soon
How Many Tickets Will Be Available?
500 tickets
What Are the Details?
Tickets will be first-come, first-serve.
You must be 21+ years of age.
You must have an Xbox Live gamertag.
One ticket; one person – tickets are non-transferable and cannot be resold.
You’ll have to fill out a liability waiver form.
Okay, I’m in! What do I need to do?
Be 21+ years of age.
Be in LA the weekend before E3.
Get ready to see the greatest games lineup in Xbox history.
Head on over to the Xbox E3 Online Experience for complete information, as well as the Xbox FanFest: E3 201 rules and regulations. And stay tuned to Xbox Wire for all the latest updates and news on E3!
Xbox at E3 2015
Today, we announced the Xbox E3 2015 Briefing will take place Monday, June 15, beginning at 12:30p ET/9:30a PT. You can watch the live stream of the Xbox E3 2015 Briefing on Xbox.com, via the Xbox Live Events Player, on Xbox One or Xbox 360 consoles and on Windows Phone globally. You can also watch the Xbox E3 2015 Briefing during “Xbox: Game On” on Spike TV in the U.S. and Canada at 12:30p ET/9:30a PT.Xbox Daily: LIVE @ E3
Who: Hosted by me and Graeme Boyd, Xbox Live’s Acey Bongos. Includes guest stars and industry elites, including Head of Xbox Phil Spencer and guests from 343 Industries, Turn 10 Studios, Crystal Dynamics, and others.
What: A one hour show featuring breaking news, exclusive announcements, trailer reveals, game demos, and interviews with game creators.
When: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 7p ET/4p PT – 8p ET/5p PT.
Where: The show will be streamed live on Xbox One, Xbox.com both on your desktop and mobile, and Xbox 360. Each show will also have interactive experiences created just for fans watching live on Xbox One.
And finally, if you’re in the LA-area, we have something even bigger for you – Xbox FanFest: E3 2015.
Xbox FanFest: E3 2015
Xbox will give 500 lucky fans a one-of-a-kind ticket for E3 week, the gaming industry’s biggest showcase. The Xbox FanFest Ticket will include:
- Entry into the Xbox E3 2015 Briefing on Monday, June 15th, 9:30 am PT, at the Galen Center in downtown Los Angeles.
- Invite to the exclusive Xbox FanFest Party, Monday afternoon, June 15th, where fans will get to play the best exclusives and biggest blockbuster games this holiday and beyond.
- VIP access to the Xbox esports Celebrity Challenge & Twitch Party sponsored by Xbox.
- Meet-and-greet with some of the industry’s top developers, leaders and influencers.
- Even more surprise events during the week.
Sunday, June 14th through Thursday, June 18th.
Where Do I Get Tickets?
Exact time and place to be announced soon
How Many Tickets Will Be Available?
500 tickets
What Are the Details?
Tickets will be first-come, first-serve.
You must be 21+ years of age.
You must have an Xbox Live gamertag.
One ticket; one person – tickets are non-transferable and cannot be resold.
You’ll have to fill out a liability waiver form.
Okay, I’m in! What do I need to do?
Be 21+ years of age.
Be in LA the weekend before E3.
Get ready to see the greatest games lineup in Xbox history.
Head on over to the Xbox E3 Online Experience for complete information, as well as the Xbox FanFest: E3 201 rules and regulations. And stay tuned to Xbox Wire for all the latest updates and news on E3!
Friday 15 May 2015
Thursday 14 May 2015
Wednesday 13 May 2015
Monday 11 May 2015
Sunday 10 May 2015
Microsoft confirms there will be no Windows 11 | TechRadar
Microsoft confirms there will be no Windows 11 | TechRadar
Microsoft says that Windows 10 will be its final release of the iconic operating system that's installed on over 90% of computers.
"Right now we're releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we're all still working on Windows 10," said Jerry Nixon, Microsoft's developer evangelist, at the Ignite tech conference.
Instead of releasing an entirely new and different version of its desktop OS every few years, Microsoft is taking an Apple-like approach to subsequent Windows releases, standardizing on Windows 10 as its Cupertino-based rival has done with OS X. Under this new strategy, Microsoft will deliver regular improvements to Windows through software updates.
Windows as a service
In the past, Windows users could go to a store, purchase a copy of Windows and install it on their PCs. With the release of Windows 10 this summer, Microsoft is radically changing the way users upgrade Windows.
For the first time, Microsoft is making Windows 10 available as a free upgrade to all Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 users. Starting in July, for the first year of Windows 10's availability, owners of these prior releases can upgrade through Windows Update over-the-air at no cost.
Microsoft will continue this strategy of delivering Windows as a service, delivering frequent updates to Windows 10. There are also new methods to download Windows, including downloading the updates through multiple sources to get them quicker. Users can download Windows updates through Microsoft's servers and from local and internet-connected PCs that have already obtained the updates.
Taking a mobile-first approach
Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is taking a cloud-first, mobile-first approach to its business, and this also applies to Windows. Windows will employ a strategy similar to how mobile operating systems split up the core components to deliver faster updates .
The Start menu and built-in apps are now unbundled from the main OS so users can get faster updates. Rather than waiting for a full Windows update, Microsoft is delivering smaller standalone app updates, a feature we're seeing in the Windows Insider Preview - formerly known as the Windows 10 Technical Preview build - with the Mail and Calendar apps.
This unbundling effect has allowed smartphone manufacturers to update core apps - such as the camera, photo gallery, mail and others - without having to wait for mobile operators to push out a larger OS-wide update.
Like Windows, Microsoft employs a similar strategy with Office. With Office 365, Microsoft's subscription service for Office already delivers the most up-to-date Office experience to users, regardless of the OS or device you're running. Office 365 subscribers will have access to Office 2016, which brings cloud-basedcollaboration, when that version hits retail.
The next generation
After the launch of Windows 10 this summer, Microsoft is rumored to have started work on its next update, codenamed Redstone. Redstone is expected to arrive in 2016, bringing Windows 10 support to more devices, like HoloLens.
- Read our Windows 10 review
93 Percent Of Straight British Dudes Say They Love Cuddling With Other Men - The Daily Buzz
93 Percent Of Straight British Dudes Say They Love Cuddling With Other Men - The Daily Buzz
“We don’t give anyone shit anymore,” said Stephen, another interviewee, who added that any joking is light-hearted. “Sometimes you grab his cock, sort of as a joke, particularly if he’s got a semi going. …It just relieves the tension. It’s not like you’re going to wank him.”
‘‘I love a quick cuddle. Just so you remember your friends are around and are there for you.” This is John, a self-identified straight guy who took part in a study investigating attitudes toward same-sex cuddling at a university in the U.K. Researchers found that 97.5% of heterosexual, male college athletes have shared a bed with another guy and 93.5% have indulged in spooning. “We very often have hangover cuddles and naps together,” reported another participant named Max.
The findings were published in the latest issue of the journal Men and Masculinities. In it, researchers Eric Anderson and Mark McCormack describe how changing attitudes toward homosexuality have lessened stigma around nonsexual contact, and that the majority of young men now have no problem being affectionate with their friends—a particularly common trend among those on sports teams.
“As part of my ethnographic work on sports teams, as well as interview research on athletes and nonathletes, I find that cuddling in bed is a normal and acceptable part of heterosexual male youth culture in England,” Anderson tells Vocativ, adding that it’s becoming increasingly common across the pond. “Friends are tactile with each other in other locales as well,” he says. “I show that it occurs among high school runners in California.”
The sociologists deliberately focused on athletes to gauge the changing beliefs of a group traditionally thought to harbor negative opinions about same-sex contact. Conducting qualitative interviews with a small sample size of 40, Anderson says their responses were consistent with his earlier research. A total of 39 out of 40 said they have shared beds, usually after a night out, and 37 said they often fall asleep spooning.
The reason for this, researchers believe, is that homophobia is on the decline, and intimate contact is no longer seen as a breach of masculinity. A recent national survey found that 29% of British adults think same-sex relationships are wrong, a sharp drop from 46% in 2000. It’s backed up by data from the Pew Research Center, which found that 74% of Americans born after 1980 believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society.
“I feel comfortable with Connor and we spend a lot of time together. I happily rest my head on Connor’s shoulder when lying on the couch or hold him in bed,” said study participant Matt of his best friend. “But he’s not the only one. The way I see it is that we are all very good and close mates. We have a bromance where we are very comfortable around each other.”
Even early morning erections aren’t an issue.
“We don’t give anyone shit anymore,” said Stephen, another interviewee, who added that any joking is light-hearted. “Sometimes you grab his cock, sort of as a joke, particularly if he’s got a semi going. …It just relieves the tension. It’s not like you’re going to wank him.”
When asked why the behavior seems more accepted among athletes, Anderson says that it has more to do with opportunity than comfort levels; men on sports teams travel together, shower together and develop tighter bonds. He adds that research shows the behavior is common among all young guys, but it begins to taper off with age.
“Outside of an undergraduate setting the numbers are likely to be far less. While we know, definitively, that it is a regular occurrence among 16- to 18-year-olds in addition to university students, it is not likely to exist whatsoever among 40-year-old men,” he says. “This is both a function of the homohysteric culture that 40-year-old men experienced in their adolescence, as much as it is a function of the fact that 40-year-old men go home to sleep in bed with their spouses.”
More of Eric Anderson’s research appears in his book, 21st Century Jocks: Sporting Men and Contemporary Heterosexuality.
Saturday 9 May 2015
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Wednesday 6 May 2015
Theneeds - Study: People who love grilled cheese have more sex, are more charitable
Theneeds - Study: People who love grilled cheese have more sex, are more charitable
Enlarge(Credit: msheldrake via Shutterstock)
Enlarge(Credit: msheldrake via Shutterstock)Perhaps the most important survey results of our time were released last week, and unfortunately the Internet has been a little late to catch up. According to a very scientific poll by the good people of Skout, the social networking and dating site, people who love grilled cheese have more sex than people who don’t. They’re also a bit more charitable, perhaps because eating grilled cheese puts them in a good and giving mood!
Skout’s poll of 4,600 Americans found that 86 percent of adults said they “love” grilled cheese, which (surprisingly?) has implications for their sex lives. Nearly three-quarters of grilled cheese lovers reported having sex at least once a month, compared to 63 percent for non-lovers of the sandwich; 32 percent of the former group had sex six times or more in a month, compared to 27 percent of the latter group. Whether the act of making another grilled cheese lover a sandwich increased one’s chances of having sex remains, sadly, unable to be seen from the survey results.
Norway an unlikely base for a campaign to bring back LSD and other psychedelic drugs
Norway an unlikely base for a campaign to bring back LSD and other psychedelic drugs
Pal-Orjan Johansen, right, a Norwegian researcher, and his wife, Teri Krebs, founders of EmmaSofia, the psychedelics advocacy group, with their children in Oslo, Norway. Photo: New York Times
Oslo, Norway: In a country so wary of drug abuse that it limits the sale of aspirin, Pal-Orjan Johansen, a Norwegian researcher, is pushing what would seem a doomed cause: the rehabilitation of LSD.
It matters little to him that the psychedelic drug has been banned here and around the world for more than 40 years. Mr Johansen pitches his effort as a battle for human rights and good health.
Advocates tap into Norway's long tradition of nature-worshiping shamans and Vikings.
In fact, he also wants to manufacture MDMA and psilocybin, the active ingredients in two other prohibited substances, ecstasy and magic mushrooms.
LSD seized in Melbourne in 2006. Photo: Wayne Taylor
All of that might seem quixotic at best, if only Mr Johansen and EmmaSofia, the psychedelics advocacy group he founded with his American-born wife and fellow scientist, Teri Krebs, had not already won some supporters, including a retired Norwegian Supreme Court judge who serves as their legal adviser.
The group stands in the vanguard of a global movement now pushing to revise drug policies set in the 1970s. That it has gained traction in a country so committed to controlling drug use shows how much old orthodoxies have crumbled.
The Norwegian group wants not only to stir discussion about prohibited drugs, but also to manufacture them, in part, it argues, to guarantee they are safe.
"I helped myself with psychedelics and want others to have the same opportunity without the risk of arrest," said Mr Johansen, 42, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He said, as a young man, he defeated an alcohol problem, a smoking habit, post-traumatic stress and depression by taking psilocybin and MDMA.
But even politicians who support the cause, all of them quietly, caution that it will be a long struggle.
Ketil Lund, 75, the retired Supreme Court justice who advises EmmaSofia on its legal strategy, said he had never used psychedelic drugs and had no interest in trying them. But, he said, he supported Mr Johansen's campaign as part of a "bigger struggle" against anti-drug policies in the West that he described as "an absolute failure".
"The present narcotics policy in the West has so many detrimental effects," he said. "These have to be balanced against detrimental effects of the drugs themselves."
EmmaSofia has nonetheless succeeded in making its cause an issue, with Mr Johansen appearing in debates on NRK, the state broadcaster, and in a lengthy profile in a leading news magazine.
Eager to sidestep the tight rules in Norway, Mr Johansen and his supporters tap into a more freewheeling side of this button-down Nordic nation and point to a long tradition of nature-worshiping shamans, particularly among Norway's indigenous Sami people.
Also lending a hand are the Vikings, who, at least according to fans of psychedelic drugs, ate hallucinogenic mushrooms to pep them up before battle.
Cato Nystad, a 39-year-old drum maker, EmmaSofia supporter and organiser of traditional ceremonies that involve psychedelic potions, said many Norwegians wanted to get in touch with their wilder, more spiritual sides.
Steinar Madsen, the medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said he had no objection in principle to what he called EmmaSofia's "interesting project", but cautioned that "it is a very long shot".
He scoffed at the argument that Norway needs to reconnect with its shamanistic past. "I don't believe this stuff," he said, adding that "drugs were not part of this tradition in Norway."
Ina Roll Spinnangr, a Liberal Party politician who supports a more relaxed policy on drugs, said the best way to bring about change was not to attack Norway's paternalistic government, but to turn it on its head.
"You have to use a nanny argument: the government needs to take control and regulate the market, instead of leaving it to criminals," she said. "The argument that you decide yourself what you put in your own body will never work in Norway."
As a result, she added, "I would never use the word 'legalise', but talk instead about regulating, not liberalising."
The taboo in the West on psychedelics, however, is deeply entrenched – a legacy of government campaigns against drug use and a long backlash against the counter-culture of the 1960s, when Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor and zealous promoter of LSD, urged Americans to "turn on, tune in and drop out".
"LSD terrifies governments; it is their ultimate fear, because it changes the way people look at the world," said David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, London. He was fired in 2009 as the British government's drug policy adviser after he told a radio interviewer that alcohol was far more harmful than LSD and other psychedelics.
He praised EmmaSofia and other groups for helping to lift the stigma and fear long attached to psychedelics, adding "there has definitely been a renaissance" of medical research in recent years after decades of science-killing "paranoia and censorship" based on scare stories about psychedelics that fed public panic.
"We are not in the 1960s any more and have moved on," Mr Johansen, a clinical psychologist, said. "This is a question of basic human rights."
LSD, which was first synthesised in a Swiss pharmaceuticals laboratory in 1938, and MDMA, which was patented in 1914, won wide acceptance in Europe and the United States in the middle of the last century when they showed early promise against alcoholism and other maladies.
But initial euphoria over their medical use was then swamped by deep alarm as recreational use of psychedelics surged, leading to a cascade of horror stories in the news media.
The US banned LSD in 1970. A year later, the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances classified LSD and MDMA as "Schedule I" drugs, those that pose a serious threat to public health.
The US convention banned their use "except for scientific and very limited medical purposes by duly authorised persons". It also exempted psychedelics contained in plants "used by certain small, clearly determined groups in magical or religious rites".
Mr Johansen said the dangers connected with psychedelic drugs had been exaggerated by stories that did not take into account probability. "Everything carries a risk. If you walk in a forest, a tree may fall on your head, but does this mean you should never go in the woods?"
Dr Madsen, of the Norwegian Medicines Agency, conceded there "are a lot of myths" about psychedelic drugs, such as claims that "if you use LSD, you will jump from the roof".
All the same, he sees no quick way around a thicket of laws and strict regulations on their use. "Everyone sees we have to be very careful with these drugs," he said. "I don't think the time is ripe."
New York Times
Man Repeller
Man Repeller
man·re·pell·er1 [mahn-ree-peller]
–noun
she who outfits herself in a sartorially offensive mode that may result in repelling members of the opposite sex. Such garments include but are not limited to harem pants, boyfriend jeans, overalls, shoulder pads, full length jumpsuits, jewelry that resembles violent weaponry and clogs.
–verb (used without object),-pell·ing, -pell·ed.
to commit the act of repelling men:
Girl 1: What are you wearing tonight?
Girl 2: My sweet lime green drop crotch utility pants, of course.
Girl 1: Oh, so we’re man repelling tonight?
Sunday 3 May 2015
Friday 1 May 2015
Windows 10: release date, price, news and features | TechRadar
Windows 10: release date, price, news and features | TechRadar
Update (April 30, 2015): With the first major Build 2015 keynote through and moments before the second and final address, we've updated this space with a section highlighting the most interesting changes coming to Windows 10 through the WTP. Check it out below!
With Windows 8 and today Windows 8.1, Microsoft tried – not entirely successfully – to deliver an operating system (OS) that could handle the needs of not only number-crunching workstations and high-end gaming rigs, but touch-controlled systems from all-in-one PCs for the family and thin-and-light notebooks down to slender tablets.
When Microsoft pulled the curtain back on Windows 10 back in September of 2014, it was clear that, with an operating system optimized for PCs, tablets and phones in unique ways, the Redmond, Wash.-based firm was onto something. Skipping the Windows 9 name entirely, Microsoft issued a public preview of the shiny new OS later that autumn, known as Windows Technical Preview (WTP).
You can try it out for yourself through Microsoft's Windows Insider Program. You'll need a Microsoft account to get it, and it's worth bearing in mind that it's not the finished product, so it will be a bit rough around the edges.
- Is the new OS any good? Read our hands on Windows 10 review
Since then (and one more major reveal event in January 2015), new features have been rolling in with each preview build update. Now, with Microsoft's huge annual developer event, Build 2015, on the horizon, we expect another deluge of Windows 10, including that elusive release date.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? A complete update for Windows
- When is it out? Definitely summer, but likely late July 2015
- What will it cost? For Windows 7 and 8.1 users, it will be free for one year
Go to the original article for a continued review
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