YouTube is the new CSPAN. Well not really, but they just announced they're giving members of the U.S. Congress access to enhanced features like live streaming. Whether congress members choose to reach out to constituents is their prerogative, but at least they've got another tool now.
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Apple typically accompanies the announcement of a new iPhone 5 with a video showcasing their design and manufacturing processes. Samsung has now done something similar for their just-released Galaxy S4. So how do the two videos compare, and what, if anything, do they tell us about the respective companies and phones?
Before we get to the videos, it's worthwhile taking a quick look at how Apple and Samsung handle the devices in general. Here's Apple's phone product logo, which uses a single typeface, compared to Samsung's, which uses different typefaces for both Galaxy and 4, and a highly stylized S in between:
In Samsung's video, which includes the now oft-repeated "Life Companion" tag line, they start off with a quick series of initially unidentified people (we later find out they're UX -- user experience -- designers), who set the stage for a) wanting to go deeper into people's lives, b) be more evolutionary than radically different, c) be like nothing anyone has ever seen before, and d) change people's lives for the better. (Note: the video is in Korean with English subtitles, so there could be cultural differences and contexts that are lost in translation.)
Apple's video, which is actually more of a general product video that also touches on design, begins with Jony Ive, senior vice president of industrial design, who sets up a) the phone as the most-used object in people's lives, b) how seriously Apple takes that relationship, and c) how Apple's goal is not to make something new but something much better.
Samsung's video includes people set in more realistic environments, and a ton of b-roll showing stars, cityscapes, and other dramatic visuals. Apple's video sets everyone on backgrounds of pure white, and b-roll consists exclusively of shots of the iPhone itself, the technology inside it, and the equipment used to manufacture it.
Samsung's UX designers go on to describe how the phone has evolved from information system to life companion, and how they began to think about how they could use it to offer more meaningful value. They showcase features like the eye-tracking page scrolling and video pausing, and the on-hover contextual popups. And they call out the automatic photo album generation.
Apple's Jony Ive explains their decision to increase the screen size to 4-inches by making it taller but not wider (the old one-handed-ease-of-use argument). Bob Mansfield, senior vice-president (of technology) explains some of the new hardware features like LTE and the Apple A6, and Lightning connector. Scott Forstall, former vice president of iOS, then goes over iOS 6 software features like Maps, Panorama photos, Siri enhancements like sports and restaurant reservations, Facebook integration, and FaceTime over celular.
Samsung's Hyoungshin Park, product designer, explains that while the Galaxy S3 had more nature-centric design cues, the Galaxy S4 was meant to be more "rationale" in approach (that has to be a translation glitch, right?) and with more emotional CMF (?). Jongbo Jung, product designer, then describes the GS4 as a precious gem glittering in the dark or stars sparkling in the night sky. They paid attention to the smallest detail and refined it to perfection. They wanted to find the perfect line.
Apple returns to Jonny Ive, who talks not only about the very nearly insane precision of the manufacturing process, but about how the iPhone feels in your hand, and the importance of the materials they use -- glass and aluminum.
Samsung says nothing about the feeling or importance of their plastics. They do repeat the importance of making people's lives better. Mihnyouk Lee, vice president of product design, says Samsung believes they can create something new and valuable.
Apple's Jony Ive says they began the iPhone 5 with a design they loved, but to implement it, it took everything they'd learned to date. Simple, clear, truly extraordinary.
Samsung ends with: Life Companion, for a richer, simpler, fuller life.
Apple ends with: Apple logo.
Samsung's video does make Apple's look clinical, almost sterile at times, but the simplicity Apple brings to every element makes Samsung look undisciplined, almost unrefined.
What's most interesting is that two companies with such different styles and products are both sitting atop the smartphone space right now.
Via: Android Central
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/2j5iV1Z_1Jk/story01.htm
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) ? For all his on-camera carousing and cussing, "BUCKWILD" reality TV star Shain Gandee was a publicly proclaimed and baptized Christian, and his mother told hundreds of mourners Sunday that she will see him again.
"I know where Shain is," Loretta Gandee told the family, friends and fans crammed into the Charleston Municipal Auditorium. "He said about a month ago, 'I know when I die I'm going to heaven.'"
Dressed in a hot-pink "Gandee Candy" T-shirt and jeans, she spoke only a few words but bellowed out an unaccompanied hymn, her voice echoing through the auditorium in prayer for their reunion.
Gandee, his 48-year-old uncle, David Gandee, and 27-year-old friend Donald Robert Myers were found dead April 1 in a sport utility vehicle that was partially submerged in a deep mud pit near Sissonville. They had last been seen leaving a bar at 3 a.m.
Autopsies determined all three died of carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly caused by the tailpipe being submerged in mud. That could have allowed the invisible gas to fill the vehicle's cabin.
Shain Gandee, nicknamed "Gandee Candy" by fans, was a breakout star of the show that followed the antics of young friends enjoying their wild country lifestyle. Season one was filmed last year, mostly around Sissonville and Charleston.
The Rev. Randy Campbell told the many young people in the crowd he understands that life bombards them with difficult choices. But he urged them to follow Shain Gandee's lead and embrace their faith now, while they are energetic and engaged.
"This life will hand you a lot of things and call it pleasure, but there is nothing that brings greater joy to a person's heart than serving the Lord," Campbell said. "You may think at this point, you're having fun, but those days will pass."
When they do, he said, God is all that matters.
Cameras were not allowed at the funeral or private family burial in Thaxton Cemetery.
As hundreds filed past the two closed coffins on the auditorium stage, a slideshow of family photos showed the simple life that Shain Gandee lived long before TV cameras started following him.
Set to country music were snapshots of him as a uniformed pee wee football player, as a teenager in a tuxedo for prom, then graduating from high school in a black gown and mortarboard.
In other images, he kissed a bride and held babies. In several, he wore hunting camouflage, displaying a slain buck by its antlers and lining up a batch of gray squirrels on a bench.
Gandee favored four-wheelers, pickups and SUVs over cellphones and computers, and "mudding," or off-road driving, was one of his favorite pastimes.
It was no coincidence some mourners arrived in mud-splattered trucks.
Dreama and Charlie Frampton, who live a few doors down, said Gandee had been playing in the mud since he was 5.
"If it wasn't a four-wheel drive truck," Dreama said, "it was a four-wheeler or a dirt bike."
"He was dedicated to the sport," Charlie added. "That's all you can do out in the country."
Gandee's family asked mourners to wear camouflage or the neon-colored Gandee Candy T-shirts to the service because Shain didn't like to dress up.
Ricky Sater, 23, said his friend would have loved the sea of camo and T-shirts that filled the auditorium.
"He probably would walk in there going, 'BUCKWILD!'" he said.
Sater has known Shain since middle school and last saw him a week ago, when he came over to borrow a pin for a trailer hitch.
"He said, 'See ya, Rick!' and I said, 'See ya, drunk!" recalled Sater, who got the terrible news days later in a phone call.
"My sister told me about it, and it being April Fool's, I thought she was joking. But she wasn't," he said, swallowing hard. "I try to keep my emotions balled up, but I started breaking down about six hours later."
Shooting was underway on season two at the time of Gandee's death, but MTV spokesman Jake Urbanski said film crews were not with him over Easter weekend and hadn't filmed him since earlier that week.
MTV says it will be weeks before producers and cast members decide whether to continue. For now, the network said, everyone is focused on supporting Gandee's family.
Katrina Burdette, 25, of Cross Lanes, didn't know Gandee but is friends with his cast mate, Ashley Whitt. Burdette has watched every episode and wants to see more.
"I think it should go on. Give them time to mourn and everything, but he'd want the show to go on," she said. "He wanted to be in the show and keep it going, so why not ? in his memory ? keep it going?"
MTV said the half-hour series in the old "Jersey Shore" time slot was pulling in an average of 3 million viewers per episode since its premiere and was the No. 1 original cable series on Thursday nights among 12- to 34-year-olds.
Others, like his neighbors the Framptons, say the show just won't be the same.
"They should just leave well enough alone," Charlie Frampton said.
But he won't object if the show survives. It's bringing people to West Virginia, and he rejects the notion that it portrays the state in a negative light.
"They're just showing what true country is," he said. "It's no worse than that 'Teen Mom.'"
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mom-buckwild-star-christian-now-heaven-201147426.html
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Thank God (and Al Gore) for the Internet! Every now and then I come across something online that just thrills me and reminds me why I absolutely LOVE living in the 21st century. When an email appeared in my inbox last night from my dad, I had no idea I was about to discover one of those things.
Game of Thrones fans, prepare to have your minds blown.
An Israeli DJ, who goes by "DJ Rozroz," mashed up "A Song of Fire and Ice" (the theme from Game of Thrones) with "A Man's World," sung by James Brown.
Yesterday the video had 7,000 views. Today it is up to 25,000. I'll spare you from my opinions on why this is a perfect, case-study-worthy example of how artists can tap into existing communities via social media to reach massive audiences. And I will instead mention some of my thoughts on why this mix is so beautiful and interesting.
To some, these songs might seem like an unlikely pair. To me, it's as if they were made for each other. Musically and melodically, the two songs are mesmerizingly complimentary. I just love it. But it is actually the message of it all that seems perfectly, almost eerily preordained.
"It's a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl."
In Game of Thrones, it is a man's world -- or so the men think. It is men who conceive of wars, it is men who fight those wars, kill people, rob, steal, vie for power, and strive for the Iron Throne. Yet, in this man's world that is Game of Thrones, beneath all the power struggles that divide each kingdom, there are far more dangerous forces taking root that will render men's power struggles trivial -- at most. And as those forces take root over the rest of this seasons and those that follow, it seems as though only one woman, Daenerys "Stormborn" Targaryen aka Khaleesi, might have what it takes to save the realm from total destruction.
James Brown's voice echoes hauntingly over the Game of Thrones musical backdrop, reminding us all of an often-forgotten truth -- that while it may seem like a man's world, and while men may think it's a man's world, this world would be nothing without women.
It will end up being a woman who saves the world from destruction in Game of Thrones. And if I were a betting man, I'd say that it will be a woman, or women, who too will save our world from destruction. When women, all women, reclaim their rights, realize their power, re-chart our societal course, rethink our collective values and perceptions of one another, and remind the rest of us of something quite commonsense -- that nothing is more important than life, love and liberty -- then, our world, like the fictional realm in Game of Thrones, will have a fighting chance.
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Follow Stephen Estes on Twitter: www.twitter.com/StephenEstes1
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By Adam Jourdan
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Two more people have contracted bird flu in Shanghai, China's health ministry said on Saturday, as authorities closed live poultry markets and culled birds to combat a new virus strain that has killed six people.
State-run Xinhua news agency said authorities planned to slaughter birds at two live poultry markets in Shanghai and another in Hangzhou after new samples of the H7N9 virus were detected in birds at the three sites.
More than 20,000 birds have been culled at another Shanghai market where traces of the virus were found this week.
Officials in Shanghai, China's financial hub, closed all the city's live poultry markets on Saturday, emptying food stalls.
All poultry trading was banned in Nanjing, another eastern Chinese city, although local officials said they had not found any trace of the bird flu virus and declared that chicken on the retail market was safe to eat, official media reported.
The new strain of bird flu has infected 18 people in China, all in the east. Six people have died in an outbreak that has spread concern overseas.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that 10 infected people were severe cases and two were mild cases. It reiterated there was no evidence of ongoing human-to-human transmission of the virus.
"More than 530 close contacts of the confirmed cases are being closely monitored. In Jiangsu, investigation is ongoing into a contact of an earlier confirmed case who developed symptoms of illness," the Geneva-based WHO said in a statement on Saturday.
There were no signs of panic in Shanghai, where four of the six people died, and people generally said they were not worried. But the culling, which has been widely publicized, did underline for some how close to home the issue had become.
"Now it's just downstairs," said Liu Leting, a user of Weibo, China's version of Twitter which has more than 500 million users.
"Suddenly I discover that I'm living in an epidemic zone!"
In one city restaurant, a waitress said they planned to stop serving chicken because of the outbreak.
"After we sell out the chicken in stock, we will not buy new chicken and will stop serving chicken dishes for the time being," said the waitress, who declined to be identified.
While the strain does not appear to be transmitted from human to human, authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong said they were taking extra precautions.
Hong Kong's government said it was intensifying surveillance of travelers and poultry coming into the city.
China's Food and Drug Administration said it had fast-tracked approval for intravenous anti-influenza drug Peramivir, developed by the U.S.-listed biotechnology firm BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Peramivir is in medical trials to prove its effectiveness against type-A and type-B influenza, the administration said in a statement. The H7N9 strain belongs to the type-A group.
Shanghai authorities have stressed the H7N9 virus remained sensitive to the drug Tamiflu and those who were diagnosed early could be cured. Tamiflu is made by Roche Holding AG.
China and Hong Kong were badly hit by a 2002-2003 epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that started in China and killed about one-tenth of the 8,000 people infected worldwide.
(Additional reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong, and Vivi Lin and Reuters TV in Shanghai, and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Richard Meares)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-bird-flu-virus-found-more-markets-shanghai-031011386.html
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By Courtney Kube and Becky Bratu, NBC News
A senior defense official confirms that the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that was scheduled for next week. The official says Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel decided to postpone the test because of ongoing tensions with North Korea.
The test was "long planned and was never associated with North Korea to begin with," the official said, but added that "given recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula, it's prudent and wise to take steps that avoid any misperception or chance of manipulation, so the test has been postponed."
The test was planned for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It would have tested the Minuteman 3 ICBM missile.
The U.S. will conduct another test soon, the senior defense official said, adding that the U.S. "remains strongly committed to our nuclear deterrence capabilities."
The unusual move follows recent warlike rhetoric from North Korea, which included a threat to attack U.S. bases in the Pacific.
North Korean authorities also told diplomatic missions they could not guarantee their safety starting next Wednesday -- after declaring that conflict was inevitable. There were also reports that North Korea had moved two medium-range missiles to a location on its east coast.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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