The latest version of Snapchat's Android app cleans up its interface and adds gesture-based navigation controls. Everything from conversation view and the contact list received a once over making it feel more like a platform-native app, even though it's more than a blush similar to the last iOS update. Perhaps the biggest fix is the new shutter button, which is a clear bubble instead of a big blue bar. Now nothing's obscuring your view of a poor snap decision.
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Vine's offering up the latest update to the iOS version of the video sharing app. Nope, it's not an Instagram-inspired lengthening. Instead, version 1.3 brings a handful of new tools to the micro-video service, assuring that you make the best six second film possible, including grid, focus and ghost. The app's also adding 15 new content channels like music, nature and comedy, each of which has its own distinct theme and Popular feed. Revining, meanwhile, makes it easier to share friends' videos and On The Rise, shows you up and coming Viners. Also new is protected posts, so you don't have to let the whole world in on your video brilliance, if you're the shy sort.
when.eng("eng.perm.init")There were rumblings of Kate Moss for a Playboy cover back in March, but it seemed so implausible — Moss is hardly hurting for work or attention — that they quickly quieted down. But now they're back, thanks to hairstylist Oribe, who told Refinery29 that he'd done Moss's hair for the shoot in question. It'll supposedly come out in January, pegged to Moss's 40th birthday, and no doubt be "tasteful." Meanwhile, let's not forget that she's done so many nude shoots (including this year, for self-tanning brand St. Tropez, shown above), that full frontal would hardly be untrodden territory.
Sure, it may be raining out, but the sun will come back. And while the prospect of following doctor's orders to slather on sunscreen every two hours seems neither fun (or even feasible), there's a workaround: Wear sun-proof clothing that has been tested for Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF). Unlike sunscreens that wear down eventually with time and exposure to water, or flimsy t-shirts through which rays can seep, these clothes can give consistent protection on the body parts they're covering. Clothing that does the best job carries a UPF rating from 15 (good) to 50+ (excellent), and our favorite options are colorful rash guards and sun block shirts that are not just for the beach, but can be layered into your look — imagine them color blocked with a fun skirt and heels — all sweltering season long. Click ahead to see our favorites for summer.
Now that it's collecting cash from Nokia for WP8, Microsoft might want to considering buying it flowers, as the mobile OS has picked up market share considerably over last quarter in the US -- apparently at the expense of Apple's iOS. According to numbers from Kantar (which only tracked phone, not tablet OS's), WP jumped from 4.1 percent the previous quarter to 5.6 percent in Q2 2013, a period in which Nokia released the Lumia 620 and began shipping its Lumia 820 and 920 in volume. BlackBerry held its tiny share of 0.7 percent stateside over Q1 despite the availability of the Z10, while Android saw a half-point bump to 51.7 percent -- though if Samsung and HTC's lofty sales estimates for the GS 4 and One hold, that might change considerably next time. Meanwhile, Apple fell from a 43.5 percent share last quarter to 41.4 percent, perhaps because its flagship iPhone 5 is due for a refresh -- something we might see soon.
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Now that we have the low-down on NVIDIA's two mainstream heavyweights, the GTX 770 and the GTX 780, we figure it's time to move beyond specs and official slide decks and bring together some reviews from the specialist sites. Both cards contain the same Kepler architecture as NVIDIA's 2012 line-up, with no huge leaps in evidence, but they either add more of this silicon (in the case of the GTX 780) or drive it harder (in the case of the GTX 770) in order create new options for enthusiasts and for those upgrading from a card that is two or more generations old. At the same time, these products represent a major shift in NVIDIA's pricing strategy. At $649, the GTX 780 is priced much higher than its direct ancestor, and it aims to approach Titan-level performance without hitting the same thousand-dollar high. Meanwhile, the GTX 770 costs just $399 and yet is said to replace last year's flagship cards like the GTX 680 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, which are still being sold for $450 and upwards at some retailers. Read on and we'll summarize how these claims have stacked up against reality.
GeForce GTX 770Let's start with the GTX 770 since it's more a reasonable proposition and it just came out this morning. NVIDIA claimed in a product briefing that the card would edge out the GTX 680 by around five percent thanks to faster memory and higher clock speeds, and the reviews below have borne that out. Tom's Hardware actually saw a 5-10 percent boost in Borderlands 2 (90fps) and Battlefield 3 (54fps) at 2,560 x 1,440 and max detail settings, and a surprising 35 percent advantage in BioShock Infinite (51fps). HotHardware noted that NVIDIA's stock cooler was quieter and more efficient 2012 cards, which ought to raise the bar for third party vendors. Meanwhile, the GTX 770's lead over the Radeon HD 7970 was slightly smaller, testifying to the impact of AMD's mid-gen GHz upgrade and driver improvements, but the lead was there nonetheless -- and AMD's card is still generally more expensive. The upshot: if you already own one of the aforementioned 2012 cards, there's nothing to fret about, but if you're shopping for an upgrade then don't, whatever you do, buy a GTX 680 (unless you find an absolute bargain).
Read -- Tom's Hardware
Read -- Hot Hardware
Read -- TechPowerUp
Read -- TechSpot
GeForce GTX 780As mentioned, this card's pricing and internals class it as a deliberately scaled-down Titan, rather than as an alternative to more mainstream offerings. NVIDIA's notion is that non-obsessives will be drawn to the idea of making a large dollar saving in return for a small performance sacrifice relative to the best. And again, the marketing promise holds true in independent benchmarks. Anandtech found that the 780 delivers "90 percent of the Titan's gaming performance for 65 percent of the price." Plus, with a bit of overclocking it was "easy to exceed" the performance of a stock Titan and achieve frame rates beyond 60fps even in games like Total War: Shogun 2 at 2,560 x 1,440 and Ultra settings. Legit Reviews tested triple monitor performance and found a mere 9 percent reduction in fps relative to the Titan -- sufficient to achieve 43fps in BioShock Infinite playing at 5,760 x 1,080 and Ultra settings.
Read -- Anandtech (and with overclocking)
Read -- Legit Reviews
Read -- Hexus
Read -- Guru3D
All in all, you can't escape the feeling that NVIDIA has rehashed and rebadged its existing architecture in order to capitalize on the strength of Kepler (and especially its power efficiency) and mold the market in the way it wants. Then again, the company hasn't tried to hide any of this -- it's been open about where it's simply added or substracted transistors, or tweaked the memory configuration, and it's also been made clear that those who upgrade from an existing Kepler card may not see a huge difference. As for the claims the company has made about these two cards, however, it's evidently able to live up to them.
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After seven months of cooperative tapping, Peter Molyneux's Curiosity experiment is finally over: the cube is open. As Molyneux's studio, 22Cans, teased the game's last layer over Twitter, players descended upon it, chipping away the last million cubelets in a matter of minutes. "We have a winner," the game's creator wrote on the social network. "They should get a message now." 22Cans is currently trying to validate the player who tapped away the final block. After the final block disappeared, so did the cube, presumably to be opened privately by the winner. So, what was inside the box? We may never know -- but if you just happened to win, fill us in, would you?
Update: The winner asked Molyneux to share the winner video with the community. Their prize? Godhood, according to 22Cans. The winner will be featured as a deity in the company's next game, Goddess, and will able to "decide on the rules that the game is played by." The winner will get a share of the revenue generated by the title. Check out the full video for yourself after the break.
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for Discovery News 2013-04-15 19:17:29 UTC Two of the country's most notorious survivalists — the Hermit of North Pond in Maine, and The Mountain Man of Utah, were found and arrested in the last few weeks. And a case of a missing family, the McStay family of southern California, was effectively closed when investigators said the family appears to have gone to Mexico voluntarily.
So is it still possible to "disappear" in 2013?
"Is it more difficult? Yes," said Jim Biesterfeld, a former U.S. army counter-intelligence special agent who teaches private investigations at California State University-Fullerton Jim Biesterfeld. "Impossible? Not even."
For someone to hide away from society, he said, at least two things are essential: self-sufficiency, and desire.
"There are not that many people who want to stay hidden for that long" in solitude," Biesterfeld said. "Most people try to establish new identities."
That's why it's unusual for two cases of solitary survivalists to have been solved in such close succession.
Christopher Knight, 47, also known as The North Pond Hermit, appears to be one of those few who truly wanted to live on his own.
For 27 years, Knight avoided making a campfire for fear of drawing attention to himself. He stole what he needed to survive from campgrounds; in fact, everything he had was stolen except his eyeglasses. If there's not much reason to be found, as in Knight's case, costly police investigations are unlikely. But, eventually, Knight's thefts of food and survival supplies prompted local law enforcement to get involved.
It would take a possible federal criminal violation in addition to a disappearance, such as a fugitive or kidnapping situation, for the FBI to become involved, said FBI special agent Kathy Wright.
"The FBI requires an authorized law enforcement purpose to conduct an investigation," she said. "The mere fact that an adult disappears, is not, on its own, a violation of law."
In the end, a surveillance camera set up specifically to catch Knight triggered an alarm when he entered a campground kitchen looking for food, and Knight was arrested.
While technology — such as thermal imaging that detects people by tracking body heat — is helpful in pinpointing a location once a general area is mapped out, investigators haven't abandoned old-fashioned methods. In the case of Troy James Knapp, also known as The Mountain Man in Utah, it was snowshoe tracks that eventually gave him away.
Biesterfeld relies on the old adage of investigators and journalists: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Find out everything you can about the person.
"What was he like as a kid? Did he have mental health issues? Had he ever talked about it before?" Biesterfeld said. "In most cases, people crave human contact. The rare few who do not are the Maine guy and the unabomber" — and, it appears, Utah's Mountain Man.
"He says, 'I don't hate people. I just don't like living with them,'" the Huffington Post quotes him telling Sevier County Sheriff Nathan Sheriff Curtis.
Knapp had been living off the radar since 2004. He caused more disturbances than Knight, sleeping inside other people's cabins and stealing food, camping equipment and guns. But because searchers knew his habits, they were able to discover the snowshoe tracks that led them to him.
Knapp's trial started this week. There are 29 burglary-related felony and misdemeanor charges filed against him.
Image via JOHN RUTHROFF/AFP/Getty Images
This article originally published at Discovery News here
Topics: crime, digital identity, FBI, identity, identity theft, U.S., US & World, World
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Chris Taylor2013-04-02 18:20:50 UTCWas there any doubt that HBO's hit show Game of Thrones would return to our screens next year after Season 3 wraps up? Actually, yes — the creators and producers of the show have been very careful to always use the word "if" when discussing a Season 4.
Now they can drop the "if." HBO confirmed Tuesday morning that the show was being picked up again in 2014.
If the executives had any doubt that Game of Thrones had legs (in the sense of popularity; we already know it offers plenty of limbs in those famous "sexposition" scenes), they would have been erased by the ratings for the first episode of Season 3, which broadcast Sunday.
Some 4.4 million viewers tuned in, which is up 13% over the Season 2 opener, and even up 200,000 viewers over the blockbuster season finale. That puts Game of Thrones on a course to overtake True Blood as HBO's most popular show. If you factor in international distribution and DVD sales, it's already there.
The 4.4 million figure, of course, doesn't count those viewers who illegally downloaded the show. Thrones is the most popular TV show on the BitTorrent network. HBO's CEO and the show's producers are at pains to point out that most of the illegal downloads are coming from abroad. In particular, they point the finger at Australia, where broadcasters delay the show for months.
"If Australia was getting the show the same day as America, maybe the Australians wouldn't be downloading hundreds of thousands of copies," writer and executive producer George R.R. Martin told Mashable at a premiere event in San Francisco last week.
HBO estimates that counting all forms of viewership, 12 million people watch the Westeros-based fantasy show. "We think that number is going to increase this year, and may become the most watched show in our history," CEO Richard Plepler told us at the event.
A fourth season means the show will at least complete its adaptation of Storm of Swords, the third (and some would say best) book in Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.
Image courtesy HBO
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