- The quest for world domination is on pause. Google,
technically a search engine giant but clearly angling to take over the planet,
has taken a step back by putting its Nexus Q streaming media device on
hold. Customers who pre-ordered the device were notified that its shipment has
been postponed so the company can "work on making it even better." In
other words, there are problems and more than a few bugs and rather than ship
it out and have angry customers sending it back and demanding refunds, Google
will sit on the Nexus Q for now. The company said it "heard initial
feedback from users that they want Nexus Q to do even more than it does today"
and that’s the story they’re going with. Early reviews were overwhelmingly
negative and critics slammed the device as "wildly overbuilt for its
incredibly limited functions” while being incredibly overpriced at $299. Others
derided it as a "high-priced novelty" and suggested it had no
compelling features. In its current form, the device allows users to stream
only Google-linked media, including music, movies and YouTube videos. Worse
still, the Nexus Q does not run outside application and only an Android device
can control the Nexus Q. With those substantial limitations, asking $300 for
any gadget seems absurd, especially when that price tag is significantly higher
than its Apple counterpart, which sells for $99 and connects with iTunes media.
Oh, and Apple TV also lets users run apps from other vendors, including
Netflix and Hulu. To placate those
clueless enough to pre-order Nexus Q and who now must wait for it to be
re-tooled, Google plans to send its preview device for free……..
- The Boss has done it again. Bruce Springsteen, famous for
his über-long shows stretching more than three hours, smashed his previous record
Tuesday night at the final stop of his European tour in the Finnish capital city of
Helsinki. Springsteen, who has a renowned affinity for Scandinavia and once
played a showed in the Swedish city of Gothenburg that was so raucous it nearly
caused the stadium to literally collapse, played a set that lasted for 33 songs
and included four covers, John Fogerty's 'Rockin' All Over The World',
Southside Johnny's “I Don't Want To Go Home,” Jackie Wilson's “(Your Love Keeps
Lifting Me) Higher And Higher” and The Isley Brothers' classic “Twist And Shout.”
The set that lasted for four hours and six minutes in the city's Olympiastadion,
longer than the lengthy set he played at London's Hard Rock Calling that went
past the city’s curfew and indefensibly led to the decision to pull the plug on
the show before Springsteen and Paul McCartney could perform a few songs
together to close the show. The premature end to the show led to a flood of
criticism for London Mayor Boris Johnson and Springsteen's guitarist Steven Van Zandt tweeted: "Is
there just too much fun in the world? We would have been off by 11 if we'd done
one more. On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing?" It was a valid
question and perhaps the tolerant attitude of the Finns, allowing Springsteen
to play for more than four hours, will shame London into changing its asinine
rules for the Boss’ next European tour. He begins the U.S. leg of his tour next
month in support of his latest album “Wrecking Ball,” which came out earlier
this year………..
- One of the world’s best medical facilities could soon be
consumed by a ginormous hole in the ground – seriously. A large sinkhole is expanding in a busy section of
east Baltimore and making many people along Monument Street very nervous. The
area is extremely unstable and highly dangerous, so much so that repair crews
have been unable to get close enough to measure its exact size. “It’s quite a
challenge for us to come up with a design, especially with the road continuing
to erode and collapse,” said Rudy Chow, a Department of Public Works official. The
sinkhole is just blocks from Johns Hopkins Hospital and while the premier
medical facility isn’t in danger yet, big-budget Hollywood disaster movies
would suggest it certainly is not out of the path of the storm, so to speak.
For now, the sinkhole is terrorizing busy part of Monument Street between East
Bradford and East Montford streets and the affected area will be closed for
several weeks. The DPW recently brought in ground-penetrating radar to test for
voids in areas around the sinkhole and found no problems. Still, it is
disturbing that a hole 50 feet deep could open on a major street in a large
city. Many residents said they had never seen anything like it and repair crews
expect it will take at least nine days simply for the area to stabilize enough
for work to begin. Business owners in the area are understandably upset by the
news as foot traffic is at a minimum for an area already hit hard by the
nation’s economic downturn. The sinkhole formed when a drainage culvert from
the 1930s collapsed, providing another reminder of the hazards posed by Baltimore’s
aging infrastructure. A series of downtown water main breaks prior to the
sinkhole led to the shutdown of Light Street in the heart of downtown and DPW
officials say it could be up to another 20 days before the project is complete
and the street can re-open………
- Who’s fired up not to be in Northern India right now? Not
that the northern reaches of the Asian nation aren’t a lovely place to visit,
full of interesting culture, but they have also been hellaciously hot and dark
of late on account of the power grid crashing Monday, halting hundreds of trains, forcing hospitals and airports to
use backup generators and leaving 370 million people sweating it out in the summer
heat. The blackout is one of the worst to hit India in a decade and underscored
India’s inability to keep pace with increased demand for energy as it strives
to become a regional economic power. Officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh
confirmed that the northern grid crashed about 2:30 a.m. because it could no
longer keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer. Power Minister
Sushil Kumar Shinde (yes, his real title) explained he was not sure exactly
what caused the collapse and had formed a committee to investigate it. Sure,
because the bureaucratic workings of a committee are the perfect method for
quickly resolving a pressing matter in which millions of people are without
power. The crippled grid feeds the key region of Punjab, the war-wracked region
of Kashmir, the burgeoning capital of New Delhi, the Dalai Lama's Himalayan
headquarters in Dharmsala and the world's most populous state, the poverty
stricken Uttar Pradesh. Crews were steadily able to restore power to affected
regions and by the end of the day Monday and 60 percent of the power had been
restored in the eight northern states affected by the outage. More rural
regions were slowed to get power back and with temperatures in New Delhi in the
90s, life was miserable for much of the day. New Delhi's Metro transit system,
with 1.8 million daily riders, came to a complete halt and some trains across
the northern region were stranded when their electric engines failed. The
collapse was the first for the northern grid since 2001, but with India's
Central Electricity Authority reporting power deficits of about 8 percent in
recent month, future outages are not out of the question. Of course, one-third of
India's households do not even have electricity to power a light bulb, so the
outage was simply life as usual for many. At least Monday’s outage was not
accompanied by a scene like the one earlier this month, when angry crowds
blocked traffic and clashed with police after blackouts in the Delhi suburb of
Gurgaon……….
- College football is in the air, games are less than a
month away and when the season kicks off for the Clemson Tigers, one of the
best stories in all of the sport will be on the roster. Daniel Rodriguez is about to realize his dream of playing college
football and keep a promise to a brother-in-arms in the process. Rodriguez
learned this week that he had been cleared by the NCAA and the Atlantic Coast
Conference to join Clemson's football team as a walk-on receiver. He will wear
jersey No. 83 and step onto the field looking to put the scenes of the most
horrific fighting in Afghanistan behind him. "It's been kind of long
journey," he said. He joined the Army after his father, Ray, died four
days after his graduation and served in Iraq during the troop surge of 2007. "I
went to the recruiter and said, 'Get me away from here,' " he said. During
his second tour, he was stationed in Afghanistan and in the line of fire during
one of the war's bloodiest fights, the battle of Kamdesh in October 2009. The
U.S. outpost of fewer than 40 soldiers fought against 400 Taliban combatants.
His friend, Pfc. Kevin Thompson, was killed in the battle, just days after the
two men talked about what they'd do after returning home. Thompson made
Rodriguez promise to pursue his dream of playing college football and despite shrapnel
in his leg and neck from the battle and a bullet fragment through his shoulder,
Rodriguez recovered and began chasing his goal. Along the way, he was awarded
the Bronze Star Medal of Valor and received a Purple Heart. To find a school
where he could play, he had a friend tape a workout and placed it on YouTube.
He received interest from about 50 schools, including from Clemson and coach
Dabo Swinney. At Clemson, Rodriguez ran the steps at massive Memorial Stadium
in a military gas mask to increase his fitness and now he will play there while
majoring in political science. "I'm not this high-scouted athlete expected
to change this program," Rodriguez said. "I'm just a cog on the wheel
that's going to play my role and better the team from an individual standpoint
and give insight from what I've been through as a person.” It’s safe to say No.
83 in orange will be easy to root for this season………
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