Netflix Launches ?Max,? A Goofy Virtual Assistant To Help With Recommendations, Available Now On PS3, iPad Next

Netflix this morning announced its own take on virtual assistants like the iPhone's Siri, with the debut of "Max," an on-screen guide for the Netflix app on PlayStation 3 devices which helps you find new movies or TV shows to watch. And yes, the guide does talk to you, but thankfully has yet to manifest itself in some more corporeal format, like Microsoft's "Bob."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_SZW2RNe10c/

Ben McLemore Victor Oladipo Blackhawks Parade White House Down Tim Hardaway Jr Kelly Olynyk Shane Larkin

Skype for iOS update brings unlimited free video messaging, unending joy

Earlier this month, Skype brought its video messaging to nearly every major platform. Now, the outfit updated the iOS version of its app to lend a hand with the video snippets. The latest version of the software for Apple's mobile gadgets carries free unlimited messaging of the moving picture type. As you might expect, the download also includes a smattering of bug fixes and usability improvements as well. In the event that your device hasn't alerted you to the goods -- or if you're looking to cash in on the freebies -- the source link below holds the key.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile

Comments

Source: iTunes

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/27/skype-ios-update-unlimited-free-video-messaging/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

Zero Hour Funny Valentines Chris Kyle Russian meteor Meteor Hits Russia Dorner Manifesto Valentines Day Quotes

Hunting for the Brain's Hidden Treasures

Beautifully done!

Re. "A true map of the brain would reveal how information flows..." - superb point, but all we have are some traces of electrical signal flows through interconnected networks of neurons. There certainly seems to be some extensive control mechanism (software) that determines how signals flow among which available connections. We have no idea what information is represented by those signal flows, how it's stored and recalled, and how it influences our actions - just for starters.

We cannot comprehend what our computers are doing from a map of circuit interconnections or even a trace of electrical signal flows within the circuits. We cannot determine precisely what our computers are doing even with list of all the programs that are loaded and copies of their instruction source codes. With a list of all the programs and data loaded into storage we might have a chance, given enough computers and time to perform the necessary analyses. Even then, the feasibility of such an undertaking could rival the sequencing of the genome, just to find that I'm just entering this comment into your comment entry box...

There's an enormous amount of critical information about the brain that we're not even aware of yet - information that having an enormously costly, highly detailed map of brain physiology will not even suggest to us...

Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hunting-brains-hidden-treasures

memphis grizzlies aretha franklin Beyonce Pregnant Riot Fest Granbury Tx Jaden Smith eminem

Supreme Court to issue gay marriage decisions Wednesday in last session before summer break (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315324149?client_source=feed&format=rss

nba playoffs Chad Johnson engadget 2 Chainz spurs evelyn lozada macrumors

South Africa: Mandela still in critical condition

JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Nelson Mandela's condition in a Pretoria hospital remained critical for a second straight day Monday, said South Africa's president who described the stricken anti-apartheid hero as being "asleep" when he visited Mandela the previous evening

President Jacob Zuma told at least 60 foreign and South African journalists that doctors are doing everything possible to ensure the 94-year-old's wellbeing and comfort on his 17th day in the hospital. The president repeated some of the content of a presidential statement issued on Sunday and refused to give any details about Mandela's condition, saying: "I'm not a doctor."

"Madiba is critical in the hospital, and this is the father of democracy. This is the man who fought and sacrificed his life to stay in prison, the longest-serving prisoner in South Africa. He is one of those who has contributed to democracy," Zuma said, using Mandela's clan name. "All of us in the country should accept the fact that Madiba is now old. As he ages, his health will ... trouble him and I think what we need to do as a country is to pray for him."

Zuma, who in the past has given an overly sunny view of Mandela's health, briefly described his visit to the hospital in the capital and seeing Mandela.

"It was late, he was already asleep," Zuma said. "And we then had a bit of a discussion with the doctors as well as his wife, Graca Machel, and we left."

Asked why none of Mandela's doctors had been made available for a news briefing, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said an arrangement had been made in consultation with Mandela's family whereby information would be provided through a "single source in an authoritative way."

"We've come to that arrangement on the basis that we need to respect the privacy of the family, we need to adhere to doctor-patient confidentiality," he said.

"You can be assured that what we are saying is based on agreement with the doctors," Maharaj said. Doctors approve the text of announcements on Mandela's health, and believe some media reporting has transgressed professional ethics, he said.

Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president after the end of apartheid in 1994, was hospitalized on June 8 for what the government said was a recurring lung infection. This is his fourth hospitalization since December.

Mandela was jailed for 27 years under white racist rule and was released 23 years ago, in 1990. He then played a leading role in steering the divided country from the apartheid era to an all-race democracy, becoming South Africa's first black president in all-race elections in 1994.

As a result of his sacrifice and peacemaking efforts, he is seen by many around the world as a symbol of reconciliation.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-africa-mandela-still-critical-condition-082546750.html

Devon Walker Tom Cruise ryan reynolds Star Trek: The Original Series Carlton Morgan Freeman Dead Stand Up to Cancer

An expansive physical setting increases a person's likelihood of dishonest behavior

June 24, 2013 ? A new study from researchers at leading business schools reveals that expansive physical settings (e.g. having a big desk to stretch out while doing work or a large driver's seat in an automobile) can cause individuals to feel more powerful, and in turn these feelings of power can elicit more dishonest behavior such as stealing, cheating, and even traffic violations.

"In everyday working and living environments, our body postures are incidentally expanded and contracted by our surroundings -- by the seats in our cars, the furniture in and around workspaces, even the hallways in our offices -- and these environments directly influence the propensity of dishonest behavior in our everyday lives," said Andy Yap, a key author of the research who spearheaded its development during his time at Columbia Business School.

The study states that while individuals may pay very little attention to ordinary and seemingly innocuous shifts in bodily posture, these subtle postural shifts can have tremendous impact on our thoughts, feelings and behavior. Building on previous research that expansive postures can lead to a state of power, and power can lead to dishonest behavior, the study found that expanded, nonverbal postures forced upon individuals by their environments could influence decisions and behaviors in ways that render people less honest. "This is a real concern. Our research shows that office managers should pay attention to the ergonomics of their workspaces. The results suggest that these physical spaces have tangible and real-world impact on our behaviors" said Andy Yap.

The research includes findings from four studies conducted in the field and the laboratory. One study manipulated the expansiveness of workspaces in the lab and tested whether "incidentally" expanded bodies (shaped organically by one's environment) led to more dishonesty on a test. Another experiment examined if participants in a more expansive driver's seat would be more likely to "hit and run" when incentivized to go fast in a video-game driving simulation.

To extend results to a real-world context, an observational field study tested the ecological validity of the effect by examining whether automobile drivers' seat size predicted the violation of parking laws in New York City. The field study revealed that automobiles with more expansive driver's seats were more likely to be illegally parked on New York City streets.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Columbia Business School.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/jr5oOmq2d9k/130624133145.htm

levon helm firelight world peace elbow kevin love think like a man world peace world peace lakers

Veteran Mobile App Marketers Launch Grow Mobile, A Way To Systematically Get Users

Although it still seems opaque, the top mobile game companies have honed the art of spending millions of dollars per month to bring in new users through ad networks and dozens of other channels over the past few years. Now a couple of veterans in this space are launching a platform that should make it easy for any app maker — brands and game developers alike — to acquire users. Co-founded by Zynga’s former head of mobile marketing A.J. Yeakel, Storm8′s former head of business development Brendan Lyall and Ming-Lei Xu, who sold Wild Needle to Zynga, Grow Mobile is a dashboard that incorporates about 75 different marketing channels from ad networks to cross-promotion networks and other exchanges. It makes it easy for app makers to see which ones perform the best. “This would have been amazing if both of us had this at our respective companies before,” Lyall said. “We each put in our own personal touches in what we wanted in the product.” There’s a media planner that helps developers choose the best ways to get traffic based on their historical performance, a campaign wizard that makes it easier to syndicate campaigns without a lot of hands-on involvement and user retention and monetization reporting that shows where the most highly engaged users come from. Then there’s lifetime value reporting, which tells a developer how profitable users might be as long as they use an app. There are basic app rankings reports for how an app does on the charts in Google Play or the iOS app store, basic analytics on where users come from geographically and what types of devices and OSs they use Then there’s cohort ROI reporting, which tells a developer how much they’ve spent versus how well a group of users who joined at a certain time did in engagement and spending. Lyall says while there are similar tools for web-based performance marketing from companies like Adobe and Marin Software, the mobile ecosystem is way more fragmented. “Your average mobile advertiser has a budget that is spread across north of 30 different sources,” Lyall said. The company, which has raised a $1 million seed round from Signia Venture Partners and Bessemer, had about 16 companies in its beta. They included bigger buyers like GREE, Zynga and K-Lab. Lyall said one publicly traded company managed their entire budget on the Grow Mobile platform. The 11-person startup

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/MCgHj1qemGo/

st louis cardinals Steelers Schedule tory burch Al Smith Dinner Herman Melville Books Kyna Treacy megan fox