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Cell phone troubles plague LA-area AT&T customers (AP) : Technet |
- Cell phone troubles plague LA-area AT&T customers (AP)
- Police recordings key part of Calif. beating case (AP)
- Jay-Z, Coldplay open iHeartRadio concert in Vegas (AP)
- Tecca TV: TechLife on Obama’s homebrew, 3D printing for kids, human suspended animation, and more! (Yahoo! News)
- Run a User-Submitted Photo or Video Contest On Your Site With Olapic (Mashable)
- Therapists turning to Skype for online counseling sessions (Digital Trends)
- How Com2uS has taken its opportunities in the Android gaming world (Appolicious)
- Woman decapitated in Mexico for web posting (AP)
- Am I My Brother's Keeper? (ContributorNetwork)
- All signs point to iPhone 5 second week of October (Appolicious)
- Dial up Yellow Pages’ local apps for iOS or Android (Appolicious)
- Inevitable Robot-Dominated Future Creeping Ever Closer (The Atlantic Wire)
- Google+ app update brings video hangouts to the iPhone (Digital Trends)
| Cell phone troubles plague LA-area AT&T customers (AP) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 08:23 PM PDT LOS ANGELES – It's been a day of missed, dropped and failed calls for AT&T wireless customers in Southern California, and the night may be the same. A recorded message for AT&T cell phone customers and the company's official Twitter account Saturday said Los Angeles-area customers are having difficulty making or receiving calls because of technical troubles. It was not immediately clear how widespread the problem was or how many customers were affected, but users complaining about their lack of service made AT&T one of Twitter's top trending topics. Company officials told KCBS and KCAL-TV that about 1,000 cell phone towers were out of service and the problems were not expected to be fixed until 2:30 a.m. Sunday. Messages left with AT&T representatives by The Associated Press were not immediately returned. |
| Police recordings key part of Calif. beating case (AP) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 11:44 AM PDT LOS ANGELES – As Fullerton police Officer Manuel Ramos approached a homeless man at a bus stop in July, he did what members of his department have been doing for a decade. He clicked on an audio recorder normally used to capture witness statements and exonerate officers accused of misconduct. But prosecutors say the recorder captured something entirely different: the officer murdering a defenseless man suffering from schizophrenia. Police agencies across the country are increasingly using audio and video devices to collect evidence, and they played a crucial role in prosecutors bringing murder charges this week against Ramos and an involuntary manslaughter count against a colleague, Cpl. Jay Cicinelli. The violent encounter with Kelly Thomas was captured on surveillance video, but prosecutors say it was only when they paired the images with police audio that they understood what they were seeing. They said Thomas was pummeled, shocked with a Taser, beaten with a stun gun and taunted by Ramos as he stood over the victim and declared: "Now see my fists? They are getting ready to F you up." Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas called that statement — and the fact it was recorded — a turning point. "This encounter had changed from a fairly routine police detention into an impending beating at the hands of an angry police officer," Rackauckas said. "Ramos instilled in the victim a reasonable fear that his life was in danger." Fullerton uses a device sold by Riverside-based Versatile Information Products Inc., which contracts with electronics-maker Olympus to customize standard digital voice recorders. At the end of each shift, officers transfer files onto a server that backs them up as long as needed. The devices, used by hundreds of police agencies, do not let officers edit files, and they show if anything has been deleted. Device salesman Stephen Gaskins said the units cost about $300 a piece, with the software to back up the files available separately. "Expensive, but not as daunting as what lawsuits cost," Gaskins said, referring to the frequency the devices provide evidence to exonerate officers wrongly accused of misconduct. About 700 other police departments across the country have gone a step further, equipping officers with tiny body cameras to record interactions. In Oakland, where the department is under federal supervision following a case where four officers were caught planting drugs on suspects, police supervisors view the cameras as a useful extra check on officers. The Los Angeles Police Department is spending $20 million to install video and audio systems in its squad cars. Officers will be wirelessly miked and a computer starts recording every time the emergency lights are activated. Even before Fullerton police started using audio recorders, the department employed dashboard video cameras and microphones, but these proved unreliable, Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said. Recorders are now standard issue and officers are taught to switch them on every time they interact with a member of the public. "In just about every investigation that goes to court, one of the common requests is that (prosecutors) want the (audio)," Goodrich said. In Los Angeles, after some initial concerns private conversations between officers would be recorded, the police officer's union has embraced the technology. "In the vast majority of cases, the public is going to see the police officers being very restrained and very professional, and that's a positive," Los Angeles Police Protective League president Paul Weber said. Another piece of high-tech evidence came from Cicinelli's Taser. By downloading information on the weapon, investigators determined he used it three times in "drive stun" mode, pushing the device directly into Thomas. Then he used it a fourth time, firing darts from weapon and shocking Thomas for about 12 seconds. Cicinelli then allegedly smashed Thomas about the face with the Taser. Cicinelli's attorney Bill Hadden said he had not received any discovery in the case but claimed prosecutors had gotten a lot of facts wrong. He said he would be making a fuller response in the coming weeks. Ramos's attorney, John Barnett, has disputed prosecutors' account of the confrontation with Thomas. He says when his client made the threat about his fists, he was using a subtle type of force to get a suspect to comply. Ramos was responding to a transit hub in the suburban college town after someone reported seeing a homeless man breaking into cars. In all, six officers were at the scene but the other four were not expected to be charged. Cicinelli's device and that of one other officer were not activated, though police say it's not unusual for an officer to forget to switch on the mechanism if they are responding to an unfolding emergency. ___ Thomas Watkins can be reached at http://twitter.com/thomaswatkins |
| Jay-Z, Coldplay open iHeartRadio concert in Vegas (AP) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 01:01 PM PDT LAS VEGAS – Jay-Z rapped about his beef with corporate radio in the monster jam "99 Problems," noting that stations won't play his hits if he doesn't do their shows. But on Friday, he played savior to radio station giant Clear Channel, headlining a two-night concert billed as the largest in radio history and a major step toward keeping the industry alive in the dot-com era. The rapper bounced across a stage outfitted with two drum sets and two guitarists as he spit out his biggest hits and swung the two oversized gold chains hanging from his neck. It was the final performance of a night that saw confetti bombs dust the shoulders of pop sensations Kelly Clarkson, the Black Eyed Peas, Bruno Mars and Carrie Underwood. The spectacle was scheduled to continue Saturday night, with headliners Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Sting and Steven Tyler. The star-studded lineup usually reserved for charity concerts was a marketing blitz that drew thousands to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and was broadcast to more than 10 million radio listeners across the country. Its intended beneficiary was iHeartRadio, Clear Channel's revamped free personalized music website that allows users to create custom radio stations and is meant to compete with the web's most popular online music services, especially Pandora. "This is our coming out party," said Bob Pittman, chairman of media and entertainment platforms for Clear Channel Communications Inc. "What makes the festival so unusual is every act is a headliner." The concert hosted by Ryan Seacrest began with the Black Eyed Peas taking the stage in a fit of confetti and pyrotechnics. Fergie, the pop group's only female member, snaked across the stage in black shorts that revealed her butt cheeks. Concertgoers also waved their glowing cellphones in the air for Alicia Keys, Coldplay and rock band Jane's Addiction during the nearly five-hour concert. In a nod to Las Vegas' showgirl tradition, two feather-frocked, barely clad dancers frolicked across the stage as Jane's Addiction performed. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and Mars each paid tribute to late British soul diva Amy Winehouse, with Mars performing Winehouse's "Valerie" as a brass quartet waved their horns in unison, and Martin urging the packed arena to join him in a mournful chorus of her prophetic hit "Rehab." Fireworks later dusted the stage as Martin twirled his arms, curved his hips and then rolled over backward in a flurry of dance. A psychedelic piano joined him on stage. Keys and Jay-Z performed the only duet of the night, a sequin-drenched performance of their hit "Empire State of Mind." Jay-Z thanked the crowd for singing along. "I know I am on the West Coast," he said. The mix of country, rock, rap, pop and R&B was a deliberate nod to the broad array of music available on iHeartRadio, Pittman said. The revamped website allows listeners to hear the feeds of more than 800 stations or create individualized channels that stream music along specific genres. Listeners can access 400,000 artists and 11 million tracks, millions more than Pandora. Pandora launched in 2005, offering revolutionary computer formulas that create personalized song lists based on each users' tastes. It has grown to more than 30 million listeners each month. Clear Channel is not about to cede its web listeners to another company. When it announced the iHeartRadio revamp, it had about 27 million listeners per month, just short of Pandora's reach. This month, iHeartRadio climbed to 30 million listeners each month, Pittman said. In all, Clear Channel reaches 237 million monthly listeners over traditional radio airwaves, ensuring that the company will be able to promote the site to millions of potential consumers. Clear Channel will also turn to the music site to identify emerging artists ready for traditional radio and get user feedback. "It's a way for us to discover more artists," Pittman said. The beta site launched Sept. 8. This weekend's two-day festival marks the site's grand opening. It's unclear whether the multi-day concert will drive listeners to iHeartRadio. Tickets sold out in 10 minutes. Livio Lippetti, of Huntington Beach, Calif., traveled to Las Vegas to see Bruno Mars and the other headliners Friday. He said he had never heard of the website, despite advertisements promoting the site flashing over the stage after each act. He said he prefers Sirius XM Radio Inc.'s satellite service to web stations. "I'm all about XM," he said. |
| Posted: 23 Sep 2011 05:57 PM PDT |
| Run a User-Submitted Photo or Video Contest On Your Site With Olapic (Mashable) Posted: 23 Sep 2011 03:06 PM PDT The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: Olapic [More from Mashable: SunSaluter Wins "Startups For Good" Challenge] Quick Pitch: Olapic helps online publishers add galleries of user-contributed images. Genius Idea: Pooling images in a database of social content. [More from Mashable: What the Recent U.S. Patent Reform Law Means for Startups]
83% of Americans own a smartphone, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet Project. Most of those phones, even the "dumb" ones, are equipped with some kind of camera. More cameras equal more photos, which can be a great opportunity for publishers -- if they can find a way to leverage it. Olapic's product is one way to do this. The startup makes it easy for site publishers to collect and display user's photos through widgets they can embed on their sites. Visitors to the publications can either drag and drop files into a box on the site, choose to upload photos from social networks like Facebook or Instagram, email their photos to a special address or tweet their photos with a specific hashtag. Publications get a centralized moderation dashboard. As soon as they approve photos, they appear in a Gallery on the site. New York Daily News, The Chicago Tribune and Styleist have either used the widget on their site or purchased a white label version [Disclosure: Mashable is a customer of Olapic's]. Olapic charges a monthly fee based on each customer's number of monthly unique visitors. The majority of Olapic's customers are news organizations, but co-founder Jose de Cabo said he also thinks the application has a future with sports teams and event organizations. One soccer team, the New England Revolution, already uses it to collect fan photos on its Facebook Page. From a revenue standpoint, advertising seems to be an even more promising route than subscription fees. Olapic is, for instance, coordinating a branded Facebook version of its widget for Pepsi. It's an instant campaign that engages consumers, and it can work well for hosting a branded contest. Eventually it may also share revenue with publications for ads the company can incorporate into the gallery widget. But the startup's grand vision extends far beyond interactive galleries. "We're building a very large network of sites that have video and photo-sharing," De Cabo says. "What we want is to have this network where users can contribute with photos and videos, and get more exposure to their pictures." In other words, any website could search the entire database for material to publish. It sounds like a convenient solution for publishers, but will site visitors be eager to share their photos with the world without compensation? De Cabo says their excited reactions to the widget so far suggest that they will. That, and what he calls "vanity coins." Would you be willing to share your photos this way? Let us know in the comments.
Loading ... Image courtesy of Flickr, Thomas Hawk
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Therapists turning to Skype for online counseling sessions (Digital Trends) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 02:11 PM PDT
According to a recent story in the New York Times, psychiatrists and psychologists are turning to online video conferencing with products like Skype to counsel patients. This method of treatment is designed for people who want more flexibility in appointment timing as well as prefer engaging with a therapist in the comfort of their own home. Using a video conferencing client like Skype also allows the therapist to charge less for sessions due to the money saved on transportation and office expenditures. In addition, appointments are less likely to be canceled or missed due to inclement weather conditions, traffic jams or other delays. This also allows patients to continue working with a therapist in case of relocation by either party. However, some therapists dislike the acceptance of video conferencing sessions due to possible problems with the Internet and the chance of losing a connection during a critical moment. There’s also the problem of making eye contact with the patient due to typical placement of cameras within laptops or even external webcams. Another issue for Skype therapy sessions involves licensing laws between states as the therapist may not be licensed in the state. Concerns for patients may include the privacy of the video chat sessions from other viewers, the ability to record therapy video sessions and the possibility that insurance will deny claims for online therapy. While medical conditions like agoraphobia would be perfect for online sessions, doctors are questioning the effectiveness of online sessions for conditions that cause clear physical differences in a patient like substance abuse. Some therapists won't even schedule online video sessions without first meeting the patient in person. However, younger therapists and young patients like teenagers are likely to adapt to this method of counseling over Skype compared to therapists that have been practicing for a number of years. |
| How Com2uS has taken its opportunities in the Android gaming world (Appolicious) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 10:00 AM PDT |
| Woman decapitated in Mexico for web posting (AP) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 08:25 PM PDT MEXICO CITY – Police found a woman's decapitated body in a Mexican border city on Saturday, alongside a handwritten sign saying she was killed in retaliation for her postings on a social networking site. The gruesome killing may be the third so far this month in which people in Nuevo Laredo were killed by a drug cartel for what they said on the internet. Morelos Canseco, the interior secretary of northern Tamaulipas state, where Nuevo Laredo is located, identified the victim as Marisol Macias Castaneda, a newsroom manager for the Nuevo Laredo newspaper Primera Hora. The newspaper has not confirmed that title, and an employee of the paper said Macias Castaneda held an administrative post, not a reporting job. The employee was not authorized to be quoted by name. But it was apparently what the woman posted on the local social networking site, Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, or "Nuevo Laredo Live," rather than her role at the newspaper, that resulted in her killing. The site prominently features tip hotlines for the Mexican army, navy and police, and includes a section for reporting the location of drug gang lookouts and drug sales points — possibly the information that angered the cartel. The message found next to her body on the side of a main thoroughfare referred to the nickname the victim purportedly used on the site, "La Nena de Laredo," or "Laredo Girl." Her head was found placed on a large stone piling nearby. "Nuevo Laredo en Vivo and social networking sites, I'm The Laredo Girl, and I'm here because of my reports, and yours," the message read. "For those who don't want to believe, this happened to me because of my actions, for believing in the army and the navy. Thank you for your attention, respectfully, Laredo Girl...ZZZZ." The letter "Z" refers to the hyper-violent Zetas drug cartel, which is believed to dominate the city across from Laredo, Texas. It was unclear how the killers found out her real identity. By late Saturday, the chat room at Nuevo Laredo en Vivo was abuzz with fellow posters who said they knew the victim from her online postings, and railing against the Zetas, a gang founded by military deserters who have become known for mass killings and gruesome executions. They described her as a frequent poster, who used a laptop or cell phone to send reports. "Girl why didn't she buy a gun given that she was posting reports about the RatZZZ ... why didn't she buy a gun?" wrote one chat participant under the nickname "Gol." Earlier this month, a man and a woman were found hanging dead from an overpass in Nuevo Laredo with a similar message threatening "this is what will happen" to internet users. However, it has not been clearly established whether the two had in fact ever posted any messages, or on what sites. Residents of Mexican border cities often post under nicknames to report drug gang violence, because the posts allow a certain degree of anonymity. Social media like local chat rooms and blogs, and networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, are often the only outlet for residents of violence-wracked cities to find out what areas to avoid because of ongoing drug cartel shootouts or attacks. Local media outlets, whose journalists have been hit by killings, kidnappings and threats, are often too intimidated to report the violence. Mexico's Human Rights Commission says eight journalists have been killed in Mexico this year and 74 since 2000. Other press groups cite lower numbers, and figures differ based on the definition of who is a journalist and whether the killings appeared to involve their professional work. While helpful, social networking posts sometimes are inaccurate and can lead to chaotic situations in cities wracked by gang confrontations. In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, just south of Tamaulipas, the state government dropped terrorism charges last week against two Twitter users for false posts that officials said caused panic and chaos in late August. |
| Am I My Brother's Keeper? (ContributorNetwork) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 01:16 PM PDT Contribute content like this. Start here. COMMENTARY | Today we received one of the "or current resident" style brochures in the mail offering a government assisted wireless service cell phone -- free of charge. The word free is such a relative term. The free cellphone, monthly minutes and unlimited texting service comes at a high cost to the American taxpayer. The political pendulum has swung way too far left when cell phone ownership is considered a necessity that requires a government entitlement program to provide. The thought of the cost to mail and create the full-color brochure is disgusting. What part of end the frivolous and unsustainable spending do liberal politicians not understand? Taxpayer dollars should never be used to provide a luxury item. Although teenagers may feel a cellphone is a dire necessity, it is not. According to the brochure, any household receiving food stamps, Section 8, HEAP, TANF, Medicaid, Supplemental Social Security funds or enrolled in the free or reduced school lunch program is eligible for a free phone and monthly service. Even the most far-left leaning progressive should be able to understand that the program does not fulfill a survival need like food, heating, shelter and emergency medical care programs. The brochure uses the word "free" in bold upper-case letters at least a dozen times to entice the reader to join the program. The Reachout Wireless program guidelines vary by state, so there is the opportunity for fiscally responsible lawmakers to limit access to the federal program, but not end their mandated participation. A cellphone is shipped free to the new owner with an allotment of minutes established by the state already activated. Each month the minutes are renewed at the expense of the taxpayers. Although the brochure states only one phone is allowed per household, an unmarried couple living in one of our rental units has two free phones. Just as it is with many entitlement program, the Reachout Wireless aid is also rife with abuse. Personal responsibility is not a four-letter word but retains the "dirty" status often associated with off-color language for many Americans. The will to work and provide for yourself without reliance on the government is at an all-time-low in this country. Obama's misguided and failed attempt to improve the economy plays into the entitlement mindset of a growing number of Americans. |
| All signs point to iPhone 5 second week of October (Appolicious) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 02:43 PM PDT |
| Dial up Yellow Pages’ local apps for iOS or Android (Appolicious) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 06:00 AM PDT |
| Inevitable Robot-Dominated Future Creeping Ever Closer (The Atlantic Wire) Posted: 24 Sep 2011 03:12 PM PDT Ok, so we have not reached the Singularity quite yet. But this is the week that researchers announced they've found the path that will let them watch the thoughts of a comatose patient, or play dreams on YouTube. And a separate group of researchers have found a way to build transistors that manipulate protons, breaking through the barriers that prevented electrical devices from communicating directly with human cells, in their language. Related: Electric Motor in a Single Molecule First, brain pictures. Researchers at the University of California used magnetic resonance imaging to watch the visual stimuli that study subjects experienced as they watched movie trailers. (Though the decision to subject innocent victims to the Steve Martin remake of "The Pink Panther" seems like one that could result in sanctions if not criminal charges.) The development "paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers." The university's press office announced that the breakthrough could result – years from now – in major advances in medical treatment.
Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases. |
| Google+ app update brings video hangouts to the iPhone (Digital Trends) Posted: 23 Sep 2011 09:31 PM PDT
Google just rolled out a beefy update to the official Google+ iPhone app which includes the ability to enter a video chat while mobile with other mobile users or users on a personal computer with a webcam. If a friend starts a hangout stream on Google+, the user can simply click "Join" and the video screen appears on the iPhone. As new people join the hangout, notifications pop up on the iPhone screen and the user can add any of these people to a circle during the video stream. The app also allows the users to switch between the two cameras on the smartphone as well as mute the audio in case the user needs to switch to headphones for a private call. Beyond a smattering of bug fixes to round out the new version, this update doesn't include iPad support. Users will need to use the Web version of Google+ or the iPhone app in zoom mode if browsing on an iPad. Rival social network Facebook has yet to release an iPad-optimized version as well and will likely continue to rely on the Web version of the site in the future. |
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