To the surprise of almost no one who follows Apple, the company is planning to hold a big event early in September to take the wraps off its next iPhone. According to the well-sourced John Paczkowski of Buzzfeed, that event will happen on Wednesday, September 9th. iPhones are a shoe-in, as they’ve been introduced in this timeframe every year since 2011, but Buzzfeed also claims we’ll see some new iPads as well as the long-awaited new Apple TV. The latter was originally rumored to be introduced at WWDC this year, but it was nowhere to be found; the rumor mill made it sound like it wasn’t quite ready to go.
As for that new iPhone, Apple is on its “S” cycle, which means we’ll likely see a phone physically identical to last year’s iPhone 6, but with some radical hardware changes — the new phone is rumored to include the force touch technology included on the Apple Watch and the company’s new MacBook and MacBook Pros. The Apple TV is expected to be a complete redesign of the hardware that Apple’s been offering unchanged since early 2012; the entire Apple TV experience is largely identical for even longer at this point. If Apple has managed to lock down the content deals it needs to make it stand out, this could be worth a lot of attention in the company’s presentation.
As for new iPads, it feels like a lot for an event that will already feature the iPhone and Apple TV — but given the slowing down of the iPad business in general, the product category might not quite warrant the headlining status in the October events Apple has held in recent years (those events also often feature Mac and OS X updates). Whether or not this will be the year we finally see the rumored large screen iPad Pro remains to be seen — but such a product certainly would take advantage of a lot of the new iPad multitasking features showing up in iOS 9. Fortunately, it seems we won’t have to wait long to find out. As usual, The Verge will be there to report all the news as it happens. We’ve reached out to Apple for a comment on this report and will update if we hear anything else.
I am a Samsung man to the core these days but can someone tell me the benefits of the iphone?
Two clever California sister got a burglar arrested within minutes by using the Google Hangouts app on their phones as he raided their Fresno home, police said.
The girls, who are 8 and 14, saw the suspect, Jose Carlos Palomares, in the backyard of their house around 9 a.m. Thursday, the Fresno Bee reported.
Palomares allegedly climbed into the house through a bedroom window and spent about 15 minutes stuffing clothes, a tablet computer and $400 cash into backpacks, police said.
“I could hear him move through the house and into our computer room — it sounded like he was breaking stuff,” the 14-year-old girl, identified only as Hailey, told the Bee.
Meanwhile the girls, who Palomares apparently never noticed, hid in a bathroom and texted a friend through Google Hangouts, telling her to alert their dad’s girlfriend, Jennifer Hedrick, who then called police.
Fresno Police Department
Shithead Jose Carlos Palomares, 23, was arrested outside the home after trying to run from police.
“My first thought was: If this is a joke, I am going to kill you, Hailey,” Hedrick told the Bee.
“But I didn’t care. As soon as she said someone was in the house, I was gone. I didn’t even lock my door.”
Dozens of officers arrived before Palomares, 23, even left the house, and formed a perimeter around the home. He tried to run but was immediately arrested. All of the stolen items were recovered and the house saw no damage.
The girl’s father, who has not been named, made it home in time to see the thief get cuffed.
“They are fine, they are both fine,” he told ABC News about his girls. “They did the right things. They locked themselves into the bathroom. They are good girls.”
Techonology can be a good thing for sure. But I would be willing to bet this is a guy who has had many run-ins with the law and if it was not for this states unwillingness to punish criminals he would be in jail where he belongs.
Far from being a place of freedom, innovation and information, the Internet as we know it is dying, Stanford University’s Jennifer Granick told a packed house at the Black Hat computer security conference Wednesday.
“It’s not the level playing field that we once thought it would be,” she said.
The openness and freedom that originally made the online world so disruptive is fading, Granick says, and the once free-wheeling Net is being replaced with a centralized, regulated entity.
The Internet, she fears, could end up like TV.
“It’s going to be this slick, stiff, controlled, closed thing,” said Granick, a lawyer and director of civil liberties at the Center for Internet and Society.
She gave the opening keynote address at the conference, which this year has drawn more than 10,000 security researchers to Las Vegas.
A lawyer, and long-time thinker and activist on computer crime and security, electronic surveillance and consumer privacy, Granick has also defended several well-known hackers against what she feels was overzealous government prosecution.
She painted a picture for the audience of what the Internet could look like if the Net continues on its current path. .
She told the assembled hackers and security professionals they needed to be part of changing that trajectory, because they understand what is being lost in a way few others do.
Especially worrisome, she says, are increasing efforts on the part of companies to bar people from breaking down and studying the software used in commercial products — the raison d’être of hackers.
While most people aren’t inclined to take a piece of software code and disassemble it, making that illegal means as a society we’re unable to deeply understand the software that today is “deciding whether you get a home loan, whether your get a job, where your car goes,” Granick said.
“We’re losing the freedom to tinker,” she said. “The message is clear — you need permission to operate in their world. If you step over the line, we’ll come for you.”
She also sees privacy and free speech being chipped away by regulation and globalization.
For example, Europe last year declared a Right to Be Forgotten. It allows someone who feels they have been harmed by material posted online, even if it is true, to petition and have it removed from search engine results.
France is now pushing to make that extraterritorial, so that the material would not just be removed from search results in France but globally.
If one country can impose its idea of what’s appropriate for online to the rest of the world, all can. “It’s a race to the bottom,” she said.
To overcome this, hackers, programmers and those building Internet systems need to make them decentralized, add in encryption to make it harder for governments to snoop on citizens and fight against laws that muzzle free speech.
And if that doesn’t work, Granick said, “we need to smash it apart and make something new and better.”
As like anything, a few people will try to control and dominate so the many have to pay more for it.
Reports like this, combined with media skepticism, have led many Americans to believe that the safety net of Social Security will not be around to catch them when they fall into retirement.
However, some Social Security experts believe that the federal government will not allow Social Security to become insolvent when so many Americans rely in part or in full on Social Security during their retirement years. Rather, they believe that there may be a reduction in pay out or a hike in taxes.
“The Social Security system is good shape,” says Louis D. Johnston, professor of economics at Saint John’s University. “Current taxes are funding current benefits. When current taxes start to dip below the amount needed to pay current retirees, the Social Security Administration will begin selling some of its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and use the proceeds to pay retirees. At that point, Johnston says it will be necessary to do some combination of increasing taxes slightly, raising or removing the earnings cap on earnings that are subject to Social Security tax or increasing the retirement age.
“I would say that anyone under the age of 55 should adjust downward their expectations for the retirement benefits they will receive,” says Ken Moraif, CFP, senior advisor at Money Matters in Plano, Tex. “Most likely an increase in the eligibility age and some form of means testing would save the system.”
Considering and understanding Social Security is of the essence for most consumers: Social Security retirement benefits typically replace 40% of pre-retirement income, according to the Social Security Administration.
Whether retirement is around the corner or years down the road, you should know that Social Security decisions are complex, and making a mistake could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Here are ten Social Security tips to consider:
1. You may have to pay tax on your Social Security income. About 40% of Americans pay taxes on their Social Security income. If you’re married and file a joint return, you’ll have to pay taxes if your total income is more than $32,000. If you’re single, that number drops down to $25,000.
2. You may qualify for Social Security even if you’re divorced. If you were married for at least ten years, you’re eligible to collect Social Security based on your ex-spouse’s record, if you’re not married when you become eligible for Social Security. To top it off, your ex-spouse does not have to know about it. It will not affect his or her Social Security income. Further, if you signed a divorce decree relinquishing your rights to Social Security on your ex-spouse’s record, those clauses will not be enforced. To boot, you may collect a higher rate of Social Security, if your ex-spouse predeceases you.
3. File and suspend for increased income. Married couples can increase their Social Security retirement income by implementing a little-known strategy. When one spouse turns 66 years old, he or she can file for Social Security retirement income and then immediately suspend it. This allows the second spouse to claim spousal benefits (35% of the first spouse’s benefits) at age 62, even if the second spouse never worked. By waiting until age 66 years, the second spouse can collect 50% of her spouse’s benefits. Meanwhile, if the second spouse worked, his or her benefits continue to grow.
4. How old you are when you start to collect Social Security has a big impact on the amount of your monthly benefit. In general, the older you are when you decide to start collecting Social Security, the larger your check. You can start collecting Social Security as early as age 62, but if you want a bigger check, you must wait until your full retirement age, which is 66 years for individuals born between 1943 and 1954 and 67 years for individuals born in 1960 or later. For those born in between 1955 and 1959, there’s a gradual climb in age qualification. Social Security benefits are said to increase 8% for each year you delay collecting pay after your full retirement age.
5. You must work for at least ten years to qualify for Social Security retirement income. However, they don’t have to be consecutive years.
6. You can increase the amount of your Social Security check. By working longer, you can replace low-income years with higher-income years. This is good news for individuals who were unemployed for a period of time and those who got better jobs or promotions. Further, years with no income will not replace years with income, even if they come closer to retirement.
7. There is a maximum benefit that you can receive. This year, individuals who have reached full retirement age can collect as much as $3,501 per month.
8. Teachers and other government workers may not qualify for full Social Security benefits. The Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP, reduces the amount of Social Security that retired and disabled workers get who receive pensions from employment not covered by Social Security.
9. You can get an idea of how much Social Security retirement income you’ll get by using the Social Security Administration’s Retirement Estimator.
10. You can view your Social Security information online. If you’re 18 years old or older, you can see your earnings record, estimates for how much Social Security income you’ll have at retirement and more at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount.
Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart is being sued by the parents of a race car driver killed last year during a break in a dirt-track race in upstate New York, the plaintiffs’ lawyers announced Friday.
Kevin Ward Jr. was killed August 9 after he got out of his wrecked sprint car and went to confront Stewart during a yellow flag caution period at Canandaigua Motorsports Park. After one car narrowly missed Ward, Stewart drove by and Ward was struck by the right rear tire of Stewart’s car and slung down the track.
Ward, 20, died of massive blunt trauma as paramedics drove him to a hospital.
His parents, Kevin and Pamela Ward, filed a wrongful death suit asking for unspecified financial compensation. The suit was filed in Lewis County, where the family lives.
Stewart was not criminally charged in the incident. On Friday, Stewart was practicing 175 miles away for a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International race track on Sunday, an event he skipped last year after Ward was killed. He also skipped the next two NASCAR events.
In September a district attorney in Ontario County, where the on-track incident occurred, said he thought the fact that Ward came down the track into an area where cars were still moving played a big factor in the grand jury’s decision not to indict Stewart. District Attorney Michael Tantillo also said video showed there were no aberrations in Stewart’s driving.
But the Ward family disagreed.
In their court filing they blame Stewart, saying he failed to drive safely as he approached Ward and that he gunned the engine, causing the car to slide into their son.
“Kevin Ward would be alive today if not for the reckless and dangerous actions of Tony Stewart, who eventually will have to answer for what he did,” said attorney Mark Lanier in a news release. “The past year has been extremely difficult for Kevin’s mother and father, and they’re still trying to cope with their unimaginable loss.”
Though his racing fame came from asphalt ovals, Stewart loved to race on dirt tracks and would often find a race close to the NASCAR events. It wasn’t unusual for him to be a guest among the regular drivers at the short and quick dirt races.
Ward was the Empire Super Sprint series rookie of the year in 2010. During the race last year the two drove closely on the 14th lap of the 25-lap main event.
With Stewart on the inside, the two cars were involved in a racing incident that left Ward’s car wrecked near the top wall of the track. The 20-year-old driver walked quickly down the track, apparently looking for Stewart.
One car avoided hitting Ward but as Stewart passed close by, his car’s tire struck Ward, slinging him 25 feet down the track.
Tantillo said in September that Ward was under the influence of marijuana that night, enough to impair his judgment.
Stewart said last year the incident was “100 percent an accident.”
I have no idea here but there was a dumass running unto the track just asking for it
Queen of Hearts is the title of a country–pop song written by Hank DeVito, the pedal steel guitarist in Emmylou Harris‘ backing group The Hot Band, and introduced by Dave Edmunds on his 1979 album Repeat When Necessary: released as a single it reached number 11 in the UK that year. In 1997 a live version of “Queen of Hearts” was featured on the Dave Edmunds compilation album Rockin’ .
Following an appearance of the 1980 Rodney Crowell album But What Will the Neighbors Think, on which the song’s composer Hank DeVito played guitar, “Queen of Hearts” had its highest profile incarnation via its inclusion on the 1981 album Juice by Juice Newton who’d recall: “I did [“Queen of Hearts”] live for about a year…Then I brought it to [producer] Richard Landis when we started the Juice album. He wasn’t convinced at that point that it was a breakout song but I told him I think this is a real cool song…so we cut it.”[1] Newton’s own favorite cut on the Juice album,[2] “Queen of Hearts” was issued as the album’s second single and would afford Newton her career record reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in September 1981, only behind “Endless Love” by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. And while it was still at #2 Newton’s “Queen of Hearts” was certified Gold for domestic sales of one million units.
“Queen of Hearts” also afforded Newton an international hit with Top Ten hit status in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Switzerland and more moderate success in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. For her recording of the song, Juice Newton earned a 1982 Grammy nomination for Best Female Vocalist in the C&W category, “Queen of Hearts” having been a #14 C&W hit
