Argentine professional soccer player Emiliano
Sala, who just signed with Cardiff City from Nantes last week for a club-record
fee, has gone missing after the plane he was on disappeared over the English
Channel on Monday night.
According to the BBC, Guernsey Police said there was “no trace” of the Cardiff-bound flight.
Sala’s father, Horacio, told Argentine TV channel C5N, he heard the news
from a friend.
“I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
“I’m desperate. I hope everything goes well.”
As BBC reports, the plane left Nantes France at 7:15 p.m. local time and was flying at 5,000 feet when it contracted air traffic control requesting descent. The plane then lost contact while at 2,300 feet and disappeared off the radar.
Police said on Tuesday more than
1,150sq miles had been searched by five aircraft and two lifeboats. The search
had resumed after being called off overnight “due to strengthening winds,
worsening sea conditions and reducing visibility”.
Ken Choo, chief executive of the Bluebirds, said: “We were very shocked upon hearing the news that the plane had gone missing. “We expected Emiliano to arrive last night into Cardiff and today was due to be his first day with the team. Our owner, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, and chairman, Mehmet Dalman, are all very distressed about the situation.”
FC Nantes supporters gather in Nantes after it was announced that Emiliano Sala was missing. They are praying and hoping that Sala be found.
Flowers and candles have been
placed in Nantes’ main square as search for Emiliano Sala continues.
China has introduced a new technology that will track students location using their school uniform. The new tech dubbed smart uniforms will be to tell the exact location of your ward.
Eleven schools in the South-West province of Guizhou have introduced the uniforms, which were developed by local tech firm Guizhou Guanyu Technology.
These smart uniforms record the time
and date a student enters the school and a short video parents can see through
a mobile app. This is to help encourage good attendance rates.
It triggers an alarm to notify both
teachers and parents of the student’s absence and an automatic voice alarm is
activated if a student leaves school without permission.
The
chips can detect when a student has fallen asleep in class, and can also allow
students to make payments using biometrics attributes to confirm the purchase.
The company’s project manager, said that the school would only use the tracking beyond school hours if a pupil were to go missing
smart uniforms
He said the two chips, which are installed in each uniform’s shoulders, are able to withstand up to 500 washes and 150C. So that means students can wash, and rewash their uniforms without any problem.
How
the Chinese smart uniforms work
Face ID, built right inside the uniforms, is a small quantity of facial recognition software to make sure that the right student is wearing the right outfit.
Alarm is to keep the school premises in order, to notify both teachers and parents of the student’s absence and an automatic voice alarm is activated if a student leaves school without permission.
Tracking, each of student uniform has two inbuilt chips in the shoulders. This will enable the appropriate management to know when a child is at any moment during the school hours.
Authorities in Las Vegas have issued a warrant to obtain the DNA of
soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo to see if it matches that found on a dress
of a woman who has accused him of rape, according to a law-enforcement official
with knowledge of the case.
The authorities sent the warrant recently to the court system in Italy,
where Mr. Ronaldo plays soccer, the official said.
Las Vegas police reopened the case in the fall after the woman, Kathryn
Mayorga, filed a lawsuit alleging that Mr. Ronaldo raped her in 2009 in Las
Vegas and then paid her $375,000 to keep it secret.
Mr. Ronaldo and his attorneys have repeatedly denied the rape
allegations.
“Mr. Ronaldo has always
maintained, as he does today, that what occurred in 2009 in Las Vegas was
consensual in nature,” Peter S. Christiansen, an attorney for Mr. Ronaldo,
said in October. Mr. Chistiansen declined to comment on Wednesday on the new
developments in the probe.
An attorney for Ms. Mayorga and a Las Vegas police spokeswoman didn’t
respond to requests for comment.
A key piece of evidence in the investigation is a dress from the night
in question nine years ago. Las Vegas police found DNA other than Ms. Mayorga’s
on the dress, the law-enforcement official said. When the warrant is served in
Italy, authorities would be expected to collect a sample of Mr. Ronaldo’s DNA
and send it to Las Vegas police, who would assess whether it matches that found
on the dress, the official said.
Mr. Ronaldo plays for the Turin, Italy-based club Juventus, which signed
him in a $92 million transfer last summer.
The alleged rape occurred in June 2009. Mr. Ronaldo, then 24, was on
vacation in Las Vegas and met Ms. Mayorga in the Rain nightclub at the Palms
Casino Resort before inviting her to a party in his suite, according to her
civil complaint.
It was there that Mr. Ronaldo forced himself on Ms. Mayorga while she
begged him to stop, the filing alleges. The complaint adds that “when
Cristiano Ronaldo completed the sexual assault of the plaintiff, he allowed her
to leave the bedroom stating he was sorry, he was usually a gentleman.”
Ms. Mayorga reported the alleged sexual assault to police on the day it
occurred. Under Nevada law, there is no statute of limitations on
investigations or potential charges stemming from such reports.
You don’t want anyone to know what videos you are uploading, watching, liking, commenting on or any of your activity from YouTube to show on your Google+ page or stream.
The good news is, there
is an update concerning that, YouTube will no longer automatically post your activity
(uploads, liked videos and so on) on twitter and Google+,
In an email sent “After January 31st, the ability to automatically post YouTube activity
(uploads, liked videos, etc.) on Twitter and Google+ will no longer be
available. We’ve found that sharing these actions with a custom message
(instead of through automatically generated posts) provides a better experience
for the sharer and their followers on other social networks.”
The email went ahead to say that “You can continue to easily share videos to your
social network” by using the Share button on a video’s
watch page.”
Amid rumors surrounding future of AC Milan star Gonzalo Higuain, Di Marzio Sky Sport journalist insist that the striker’s future lies with the Italian club
“Marca came out with an article about Higuain’s imminent transfer to Chelsea, but we have not found any evidence on this, confirming that Sarri would like the player but that today Chelsea has not made a decision on the investment,” he said.
“Moreover, Milan has no intention of letting the player go because it would be difficult to replace him. Milan would not make money from the sale of Higuain. To date, Milan knows that Higuain had some ‘stomach ache’ but they made him understand that he will stay and must play and take responsibility.
“It is clear that Juventus would have an interest in doing the operation with Chelsea but only if Chelsea redeemed him at the end of the season. But to date, there are no signs in this sense,”
BBNaija which started on January 28, with 20 housemates came down to its grand finale today and Miracle will be going home with 45 million Naira.
2018 BBNAIJA Reality Show
With only 5 housemates remaining at the grand finale, there was always going to be one winner. and that winner was in the shape of Miracle.
A total of 170 million people voted this season at the just concluded BBNaija Double Wahala reality TV show. 30 million of those people voted in the final that saw Miracle clinching the prize money of N25m cash, a brand new SUV worth N12m, a trip for two valued at N4.7m, and household gadgets worth N3.3m.
He also added the PayPorte prize of 1 Million Naira to his collections on the night.
Miracle won the PayPorte challenge with a total time of 53 min 30sec!
Below is how the 30 million people voted in the final:
Miracle – 38.18%
Cee-C – 28.04%
Tobi – 22.53%
Alex – 7.07%
Nina – 4.18%
BBNAIJA 2018 Finale Recap
When Ebuka told them to take one last walk and switch off the lights in the House, Miracle and Cee-C knew that one of them was the ultimate Housemate for this season’s Double Wahala.
With smiles all over their faces as they switched one light at a time, they finally said their goodbyes to Big Brother and exited for the main stage.
When Davido’s Fall faded, the mood electrified as the Housemates entered the stage and soon after, Ebuka had to calm the crowd to which he slightly succeeded.
Winning Before Winning
Miracle’s will to win has always been rewarded by his ability to give his all in every challenge given to him. Whether it’s the Head of House, a Task or the Arena games, he always brought his A-game.
So when he was announced as the overall winner for the Payporte’s Arena games, it came as no surprise as he’s won more than any other Housemate.
With an overall time of 53 minutes and 30 seconds throughout the season, Miracle was awarded a cash prize of One Million Naira.
The Crowning
As usual, Ebuka asked the auditor to confirm if the results were independently verified and the auditor confirmed.
After they were shown the prizes to be won and with a total of thirty million votes this week; after a long silence and seeing both contestants shaking and nervous, Miracle emerged as the ultimate Big Brother Naija winner.
Emotions ran high from everyone and Miracle’s in-House sweetheart Nina; was at the fore embracing him as he struggled getting up after his excitement threw him on the ground.
Champaign splashing and everyone gathering to embrace him, finally he stood up and continued to celebrate in disbelief.
About the Winner of 2018 BBNAIJA, Miracle
Miracle Igbokwe Ikechukwu was born on 17th February, 1994 in Lagos State. He, however, currently resides in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.
He’s a trained pilot who graduated in 2017 at the International Aviation College (IAC) and the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria. He entered the Big Brother Naija house with his pilot license tightly in hand.
He once told Big Brother he’ll use part of the money to advance his aeronautic training and use the rest to support his family.
Celebrities Reacts to Miracle Winning 2018 BBNAIJA
Here is the trending reaction from all over the social media on the wake of Miracle’s latest triumph.
Popular music producer and Mavins boss, Don Jazzy has reacted to Miracle emerging winner of this year’s Big Brother Naija reality show.
In a series of tweets posted after the announcement was made, he wrote:
“It’s a Miracle. #bbnaija 2018 WINNER
“Channel Closed – CC.
“On that note I hail CC’s fans sha #bbnaija.
“Oya pls let’s get back to work o. Let’s not be lazy nigerian youths. #bbnaija.”
The Chief of Staff to the Governor of Imo State, Hon. Uche Nwosu declared their readiness to reward Miracle, the winner of Big Brother Naija ,and Nina who is a student of the Imo State University and an Indigene.
“After careful consideration and following discussions with the club, I feel it is the right time for me to step down at the end of the season.
“I am grateful for having had the privilege to serve the club for so many memorable years.
“I managed the club with full commitment and integrity.
“I want to thank the staff, the players, the Directors and the fans who make this club so special.
“I urge our fans to stand behind the team to finish on a high.
“To all the Arsenal lovers take care of the values of the club.
“My love and support forever.”
Majority owner Stan Kroenke said:
“This is one of the most difficult days we have ever had in all our years in sport. One of the main reasons we got involved with Arsenal was because of what Arsène has brought to the club on and off the pitch. His longevity and consistency over such a sustained period at the highest level of the game will never be matched.
“Arsène has unparalleled class and we will always be grateful to him. Everyone who loves Arsenal and everyone who loves football owes him a debt of gratitude. Three Premier League titles, including an entire season unbeaten, seven FA Cup triumphs and 20 successive years in the Champions League is an exceptional record. He has also transformed the identity of our club and of English football with his vision for how the game can be played.
“We have high ambitions to build on Arsène’s remarkable tenure and to honour his vision by ensuring that Arsenal competes for and wins the biggest and most important prizes in the game.
“We must now focus on making a strong finish to the season and ask our millions of fans around the world to join us in paying appropriate tribute to one of the greats of Arsenal’s history and one of the greats of the game.”
Arsène will lead the team to the end of the season and we will make an appointment as soon as possible. The club will not be making any further comment on the selection process until an appointment is made.
It has been confirmed that Russia will play no official role come 2018 Winter Olympics Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The country’s government officials are forbidden to attend, its flag will not be displayed at the opening ceremony and its anthem will not sound.
Even though some Russian athletes will be allowed to compete, they will do so as individuals wearing a neutral uniform, and the official record books will forever show that Russia won zero medals.
The IOC also handed a lifetime ban to the country’s deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko, preventing him from having any involvement in the Olympic Games, and has ordered the Russian government to pay $15m towards a new Independent Testing Authority and reimburse the cost of their investigations.
The head of the IOC, Thomas Bach, revealed the decision in a press conference in Lausanne, Switzerland on Tuesday. “This was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport,” he said of Russia’s sophisticated doping system.
Vladimir Putin is expected to respond in the next 24 hours with the possibility that Russia will decide to boycott the Winter Olympics and withdraw any competitors from taking part as authorised neutral athletes, an option he had previously described as a “humiliating compromise”.
The former Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko (Getty)
Bach added: “The IOC, after following due process, has issued proportional sanctions for this systemic manipulation while protecting the clean athletes. This should draw a line under this damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective anti-doping system led by WADA.
“As an athlete myself, I feel very sorry for all the clean athletes from all NOCs who are suffering from this manipulation. Working with the IOC Athletes’ Commission, we will now look for opportunities to make up for the moments they have missed on the finish line or on the podium.”
Russia was barred from London’s Athletics World Championships this year in the wake of the McLaren report, which revealed details of a state-sponsored doping programme that had been in place for many years.
And the follow-up Schmid report confirmed a “systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia” citing a lack of effort to address the issue, forcing the IOC to take action.
In his findings, the IOC commission chairman Samuel Schmid found that doping was fully endorsed by the Russian sports ministry, of which Vladimir Putin’s deputy Mutko was in charge up until October 2016.
Pressure will now grow on Fifa to take action over Mutko, who heads up Russia’s 2018 World Cup team as president of the football union.
However, like the McLaren report, the Schmid report was careful not to directly implicate the Kremlin itself, noting there was no evidence “confirming the support of knowledge of this system by the highest state authority”.
A group of hackers used a bug earlier this week to scrape the phone numbers and email addresses of six million Instagram accounts and are now selling that information on the web.
The hackers mainly targeted celebrities and verified users, including Selena Gomez, who’s account was hacked two days ago. The hackers used this glitch in Instagram’s system to start posting nude pictures of the singer and actor’s ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber to her 125 million followers.
In a list sent to the Daily Beast, the hackers included 1,000 names of several well-known figures including celebrities, sports stars, and media personalities.
The hackers also scraped the information of unverified users and are now reportedly selling this giant trove of data for $10 an inquiry via bitcoin.
Instagram admitted the security bug in a letter today, though it downplayed how many users had been affected.
“Although we cannot determine which specific accounts may have been impacted, we believe it was a low percentage of Instagram accounts,” wrote Instagram CTO Mike Krieger.
Instagram services more than 700 million accounts; six million is not a small number, especially if it contains the phone numbers and emails of the most popular Instagrammers.
However, Doxagram, the site selling the information via the hackers, appears to be down. It’s unclear if this was an effort by Instagram to shut the site down.
Regardless of whether the site selling the information is gone for good, the hackers still have direct contact information for several high-profile accounts and may still be selling in some other way. Others also may have already bought from them and now that information is floating out there on the web.
Instagram says it has since fixed the issue and that it is working with law enforcement. However, the bug exposes certain vulnerabilities within Instagram’s system and the popular platform will likely need to take further measures to button up on security for celebrities and everyone else with an account.
“Protecting the community has been important at Instagram from day one, and we’re constantly working to make Instagram a safer place. We are very sorry this happened,” Krieger wrote.
Darwin Life is a new fertility clinic that aims to get women over the age of 40 pregnant with ‘perfect babies’. The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks infertility as the third most serious health condition in the world, after cancer and heart disease. A Chinese founder and researcher Dr. John Zhang is developing controversial methods of fertility that involves replacing some of the chromosomes in a patient’s eggs with those of a younger woman’s.
The treatment is called ‘spindle nuclear transfer’, often referred to as a three-parent-baby technique, and it is outlawed in the United States. It’s been refused for FDA approval because it involves what some view as gene manipulation.
Doctor Zang’s work helped a woman with a rare disease called Leigh Syndrome become pregnant last year. The idea was that with the help of a donor’s chromosomes that the baby would protected against inheriting its mother’s disease, while still remaining genetically related to her.
Zang reported mixed results; the baby was born healthy but damaged DNA from the mother was unintentionally transferred over thus creating a possibility for health problems in the future for the child.
The alternative is standard in-vitro fertilization (IVF) where the entire egg is harvested from the donor and placed inside the mother – thus the baby is genetically related to the donor, even though the mother gives birth.
In this case the chromosomes were harvested in the United States, but the actual application and implanting occurred in Mexico due to US restrictions and ethical concerns. America isn’t the only country concerned about the ethics; the UK allows the procedure, but only in cases where normal conception or IVF might put the baby at high risk for health issues.
Doctor Zang wants to do more than use his method to eliminate hereditary diseases. He wants to impregnate women ages 42 through 47 who often can’t get pregnant even though they produce eggs.
The startup also aims to blow the ‘playing God’ conversation wide-open. The Doctor told Technology Review:
Everything we do is a step toward designer babies, with nuclear transfer and gene editing together, you can really do anything you want.
He’s referring to the ability for parents to choose a child’s eye color or decide if their child will be tall or not. It’s a minefield of ethics concerns – is it okay to edit genes to lower the risk of cancer? What about to increase your baby’s I.Q.?
What happens when intelligence becomes the territory of the wealthy? This is another example of the twisting complexity of the world we live in. Perfect people are on the way and I don’t think any of us are ready for that.
Google’s Sundar Pichai essentially used today’s Mobile World Congress keynote to let the cat out of the bag for a whole host of interesting Google projects, including Android Pay, a new mobile payments framework that will look to succeed where Google Wallet failed. This time, they’ll be mostly leaving the apps themselves to developers, and Android Pay is intended primarily as a developer tool made available via API, rather than a centralized app like Apple Pay, for instance.
Android Pay sounds like it’ll offer one half of what Apple Pay is on the iPhone, providing users with a way to store their payment information locally, and make it available securely to third-party developer apps via API. Those apps will then determine when and where you can use the payment cards, via store (and perhaps payment provider) specific apps that can be branded however third parties like.
Google’s system will tokenize card numbers, in the same way that Apple Pay and Samsung Pay do, meaning it generates a one-time payment token for transmission to the receiving terminal for each transaction, rather than just offering the user’s static credit card information. This decreases the risk if the transmission is intercepted, since a one-time token with finite expiry is of no use once it’s already been consumed.
Like Apple Pay, Google’s Android Pay will use NFC for transmission, and will also support biometric authentication via hardware like the Samsung Galaxy S6’s fingerprint scanner. And while Samsung is clearly hoping to offer its own hardware-specific solution Bimini hfjd, Google’s offering is looking to convince businesses to adopt it by giving them a lot of freedom in how it’s presented and integrated into their brand. Pichai told the MWC crowd today that it’s not meant to compete with Samsung’s offering, however, and is intended primarily to offer up more consumer choice.
There’s no timeline on a release as of yet, but expect to hear more about the particulars of Android Pay when Google hosts its annual I/O developer conference in May.
DEVELOPING – Just days after the U.S. government accused North Korea of hacking Sony Corp’s computers, outages have occurred to North Korea’s internet, eventually going completely offline. The country has four official networks that connect them to the internet, all of which are ran through China. The connections began experiencing problems yesterday, and as of today it officially went black, according to Doug Madory, director of Internet Analysis at Dyn Research in Hanover, New Hampshire.
U.S. President Barack Obama said last week that Sony Pictures Entertainment had suffered significant damage and vowed to respond. North Korea warned yesterday that any U.S. punishment over the hacking attack on would lead to a retaliation “thousands of times greater.” North Korea has said it doesn’t know the identity of the hackers — who call themselves “‘Guardians of Peace’’ — claiming responsibility for breaking into Sony’s computer network and divulging internal e-mail messages.
The situation now is they are totally offline,
Madory said. “I don’t know that someone is launching a cyber-attack against North Korea, but this isn’t normal for them. Usually they are up solid. It is kind of out of the ordinary. This is not like anything I’ve seen before.”
Because of the attack on the Sony computers, Hollywood secrets were released, data was destroyed, and the company had to cancel the release of “The Interview”, a comedy about the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim-Jon Un. The hack also caused thousands of Sony computer’s to be inoperable and caused the company to shut down their network.
The outage probably isn’t a cut of a fiber-optic cable, which would be shown in an immediate loss of connectivity, and other possible explanations include a software meltdown on North Korea’s Web routers or denial-of-service hacking attacks, Madory said.
Today, Marie Harf (a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department) told reporters in Washington that she can’t confirm reports of any cyber-attacks on North Korea and won’t say what steps the U.S. might take in response to the hack on Sony.
“We are considering a range of options in response,” Harf said at a State Department briefing. “Some will be seen. Some may not be seen.”
While North Korea has four networks connected to the Internet, the U.S. has more than 152,000 such networks, according to Dyn Research.
“We have no new information regarding North Korea today,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan wrote in an e-mail today. “If in fact North Korea’s Internet has gone down, we’d refer you to that government for comment.”
China has started an investigation into a possible North Korean role in the Sony hacking following a request from the U.S. government, a person with direct knowledge of the matter has said. The foreign ministry will cooperate with other Chinese agencies including the Cyberspace Administration to conduct a preliminary investigation, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the probe hasn’t been made public.
The internet outage was earlier reported on the North Korean Tech blog.
Today the CEO of Apple Tim Cook wrote a long essay on Bloomberg Business Week magazine in which he proclaim that he considers “being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”
Below is an extract from Bloomberg Business Week published on the 30 October, 2014.
Throughout my professional life, I’ve tried to maintain a basic level of privacy. I come from humble roots, and I don’t seek to draw attention to myself. Apple is already one of the most closely watched companies in the world, and I like keeping the focus on our products and the incredible things our customers achieve with them.
At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ” I often challenge myself with that question, and I’ve come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That’s what has led me to today.
For years, I’ve been open with many people about my sexual orientation. Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I’m gay, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the way they treat me. Of course, I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences. Not everyone is so lucky.
While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.
Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.
The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant. Still, there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation.
I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.
I’ll admit that this wasn’t an easy choice. Privacy remains important to me, and I’d like to hold on to a small amount of it. I’ve made Apple my life’s work, and I will continue to spend virtually all of my waking time focused on being the best CEO I can be. That’s what our employees deserve—and our customers, developers, shareholders, and supplier partners deserve it, too. Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender. I’m an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things. I hope that people will respect my desire to focus on the things I’m best suited for and the work that brings me joy.
The company I am so fortunate to lead has long advocated for human rights and equality for all. We’ve taken a strong stand in support of a workplace equality bill before Congress, just as we stood for marriage equality in our home state of California. And we spoke up in Arizona when that state’s legislature passed a discriminatory bill targeting the gay community. We’ll continue to fight for our values, and I believe that any CEO of this incredible company, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, would do the same. And I will personally continue to advocate for equality for all people until my toes point up.
When I arrive in my office each morning, I’m greeted by framed photos of Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy. I don’t pretend that writing this puts me in their league. All it does is allow me to look at those pictures and know that I’m doing my part, however small, to help others. We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.
Today (10/26/2014) WeeShare! re-branded, it’s new name now “hubshr” and it’s new url www.hubshr.com. The changes began earlier in the morning, and were in active development up until late in the evening. The original post from the hubshr news blog: “WeeShare! will no longer be WeeShare! Hi, nice to meet you, my new name is hubshr. hubshr.com to be exact! … is what the website WOULD say to you if it COULD talk. Anyways, I’ve been wanting to do rebranding on the name of WeeShare! (now hubshr – remember!) for quite some time, so I decided to do it while it was still small. hubshr is also now a top level domain, we are now a .com! You can still access hubshr by using weeshare.ws but the main domain will be hubshr.com forever now. Along with this, our logo and icons have changed to – just a different name and font however. This re-brand was for our name and domain only; I will admit I was thinking about theme color changes as well but black is the color of sophistication and luxury: which is what I believe transparent and open-source social networking is like. So, enjoy the new name and ease of domain!” With that, the official Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ pages for the online service made changes. The homepage of the website was re-styled as well, with a new “modern” look (picture below). As another additive to the re-brand, the support of third-party videos was added to the website as well.
New logo
New singe-letter icon
The 1st promotional image for the new named service
The brand new homepage shows you the info of the service and a nice, quiet motionimage of New York City.
It’s been over a month since Twitter came after Twitpic over the service trademark, threatening to remove the service’s access to Twitter’s API. Today, CEO Noah Everett has announced that they have reached an agreement with Twitter that will let them stay alive – but a mare survival.
And in a somewhat happy turn of events, Twitpic has announced that it has reached an agreement with Twitter to keep Twitpic photos and links alive, giving Twitter control over the domain and the full photo archive.
However, the agreement also states that Twitpic will no longer be taking any new photos or data and will exist in a read-only mode. Apps on the App Store and Google Play have been removed, but users will still be able to log in, delete content or the account itself, and export and/or download data.
This comes after a “roller coaster ride” of the past few months. In September, Twitpic founder and CEO Noah Everett announced that the service would shut down after Twitter came after the service over the Twitpic trademark, threatening to remove the service’s access to Twitter’s API.
“This came as a shock to us since Twitpic has been around since early 2008, and our trademark application has been in the USPTO since 2009,” Everett wrote in a blog post.
Shortly thereafter, rumors circulated that Twitpic might be bought in order to save the service and the data that lives on it, until Everett once again admitted defeat and announced that he had given up on finding acquirers.
It’s with a heavy heart that I announce again that Twitpic will be shutting down on October 25th. We worked through a handful of potential acquirers and exhausted all potential options. We were almost certain we had found a new home for Twitpic (hence our previous tweet), but agreeable terms could not be met.
According to the blog post from today, which you can read below, it seems Everett won’t be staying on at Twitter or Twitpic.
Today marks the end of a difficult battle for Twitpic, whether it’s a happy or sad ending.
First off I want to say thank you to everyone who has used Twitpic over the years and for your patience with us over the last couple of months. As you know it’s been quite the roller coaster ride. We weren’t able to find a way to keep Twitpic independent. However, I’m happy to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to give them the Twitpic domain and photo archive, thus keeping the photos and links alive for the time being. Twitter shares our goal of protecting our users and this data. Also, since Twitpic’s user base consists of Twitter users, it makes sense to keep this data with Twitter. What this means for Twitpic users:
Twitpic will no longer be taking on new photos or data (the site will be in a read-only mode)
The iOS and Android apps have been removed from the app stores and will no longer be supported
You will still be able to login to your profile to delete content or delete your account on Twitpic.com
You can still export and download your data / photo archive on Twitpic.com
This will be my (@noaheverett) final chapter with Twitpic, and again I want to say thank you for allowing me to be a part of your photo sharing memories for nearly seven years. It has been an honor.
In case you didn’t know, here’s the crazy thing about Amazon: it isn’t really known for turning a profit. Just think about that for a second. The company that wants to sell you everything, get it to you by any means necessary and serves as the backbone for a considerable chunk of the internet doesn’t usually make money at the end of the day. And even with that financial truth entered into the record, people — from Wall Street types to armchair prognosticators — cheer whenever Amazon avoids losing as much money in a quarter as they expect it to. Today is not one of those days.
Amazon’s Q3 results dropped not too long ago, and it packs some big numbers. While the Everything Store raked in $20.58 billion in revenue (which is more than what most small countries make in a year) it just wasn’t enough to please those pesky shareholders — the company’s stock price is down over 10 percent in after-hours trading. Amazon’s business model is the epitome of spending money to make money, except what operating profits they do post are pretty meager and big losses like today’s (think $437 million) aren’t rare. In fairness, this quarter has been a really busy one for the folks in Seattle. After all, Amazon snapped up Twitch for a billion dollars, expanded its same-day delivery service in six cities across the United States, and launched a phone that no one actually seems to want (if you’re reading, Bezos, we’d still like hard sales numbers for that thing). The question is, how much longer can Amazon afford to spend and spend and acquire and expand and develop before shareholders — the people who back the company with their own money — decide that Amazon’s not going where they want it to?
Update: So our wishes for firm Fire Phone sales numbers haven’t been answered, but we’ve now got a better idea of how it’s doing thanks to the company’s CFO. During the company’s earnings conference call, Amazon’s Tom Szkutak said it took a $170 million hit “primarily related to Fire phone inventory valuation and supplier commitment costs.” Yikes.
Two months after bringing its fitness marketplace to San Francisco, Vint is introducing a new way for users to set up 1-on-1 or group workout sessions with trainers in the form of a $120 monthly subscription that lets you arrange as many meetups as you’d like.
The subscription service, known as Vint Unlimited, encompasses all of the workouts available on Vint today. That means you could go meet a trainer who specializes in pumping iron on Monday at a location that lets you hit all your major muscle groups and meet a CrossFit instructor in the park on Tuesday or Wednesday. Vint Unlimited won’t come online until November 1 (and that will only be in, though users who sign up now can get a week free to try it out.
On a phone call, Vint CEO Louise Eriksson told TechCrunch that the idea behind the new subscription is to eliminate the friction involved in fitness — committing to a contract at the gym, making time to go, and sticking with a routine. While I certainly believe that workout schedules and gym membership are daunting and a turn-off to many who would like to get in better shape, I’d say the biggest “friction” when it comes to fitness is shear human laziness. Vint isn’t going to convince many people who aren’t willing to get up and go for a walk or jog and maybe do some bodyweight exercises to commit to spending $120 per month to get training that still involves meeting someone and putting themselves through intense exercise.
But for those who already pay a monthly fee, Vint Unlimited seems like a pretty great deal. Doing the same routine every week kind of stinks—tthat’s why I tend to give up on my fitness plans every few months, at least. Being able to switch between tennis, boxing, and ballroom dancing (I am not brave enough to pick up pole dancing just yet) keeps things fresh. And with the new Recommendations feature, Vint lets you say what times are best for your workout on a given week and the kinds of routines you’d be willing to try and then suggests a couple of trainers you might like — or, you can use the new Social Feed to take up the same routines as your friends using the app. There’s bound to be some overlap anyway, given the fact that there are only 60 or so trainers in San Francisco at the moment, so you might as well work out with friends when you find someone you all like.
Hackers are exploiting a vulnerability in the popular vBulletin Internet Community software in order to inject rogue administrator accounts into websites using it.
After the recent success of hackers exploring the WordPress CMS through a vulnerable end of the software, PC World has yet again announced the recent potential threat to web development. In a press release this morning, pcworld explained how hackers exploited the vBulletin internet community software vulnerability. Details are below:
The exploit was found by researchers from security firm Imperva on underground hacker forums and targets versions 4.x.x and 5.x.x of vBulletin. The vulnerability allows attackers to abuse the vBulletin configuration mechanism to create a secondary administrative account, the researchers said Wednesday in a blog post.
At the end of August, vBulletin Solutions, the company that develops the forum software, advised users to delete the “install” directories from their vBulletin deployments because of an unspecified exploit vector.
The company declined to release any additional information about the issue at that time, but Imperva’s researchers believe it’s the same vulnerability targeted by the exploit script they found.
How the attack can happen
In order to exploit the vulnerability, attackers need to know the exact URL for the upgrade.php script from the install directories of the targeted vBulletin deployments and the vBulletin customer IDs associated with those deployments.
To obtain this information, hackers created a separate PHP script that scans vBulletin sites for the vulnerable path and extracts the customer IDs from the source code of the upgrade.php pages, the researchers said.
Once they have those details, attackers only need to choose a username and password for the rogue administrator account that will be created and the exploit will do the rest.
Company response VBulletin Solutions declined to confirm whether the exploit identified by Imperva is the one they warned about in August.
“We’ve released updates to vBulletin 4 and vBulletin 5,” said Wayne Luke, technical support lead at vBulletin Solutions, Wednesday via email. “These are vBulletin 4.2.2 and vBulletin 5.0.5. We recommend customers delete their install directories when not in use maintaining their software.”
“I cannot provide any further information on the issue,” Luke said.
Notes accompanying the exploit script found by Imperva claim the vulnerability was discovered on Aug. 22.
The Imperva researchers have seen traffic from an attack that successfully exploited a forum powered by vBulletin 4.2.0 and there are also reports about successful attacks against others using version 4.2.1, said Tal Be’ery, security research team leader at Imperva, Thursday via email. However, the company hasn’t tested whether the latest 4.2.2 and 5.0.5 versions are vulnerable to the exploit, he said.
The directories that vBulletin users should delete in order to protect their deployments are “/install” for vBulletin 4.1.x versions and “/core/install” for the 5.x versions.
Users who, for some reason, are unable to delete these directories, can use the web server access configuration mechanism or a web-application firewall to block requests or redirects for upgrade.php, the Imperva researchers said.
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