Our favorite flying human Yves 'Jetman' Rossy is up to his old tricks again of making us all feel like tiny little life wasters. This time, he took a majestic flying tour around Mt. Fuji
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/c8xcSRn-69w/@caseychanIf you can remember with all the mind-blowing stuff we've seen so far this week, we're giving two lucky folks a new Nexus 5 of their very own. The contest is now over, the random number generator has been activated, and we have your winners. Let's all send out happy thoughts and congratulations to:
Congrats John and Jon, and thanks for being part of things here. It's folks like you who make Android Central as good — and as fun to be a part of — as it is. We're trying to think of other ways to give away great stuff, so always be on the lookout for it.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/nnzZgmXmm1Q/story01.htmAs part of Google's ongoing effort to spin off certain software features into Google Play for easier updating, the company has today launched the Google Text-to-Speech engine as a standalone app on the Play Store. The will push out automatically to those using an older version (not you, Nexus 5 owners, you're already up-to-date out of the box). If you install it on a device that doesn't have it already, it'll appear as an option alongside whichever manufacturer-loaded text-to-speech service is currently in use.
The only major change we're seeing compared to the older pre-loaded version is the addition of Korean as a supported language. However the ability to update text-to-speech without requiring an OS upgrade presents the possibility of Google introducing more advanced TTS features through future app updates.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/RGxloSeAyvQ/story01.htmHer shy, endearing smile and gentle manner belie the horrors Asil has witnessed by the age of 8.
It is only as her mother Nour explains the significance of the drawings she has sketched while we are talking that one realizes how deeply those horrors are buried within her.
In one, the lone figure on a balcony is Asil herself - two years previously - looking up at the moon and stars and drinking in the cool night air.
However, her mother had forbidden her children from going out for fear of them being shot at by snipers and was forced to put up thick blankets to prevent any light seeping out from within.
Refugees receive food and water but youngsters often have to supplement their family's aid income.These boys can be hired to carry goods in wheelbarrows across the site. (Photo by Jared J. Kohler)
The tanks and soldiers destroying the family home was the point at which the family finally fled for the safety of Jordan.
Another drawing shows gunmen shooting at her father in his car and a sniper targeting children going to buy sweets at a corner shop close to their home. Thankfully, her father survived the attack.But her traumatic memories are not an isolated case.
The Syrian crisis – which has claimed the lives of 100,000 people so far – has been termed a ‘children’s crisis’ by aid workers. Half of the 2million people who have left the country are children. Zaatari is no different - 60,000 of its 120,000 population are under 18.
Many have been close to death, either seeing it first hand or hearing of friends and family being killed.
But hearing grim accounts of youngsters having their throats cut and the terror of their children being killed forced them to leave Syria. As if further illustration were necessary, they make the motion of a hand moving across the throat when talking to you.
‘It is because of the children that people come,’ said a teacher and father of two. ‘If I was alone I would have stayed.’
‘I did not want to come to the camp. I heard a lot of bad things.’
‘I was in the street [in his home town] and I hear missiles and I got to hide. I said if I survive I will go to the camp. People said there [in the camp] you will live life like a dog.’
Violence, lack of privacy and the stress of living without basic facilities are just some of the problems faced by refugees in camps, says William Hopkins, a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist for the charity Freedom From Torture.
‘They also have to deal with a loss of role. They no longer can be the parent who can provide for or support their family, they’ve lost their job, lost their money. They can feel undermined and inferior and can’t get the things they need for their children.’
Lack of privacy is a sensitive issue in the camp: many refugees are housed in five-man tents and are reliant on communal toilets and cooking areas.
As regards education, in Zaatari there are currently three schools run by UNICEF and Jordan's Ministry of Education catering for children from primary to secondary age as well as 43 of fenced off ‘safe spaces’ also provided by UNICEF and aid agencies such as Save The Children. The schools have places for only 15,000 youngsters - half of the 30,000 school age children.
‘We try to get them to draw flowers, different things for different frames of mind but all this is what is in children’s minds,’ he said.
Used to homes with gardens with their toys and bicycles which they had to leave behind they are now thrust into the searing heat and unfamiliar surroundings of a desert environment. At home they turned on a tap in the kitchen for water, now they have to go and stand in a queue to get water from a communal pump.
Even in school there is an unruliness emerging that was unheard of in Syria, ranging from spitting sunflower husks on to the floor to throwing stones.
One teacher who bemoaned the lack of discipline in the classes said she saw it as the children becoming more selfish: ‘The children say you cannot control us.’
She added that whereas parents back in Syria were concerned about their child’s education, now their sole concern was that their children were alive.
Another teacher and mother who fled to the camp with her four children described how she was struggling to understand the changes she was seeing.
‘They saw death, explosions, shelling. It is difficult to deal with the children because they are difficult psychologically. If they see violence, like someone hitting someone, it is a trigger.’
She said her own children constantly have bad dreams involving death and violence.
‘Sometimes they remind me of chocolate bought in a park [back in Syria] and the name of the chocolate but often it is bad dreams,’ she said.
Within the camp there are a handful of impromptu ‘arcades’ set up in pre-fab huts where PCs run video games. The shoot-em up game ‘Counter Strike’ is one of the most popular, as are imaginary war games in the streets outside.
‘They [the children] behave as if they are men fighting in Syria. All games are about FSA [Free Syrian Army] against Assad,’ she said.
The imbalance of the camp’s population – 75 per cent women and children – has had an impact on its social structure, generating an increased burden on children to help provide for their families.
Throughout the camp one sees youngsters at work in stalls or transporting goods through the alleyways in wheelbarrows.
It was only after the death of one 17-year-old boy that it came to light that he was providing for 13 family members.
UNHCR camp manager Kilian Kleinschmidt, 51, said boys were ageing fast and trying to become ‘little men’.
‘The boys are trying to prove how manly they are. See how they greet you by slapping your hand,’ he said.
‘The girls get married early and become women very fast.’
Frustrations over access to electricity and the pre-fab shelters would occasionally be vented by gangs of children throwing stones at police or at UN officials. Over one two-day period, they even dismantled and carted off in pieces a police station made up of prefabricated shelters.
But Kleinschmidt said there was a shift emerging in the attitude of parents and they were now exerting influence over them.
‘In the beginning parents found it funny, now adults try to stop it,’ he said.
But he added that children fell into different subgroups. Some benefit from the influence of family members and elders but others are in street gangs.
‘That is our real problem,’ he added.
Efforts are being made to find out how many children there are in such gangs.
One former teacher in Syria said some of the children carried knives. Their use on each other appeared to be borne out with a chance encounter myself and my photographer had when a group of boys gathered round interested in our cameras.
One boy who said he was 12 - but looked more like nine - had a scar running down the side of his face and cigarette burn marks on his arm. When asked who had done it and why he just shrugged his shoulders said ‘my brother’ and turned away with an awkward smile.
Earlier this year the UN’s children’s agency released a report - ‘Shattered Lives’ - that highlighted that women and children in the camp were increasingly exposed to violence and abuse.
It said that the uprooting of communities from Syria had "exposed women and children to the risk of gender-based violence and abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence".
It added that information it had received indicated that gangs controlled access to the prefab houses as well as playing a role in determining access to market pitches and prices on the black market.
"Due to conflict and displacement the nearly 60,000 children living in the Zaatari refugee camp have had their lives torn apart,’ said Michele Servadei, UNICEF Jordan’s deputy representative. ‘These children have been robbed of normal childhood experiences like going to school.’
'UNICEF is reaching these children with education, life-saving health care, clean water and sanitation services as well as psycho social support to address the emotional distress of living through
years of war.'
One such initiative is a film project - funded by the International Medical Corps and UNICEF - where children talk about their hopes for the future, listing such ambitions as becoming a flight engineer, doctor or musician.
But Servadei outlined that more needed to be done by the international community as currently 40 per cent of UNICEF Jordan's emergency programs are not funded this year.
Ghandi Mohammad Bakkar, 50, protection manager for Save The Children in Zaatari said: ‘In such a crisis the children are the most vulnerable group. They may face losing the chance to continue their education, face challenges over their food, drink and clothing besides what experiences they had before coming to Zaatari.'
He said that Save The Children also gave them social and psychological support.
‘We help them get over these harsh experiences they found before coming to the camp.'
But for the mother of four an end to their life in the camp and a return to Syria - despite all the horrors they have faced - can’t come soon enough.
‘We want to go to our homes. We have no dreams here. Syria is very beautiful and we have great memories there. Our friends, our homes, gardens, trees.
‘There is no dust there.’
[Some names have been changed in the article]
A remarkable video series depicting the extraordinary challenges faced by aid workers and refugees in Zaatari will be shown exclusively on Yahoo UK starting on Tuesday November 12. See the trailer for the series here.
To find out more about the work of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the United Nations Children's Fund click on the links below:
www.unhcr.org
www.unicef.org
After being sidelined for more than two years because of knee injuries, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz will finally fight again at UFC 169 Feb. 1 against interim belt-holder Renan Barao. Cruz last fought and won with a unanimous decision over now flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson in October of 2011.
After that, Cruz was selected as a coach of The Ultimate Fighter, opposite his rival Urijah Faber. The two had fought twice before and were set to have a rubber match after coaching TUF.
Cruz tore his ACL in a knee and was forced out of the fight. Barao stepped in to fight Faber in an interim title bout, which he won.
[Related: Johny Hendricks suffered second-degree burns while shooting commercial for UFC 167]
Cruz' recovery was delayed by a second ACL tear and surgery. Barao has defended his interim title twice in the meantime.
The main event of UFC 169 will include another title bout as featherweight champ Jose Aldo defends against Ricardo Lamas. Lamas has won four straight bouts heading into his long-awaited title shot.
Aldo has not lost in over seven years and 16 fights. He last fought and won at UFC 163, when he stopped Chan Sung Jung in the 4th round.
UFC 169 will take place SuperBowl weekend in Newark, New Jersey. Newsday first reported the two title match ups.
Follow Elias on Twitter @EliasCepeda
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/dominick-cruz-returns-bantamweight-title-unification-bout-jose-151130199--mma.htmlHistorically, VirtualBox has been rock-solid, lightweight virtualization software that was only slightly less capable than its rival, VMware. Starting about a year and a half ago, VirtualBox became a bit less than that, acquiring new features, but becoming less reliable. Fortunately, the latest versions seem to have come back around, and 4.3 adds an important capability: support for touchscreens.
VirtualBox 4 screenshotVirtualBox's management and launch dialog has improved over time and is quite easy to intuit at this point.I'm not a huge fan of fingerprints all over my screen, but as a user of tablets and smartphones I know it's part of the computing universe, and lots of folks like it. And with Windows 8.x designed for touch, it needs to be there in virtual environments. It is in VirtualBox and it worked well in my testing.
Beyond the touch support, which is of course huge news, VirtualBox remains the quickest, least resource-hungry of the free virtual machine platforms. It basically stays out of the way when you're not running it, unlike others that spawn multiple services which are always present in the background.
Touchscreen support makes it much more appealing to use VirtualBox on Windows 8.The other most user-recognizable improvements are support for IPv6 with VRDP, video capture support, and Webcam pass-thru. There's also SCSI CD-ROM emulation and a ton of bug fixes.
Alas, drag-and-drop still isn't available for Windows-based hosts (the PCs you run VirtualBox on). It's listed in the "devices" menu, as it has been for some time, but it's a tease...it's only being implemented on Linux and Solaris hosts. Under Windows, you can cut and paste data between applications, or use folders on the host that you specify as network resources from within VirtualBox's shared folders dialog.
Video capture is now possible within VirtualBox.I'm complaining, but it's griping out of familiarity. If VirtualBox were brand-new, I'd be singing its praises and then some. It's a free way to run older programs that may not be compatible with Windows Vista/7/8, try out the latest that Linux has to offer, or provided secure workspaces for remote terminals.
I've used VirtualBox for years to test software rather than chance messing up my workstation's operating system. It's a great program.
Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
More by Jon L. Jacobi
In this frame grab made from dashboard camera vide shows a meteor streaking through the sky over Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. After a surprise meteor hit Earth at 42,000 mph and exploded over a Russian city in February, smashing windows and causing minor injuries, scientists studying the aftermath say the threat of space rocks hurtling toward our planet is bigger than they had thought. Meteors like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk _ and those that are even bigger and more dangerous _ are probably four to five times more likely to hit Earth than scientists thought before the February mid-air explosion, according to three studies released Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science. (AP Photo/AP Video)
In this frame grab made from dashboard camera vide shows a meteor streaking through the sky over Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. After a surprise meteor hit Earth at 42,000 mph and exploded over a Russian city in February, smashing windows and causing minor injuries, scientists studying the aftermath say the threat of space rocks hurtling toward our planet is bigger than they had thought. Meteors like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk _ and those that are even bigger and more dangerous _ are probably four to five times more likely to hit Earth than scientists thought before the February mid-air explosion, according to three studies released Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science. (AP Photo/AP Video)
Maps show how scientists will narrow the field of impact in the weeks approaching the time of impact.; 2c x 5 inches; 96.3 mm x 127 mm;
This photo provided by The Field Museum in Chicago, taken April 9, 2013, shows pieces of a meteor that exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains in February after they were catalogued on their arrival at the Chicago museum. The museum received nearly two pounds of small meteorite pieces donated by a collector. After a surprise meteor hit Earth at 42,000 mph and exploded over a Russian city in February, smashing windows and causing minor injuries, scientists studying the aftermath say the threat of space rocks hurtling toward our planet is bigger than they had thought. Meteors like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk _ and those that are even bigger and more dangerous _ are probably four to five times more likely to hit Earth than scientists thought before the February mid-air explosion, according to three studies released Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science. (AP Photo/Courtesy of The Field Museum, Karen Bean, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2013 file photo provided by Chelyabinsk.ru, shows a meteorite contrail over the Ural Mountains' city of Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow, Russia. After a surprise meteor hit Earth at 42,000 mph and exploded over a Russian city in February, smashing windows and causing minor injuries, scientists studying the aftermath say the threat of space rocks hurtling toward our planet is bigger than they had thought. Meteors like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk _ and those that are even bigger and more dangerous _ are probably four to five times more likely to hit Earth than scientists thought before the February mid-air explosion, according to three studies released Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science. (AP Photo/Chelyabinsk.ru, Yekaterina Pustynnikova, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists studying the terrifying meteor that exploded without warning over a Russian city last winter say the threat of space rocks smashing into Earth is bigger than they thought.
Meteors about the size of the one that streaked through the sky at 42,000 mph and burst over Chelyabinsk in February — and ones even larger and more dangerous — are probably four, five or even seven times more likely to hit the planet than scientists believed before the fireball, according to three studies published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science.
That means about 20 million space rocks the size of the Chelyabinsk one may be zipping around the solar system, instead of 3 million, NASA scientist Paul Chodas said at a news conference.
Until Chelyabinsk, NASA had looked only for space rocks about 100 feet wide and bigger, figuring there was little danger below that.
This meteor was only 62 feet across but burst with the force of 40 Hiroshima-type atom bombs, scientists say. Its shock wave shattered thousands of windows, and its flash temporarily blinded 70 people and caused dozens of skin-peeling sunburns just after dawn in icy Russia. More than 1,600 people in all were injured.
Up until then, scientists had figured a meteor causing an airburst like that was a once-in-150-years event, based on how many space rocks have been identified in orbit. But one of the studies now says it is likely to happen once every 30 years or so, based on how often these things are actually hitting.
By readjusting how often these rocks strike and how damaging even small ones can be, "those two things together can increase the risk by an order of magnitude," said Mark Boslough, a Sandia National Lab physicist, co-author of one of the studies.
Lindley Johnson, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object program, which scans the heavens for dangerous objects, said the space agency is reassessing what size rocks to look for and how often they are likely to hit.
In addition, NASA this fall reactivated a dormant orbiting telescope called WISE specifically to hunt for asteroids, Johnson said. And the agency is expanding ground-based sky searches.
At the same time, NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are looking into the need for evacuations in the case of an asteroid headed for Earth and how to keep the public informed without scaring people.
Those issues came up after the two agencies quietly held a disaster drill last spring in Washington that was meant to simulate what would happen if a space rock slightly bigger than the Chelyabinsk one threatened the East Coast.
During the drill, when it looked as if the meteor would hit just outside the nation's capital, experts predicted 78,000 people could die. But when the mock meteor ended up in the ocean, the fake damage featured a 49-foot tsunami and shortages of supplies along the East Coast, according to an after-action report obtained by The Associated Press.
The exercise and the studies show there's a risk from smaller space rocks that strike before they are detected — not just from the giant, long-seen-in-advance ones like in the movie "Armageddon," said Bill Ailor, a space debris expert at the Aerospace Corporation who helped coordinate the drill.
"The biggest hazard from asteroids right now is the city-busting airbursts, not the civilization-busting impacts from 1-kilometer-diameter objects that has so far been the target of most astronomical surveys," Purdue University astronomer Jay Melosh, who wasn't part of the studies, wrote in an email.
"Old-fashioned civil defense, not Bruce Willis and his atom bombs, might be the best insurance against hazards of this kind."
Chodas said the Chelyabinsk rock surprised astronomers because it was coming from the direction of the sun and was not detectable. Telescopes can see some space rocks as small as 3 feet wide, but some are simply too dark to spot, he said.
Scientists said a 1908 giant blast over Siberia, a 1963 airborne explosion off the coast of South Africa, and others were of the type that is supposed to happen less than once a century, or in the case of Siberia, once every 8,000 years, yet they all occurred in a 105-year timespan.
Because more than two-thirds of Earth is covered with water and other vast expanses are uninhabited deserts and ice, other past fireballs could have gone unnoticed.
Just this week, NASA got a wake-up call on those bigger space rocks that astronomers thought they had a handle on, discovering two 12-mile-wide asteroids and a 1.2-mile-wide one that had escaped their notice until this month. However, NASA said the three objects won't hit Earth.
Asteroids are space rocks that circle the sun as leftovers of failed attempts to form planets billions of years ago. When asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere, they become meteors. (When they hit the ground, they are called meteorites.)
The studies said the Chelyabinsk meteor probably split off from a much bigger space rock.
What happened in the Russian city of 1 million people is altering how astronomers look at a space rocks. With first-of-its-kind video, photos, satellite imagery and the broken-up rock, scientists have been able to piece together the best picture yet of what happens when an asteroid careens into Earth's atmosphere. It's not pretty.
"I certainly never expected to see something of this scale or this magnitude," said University of Western Ontario physicist Peter Brown, lead author of one study. "It's certainly scary."
Scientists said the unusually shallow entry of the space rock spread out its powerful explosion, limiting its worst damage but making a wider area feel the effects. When it burst it released 500 kilotons of energy, scientists calculated.
"We were lucky. This could have easily gone the other way. It was really dangerous," said NASA meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens, co-author of one of the papers. "This was clearly extraordinary. Just stunning."
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Online:
NASA's Near Earth Object Program: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov
Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature
The journal Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
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Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-11-06-Asteroid%20Hit/id-87d81d46a8dc42a2acafcddce96b8a95
