Outdoor advertising is at least 5,000 years old (the ancient Egyptians used to hang papyrus notices advertising rewards for runaway slaves), and fears about how invasive it could be have been around nearly as long. For every glitzy video billboard you curse at today, know that your forbearers dreamed up much, much worse.
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Apple's head honcho Tim Cook is chatting up Android's growth explosion, and it turns out he's not flustered. "Do I look at that? Of course, I don't have my head stuck in the sand," said Cook." But for us, winning has never been about having the most." Instead, he stands by the old Apple line of quality versus quantity. "Arguably, we make the best PC, but we don't make the most," he added. "We made the best music player, and we wound up making the most -- but we didn't initially."
Rather than focus on install base, Cupertino's chief turned to usage stats to illustrate their supremacy, noting that their slates are the most popular for browsing the web. "You can look at tablet web market share in North America," Cook said. "Almost every study I see has the iPad in the 80s (percentage)." Before even broaching the subject of Google's mobile OS, Cook cited NetApp figures that show 59 percent of worldwide web traffic from smartphones and tablets comes from iOS devices. We're sure the folks in Mountain View are content with quantity, though we'd hazard a guess they enjoy quality as well.
Update: We've slotted in a video clip of Tim Cook responding to the ballooning Android market share after the break.
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You'd think that getting arrested might have been a wake-up call for Amanda Bynes. No such luck.
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The Colombian government and FARC peace negotiators announced an agreement on land reform this weekend, just days before the rebel group's 49th anniversary. Land issues are at the root of the conflict.
Humberto de la Calle (r.) head of Colombia's government peace negotiation team, speaks to reporters during the peace talks with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Havana, Cuba, Sunday.
Ramon Espinosa/AP
EnlargeSix months after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government first sat down to try and negotiate an end to the country's half-century-long conflict, many citizens felt their hopes deflate. The talks were beginning to appear to be just another failed attempt at peace, and critics' voices were growing louder.
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But on Sunday came a major breakthrough. The FARC and the government made a joint announcement stating that they had reached an agreement for "radical transformations" in the Colombian countryside. Land rights have been a flash point of the conflict, and the FARC claim they are the reason they rose up against the state 49 years ago today. Over half of the farmland in this South American nation is held by 1 percent of landowners. The new agreement ?seeks to reverse the causes of the conflict,? according to a joint statement read in Havana, Cuba, where the negotiations are taking place.
Land is just one of five points on the negotiating agenda, and no single deal is final until the entire negotiation process draws to a close, according to negotiation rules. Few specifics on the land agreement have been released since the May 26 announcement, and the FARC?s chief negotiator said there are some land reform details that remain unresolved.
The fact that the two sides decided to announce the agreement nonetheless is an indication of the urgency negotiators felt to show the public they were making progress.
Some Colombians gushed with enthusiasm and hyperbole at the news. "What just happened in Havana is the most important thing that has happened in the last 100 years in the country," said Senator Armando Benedetti, a member of the government coalition. ?"The issue of land is 60 percent of a peace agreement."
But critics continued to question the peace process. "Terrorist Farc kills our soldiers and policemen and the Santos government rewards them with a land agreement," tweeted former president Alvaro Uribe, a fierce critic of President Juan Manuel Santos. In another tweet he wrote: "It's unacceptable that the Santos government negotiate the model of the Colombian countryside with narco-terrorists."
Lead government negotiator Humberto de la Calle said criticism was welcome. "We know that these negotiations generate controversy and that's fine," he said. "But we ask for the debate to be sensible."
Many victims of the FARC remain skeptical that a peace deal is possible. "I doubt it. This is the same as the last time there were negotiations" which ended in 2002, says Sandra S?nchez, who was displaced by guerrillas in 2007 from her home in Vichada province after her son and daughter deserted from the rebel ranks. "They talk and talk and then the negotiations break off and we?re left with more war."
Doubts are understandable ? The FARC marked their anniversary by torching two trucks on a highway in the southern Cauca province ? and there are still many thorny issues to work out before a peace deal is a sure thing. But there may be reason for cautious hope, too: Never before has the FARC and government come so far on agreeing on anything, much less a very root cause of the conflict.?
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One of the questions that?s come out of Microsoft?s Xbox One reveal last week is to what degree the console actually supports 4K content. When asked about 4K support, Microsoft?s Corporate Vice President of Marketing, Strategy and Interactive Entertainment Business Yusuf Mehdi, told Forbes that ?The video and interface portions, absolutely. Games developed for 1080p will run at 1080p, obviously.? It will support up to 4K at launch for things like Blu-ray, but what about later? ?There?s no hardware restriction there at all.?
The accuracy of that statement depends entirely on which hardware Mehdi was referring to. The Xbox One?s CPU and GPU are definitely powerful enough to handle 4K decode or 3D video display, but that?s only one link in the content chain. There are several current barriers which make 4K a dubious proposition on the Xbox One come launch day. We?ve highlighted whether these issues apply to the Xbox One, PS4, or both systems below.
Blu-ray compatibility (Xbox One and PS4):?As of this writing, there is no defined Blu-ray standard for content above 1080p and no decision is expected until the end of the year. That leaves Sony and Microsoft stuck with guessing. The simplest way for both companies to hedge their bets is to include BDXL drives in their consoles rather than standard BD-ROMs. BDXL drives can support up to 128GB discs; the current mass market standard is 50GB. (See:?Xbox One vs. PS4 vs. PC: How the hardware specs compare.)
Sony?s ?Remastered in 4K? films are 1080p films that?ve been converted from 4K originals. The company is also putting all extras and bonus content on separate discs in order to maximize the amount of video bandwidth available for the feature film. It?s clear that Blu-ray needs an upgrade to keep pace with content standards ? Peter Jackson?s The Hobbit was only released in 24 fps because there?s not enough room on a BD disc for the film and no formal definition for a 48 fps playback format.
No codec standard (Xbox One and PS4):?4K content could presumably use either H.264 or H.265 for encoding. H.264 is more compatible and already supported by the Blu-ray standard, which would make backwards compatibility easier to achieve, but it takes up twice as much storage space as the newer H.265. H.265 is a more efficient codec than H.264, but requires more CPU power for decoding. The PS4 and Xbox One will both use an AMD-based video decode engine for offloading this work, but it probably won?t support H.265; the standard is simply too new.
HDMI 1.4 output (Xbox One and PS4): HDMI 1.4 is the latest released version of the HDMI standard (version 2.0 won?t be released until later this year). HDMI 1.4 supports 3840?2160 output at 24p (24 fps, progressive) or 30p. That may not seem like much of a problem, but it means the Xbox One couldn?t display a hypothetical version of The Hobbit running at 48p on a new Blu-ray standard. 4K 3D, if it ever takes off, would also require HDMI 2.0.
As it stands, Sony hasn?t said anything about its own supported outputs ? but there?s nothing to suggest Sony has a trick up their sleeve on this one; HDMI 2.0 isn?t ready for market. This issue will almost certainly affect both consoles.
Stream size (Xbox One and PS4):?The last barrier to native 4K content has nothing to do with Microsoft or Sony. A 4K video contains 4x as much data as a 1080p video. Even if you use H.265 for streaming, you?ll end up with a stream twice the size. This is going to naturally slow the rate of 4K video adoption.
H.265 will shift this requirement substantially lower. Keep in mind, this graph shows 30 fps speeds ? if you want to stream at higher rates, the bitrate increases in any platform.
The reason there?s so much uncertainty around 4K video is because the standards necessary to achieve it are actually less developed now than the HDTV standards were when the Xbox 360 and PS3 launched. Both consoles will be capable of outputting their own interfaces at 4K. Both are apparently designed to upscale 1080p video to 4K, though we expect 4K TVs to have their own upscale solutions as well. Both consoles should be able to handle decoding native 4K content in both H.264 and H.265, though the H.265 solution may be implemented in software.
We will be surprised if the launch versions of the Xbone and PS4 offer flawless support for a native 4K version of Blu-ray. Capabilities like 4K 3D will not be supported, due to limitations in the HDMI 1.4 standard. Local 4K file playback on the Xbox One may be hampered by the unit?s relatively small hard drive, though it?s not clear how easy it will be to move hypothetical 4K content from PC to Xbox in any case. (See:?8K UHDTV: How do you send a 48Gbps TV signal over terrestrial airwaves?)
The bottom line is this: Don?t expect perfect 4K compatibility out of the gate from either console. The standard is too young, and support is too scattered. If you love being on the cutting edge, and you?re planning to buy into 4K television and wondering when 3D content will be available in native formats, the answer is: ?A while.?
Next page: So, what about 4K gaming?
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Bob Lewis looks over a field of crosses with names while participating in the College Point Memorial Day Parade in New York, Sunday, May 26, 2013. Lewis made the crosses, 137, for all the service members from College Point that were killed from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Bob Lewis looks over a field of crosses with names while participating in the College Point Memorial Day Parade in New York, Sunday, May 26, 2013. Lewis made the crosses, 137, for all the service members from College Point that were killed from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
A couple photograph themselves amongst a sea of flags on Boston Common in Boston, Sunday, May 26, 2013. The flags were placed by the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund in memory of every fallen Massachusetts service member from the Civil War to the present. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Joe Schulmann pauses in prayer over a cross bearing the name of his neighbor, Michael Wick, who was killed during the Vietnam War, at the College Point Memorial Day Parade in New York, Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
ATLANTA (AP) ? Americans planned to gather at cemeteries, memorials and monuments nationwide to honor fallen military service members on Memorial Day, at a time when combat in Afghanistan approaches 12 years and the ranks of World War II veterans dwindles.
President Barack Obama was expected to lay a wreath Monday at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington. Earlier in the morning, he and first lady Michelle Obama planned to host a breakfast at the White House with "Gold Star" families of service members who have been killed.
In one of several ceremonies honoring Americans killed in Afghanistan, the city of South Sioux City, Neb., planned to unveil a statue honoring Navy Petty Officer 1st Class John Douangdara, a dog handler for the SEALs killed in a 2011 helicopter crash. His service dog was also killed in the crash and is memorialized beside him in the statue.
At the American Airpower Museum on Long Island, N.Y., a program was planned to honor Women Air Service Pilots, or WASPs, who tested and ferried completed aircraft from factories to bases during World War II. Thirty-eight died during the war, including Alice Lovejoy of Scarsdale, N.Y., who was killed on Sept. 13, 1944, in a midair collision over Texas.
"It's very important that we recognize not only their contribution to American history, but women's history," said Julia Lauria-Blum, curator of the WASP exhibit at the museum. "These women really blazed a path; they were pioneers for women's aviation. And most important, they gave their lives serving their country and must be honored like anyone else on Memorial Day."
Another wreath-laying ceremony was planned at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in New York City. The park is a tribute to President Roosevelt's famous speech calling for all people to enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
The holiday weekend also marked the traditional start of the U.S. vacation season. AAA, one of the nation's largest leisure travel agencies, expected 31.2 million Americans to hit the road over the weekend, virtually the same number as last year. Gas prices were about the same as last year, up 1 cent to a national average of $3.65 a gallon Friday.
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Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/05/26/everyday-carry-gear-elizabeth-rodriguez/
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