Squirrel News Media

31/08/2015

Baby Cow! Toddler Cute Cow Costume

Would you like to take him home? Like if your answer is Yes.

31/08/2015

Flower Dog! There would be no such cute flower in the world.

31/08/2015

Cute on shoulder. I think she loves to get captured, can't you see here cuteness.

Like if you kitten also like to get clicked.

20/08/2015

Samsung Gear S2: Here's a sneak peek of the latest Apple Watch-rival

Samsung Gear S2: Here’s a sneak peek of the latest Apple Watch-rival



Samsung has been hinting at a new smartwatch to compete with the Apple Watch for some time now. Recently, at the Unpacked event, the company teased its new smartwatch – the Samsung Gear S2 – along with the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5.

The company has now teased the new wearable by releasing a short video, and the device is likely to be announced at the IFA 2015.

20/08/2015

The love song of Comet 67P: Why it's making whale sounds

As a European spacecraft approached a comet speeding through the solar system, it captured a mysterious eerie-sounding "song" emitted by its target in deep space.

Now scientists think they know a bit more about what causes it. And no, it's not aliens or a space whale.

The song of Comet 67P — detected by the Rosetta spacecraft last year — is actually caused by oscillations in the magnetic field surrounding the object, the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a blog post Wednesday.

Scientists suggested this was the case when the comet's song was first discovered. They know that the magnetic field is actually created when particles from the sun interact with the comet's atmosphere, giving it an electrical charge.

"In other words, even though the nucleus of 67P/C-G has no magnetic field of its own ... the comet’s atmosphere or coma is magnetized," ESA said in the blog.

Don't book your trip out to the comet to hear its concert quite yet. The frequency of the song is well below the threshold of human hearing, ESA said.

20/08/2015

JacobVelazquez playing a Taylor Swift Medley

Watch 7-year-old boy with autism plays beautiful Taylor Swift medley



Jacob Velazquez, an adorable 7-year-old boy who was diagnosed with autism three years ago, delivered a cute message to Taylor Swift this week before plowing into a powerful piano medley of her songs from the 1989 album.

"I'm your biggest fan. I hope you can sign this for me one day," Jacob said, holding up his deluxe version of 1989. "I hope we can jam. I created something for you [Taylor Swift], and it goes a little something like this."

Jacob's mother, Tina Velazquez, wrote on AutismSpeaks.org that "he dreams (literally has dreams) of meeting her every night."

This is 7 year old Jacob Velazquez playing his Taylor Swift Piano Medley from her new album 1989. Jacob loves Taylor's music & dreams of jammin with her one ...

16/08/2015

The Countess of Wessex (centre) made it on to Vanity Fair’s 2015 international best-dressed list. Solange Knowles (left) and Iris Apfel (right) did not.

14/08/2015

Have satnavs made us lose our way?

They can lead you to the wrong place but, worse still, the driver’s navigation machine means missing half the discovery of the journey

The Daily Mail recently recorded the miseries of a couple who, en route to an important wedding, were sent wildly out of their way by their satnav and arrived without time to change into their gladrags, let alone wash. It was a reasonable story, but amazing to me that anyone should think it was news. Isn’t this par for the course? It reminds me of being been driven by a cousin to visit my son, who lives north of me. The route that was chosen by the driver’s machine led us street after street towards the west, before finally crawling back eastwards.

It could be argued that I am all too eager to denounce anything mechanical or automatic or modern. I’m not denying that satnavs are useful. I’ll admit that when my son and I were scattering an aunt’s ashes in the Highlands and trying to find the glen she had asked for, the satnav let me off a splendid amount of map reading.

But real travellers learn to anticipate the turn of a river, the scattered buildings that introduce the beginning of a village or factory site; to remember how one change of fields and trees marks a landscape that can be crossed more than one way. In towns the church or shop reminds you where you are.

The driver who never looks at anything but the satnav may get where they want to go, but they will miss half the discovery of the journey.

12/08/2015

Golden wonder: courgette cake with summer vegetables.

12/08/2015

Hey, Siri! Meet the real people behind Apple's voice-activated assistant

Apple users are all familiar with Siri, the company’s voice-activated personal assistant that helps out with everything from speed dialling, scheduling meetings and searching for directions. Users of iOS have had the privilege of Siri’s help since its introduction as part of iOS 5 for the iPhone 4S in 2011, and the function was also added to the third-generation iPads a year later.

Since then Siri has become a firm favourite and often hits the news – for good and bad. Siri has befriended an autistic child, been accused of homophobia, fought for trans rights, mocked maths dunces, come out as a talented rapper and possibly inspired a Spike Jonze film (which Siri did not appreciate).

There are both male and female variations of Siri, and different versions the world over – but who are the real people behind the voices?

We tracked three Siris down. Jon Briggs, who is also the voice of The Weakest Link, was the first British male voice for Siri. Susan Bennett is familiar as the American female Siri – as well as the the voice of Delta Airlines. And Karen Jacobsen is famous in Australia as the “GPS girl” – but her son still finds it strange to talk to a version of her that is trapped in a phone. We find out what it’s like to be in the pockets of millions – and what it’s like to answer the world’s questions.

How does one become the voice of Siri?
Apple are a simply brilliant technology company – but they’re not so brilliant with people
Jon Briggs
Susan: All of the original Siri voices worldwide came from a bank of digital voices that were recorded in 2005. I recorded four hours a day, five days a week for a month. The process is called concatenation, and the reason the original Siri was so iconic is because she was the first concatenated voice to actually sound human.

Karen: I had an audition. I read the brief and thought: “This is me. This job is mine!” I went to the audition and got the job on the spot!

Jon: The original system was recorded for a US company called Scansoft, who were then bought by Nuance. Apple simply licensed it.

12/08/2015

No more LOLs: 50% of Facebook users prefer 'haha'

Social network study finds just 1.9% use ‘LOL’ to signal amusement, as emoji use is on the rise

Still using LOL to express laughter digitally? Ha, that’s so old. According to a new study carried out by Facebook, 51% of us express our laughter on the social network with a simple “haha”.

The US-wide study, entitled The Not-So-Universal Language of Laughter, and conducted in response to a New Yorker article on the subject of “e-laughter”, has collated data on the way de-identified users express mirth. The results are broken down by age, gender and location.

The most common form of e-laughter was found to be haha (or longer variants eg hahaha), followed by emoji and “hehe”. LOL (laugh out loud) accounted for just 1.9% of usage.

Younger users and women are more likely to use an emoji when tickled; men prefer to use hehe (the writer of the New Yorker piece, Sarah Larson, speculates that this might be down to the fact it consists of the pronoun he).

However, while Larson in her piece postulates that hehe is a thing “foisted upon us by youth”, Facebook’s data showed this not to be the case. While the average age of emoji users is slightly lower than fans of haha, users who chose hehe and lol tended to be older.

12/08/2015

Manchester United can improve: just an opinion, not an attempt to conquer Asia

How terrible were Manchester United on Saturday? Try not to all shout out at once, that is not quite a rhetorical question but not meant as a negative one either. I was at the game against Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend, with a brief to evaluate the new-look United and detail where all Louis van Gaal’s signings would fit in, and I filed a report along the lines that they made a solid but unspectacular start.

I ventured to suggest United would be happy with the win and could work on the entertainment factor later in the season. As it was an early kick-off I did not know at the time of filing that Chelsea and Everton would be held at home later in the afternoon, or that Arsenal would make one of their comical false starts a day later, but I reckoned three points against a decent Spurs side was not the worst way to begin a season. I concluded United would have to do better but were not too terrible considering the number of changes made to the team.

05/08/2015

Squirrel News Media's cover photo

05/08/2015

Squirrel News Media

05/08/2015

Obama Dances in Kenya Joining a Folk Dance Craze

Not all formal state dinners have to be stuffy affairs with stiff toasts and stiffer collars. This one gave politicians and dignitaries a chance to move their hips to a traditional folk dance which is currently rocking African nightclubs.

U.S. President Barack Obama joined Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to perform the traditional Lipala dance — with the help of the country’s hottest pop band, Sauti Sol — during a state dinner, July 25

President Obama isn’t the first American leader to show off his moves on the continent. President George W. Bush got his groove on to music in South Africa on a 2008 visit.

“The Lipala dance is actually a dance that has been practiced by the Luhya tribe for the longest time ever,” band member Delvin Mudigi told the BBC.

Sauti Sol has been popularizing the traditional folk dance by mixing it with popular music, reports the BBC. Now that two presidents have been seen nationwide dancing to it, a hit was born.

05/08/2015

DC SHOES: ROBBIE MADDISON'S "PIPE DREAM"

Watch This Daredevil Actually Surfing Big Waves On a Dirt Bike


Riding a motorcycle over breaking ocean waves may sound like an impossible fantasy to surfers and bikers alike, but Australian stunt rider Robbie Maddison makes it a dream come true with his specially-built wave-walking dirt bike.

He’s featured in the video below — “Robbie Maddison’s Pipe Dream” — racing through Tahiti’s jungle on the motocross bike before hitting the water and going full throttle toward giant waves he uses to surf back to shore.

DC presents Robbie “Maddo” Maddison’s “Pipe Dream,” giving the world a chance to witness history being made as Maddo rides his dirt bike on the powerful and ...

05/08/2015

Cowboys’ Darren McFadden knows critics feel he’s ‘just collecting a check’

When it was revealed that Darren McFadden would start training camp on the physically unable to perform list with a hamstring injury, there was an outcry on social media from fans – some of whom no doubt felt schadenfreude about the running back’s latest woes.

McFadden has missed 29 games and has suffered 15 injuries in his NFL career, so the narrative about him has been established. He knows it and bristles when it’s presented to him again.

“People feel like I am just collecting a check,” McFadden, 27, said. “But it’s just something I don’t even pay attention to. I know the type of guy I am. I know what type of player I am. So anything outside these four walls, I don’t even pay attention to it. It’s hard to at times. But at the same time you have to be a pro about it and I know how to approach the game. I know what I can do when I am on the field.”

27/07/2015

Could Twitter and Facebook stop the next terrorist attack?

late, this time to resist pending legislation that would require them to alert law enforcement of possible terrorist attacks, according to a report Friday in the Associated Press.

The legislation, which has been proposed as a part of a larger intelligence bill, is now under review by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It’s inspired by the fact that terrorist groups such as the so-called Islamic State have increasingly used social media to recruit and disseminate propaganda. Nevertheless, the tech firms feel that the language in the proposed bill is too broad, and “would potentially put companies on the hook legally if they miss a tweet, video or blog that hints of an attack,” the AP said.

The firms have also reportedly said in private meetings that they are already doing their part by banning “grisly content like beheadings and [alerting] law enforcement if they suspect someone might get hurt, as soon as they are aware of a threat.”

24/07/2015

Archaeologists find possible evidence of earliest human agriculture

Study of plant remains on shores of Sea of Galilee show crop cultivation may have developed 23,000 years ago

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered dramatic evidence of what they believe are the earliest known attempts at agriculture, 11,000 years before the generally recognised advent of organised cultivation.

The study examined more than 150,000 examples of plant remains recovered from an unusually well preserved hunter-gatherer settlement on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel.

Previously, scientists had believed that organised agriculture in the Middle East, including animal husbandry and crop cultivation, had begun in the late Holocene period – around 12,000 BC – and later spread west through Europe.

The new research is based on excavations at a site known as Ohalo II, which was discovered in 1989 when the water level in the sea of Galilee dropped because of drought and excessive water extraction.

24/07/2015

The rise of urban playgrounds for the elderly

This week’s best city stories from around the web include playgrounds for older generations, protests against London’s anti-homeless spikes, recycled car tyres helping street trees in Seattle – and an influx of hanging di**os in Portland.

We’d love to hear your responses to these stories, and any others you’ve read recently, both on Guardian Cities and elsewhere. Just share your thoughts in the comments below.

Play time
As many cities adapt to ageing populations, urban design has to keep up. In order to encourage more active lifestyles in later life – as well as spaces for socialising – playgrounds and outdoor gyms are being created for the older generation. As Upworthy explain, this has been a developing trend in Spain for a while, in addition to Japan and even Manchester. Now, the organisation KaBOOM! has built over 50 intergenerational playgrounds in the US.

15/07/2015

Google Launches Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast at $15

Google's dongle-shaped Chromecast was launched back in 2013 and has been one of the popular choices for streaming Google Cast apps and Internet video services like Netflix, YouTube and other content through the HDMI port of TV sets, apart from mirroring certain Android devices. The device however had its limitations as it supported 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n bands instead of 5GHz Wi-Fi 802.11ac bands, and a refreshed model has been long expected for increased bandwidth.

Now, Google has launched an Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast that gives users to ability to add a wired connection for hard-to-reach Wi-Fi spots. The $15 (approximately Rs. 950) Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast went on sale via Google Store on Wednesday and was soon listed as 'out of stock.' The company is yet to reveal when the stocks of the Adapter for Chromecast for Chromecast will be replenished. So far Google has also not revealed whether the Ethernet Adapter for Chromecast will go on sale outside the US.

The Google Store listing notes, "This optional accessory lets you connect your Chromecast directly to your router to create a fast and reliable connection for your Chromecast." The Ethernet adapter can be connected to the Chromecast via the included USB cable and run an Ethernet cable from the router to the power supply, and plug in.

Lenovo in May launched its own version of a media streaming device named Lenovo Cast, which could also mirror content from mobile devices to TV screens. The palm-sized hockey puck-shaped device was priced at $49 and would be available worldwide starting August. The Lenovo Cast supports dual 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi network bands (but not 802.11ac), which gives a range of roughly 20 metres and mirrors content from mobile devices to TV screens in 1080p resolution. The device features a single Micro-USB port, a Micro-HDMI port, and HDCP 2.0. It also supports HDMI 1.3. It has a diameter of 70mm, a height of 15mm, and weighs 50 grams. Apart from being able to stream media, the device also lets users easily mirror their smartphone's display on the connected television.

With 5GHz Wi-Fi, the Lenovo Cast had some features over and above Google's Chromecast dongle already in the market. However, Google is expected to launch the next-generation Chromecast or Chromecast 2 this year.

13/07/2015

N.B.A. Salary Cap Is Set

The N.B.A. salary cap has been set for next season at $70 million, a higher-than-expected number that paves the way for free-agent contracts to be signed. The league said the cap had increased by 11 percent, and the 2015-16 cap is the highest in history. Until recently, it had been projected to come in closer to $67 million.

The NBA had a good 2014-15 season financially.

On Wednesday, the league announced that the salary cap for the 2015-16 season has been set at $70 million, an all-time high. The cap for 2014-15 was $63.2 million.

The new cap goes into effect at 9:01 p.m. PDT Wednesday, when the moratorium period ends. Teams can then begin signing free agents as well as make trades.

The salary cap is set annually by computing 44.74 percent of the league's basketball-related income. The higher-than-expected cap for 2015-16 -- the league's early estimates placed it at $67 million -- will mean a higher value for players who sign maximum contracts, such as LaMarcus Aldridge, who has agreed to a four-year max deal with San Antonio.

Aldridge's max deal would pay him a starting salary of 30 percent of the cap (based on his years of service in the league).

09/07/2015

Calvin Harris Wanted To Meet Taylor Swift Three Years Ago

Calvin Harris Wanted To Meet Taylor Swift Three Years Ago


It’s almost as though they were destined to be together.

09/07/2015

Summer budget 2015 represents new centre of UK politics, says Osborne

Chancellor says big rises in minimum wage in return for cut in welfare is ‘a new settlement with Britain’, but Labour says reforms amount to a work penalty

George Osborne has claimed that his politically audacious budget, promising big rises in the minimum wage in return for a cut in welfare, represents “the new centre of British politics”.

As Labour struggled to calibrate an effective response – accepting the principle of the reforms but opposing the way in which they are implemented – the chancellor claimed his budget represented a “new settlement” with Britain.

Osborne told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday: “What we are saying to business is ‘pay higher wages but you get lower taxes’. What we are saying to people is ‘you get a bigger pay cheque but there will be a less generous benefit system’ . What we are saying to the country is ‘we are going to spend less but we are going to live within our means’. That is the new settlement and I think it is the new centre of British politics.”

The chancellor said that Britain had a “low-pay problem” that had to be addressed, but he also said the welfare system was unsustainable.

09/07/2015

A trial of a malaria vaccine that targets the most dangerous variety of parasite that causes the disease has shown some positive early results.
The vaccine, developed at Oxford University, was 67% effective in a study of 121 men in Kenya, it found.
Encouraging results have now been recorded for two malaria vaccines, after 20 years of research.

In the Oxford trial, published in Science Translational Medicine, scientists used two viruses - one a chimpanzee virus - to stimulate the body's immune system to produce cells that can fight against malaria.
This is a novel type of "viral vectored" vaccine that targets the parasite in the liver.
Following up participants after eight weeks, they found the vaccine had reduced the risk of malaria by two-thirds in those who had been given it.
Prof Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, said: "Such high efficacy in this first field trial is encouraging for further testing in children and infants who most need a malaria vaccine."
But malaria transmission levels had been "unexpectedly low" during the trial, the study said, so it was difficult to know how the vaccine would have performed if the malaria risk had been high.
The Oxford researchers are now testing the safety of the vaccine in children and babies in Burkina Faso.
Chris Drakeley, professor of infection and immunity and director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine malaria centre, was involved in collating data from final clinical trials of another malaria vaccine in young children, published recently.

09/07/2015

Pluto spacecraft temporarily loses contact with Earth

NASA works to recover probe less than ten days before it reaches the dwarf planet.

The spacecraft went into safe mode because the flight computer was doing too many things at once, the New Horizons team has announced. While one part of the computer was compressing data it had already gathered, another part was burning a future command sequence into flash memory. The two tasks were more than the processor could handle at one time, said project manager Glen Fountain. No similar combination of tasks is expected between now and the 14 July encounter. Although some 30 science observations were lost because of the glitch, the spacecraft is on course to gather science as planned during the closest part of the Pluto flyby.

The New Horizons team plans to resume science operations on 7 July. It says that the spacecraft went into safe mode after a timing flaw in a command sequence.

Ten days before its historic fly-by of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft lost contact with mission control for unknown reasons for 1 hour and 21 minutes on 4 July.

Engineers have since begun talking with the probe again, but NASA says it will take several days to get New Horizons back to normal. In the meantime, the US$700-million spacecraft is not recording science data. It is just 11 million kilometres from Pluto, and closing in fast.

Communication issues are exacerbated by the fact that it takes four and a half hours to send a signal, travelling at the speed of light, across the nearly 4.8 billion kilometres to the spacecraft — and four and a half hours back. In that elapsed time, the Earth has rotated so much that mission controllers must switch from one to another of the three deep-space antennas that communicate with spacecraft: in Goldstone, California; Canberra; and Madrid.

09/07/2015

Joy as solar plane breaks flight record The aeroplane Solar Impulse 2 broke the record for the longest non-stop solar-powered solo flight on 3 July. It landed at Kalaeloa Airport in Honolulu after travelling for 4 days, 21 hours and 52 minutes and covering 7,212 kilometres. The trip was the riskiest leg of an attempt to fly around the world, starting from Abu Dhabi in March, relying exclusively on solar power. Pilot André Borschberg (right) flew the craft from Nagoya, Japan, and Bertrand Piccard (left) will fly the plane on to Phoenix, Arizona.

09/07/2015

‘Sharktacular': Discovery Channel Thrills Fans With A Sneak Peak Of Shark Week July 2015

Sharktacular teases that Shark Week is almost here, and Discovery Channel wants to make sure its viewers are ready for that spectacular week by giving just a snippet of what it will be like. Shark Week doesn’t officially begin until Sunday, July 5, but tonight, the premiere of Shark Week Sharktacular 2015 will kick off with a sneak peak. Hosted by talented filmmaker Eli Roth, Sharktacular will air the most riveting home video footage from fans who have had terrifying experiences with deadly sharks.

09/07/2015

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09/07/2015

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