Wednesday 26 February 2014

Legendary female wrestling pioneer Mae Young dies, aged 90

Pioneering female professional wrestler Mae Young has passed away aged 90.

To date, Mae Young is the only professional wrestler in history (male or female) to have had documented matches in nine different decades. She began wrestling in 1939, at the onset of the Second World War and her last match took place in 2010.

Young, real name Johnnie Mae Young, was originally billed as ‘The Amazing’, ‘The Queen’ or ‘The Great’ Mae Young but was ultimately far better known simply as Mae Young. She enjoyed one of the most celebrated and unique careers in the history of professional wrestling.

Young’s wrestling debut came whilst she was still a teenager, after starring in the boy’s amateur wrestling team at school. During World War 2, she became a popular attraction, inspiring many other women to become professional wrestlers.

In 1951, Young was crowned as the first ever NWA Florida (National Wrestling Alliance) Women’s Champion and eventually became the NWA’s first United States Women’s Champion.

During the 50’s, Young wrestled for the WWWA (World Women’s Wrestling Association), bringing credibility and popularity to Women’s wrestling. She remained a draw throughout her career.

Modern day wrestling fans know Young best for her stint with the WWF (World Wrestling Federation – now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE) from 1999-2000, in which she played a more comedic role. However, despite being nearly 80 years old, Young was still highly active as a wrestler. She participated in matches and storylines with her best friend, The Fabulous Moolah, another pioneer of Women’s wrestling and multi-time Women’s Champion (who had been partly trained by Young).

Mae Young would appear on WWE television, playing a number of roles from comedy character to respected veteran, throughout the next decade, with her final appearance being a celebration of her 90th birthday in 2013.

Memorable moments from her WWE tenure include being kissed by The Rock, giving the ‘Bronco Buster’ finisher to former WCW (World Championship Wrestling) boss Eric Bischoff, being beaten up by Tag Team wrestlers The Dudley Boyz and becoming ‘pregnant’ by Olympic weightlifter and former World Heavyweight Champion Mark Henry. “She will be missed as much as anyone I’ve ever known!” said Henry.

In 2008, Mae Young was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Since the announcement of Young’s death, tributes have flooded in from the wrestling world. Former WWE Champion-turned actor The Rock said, “She is a wrestling pioneer. I truly had deep affection and respect for ‘Auntie Mae’ Young”

WWE boss Vince McMahon said, “Her longevity in sports entertainment may never be matched, and I will forever be grateful for all of her contributions to the industry. On behalf of WWE, I extend our sincerest condolences to her family and friends.”

‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper wrote, “”May Young was a wonderful lady! When I started in the business May teased me a lot. Love you May!” Multiple time WWE, WCW and NWA Champion Ric Flair called Young “An incredible person and pioneer of the wrestling business” Whilst, in an emotional Tweet, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts wrote, “Nobody, male or female, loved & respected the wrestling business more than her. True legend.”

Mae Young will be remembered by her fans as a pioneer and a female icon, as well as a charismatic performer with a great sense of humor. She was genuinely among the toughest human beings, be they male or female, to ever step between the ropes.

SOURCES

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/mae-young-dead-womens-wrestling-3025555

http://www.ontheredcarpet.com/Mae-Young-dies:-WWE-Hall-of-Famer-was-90/9394471 


Wednesday 19 February 2014

Batman & Son preview released by Warner Bros and DC Entertainment

Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment have released a trailer for their upcoming animated feature ‘Son of Batman’. The film will be an adaptation of the 2006 story ‘Batman & Son’, which was written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Andy Kubert.

The comic story deals with the introduction of Bruce Wayne’s son, Damian Wayne, who also happens to be the grandchild of Batman’s nemesis Ra’s Al Ghul. The original story was published in Batman issues 655-658 and proved to be somewhat polarizing amongst the DC Comics fanbase.

The trailer hints that this film will be slightly different from the original story, with a greater emphasis seemingly placed on Damian’s membership within the League of Assassins, the worldwide organisation headed up by his grandfather.

The trailer also suggests that Deathstroke, known to younger fans from the popular ‘Teen Titans’ TV series, will be the main antagonist in the film version, instead of Talia, who was the principle enemy of the comic book story.

It also seems unlikely that this film will take up its potentially broader role as the opening chapter in Grant Morrison’s epic, 7-year Batman story arc; a story which ended with Damian’s controversial death in 2013. For now, it seems that this film will be a one-off.

DC Entertainment’s animated features have proven to be very popular with fans. Film adaptations of well-loved Batman stories such as ‘Batman: Year One’, ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ and ‘Under the Red Hood’ are all big sellers for download or on DVD/Blu Ray.

Jason O’Mara will voice Batman in the new film, whilst Morena Baccarin will voice Damian’s mother, Talia. Completing the casting are Carlo Esposito as Ra’s Al Ghul and Stuart Allen, who is voicing the titular character.

Bat-fans can expect to download or buy ‘Son of Batman’ late in the spring.

Monday 17 February 2014

Unsustainable materials used in our everyday gadgets, are going to run out someday!

A new report has concluded that a sizeable proportion of modern technology (in particular smartphones, tablets and other commonly-used gadgets) is extremely over reliant on very rare materials.

If the report’s findings are accurate, the scarcity of the metals and metalloids in question, combined with a sharply increasing demand for such devices, could seriously damage design innovation, as well as the manufacture of future products.

The report, compiled by researchers at Yale University, discussed the use of 62 materials found in widely used technology. Ultimately, the study concluded that none of the 62 metals or metalloids could be replaced without damaging the efficiency of the product. In fact, 12 of the 62 materials could not be replaced at all.

The potential substitute materials simply aren’t up to the job or, perhaps more worryingly, don’t actually exist. In either instance, these material shortages could lead to an economic and technological downturn in the development of mobile technology.

All of the rare components listed are difficult and expensive to obtain.

This scarcity of product availability would limit potential profits, as well as creating something of a ‘glass ceiling’ for innovation and product improvement.

This new report marks the first time that this worrying issue has been properly researched.

In the eyes of many, this study should be seen as a warning and a wake up call. In 2010, China restricted the trading of some of the components featured in the study. It was an act that increased market prices fivefold.

As these materials become increasingly rare, tactics like this may become ever more frequent, causing increased political tension around the world.

It also needs to be stated that the mass manufacture of these devices drains the planet of natural resources and the processing of these materials seriously harms our environment.

The report itself warns that,

“As wealth and population increase worldwide in the next few decades, scientists will be increasingly challenged to maintain and improve product utility by designing new and better materials, but doing so under potential constraints in resource availability.”

SOURCE:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25260174


Saturday 15 February 2014

Yahoo! Becomes ‘Yikes!’ as Recycled Accounts Relay Sensitive Information to the Wrong People

Yahoo!’s policy of recycling inactive email accounts has backfired on them, as new account owners are receiving personal emails that aren’t meant for them.

The policy, active since June, means that Yahoo IDs and addresses are reassigned to a new user if left inactive for a year or more. But obviously both Yahoo! and some of its users got more than they bargained for.

The emails have been reported to contain highly sensitive information. As a result, privacy experts have been called in, in order to solve the problem quickly and without further incident.

According to a Yahoo! Spokesperson, “Before recycling inactive accounts we attempted to reach the account owners [in] multiple ways to notify them that they needed to log in to their account or it would be subject to recycling,” The spokesperson went on to say that, “We took many precautions to ensure this was done safely – including deleting any private data from the previous account owner, sending bounce-backs to the senders for at least 30-60 days letting them know the account no longer existed and unsubscribing the accounts from commercial mail.”

Interviewed by BBC News, Tom Jenkins, an IT security professional and recipient of such an account, revealed just how damaging this malfunction could potentially be, “I can gain access to their Pandora account, but I won’t. I can gain access to their Facebook account, but I won’t. I know their name, address and phone number. I know where their child goes to school. I know the last four digits of their social security number. I know they had an eye doctor’s appointment last week and I was just invited to their friend’s wedding.”

As much as Yahoo

! has responded swiftly to this scandal, critics who have slated the initiative from the beginning are now finding themselves vindicated. Mike Rispoli of Privacy International said, “These problems were flagged by security and privacy experts a few months ago when Yahoo announced their intention to recycle old emails, and cautioned that Yahoo’s plan created significant security and privacy risks. Yahoo downplayed these risks, and ignored critics, but now we see these concerns were legitimate,”

Mr. Rispoli went on to say that, “This email recycling scheme, an effort to re-engage old users and attract new ones, is resulting in some of our most intimate data being accessed by someone we don’t know and without our knowledge (…) We’re talking about account passwords, contacts for friends and families, medical records – this issue needs to be addressed immediately by Yahoo if they care about the privacy of their users and want them to trust the company with sensitive information.”

Our experts say that the best way to avoid this fate is actually to cancel any email account that is not currently in at least semi-regular use, having first deleted all content from the account.

SOURCE:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24283179


Monday 10 February 2014

Innovative or Simply Post-Modern? New Paradigms in the Study of "Radio"

Radio is the wireless transmission of signals through free space by electromagnetic radiation of a frequency significantly below that of visible light, in the radio frequency range, from about 30 kHz to 300 GHz. These waves are called radio waves. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space.
Information, such as sound, is carried by systematically changing some property of the radiated waves, such as their amplitude, frequency, phase, or pulse width. When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and transformed back into its original form.
Etymology
The etymology of “radio” or “radiotelegraphy” reveals that it was called “wireless telegraphy”, which was shortened to “wireless” in Britain. The prefix radio- in the sense of wireless transmission, was first recorded in the word radioconductor, a description provided by the French physicist Édouard Branly in 1897. It is based on the verb to radiate .

The word “radio” also appears in a 1907 article by Lee De Forest. It was adopted by the United States Navy in 1912, to distinguish radio from several other wireless communication technologies, such as the photophone. The term became common by the time of the first commercial broadcasts in the United States in the 1920s. The term was adopted by other languages in Europe and Asia. British Commonwealth countries continued to commonly use the term “wireless” until the mid-20th century, though the magazine of the BBC in the UK has been called Radio Times ever since it was first published in the early 1920s.

In recent years the more general term “wireless” has gained renewed popularity through the rapid growth of short-range computer networking, e.g., Wireless Local Area Network, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, as well as mobile telephony, e.g., GSM and UMTS. Today, the term “radio” specifies the actual type of transceiver device or chip, whereas “wireless” refers to the lack of physical connections; one talks about radio transceivers, but another talks about wireless devices and wireless sensor networks.
Processes

Radio systems used for communications will have the following elements. With more than 100 years of development, each process is implemented by a wide range of methods, specialized for different communications purposes.

Transmitter and modulation
Each system contains a transmitter. This consists of a source of electrical energy, producing alternating current of a desired frequency of oscillation. The transmitter contains a system to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it. This modulation might be as simple as turning the energy on and off, or altering more subtle properties such as amplitude, frequency, phase, or combinations of these properties. The transmitter sends the modulated electrical energy to a tuned resonant antenna; this structure converts the rapidly changing alternating current into an electromagnetic wave that can move through free space.

Amplitude modulation of a carrier wave works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in proportion to the information being sent. For example, changes in the signal strength can be used to reflect the sounds to be reproduced by a speaker, or to specify the light intensity of television pixels. It
was the method used for the first audio radio transmissions, and remains in use today. “AM” is often used to refer to the mediumwave broadcast band .

Frequency modulation varies the frequency of the carrier. The instantaneous frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal. Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier’s frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying.
FM is commonly used at VHF radio frequencies for high-fidelity broadcasts of music and speech . Normal TV sound is also broadcast using FM.

Angle modulation alters the instantaneous phase of the carrier wave to transmit a signal. It is another term for Phase modulation.

Saturday 8 February 2014

Images from the Web 01

My first set of Funny pictures that i found whilst trawling the intenet……..























Wednesday 5 February 2014

REACH EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE WITH MOTOTRBO SYSTEMS


The Mototrbo two way radio has many different uses, but it works best at communicating two or more persons between one another, be it leisure or business, long distance communication can be essential in many different environments. This promotional article was firstly a PDF at the motorola Website.

Want to increase the number of users on your system or extend coverage to another site? Connect workers in different locations or access voice and data without adding new frequencies? MOTOTRBO has a scalable system that fits your workforce and your facilities.

CONVENTIONAL SYSTEMS

Benefit from the best of two-way radio with digital technology and enjoy integrated voice and data communication, increased capacity, enhanced features, exceptional voice quality and extended battery performance.

IP Site Connect

Use the Internet to extend MOTOTRBO’s voice and data capabilities. Link up to 15 sites at geographically dispersed locations, create wide-area coverage or enhance coverage at a single site with physical barriers.

Capacity Plus

Opt for this single site digital trunking system to maximise the capacity of MOTOTRBO. Use it for a high volume of voice and data communications and link over a thousand users at a single site.

Linked Capacity Plus

Expand the capacity and extend the coverage of MOTOTRBO with this digital trunking system. It leverages the high capacity call management of Capacity Plus, with the wide area coverage capabilities of IP Site Connect, to keep your staff at various locations connected with an affordable wide area trunking solution.

Connect Plus

For even larger systems, keep your mobile workforce connected with this scalable, multi-site digital trunking system. Queue calls during busy times until an open channel is available, assign important users priority

status when the system is in high demand, and use a wire-line console for centralised dispatch.

RADIO ACCESSORIES EXTEND PERFORMANCE


Whether you’re working in harsh conditions, noisy environments, long shifts or looking for discreet communication, MOTOTRBO accessories and batteries stand up to the task and stand out in the field. Time after time, in lab test after test, they outperform leading brands. Our complete portfolio, including wireless Bluetooth earpieces and industry-exclusive IMPRES technology, is designed to perform optimally with our MOTOTRBO radios.

IMPRES MAXIMISES BATTERY LIFE

For the utility crew working overtime to restore power, the job stops when the radio stops operating. IMPRES chargers evaluate battery usage and determine the best time to recondition it, ensuring you get the most out of every battery. IMPRES batteries can also be left in IMPRES chargers for extended periods without heat damage from the charger, so your batteries are ready to go when you need them.

EXCEPTIONALLY CLEAR AUDIO WITH IMPRES ACCESSORIES

IMPRES audio accessories communicate with the radio to help suppress ambient noise, improve voice intelligibility and amplify loudness – even in noisy situations and harsh weather. So if you’re a security officer with an IMPRES remote speaker microphone or a hospitality manager wearing an earpiece, you can carry on a conversation with clarity, simplicity and certainty.

EXPERIENCE MORE FREEDOM WITH BLUETOOTH

Bluetooth accessories make communications even more convenient giving you freedom to take your radio off your belt or move around your vehicle (within 30 feet) and still stay connected. Drivers can check on packages in the back of the truck or hotel receptionists can leave the radio on the desk, yet still send and receive critical radio communications.

QUICK-RELEASE ACCESSORY CONNECTOR

The DP2000 Series features a uniquely designed connector so accessories can be quickly and easily attached and detached with one hand, and an innovative new locking feature connects the accessory without any tools required.

MOTOTRBO is remastering digital two-way communications – and redefining what customers expect from a radio solution. With the MOTOTRBO portfolio of portable and mobile radios, repeaters, data applications, accessories, software and services, you can put the right device into the hands of the right user. From the supervisor of a production line, to the facilities manager in a crowded stadium, to the technician repairing power lines, MOTOTRBO radios make workers more efficient and productive.

For more information on how to remaster your workforce with the right solution, visit www.motorolasolutions.com/mototrbo


Monday 3 February 2014

We take a considered look at the Motorola SL4000

There are many jobs that require two way radios instead of phones. Any time you'll want to make contact with someone, clearly and rapidly, you’ll be focusing on a radio over a mobile. Also, for ensuring that everybody has access to the same transmittion and that they’ll always be contactable, a two way radio is certainly the way to go. From working as the bouncer, to working on a building site, from site work to military manoeuvres, walkie talkies are an indispensable part of many working environments.

The leading two way radio brand name is Motorola, so, with that in mind, we have great expectations for this SL4000, let us see how it presents.

THE SPECS

The Motorola SL4000 is designed with discretion in mind. Tiny, slim, sleek and lightweight, this radio device is great for speaking with others, quietly and unobtrusively. It weighs the equivalent as the standard smart phone.

However, regardless of its petite build, the SL4000 is a very commanding two way radio, able to transmit and receive over a surprisingly broad range. Because of this, it's clear that this 2 way radio is best suited to utilizes like airports, motels, security, hospitality and anyplace else that a large, armed forces style two-way communication is perhaps a little bit clear for the tasks at hand.

It also is included with built-in Bluetooth, a special ‘covert mode’ and smart audio.

THE PRICE

It's certainly not the lowest priced 2 way radio on the market. However, it has been created specially for business use and will be judged on those virtues. The Sl4000 radio is most definitely not just a ‘hobby’ radio, nor is it a radio that is meant for amusement in any way. This is a dependable, top of the line radio that has been created for hotel/airport/security/public service staff and has spared no expense in the process. The cost is what it truly is, but you will get what you pay for.

THE PERFOMANCE

The first thing we noticed concerning the SL4000 is just how smart it really is. We were set for a pleasant, little walkie talkie, obviously, however it really is a surprising design. In reality, at first glance, you could easily mistake it for a circa-early 2000’s phone.

The Motorola sl4000 has a amazing array of connectivity options, including a USB port for programming and charging, in addition to an choice to charge upright inside a charger, or simply disconnect the battery and charge it independently. The battery alone, by the way, is only slightly larger than a mobile phone battery.

The screen is crystal clear and a cell phone-style menu screen allows you to choose your particular talk group. In reality, there is a menu screen for just about everything, it is clear that this is a more urban, more cosmopolitan two way radio than nearly all of its peers. It will even create ‘text messages’.
The audio quality is very good certainly (even using the miniature speakers) and you’ll have no problem communicating between this and some other radio device.

The only downside we could find is that it only handles digital, not analogue. Still, that really is not the end of the world lately, is it?

THE VERDICT

This walkie talkie could be a very bad option for ‘Operation Desert Storm’, but as a more unobtrusive, contemporary style of radio, it is perfectly suited to the purposes that it is intended.

Sophisticated, modern, tidy and completely smooth to operate, the Motorola sl4000 is a genuine winner. This is a bit like the supple younger sister of that DP3600, cooler, smarter, sexy and downright charming – an incredible product and a substantial step forward in urban radio technology as well.

Once again, Motorola supply a fine product, but this time it is a little far from their typical fare. Still, they thrive with aplomb, creating what's quite possibly the very best model of its type around.

Sunday 2 February 2014

Tech We’d Like To See: The Dead Actor’s Studio

Imagine a young Marlon Brando starring alongside Johnny Depp, or Audrey Hepburn playing rival to Sandra Bullock as Marilyn Monroe stops by for a catty cameo.

Depending on how you look at it, this is either tantalizing ‘fantasy film making’ or else an utterly horrible, cash-in exercise in Hollywood excess. Whatever your viewpoint, it does seem likely that someone, somewhere will try this in the near future.

About three years ago, the news broke that George Lucas, the genius behind the ‘Star Wars’ merchandise (and a couple of related movies), was buying up the likeness rights to a plethora of iconic, yet deceased, leading men and famous actresses from Hollywood’s golden age. His plan? To use a concoction of existing footage, CGI and motion capture to create reasonable facsimiles of classic Hollywood stars and have them appear in future films, despite the notable handicap of being, well, dead.

Initially, it was just for one project, but it raised the prospect of other films being made, as well as a number of interesting philosophical issues.

The majority of critics reacted negatively to the notion of these ‘Franken-films’, some saying that the magic of an individual acting performance would be notably absent in the films, others upset that the actors themselves could potentially ‘star’ in projects that they may not have supported in life.

It really must be said, however, that blockbuster movies like 2009’s ‘Avatar’ and 2011’s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ already received plaudits for their use of motion capture techniques and CGI ‘acting’. It is an accepted part of modern cinema, like it or not.

Lest we forget, George Lucas’ own ‘Star Wars’ films also featured a number of purely CG characters. In our era, we are becoming very used to CG characters; even CG versions of real actors are commonplace. It really isn’t a huge leap of imagination (or available technology) to foresee deceased stars headlining blockbusters once again.

We are also living in a world that specializes in the glorification of deceased idols and recycled imagery (take a look at this month’s music magazines and count how many times you see Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain or other dead stars on the covers). Look at the movie magazines as they feature young DeNiro as Travis Bickle, or Ray Liotta as Henry Hill. We, as consumers, are being conditioned to expect our stars to be able to do anything we can imagine, including coming back from the dead.

Why we want it:



The question here, to at least some degree, is ‘do we want it?’ but for now, I’m going to be positive and assume that we do…

Bringing classic actors back to ‘life’ would be a daring and controversial decision and would inspire all kinds of debates. It would also, no doubt, stimulate the film industry by providing literally hundreds of thousands of new prospects, pairings and casting choices.

On the downside, it would probably create an updated version of the old Hollywood studio system that would likely prove to be a legal nightmare involving no small amount of heartache for the families of the stars being featured. It could also have the negative effect of holding down upcoming talent.

However, many Hollywood actors do what they do for a shot at immortality and this is, frankly, the closest that they are likely to get to that goal. It would not surprise me at all if ‘likeness rights’ contracts started containing an ‘after death’ clause that specified use of the actor’s image in posthumous film projects.

Culturally speaking, in a world where dead musicians like Hendrix and 2Pac routinely release albums and where popular music is dominated by the ‘sampling’ (and in some cases, outright theft) of other works, or where film texts constantly, almost obsessive-compulsively, reference each other (in what has become the intertextual equivalent of an M.C Escher drawing), rehashing the stars of the past seems like an obvious choice.

Dead icons could spice up Hollywood by adding controversy, class and bankability to the summer’s contrived blockbuster selection. Plus, all their skeletons, secrets and shameful actions are already a matter of public record, so there’s no ill-timed revelatory ‘gossip’ that’s going to rear up and threaten the production.

Even those who oppose the making of such movies will still have to watch them in order to write the requisite bad reviews, this simply proves the old adage that controversy generates cash.

When can we expect it?

Oh snap, it already happened. In the year 2000, actor Oliver Reed sadly died during the filming of Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’. In order for him to finish what would become his final role, the VFX team created a CG ‘mask’ of Reed’s face and used a body double to complete their film.

Remember that car advert with Steve McQueen? It has already begun.

Real, workable CGI stars are already a reality, but the technology does not yet exist to create a completely CG James Dean for a sequel to ‘Rebel Without a Cause’. I’d give it maybe 10-20 years before we start seeing the stars in respectful, tasteful cameo roles, or else old actors performing alongside their younger selves. After that, it’ll be 3-5 years before we see the screen idols like Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Grace Kelly headlining movies again.

Cool factor 3/5 – It really depends on how these ‘stars’ are handled. The results could, potentially, be beautiful codas to a star’s career (which is how they could be sold to the audience), but they could also be horribly insulting, denigrating the work of great actors and actresses. Time is going to tell, as usual…