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Nevada Assemblyman Harvey Munford is worried about all the people he has seen texting while walking. And why shouldn’t he be I mean, persons are walking off piers left and right. Apparently, he’s been searching for the harmful practice since a constituent brought it to his attention last year.

“I was just amazed by what I saw,” he said. “So a lot of people are almost oblivious. They’re texting and texting, totally unaware as they cross even six-lane highways.”

Not desirous to leave it to natural selection to sort everything out, Munford has proposed Assembly Bill 123, in an effort to outlaw texting and walking usually all over the state. Which means texting while walking on urban streets, state roads, or even out within the suburbs could be met with a penalty.

That penalty would start with a warning and increase to a $250 fine by the point the violator receives their third citation.

The only exceptions to the statute would allow for folks to text while walking around the road in two specific situations either a medical emergency or the reporting of against the law.

Reporting on your friend Ashley that whatever Taylor was wearing on the club last night was a “fashion crime” is not exempted.

Munford is following within the trailblazing footsteps of officials in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In May of 2012, that town of just over 35,000 started to ticket “distracted walkers.” Before resorting to fines, Fort Lee tried reasoning with the population by issuing pedestrian safety messages. That didn’t work, in order that they started giving summons to these caught texting while crossing the road.

Fines for texting while walking could appear a little bit dramatic to a couple. Maybe we must always try texting “e-lanes,” jokingly proposed by Philadelphia last year

Or, as previously suggested, maybe just let it work itself out.

[LA Times]

A lot of individuals, including yours truly, don’t like Windows 8 all that much. Most of our frustration comes from the undeniable fact that the latest OS forces you besides into the Metro Windows 8 UI. It also bumped off the beginning button because Microsoft desired to save space. Well, a brand new open source app will make your whole Windows 8 troubles depart.

The app is known as Classic Shell, and it does because the name suggests. It allows users to insert the beginning button back into the desktop on Windows 8. There are other apps that do the identical thing, but this one provides a call. Users can choose from plenty of start menus including the classic Start menu from the mid-90s.

In even better news, Classic Shell also is ready to prevent Windows 8 from booting into the brand new UI. In my experience, I’ve found the brand new UI to just decelerate my PC. Eliminating it from the boot process will only be a great thing.

There are some those who enjoy Windows 8 and its Live Tile UI, but plenty of people also hate it. It’s unfortunate that Microsoft seems completely ignoring their customers that detest the UI that Windows 8 is forcing upon them. There need to have been an option from the start that permits desktop users to simply persist with the classic interface while not having to have interaction with the Live Tiles.

Until Microsoft reverses course and really starts caring about desktop users, apps like this are going to be our greatest bet. We will only hope that Microsoft won’t try and shut down these apps that offer an important for us curmudgeons that don’t want anything to do with Microsoft’s vision of “progress.”

You can download the most recent version of Classic Shell over at Sourceforge. In case you’re feeling helpful, you’ll be able to contribute to the open source project to make it even better.

[h/t: The Register]

Nintendo is in a pickle. It must sell more hardware before its fiscal year ends this month. January was not kind to the console, and we should always soon be seeing if February was any better. For March, however, Nintendo has just a few aces up its sleeve, including the delightful LEGO City: Undercover.

LEGO City: Undercover has received multiple online trailers thus far, but none of them are going to have much mainstream impact. For that, Nintendo must ensure that its first new TV ad in two months does an exceptional job of promoting the console’s unique qualities.

The ad doesn’t exactly scream system seller to me, but preexisting Wii U owners will probably buy the sport as they’ve been starved for content the past few months. LEGO City: Undercover isn’t alone in March, however, as Capcom could be releasing the highly anticipated Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate at the Wii U and 3DS later this month.

LEGO City: Undercover shall be available exclusively on March 18 exclusively for Wii U.

You can say that this one was born out of a kind of Rule 34-esque necessity. If it exists online, someone has taken it and turned it into porn. Or, you must say that it simply filled a gap that wasn’t available since most related sites ban pornographic content. Regardless of the reason, Offbeatr is here and it’s the Kickstarter for porn.

It’s only been live for about a weeks, but Offbeatr is starting to pick up steam.

It works in a fashion the same as Kickstarter person starts a project, people fund it (or they don’t), and that they have a specific amount of time to succeed in certain goals. Plus, Offbeatr also allows project leaders to give rewards.

The difference is that Offbeatr has a variety process. Once somebody becomes a verified project creator, they may be allowed to create a project idea. That concept must then be approved, and after that a voting process begins. Before they are able to start collecting money for his or her project, creators need to hit a undeniable vote goal.

Of course, Offbeatr could be a chief target for illegal and otherwise questionable project ideas. That’s component to the explanation why they’ve an approval process. They do forbid certain projects in addition, as an instance ones containing elements of rape or violence, bestiality, incest, minor involvement, etc.

As of at present, a number of the featured project include a furry adult comic book called “Within the Candy Box,” a video series called “Super F*ck Friends,” an internet site in finding your “Sex twin,” an e-book that explores sexuality and Asperger’s syndrome, and a “Japanese Porn Cultural Exchange.

So, as you can find, the guidelines are pretty diverse.

As of now, Offbeatr is purely accepting project creators from the U.S., the united kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. When asked why Offbeatr charges a bit greater than other crowdsourced project sites, they cite their all-or-nothing funding model and the truth that adult websites have a harder time getting their payments processed or should pay more to take action.

Offbeatr caps its goal amount at $30,000. The bottom project you may submit is one with a $300 goal. Project creators are just allowed to run one project at a time.

Offbeatr offers a SFW versions of the location and NSFW version of the location. Browsers are taken to the SFW version by default.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Over the years, may hypotheses about how the fireplace aboard the Hindenburg started were proposed. One of many more popular theories in conspiracy theory circles is that the airship was sabotaged, by anyone from communists to Adolf Hitler. This week, a brand new documentary at the disaster will endorse one of the crucial more mainstream explanations for the explosion.

According to a report by The Independent, the brand new documentary, to air Thursday at the U.K.’s Channel 4, states that static electricity might have set the zeppelin ablaze. On this scenario, an electric storm had charged the airship while gas had somehow leaked into the Hindenburg’s ventilation shafts. Crew members who took up the zeppelin’s landing ropes could have grounded the ship’s frame, but not its skin, causing the spark that result in the fireplace on the tail end of the ship.

According to the Independent, a gaggle of experts led by aeronautical engineer Jem Stansfield set fire to various scale models of the Hindenburg before reaching this conclusion. The research team recreated different scenarios for the disaster using the replicas, and tested multiple theories, including sabotage.

The Hindenburg, a German passenger airship, caught fire on May 6, 1937 over an airfield on the Lakehurst Naval Airstation in New Jersey. The blaze took down the airship in under 20 seconds, causing the deaths of 35 of the 97 people on board the ship. Newsreel footage of the disaster, featuring commentary from radio reporter Herbert Morrison, has become famous and is the origin of the popularization of the phrase, “oh the humanity!”

A University of Colorado (CU) analysis of the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election predicts that Mitt Romney will win the election in November. The model used for the prediction is one who has correctly predicted all presidential elections since 1980, including George W. Bush losing the well-liked vote but still winning the election in 2000. [Details Here]

“For the last eight presidential elections, this model has correctly predicted the winner,” said Michael Berry, political science professor at CU. “The economy has seen some improvement since President Obama took office. What is still seen is whether or not voters will consider the economy in relative or absolute terms. If it’s the previous, the president may receive credit for the economy’s trajectory and win a second term. Inside the latter case, Romney should pick up numerous states Obama won in 2008.”

The prediction model uses an analysis of financial factors to decide an outcome for every of the 50 U.S. states. It was developed by Berry and his fellow CU political science professor Kenneth Bickers. Two of the standards the model takes into consideration include state and national unemployment numbers and changes in real per capita income, either one of which affect Democratic and Republican candidates differently.

The study has predicted that President Barack Obama will only receive 218 electoral votes, far in need of the 270 had to win the election. It also predicts that Romney will receive 52.9% of the preferred vote.

“The incumbency advantage enjoyed by President Obama, though statistically significant, just isn’t great enough to offset high rates of unemployment currently experienced in lots of of the states.” said Bickers.

The Berry and Bickers study could be published on this month’s Political Science & Politics. An update to their analysis using more moderen economic data may be coming in September.

In products which are so simple that they’re form of genius news, I’m probably going to spend a couple of dollars and grab this new wooden spoon/stylus for my kitchen.

As sites like CHOW, Food 52, or even All Recipes in addition to apps like Epicurious continue to switch traditional recipe books for plenty of home cooks, sticky, contaminated iPads and other touchscreen devices become an increasing number of of an issue.

For $7, you may avoid most of this hassle. Meet the ispoon kitchen stylus, a wooden spoon that doubles as a stylus in your in-kitchen touchscreen-using needs.

Just imagine: You grab a handful of ground beef and throw it within the skillet. You grab your wooden spoon to begin breaking it up. Oh crap, how much cumin was I speculated to installed there You can now either wash your hands, otherwise you can just flip over your spoon and faucet your screen to locate your answer. Hooray! Not more E. coli in your iPad!

Sure, you may wash or wipe your hands between contacting your cooking ingredients and checking the recipe for your iPad. On this regard, this isn’t a necessary product. But damnit, it’s cool and that i want it.

[Umbra via Gizmodo]

ValueWalk

Bing Can Now Search Through Facebook Photos PCWorld Photo search is the second one major Facebook-related feature to come back to Bing within the previous few months. In May, Bing added a Social Search sidebar, which shows social network activity from friends and high-profile “experts” for any search keyword. It also … Bing Integrates Facebook Photo SearchPC Magazine Bing Now Allows you to Search And read Your pals' Facebook PhotosTechCrunch You Can Now Bing Search Your pals' Facebook PhotosMashable The Star Online -WebProNews all 27 news articles »

Some things don’t change. StumbleUpon, in fact these years, can still be a good driver of traffic in your website, despite how little it has changed compared to other social services. Ponder how much Facebook has changed over time, or maybe Twitter. StumbleUpon is unquestionably an additional style of beast, but each of those products is utilized by people to consume information, or even if StumbleUpon’s primary appeal isn’t necessarily the social element, that element is there, and it has helped make StumbleUpon one powerful force for content producers.

We had an attractive conversation with social media consultant Brent Csutoras from Kairay Media, who have been talking concerning the power of StumbleUpon for quite a while. We’ve chatted with him countless times concerning the subject through the years. You will find a number of our other interviews here.

Csutoras tells WebProNews that marketing on StumbleUpon hasn’t really changed much over time. “They’ve got made plenty of changes that modified the manner we prepare our campaigns, but essentially the approach is similar today because it was years ago,” he says.

“StumbleUpon’s algorithm uses a tree network system blended with quality scores for the account, the domain, and the content, which determines how visible any specific article can become,” says Csutoras. “So submitting quality content with definitely the right categories (ones which are StumbleUpon made and never your own guesses), together with sharing your content with key individuals on your network, continues to be the fundamental technique to marketing within StumbleUpon.”

“We’ve seen an improvement in using StumbleUpon Ads to lift your content’s natural traction, nonetheless it is determined by the content being positive and targeted for the StumbleUpon audience,” he notes.

Late last year, StumbleUpon launched a significant redesign (complete with a symbol redesign), seemingly making the positioning itself more of a destination for users, but Csutoras downplays the significance of StumbleUpon.com.

“We had a large number of discussions with StumbleUpon concerning the redesign,” he tells us. “What we learned was the proportion of StumbleUpon users that truly participated during the website was very small, so the redesign really had little to no negative impact to our marketing efforts. Keep in mind that StumbleUpon is largely a social tool bar and isn’t concerned about being an internet portal.”

There’s certainly a good deal of truth to that, as StumbleUpon is all concerning the content from round the web. It only is smart that users use it most while they’re elsewhere on the internet. The very nature of StumbleUpon, obviously drives you within the web at large. It’s because it’s this type of powerful driver of traffic.

StumbleUpon doesn’t get the media attention of a few other services, like Pinterest, as an instance, yet content producers are clearly getting a lot of traffic from users thirsty for more compelling content, whether that be something funny, interesting, or simply plain cool.

“i believe that StumbleUpon has always been below the radar on the subject of media attention,” says Csutoras. “That would be attributed to the truth that it has stayed true to its core offering and never tried to repeat other social sites, so there are fewer drastic changes or features to talk about.”

“StumbleUpon has launched the StumbleThru feature, Channels, added search to the positioning, unfolded the kinds to create your personal, and plenty of other features, but they simply don’t get the media coverage.”

These are the categories of features that appear like they might do nothing but help content get in front of the proper people. Speaking as a user, the hunt feature (the “Explore Box“), as an example, has driven me to countless pieces of content concerning whatever topic I happen to have an interest in at that moment, eagerly awaiting a thumbs up and/or a share. i must assume it’s had an identical impact on many other users.

The StumbleThru feature and channels serve no other purpose, but to serve up more of your site’s content to users (granted, channels aren’t just available to everyone).

StumbleUpon can drive numerous traffic to a page relatively quickly, but perhaps its real appeal for content providers is the longer term effect it could have.

“You might want to do not forget that the style StumbleUpon’s system works, when your content gets traction, it is going to get waves of traffic for future years,” says Csutoras. “As an example, if one in every of your articles gets a fifteen,000 visitor spike, you will find the path off on that traffic never really goes away. The reason is, as your content gets popular in StumbleUpon, it queues up for the folks who’ve subscribed to the class applied on your content. Users are just shown the content one time each, but some users is probably not that active or their queue is admittedly full.”

“Fast forward a couple of months when there can be another 10,000 those who have signed up for that category,” he adds. “As those inactive users log in through the years and vote up your content, this can again begin to gain traction again and potentially go popular showing to all those active members who’ve signed up because the last time it was popular. So that you can see another 7,000 visitor spike months later.”

“This cycle has the aptitude to copy for your whole content forever,” Csutoras says. “Moreover, if enough people tag the content with another category, it will possibly cross over and come into view to a complete different segment of individuals. It truly is the wonderful thing about StumbleUpon and why those that had been using it regularly like it.”

“Lastly, StumbleUpon has done an awesome job during the last year in defining associated categories, allowing more those who might likely appreciate your content see it, even supposing they’re not subscribed to the precise match category.”

Suffice it to assert, despite the inability of media attention StumbleUpon gets, when compared with its peers, it’s still highly relevant to anyone creating interesting content that wishes people to view it.

Just remember (and that i think it goes without saying, but just in case I’m wrong), the content needs to be good. Otherwise don’t bother trying.

There’s various wireless spectrum on the market, but mobile devices can’t make the most of a number of it because it goes towards other uses. There’s a lot of unused spectrum though, and Google desires to free it up.

Google.org, the corporate’s philanthropic arm, is operating with other tech companies to create a database of unused TV white space. This database would allow future devices to tap into spectrum that’s not getting used by another individual. The practice is known as spectrum sharing, and it might allow mobile devices to share the air waves with other devices and services in this particular band.

Here’s how Google explains it:

Spectrum is a globally finite resource, which makes it crucial that or not it’s allocated and shared as effectively as possible. The demand for spectrum is growing, and more people and devices need spectrum within the same place. Having an area where people can see what spectrum is obtainable allows people to share, which enables more technology and devices to glue using an increasingly busy medium. This helps avoid conflict between devices using an analogous band.

As portion of its bid to become a database administrator of this TV white space, Google has partnered with the FCC to create a map of all of the available TV White Space within the U.S. The corporate is inviting multiple stakeholders to “test and supply feedback at the database.”

You can start exploring the spectrum map here.