Whoever made this clip wants you to believe it?s the first look at the PlayStation 4 hardware. But, Sony tells me it's a fake. Too bad.
     |
mariano rivera jobs report tiger woods masters 2012 nikki haley stan van gundy navy jet crash virginia beach crash
President Barack Obama during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday. (J.??
President Barack Obama on Monday furiously dismissed as a "political circus" Republican charges that his administration had misled the public about the Sept. 12, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. Obama said the accusations of a cover-up dishonor the memory of the four Americans killed in the onslaught.
"There?s no 'there' there,? Obama insisted during a joint question-and-answer session with British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House. "And the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations."
The president?s angry words came after news reports surfaced Friday that the White House had overseen a process that repeatedly watered down administration talking points on the attack, removing references to possible involvement by al-Qaida and to prior warnings about threats in Benghazi. Republicans have charged that the White House was worried about the potential political fallout from the spectacular terrorist attack during Obama's re-election campaign. The White House has repeatedly denied that it deliberately misled the public.
"The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow," Obama said.
The talking points, which portrayed the attack as evolving from a demonstration of anger at an Internet video that mocked Islam, "pretty much matched the assessments that I was receiving at that time in my presidential daily briefing," he added, referring to his top-secret morning intelligence review with the CIA.
While protests against the video in Egypt led to an assault on the American embassy in Cairo, officials in Libya never reported a demonstration outside the compound in Benghazi before the assault that claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Obama aides have said that the decision to scrub references in the talking points to al-Qaida and another extremist group, Ansar al-Sharia, reflected the intelligence community's uncertainty about the role they played.
"Immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were," Obama said. "It happened at the same time as we had seen attacks on U.S. embassies in Cairo as a consequence of this film. And nobody understood exactly what was taking place during the course of those first few days."
The president also pointed to his first public remarks on the attack, in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12, 2012, when he lumped the events in Benghazi in with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes as "acts of terror."
But he and other senior officials declined in subsequent days to label the attack the work of terrorists. And U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice linked the Benghazi assault to the Internet video when she appeared on morning news shows the first Sunday after the attack.
"I?ve just got to say, here?s what we know: Americans died in Benghazi," Obama said. "What we also know is clearly they were not in a position where they were adequately protected.
"The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism, and what I pledged to the American people was we would find out what happened, we would make sure that it did not happen again," he added, "and we would make sure that we held accountable those who had perpetrated this terrible crime. And that?s exactly what we?ve been trying to do."
Obama praised the work of envoys like Stevens and diplomats and other personnel serving overseas today, and declared: "We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus."
Obama also said he had ?sent up? the head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Matt Olsen, to Capitol Hill, where Olsen branded Benghazi a ?terrorist attack? with possible connections to al-Qaida, including a regional offshoot, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). At the time, Olsen?s testimony was notable in part because of the top Obama aides? reluctance to brand the Benghazi attack the work of terrorists.
?If this was some effort on our part to try to downplay what had happened, or tamp it down, that would be a pretty odd thing that three days later we end up putting out all the information that in fact has now served as the basis for everybody recognizing that this was a terrorist attack," Obama said. "Who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down for three days?"
"The whole thing defies logic."
The president also pointed to the State Department-commissioned independent investigation led by retired veteran diplomat Tom Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, who produced a scathing report on failures to heed requests for more security in Benghazi.
"What they discovered was some pretty harsh judgments in terms of how we had worked to protect consulates and embassies around the world," Obama said.
Three State Department witnesses, including the No. 2 American diplomat in Libya the night of the attack, have criticized the so-called Accountability Review Board for not pinning the blame on senior State Department officials. And they warned that failure to learn from the attack could leave U.S. diplomats vulnerable in the future.
"Frankly, if anybody out there wants to actually focus on how we make sure something like this does not happen again, I am happy to get their advice and information and counsel," Obama said.
Canelo vs Trout 420 Meteor Showers 2013 Darrelle Revis david ortiz record store day cnn
A year ago, Android tablet manufacturers built and priced their high-end options to compete with the Apple iPad. That ill-fated endeavor has largely come to an end. A more common trend these days is repackaging and repurposing what were once high-end models and offering them at more palatable prices. The Toshiba Excite 10 SE is a perfect example, with nearly identical specs as last year's $600 Toshiba Excite 10, but now at a more reasonable price ($349.99/16GB, $399.99/32GB list). Some sacrifices had to be made, like ditching the aluminum build for plastic, but the quad-core Tegra 3 chip remains, and it's now running Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean." That said, the Excite 10 SE is a fine Android tablet, but there are still better options, like the versatile Asus Transformer Pad TF300 or the easy-to-use Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9", for those who don't need a traditional Android experience.
Design and Features
The Excite 10 SE is nearly identical to the original Excite 10, except for one key feature: The SE swaps out the aluminum back for a plastic one. Even the texture is the same, and the plastic is rigid enough to keep the Excite 10 SE from feeling flimsy. At 10.3 by 7.1 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 1.41 pounds, the 10 SE is also a bit thicker and heavier than the original (10.3 by 7.0 by 0.35 inches and 1.32 pounds). Another key difference is port selection: The Excite 10 included micro USB and micro HDMI ports, as well as a full-sized SD card slot, while the 10 SE has only a micro USB port and a microSD card slot. It's still nice to have storage expansion options, but the omission of micro HDMI out, for connecting the tablet to an HDTV, is a bummer. On the bright side, the 10 SE sheds the proprietary power connector, using the micro USB port for charging and data transfer. ?
You still get two stereo speakers along the bottom edge, which get loud for tablet speakers, but still sound harsh and lack bass punch. There's a front-facing 1.2-megapixel camera centered above the screen and a rear-facing 3-megapixel camera on the top left corner of the back.
The 10.1-inch display is the same 1,280-by-800-pixel IPS panel found on the original Excite 10. That's a good thing, as the screen looks sharp, colors are vibrant, and viewing angles are wide. It's also not as sharp as the Nexus 10's?1080p display, and it's not the brightest display; the Asus TF300 trumps the Excite 10 SE here.? Like some other features of the Excite 10 SE, the display is good, but it doesn't truly excel against the competition.
The Excite 10 SE is a Wi-Fi-only tablet that connects to 802.11b/g/n networks on the 2.4GHz frequency. Not only is access to the faster 5GHz frequency omitted, but during testing I noticed that the Excite 10 SE sometimes took a long time to reconnect to Wi-Fi networks when woken from sleep. You also get GPS, along with Bluetooth 3.0, which let me pair the tablet with wireless headphones easily.
Toshiba offers 16GB and 32GB models for $349.99 and $399.99 respectively. For expansion, the open microSD card slot accepted our 32 and 64GB SanDisk cards without a problem.
Performance and Android
The Excite 10 SE is equipped with the same quad-core 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor found in the original Excite 10. That was the fastest chip available last year, but SoC's have progressed since then, with tablets like the Nexus 10 powered by the faster Samsung Exynos 5250 1.7GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor. The Excite 10 SE slightly edged out the Asus Transformer Pad TF300, which is also powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 chip, in our benchmarks, but in day-to-day use, these two tablets offer comparable performance. Web browsing is smooth, apps open quickly, and even graphically intensive games like Shadowgun THD run without a hitch on the Excite 10 SE.
Toshiba used a very lightly skinned version of Android 4.1.1 "Jelly Bean" in the Excite 10 SE. In fact, the only modifications you'll find are SRS audio enhancements and a Balanced Power mode. Playing with the SRS settings yielded subtle changes in audio output. I found the Volume Boost setting to be the most useful. It does what it says, but also makes things sound a bit harsher. Balanced Power mode isn't the same as Asus's varying power modes on its Transformer line of tablets. Instead of reigning in the processor, the only noticeable difference I could see in Balanced Power mode was slightly dimmed display brightness.
While Toshiba made only minor modifications to Android, it loaded up the Excite 10 SE with a good deal of bloatware. Aside from some useful Toshiba branded apps, like the file manager and media player apps, there are useless and undeletable apps like eBay, a redundant Toshiba app store, and a slew of Wild Tangent linked games. The Google Play app store is here, granting access to more than 800,000 apps and a growing selection of media content.
Media support is good. In my tests, the Excite 10 SE played H.264, MPEG4, WMV, DivX, and Xvid videos smoothly at up to 1080p resolution without a hitch. For audio, the tablet can handle WMA, OGG, WAV, MP3, FLAC, and AAC formats.
The 3-megapixel rear-facing camera is a downgrade from the 5-megapixel camera on the original Excite 10. The Excite 10 captured average, if somewhat noisy images, and the Excite 10 SE fairs even worse. Indoors and under low lighting, images are a grainy mess with dull colors and noise wiping away fine detail. Outdoors and under good lighting images improve, but not by much. Video tops out at 640 by 480 pixels, with slow, jerky frame rates. Performance is underwhelming, but that's the case with most tablet cameras.
In our battery rundown test, which loops a video with screen brightness set to maximum and Wi-Fi on, the Excite 10 SE lasted 7 hours, 37 minutes. The 10-inch Transformer T300 turned in a slightly better 7 hours, 53 minutes, while the same-size Iconia Tab A510 turned in 9 hours, 34 minutes on the same test.
Conclusions
The Toshiba Excite 10 SE is a fine Android tablet, it just lacks the stand-out features or low price that set most top-notch competitors apart. The Asus Transformer Pad TF300 offers the same performance for the same price, but also has the ability to add on an excellent keyboard dock, turning it into a productivity powerhouse. Android enthusiasts will likely be happier spending $50 more for the Nexus 10, while those who don't care either way should check out the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9". The Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ could even make a nice alternative with a lower price tag, sharp display, and recent addition of Google Play.?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/w2kJj9XLwKw/0,2817,2418606,00.asp
michigan basketball ncaa final four Evil Dead halle berry kurt cobain Kamala Harris URI
British entrepreneur Richard Branson, left, poses with AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes while dressed up as an AirAsia flight attendant at a low cost carrier terminal in Malaysia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Branson wore the costume after losing a bet with his friend Fernandes on which of their 2010 Formula One racing car teams would finish ahead of the other. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
British entrepreneur Richard Branson, left, poses with AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes while dressed up as an AirAsia flight attendant at a low cost carrier terminal in Malaysia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Branson wore the costume after losing a bet with his friend Fernandes on which of their 2010 Formula One racing car teams would finish ahead of the other. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
British business magnate Richard Branson, right, dressed up as an AirAsia flight attendant, and AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes prepare to spray champagne during an AirAsia promotional event after Branson arrived at the low cost carrier terminal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. The Virgin Group founder had his legs shaved, put on lipstick and squeezed into the red skirt to honor a bet by serving as a flight attendant on an AirAsia trip from Perth, Australia, to Malaysia. Branson lost a bet to Fernandes in 2010 after they both wagered their Formula One racing teams would finish ahead of each other. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
British entrepreneur Richard Branson arrives at a low cost carrier terminal dressed up as an AirAsia stewardess from a flight from Australia to Malaysia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Branson wore the costume after losing a bet with his friend AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes on which of their 2010 Formula One racing car teams would finish ahead of the other. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
British entrepreneur Richard Branson, left, poses with AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes while dressed as an AirAsia flight attendant at a low cost carrier terminal in Malaysia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Branson wore the costume during his flight from Australia to Malaysia after losing a bet with Fernandes on which of their 2010 Formula One racing car teams would finish ahead of the other. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
British entrepreneur Richard Branson speaks during a press conference while dressed up as an AirAsia flight attendant at a low cost carrier terminal in Malaysia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Branson wore the costume during his flight from Australia to Malaysia after losing a bet with his friend AirAsia's Chief Executive Tony Fernandes on which of their 2010 Formula One racing car teams would finish ahead of the other. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
SEPANG, Malaysia (AP) ? British business magnate Richard Branson has lost his latest job because of orange juice.
The Virgin Group founder had his legs shaved, put on lipstick and squeezed into a red skirt to honor a bet by serving as a flight attendant Sunday on an AirAsia trip from Perth, Australia, to Malaysia.
But he earned a reprimand from AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes after he deliberately dumped a tray of orange juice on Fernandes' lap.
Branson lost a bet to Fernandes in 2010 after they wagered that their Formula One racing teams would finish ahead of each other. Fernandes' team landed two spots above Branson's.
Fernandes gleefully declared after Sunday's nearly six-hour flight on his budget airline that Branson's skills as an attendant were "rubbish" and that he was being immediately fired.
A cheerful Branson, who was tasked with pouring beverages, serving meals and making flight announcements, posed with Fernandes and popped champagne after stepping out of the plane at Malaysia's main low-cost carrier terminal south of Kuala Lumpur.
He said in brief remarks that he was "glad to have gotten the bet over with and (was) looking forward to getting back into my clothes."
"I always wanted to be an air hostess, but it looks like I have to get back to normality," Branson said. The flight helped raise money for an Australian foundation for hospitalized children.
Asked how Branson rated as an attendant, Fernandes quipped, "Out of 10, maybe one, for a bit of humor."
"I wanted to kill him actually" for spilling the juice, the Malaysian told reporters.
"He looked at me, I said, 'don't you dare,' and the next thing I know, he tipped the whole tray on me," Fernandes added. "He and the girls mopped it up, but I was walking around the flight in my underwear for a while because I didn't bring another pair of trousers."
Associated Presswindows 8 logo anguilla gone with the wind checkers imbibe msg network ray j
The actress displays her amazing diamond! Plus, check out more pics of your favorite stars on the scene!
30 rock What Time Is The Super Bowl 2013 Super Bowl 2013 Time BlackBerry 10 superbowl Ron Jeremy Rudy Gay
Gotham's gentry has met its nemesis: shareable bikes. The long-awaited Citibike bike-sharing program is scheduled to debut in New York on May 27, when dozens of empty bike stations already installed throughout Manhattan and west-central Brooklyn will fill up with blue, Citibank-branded bikes. Like similar (and quite successful) programs in D.C., Paris, and Minneapolis, riders will be able pick up a bike at one station and drop it off at any of the rest, making it a healthy alternative, in many cases, to riding the subway.
RELATED: How Not to Use New York's Bike Share
To the denizens of brownstone Brooklyn and Greenwich Village, however, the Citibike program amounts to an urban insurrection. The residents of at least two co-op apartment buildings, in Brooklyn Heights and the West Village, are suing the City of New York for installing a pair of the program's electronic bike racks nearby. "Another half-dozen challenges are in the works," says?the?New York Post. Meanwhile the rhetoric deployed to criticize the proliferating stations has veered toward the terroristic. A Friday morning op-ed in the New York?Daily News histrionically compared the bike program to "the overreach of Al Qaeda in Iraq," and during a recent meeting among residents of Manhattan's?Community Board 2, a prominent speaker likened one installation in a SoHo park to the work of the Taliban:
Sean Sweeney, the director of the Soho Alliance, likened the placing of a bike rack on the spot where public art has been shown in tiny Petrosino Square to the Taliban?s infamously blowing up an enormous ancient Buddha cliff carving. "D.O.T. [the Department of Transportation] should be called the Department of Taliban," he spewed angrily.
(To be fair, Sweeney has a well-documented history of verbal escalation when opposing other bike-related measures, like designated street lanes.)
RELATED: Strauss-Kahn's Fame in New York City Came After His Arrest
According to the neighborhood paper?The Villager, some concerns are pretty valid, like bike racks inadvertently blocking access to one side of a building, or occupying a row of parking spaces that local businesses depend on. But as?Gothamist reported in late April, New York's Department of Transportation has already begun modifying select installations to appease neighbors' complaints. Which makes sense! These racks aren't heavy apparatuses ? they're mostly made out of thick plastic, and draw all electricity (for credit-card processing) from a solar panel ? ?and can be installed or dismantled within a few hours.
RELATED: DSK Accuser's Lawyer Calls for Prosecution to Step Down
But the overheated tone of the recent outcry ? al Qaeda! the Taliban! ? suggests New Yorkers are about to enter yet another proxy war over the city's infrastructure, especially the streets where bikes and automobiles negotiate terrain. The issue here isn't so much bikes?as it is the dense geography of New York, especially southern Manhattan, where every inch of publicly-owned asphalt?is fought over. (Williamsburg witnessed a small preview in 2010, when newly-arrived cyclists battled the neighborhood's established Hasid population over painting dedicated bike lanes.) Indeed, the aforementioned Sean Sweeney told?The New York Times in 2011, when Citibike was still being planned, that "he liked the idea of a bike-share program." Just not in SoHo.
RELATED: The CIA Is Investigating Its Muslim Spying Program
It's too soon to say whether these skeptical New Yorkers will make peace with the Citibike invasion. You see cyclists everywhere in New York, of course, but this program is designed to add thousands more. Still, there's reason to be hopeful. D.C. residents had the same debate ? during which ?the National Park Service argued, in utter seriousness, that bike sharing stations would "destroy the nature of what makes the National Mall an American institution" ? and the program wound up being wildly popular. "If you'd told me that bike share was going to change the entire landscape of transportation in D.C., I would have slapped you in the face," wrote D.C. transplant Lauren Evans at Gothamist last week. "But it has.?The bike share program there is a success?that much is obvious from the sheer number of them on the street."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/village-hippies-brooklyn-yuppies-join-forces-against-bike-190643330.html
lindzi cox bachelor finale courtney robertson ben flajnik hunger games premiere red meat bachelor ben
