New Google Glass Ad gains nearly 200,000 views

newly produced Google Glass advertisement in the form of a short film was released on May 8. The film, called `Seeds', is a tear-jerking promotional ad released just in time for Mother's Day. It has already gained approximately 200,000 views.

`Seeds' is a 2 minutes and 30 seconds long video which follows the journey of a man from San Francisco to India. All his way back home to a village in India the man is carrying a very important envelope indicative of some good news. His mother is very surprised by by his visit.

The heart-rending short film was directed by Aneesh Chaganty and was shot completely on the Google Glass wearable computing device. The film was shot in the course of 10 days along film maker Chaganty's travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco, from San Francisco to Tokyo and finally to India, while all the time wearing the futuristic Google Glass eyewear.

The producers of this short movie are alumni and students from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts with the help of the Glass Creative Collective which provides funding for films made using Google Glass.

About the motive behind the touching short story, the producers said in a YouTube caption: "It's our way of saying 'Thank you, Mom'."


News Source:www.frenchtribune.com

California passes ‘kill switch’ law, requiring smartphones to have a self destruct option

The Californian Senate has approved a revised version of the so-called kill switch bill, which requires all smartphones sold in the state to have anti-theft software installed. The controversial bill was rejected at the end of April, and was subsequently altered to make it more acceptable to manufacturers and networks. Apparently, key changes included a six month extension to the deadline for compliance, and tablets aren’t included in the rules.

There are four main components to the kill switch. The software must make it impossible to use the device after it has been lost or stolen, and it can’t be overcome by forcing a hard reset. Additionally, no-one but the owner will be able to reconnect it to a network. It covers any smartphone sold in California manufactured after July 1 next year, and retailers are being threatened with a $2,500 per-device fine if they sell smartphones without the kill switch installed. The system won’t be mandatory for customers though, and you’ll be able to deactivate it after purchase.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Apple and Microsoft played a large part in getting the bill to pass this time around. Senator Jim Beall told the newspaper both companies felt the new version was more flexible and “something they could work with.” It passed with a 26-8 vote, a considerable change over the 19-17 result last month. Mark Leno, the bill’s champion, called it a “big success,” and hopes other states will follow California’s lead.

Not everyone is so happy about the victory. The CTIA Wireless Association listed all the ways it’s already combatting phone thefts, including its unified stolen phone database, and said if kill-switch technology was passed only on a state-by-state basis, “uniformity would be threatened.” There are also concerns about the system being misused, such as in the case of domestic abuse, where the phone is locked by the abuser.

It’s expected that the bill will be altered again before it goes before the state Assembly.

News Source:www.digitaltrends.com


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Google: This Oracle lawsuit could damage the whole software industry

The courts just handed Oracle a surprising win in its years-long lawsuit against Google and Android. And Google, to say the least, is not pleased. Google sent Business Insider this statement:

"We're disappointed by this ruling, which sets a damaging precedent for computer science and software development, and are considering our options."

It's unclear how much money Google could owe Oracle as a result of this new ruling. Oracle had originally been seeking a shocking $ ..

The fee Google winds up paying could be as low as $300,000, or even nothing. That's because the courts still have to rule on Google's final defense: that the copyrighted material it used for Android is ok to use under the Fair Use Doctrine.

To recap: Oracle accused Google of copying some of its Java computer code when it wrote Android. Android itself wasn't the issue. Android is different than Java. But Google wanted developers that work with Java, a popular language .. On Friday, an appellate court just overturned that loss, and said that APIs are subject to copyright.

An API exists to allow two programs to talk to each other. Normally, APIs are freely given away. It's the tool that encourages developers to write apps for a tech company's products.

By saying that APIs are copyrightable, the whole software industry has been put on alert. This ruling could be an epic mistake that leads to a lot of frivolous litigation, James Grimmelmann, a co ..


News Source:www.economictimes.indiatimes.com

News/ Community Canceled by NBC

Class dismissed: Community has been canceled by NBC. Start assembling those Subway sandwiches!

The beloved NBC comedy about a misfit group of community college students starred Joel McHale, Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong and Alison Brie. Former cast members include Donald Glover and Chevy Chase. John Oliver and Breaking Bad's Jonathan Banks recurred on the comedy.

Community hailed from the mind of Dan Harmon. He left the series prior to the start of season four and returned for the just-wrapped fifth season.

It's official: we are now in the darkest timeline.

PHOTOS: 24 TV shows that could get canceled—and the odds they'll survive!

Never a ratings powerhouse, the series developed a cult following on the Internet. Fans rallied around the Twitter term #Sixseasonsandamovie, which sprung out of a season two episode of Community in which Abed (Pudi) and Jeff (McHale) discuss the short-lived NBC series The Cape.

Community bounced around NBC from fall and midseason slots, normally anchoring Thursdays at 8 p.m. up against CBS's ratings juggernaut The Big Bang Theory. The season five finale grabbed 2.9 million viewers and a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

The stars have started chiming in on Twitter, with McHale tweeting, "#darkesttimeline" and Jacobs sharing, "Thank you for the love, best fans in the world. Thank you @danharmon for the best job of my life. #ePluribusAnus."

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBC Universal family.)

News Source:www.eonline.com