No News Is Good News
Three Billio Dollars S
omething that surprises me with Apple, especially in the last few years is that they haven’t brought anything different out in years. They seem to buy a lot of companies that specialize in a number of different areas. In fact they’ve bought 30 companies between January and August 2014. I can’t work out whether they’re buying them to improve their own hardware and software or if they’re buying them or whether they’re buying up the competition to monopolize the market. An example of Apple buying up the competition was when they bought the company that produced ‘SnappyCam’ which allowed you to take high-resolution burst photos, better than the mode built into iOS 7. Once they acquired the company, they removed the application from the app store and deleted the website.
29th May 2014
This time it’s buying Dr Dre’s Beats for $3 Billion!!!! I’ve always been impressed with the quality of my built-in macbook speakers as well as the standard headphones that came with my iPhone. I suppose the purchase of Beats makes sense because as a company, Apple only really grew after the release of their iPod. They’ve always been associated with music, especially with iTunes and it’s store.
I’m curious as to how Beats as a company will move forward now. Will Apple change the name and begin producing products under the Apple brand with the name Apple Beats or will they keep it as everyone knows. My opinion is that Apple bought Beats to use the technology in their future releases, after all, why create something if it’s already been done and you can buy it? I suppose it’s a good thing because it means better standard headphones with their products and better sound quality from their macs. Lets just hope it doesn’t come at higher cost.
5th June 2014
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o this is something that really annoys me. Why spray ‘Whites not welcome” and “Islamabad” on the path of an entry to a kids school? My first thought is these people felt they had to get something off their chest and this was the only way they could discriminate without being confronted about it. It’s a very similar situation to something that happened around the same time in Tower Hamlets, London. A sign was put up in a bus stop next to a park that wrote, “Do not walk your dog here! Muslims do not like dogs. This is an Islamic area now”. If these are truly meaning to discriminate against others then they’re probably not going to get very far in life before someone catches up with them.
There is another thought that crosses my mind though; that non-Islamic people who are trying to cause controversy for them, have done this and are trying to frame them. Perhaps it could be seen as a right wing “Banksy”, trying to make a point by causing issues for the people they’re portraying to have done it. I think this is more likely as I can’t see how anyone could think that by writing things like this, it would stop “white people” from using the path. Perhaps it’s to do with all the conflict going on in Iraq with ISIS, but that’s another story right?!
T WELCOME
9th June 2014
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OSTALGIA! NOSTALGIA! NOSTALGIA! When I watched the live stream of the E3 event and this was announced, I actually screamed like a little girl. Halo was the first game I ever played on the original Xbox and was probably responsible for all the years I played Xbox and for buying the Xbox One. I’ve played every Halo since the franchise started and I have never been disappointed. Microsoft are recreating all the original Halo games and making them all work on the Xbox One.
X Y B A The best part is they are recreating it with the original graphics as well as brand new redesigned HD graphics and allowing you to switch between the two. As a games geek, I have never been so excited for a release; especially of something I’ve already played hundreds of times. On November 14th, 2014, I will be disappearing for a few days to play the same games I played throughout 2001, 2004 and 2007 and all the years in-between!
Pin Have the you sausage strained on your the vegetable chicken
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or 34 years Rik Mayall entertained the world. If I’m honest, I had no idea who he was until I saw the tragic news on the 9th June. It was trending on Twitter and all over the Internet but I still didn’t know who he was. I looked up what he had featured in and as I like old comedies I decided to watch an episode of BOTTOM. The episode I watched was called ‘Gas’ and was the second episode of the first series, first broadcast before I was even born on the 24th September 1991. IT WAS HILARIOUS. Rik Mayall was extremely crude but played the character so well. Ofcourse, we all wondered how it had happened and on the 12th June, it was revealed it was “an acute cardiac event” after a morning run. He was only 56 and still had a lot to give. Heartbreaking.
12th June 2014
16th June 2014
watching I
can’t work out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing? I think it ’s a good thing to be able to look at different parts of the world on a clearer satellite image, using a site such as Google maps. It could potentially help solve a lot of crime as what could be a very detailed global CCTV. It always comes back to privacy though. Is it Big Brother on the world? Could they watch us 24/7 and even look through our windows? Personally, I can’t wait to see it implemented so I can zoom in further on the world. They launched satellite into orbit on the 13th August and you can now see the unbelievable quality of the images it takes from the company Digital Globe.
MAYBE NEXT TIME? Yea, right.
20th June 2014
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ELL THAT LASTED LONG. We couldn’t even get passed the group stages, for the first time since 1958! I thought with a fairly young team and having the likes of Ross Barkley, Sturridge and Sterling, we’d have a good shot this year. Boy did I get that wrong. The whole of England was united by the world cup, and even though it was still great to watch, it would have been a lot more exciting to of got further in the competition, it does only come round every four years after all. The worst bit about it is that Luis Suarez only came on to play England, and it was mainly down to him that we were knocked out this early in.
The world cup has been embarassing for England for a while now. Of course we atleast usually scrape through the group stages and some how crawl through to the quater finals but England have been poor for a long time. I don’t think it’s the managers fault, I just personally think we haven’t got the players in this country. I thought we had a strong team this year with player such as Sterling, Sturridge, Barkley and Stones but obviously the team just didn’t work together or they just weren’t as good as the rest of the world.
Our last World Cup win was in 1966, what happened?
al
As Seen on Screen
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n a warehouse bigger than seven football pitches, Asos are extremely lucky to of only lost 20% of their entire stock. They should be thankful to the sprinklers and fire fighters that it was only 20% and not more. As it ’s treated as suspicious, it’ll be interesting to see what they do to the person or people that caused 20 million pounds worth of damage. I would of though the insurance company is going to be a little bit more upset about this than Asos themselves. Through this article I also found out that Asos stands for ‘As Seen On Screen’, which is quite a clever name.
23rd June 2014
24th June 2014
EBOLA VIRUS
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’ve always said that the one thing that will wipe out the human race will be a disease, either through a natural occurrence or biological warfare. Ebola was first recognized in Zaire in 1976, killing 280 people and 38 years later it’s still killing people. By far this is the worst outbreak of Ebola ever seen with 6,185 people being infected and 2,909 of those people dying. That’s the biggest since 425 infections in Uganda in 2000 and it’s rising at an alarming rate.
2,909 X I think they underestimated Ebola as it ’s only popped up here and then over the years, which is why they haven’t had a vaccination for it… Until now. They recently tested an experimental drug called ZMapp on William Pooley who contracted it in Sierra Leone. He’s now recovered from it. Two US aid workers have also recovered after taking the drug. SO LETS GET THIS DRUG OUT THERE.
30th June 2014
E
verything Facebook does really seems to get on my nerves. I can understand using a large platform with a massive database to learn new things but the way Facebook breaches the users privacy and now manipulating feeds for psychological tests is a bit too far. If you’ve created something successful, why start messing with it for no reason. It always comes down to money with Facebook. After buying Instagram they are now putting ads on people’s feeds. Perhaps it ’s just a way to get them in the news, after all they’ve been in it a lot over the last year for selling people’s photographs and other breaches of privacy.
You may of been part of a social experiment I personally can’t see the benefit in doing a test on 689,000 people and trying to see if you can make them post a sad status by showing certain content. I would think that if you show someone a large amount of sad or negative content then it would make someone feel slightly depressed. I’m not entirely sure how they can even monitor that many people.
INCONSISTENT
Facebook is fucking with you.
2nd July 2014
E
ven though Andy Murray has publicly said he doesn’t like English people, I still felt great pride and overwhelmed for him when he won Wimbledon 2013. He was on form last year and I was optimistic he had a good chance of retaining the title for 2014. I watched Dimitrov win Queen’s, and he played unbelievably well. When I saw he was up against Dimitrov in the quarter finals, I knew it was going to be a tough match for him. I thought every set would be close but it was quite and easy win for Dimitrov with the sets being 6-1 7-6 (7-4) 6-2. There’s no doubting that Andy Murray is a brilliant tennis player but in my opinion he is just far too inconsistent. Sometimes he can play at his best and other times he makes constant silly mistakes that he shouldn’t really do at his levels. Maybe next year Andy.
Oh my dear god. I can’t believe he’s been found guilty of 12 counts of assaulting girls as young at seven. While growing up I watched him paint and he was exceptional. A lot of people looked up to him and I never would of thought for a minute that he was capable of what he did. I personally thought this was more of a shock than everything that came out about Jimmy Saville.
Can you tell what it is yet?
Even after being accused of it, I thought he would get off in court and be cleared, so it really hit home when he was charged and sentenced to five years. I wonder whether he will survive five years in prison, or whether he will be attacked, murdered or anything else that could happen to him.
4th July 2014
THE DARK SIDE OF THE BEAST
8th July 2014
It’s unbelievable how accurate and powerful a dogs nose is, and how it knows exactly what it can smell. It sounds like a good idea but can the dogs tell the difference between the circuitry in something such as a TV remote from a USB or a hard drive? I don’t think that ’s possible unless they can pinpoint something that ’s in a memory stick that isn’t in any other electrical device. I don’t like the sound of the ‘food-based reward system’, where the dogs only get fed if they sniff out the memory card. Although it’s a clever method to train the dog, it ’s also fairly dangerous, as realistically the dog could take food from anyone and then feel like it doesn’t need to search anymore. Overall I think it’s a good thing. It doesn’t hurt to have something extra, even if it doesn’t find anything helpful, you don’t lose anything. There’s not many electrical sniffer dogs, I believe it ’s only two in the USA right now but hopefully it ’s something they will invest a little more money and time into to catch more of these sick people.
our dog chips?
No flying at
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8th July 2014
I think it’s pretty scary that because of terrorism, if any electrical device in your hand luggage doesn’t turn on for whatever reason, British Airways won’t allow you to fly and you will have to book another flight. The problem is as technology progresses and moves forward, so do terrorists and their tactics. I’m not sure how much further security at airports can go, as they already have a lot of safety precautions.