Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Google Search for iOS adds notifications, reminders, and more!

Google Search for iOS adds notifications, reminders, and more!

Google has released an update to its Google Search application, bringing a number of enhancements to Google Now on the iPhone, including notifications and reminders. Google Search will notify you when it thinks you should leave for an appointment, or if your flight is running late. It will even tell you how to get home using public transportation if you need to.

You can now set reminders for yourself using the app. Just say something like "Remind me to pick up the milk" to create a reminder. A card will pop that will allow you to set the details of the reminder, or you could set them with your voice as well. Google can remind you based on both either time or location. You can also be reminded about certain events, like a new album from a favoite artist, or the next episode of a TV show.

There are several new cards for Google Now in this update. Tickets for movies, concerts, and events will now appear. Boarding passes for flight are also available, and can be drawn from your Gmail, along with reservation confirmations for car rentals. If you regularly use a train, you can be warned about when your last train home is about to depart. You can also see a list of upcoming local events.

This update also adds handsfree voice capabilites to the app. Simply say "OK Google Now", followed by what you want to do or search for. So say something like "OK Google Now, remind me to get gas for the lawn mower" to set a reminder, for instance. Voice search requires an iPhone 4s or later. Users with other Google apps on their device will be able to use one touch sign in to log in to Google Search.

The update can be downloaded on the App Store right now.


    






Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/kXCu3o93DkY/story01.htm
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TWTIT: Intellijel Metropolis opus 1

You kids have it too easy these days. Why when I was a boy, the best our electronics could do in terms of digital squawks and flashing lights was the chattering of a 33.6K modem. And we liked it that way!

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/2HigFrgLZqs/twtit-intellijel-metropolis-opus-1-1458808025
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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Charlie Trotter, Famous Chicago Chef, Has Died At 54





Chef Charlie Trotter, who helped to revitalize Chicago's culinary reputation, has died at age 54. He's seen here at the 2006 International Gastronomy Summit in Madrid.



Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images

Charlie Trotter, whose eponymous Chicago restaurant became an institution and helped pave the way for innovative small dishes that featured fresh and unique food, has died at age 54.


His death is being reported by The Chicago Tribune, citing police and family sources. The newspaper reports that Trotter's family discovered him unconscious at home Tuesday morning. He was reportedly rushed to the hospital, but did not survive.


In the hours since NBC Chicago first reported the news of Trotter's death, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office released a statement praising the late chef for playing "a leading role in elevating the city to the culinary capital it is today."


Famous for his relentless quest to fill three daily tasting menus with creative dishes, Trotter helped bring a new dimension to fine dining in Chicago and beyond when he opened his restaurant in 1987. His menus bypassed heavy sauces for a lighter approach, often highlighting ingredients that were once rare in fine dining.


"The taste of free-range and organic products is so much better than the alternative," Trotter is quoted as saying on his website. "It is also good to know that you are eating unadulterated food and supporting farmers and growers who are directly connected with the land."


His Chicago restaurant, Charlie Trotter's, closed in 2012 after nearly 25 years of operation. It regularly won five stars from the Mobil Travel Guide, in addition to being on Restaurant Magazine's list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants for nearly a decade.


The restaurant's closing last year was the biggest local culinary story of 2012, according to the Chicagoist site.


"Everyone you've heard of, including luminaries like Grant Achatz, Graham Elliot, Homaro Cantu, Mindy Segal, Bill Kim, Beverly Kim and Curtis Duffy came out of Trotter's kitchen," the site reported. "Ironically, the successes of these luminaries probably contributed to the closing."


Trotter and his restaurant also won 11 prestigious James Beard Foundation awards, ranging from Outstanding Chef to Humanitarian of the Year. The eatery was named Outstanding Restaurant in 2000.


Those accomplishments came despite the fact that Trotter never attended culinary school. Instead, he relied on his own tastes and the training he got in working in restaurants in Chicago's North Shore area and elsewhere.


Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/11/05/243259518/charlie-trotter-famous-chicago-chef-has-died-at-54?ft=1&f=1001
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Families encourage overhaul of pilot training


WASHINGTON (AP) — Prodded by the families of people killed in a regional airline crash, federal officials issued significantly tougher training requirements for pilots Tuesday.

One of the most important changes requires airlines to provide better training on how to prevent and recover from an aerodynamic stall, in which a plane slows to the point that it loses lift. That was what happened to Continental Express Flight 3407, which crashed on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport in western New York on Feb. 12, 2009, killing all 49 people aboard and a man on the ground.

The crash victims' families have campaigned relentlessly for nearly five years for changes in federal regulations to address safety issues raised by the accident, including better pilot training. The families won a major victory in 2010 when they persuaded Congress to pass a sweeping aviation safety law. Since then, they've kept pressure on the Federal Aviation Administration to follow through on key safety provisions. They've made dozens of lobbying visits to Washington to meet with members of Congress and administration officials, and have attended aviation hearings and held news conferences.

Under the new requirements — the most substantial in two decades — airlines will have to provide flight simulator training for pilots on how to deal with a stall.

The captain and first officer of Flight 3407, which was operated for Continental Airlines by now-defunct Colgan Air, failed to notice that the speed of the twin-engine turboprop had dropped dangerously low, an investigation of the crash revealed. The captain, Marvin Renslow, was startled when a stall warning system called a stick-shaker, which violently shakes the pilot's control yoke, suddenly went off. The appropriate response to such an event would be to push forward on the yoke to lower the nose of the plane in order to pick up speed, while increasing engine power.

But Renslow pulled back hard on the yoke, sending the plane into a stall. At that point a second safety system called a stick pusher tried to point the plane's nose down, but Renslow again pulled back hard on the yoke. There was little chance of recovery after that, and the plane fell from the sky, killing all 49 people aboard and a man on the ground.

Renslow had not received any hands-on training in how to recover from a stall in the plane he was flying, only classroom lessons, and so was experiencing a stall for the first time, investigators said. Until that crash, the emphasis in the airline industry had been on training pilots how to avoid getting into situations where a plane might stall, with far less attention on how to recover from one.

FAA officials began working on new pilot training requirements as far back as 1999, but made extensive revisions in their work to take into account the safety issues raised by Flight 3407.

"This rule will give our pilots the most advanced training available to handle emergencies they may encounter," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at a news conference. The new requirements are focused on preventing events that "while rare, can be catastrophic," he said.

But family members complained that FAA officials are giving airlines five years before they have to implement the new requirements.

"It is hard to see any sense of urgency to significantly reduce aviation accidents," said Karen Eckert, who lost her sister, 9/11 widow Beverly Eckert, in the crash. "That will be a full 10 years since the needless loss of our loved ones in a completely preventable crash and a full 20 years since this training rule-making project was initiated."

Other changes required by the new rule:

— Pilots' performance will be tracked and airlines must create a remedial training program for pilots who repeatedly demonstrate deficiencies in skills tests. Renslow had failed several such tests, but was allowed to retake them.

— Expanded training for pilots on how, when they are sitting in the second cockpit seat, they should monitor the performance of the other pilot who is flying the plane.

— Expanded training on how to handle crosswinds and wind gusts. A Continental Airlines jet hit by powerful crosswinds at Denver International Airport in December 2008 while attempting to take off ran off the runway, rumbled over frozen fields and crashed into a ditch, where the plane broke apart and burst into flames. No one was killed, but there were many injuries.

Airlines are concerned that the new training requirements will increase their costs. The FAA estimated the cost to the industry of the new rule at $274.1 million to $353.7 million.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/families-encourage-overhaul-pilot-training-202901350--finance.html
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Sales Take Center Stage: To Boost Morale, Companies Burst Into Song





Steve Young learned about industrial musicals when he started coming across compilations, like this one, in used record stores. (You definitely want to click to enlarge this.)



Courtesy Blast Books

Why would someone write a sentimental ballad about a bathroom? For the same reason someone would write a rousing song about tractors: So the song could be used in what's called an industrial musical.


These musicals were like Broadway shows, but they were written and performed for corporate sales meetings and conventions from the 1950s to the 1980s. The lyrics were all about the products being sold and how to sell them. Some of them were lavish and costly, even though they'd be performed only once.


And as ridiculous as the songs were, they were often written and performed by really talented people: John Kander and Fred Ebb, who wrote the songs for the musical Cabaret, did an industrial. And a few had lyrics by a young Sheldon Harnick, who co-wrote the songs for the Broadway hits Fiddler On The Roof, Fiorello! and She Loves Me.


Harnick and actor-singer John Russell performed in dozens of these musicals, and Steve Young has co-written a new book about the genre, called Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals.


Young is also a writer for The Late Show With David Letterman, where for a while he was the writer in charge of the regular feature "Dave's Record Collection."


Harnick, Russell and Young joined Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about the genre's history.



Interview Highlights



On the history of industrial musicals


Young: These are musicals — often full, Broadway-style musicals — that were written for company conventions and sales meetings. They were never for the public to hear, they were only to educate and entertain and motivate the sales force so they would leave the business meeting going out revved up to sell more bathtubs or typewriters or tractors or insurance plans, or what have you.


... We've never had a full picture of how many shows were done. The souvenir records that I've been collecting are clearly the tiny minority of shows that were done, but I would say hundreds of companies were doing them over a period of decades.


On how each of them got involved or interested in industrial musicals, or "industrials"


Young: I've been a writer for The Letterman Show since the early '90s, and when I got to the show I was asked if I could head up the old "Dave's Record Collection" segment in which, on the show, Dave would hold up strange, unintentionally funny records, we'd hear a little clip, Dave would have a joke, we'd all go home heroes.




It's a very professional, romantic ballad about a bathroom. ... It's extremely well done.





I was the one finding the strange records. And in these days, when there were still used record stores in the city, I would come home with William Shatner singing, or Hear How To Touch Type. I also started finding these very odd corporate artifacts that I didn't really understand at first, but I would find myself singing these songs to myself days or weeks later and thinking, "Why is this song about diesel engines so catchy? Why am I still wandering around singing about my insurance man?"


And it was because they were fabulously well done, in many cases. It was a hidden part of the entertainment world, but with huge budgets [and] professionals doing their best work, oftentimes. And I just decided I had to find out about this myself, and I began collecting and going to record shows [and] calling record dealers.


Harnick: I started writing lyrics out of desperation. I was broke and wondering where my next job, my next meal was coming from, although I had had several successful revue songs on Broadway. And then I got a phone call from an advertising agency. They did industrials: They helped write them; they produced them. And they had an in-house writer, and it turned out that they were doing a new industrial, I think it was for the Shell gasoline company, and whoever the executive was did not like what he had read, so they decided to get somebody else. They knew my revue songs, so I got a call to do an industrial, and I had no idea what that was.



Russell: I came to New York to be an actor, and the first industrial I did was for Bell Telephone. And it was choreographed by a lovely man named Frank Wagner, who was my dance teacher. I auditioned and I got the job, and that's what started me. That was in 1970, and over the next 25 years, I did 82 different industrial shows.


On the song "My Bathroom"


Young: This is from a 1969 American Standard convention show in Las Vegas and it was for the distributors of all of the American Standard bathroom fixtures. Many of the songs on the record are filled with details about the new line of shower stalls and tubs, but this was really more of an anthem, an ode to the business as a whole — why they do what they do.


And it's a remarkable piece of work that I've been humming around the house for 20 years. And everybody who hears it is just floored by it, so I think it has some enduring value well beyond 1969 and the convention.


Harnick: It's a very professional, romantic ballad about a bathroom. ... It's extremely well done.


On the difficulty of writing lyrics for the Ford Tractor Company


Harnick: I remember my heart sank when the company gave me the information that I was supposed to put in the song. I thought, "Oh, good gracious, how am I going to do this and make it a singable song?" But I managed, and I managed particularly because [composer] Jerry Bock was so clever at taking all of these words, and some unmusical words, and finding ways to put them into singable songs.



On the purpose of these musicals


Young: There was the belief for quite a long time, I don't know if there was ever hard data to back it up, but if you bring everyone together for this thrilling theatrical experience — and it often actually was thrilling to the audience — then they'd have a sense of purpose, they would get out there, they would charge ahead and have a renewed energy for selling.


Many of the songs were packed with information about details of the new products, or the marketing strategies that were being presented. So you'd go home, ideally, all fired up, with a new sense of your pride in working for the company and a way forward for what you were going to do as a sales person.


On how audiences received industrial ballads


Young: Some of the composers I've spoken to over the years have told me they've seen audiences full of hardened sales executives and middle managers brought to tears by these beautifully crafted and performed songs that tell them, "What you're doing is important for you, for your family, for the company, for America, for the world." This was stuff that hit them right where they lived.


And yes, it was to promote sales, but it was also to tell them, "We understand what you do out there when you go into the field of battle, and we appreciate it, and you're not forgotten."


Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/11/05/243204830/sales-take-center-stage-to-boost-morale-companies-burst-into-song?ft=1&f=1032
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NASA sees warm sea surface helped strengthen Tropical Storm 30W

NASA sees warm sea surface helped strengthen Tropical Storm 30W


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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

5-Nov-2013



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Contact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center






NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the South China Sea and revealed that warm sea surface temperatures and low wind shear enabled Tropical Depression 30W to strengthen into a tropical storm.


NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm 30W on Nov. 5 at 0611 UTC/1:11 a.m. EDT as it was making its way west through the South China Sea. The infrared AIRS data provides valuable cloud top temperature data that indicates how high the thunderstorms are the make up the tropical cyclone. Some of those thunderstorms mostly north of the storm's center were high into the troposphere where air temperatures were colder than -63F/-52C. Cloud top temperatures in that range indicate that the thunderstorms have the potential to drop heavy rainfall.


AIRS infrared data also revealed that the sea surface temperatures are warm in the area of the South China Sea where TD30W is moving. Warm sea surface temperatures over 26.6C/80F are needed to maintain a tropical cyclone's intensity and those in the path of TD30W are warmer than that, enabling the storm to intensify through increased evaporation.


On Nov. 5 at 1500 UTC/10 a.m. EDT, Tropical Storm 30W or TS30W had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots/40 mph/64.8 kph. TS30W was located approximately 507 nautical miles/ 583.4 miles/939 km east of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, near 11.0 north and 114.5 east. TS30W was moving west at 16 knots/18.4 mph/29.6 kph.


The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast predicts that TS30W will make landfall as a tropical storm in southern Vietnam near the city of Nha Trang on Nov. 6 around 1200 UTC Universal Time./7 p.m. Vietnam local time.


###


Text credit: Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center




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NASA sees warm sea surface helped strengthen Tropical Storm 30W


[ Back to EurekAlert! ]

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

5-Nov-2013



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Contact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center






NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the South China Sea and revealed that warm sea surface temperatures and low wind shear enabled Tropical Depression 30W to strengthen into a tropical storm.


NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm 30W on Nov. 5 at 0611 UTC/1:11 a.m. EDT as it was making its way west through the South China Sea. The infrared AIRS data provides valuable cloud top temperature data that indicates how high the thunderstorms are the make up the tropical cyclone. Some of those thunderstorms mostly north of the storm's center were high into the troposphere where air temperatures were colder than -63F/-52C. Cloud top temperatures in that range indicate that the thunderstorms have the potential to drop heavy rainfall.


AIRS infrared data also revealed that the sea surface temperatures are warm in the area of the South China Sea where TD30W is moving. Warm sea surface temperatures over 26.6C/80F are needed to maintain a tropical cyclone's intensity and those in the path of TD30W are warmer than that, enabling the storm to intensify through increased evaporation.


On Nov. 5 at 1500 UTC/10 a.m. EDT, Tropical Storm 30W or TS30W had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots/40 mph/64.8 kph. TS30W was located approximately 507 nautical miles/ 583.4 miles/939 km east of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, near 11.0 north and 114.5 east. TS30W was moving west at 16 knots/18.4 mph/29.6 kph.


The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast predicts that TS30W will make landfall as a tropical storm in southern Vietnam near the city of Nha Trang on Nov. 6 around 1200 UTC Universal Time./7 p.m. Vietnam local time.


###


Text credit: Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center




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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-11/nsfc-nsw110513.php
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LAX shooting survivor says he crawled for his life


LOS ANGELES (AP) — A teacher said Tuesday that he crawled to escape a gunman at Los Angeles International Airport and used a sweatshirt as a tourniquet after his leg was shattered during last week's deadly shooting

"I didn't know what his intention was," Brian Ludmer said from his hospital bed. "I only saw me and him ... I was in total panic."

The 29-year-old Ludmer said he was heading to his hometown of Chicago to attend a wedding when gunshots erupted Friday on a floor below him as he waited in a long, snaking line at a Terminal 3 security checkpoint.

"It was hard to know what was going on, where the shots were coming from," he said.

Downstairs, Transportation Security Administration officer Gerardo I. Hernandez was killed and the gunman was trying to cut down other TSA workers.

Ludmer recalled that he and other travelers pushed through metal detectors after hearing shots, scattering into the terminal and down ramps into bathrooms, shops and stores, even onto airplanes — anywhere to get away from the shooter.

As Ludmer ran, a bullet hit him in the calf.

"My leg collapsed. It just instantly wouldn't support me," he said. "Below the bullet wound my leg was just hanging."

He looked back and saw the gunman alone in the terminal hallway. Ludmer collapsed against a wall and started crawling for his life on all fours. He found a duty-free shop, scrambled into a storage room and shut the door. He found a sweatshirt and tied it around his leg to reduce the bleeding.

Ludmer was terrified that he would pass out and bleed to death or the gunman would follow and finish him off.

Soon, however, he heard voices, dragged himself to the door and peeked out. A wave of relief swept over him when he realized police officers were clearing the terminal.

Two officers told him they would get him out safely — but not quite yet, because the gunman might still be on the loose. Ludmer said his leg was bleeding, and he needed a paramedic. The officers helped him into a wheelchair and dashed through the terminal.

"They got me out of there, even though it was at great risk to themselves," he said. "They wheeled me out of there at a run."

They didn't know that airport police had actually shot and wounded suspect Paul Ciancia within minutes of the attack.

Ludmer needs one more surgery but doctors expect him to make a full recovery.

The Calabasas High School teacher said he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and called the gunman "sick," mentally ill and delusional.

"But whether you're sick or not, I don't see any lawful purpose for having access to those sorts of weapons," he said. "I don't see the benefit that is outweighing the cost that it seems to be continually taking."

Federal agents are investigating possible ties between Ciancia and a widely circulated conspiracy theory that the U.S. government is preparing to establish a totalitarian state.

The FBI got a warrant Monday to search Ciancia's cellphone for materials reflecting his "views on the legitimacy or activities of the United States government, including the existence of a plot to impose a New World Order," according to court documents.

Ciancia, a 23-year-old unemployed motorcycle mechanic, got a ride to LAX on Friday morning with a roommate, walked into the airport and began targeting TSA officers, authorities said.

Two wounded TSA agents have been released from the hospital.

Why airport security officers apparently came to personify oppression remained unclear.

The new world order belief holds that an international cabal of elites is planning to take away the guns and personal freedoms of Americans. Perceived masterminds behind the conspiracy have shifted over several generations, among them bankers, communists and the government itself.

The TSA does not regularly feature as a target of the theory's ire, according to Mark Potok, who has studied extremist groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. More typically, believers focus on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which according to the theory plans to build camps to detain resisters, Potok said.

However, the Department of Homeland Security oversees both FEMA and TSA.

Potok said he had seen no evidence that Ciancia was personally involved in hate groups.

Ciancia remained hospitalized in critical condition. He has been charged with first-degree murder of a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport but will not appear in court until he is cleared by doctors.

___

Associated Press writers Tami Abdollah and Justin Pritchard contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lax-shooting-survivor-says-crawled-life-212724365.html
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