tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16369023239247234782024-02-07T16:27:32.145-05:00SciTech & Rights 4 AfricaThere is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
- Isaac AsimovAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18315696945888690537noreply@blogger.comBlogger430125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636902323924723478.post-63260105971585372552014-03-27T14:33:00.000-04:002014-03-27T14:33:06.182-04:00Does Facebook Oculus VR acquisition doom real reality?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Future history books will note that March 25, 2014, was a bad day for human legs. It was a bad day for the outdoors, a bad day for bicycles and an utterly abysmal day for cafes, bars and other places where people meet in person.<br />
<br />
It was the day Facebook — the social media giant that has already digitized a good part of our social interaction — acquired Oculus VR, which sounds like a malevolent, world-destroying Transformer but is actually considerably more frightening.<br />
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The "VR" in the company's name stands for "virtual reality." Oculus has been busy working on a gaming device called the Oculus Rift headset, which, according to a blog post by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, puts the user in "a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away."<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Read more: <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-talk-huppke-facebook-oculus-20140327,0,3975923.story" target="_blank">Chicago Tribune</a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Priests pray for corpse of Boko Haram victims before burial</td></tr>
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Does it really matter how many die daily from Boko Haram attacks? Who cares who the targets are? Who is interested in the body count? What difference does it make if 500 die today or 100 the next day?<br />
Have the gruesome details of victims being burnt, slaughtered, or buried alive made any impact on us? Are we even able to count how many have been killed?<br />
Nigeria has descended to the dreaded lethargy prolonged exposure to gory lawlessness creates. There was a time when loss of a few lives drew those magnificent comments about the sanctity of lives and measures that must ensure that we never went through the fatal paths again.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Lives were important. Their importance did not lie in the numbers, but the fact that each life counted, it mattered. Feeble as the efforts governments made to sustain lives seemed, we were aghast at every instance of security agencies unlawfully taking lives.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digging graves to bury victims of Boko Haram attacks</td></tr>
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Government vented its anger on groups that engaged in wanton destruction of lives and property. We had feelings. We were humane. We believed lives were to be taken only according to the law. Our wide condemnation of disorder, wherever it occurred, was heard loud and clear.<br />
All these changed with the arrival of Boko Haram in 2010. Daily, since July 2010, the group has killed men, women, children, and the elderly and even stretches its attacks to security personnel and their abodes. The message has been that nobody was safe from the group.<br />
Condemnations of these attacks have waned. They have become trite. Some defend them. Their frequency cannot be the reason for the askance we witness as criminals who seek sympathy for their causes, maul people to death. No reasons are enough for taking innocent lives.<br />
Few societies would lose the lives Boko Haram is taking without acting more stringently against the group. Nobody or group that develops taste for killing like Boko Haram should be allowed to go free.<br />
The only thing worse than the killings is the realisation of relations of victims that they would not get justice. They have further fears that they would be the next targets. The lenient manners of handling the killers emboldened them.<br />
Our security agencies are under attack. Children are killed in schools. Women are murdered at home, in markets and places of worship. The message is that Nigeria cannot protect them. Many have reasons to believe unless government counters by bringing succor to the afflicted, and stopping the attacks.<br />
All legitimate measures should be applied to end the attacks. We still believe in the sanctity of lives, and those who do not, deserve the full weight of the law.<br />
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<i>Source: <a href="http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/500-killed-100-killed/" target="_blank">Vanguard Editorial</a></i></div>
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South Africa’s software industry will balloon this year as spending is forecast to increase 10.5% to $518m, according to the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) market analysis report.<br />
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The South Africa Enterprise Application Software Market 2013–2017 Forecast predicts that overall enterprise applications software spending in the country will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6% across the five-year forecast period to total $787.19m in 2017.<br />
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Banking, the government and the telecommunications sectors are cited as the biggest spenders on enterprise applications software during the period under review.<br />
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Source: <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/technology/2014/02/04/sa-software-industry-to-balloon-in-2014" target="_blank">BusinessDay SA</a></div>
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A survey by Accenture indicates high interest in next-generation in-car technologies among drivers in emerging economies, which could help shape future demand for sales and provide the automotive industry with a sustained revenue stream.<br />
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However, across five major emerging markets, South Africans were the least likely car buyers to let their decision be influenced by in-car technology.<br />
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Accenture surveyed over 14 000 drivers in 12 countries, including South Africa, on their current use of in-vehicle technologies and expectations for future use.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Areas covered by the survey included navigation and traffic services; a range of autonomous driving aids; in-car services, including entertainment, work tools and learning; safety services; black box-type monitoring of a person's driving patterns that can help reduce insurance premiums; and a number of passenger-related services.<br />
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In-car technology is rapidly becoming a key car-purchasing criterion. Globally, drivers are twice as likely to choose a car based on in-vehicle technology options than its driving performance.<br />
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<i>Source: <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-01-24-south-africans-not-sold-on-in-car-tech" target="_blank">Mail & Guardian</a></i></div>
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Satya Nadella, an <a href="http://world.time.com/2014/02/04/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-indian-americans/" target="_blank">Indian national</a>, was yesterday announced as the new CEO of tech giant, Microsoft. <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/01/31/269443258/8-things-worth-knowing-about-microsofts-new-ceo-satya-nadella" target="_blank">Nadella</a> has worked with Microsoft since 1992 and comes from a rich professional background in cloud computing.<br />
Nadella joins the growing list of <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/satya-nadella-is-microsoft-ceo/specialcoverage/29156368.cms" target="_blank">Indian-born</a> executives <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/global-companies-headed-by-indian-CEOs/photostory/29891173.cms" target="_blank">heading</a> major global corporations. They already include PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and Deutsche Bank co-CEO Anshu Jain.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Bloomberg</td></tr>
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The immediate past mayor of New York, and founder of the Bloomberg Media group, Michael Bloomberg, is committing $10m towards building the capacity of African journalists. The initiative is aimed at advancing<br />
transparency, accountability and governance on the continent.<br />
The Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa, a three-year pan-African programme to build media capacity, convene international leaders and improve access to information on the continent, will initially focus on Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, financial news agency Bloomberg said on Monday.<br />
"Timely and accurate reporting of business and financial matters play a critical role in advancing efficient markets and is a key driver in supporting economic and social growth," the agency said in a statement. "Strengthening business and economic news coverage, expanding training programmes for journalists and providing greater access to reliable data about Africa are frequently cited as important enablers to the continent's continued development."<br />
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The initiative will provide cross-disciplinary education programmes and mid-career fellowships to increase the number of highly trained business and financial journalists, convene pan-African forums to examine worldwide media best practices, and support research to stimulate media innovations.<br />
The former New York mayor and philanthropist, who founded the agency, said the initiative would "foster collaboration, support professional growth and nurture the leaders who are contributing to the continent's very bright future".<br />
In developing and delivering its educational programmes, Bloomberg will partner with the University of Nairobi's School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the Strathmore Business School in Kenya; the University of Lagos's Department of Mass Communications and the Pan Atlantic University's Lagos Business School in Nigeria; and Rhodes University's School of Journalism and Media Studies and the University of Pretoria's Gordon Institute of Business Science in South Africa.<br />
"The Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa is not only topical, timely, relevant and useful, but it is also contemporary both in structural and conceptual pluralism," said Dr Ralph Akinfeleye, professor of journalism at the University of Lagos. "By providing rigorous training from best-in-class faculty, media professionals and other stakeholders from the south, east and west African countries, the initiative will positively impact transparency, accountability, good governance and sustainable economic growth on the continent."<br />
Bloomberg said it also plans to collaborate with the Ibrahim Foundation, as well as international institutions such as UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank, on a feasibility study to explore a platform for accessible, comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date economic data and information to promote African development.<br />
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If you use yahoo email, you may consider changing your password.<br />
Latest information from Yahoo indicate that some of its customers' email accounts were compromised in a recent cyber-attack.<br />
According to time.com, Yahoo has the world’s second-largest email service after Google, the Associated Press reports, with 273 million users worldwide and 81 million in the United States. The company said affected users have been prompted to reset their passwords by email notification or text message.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
The attack is the second problem for Yahoo mail users in as many months. In December, Yahoo mail experienced an outage that left many users without email access for days.<br />
Forbes contributor, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameslyne/2014/01/31/yahoo-hacked-and-how-to-protect-your-passwords/" target="_blank">James Lyne</a> provides some helpful tips on how you can protect your password:<br />
1. <b>Avoid using the same password across multiple sites and services.</b> That way, if Yahoo credentials are breached hackers won’t be able to jump across in to your Twitter, online banking, work accounts or alike. I know this presents a memory challenge for some users, but see the below tip on password managers.<br />
2. <b>Choose a password which is not easy to guess</b>. Words with a dictionary root followed by numerals are very common choices and predictable patterns that cyber criminals can use to crack your password very fast. Passwords should be long, phrase based and involve a balance of different types of characters – numbers, letters, capitols and ideally a few symbols. See my fabulous example below.<br />
3. <b>Set up password change/reset mechanisms properly – not obviously.</b> Password reset forms on many services ask questions like “Where did you go to school?” or “In which year were you born?”. These questions are easy to answer and can typically be mined from social media pages or the Internet — why would hackers guess your password if they can just tell a system where you went to school and how old you are (you did after all announce your birthday last year on Twitter and your age, didn’t you?). Instead I suggest lying on the Internet. Come up with a scheme of answers to these questions that you won’t forget (or store securely) or better still, if the service allows, specify your own difficult questions.<br />
4. <b>Bigger = better</b>! When passwords are stolen from providers they are typically in a hashed or encrypted form, a bit like this ’5f4dcc3b5aa765d61d8327deb882cf99′. This is a hashed password representation and using clever techniques and computing power attackers can reverse the original password and log in to your account. When they steal these hashes it is only a matter of time and effort until they reveal the original. Short passwords might be guessed in second to minutes or hours (it depends on the implementation), where very long passwords could take years of work (and the cyber criminals are likely to go after someone else). Therefore making your password 60 characters makes life much harder for the cyber criminals if they do manage to break in to a service like Yahoo. This of course all assumes the provider isn’t just storing your password in clear text – in which case you will be very glad of tip number 1!<br />
5. <b>Use a password manager</b>. Password managers generate strong unique passwords for each of your services and then store them in an encrypted database which you can unlock with one good master password. It is a reasonable compromise for those that do not have an amazing memory but don’t want to fall in to the pitfall of repeating similar passwords across multiple sites. See below for more information on how this works.<br />
6. <b>Register to a breach monitoring service</b>. There are a variety of services on the Internet now which monitor for visible lists of stolen usernames/passwords. Of course, not all breaches are visible so it is far from a complete list. That said, if your username shows up it will e-mail you a notification and tell you it is time to change.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Snowden</td></tr>
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Edward Snowden spent the last year revealing some of the government's most tightly held secrets, kicking off a massive debate about the proper role of America's intelligence services. Now, a pair of Norwegian politicians have nominated the NSA leaker for a Nobel Peace Prize.<br />
<br />
In their nomination letter, Baard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen, who hail from the Socialist Left party, said Snowden's revelations "contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order."<br />
Nominations — which are generally secret but sometimes announced by those submitting the paperwork — must be filed by Feb. 1.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Snowden likely has dozens of competitors, so there's no guarantee he'll get anywhere. Still, it'd be ironic if Snowden and Obama each wound up winning the same honor just a handful of years apart.<br />
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<i>Source: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/29/edward-snowden-has-been-nominated-for-a-nobel-peace-prize/" target="_blank">washingtonpost.com</a></i></div>
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A big science take from President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address yesterday is an affirmation that climate change is a fact not some cooked up fiction as some climate deniers have often claimed.<br />
<br />
"The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did," Obama told a joint session of Congress.<br />
<br />
Thanks Obama for rising boldly when it matters most. I don't agree with many of your policies, but this is a remarkable scientific step that ought to be lauded.<br />
<br />
Since the unusual cold weather that hit much of America's west and east coast, popular critics like Donald Trumph has pointed to the record cold weather as evidence that the globe isn't warming.<br />
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Kenyan wildlife authorities are fitting livestock-raiding lions with a collar that alerts rangers when the predators venture out of Nairobi National Park.<br />
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Livestock farmers, especially Maasai herdsmen, track and kill lions to avenge the loss of animals, threatening the existence of 35 to 40 lions at the park on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital.<br />
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Spokesman Paul Muya of the Kenya Wildlife Service, said Monday rangers will be able to move to areas where the lion have encroached using coordinates sent by the collars and return the animals to the park. The collars send GPS coordinates by text messages to a rangers' cell phones.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Two lions were fitted with collars Saturday, Muya said. Collars will be fitted to 10 lions from different prides.<br />
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<i>Credit: AP</i></div>
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Two top bankers - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547684/TWO-senior-American-bankers-working-London-commit-suicide-just-two-days-one-jumped-500ft-death-JP-Morgan-skyscraper.html" target="_blank">Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan bank executive and 58-year-old former Deutsche Bank senior manager, Bill Broeksmit, killed themselves today</a> in separate suicide incidence in London. <br />
If you are like me, you are probably wondering - what could have made these men take their lives? They look apparently successful in their careers and should rank among top earners in their field. After reading the story of these bankers, I tried searching for answers to that question and here are some thought by Jed Diamond (an expert on the topic) I ran into. Enjoy reading:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Some people believe that if a person is going to kill themselves, there's nothing one can do. If you try to stop them, they'll just bide their time and do it later.<br />
Suicide is a major worldwide epidemic taking the lives of more than one million people a year, according to the World Health Organisation. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 times more individuals attempt suicide. Self-harm now takes more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined.<br />
My father tried to commit suicide when I was five years old. Although he lived, our lives were never the same. I grew up wondering what happened to my father and was terrified that the same thing would happen to me.<br />
A colleague of mine, Dr Thomas Joiner, lost his father to suicide while he was at university. Although his father was depressed, he didn't seem like a suicide risk.<br />
He was described in an essay as "gregarious, the kind of guy who was forever talking and laughing and bending people his way. He wasn't a brittle person with bad genes and big problems. Thomas Joiner Sr. was a successful businessman, a former marine, tough even by southern standards".</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As it turned out, these "manly" traits may have contributed to his demise. So what are the warning signs? Dr Joiner, who's dedicated his life to preventing suicides like his father's, has proposed a new theory of why people take their own lives, proposing three key motivational aspects which contribute to suicide:</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1) A sense of not belonging, of being alone;<br />
2) A sense of not contributing, of being a burden;<br />
3) A capability for suicide, not being afraid to die<br />
All three of these motivations or preconditions must be in place before someone will attempt suicide, according to Dr Joiner.<br />
Although women, too, can take their own lives when they suffer at the intersection of "feeling alone, feeling a burden, and not being afraid to die," this is clearly a more male phenomenon. Throughout our lives males take more risks and invite injury more often. We are taught that "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" and "no pain, no gain".<br />
We often invest so much of our lives in our work, when we lose our jobs or retire we feel worthless, unable to contribute. It's a short step to feeling we are a burden on those we love. We also put less effort into developing and maintaining friendships so we can come to feel more and more alone.<br />
Preventing suicide in men<br />
The three overlapping circles of Dr Joiner's model help alert us to the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves if we want to prevent suicide. Dr Joiner and his colleagues have developed a questionnaire that addresses these issues.<br />
Thwarted belongingness<br />
• These days, I feel disconnected from other people;<br />
• These days, I rarely interact with people who care about me;<br />
• These days, I don't feel I belong;<br />
• These days, I often feel like an outsider in social gatherings.<br />
Perceived burdensomeness<br />
• These days the people in my life would be better off if I were gone;<br />
• These days the people in my life would be happier without me;<br />
• These days I think I have failed the people in my life;<br />
• These days I feel like a burden on the people in my life.<br />
Capacity for suicide<br />
• Things that scare most people do not scare me;<br />
• The sight of my own blood does not bother me;<br />
• I can tolerate a lot more pain than most people;<br />
• I am not at all afraid to die.<br />
Like most people, I've had thoughts of suicide at numerous times in my life, but the one time I felt at high risk of actually killing myself was when all three sectors overlapped. I was lucky that my wife was smart enough to remove the gun from the house until I saw a therapist and got into treatment for my depression and my suicide risk subsided.<br />
Dr Joiner remembers the day his father disappeared.<br />
"Dad had left an unmade bed in a spare room, and an empty spot where his van usually went. By nightfall he hadn't been heard from, and the following morning my mother called me at school. The police had found the van. It was parked in an office lot about a mile from the house, the engine cold. Inside, in the back, the police found my father dead, covered in blood. He had been stabbed through the heart."<br />
The investigators found slash marks on his father's wrists and a note on a yellow sticky pad by the driver's seat. "Is this the answer?" it read, in his father's shaky scrawl. They ruled it a suicide, death by "puncture wound," an impossibly grisly way to go, which made it all the more difficult for Dr Joiner to understand.<br />
I suspect the difference between Dr Joiner's dad and my dad wasn't their level of "thwarted belongingness" or "perceived burdensomeness" but my father's lower capacity for suicide. Disrupt one of the risk circles and we buy ourselves more time to heal.<br />
Making a connection can be as simple as a smile. I read the report of a man who left a note as he walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It said, "If one person smiles at me, I won't kill myself." The note was found after he had plunged to his death. We can all reach out, in our own way, and touch someone who may feel disconnected, disrespected, and useless.<br />
We can also let in the love when we are feeling down. I remind myself, and my clients, to take heed of the lines from the Eagles song Desperado.<br />
"You better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you... before it's too late."</blockquote>
Source:<a href="http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/why-men-commit-suicide-the-three-warning-signs-most-people-miss/" target="_blank"> Good Men Project</a><br />
<br /></div>
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Reading a nice book could be very exciting; feeling a nice book could be even more exciting. <br />
A team at MIT Media Lab is working to make this happen; i.e - help you feel the emotions of the characters you are reading. <br />
Dubbed 'Sensory Fiction' the technology is a wearable book that enables you physically feel the characters' feelings in a work of fiction. <br />
As the reading progresses, the book produces physical sensations to mimic the characters' emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and a host of others. If the protagonist is scared, for example, air pressure bags in the wearable vest will constrict to make the reader’s chest feel tighter.<br />
The technology is still being developed. ‘While the project explores new ways of reading with digital augmentations, this is not a product idea but rather an exploration in the context of science fiction stories,’ said researcher Felix Heibeck.<br />
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Time magazine has come up with something very interesting. Now you can check how much time you spend on Facebook. The app uses the term 'waste'. Some may not agree that the time they spend on Facebook is a waste. That's a debate for another day. However, the Time app "runs through the timestamps on every post in your feed until it reaches the earliest one, which it uses as the estimated date that you created your profile."<br />
If you belong to this virtual country that boasts of about 1.1 billion citizens, you might just be curious to know how much of your life time you've consciously or unconsciously invested into it. I'm curious to do same.<br />
Want to use the Time Calculator? Check it out <a href="http://techland.time.com/2014/01/27/how-much-time-have-you-wasted-on-facebook/" target="_blank">HERE</a><br />
<br />
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As if Google Glass wearers didn't love themselves enough already, news broke this week of a forthcoming app for Glass that lets owners of the wearable tech watch themselves having sex (or doing non-sex tasks) from alternative angles.<br />
The Sex with Google Glass app relays imagery from other perspectives to Google Glass, letting sex-doing pairs of owners of the posh specs watch themselves as if they were the stars of their own reality TV show. Or, if they're using it in the bedroom, it could give the wearer a terrifying look at the grim faces and expressions a partner sees while they're fiddling and grinding away.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The arrival of the latest headline-grabbing Glass sex app spawned mass mockery online, with many commenters opting for the easy comedy angle of expressing surprise that Glass wearers might ever get any action at all, let alone with someone who consents to having it filmed.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/why-google-glass-sex-apps-leave-the-web-feeling-dirty-1218545" target="_blank">READ FULL ARTICLE HERE</a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rescuers remove the body of a victim of the 2011 bombing <br />
of UN office in Abuja by Boko Haram</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Residents of the northeastern Nigerian city of Alau report that 19 people were brutally murdered and hundreds of homes torched there on Sunday. Last week, a car bomb tore through a heavily populated market in nearby Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, severely injuring or killing at least 20 people.<br />
<br />
Borno is no stranger to carnage. Nigerians ironically dub the state the "Home of Peace." Recent events in the region have received little media coverage, and most observers deem it par for the course when the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram claims credit.<br />
<br />
Since 2009, when these organized assaults began, the Nigerian federal government has attempted to respond with proficiency. Abuja has variously offered amnesty to Boko fighters; retaliated with (sometimes overly assertive) force; and, when left with no other choice, installed martial law on an emergency basis.<br />
<br />
As the world globalizes, jihadist factions such as Boko Haram align in-kind and gain both the intelligence and the capacity to strike in increasingly urban centers and beyond national borders. We must make no mistake: This destabilizing network is a global problem, larger in scope and indeed in mission than the international community may presume. It is not just going to go away.<br />
<a name='more'></a>What fuels Boko Haram is not merely economic inequality and social unrest. The group's rise has not been solely due to the decline of traditional industries in northeastern Nigeria, nor lack of access to quality education and steady electricity. These factors no doubt add to general disaffection and Boko's recruitment efforts. But the group poses a far graver challenge, one that could take down a nation.<br />
<br />
Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt recently claimed that one of the more powerful forces in the milieu of world affairs is nationalism. Based on the few broadcasts that documented the men, women and children fleeing the scene in Maiduguri last week, he's right. We must denounce as well as understand that Boko Haram has undertaken its four-year campaign for that very reason: to forge a militant Islamic state by any means necessary.<br />
<br />
Boko Haram's notorious acts of insurgency, which have claimed the lives of more than 12,000 people since 1999, persist unchecked by international forces that could do something about them. The violence stands in stark contrast to recent economic reports that point to Nigeria as a responsible ascendant to the forefront of global markets. Such ongoing bloodshed despite our ambitions is a tragic smear on Nigeria's reputation. Projections of the M.I.N.T. (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) must draw scrutiny when such a vital region of our country is synonymous with instability and outright fear.<br />
<br />
It is only lately that our international partners have taken a forward position on the matter. In July 2013, the U.K. formally designated Boko Haram a terrorist organization, with the U.S. following suit in November. Boko thus joins a list that includes al Qaeda, Hamas, the Real Irish Republican Army and many others. Boko Haram's guerilla command may now be engaged effectively, by global partners that have created legal paths to work in concert with Nigeria's military and counter-terror forces.<br />
<br />
There is no more prudent time to do so than now. The export of both Boko Haram's mission and its operatives appears to have been underway for some time. The United Nations refugee agencies estimate that more than 8,000 people in Nigeria have fled to neighboring Cameroon to escape the escalating brutality. Just last week the world witnessed Cameroonian forces involved in fighting between Nigeria's army and Boko Haram in a border town in Cameroon. In that skirmish, at least one woman was killed on Cameroonian soil and five others wounded.<br />
<br />
Nigeria's military is ill-equipped for drawn-out warfare and, despite their best efforts, have made strategic missteps along the way. The military's unpreparedness has been no more prevalent than in their interrogational tactics. Soldiers rounding up thousands of civilians arbitrarily, on mere suspicion of having helped the militants, and sometimes meting out cruel treatment thereafter, are causing increasing disquiet and hurting their battle for hearts and minds.<br />
<br />
In light of the mounting terror, there is a growing recognition that Nigeria must look at other options of engagement, and work hand-in-hand with an organized network of allies to do so. Left unabated by the international community, any progress made by Nigeria's military alone will surely be short-lived. As Elizabeth Donnelly from the Africa program at Chatham House eloquently put it, Boko Haram has a tested "flexibility, to adapt and come back."<br />
<br />
Nigeria is a bountiful, diverse nation with the potential to be on the socio-economic rise. Its citizens are a people of tolerance, known for their hospitality, and it possesses both established and newfound bevies of resources. All the tools are in place for Nigeria to serve as a symbol of potential across Africa. Boko Haram could ruin all of that, and is trying.<br />
<br />
Global efforts must be taken, if not in the interest of emerging-market prosperity, then in order to understand the nature and intentions of this layered, multi-faceted threat and to help check it. In tandem with the international community, Nigeria can ultimately return peace to its home.<br />
<br />
<i>Author: Orji Uzor Kalu, the governor of Nigeria's Abia State from 1999 to 2007, and a presidential candidate in 2007. This article was first published in <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303802904579334471474173520?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303802904579334471474173520.html" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a></i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Facebook has spread like an infectious disease but we are slowly becoming immune to its attractions, and the platform will be largely abandoned by 2017, say <a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4208v1.pdf" target="_blank">researchers at Princeton University</a>.<br />
<br />
The forecast of Facebook's impending doom was made by comparing the growth curve of epidemics to those of online social networks. Scientists argue that, like bubonic plague, Facebook will eventually die out.<br />
<br />
The social network, which celebrates its 10th birthday on 4 February, has survived longer than rivals such as Myspace and Bebo, but the Princeton forecast says it will lose 80% of its peak user base within the next three years.<br />
<a name='more'></a><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/facebook-princeton-researchers-infectious-disease" target="_blank">READ FULL ARTICLE HERE</a><br />
<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pope Francis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Internet is a "gift from God" that facilitates communication, Pope Francis said in a statement released Thursday, but he warns that the obsessive desire to stay connected can actually isolate people from their friends and family.<br />
<br />
Francis made the observations in a message about Catholic Church communications, meditating on the marvels and perils of the digital era and what that means for the faithful going out into the world and interacting with people of different faiths and backgrounds.<br />
<br />
In comments that will likely rile the more conservative wing of the church, Francis suggested that in engaging in that dialogue, Catholics shouldn't be arrogant in insisting that they alone possess the truth.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"To (have a) dialogue means to believe that the 'other' has something worthwhile to say, and to entertain his or her point of view and perspective," Francis wrote. "Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the pretense that they alone are valid and absolute."<br />
<br />
According to church teaching distilled by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Catholic Church holds the "fullness of the means of salvation" - a message that has long been taken to mean that only Catholics can find salvation. Church teaching also holds that those who don't know about Jesus but seek God can also attain eternal salvation.<br />
<br />
Pope Benedict XVI was a strong proponent of engaging in interreligious dialogue, but Francis has offered a softer approach in his sermons and gestures. In one famous off-the-cuff homily, he suggested that even atheists can find salvation. He also riled some conservatives when he washed the feet of two Muslims during the Holy Thursday re-enactment of Christ washing the feet of his apostles.<br />
<br />
Archbishop Claudio Mario Celli, the head of the Vatican's social communications office, said he didn't think Francis was making an official policy statement on interreligious dialogue, noting that the message was merely a reflection, "not a conciliar or dogmatic text."<br />
<br />
But he acknowledged that Francis is shaking things up in much the same "providential" way Pope John XXIII shook up the church in launching the Second Vatican Council.<br />
<br />
"We are realizing that there are sensations of, I wouldn't say difficulty, but of discomfort sometimes in certain circles," he said. "I think step by step we must rediscover a sense of the path, of what the pope wants to tell us."<br />
<br />
In his message Thursday, Francis said the Internet offers "immense possibilities" to encounter people from different cultural and traditional backgrounds and show solidarity with them.<br />
<br />
"This is something truly good, a gift from God," he wrote. But he warned: "The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbors, from those closest to us."<br />
<br />
He called for communications in the digital era to be like "a balm which relieves pain and a fine wine which gladdens hearts" and for the church's message to not be one of bombarding others with Christian dogma.<br />
<br />
"May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects, but rather of our being loving and merciful neighbors to those wounded and left on the side of the road," he said.<br />
<br />
<i>Source: Associated Press</i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRo7QGtQjx89griXCxldeA6rIGwgdDx-eZhjbb2_BGxyAfToIbYg8QEzP8DjW0uTj66iPgmUNOlYY6a6yf6aL9Xls1lNZ_zVU3zHMswDk2wCHlFPD3rbKmI3US2tHaJ879AA7cGkq5QWE/s1600/home+birth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRo7QGtQjx89griXCxldeA6rIGwgdDx-eZhjbb2_BGxyAfToIbYg8QEzP8DjW0uTj66iPgmUNOlYY6a6yf6aL9Xls1lNZ_zVU3zHMswDk2wCHlFPD3rbKmI3US2tHaJ879AA7cGkq5QWE/s1600/home+birth.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
While not calling for an outright ban on home births, two experts are urging parents who “wish to return to the past” by choosing to skip the hospital labor room to consider the potential harm to the baby.<br />
<br />
“Having a home birth may be like not putting your child’s car seat belt on,” the researchers write in a paper published Wednesday in the Journal of Medical Ethics<br />
<br />
“Most children will be unharmed. Some trips are very safe. And wearing a seat belt will not remove all risk of injury or death… But on balance it is much safer with a seat belt.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The main worry is that there are few resources to quickly detect and deal with any complications that arise during a home birth, which can put the health and well-being of the baby at risk, write the researchers – Australian obstetrician Dr. Lachlan de Crespigny and Oxford University ethics professor Julian Savulescu.<br />
<br />
Indeed, babies born at home are about 10 times as likely to be stillborn compared to babies born in hospitals, according to a study published last fall in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. They're also almost four times as likely to have neonatal seizures or serious neurologic dysfunction.<br />
<br />
But doctors and midwives often do not tell patients about the potential dangers involved in home birth and medical literature does not adequately address the risk of long-term disability, de Crespigny and Savulescu write. Doctors should not support planned home birth when there are “safe and compassionate hospital-based alternatives,” they add.<br />
<br />
While fewer than 1 percent of women give birth at home in the U.S., the home birth rate increased by almost a third from 2004 to 2009, according to the CDC. Home births are more common among women aged 35 and over, and among women with several previous children.<br />
<br />
Home births are more common in the U.K. and some European countries than they are in the U.S., though they still represent a small minority of births.<br />
<br />
<i>Source: nbcnews.com</i></div>
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Almost two years after Harvard University and MIT ventured into online education partnership called edX, more universities continue to embrace free online learning initiatives. Does this mean the death of paid learning? Certainly not. Paid education will continue to be with us. But online learning is helping democratize learning in a way that we've never seen before.<br />
The latest school to join the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) wagon is Regent University, the Virginia-based Christian university. Regent has launched a program known as Luxvera, which means light and truth. The Christian online classes will feature lectures and teaching material provided by Regent and the American Center for Law and Justice.<br />
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How will these universities continue to earn and sustain while giving out their lectures free online? That's certainly where innovation comes in. Just like the mainstream media world - i.e newspapers, magazines, radio and television - the education sector across the world is being massively disrupted. How often do you go to a physical library these days for research? Many people now research via google, youtube and other online platforms. This is our reality today and the old school days are gone for ever.<br />
<a name='more'></a> <br />
Congrats Regents for being 21 century compliant. Obviously, the future of online education is now. edX's goal is to education a billion people around the world. With Regent and others joining MOOCs, perhaps thrice that number will have some kind of higher education in a matter of decades.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEily9PsobAPL3zCM2IN2k2L_n74G7ddfbGSZTf5wpEoZRp_Q-zNTXOhY7U9m6EG4gaJQ2yxjtQgcMO_cbCnju0EL-ouize-n16PLOoWU5xCkFYxcW5WYCFU96K20W_2H9X2UzYzK7LjPTIU/s1600/bbc.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEily9PsobAPL3zCM2IN2k2L_n74G7ddfbGSZTf5wpEoZRp_Q-zNTXOhY7U9m6EG4gaJQ2yxjtQgcMO_cbCnju0EL-ouize-n16PLOoWU5xCkFYxcW5WYCFU96K20W_2H9X2UzYzK7LjPTIU/s320/bbc.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Obesity is a major cause of diabetes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Diabetes is at a crisis point in Africa, but because of the lack of proper medical statistics, policy makers and health managers don't really accord it the urgent attention it needs.<br />
A study published in the <a href="http://www.idf.org/diabetesatlas/5e/Update2012" target="_blank">World Diabetes Atlas</a> says that more than 80 percent of people living with diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa do not know that they suffer from the disease. Sub-Saharan Africa has more than 15 million of the 371 million people living with diabetes in the world.<br />
<div>
Can you imagine, the damage? 80% of sufferers ain't even aware they have the disease.</div>
<div>
The World Diabetes Atlas study adds that the greatest number of people with diabetes are between the ages of 40 and 59.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Data source: VOA</i></div>
</div>
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Have you seen the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mcdonalds-diet-iowa-teacher-loses-37-pounds-but-is-it-healthy/">report</a> about an Ohio science teacher who ate MacDonalds for three months and lost 37 pounds? Sounds interesting! This is how an Ontario-based medical doctor reacted to the report and I agree with him.<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmpVRHCVvqg" target="_blank">Cisna's experiment</a> seems to me a cheap PR for MacDonalds.
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
What a huge disservice John Cisna did 4 his students, and clearly students world over. Health is not synonymous with calories (or weight).<br />
— Yoni Freedhoff, M.D. (@YoniFreedhoff) <a href="https://twitter.com/YoniFreedhoff/statuses/421430697094840320">January 9, 2014</a></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-bellatti/mcdonalds-weight-loss_b_4550943.html" target="_blank">Yes, you can lose weight eating nothing but McDonald's, but that's not the point</a>.<br />
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At 90, John Mbugua debates Kenya’s politics, art and culture as expertly as any scholar. The old man has lived through the colonial era as well as Kenya’s four post-independence regimes.<br />
He has seen the country undergo tremendous changes in the field of technology.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1DSH2S8Is5-F7vYhqn1XWP7UhAJssVsNmtCeFeo_lPMbO-Vx2jVCv2xpdb3CogqXfPs0HW0ExRt32jtjpnAcAob6c5lNn3XIRQmtjB19J2_9WQHtcsjX748jRsbMdzhOyH4_bBjeOt8d7/s1600/Kenya.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1DSH2S8Is5-F7vYhqn1XWP7UhAJssVsNmtCeFeo_lPMbO-Vx2jVCv2xpdb3CogqXfPs0HW0ExRt32jtjpnAcAob6c5lNn3XIRQmtjB19J2_9WQHtcsjX748jRsbMdzhOyH4_bBjeOt8d7/s1600/Kenya.png" height="158" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Mbugua skyping family (c) businessdailyafrica.com</td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>"I don’t know why people do not keep in touch with each other despite all the advantages of mobile phones and the internet"</i></b></blockquote>
Over Christmas and the New Year celebrations Mr Mbugua used Skype, an application which allows one to converse with another over the Internet through video link, to talk to his grandchildren who are pursuing education overseas.<br />
“I don’t know why people do not keep in touch with each other despite all the advantages of mobile phones and the internet. I am disappointed by those who have my phone number and never call or text to say ‘hallo’ when I make all efforts to keep in touch with those I care about”.<br />
At his age, Mr Mbugua has taken his time to learn how to use the computer and watches documentaries about farming — learning the latest technologies to apply to his fish farming hobby.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Kenyan-grandpa-brings-family-together-Skype/-/1248928/2139056/-/8un86ez/-/index.html" target="_blank">READ FULL STORY HERE</a><br />
<i>Source: BusinessDaily, Kenya</i><br />
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<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");</script></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18315696945888690537noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1636902323924723478.post-20828982706229452852014-01-10T09:45:00.003-05:002014-01-10T09:47:39.774-05:00Rare, alarmingly deforming yet non-cancerous tumor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgMBPpPkH1-727PP7OQcu2ehl_0HW2njen3yUf_BD-15BjxIiwWQHUXYfx2BK-JGz8hsynn1MjExEdlc3rv1FhEz-k9GN7ALf5vaJthmgVNAWK4huGkuJH94PYrkCsu4skv2RAQCgddKz/s1600/tumor.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgMBPpPkH1-727PP7OQcu2ehl_0HW2njen3yUf_BD-15BjxIiwWQHUXYfx2BK-JGz8hsynn1MjExEdlc3rv1FhEz-k9GN7ALf5vaJthmgVNAWK4huGkuJH94PYrkCsu4skv2RAQCgddKz/s1600/tumor.png" height="202" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slamet (c) dailymail.co.uk</td></tr>
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The man in the picture, known only as Slamet is 59 and lives in Indonesia. His condition is a neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition which causes uncontrollable growths along the nerves.<br />
There are a lot of things we look unto medical sciences for solution and this is certainly one of them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBRuPWlPG3JgvdKe4-NysDo6LxOgxnLrBApnWuArIM329T1CguED1GqNNe12Fc5LlK4NeCdXdgscEPrQbcNof5htidNEGVJ9MSZkoC5R4QaR3nia-rBU4ZF3gTMkfQblSZWbgmPFZoiRu/s1600/tumor1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBRuPWlPG3JgvdKe4-NysDo6LxOgxnLrBApnWuArIM329T1CguED1GqNNe12Fc5LlK4NeCdXdgscEPrQbcNof5htidNEGVJ9MSZkoC5R4QaR3nia-rBU4ZF3gTMkfQblSZWbgmPFZoiRu/s1600/tumor1.png" height="209" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slamet (c) dailymail.co.uk</td></tr>
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According to Daily Mail, "although many people who have the condition inherit it from one of their parents, up to 50 per cent develop it randomly from a gene mutation before they are born."<br />
Despite the alarming appearance, the growths and swellings are not cancerous or contagious.<br />
A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibromatosis" target="_blank">wikipedia</a> explanation for this rare condition notes that it<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"is an autosomal dominant disorder, which means only one copy of the affected gene is needed for the disorder to develop. Therefore, if only one parent has neurofibromatosis, his or her children have a 50% chance of developing the condition as well.<br />
<a name='more'></a></blockquote>
Read more about Slamet's condition in <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535149/Indonesian-man-tumour-removed-waist-hundreds-sprout-face-doctors-fear-sight.html" target="_blank">Daily Mail</a> and <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/neurofibromatosis-sufferer-slamet-pictured-thousands-2997161" target="_blank">Mirror</a>.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDeJIkyP8XDsvcXLzENNqt_vHzVKuDmwdi3ZFtrK5Aw1lPX8VgQciN-WQ0wodRWcFEN2svXqfAoM082H7P9hpys6llDoQY4tVsigRkvxm3BHuG3S_6TaKtOjQ_kx_1cwmSPa6NDCV7-l3j/s1600/googleplex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDeJIkyP8XDsvcXLzENNqt_vHzVKuDmwdi3ZFtrK5Aw1lPX8VgQciN-WQ0wodRWcFEN2svXqfAoM082H7P9hpys6llDoQY4tVsigRkvxm3BHuG3S_6TaKtOjQ_kx_1cwmSPa6NDCV7-l3j/s1600/googleplex.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a></div>
A new feature in Google's Gmail will result in some users receiving messages from people with whom they have not shared their email addresses, raising concerns among some privacy advocates.<br />
<br />
The change, which Google announced on Thursday, broadens the list of contacts available to Gmail users so it includes both the email addresses of their existing contacts, as well as the names of people on the Google+ social network. As a result, a person can send an email directly to friends, and strangers, who use Google+.<br />
<br />
Google is increasingly trying to integrate its Google+, a two-and-a-half-year old social network that has 540 million active users, with its other services. When consumers sign up for Gmail, the company's web-based email service, they are now automatically given a Google+ account.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<a href="http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Google-linking-of-Google--contacts-to-Gmail-raises-concerns/-/539550/2141068/-/1007cpaz/-/index.html" target="_blank">Read full story here</a></div>
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I have never been as inspired as in recent times I was an hour ago when I listened to her talk. It's one of the most inspiring talk I'll ever hear. Trust me I'm not kidding. Every woman needs to hear Lizzie Velasquez. I mean it.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/c62Aqdlzvqk" width="560"></iframe>
She is labelled "The World's Ugliest Women" but she is the most beautiful soul I've encountered. I bet you, you'll jump of from your depression and slumber the moment you listen to Lizzie. <br />
<a name='more'></a> Here is a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si_XuKnRcKM" target="_blank">background</a> on her from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/07/lizzie-velasquez_n_4550829.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular" target="_blank">Huffington Post</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Lizzie Velasquez is one of three known people in the world who suffers from a rare syndrome, which prevents her from gaining weight and has caused blindness in her right eye. But the 24-year-old consistently redefines what it means to be beautiful.<br />
Some experts believe the Texas native has some form of Neonatal Progeroid Syndrome, a condition that causes accelerated aging and fat loss from the face and body, even though Velasquez eats about 60 small meals a day, the Telegraph reported.<br />
Less empathetic people have found more odious labels for Velasquez's condition.<br />
When Velasquez was in high school, she discovered a video of herself on YouTube that was titled "World's Ugliest Woman." It had garnered millions of views.</blockquote>
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