// January 2015 ~ EDUCATION & TECHNOLOGY

Wednesday 7 January 2015

American porn actress receives death threats in her family's home country after she is voted sex industry's top star



A Lebanese porn star has received death threats after being ranked as the best actress in the business by a popular adult website.
Mia Khalifa, 21, grew up in Lebanon but moved to the U.S. as a teenager to enroll in college, before becoming involved in the adult film industry.
She is now the most searched for actress on movie-sharing website PornHub, an accolade which has drawn strong criticism from her country of birth.




Users have branded her 'ugly' and 'disgusting', while one vowed to 'cut her neck' and another posted a mocked-up photo of her being held hostage by ISIS murderer Jihadi John.
One particular source of outrage is a video which shows Miss Khalifa performing sex acts while wearing a hijab, part of the Muslim religious dress.




One user calling herself Fifi wrote: 'Mia Khalifa is neat and all but wearing hijabs in her porn vids is really problematic and gross.'
Another poster going under the handle of Ayeerab wrote: 'B**** wonders why Arabs bash on her. Maybe because you f****** degraded Muslims in a porno.'





Monday 5 January 2015

'Superchip' At CES 2015 by Nvidia Unveils Tegra X1 ( Latest Mobile 'Superchip,')



LAS VEGAS -- Nvidia wants to bring the heart of its PC graphics card business to mobile -- and it thinks it has a chip that can pump out the quality of an Xbox One on your smartphone.

Onstage Sunday evening at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced a new addition to its Tegra chip family, the Tegra X1. The processor utilizes its most advanced PC architecture for graphics processing units, called Maxwell, that packs in a 256-core GPU on top of a 8-core central processing unit that, together, pumps out one whole teraflop of computational power.

What do all those numbers mean? According to Huang, the result is a tiny workhorse for smartphones that is both powerful and energy efficient enough to bring console and PC-grade graphics to handheld devices. The X1 follows Nvidia's process of transitioning PC-grade tech to mobile, which it did last year by bringing Kepler, the generation before Maxwell, to mobile devices like the Nvidia Shield gaming handheld with the Tegra K1 chip.

"This little tiny thing here is a mobile super chip," Huang said, adding that the X1 was twice as powerful as last year's K1. "We're able to run any application that relies on the architecture of Maxwell," he added. That includes any game powered by top-end PCs and home console.


To showcase this, Nvidia simulated a smartphone demo that rendered in real time the short video "Elemental" built using Unreal Engine 4. Epic, the maker of Unreal, is a leading supplier of game-building tools for the industry's most intensive and photo realistic titles -- the games Nvidia thinks will soon be commonplace on smartphones and tablets if they incorporate its Tegra chip.

Nvidia now dominates the PC graphics card business with its line of GeForce GPUs, having driven competitor AMD out of desktop computers and toward supplying the game consoles of Microsoft and Sony with components. The grip on PCs has proved lucrative; gamers shell out far more frequently for PC parts than console owners, who buy a system and keep it for years.

Now, Nvidia wants to move to mobile and is hoping hardcore gamers can take them there. Qualcomm is the lead supplier of mobile chips, and Nvidia has an uphill battle to try to supplant the Snapdragon line that runs most of the world's Android devices.

Yet that race is a ways down the line, the company says. At the moment, the Tegra X1 and its one teraflop of computational power is too much for current mobile devices. So Nvidia is getting the chip out into the wild -- by having it power next-generation automotive hardware and software.

The company closed out its press conference with a substantial amount of time spent talking up its new Drive PX and Drive CX products. Drive PX will provide autopilot and self-driving software by utilizing new Tegra X1's together to provide reliable computer vision for automobiles, helping with AI-assisted parking and self-driving functions of next-generation cars. Drive CX is Nvidia's new hardware and software platform for bringing its graphics and simulation chops to cars' center consoles for navigation, driver monitoring and other screen functions.


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Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took the stage at CES tonight to unveil its new mobile chip, the Tegra X1. With 256 processor cores and eight CPU cores, Huang touts it as the first mobile "superchip."

The X1 is the successor to last year's K1 processor, and is built atop the Maxwell architecture, which is both fast and energy-efficient. Despite tepid applause, Huang said he was most excited about what the chip can do, saying that there's nothing like it in the world. The X1 can handle 4K video at 60Hz, and is the first mobile chip to exceed 1 teraflop of throughput. The first supercomputer to exceed a teraflop did so in 2000, and needed more than 1 million watts to pull it off.

The X1 is powerful, and Huang demonstrated as much by showing off a real-time demo of Unreal Tournament. However, the chips strengths are being channeled into cars. In the near term, the chip will power the new Drive CX "digital cockpit computer," a fully-functioning infotainment system that could power an array of screens inside your car that monitor speed, temperature, and entertainment. Two X1s will power the Drive PX auto-pilot system that's great for parking

Friday 2 January 2015

Don't Use Facebook...Some Reasons You Should Quit Facebook In 2015


Anger has raged since it emerged that Facebook conducted a secret psychological experiment on over half a million of its users. This fresh controversy is the latest in a list of gripes over privacy, advertising, auto-playing videos, algorithms and more.
As a trigger of mass complaint, Facebook has become my generation’s television licence – the focal point for relentless resentment, the favoured terrain for the self-righteous. The fact that a lot of complaining about Facebook takes place on Facebook has always had a dash of irony about it, particularly for those of us who still quite enjoy the platform and do not smash our fists against the screen if it slightly changes the hue of its background colour.

But the soaring frustration raises the question of why anyone thinks one's Facebook account is sacrosanct, and why, when Facebook makes changes to its service, people react as if it is something as fundamental as the very air they breathe that has been polluted.
The tenor of the discussion around Facebook, the general sense of negativity and frustrating, is at odds with the fact that this is a free, non-compulsory service. People complain about Facebook as though it was a service they were forced to use, or were paying over the odds for. Nobody is making you use Facebook and humanity survived for thousands of years without it – so if you are that angry with it, why not just leave?
But is the prospect of life without Facebook even worse than the reality of using a platform that many people seem to hate? Going cold turkey may not prove to be quite as apocalyptic as committed Facebook users think. I have a friend who is not a member of any social networking site and could not be less interested in the world of status updates, likes and tweets.

Reasons You Should Quit Facebook In 2015


"Facebook is so annoying." How many times have you heard that sentiment this past year? We bet a lot, because more and more people seem to be getting tired of the social media platform, especially young people.

We've noticed a nationwide annoyance with Facebook over 2013. The company even admitted in October that younger teens were using the network less frequently on a daily basis. Here are 11 reasons that might convince you to let your Facebook account go in 2014.

1. Nobody actually wants to just read about what you're doing anymore.


Think about it: What sounds more appealing (and believable)? Reading a status that says, "I'm currently hanging out with Will Smith!" or a picture of that person actually posing with Smith? A photo is definitely more engaging. Here's the most-liked Instagram picture of 2013: Justin Bieber's snap with Smith.



When TIME interviewed teenagers about their social media use in March, 16-year-old Hamp Briley explained that kids these days don't have time for Facebook: "Twitter’s all statuses, Instagram’s all pictures. People like to do more specific things like that instead of being on just Facebook.”

2. Facebook makes it impossible for you to stay "private."


For many valid reasons (think stalker exes or potential employers), some people don't like having their name come up when it's typed into the Facebook search bar. However, most users this year found problems with changes to privacy settings. For one, Facebook removed the option to keep your name hidden when people search you. They also forced people to control their privacy settings on a cumbersome item-by-item basis. Today, the only way to make sure certain people can't access your profile is to block them. Or alter your name so it doesn't appear when people search your real one. Or, of course, quit Facebook entirely.

3. Your parents (and even grandparents) are now watching your every move.


This year seemed to be the year everyone's mom, dad, grandmother and great aunt got hooked on Facebook. And that meant every time you posted a status about something innocuous, these Facebook novices started breathing down your neck the minute you hit "post." We get enough scolding from our parents "IRL" -- no need to let it trickle onto a social media site where our friends can laugh at our familial bickering.

4. Or they're posting photos of you that you would never want anyone to see



What's worse than getting no "likes" on an Instagram photo you posted? Checking your Facebook and realizing that a horribly embarrassing photo of you that your mom posted is getting over 50 "likes," along with some pretty serious mockery in the comments section.

5. Facebook is even keeping track of what you don't say.


You may have been happy you didn't post that one over-share about your extended trip to the bathroom the other day, but Facebook may have a record of exactly what you typed and what time you were about to publish it. This month, Facebook released a study revealing that they were undergoing a new type of data collection in which they were tracking when people typed content out and then removed it without publishing. Their mission is to understand why users "self-censor" themselves in updates. According to Facebook data scientist Sauvik Das, a "self-censored update" is "an entry into either [a status update or comment box] of more than five characters that was typed out but not submitted for at least the next 10 minutes."

6. Facebook makes you feel less positive about your life.



Even though the purpose of Facebook is effectively to reveal details about everything and anything you do, access to this knowledge could take a toll on your mental well-being. A recent study done by the Department of Behavioral Science at the Utah Valley University discovered that heavy Facebook users aren't the happiest people out there. The researchers found that just using Facebook makes you view your life more negatively. Of 400 students questioned, "those who have used Facebook longer agreed more that others were happier, and agreed less that life is fair, and those spending more time on Facebook each week agreed more that others were happier and had better lives."

7. The "friend suggestions" tell you to befriend people you don't even know.


Facebook's "friend suggestions" algorithm needs some work, because these days we're discovering that your potential "friends" are people we only know through someone else, or someone we haven't even met at all. If you want people to stop using a platform that is supposed to connect them and bring them together with the people they care about, you should definitely adopt Facebook's strategy of trying to get you to care about the lives of complete strangers.

8. You realize you only know and care about only 20 people out of your 1,000 friends.



It starts to get kind of weird when you check the birthdays for the day and don't remember who any of the five people are. How do you know them? Are they some random person you met at a bar in college one night, and in a drunken stupor decided to "add on Facebook"? Probably. Do you need to know that this person is moving to California this week? More importantly, do you care? Nope. It could be time to overhaul your friends list. Or maybe it's time to realize that your Facebook account is being used pretty much entirely to keep tabs on these kinds of strangers.


I Don’t Use Facebook, But It’s Not a Privacy Concern


It was a Tuesday. I was seated comfortably on Angela’s chesterfield sofa. Angela, who I’d met during college, hosted weekly get-togethers for “the girls.” Each of us would bring something to contribute to the group: vodka, chips and guac, cupcakes, etc. We’d gather around the television to watch “our shows,” which Angela had DVRed throughout the week. Although our shows were prerecorded, we’d never fast forward through the commercials because they provided us with time to gossip, catch-up and inevitably back out of the conversation, hang our heads to check our Facebook accounts via iPhones. It was the normal thing to do; it was acceptable among us and sometimes one of us would even exclaim something along the lines of: “Oh my God, did you see Nick’s status update?!” We all got along wonderfully, and I looked forward to our weekly get-togethers.

Thursday 1 January 2015

New Features of Facebook


Today we are beginning to roll out a new feature called Nearby Friends that you can choose to turn on. Nearby Friends helps you discover which friends are nearby or on the go.

If you turn on Nearby Friends, you’ll occasionally be notified when friends are nearby, so you can get in touch with them and meet up. For example, when you’re headed to the movies, Nearby Friends will let you know if friends are nearby so you can see the movie together or meet up afterward.



Nearby Friends is an optional feature. You can choose who can see if you’re nearby (for example: your friends, close friends, or a specific friends list) and you can turn it on and off at any time.

Sharing your location with Nearby Friends goes two ways — you and your friends both have to turn on Nearby Friends and choose to share with each other to see when you’re nearby. Your friends will only be able to see that you’re nearby if you share this info with them and vice versa.

Find your friends nearby and meet up

If you turn on Nearby Friends, you can also choose to share a precise location with the particular friends you choose for a set period of time, such as the next hour. When you share your precise location, the friend you choose will see exactly where you are on a map, which helps you find each other. Then you can meet up and spend time together.



See when your friends are traveling

When Nearby Friends is on, you can see when your friends are traveling if they’re also using this feature and sharing with you. You’ll be able to see the city or neighborhood they are in, including on their profile. When you see a friend visiting a place you’ve been, it’s the perfect opportunity to send a recommendation for a great restaurant. You can also make last-minute plans to meet up with a friend who happens to be in the same place you’re headed to.

Nearby Friends will be available on Android and iPhone in the US over the coming weeks.