Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
While we normally review high performance cars in the Ford family, and their aftermarket variants, this review focusses on a more practical Ford. Not all of us can have a Mustang for daily transportation, weather and the need to haul more things and people often are the deciding factors in this. Recently editor Creason?s wife was in need of a larger ride to better accommodate their growing family. While they enjoyed their Focus hatchback, it was time to upgrade to a bigger, family sedan.
The recently redesigned 2013 Ford Fusion was chosen as our new family ride.We selected the SE model with the 1.6 liter 178 hp EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, and automatic transmission from Byerly Ford in Louisville, KY. The car also has the popular My Ford Touch and Sync systems.
The mid-size segment is highly competitive and one where Ford once dominated with the Taurus. That car has since made the transition to ?Full size? class, and the Fusion has been the Blue Oval?s mid-size car for right at a decade now.
On The Road
There?s no better way (in our minds) to test out a new car than to hit the road. The family loaded up and made an over 900 mile journey with infant in the back seat and mom and dad up front. We found the interior cabin of the Fusion ideal for this kind of driving. The car provided ample room for us and all of the things we took along.
A summer road trip to the beach seemed the perfect way to test the new 2013 Fusion for comfort, fuel economy, and practicality.
The front seats are comfortable, offering the right amount of firmness. We traveled through two southern states including Georgia and Florida and found the AC system was also quite capable of managing the 90-plus-degree summer heat. returning the car to comfortable temperatures following each stop.
Engine
We averaged just over 30 MPG round-trip, mostly highway miles for just over 2,000 miles of driving.
The EcoBoost 1.6 averaged just over 30 MPG for the entire trip, not too bad for a car that started out with just 400 miles on the odometer when we began the journey. The small four-cylinder doesn?t have tons of grunt, but we were never worried merging on the interstate, and had plenty of power to pass, you can feel the engine?s torque bolstered by the turbo at those times when it?s needed.
Since this car is destined to commute over 70 miles round trip daily, the 1.6 was the ideal engine as it offers the best fuel economy aside from the Hybrid models. We imagine that with a little more ?break in? this engine will probably average slightly better fuel economy.
We?d like to see about 20 more horsepower in this engine, and feel that would make it even better suited for a car this size. Still though it?s economy is well suited to our needs.
Handling
The SE is not designed to lap the tracks, again this car is put together with commuting and daily driving tasks in mind. The Michelin tires offered excellent road comfort, and the suspension was one of the most accommodating we?ve driven. The ride is not so light that you feel as though you?d be rocked to sleep while driving. However it?s not harsh either, soaking up seams, and bumps in the road, all prevalent as the summer road construction season is well under way.
We also noticed the car had excellent stopping ability. Wth the summer driving season comes plenty of driver?s who feel that it?s a race to get to their destination, thus quick braking, and sudden lane changes were both part of our trip. We?re pleased to say the Fusion handled both well, never leaving us to feel out of control, or having any sense that the car was anything other than confidently in our control.
Even with a rear-facing child seat installed front passenger leg room was still plentiful.
Technology
The My Ford Touch and Sync systems worked well in our car. While the voice commands sometimes struggled with our southern accents, for the most part with some patience we could get the system to do what we wanted. We also found the system easy to use, we?ve seen reviews bashing this system through the years, but really it?s no more difficult to use than the latest smart phone or tablet to hit the market.
We connected phones via Bluetooth, and enjoyed playing audio that way as well. Climate controls were easily set. The Navigation system did an excellent job, and we also enjoyed the SIRIUS traffic link function which warned of accidents and delays ahead.
If we had one gripe on the navigation system, we thought it should feature an easy reroute or alternate route function. We found construction delays weren?t always noted, which is to be expected. It would be nice to have a button in the Navigation menu that says reroute, and allows users to choose to bypass an area easily.
The backup camera on the car is excellent as well, it offers a wide view, and we found it most helpful in tight tourist destination parking lots.
The Final Opinion
The only other piece of advice we?d have for those looking at the 2013 Fusion is to have the windows tinted. We noticed from day one the amount of glass in this car. It?s great for visibility, but with a small child, shielding them from constant direct sunlight is a must. We had the windows tinted less than a week after we bought our car.
For those who need a family hauler, but don?t want to step up to the bigger Taurus, the 2013 Fusion offers the right combination of style, technology, economy, and comfort for everyone from Gen X or Y?ers who are starting families, to baby boomers looking for a solid, stylish, and affordable mid-size car.
CAIRO (AP) ? Thousands of backers of Egypt's Islamist president rallied Friday in Cairo in a show of support ahead of planned opposition protests this weekend demanding his removal, as passengers swamped the capital's international airport to leave, fearing widespread violence.
The opposition plans to bring out massive crowds on Sunday in protests nationwide, vowing to force President Mohammed Morsi to step down. Across the city from the pro-Morsi rally Friday, thousands massed in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, shouting for the president to "leave, leave,"
For the past several days, Morsi's opponents and members of his Muslim Brotherhood have been battling it out in the streets of several cities in the Nile Delta in violence that has left at least five dead. The latest died Friday from injuries suffered in fighting the day before, security officials said.
Many fear the clashes are a prelude to more widespread and bloodier battles on Sunday. In a sign of the charged atmosphere, a senior cleric, Sheik Hassan al-Shafie, from Al-Azhar, the country's most eminent Muslim religious institution, warned of the possibility of "civil war" after the street clashes in the Delta.
The Cairo International Airport was flooded with departures, in an exodus airport officials called unprecedented. They said all flights departing Friday to Europe, the United States and the Gulf were fully booked with no vacant seats.
Many of those leaving were families of Egyptian officials and businessmen and those of foreign and Arab League diplomats ? as well as many Egyptian Christians, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press.
Both sides have vowed to remain peaceful, and each side has blamed the other for the violence so far.
Tamarod, the activist group whose anti-Morsi petition campaign evolved into Sunday's planned protest, said in a statement it was opposed "to any attack against anybody, whatever the disagreement with this person was," and accused the Brotherhood of sparking violence to scare people from participating Sunday.
Tamarod says it has collected nearly 20 million signatures in the country of 90 million demanding Morsi step down.
The Brotherhood says the five killed in the Delta clashes were its members. Some people "think they can topple a democratically elected President by killing his support groups," Gehad el-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman, wrote on his Twitter account.
The pro-Morsi rally was held in front of the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, which is one of the sites where the opposition plans its protests Friday.
In his Friday prayer sermon, the cleric of Rabia el-Adawiya warned that if Morsi is ousted "there will be no president for the country" and Egypt will descend into "opposition hell."
Thousands of Morsi backers filled the street outside, chanting religious slogans. "It is for God, not for position or power," they shouted. "Raise your voice strong, Egyptian: Islamic Shariah." Many wore green headbands with the slogans of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Security officials say three people have died in the past three days in Nile Delta city of Mansoura, along with two others in the nearby province of Sharqiya.
In Sharqiya on Thursday, an Islamist march encountered an anti-Morsi march, leading to scuffles that evolved into full-fledged battles, the officials said. The two sides hurled stones at each other and fired gunshots, and at least 70 were injured. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
In the Delta city of Tanta on Friday, four unidentified men believed to be Morsi supporters tried to attack a mosque preacher during his sermon, in which he called on worshippers to stand with Al-Azhar's calls to avoid bloodshed.
Hundreds of protesters in the nearby city of Bassioun hurled stones at the local headquarters of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. They tore down the party's sign and crushed it, security officials said.
Interest rates on some subsidized student loans could double on July 1. A bipartisan Senate group and a sextet of Senate liberals both put forward proposals Thursday, but a deal is elusive.
By David Grant,?Staff writer / June 27, 2013
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa (l.) standing with Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island, discusses a graph and legislation to try and prevent the increase in the interest rates on some student loans, Thursday, June 27, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Susan Walsh
Enlarge
Congress is deadlocked over what to do with student-loan interest rates, meaning rates on some subsidized student loans will double come July 1.
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This is despite a flurry of proposals, including at least two on Thursday alone. Nevertheless, Congress is set to break for 10 days away from Washington without a fix, meaning students looking to finance their college education will be uneasily waiting for Congress to get its act together before the fall semester.
But so far, there?s little prospect of compromise even when lawmakers return after the Independence Day recess. Congressional Democrats, for example, are posturing that they won?t bend to a bipartisan proposal that would stabilize rates now but could lead to higher rates in the future.
?Students around this country would rather have no deal than a bad deal,? said Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island, a sponsor of the main Democratic proposal to fix student-loan rates.
The clash on the Hill illuminates a deep policy divide between the two parties with heavy political overtones.
In May, House Republicans passed a measure that, like President Obama?s budget proposal, calls for a long-term student-loan fix that pegs interest rates to the cost that the federal government incurs to borrow money.
In general, House Republicans and a bipartisan Senate group want to solve the student-loan problem once and for all ? and solve it now.
This bipartisan Senate group consists of three Republicans and two Democrats, and they offered a student-loan compromise on Thursday: It would affect all federal student loans, pegging subsidized and unsubsidized undergraduate student-loan rates to the 10-year treasury note, plus 1.85 percent, and adding 3.4 percent for graduate loans and 4.4 percent for additional ?PLUS? loans.
Interest rates would, unlike the House proposal, stay fixed for the life of each loan and could be consolidated at 8.25 percent when a student leaves higher education.
The five senators backing this proposal are among the most exasperated with the Senate?s current state of deliberation ? patching many programs year after year without solving problems. (The student-loan issue has been punted down the field each of the past two years.)
?We?re notorious for not fixing anything. We?re notorious for kicking the can down the road,? said Sen. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia on Thursday. ?We?ve said, enough is enough.?
Such a fix would be ?the only thing that?s certain up here,? said Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, ?other than chaos.?
This bipartisan proposal appears to hold appeal for the GOP-held House. Rep. John Kline (R) of Minnesota, the chair of the Education and the Workforce Committee and shepherd of the student-loan bill that the House passed last month, stayed engaged with the bipartisan group?s talks and was ?encouraged? by the final product, according to a spokesman.
But Senate Democrats, among them some of the body?s leading liberals, want a one-year extension of current rates because they see student loans as an integral piece of a bigger problem: the skyrocketing cost of higher education and the crushing student-loan burden those costs have impressed on young people.
A one-year fix, they reason, would pave the way for student loans to be reconsidered along with the forthcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in the fall.
As such, a sextet of liberals unveiled their own, one-year fix on Thursday. It would keep subsidized student loans (40 percent of all federal loans) at 3.4 percent for the coming year and offset the cost by changing tax rules on some retirement accounts ? something sure to rile up Republicans. (The proposal would do nothing to lower the other 60 percent of loans, which are reduced in the bipartisan proposal, compared with current interest rates.)
Democrats feel they?ll be able to pressure their Republican counterparts to come around to a short-term fix, coupled with the promise of long-term reform, for reasons of both policy and politics. First, the bipartisan proposal, they say, will make things more expensive for students in the long run.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa called the bipartisan proposal a ?classic bait and switch,? pointing out that the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that under this proposal, all three classes of federal student loans would rise above 6.8 percent by 2016 ? the level to which subsidized rates would double without a fix.
Also, while votes on similar bills from both sides failed earlier in June, Democrats feel that they?ll eventually corner the GOP politically into a one-year extension of loan rates because conservatives will eventually bend on a high-profile pocketbook issue.
?This is a reasonable proposal that last year, in an election year, the Republicans went for,? said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts.
But even some in the Democrats? own caucus just can?t stand the thought of kicking the can one more time.
?It?s another delay,? said Sen. Angus King (I) of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats and who is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan loan package. ?What will we know in a year that we don?t know now? So let?s solve the problem.?
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? The ex-wife of critically ill Nelson Mandela said Friday that the 94-year-old beloved former president is showing a "great improvement" compared to a few days ago.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela gave the update while speaking to journalists outside Mandela's former home in Soweto.
"I'm not a doctor but I can say that from what he was a few days ago there is great improvement," said Madikizela-Mandela, who is a member of South Africa's Parliament.
Madikizela-Mandela pleaded with the media to "understand the sensitivities and the feeling of the family."
One of Mandela's daughters, Makaziwe Mandela, was among family members who arrived at the Pretoria hospital on Friday. The ministers of health and defense also visited, the South African Press Association reported.
Outside the Pretoria hospital on Friday, a man flying a drone-like object with a camera attached was led away by several policemen, adding to an already heightened atmosphere where well-wishers continue to gather to pray for Mandela.
Mandela was taken to the hospital on June 8 to be treated for what the government said was a recurring lung infection. South Africans have held prayers nationwide, and many have left flowers and messages of support outside the hospital as well as his home in Johannesburg.
On Thursday, the office of South African President Jacob Zuma said Mandela's health had improved overnight, and that his condition was critical but stable.
Osborne: "Local communities should get, for example, at least ?100,000 for every fracking well that is created"
UK shale gas resources may be far greater than previously thought, a report for the government says.
The British Geological Survey estimates there may be 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas present in the north of England - double previous estimates.
Meanwhile the government has announced measures to enable shale gas drilling as part of its infrastructure plans.
Energy Minister Michael Fallon described shale gas as "an exciting new energy resource".
The BGS said its estimate for shale gas resources in the Bowland Basin region, which stretches from Cheshire to Yorkshire, represented potential resources, but "not the gas that might be possible to extract".
"Shale gas clearly has potential in Britain but it will require geological and engineering expertise, investment and protection of the environment," it said.
Drilling companies have previously estimated that they may be able to extract around 10% of this gas - equivalent to around 130 trillion cubic feet.
'Early days'
If the estimates are proved correct, that would still suggest recoverable reserves of shale gas far in excess of the three trillion cubic feet of gas currently consumed in the UK each year.
Shale gas is extracted through "fracking" - the controversial process of freeing trapped gas by pumping in a mixture of water, sand and chemicals.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
The truly massive shale gas resource of the north of England may bring tax revenues and possibly - not definitely - lead to lower bills, but it won't help the environment.
This week the government's climate change advisers warned that the UK was failing to keep pace with legally binding cuts in the CO2 emissions that are disrupting the climate.
The Environment Agency warns that if we want to keep burning gas we will have to rely on unproven technology to capture the carbon emissions in order to meet climate change targets.
It also warns that gas escaping from fractured wells may increase climatic disruption.
Meanwhile the International Energy Agency warns that the world can only burn a third of its existing fossil fuel reserves without a serious risk of de-stabilising the climate.
Shale gas plans will meet local environmental opposition too.
The process has helped boost the domestic energy industry in the US in recent years, where oil production has risen and gas prices have plummeted.
In a statement, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "Though it is early days for shale in the UK, it has the potential to contribute to the UK's energy security, increase inward investment and growth."
The government has unveiled a package of reforms to encourage development in the industry.
They include new planning guidelines to make the process of approving new drilling sites more streamlined, and a consultation on tax incentives to encourage exploration.
Communities affected by shale gas drilling are also expected to receive ?100,000 in "community benefits" and 1% of production revenues, should sites start producing gas.
"Shale gas represents an exciting new potential energy resource for the UK, and could play an important part in our energy mix," said Energy Minister Michael Fallon
"Development must be done in partnership with local people. We welcome the commitments from industry on community benefits.
"This will provide a welcome boost for communities who will host shale exploration and production as well as offering strong assurances that operators will engage with them and work to the highest health, safety and environmental standards."
He said communities hosting shale gas drilling could benefit from cheaper bills, regeneration schemes and new community facilities like playgrounds and sports halls.
The incentives are designed to overcome significant scepticism surrounding the process of fracking, which has generated environmental concerns.
Critics argue that it can cause earth tremors and pollute water supplies, and that shale gas wells could blight the countryside and affect house prices.
They also want investment in green energy sources, rather than fossil fuels.
Labour's shadow energy minister, Tom Greatrex, conceded that gas would remain "an important part of our energy mix in the future".
But he dismissed the announcement of incentives as "a desperate attempt to draw attention away from the government's cuts to infrastructure investment... and its abject failure to get the economy growing".
Power warning
Currently the UK's shale industry remains in its infancy, with relatively small energy companies such as IGas and Cuadrilla until recently the only firms with licences to explore share gas resources.
Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced its intention to buy a stake in one licence in the Bowland Basin owned by Cuadrilla earlier this month.
The report for the government comes as energy regulator Ofgem warned that the risks of power blackouts has increased because excess capacity in the power industry has fallen in the UK.
The watchdog has twice warned in recent months that the amount of spare power is shrinking, partly due to some gas generators being taken out of service.
Centrica has already withdrawn two of its gas plants from operation. In April, SSE confirmed that it too would mothball gas plants and put off investments in new ones.
Adam Scorer, of the lobby group Consumer Futures, said: "Projections of ever-tighter capacity margins understandably raise fears of higher electricity prices.
"Government and regulator need to agree on the most realistic capacity scenarios, the least-cost ways of reducing demand and, where necessary, of incentivising new generation capacity."
Announcing further details of the government's spending review to parliament, Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander said the government had agreed "strike prices" in an effort to boost investment in renewable forms of energy.
The prices mean the government will guarantee to pay a certain price for energy generated through on-shore and off-shore wind, tidal, wave, bio-mass and solar power.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's High Court ordered Deputy President William Ruto on Friday to surrender a 100-acre farm in the lush Rift Valley and pay compensation to a farmer who had accused the politician of grabbing the land during election violence five years ago.
The ruling, seen as a key test of the Kenyan judiciary's newly won independence, came as Ruto and President Uhuru Kenyatta prepare to face trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity in connection with the post-2007 election mayhem, in which more than 1,200 people died.
Justice Rose Ougo ordered Ruto to vacate the farm and pay compensation of 5 million shillings ($58,200) to the rightful owner, Adrian Muteshi, 70, who had accused Ruto of evicting his farm workers during the fighting in 2007-08.
A swift and transparent resolution of the land dispute involving Ruto, filed in late 2010, is seen as a critical test for the courts, which have been strengthened by a new constitution making them more independent of the politicians.
Kenyan judges have long been seen as hirelings eager to issue rulings at the whim of the political elite.
Ruto had argued that the land had been legally transferred from Muteshi to a third party, Dorothy Yator, from whom the deputy president said he had purchased the land. The judge ruled that Ruto had acquired the land fraudulently.
"I order the deputy president to pay 5 million shillings to the farmer as compensation ... I conclusively find that Muteshi is the owner of the land," Justice Ougo said in her judgment.
"From the evidence before me, it is clear that there were fraudulent activities in the manner the land was sub-divided and sold," she added.
"HAPPY MAN"
Ruto's lawyer Katwa Kigen told Reuters he would appeal.
Muteshi, who said he had fled his land in 2008 at the height of the post-election clashes, welcomed the verdict.
"I am a happy man since the land in question has been given back to me," he told Reuters outside the court after the verdict, though he added that the compensation was not enough.
The war crimes trial of Kenyatta and Ruto is due to begin at the ICC in The Hague on November 12. Both men deny the charges that they orchestrated the election violence in 2007-08.
Chief Justice Willy Mutunga was appointed in 2011 to reform a legal system seen as corrupt and inefficient.
He has sacked judges found by a tribunal to be corrupt, encouraged new ones to be independent in their decisions and brought in measures to hasten the resolution of cases.
(Writing by James Macharia, editing by Gareth Jones)
Liquid-cooled rigs are de rigeur for serious PC gamers, but Maingear knows there are plenty who'd rather crowbar headcrabs than fiddle with plumbing. To that end, the company's just buttressed its water-chilled desktop lineup with the Epic Series, consisting of the full-tower Force and mid-sized Rush models. Each pack a "BiTurbo" pump design that keeps things cool in the event of a single pump failure, along with the latest Intel 4th-generation Core i7 or AMD FX processors. As for graphics, you'll get four-way SLI NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan or Radeon HD 7970 GPUs if you opt for the Force model, while the Rush offers two-way GeForce GTX Titan SLI or dual Radeon HD 7990 graphics. There are also numerous memory, storage and static pressure fans using Corsair parts, and custom touches like lighting and Glasurit paint with an "automotive finish." There's no word yet on cost or availability, but that kind of detailing and overclocking power generally comes with a commensurate price -- if that doesn't phase you, check the source for more.
The Philadelphia Flyers kicked off another exciting summer Tuesday of ?Hooked on Hockey? for youths in the Philadelphia area. Full details are below.
(Via the Philadelphia Flyers) ? Philadelphia, PA (June 25, 2013)???In the ongoing effort to grow the?sport of hockey, members of the Flyers organization will lead 26 ?Hooked on Hockey??clinics for over 3,000 youths throughout the Philadelphia region during the summer months. Participants will take part in hockey drills including stick handling, passing and shooting while learning that they can have fun as they stay active.
Ambassador of Flyers Hockey Bob ?The Hound? Kelly will host and interact with youth participants at each Hooked on Hockey clinic?this summer. The Flyers alumnus played with the Philadelphia Flyers?for 10 years and helped the team win two consecutive Stanley Cup?championships in 1974 and 1975. He continues to be a part of the Flyers community today.
Celebrating its 10-year anniversary this summer, ?Hooked on Hockey? is a part of the Flyers community?effort to provide children with opportunities to learn the fundamentals of hockey, teamwork and the importance of being active.?Since its inception in 2004, the clinic has seen almost 30,000 participants and continues to gain popularity in the community, while also receiving repeat appearance requests.?The Flyers community relations team also hosts the Flyers School?Assembly program throughout the school year, which visits approximately 90 schools and reaches over 30,000 students annually.
Each participant in the Hooked on Hockey program will receive a?Flyers activity book and a Flyers Mylec street hockey stick, encouraging each?child to stay ?Hooked on Hockey?.
Fans are invited to the Official Flyers NHL Draft Headquarters at XFINITY Live! Philadelphia on Sunday, June 30 and participate in the free ?Hooked on Hockey? clinic for children under the age of 14. For event details visit?PhiladelphiaFlyers.com.
Follow Flyers Community Relations on Twitter at @FlyersCommunity (twitter.com/FlyersCommunity) to learn more about the quest to put sticks in the hands of more than 30,000 children in the Philadelphia area.
Philadelphia Flyers ?Hooked on Hockey? Summer 2013 Schedule
Date
Camp/Organization
City
State
Time
?
?
?
?
?
6/25/2013
Fox Chase Recreation Center
Philadelphia
PA
10-1pm
6/26/2013
Camp High Point
Chalfont
PA
10-1pm
6/27/2013
Camp Saginaw
Oxford
PA
10-1pm
6/30/2013
Xfinity Live! (NHL Draft Party)
Philadelphia
PA
3:30-4:30pm
7/1/2013
Lower Mayfair Recreation
Philadelphia
PA
1:30-2:30pm
7/2/2013
County of Gloucester
Sewell
NJ
10- 1pm
7/9/2013
Kiddie Academy of Plumsteadville
Plumsteadville
PA
10-11am
7/10/2013
Stone Harbor Elem. (Trial on the Isle)
Stone Harbor
NJ
11 -12pm
7/11/2013
United Sports
Downingtown
PA
10-11am
7/12/2013
Please Touch Museum
Philadelphia
PA
11-2pm
7/17/2013
Stafford Twp Recreation
Manahawkin
NJ
10-1pm
7/19/2013
ACAC Fitness Center
West Chester
PA
1-4pm
7/23/2013
West Chester Parks and Recreation
West Chester
PA
10-11am
7/24/2013
Shadyside Park
Downingtown
PA
10-11am
7/25/2013
Ocean City Recreation
Ocean City
NJ
10-12pm
7/25/2013
Sea Isle City Recreation
Sea Isle City
NJ
5 ? 6pm
7/26/2013
Kids Camp of Pennsbury
Yardley
PA
12:30-3:30pm
7/30/2013
Flourtown Summer Day Camp
Flourtown
PA
10:30-12:30pm
7/31/2013
Lifeseeds Summer Camp
Wyncote
PA
10-12pm
8/1/2013
Ardsley Day Care
Glenside
PA
10am-12pm
8/7/2013
Waretown Recreation
Waretown
NJ
10am-12pm
8/14/2013
Malvern Day Camp
Glen Mills
PA
10am-1pm
8/15/2013
Spring Valley YMCA
Collegeville
PA
1pm-3pm
8/16/2013
Monroe Twp Youth Hockey
Williamstown
NJ
11-1pm
8/21/2013
East Petersburg Inline Hockey
East Petersburg
PA
5-6pm
8/28/2013
Neshaminy Kids Club
Levittown
PA
11-2pm
To reserve a ?Hooked on Hockey? clinic in your area for the 2014 summer months, call 215-952-5763.
For official Philadelphia Flyers information, please visit the official team website,?PhiladelphiaFlyers.com.
Get a jump on securing your Flyers full or partial ticket package today. Flyers season ticket holders receive great benefits, including discounts from box office pricing, access to exclusive team events and more! Reserve your tickets today by visiting?PhiladelphiaFlyers.com?or calling 215-218-PUCK (7825).
Comcast-Spectacor (Comcast-Spectacor.com) is the Philadelphia-based?sports and entertainment company which owns the Philadelphia Flyers?(NHL), the home arena for both the Flyers and the NBA?s Philadelphia?76ers, the Wells Fargo Center, and four Flyers Skate Zone community?ice skating and hockey rinks. In addition, Comcast-Spectacor is also?the principal owner of Global Spectrum, the fastest growing firm in?the public assembly management field with more than 115 facilities?throughout the United States and Canada; Ovations Food Services, a?food and beverage service provider; New Era Tickets, a ticketing and?marketing company for public assembly facilities; Front Row Marketing?Services, a commercial rights sales company; FanOne, a digital fan?marketing company; and Paciolan, the leading provider of venueenablement, ticketing, fundraising and marketing technology solutions.
And here we face a conundrum. On the one hand, Sony's Xperia Z Ultra has salivation-worthy guts. On the other hand, the screen on this thing is 6.4 freaking inches! That's not a phone, that's a tablet you talk into.
Ignoring that for a moment, this thing sounds awesome. It'll come running Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) on Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at an absurd 2.2GHz. It has an 8MP camera with the Exmor RS for mobile sensor, LTE, NFC, micro SD card slot, and 2GB of RAM.
There's some very impressive design going on with the body, too. At 6.5 millimeters (0.26 inches) it's one of the thinnest smartphones in the world (although thicker than the recently announced Huawei Ascend P6). For comparison, the iPhone 5 is 7.6 millimeters (0.30 inches). It's also dust-proof and waterproof (IP55 and IP58), so you should be able to drop it into a few feet of water and leave it for a half hour with no problem. We tested that recently with the Xperia Tablet Z, and it worked as advertised. You can use any pencil (and a lot of pens) as a stylus, which would make us nervous about screen scratching, but sure, why not. Speaking of the screen, it's 1080p, which gives it a very solid pixel density of 350 PPI, and it uses Sony's new TRILUMINOS technology, which may or may not mean something.
But let's address the elephant in the room. The elephant being the device itself, because they are roughly the same size. Samsung's Galaxy S4, with its 5-inch screen, is a phone. The Galaxy Note II, with its 5.5-inch screen, is what has become known as a "phablet" (weep for the English language). The Nexus 7, however, with its 7-inch screen, is a tablet. Sony's Xperia Z Ultra has a 6.4 inch screen. Now, let's do some simple math. The Ultra is 0.9 inches bigger than the Note II phablet, but it's only 0.6 inches smaller than the Nexus 7 tablet. Thus, it's more tablet than phone (or phablet, even). Just look at this thing in a normal person's hand!
Yes, sure, it does possess other characteristics of a phone, like an ear speaker and radio bandwidths for voice communication, but come on. There is no way it's going to fit comfortably into your pants pocket and there's no way you'll be able to do anything but read with it one-handed. We'd love to see these same guts in a smaller, more wieldy package, but it remains to be seen when such a day will come.
The Xperia Z Ultra launches globally in Q3 of this year. We look forward to going hands-on with it then. We anticipate needing both.
MIAMI (AP) ? Bunny Yeager was a photographer at a time when men dominated that profession, but the model turned pin-up photographer used that to her advantage when photographing women in the 1950s and '60s.
She was able to make everyday women, from stay-at-home mothers to airline attendants, feel comfortable enough to bare it all. In the mid-1950s, she helped jump-start the career of then-unknown Bettie Page with her photo in Playboy. More than five decades after shooting the well-known stills of Page in a leopard-print bathing suit standing next to a real cheetah, 40 framed prints of her work are now on display in a gallery in Wynwood, Miami's arts district.
"They all wanted to model for me because they knew that I wouldn't take advantage of them," Yeager, now 83, said of her models. "And I wouldn't push them to do nude if they didn't want to do nudes. It wasn't a day when nude photography was prevalent."
Wes Carson, a photography instructor at the Miami International University of Art & Design, said the way women were "surveyed" in Yeager's photographs was distinct from her male counterparts.
"When I look at her work, the women have a different demeanor," he said. "They are more confident. They are in charge of their sexuality, where if you look at someone else's work the women are much more dismissive and demure."
Last year, Yeager, a Pennsylvania native, published the coffee table book "Bunny Yeager's Darkroom" and is working on another book that will include her photos of Page. The German fashion house Bruno Bananai has a new line of swimwear based on the bikinis she designed for her models and she plans to photograph models again in her studio, if requests come in.
Yeager, whose real name is Linnea Eleanor Yeager, was one of the most photographed models in Miami during her early career. Soon after taking a photography course at a local college, Yeager turned the camera on herself as she posed in bathing suits she handmade for her 5-foot-9 frame. Her self-portraits were turned into a book, "How I Photograph Myself," in 1964 and many of those photos ? including Yeager in a red-striped low V-cut bathing suit and a white bikini covered in real daisies she glued on one by one ? adorn the walls of her Miami gallery. The prints range in price from $1,200 to $3,000.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Yeager was one of the top fashion models and photographers, publishing about a dozen books. She shot stills of the Swedish actress Ursula Andress, who was starring in the 1962 James Bond film "Dr. No." The famous shot shows the actress in a white bikini, a knife sheathed at her side.
Yeager continued to work, but over the last decade, several magazines began to struggle or went out of business. Yeager was no longer in demand.
"There was a big portion of time where I hadn't been doing anything," Yeager said of her hiatus. "It wasn't that I was retired, it's just that nobody wanted my photos. I had no requests. No inquiries. Nothing. It was like I didn't even exist."
But in 2010, the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh held an exhibition of her work. Now, there is the Miami exhibition.
"I haven't gotten used to it yet," Yeager said of the recent attention. "And I still get that little tingle when I see the photos on the wall."
In her studio, Yeager keeps a stash of photos no one has seen in cabinets. Some she plans to save for her next book. Others will serve as a snapshot of what's yet to come for Yeager and the next generation of female photographers.
"I'm still feeling like a little child and excited over everything new that comes along in my life. I don't know where it will lead to yet, but it sounds good to me."
Today marked a historic victory for marriage equality when the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, an event many in Hollywood and around the country have hoped for for years. As soon as the decision was announced, celebrities took to Twitter to express their support. Read our report on the Supreme Court striking down the Defense [...]
A secure area to keep all enterprise apps, data and communication safe without a VPN
Following up on its goal to have the products released by the end of June, BlackBerry has just put its Secure Work Space apps into the Play Store. The pair of apps -- "Secure Work Space for BES10" and "Work Space Manager for BES10" -- together let enterprise network administrators control corporate data on users devices and keep it safe. The app provides an alternative launcher that gives access to a completely sandboxed set of enterprise apps such as email, calendar, contacts and a secure browser. These apps and their associated data can be controlled by the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) administrator just like any other BlackBerry can, which is a huge step in the right direction for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs.
Although they won't do you much good until your company has set up your device (and its back-end) to use the service, both of the apps are now showing as available for download in the Play Store. Now is the time to go talk to IT at your place of work to see if they can get you set up -- more information can be found at the source link below.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "The Good Wife" star Julianna Margulies was allegedly a bad client, and now the actress will have to face trial over it.
Margulies suffered a legal setback in court on Tuesday, when a judge denied her motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought against her by her former management company over commissions it says it's owed.
D/F Management claims it's owed money stemming from Margulies' work on "The Good Wife" and for her work with cosmetics company L'Oreal.
Margulies, who has filed a cross-complaint against D/F Management for breach of contract, denies the claims, arguing that the company had no written agreement. While the actress' legal representation will move forward with that and other defenses, the argument wasn't enough to spur a summary judgment of the suit.
A trial date on the matter has been set for October 9.
"We are pleased but not surprised by the judge's well reasoned decision rejecting Miss Margulies' motion," Matthew Rosengart, an attorney for D/F, said. "My clients are disappointed that she reneged on her agreement and then filed a meritless motion. We look forward to the trial in October."
According to court documents obtained by TheWrap, Margulies retained D/F in 2009 and terminated the relationship in April 2011. But D/F contends that it's owed a 10 percent commission on Margulies' earnings for "The Good Wife" and L'Oreal after the dissolution of the relationship, an assertion that the actress disputes.
Margulies' motion for summary judgment, filed in February, argued that, since she is a New York resident and D/F's business is based in New York, that the state's statute of frauds should be applied, which Margulies' team contended should lead to a summary judgment. However, the judge said that there was a factual dispute that prevented him from ruling on the motion as a matter of law at the moment.
Racial scandals aren't always bad for business ... just ask Paula Deen's brother who says the embattled chef's restaurants have been "slammed" with customers in the wake of the N-word drama.
Bubba Hiers -- who is also named as a defendant in the sexual and racial harassment lawsuit against Paula -- was walking around Savannah today when he was asked how the family was coping.
"We're doing fine," Bubba said ... and when asked if Deen's businesses were continuing to thrive despite all of the bad media, he insisted the companies were "slammed" ... and he meant it in a good way.
FYI -- Lisa Jackson, the woman suing Paula and Bubba, worked as the G.M. for Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House in Savannah, Georgia from 2005 - 2010.? Bubba is part owner along with Paula.
Jackson claims Bubba is a racist who dropped the N-word in the workplace and also viewed porn on the kitchen computer.
Paula has previously claimed Jackson is a liar who is just trying to extort the family.
(Via the Philadelphia Flyers) ? Philadelphia, PA (June 25, 2013)???In the ongoing effort to grow the?sport of hockey, members of the Flyers organization will lead 26 ?Hooked on Hockey??clinics for over 3,000 youths throughout the Philadelphia region during the summer months. Participants will take part in hockey drills including stick handling, passing and shooting while learning that they can have fun as they stay active.
