Who Benefits Most From Data On iCloud? The Consumer Or The Government?

Posted on February 21, 2016 by cevans37

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has filed an order requiring Apple to provide them access to an iPhone used by one of the attackers of the San Bernardino, Calif. mass shooting last year. There have been instances in the past in which they cooperated with law enforcement in supplying data from their customers. But Apple has created an impression that the matter may be contradictory because though Apple embraced the new notion that they are no longer required to provide access for law enforcement, there are those prior records of their cooperation. Recent transparency reports from Apple revealed 11,000 data requests under order from United States courts and about 7,100 of those requests fulfilled. In statements from Apple, they make clear that the consumer-driven company was elated that the government mandate placed on them to interfere in their consumers’ data has been voided.  And even though they have turned over data before, they’ve made initiatives like creating an iOS update in 2014 that made them “technically unable” to fulfill a court request, in order to discern privacy and iCloud use concerns.

So should you continue to use iCloud as your data storage source? Well many say no to be safe rather than sorry but there are some things to consider. First, you should know that your iMessage feature is safe. Texts sent via iMessage are not able to be intercepted or decrypted; only the sender and receiver have access to that exchange. On the contrary, iCloud information is encrypted on Apple’s servers. There are security measures for iCloud however they need that data in order to back up your phone if you happen to lose or damage your phone. So I suppose that’s the give and take. Will you continue to use iCloud and have your data backed up in case of an emergency at the cost of your privacy in governmental instances?

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370 MPH Soon To Be Achieved Without The Aid of Gasoline.

Posted on February 21, 2016 by v.king

This summer automobile company Venturi will attempt to break the current land speed record for a batter-powered car that stands at 307 mph currently set by there previous model Venturi VBB- 2.5. The new model Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3 (VBB-3) is set to break the record this August and aiming for a speed of 370 MPH. So what does this mean is probably what you’re asking right now. Well the data gain from this run this summer will help not only Formula E which is a racing league for battery powered cars but will also help us as far as building better battery powered cars. Currently we are just starting to tap the potential of these battery powered cars but after data runs like these here we can soon have full battery powered cars for the average consumer.

Imagine a world where we actually start to reduce our carbon foot prints because of these events like this figuring out if the battery, motor, and other components work during high stress. Not to mention the same people that work for Venturi also end up working for the likes of Ford, NASA, and other companies. This is also beneficial because helps bridge a gap of technology, data and other things to make a solid consumer production car that the average person can buy and feel safe in. This is more then a land speed record and Venturi knows this. This is a step in the future, a step to help save this planet and extend the life of the planet itself. People see the importance of electric vehicles now its our duty to make sure that importance is recognized.

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Does Kobe really deserve a spot on the NBA All-Star roster and the NBA All-Star MVP?

Posted on February 21, 2016 by v.king

Kobe Bryant the man, the legend, The Black Mamba. Kobe Bryant will be making his 18th NBA All-Star appearance but does he really deserve it ? After all this season hasn’t been his greatest season nor a season to be called up to the all-star game but still why? A lot of people are saying he doesn’t deserve it or he hasn’t played a all-star season this year. It doesn’t matter if he’s a legend he didn’t it really deserve it this year. What?! Excuse me ?! The man is a legend! He’s changed the game for the better and shown what hard work is, what loyalty to one team is, and what team work is. Kobe Bryant is a humble athlete. He’s helped develop other players that enter the league years after years. He’s the epiphany of a perfect athlete rarely gets into trouble don’t get me wrong he’s been in trouble but what athlete hasn’t had there moments.

At the end of the day Kobe has done way more good then he’s done bad. He’s a amazing athlete, a family man, always has a smile on face. The fans know Kobe’s worth and selected him not only to be on the roster but to lead the voting on the all-star cast as well. Kobe is legend and he’s help the game grow so why not give him a spot on the all-star roster and possibly the MVP as well. I understand he didn’t deserve this season but the man is a future hall of famer might as well give him a all-star spot and maybe the MVP also key word maybe as a last hoorah.

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Apple Vs. The Government: Should Apple crack?

Posted on February 21, 2016 by v.king

In a recent article I read I question after reading the article should Apple crack and make the software weaker so the government can hack Syed Rizwan Farook phone? This Is the key point that people don’t know is that Apple doesn’t have the key to the phone to unlock it. As a matter of a fact they don’t have the keys to unlock any of our phones. The Government wants Apple to make their software weaker so they can put in as many passcodes as possible without erasing the stored data. What’s the problem here you ask? The Government doesn’t give us privacy so why should Apple put their company at risk then? What I am saying is basically if they do this for the Farook case then sooner or later they are going to ask if they can hack the phones of other people in our country and others.

This is unlocking Pandora’s box if you will. If you give this to the government, then there’s no limit to their power they can soon track us and hack our phones for a variety of reasons. If the government actually does get Apple to do this who’s to say criminals aren’t going to get a hold of this data and use it for evil. I get it the San Bernardino massacre was bad and Mr. Farook should be put away but letting the government win this battle is just asking the government to not only let us into our lives but we might as well strap a camera to our chest with a live feed to let our government know what we are doing 24/7.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Do Artificial Sweeteners Make us Gain Weight?

Posted on February 21, 2016 by brimacnaught

Could it be adding ‘diet” supplements to our lives could actually harm us instead if helping us? Let us be completely honest..the world “artificial” in essence means fake. It is a clone of the actual product, yet this does not mean it is necessarily better for our health.

According to Roni Caryn Rabin who wrote the article “Artificial Sweeteners and Weight Gain”, “Another large study that followed thousands of residents of San Antonio, Tex., for 10 years found those who drank more than 21 servings of diet drinks a week were at twice the risk of becoming overweight or obese, and the more diet soda people drank, the greater the risk.” Just by this study we can see the damage artificial sweeteners have done to our bodies.

Although we have the right intentions to eat better, we are actually hurting our bodies more than we are actually helping them. The reality is we must not treat these “diet” items as a “get of jail free card” because when we abuse the freedom our bodies will not be able to handle the damage.

The article states that scientist must to more research to further define what is causing the negative effects, however we must not abuse the use of artificial sweeteners in the mean time. Would it just be better to limit how much regular sugar we intake? What would out health look like if we could use self control and develop a eating plan? Maybe the cure to not getting diabetes or become overweight is just eating healthier and less artificial products.

 

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2016 Grammys Recap

Posted on February 17, 2016 by dgantea

The Grammys are always an exciting night.  Celebrities, gowns, awards and amazing performances are all some of the best parts of the annual show.  As always, The Grammys came and went slowly, over a very long three-and-a-half hours.  Only a small number of the 83 awards given out last night were actually shown on stage.

Taylor Swift kicked off the red carpet portion and also closed the whole show after she won the Album of the Year award.  She became the first woman to win a Grammy for album of the year twice and gave a powerful acceptance speech targeted at young women.  She also decided to address her feelings for Kanye West on stage after he took credit for her fame in a rap lyric.  If you weren’t aware of the Kanye-Taylor situation, back in 2009 her video for “You Belong With Me” beat out Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” for Best Female Video.  She went to the stage to accept the award and then Kanye, out of no where, jumped onstage, grabbed the mic out of Taylor’s hand and said, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!”  Kanye was booed, and celebrities quickly rallied behind Swift fueling a huge beef between the two celebrities.

Everyone’s favorite Adele performed in the middle of the show, sounding not as great as usual.  She held it together and later tweeted that “mics fell on the piano strings” making everything “sound out of tune,”.  She is still Adele so no one really had a problem with it.

Hip Hop and R&B won big this year.  Beyoncé presented the Song of the Year award to “Uptown Funk” collaborators, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson.  Kendrick Lamar took home five awards, including best rap album, and had a powerful live performance with a strong political message.  Lionel Richie, Music Cares’ Person of The Year, was serenaded with a medley by an amazing cast of today’s biggest pop stars including John Legend and Demi Lovato.

Although the show contained a few exciting instances, the 2016 Grammys received the worst ratings for the show in six years.  It came in just shy of last year’s ceremony, which had about 300,000 more viewers, but was still well under 2012’s show of 40 million viewers.  Nevertheless, I will continue to tune in every year because I just can’t resist the glamour and gossip of American award shows.

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2016 Taco Bell Quesalupa Super Bowl Commercial Combines All The Latest Trends With The Latest Celebrities

Posted on February 16, 2016 by jesusalberto2120

The first thing I noticed from the commercial is the kid from vine, Hayes Grier, I though that was really cool for a social media star to be featured in a Super Bowl commercial. He is very popular in Instagram, Twitter but specially Vine; he makes videos with his siblings Nash Grier and Skye Grier, who is a super cute 4-year old little girl. His brother Nash is even more famous than Hayes, so that was very surprising for me to see him there. So that caught my attention for sure, and there are two other girls with him at the beginning who are very pretty, but me being a girl, of course I am inclined to look for cute guys everywhere so when I saw it was him, it made it even cooler. As I’m sure guys look straight to the girls in commercials as well, without even thinking about it that much.

The most amazing thing about this commercial is that they combined almost all the current trends we see everything day on social media, television, and basically on the street. The mention it like their taco is bigger than all the trends like man buns, tinder, texas layer guy, drones, driver-less cars, mars’s landing, aliens, James Harden’s beard, base drop, hover boards, football (real futbol), the internet, bigger than memes and more. They went all out trying to capture all the most-talked about trends to imply that their cheese-stuffed Quesalupa is the next biggest thing compared to all of those. So every time they mention a “bigger than..” they had a celebrity breaking in half the taco to show all the gooey cheese coming out of it. I mean what else could we ask for? Cheese, celebrities, and amazing background inspiring music, I am in!

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Valentines Day in America. Who is it really for?

Posted on February 14, 2016 by ashley riordan

By Shawn Presley

America is known for the need of celebration and recognition to anything from “Best Friend’s Day” to the granddaddy of them all “Christmas” (Arguably the most known holiday on the planet). However, Valentines day is one of the holidays the falls into a category in purgatory, there are not any clear or decisive measures on who we are suppose to express our love too and most importantly how to carry out that expression of love to that special somebody.

Now before we can accurately discuss how to carry out the expression of love, we first must make it known to whom is someone worthy of the expression of the love. Now one may argue it is to anyone you love, but in my opinion that’s just too vague. I mean there are hundreds of people I love, but which is one worthy of an expression of love.  The next may argue well it’s to anyone that’s special to you, I say that’s crap as well because many people are special for particular reasons in our loves. But for the sake of conversation lets just say its our significant other, it in essence segways into how to express it.

Some may argue this is predicated on the level of romanticism of the expression of love. However, I can be the most romantic man in the world but if I don’t have the finances than my act is somewhat hindered. I know money cant buy love but it sure does help, now before I purger myself as coming off as bitter; I would say Valentines day is special and gives the opportunity for love to be seen, heard, and felt on a multitude of spectrums. But why does it have to be so Vague!

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NBA All Star Weekend ends with a Record Breaking night

Posted on February 14, 2016 by College of Sciences

NBA All Star Weekend was a Phoenix rising from the ashes this weekend in Toronto.  The first All Star weekend to be held outside of the United States was definitely one for the books.

Beginning with the Rising Stars Challenge, the weekend was off to a great start.  The format that began last year, pits the rookie and sophomore NBA players in a game divided by US players versus International players, contrasting the former format of Rookies vs Sophomores.  Zach Lavine took home the Rising Stars challenge game MVP, with other notable performances including Andrew Wiggins (Minnesota) and Hezonja(Orlando).

Following the Rising Stars Challenge, came the skills challenge, 3 point contest as well as dunk contest.

This years First Overall Draft pick by the Timberwolves Karl Anthony Towns took home the trophy at the Skills challenge, displaying his great handles with the ball.

The 3 point contest came down to last years NBA champion backcourt teammates Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.  The duo, who are respectively the number 1 and number 2 leaders in the league currently in 3 pointers made on the season, once again out performed their competitors with a fiery display of 3 pointers in the contest.  Klay Thompson this year would be the victor.

Following the 3 point contest, was the EPIC and I mean EPIC Dunk Contest.  Participants included Will Barton, Andre Drummond, Aaron Gordon and Zach Lavine.  But really, it was the Air Gordon and Lavine show, including flashy dunks involving hover boards, between the legs, foul line, under the legs and other ridiculous combinations.  People are quick to call it the best dunk off of all time.  Lavine prevailed and came out with the trophy for the second year in a row.

Finally, the All Star Game where Kobe Bryant enjoyed his last All Star game ever, playing with Steph Curry and the rest of the West All Stars versus a Lebron James led East team.  The scores were higher than ever recorded, so much so that they found out the scoreboard maxed out at 199(for 1 team).  The usual suspects with a few new additions played the exhibition game for a sold out Toronto croud display enormous scoring feats with the trademark Zero-Defense that All Star games are now becoming.  Even with the lack of defensive play, the game still proved to be highly entertaining.  Notable performers:  Paul George 41 pts, Westbrook 31.  Westbrook took home All Star Game MVP.

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Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay Mckesson is running to be the next mayor of Baltimore, Maryland.

Posted on February 14, 2016 by maxlolbutzlol

Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay Mckesson is running to become the next mayor of the great city of Baltimore, Maryland.  Who is DeRay Mckesson you ask? Well DeRay is one of many faces of the Black Lives Matter Activist, he is a young black African American who speaks or tweets about major events that are affecting the black community. The Black Lives Matter movement roughly began around 2014 during the Ferguson and 2015 Baltimore, Maryland protest. DeRay graduated from Bowdin College in 2007 with a degree in government and legal studies, he has wrote many articles in the Huffington becoming a Black Lives Matter.

DeRay Mckesson has always been a person to fight for a real cause and when he and so many other activist see how the law is not protecting the people instead it is hurting us. Police officers for years have been getting away or covering up their actions and after so must frustration and injustice DeRay decided to put his foot down and started to inform people by using platforms such as Twitter and Instagram then he later created a website. DeRay is very aware and informed with the young youth he connects and understands. This is rare because most people who are activist are not really active on social media. I follow DeRay on Twitter and he is very engaging and informative, not only does he give his honest opinion he also has facts to back everything he says up. The people of Baltimore are looking towards to this election of choosing who will be the next mayor; I am looking forwards to it as well because I believe that DeRay will be a great mayor. The Baltimore needs someone who is young and connects with the youth.

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