Welcome to the ‘Doink Cam’: How CBS’ Super Bowl TV innovation came to life
11Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Sports

Welcome to the ‘Doink Cam’: How CBS’ Super Bowl TV innovation came to life

Harrison Butker has earned his reputation as one of the NFL’s great kickers. The two-time Super Bowl champion has made all 14 of his kicks in the Kansas City Chiefs’ postseason victories this season and has become as dependable in his art as Stephen Curry is at his.But in a bit of great irony, it was a Butker missed field goal at last year’s Super Bowl that prompted an epiphany from Jason Cohen, a CBS Sports vice president of remote technical operations.With 2:24 left in the opening quarter of Super Bowl LVII between the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, Butker’s 42-yard field goal attempt smashed the top of the left upright at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (Said Fox broadcaster Kevin Burkhardt in describing the play: “So a good drive ends with the ‘doink!'”) The kick is no good, sti...
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Walter Shawlee, the Sovereign of Slide Rules, Is Dead at 73
10Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
World

Walter Shawlee, the Sovereign of Slide Rules, Is Dead at 73

For about 350 years, humanity’s most innovative hand-held computer was something called a slide rule. As typewriters once symbolized the writer, slide rules symbolized the engineer.These analog calculators came in metal, wood, plastic and even bamboo, and they could be found all over the world. Their functions included computing higher-order multiplications, exponents and logarithms, among other mathematical operations. They were usually long and rectangular with a retractable middle segment, and they featured dense fields of letters, lines and numbers stacked on top of one another.They looked almost comically abstruse, as if they might be used as paddles in the hazing rituals of a math fraternity.Non-nerds struggled to make sense of them. Then, in the early 1970s, lightweight electronic c...
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The New N.F.L. Owners?
10Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Business

The New N.F.L. Owners?

As team valuations skyrocket, the league is weighing whether to relax ownership rules that prohibit investment from private equity funds. More information
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Does Technology Rule Our Sex and Dating Lives?
10Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Technology

Does Technology Rule Our Sex and Dating Lives?

“I never really thought about the fact that it’s connected to the internet,” she said. “Being Gen Z, I feel like sex is so connected to technology already that it didn’t feel weird having something that’s a bit more technological than just say, watching something online.”While the pitch for products like Lovense and WeVibe, another popular brand of remote controlled vibrators and stimulation rings, might seem self-evident — to create pleasure — much of the latest sex tech often has a loftier goal in mind. Make Love Not Porn, a user-generated social sex platform, aims to eradicate the unrealistic standards created by hard core pornography by showing unrehearsed, consensual, “real world” sex, said Cindy Gallop, the company’s founder and a veteran sex educator.Meanwhile, products like the VDO...
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Socionaut: the strategic ally to improve companies’ sustainable performance
10Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Empresas

Socionaut: the strategic ally to improve companies’ sustainable performance

In an increasingly connected global environment, social performance has taken on a critical role in the success of companies and organizations. Socionaut, a leading international consulting firm, provides specialized services in various aspects of social performance. With the 2030 agenda in mind, it seeks to build a more equitable, sustainable and just future for current and future generations.The firm recognizes the importance of understanding and being sensitive to all parties coexisting with a project. For this reason, they strive to understand the needs and concerns of all stakeholders during the process, highlighting the importance of this aspect in the development of effective and lasting solutions. In turn, innovation is another central pillar of the company, as they are dedica...
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Journal Retracts Studies Cited in Federal Court Ruling Against Abortion Pill
9Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Health

Journal Retracts Studies Cited in Federal Court Ruling Against Abortion Pill

An academic journal publisher this week retracted two studies that were cited by a federal judge in Texas last year when he ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone should be taken off the market.Most of the authors of the studies are doctors and researchers affiliated with anti-abortion groups, and their reports suggested that medication abortion causes dangerous complications, contradicting the widespread evidence that abortion pills are safe.The lawsuit in which the studies were cited will be heard by the Supreme Court in March. The high court’s ruling could have major implications for access to medication abortion, which is now the most common method of pregnancy termination.The publisher, Sage Journals, said it had asked two independent experts to evaluate the studies, published in 2...
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The remote Swedish town that produced a generational NHL talent
9Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Sports

The remote Swedish town that produced a generational NHL talent

LANDSBRO, Sweden – There are no signs for Landsbro on the long road from Stockholm.This village in southern Sweden is so remote, so small, I was told, I would pass it if I didn’t keep my head up.Not a single stop sign. Not a single red light. Small like that.I was told to take the train from Stockholm if I planned to visit, but, I was cautioned, no train stopped in Landsbro. I would need a rental car to make the last leg of the journey. Why not drive the full four and a half hours instead, I thought? What better way to get a sense for how far out this place really was than by coasting southwest from the largest city in Sweden, with a population of 1.5 million, a place that hums with people and activity, to this quaint village of 1,500 people?Trees practically swallowed the road as I zipped...
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Putin Calls on U.S. to ‘Negotiate’ on Ukraine in Tucker Carlson Interview
9Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
World

Putin Calls on U.S. to ‘Negotiate’ on Ukraine in Tucker Carlson Interview

President Vladimir V. Putin called on the United States to “make an agreement” ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia in order to end the war, speaking for two hours with a former Fox News host in an interview broadcast Thursday that was the Kremlin’s most direct appeal to American audiences since his invasion began two years ago.“Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement,” Mr. Putin told Tucker Carlson, the American conservative commentator, in the Russian leader’s first interview with an American outlet since 2021. “Start respecting our country and its interests and look for certain solutions.”Much of the interview constituted a familiar Kremlin history lesson about Russia’s historical claim to Eastern European lands, beginning in the ninth century, that Mr. Putin m...
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American Firms Invested Billion in Chinese Chips, Lawmakers Find
8Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Business

American Firms Invested $1 Billion in Chinese Chips, Lawmakers Find

A congressional investigation has determined that five American venture capital firms invested more than $1 billion in China’s semiconductor industry since 2001, fueling the growth of a sector that the United States government now regards as a national security threat.Funds supplied by the five firms — GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Walden International — went to more than 150 Chinese companies, according to the report, which was released Thursday by both Republicans and Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.The investments included roughly $180 million that went to Chinese firms that the committee said directly or indirectly supported Beijing’s military. That includes companies that the U.S. government has said provide ch...
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F.C.C. Bans A.I.-Generated Robocalls – The New York Times
8Feb Avatar photoBy James W. BrownNo Comments
Technology

F.C.C. Bans A.I.-Generated Robocalls – The New York Times

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlawed unwanted robocalls generated by artificial intelligence, amid growing concerns over election disinformation and consumer fraud facilitated by the technology.The unanimous decision by the F.C.C. cited a three-decade-old law aimed at curbing junk phone calls, clarifying that A.I.-generated spam calls are also illegal. By doing so, the agency said it expanded the ability of states to prosecute creators of unsolicited spam robocalls.“It seems like something from the far-off future, but it is already here,” the F.C.C. chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, said in a statement. “Bad actors are using A.I.-generated voices in unsolicited robocalls to extort vulnerable family members, imitate celebrities and misinform voters.”Concerns about the u...
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