Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 125
June 29, 2017
Australian police charge Vatican cardinal with sex offenses
A cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s finances has been charged with multiple sexual offenses by Australian police, in one of the most significant indictments against a top-ranking leader of the Catholic Church.
Cardinal George Pell faces multiple charges of “historical sexual assault offenses,” the Australian criminal justice system’s term for offenses committed in the past, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton announced at a news conference on Thursday morning in Australia.
That morning, Victoria police notified Pell’s legal representative that he has been charged and must appear in court on July 18, Patton said.
Patton said that Pell was treated no differently than any other defendant because of his high rank in the Vatican — notifying a legal representative and summoning the defendant to court at a later date is the recommendation of Australian prosecutors in a case like his.
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In the Vatican, Pell’s job as secretariat of the economy is so crucial that it has been described as the second-most-powerful role in Rome, after only the pope. But for years, he has faced accusations of improper behavior connected with clergy sexual abuse in Australia.
In Ballarat, Pell’s hometown, dozens of children were abused by priests. After the abuse came to light, priests testified under oath that Pell knew about the abuse while it was occurring.
The scale of the abuse in Ballarat was staggering: In one fourth-grade class of 33 boys, 12 committed suicide, the Post reported in 2015. Five priests who worked in the parish were convicted of crimes, including one who was found guilty of abusing more than 50 children.
Two years ago, Peter Saunders, a survivor of sexual abuse on the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, spoke out against Pell, calling him “almost sociopathic” in his lack of concern for the victims of abuse in an interview with Australia’s television program “60 Minutes.”
Saunders asked Pope Francis at the time to remove Pell from his position and take “the strongest action against him.” But Pell publicly refuted Saunders’s allegations, and a Vatican spokesman stood with Pell, saying the cardinal “must be considered reliable.”
Source:
June 28, 2017
Adidas’ All Day fitness app hits iOS and Android devices
Exactly three months after announcing its All Day fitness app, Adidas is finally launching it in the US. The application, which is available for iOSand Android, focuses on serving up insights about different health aspects, such as mindset, movement, nutrition rest.
Adidas says that All Day is designed for “versatile” athletes, meaning that the app’s goal isn’t just to help you with tough workouts, but also showing you anything from quick meditation moves to how to cook healthy recipes. While All Day is only available for those of you in the States right now, the sportswear giant tells Engadget that the app will be coming to other markets later this fall.
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Source:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/28/adidas-all-day-app-ios-android/
Virtual Reality Is the Future of Shopping
Online shopping is on the rise—it’s fast and ships directly to your doorstep, sometimes overnight. But with online shopping, you miss the experience of going into a store and picking up items. Enter virtual reality shopping, which tries to give you the convenience of online shopping and the experience of being in a store.
People are already shopping through virtual reality, but it’s still in its beginning stages. In late 2016, China’s Alibaba launched Buy+, a virtual reality experience that could be accessed with a virtual reality headset. With Buy+, people could wander around a store, look through items, and add things to a cart by staring at a product for long enough. According to Vice, 30,000 people had already tried Buy+ an hour after its launch.
To use virtual reality shopping, you’ll need a virtual reality headset, which could range from a $10 Google Cardboard to hundreds of dollars for an Oculus Rift. Like online shopping, there’s usually a virtual shopping cart and you can buy things by giving your credit card information upon checkout.
Big companies like Amazon are also working on adding virtual reality shopping in an attempt to increase sales. In May 2016, Ikea let users design their own kitchens with a HTC Vive. Audi also used the HTC Vive to present cars in showrooms. Later in 2016, eBay Australia teamed up with Myer to create the “first virtual reality department store,” but it simulated a web of floating objects rather than a physical store.
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Earlier this month, Ikea started using virtual reality in Australia. You can see the experience for yourself on Android, iOS, and desktop (though the desktop version doesn’t have virtual reality).
The Ikea version of virtual reality shopping feels like a more immersive version of Google Street View. You can wander around the store and in between furniture. You can select objects marked with floating blue dots, revealing the item’s description and price. Most of the furniture isn’t marked, though, so you’ll have to zoom in on the tags and remind yourself to search for it later.
Smaller companies like Gatsby, a startup that creates virtual reality stores, are also looking to create virtual reality shopping experiences.
“We’re really trying to get close to what it’s like being there, and we want it to be very intimate,” said Anastasia Cifuentes, co-founder of Gatsby. “All the little details on how you move, we’re really focusing on how to have that just right.” Gatsby has been experimenting with virtual reality for less than 6 months but hopes to launch an app in the fall.
Using Gatsby’s shopping app to buy furniture feels like playing a game. You can look around a room from a fixed point (you can’t move around the space yet). There’s a button that let you click on objects and rotate them. Once you select an object, details about the object’s length, width, height, and price appear. If you want an item, you can add it to your cart.
Source:
http://lifehacker.com/virtual-reality-is-the-future-of-shopping-1796454556
Facebook crosses 2 billion monthly users
Facebook has announced that it now has over 2 billion monthly active users. That’s up from the 1.94 billion total that the company cited as part of its most recent earnings report in May. Mark Zuckerberg shared the news directly, and Fast Company has a story on Facebook’s constant efforts to keep pushing growth upward. “It’s an honor to be on this journey with you,” Zuckerberg wrote. Facebook’s other apps are faring well, too: Messenger has over 1.2 billion monthly users and Facebook-owned WhatsApp tallies a similar figure. Twitter, by comparison, has 328 million monthly active users. Instagram has over 700 million.
“Each day, more than 175 million people share a Love reaction, and on average, over 800 million people like something on Facebook,” product manager Guillermo Spiller said in a press release. “More than 1 billion people use Groups every month.” Facebook will, in its own words, “show appreciation” for its latest milestone over the next few days by rolling out personalized videos tied to its newly revised mission statement. “We’re making progress connecting the world, and now let’s bring the world closer together,” Zuckerberg said.
Bring the world closer together latte art.
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, June 26, 2017
Your custom video and some stats tied to your profile will be available on this page, which is where Facebook also plans to share “stories of people who inspire us.”
Facebook will be displaying thank you messages whenever users heart a friend’s post, wish someone a happy birthday, or create a new group — all actions that the company views as central to community building.
Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15880494/facebook-2-billion-monthly-users-announced
Bangladesh downgraded in US ‘trafficking in persons’ report
The US government has downgraded Bangladesh in the ‘trafficking in persons’ report for not taking firm steps to deal with the threat, a media report said.
The report released by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday said that Dhaka does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, bdnews24 reported.
Although Bangladesh demonstrated some efforts during adopting the 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act (PSHTA) in January 2017 but “the government’s investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of trafficking crimes and the number of victims identified by the government… decreased,” the report added.
Bangladesh “remained without a formal mechanism to refer trafficking victims to protective services…” and “did not provide rehabilitation services designed for trafficking victims’ specific needs…,” the report added.
“NGOs reported victims were frequently re-trafficked due to insufficient care,” it added.
“Therefore, Bangladesh was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List,” the US government said.
However, Bangladesh had been on the Tier-2 list for the last five consecutive years, reports Dhaka Tribune.
Around 45 nations, including Pakistan, Serbia, and Saudi Arabia are in the Tier 2 Watch list.
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The countries in the Tier 2 Watch list do not fully comply with the TVPA’s (Trafficking Victims Protection Act) minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards, the daily said.
As per the report, China, Russia and Iran are among the worst offenders.
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Spotify is testing ‘Sponsored Songs’ in playlists
Spotify users have noticed a new opt-out setting appearing both on desktop and in-app: Sponsored Songs. Sponsored content in general is not new for Spotify — last year they allowed their most popular playlists to be sponsored by brands — but allowing labels to promote individual songs certainly is. A representative from Spotify confirms to The Verge that Sponsored Songs is a test program that will only appear to users on the free tier.
Sponsored Songs don’t appear as banners like the platform’s existing ads, but are integrated into playlists you follow. In the example below from Liam Maloney, the sponsored song — “Call Me” by NEIKED — is featured above the playlist. As first reported by TechCrunch, the songs are chosen to match a user’s existing music tastes, are instantly playable, and are savable without a prerequisite ad click.
Very happy I’ve found where to turn off “sponsored songs” on @Spotify
I don’t pay for a platform AND expect adverts. pic.twitter.com/1AWBr3cm1T
— Liam Maloney (@liamtmaloney) June 19, 2017
“Show sponsored songs” is an auto-enabled setting which Spotify seems to only be testing with some users. If the toggle is available on your account, you’ll have to turn off under Settings > Display Options on desktop and Settings > Sponsored Content on mobile if you don’t want the songs to appear. The toggle will show for both premium and free users, but the actual sponsored song test is only functioning on the free tier.
Is this new? An auto-enabled setting in @spotify to “show sponsored songs” under Display Options? pic.twitter.com/wiwzcQFVe5
— Chris Messina (@chrismessina) June 18, 2017
Seeing a Sponsored Content setting in the @Spotify iOS app too. https://t.co/G2e0mI1xCD pic.twitter.com/lqrh2ta46S
— Chris Messina (@chrismessina) June 18, 2017
Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/19/15833880/spotify-sponsored-songs-playlists-test
