Apple Predicted The Future With Some Success - Video Blog

With the announcement of the iWatch, iPhone 6, and the recent launch of iOS8; I thought it would be a good time to review some of apples concepts videos from years past. As well as a few fan made concepts. From the awkward looking iTie to the almost spot on rendition of the iPhone 6, it's all in the playlist above. Some of the predictions are hilarious, however; others that seemed far fetched in the 80's are now a reality.

We'll notice, Apple predicts it's success, but fails to foresee the sales slump they felt during the 90s. We see the internet as we know it today, a literal "world wide web". In the videos Apple sells it all time profit high short by about, $150 Billion dollars. They also thought they would sell 50 million macs by 1997. They were under by 50 million macs.

Perhaps the most entertaining prediction is, the Vista Mac. A Google glass like devices that can accept what appears to be a miniature hard disk. Or the faciful idea of a computer being custom manufactured in an instant by teleport. We also get a good laugh seeing Steve Wozniak say "computer speed and computer memory doubles every two years". He then displays to us a processor that the size of an Apple TV.

Enjoy taking a trip down memory lane. Try to draw you own conclusions and comment below. What did you find funny or fictional?

Compiled By:
Josh Martin 

One Text Or Call Could Wreck It All - Don't text and drive

To help address the issue and show first-hand the risks of texting while driving, AT&T is touring a state-of-the-art virtual reality simulator to demonstrate the dangers of texting while driving in 200+ locations by end of 2012. We encourage you to share your stories with us, help spread the word about the risks in your communities with our tools and learn more about the laws in your area: www.iihs.org/laws/maptextingbans.aspx* To pledge your commitment to stop texting while driving, go to itcanwait.com.

* This link is to an external website not operated by AT&T Inc. or any of its affiliated companies. AT&T is not responsible for the accuracy of its contents. Source: A.T.T.

Complied By: Josh Martin

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History of the Christmas Tree - Video Blog

Video Produced By: History Channel

How It All Got Started Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness. In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return. The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death. Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder. Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles. Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans. It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims's second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out "pagan mockery" of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against "the heathen traditions" of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated "that sacred event." In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy. In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived. By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling. The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts. Electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home became an American tradition.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The Rockefeller Center tree is located at Rockefeller Center, west of Fifth Avenue from 47th through 51st Streets inNew York City. The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree dates back to the Depression Era days. The tallest tree displayed at Rockefeller Center came in 1948 and was a Norway Spruce that measured in at 100 feet tall and hailed from Killingworth, Connecticut. The first tree at Rockefeller Center was placed in 1931. It was a small unadorned tree placed by construction workers at the center of the construction site. Two years later, another tree was placed there, this time with lights. These days, the giant Rockefeller Center tree is laden with over 25,000 Christmas lights.

Source: History Channel
Compiled By: Josh Martin Please Support My Sponsors:

How to Iidentifying scammers card skimmers or a point-of-sales card skimmer - Video Blog

You rarely let your credit card out of your sight, so how do bad guys get your credit card information? Some may get it from a friend waiting tables at a restaurant, but many credit card thieves get your card info using a device called a Credit Card Skimmer.

A credit card skimmer is a portable capture device that is attached in front of or on top of the legitimate scanner. The skimmer passively records the card data as you insert your credit card into the real scanner.

Credit card thieves will often temporarily affix the card skimmer device to gas pumps, ATMs, or other convenient self-service point-of-sale terminals. The bad guys like gas pumps and ATMs because they are easy to retrieve their skimmers from and they generally receive a lot of traffic.
Skimmer technology has become cheaper and more sophisticated over the years. Some skimmers capture the card information using a magnetic reader and use a miniature camera to record you typing in your PIN number. Some skimmers will even go so far as to place a secondary keypad over top of the actual keypad. The secondary keypad captures your PIN number and records it while passing your input to the real keypad.

How can you detect and avoid having your credit card skimmed at the ATM or gas pump?

1. Inspect the card reader and the area near the PIN pad
Many banks and merchants realize that skimming is on the rise and will often post a picture of what the real device is supposed to look like so you will see that there is something attached that is not supposed to be there if a skimmer is present. Of course, a card skimmer could put a fake picture over the real picture so this isn't a fail-safe way to spot a skimmer.

To see what some skimmers look like check out these examples of card skimmers so you'll have an idea of what to look for.

Most skimming devices are designed to be temporarily affixed to the ATM or gas pump so they can be easily retrieved by the bad guys once they've collected a batch of cardholder data.
If you think the scanning device doesn't look like it matches the machine's color and style, it might be a skimmer.

2. Look at other nearby gas pumps or ATMs card readers to see if they match the one you are using.

Unless skimmers are running a large operation, they probably are only skimming at one gas pump at a time at the station you are using. Look at the pump next to yours to see if the card reader and setup look different. If they do then you might have just spotted a skimmer.

3. Trust your instincts. If in doubt, use another machine somewhere else.
Our brains are excellent at recognizing things that seem out of place. If you get a sense that something looks off about the ATM you are about to use, you might be better off using one that you feel more comfortable with.

4. Avoid using your PIN number at the gas pump.

When you pay at the pump with your debit/credit card, you usually have the option to use it as a credit or a debit card. It's best to choose the credit option that allows you to avoid entering your PIN in sight of a Card Skimmer camera. Even if there is not a card skimmer camera in sight someone could be watching you enter your PIN and could subsequently mug you and take your card to the nearest ATM to withdraw some cash.

When you use it as a credit card you usually only have to enter your billing ZIP code as verification which is much safer than putting in your PIN.

5. Keep an eye on your accounts

If you suspect that you might have had your card skimmed. Keep an eye on your account balance and report any suspicious activity immediately. 

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RedBox Warns of Credit Card Skimmers

DVD-rental vending machine maker RedBox today warned customers to be on the lookout for any unusual activity or physical changes to local RedBox kiosks, after the company discovered evidence that criminals had retrofitted at least three of the machines with devices to steal credit-card information.

An example of a RedBox machine with an illegal credit card skimmer attached. The company said several RedBox machines had been fitted with "skimmers" -- magnetic stripe reading and storage devices that can be installed over the top of existing card readers. RedBox said it found an illegal skimming device attached to one machine in Tempe, Ariz., and that it had discovered evidence of skimming at two other locations in Las Cruces, N.M. 

In a notice posted on its Web site, Redbox said is not aware of any fraudulent activity or transactions using its customers' accounts, and that it is working to minimize the risk of this happening. But the company is urging customers to be vigilant for signs of tampering at any of its 7,400 Redbox locations nationwide.

An example of an approved RedBox reader.

Customers who suspect their local Redbox may have been tampered with should contact 630-756-8866, e-mail alerts AT redbox.com or notify the manager of the store or restaurant that houses the machine.

Criminals use credit-card skimming devices to store data that can be used later for identity theft. Typically, bank ATM machines are the target of such scams. In an incident last April, a bank in Tysons Corner, Va., warned customers that thieves had installed a skimmer at an ATM, as well as a wireless camera to visually record the 4-digit PINs customers entered to withdraw cash from the machines.

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(Also shown in the playlist above)

Krebs on Security has come across a "remarkably simple but brilliant POS skimming device" that crooks can install and remove in seconds. The video above, produced by a fraudster who sells the devices, shows his kit being retrofitted to a late-model Verifone point-of-sale device. The whole video lasts 25 seconds.

The piece of kit includes a tiny battery and flash storage card that "allows the fake PIN pad to capture the key presses, and record the data stored on the magnetic stripe of each swiped card." In other words, it can be installed super-quickly and rip all your details. It's a crooked store assistants dream come true.

So, the advice remains the same: if anything ever looks suspicious on a card device, just don't use it. Simple as that. [Krebs on Security]

Compiled By:
Josh Martin

Sources:
Gizmodo

Washington Post, Voices

Andy O'Donnell

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2013 SEMA Show Brings Innovation - Video Blog

Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA)

LAS VEGAS --  of the automobile aftermarket was formed in 1963 by Roy Richter, Ed Iskenderian, Willie Garner, Bob Hedman,Robert E. Wyman, John Bartlett, Phil Weiand, Jr., Al Segal, Dean Moon, and Vic Edelbrock, Jr. and now consists of 6,383 companies worldwide, bringing together aftermarket manufacturers, original equipment manufacturers, media, car dealers, specialty equipment distributors, installers, retailers and restoration specialists.
 
Products in this $27.8 billion-a-year industry include performance and racing components, cosmetic and functional accessories, wheels and tires, mobile electronics, safety products, restoration parts, handling equipment, drivetrain parts and more. The industry covers muscle cars, classics, luxury vehicles, sport compacts, street rods, light trucks (off-road and sport trucks) SUVs and recreational vehicles.

SEMA provides services for employees of its member companies that include education and professional development, market research, legislative and regulatory advocacy, industry publications, international business development and business to business events.
The largest of the SEMA events held annually during the first week of November is the SEMA Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada in conjunction with the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week. As part of this event, SEMA and other automotive aftermarket trade groups make-up one of the single largest events on the Las Vegas calendar. This is a title formerly held by the now defunct COMDEX show. This auto show is not open to the public. Registration as media, manufacturer, buyer or exhibitor is required.
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Click to Enlarge

Mazda's not a company that makes a big deal about things. At the 2013 SEMA Show, there was no Mazda press conference, no thumping music at its booth, and no scantily clad booth professionals -- just four tasteful concepts. From the company that brought us the ultimate automotive expression of "less is more," the MX-5 Miata, this is to be expected.

Starting off, there's the Mazda Ceramic 6 Concept, an example of the Mazda6 that's been modified to enhance the sedan's performance and style.

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Mazda may not be a manufacturer that comes to mind where racing is concerned; however, you might be surprised to learn that there are likely more Mazda cars doing track events every weekend than any other brand.

Mazda3 and Mazda6 compact and midsize cars are among some of the most attractive in their respectable segments.

Building on their stellar looks, Mazda has juiced up a few examples with special paint schemes, as well as aftermarket brake and suspension kits. The resulting cars are more stock-plus rather than fully tuned. The idea here was to demonstrate the potential of Mazda’s new lineup. 
Mazda is not only in the business of racing and track days. Selling cars, very attractive cars, is what they do best. Their recently launched

Compiled By:
Josh Martin

Sources:
Wikipedia

Cnet.com
Auto123.com

What is the difference between breakdancing and Parkour? - History and Video Blog

The definitions:

Parkour (French pronunciation: ​[paʁˈkuʁ]) (abbreviated PK) is a holistic training discipline using movement that developed from obstacle course training. Practitioners aim to quickly and efficiently overcome obstacles in their environment, using only their bodies and their surroundings to propel themselves; furthermore, they try to maintain as much momentum as is possible in a safe manner. Parkour can include running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling, quadrupedal movement, and the like, depending on what movement is deemed most suitable for the given situation. 

Parkour is non-competitive. It may be performed on an obstacle course, but is usually practiced in a creative, and sometimes playful, reinterpretation or subversion of urban spaces. Parkour involves seeing one's environment in a new way, and imagining the potentialities for movement around it.

Developed in France primarily by Raymond Belle, David Belle, and Sébastien Foucan, during the late 1980s, Parkour became popular in the late 1990s and 2000s through films, documentaries, and advertisements featuring these practitioners and others.

Parkour's training methods have inspired a range of other activities, includingfreerunning and l'art du déplacement. Although their creators define them as separate activities, practitioners and non-practitioners alike often find it difficult to discern the differences between them.

B-boying or Breaking, also called Breakdancing, is a style of street dance that originated among Black and Puerto Rican youths in New York City during the early 1970s. The dance spread worldwide due to popularity in the media, especially in regions such as South Korea, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and Japan. While diverse in the amount of variation available in the dance, b-boying consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. B-boying is typically danced to hip-hop and especially breakbeats, although modern trends allow for much wider varieties of music along certain ranges of tempo and beat patterns. 

A practitioner of this dance is called a b-boy, b-girl, or breaker. Although the term "breakdance" is frequently used to refer to the dance, "b-boying" and "breaking" are the original terms. These terms are preferred by the majority of the pioneers and most notable practitioners.

The History of Parkour

Trying to pinpoint the exact moment of the birth of Parkour is no easy task. In fact, it may actually prove to be an impossibility. Something as nebulous and indefinable as this thing we practice tends to defy classification. Already it boasts several names, in more than one language: Le Parkour, the Art of Movement, Freerunning, L’Art du Deplacement, to name but a few. And even if you do settle on a name, there is then the tricky little problem of what that name refers to – Is it a sport? Or an art? Or a philosophy perhaps? Or maybe it is better termed a discipline?

Truth is, there is no consensus on this. And – which really hefts a giant spanner into the works – you can’t just go and ask the founding father because this great movement is pretty damn far from being a nuclear family, 2.4 kids and all the rest. No. This child has had a whole host of surrogate step-parents influencing its development down through the years, the centuries, indeed even through the millennia. It has drawn on many sources, supped on inspiration from all over, and drunk from a hundred different cups as it has evolved – and by no means is this process over.

So where do we start in an attempt to get a grip on all this? Not at the beginning, because the gods only know where that was. Not at the end, because that isn’t even in sight. Seems the best we can do is to start somewhere in the middle, and give credit where it’s due to a certain little town in France.

The French Connection

To the south of Paris rest the sleepy, suburban towns of Evry, Sarcelles and Lisses, places no different from any other of the hundreds of satellites orbiting the French capital, save for one small fact: these places were home to a group of nine young men widely acknowledged as having crystallized a number of influences to create something then called l'Art du Deplacement, sometime in the 1980s. At the core of this group were Yann Hnautra and David Belle, who drove much of the early training and have since become known as the originators of the art. These childhood friends formed the group which called itself 'Yamakasi', a Lingala word meaning 'Strong man, strong spirit', and for over a decade they practised their discipline together and alone, reviled by the French authorities and seen as wildmen by the local public.

What style of dance is Parkour?

Parkour, as we have seen, is not something easily categorized. Perhaps inevitably however, as the community grew and numbers swelled, attempts to define and classify became commonplace. By nature an art that encourages freedom of movement and individual expression, it is difficult – if not impossible – to formalise a structured system that contains it whilst at the same time allowing for the subjective approaches of its practitioners. Matters were further complicated by the simple fact that David Belle – acknowledged as one of the gurus of Parkour – chose at first not to release any succinct and clear definition for others to refer to, and so the debates raged and schisms between the different perspectives ensued.

History of Breakdancing

Many elements of b-boying can be seen in other antecedent cultures prior to the 1970s. B-boy pioneers Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon and Kenneth "Ken Swift" Gabbert, both of Rock Steady Crew, cite James Brown and Kung-Fu films as influences to b-boying. Many of b-boying's more acrobatic moves, such as the flare, show clear connections to gymnastics. An Arab street dancer performing acrobatic headspins was recorded by Thomas Edison in 1898. However, it was not until the 1970s that b-boying developed as a defined dance style.

Beginning with DJ Kool Herc, Bronx-based DJs would take the rhythmic breakdown sections (also known as the "breaks") of dance records and prolong them by looping them successively. The breakbeat provided a rhythmic base that allowed dancers to display their improvisational skills during the duration of the break. This led to the first battles—turn-based dance competitions between two individuals or dance crews judged with respect to creativity, skill, and musicality. These battles occurred in cyphers—circles of people gathered around the breakers. Though at its inception the earliest b-boys were "close to 90 percent African-American", dance crews such as "SalSoul" and "Rockwell Association" were populated almost entirely by Puerto Rican-Americans.

To most Americans, even to casual fans of hip hop, breakdancing was a fad whose moment passed before the end of the '80s, tossed into the decade's time capsule along with acid wash and decent John Hughes movies.

And in some sense, they're right. Breakdancing burst onto the national scene in the early 1980s, fueled by a media obsession with hip hop, enjoyed a love affair with the spotlight that lasted a few years, and then fell out of the glare just as quickly as it had located it.

Breakdancing may have died, but the b-boy, one of four original elements of hip hop (also included: the MC, the DJ, and the graffiti artist) lives on. To those who knew it before it was tagged with the name breakdancing, to those still involved in the scene that they will always know as b-boying, the tradition is alive and, well, spinning.

Breakdancing seems so different from all other kinds of dancing that the first question people ask when they see it is: "Where did these kids learn to dance like that?" To many people, this dance seems to have come out of nowhere. But like everything else, Breakdance did come from somewhere, something and someone. In the case of Breakdancing, the someone is the great superstar, James Brown, and the something is the dance, the Good Foot. In 1969, when James Brown was getting down with his big hit "Get on the Good Foot" the Hustle was the big dance style of the day. If you've ever seen JamesBrown live in concert or on TV, then you know he can really get down. And when he preformed his hit, he did the kind of dance you'd expect James Brown to do. High Energy. This almost acrobatic dance was appropriately enough known as the lot of kids around New York City.

Compiled By: Josh Martin

Sources:
Wikipedia
Parkour Generations
NPR
Global Darkness

2012 LA Auto Show — Mazda Press Conference - Video Blog

Video Produced By: Mazda USA

By David Undercoffler November 29, 2012, 1:13 p.m.

The family sedan marketplace has become a brawl, with Honda'’s Accord, Nissan'’s Altima and Ford'’s Fusion all newly redesigned and looking to unseat Toyota’'s Camry as the best-selling car in the U.S. Mazda joined the fray Thursday with the introduction of the 2014 Mazda 6 sedan at Los Angeles Auto Show.
The car will be available with one of two new engines, gas or diesel, both designed for efficiency and foreshadowing company plans for future models. "“Our Los Angeles announcements are only tips of the iceberg,"” said Jim O'’Sullivan, president and chief executive of Mazda North America. “"The best is yet to come.”" The gas model will go on sale in January. It features a 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine making 184 horsepower and 185 pound-feet of torque. It routes power to the front wheels through either a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic transmission. Mazda says it doesn'’t yet have fuel economy ratings, but expects to be the best in the segment. That means Mazda 6 will have to beat the 27 mpg city, 38 mpg highway rating of the current non-hybrid leader, the Nissan Altima. In the second half of 2013, Mazda will offer the 6 with a 2.2-liter turbo-diesel engine. The company has yet to release horsepower and torque figures, but the diesel will be available with the same manual and automatic transmissions as the gas car. Both models will have an available system Mazda calls i-ELOOP, a regenerative braking system that stores captured energy in a capacitor, rather than a battery, and electric motor. Mazda says this allows the system to be smaller and lighter, further enhancing the car's efficiency. The energy this feature captures will be used to power electrical functions such as air conditioning and the stereo. Other options available on the 6 will include an in-dash TomTom navigation system, alloy wheels, LED lights, and a Bose stereo system. Mazda also used the L.A. Auto Show to show off a more powerful engine option on the 2014 CX-5 crossover SUV. It’'s essentially the same 2.5-liter four-cylinder unit that will be in the new 6 sedan, and it makes 184 horsepower and 185 pound-feet of torque. It will be available only with an automatic transmission on Touring and Grand Touring models. Fuel economy will be rated at 25 mpg in the city and 32 mpg on the highway for front-wheel drive models and 24/30 for AWD models. By adding this more powerful option to the CX-5 lineup, Mazda addresses one of the few complaints we had when we tested the crossover in April. That model had the smaller 2.0-liter engine, making 155 horsepower and 150 pound-feet of torque. Its handling was easily the most engaging of the segment, but engine sacrificed power in the name of efficiency. The 2014 CX-5 will go on sale in January. Pricing has not yet been announced.

Source: Los Angeles Times
Compiled By : Josh Martin
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