Sunday Night Football is about to get a lot more fun to watch. Not even two months after we shared the news that the folks over at NHK had put together a robotic bullet time rig that could shoot 360? slow-motion replays, NBC has announced its plan to bring matrix-style replays to the world of pro football.
There?s no indication that the two ideas are related, but the concept is similar: give sports fans a roundabout view of the action. For NBC, this means that Sunday Night Football will now feature two 24-camera bullet time rigs ? one in each end zone.
The rig developed by NHK used only 8 cameras. NBC is planning to install 24 in each end zone.
In addition to the new perspective that NBC is hoping to offer ? not to mention the fact that referees will now have zero excuses when they botch a challenge ? installing the tech is one of several ways NBC?s Cris Collinsworth said Sunday Night Football is ?trying to be a show that really appeals to everybody.?
The tech will go into effect right from week-one at the Giants/Cowboys game in Dallas on September 8th. As television?s highest-rated and most-watched show, Sunday Night Football is under more pressure than most to stay on the cutting edge. And when the cutting edge involves installing 48 extra cameras at every Sunday night game, well, we certainly won?t complain if you don?t.
(via Gizmodo)
Image credit: Jets-Dolphin game, Nov 2009 ? 066 by Ed Yourdon
For NBA players who find themselves unemployed as the calendar keeps ticking days toward August, it's hard for paranoia to not set in.
Rookies and young players have to start assessing their overseas options in hopes of a payday, with every tryout and training camp invite serving as one last vestige of hope away from the $24,000 maximum in life as a D-Leaguer.
And, then, there are the veterans. For players of a certain age, mortality starts setting in right about the time you don't get a call at 12:01 a.m. on July 1. The NBA is said to be a fraternity?once you're in, you're in. Only once those calls start drying up and the offers start getting lesser do players begin dealing with the harsh realities of a future without basketball.
Such is the case right about now for plenty of notable veterans. While there are still a few teams remaining with cap space and a desire for bench help, the overwhelming preponderance of organizations have nearly filled out their rosters.
Only mini mid-level exceptions and veteran minimum contracts are being offered?and only tepidly so. The market will only continue to dry up as August rolls around, so it will be an interesting few days and weeks for names we're plenty used seeing on an NBA floor.?
With that in mind, here is a complete breakdown of all the latest free-agency rumblings surrounding veteran talent.?
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Lamar Odom Warming to Lakers Reunion, Lakers Not so Much?
If there's one thing we know about Lamar Odom, it's that he likes candy. If there are two things we know about Lamar Odom, it's that he likes candy and is married to a Kardashian. But, if there are three things we know about him, that's when we get to the actual basketball stuff.
Well, kind of. We know that Odom likes playing basketball in Los Angeles?or at least somewhere with a beach. If it's somewhere where there's warm weather, a never-ending supply of Skittles and in a city open to reality television stars, then Odom could be had.
Last season Odom made his return to the Los Angeles Clippers, the team that drafted him out of Rhode Island all the way back in 1999. Suffice it to say things didn't go as planned. Odom's return to sunny SoCal was supposed to reinvigorate the offensively gifted forward after he went through a hellish 50-game stint with the Dallas Mavericks a year prior.
Odom's 82-game stint with the Clippers somehow went even worse. Though not as divisive a force in the locker room as he had been in Dallas, Odom suffered through the worst statistical year of his career. He averaged career lows in points (four) and minutes (19.7) per game while shooting below 40 percent for the second consecutive season.
The Clippers scored nearly five points per 100 possessions fewer with Odom on the floor, though it's fair to point out most of his minutes came with the second unit. Los Angeles was also strangely a borderline elite defensive team with him on the floor, which is either an indictment on DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin or a statistical outlier brought forth by plenty of minutes with Eric Bledsoe and Matt Barnes.
Considering Odom's Lakers teams were by and large better with Odom on the floor defensively, we'll give him some credit. However, one has to wonder how much a player who spent his entire regular season getting back into shape really helped all that much.
Digressions aside, Odom has made no formal announcement on his future. The Clippers have long since moved on in free agency, meaning the Lakers would be his only L.A.-based option. Could a reunion be in the works? According to Kevin Ding of the?Orange County Register, Odom has considered it, but the Lakers aren't that interested:
Should Lakers bring back Lamar Odom?
Should Lakers bring back Lamar Odom?
Yes
No
Considering the way things ended?first with the David Stern-vetoed trade to New Orleans and then a deal to Dallas for peanuts?it's safe to say Los Angeles is glad it got out of the Lamar Odom business while it could. His past two seasons have proved Mitch Kupchak correct in sending Odom elsewhere, though the Lakers' moves elsewhere have backfired quite a bit (see: Howard, Dwight).
The only reason the Lakers should express any interest is simple: What more do they have to lose? Odom, assuming he would take the minimum, is a low-risk player who could still be effective if motivated. Considering their starting 2-guard would probably be Nick "Swaggy P" Young if the season started today, the Lakers could do a whole lot worse.
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Delonte West on Radars of Knicks and Grizzlies?
Unlike Odom, Delonte West was an effective player the last time he set foot on an NBA floor. He averaged 9.6 points and 3.2 assists in 44 games with the Mavericks in 2011-12, knocking down open threes and doing all the things that make him a valuable backup.
But, as it has many times during his career, West's personality defects quickly wore out his welcome with the Mavericks. Dallas suspended West for his part in an argument between teammates last October, later choosing to cut the 30-year-old guard rather than try to work things out.
Always a difficult personality?West suffers from bipolar disorder, a disease that has been the root cause of many of his problems?the remaining 29 NBA teams chose to follow the Mavericks' path.
He later tried making a comeback with the Texas Legends of the D-League, starting eight games before the season came to a close. The rust of missing more than three months of action showed, as West averaged just 10.3 points per game and shot 35.1 percent from the field.
West spoke of the difficulty he faced watching last season as an unemployed NBA veteran, per SLAM's?Tzvi Twersky:
I had tears in my eyes watching games this past year ? not because I?m bipolar, but because I?m sitting at home and miss the game.?When my agent calls, I?m going to be on the next flight. Not to be cocky, but some teams that are trying to win are one guard away, one guy that can make a couple great plays away from going to the Finals.
It seems one year away from the game hasn't done much to hurt West's confidence?though whether that's a good or bad thing remains up to interpretation. As for whether any team has any tangible interest in putting a happy bow on this semi-tragic story, it seems like the answer is a very tepid yes.
Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com is reporting that both the Memphis Grizzlies and New York Knicks have reached out to West's representatives. The talks are said to be??preliminary at this point," and no formal offers have been made at this time.
It's unlikely West would garner anything more than a veteran's minimum deal with a minuscule guarantee?if any guarantee whatsoever.
From an entertainment standpoint alone, I hope he goes to the Knicks. Putting West in a locker room with Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith, Metta World Peace, Carmelo Anthony and Iman Shumpert would be off the charts on the unintentional comedy scale. I would probably pay $10 per month to watch their interactions on a?Big Brother-like feed.
Can we just make this happen already? Yes? Yes.
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Memphis in on Mo Williams Too?
Perhaps one of the more perplexing veterans still out on the market is Mo Williams. We've long reached the point where most attribute his All-Star game selection to the deifying hands of LeBron James, but Williams remains a valuable offensive player who has started for much of the last nine seasons.
The 30-year-old guard spent the 2012-13 season with the Utah Jazz, again getting the nightly nod despite struggling with injury. He averaged 12.9 points and 6.2 assists per game, continuing to space the floor and knock down long-range jumpers.
Despite the expectation that this past season would be his last as a starter, few expected Williams to be looking at the August half-offer sheets.
But as it does to many veterans, contractual expectations priced him out of the market early, and teams quickly moved on to secondary targets. Steve Kyler of Hoopsworld noted Williams was so discouraged by his lack of long-term offers that he would consider signing a short-term deal with a contender.
Well, it looks like Williams has found that contender. According to ESPN's Marc Stein, the Memphis Grizzlies have thrown their hat in the ring on the Williams chase:
Should he sign in Memphis, Williams would serve multiple purposes?all of which would improve the Grizzlies' championship effort. He would give Mike Conley a reliable backup who can distribute and play off the ball?a role?Jerryd Bayless could only intermittently fill last season. And, more importantly, Williams would be a floor-spacer and a long-range shooter on a team firmly in need of both traits.
No team attempted fewer three-pointers last season than Memphis. The Grizzlies also shot a dreadful 34.5 percent on those shots, a clip that was better than only six other franchises. Memphis' lack of shooting came up in a big way during the Western Conference Finals, where the San Antonio Spurs essentially ignored Tony Allen and Tayshaun Prince on the wing.?
Adding Williams wouldn't solve those ills but would go a long way toward helping. The Western Conference got markedly better this offseason, while the oft-injured Mike Miller represents the Grizzlies' biggest haul in free agency. A healthy Miller will help solve those spacing problems; adding Williams might make them a thing of the past.?
Xperia Z,?ZL,?ZR, Tablet Z,?SP and Z Ultra to get 4.3 upgrade; some 4.1 devices could jump straight to 4.3
Sony is the first Android OEM to commit to device updates to Android 4.3, less than a day after Google unveiled the new version of Android in San Francisco. The Japanese company says it can confirm that the?Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR, Xperia Tablet Z, Xperia SP and Xperia Z Ultra will all get upgrades to Android 4.3, though no specific update timetable is offered.
In addition, Sony says it's looking at upgrading some of its Android 4.1 devices directly to 4.3, leapfrogging 4.2 entirely. (It wouldn't be the first we've heard of a manufacturer possibly jumping straight from 4.1 to 4.3.) Again, Sony's not committing to any timeframes, but says it'll share more details when it's able.
Meanwhile, the Android 4.2 updates will continue rolling out for existing Sony devices. The manufacturer says the Xperia ZR and Tablet Z will start seeing 4.2 push out from early August.
Source: www.multichannel.com --- Tuesday, July 23, 2013 Social-Networking Site?s Activity Volume Is Five Times Greater Than Its Rivals Combined Social-Networking Site?s Activity Volume Is Five Times Greater Than Its Rivals Combined George Winslow (Broadcasting & Cable) Social-media tracking company Trendrr has unveiled a new study showing that TV-related social activity on Facebook is some five times greater than activity on all of the other social media networks it measures combined. The finding was announced in conjunction with a new partnership between Trendrr and Facebook that gives the research and analysis firm preliminary access to previously unanalyzed Facebook user-engagement data related to TV programming. ?There is a large amount of TV-related social activity on Facebook ? in numbers approximately 5 times as large as that of all other social networks combined as measured by Trendrr,? Trendrr CEO Mark Ghuneim said in a blog post . For example, during one week in May, the volume of Facebook chatter pertaining to broadcast TV was seven times as large as broadcast-related chatter on all of the other social-media networks measured by Trendrr combined, including Twitter, GetGlue and Viggle. The TV-related activity was also enormous for cable programming, as Facebook activity was 4.5 times greater than chatter on the other social networks. The Trendrr analysis also showed particularly high Facebook usage levels among viewers of dramas and comedies, as well as among Hispanics, whic ...
Ubuntu's plan to merge the desktop computer and mobile device is taking shape today in form of the Edge, which it's aiming to bring to market in May of next year for $830 outright. True to Canonical's community driven roots, the company is turning to crowd-funding to get the device on its feet. It's aiming to raise $32 million, and to that end, Canonical's launching a campaign on Indiegogo today, which provides early backers the opportunity to snag the phone for $600. According to company founder, Mark Shuttleworth, the Indiegogo route isn't meant to compete with its strategy of courting carriers for its mainstream smartphone project. Rather, it's meant to solve an "innovation gap" that's arisen during talks with manufacturers over its grander vision.
The Ubuntu Edge is a very ambitious smartphone that'll be capable of running a full-fledged Ubuntu desktop operating system alongside Android. While specs are currently tentative, the company is aiming to outfit the Edge with a quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Meanwhile, the phone itself will sport a 4.5-inch, 1,280 x 720 display that's constructed of sapphire crystal glass, an 8MP rear / 2MP front-facing camera and stereo speakers. As for connectivity, Canonical's eyeing LTE, dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, along with MHL support.
If the converged device strategy strikes your fancy, you'll find good incentive to be among the early backers. According to Shuttleworth, the Edge will only come to market if backers make it happen, as "none of the phone manufacturers are yet ambitious enough to try to put both things in one package." Regardless of whether the Indiegogo campaigns succeeds -- it'd be a record, if so -- Canonical will continue pursuing its strategy to bring a more basic Ubuntu smartphone to market. Recently, the company announced the first of its partner carriers, which includes Verizon, Deutsche Telecom, EE, SK Telecom, China Unicom and others. We're still waiting to see what type of smartphone might be offered through the carriers, but it's now clear that if you believe in the open source / converged device philosophy, you'll need to vote with your wallet.
They have to concede that he is right about the concept of ?shortage?: a shortage just means the price is too low. The rest of it combines sophistry with an overlay of the economism fallacy.
They seem piqued that they have to forgo the propaganda around worker ?shortages? ? an absolutely essential element to the claims of the immigration celebrationists and the provisions for ?guest workers?-who-never-leave in the Senate bill. So they pedantically quibble about ?unlimited? immigration. It?s laughable, though. Sowell?s correction on the ?shortage? propaganda is a critically important conceptual point. He did not mean to suggest that there is already an in place literally infinite supply of ag labor. He meant that the ?shortage? propagandists advocating effectively unlimited immigration so ag interests never have to adjust wages to domestic supply DO have what is effectively an ?unlimited? foreign labor supply in reserve. It needn?t be exclusively Mexican. For example, if they ?need? yet more supply of imported labor to keep wages down what is to stop them from importing, say, scores of millions of ag workers from Bangladesh? There are 4 billion people in the world whose economic well being would be improved by at least an order of magnitude by coming to the U.S. If that isn?t ?unlimited,? it is all but.
What are the terrible consequences of failing to permit unlimited immigration of low skilled 3rd world ag workers?
??Sowell only described one possible outcome from a reduction in the supply of low-skilled immigrant farm workers: an increase in wages. The far more likely reaction is that American farmers will stop growing crops that require many workers. Without a large supply of low-skilled immigrant farm workers, labor-intensive farming would either shrink dramatically or disappear entirely. American farmers would either grow different crops that could be profitably harvested mechanically or stop farming.? [emphasis added]
Just so. Exactly what should happen in an efficient market. They would have to adjust; to modify the mix of capital and labor inputs in response to a constraint ? a labor constraint that arises naturally precisely because the economy has higher valued uses for that labor than one more acre of cucumbers. So the farmers can?t expand cucumber growing indefinitely? Our optimal production function is more of something higher valued than the next acre of cucumbers? Tough?then it?s not economic activity we want, and the market is telling us so. And telling them that if they overplant and the yield on the marginal acre is worth less than the cost of the labor to pick it?then let it ?rot in the fields?.
Note as well the misleading formulation of the argument: ?a reduction in the supply of low-skilled immigrant farm workers?. That?s not the situation; it?s an inability to increase the supply of low-skilled workers by raising wages sufficiently to elicit that supply ? like every other employer has to ? and also profitably increase the low value-added output. Sure, it is also a prohibition on bringing in foreign workers at the lowest possible wages, at least legally. But that isn?t the same as ?a reduction in the supply of low-skilled immigrant farm workers?.
Further consequences:
?American consumers would either import fruits and vegetables that require large numbers of workers from countries where those workers are abundant, or scale back their consumption of those food stuffs.?
Again, just so. But the horror! We might become ?dependent? on cheap foreign cucumbers? Ironically, ?ber-libertarian Cato wants a policy that, in effect, like tariffs and import quotas, amounts to import substitution to ?protect? domestic producers, something they would never advocate for, say, steel. No American other than the landowner would lose anything: not workers?.these are jobs Americans won?t do!?.not consumers?they can import?not distributors and retailers?their margins do not depend on the provenance of the commodities?not investors?they can get similar risk-adjusted returns investing elsewhere. The landowner?s land value is potentially at risk, if he cannot adjust to higher value uses. Again, tough.
Here is the nub of the policy issue, in a disingenuous but clever bit of sophistry:
?Those effects would be the economically efficient outcome if increased labor scarcity was driven by changes in the free market. In this case, however, the increase in labor scarcity would come from legislation mandating such scarcity.? [emphasis added]
VERY slippery move! Did you see that? ?The increase in labor scarcity would come? [emphasis added] not from legislation but from the market allocation of the labor supply to its most productive uses, based on the marginal product/marginal value of product relationship for that labor. No legislation required at all. It?s just the ex ante status quo ? the default condition, like the entirety of our legal regime which also prohibits, say, labor peonage in agriculture?also a constraint. What they want is new legislation to permit an injection of foreign labor from outside the economy to prevent a naturally occurring ? and economically beneficial ? labor allocation arising from that constraint. The ?scarcity? arises from an increase in demand which assumes the price of labor to remain as low as it can possibly be. A ?shortage? means the price (wage) is too low. It?s only if you think that the default condition should be unlimited immigration that the inability to increase low skilled immigration comes from ?legislation mandating?scarcity?.
Here?s where the economism fallacy comes in:
?Sowell is right that the economy would adjust to a decrease in the supply of low-skilled labor, but he fails to mention that it would do so by shrinking.?
Misleading. He means, of course, that aggregate GDP might be less ? not even absolutely, compared to the ex ante baseline ? only relatively compared to an ex post GDP that included the increased but low value ag production as well as the higher value output from workers who are attracted into those positions instead of picking cucumbers, at the margin. GDP per capita, however, would necessarily be lower: the increase in output derives from a lower than average value of output per capita ? and a population increase! We get bigger, but not richer, certainly not existing, native-born Americans. Moreover, the implication is that our incremental aggregate GDP growth should come from a relative increase in the lowest value-added economic activities ? even by importing the labor necessary to make that activity feasible from the lowest possible wages. And it ignores the potential adverse impacts from massive population growth to accommodate these low value ag interests: overcrowding, pollution, land use, environmental degradation ? and net government spending.
But note further: they simply assume that the default constraints on economic agents in America do not, or should not, include population based on our collective democratically determined policies regarding the population levels and demographics we want. If marginal low value economic interests can expand only by first ignoring that constraint by intentional and flagrant violations of the law implementing the democratically enacted policies and now want new legislation to repeal the policies leading to the constraint, in the interest of nothing but more GDP in aggregate, so be it. It?s economism on steroids.
And there is no principled stopping point. The labor supply globally in excess of American labor willing to do the cucumber picking at the ever expanding margin at the lowest possible wages is for all practical purposes unlimited; so they want, and openly argue for, completely unlimited immigration. How could they not? Once any limit becomes binding the argument compels them to want to eliminate it! But once you concede that there should be some limit set by policy and not the narrow economic interests of the ag lobby, then the question arises as to what?s wrong with the limits we already have??.that the scofflaw ag sector has worked to undermine? If the answer is that the existing limit is arbitrary, ANY limit becomes arbitrary and the reason to prefer a new limit becomes nothing but special pleading for special interests. And why stop at ag? Why not let entrepreneurs in the strategic T-shirt and bra and panty sectors of the textile industry import millions of those Bangladeshi workers toiling in unsafe sweatshops? Think of the GDP!?.and import substitution for cheap Asian T-shirts.
Effectively, the Cato-type extreme libertarian arguments for unlimited immigration depend on a fallacy of economism: only considerations of gross first order economic conditions are relevant to any policy question. Only aggregate GDP matters, not GDP per capita, not second order environmental non-GDP impacts, not the economic welfare of existing native-born Americans, not population densities, not cultural or demographic issues. America is just a geographic expression; it just identifies a place where rational economic maximizers happen to be living because they can rationally maximize. It?s economism?and it?s specious, no matter how sophisticated the economic claims appear to be.
BUDA, Texas -- At 120 pounds and nearly 2 feet tall, the shaggy-haired Gari is lovable enough.
He likes to clown around, play in the mud and take long walks.
That's his good side.
He's also somewhat of a rat ? lazy, needy and demanding to be fed at all hours of the night.
The Dallas Morning News (http://dallasne.ws/151AVHc ) reports that's a capybara for you, especially when you let him have the run of the house.
You take the good with the bad.
"He's a really neat animal," said owner Melanie Typaldos. "He's really smart, very affectionate, he loves to swim, and I love to go swimming with him."
Typaldos' love for Gari led her to team up with Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences to start the ROUS Foundation, dedicated to finding out more about capybaras that have been domesticated and helping owners cover veterinary expenses. Most in the U.S. are found in zoos.
In the wild, the capybara, which could easily pass as a guinea pig ? albeit a giant one ? lives in South America. Officially, it's a rodent, the largest kind.
"We're trying to understand what's going on with captive capybaras," Typaldos said. "No one's keeping track of it. No one's keeping records.
Dr. Sharman Hoppes, a clinical associate professor with the veterinary school, said she hasn't seen any documented instances of capybaras transmitting diseases to humans in the U.S. because they're kept in captivity.
"If we happen to have capybaras loose in our waterways," she said, that would be a different story.
This much is known about 3-year-old Gari: He walks on a leash, rides in the car with the windows down and, when he chooses, sleeps in bed with Typaldos, 57, and her husband, Rick Loveman, 54.
Gari's formal name is Garibaldi Rous. The last name stands for Rodents of Unusual Size, from the movie The Princess Bride.
Typaldos and her husband own a home that sits on about 40 acres in Buda, 15 miles southwest of Austin.
On a recent summer afternoon, Gari quietly sauntered around the fenced-in backyard, mingling with the chickens and two tortoises.
Then, he climbed the hay-barrel steps leading to an above-ground swimming pool and slipped in.
Typaldos, dressed in a black T-shirt with a drawing of a capybara, spun Gari on his back. His record is 15 spins, and he can hold his breath for up to five minutes, she said.
But on this day, Gari preferred to take things slow, gliding through the water like an otter.
"I always say Gari is the clown of the capybara world," Typaldos said.
His sounds range from a deep, low purr when he's happy to a little squeak when he's not.
Gari isn't thrilled when he's hungry. Typaldos said he's notorious for waking up in the middle of the night with a "feed me" look. She's lucky if he sleeps past 5:30 a.m.
"Sometimes, I'll open my eyes and there will be a big capybara face right there," she said.
Typically, Gari chews through two to four tubs of organic lettuce a day ? an expensive diet. As a herbivore, he also eats melon, grapes, blueberries, apples, corn and broccoli.
"Only the best for my capybara," Typaldos said.
Gari enters and leaves the house as he pleases. He goes into the same bathroom as everyone else, but he uses a water pot next to the toilet.
"He learns tricks like a dog, and he walks on a leash like a dog," Typaldos said. Gari can shake hands, or paws in his case, and presses a button with his snout for food rewards.
Social-Networking Site?s Activity Volume Is Five Times Greater Than Its Rivals Combined Social-Networking Site?s Activity Volume Is Five Times Greater Than Its Rivals Combined George Winslow (Broadcasting & Cable) Social-media tracking company Trendrr has unveiled a new study showing that TV-related social activity on Facebook is some five times greater than activity on all of the other social media networks it measures combined. The finding was announced in conjunction with a new partnership between Trendrr and Facebook that gives the research and analysis firm preliminary access to previously unanalyzed Facebook user-engagement data related to TV programming. ?There is a large amount of TV-related social activity on Facebook ? in numbers approximately 5 times as large as that of all other social networks combined as measured by Trendrr,? Trendrr CEO Mark Ghuneim said in a blog post . For example, during one week in May, the volume of Facebook chatter pertaining to broadcast TV was seven times as large as broadcast-related chatter on all of the other social-media networks measured by Trendrr combined, including Twitter, GetGlue and Viggle. The TV-related activity was also enormous for cable programming, as Facebook activity was 4.5 times greater than chatter on the other social networks. The Trendrr analysis also showed particularly high Facebook usage levels among viewers of dramas and comedies, as well as among Hispanics, whic ...
