The Geneva Motor Show car expo in Switzerland is no stranger to some bizarre and funky designs for future cars. This year, Kia’s Imagine all-electric concept car may take the cake, just based on its interior design.
The Imagine car looks like your typical futuristic, hyper-realistic electric sedan based on an existing car model (in this case the Kia’s hybrid Niro). Here it was this week at the show:
The Kia Imagine concept car looks like most cars on display until you look inside.
Image: Sergei FadeichevTASS via Getty Images
But then you take a look inside, and you know the car is poking fun at the industry. Behind the driver’s wheel and extending along the dashboard are 21 smartphone screens jaggedly arranged.
What a look.
Image: Kia
In a press release, Kia shared that it’s well aware of the “wry sense of [humor]” that went into the design. The designer said the screens are a “humorous and irreverent riposte to the on-going competition between some automotive manufacturers to see who can produce the car with the biggest screen.”
Byton’s M-Byte electric SUV debuted at CES last year and will arrive in China later this year with its 48-inch front screen and other screens throughout the car, even on the steering wheel. The Tesla Model 3 interior is also focused around the center console screen, where everything from climate control to the radio is controlled.
The release calls the “screen-wall” of phones in the Kia “a fresh and witty approach on how to move away from traditional fixed screens.” That has to be a dig at the Tesla tablet.
But even if it’s mocking the in-screen fascination in the current lineup of electric vehicles, the phone screens are still supposed to function and provide information to drivers like the speedometer, navigation, climate control, and music.
As this is a concept car, don’t expect to see a phone-lined dashboard anytime soon. Still, it could inspire the next generation of car designers.
Chicago may be a no-go for The Boring Company’s high-speed underground tunnel system, but there’s always Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced a plan this week to build an underground “Loop” tunnel at the Las Vegas Convention Center — yes, the home of the annual consumer tech show known as CES. More than 182,000 attendees were at the show last year, and they absolutely mobbed every train, taxi, and CES-provided shuttle.
The proposed Loop is expected to cost anywhere from $35 to $55 million. The authority said the project would cost less than $10 million per mile, the same as the Boring Company’s test tunnel in Hawthorne, California. They said the Las Vegas tunnel could be completed in time for CES 2021.
The convention center is expanding from 73 acres to 200 acres. Techies aren’t the only people who will benefit from more space— the convention center also hosts other events, including the Pizza Expo, World Tea Expo, and National Hardware Show, to name a few.
An electric vehicle would take riders between convention halls.
Image: The Boring Company
Several options and configurations could connect the halls and exhibitor lots at the convention center.
How the Loop could look.
Image: The Boring company.
The Boring Company says the Loop could extend beyond the convention hall to different hotels and casinos and onto the airport. It even showed how the system could continue to Los Angeles — Elon Musk’s ultimate goal for intercity travel. Above ground, the Las Vegas Monorail already connects the convention center with hotels along 4 miles of the Las Vegas Strip.
The full Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board will meet Tuesday to determine if the project is ready to proceed to the next step, which is making design decisions and creating a timeline for the project.
Broncos have trade parameters with Washington for QB Case Keenum: Broncos get WAS 6th in 2020, WAS gets Broncos 7th in ’20, per source. Keenum’s contract reworked. Broncos pay him $500K restructure bonus and pay $3.5 million of his $7M salary. Washington pays $3.5 mi. #9sports
The 31-year-old parlayed an excellent 2017 campaign with the Minnesota Vikings (career-high 22 touchdown passes, 67.6 percent completion rate) into a two-year, $40 million contract with Denver.
However, Keenum did not find the same level of success in Colorado as the 6-10 Broncos sported the NFL’s No. 24 scoring offense. He finished 29th in yards per pass attempt and threw the joint second-most interceptions with 15.
The Broncos’ move to acquire Baltimore Ravens signal-caller Joe Flacco all but ended the University of Houston product’s time in Denver.
In fairness, Keenum faced a few significant obstacles. The Broncos played nine games against teams that finished 9-6-1 or better. Head coach Vance Joseph and offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave were also under fire before being relieved of their duties. Wideout Demaryius Thomas was traded midseason, and two Bronco tight ends (Jeff Heuerman and Jake Butt) suffered season-ending injuries.
The question is whether Keenum can recapture his 2017 magic in Washington. There is legitimate concern that the seven-year veteran was a one-hit wonder. However, he was one of the NFL’s more impressive signal-callers two seasons ago.
Ultimately, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him rekindle that Vikings magic for the Redskins.
This will be necessary for his new team, as Washington has few alternatives at the position with Alex Smith still recovering from his leg injury that ended his 2018 season. Rapoport noted Keenum will compete with Colt McCoy for the starting job.
Washington showed last season it can be competitive with at least decent quarterback play, as shown by the 6-3 start under Smith. Keenum could fill in nicely and keep the team a contender in the NFC East.
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One day after LeBron James surpassed Michael Jordan as the fourth-highest scorer in NBA history, the Los Angeles Lakers reportedly decided to preserve their 34-year-old All-Star for future seasons.
Chris B. Haynes of Yahoo Sports reported Thursday afternoon that the Lakers will put James on a minutes restriction for the rest of the season:
“I was told, now that the Lakers are almost out of playoff contention, that there was a conversation had between LeBron James‘ trainer and the front office. And they came to the conclusion that moving forward, LeBron James will play somewhere [between] 28 to 32 minutes [a game].
“And possibly on back-to-backs, depending on how LeBron James feels, that he might sit out one of those back-to-backs.”
While James climbed higher in NBA history, the Lakers dropped their fourth game in a row and sixth in their past seventh games. At 30-35, L.A. is 6.5 games out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Lakers have 17 regular-season games remaining, including three back-to-backs.
This article will be updated to provide more information on this story as it becomes available.
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If you could request anyone and anything, what would it be?
The new “summoning circle” meme has Twitter users requesting everything, from not being depressed to a new season of The Office. In one of the first versions, Twitter user @depressbrethren tweeted a circle of candles surrounding serotonin.
YouTube is dealing another blow to conspiracy theorists and disinformation peddlers.
The video platform has started rolling out text prompts, known as “information panels,” that provide fact checks when users search certain terms or phrases. The feature is currently being rolled out to a limited number of users in India, one country in particular where the spread of fake news has fatal consequences.
An example of YouTube’s information pane feature which fact checks search results on the platform.
Image: YouTube
YouTube provided the screenshot above as an example. In this case, a user searches for information regarding a well-known internet hoax about the painkiller paracetamol carrying a hemorrhagic disease called the “Machupo” virus. At the top of the search results page, the user receives a prompt with information debunking the claim.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to build a better news experience on YouTube, we are expanding our information panels to bring fact checks from eligible publishers to YouTube,” said a YouTube spokesperson in a statement to Mashable. “We are launching this feature in India and plan to roll this out in more countries as time goes on.”
The information panel rollout in India includes fact checks in both English and Hindi.
It’s important to note that YouTube is not blocking the video results or actual videos about hoaxes. It’s simply serving additional fact-checked information from publishing partners to its users.
The information panels displayed by YouTube are also just fact-checking search queries — not the content of the videos that show up in the search.
Fact checks will appear on terms based on the content available from YouTube’s partners regarding that particular search query.
Last summer, YouTube launched new features specifically designed to enhance how breaking and current events news is displayed on the platform. The changes raised authoritative journalistic content to the top of search queries involving major news events.
Just earlier this year, YouTube also unveiled its plans to specifically deal with conspiratorial content on the site. Conspiracy theories in general aren’t against YouTube’s terms of service and are allowed on the platform. However, the company decided to make changes to its recommendation algorithm so that it would no longer promote “borderline” content and “harmful” misinformation.
YouTube’s decision to provide these panels on search result pages, as opposed to video pages, is significant.
Once on a video page, a charismatic YouTube creator can more easily sway a viewer to believe misinformation. YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is notorious for pushing similar content to users on the video page, pulling people to watch content that further reinforces those beliefs. If a user searches for information on the site and discovers that it’s false before clicking on a video, that may just save a user from falling down that rabbit hole.
Ilopango, El Salvador – Alba Lorena Rodriguez embraced her 11- and 14-year old daughters as a free woman for the first time in nearly a decade on Thursday.
Since 2010, Rodriguez has been behind bars for an abortion-related conviction in El Salvador, a country with one of the harshest abortion bans in the world.
During that time, the 39-year-old mother has only been able to see her daughters on designated family visit days every 15 days, sometimes less frequently when the family didn’t have enough money to travel to the Ilopango women’s prison on the outskirts of San Salvador.
Rodriguez’s mother-in-law and daughters were excited and anxious as they made the trip one last time.
“I’m going to hug her,” said Gloria Rivas, Rodriguez’s mother-in-law, as she waited outside for her daughter.
On Thursday, Rodriguez was released from prison after the Supreme Court commuted her 30-year sentence.
Two other women sentenced for suspected abortions – Maria del Transito Orellana, and Cinthia Marcela Rodriguez – were also released in the latest win for women’s rights activists fighting to loosen the country’s strict abortion laws.
Maria del Transito Orellana (L), Cinthia Marcela Rodriguez (C) and Alba Lorena Rodriguez are pictured before being released from the Women’s Rehabilitation centre in Ilopango [Marvin Recinos/AFP]
Since the Central American nation banned abortion under all circumstances in 1998, dozens of women have been sentenced to up to 30 years for abortion-related crimes. Those convicted are mainly from poorer communities and have limited resources to pay for a lawyer to defend them in court, as was the case for the three women released on Thursday.
The women say they had a miscarriage or obstetric emergency in the second or third trimester of their pregnancy, according to lawyers. The state accused them aggravated homicide and sentenced them to 30 years.
Lawyers representing the women have insisted that they have been wrongfully imprisoned and convicted without evidence.
Alba Lorena Rodriguez (C) and Cinthia Marcela Rodriguez (R) are pictured shortly after being released from the Women’s Rehabilitation centre in Ilopango [Marvin Recinos/AFP]
Both Rodriguez and del Transito Orellana already had children at the time of their conviction.
Separating mothers from their children under the abortion law shows the hypocrisy of the ban because the state imposes maternity on women but also unjustly separates them from their children, according to activist Morena Herrera.
Thirteen women freed
The court recently decided the women’s sentences were “disproportionate and immoral given that the economic support of these women for their families is fundamental”.
The three women are members of “Las 17”, a group of women imprisoned for abortion who were identified by activists in 2013 as part of a campaign to demand their release.
Their efforts have started to pay off. In 2018 and 2019, 13 women have been freed, including Teodora del Carmen Vasquez, 35, who was released in February 2018 after a decade behind bars for an abortion-related crime.
“We have been victims of a justice system that is very judgmental. We also know that the women inside have experienced the same,” del Carmen Vasquez said outside the prison on Thursday. “Our responsibility as women who have been released is to stand up and demand that the Salvadoran state release all the women.”
Efforts to decriminalise abortion through the country’s legislative assembly have been unsuccessful.
In 2018, two legislators proposed bills to legalise abortion under certain circumstances in the Salvadoran legislative assembly. But the proposals never came to a vote. In May 2018, new officials took office and the country’s right-wing party gained the upper hand in the legislature, squashing the possibility of approving either law.
On February 3, El Salvador elected Nayib Bukele, former mayor of San Salvador and candidate for centre-right party GANA, as president. In a November 2018 debate, Bukele said he is only in favour of legalising abortion in cases where the pregnancy is a threat to the life of the mother.
“But let’s not assume the presumption of guilt of a poor women who had a [miscarriage or obstetric emergency],” he said at the time.
Activists demonstrate outside the Women’s Rehabilitation centre in Ilopango, El Salvador [Marvin Recinos/AFP]
With abortion still criminalised, activists and lawyers have been forced to argue for the freedom of each woman on a case-by-case basis. Lawyers have identified 18 cases of women currently imprisoned in abortion-related cases in El Salvador.
They believe their “strategic litigation” has established important legal precedent to increase equal access to justice in the country and lead to the eventual release of all the women imprisoned in relation to the country’s total abortion ban, according to a recent press release.
“This doesn’t end here,” said Vasquez. “There is still more to do.”
“What do we want for ‘Las 17’ and more?” activists chanted outside the prison minutes before Rodriguez finally walked free. “Freedom.”
Captain Marvel may have a kickass female hero, two new alien races, and the solution to all of ourInfinity War problems — but as any rational, totally objective cat lover can tell you, this multi-million dollar tentpole is mostly (if not entirely) about Goose the cat.
Carol Danvers’ feline companion (who’s like trying to not outshine her, but also can’t hold back his star power?) marks the first starring role for a cat in the MCU. This landmark appearance continues a long legacy of on-screen kitty-cat greatness, and as such we thought it fitting to look back on the rich history of badass cats in film.
A few things to note before we get started ranking our favorites:
(1) This list is exclusive to domestic, house cat types. Big game cats such as Aslan, Tigger, The MGM Lion, and the Pink Panther have been excluded.
(2) Villain pets, like the cats belonging to The Godfather‘s Vito Corleone and Austin Powers‘ Dr. Evil, have been similarly discounted. Sitting on a rich dude’s lap while he threatens someone is very rarely badass.
(3) The kitten Christian Bale attempted to feed to an ATM in American Psycho was seriously considered for this list. However, he was ultimately deemed to be more a victim of circumstance than truly badass. As such, we salute but do not include him in our rankings.
Now, the 9 most badass cats in cinematic history.
9. Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Perhaps the mountain of Chesire Cat Hot Topic merch we owned as teenagers clouds our judgment, but it’s pretty difficult to imagine a badass cats list without this asshole.
Sure, the Chesire Cat wasn’t particular nice to a child who fell down a hole and was subsequently stalked by a full-grown woman with control issues. But, he did seem to know everything about Wonderland, pulled regularly hilarious pranks, dropped a total bop of a single within his first few minutes on-screen, and eventually helped Alice get back topside. Clearly, a badass.
8. Keanu, Keanu (2016)
Within his first few weeks of living, Keanu the kitten was kidnapped, re-kidnapped, re-re-kidnapped, and re-re-re-kidnapped in the most heart-wrenching game of capture the flag to ever appear in theaters.
Rocking killer style and starring in a high-speed car chase, Keanu is without question the highlight of his own film. The best part? Considering Keanu has that rare disease keeping him a kitten forever, we could still get a sequel. His star-power obviously remains red-hot and fundamentally badass.
7. Crookshanks, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2002)
As far as underrated Wizarding World heroes go, Hermione Granger’s cat Crookshanks should near the top of most everyone’s lists.
Not only was this fluffy, half-Kneazle angel the first to blow the whistle on the not-rat that Peter Pettigrew is, he also aided in bringing Ron and Hermione together. An iconic, legendary badass full of love and likely hairballs.
6. The Cat, Coraline (2009)
This magical bundle of black clay and bad omens may look like the cat of your nightmares, but in reality he’s just trying to save Dakota Fanning’s dumb ass from getting buttons sewn into her face.
The Cat offers Coraline warning after warning throughout the film’s first half, and when she totally disregards them like the exhausting protagonist she is, he continues to offer helpful tips and tricks until the big finale. At one point, he even blinds the Other Mother because he is what? An overachieving badass.
5. Puss in Boots, Shrek 2 (2004)
Equal parts brain and braun, Puss in Boots knows how to nail a glance so enticing it remains in the public consciousness long after its source material is forgotten.
With killer fencing moves, snappy dialogue, and some thigh highs even Beyoncé would covet, Puss is the kind of sleeper cell badass that knows how to hit you where it hurts, right in your kitty-cat loving feels.
4. Thackery Binx, Hocus Pocus (1993)
Yaaaas, Thackery. Drag Bette Midler, drag her straight to Hell.
Considering the teenage heroes in Hocus Pocus are useless and can’t dance — even when the Sanderson Sisters are offering them up a truly iconic banger — Binx is essential to moving this plot along.
Full of punchy one-liners and unafraid to claw a witch’s face to pieces, this colonial boy turned black cat is the definition of hero material. Funny, adventurous, brave, weirdly a little sexy? Pretty badass.
3. Jake, The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
You thought your cat was a genius? Turns out, Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7 (aka “Jake”) genuinely is.
This extremely good and intergalactic boy crash lands his spaceship on Earth in the beginning of The Cat from Outer Space. Unable to receive aid from his own kind, Jake enlists the help of the U.S. Government to try and fix it.
Telepathic, telekinetic, and with more charisma than Airbud, Jake is the kind of badass diplomat we wish our current international leadership had on-call.
2. Church, Pet Sematary (1989)
Considering the Pet Sematary remake is due out later this year, we’re not gonna get into too many spoilers here. Suffice to say, Church the cat is bad news.
Not in an “I’m angry so I peed in your bed!” way. More in a “You should have let me stay dead, you worthless idiot” kinda way. Sure, it’s horrifying. But also, badass.
1. Jonesy, Alien (1979)
Anyone and anything that can survive a Xenomorph attack is pretty badass, but the USCSS Nostromo’s most valued crew member did it in perfect cat style.
In typical feline fashion, Jonesy spends the majority of his time in the Alien franchise straight-up chilling. Sure, he hisses some, but he mainly defies death by staying the hell out of the way. We assume when he wasn’t on-screen, Jonesy was napping it up, chasing space mice, or licking some of Officer Kane’s chest goo off the floor. You know, cat stuff.
Honorable Mention: Goose, Captain Marvel (2019)
Don’t get us wrong, we love Goose. We love him so, so much. But with mounting evidence indicating he isn’t really a cat at all, we question whether or not he should be included on this list. After all, can a god be measured among mere mortals?
Flerken or no, we love this little guy and every disturbing power he may or may not have. Captain Marvel (aka Goose: The Movie) is in theaters March 8.
Facebook is crawling with anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Now the company will finally do something about it.
The company announced a series of new policies aimed at combatting the spread of anti-vaccine content on its platform. The new policies, which will make it harder to find false information about vaccines, come after mounting public pressure to take a more active role in fighting viral misinformation critics say has contributed to the outbreaks of preventable diseases.
In some ways, the efforts are similar to Facebook’s fight against fake news. The company isn’t banning anti-vaccine content outright, but making it more difficult to find, and reducing the chance it will go viral. At the same time, Facebook is looking for ways to surface accurate information to people who search for content or are invited to groups that promote conspiracy theories related to vaccines.
With the new policy changes, Facebook will demote pages and groups that share false information about vaccines. The company will also stop surfacing these pages as search recommendations on its app and website. Similarly, anti-vaccination content will no longer appear in Instagram’s Explore page, or in the app’s hashtag pages.
The company said it will rely on information from organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, which have “publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes.”
Facebook says it will also begin rejecting ads with anti-vaccination content and has disabled advertisers’ ability to target based on categories like “vaccine controversies.” (A recent report in The Guardian found the social network had accepted thousands in advertising from anti-vaccination groups.)
Finally, the company is “exploring ways to share educational information about vaccines when people come across misinformation on this topic.” It’s not clear exactly what this will look like, but Facebook has attempted similar tactics in the past. The company previously introduced “disputed” tags, which would appear when people shared stories that had been debunked by Facebook’s fact checkers. Notably, the social network abandoned “disputed” tags in 2017, because it found them ineffective.
The new crackdown comes as calls for Facebook to act have grown louder in recent days. Besides the report in The Guardian, a teenager — who previously made headlines for his decision to defy the wishes of his parents and get vaccinated — recently told Congress that Facebook was his mother’s primary source of anti-vaccine misinformation.
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