“Tadpoles” Gold in Compact Cameras; Best in Show Bert Willaert, Belgium Location: Lovendegem, Belgium Comment: Sort of looks like aliens flying overhead.
You wouldn’t think that an underwater photo taken with a
point-and-shoot camera would produce an award-winning photograph, but a
nature photographer from Belgium proved otherwise.
Bert Willaert was snorkeling in a small canal in Lovendegem, Belgium,
and encountered a huge school of tadpoles of the common toad. Using his
compact camera, Willaert took a photograph from a unique angle.
“From below it looks like they are flying overhead,” he wrote in a blog post about the photo.
The distinctive photo not only won the gold for compact cameras but was the Best of Show for the entire 2014 DEEP Indonesia International Underwater Photo Competition, the results of which were released in the past week.
It is the first time in the history of the eight-year series that a
compact camera winner has won the Best of Show, “so it’s pretty
unusual,” said Matt Weiss, owner of DivePhotoGuide.com, which hosted the contest with Wetpixel and DEEP Indonesia.
More than 5,000 photos were entered from more than 30 countries, with
photographers from 18 countries winning more than $40,000 in prizes.
Here’s a variety of the winning photos, courtesy of 2014 DEEP Indonesia International Underwater Photo
“Red Sea at Sunset” Bronze in Reefscapes Theresa Guise, Indiana Location: Red Sea Comment:
The Red Sea, located between Africa and Asia, is known for its
spectacular recreational diving sites, and its sunsets, too, apparently.
By Siva Govindasamy and Swati Pandey
KUALA LUMPUR/PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - A
Chinese patrol ship hunting for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner
detected a pulse signal in the south Indian Ocean on Saturday, the state
news agency Xinhua reported, in a possible indicator of the underwater
beacon from a plane's "black box".
Australian search authorities said such a signal would be "consistent"
with a black box, but both they and Xinhua stressed there was no
conclusive evidence linking the "ping" to Flight MH370, which went
missing on March 8 with 239 people aboard shortly after taking off from
Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.
A
black box detector deployed by the vessel Haixun 01 picked up the "ping"
signal with a frequency of 37.5kHz per second - the same as emitted by
flight recorders - at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees
east longitude, Xinhua said.
Xinhua also reported that a Chinese air force plane had spotted a number of white floating objects in the search area.
Dozens of ships and planes from 26 countries are racing to find the black box recorders before their batteries run out.
Up to 10 military planes, three civilian jets and 11 ships are scouring
a 217,000-sq-km (88,000-sq-mile) patch of desolate ocean some 1,700 km
(1,060 miles) northwest of Perth, Australia, near where investigators
believe the Boeing went down.
"The characteristics
reported (by the Chinese vessel) are consistent with the aircraft black
box," Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Australian
agency coordinating the operation, said in a statement.
"However, there is no confirmation at this stage that the signals and
the objects are related to the missing aircraft," he said, adding his
agency was seeking more information from China.
SONAR EQUIPMENT
Authorities have not ruled out mechanical problems as a cause of the
plane's disappearance, but say the evidence, including loss of
communications, suggests it was deliberately diverted thousands of
kilometers (miles) from its set route.
Sonar equipment on two
ships joining the search may help find the black box voice and data
recorders that are key to unlocking what happened on the flight.
Australian authorities said the so-called Towed Pinger Locator would be
pulled behind navy ship HMAS Ocean Shield, searching a converging course
on a 240-km (150-mile) track with British hydrographic survey ship HMS
Echo.
Japan's Maritime Self-Defence Force Commander Hidetsugu Iwamasa is pictured in front of one of t …
Experts say the Towed
Pinger Locator may be of little use unless investigators can get a much
better idea of exactly where the plane went into the water because its
limited range and the slow speed at which it must be pulled behind the
ship mean it cannot cover large areas of ocean quickly.
"I won't even call it an area. What we are doing is we are tracking
down the best estimate of the course that the aircraft was on," U.S.
Navy Captain Mark Matthews told Reuters. "It takes a couple of days on
each leg so it's a slow-going search."
Britain is also sending
HMS Tireless, a nuclear submarine with sonar capabilities, and a
Malaysian frigate was due to arrive in the search area on Saturday.
"If we haven't found anything in six weeks we will continue because
there are a lot of things in the aircraft that will float," Australia's
Houston told reporters.
Dozens of flights by a multinational taskforce have failed to turn up any trace of the plane in the past four weeks.
The Boeing 777 was briefly picked up on military radar on the other
side of Malaysia and analysis of subsequent hourly electronic
"handshakes" exchanged with a satellite led investigators to conclude
the plane had crashed far off the west Australian coast hours later.
INVESTIGATION
Malaysian authorities have faced heavy criticism, particularly from
China, for mismanaging the search and holding back information. Most of
the 227 passengers were Chinese.
Malaysia said on Saturday it had launched a formal investigation into
the plane's disappearance that would include experts from Australia, the
United States, China, Britain and France.
Normally, a formal air safety investigation is not launched until
wreckage is found. But there have been concerns that Malaysia's informal
investigations to date have lacked the legal standing of an official
inquiry convened under U.N. rules.
Under International Civil Aviation Organization rules, the country
where the aircraft is registered leads the investigation when the
incident takes place in international waters.
Malaysia's Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the investigation
would comprise three groups: one would examine maintenance records,
structures and systems; an "operations" group would study flight
recorders, operations and meteorology; and a "medical and human factors"
group would look into psychology, pathology and survival.
(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris, Niluksi Koswanage in
KUALA LUMPUR, Jane Wardell in SYDNEY; Writing by Siva Govindasamy and
Mark Bendeich; Editing by Nick Macfie and Gareth Jones)
Given the pedigree of previous South Park games, there was very valid
reason for gamers to be worried about South Park: The Stick of Truth.
The game's multiple delays did nothing to assuage those fears. But as the game hits stores today,
critics say there's actually a lot to love. It is, however, absolutely
not for the faint of heart. South Park: The Stick of Truth, which currently boasts a Metacritic average
of 84, is being called one of the funniest titles in years -- and
that's being credited to the direct involvement of series creators Trey
Parker and Matt Stone. "The Stick of Truth makes one thing
abundantly clear: I never want to play another South Park video game
made without Trey Parker and Matt Stone's direct, intimate involvement,"
says IGN's Ryan McCaffrey
in a 9/10 review. "With a controller in your hand, you are almost
literally -- gloriously -- playing a 14-hour episode of South Park.
There’s much, much more here for series fans than the uninitiated, but
it’s a light but good quality role-playing game in its own right. ... It
is funny, shocking, self-effacing, and pretty much everything I could
ask for from a South Park game."
Francesca Reyes of Official Xbox Magazine agrees, adding:
"[Stick of Truth] is absolutely not for the meek of heart, the
un-indoctrinated, or the underage set. But good god is it a hilarious
marvel when it hits its target." Reyes also rates the game a 9 out of
10.
While the jokes are getting a lot of critical love, the RPG gameplay isn't receiving quite as much praise.
"If you're looking for a solid RPG first and a South Park game second, this isn't it," says Sam Prell at Joystiq
in a 3.5/5-star review. "If you can also forgive the repetitive nature
of combat and some uninspired quests, it's worth taking up arms – or
dildos – for The Stick of Truth's hilarious, disgusting adventure."
The
frustrations don't outweigh the game's highlights, though, meaning if
you can handle three lifetimes worth of fart jokes and are able to find
humor in some very politically incorrect scenarios, South Park: The
Stick of Truth might be for you.
"It's a testament to The Stick of Truth that my enthusiasm for the game didn't dim in the face of those hiccups," says Polygon's Justin McElroy,
who awards it an 8.5/10. "Despite them — and the jokes that
occasionally run out of steam — this is an experience that even the most
casual fan of South Park is going to get something out of, and one of
the truest translations from screen to game I can recall. ... Other
games treated the world Matt Stone and Trey Parker have crystallized
over the past two decades as a prison they have to escape from. The
Stick of Truth happily confines itself to that world, and manages to
build a comfortable, hilarious home of its own."
Kristoffer Von Hassel, 5, discovered a security flaw in Microsoft's Xbox One (Credit: KGTV)
It's not uncommon for kids
to break things. It is, however, pretty special when what they break is
the security of a hi-tech video game console.
Kristoffer Von Hassel from San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood is
the wunderkind who discovered a security loophole on the Xbox One, reports local news station KGTV.
It happened just after Christmas,
when Kristoffer’s father Robert Davies walked in to find his
five-year-old son not playing family fave Minecraft, but a more mature
game that he wasn't supposed to be able to access as it was tied to his
father’s account.
Like most kids who just got busted by dad, Kristoffer's first instinct was dread.
“I got nervous. I thought he was going to find out,” said Kristoffer.
But lucky for Kristoffer, dad
happens to work in computer security. He asked his son how he managed to
access dad’s Xbox account, so Kristoffer showed him. After entering the
wrong password on his father's account, the Xbox defaulted to a
password verification screen. Kristoffer simply typed in a bunch of
space keys and hit ‘enter’, unwittingly opening up a back door that
Microsoft had previously been unaware existed.
"How awesome is that!" said
Davies. “Just being 5 years old and being able to find a vulnerability
and latch onto that. I thought that was pretty cool.”
Definitely cool, but surprising?
Not really. Kristoffer, it turns out, has a history of finding back
doors in technological gadgets. At the ripe old age of one, he got hold
of his father's cell phone and bypassed the toddler lock screen by
holding down the home key.
Microsoft has since issued a fix
for the error, but not before publicly thanking the boy by listing him
as an official security researcher on the company's website. He'll also
receive four free games, $50 cash and a year-long subscription to Xbox
Live. Not a bad haul for a few minutes work, though Kristoffer figured
something much worse was going to happen when his dad reported the error
to Microsoft.
"I thought someone was going to steal the Xbox," he said.
Family members of victims of
the GM recall failure arrive to hold a news conference on the U.S.
Capitol grounds in Washington April 1, 2014. General Motors has not yet
reported to federal regulators the "vast majority" of 133 cases of
safety concerns about ignition switches, House of Representatives
Democrats said on Tuesday ahead of congressional testimony by General
Motors (GM) Chief Executive Mary Barra. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED
STATES - Tags: POLITICS TRANSPORT BUSINESS)
A moment of reckoning
arrives this afternoon for General Motors, as America's largest
automaker will face intense questions from Congress about why it delayed
and denied a deadly defect existed in some 2.6 million vehicles.
The hearing in front of the U.S.
House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on investigations will feature GM
chief executive Mary Barra, who has said the company isn't sure why it did what it did,
along with regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration who blame GM for withholding key details that they say
could have spurred the agency to act earlier. Since launching a review
of its safety process last month, GM has recalled some 7 million
vehicles worldwide.
Last night, Barra met with family
members of people who had died or were injured in crashes from the bad
ignition switches; many of them later turned up outside the Capitol this
morning. GM acknowledges at least 13 deaths linked to the ignition
switches in Chevy Cobalts and other GM cars; safety advocates say the
number could be far higher. "This car was surely a death trap," Samantha
Denti, of Toms River, N.J., told USA Today. "Driving this car was like playing a game of Russian roulette."
You can watch the hearing live
starting at 2 p.m. EDT below; we'll have running updates on the key
moments from the hearing as well; refresh this page for the latest.
1:45 PM: For those who want to skip ahead a bit, here's Mary Barra's prepared testimony and that of David Friedman, interim cheif of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
1:50 PM: The Center for Responsive Politics has the numbers on GM's
campaign donations to the House committee asking questions today
Twenty-one members, or more than 40 percent of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee -- which today will question Barra on the company's
previous knowledge of the faulty technology that has been blamed for 13
deaths -- have been helped by cash from GM's PAC in the 2012 or 2014
election cycles, according to an OpenSecrets Blog analysis. The company
has given $72,000 to the committee's members from 2011 through 2013, or
about $3,500 to each member who received donations.
2:05 PM: Subcommittee chairman U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Penn., runs
through the history of GM's igntion problem — how it passed on a recall
in favor of telling consumers to take off heavy keychains, and how NHTSA
investigated the problem twice without ordering a recall.
"The red flags were there for GM and NHTSA to take action," Murphy
said, "but for some reason it didn't happen." He adds: "To borrow a
phrase, what we have here is a failure to communicate, and the results
were deadly."
2:10 PM: Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., holds up a defective GM switch
assembly and demonstrates how the keys turn. "If you had a heavy
keychain like my mom keychain, or if you were short and your knee bumps
the key, you can easily switch it off," she says.
"Time and time again, GM did nothing. The company continued to sell cars knowing they were unsafe."
2:15 PM: Rep. Fred Upton,
R-Mich., notes he oversaw the committee hearings into the Ford-Firestone
defects, which led to tougher laws requiring automakers share defect
data with federal regulators to help spot problems early. Two of the 13
deaths linked to the problem happened in his district. "It's deja-vu all
over again," Upton says.
2:25 PM: Barra is sworn in, and reads her statement, apologizing to
the victims and saying GM is not sure why the recall took so many years
to launch. She says GM has already loaned 13,000 vehicles to people who
are getting their cars fixed. Sitting behind her is Mark Reuss, head of
GM's global vehicle development, and GM's top lawyer.
2:33 PM: Barra reveals that GM
has hired Ken Feinberg, the attorney who's overseen settlements from
Sept. 11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the BP oil spill among others
as a consultant to work on compensation for owners. This move comes
after some lawmakers had pressed the company to set up a multi-billion
fund for victims. (Feinberg also served as the special master for the
U.S. Treasury setting executive pay for bailed-out companies in 2009 and
2010 — including at General Motors.)
2:38 PM: Under questioning from
Murphy, Barra says she finds the idea that the ignition switches weren't
fixed becuase of cost "very disturbing." When asked how the automaker
balanced cost and safety, Barra says: "We don't. If there's a safety
issue we take action...We've moved from a cost culture after the
bankruptcy to a customer culture."
2:47 PM: Upton asks Barra why GM
changed the igntion switch without changing the part number — a key
mistake that made the problem much harder to track. Barra admits that
was a mistake, but says it's not clear why that happened. As for why
complaints never led to a recall: "There was information in one part of
the company and the other part didn’t have access to that."
2:57 PM: Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., draws out from Barra that
GM's senior leaders didn't know about the problem until Jan. 31 of this
year, and that her predecessor as CEO, Dan Akerson, was not aware of it
either. Barra declines to answer Blackburn's question of whether "it was
a cover-up or sloppy work," or if it had any connection with GM's $50
billion bailout, saying GM's investigation was looking into those
questions.
3:09 PM: Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, asks an engineering question: "Why
in the world would a company with a stellar reputation as GM purchase a
part that would not meet its own specifications?"
"I want to know that as much as you do" says Barra. "That's not how we work today."
Barton presses, and Barra says
there are exceptions to when a part might be accepted after testing if
it didn't meet GM's specifications. Barton, flashing the first temper of
the hearing, calls her response "gobbledygook," adding "there's no
reason to have specifications if you don't enforce them."
Barra says, again, that GM's investigation was looking into those questions.
3:15 PM: Rep. Bruce Braley,
D-Iowa, pulls out a tiny screwdriver and cap that he said was a
promotional item GM gave out two decades ago, emblazoned with the slogan
"Safety Comes First At GM." He uses the part in an attempt to explore
whether GM's past promises were truthful or mere marketing blather:
"Hasn't the core values of GM always been that safety comes first?" Braley asks
"I've never seeen that part
before," Barra replies. "All I can tell you is that today's GM is
focused on safety," and she lists the safety aspects of current models.
"But we're talking about these vehicles (under recall) and what's changed," Braley replies.
"This incident took way too long,
that's why we're making radical changes...we will continue to make
process changes and people changes," Barra replies.
