Whatsapp To Introduce Voice calls... First Upgrade from Facebook....

WhatsApp is arguably the most popular cross-platform mobile messaging solution out there and while it currently lacks a desktop client (unlike its rival Viber), it’s just become a whole lot more useful by introducing a significant new feature: voice memos, a pet project of its CEO over the past six months.

Unlike Facebook’s Messenger iOS app that requires three taps to make a voice recording, it only takes a single tap to record and send a voice memo in WhatsApp. And no, it’s not a staggered release: the new WhatsApp with push-to-record voice messaging is available now simultaneously on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Nokia…

Simply push the recording button, start speaking and let go when done. To cancel the recording in progress, swipe to the left and the voice memo gets deleted.

Even better, The Mountain View, California messaging startup that employs 45 people said the new version puts no length limit on voice memos. For example, you could leave your significant other a short clip just a few seconds long, but also a five-minute video or even half an hour footage for that matter.

That’s in stark contrast with other popular messaging apps which impose pesky length limits for voice recordings. Skype Video Messages, for example, can be up to three minutes long. And Facebook’s Messenger has even shorter voice messages, up to only a minute in length. WhatsApp (voice messaging, iPhone screenshot 001)

I like how the volume automatically switches from speaker when you hold the device a few inches away to soft when you press it against your ear.

Another nice touch: a blue microphone icon tells you when the recipient has played your voice message. 

Speaking to Liz Gannes of AllThingsD,
WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum shared a few noteworthy stats:
• WhatsApp now has 300 million monthly active users
• 20 million active users across Germany, Mexico, India and Spain
• users now send 11 billion messages and receive 20 billion messages per day, up from 27 billion total in June
• 70 percent penetration across the entire population of Brunei (not even limited to residents who have smartphones) and 50 percent penetration in Hong Kong
• people now sharing 325 million photos per day via WhatsApp

Although Koum wouldn’t disclose the number of users who have paid so far, he did assure that he has no interest whatsoever to monetize users with ads. Up next for the startup: more “media-focused” products that, according to the CEO are building on all the photos WhatsApp users are already sending. Count me excited!
WhatsApp is free during the first year – after that, it will run you $0.99 per year. The app can be downloaded from the App Store.

As commenters pointed out, the feature may have already been in place because the voice recording ability seems to be appearing without the need for an App Store update, so it was likely a server-side update.

Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion.

In a play to dominate messaging on phones and the Web, Facebook has acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion.

That's a stunning sum for the five-year old company. But WhatsApp has been able to hold its weight against messaging heavyweights like Twitter, Google and Microsoft's Skype.

WhatsApp has upwards of 450 million users, and it is adding an additional million users every day. Referring to WhatsApp's soaring growth, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call, "No one in the history of the world has done anything like that."

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app for smartphones, according to OnDevice Research.

Buying WhatsApp will only bolster Facebook's already strong position in the crowded messaging world. Messenger, Facebook's a standalone messaging app for mobile devices, is second only to WhatsApp in its share of the smartphone market. Similar to traditional text messaging,

WhatsApp allows people to connect via their cellphone numbers. But instead of racking up texting fees, WhatsApp sends the actual messages over mobile broadband. That makes WhatsApp particularly cost effective for communicating with people overseas. That kind of mobile messaging services have become wildly popular, with twice as many messages sent over the mobile Internet than via traditional texts, according to Deloitte. But most of the messaging industry's revenue is still driven by text messaging.

On the conference call, Facebook said it is not looking to drive revenue from WhatsApp in the near term, instead focusing on growth. Zuckerberg said he doesn't anticipate trying to aggressively grow WhatsApp's revenue until the service reaches "billions" of users.

WhatsApp currently charges a dollar a year after giving customers their first year of use for free. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said on the conference call that WhatsApp's business model is already successful. That indicates Facebook bought WhatsApp to add value to its existing messaging services, as well as for the long-term potential of the company.

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 for similar reasons: As young social network users gravitated towards photo-sharing, Facebook wanted to scoop up what could have eventually become a big rival. Like Instagram, WhatsApp will function as an autonomous unit within Facebook, with all the existing employees coming in as part of the deal.

Facebook said it will pay WhatsApp $4 billion in cash and $12 billion in stock. WhatsApp's founders and staff will be eligible for for another $3 billion in stock grants to be paid out if they remain employed by Facebook for four years. Koum will also join Facebook's board of directors. 

221 years overdue Library book took by George Washington returned by 2010. Calculated overdue $3,00,000

It was over two centuries late, but a copy of a library book George Washington borrowed was returned in May 2010 to a New York library. The former president borrowed The Law of Nations by Emer de Vattel on 5 October 1789, according to the records of the New York Society Library.George-Washington-library-book-returned

 
Staff discovered it was missing when they conducted an inventory of books in the library’s 1789-1792 ledger early 2010. Washington had never returned the book – an essay on international affairs – to the library, which shared a building with the federal government at the time and was used by members of Congress and the cabinet as well as the president. The former president’s overdue fines, it was calculated, would theoretically amount to $300,000.

After staff at Mount Vernon, Washington’s former home in Virginia, learned of the situation, they got in touch with the library – New York’s oldest – offering to replace the book with another copy of the same edition. There was even a ceremony that saw Mount Vernon staff present the book to the library. Two hundred and twenty-one years later, The Law of Nations had finally come home, with – fortunately for Mount Vernon’s coffers – no mention made of the fine.

George Washington's fear of being buried alive, made him ask to wait 2 days after he died to bury him...

Everyone of us has their fears, and this includes the United States founding father and first president, George Washington. His fear is said to be one of the most widespread of human fears, although it’s probably something you’ve never thought about: being buried alive.

George-Washington-fear-of-being-buried-alive
In fact, this practice has a name of its own other than being buried alive. It’s known as vivisepulture, or premature burial. However, it’s not very often that you hear about someone being buried alive, save by say a building collapsing. In recorded history though, live burials have been executed as forms of execution, torture or murder. Notwithstanding, there have been actual cases of people apparently being mistaken for dead and being buried alive.

And this is the fear that plagued George Washington. So, when he was about to cash in on his chips, he lay on his deathbed and made his servants make him a promise that he would be buried two days after departing. This would ensure that he had some significant amount of time to make a comeback should he not be actually dead by any chance.

A Russian museum has kept cats for the protection of artworks from rats

This sorority of security cats prowl the basement and attic of the State Hermitage Museum located in St. Petersburg, Russia. It’s not a practice that’s been adopted just recently, but rather, Guard-cats-prowl-the-State-Hermitage-Museumever since the museum was founded in 1764. The sole purpose of the cats is to keep rats at bay from the museum’s artwork, some of it, priceless.

When Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg) was under siege at the time of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, all the cats were eaten by the starving citizens, and the rats were having their day, such that even the museum was not spared from their destructive tendencies. It was after the blockade was over that two cat-wielding carriages entered the city. You can imagine the massacre that transpired.

Each of the cats patrolling the museum has a passport with a photo that it carries around which certifies that the holder is qualified to take on the magnanimous task of eating rats and that they are not posing as intruders. They’re fed very well and their healthcare is enviable.

Jack Daniels left home at the age of 6 and and practiced making whiskey from a Lutheran minister.

No one is really certain when Jack Daniel was born. The courthouse records were destroyed by a town fire and conflicting dates marking Jack Daniels’ and his mother’s headstones have added to the confusion. The tradition still held to date to celebrate Jack’s birthday is in September, which means he’s honored an entire month. After all, it’s Jack Daniel, right? A single day would seem improper.

Jack-Daniels
Jack remains an enigma and many legends abound about the man and the drink too. Take, for instance, the Old No. 7 brand. There are a couple of legends and many tales that have been passed down regarding its significance. There are some that say Jack had 7 girlfriends, others say the way he wrote his ‘J’ resembled a ‘7’. There are those who believe he chose the digit 7 because it’s a lucky number. But this, this we’ll never know and it went with him to the grave.

Anyway, about his younger days. Jack left his home at an early age and a family friend going by the name Dan Call raised him. Mr. Call was a Lutheran minister and he also owned a whiskey still. This is the place that Jack grew up and learned the ropes of how to make whiskey. When he turned 13, sometime in September 1863, Mr. Call devoted his life to his ministry and it is then that he sold Jack Daniel the still. The rest, as they say, is history.

President Jimmy Carter lost his nuclear launch code and found it from dry cleaning center.

The briefcase that holds the nuclear launch codes used to authorize a nuclear attack by a United States President while remotely situated from the confines of fixed commands centers like the White House Situation Room is called a nuclear or atomic football, atomic black box, or president’s emergency satchel. 

This so-called nuclear U.S.-Presidents-who-lost-nuclear-launch-codes-or-biscuits football can only be activated once some code has been punched into it. The name of this code also goes by another even funnier name, and that is ‘biscuit’. The president keeps custody of both the football and the biscuit.

Speaking of keeping… At the height of the Cold War, President Jimmy Carter supposedly happened to share his biscuit with the dry cleaners after he mistakenly left it in his suit. You can imagine the measures that were put in place to ensure things were fine given it was in the middle of the Cold War and such instances were beyond imagination. Another time in 1975 when the Peace Conference was held in Paris, President Ford also lost the biscuit! Another president who has lost the nuclear launch code is President Clinton who lost it for months. To make matters worse, he even lied to the military about its whereabouts.

Mountain dew was made to mix with whisky...

Mountain Dew is a popular citrus tasting soft drink that is produced by PepsiCo. It is the fourth best-selling soft drink in America behind Coca Cola, Pepsi-Cola and Diet Coke. But what’s the story behind Mountain Dew?

Mountain-dew-originally-was-whiskey-mixer
Mountain Dew was invented in 1940′s in Marion, Virginia (USA) by two brothers, Barney and Ally Hartman. It was originally invented to be a mixer drink with whiskey, and it had a very different formula to today’s version. Bill Bridgforth invented the current formula for the drink back in 1958. It was not very well known at the time until PepsiCo Ltd purchased it in 1964.

The soft drinks giant then marketed it throughout the USA (and eventually globally) and it became a hot selling product. Throughout the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s PepsiCo Ltd have unleashed several assortments of the drink which include Mountain Dew Live Wire, Mountain Dew Code Red, Diet Mountain Dew and AMP. Now you know.

Two London Press printing mistake lead to a sentence in Bible “thou shalt commit adultery!

Publishing whatever you deem appropriate in the Christian Holy Book may not meet the wrath of the Lord that may have befallen you when the famed 10 Commandments were dished out at the mountain of Sinai. Rather, you may face other stern measures such as a fine in the form of coin, like two London printers found out for themselves in 1631 in what came to be known as The Wicked Bible, aka The Sinners’ Bible, aka The Adulterous Bible.

Wicked-Bible-version-of-Robert-Barker-and-Martin-Lucas
The two printers were Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, London Royal printers and they had meant to reprint a version of the King James Bible. It wasn’t at all intentional, but just a simple typo they made. Instead of writing the legendary ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’, they omitted the ‘not’ and published it as ‘Thou shalt commit adultery’.

The mistake was spread in a number of copies and it took a year for the Wicked Bible printers to be summoned to the Star Chamber to answer to their adulterous claims. They verdict led to a fine of £300 (the equivalent of about £33,800 today) and a revocation of their printing license. The King himself – Charles I – as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury George Abbot – were outraged by such a blatant mistake and they reacted in some harsh words directed to the two printers saying; ‘the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned’.

The longest war lasted 300 years that too without casualties...

The war was between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly – just off the south west coast of the UK – and it lasted an astounding 335 years. This extremely large time frame was attributed the fact that there was no peace treaty signed and it has been hailed as one of the longest wars ever, but ironically, one with the lowest number of casualties as well.

Longest-war-lasted-over-300-years
The number of shots fired in total numbered zero, throughout the course of this very long war, if we can call it war. It is deemed to have been a carry-over of the Second English Civil war battle, that was necessitated by the lack of a peace treaty.

Peace was finally declared in 1986, marking an end to the most grueling, peaceful war ever, despite the fact that it still remains unclear whether war was declared in the first place. Some say that it wasn’t mean to go down and is just the fruit of some legend that alleged war had indeed been declared. Some things that we humans do at times!

Osama Bin Laden Was once caught by the police for speeding...

The extraordinary revelation was made by Pakistan’s official investigation, obtained just recently (July 2013) by Al Jazeera, into how bin Laden managed to live undetected in the country for almost a decade.Osama-bin-Laden-almost-nabbed-for-speeding

In its report, the Abbottabad Commission concluded that Pakistan’s military and government missed numerous opportunities to close in on the world’s most wanted man. They may have come closest when the al-Qaeda leader was living in the Swat Valley during 2002 and 2003. According to the testimony of Maryam, the wife of Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti, on bin Laden’s two trusted bodyguards, they would make occasional visits to the local bazaar.

She told investigators that on one trip their car was pulled over for speeding by a policeman, but that her husband ‘quickly settled the matter’. Whether the police officer was paid off or simply failed to spot the notorious passenger is not explained. But Osama bin Laden would live on for almost another decade.

Black Friday, It came from, September 24 1869, when the value of gold plummeted.

Today, Black Friday has many meanings, such as the day when retailers offer the biggest sales of the year. In the past, however, Black Friday referred to disasters, such as incidents of violence or widespread financial catastrophe. The first day known as Black Friday occurred in the United States on September 24 of 1869, when the price of gold plummeted, resulting in the financial ruin of a large number of investors. Black-Friday-originThis event was also called the Fisk & Gould scandal, in honor of the speculators who brought about the financial panic. It was one of most damaging scandals that occurred during the eight year presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.

During the United States Civil War, both the Union and Confederate governments resorted to financing the war effort by using fiat currency. Fiat currency is defined as a currency that is not backed by precious metals, such as a nation’s gold or silver reserves. When the Union won the war, the economy was dominated by greenback dollars, whose value would fluctuate.

At the end of the war it took 300 greenback dollars to purchase an ounce of gold, but by 1869, it only cost 130 greenbacks per ounce. Certain investors discovered that by buying gold, they could create an increased demand for it, thus driving up its price. This is called speculation, and it is what eventually led to the gold panic of 1869.

A US Bomber Once Dropped Four Nuclear Bombs on Accident Over Spain

On January 17, 1966, a B-52 bomber collided with KC-135 jet tanker over Spain’s Mediterranean coast, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one in the sea. It was not the first or last accident involving American nuclear bombs.

The bomber was returning to its North Carolina base following a routine airborne alert mission along the southern route of the Strategic Air Command when it attempted to refuel with a jet tanker. The B-52 collided with the fueling boom of the tanker, ripping the bomber open and igniting the fuel. The KC-135 exploded, killing all four of its crew members, Palomares-Nuclear-bomb-incident but four members of the seven-man B-52 crew managed to parachute to safety. None of the bombs were armed, but explosive material in two of the bombs that fell to earth exploded upon impact, forming craters and scattering radioactive plutonium over the fields of Palomares. A third bomb landed in a dry riverbed and was recovered relatively intact. The fourth bomb fell into the sea at an unknown location.

Palomares, a remote fishing and farming community, was soon filled with nearly 2,000 U.S. military personnel and Spanish civil guards who rushed to clean up the debris and decontaminate the area. The U.S. personnel took precautions to prevent overexposure to the radiation, but the Spanish workers, who lived in a country that lacked experience with nuclear technology, did not. Eventually some 1,400 tons of radioactive soil and vegetation were shipped to the United States for disposal, while 33 U.S. Navy vessels remained at sea in search of the lost bomb. It was later to be recovered on April 7 by a sub, after a Spanish fisherman led the investigators to the vicinity – damaged, but all intact.

It took Leonardo da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips and he is the person who invented scissors.

Leonardo da Vinci was much more than an artist. He was an astronomer, inventor, engineer, mathematician, architect, sculptor, geologist, animal behaviorist, botanist, and even a musician. He was all of these things and more. As the world faces a new millennium, Leonardo da Vinci remains one of the most fascinating people history has ever known. He once said that ‘things of the mind left untested by the senses are useless’. LeonardoMona-Lisa-Leonardo-da-Vinci left little untested, yet few people know the amazing story behind the man often described as the embodiment of the Renaissance.

Da Vinci is credited for inventing the scissors and it is also claimed that it took him ten whopping years to paint the lips of arguably the most popular painting this world has ever been graced with – the Mona Lisa. One can never explain the existence of genius, one can but enjoy. The number of years is contested though, but one thing that remains clear is that Da Vinci didn’t spend this entire time doing the painting. It was an on-off project that he abandoned for lengthy spells but it did take him a several years to complete. Assuming that he even finished it in the first place, given that he was never known to finish off his projects. Can you imagine this being half-baked work for a mortal? We can’t even begin thinking along those lines since they are simply unfathomable.

Da Vinci started painting the Mona Lisa around 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy. He is said to have carried on the work after relocating to France and finally finishing it before he died in 1519. This puts the length of time at between 12-15 years, but since it was an intermittent project, the duration is also said to be around 4-7 years. But we will never know for sure. We can only marvel at what da Vinci gifted mankind – a painting that’s a product of painstaking thinking illustrating utter completeness which in itself only serves to add to the mystery. The Mona Lisa.

16-year old Brenda Ann Spencer 11 people at her school replied because she don’t like Mondays.

On a Monday morning, January 27, 1979, a 16-year-old girl randomly opened fire on Grover Cleveland Elementary School, just across the street from her home in San Diego, California. After the smoke cleared, the principal and custodian lay dead. Eight young students and one police officer were injured.

When asked why the girl went on this violent rampage, she replied, ‘I don’t like Mondays’. This young girl, Brenda Ann Spencer, was America’s first ever school yard shooter. For the next 4 hours, about Brenda-Ann-Spencer40 students huddled in a small bathroom. Several teachers guarded the door. No one could see the middle school student-turned-assailant. She was inside her home shooting from the window. Just the end of the shotgun was visible, poking through a front screen. After the shooting, two people lay dead (including the school principal), eight students and one police officer were injured.

A San Diego, California native, Spencer was intrigued by guns and stories with a violent twist. The gun she used for the shooting was a 1978 Christmas gift from her father Wallace; a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle! Spencer had a history of petty theft, drug abuse and skipping school, according to claims by her neighbors. Classmates also claimed that a week prior to the shootings, she said to them that she wanted ‘to do something big to get on TV’. Talk of a kid who makes good of her claims! Just a month after acquiring the weaponry.

16-year-old sailor named Hanson Gregory invented the hole in the doughnut

We all know what a doughtnut looks like, right? It’s a baked item in the shape of a circle with a hole in the middle, wrong? Well, that’s the picture of one that’s popular with many around the world. But some doughnuts don’t have holes, others aren’t really circular, and still others look entirely different. A doughnut isn’t the same everywhere. It is, however, a food that has a fascinating history.

Many historians credit the invention of the modern doughnut to a sailor, a Dutchman named Hanson Gregory. His mother, Elizabeth, was known to make a good olykoek (oily cake). She made some forHistory-of-Doughnut him to take on one of his voyages, and she also sent along a recipe, so his cook could make some more. These cakes didn’t have holes in them, however.

One story says that the sea captain invented the donut by impaling one of the cakes on the ship’s steering wheel, to keep his hands free in a sudden storm, on June 22, 1847. The spoke drove a hole through the wheel, naturally. Gregory discovered that he liked the cake better with a hole in the middle and ordered his cook to make them that way for the rest of the voyage.

This is only one story, of course. Others have been put forward. It’s not always a given that one single incident signaled the beginning of something. The doughnut could have been ‘invented’ by many people in many different ways in different lands. The Hanson Gregory one is mentioned more than any other, so many historians go with that one as the most likely.

King Charles VI of France believed he was made of glass.

Charles VI of France became King at the age of 12. In 1385, the Bavarian Princess Isabeau had been sent to France to become his bride. In April 1392 Charles suffered from a mysterious illness and it was at this point when people began to notice a sharp change in his behavior.

After a close friend of his was murdered, he set out to find the killer. He was behaving incoherently while riding with his knights. A page accidentally dropped a lance and Charles rushed forward with a drawn sword and killed four of his own men before he could be overpowered. For days following the incident, Charles was in a coma.

A surgeon drilled some holes in Charles’ skull, hoping to relieve pressure on his brain. Some churchmen and university doctors came toCharles-VI-of-France believe that Charles was the victim of sorcery and in 1398 some attempts were made to exorcise him. Charles’ attacks of insanity became his permanent state and he became delusional. He claimed his name was Georges, denied that he was the King or had a wife or children and would frequently attack any servants or doctors who attempted to help him.

Later, Charles went through a stage of believing that he was made of glass and that if people came too near him he would break. Thus, he insisted that iron rods be inserted into his clothing to prevent him from breaking. He refused to change his linen, to bathe or to be shaved and frequently urinated on himself. He lived this way until the end of his life in the autumn of 1422. Doctors today believe he suffered from schizophrenia among other illnesses.

London in 18th Century had 20% of its women into prostitution

The growth in London’s maritime trade during the 18th century brought more and more ships to the wharves and quays. With the ships came sailors and inevitably there was an increase in the supply of prostitutes to meet the growing demand.prostitute-in-18th-century-London

Many women were forced into prostitution by poverty. Others decided that they would rather sell their bodies than work long hours as laundresses, servants or seamstresses. Not only that, these menial jobs were prejudiced against (when done by women), and as such, prostitution was encouraged by the English society then; so much so that one in five women engaged in prostitution (twenty percent).

Prostitution was not confined to the maritime districts of the East End. It was also endemic in the West End. By the middle of the 18th century Covent Garden (a tourist attraction today) was full of seedy lodging houses and an astonishing number of Turkish baths, many of which were brothels. It was normal to catch people fornicating in public, and at times, even children were treated for venereal disease.

Scientist Niels Bohr had a never ending supply of beer... A simple pipeline from Carlsberg beer company to his home... Sweet...

Niels Bohr is considered to be one of the greatest scientists to ever live. The Danes adored him, during the short stint he was in Copenhagen. After clinching the Nobel Prize in 1922 for his investigations into an atom’s structure and early works on quantum mechanics, Bohr was to receive a gift hamper that many would salivate at the mere mention of. Carlsberg, one of the largest beer brewers in the world, gave him a house next to the brewery.Carlsberg-honors-Niels-Bohr

The house was furnished with many worldly possessions, but this was a different house from any other, the world over. Apparently, Carlsberg set up a beer pipeline from their brewery to Bohr’s house so he could get some free booze whenever he felt like it. One of the reasons for the move by the beer maker was perhaps their interest in things science as part of the company culture. In fact, they had a lab dedicated to better beer brewing.

The subsequent inebriated nights led to even greater discoveries by Bohr. With the help of Carlsberg and the Danish government, Bohr founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics in 1921. For the decade that was to follow, he worked with physics to lay the foundations of quantum mechanics principles.

There was chocolate currency at the period of Aztecs and Maya

Long before chocolate was introduced in Europe, America and the rest of the world, it had already become popular among the ancient Mayans and Aztecs, two ancient civilizations that continue to baffle us to date for their ingenuity and inventions.

The Mayan people ground the cacao seeds and mixed them with water to make a bitter and foamy drink for its kings and nobleman. The men of status consumed the drink from grand vessels. Mayans-Aztecs-used-chocolate-as-currencyThe Aztecs added other flavorings to their bitter liquid chocolate, such as vanilla, chili, maize and flowers. Typically, the drink was poured from above to create a frothy liquid and served at a cool temperature. It is even said that the cacao liquid was so powerful, whoever drank a cup of it could walk for a whole day without eating anything else.

The ancient Aztec and Maya cultures used cacao as currency. The plant’s seeds that grew so readily in the lowlands were extremely valuable in the drier climates. They were also used as gifts and tributes to emperors and as offerings in religious ceremonies when transformed to liquid. Baskets of cacao, maize and feathers were traded in the market and used as a reference for measurement. The chocolate was not just used as a drink for the noble men or currency; the two cultures understood its medicinal properties as well.

During the 19th century, British soldiers in India tested their skill by hunting the bird called a Snipe. Then the name sniper originated...

Make no mistake, there are birds who have mustered the art of flying – stealth, speed, endurance, all rolled into one – perfected to the minutest of details. In fact, to say they have mustered this is to put it incorrectly – they were built this way. Born to fly the high skies.New Sniper Rifle

A lot of birds are capable of doing very long distances or very fast speeds, but finding one that can do both is quite rare. Take the peregrine falcon, for instance. Hitting unbelievable speeds of 200mph (322kph), they are possibly the fastest of birds on the globe. The Arctic tern, on the other hand, can fly the furthest distance during its migration. Can you try put a figure to the distance it covers? It goes from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again, making brief stops for refueling. By the time it’s done, it will have clocked a whopping 50,000 miles (80,500km). Believe it or rot.

Enter the Great snipe. This, this is another wonder. It combines both speed and distance attributes and based on monitoring geolocators used by a group of Swedish scientists on 10 male Great snipes, one bird covered the distance between Sweden and central Africa in 3.5 days! That’s 4225 miles (6800km). But wait. Another covered a distance of 3833 miles (6169km) in 3 days, while another made 2870 miles (4619km) in 2 days.

It’s not a wonder then that British soldiers from the late eighteenth century and through the nineteenth century used to gauge their marksmanship by hunting the snipe. Shoot down one, and you had passed the ultimate test. Btw, this was the origin of the name ‘sniper’.

A Meteorite hits women, making her the first human struck by an extraterrestrial object...

We can call her the chosen one. So ‘lucky’ was she that the meteorite has since been named after her. It’s called the Hodges meteorite. The first modern instance of a meteorite striking a human being occurred at Sylacauga, Alabama, when a meteorite crashed through the roof of a house and into a living room, bouncing off a radio, and struck a woman on the hip.Hodges-meteorite

The victim, Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges, was sleeping on a couch at the time of impact. The space rock was a sulfide meteorite weighing 8.5 pounds and measuring seven inches in length. Mrs. Hodges was not permanently injured but suffered a nasty bruise along her hip and leg.

Ancient Chinese records tell of people being injured or killed by falling meteorites, but the Sylacauga meteorite was the first modern record of this type of human injury. In 1911, a dog in Egypt was killed by the Nakhla meteorite.

Underwater Marriage Proposal Almost Killed His Girlfriend....

More often than not, a proposal of marriage is a complete surprise to one of the people in the relationship. However, when Anthony Taylor and Stephanie Walker got engaged, Anthony took the surprise aspect a little far. The couple were on vacation in Turkey when he popped the question. Her reaction was … extreme.

The couple were scuba diving off of the coast of Turkey when Anthony decided to pop the question.

 

They were staying at the beautiful resort of Marmaris.

 

When he asked her to marry him, they were 40ft underwater.

 

She actually gasped, filling her mask with water.

 

The instructors leapt to her rescue, stopping her from drowning.

 

Once the instructors ensured Stephanie was safe, she was able to respond to Anthony’s proposal with a “YES!” Then, they were taken back to shore where loved ones were waiting to wish them well. It truly was a dream proposal… aside from the whole “almost drowning” thing.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

How Long can Women Keep secret??? What Research Shows Is Pathetic...

It’s really not in them to keep secrets, the women folk. Has it ever crossed your mind how long a woman can actually hold on to a secret? Well, here’s your answer: it will take her about 47 hours and 15 minutes before she starts dishing the dirt. This is according to a study commissioned by UK Director of Wines of Chile, Mr. Michael Cox.

Women-keep-secrets-for-47-hours
The study involved 3,000 women between the ages of 18 and 65 and it established that four out of every ten were unable to keep a secret, regardless of the gravity of the news. Over half of them did heap the blame on the alcohol saying it could prompt them to spill the beans. The initial gossip recipients are most likely to be husbands, boyfriends, mothers and best friends.

Two-thirds did admit feeling guilty after sharing the breaking news, and three-quarters claimed that they can keep their mouths shut, with a whopping 83% thinking of themselves as the trustworthy type. But these are just claims and you shouldn’t take them seriously. Top of the secret-keeping contenders are intimate matters, true cost of purchases and of course, the sizzling hot topic – affairs!

Just an Ordinary Cabinet. But Inside… YES! Absolutely Brilliant.

Every so often I stumble upon pictures that make me question the quality of my upbringing. Something that just really makes me want to be 10 all over again, when the world was so full of magic and wonder.

That’s exactly what happened when I saw what was hiding inside this somewhat ordinary looking wardrobe: 

That’s a facncy looking wardrobe. I wonder what secrets it holds, if any.

Wait, that looks oddly familiar. Just missing some old musty fur coats…

Yep! That is a hidden playroom painted to look like Narnia. All built by one man for his 9 year old daughter. Best father ever!

That tiny device can download 160 GB of data or over 40,000 songs in seconds...

During the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, IBM introduced a prototype device that can be used to improve Internet speeds to 200 - 400 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) at extremely low power. The company indicated that files weighing in at 160 GB could be downloaded in mere seconds. 

"As Big Data and Internet traffic continues to grow exponentially, future networking standards have to support higher data rates," reads IBM's press release. "For example, in 1992, 100 Gigabyte of data was transferred per day, whereas today, traffic has grown to two Exabytes per day, a 20 million fold increase." 

The company explains that it's working with Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) to develop ultra-fast and energy efficient analog-to-digital converter (ADC) technology. An ADC converts analog signals to digital, approximating the right combination of zeros and ones to digitally represent the data.

IBM reports that scientists plan to use hundreds of thousands of ADCs to convert the analog radio signals originating from the Big Bang into digital. The ADC use is part of a collaboration called Dome between ASTRON (PDF available here), the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, DOME-South Africa and IBM to develop a fundamental IT roadmap for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).

According to IBM, the SKA, which will collect radio data from deep space, is an international project to build the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope. This telescope is expected to generate 10 times the global internet traffic, and IBM's prototype ADC would be an ideal candidate to transport the signals fast and at very low power.

"Our ADC supports IEEE standards for data communication and brings together speed and energy efficiency at 32 nanometers, enabling us to start tackling the largest Big Data applications," said Dr. Martin Schmatz, Systems department manager at IBM Research.

"With Semtech as our partner, we are bringing our previous generation of the ADC to market less than 12 months since it was first developed and tested." SemTech has licensed a previous version of IBM's prototype, and will use the technology to advance communications platforms slated to be announced later this year.

The 27 storied ONE BILLION dollars worth House.... YES... Its Mukesh Ambani's Antilia...

You read that right – house, not building. And guess what else? It stands abandoned! Not because it’s age-old. Quite on the contrary. The Antilla was actually completed in 2010, by not a group, organization or other body for that matter. But who could dare build a $1 billion house, and even sleep at night knowing they’ve chosen not to live in it? Only a billionaire. Mukesh Ambani. Keep reading…

The business tycoon owns the world’s most expensive home valued at $1 billion. The 27 story, 400,000 sq/ft home is located at the Altamont road, in South Mumbai, an area where land prices are estimated at US$10,000 per square meter. Antilla-world's-most-expensive-houseThe majestic mansion stands 570 feet tall above ground and is considered one of the tallest structures in Mumbai. Actually, it’s 60 stories tall, but only 27 floors are habitable, including six parking floors for capacity up to 168 cars. Each floor on the Antilla has been designed on a different theme based décor with all modern luxuries included, along with capabilities to meet its own energy requirements which by no means are meager.

The luxury amenities include a well-equipped movie theater with seating capacity for 50 people, a health club and a stunning pool. Several gardens and terraces glorify the buildings architecture while three helipads on the roof, an in-house garage, and nine elevators enhance the comfort of living to huge extents. The splendid Antilla interior [not that I’ve been there] details include a traditional lounge with stunning decoration, a ballroom equipped with designer lighting, and an ice room infused with artificial snow flurries, three floors of hanging gardens and a completely furnished lobby. It’s a lot to put into a short post so I’ll stop there.

In the one month since he moved in with wife Nita and their three children, the house has generated a power bill of Rs 70,69,488, Mumbai's highest residential electricity bill.

The Ambani family has decided not to move in though. Reason? Not safety – it’s very safe, how could it not be? Rather, the building doesn’t conform with ancient Indian architectural principles of ‘vastu shatra’ and the billionaire refuses to move in to the Antilla because the ‘home will curse them with bad luck.’ At least he got alternatives…

What Was Found In This Albatros Bird's Stomach Will Surprise You...

These grisly images were taken by photographer Chris Jordan on a remote cluster of islands called Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. As its name suggests, Midway Atoll is roughly midway between North America and Asia, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continental land.

The waste of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place on these islands, inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean.

The birds get the plastic trash from the ocean, which gathers in massive gyres, such as the famous Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

These floating garbage patches are made up of exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the Pacific.

These photos make it a bit easier to visualize the mass of trash swirling in the Northern Pacific, estimated to be twice the size of Texas.

In creating these images, Photographer Chris Jordan explains that he did not move a single piece of plastic.

Photos of the dead chicks document the actual stomach contents of these birds living in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries.

Under normal circumstances an Albatross will typically live 50 years or more.

Sadly our plastic consumption habits are killing these majestic sea birds.

A heart-wrenching tale of the damage we sometimes unintentionally do to nature. One of the many reasons why recycling is so important.