Click to viewThe Wii's $249 abject amount consistently accustomed it to be accepted as both the cheapest animate and the best accord in boondocks for next-gen gaming. Even at a amount of $60 a pop for the WiiMote and Nunchuk, the accumulative amount of the arrangement and four controllers would still be beneath the accumulative amount for the Xbox 360 and PS3. This all changes with the Wii MotionPlus.

Part of the acumen why we're comparing four players is because of the way Nintendo sets up its games. While it's actual attenuate for Xbox 360 and PS3 owners to accept four controllers-partially because their online connectivity is so good-it's actual accepted for Wii owners to accept four. You charge four controllers to play four-player Wii Sports Tennis. You charge four controllers to play Super Smash Bros. Brawl. You charge four controllers to play Mario Kart Wii. It's actual abundant a active allowance system, something that's emphasized by Nintendo themselves in their own advertising.

And what do we acquisition if we analyze the Wii with four controllers to the added systems with four controllers? That the Wii is $20 added big-ticket than the Xbox 360, and only $10 cheaper than the PS3. That's absolutely NOT the cheapest console.

In the absorption of fairness, we compared all of Nintendo's accessories (the Wheel, the Zapper, Retro Controller, Nunchuck and Balance Board), and affective the cheapest one's amount point-the caster at $14. We priced the MotionPlus at the aforementioned price. So far Nintendo has alone said that their Wii Sports Resort will amount $49, with one MotionPlus accessory, but annihilation about how abundant the accent will amount on its own.

Exclusive: Wii Sports Resort With MotionPlus Is $49 In Spring Exclusive: Wii Sports Resort With MotionPlus Is $49 In Spring Exclusive: Wii Sports Resort With MotionPlus Is $4

Click to viewA Nintendo exec told us that the Wii Sports Resort will be $49.99 if it's… Apprehend added Read more

It's aswell all-important to agenda that if you buy your aboriginal MotionPlus the acute way, with Wii Sports Resort, you'll accept to pay $35 added than the amount we affected with affairs alone the accessories. This pushes the Wii into the "most big-ticket console" area at $525-which is aloft even the PS3.

We aswell didn't cover those added accessories like the caster or the zapper as a "necessary purchase" because they're not all-important to play all games, and are alone directed against a assertive appellation niche. The MotionPlus, on the added hand, is a all-important acquirement to play a big block of accessible Wii games, aback abounding amateur starting from the next year on will crave the MotionPlus as a all-important accent to accredit authentic motion detection. As Mark said in his hands-on impressions, the MotionPlus is so acceptable that gameplay after it feels incomplete. Nintendo has gone aback and retroactively fabricated your accepted acquaintance (in about comparison) worse by introducing this new accessory. Do we anticipate Nintendo is appropriate in absolution this accessory? Of course. But by accomplishing so, they advance themselves out of the cheapest animate throne.

Wii MotionPlus Hands-On (Verdict: Melancholy Bliss) Wii MotionPlus Hands-On (Verdict: Melancholy Bliss) Wii MotionPlus Hands-On (Verdict: Melancholy Bliss

Click to viewThe Nintendo Wii bankrupt my heart. It wooed me with cute, able business and the… Apprehend added Read more

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Comcast has sucked GE into a new adventure that's 51% endemic by Comcast, 49% endemic by GE. But all you ability affliction about is that Comcast now has authoritative ability of all NBC Universal properties, which include:

NBC, Hulu, USA, Bravo, Syfy, Oxygen, Versus, CNBC, MSNBC, Universal Pictures cine studio, Telemundo, Universal Studios parks, Focus Features, and advertisement rights to the 2012 Olympics.

No, I can't see why this ability be a bad abstraction at all.

PRESS RELEASE

COMCAST AND GE TO CREATE LEADING ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY Positions Comcast and NBCU to Advance the Next Phase of Media Industry's Evolution

Builds on Diverse Cable Portfolio, Accelerates Agenda Offerings and Expands Customer Best Article Will Bear Able Banknote Breeze With Conservative Basic Structure NBCU Businesses Admired at $30 Billion, Comcast to Accord Businesses Admired at $7.25 Billion Comcast To Own 51%, GE 49% Absorption in NBCU Jeff Zucker to Advance New York-based Adventure _______________________________________________

PHILADELPHIA, PA and FAIRFIELD, CT – Dec. 3, 2009 – Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK) and General Electric (NYSE: GE) appear today that they accept active a absolute acceding to anatomy a collective adventure that will be 51 percent endemic by Comcast, 49 percent endemic by GE and managed by Comcast. The collective venture, which will abide of the NBC Universal (NBCU) businesses and Comcast's cable networks, bounded sports networks and assertive agenda backdrop and assertive unconsolidated investments, will be able-bodied positioned to attempt in an added activating and aggressive media and agenda environment.

The aggregate of assets creates a arch media and ball aggregation with the accurate adequacy to accommodate some of the world's a lot of accepted entertainment, anniversary and sports content, movies and blur libraries to consumers anytime, anywhere. The collective adventure will accommodate consumers the broadest accessible admission to content, and abutment high-quality, award-winning agreeable development beyond all platforms including film, television, and online. It will be anchored by an outstanding portfolio of cable networks and bounded sports networks that will anniversary for about 80 percent of its banknote flow, including USA, Bravo, Syfy, E!, Versus, CNBC and MSNBC. The collective adventure will be financially able with a able-bodied cash-flow-generation capability.

Under the acceding of the transaction, GE will accord to the collective adventure NBCU's businesses admired at $30 billion, including its cable networks, filmed entertainment, televised entertainment, affair parks, and unconsolidated investments, accountable to $9.1 billion in debt to third affair lenders. Comcast will accord its cable networks including E!, Versus and the Golf Channel, its ten bounded sports networks, and assertive agenda media properties, collectively admired at $7.25 billion, and accomplish a transaction to GE of about $6.5 billion of banknote accountable to assertive adjustments based on assorted contest amid signing and closing.

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Comcast Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts said, "This accord is a absolute fit for Comcast and will acquiesce us to become a baton in the development and administration of multiplatform ‘anytime, anywhere' media that American consumers are demanding. In particular, NBCU's fast- growing, awful assisting cable networks are a abundant accompaniment to our industry-leading administration business. Today's appear transaction will admission our capabilities in agreeable and cable networks. At the aforementioned time, it will enhance customer best and advance the development of new agenda articles and services. GE has provided NBCU with a abundant home and has badly and actually adapted the business. We are accustomed that beneath this acceding Comcast would yield over the administration of this important accumulating of assets and are actually committed to advance in NBCU and ensuring that it is a vibrant, financially able aggregation able to advance in a rapidly evolving exchange by carrying avant-garde programming. We are decidedly admiring to be creating this new collective adventure with GE and Jeff Immelt and to accept their connected involvement.

"For Comcast, this transaction is strategically acute and will accomplish adorable banking allotment and body actor value," connected Roberts. "It is aswell accepted to be anon accretive and will aswell acquiesce us to advance our able charge to abiding basic to shareholders– all while accretion the scale, capabilities and amount of our cable distribution, agreeable and agenda assets. Significantly, it is absolutely constant with our acute focus on amount conception and our acclimatized action of advancing assisting advance in areas commutual to our administration business."

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said, "The aggregate of Comcast's cable and bounded sports networks and agenda media backdrop and NBCU will bear able allotment for GE shareholders and business partners. NBCU has been a abundant business for GE over the accomplished two decades. We accept generated an boilerplate anniversary acknowledgment of 11 percent, while accretion into cable, movies, parks and all-embracing media. We are abbreviation our buying pale from 80 percent to 49 percent of a added admired entity. By accomplishing so, GE gets a acceptable amount for NBCU. This transaction will accomplish about $8 billion of banknote at closing with an accepted baby after-tax gain. We accept abounding opportunities to advance in our high-technology basement businesses at adorable returns. I accept that the new NBCU will bear amount for both Comcast and GE in the future. We will accord consumers and advertisers added best and our cable and agenda assets will be added to none. I am assured Brian Roberts and his aggregation at Comcast will be abundant partners."

Comcast aswell appear the conception of Comcast Ball Accumulation (CEG), which will abode Comcast's absorption in the collective adventure and will angle alongside Comcast Cable, which operates the company's acceptable cable business.

Comcast Chief Operating Officer Steve Burke said, "Both Comcast and NBCU accept accomplished clue annal of amalgam and growing multi-billion dollar businesses, including cogent agreeable acquisitions. In addition, we accept both developed some of the country's a lot of accepted programming and congenital abounding of the a lot of watched and admired networks in the industry. We are assured that we'll be even stronger together, and attending advanced to alive with Jeff Zucker and the NBCU aggregation to bear the best customer experience."

Jeff Zucker, accepted admiral and CEO of NBCU, will be CEO of the new collective adventure and will abode to Burke. Zucker said, "Combining the assets of NBCU, alignment from our apartment of cable backdrop and two advertisement networks to a allegorical blur flat and all-around affair esplanade business, with the agreeable assets and assets of Comcast, will accredit us to abide to advance in an ever-changing media landscape. Consumers of all of our articles – on screens ample and baby – will accept the account of

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enhanced agreeable and experiences, delivered to them in new and bigger means as a aftereffect of this transaction. This marks the alpha of a new era for NBCU, and I'm absolutely aflame that I will be arch this admirable organization, forth with the Comcast team, at this important time in our history."

Headquarters for the business will abide in New York. The collective adventure lath will accept three admiral nominated by Comcast and two nominated by GE.

Key Elements Of The Transaction:

• NBCU will borrow about $9.1 billion from third-party lenders and deliver the banknote to GE.

• NBCU, admired at $30 billion, will be contributed to the anew formed collective venture. Comcast will accord its programming businesses and assertive added backdrop admired at $7.25 billion.

• GE will admission Vivendi's 20% absorption in NBCU for $5.8 billion. GE will acquirement about 38% of Vivendi's absorption (or about 7.66% of all outstanding NBCU shares) from Vivendi for $2 billion in September 2010, if the Comcast transaction is not bankrupt by then. GE will admission the actual 62% of Vivendi's absorption (or about 12.34% of all outstanding NBCU shares) for $3.8 billion if the transaction closes.

• Comcast will accomplish a transaction to GE of about $6.5 billion in banknote accountable to assertive adjustments based on assorted contest amid signing and closing.

• The new adventure will be 51% endemic by Comcast and 49% endemic by GE. • GE expects to apprehend $9.8 billion pre-tax in banknote afore debt abridgement and transaction fees and afterwards buyout of the Vivendi stake. GE expects to apprehend about $8 billion in cash

after paying down the absolute NBCU debt and transaction fees. • GE will be advantaged to accept to could cause the collective adventure to redeem one-half of its absorption at year

3 1⁄2 and its actual absorption at year 7. The collective venture's obligations to complete those purchases will be accountable to the venture's advantage arrangement not beyond 2.75X EBITDA and the adventure continuing to authority investment-grade ratings. Comcast aswell has assertive rights to acquirement GE's absorption in the adventure at defined times. All such affairs would be done at a 20% exceptional to accessible bazaar amount with 50% administration of upside aloft the closing valuation.

• To the admeasurement the collective adventure is not appropriate to accommodated GE's accretion requests, Comcast will accommodate a backstop up to a best of $2.875 billion for the aboriginal accretion and a absolute backstop of $5.750 billion.

The transaction has been accustomed by the Lath of Admiral of GE and Comcast. It is accountable to cancellation of assorted authoritative approvals, including approval beneath the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, and approvals of the Federal Communications Commission and assertive all-embracing agencies. The transaction is aswell accountable to added accepted closing conditions. NBCU has acquired $9.85 billion of committed costs through a bunch of banks led by J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch and Citi. This costs is accepted to accept solid investment-grade ratings from S&P and Moody's.

Comcast and GE intend to abide authoritative applications acknowledging the pro-competitive and able accessible absorption allowances of the transaction, including how the collective adventure will bigger accommodated the entertainment, communications and advice needs of the American public.

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"We are able to accomplish acknowledging commitments to ensure that the pro-consumer and accessible absorption allowances of the transaction are realized," Roberts said. "Today, we accept appear a amount of antecedent commitments that aggrandize on the capabilities that Comcast and NBCU accept congenital over the years, and the new opportunities that this aggregate makes possible. These commitments abode the needs of assorted audiences and stakeholders, and we will accommodate added data on these and added commitments in our accessible absorption filing with the Federal Communications Commission."

Advisors

Morgan Stanley is advance banking adviser to Comcast with UBS and BofA Merrill Lynch acting as co- advisors. Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is Comcast's acknowledged advisor. J.P. Morgan is advance banking adviser to GE with Goldman Sachs and Citi acting as co-advisors. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP is GE's and NBCU's acknowledged advisor.

Teleconference and Webcast

Comcast will host a appointment alarm with the banking association today, December 3, 2009, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) to altercate this morning's advertisement with Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts, Comcast Chief Operating Officer Stephen B. Burke and Comcast Chief Banking Officer, Michael J. Angelakis. The appointment alarm will be advertisement reside via the Company's Investor Relations website at www.cmcsa.com or www.cmcsk.com. Those parties absorbed in accommodating via blast should punch (800) 263- 8495 with the appointment ID amount 44380493. A blast epitomize of the alarm will be accessible on the Investor Relations website starting at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time on December 3, 2009 and will be accessible until December 8, 2009 at midnight Eastern Time. To admission the rebroadcast, amuse punch (800) 642-1687 appointment ID 44380493.

GE will aswell host a webcast with the banking association today, December 3, 2009, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time / 7:30 a.m. Central Time to altercate this morning's advertisement with GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt, GE Chief Banking Officer Keith Sherin and NBCU Admiral and CEO Jeff Zucker. The webcast will be accessible at www.ge.com/investors. A epitomize will be accessible after in the day on the site.

Additional media abstracts are accessible at www.ge.com/newnbcu, www.comcast.com/nbcutransaction and https://www.nbcumv.com/mv/.

The description of this transaction included in this columnist absolution is able in its absoluteness by, and is accountable to, the acceding of the absolute affidavit for the transaction to be filed by Comcast with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Accepted Abode on Anatomy 8-K.

About GE

GE (NYSE: GE) is a adapted infrastructure, accounts and media aggregation demography on the world's toughest challenges. From aircraft engines and ability bearing to banking services, medical imaging, and television programming, GE operates in added than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 humans worldwide. For added information, appointment the company's Web website at www.ge.com.

About Comcast Corporation

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) (www.comcast.com) is one of the nation's arch providers of entertainment, advice and advice articles and services. With 23.8 actor cable customers, 15.7 actor accelerated Internet customers, and 7.4 actor Comcast Agenda Voice customers, Comcast is principally

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involved in the development, administration and operation of cable systems and in the supply of programming content.

Comcast's agreeable networks and investments cover E! Ball Television, Style Network, Golf Channel, VERSUS, G4, PBS KIDS Sprout, TV One, ten sports networks operated by Comcast Sports Accumulation and Comcast Interactive Media, which develops and operates Comcast's Internet businesses, including Comcast.net (www.comcast.net). Comcast aswell has a majority buying in Comcast-Spectacor, whose above backing cover the Philadelphia Flyers NHL hockey team, the Philadelphia 76ers NBA basketball aggregation and two ample multipurpose arenas in Philadelphia.

About NBC Universal:

NBC Universal is one of the world's arch media and ball companies in the development, production, and business of entertainment, news, and advice to a all-around audience. NBC Universal owns and operates a admired portfolio of anniversary and ball networks, a arch motion account company, cogent television assembly operations, a arch television stations group, and world-renowned affair parks. NBC Universal is 80% endemic by General Electric and 20% endemic by Vivendi.

Combined Assets/Properties

The assets and backdrop endemic or controlled by the new collective adventure will cover some of the best accepted brands in the ball industry, including:

• Several of television's a lot of acknowledged cable networks, including USA, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy, E!, Style, Versus and the Golf Channel;

• One of the nation's better television groups, including:

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The NBC Television Network; Local advertisement TV stations in ten top U.S. markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia; The civic Telemundo Network and 16 Telemundo O&O stations in locations such as Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Chicago and Dallas/Ft.Worth;

• Preeminent television assembly operations that aftermath Emmy Award acceptable programs like The Office, 30 Rock, Law & Order, Heroes, Saturday Night Reside and The Tonight Show, as able-bodied as syndicate operations through NBC Universal Domestic and All-embracing Administration and a 3,000-title library of television episodes;

• NBC News, the arch antecedent of all-around anniversary and advice in the United States with top-rated programs such as Nightly Anniversary with Brian Williams, Today and Accommodated the Press;

• A able-bodied sports programming calendar featuring the Olympics (through 2012), NBC Sunday Night Football, NHL/Stanley Cup, PGA Tour, US Open, Ryder Cup, Wimbledon and the Kentucky Derby, Versus, Golf Channel and Comcast's 10 bounded sports networks;

• Universal Pictures, which has produced Academy Award winners Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, Brokeback Mountain, Ray and A Beautiful Mind, Focus Features, which afresh produced Away We Go, and an all-encompassing cine library with added than 4,000 titles through Universal Studios Home Entertainment;

• Fast growing agenda media backdrop including CNBC.com, iVillage, NBC.com, Fandango, and Daily Candy, which calm accomplish added than 40 actor different users anniversary month;

• Buying of affair parks in Florida (50% interest), California (100% interest) and a banking absorption in a affair esplanade in Japan;

• A boyhood absorption in A&E, Biography, The History Channel, The Weather Channel, Lifetime and Hulu.com.

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Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for TAO Downtown; James Devaney/WireImage James Dolan Phil Jackson

Here in New York City, there is not a fizz in the air a part of basketball fans. A activity of burning apprehension does not charge Madison Square Garden. Friends are not endlessly anniversary added abreast baptize coolers on the top floors of skyscrapers to allocution in aflame whispers; strangers are not high-fiving on the subway. This admitting the actuality that the Knicks - who absorb a atypical abode in the city's alertness admitting accepting played 15 beeline years of garbageball - are authoritative conceivably their least-terrible accommodation of the 21st aeon by bringing in Phil Jackson to run the team.

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The abridgement of buzz, advertising and action can be attributed to one man, James Dolan. Dolan owns the Knicks, and has defeated its fans. He has fabricated so abounding poor decisions in a row, and approved to redeem them with so abounding headline-baiting Big Moves, that he's created something different in American sports: accidental admirers allowed to brilliant power. Admirers - East-Coast-metropolitan-area sports fans! - are reacting to abstract rumors with articular patience. I'm out actuality seeing it in person. "Phil Jackson, eh?" I said to a bartender the added day, adopting my countenance at the awning assuming ESPN. He almost reacted. If New York bartenders accept no animadversion on the achievability that a guy who keeps thirteen NBA championship rings in his abode is demography over the New York Knicks, things are bad. Sane and agnostic is no way to go through activity watching sports.

Fortunately, I accept just the affectionate of air-conditioned approach that Knicks admirers charge to accompany aberrant achievement aback into their lives. It's about the abeyant bandage amid the two men in this initially maladroit-seeming pairing, one that their about adolescent assemblage are overlooking. Namely: their aggregate acceptance in an egotistical, grudge-heavy adaptation of free-spirit lonesome-hero Americana. Both Dolan and Jackson, central their own heads, are the stars of the affectionate of cine that a lot of of the blow of the United States chock-full watching in like 1981.

I don't beggarly to advance that the skepticism adjoin their affiliation doesn't accept argumentation abaft it. The Knicks accept continued cared as abundant about accepting celebrities on their aggregation as they do with accepting celebrities in courtside seats, but so abounding theatrical, "the Knicks are back!" moments - hiring Isiah Thomas, trading for Stephon Marbury, hiring Larry Brown and Mike D'Antoni, trading for Carmelo Anthony - accept concluded in busted-ass seasons that a reasonable absence position is to apprehend annihilation from addition one. (Click here for an even added abundant and agonizing account of the aeon of damage.) Meanwhile it's accurate that Jackson has never been a accepted manager, doesn't appear beyond as awful motivated, and loves to allocution to the press, while his -to-be bang-up Dolan doesn't appear beyond as awful motivated, awfully doesn't like humans who allocution to the press, and, at atomic as far as architecture a basketball team, has a actual poor almanac alive with others. The beneficiary to a affluence acquired from a cable aggregation not absolutely admired by its customers, Dolan was alone amenable for Knicks' abrupt contempo semi-renaissance insofar as he absitively for a while NOT to accomplish Knicks decisions. If he got complex again, it fell apart. He replaced admired accepted administrator Donnie Walsh with Glen Grunwald, who did a appealing appropriate job - until Dolan replaced him with Steve Mills, a sports business amount with no apprenticeship or aloof acquaintance who endure formed for the Knicks as the COO who oversaw the accident of a $10-million-plus animal aggravation accusation adjoin the team. Mills' aboriginal division active the appearance has not gone well.

10 crappiest dunks in NBA All-Star history

But there is some acumen to accept Dolan will assurance Jackson added than he trusted Walsh or Grunwald. Dolan, built-in in 1955, is, as stated, a cable-TV heir. He is a affluent kid. He accelerating from SUNY-New Paltz with a amount in communications. He is from New York and is a affiliate of accumulated and altruistic boards. And yet he presents himself like he's perpetually on his way to a whiskey bar in Reno. He wears atramentous blazers and atramentous shirts with the top two buttons undone; he's got a barbate beard; he is the advance accompanist of a bandage alleged "JD & The Beeline Shot" that describes its music as a admixture of dejection and archetypal rock. (Which makes no sense!) His bandage plays the affair song for the 19th-century AMC railroad-buildin' ball Hell on Wheels (Cablevision owns AMC). He still talks about Isiah Thomas like the two are underdogs in a arroyo together. He carries himself like a countercultural figure.

Phil Jackson, built-in 1946, is aswell a salesman of Western-flavored delusion. His (seemingly sincere) absorption in assorted religious and abstract traditions was noted, aboriginal in his apprenticeship career, as a novelty. Through Jackson's own self-branding, journalists' actuation to accomplish themselves complete acute by alluding accidentally to something they don't in actuality understand, and the actuality that he owns a agronomical in Montana, this biographical ancillary agenda angry into a acumen that he was some array of basketball-hippie cowboy-shaman. He wrote a book alleged Sacred Hoops and talked about Zen with Oprah. He aswell owns a three-story L.A. bank house, engages in distracting, accessible back-and-forth arrangement negotiations that accordingly end up with him earning an astronomic salary, and routinely disparages his best players in public. Relative to added top '00s franchises like the Spurs, Celtics, Mavericks and Heat, Jackson's Lakers adeptness accept been the WORST abode to be an employee. If he was assuredly through with them, he wrote a book alleged Eleven Rings: The Soul Of Success about how "deep values" and "humanistic psychology" had guided his career.

Dolan and Jackson are, to this outsider, a active apotheosis of the about-face that the Baby Boomer bearing took in the 1980s. They absorb $.25 and pieces from accurate countercultural traditions into their self-image and faculty of appearance while their actual continuing and claimed behavior abide type-A arrogant affluent guy. And so it seems acceptable to me that the fame-obsessed Dolan, far from resenting the acclaimed Jackson, will wish this air-conditioned Grateful-Dead-fan guy, this adolescent outcast, to be his friend. They accept abundant added in accepted than Dolan and Donnie Walsh, or even Dolan and Isiah Thomas.

And that's all it should yield for Knicks admirers to feel acceptable about the move. Remember, the botheration wasn't in actuality that Dolan listened to Isiah per se. Dolan should be demography admonition from humans who accept in actuality played and accomplished NBA basketball. The botheration was that Thomas' admonition angry out to be terrible. But Phil Jackson, for all his air-conditioned bargain side, in actuality knows what he's talking about if the accountable is basketball. He will absolutely charge to accompany forth people who accept statistics and the bacon cap and the demands of scouting. But the Knicks accept in actuality had those kinds of front-office advisers afore - bethink if they baldheaded that diamond-in-the-rough point bouncer from Harvard? What the aggregation and its admirers accept consistently bare is anyone that Dolan will in actuality accept to if the acute decisions are getting made. In Jackson - and in Jackson's acceptable adeptness to backpack on a chat about Eric Clapton with his bang-up by way of acceptable the closing not to, say, assurance Tracy McGrady out of retirement for $50 actor - they adeptness accept begin him.

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I've accounting a lot about 3DTV and that I accede it occasionally incredible. But the absolute abstraction is boxy to explain because, let's face it, I can't just bury 3DTV archetype videos and you've apparently never apparent it. Allow me:

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I stood on a awash CES attic with an appointment I dreaded. I had to attending at every 3DTV I could find, an allure that seemed to be activity the slowest, a lot of annoying attendees of all of CES into continued curve to breach a few pairs of glasses.

And these brainless screens are so unimpressive at aboriginal glance. To the naked eye, the awning is a tad bleared and maybe even a bit done out. Afresh you blooper on a brace of lightweight, heavily-douchey, thick-framed glasses. After a moment or two, the apple about you goes darker, that once-blurry angel sharpens instantly, and al of a sudden you're watching 3D.

The angel you see will alter with content. You'll agenda a ablaze ablaze over your eyes, about amid the broad atramentous holes of an old time projector amphitheatre bashful films and bland 24 or 30fps video of a DVD or agenda projector. But the bigger change is that your TV is no best a collapsed area but a window, an angel in which there's an absolute abyss your eye can dig through, a agenda diorama, if you will.

And if you appear to be searching about a allowance abounding with 3DTVs, or maybe a affectation of 15 ample 3DTVs, all of these TVs will accept angry 3D. In mass, the aftereffect is a giggle-filled change anytime so evocative of Jaws 3D.

Animation is, by far, the a lot of absorbing audience you will see. Impossibly brittle and colorful, the aftereffect is acutely lifelike...for a cartoon. Added artlessly put, there's a absolute foreground to aback gradient. Every article looks, well, like an object, like something annular that takes up absolute concrete space. When, during a blow of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge's oily, absorptive adenoids protrudes from the awning anytime so forcefully, you can't possibly brainstorm the moment done amends in 2D. The faculty of beef far outweighs what you see in the allegorical advance shot, because truthfully, these scenes accept been advised and rendered with advice that our displays accept been butterfingers of assuming us. With 3D animation, 3D is no gimmick—it's 2D that's the awful undersell. And your eyes will be able to acquaint as they flavor searching as abysmal as they can into the frame.

Sports are a awfully different, inferior experience. Basketball, for instance, is absorbing in 3D but aswell apocalyptic of the format's limitations. For one, the cloister has depth, but the players are absolutely flat, like a few cardboard cutouts are dribbling a brawl aback and alternating instead of absolutely corporeal, 6'6" titans. Your apperception can't absolutely accommodate the image, as it's about amid 2D and 3D, acceptation it looks added fake, in a sense, than the simple 2D presentation we've consistently apparent (the appellation "uncanny valley," admitting not absolutely acceptable in this context, absolutely comes to mind). I accept such is a aftereffect from the use of telephoto lenses, which are belled for flattening even 2D images. The aftereffect is even added arresting in 3D, acceptation that stereoscopic 3D shouldn't (and can't) be the end bold for sports no amount what ESPN tells you. I could calmly brainstorm a multicam amphitheatre bureaucracy which these bare (flattening) advice spots could be filled, and an absolute 3D angel (a la Pixar) could be piped to consumers, rendered in absolute time. The aftereffect in sports could absolutely be something we've never apparent afore (Madden 2010 above with absolute textures, essentially). As of now, it feels added like we're amphitheatre with cardboard dolls.

Live activity film, accurately Avatar, is something I haven't apparent on a 3DTV above a few 3D previews. The fast paced trailers—as against to the long, all-embracing shots of Pixar-style animation—don't accommodate themselves as able-bodied to the apparition (the 3D planes consistently break), and it's absolutely difficult to absolutely appraise or call an aftereffect that your eyes can't bite on for a while. On an IMAX 3D screen, I've mentioned that Avatar showed me textures I'd never apparent before. On a plasma, Avatar looks far added like a cartoon, and its abyss acclivity is about amid the 2Dish sports and the absolute 3D animations (probably because Avatar itself is abundant a aggregate of the two). In the theater, I opened my eyes as advanced as accessible to yield in the bioluminesence of Pandora. On the baby screen, a ablaze beam distances you, about unconsciously, from the content. But afresh again, Avatar never looked about as absorbing in trailers as it did in final cut form, and 3D missiles battlefront beeline at you will consistently be awesome.

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But if things go absolutely bad...

...watching 3D is annihilation but pain. Afore blockage out an LCD or OLED, you put on the bang glasses, as if all is able-bodied and good, and the lights afresh dim instantly. Anniversary absolute anatomy of the video are just as colorful, aciculate and Y-axis-deep as those you've apparent on bigger displays. But the anatomy amount seems to drop, with your admired Pixar hero affective after accuracy or acute subtlety. And of advance there's a beam on top of the odd anatomy rate, causing the already subpar angel to strobe. The all-embracing aftereffect is affiliated to amphitheatre Crysis on an underpowered GPU forth with some adviser that goes aphotic several times a second. It's acerb ample on sour, an acquaintance with so little redeeming superior you should cease to even accede it.

That annoying CES band I declared at the alpha of this piece? It was at the LG booth, appropriate afore I took a attending at their 3D claret prototype, which is slated to be appear after this year for $200 over a 2D model. And appropriate if I was accessible to accord up on glasses, gimmicks and eyestrain, the acquaintance wiped my anamnesis of it all as I stood there absorbed for at atomic 5 minutes, behindhand the band abaft me and watching the aforementioned arresting activated clips over and over. I anticipation of a new era of filmmakers speaking in an adapted accurate dialect, and I knew that words couldn't absolutely call the sensations—we artlessly hadn't decoded them yet.

(Oh, and if you anticipate all of this is too lovey on 3D, apprehend all of my abstruse caveats here.)

I'm Sold On 3D TVs...And I Kind of Hate Myself For It I'm Sold On 3D TVs...And I Kind of Hate Myself For It I'm Sold On 3D TVs...And I Kind of Hate Myself

I'm a agnostic who's apparent every consumer-grade 3D TV in actuality from manufacturers like… Apprehend added Read more

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Below is an extract of an commodity that originally appeared in RS 128 from February 15, 1973. This affair and the blow of the Rolling Stone athenaeum are accessible via Rolling Stone Plus, Rolling Stone's exceptional cable plan. If you are already a subscriber, you can click here to see the abounding story. Not a member? Click here to apprentice added about Rolling Stone Plus.

— Grantland Rice: who was accepted — above-mentioned to his afterlife in the backward Fifties — as "The Dean of American Sportswriters."

They came calm on a hot afternoon in Los Angeles, bawl and clawing at anniversary added like agrarian beasts in heat.

Under a amber California sky, the avidity of their attempt brought tears to the eyes of 90,000 God-fearing fans.

They were 22 men who were somehow added than men.

They were giants, idols, titans....

Behemoths.

They stood for aggregate Good and True and Right in the American Spirit.

Because they had guts.

And they yearned for the Ultimate Glory, the Abundant Prize, the Final Fruits of a continued and abandoned campaign.

Victory in the Super Bowl: $15,000 each.

They were athirst for it. They were thirsty. For 20 continued weeks, from August through December, they had struggled to ability this Pinnacle .... and if aurora lit the beaches of Southern California on that acute Sunday morning in January, they were ready.

To appropriate the Final Fruit.

They could about aftertaste it. The that appears to smell was stronger than a ton of rotten mangoes. Their fretfulness austere like accessible sores on a dog's neck. White knuckles. Agrarian eyes. Strange aqueous welled up in their throats, with a aftertaste far bluff than bile.

Behemoths.

Those who went aboriginal said the pre-game astriction was about unbearable. By noon, abounding admirers were complaining openly, for no credible reason. Others afraid their easily or gnawed on the necks of pop bottles, aggravating to break calm. Abounding fist-fights were appear in the accessible urinals. Nervous ushers roamed up and down the aisles, confiscating alcoholic beverages and occasionally grappling with drunkards. Gangs of Seconal-crazed teenagers prowled through the parking lot alfresco the stadium, assault the bitter bits out of adverse stragglers....

What? No....Grantland Rice would never accept accounting awe-inspiring being like that: His book was additional & lean; his descriptions came beeline from the gut ... and on the attenuate and brash occasions if he capital to do a "Think Piece," he alleged on the analytic admiral of his medulla. Like all abundant sportswriters, Rice accepted that his apple ability go all to pieces if he anytime dared to agnosticism that his eyes were active beeline to his lower academician — a array of de facto lobotomy, which enables the animated victim to accomplish absolutely on the akin of Sensory Perception....

Green grass, hot sun, aciculate cleats in the turf, ample acclaim from the crowd, the alarming scowl on the face of a $30,000-a-year affairs bouncer as he leans about the bend on a Lombardi-style ability ambit and cracks a aciculate artificial accept into the linebacker's groin....

Ah yes, the simple life: Aback to the roots, the basics — aboriginal a Mousetrap, again a Crackback & a Buttonhook off a affected triple-reverse Fly Pattern, and assuredly The Bomb....

Indeed. There is a alarming affectionate of addled Power/Precision adoration at the basis of the massive allure with pro football in this country, and sportswriters are mainly amenable for it. With a few attenuate exceptions like Bob Lipsyte of The New York Times and Tom Quinn of the (now-defunct) Washington Daily News, sportswriters are a affectionate of abrupt and addled subculture of absolutist drunks whose alone absolute action is to advance & advertise whatever the sports editor sends them out to cover....

Which is a nice way to accomplish a living, because it keeps a man active and requires no anticipation at all. The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A aphotic alertness to accept annihilation you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and added "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who accommodate the chargeless booze ... and: 2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in adjustment to abstain application the aforementioned verbs and adjectives alert in the aforementioned paragraph.

Even a sports editor, for instance, ability apprehension something amiss with a advance that said: "The precision-jack-hammer advance of the Miami Dolphins stomped the assurance off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and beating with one absolute jack-thrust afterwards addition up the middle, alloyed with pinpoint-precision passes into the collapsed and abundant hammer-jack stomps about both ends...."

Right. And there was the ability of Grantland Rice. He agitated a abridged thesaurus, so that "The ample hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen" never echoed added than already in the aforementioned paragraph, and the "Granite-grey sky" in his advance was a "cold aphotic dusk" in the endure abandoned band of his heart-rending, nerve-ripping stories....

There was a time, about ten years ago, if I could address like Grantland Rice. Not necessarily because I believed all that adventurous bullshit, but because sportswriting was the alone affair I could do that anybody was accommodating to pay for. And none of the humans I wrote about seemed to accord a agreeable in hell what affectionate of absurd gibberish I wrote about them, just as continued as it moved. They capital Action, Color, Speed, Violence.... At one point, in Florida, I was autograph variations on the aforementioned bananas capacity for three aggressive affidavit at the aforementioned time, beneath three altered names. I was a sports columnist for one cardboard in the morning, sports editor for addition in the afternoon, and at night I formed for a pro angry promoter, autograph abundantly askance "press releases" that I would plant, the next day, in both papers.

It was a admirable gig, in retrospect, and at times I ambition I could go aback to it — just bite a big hatpin through my aboveboard lobes and maybe achieve that blessed absent chastity that enabled me to write, after the aboriginal ache of conscience, things like: "The absolute Fort Walton Beach badge force is absorbed in a accompaniment of abhorrence this week; all leaves accept been canceled and Chief Bloor is said to be conduct his men for an Emergency Alert bearings on Friday and Saturday nights — because those are the nights if 'Kazika, The Mad Jap,' a 440-pound animal from the abandoned barrio of Hiroshima, is appointed to accomplish his aboriginal — and no agnosticism his endure — actualization in Fish-head Auditorium. Local angry impressario Lionel Olay is accepted to accept announced abreast with Chief Bloor, advancement him to accept 'every accessible officer' on assignment at ringside this weekend, because of the Mad Jap's allegorical atmosphere and his consistently aboriginal acknowledgment to ancestral insults. Endure week, in Detroit, Kazika ran amok and tore the spleens out of three ringside spectators, one of whom allegedly alleged him a 'yellow devil.'"

"Kazika," as I recall, was a big, half-bright Cuban who already played third-string accouterment for Florida Accompaniment University in Tallahassee, about 100 afar abroad — but on the fish-head ambit he had no agitation casual for a alarming Jap strangler, and I anon abstruse that pro angry admirers don't accord a fuck anyway.

To apprehend the abounding article, you have to be a subscriber to Rolling Stone Plus. Already a subscriber? Continue on to The Archives. Not a affiliate and wish to apprentice more? Go to our Rolling Stone Plus benefits page.

From The Archives Affair 12: June 22, 1968

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Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers

The NBA Reside 15 soundtrack clocks in at an hour and twenty-five minutes, which is apparently twenty-five account best than I spent arena NBA Reside 14 afore affairs it endure year.

Related 5 Amazing Moments From Stephon Marbury's Chinese Musical

When it was released, Live 14 was basically a disaster. In the game's defense, upgrades to cartoon and AI behavior reportedly bigger the acquaintance months later, but by then, my archetype was acceptable admiring on the shelves of a bounded GameStop. I'm not adage annihilation EA Sports doesn't already apperceive – this is their claiming in animating the once-admired NBA Live brand: The akin of advantage that NBA 2K holds on them agency they accept to alpha hitting on all cylinders, and that includes the soundtrack.

The NBA Live alternation was in fact an innovator in this regard, antic accountant advance as far aback as NBA Reside 2000 – although the "soundtrack" such as it was featured a brace Rahzel tracks, a George Clinton jam and Naughty by Nature's "Hip Hop Hooray." As basketball titles accept gone from presenting the bold on the cloister to immersing the admirers in the ability off of it, so too has the accent of the music grown, with Jay Z garnering an "executive producer" credit for curating the music for 2K Sports' NBA 2K13, and the league's endure two MVPs, LeBron James and Kevin Durant, demography over duties in consecutive years.

And thus, we accept the Portland Trail Blazers' Damian Lillard on the awning of NBA Reside 15 – the bold drops on October 28 – and, at the moment, on the phone, accessible to allocution about what went into curating the game's soundtrack with ambassador (and above Cleveland Cavaliers' abode DJ) Mick.

"I aggregate what blazon of music I like," Lillard says, "and what music I anticipation would be applicable for a video game, but that's about as far as it went. I wasn't like the final decision-maker or annihilation like that. They knew what blazon of music I liked."

Lillard agrees that selecting the music for a video bold is not clashing putting calm a acceptable mixtape – something he knows a affair or two about as a apprentice emcee himself and the architect #4BarFriday, which encourages anybody from NBA players like Paul George and Iman Shumpert to any schmo with breeze to bead four confined of acidity into one of Instagram's 15-second videos.

"I don't anticipate [the music] has to be accompanying to basketball," Lillard says, "I anticipate change of clip from track-to-track is important. I even apprehension myself. If I'm arena a video bold and the song changes, it brings a altered activity or a altered experience. I anticipate change of clip is absolutely important so it's not just hip-hop, hip-hop, hip-hop. You know, switching it up a little bit."

Which is not to say that NBA Reside 15 wants for hip-hop. Compared to Pharrell's aggressive soundtrack for NBA 2K15, which leans heavily on bedrock like best Red Hot Chili Peppers, Depeche Mode and No Doubt, NBA Reside 15's clue advertisement skews heavily against rap.

Listen Now

When it works, the soundtrack feels like a aberrant throwback. Chuck Inglish's "Gametime" and Bishop Nehru's "Stressin'" are heavily evocative of backward '90s Rawkus tracks, while Flatbush Zombies bend afterpiece to the horrorcore heyday of Gravediggaz or the apocalyptic agreeable overtones of Rubberroom.

J. Sands' "Five to Get Live" and Raz Fresco's "Freshest Ever" – which has a Clipse-esque minimalism – are aswell highlights, but man: at 85 minutes, there's still a lot of filler, mostly in the anatomy of sparkling-yet-empty club bangers and forgettable electro-rock. Cramming in a bead that repeats variations on "NBA Reside 15…Mick!" amid every song is either endearingly old academy or just affectionate of a handwank. I can't adjudge which.

But it's not as if this year's Live is traveling to acceleration and abatement based alone on the soundtrack – like a contour of Mick on EA Sports' website says, you can actualize custom mixes, acceptance the amateur to aces and accept which advance to play. It's a nice move (by the time NBA 2K14 alone I was so ailing of Imagine Dragons and Drake that I went anon into the options and angry their advance off), yet it places the soundtrack in a awe-inspiring accompaniment of limbo: it's pumped-up as basic to the amusement of the final product, but you can aswell absolutely alter the clue another or cut it out completely.

As important as it is for EA to present a full-featured bold with all the accretion and whistles, it's the activity on the cloister that will accomplish or breach the game. Endure year's copy was a arresting blend in that regard, but it was aswell important for it to appear out, warts and all, so that the aggregation could advance and move forward.

"Live went abroad for a little while," says Lillard. "I was arena it if they had Tony Parker on the cover." This was NBA Reside 09, and even NBA Reside 10 holds an 81 appraisement on Metacritic. It can be simple to overlook that as afresh as four years ago, Live presented a accepted another to 2K.

"Everybody abroad was arena something different," Lillard continues, "but I was arena Live for a continued time. It's crazy that I'm on the awning of it, so I can't delay to get that bold and alpha arena it."

It would be abundant for Live to reside up to those expectations, to accompany aback the advantageous canicule of Michael Jordan in NBA Reside 2000, or point the way advanced to something new and different. But if this year's Live can at atomic activate to present an another eyes of video-game basketball to 2K, it will be a footfall in the appropriate direction.

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Richard Rowe/NBAE via Getty Images Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Growing up in Los Angeles as a sports fan is affectionate of weird. It's arguably the #1 or #2 bazaar in the United States (depending on your opinions on reside amphitheater and the Strokes), but it's aswell a city-limits breadth admirers appearance up to baseball amateur in the third inning and sit courtside not for the appearance or intimacy, but rather to be noticed or abrasion sunglasses indoors. Also, L.A. sports admirers are the aboriginal to about-face their backs on their "favorite team" if things attending bleak. There's a lot of allocution actuality in Los Angeles about fandom, but not a lot of chase through. And I'm all about the chase through.

Blake Griffin Dishes on Bieber, Weed, Creed and his PED Secret

It's important to accept that I was aloft by two banal parents in the city-limits of Calabasas, California, breadth the Kardashians now live, blur their absoluteness appearance and annihilate innocent accouchement in barter for acclaim (or about they abide to allay the Dark Lord). It's a actual affluent breadth area abounding of my classmates had endure names that were the aforementioned as the aliment in my cupboard. My ancestor was a car salesman and my mom ran her own advertisement magazine, and both accurate my own able-bodied attempts wholeheartedly, even admitting I was Jewish and, because of that, knew annihilation would appear of it. But even with unachievable dreams to play professionally one day, my ancestor and I admired traveling to antic contest together. Like a absolutely beautiful coffer commercial, we'd try and appear as abounding amateur as accessible as a duo, acclaim for our favorites – but sadly, one L.A. team's home amateur just weren't accessible for us.

Most humans growing up in Los Angeles in the backward '80s were all about the Lakers, accurately Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Showtime era, and for acceptable reason. They were unstoppable, absolutely possibly the greatest aggregation ever, and their amateur came with a admission amount that rivaled our abode payment. I knew one kid whose parents had division tickets. They aswell had a tennis cloister and a Porsche. His ancestor never absolutely explained what he did for a living, until one day we begin closets abounding of porn tapes and accomplished his activity was "home video distribution."

His blazon of spending just wasn't in band with my family's capabilities, so if I absolutely got the bug to see reside basketball in third grade, my ancestor responded with tickets to see the Lakers' ginger-headed stepson, a band that confused actuality from San Diego in 1984 (like the a lot of annoying bro in your office): the Clippers.

The Clippers were to Los Angeles basketball what Chris Kirkpatrick was to 'NSync. They were calmly ignored, not actual acceptable and had dreads. Okay, they didn't accept dreads, but they were abominable (PUN!) In 1987, the Clippers in fact racked up the second-worst approved division almanac ever. And luckily for me, that was the aboriginal division my ancestor took me to see them in person.

Truth is, I never even noticed how abominable they were. They were the alone aggregation to basis for in my universe. My dad already paid $3 for two tickets and he still acquainted bad if the Clippers absent by 20. But I'd continuely force him to yield me to a dozen or so amateur a year, undeterred, auspicious blindly for a victory. One kid from my average academy was the Clippers' Ball Boy and I admirable him like the Endure Emperor, even admitting he apparently got the job by just accepting to the amphitheatre aboriginal and allurement politely. I abhorred the Lakers and all the home video distributors who could allow to see their afterwards wins. I animated for Loy Vaught, Benoit Benjamin, Bo Kimble, Lorenzen Wright, Michael Olowokandi and Marko Jaric – anniversary worse than the next. The alone way these guys could be domiciliary names is if you lived with them. 

So if the Clippers assuredly started to assassinate with the fan in mind, I didn't apperceive what to do. They traded for superstar Chris Paul, accomplished adolescent dunker Blake Griffin and encouraged alpine monster DeAndre Jordan to become one of the best big men in the league. Again we assassin one of the greatest coaches of all time in Doc Rivers, and the dynamics of L.A. basketball bound changed. The Clippers became fun to watch and, according to Vegas odds, added acceptable to win the NBA Championship than the Lakers. We became the aggregation anybody was watching. This would be like if Chris Kirkpatrick affiliated to Jessica Biel.

But getting a Clippers fan is like watching one of those shitty Paranormal Activity movies. If it's been quiet for a while, and things assume to be traveling okay, you apperceive something crazy is about to happen. We've had bad luck – which now seems like the owner's afterlife – like if Blake Griffin afflicted himself afore his amateur season. Or we barter for amazing players like Elton Brand, Baron Davis and Marcus Camby, alone to accept them play like the Monstars just blanket all their aptitude as anon as they put on a Clippers jersey. We aswell had a abiding drillmaster called Vinny Del Negro, who I'm still not 100-percent abiding knew he was the coach. I accept to reside with the abstraction that if things appearance any assurance or achievement of greatness, they will get bad again. But if we're getting honest, isn't that life?

I don't apprehend anyone to accept what getting a Clippers fan is like, or added importantly, what it was like this specific year. It's like if Eeyore played basketball. It was no abruptness to me, afterwards watching a mismanaged and arrested aggregation for decades, that the buying angry out to be evil. The Sterling tapes hit right as we accomplished our a lot of arrive division ever, and that dichotomy just makes a lot of Clippers sense.

I had consistently heard belief of Sterling's racist business practices and even if I never accurate the man, I accurate his wallet. I abandoned the issue, acquisitive it wasn't accurate or that it would just magically disappear. It acutely did not. And in all the Sterling insanity, humans overlook this aggregation hardly anytime had a advantageous roster. The moment we get to adios the affliction buyer in sports, archetypal Clippers irony kicked in, and we absent some heartbreakers and accomplished some ambiguous calls in the playoffs. It's no M. Night Shyamalan ending, it's how it's consistently been. 

Next year I aboveboard apprehend to accomplish the Western Conference Finals, and again appropriate afore we account the acceptable basket, the ability will shut off, alone to accept the lights appear aback on and acknowledge that the Spurs accept won by 2. It's just in our DNA. But we'll still play harder next season. And the division afterwards that. We will not accord up or let that monster – or the helpmate of that monster – keep buying of this section of bits we love. We'll reside to see addition day. Trust me.

My dad anesthetized abroad appropriate afore the Clippers became a acknowledged team. But even with him gone, at the end of every Clippers' victory, or the alpha of any awkward authorization debacle, I can apprehend him ask me, in his a lot of caring voice, "How do you adulation these idiots?" And I still don't absolutely accept an acknowledgment for him alfresco of the aforementioned one I gave him if I was eight: "Go Clips."

Jensen Karp accidentally begin himself with a million-dollar almanac accord at age 19 beneath the moniker Hot Karl on Interscope Records, breadth he appear songs with Kanye West, Redman and Will.I.Am. Since then, he opened Gallery1988, created the Get Up On This podcast and produced a recent reside apprehend of the Space Jam script, starring Blake Griffin as Michael Jordan and DeAndre Jordan as Charles Barkley.

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On December 6th, Microsoft will clearly absolution a new Xbox 360 dashboard amend to all Xbox users. We've played about with it for a while now and can say that the Xbox has never looked so good.

And it's all acknowledgment to Metro. What's Metro? It's the architecture accent that's giving Microsoft software a attractive sheen. Heavy on typography and collapsed squares and reside tiles and swiping, Metro lives in Xbox, Windows Phone 7 and the attainable Windows 8. It's a beginning yet accustomed yield on UI; Metro looks so acceptable because you already apperceive how to use it even if you've never acclimated it before.

What's New

The looks. The UI. It's better. It's Metrofied. And that's a absolute acceptable thing. With Metro on Xbox, Microsoft can alluringly backpack added agreeable assimilate one screen. A accumbent card data the assorted categories on your Xbox (Games, Video, Music, Apps, etc.) with anniversary class accepting its own hub organized neatly with absolute tiles of content. For example, the Apps tab will appearance a Netflix tile, an ESPN tile, Zune tile, etc. Amateur will appearance tiles for games. And so on. It makes complete sense. You about-face over to a tab and you'll see actually what you wish to see, all in one hub. Metro keeps aggregate tidy and up front, there isn't abundant being hidden above what's on your TV awning which agency you're no best scrolling for canicule anymore. Even better, there's a new Quickplay asphalt on the home awning that can barrage afresh acclimated apps (like Netflix). So even beneath scrolls! There are a lot of ads though.

All Kinect Everything

The new Xbox 360 dashboard places a huge accent on Kinect. From gestures to articulation to design, Kinect has become foreground and centermost in authoritative the Xbox. Or I guess, you are now foreground and centermost in authoritative the Xbox (without a controller). Just beachcomber your duke and you can bash screens and admission any asphalt you wish afterwards accepting to jump into the abstracted Kinect-only awning of yore. Kinect is chip about system-wide now so you can Minority Report your Xbox to your hand's desire. Absolute cool.

What's a lot of absorbing about the Kinect controls is how able-bodied articulation controls are implemented now. You can in fact allocution to your Xbox and it'll do things for you. And admitting the antecedent startup phrases are inelegant, it's calmly the best way to cross about the system. You admit articulation ascendancy by adage 'Xbox...' and afresh you can say Videos or Amateur or Apps etc. to cross to that specific tab. Useful!

On top of that, you can seek on your Xbox too. Not absolute Bing seek because that would be asinine but seek for movies and music and added agreeable attainable via Xbox. Start with 'Xbox Bing...' and say something like 'Batman' and the Xbox will appearance you all the Batman agreeable you can get on your Xbox (movies, shows, games) from all the assorted sources you can get it from. It's actually admirable and a lot of importantly, fast and intuitive. I'm not affecting a ambassador again.

Games? What Games? Say Accost to Apps

What's conceivably the boldest change in the new Xbox software amend is something that's been architecture for a continued time: the Xbox is not all about the amateur anymore. Seriously, in the bureaucracy of categories, Amateur comes afterwards Social and Video. That's purposeful. Along with the new software update, there'll be a ton of abundant looking, Metro-inspired new 'apps' from altered agreeable ally too. From HBO Go to UFC to FiOS to Crackle to YouTube, VEVO, TMZ, MLB.tv and more, you don't even accept to buy one video bold to adore an Xbox anymore. Combine those new apps with what's already on the Xbox like Netflix and Hulu Plus and the Xbox 360 is realizing and all-embracing its abeyant as abundant added than a bold console.

Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect and Why It's the Approaching of Microsoft Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect and Why It's the Approaching of Microsoft Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect and Why It's the F

Kinect is added than an Xbox 360 peripheral, it's the approaching of Microsoft, or at atomic a very… Apprehend added Read more

For gamers, that may be annoying. For the blow of us, say accost to the cable box of the future.

View arcade »

View arcade »

Here's the abounding account of agreeable partners:

Dec. 6:

• EPIX. United States

• ESPN on Xbox LIVE. United States

• Hulu. Japan

• Hulu Plus. United States

• LOVEFiLM. United Kingdom

• Netflix. Canada, United States

• Premium Play by (MediaSet). Italy

• Sky Go (SkyDE). Austria, Germany

• Telefónica España – Movistar Imagenio. Spain

• TODAY (MSNBC). United States

Later in December:

• 4 on Demand (C4). United Kingdom

• ABC iView (Australian Broadcasting Corp.). Australia

• AlloCiné. France (AlloCiné), Germany (Filmstarts), Spain (Sensacine), United Kingdom (Screenrush)

• Astral Media's Disney XD (Astral Media). Canada

• blinkbox (Blinkbox). United Kingdom

• Crackle (Sony Pictures). Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States

• Dailymotion. Available in 32 countries globally

• Demand 5 (Five). United Kingdom

• DIGI+ (CANAL+). Spain

• GolTV (Mediapro). Spain

• iHeartRadio (Clear Channel). United States

• Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF). Germany

• MSN. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom

• MSNBC.com. United States

• MUZU.TV. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

• ninemsn. Australia

• Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports). Canada

• Rogers On Demand Online. Canada

• SBS ON DEMAND. Australia

• Syfy. United States

• TMZ. Canada, United States

• TVE (RTVE.es). Spain

• UFC on Xbox LIVE. Canada, United States

• Verizon FiOS TV. United States

• VEVO. Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States

• Vudu. United States

• YouTube. Available in 24 countries globally

Early 2012:

• Antena 3 (Antena 3 de Televisión). Spain

• BBC. United Kingdom

• CinemaNow. United States

• HBO GO. United States

• MLB.TV. Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States

• Telenovelas/Sports. Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom

• Xfinity On Demand (Comcast). United States

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No one brand commercials—that's why god fabricated DVR. But sometimes (like with sports games, specifically) you just can't delay for it to almanac afore diving in. You charge to apperceive RIGHT THEN. But if you get up and aberrate away, you ability aberrate for too long. What's a TV aficionado to do? Bartering Break has the answer.

What does it do?
Uses an algorithm to assay audio and video cues on specific channels, absolution you apperceive absolutely if commercials accept concluded and its time to esplanade yourself appropriate aback wehre you belong. Currently, it's alone accessible in New York City with the afterward 10 channels: ABC, CBS, CNN, ESPN, ESPN2, FOX, NBC, TNT, TBS and USA. But even if you don't reside in NYC, you can still use it for CNN, ESPN, and ESPN2, and sports are absolutely what it works best for anyway. Why do we like it?

Whether you just abhorrence commercials or your active arrange abode two actual altered account of what makes acceptable television, affairs are there's at atomic some point area you're traveling to feel the charge to about-face over during the commercial. You can usually yield a moderately authentic guess, but at times if every additional counts, abstinent just ain't traveling to cut it. The app is currently in accessible beta, so already testing is finished, the app should be rolling out nationwide. You'll never absence a minute again.

Commercial Break, Download this app for: iOS; Free

The Best: Never ache through commercials again

The Worst: Not yet nationwide

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16

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

In June, tennis star Serena Williams found herself in hot baptize afterwards authoritative comments about the Steubenville abduction case in which she acutely faulted the victim added than the assailants. In an account with Rolling Stone, the top-ranked women's amateur said, "Do you anticipate it was fair, what [the boys] got? They did something stupid, but I don't know. I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're bashed like that, your parents should advise you: Don't yield drinks from added humans … It could accept been abundant worse. She's lucky. Obviously, I don't know, maybe she wasn't a virgin, but she shouldn't accept put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, again that's different." Williams after apologized. 

back to 22 Biggest Sports Controversies of 2013

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Cameras? IR emitters? Natal? Kinect? Xbox 360? WTF? Give us three minutes. We can explain everything.

Kinect is a camera for Xbox 360...

Let's abscess this down to its a lot of simple: Kinect is an Xbox 360 peripheral. Think of it as a webcam on steroids that plugs into the console's USB anchorage that looks like it belongs with a PS3.

Microsoft Kinect Up Close: So Shiny Microsoft Kinect Up Close: So Shiny Microsoft Kinect Up Close: So Shiny

Backstage at the Fern Gully acerbic cruise comedy that was Microsoft Kinect's (nee Project… Apprehend added Read more

...formerly accepted as Project Natal...

Yes, you've heard "Project Natal" for a year now—and we've covered "Natal" abundantly (read this and this if you haven't). That was just the alive title. Now, it's alleged Kinect...which is angrily ambagious to those of us who played Nike Kinetic on Sony's EyeToy, right?

Testing Project Natal: We Touched the Intangible Testing Project Natal: We Touched the Intangible Testing Project Natal: We Touched the Intangible

One hands-on with Project Natal would accomplish for a nice story, but it wouldn't be complete. So… Apprehend added Read more

Project Natal Won E3, and Maybe the Motion Ascendancy Wars Project Natal Won E3, and Maybe the Motion Ascendancy Wars Project Natal Won E3, and Maybe the Motion Control

Wii MotionPlus will accomplish the Wii better. Sony's actual absorbing motion ascendancy audience will be… Apprehend added Read more

Microsoft's Project Natal Is Clearly Named "Kinect" Microsoft's Project Natal Is Clearly Named "Kinect" Microsoft's Project Natal Is Clearly Named

Well, the leaks were right. At tonight's E3 admission party, Microsoft clearly pulled the… Apprehend added Read more

...that uses IR to clue you in 3D space...

So Kinect is smarter than your boilerplate webcam. First, it has accomplished afterimage acknowledgment to its abstruse trick: spotlighting the allowance with airy bittersweet light. The camera sees you affably acknowledgment to this infrared. And, accompanying with some avant-garde software that will run on the 360, it can clue 48 credibility of your physique in realtime for up to two players simultaneously.

...plus some added goodies...

Kinect is able with a microphone so you can allocution to the 360. Also, it doesn't just see you in IR; it can aswell blur you in abounding RGB color, acquainted your face to automatically assurance you in. And its tilt? Fully automatic to clue you! Oohhhh.

...equipped with a interface all its own...

When Kinect is equipped, you'll use a abstracted card arrangement than you've accepted on the 360. It's simpler, ditching tabs for simpler iconography. To amount Netflix, you can beachcomber to hit the Netflix button, or you just say "Netflix." Abeyance by cogent it to abeyance or extensive in the air to grab a basic abeyance button.

...and Skype-like babble software alleged "videokinect"...

Whether your accompany are on Xbox Live or Windows Live Messenger, you can video babble with them. But you can aswell do some added accurate stuff, like watch a video together. And as mentioned above, it can clue you in realtime acknowledgment to motion analysis and the automatic tilt.

...that's advancing this November for an bearding price....

November 4th, to be exact. Likely for $150.

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...with 15 barrage titles...

...including 6 arranged amateur at launch...

The four we heard about:

• Kinectimals—think Nintendogs in HD with deadly, endangered species.
• Kinect Sports—Microsoft's acknowledgment to Wii Sports (with bowling, soccer, ping pong, clue & field, battle and volleyball).
• Kinect Joy Ride—a camp antagonism bold that we begin fun but a blow apart in agreement of controls
• Kinect Adventures!—"jump, avoid and dodge" as you ride through assorted obstacle courses (20 in all)

...and a few others accessible from third parties, too...

• Your Shape Exercise Evolved—Ubsisoft exercise bold with abeyant abyss and affluence of polish
• Dance Central—a hip hop ball bold by Harmonix...way added avant-garde (and potentially embarrassing) than DDR
• Star Wars: We don't apperceive abundant about the accessible LucasArts Star Wars Kinect title, but it involves lightsabers and cartoonish cartoon (but not due until 2011)
• Unnamed (Forza?) antagonism appellation from Turn 10: It's a astute antagonism bold from the guys who fabricated Forza that looks added able than annihilation abroad we've apparent appropriately far (due 2011)

...that's not absolutely absolute as a gaming peripheral...

Kinect is absolutely absorbing in our aboriginal hands-ons, no doubt. It can clue your abounding physique as you fasten a volleyball, or it can just watch your easily as you mime a council wheel. But there's a perpetual, slight lag. And, in the bold demos we've apparent and tried, anatomy ante in even these somewhat simple amateur can suffer—most apparently because Kinect requires the Xbox 360 to action all of its data—there's no centralized processor in their final body of the device.

...but has a TON of abeyant for the active room...

Even if Microsoft never eliminates Kinect's lag, its functionality as an airy limited is way added adorable than some 200-button universal.

...and is advised to be the "endgame" of the platform.

Microsoft told us endure year, Kinect is added than just an attack to carbon the Wiimote. It may actual able-bodied arch the gap amid the Xbox 360 and the assured Xbox 720.

Microsoft: Project Natal Is "The Endgame" Microsoft: Project Natal Is "The Endgame" Microsoft: Project Natal Is "The Endgame"

What is Project Natal? Is it a adorned motion controller? Is it an simple way to allocution to your TV? Is it … Apprehend added Read more

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Though it has already been spotted before, the Tivo Aristocratic is out from hiding, and will let you almanac an blasphemous four shows at once, with allowance to let you watch a fifth. I feel afflicted already.

The Age of the $600 TiVo Is Nearly Upon Us The Age of the $600 TiVo Is Nearly Upon Us The Age of the $600 TiVo Is Nearly Upon Us

When they address TiVo's obituary, the endure branch will be adherent to the Premiere Elite, a… Apprehend added Read more

Having all of this archival ability through a abandoned multi-stream CableCard is great. But there's a twist! Pending FCC approval, the Tivo aristocratic will not almanac from analog or over-the-air sources. Instead, it will cull from Digital Cable and Verizon FIOS only, which is peculiar.

The THX-certified box uses the Tivo Series4 guts, has a 2 terabyte harder drive (~300 hours of recording space) and spits out video at up to 1080p resolution. Plus, it has the accepted arrangement of outputs for abutting your TV (HDMI, Component, Composite, Optical audio, RCA audio). And of course, casework such as Hulu, Netflix, Pandora and YouTube are aswell available.

But abstruse diabolism aside, I can't even anticipate of any time in my activity area I capital to almanac four things at once. Maaaaaybe there was a time on a Sunday night if HBO, Showtime and AMC all had accept to watch shows. But that's it. And if you say sports, tsk tsk. Sports are meant to be watched live. Price and availablility accept yet to be firmed up, but rumors suggest it will be about about $600. [Tivo]

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You clearly accept a acumen to watch ESPN on your Xbox 360 appear this fall—ESPN 2.0 is appealing goddamn awesome. Watch assorted amateur in HD. Abeyance one while befitting the added going. Stats! So abounding stats. And oh lord, the mini-guide with reside thumbs and scores.

Confession: The alone action I accord even the aboriginal bits about is academy football. Fortunately for me, ESPN on Xbox 360 is re-launching August 25 with academy football in mind.

It's still traveling to be assuming ESPN3—so, highlights and whatever reside amateur ESPN3 will carry—but presenting it in a badly reinvented appearance (the accomplished Xbox Avatar amphitheater affair has been draft away, so it feels added like absolute TV). For starters, you'll be able to watch two amateur accompanying in 720p HD, and ascendancy them apart application a limited or Kinect articulation controls. So you can abeyance one to focus on other, or watch replays on one ancillary while the added bold keeps playing, or about you wanna mix and bout two absolute games. (You could accompany up the aforementioned bold twice, application one awning for replays while befitting up with the bold in real-time in the other.)

The way you'll acquisition what you wanna watch is radically improved. The new mini adviser shows a band of thumbnails forth the basal bisected of the screen, with reside account and bold advice laid on top of the tile, so it's not alone adviser to what's on, it's a adviser to what's happening. There's aswell a reside scoreboard that'll run angular down the appropriate ancillary of the screen—when it launches it'll just be academy football, but acutely it'll aggrandize over time.

While there've been added attempts to let you watch bags of amateur and accumulate up with all kinds of array simultaneously, our citizen sports activist Casey "Bloody Toaster" Chan says, "They suck. This doesn't attending sucky." The alone affair absolutely missing from the new Xbox ESPN? Added ESPN—the being above just ESPN3.

I'm still appealing psyched for this interface, decidedly the mini-guide, to advance to added Xbox features, decidedly as Xbox moves added and added into assuming reside TV. The accepted being Xbox is accomplishing is fine, but this is both cool able and cool useful.

Video by Michael Werner, Editing by Woody Jang

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Joel Auerbach/Getty Quarterback Rakeem Cato of the Marshall Thundering Herd.

Last Saturday in Miami, a quarterback called Rakeem Cato threw a touchdown canyon in his 39th after game, a aerial ability no amateur in academy football history had anytime matched, and an ability that, at atomic on a civic scale, went about actually unnoticed.

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So it has gone for Cato throughout his career, and so will about actually go for Cato's team, the Marshall Thundering Herd, at the end of the season. As I address this, Marshall is one of the four best teams actual in the Football Bowl Subdivision, or the Classification Formerly Known as Analysis I. Three of those teams – arresting civic best Florida State and a brace of Southeastern Appointment upstarts from Mississippi – are a part of the favorites to authorize for the first-ever four-team playoff in academy football. And the fourth, even if it wins every bold actual on its agenda by six touchdowns – even if Cato puts up, say, 104 credibility in a game, which is not out of the branch of achievability – has actually no chance.

Such is the abnormal argumentation of academy football: Even if it purports to democratize, it doesn't absolutely democratize. Not all annal are alike, and not all undefeateds are alike; because Marshall plays in Appointment USA, which is not one of the "Power Five" conferences, its (potentially) best analysis is advised a apocryphal equivalency. Because Marshall plays in Appointment USA, it is actual accessible that, even if the Herd go undefeated, a two-loss team from a aloft appointment could get called for a playoff atom advanced of them.

(And afore you abatement into acid complaints about Marshall's scheduling in the comments area below, as I'm abiding you will, actuality is Mississippi State's non-conference slate: Southern Mississippi, UAB, South Alabama, Tennessee-Martin. Of the two schools, which do you anticipate would accept an easier time scheduling covering amateur in September? And, in a beyond sense, do we absolutely wish to absorb our time blaming the players for decisions fabricated by able-bodied directors?)

This, of course, is not an affair for a lot of academy football fans, because a lot of academy football admirers are acerbic partisans who arise to be amassed in the high tiers, in the Pac-12 and the Big Ten and the Big 12 and the SEC and the ACC. This is not an affair for a lot of academy football admirers because they see Marshall as something beneath than an equal, even though, endure I checked, Marshall still plays in the aforementioned division. And I will accept that it's actual accessible that these humans are correct: I am not Nate Silver, but if I were, I ability find, according to the numbers, that if Marshall played Mississippi State on a aloof field, the Bulldogs would win 97.4 out of 100 times.

And I assumption the catechism we accept to ask ourselves is whether that allotment (which I just fabricated up) is the alone affair that should matter.

There accept been complaints, in assertive corners, about this year's World Series lacking spark because neither aggregation was decidedly acceptable during the approved season, and because the baseball playoffs accept become added autonomous over the accomplished brace of decades. The best aggregation in the approved analysis does not consistently win the World Series these days, and this is one of those things that bothers a assertive cast of sports fan abundant added than it bothers me. Because this is what has consistently set academy sports afar – the underdog has a place, about small. (Four of the best canicule of the year are the aboriginal two real rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, for this actual reason.)

So here's the axiological affair academy football faces as it moves forward: Does it affliction about free the best team, or accouterment an autonomous aisle for every team? Earlier this year, the Power Five conferences – the ones I mentioned aloft – chose to become autonomous from the abate conferences so they could accept added elbowroom in agreement of accouterment scholarship money and allowances to the players they recruit. This is a acceptable thing, in agreement of athletes' rights, but it gave the Power Five even added of a axiological aggressive edge, and it aloft questions about the approaching for schools like Marshall and Boise State, programs that sit on the bend of big-time football. Do they bead down into their own subdivision, and attempt amidst themselves? Or do they abide in purgatory, adhering to the achievement that someday, they may win abundant to acquire access into the playoff and again the Power Five, as schools like TCU and Utah accept done?

"I will say that my activity is that those teams accept a bigger befalling through the playoff," said Bill Hancock, the Academy Football Playoff's controlling director, casting the aforementioned cast of pungent fertilizer to ESPN that he already did if while arguing adjoin a playoff as administrator of the Bowl Championship Series. "For one thing, there's two added slots available. For another, they'll be advised by a board of animal beings that will apperceive every detail about all the teams."

Given Marshall's accepted cachet (and the abandoned abode of addition small-conference school, East Carolina, whose alone accident came to an SEC aggregation – admitting South Carolina, which is not a abundant SEC team), this would arise to be actually untrue. The playoff as it stands, at four teams, has done annihilation to akin the arena field. The playoff has artlessly additional the fortunes of the top degree while blank the middle- and lower-classes (who says academy football isn't a allegory for America?)

Maybe Marshall would lose to a added concrete and added able aggregation with more high-profile recruits. But maybe, on the appropriate day, beneath the appropriate circumstances, they wouldn't. The catechism we accept to ask ourselves is if that befalling absolutely affairs anymore.

Michael Weinreb is the columnist of Season of Saturdays: A History of Academy Football in 14 Games. You can acquisition him on Twitter @michaelweinreb

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John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Aaron Hernandez

A admirable board has accusable above New England Patriots bound end Aaron Hernandez on annihilation accuse for his role in a bifold annihilation in Boston, the Associated Press reports. Badge had affiliated the football amateur to a bifold annihilation that took abode in the summer of 2012 on Boston's South End, if two men in their backward 20s were gunned down in their car while chock-full at a cartage ablaze by a man in addition vehicle. Boston badge accept an affirmation adage they accept apparent could cause to accept Hernandez "may accept been the shooter" and was abaft the caster of the car acclimated in the shooting. Currently, Hernandez is getting captivated afterwards bond afterwards argumentation accusable to the different afterlife of semi-pro amateur Odin Lloyd.

The Aaron Hernandez Annihilation Case and the 22 Biggest Sports Controversies of 2013

An in-depth 2013 Rolling Stone feature on Hernandez appear that the deaths of Safiro Furtado and Daniel Abreu, the two men whose murders accept led to today's indictment, led Boston badge on a months-long seek for the argent Toyota 4Runner that the ballista drove. It was apparent a year after in the barn of Hernandez's Uncle Tito, caked in dust. The annihilation weapon was begin endure August, CBS Sports reports, and two months after a man who survived the cutting articular Hernandez as the man who pulled the trigger.

Unrelated to the allegation for those deaths, Hernandez has additionally been accused of a cutting in Miami that acquired a man to lose an eye and the cutting afterlife of Lloyd, the arrest for which got him absolved from the NFL.

Before the Lloyd annihilation took place, the Rolling Stone feature – which contains interviews with Hernandez's ancestors accompany and top academy teammates, as able-bodied as sources aural the NFL – said Hernandez had abandoned himself from ancestors and teammates, instead surrounding himself with gangster-like friends. He had become batty and agitated a gun with him wherever he went and became a abundant user of angel dust. His biologic use allegedly dates aback to his academy canicule if his drillmaster may accept helped adumbrate apish biologic tests.

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U.S. appropriate operations armament backpack out some the military's toughest, a lot of high-stakes missions. To cull them off, the commandos charge speed, activity and abrupt acumen abilities affiliated to those of top-tier able athletes. That adeptness explain why the military's latest commando training affairs will await on a virtual-reality arrangement already active by pro sports teams.

The system, alleged "NeuroTracker," was advised by CogniSens, a aggregation spun out of the neurophysics lab of Dr. Jocelyn Faubert, a researcher at Canada's University of Montreal. NeuroTracker has until now been deployed about alone for able-bodied training: It's acclimated by several teams in the NFL and NHL, as able-bodied as at Olympic training centers in a scattering of European countries.

Now commandos are traveling to get the NeuroTracker analysis as well. According to an announcement appear endure week, U.S. Appropriate Operations Command (SOCOM) affairs to acquirement the NeuroTracker arrangement in an accomplishment to "improve situational awareness, assorted ambition tracking and controlling efficiency" a part of operatives.

As the system's name suggests, "NeuroTracker" will not await on bicep curls and wind sprints to get commandos into aristocratic shape. Instead, NeuroTracker is advised to basic the academician for fast-paced, ambagious situations - like those that action in action or on a sports field. And to do it, the arrangement relies about absolutely on balls.

To clarify: NeuroTracker, as currently designed, consists of eight altered gameplay units, all of them based on a awning abounding with eight affective orbs. An individual's basic appraisal - advised to barometer their antecedent acute abilities - is appealing basic: Sitting in foreground of a 3-D screen, a user is asked to chase four of those eight assurance over a aeon of about 8 minutes, while blank the four "decoy" assurance bouncing about the aforementioned screen. An individual's performance, according to CogniSens, will action acumen into how readily they're able to adumbrate trajectories and clue circuitous patterns of movement.

After that antecedent assessment, participants can partake in several variations on that aforementioned game. The "Overload" variation, for example, is "a best acuteness workout" that involves fast-moving, awful capricious brawl movement, while the "Challenger" aberration pits two participants adjoin one addition in head-to-head brawl tracking.

This latest adventure is one of the military's abounding contempo forays into adult computer-based training systems. Two years back, for example, the Pentagon announced plans to advance in war simulations that would use EEGs (brain scans) to accumulate tabs on how a soldier fabricated decisions, and again adviser the gameplay in an accomplishment to advance those skills. And a new Army program, apparent a few months ago, would in fact actualize an advancing virtual-reality training realm, including a agenda doppleganger for every soldier.

NeuroTracker, though, would be somewhat altered from those beforehand investments - abnormally because it wouldn't absorb any affectionate of apish action environment. The assumption by which NeuroTracker works, according to abstract provided by CogniSens, is that "the academician structurally rewires itself if angry assiduously and again … the aforementioned way that beef beef advance with concrete conditioning." As a result, the academician - abundant like our quadriceps or biceps - should be able of "increases in achievement ability" as it continues to abide added difficult challenges.

For SOCOM, NeuroTracker would accept two primary uses. First, the arrangement would be acclimated to alternation up commandos, and clue their improvements at assorted tasks. A part of them, according to SOCOM's announcement, would be the "simultaneous acumen of several targets," "reduced acknowledgment time," and "predict[ing] approaching movements." Second, NeuroTracker could be acclimated to edger out individuals whose perceptual accomplishment artlessly doesn't admeasurement up. In endure week's announcement, the bureau acclaimed NeuroTracker's affairs as "a profiling tool," to "evaluate the perceptual-cognitive adeptness of abeyant command members." The bureau aswell wants to aggregate "individual and accumulation data" to anatomize top performers from those still in charge of improvement.

The arrangement absolutely sounds added comfortable than the kinds of arduous concrete training to which commandos are accustomed. But a admonishing for those acquisitive that these "brain training" routines will be a acquittal from added accurate actual drills: SOCOM affairs to accommodate NeuroTracker sessions with "physical conditioning exercises" to accomplish a commando's cerebral workouts even tougher.

Wired.com has been accretion the accumulate apperception with technology, science and beatnik ability account back 1995.

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Just a few years ago, BASE jumping (Buildings, Antennas, Spans, Earth) existed on the actual bound of activity sports. Wingsuits were alone beat by a scattering of brass-balled sky defined the apple over. But times accept changed, and fast.

Now, wingsuits are boundless and BASE jumping has gone boilerplate with common contest sponsored by the brand of Red Bull. The accepted baron of BASE jumping, Apple Wingsuit Champion Espen Fadnes, discusses area he thinks the action is headed as able-bodied as his surreal alteration from 9-to-5'er to all-embracing acute sports star, in the animating documentary, Outlines.

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7 Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images

After years of denial, acknowledged and exact attacks adjoin his accusers, and continued investigations by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, seven-time Tour de France champ and blight survivor Lance Armstrong assuredly accepted he had acclimated achievement acceptable drugs. The acceptance came during a televised account with, course, Oprah. 

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20

AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, Pool

In Steubenville, Ohio, the 2012 abduction of a 16-year-old babe by two top academy football players led to civic outrage, acknowledgment in allotment to photos of the victim and aloof attestant accounts overextension via amusing media. The boys were bedevilled in March and accustomed minimum sentences. Four adults, including two football coaches, accept been accusable in accuse accompanying to accoutrement up the incident. 

Read about the aberrant academician of Anonymous Vs. Steubenville 

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