Here at BrickUnderground, we have?lots of first-person columns?to peruse,?from?Farm to City–chronicling a rental rookie’s adventures in NYC real estate–to?My Big Fat Board Interview–where New Yorkers relate what?really?happens in a co-op board interview–to?Transitions, first-hand accounts of cross-neighborhood moves.
For this week’s SurvivalList–a thematic curation of some of our favorite posts–we draw your attention to our only slightly tongue-in-cheek?NYC Real(i)ty Speak?series dedicated to separating real estate spin from reality.
There are posts on decoding neighbor “niceties” in the?laundry room?(“Wow, that is a lot of laundry!” actually means?“Which one of your kids has lice this time?”)??and in the elevator (“Look at her – growing up so fast!”? = “I think it is disgusting that a 6-year-old has her own iPhone.”).
There’s also brokerspeak for?sellers??(“Are there any personal items that you want to remove before we start doing open houses?” =?”No one wants to see the framed pictures of your three children exiting your?ungroomed?va-jay-jay, even if this is Park Slope.”)…
…for?buyers?(“They had three children who all graduated from Horace Mann” = “With the right parenting, the drug deals going on in the park across the street will not have an adverse effect on your children.”)…
…and?open-house attendees?(“The Second Avenue subway will really bring up this apartment’s value!” ?roughly translates as “I am a sucker for getting in to a bidding war for this place in 2006, I’ll go crazy if I see another rat, and the soot is starting to cloud my brain. Please buy it and put me out of my misery.)
Renovators, meanwhile, may enjoy these examples of?how to deconstruct a decorator’s pronouncements?(e.g. “six weeks to move-in” means “six months to move-in)?and?understand a contractor?(“There was an unexpected condition” = “My original estimate was off by 30%.”). ?
You may have noticed that HP unleashed a torrentoflaptopstoday, but at the heart of it all, even more crucial than those Ultrabooks and business laptops, are the notebooks Hewlett-Packard plans to sell to college kids during the all-important back-to-school season. This go-round, the company’s redesigned both its mainstream Pavilion dv series, as well as its entry-level “g” laptops, though the range of sizes (14 to 17 inches) is pretty predictable. In addition, the outfit also introduced the Pavilion m6, a slim 15-incher that isn’t technically an Ultrabook, but nonetheless joins a growing group of thin-and-lights with unexpectedly large screens. Throughout, as you’d expect, HP’s refreshed its laptops on the inside too — namely, with newer Intel and AMD chips, along with fresher GPUs. We’ve got a full break-down of specs, prices, design notes and availability details after the break, though we’ve also got photos and the full press release below if you’ve got some important study session to hurry to.
No Tim this week, yet again, but Brian and Terrence will be holding things down in New York, with Michael joining via the magic of Skype. What will we be talking about today? It’s looking sunny with a chance of Samsung.
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres makes a surprise appearance via satellite during an event hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama at a Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, FL on Thursday, April 12th. The event included 600 Military families and their daughters who The First Lady was honoring in celebration of the one-year anniversary of the [...]
Public release date: 11-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Ana Herrera oic@uc3m.es Carlos III University of Madrid
This press release is available in Spanish.
This company, Aptent Be Accesible!, which is just one year old, has already developed its own software (its registration is pending) for creating and reproducing different types of simultaneous access in the theater, which grew out of experience acquired during previous projects carried out at the Centro Espaol de Subtitulado y Audiodescripcin (CESyA Spanish Center for Subtitling and Audio description) and in the Centro de Tecnologa para la Discapacidad y la Dependencia del Parque Cientfico UC3M. (Technology Center for the Handicapped and Dependents in UC3M’s Science Park) “We are incorporating technologies like automatic voice recognition, speech synthesis or natural language processing to make the services offered more efficient”, comments the engineer Javier Jimnez Dorado, Director of Aptent. “And for the next season he states we hope to have mobile applications that will allow us make innovations in the way we distribute and present accessibility to the end users, taking advantage of the widespread use of these devices”.
For the moment, the company has already made approximately ten works accessible via the Teatro Accesible (Accessible Theater) initiative, for which Aptent was in charge of making several theaters accessible through the use of subtitles, audio description and magnetic induction systems. This pioneering project, which receives support from the Fundacin Vodafone Espaa (Vodafone Foundation Spain) and the Asociacin Psiquiatra y Vida (Psychiatry and Life Association), is, for the first time, establishing accessibility for a full theatrical season (December 2011 to June 2012) in two Madrid theaters (La Latina and Bellas Artes Theaters). This means opening the door to culture and leisure for individuals with sensorial handicaps, who previously could not attend such events or who missed out on many of the performances’ details.
Improvements in accessibility
The use of voice technology and the company’s own accessibility management software makes the process of adaptation and reproduction of plays faster and more efficient. This is because the solution to many of the existing barriers in the areas of accessibility and the handicapped was not so much a matter of technological viability, but rather one of economic viability. Jimnez points out, “We make these services more efficient and, therefore, less expensive by incorporating improvements in the process of creating and distributing accessibility.”
Aptent Be Accessible! is a business project that receives support from the Business Incubator of the UC3M Science Park; it is a clear example of how new innovative companies and, in this case, an academic spin-off can be created based on the research work that is being carried out in scientific parks. This technology based company provides accessibility services, manages concrete projects related to sensorial handicaps, and does research on the creation and development of new solutions through its R + D+i area. Its activity is focused on the development and delivery of accessibility services (subtitling, audio description, sign language, etc.) in any area of daily life, such as the theater, cinema, education, events, television, radio, internet, etc.
###
More information:
Aptent web (http://www.aptent.es)
Business Incubator in the UC3M Science Park Web (http://www.uc3m.es/portal/page/portal/investigacion/parque_cientifico/vivero_empresas)
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 11-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Ana Herrera oic@uc3m.es Carlos III University of Madrid
This press release is available in Spanish.
This company, Aptent Be Accesible!, which is just one year old, has already developed its own software (its registration is pending) for creating and reproducing different types of simultaneous access in the theater, which grew out of experience acquired during previous projects carried out at the Centro Espaol de Subtitulado y Audiodescripcin (CESyA Spanish Center for Subtitling and Audio description) and in the Centro de Tecnologa para la Discapacidad y la Dependencia del Parque Cientfico UC3M. (Technology Center for the Handicapped and Dependents in UC3M’s Science Park) “We are incorporating technologies like automatic voice recognition, speech synthesis or natural language processing to make the services offered more efficient”, comments the engineer Javier Jimnez Dorado, Director of Aptent. “And for the next season he states we hope to have mobile applications that will allow us make innovations in the way we distribute and present accessibility to the end users, taking advantage of the widespread use of these devices”.
For the moment, the company has already made approximately ten works accessible via the Teatro Accesible (Accessible Theater) initiative, for which Aptent was in charge of making several theaters accessible through the use of subtitles, audio description and magnetic induction systems. This pioneering project, which receives support from the Fundacin Vodafone Espaa (Vodafone Foundation Spain) and the Asociacin Psiquiatra y Vida (Psychiatry and Life Association), is, for the first time, establishing accessibility for a full theatrical season (December 2011 to June 2012) in two Madrid theaters (La Latina and Bellas Artes Theaters). This means opening the door to culture and leisure for individuals with sensorial handicaps, who previously could not attend such events or who missed out on many of the performances’ details.
Improvements in accessibility
The use of voice technology and the company’s own accessibility management software makes the process of adaptation and reproduction of plays faster and more efficient. This is because the solution to many of the existing barriers in the areas of accessibility and the handicapped was not so much a matter of technological viability, but rather one of economic viability. Jimnez points out, “We make these services more efficient and, therefore, less expensive by incorporating improvements in the process of creating and distributing accessibility.”
Aptent Be Accessible! is a business project that receives support from the Business Incubator of the UC3M Science Park; it is a clear example of how new innovative companies and, in this case, an academic spin-off can be created based on the research work that is being carried out in scientific parks. This technology based company provides accessibility services, manages concrete projects related to sensorial handicaps, and does research on the creation and development of new solutions through its R + D+i area. Its activity is focused on the development and delivery of accessibility services (subtitling, audio description, sign language, etc.) in any area of daily life, such as the theater, cinema, education, events, television, radio, internet, etc.
###
More information:
Aptent web (http://www.aptent.es)
Business Incubator in the UC3M Science Park Web (http://www.uc3m.es/portal/page/portal/investigacion/parque_cientifico/vivero_empresas)
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Once your write-up is set into numerous write-up directories it starts to develop a life of its own. Web site owners paste it on their site pages, Ezine publishers might grab it to their electronic magazine, online as nicely as offline …
Switching from plastic to a BPA-free, reusable bottle is smart for your wallet and the planet. But as fantastic as we think reusable water bottles are, they aren’t invincible to bacteria and fungi.
The damp enclosed space is a perfect breeding ground for germs, so it’s a good idea to wash your bottle every day. Hot water and soap are strong enough to do the trick, but for tall bottles or ones with slimmer openings, consider trying a bottle brush.
A new surveillance camera system developed by Hitachi Kokusai Electric?can search through data on 36 million faces in one second, Tokyo video news site DigInfo TV reported Thursday.
The system detects a face from a regular photo or a surveillance video — such as those made on six pack pick-ups at the corner convenience store — and searches for it.
Search results appear instantaneously. Select a thumbnail image and the system will show its associated context in a surveillance video. Not the person who pilfered the chewing gum? Go to the next candidate.
“The high speed is achieved by detecting faces through image recognition when the footage from the camera is recorded and also by grouping similar faces,” a company representative told DigInfo.
To work, faces must be turned with 30 degrees of the camera and be 40 by 40 pixels in size.
Hitachi Kokusai Electric expects the technology to be attractive to companies with relative large surveillance systems, such as railroads, big box stores, and law enforcement agencies.
The system should be available for purchase in fiscal year 2013.
– Via DigInfo, Gizmodo, and The Verge
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website ?and follow him on Twitter. For more of our Future of Technology?series, watch the featured video below.
Columbia, South Carolina (Reuters) ? Humbled by a stunning loss in South Carolina, Mitt Romney said on Sunday he would release this week the tax returns demanded by rivals in his bid to regain the upperhand in the volatile Republican presidential race. Romney, the longtime frontrunner in the Republican race and one of the wealthiest [...]
KANO (Reuters) ? Gun and bomb attacks by Islamist insurgents in the northern Nigerian city of Kano last week killed at least 178 people, a hospital doctor said on Sunday, underscoring the challenge President Goodluck Jonathan faces to prevent his country sliding further into chaos. A coordinated series of bomb blasts and shooting sprees mostly [...]
PARIS (AP) ? France has handed over to New Zealand authorities 20 tattooed heads of Maori ethnic people once held in several French museums as a cultural curiosity. French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand presided over a handover ceremony Monday at the Quai Branly museum in Paris. New Zealand’s embassy said it involved the single largest [...]
SANTA MARIA, Calif. ? A Santa Maria police officer was shot and killed Saturday by a fellow officer who was trying to arrest him for suspected sexual misconduct with a minor, the Santa Maria Times reported. The slain officer was on duty when police tried to?take him into custody?early Saturday, the Santa Maria Police Department [...]
Gillmor Gang – Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor. Live recording has concluded. Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/NDygv-GB_lA/ xbox update xbox update nba schedule nhl realignment nhl realignment kristin chenoweth country music awards
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Public release date: 11-Apr-2012
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