At I/O this year, Google displayed its vision for a more ubiquitous and conversational way of interacting with technology. Its Assistant is chattier, answering natural language queries with a more human voice, and its found its way into several new Google products: the messenger Allo and the Echo-like speaker Home. Both are areas where other companies have a lead, but Googles strength in AI gave these services some nice twists, doing things like automatically generating surprisingly specific reactions to photos.
Google also announced improvements to Android though N, out of beta this summer, still needs to be named as well as a mobile VR platform that will come with the new OS. Theres a FaceTime rival Duo as well, and a way to run Android apps without downloading anything. Below are the 10 biggest announcements.
Google has a new VR platform
Google has two new messaging apps
More assistants in more places
Android keeps getting bigger
What does it all mean?
Seeing these products through wont be easy. VR, messaging, and smart assistants are three of the hottest areas of tech; today, Google took big swings at all of them. The demos were impressive, especially where the intelligence of its Assistant was on display, but the result leaves us with a lot of questions. Will a smart chatbot be enough to surmount the lead of Amazons Echo or Facebooks Messenger? Can Googles Daydream platform catch up with the Vive and the Rift? Amazon has been aggressive about partnering with other services, and Facebook well, Facebook is where everyones friends already are. Well need a much closer look at the products before we can start to guess at the answers, but in the meantime, Sundar Pichais Google has showed it isnt afraid of making big bets.
The two biggest music stories of the year happened just two days apart last month: Prince died, and Beyonc came alive like never before.
Of course, it was unfortunate timing on Queen Beys part that the greatest album and bravest artistic achievement of her career, Lemonade, landed April 23, just two days after Princes passing. The voracious marketing campaign behind the album had started in early February at the Super Bowl and culminated with an HBO special on the day of release. She couldnt exactly ring up the record executives and say, Lets hold off a week even if two of those execs are herself and the husband who is skewered and smoked like a roast pig on the album.
In its five-star review of Lemonade, Rolling Stone put a positive spin on Beyoncs opus coming right on the heels of Princes passing: Its a welcome reminder that giants still walk among us.
And now here comes Beyonc with her most gigantic production to date, the Formation Tour, which lands Monday at TCF Bank Stadium in Princes hometown. Her timing is perfect in this case.
Forget any overall comparisons of the two iconic singers; thatd be silly. But theres one resemblance worth exploring: Lemonade is Beys Purple Rain. Its her big moment. Its an album that engrosses from start to finish. Theres not one filler track on it. There are songs that make you blush, think, ache, writhe and marvel. Theres even a film counterpart that stands up on its own artistic merit.
First aired by HBO and since streamed 11 million times on Tidal, the movie version of Lemonade is officially billed as a visual album. Our first glimpse of it came right before the Super Bowl, when the footage for the records gritty closing track, Formation, hit the Web like wildfire, showing an underwater New Orleans and over-excessive police.
That was our warning shot, our first clue the former teen pop star was clearly up to something bigger and bolder than Crazy in Love. Then came the Super Bowl performance of Formation with a Black Panthers-looking dance troupe, when Coldplay suddenly became the halftime benchwarmer this year.
Saturday Night Live brilliantly spoofed the shocked reaction to the Formation rollout with a mock horror-movie trailer that declared it the day we learned Beyonc is black. A police union in Miami took it far more seriously, calling for a boycott of officers working her concert a reaction largely due to another scene in the visual album that shows the mothers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin holding up photos of their sons, two of whom were killed during run-ins with police.
Then came the real shocker. Turns out the racial issues of Formation were just scratching the surface of what Bey is coming out from under on Lemonade.
Dirt off her shoulder
The albums most talked-about theme is actually infidelity. Its all over the record like spilled red wine on a white carpet, starting with the splashy opening line: You can taste the dishonesty / Its all over your breath. Video scenes of Bey smashing up cars with a baseball bat now the subject of another funny spoof on Ellen plus a litany of explicit lyrics all seem to point to real-life strife in her marriage to rap mogul Jay Z.
Another example of Bey going off in the songs: I smell your secrets, and Im not too perfect to ever feel this worthless / How did it come down to this, going through your call list? Also: This is your final warning / You know I give you life / If you try this [bleep] again youre gonna lose your wife.
If you surf the Web at least once a month or arent living on the International Space Station, chances are youve seen or heard something about what is now the most talked-about marriage in America. Gossip sites have been ablaze with Bey-Jay tidbits and marital examinations since the day after Lemonade went public.
Some of the most heavily trafficked reports have been over Becky with the good hair, the supposed other woman referenced in one of Lemonades most riveting songs, Sorry. Much has even been written about who isnt the alleged Becky (Rachael Ray deserves an award for this years Most Gracious Innocent Bystander). And now there are rumors that all the rumors arent even real rumors, and instead theyre all part of an elaborate publicity stunt that Beyonc dreamed up to play off the plague of modern tabloid culture or maybe just to sell records.
Single lady?
For her part, Beyonc is keeping mum. Its not even clear if her marriage is still intact. Her husband shows up toward the end of the visual album in a few sweet scenes that find him embracing his wife and playing with their daughter. No baseball bats are in sight, just forgiveness for a weapon. A Rolling Stone cover or story or maybe even an Oprah TV special will probably tell us whats what in the end.
Whatever the true story of Lemonade is, the truth wont lessen the impact of this record. If Beyoncs own struggles arent entirely real, theyre all too real for other women.
The album particularly seems to be about the strength of African-American women, whether theyre grieving mothers, estranged wives, survivors of segregation or victims of modern injustice. It quotes Malcolm X saying, The most disrespected person in American is the black woman. It also features a speech by Beyoncs own grandmother from her 90th birthday, when she said, Life gave me lemons, but I made lemonade.
No matter what, Beyonc gave us a landmark album in Lemonade. Musically, it actually bears a closer likeness to Princes Sign o the Times than Purple Rain in the way it tackles a grab bag of social woes over a wide range of styles. Like Purple Rain, though, this is the one shes going to be most remembered for.
Pittsburgh Penguins: In The Room / Forging an Identity
TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning are learning the painful lesson that playing the Pittsburgh Penguins is like being in a race in which the Penguins are running downhill on the smoothest of surfaces and the Lightning are running up a rocky hill in muddy boots.
This reality was brought home in stunning fashion Wednesday at Amalie Arena in Tampa, where the Lightning had been a tidy 5-1 this spring but were dominated by the Penguins by a 4-2 count that flattered the home side.
The win gives the Penguins a 2-1 series lead, and more sobering for the Lightning, it marks the second straight game in which they have been the second-best team on the ice by a wide margin.
The Lightning and Penguins got off to a rocket-fast start that barely let up.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
In the past two games, the Lightning have allowed 89 shots against goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who was, for the second straight game, the best Lightning player on the ice in relief of the injured Ben Bishop.
That, head coach Jon Cooper said, is unacceptable.
"It"s extremely disappointing to give up 48 shots in your home building in a playoff game," Cooper said. "The way things have gone these two games, it doesn"t matter who"s in net. You know we could have had Bish and Vasi both playing at the same time, and they might have squeaked a couple in."
It"s not as if we haven"t seen this kind of thing before.
The New York Rangers and then the Washington Capitals found themselves running the same patently unfair race against the Penguins. In all three series, the Penguins split the first two games. In the first two rounds, they slowly but surely separated themselves from the Rangers and Capitals, en route to series victories of 4-1 and 4-2, respectively.
The Penguins have now separated themselves from the Lightning, and the question is whether last year"s Eastern Conference representative in the Stanley Cup finals can somehow reel Pittsburgh back in before it"s too late.
"You have to give them credit," said Lightning forward Tyler Johnson, who scored the first goal for Tampa just 14 seconds after Phil Kessel had given the Penguins a 2-0 lead early in the third period. "They played outstanding. They"re a really good team, and when they were going, have that confidence, it"s tough to stop in the offensive zone there."
Sidney Crosby scored the winner for the second game in a row.Mike Carlson/Getty Images
Johnson described the Lightning"s defensive effort as trying to put a round peg in a square hole. Defenseman Anton Stralman added that he thought his team made life too easy for the Penguins in the second part of the game, after a solid start in which the first period ended scoreless.
"Overall, it"s just a lack of quality right now," Stralman said. "They played better. It"s just as simple as that. A lot of it, I think, is self-inflicted, too. They"re a really good team, but we"re just kind of feeding them a lot right now. We need to clean up, and it"s not going to cut it."
Game 3 followed a pattern the Penguins have followed often this spring. Regardless of the score, they generally get stronger as the game goes along. They outshot the Lightning 21-6 in the second period and basically owned the puck.
The Penguins have now outshot opponents 163-121 in the second period this spring. Had the Lightning finished the period without giving up a goal, who knows how this plays out?
But they didn"t. Jonathan Drouin committed a rookie mistake by coughing up the puck in the Pittsburgh zone in the waning seconds. Victor Hedman could not contain Kessel as he blazed down the right side and fired off a shot. Carl Hagelin scored on the rebound to give the Pens a 1-0 lead with 10 seconds left in the second.
The Lightning chased the rest of the game, and that was that.
The series is only 2-1. But a longtime NHL player and current team executive said he had expected both teams to elevate their games in Game 3, and in the end, only one did.
"I"m not sure if the Lightning have an answer," the executive said.
They have a day to come up with one before Game 4 at 8 p.m. ET Friday in Tampa.
One of the keys, of course, is the Lightning need to find more guys who can put pucks past Penguins goalie Matt Murray. Johnson scored, and so did Ondrej Palat, but that was it.
The Penguins kept attacking and eventually broke through and opened the floodgates, filling the net while taking Game 3 and the 2-1 series lead.
The Lightning captain has endured more than his share of injuries, but Steven Stamkos remains upbeat -- and is still finding ways to help lead his team -- as he works to return to action.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper says he is optimistic that goalie Ben Bishop will play again in the Eastern Conference finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
2 Related
Fifteen different Penguins have scored this spring. In Game 3, it was a dominant Kessel line that did the bulk of the damage. Last game, it was Sidney Crosby and Matt Cullen, and so on, and so on.
In the seconds before Kessel made it 2-0 early in the third, Brian Boyle and J.T. Brown had successive golden scoring chances for the Lightning but couldn"t get the puck to go at a crucial point. In a heartbeat, it was 2-0, and the series is slipping away.
"I think everyone"s frustrated because you definitely don"t want to be losing the series," Johnson said. "But we have so much confidence in the guys that are sitting next to us that we know we can bounce back."
Certainly one of the hallmarks of the Lightning is that they have been through a lot in the past three playoff years. None of this is new. This is not a team that gets flustered.
"I mean, the message would have been a lot different if this is a best-of-three," Cooper said, half-joking.
But the truth of the matter is that this spring, the Lightning have not played a team like the Penguins, and they are realizing what the Rangers and Capitals had to learn the hard way: Running uphill makes winning very, very difficult.
Blake Lively Cannes 2016 Inspired Look | One Brand Tutorial ft L"Oreal
Cover up your early-pregnancy baby body and you"re keeping a secret; acknowledge those curves on social media and you"re -- racist? Maybe, maybe not.
Blake Lively"s curves are kickin", as she pointed out Wednesday on Instagram when she slapped the caption "L.A. face with an Oakland booty" on front and back views of herself arriving at the May 11 premiere and opening night gala for "Cafe Society" at the Cannes Film Festival. In response, people on social media had things of their own to point out.
There"s no practical way to quantify how many comments it took to inspire the "Blake Lively accused of racism" headlines that began popping up after she posted, but the actress, 28, didn"t acknowledge the supposed hubbub and left the image up on her page.
By Thursday, the Instagram comments and Twitter mentions were overwhelmingly supportive, with some people questioning how anyone could interpret the "Baby Got Back" lyric reference as racist and others declaring there were bigger fish to fry when it came to racial politics.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFhx9lGR4Jj/?hl=en
Maybe people just didn"t get it? Lively was born in 1987. Sir Mix-a-Lot released "Baby Got Back" in 1992, along with its banned-by-MTV music video, which features booty-shaking dancers and the rapper performing on top of massive yellow buttocks. Meanwhile, Instagram has been around only since 2010, Twitter since 2006, and yes, MTV used to play music videos.
For some, the issue was not racism but rather cultural appropriation, which celebrities including Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Pharrell have been accused of. Others said they didn"t remember the fundamentals behind "Baby Got Back" pertaining exclusively to women of color.
Khloe Kardashian did something similar to Lively"s post in August 2015, putting the same caption on a shot of her backside taken while out on a Chipotle run with then-boyfriend James Harden. Commenters that time around seemed less obsessed with the socio-political ramifications of her caption and more fixated on whether Kardashian"s b**t was in fact real.
https://www.instagram.com/p/6YNbNrBRuf/
"Pop culture says that if a black girl is to be taken seriously, she has to assimilate and be as white as possible, to the point of bleaching her hair blonde. But the entire point of the song was the opposite," Sir Mix-a-Lot, real name Anthony Ray, told Vulture in 2013 in an oral history about the song he didn"t think would be a hit. It wound up being 1992"s No. 2 seller, behind "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston.
"For the casting of all the dancers, Mix and his friends wanted to have b**t approval," the video"s director, Adam Bernstein, told Vulture. "So the dancers would come in for the audition, and I had to snap a Polaroid of their butts. I was mortified: "OK, now I have to take a close-up picture of your buttocks." But a lot of the women auditioning thought it was hilarious. We took all the Polaroids, and made a giant grid of the buttocks, which we Fed-Exed to Seattle so that Mix and his friends could approve the butts."
Lively probably wouldn"t have made it through the door of the casting office. For the record, the actress, who is expecting her second baby with Ryan Reynolds, actually doesn"t pack much back when she"s not pregnant.
Lively"s rep did not respond to a request for comment.
Follow Christie D"Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ.
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The Shallows Official Trailer #1 (2016) - Blake Lively, Brett Cullen Movie HD
When shes not keeping us guessing as to the current occupancy level of her womb, Blake Lively loves to post on Instagram. In fact, she might work just as hard on her captions as she does on her lovingly crafted photos of her outfit details, nail polish towers, and lipstick selections. Today, however, one caption in particular got Lively into a bit of trouble.
In the photo, Lively has on the Atelier Versace gown she wore to the Caf Society premiere and opening gala at the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival. The Instagram image is a composite; we get a front and rear view of Lively in the glittery, paneled gown. The caption is a line from Sir Mix-a-Lots Baby Got Back.
Many of Livelys Instagram followers saw it as a joke. Caption is goals, @annaa_paulina wrote. Not racist, its lyrics to a song. Take a chill pill, love, @noushiebabeyy replied to another commenter. So what"s the issue now . . . She made reference to a song by a black artist about black people but shes white? Isnt that also being racist? Clearly there was no hateful meaning behind it. Its not even misquoted. She knew what and why she was putting it . . . Cos the song is about big behinds and in that pic she has a big behind! . . . Dont stop the humour Blake Lively, its nice to see a celeb with a sense of one for a change, @judasj65 said.
Other commenters took umbrage with Livelys usage of the lyric as well as her posturing. Its not by being curvy that people say white people are trying to be black. If you have it naturally, then you just got it. The problem is getting your lips injected to make them fuller, or getting surgery to make your b**t bigger to look beautiful, when those features were looked at as ugly for years on black women, @nic915 explained to another commenter.
Some called Lively racially insensitive, bringing up her wedding to Ryan Reynolds at Boone Hall Plantation in South Carolina, which used to employ slaves before the Civil War. As if getting married on a slave plantation wasnt reason enough to hate her, one commenter wrote. Unbelievably problematic, using women of colors bodies as a joke. I guess you just want people to know youre racist and you dont give a s**t, said another.
Still, it seemed like most of Livelys followers were able to see the humor in the actresss usage of the quote. As a BLACK woman, I applaud you @blakelively. You look great. Embrace your beauty and your curves. These commenters are looking for trouble so that they can feel somewhat significant, wrote @rockhard_bella. Ignorance like this is why BLACK CULTURE is misappropriated. Let the woman live! She has a better b**t than most others Ive seen so leave her be. Also, Boone Hall is a gorgeous establishment where I myself would love to be married. Did she have black people serving cocktails and food in little French-maid outfits? I doubt it. Was Ryan called Massuh? I doubt it. STAND DOWN. Sound the retreat.
Weve reached out to Livelys reps for comment. She has since posted a photo of the bejeweled clutch she carried to the Slack Bay premiere on May 13. The caption is a play on a line from Cinderella, who she very much resembled on the red carpet. The majority of comments on that photo seem to agree that Blake Lively is perfect.
24/7 Canelo/Khan - Episode 1: Full Show (HBO Boxing)
Middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez"s massive one-punch knockout of Amir Khan in the sixth round on May 7 in Las Vegas got a tremendous amount of publicity, and people who had read or heard about it -- but didn"t buy the HBO pay-per-view card -- were eager to see it. HBO"s replay of the fight on Saturday night averaged 767,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. The replay spiked dramatically to a peak of 1.005 million -- a much higher than normal 31 percent increase from the average -- during the fifth round, just before the booming knockout.
Representatives for junior lightweight Liam Walsh (20-0, 14 KOs), the 29-year-old British champion, and Russia"s Andrey Klimov (19-2, 9 KOs), 33, have reached an agreement for the fighters to meet Sept. 10 in Manchester, England. The winner will become the mandatory challenger for the 130-pound world title held by Puerto Rico"s Jose Pedraza (22-0, 12 KOs). Klimov has already had one shot at Pedraza, losing a near-shutout decision to him last June for the vacant belt. Klimov has not fought since.
Up-and-coming junior lightweight Mario Barrios (15-0, 8 KOs), 20, of San Antonio, will take on Italy"s Devis Boschiero (39-4-1, 21 KOs), 34, in a title eliminator that will move the winner into the No. 2 position for a mandatory shot at Pedraza"s belt. The date of the fight, which will be promoted by TGB Promotions, is not set but it will take place on a Premier Boxing Champions card to be determined in early July. Boschiero has won two fights in a row since losing a title eliminator to Stephen Smith by sixth-round knockout in September.
According to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, all of the drug tests for the April 9 card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, headlined by third bout between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley Jr., came back negative.
Can you solve the brick wall optical illusion driving the internet crazy
Star Warsfans will finally be able to bring home the latest chapter in the sci-fi saga on April 5 when Star Wars: The Force Awakensreleases on Blu-ray. But though the decision to buy the film is a no-brainer for many, there is yet another choice to be made: which version to buy.
There will be five different home versions of Star Wars: The Force Awakenson launch day, with four of them being retailer exclusive versions that come with various extras. So what does each version come with, and which is the best deal?
Don"t worry, we"re here to help. To make it easy, we"re going to list what each version includes before offering up our opinion on which retailer has the best exclusive. That way you won"t have to agonize over which version to go with. You"ll have all the information (and our opinion) at your fingertips.
For starters, here is what all of the versions include regardless of retailer: the film on Blu-ray and DVD, digital Google Play and iTunes copies of the movie along with a core collection of special features.
Now let"s dive into the differences. Best Buy"s exclusive is straightforward but cool regardless. While no extra special features or goodies are included, the film comes in a stylish steelbook case sporting the faces of Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma. Open the case up, and you"ll see the now-iconic imagery of the Millennium Falcon battling it out with TIE fighters over the deserts of Jakku.
(Photo : Best Buy)
The Wal-Mart exclusive version is much the same in that it comes with an exclusive box, but with an added bonus. Buy The Force Awakensat Wal-Mart, and you"ll snag an exclusive BB-8 slipcover along with a collectible trader disc.
(Photo : Walmart)
Target"s version of the film is the only one to include exclusive special features on the disc, in addition to "an exclusive collectible package" that folds out to show detailed character art. According to the Target website, its version of The Force Awakensincludes "...over 20 minutes of bonus content, including a never-before-seen interview with the film"s breakout stars, Daisy Ridley (Rey) and John Boyega (Finn). You"ll also get a behind-the-scenes look at how the actors trained for their incredible stunts and fight scenes, interactions between the new and veteran cast members, a closer look at how the props team designed and produced some of the film"s new weapons, and lots more."
(Photo : Target)
Last but not least, you can buy the film straight from Disney. Doing so will snag you some exclusive lithographs for your collection.
(Photo : Disney)
Or you can shun all the retailer exclusives and simply buy the standard version that will be available everywhere else. If you can only buy one, our money would be on the Target exclusive version. Though lithographs are nice and there is no denying the coolness factor of Best Buy"s exclusive steelbook case, having 20 minutes of extra special features seems like the clear winner.
You can check out our review of the film"s deleted scenes here.
Related: Can You Hear Darth Vader Breathing In The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Trailer?
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