Kim Kardashian vs. Pink
Who knew Kim Kardashian and Pink had similar tastes in formal wear? Kardashian was spotted wearing a purple-blue, floor-length Catherine Deane gown in Miami this past month, while Pink chose the same style for her red-carpet appearance at the 2012 American Music Awards. Who rocked the chic style best?
Stocks rallied in an abbreviated session on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 172 points to 13,009. That's the first close above 13,000 for the Dow since Election Day.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 18 points to 1,409. The S&P also racked up its biggest weekly point gain of the year. The Nasdaq composite index climbed 40 to 2,966.
Traders were encouraged by economic signals out of Germany and China. It's also the first day of the traditional holiday shopping season.
Trading on Wall Street was thin, about 1.4 billion shares, in a holiday-shortened session. Advancing stocks beat decliners 5-to-1.
REUTERS
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange today as a little girl watches.
Jennifer Leal is a self-proclaimed shop-a-holic but it’s been more than four years since she came out to shop on Black Friday.
This year, she was back and focused on her mission: stocking up on “good deals” for herself at Dadeland Mall. Her tally included candles two for $20 at Bath and Body works plus a gift bag for $20 with goodies inside, 25 percent off a Michael Kors rose gold watch, a free bag from Victoria’s Secret, plus a splurge on some black heels.
“I love shopping. It is my thing,” said Leal, 30, a University of Miami student who lives in Westchester. “But my economic situation has kept me from coming to Black Friday for so long.”
Like Leal, thousands of South Florida residents feeling better about the economy this year came out for Black Friday to get a start on holiday spending or to splurge on themselves. With sales kicking off at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night and continuing throughout the day Friday, crowds gathered from Sawgrass Mills to Dolphin Mall and at big box stores like Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Bass Pro Shops.
While not everyone liked the retail creep into Thanksgiving, the timing worked well for Cutler Ridge resident Amanda Chattic. She waited in an hour-long line outside the Michael Kors accessories store at Dolphin Mall.
“This way we didn’t have to get up at 5 a.m,” said the retiree, whose next stop was Macy’s midnight opening.
The quality of the deals depended on the shopping list. This wasn’t the year to find 70 percent off storewide sales. Some of the best bargains were on 40-inch televisions priced at $179 at Best Buy and $147 at BrandsMart — nearly one third the usual price. Both sold out in less than an hour.
Other good deals: Nautica and Tommy Bahamas outlets in Sawgrass offered 50 percent off the entire store. Android tablet computers were priced under $100 at many stores. A 40 percent off storewide sale at Old Navy drew lines that stretched through the chain’s Dolphin Mall store.
At the Apple store in Aventura Mall, the line started forming at 11:30 p.m. Thursday night for the 6 a.m. Friday opening. It’s the only day of the year that Apple officially discounts many of its top products.
Dennis Obando, 22, of Ft. Lauderdale, was the second person in line in order to get his hands on a new mini iPad.
“It was worth standing here all night because it is way cheaper than buying it online,” said Obando.
At Walmart and Target, certain iPads came with free gift cards. The same formula was used for an iPod Touch at Toys R Us, where other popular items included the Wii U and Skylanders.
Jeans for $9.97 were flying off the shelves at Bass Pro Shops in Dania Beach, along with a $10 G.I. Issued Ammo Box, a smoker for $179.97 and a $29.97 kid’s ATV vehicle.
Bass Pro shopper Bud Worland’s West Palm Beach landscaping business has picked up enough that he said he expects to spend about $1,500 on gifts this year — about 20 percent more than last year.
“I feel better about spending more since work is good,” said Worland, as he waited to check out at Bass Pro.
At Macy’s stores throughout South Florida, customers came with lists in hand and searched for specific items like women’s boots at $39.99, Bulova watches for $99 and cosmetics gift sets.
Miami-Dade police are investigating the death of an unidentified woman who was struck by a train early Thursday, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue officials said.
The woman was hit at the intersection of NE 186 Street and West Dixie Highway at about 1 p.m.
It is unclear why she was on the tracks.
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
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[More from Mashable: Apple Now Owns the iMessage Name]
Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?
If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.
[More from Mashable: 9 Black Friday Deals For iPhone Owners]
That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.
All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.
The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.
Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen
If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).
Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).
I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.
Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.
The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.
The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)
As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.
Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.
The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.
Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.
Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.
Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.
Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.
There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.
Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.
Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).
Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).
In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.
At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”
The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.
Review continues after FreeTime Gallery
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Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.
Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.
Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.
Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.
For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Look Who's Cooking
By Anna Kleyman
"What's cooking, good looking?" may just be the perfect question for some A-list celebs who like to get their cook on in the kitchen. To celebrate Thanksgiving, we're counting down Hollywood's kitchen MVPs including Jennifer Aniston, Blake Lively, Gwyneth Paltrow and more.
AP
A man walks on the beach as a rollercoaster that once sat on the Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ rests in the ocean.
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NJ — The remains of a roller coaster that was knocked off a New Jersey amusement pier by Superstorm Sandy and partially submerged in the Atlantic Ocean may be left there as a tourist attraction.
Seaside Heights Mayor Bill Akers tells WNBC-TV in New York that officials have not made a decision on whether to tear down the coaster. But the mayor says he's working with the Coast Guard to see if the coaster is stable enough to leave it alone, because he believes it would make "a great tourist attraction."
Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild the storm-ravaged town are continuing.
Demolition crews have removed the resort's damaged boardwalk. And Akers says construction on a new boardwalk should begin in January and be ready by Memorial Day.
NASSAU, Bahamas – Officials say a helicopter has crashed in an upscale Bahamas resort, killing one U.S. citizen and injuring at least three others.
Miami Herald news partner WFOR CBS 4 reported one of the survivors was Jeffrey Soffer, owner the Fontainebleau resort in Miami Beach.
North Abaco parliamentarian Renardo Curry says at least four Americans were on the helicopter when it crashed Thursday morning in Baker’s Bay Golf & Ocean Club on Great Guana Cay.
Police have not released the identities of the passengers or other details about the crash.
Curry says the helicopter was attempting to land at Baker’s Bay when a wind gust sent the aircraft spiraling.
Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham says one passenger died and three survivors are being treated at a clinic. He says their injuries are apparently not life threatening.
Baker’s Bay is a playground for millionaires located about 150 miles off Florida’s eastern coast.
The Miami-Dade County Commission is poised next month to reinstate nondenominational prayers to kick off their meetings, after a group of commissioners approved the policy shift last week.
But the change was not spontaneous: The conservative Christian group pushing to restore prayer has been laying the groundwork for nearly a year and a half.
The Christian Family Coalition saw an opportunity to promote its agenda after Commissioner Katy Sorenson retired in late 2010, according Anthony Verdugo, the group’s executive director. Sorenson had been one of two board members who years earlier — in 2004, Verdugo said — changed the county’s practice to begin meetings with a moment of silence instead of a prayer.
Sorenson was replaced by the more conservative Lynda Bell, whom the Coalition had endorsed. There was other commission turnover as well.
Before then, “we didn’t feel we had enough votes on the commission to get it through,” Verdugo said. “We didn’t want it to be a divisive item for the community — we don’t need that.”
Because expressions of faith in public meetings may turn off or offend some in the community, the proposal before the commission envisions rotating religious leaders of different faiths to give invocations. The plan does not address people who do not belong to a particular religion or do not believe in God, though no one on the board or in the audience will be required to participate.
There is a price tag: It will cost the county clerk’s office about $22,000 to compile the names of religious congregations in a database, and another $4,000 a year for technical support and maintenance, according to an estimate provided to the commission by Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s office.
The story behind the proposal began last year, when the Coalition seized on its political opening.
It held a Saturday session to train some 40 people the group called “citizen lobbyists.” They were instructed on the county’s history with prayer and on laws regulating the practice.
The corps members then reached out to their commissioners. Among them was Sybel W. Lee, a 68-year-old self-described “concerned mother, grandmother and activist” who said she spoke to Commissioner Audrey Edmonson’s aide about the importance of prayer.
“Look at the harm the absence of an invocation has caused in this country,” Lee said. An invocation is about reflection, she noted, “not to impose your beliefs and ideology on other people.”
But the Coalition still needed a commissioner to take the lead on reinstating prayer. Though invocations had been eliminated without legislation — the commission just changed its meeting practices — there did not appear to be political will on the board to switch back without an ordinance.
Though the Coalition had an ally in Bell, the former mayor of Homestead, she was now representing a more moderate county commission district and was not the most likely candidate to shepherd the legislation.
Instead, the Coalition turned to Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz.
“Honestly, it’s always been on my mind,” Diaz said. “Why can we not have prayer like everywhere else, like in Congress, in the state?”
Diaz said the county attorney’s office toiled to make the ordinance inclusive.
Though never married, Djimon Hounsou and Kimora Lee Simmons are ending their relationship, according to People.com.
PICS: The 10 Most Shocking Breakups in Hollywood
Hounsou's rep tells the news source that the couple has "officially separated after 5 1/2 years."
The actor, 48, reportedly met Simmons, 42, in February 2007 after her split from hip hop mogul Russell Simmons.
They have one child together, three-year-old son Kenzo Lee Hounsou.
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