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Is This Facebook Policy Offensive to the LGBT Community?

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Facebook on a Smartphone

After receiving criticism for its ‘real name’ policy, Facebook will be meeting with San Francisco officials to fix it.

In many places on the worldwide web, such as Twitter and the comments sections of most websites, we don’t have to use our real names. For whatever reason – maybe we’d rather go by a nickname or maybe we really want people to call us ‘SwagMaster420′ – we often embrace the chance to shed whatever our parents and guardians scribbled on our birth certificates and instead choose to go by something else. Except, that is, on Facebook. Understandably plenty of people just go by their real names, Facebook is a tool through which friends and family (who know your name) can stay in touch with you after all, and Facebook even requires us to use our legal names on the platform. But what happens if our legal name and our real names aren’t the same? Well that’s where things get somewhat more difficult.

The issue of Facebook’s real name policy is a difficult one particularly for members of the LGBT and drag communities. For trans* people and drag performers and artists, the name listed on their birth certificates may not be the name that they actually go by and not allowing them to change puts an immense amount of pressure on the person who will have to face the possibility of being misgendered or wrongly titled. No one should have to go through that but despite Facebook saying that users “have several different options available to them” if they want to use a different name, the fact of the matter is that Facebook either gives you hoops to jump through or just locks you out of your account altogether.

That’s what happened to Sister Roma of San Francisco drag group The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who was locked out of her Facebook account and forced to go by the name on her birth certificate, Michael Williams, which is a name she says she hasn’t used for almost 30 years. Sister Roma also took to Twitter to voice her concerns, being joined by many others in the #mynameis campaign to express their frustration. The movement even led to a petition being created against the policy which now has just under 20,000 signatures as of the time of writing.

Furthermore, it’s also been noted that not only could Facebook’s policy could cause physical harm to those who are trans*, drag performers as well as those outside of those identities alike. For example, if someone is a victim of domestic abuse and has since fled that situation, they may wish to use Facebook under a different name save their abuser find them again. The same goes for those who have fought custody battles and may be using the site under a different name in an effort to protect themselves and their children.

These are all things that San Francisco officials will have urged Facebook to consider in a meeting that took place Wednesday. It’s yet unclear what the outcome of that has been but given that Google reversed a similar policy on their social networking site Google Plus when pushed to do so, there’s a chance that this round of policy backlash will see Facebook’s ways changed too.

Source: Facebook

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, Facebook Opens Hunting Season for Oculus Rift Bugs, Facebook Mentions Is an App for the Rich and Famous

12 Brilliant Bingo Games to Play While Watching TV

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Game of Thrones Bingo

Some people actually think that Bingo is simply the name of a dog from a song. But it’s much much more, and besides the associations it has for being a great pass time for the elderly, it also makes for an excellent facilitator during TV shows.

Some people watch their favorite TV shows playing drinking games. But what’s the point of losing all your cognitive abilities while doing something you’d like to focus on? It’s better to pay even closer attention to details, while putting yourself in a position to win something.

Game of Thrones

The Walking Dead

Sherlock

True Blood

Family Guy

Supernatural

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

The Big Bang Theory

Community

 

Boardwalk Empire

Downtown Abbey

 

Sons of Anarchy

 

Bingo ‘cards’ via Whichbingo, Kellimarshall, myeveryzine, pastemagazine and Northmanspartyvamps. Hat tip to Matthew Young.

Well, we haven’t really been paying attention to Bingo through the years here on Walyou. But there is a mention to it in a funny little post about what some characters do on their day off. Some of them play bingo.

Apple TV Gets Software Update With New UI Design & iOS8 Support

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Apple TV software update image 1

Apple’s set-top box gets a new software update, a subtle new look, and a bunch of new iOS 8 features, like Family Share and more.

iOS 8 wasn't the only major software push coming from Apple this week. Apple TV also received a stealth update on Wednesday, which among other changes, included a new interface that shares its icon and font trappings from the latest iOS.

For a while the media set-top box lazy kept with the glossy icons of past Apple operating systems, but thankfully things are looking a lot more presentable; app icons such as Music, Computers and TV all have new colors that match their iOS 8 counterparts.

Several new additions from iOS 8 and the upcoming Mac operating system, OS X Yosemite, will also make their way onto AppleTV with this update, such as support for Apple's new ecosystem-wide initiative, Family Sharing, and iCould Photo.

Family Sharing lets families (of up to six people) with iTunes accounts share content like apps, iBooks, music, movies, and more, across all of their devices using iCloud, provided that they at least share the same credit card.

Lastly, the new software update introduces Beats Music, an app that's readily available on other iOS devices, yet finally makes it home here. The channel will allow Beats Music subscribers log on to their accounts and stream music from their Apple TVs.

To download the free software update, which is only limited to third-generation Apple TV boxes, users must go into the Settings channel, select General, and then select Software Update. From there the update should being its install process.

Source: Macrumors

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter! Then stick around to find out the Five Things You Might Have Missed from the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus reveal, and how the Kindle Voyage Is the Most Advanced eBook Reader Yet.

ComSonics Develops a Texting-Detecting Radar Gun

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 01:29 PM PDT

Radar Gun

Texting while driving is extremely dangerous, and certain governments decided to raise awareness of that in some very brutal ways. ComSonics took a much safer route and developed a radar gun capable of catching drivers texting.

A few years ago, an ad commissioned by the Tredegar Comprehensive School and Gwent Police depicted teens meeting their end in an extremely gruesome way, just to prove that texting while driving is a big no-no. Not long after that, the Romanian Police launched a road safety campaign that showed a feature phone’s display with the text “I said I’m sorry, what the truck!!”. The effect wasn’t as expected, as that is a really poor attempt at a word play, not to mention that the idea was stolen from Aviva. These ads (especially the first one) are meant to stay with you a very long time, and will most certainly pop into your mind if you ever think of texting while driving. The radar gun that detects texting might sound less traumatizing, but it’s also less effective.

While texting, mobile phones emit radio waves of a frequency that differs from the one used when making a phone call. Virginia-based ComSonics developed a radar gun that makes use of this very concept, but as it’s anyone’s guess that this radar is not without downsides.

The main problem with this radar gun is that the same radio frequencies are detected also while receiving, not only while sending a text. Secondly, what if the co-driver is texting? The police would still claim that the driver is guilty, even if it was a false positive. If the radar gun could be correlated with traffic cameras, then there would be no doubt that it was indeed the driver who was texting and not someone else.

Yet another issue is the emergence of personal digital assistants such as Microsoft’s Cortana, Mountain View’s Google Now or Apple’s Siri. The driver could dictate the text to be sent to the PDA, and the police would incriminate the driver wrongfully. It would be equally difficult to distinguish between the driver’s phone and the car’s own communication system. That being said, the chances of this product hitting the streets are pretty low, even though the idea itself is unique.

I guess that “Don’t text and drive” is the new “Don’t drink and drive,” as with different times, different dangers are presented to us.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Audi AR car manual and the Lamborghini Egoista, a real-life Batmobile.

Kindle Voyage Is the Most Advanced eBook Reader Yet

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 12:40 PM PDT

Kindle Voyage

With each passing year Kindle eBook readers get better and better, and this year Amazon continued to deliver. The new generation is so amazing that many call it the most advanced advanced eBook reader yet.

If last year Amazon made only a few improvements over the two year old Kindle Paperwhite, this year, the Seattle-based e-tailer decided to redesign its line of eBook readers from scratch. The screen size is probably one of the few things that remained unchanged, but other than that, the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/High-Resolution-Display-Adaptive-PagePress-Sensors/dp/B00IOY8XWQ” target=”_blank”>Kindle Voyage doesn’t have much in common with its predecessors. Among the most notable innovations there is a new Paperwhite display, a higher resolution, a new way of turning pages and adaptive front light.

Kindle Voyage features a 300 ppi micro-etched glass display that eliminates glare and mimics paper, not only when looked upon, but also while touched. At 7.6mm thick, it’s Amazon’s slimmest Kindle eBook reader yet, which means that it’s a lot more comfortable to hold in one’s hand. A light sensor has been included in order to adjust the brightness of the display to the user’s light conditions. This means that it no longer matters if you’re reading at night or in direct sunlight, as the Kindle Voyage is able to optimize its display for the best possible reading experience.

As mentioned before, an entirely new method of turning pages has been introduced, and it’s called PagePress. Users don’t even have to touch the display anymore in order to turn pages. Pressing on the bezel on the right side for the next page and on the left side for the previous page will enable people to use the Kindle Voyage single-handedly.

The new generation of Kindle eBook readers is available on Amazon. The Wi-Fi only version is $199 with special offers and $219 without, while the Wi-Fi + 3G is $269 with offers and $289 without. Many might argue that for that kind of money one could get an Android tablet with 2GB of RAM, a 2048 x 1536 display and GPS. While they might be right, I would have to remind them that eBook readers and tablets serve different purposes most of the time, and that the battery life of a tablet cannot even be compared to the six weeks provided by the Voyage reader.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Kindle solar charger that makes travelers forget about wires and the Amazon Kindle Fire phone pictures that leaked on the Internet.

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