GoPro already conquered the video camera market, and now it’s diving into virtual reality.
Source: www.money.cnn.com
GoPro’s CEO Gives an Intriguing Answer to Why His Company Is the Leading Tech in the Video Space
The Strength of These Tiny Robots Is Nothing Short of Amazing
Source: www.liveleak.com
What Akon Is Doing to Change the Course of Energy Needs in Africa Is Truly Amazing
At the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Forum on May 21, R&B star Akon announced the creation of a “solar academy” in Mali, adding job training to his company’s work bringing solar power to rural communities around the continent.
Source: Andrew Revkin
Doc Nama Makes an Incredibly Interesting Connection Between Artistic Intention and Creativity
Adilifu Nama, Chair of the African American Studies Department at Loyola Marymount University.
How I Began to Connect to Hip-Hop
Recently, I explored golden age hip-hop MCs in order to gain a better appreciation of hip-hop music and culture. After listening to 14 albums from female and male MCs and recognizing their impact on MCs today, I’ve come to realize that hip-hop music and culture have been miseducated to some listeners today. This is especially true when it comes to what it means to be a Black woman and a Black man.
Until last year, I hated hip-hop music and culture because I was taught by mainstream media that hip-hop had a certain image you had to aspire to. From middle school to ninth grade, I felt pressured to listen to hip-hop music whose subjects were either materialism, a new dance craze or sex.
As a girl, I also felt pressured to be a hip-hop cheerleader for misogynoir-filled songs like Jay Z’s “99 Problems” and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” In high school, I would realize that Black men were pressured to aspire to an image of materialism and violence through these songs and others.
By ninth grade, I would realize that there wasn’t any hip-hop music that reflected my experiences as a Black girl. I was different from most girls because I was nerdy and artsy. I felt alienated from my Black peers, ashamed of who I was and unsure of who I could be. Since I couldn’t see my experiences reflected in hip-hop music, I found refuge in alternative rock bands like Evanescence and Linkin Park.
I wouldn’t find hip-hop music I could relate to until 2012. At that time, I would discover Angel Haze, an underground female MC. After admiring her raw honesty in her cover of Eminem’s “Cleanin Out My Closet,” I decided to explore her mixtapes and spoken word poetry.
One mixtape called “Reservation” had songs that changed my life. “Smile N Hearts” perfectly captured the sense of alienation, self-hatred and hope that I had been feeling up to that point. In addition, the song showed me that hip-hop could be poetic through a beautiful and frank interlude without music.
Read more at www.blackgirlnerds.com
5 Notable Signs You Are Addicted to Gaming
You Ensure Access to Your Games on Every Device
Every gamer has to have a contingency plan. Just as I’m sure you won’t catch Bear Grylls in the middle of a jungle without a camera crew to film all his awesomeness as he eats bugs in the name of survival, so too will you never catch a real gamer without access to a compendium of games. Visiting Grandma this weekend and have a six-hour car ride ahead of you? Betta’ have that emulator installed on the Android. Ain’t no way you’ll catch me trapped anywhere tryin’ to deal with my inner thoughts and welling up with depressing emotion cause I don’t have access to at least one game that’s gettin’ the treatment right about then. Real gamers do whatever they have to not only to have access to gaming greatness to pass the time that usually is used for self-loathing by lesser people of the world, but also game saves. You’d better invest in that $10 a month for 1TB of cloud storage from Dropbox and sync those game saves because the only thing worse than not having access to your gaming library at any given point, is not having access to your last save point and being forced to start all over after you’ve already gotten into the swing of a game.
This Starfleet Machine Is Modeled After an Intergalactic Spaceship And Is the Coolest Time-Keeper You Will Ever See
Designed by MB&F, Starfleet Machine is engineered and crafted by L’Epée 1839, Switzerland’s only remaining specialized high-end clock manufacturer, founded in 1839. Starfleet Machine is modeled after an intergalactic spaceship, featuring hours and minutes, double retrograde seconds and power reserve indicator. The highly visible, exceptionally finished in-house movement boasts a remarkable power reserve of 40 days. We partnered with MB&F and L’Epée to create and distribute this distinctive version of the Starfleet Machine table clock that features bright blue domes that give it an extra dimension and a pop of color.
Source: www.vimeo.com
Can This New Initiative Spark the Next Generation of Black Male Entrepreneurs?
The U.S. Black Chambers Inc. has launched an initiative to nurture the next generation of young Black male entrepreneurs, with a focus on closing the economic gap and providing positive role models in the community.
On Tuesday, Howard Jean, chief engineer of Young Black Male Entrepreneur Institute; Keith Benjamin, chief organizer/connector of Young Black Male Entrepreneur Institute, and Ben Carter, CEO of Manager Your Damn Money and former participant in the institute, joined Roland Martin on NewsOne Now to talk about the initiative aimed at developing new Black male entrepreneurs.
Source: www.newsone.com
This Just Might Be the ‘Safest Bike Ever’ Devised, But Will It See Commercial Success?
A British inventor says his Babel bike is the safest bicycle ever produced. Crispin Sinclair — son of famous British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair — hopes the bike’s safety cage, double seatbelt, and host of other measures will inspire non-cyclists to get in the saddle. Jim Drury went to see it in action.
Meet Two Best-Selling Black Indie Authors
Meet New York Times and USA Today best-selling fantasy writers Terah Edun and Lola StVil. These two African-American women are taking the indie publishing world by storm. It sounds so simple. Write a book and upload it on Amazon for free, then wait for the money to roll in. Unfortunately, indie publishing isn’t the gold rush many thought it would be. In fact, in today’s overly saturated indie publishing market, less than 10 percent of writers can make a living crafting a story. Of that 10 percent, only a handful of them are writers of color.
Edun and StVil are not only defying the odds but these women are managing to thrive. In the past three years, they have sold over 500,000 copies of their respective fantasy series by being among the new group of indie authors: savvy, businesspeople with the goal to make their books as well-known as Amanda Hocking and Veronica Roth or, dare we say it, the next black J.K. Rowling.
Yet for these two women, what’s more important than ranking, or even royalties, is the satisfaction of knowing they are adding diversity to an otherwise homogenous landscape that is indie publishing. They insist on adding diversity throughout their fictional worlds and making sure that people of color are represented.
Often readers hear about the next big Black authors through word of mouth. If you ask your mother she might suggest you read one of Steve Harvey’s books or if she’s really into science fiction then Octavia Butler is the next name to come to her lips.
But what about the young, hip authors? Where do you find these authors when your shelves are dry? Goodreads! Amazon Bestsellers Lists! But word of mouth can also be gold. StVil and Edun are here to talk about their stories with diverse casts of characters and success as self-published authors with 500,000 books sold between them.
But before we get to the special one-on-one interview between these two authors, here’s a little more about these women and their journeys.
They’ve hit The New York Times and USA Today best-selling lists and managed to enrapture readers in the process. The idea of writing and publishing a book sounds so simple. But it’s not. Not anymore. Not with the advent of self-publishing where the author is either in charge of, or working with contractors to complete, cover design, formatting, editing, accounting, social media and publishing. Not to mention the primary task – WRITING.
After you upload the final production onto your retail distributor … well then comes the hard part. You can’t just wait for the money to roll in. Being a successful self-publishing author is about being a multi-faceted entrepreneur day-in and a day-out.
Read the interview and more at www.blackgirlnerds.com