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6 Black Actresses Besides Halle Berry Who Could Play X-Men’s Storm

The casting of X-Men’s Storm has been controversial from the very start. For over a decade, the African storm goddess has been played by Halle Berry to the displeasure of fans. During this year’s San Diego Comic Con, it was revealed that Berry wanted to do a solo Storm film, but fans were not as enthusiastic as she was. Around the time of the casting of the first X-Men film, Angela Bassett was rumored to have turned down the role, making way for Berry.

Issues of skin tone were the main problem. Debates over whether Storm is a light-skinned or dark-skinned woman have overshadowed the real issues — like is Storm important to the franchise or is Berry talented enough? The answer to these questions may well be no, but there are other Black actresses who could pull off the character if given a chance:

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Naomie Harris

Harris has been in genre films since the beginning of her career. She has become famous for her roles as Selena from 28 Days Later (2005), Calypso from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and most recently she was Eve Moneypenny in Skyfall (2012) and the upcoming Spectre (2015). Harris manages to be strong and beautiful at the same time — a feature Storm possesses.

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IBM Has Made a Computer Chip That’s Nanometers Small; See Why That’s a Big Deal

IBM announces — as it just did — that it has created one of the most advanced processors on the planet, with parts that are barely bigger than a strand of DNA. The chip will reportedly be four times as powerful as today’s top-shelf processors, at roughly half the size.

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Source: www.yahoo.com

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Sony Xperia Z3 Plus Is a Cool Addition to the Smartphone Market

Sony has been actively adding more new Android phones to an already crowded market. This year, Sony launched the Xperia Aqua M4 and the Xperia C4 earlier this year in India. The Sony Xperia Z3 Plus is an updated model of last year’s release.

It features 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage that has around 18GB of free space for music and apps, and there is a micro sd slot for more space. Because of the phone’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC, operation is smooth and fast.

According to writer Nimish Sawant for Firstpost.com, “Proprietary apps such as Album, Video, Whats New, Lifelog, PlayStation, Xperia Care, Sony Live are complemented with other known ones such as LinkedIn, Kobo Books, AVG Protection and game bundles.”

Compared to Xperia Z3, the Z3 Plus still has a heating issue that comes from large apps and games. The phone continues to heat up even after a year to upgrade. Sony will have to address this issue next time around. The phone makes up for that with long battery life and an awesome camera.

Even though heating up is an issue, the phone’s best feature is the camera. The back camera has a 20.7MP Exmor RS sensor and the front 1/5-inch Exmor R sensor that can capture high resolution either way you turn your phone. There is even a 25mm wide-angle lens.

The Xperia Z3 Plus isn’t a cheap buy, but it is worth its $500 to $700 price tag. The phone is available everywhere.

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‘Rise of the Tomb Raider’ Hitting PS4 and Other Formats Next Year

The next installment of the Tomb Raider franchise, Rise of the Tomb Raider, will be available only on Xbox 360 and Xbox One when it is released in November. However, in a July 23 announcement, the gaming publisher Square Enix has revealed that the game will be available to PC users, Steam and the PlayStation 4 in 2016.

“Renowned developer Crystal Dynamics, a Square Enix studio, is leading development in the latest entry in the iconic series for additional platforms,” according to the released statement.

The game begins where the 2013 Tomb Raider game left off. Lara Croft is now in Siberia searching for the ancient city Kitezh in order to find the secrets behind immortality. As she navigates through the wilderness, she will be facing off with Trinity and the forces of nature as well.

Here is a snippet of the gameplay released during E3:

Source: YouTube/Game Spot

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6 Books for Black Teens That Can Coincide with the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

The African American experience in this country is a winding road with peaks and valleys. Sometimes our schools fail to explore all the nuances and just give basic facts without real substance. To remedy this, there are a plethora of books written by Black writers that dig deep and go further than any classroom history lesson could.

As police brutality and the #Blacklivesmatter movement engulfs the public consciousness, teens and young adults are awake to the world, cultural appropriation, and other areas of Black history. Here are six books to check out.

 

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The Mis-Education of the Negro By Carter G. Woodson

The synopsis from Amazon states: “The thesis of Dr. Woodson’s book is that African-Americans of his day were being culturally indoctrinated, rather than taught, in American schools. This conditioning, he claims, causes African-Americans to become dependent and to seek out inferior places in the greater society of which they are a part. He challenges his readers to become autodidacts and to “do for themselves,” regardless of what they were taught.”

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‘Jessica Jones’ Co-Creator Raves About the New Netflix Series

Netflix’s upcoming Jessica Jones series will be a new addition to Marvel’s ever expanding universe.

Krysten Ritter plays the title character, Jessica Jones, and Mike Colter plays Jones’ significant other and hero in his own right, Luke Cage. In November 2001, comic writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos introduced the former super heroine turned private investigator in Alias #1 to the Marvel universe.

Luke Cage will be introduced in the series and then he will have his own series soon after. Cage was a prison inmate and the government used him to as an experimental guinea pig. In their efforts, they turned the man into an invulnerable and impenetrable wall. Now he has bullet proof skin and works as a hero for hire.

In a long Tumblr post, Bendis answered a fan’s concern for the series.

“The show is so good. I have seen the first couple of episodes and because I didn’t work on it directly I can say this with full no ego fanfare: I loved it!! and believe me, I was going to be the hardest on it.  Harder than any of you. Jessica is a part of my DNA. A bad Jessica Jones show would have hurt me deeply. BUT it is faithful and lively and everything that I could personally have wanted from the show.  the mean streets of marvel Netflix from a different perspective than Matt’s but at the same time… it all fits.  just like the comics on their best day. and just like Netflix DD, the look of the show is cracklin’ noir but with its own palette.”

Over the past month, the series has been picking up steam with multiple set photos being released and increasing media coverage.

The show is set to air later this year. Below are some of the released set photos.

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China Plans for a “Moon Base” on Unexplored Far Side by 2018

As more new discoveries about Pluto come from the New Horizons spacecraft flyby, China has announced a mission closer to earth. The nation plans to begin exploring the far side of the moon starting in 2018 at the earliest.

“The country submitted their preliminary report to the United Nations Office for Outerspace Affairs indicating that it has plans of launching an unmanned mission to the moon with the spacecraft Chang’E-4 by 2018 or 2019. The probe will lay the groundwork for what would be China’s lunar base,” reports Rachel Cruz for Headlines and Global News.

Back in 2013, China successful pulled off its first moon landing. The nation’s moon lander, Chang 3 and rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit) were able to explore and take photos of the moon, making China the third country in history to land on the earth’s natural satellite.

CNSA (China’s equivalent to NASA) will go back in three to four years to explore using a new lander called Chang 4, then the country intends to establish a base as an observational outpost to observe the solar system. China is also optimistic that the base could serve as a station for manned missions further in the solar system.

According to International Business Times writer Darwin Malicdem, “China stated that the project is open for cooperating with other nations exploring the space, particularly with ESA for future lunar missions, as the latter has proposed building a ‘lunar village’ recently.”

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10 Female Horror Writers Worth Checking Out

Sci-fi and horror writers like Octavia Butler, Virginia Hamilton, N. K. Jemisin, and Tananarive Due have been featured on Blerds before and have become major symbols for diversity in these genres. Their writing has influenced others and their works have spread like wildfire. In a genre like horror where white males dominate, there are new voices that are out there changing the landscape for the better and adding much needed perspective.  Here are some of those voices.

7045687391_63f9cdfd2cLinda D. Addison

Addison is a poet and short story writer that focuses on the supernatural. She is the first Black person to win a Bram Stroker Award. In fact, the author has won three Bram Stroker Awards for her poetry collections, “Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes” in 2001, “Being Full of Light, Insubstantial” in 2007 and “How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend” in 2012.

new-jemiah-200pxJemiah Jefferson

Jefferson is a contemporary horror writer but she has also written erotic fiction in the early days of her career. Jefferson is currently a comic/manga editor in the editorial department at Dark Horse Comics where she has worked on comics including “Emily the Strange.” Some of her novels include Mixtape for the Apocalypse (2011) and Voice of the Blood (2011).

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