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On Thursday, High Fidelity announced an investment in Linden Research, Inc. (Linden Lab) to scale Second Life’s popular virtual world further. Philip Rosedale, the founder of both companies who is considered a metaverse pioneer, said he would be rejoining Second Life as a strategic advisor to aid in the expansion. “No one has come close to building a virtual world like Second Life,” Rosedale said in a statement. “Second Life has managed to create both a positive, enriching experience for its residents – with room for millions more to join – and built a thriving subscription-based business at the same time....

In news that’s not quite so new, former stars of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are feuding. Last week, Colton Underwood took a jab at Rachel Lindsay on Instagram. While Lindsay didn’t comment on Underwood’s obvious beef with her, former Bachelorette and current contestant on Dancing With the Stars Hannah Brown weighed in on the drama. It all started when the leading lady of Season 13 of The Bachelorette, Lindsay, appeared on an episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen last week....

Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series served audiences little hints in nearly every corner of his three-season series, even through the episode titles in each season, which share a theme. Hannibal ran on NBC from 2013-2015, and fans are still hopeful for a fourth season, which Fuller claims is not a lost cause. The series was based off books by author Thomas Harris - Hannibal, Red Dragon, and Hannibal Rising - whose work served as inspiration for The Silence of the Lambs, which starred Anthony Hopkins as the iconic Dr....

This week, Zac and Benjamin discuss the recent Apple event and all of the announcements that came from it. There’s a new 4-inch iPhone SE and a 9.7-inch iPad Pro, but what’s all the hype about? The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/254626829″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /] New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. As mentioned, you can download this podcast via iTunes or plug in our RSS feed link into your favorite podcasting app....

When we look back on our school days, it’s usually with all kinds of mixed emotions. Yes, they’re supposed to be the Best Days Of Your Life™, but the truth is, that’s a bit of a rose-tinted view. Sure, it was a carefree, friendship-making time, and adult responsibilities hadn’t hit us like several dumpsters full of angry cement yet. That’s all pretty darn great. However, it was also a time of youthful broken hearts and hilarious fashion and/or hairstyle decisions that came back to bite us on the cheeks later (think Ross’s afro in the Friends flashback episodes)....

Harry Potter may have wrapped up its books and movies many years ago, but the franchise is still one of the most popular in pop culture history. New fans are discovering the books, films, and merchandise every day; old fans are always reliving the classic story. “Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” And indeed it is. However, even though many fans do enjoy watching the movies — droves of people watch them on TV all the time — there are some scenes the films just got incredibly wrong....

Severus Snape is a rather controversial character from Harry Potter. While reading the books, it’s easy to dislike him as everything is seen from Harry’s perspective, but in the end, he’s given a redemption arc. Even with this arc, however, many fans felt that his overall actions still made him a bad person while others argued that he was a good guy overall despite having some flaws. Whether you’re a fan of Snape or not, there are some things he did that weren’t very redeemable and some he did that were....

What is HBase? HBase is an open-source, column-oriented distributed database system in a Hadoop environment. Initially, it was Google Big Table, afterward; it was renamed as HBase and is primarily written in Java. Apache HBase is needed for real-time Big Data applications. HBase can store massive amounts of data from terabytes to petabytes. The tables present in HBase consist of billions of rows having millions of columns. HBase is built for low latency operations, which is having some specific features compared to traditional relational models....

No book-to-film adaptation is perfect, but for a long time, Harry Potter fans have felt that The Philosopher’s Stone was the closest to perfect that fandom got. The film honored the integrity of the book and even lifted dialogue directly from the source material. It also did a good job of launching the movie fandom — without the success of The Philosopher’s Stone, the rest of the movies might never have been made....

Sirius Black’s first appearance in the Harry Potter franchise struck fear into the hearts of countless witches, wizards, and even Muggles. He is known in the Wizarding World as the traitor who turned James and Lily Potter over to the Dark Lord, leaving behind little orphan Harry. He is also allegedly the one who ended the lives of twelve innocent Muggle bystanders, along with a friend from school named Peter Pettigrew....

One of the things that makes the Harry Potter series so successful is the variety of interesting characters. Some of these characters are overall good and some are overall bad, but they are all rather complex. Even the good characters have their moments where they make mistakes and do some unethical things. Many of the characters in the series are good at twisting the truth to fit their needs or just prone to outright lie to get what they want....

As it turns out, a fresh new leak allegedly coming from inside MediaTek research facilities suggests that the new Helio X20 chip runs at lower temperatures compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810. However, do note that this isn’t coming officially from MediaTek, as we’re talking about a leak. Who knows, maybe these tests are meant to be internal, but only time will tell if MediaTek wants to make this official....

The single biggest omission from Kingdom Hearts III was the lack of characters from the Final Fantasy series, which were once an integral part of the franchise. It turns out that there was a reason why the established Final Fantasy characters were absent from Kingdom Hearts III and it has to do with the amount of content that had to be covered in the story. The biggest selling point of the original Kingdom Hearts was that it combined characters from both the Final Fantasy video game series and the animated movies and TV shows produced by Disney....

2018 was a truly massive year for Hollywood movies, with several astounding record-breakers at the worldwide box office. But which films ultimately reigned supreme? And which have sneakily made bank? Here are the biggest movies of the year. 2018 got off to a great start via the mega success of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther, which earned over $1.3 billion worldwide. Black Panther is now the highest-grossing MCU film to date domestically, and the third-highest worldwide, behind only the first two Avengers films....

WWDC is right around the corner, and you can definitely expect some interesting changes with iOS 9 and OS X 10.11. This week we discuss some of those changes, along with some new features for the next iPhone. Also, it looks like Jony Ive has moved on from his position as Senior Vice President of Design at Apple. What is he up to now? The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed…...

Not content with its usual opening up of pre-orders before the new iPhones go on sale, Apple has this year added pre-pre-order functionality to both website and Apple Store app in the US. Under a link labelled ‘Get ready for pre-order,’ Apple allows you to enter your account details (phone number, zip code and last four digits of social security number) to find out exactly what your upgrade will cost you....

Seems there’s nothing that can’t be turned into an iPhone game these days – including playing your part to help Hillary Clinton get elected, should that be your thing. Hillary 2016 is an app released last night by the Hillary for America campaign. The gamification aspect provides ‘daily challenges’ which offer digital and real-life rewards, and allow Clinton supporters to compete against their friends … The only thing standing between Donald Trump and the presidency is us....

A growing number of hotels are now allowing people to use their iPhone (and in some cases, Apple Watch) to unlock their doors. The Hilton hotel group, which first started experimenting with the technology three years ago, says that the security of the system is now firmly proven … It says that the smartphone unlocking system is now in use in around 1,700 hotels across the US and Canada, notching up 11m uses so far, without a single breach....

Dumbledore has some of the best quotes of any of the characters from Harry Potter. Considering all he has been through in his life and his age when the series is happening, it’s no wonder he has a lot of insight to offer. Many of Dumbledore’s most illuminating quotes have to do with magic. Dumbledore has a lot of knowledge about magic that is deeper than just wand waving, and he also sees the magic in other things in life such as music and relationships....

Dumbledore’s Army was made up of many of Harry Potter’s classmates from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hogwarts students banded together in secret to train with Harry on how to fight dark wizards and learn to defend themselves in the wake of Voldemort’s return. While all of the members of Dumbledore’s Army had something to offer in the fight against evil, some of them were more powerful than others....