Wedding season is upon us. For some, that means long, drawn out speeches by people you don’t really know for people you don’t really know. But before you go all Runaway Bride Julia Roberts, take a look at some of the best and funniest speeches that prove how great a wedding toast can be. In the age of making every moment a viral moment, bridesmaids and best men are adding a touch of flair to the tradition. There’s the typical ribbing on the bridal couple, but with a music routine, or a choreographed dance. Sometimes the speech is so casual, it’s haphazardly delivered from an iPhone (“O.K., everyone needs to stop calling my phone..”). To make it through wedding season, we’re all going to need a few laughs. (To keep from crying about our loneliness.) Best Wedding Speeches 1. Video: YouTube, Brian Gell 2. Video: YouTube, Chris Downey 3. Video: YouTube, Teri Kay 4. Video: YouTube, rickyste 5. Video: YouTube, kpfife 6. Video: YouTube, Andrew Gwin 7. Video: YouTube, rennyboy123 8. Video: YouTube, amyhnowak 9. Video: YouTube, Juan Carlos 10. Video: YouTube, Blake Beasley 11. Video: YouTube, bennyekmedia 12. Video: YouTube, madman808state Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/05/05/creative-wedding-speeches/
Over the past three weeks, we’ve shed light on America’s 8.3 million women-owned businesses, spurred by American Express OPEN‘s recent report, The State of Women-Owned Businesses. In our Female Founders Series, we’ve spoken with prominent female founders about their influences, their ambitions and the challenges they’ve faced, in hopes of helping other aspiring female founders to embark on the journey, or to keep going. We’ve named 44 female founders whom every entrepreneur should know, and the series has sparked quite a conversation in the comments and on social media. Now it’s your turn to ask a few of these female founders your questions — face to face. At 2 p.m., we’re going live with three female founders to talk about the entrepreneurial journey and how to build your own business. Join us at 2 p.m. for a Spreecast panel — moderated by Allison Silver, VP Brand, Advertising and Advocacy at American Express OPEN — with these accomplished women: Rachel Sklar, Founder, Change the Ratio and TheLi.st Angela Jia Kim, Founder, Om Aroma and Savor the Success Kellee Khalil, Founder and CEO, Lover.ly The Spreecast is embedded below — log in to ask questions via chat or to go on-camera with the panelists. You can also tweet your questions, but be sure to include the hashtags #FemaleFounders and #PoweringTomorrow. Thanks for joining us and for #PoweringTomorrow! Series presented by American Express OPEN The Female Founders Series is presented by American Express OPEN. For the full State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, visit openforum.com/women. American Express OPEN salutes, celebrates and wants to help fuel the future of women business owners. Join the conversation on Twitter and tell American Express OPEN how you’re #PoweringTomorrow in your community and with your business. American Express OPEN There are 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. Women-owned businesses employ 7.7 million Americans The top cities and states for women-owned businesses may surprise you. Laura Fitton, Founder, One Forty Nell Merlino, Founder, Make Mine a Million Rashmi Sinha, CEO and Co-founder, SlideShare Sandra Yancey, CEO and Co-founder, eWomenNetwork Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/08/21/female-founders-spreecast/
One New Jersey transit cop is being hailed as a hero after rescuing a man who had become trapped on the train tracks. The cop jumped into action when he heard the train rapidly approaching. You can clearly see the officer trying to pull this man to safety in the following video, since he wasn’t able or was choosing not to move on his own. It is unclear whether this was an accident that led to injury or an attempted suicide. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘VN_PG_DCBP_ATF’); }); Whatever the case might have been, this officer went above and beyond to protect and serve. Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/transit-cop-hero/
One of the things on my bucket list is to go on a spooky haunted tour. Locations like Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and New Orleans, Louisiana, are known for guiding curious tourists through the haunted portions of their cities. The Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park, Colorado, offers its own ghost tours, and it’s got the history to back up its claims. It’s more than 100 years old, and people have been talking about its spooky atmosphere since the beginning. In 1980, Stephen King famously stayed at the Stanley Hotel and had nightmares after realizing his family was the only one in the entire 142-rooms. It directly inspired “The Shining.” Youtube / Inside Edition The television shows “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Adventures” have also have filmed there due to the high paranormal activity. Youtube / Inside Edition The Stanley Hotel itself embraces its reputation and offers haunted tours on the grounds. Youtube / Inside Edition <div class="llcust" data-lltype="video" id="ll_59eaac6696b42" data-source=" Youtube / Inside Edition Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/stanley-hotel/
To be fair, Christopher Mintz-Plasse looks a lot different than he did back then. Read more: http://www.wimp.com/guy-holding-a-mclovin-sign-doesnt-notice-hes-standing-next-to-the-real-mclovin/
Google’s taking on an ambitious global initiative — using technology to expose, map and disrupt illicit networks of drug smugglers, arms dealers and human traffickers. The tech giant is hosting its second annual summit, this time called the Illicit Networks: Forces in Opposition (INFO), in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday. The INFO summit will focus on how technology can expose and disable these illegal networks. In attendance will be tech leaders, Googlers, government officials and survivors. Google says it’s been working with frontline fighter groups to gain an understanding of how these criminal trades function. The summit is part of Google Ideas — the “think/do tank” the company launched in Oct. 2010 to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems. The search giant wrote in a blog post Tuesday that it plans to take on illicit networks, expanding from its first challenge, counter-radicalization. Included in the conversations of these networks, are organ harvesting, arms trading and drug smuggling. Google hosted a Summit Against Violent Extremism one year ago, bringing together former right-wing extremists, jihadists, gang members, militants and survivors. The illegal trade of goods is no small problem, representing a trillion-dollar industry and claiming hundreds of thousands of lives annually. This year’s summit is a joint initiative from Google, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Council on Foreign Relations. Google cites a 2003 U.N. estimate that the illegal drug trade alone is worth $320 billion, totaling more than the gross domestic product of 88% of countries. It also points to the more than 50,000 causualties of the ongoing drug cartel war in Mexico over the past five years. As for specific ways Google plans to use technology to disrupt illicit networks, we’ll have to wait until the conference concludes to find out. Google doesn’t highlight any particular technologies it’s using to try to bring an end to criminal business activities. Do you have any ideas about how Google can use technology to expose illegal practices? What would you like to see come out of this summit? Let us know in the comments. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/07/17/google-drug-cartels/
Even if you don’t have a baby, you know that there are numerous “remedies” to stop them from crying. Whether it’s going for a drive, singing, or playing classical music, we’ve all heard some kind of wive’s tale on how to calm cries. The problem with these remedies is that they don’t work 100% of the time on 100% of babies. Until now. This pediatrician has a method to stop your baby from crying that seems fool-proof. Watch how easily he can comfort a whining baby — he even does it multiple times to prove how effective it is! Wow! Look how easy that was. Try it with your little babe the next time they are having a fit. Hopefully it works for you, all you have to do is shake that little booty. Turn it into a fun little dance! Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/crying-baby/
Product Name: The Impossible Instant LabPrice: $299Who would like this? Retro photographers, lovers of good design and anyone who still decorates their fridge/desk/walls with prints. Digital photography has decimated film, but that doesn’t mean no one likes to print photo anymore. Now we’re just more selective — it used to be that you needed to print out all your photos to get just the one or two you really wanted. Now photo printers and printing services let us get prints on demand. That’s great, but for those who like the look of analog film, prints from ultra-precise inkjets and laser printers can sometimes lack flavor. That’s why a group of people launched the Impossible Project in 2008. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012, the company brought to market its Impossible Lab: a curious-looking tabletop gadget that turns your iPhone photos into prints — analog, instant prints. Image: Impossible Lab, Kickstarter The lab can do this because of the work Impossible put into creating instant prints that works just like the old Polaroid ones, which ceased production in 2008. Keep that in mind if you buy the Lab as a gift — the owner will need to occasionally replenish the film supply at $20-$25 a pop. To anyone who appreciates the retro feeling of Polaroids, though, that’s a small price to pay. Paired with the iOS app, the Lab (which is battery-powered for easy portability) will pop out an instant print of any iPhone photo, which will develop in seconds once it ejects. Just hearing that click and whir will certainly bring back fond memories for lots of people. The lab folds up and is light enough (just a pound) to throw in a bag, so you can even take it to parties to show off your retro chic. For novelty’s sake along, this is a great gift for anyone who appreciates history — and great design. Image: Impossible Read more: http://mashable.com/2013/12/14/impossible-lab/
Looked at objectively, the images on Samsung’s curved, Ultra HD TV sets do live up to their name. When Samsung streams custom-made 4K content, which is four times more detailed than 1080p, on any of the sets (which range from 55-inches to a room-swallowing 105-inches), the effect is surreal (or perhaps, “hyper real”). However 4K content is still in short supply, even with all the 20th Century Fox content Samsung is promising to deliver on a 1 terabyte drive ($299). What about Joe T.V. Watcher, sitting at home with his HD feed from the local cable company? How will his picture look? We posed that question and a few others on some pressing issues facing the next big wave of HD TV technology to Samsung SVP Joe Stinziano, who spoke to Mashable shortly after the company gave a closer and more detailed look at its upcoming Ultra HD TV line, including a group of curved displays, some new 4K content options and a few new sound devices. Stinziano was also, famously, Michael Bay’s counterpart at the CES keynote that will go down in history. Standing in the cavernous Guggenheim Museum atrium, right above where Stinziano made his presentation to press, the Samsung exec promised that, thanks to some pretty intense upscaling technology, the 1080i content from your cable or fiber company will actually look better on Samsung’s UHD TVs. That sounds great. Of course, there’s no way for us to know if that’s true (Samsung has never shown the sets running a standard HD feed) until we get a UHD TV in at Mashable HQ and hook it up to a Time Warner Cable feed. Image: Mashable, Christina Ascani Stinziano also shared the based prices for the smallest UHD TV, a 55-inch $2,500 model and talked a bit about the sound limitations of these ultra-thing devices. Samsung spent some time on Thursday talking about the Shape sound system it introduced last year (they have a new design option) and the new Sound Stand, a 1.5-inch audio device that can sit under 55-inch UHD. Joe admitted that sound really needs air to be powerful and these flat TVs simply don’t provide the space. Hence, the sound systems. You can hear more of Stinziano’s comments and get a closer look at the new UHD TVs in the video above. Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/03/20/samsung-uhdtv/
