Rams reportedly “targeting” Carson Wentz now that they have top pick

Now that they own the first pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, the Rams can have any quarterback they want.
And they seem to have a preference.
According to Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, the Rams are “targeting“North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz in making the deal with the Titans for the top pick.
While Cal’s Jared Goff is considered by many a more turn-key player, Wentz may have more potential.
If nothing else, Hollywood loves a good story, and dropping a kid from an FCS school who was born in Bismarck into the middle of the league’s return to Los Angeles will be a good one.
We’ll find out if it’s the right one, but Case Keenum’s hold on that starting job was tenuous anyway.
UPDATE 10:00 a.m. ET: Farmer has followed up by saying Goff is “still heavily in the mix,” and the Rams are “leaning” Wentz.

Source :Profootballtalk.nbcsports.com

Read More

Villanova Wipes Out Oklahoma and a Record to Reach the Title Game

The junior Josh Hart (3) shot 10 of 12 from the field and led Villanova with 23 points. The Wildcats, seeking their first national title since 1985, limited the Oklahoma star Buddy Hield to 9 points. Credit Eric Gay/Associated Press

HOUSTON — In a 95-51 demolition of Oklahoma on Saturday night, Villanova not only punched its ticket to the national title game but also set a standard for Final Four blowouts. Through 78 Final Fours — dating to the first, in 1939, which also featured the Wildcats and the Sooners — 44 points is the largest margin of victory.

That includes games involving the U.C.L.A. teams that were part of seven straight national championships; Bob Knight’s great Indiana teams; the high-scoring 1991 Nevada-Las Vegas team; the Duke team that beat that U.N.L.V. team. Whichever great college team is sepia-sketched in your memory as historically dominant, know that it did not do what Villanova did Saturday.

Consider Bill Russell. Bill Bradley. Bill Walton. Many great college basketball players not named Bill: Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Anthony Davis. None have participated in so spectacular a rout.

“They made shots,” Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield said after his final college game. “We were trying to find a way to make shots. They just played terrific tonight.”

The second-seeded Wildcats (34-5) indeed made shots: 11 of 18 3-point attempts, a 61.1 percent accuracy rate, and 35 of 49 over all from the field, or 71.4 percent. Villanova’s field-goal percentage was the second highest in Final Four history, surpassed only by that of the 1985 Villanova team, a No. 8 seed that upset Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in the title game.

Hield entered Saturday’s game as the second-leading scorer and most effective 3-point shooter in Division I. In his senior year, he built on catch-and-shoot wing play that had led to his being named the Big 12 player of the year as a junior. Hield added the ability to create shots off the dribble, whether by driving to the hoop or by taking step-back 3-point jumpers that have drawn comparisons to Stephen Curry’s game.

But nearly as impressive as Villanova’s offensive attack was its defensive performance. The Wildcats held Hield to 9 points — his second-lowest total of the season — on 4-for-12 shooting, with just one 3-pointer.

Photo

Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, left, on Saturday. Villanova, seeking its first national title since 1985, limited him to 9 points. Credit Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Villanova’s frantic defense — sometimes pressing, sometimes man-to-man, sometimes zone, always aggressive — flustered the Sooners.

Hield seemed to receive more open looks in the second half, but he struggled to convert them, missing all three of his 3-point attempts.

Oklahoma (29-8) was not exactly a surprise entrant in the Final Four. It was a No. 2 seed that had already knocked off No. 3-seeded Texas A&M and No. 1-seeded Oregon. The Sooners had even beaten Villanova by 28 points in December. On Saturday, with Villanova creating 17 turnovers and holding Oklahoma 29 points under its average of 80 per game, that earlier game felt as if from the Mesozoic Era.

Villanova players had spent several days telling anyone who would listen that no matter how well known the team’s four-guard, perimeter-oriented offensive sets were, and no matter how much flashier 3-pointers and fast breaks might be, defense was what made the Wildcats tick.

“We don’t care too much about offense,” Mikal Bridges, a redshirt freshman, said recently, adding: “Us stepping up on defense is just the biggest thing. I’d rather have that than just making shots.”

After Saturday’s game, the junior Josh Hart said: “Obviously we love when we can hit shots. But this program is really built on just dialing in defensively, being tough.”

Source: Nytimes.com

Read More

Spotlight: For Crestwood game-maker, finish line brings joy to loss

Races are run in stages and on various courses, and everyone’s ends at a different time.
For Kim and Ryan McDaniel, they snagged one of the dreams they chased when they started Across The Board, a company that manufactures board games.
In their first nine years of marriage, as she worked in marketing and he toiled in construction, the south St. Louis County couple would sit on their patio and talk about being their own bosses.
They were not, however, exactly sure what they would be the boss of, until 2008.
That’s when Ryan’s mother introduced them to a board game with a horse-racing theme at a family game night.
Ryan, a well-known perfectionist and woodworking hobbyist, immediately disliked the game.
“He didn’t like that it didn’t take into account the odds of rolling certain dice; he didn’t like the way it was built; and there were other things he didn’t like,” she said with a smile.
So some days later, he went into the garage, found some good wood and created his own game. Then he made a few copies for family and friends.
“I saw how much everyone enjoyed it, so I had him make some more and we took about 50 games to a craft fair in Kimmswick.
“Ryan thought it was the dumbest idea ever,” she said, “until we sold all 50.”
And they were off to the races: website created (acrosstheboardgame.com), woodworking equipment bought, catalogs contacted, sales completed, day jobs surrendered and, by 2012, space rented in a Crestwood industrial park.

 

 

 

They added a baseball game and a hockey game to their sports-games lineup. Then in mid-2013, their games became available through the Uncommon Goods catalog.
“Our next step was getting licensing agreements so we could put sports logos on the games,” said Kim, who studied business at Southwest Missouri State and earned an MBA from Fontbonne.

But so often, the course twists without warning.
“Ryan felt a lump in his lower abdomen. He thought it was a hernia from lifting a heavy board in the workshop,” Kim said. “It was Stage 4 colon cancer.”
“There were no other symptoms, there’s no history of it in his family,” she said and shrugged. “The doctor said it was just bad luck.”
Leave it to family to fall in beside you at times like these, showing up at the warehouse to fill the large number of orders for the 2013 holidays.
And Ryan kept running. He weathered an emergency surgery and 31 chemotherapy treatments, and came to work almost every day.
But on May 28, 2015, Ryan’s race ended at age 44, leaving behind a wife, a business and three young children: Ayden, Mallory and Jake.
So Kim runs harder. “It was never a ‘quit’ type of thing,” she said. “There’s three kids to take care of and a business to run. You can’t stop.”
Kim and her brother-in-law, Bill Wilson, now run the company, which employs five other people.
“My Aunt Jeannie (Dobrynski) is still here. She still hand paints all the holes on the Chinese checkerboards we make,” Kim said.
But one more goal needed to be run down, one that had been lost in the whirlpool of Ryan’s cancer: sports licensing.
So in January, Kim traveled to Las Vegas and met with the people who license Kentucky Derby items. She got permission to sell the horse-race game, which had been redesigned by Ryan to be on an oval board.
“So this is his legacy, this game,” she said, pointing to a small “RMM” symbol that graces the lower left corner of each game box.
As for this Kentucky Derby on May 7, which is Mother’s Day weekend, Kim will give herself the gift of taking it all to the tape.
“I’m going to be there,” Kim said. “They’ll be selling the games in the gift shop, and I want to see them there.”

Read More

Stakes High as Tesla Gets Ready to Pull the Wraps Off Model 3

Tesla fans around the world queued up to add their names to a reservation list in anticipation of Tesla Motors' planned Thursday night unveiling of its Model 3. The long-awaited new addition to the Tesla line is a more affordable sedan that targets not just early adopters, but a larger audience of luxury car owners.

Company founder Elon Musk has shared key details in advance of the reveal. The Model 3 will offer a 200-mile range and will come with a US$35,000 sticker price -- which could drop to around $27,500 after tax credits.
The Model 3 is expected to arrive by late 2017.

Electrifying the Masses

The Model 3 is poised to be a game changer for the company, which has developed a cult following but so far has failed to break out to the masses. Tesla reportedly sold just 42,000 vehicles in the United States in 2014 and 2015, and while it has announced plans to sell some 90,000 Model S and Model X cars this year, it is still far from going mainstream.
The Model 3 could change that, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.
"This is Tesla's first affordable car falling into a segment and size far more attractive to a far wider range of buyers," he told TechNewsWorld.

"This takes them far closer to a mainstream auto company," Enderle said.
"So the hope is this breaks them out," he added. "The risk is that this far higher volume will overwhelm the existing stressed charging ecosystem, particularly the critical -- for Tesla drivers -- superchargers."

Taxing Issues

Tax credits are meant to entice early adopters, but they aren't open ended. Nor is Tesla alone in utilizing the federal tax credits to help attract buyers to electric vehicles. Moreover, the tax credits are available only for the first 200,000 vehicles from a manufacturer and are phased out as sales increase. Thus, Tesla's potential success could impact those credits and the savings for its buyers.
"There is still space in the market, but this vehicle has the potential to be higher volume in sales," said Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst at IHS Automotive.
"It is an important point but could be a ways before we see the credits go away," she told TechNewsWorld.
More importantly, the $30,000 price point would apply only to the most basic models, so many would-be buyers should expect to pay more for added features.
"As with any luxury automobile, there can be a price ladder that means a $15,000 to $18,000 increase from base to top," Brinley added. "As a result, the entry level may not be the largest-selling vehicle anyway."

High Expectations

Despite the fact that the costs for the Tesla Model 3 could exceed the budgets of many consumers, there is still the potential for considerable interest.
"Tesla has become the Apple of the motorcar industry; just as people trust Apple with the latest thing, Tesla is filling that space when it comes to cars," said Peter Harrop, chairman of IDTechEx.
"For the masses, it has been that only rich people could buy one, but now the Tesla is becoming something closer to what they can afford," he told TechNewsWorld.
"There is still excitement because this is about a Tesla that is more affordable than the other models," noted IHS Automotive's Brinley. "However, it may be difficult to maintain the hype after the initial orders have been placed, and that pace may be hard to maintain."

Beyond the Luxury

For Tesla to succeed, it has to widen its potential audience, especially as it seeks to reach profitability, she added. The Model 3 could set the automaker on the right path, but it could still be a long road ahead.
"It would be less critical if it wasn't aimed at the mainstream, but right now Tesla is at a point where it has to reach profitability sooner than later," Brinley said.
"One of the important things is for Tesla to generate buzz and cash flow, but to succeed they have to bring in non-luxury buyers -- especially in 2019 and 2020 when the hype from the Model 3 dies down," she noted.
That presents another challenge for the automaker.
"This means coming from upmarket to downmarket, and that doesn't immediately work because they don't have the economy of scale to do something for the everyman," said Harrop.
"It will be interesting to see if Elon Musk can manage to do this, which is a major leap for any luxury brand," he added. "In industrial terms, companies normally upmarket from a downmarket, and for Tesla it means going from luxury to masses -- and that will be tricky to pull off."


Source: www.technewsworld.com

Read More

Latest iOS Upgrade Drives Users Buggy

Apple has been deluged with complaints from users who say the latest version of its mobile operating system is breaking links and crashing apps.

"Following iOS 9.3 on iPhone 6splus update links in safari no longer open, then safari crashes -- any ideas how to fix? Same problem in Chrome," user John MacDonald posted Monday on Apple's support page on Twitter.
Another user, Armando Couri Filho, had similar problems. "My IPhone 6 is not opening links from Safari, Mail and WhatsApp. What should I do?" he asked Apple support.
"Clicking on links in the new iOS update causes safari to freeze. I've had to switch to using @googlechrome and @firefox," noted Ohanes Kalayjian.
What's causing the problem with links in iOS 9.3? So far, Apple has been mum on the subject, but according to one news report, the issue could be with Universal Links, which Apple introduced in iOS 9.0.

Universal Headache?

Universal Links allow Web links to be opened directly from within apps running under iOS without first opening Apple's Web browser, Safari.
The Universal Links are stored in a database in iOS, and if an app contains too many, they will crash not only the app, but Safari too, according to TechCrunch.
However, that doesn't explain why apps without any Universal Links are crashing, nor does it explain other problems, such as iOS refusing to verify updates because it says a device is not connected to the Internet when clearly it is.
For users who have installed the new version of iOS, there doesn't seem to be a quick fix. Turning off JavaScript in Safari has helped some users, but not all, BGR reported. Others have avoided the problem by using Google's Chrome browser, but that too seems to be an inconsistent fix.
Of course, unlike with some desktop operating systems that allow an update to be rolled back to a previous version that worked fine, once most users commit to a new version of iOS, there's no turning back.
There are good reasons for that no-rollback policy, noted Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
"Many more times than not, the latest software is safer and better," he told TechNewsWorld.
What's more, "backgrades are very complex and if not done precisely, the backgrade could break all functionality," Moorhead added.

More Regression Testing Needed

Kevin Krewell, an analyst with Tirias Research, has the new iOS running on his iPhone and hasn't experienced any problems with it yet, he said.
However, "any time there's a major change in an operating system, there's always the risk of problems," he told TechNewsWorld
"I would be concerned that Apple is not doing enough regression testing on applications to catch these things before they ship new software," Krewell said.
Although Apple always has touted its commitment to software excellence, the latest iOS fumble may be a sign it's succumbing to the pressures plaguing all software makers, according to Moorhead.
"Apple should take a look at their development process as insiders are starting to question their commitment to software quality," he said.
"Apple is racing top speed across many different, complex platforms, and every software developer, including Microsoft and Google, are issuing software with bugs," Moorhead continued.
"The whole software industry has taken a fast-fail approach to get code out and let users find fixes," he said. "This is particularly happening in consumer environments."

Too Many Apps

Given the size of Apple's app ecosystem, the problem of getting everything to work right is a mighty one for the company, which released seven beta versions of iOS 9.3 before sending it to users.
"It's hard when your ecosystem is so large, but they should have stats on which apps are most popular and test for those," Krewell said.
"Part of the problem is the amplification of software. There are so many different apps, it's getting harder and harder for Apple to keep track of the a

pps you have on your phone," he added."While it is true that OS updates need to go through intense scrutiny before being pushed to customers, it's sometimes impossible to test for all in-the-wild scenarios," added Adrian Liviu Arsene, a senior threat analyst with Bitdefender.
"The issue here," he said, "is how fast will Apple fix the bug, how many apps trigger the crash, and whether it will persist even after the fix."

Source : www.technewsworld.com

Read More