Tag: killer

A Killer App For The Metaverse? Fill It With AI Avatars Of Ourselves – So We Don’t Need To Go There
AI, TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

A Killer App For The Metaverse? Fill It With AI Avatars Of Ourselves – So We Don’t Need To Go There

Big numbers coming. Microsoft’s US$75 billion (£55 billion) acquisition of Activision Blizzard has landed – true to Call of Duty vernacular – “like a bomb” on the US$200 billion revenue video games industry. It heavily arms the Xbox giant for its vision of the metaverse, in which gaming is the marketing adrenaline of this much-touted online future that is to be experienced immersively through virtual reality (VR) headsets or augmented-reality (AR) glasses. The stock market knocked US$10 billion off Playstation maker Sony’s valuation on the news. The metaverse was also a big noise at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, branded “tech’s hottest trend” by Variety magazine. Product launches included Samsung’s new VR world My House, offering virtual home makeovers; a...
How Media Freedom Led To Conviction In His Killer’s Trial – The Other George Floyd Story
IN OTHER NEWS

How Media Freedom Led To Conviction In His Killer’s Trial – The Other George Floyd Story

When 17-year-old Darnella Frazier started recording video of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd, she initiated a series of historic events that led to Chauvin’s conviction. But for all the discussion of technology following her actions – how cellphones enable video recording of police abuse and how social media encourages instantaneous mass distribution – the key factor in George Floyd’s name becoming globally famous may not be Frazier’s cellphone. It may not even be social media. It was the culture and tradition of U.S. civil liberties and media freedom that played an essential role in protecting Frazier’s ability to record and retain possession of the video, and the capability of commercial corporations to publish it. Had the same events transpired in China, Sa...
IN OTHER NEWS

Detectives grill serial killer Samuel Little, close cold cases

Little, the most prolific serial killer in US history, has confessed to killing more than 90 women across the US. Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles [File: Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo] Keep him talking, don't interrupt him and, no matter what, don't ask why he killed his victims. Those were the instructions Texas Ranger James Holland gave to the dozens of homicide detectives around the country when they got their moment with Samuel Little, hoping to solve decades-old cold cases and bring back answers to desperate families from the man the FBI identified this month as the most prolific serial killer in US history. Little ultimately spilled forth with chilling confessions, claiming he kille...
IN OTHER NEWS

FBI confirms Samuel Little is US’s most prolific serial killer

FBI believes Little's confessions to the murders of 93 women across the US are credible. Samuel Little, a suspected serial killer, appears at Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles [File: Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo] The inmate who claims to have killed more than 90 women across the United States is now considered to be the most prolific serial killer in the country's history, the FBI said. Samuel Little, who has been behind bars since 2012, told investigators last year that he was responsible for about 90 killings nationwide between 1970 and 2005. In a news release on Sunday, the FBI announced that federal crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible, and officials have been able to verify 50 confessions so far. Investigators als...
Cop Finally Gets His Due, Walter Scott’s Killer Sentenced To Prison
Journalism

Cop Finally Gets His Due, Walter Scott’s Killer Sentenced To Prison

In America, we have been having a conversation about police brutality against black Americans. Despite the countless black people murdered unjustly by police, there is usually no justice. Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Keith Lamont Scott, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray…too many to mention here, really. All of those people were senselessly murdered by cops who chose to be their judges, juries, and executioners, and they did so with impunity and without consequence. However, there is hope, and it is coming out of South Carolina, of all places. North Charleston police officer Michael Slager murdered Walter Scott, a black man who was fleeing after a routine traffic stop in cold blood in 2015. He would have gotten away with it, too, had it not been for a citizen who was brave enough to tape the ...
Phoenix Serial Killer Believed to Be Targeting People of Color
IN OTHER NEWS

Phoenix Serial Killer Believed to Be Targeting People of Color

Nearly a month after a Phoenix man was gunned down in his driveway as he returned home from his job at a group home, detectives are still searching for a serial killer believed to be targeting people of color in the area.Horacio de Jesus Pena is one of five people murdered since April. All the victims — male and female age from 12 to 32 — were fatally wounded outside of their homes, near their cars and on weekend evenings in the working-class neighborhood of Maryvale.NBC News reports that an obvious motive is lacking in all cases, but multiple law enforcement agencies confirmed there is physical evidence tying them together. Pena's sister says she fears the killer will strike again."For not one person to have more information is mind-blowing," she said. "This person is still out there. We...
Trial Begins for Alleged ‘Grim Sleeper’ Serial Killer Lonnie Franklin Jr.
IN OTHER NEWS

Trial Begins for Alleged ‘Grim Sleeper’ Serial Killer Lonnie Franklin Jr.

The notorious "Grim Sleeper" trial began today in Los Angeles with a statement from L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, more than three decades after the discovery of the alleged serial killer’s first victim. In her opening statement, Silverman said that the evidence in this case will tell a story of a serial killer who stalked streets of South Los Angeles, at a time when the neighborhood was marked by the lethal epidemic of crack cocaine. Lonnie Franklin Jr. is accused of killing 10 women between 1985 and 2007, Silverman said. The women, all between the ages of 15 and 35, were strangled or shot and left in alleyways near Franklin's home in south L.A., The Associated Press said. Sexual contact was also usually involved, according to The AP. The "Grim Sleeper" nickname c...