Amazon announced today that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books will be available to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Those who availed the $79 Amazon Prime membership’s annual fee can borrow the Harry Potter books starting June 19. A prime member is entitled to borrow one book per month with no due dates, they get free two-day shipping on most products sold directly by Amazon and the ability to stream certain movies and TV shows for free without any added fees and annuity rates.

J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, only made the books available in e-book form in March of this year and can only be bought through links to Rowling’s Pottermore website. Why the sudden move to paidContent?

“The way the deal is structured means that any lost sales are more than made up for,” Pottermore’s CEO Charlie Redmayne said. “Yes, some people will borrow from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and therefore not buy, but Amazon is paying us a large amount of money for that right, and I believe it’s a commercial deal that makes sense.”

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The humanitarian group, savethechildren.org, has released its thirteenth State of the World’s Mothers report just in time for the annual Mother’s day celebration.

“The mothers report is an annual report we do that really looks at all sorts of different factors for moms from around the world. And this year we looked at 165 countries and we look at where is it the best and the worst place to be a mom,” said Save the Children President and CEO Carolyn Miles.

“We look at the status of women. We look at what it’s like to give birth in those countries. We look at the survival rates of kids in those countries. We think that’s a big indicator of whether it’s a good place to be a mom or not a good place to be a mom. And so those are all the different types of things that we look at,” she further stated.

Based on the report, Norway is the best place in the world to be a mother while Niger is the worst.

The research also showed that the simple measure of supporting mothers to breastfeed could save one million children’s lives a year.

“Our research shows that a mother’s breast milk — one single nutrition intervention — can save a million children’s lives each year,” said Miles. “All mothers should have the support they need to choose to breastfeed if they want to. Breastfeeding is good for babies no matter where they live, but in developing countries, especially those without access to clean water, breastfeeding can be a matter of life or death.”
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Hairstyling pioneer Vidal Sassoon died Wednesday at age 84. Police officers were summoned at his home on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles at about 10:30 a.m., authorities said. His death is believed to be of natural causes and no further police investigation is needed. He is survived by his fourth wife Ronnie and three of his four children, Catya died in 2002 of a heart attack.

The “Founder of Hairdressing” was born in London and worked as a “shampoo boy” at the age of 14 washing hair and mixing hair dye. “I thought I’d be a soccer player but my mother said I should be a hairdresser, and, as often happens, the mother got her way,” Sassoon said in an AP interview in 2007.

He wrote three books. The autobiography, “Sorry I Kept You Waiting, Madam,” “A Year of Beauty and Health,” which he wrote with his second wife, Beverly, and “Cutting Hair the Vidal Sassoon Way.”

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Spoiler Alert: Don’t read if you haven’t watched the movie yet.

Yes, scenes with an s at the end. That’s no mistake. The Avengers has two post-credit scenes. Robert Downey Jr., who plays Ironman in the movie, actually let slip at a press conference on April 12 that they were reuniting that very night to film another scene.

The first post-credit scene appears halfway through the credits and reveals the face of the next villain – Thanos. The most villain of all Marvel villains will be aiding Loki’s evil scheme on the next Avengers film.

The second post-credit scene shows the Avengers( Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the human Hulk , Black Widow and Hawkeye) sitting silently around a table eating shawarma. That scene has no dialogue at all, the Avengers were tired after saving the Earth from Loki and his army of aliens.

If you have not seen the movie yet, don’t go to the nearest dvd discount store near your place. Head on to your local cinema because this awesome movie is still showing.

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Facebook recently announced a new timeline feature where users can add organ donor to his or her life event. The feature is currently available to two countries, US and UK.

“Starting today, you can add that you’re an organ donor to your timeline, and share your story about when, where or why you decided to become a donor,” wrote Facebook in its official statement. “Facebook’s mission is simple: to make the world more open and connected. But the Facebook community has also shown us that simply through sharing and connecting, the world gets smaller and better. Even one individual can have an outsized impact on the challenges facing another, and on the world. At Facebook, we call that the power of friends.”

Although the new feature is a good cause in helping create awareness about organ donation, users should still think twice before sharing their health information publicly.

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A new technology, called Navizon I. T. S. (Indoor Triangulation System), uses WiFi triangulation to track smartphones without the user’s knowledge or consent. Any WiFi enabled smartphone, which is usually used by people with bundling business, that falls within an area covered by Navizon’s proprietary tracking “nodes” can be located.

Navizon system can determine where you are, but not who you are as an individual, since all it sees is a Wi-Fi radio. However, it does recognize whether you’ve been in a place before. Although the technology can be used for security, surveillance and to measure the traffic patterns in a certain area, what about the privacy of smartphone users?

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Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb has began to show signs of recovery according to BBC. He was able to nod and communicate with his family after more than a week of being in a coma in a central London hospital where he had been receiving treatment for colon and liver cancer. He lost consciousness after developing pneumonia.

A family friend said that Robin is “in and out of sleep and has uttered a few words but it’s difficult to understand him because his voice is so weak.” His wife Dwina, his children and brother Barry have kept a bedside vigil singing and playing music to “try and bring him back to us”, Dwina told The Impartial Reporter.

The singer’s website is down because of high traffic volumes. (Exactly what happened with my friend’s daycare playground equipment online store.) Fans are asked to just leave messages of support on the singer’s Facebook page.

Robin Gibb formed the Bee Gees with his twin brother Maurice and older brother Barry in 1958. Maurice died in 2003 at age 53 due to complications from a twisted intestine.The Bee Gees have sold an estimated 200 million records during their career of more than 50 years.

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Peter Diamandis, an entrepreneur and supporter of non-governmental space flights, is formally unveiling plans for his new company, Planetary Resources Inc, at an event Tuesday at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Although no one in the company has confirmed yet, the new startup that Diamandis is involved with points into mining asteroids and not production of Casablanca ceiling fans.

“Since my childhood I’ve wanted to do one thing, be an asteroid miner,” Diamandis told Forbes. “So stay tuned on that one.”

The company’s list of “investor and advisor” includes Google Chief Executive Larry Page, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, former Microsoft Chief Architect Charles Simonyi, Google director and venture capitalist Ram Shriram, and Ross Perot Jr.

James Cameron’s film “Avatar” is a corporate venture that is into extracting natural resources from another planet. Charles Simonyi is into space exploration himself and has already made two trips to space. Ross Perot Jr. Is the son of Texas technology entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Ross Perot.

Chris Lewicki will lead the team as president and chief engineer of Planetary Resources, with Diamandis and Eric Anderson as co-chairmen. Chris Lewicki is a former NASA Mars mission manager. Eric Anderson is the co-founder of the International Space University.

NASA scientists has conducted a study earlier this month and concluded that humans could use a robotic spacecraft, flight time of six and 10 years, to capture a 500-ton asteroid seven meters in diameter for a cost of $2.6 billion. The asteroid could then be brought into orbit around the moon so that it could be explored and mined.

Mr. Chris Lewicki and former NASA astronaut Tom Jones, who is an advisor to Planetary Resources, were involved in the study. It’s not clear though if Planetary Resources will use the same strategy in mining asteroids.

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Here is Lionsgate’s statement:

We’re very sorry that Gary Ross has chosen not to direct Catching Fire. We were really looking forward to making the movie with him. He did an incredible job on the first film and we are grateful for his work. This will not be the end of our relationship, as we consider Ross to be part of the Lionsgate family and look forward to working with him in the future.

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The countdown to the London Olympics, the world’s biggest sporting event, begins on Wednesday. Kew Gardens will host the first in a series of celebrations to commemorate the 100 days before the July 27 opening ceremony.

The day’s event will start with the planting of an oak tree to mark Britain’s role in the birth of the modern Olympic movement. Members of West End theatre will perform “West End Warm-Up” in Trafalgar Square in the early afternoon assisted by British athletes. A 70-day Olympic torch relay will begin at Land’s End the following day. Olympic rings made up of 25,000 flowers will also be on display.

Several new stadiums, built with top-of-the-line speakers like lexicon‘s, were built and an extensive transportation plan is being refined. Although security plans are still being ironed out, tickets for the Olympics are already running out.

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