Joe Biden on son Beau: Success is when your children turn out better than you

U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden spoke about his son Beau Biden in a speech at Yale University’s commencement less than one month before Beau died of brain cancer at the age of 46.

Joe spoke of his son with pride, noting that Beau had gone to Syracuse University’s law school out of loyalty to his deceased mother, and later served as Delaware’s attorney general. The vice-president joked that his son had ended up being more popular than he was in their home state.

See also: Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden, dies of brain cancer

“Big headline after the 2012 election: ‘Biden: most popular man in Delaware — Beau,’ he said. “And as your parents will understand, my dad’s definition of success is when you look at your son and daughter, and realize they turned out better than you — and they did.” Read more…

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What it’s like to play Angry Birds in virtual reality

The slingshot pulled back and released, and suddenly I was flying through the air right behind my little red Angry Bird.

Thankfully, my goal was not to slam headfirst into a fortress to exact revenge on some green pigs.

I tried out the Angry Birds virtual reality demonstration Thursday at the grand opening of Bespoke, a new coworking, demo and events space at the Westfield Mall in San Francisco.

Rovio, the studio behind Angry Birds, is giving short demos of the virtual reality version to the public over the next two weekends. VIP members of the Rock in Rio conference in Las Vegas got a sneak preview of the VR version in May. There’s no timeline either for when, or if, the game will hit the market.

I signed a waiver form for motion sickness before the demo team helped me put on the Samsung Gear VR goggles. Then they tapped the program to start, and I watched the slingshot launch the bird into the game.

The weird thing about virtual reality gaming is the actual range of action is pretty limited. The experience of the game is left up to the visuals within it.

My goal was to fly the bird, with my head, through the rings. I nudged my head one way or the other, tilting it up to keep the angry bird afloat or looking to my left when I needed it to turn. There’s probably a future of VR-related neck injuries.

Most of the head-controlled motions I could have done by tilting a phone with my hands — after all, it’s literally a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge strapped into the Gear VR headset. 

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about virtual reality is the 360-degree experience, but I couldn’t turn my head too much without going off course and missing points in the game. I felt disoriented in the short preview a few times when I lost track of the course because of it and had to find my way back.

A minute and a half later, I found my way to the end of the course where a giant red ring greeted me. I guided my angry bird through it, and it accelerated into the castle wall (although my point of view didn’t) to reveal the green pigs.

I got three stars and a collectible tin of Angry Bird Pez candies for my effort.

SEE ALSO: Why a piece of cardboard made everybody at Google’s big conference freak out

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NOW WATCH: This new virtual reality game will make you feel like you’re in ‘Star Wars’

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Google is laying the foundation for the future of virtual reality right now (GOOG)

Google is the most important tech company in the world, depending on who you ask.

Between YouTube, Google search, and Gmail, the Mountain View, CA.-based company created, owns and operates much of what we’ve come to expect from using the internet. The company’s influence is so great that its name is a verb – “Could you Google a good restaurant for tonight, darling?”

And that’s why it’s such a tremendously big deal that Google’s pushing into virtual reality with one of its most important services: YouTube.

The company told attendees of its annual I/O developer conference Thursday that the public could upload 360-degree videos to YouTube starting this summer. Moreover, a VR-ready version of YouTube will become available in app form in the not-so-distant future.

Put more clearly: the world’s most popular video platform is moving into virtual reality.

Here’s an example of how it’ll work (use the arrows in the upper left corner to navigate the video in three dimensions):

This is a much more important foundational move than any of the video game and film applications we’ve seen for VR thus far, and the reasons should be obvious: cat videos. That’s not a joke. People are much more interested in watching cat videos – and other stuff on YouTube – than they are in even the most popular video games. 

For comparison, massively popular (and free) game “League of Legends” has around 27 million players. YouTube has “more than 1 billion” users.

Joking aside, imagine this: You buy an inexpensive 360-degree video camera, you record heartfelt family moments with it, you share those moments to your family’s private YouTube account. Watching those videos is like being there all over again. And not just in a nostalgic way; with 360-degree video and a VR headset, you are there. 

With Google’s “Jump” system, that is all possible. “Jump” is the initiative Google unveiled today that provides a turnkey solution for turning 360-degree video into viewable YouTube footage. Think of it like this: it’s an easy way for complex video to be easily shot and distributed, for viewing on VR headsets. It’s a standardization for filming, distributing and viewing 360-degree video.

Sounds boring, right? It is! It’s the boring details behind a massively important initiative from one of – if not “the” – most important tech companies in the world.

There aren’t any VR headsets to buy right now. You could build yourself a version of Google’s cardboard headset, or buy one of the many versions of it on Amazon from third-parties. But that’s not the point.

In the next 12 months, a variety of VR headsets from disparate companies will launch. The “killer app” for the mainstream won’t be a dogfighting space shooter, and it won’t be a puzzle game. It’ll be applications like YouTube and Netflix. 

Google’s already working toward that future, and that’s huge.

SEE ALSO: Why a piece of cardboard made everybody at Google’s big conference freak out

AND: Here’s everything Google announced today: A new Android, virtual reality on YouTube, and more

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NOW WATCH: Here’s a preview of the mind-bending virtual reality amusement park set to open in Utah next year

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15 books by billionaires that will teach you how to run the world

Whether you want to launch an empire or become the best in your field, who better to consult than those who’ve achieved the peak of professional and financial success?

That’s why we’ve rounded up 15 books by self-made billionaires. Learn how these masters of industry achieved the impossible, in their own words.

‘The Virgin Way’ by Richard Branson

Although Branson confesses he’s never read a book on leadership, his nearly 50-year entrepreneurial career has taught him a thing or two about building a business.

In “The Virgin Way,” the billionaire founder of Virgin Group offers lessons on management and entrepreneurialism, including the importance of listening to others and hiring the right people. Branson is honest about his successes as well as his failures, such as underestimating Coke’s influence when he tried to launch Virgin Cola in the 1990s.

Overall, the book is a compelling glimpse into the life of someone who’s never shied away from a challenge.

Buy it here >>

‘Onward’ by Howard Schultz

After resigning as Starbucks CEO in 2000, Schultz returned to the post in 2008, just as the company was struggling through a financial crisis. “Onward” details how the billionaire brought the global coffee chain back to life.

Readers will learn how Schultz made tough decisions — like temporarily shutting down more than 7,000 US stores — in order to help Starbucks grow without neglecting its core values. They’ll learn, too, about Schultz as a person, as he weaves together his unique business strategy with anecdotes about growing up in Brooklyn, New York. It’s an honest and passionate recounting that will inspire entrepreneurs and everyone else to be brave in the face of adversity.

Buy it here >>

‘How to Win at the Sport of Business’ by Mark Cuban

In “How to Win at the Sport of Business,” Dallas Mavericks owner and “Shark Tank” investor Cuban fleshes out his best insights on entrepreneurialism from his personal blog.

He writes candidly about how he progressed from sleeping on his friends’ couches in his 20s to owning his own company and becoming a multi-billionaire. It’s a story of commitment and perseverance — Cuban writes that even though he didn’t know much about computers, he beat his competition because he spent so much time learning about the software his company sold. 

Buy it here >>

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This photo shows a mysterious mechanism of the sun that has baffled scientists for centuries

From 93 million miles away, we earthlings are blissfully unaware of the sheer magnitude of powerful activity roiling on the the sun’s surface. But thanks to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft, which has been snapping pictures of the sun for the last five years, we can see this massive monster in action, like in the SDO image below:

What you’re seeing is a representation of one small part of the sun’s colossal magnetic field.

The sun’s magnetic field is constantly changing unlike Earth’s, which means it’s growing and shrinking in strength.

Sometimes it can swell to be thousands of times stronger than Earth’s. When that happens, it generates black blemishes called sunspots, as shown in the image below:

If we go back to the first image, what you’re seeing are two giant sunspots in blue and yellow. Both are large enough to completely swallow the Earth.

The blue and yellow are false colors — in reality, the sunspots appear black on the solar surface.

But these false colors serve an important purpose: The magnetic field of the sunspot in blue has an opposite charge from the sunspot in yellow.

What’s happening here is similar to what occurs when you throw a handful of iron filings onto a bar magnet — shown in the GIF below:

The bar magnet has a north and south pole that generates magnetic field lines around it. These fields are completely invisible to the naked eye, but when you sprinkle some iron shavings around it, they actually then outline the fields so you can see them.

The super-hot gas spewing from the solar surface does the same thing: It traces the immensely powerful magnetic field lines connecting the sunspot that acts like the north pole of a bar magnet with the sunspot that represents that south pole.

The most stunning part of this recent SDO image (shown again below) are the white, ethereal wisps — called coronal loops — streaking across the solar surface. These pale whiskers represent hot gas outlining the magnetic field lines connecting the two sunspots.

Although sunspots were first studied in the 16th century by Galileo Galilei — the first scientist to observe the universe through a telescope — researchers are still unsure how these pockets of intense magnetic activity generate sunspots. But with SDO and its more than 100 million pictures taken over the last five years, scientists are hopeful that they will uncover the mysterious mechanism behind these enigmatic spots.

CHECK OUT: The closest images ever taken of the sun show just how powerful it really is

SEE ALSO: There’s more to this beautiful space image than meets the eye

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NOW WATCH: Neil deGrasse Tyson: Here’s What Everyone Gets Wrong About Solar Flares

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DON’T MISS OUT: Your chance to save $1500 on IGNITION ends tomorrow

May 31 (that’s tomorrow!) is your last day to purchase extra-early-bird tickets to IGNITION 2015 on December 8–9 in NYC.

Join Business Insider and top executives in digital, media, and finance. Book by May 31 and you’ll save $1,500. You’ll still have more than enough time to book travel and hotel accommodations for your stay.

But wait, there’s more …

Want an even better deal? Get two of your colleagues to join you and save an extra 20% on tickets. That’s more than 50% off the full price. Be sure to take advantage of this offer before it expires on May 31.

IGNITION brings together hundreds of entrepreneurs, innovators, and industry leaders. In the past, we’ve been honored to welcome on stage pioneers such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, Beth Comstock, David Karp, John Sculley, Barry Diller, and many others.

We’re looking forward to sharing the amazing IGNITION 2015 lineup with you soon. In the meantime, for information about event topics and more, visit the IGNITION website.

Keep up to date by following @BI_Events on Twitter and Facebook and joining the IGNITION group on LinkedIn.

If you’re interested in joining the IGNITION community by supporting the event as a sponsor, contact events@businessinsider.com. For programming suggestions, please submit here.

SEE ALSO:  Nab your IGNITION 2015 ticket before rates go up June 1

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NOW WATCH: Mark Cuban: Here’s Why Netflix Won’t Kill TV

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Apple wants record labels to give it their music for free

As it builds out its yet-to-be-announced music streaming service, Apple wants record labels to give the company the right to their music for free for the first three months, according to a New York Post report.

The upshot is that Apple is planning on making the music service totally free for the first three months — it’ll normally cost $10 a month, according to the report. But Apple doesn’t want to pay the record labels anything, either, during that trial period.

 

The Post describes what it’s heard of Apple’s vision for the streaming app as “the best of Pandora, Spotify and YouTube” that combines music, user-created video (in a YouTube-style portal called Apple Connect), and a new version of iTunes Radio. 

And the word on the street is that Apple wants to make a service so premium that it kills the era of free streaming music like Spotify.

 

Along those lines, Apple wanted to include lyrics with the music service, but that report indicates the plans fell through after Apple tried to get the rights to them for free, as well.

Further, the report says, Apple is in talks with rapper Drake, singer Pharrell Williams, and DJ David Guetta to have them as guest DJs on iTunes Radio as it looks to give its music business a huge PR push alongside the launch of the streaming service. Drake’s deal alone is rumored to be costing Apple around $19 million.

We’re expecting to hear a lot more details about Apple’s music streaming service and overall music ambitions at next week’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), so stay tuned to find out whether or not the music industry is going to march to tbe beat of Apple’s drum.

SEE ALSO: Apple is planning a major international launch for its new music streaming service

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NOW WATCH: How to hack iTunes to turn any song into your iPhone ringtone

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