Five stories that have North Texas talking: Two separate robberies of Pokémon Go players near White Rock Lake have several similarities; a Dallas children’s hospital is dabbling with new technology; Norah Jones is coming back to Denton for the first time since college; and more.
Before we get into it, here’s your https://youtu.be/gEb4UFIuXLM">explainer on Pokémon Go — the augmented reality game gluing people to their screens and getting them outside, and sometimes, into dangerous situations. While several incidents, like this one, could have been avoided with some due vigilance, a couple of recent calls to Dallas Police are a bit more interesting.
In an email from Dallas Police’s Media Relations Unit, two early-morning robberies were detailed. First, on July 22 around 1:05 a.m., police responded to a robbery call in the 600 block of East Lawther, near White Rock Lake. A person playing Pokémon Go with a group of friends was robbed at gunpoint by three male suspects, who then took the victim’s cell phone.
A second call came a week and a half later. On Tuesday around 2:30 a.m., officers responded to a call in the 4700 block of West Lawther. Another person playing the game with friends was robbed at gunpoint by three men who took the person’s cell phone.
The email did not directly link the two incidents together, but issued a reminder to travel in groups, stay in well-lit areas and be aware of your surroundings. [KERA News]
- Children’s hospitals are turning to digital startups to monitor kids outside of the hospital. Children’s Medical Center in Dallas has partnered with Silicon Valley based company Proteus Digital Health. Five-year-old Riley Kinman, who had a kidney transplant earlier this year, ingested a small, white pill with an attached sensor — a technology created by Proteus — that will tell her doctors and parents that she has taken her hypertension medication when she’s out and about. These partnerships between hospitals and tech startups are becoming more common as medical technology is becoming more portable and kids, more mobile. Read more. [Texas Standard, KERA News]
- Norah Jones will perform in Denton for the first time since she graduated from the University of North Texas. The jazz pianist and singer-songwriter will headline Oaktopia in Denton next month. She was a student at UNT’s music school in the late ‘90s as well as an alum of Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas, according to D Magazine. Joining Jones in Denton, Beirut, Cat Power, Dr. Dog and others will perform at Oaktopia — “once an upstart festival that’s fast becoming one of the bigger and more reliable music events in North Texas” — the weekend of Sept. 23. [D Magazine]
- Globe Life Park isn’t the worst ballpark around, but it’s not the best either. But that’s just one person’s opinion on USA Today’s 30 best and worst MLB stadiums. The 22-year-old home of the Texas Rangers ranked at No. 12, just shy of the bottom half. Here’s what Ted Berg had to say: “Typically I have little time for nostalgic architecture, but the Rangers’ home park — one of the first built after Camden Yards in the retro-stadium era — did an impressive job nailing the intimate feel of an old park on a stadium that holds nearly 50,000.” Perhaps by 2021, after the new $1 billion-stadium has been completed, you won’t have to scroll as far down the list. [USA Today, KERA News]
- The Olympics start today — here’s where to watch in Dallas-Fort Worth. The 2016 Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro are a chance to get together with friends and maybe some nice strangers at your local watering hole and cheer on the U.S. and other nations to win gold, or at least watch the spectacle that is the Opening Ceremony. GuideLive put together a list of restaurants and bars in Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding cities for you to frequent throughout the month. [GuideLive]
