Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0: A Worthy iPad Mini Rival?

The Low-Down

Samsung's new Galaxy Note 8.0, which hits stores on April 11, is a Android tablet with an 8-inch screen. Like its smaller and larger brothers, the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II and 10.1-inch Galaxy Note 10.1, the Note 8.0 uses the company's EMR (electromagnetic resonance) S-Pen stylus, which works with a Wacom digitizer layer beneath the screen. It's a compelling midsize tablet, but the price is a bit rich, considering the competition.

Hardware

Samsung may be the most market-reactive company on the planet. After many in the tech press predicted its demise, the original Galaxy Note turned out to be a hit. Then the iPad Mini blazed a trail in the near-8-inch-screen category. Combine those two developments and you get the Galaxy Note 8.0. Incredibly, Samsung already has a tablet playing in the 7-inch category?part of its Galaxy Tab series. Samsung has so flooded the market with tablets that, if you include the Galaxy S 4 (which is technically a phone with a 5-inch screen), the only screen size from 5 to 10 inches that the company has neglected is 9 inches.

That said, 8 inches does seem to be the screen sweet spot. The Note 8.0 is comfortable to hold in the hand, has plenty of screen real estate to scribble on, offers plenty of battery life, and is perfect for movie watching. In typical Samsung style, the hardware is handsome without being remarkable. The Note 8.0 is slightly wider, taller, and thicker than the iPad Mini, yet the plastic case makes its construction feel cheaper than Apple's cool-milled aluminum. The 1280 x 800?pixel screen has a slightly higher resolution than its Apple rival, but the different is insignificant given the Note's slightly larger screen and wider aspect ratio. Still, images look crisp, if lacking the razor-sharp quality of the high-pixel-density screens that have become the norm lately.

Aside from the S Pen, the hardware feature that most differentiates the Note 8.0 from the iPad is the infrared emitter that enables the Note's WatchOn remote control functionality (more about that in a bit). Embedded IR seems to be a trend in mobile electronics?the new HTC One has it too. Strangely, it's a data-transmission feature that dates back to the Palm Pilot.

Software

The Note 8.0 runs the Android Jelly Bean OS, but it is obscured beneath a thick coating of Samsung's own TouchWiz Nature UX and augmented even further by specialized S Pen software. Some of the TouchWiz features are inspired, including the pop-out thumb-scrollable menu of frequently used apps, and the MultiWindow mode that allows you to run multiple apps at the same time.

The S Pen works with the same specialized S Note apps found on the Galaxy Note II oversize phone. Like that device, the Note 8.0 also has handwriting recognition that works pretty well and "hover over" functionality that delivers pop-up previews of files and photos (although this is somewhat inconsistent?sometimes info pops up, sometimes it doesn't).

Samsung also has a Reading Mode that optimizes the backlight and tint for reading. Curiously, though, this doesn't work with the Kindle for Android app. The Note 8.0 also includes an S Pen-friendly version of Flipboard, in which hovering over a tile launches a pop-up menu that lets you jump directly to a story.

Like the new HTC One, the Note 8.0 includes an app that turns the device into a universal remote control. Samsung's app is called WatchON, and like HTC's offering it includes a recommendation engine that checks what is on TV now and can offer suggestions based on your preferences. WatchON also delivers up content from Hulu, Blockbuster, and Netflix and can play that content on the device. It's an interesting way to get users started on an integrated second-screen experience. For the moment, WatchON seems to be focused on content discovery, but in the not-too-distant future, I expect many tabletmakers will be looking for a way to use these devices to steal away viewers' attention to streaming video. Broadcasters and cable operators, beware.

Samsung also includes a lot of other productivity goodies such as Polaris Office, which lets you edit and create Microsoft Office documents, and Awesome Note, a slick-looking to-do list manager, plus 50 GB of free Dropbox storage for two years. And if all of your friends also have Samsung devices, the Note 8.0's Group Play feature lets you share music and video and collaborate on documents.

There's so much software stuffed onto the Note that it can get a bit confusing when you just want to play a song, look at a picture, watch a video, or surf the Web. Do I use Music Hub, Music Player, or Play Music? Do I use Play Movies & TV, Video Player, or WatchON? Do I use the Internet app or Chrome? Extra choices aren't always helpful when you just want to get something done.

Performance

With its 1.6-GHz quad-core processor and 2 GB of RAM, the Note 8.0 is fast and snappy, with no performance lags in our testing. The screen is fine for reading and video watching but a bit disappointing when viewed next to high-pixel-density screens such as the full-size iPad. (It's worth mentioning, by the way, that the Note is a formidable video player, with built-in support for MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV, and DivX.) The 4600-millamp battery is impressive; we made it through an entire weekend without recharging. But the Note's cameras?5-megapixel on the back, 1.3-megapixel on the front?are letdowns. Low-light photos were universally disappointing.

On the whole, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is a likable, useful tablet with impressive performance. It would be a no-brainer purchase were it not for the price: Samsung wants $400 for it. That's $70 more than the baseline 16 GB iPad mini, and $200 more than a 7-inch Nexus 7. Maybe some folks are really into the S Pen technology, but I have a hard time believing that a stylus merits a 20 percent markup. It's a shame, too, because at $300, the Galaxy Note 8.0 would be a pretty compelling device.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/samsung-galaxy-note-8-0-a-worthy-ipad-mini-rival-15328518?src=rss

apple store down apple live blog ohio primary cell phone jammer g8 summit netanyahu aipac

Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB MKNSSDCR120GB-DX

This is shaping up to be a banner year for SSD adoption. The Kingston SSDNow V300 Series SV300S3D7 we reviewed recently won accolades for an excellent price/performance ratio, but the Mushkin 120GB Chronos Deluxe ($105 list) aims to challenge Kingston for the title. The Mushkin 120GB Chronos Deluxe offers even higher performance than the V300 at virtually the same price point. That's actually a bit surprising given how much the two drives have in common. They're both 120GB drives that use SandForce's older SF-2281 controller. They both support SATA 3.0 and a maximum 6Gbps transfer rate. Mushkin claims a mean time before failure (MTBF) of two million hours, while the Kingston's V300 is just one million, but these statistics don't map very well to real-world failure rates, regardless.

Despite their common technological heritage, Mushkin and Kingston quote rather different performance figures. Kingston claims sequential read/write speeds of 450MBps, while Mushkin states the Chronos Deluxe should hit 560MBps sequential read and 515MBps sequential write.

Right now, the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB is a bit more expensive than the Kingston drive (it lists as $104.99 at NewEgg, as compared to $102.99 for the Kingston V300). It is, however, also slightly faster. Both of these drives use synchronous rather than asynchronous flash (asynchronous flash is cheaper, but also slower as it relies on an external clock chip). The Mushkin drive uses NAND built on a 25nm process while the V300 uses Toshiba's newest 19nm multi-level cell (MLC) memory.

We compared the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe to the Kingston V300 with a high-end OCZ Vector 256GB tossed in for good measure. The Vector is considerably more expensive than either of the two budget drives; it's included here to illustrate the performance difference between low and high-end SSDs. Our review unit was tested using an Asus P877V-Deluxe motherboard with 8GB of DDR3-1600 and an Intel Core i7-3770K CPU. The P877-V Deluxe offers multiple SATA controllers from Intel and Marvell; the V300 was connected to Intel's 6G SATA port.

The performance figures for AS-SSD and SiSoft Sandra reflect a drive's performance in a particular type of data workload. Sequential read/write tests measure an SSD's capabilities when reading or writing a large block of contiguous data. A single large movie or ISO image will test a drive's sequential performance (assuming that the target drive isn't badly fragmented). In the synthetic AS-SSD test, the OCZ Vector, Chronos Deluxe, and Kingston V300 were all close to each other in sequential read tests, with scores of 509MBps, 471.5MBps, and 466MBps, respectively. The Kingston V300 fell well behind the Chronos Deluxe in sequential write performance (263.28MBps compared to 163MBps), but the OCZ Vector was faster than both drives combined, at 495.72MBps.

The 4K read/write tests ascertain the performance of an SSD or HDD when reading and writing small chunks of data. These small read/writes are vital to the everyday performance of a storage solution. The "64 Threads" test in AS-SSD means that the benchmark program spins off 64 separate 4K read/write tasks. This stretches the controller's ability to manage such workloads, but also provides a more realistic performance metric?an operating system is constantly reading and writing data to multiple services and programs simultaneously. The 4K read/write performance with 64-threads enabled showed a similar pattern to the AS-SSD test. The Chronos Deluxe outpaced the Kingston V300 at 181MBps read/215MBps write, as compared to 116MBps read/153MBps write for the Kingston drive. Again, the OCZ Vector is far faster at 358MBps and 303 MBps, respectively.

The random read/write performance data from SiSoft Sandra is a measure of a drive's sustained performance when reading and writing a contiguous block of information to a randomly chosen location. These metrics are important because they collectively measure the different types of storage tasks an SSD or HDD performs, even if they don't represent user workloads. SiSoft Sandra 2013's random read/write tests again show the OCZ Vector, Kingston V300, and Chronos Deluxe performing similarly in random reads (531MBps, 487MBps and 507MBps respectively), but quite differently in writes. The Chronos Deluxe's 276MBps write speed was much faster than the Kingston V300's 177MBps rate, while the OCZ Vector broke 500MBps in the same test.

PCMark 7 is a different type of test. The test uses real storage workloads created by recording traces of hard drive activity when playing games, loading music or video, or copying files. These traces are used to measure the performance of storage products in comprehensive real-world scenarios. The OCZ Vector scored a 5419 in PCMark 7's storage tests, compared to a 5,164 for the Kingston V300 and 5,244 for the Chronos Deluxe. These figures indicate that every day users won't see much difference between the three devices. If you work with large files or particular types of data transfer, products like the Vector still offer significant advantages.

Overall, the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 120GB is a great option. The Vector is the fastest drive overall, but for bargain-conscious customers, Mushkin has a great product. The Kingston V300 is still a good drive?t won an Editors' Choice award for budget SSDs?but if the Mushkin Chronos Deluxe is any indication, we'll see a quick succession of prime SSDs at consumer-friendly price points over the next few months.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/m8kkWzi9_jE/0,2817,2417518,00.asp

ellen degeneres jcpenney yeardley love nba all star reserves rock center christine christine will ferrell

Beyonce, Michelle Cameos Are 'Not Destiny's Child' Reunion, Kelly Rowland Insists

'It's me featuring Beyonce and Michelle,' Rowland teases about Talk A Good Game song.
By Jocelyn Vena

Kelly Rowland, Beyoncé and Michelle Williams
Photo: Kevin Mazur/ WireImage

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705168/beyonce-kelly-rowland-michelle-williams-destinys-child.jhtml

Seaside Heights nj transit PSEG hocus pocus hocus pocus mta schedule PECO

Environmental change triggers rapid evolution

Apr. 8, 2013 ? Environmental change can drive hard-wired evolutionary changes in animal species in a matter of generations. A University of Leeds-led study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, overturns the common assumption that evolution only occurs gradually over hundreds or thousands of years.

Instead, researchers found significant genetically transmitted changes in laboratory populations of soil mites in just 15 generations, leading to a doubling of the age at which the mites reached adulthood and large changes in population size. The results have important implications in areas such as disease and pest control, conservation and fisheries management because they demonstrate that evolution can be a game-changer even in the short-term.

Professor Tim Benton, of the University of Leeds' Faculty of Biological Sciences, said: "This demonstrates that short-term ecological change and evolution are completely intertwined and cannot reasonably be considered separate. We found that populations evolve rapidly in response to environmental change and population management. This can have major consequences such as reducing harvesting yields or saving a population heading for extinction."

Although previous research has implied a link between short-term changes in animal species' physical characteristics and evolution, the Leeds-led study is the first to prove a causal relationship between rapid genetic evolution and animal population dynamics in a controlled experimental setting.

The researchers worked with soil mites that were collected from the wild and then raised in 18 glass tubes. Forty percent of adult mites were removed every week from six of the glass tubes. A similar proportion of juveniles were removed each week in a further six tubes, while no "harvesting" was conducted in the remaining third of the tubes.

Lead author Dr Tom Cameron, a postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at Leeds at the time of the research and now based in Ume? University, Sweden, said: "We saw significant evolutionary changes relatively quickly. The age of maturity of the mites in the tubes doubled over about 15 generations, because they were competing in a different way than they would in the wild. Removing the adults caused them to remain as juveniles even longer because the genetics were responding to the high chance that they were going to die as soon as they matured. When they did eventually mature, they were so enormous they could lay all of their eggs very quickly."

The initial change in the mites' environment -- from the wild into the laboratory -- had a disastrous effect on the population, putting the mites on an extinction trajectory. However, in every population, including those subjected to the removal of adults or juveniles, the trajectory switched after only five generations of evolution and the population sizes began to increase.

The researchers found that the laboratory environment was selecting for those mites that grew more slowly. Under the competitive conditions in the tubes, the slow growing mites were more fertile when they matured, meaning they could have more babies.

Dr Cameron said: "The genetic evolution that resulted in an investment in egg production at the expense of individual growth rates led to population growth, rescuing the populations from extinction. This is evolutionary rescue in action and suggests that rapid evolution can help populations respond to rapid environmental change."

Short-term ecological responses to the environment -- for instance, a reduction in the size of adults because of a lack of food -- and hard-wired evolutionary changes were separated by placing mites from different treatments into a similar environment for several generations and seeing whether differences persisted.

Professor Benton said: "The traditional idea would be that if you put animals in a new environment they stay basically the same but the way they grow changes because of variables like the amount of food. However, our study proves that the evolutionary effect -- the change in the underlying biology in response to the environment -- can happen at the same time as the ecological response. Ecology and evolution are intertwined," he said.

Unpicking evolutionary change from ecological responses is particularly important in areas such as the management of fisheries, where human decisions can result in major changes to an entire population's environment and life histories. The size at which cod in the North Sea mature is about half that of 50 years ago and this change has been linked to a collapse in the cod population because adult fish today are less fertile than their ancestors.

"The big debate has been over whether this is an evolutionary response to the way they are fished or whether this is, for instance, just the amount of food in the sea having a short-term ecological effect. Our study underlined that evolution can happen on a short timescale and even small 1 to 2 per cent evolutionary changes in the underlying biology caused by your harvesting strategy can have major consequences on population growth and yields. You can't just try to bring the environment back to what it was before and expect everything to return to normal," Professor Benton said.

The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and involved researchers from the University of Leeds and Professor Stuart Piertney of the University of Aberdeen's School of Biological Sciences.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Leeds.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Tom C. Cameron, Daniel O'Sullivan, Alan Reynolds, Stuart B. Piertney, Tim G. Benton. Eco-evolutionary dynamics in response to selection on life-history. Ecology Letters, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/ele.12107

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/TEemKy8gTlQ/130409095414.htm

African painted dogs What Time Do Polls Open Krysten Ritter v for vendetta Voting Locations atlanta falcons voting hours

Gulf of Mexico can 'self-deep-clean'

8 April 2013 Last updated at 21:41 ET By Jason Palmer BBC News, New Orleans

New details have emerged about "self-cleaning" effects in the Gulf of Mexico witnessed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Researchers reporting at the American Chemical Society conference revealed details of a cascade of micro-organisms that spring into action to degrade oil.

Research has also outlined how chemical "dispersants" used in clean-up efforts actually frustrate these processes.

However, the long-term effects of the weeks of oil exposure remain unknown.

And concern was expressed about the ultimate resilience of the Gulf.

Terry Hazen of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been studying oil-degrading microbes in greater and greater detail since the disaster, even discovering some that had never been seen before.

They can break down the long-chain carbon-based "alkane" molecules present in oil - and in isolated conditions will even move towards oil.

"They're really oil-seeking missiles," he told the meeting.

'Deep cleaning'

In a sense, it is no surprise that the seas should host oil-hungry microbes; natural seeps from the ocean floor have been releasing oil into the world's waters for millions of years.

A 2003 US National Academy of Sciences report put the annual average of this seepage in the Gulf at 140,000 tonnes.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

I think the Gulf of Mexico is cleaner than you would expect, not only from the oil but from everything else that goes into it?

End Quote Terry Hazen University of Tennessee, Knoxville

But Prof Hazen's research has revealed more of the complex web of microbes that feed on oil - and are in turn fed on.

Through recent studies, most recently in Frontiers of Microbiology, he and collaborators have begun to map the genomes of these microbes and determine which genes contribute to oil-degrading properties when oil concentrations rise.

A release like that of Deepwater Horizon contains a rich mix of carbon-containing molecules - alkanes, methane and what are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), each presenting its own risks to the environment.

The new finding is about methanotrophs, which feed on methane - among the last compounds to be degraded.

Prof Hazen said that the sudden release of methane, rather than slow seeps, created a lucky effect.

"All of a sudden the [methanotroph populations] go up to really high densities and they're fat and happy - and then [the methane is] gone." he told BBC News.

"At that point, they degrade anything else that's there fortuitously, and they'll degrade it down below what would be usable as a carbon and energy source - so it's really sort of a 'deep-cleaning' effect.

"That's why I think the Gulf of Mexico is cleaner than you would expect, not only from the oil but from everything else that goes into it."

'Dramatic traumas'

Back on shore, Gabriel Kasozi, now of the Makerere University of Kampala in Uganda, studied the sediments in coastal areas of Louisiana after the disaster.

"We took samples 3m and 15m from the shores? followed that for about a year and did some modelling. We found that the half-life of the half-lives of the alkanes was about 70 days and PAHs was 100 days," he told the meeting.

"After a year, the concentrations had pretty much reduced to background levels."

What is becoming clearer with time is that the chemical dispersants typically used in clean-up efforts to break masses of oil up into small droplets does more harm than good.

A study in Environmental Pollution in February found that the toxicity of the oil-dispersant mix was 52 times more toxic to bacteria that are important to the ecosystem than either component alone.

But Dongye Zhao from Auburn University in the US said that the dispersants also caused sediments to absorb more of the harmful compounds, lengthening their effects on the environment.

"Preliminary results show us that adding dispersants induces a series of hystereses," he told the meeting.

"That means it's really going to? increase absorption, which is quite counterintuitive."

The group's work presented here also showed that dispersants interfered with other natural processes that degrade oil, including effects from sunlight and ground-level ozone.

Prof Hazen said that while the Gulf was cleaner, faster than was once assumed, the effects of spills are yet to be fully quantified.

"There was a lot of oil out there for 84 days," he told BBC News.

"Fish and bacteria and plankton and everything else were swimming through that oil, and we don't know what long-term effects that'll have.

"I am quite worried about how resilient the Gulf of Mexico is," Prof Hazen said.

"She's had some pretty dramatic traumas, and I'm worried how much the ecosystem can actually tolerate."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22075182#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

old school nick swisher jaco san jose sharks humber perfect game ufc 145 fight card ufc145

Broadway's 'Hands on a Hardbody' to close

NEW YORK (AP) ? The new Broadway musical about a group of people hoping to win a truck is driving into the sunset following disastrous box office sales.

Producers said Monday that "Hands on a Hardbody," based on a 1997 documentary, will close Saturday after playing just 56 total performances, the fastest new musical to close this season.

The show has a book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Doug Wright and songs by Phish lead singer Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green. It's about an endurance contest at a Texas car dealership offering a free pickup to whoever can keep their hands on it the longest.

The musical, which opened to relatively good reviews on March 21 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, pulled in only $240,040 for the week ending Sunday, or 22 percent of its potential of $1,071,968. The highest amount it ever grossed over an eight-show week was $321,043. Last week, the theater was less than 60 percent full.

The 15-character cast led by Keith Carradine includes the nervous owners of the truck dealership and 10 down-on-their-luck guys and gals for whom the $22,000 truck represents a new chance. The red Nissan truck itself weighs 1,400 pounds and rests on 16 casters in the center of the stage.

The closing of the show will be a likely blow to the creators' chances of snagging a Tony Award nomination, which are not revealed until the end of the month. The musical's 28 preview and 28 regular performances narrowly beat "Scandalous" for the title of fastest-closing new musical this season. "Scandalous" closed after 60 total shows.

___

Online:

http://www.handsonahardbody.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/broadways-hands-hardbody-close-234348728.html

dont trust the b in apartment 23 johnny damon kirk cameron news 10 hillary rosen j.k. rowling j.k. rowling

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera: RAW Video In the Palm of Your Hand for $1000

The film/videomaking world was set aflame last year when Blackmagic Design announced its Cinema Camera. It looks like the rogues are back for more with a RAW-shooting, $1000 video camera that fits in your pocket. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/noaf8dBIYvY/blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-raw-video-in-the-palm-of-your-hand-for-1000

travis pastrana quinton coples a.j. jenkins riley reiff david decastro aj jenkins shea mcclellin