WHDI Reviews – Wireless HDTV News

Windows 8 Modern Interface is the biggest impediment to its adoption. There is such a small learning curve and the things get a little easier if one knows what to accomplish and how to accomplish. In Windows 8, all functions and features are more or less the same as previous versions. The desktop is functional even after removal of Start Button from the Task Bar. Programs used can be pinned down to the Task Bar. One can create shortcuts on the Desktop. Alt-Tab option will be functional .i.e., one can move between open applications only

Programs designed for the Modern UI are actually designed to be interacted in a different manner and one can find it hard while using them. Taking a small instance of flipping between active programs, one may not be able to work out upon as they are quite acquainted with the current Windows and its programs.

Windows8 is quite user friendly. Commands from the Keyboard are quick enough to make things quicker. But many users are unaware of the idea of the quick navigation which can be carried out by using their Keyboards. Windows 8 is completely user friendly system and it has completely focused up on user interaction and made things a little easier so that it becomes less problematic. Some of the Windows keys and their functions are as follows:

1. Windows Key – Navigates users to the Start screen
2. Windows-D – Pulls up Desktop screen from anywhere
3. Windows-Tab – Opens up Modern Desktop’s Task Bar
4. Windows-Left/Right – Moves applications between displays in a multiple monitor setup
5. Windows-(Period) – Snaps a Modern UI application to the left of the screen
6. Windows-Shift-(Period) – Snaps a Modern UI application to the right of the screen
7. Ctrl-Esc – Brings users to the last opened application from the start screen

These ideas are based on availability of everything at the touch of a button. This will truly be a marked achievement for Microsoft since Windows 95 in many ways.    

A bill has made it to the Senate in California that will increase limits on payday loan amounts.  Assembly Bill 1158 would increase lending limits to $500. (Find out more about the bill here.) This is up from the current limit of $300.  Currently, although the loan amount may be up to $300, those taking out a payday loan of this amount only receive $255, and have two weeks to pay it off.  The majority of borrowers cannot pay this back in time and are forced to take more loans.  This is the point where the cycle begins to spin out of control.  Many consumer groups feel any increase in limits would only worsen the problem.  They maintain that if the Senate approves, it must be with amendments that will offer more protection to borrowers.

The potential damage is no surprise to Congress.  They have banned members of the military form taking out payday loans for fear they inhibit troop readiness.  While some states have seen success in reducing some of the damage done by payday loans with rate caps, the industry is too influential in Sacramento.  Consumer groups here have pretty much abandoned that route.  These amendments are a necessary piece of this bill if a huge increase in economic damage is to be avoided.

Suggested amendments include a limit of 6 loans per household, the requirement that lenders actually assess a borrower’s ability to pay rather than simply offering a loan to everyone who applies, and an increase in the time to pay the loan back from 2 weeks to 31 days.  These amendments could go a long way toward mitigating some of the potential risk associated with payday loans.

With exorbitant interest rates poised to stay the same, amending this bill could be the only hope of protection for borrowers.  Borrowers whom consumer groups feel cannot count on their elected officials to lookout for their best interests when it comes to payday lending.

HP has launched a new ultra book, which is all set to capture the beat of the market with its solid performance and stylish looks. HP has launched ‘Envy 4-1002TX’, which is a premium ultrabook. The new ultrabook is on the whole made up of aluminum body case which gives it out a more expensive look. The finishing of the product is very good and gives a classy look. The new product Envy 4-1002TX comes up loaded with the Ivy Bridge series of processors.

The i5 – 3317U processor (1.7GHz) with the use of Turbo Boost takes the performance of the ultrabook up to 2.6GHz. The processor is assisted by 4GB of RAM which gives the gives the ultrabook an ability to do multiple functions at the same time. The ultrabook has a 14-inch display and has a fine resolution of 1366×768 pixels to give its users a good video experience. The display screen of the new Envy is accustomed for the users who use ultrabooks for a long period of time. HP Envy 4 has a large storage capacity of 500 GB to store videos. Envy 4 has an island keyboard which is easy to use and most of the Macbook users will not have a problem shifting to it.

The new ultrabook comes preloaded with Windows 7 basic edition. This is a bit disappointing as instead of the basic edition of Windows 7, the device should have come with a home premium edition. The ultrabook launched by HP will give a tough competition to Samsung whose series 5 ultrabooks have captured large share in the market. The ultrabook is priced 60,000 Rupees in the market and is one of the best buys considering the performance and the looks of the device. In the end, what seems is that the new Envy 4-1002TX Ultrabook is ready to storm the ultrabook market.

Samsung seems to have decided to do every possible thing in order to keep its popular mobile devices available in the US markets. This step has come following Apple’s continuous pounding to put a ban on a number of electronic devices manufactured by the South Korean company.

Apple Inc. is trying to gain more benefits after its last week’s courtroom win over Samsung in a patent fight, which lead to a ban of Samsung’s eight phone devices in the American stores. Lucy Koh, the US district judge, who recently controlled the trial in San jose, California, will be hearing the arguments of both the parties on September 20. However, the South Korean manufacturers have made it clear that,” We will take all necessary measures to ensure the availability of our products in the US.”

The resolution taken by Samsung to battle this ‘unjust’ action by the iPhone makers is a clear sign of the former’s intentions. It suggests that Samsung is not in mood to give up and come to a settlement with Apple, even when a US jury has found its mobile phones has violated six patents of Apple, including iPhone’s design and the internal software design as well.

Experts have said that after this one-sided victory of Apple, the Californian company is more likely to secure the ban as well. An analyst at Jefferies, Peter Misek said that,” The evidence and weight of the case are heavily in Apple’s favor.” He further added that,” We expect there is a two-thirds chance of an injunction against Samsung products.”

Even if Apple succeeds in securing the ban, Samsung would not be much affected as these eight phones, are no more the bestsellers phones in American stores. Although, legal experts have given a warning to Apple that it could use its recent courtroom victory to push for another ban on Samsung’s latest bestseller, Samsung Galaxy S III phones.

The final judgment came up in the favor of Apple in the Apple-Samsung patent trial. Apple has been awarded $1.049 billion over Samsung. The judgment seems to be rejoiced by Microsoft as the crux of the verdict will be applying to nearly all Android devices, whilst the Windows hones will be left clear and free. Although this means a gain for Apple, for Microsoft this would eventually lead to huge market gains.

Steve Jobs had earlier stated that he was keen to proclaim a thermonuclear war against what he saw as thieving iPhones’s design.

This might have far-reaching consequences. Android’s support may go down depending on how the shippers and developers look at the blow of the verdict which is about to leave the Samsung peers in fear. In addition with the fact that Apple pulled this off, it made it easier to get around a Windows phone 8. There are chances that the provider adoption is likely to jig. Microsoft is assumed to speed up their production generally in alliance with their mobile associate, Nokia. Hence, they have a chance to steal the limelight since it would be difficult for the customers to get their hands on the substitutes.

However, a part of the effect will come up from the reaction of Google and its outcome on Android.  Google has already stepped forward and affirmed that majority of the claims don’t have anything to do with the core Android. This though, doesn’t imply that the Android OS or its functions will stay untouched in wake of this verdict. Also, the fact that Win 8 is on the verge of getting released soon, could prove to be beneficial to Microsoft if it is keen to take the advantage!

Samsung Electronics might be staggering from a patent throbbing by Apple corporation, but this does not seem likely to harm the other phase of their business relationship. It seems that Samsung, who is the only one to supply Apple-designed chips for iPhones and iPads, will continue this aspect of relationships.

Following the recent legal defeat of US, an emergency meeting was called up in Seoul on Sunday, where the post mortem of South Korean group was held, regarding the subject. Instead of Kwon Oh-hyun, who is the present CEO of Samsung, the meeting was led by Choi Gee-sung – vice chairman and JK Shin –mobile business’ head.

Samsung gave out a clear message that the internal firewall present between the business of its handsets and components will remain unaffected. While it has planned to appeal the US verdict and a fine causing it a handsome $1.05 billion, for imitating the features of a very popular mobile device by Apple, it is unwilling to risk its billion dollars supply contract signed with Apple Inc.

Apart from supplying micro processors for Apple’s iPhones and iPads, Samsung is also a sole supplier of DRAM and NAND-type chips (memory) and flat screens which are used in Apple devices. The products by Samsung consists 26 percent of iPhone’s component cost, the lead counsel of Samsung, Charles Verhoeven told the media recently.

According to business analysts and experts, the symbiotic relationship that the two companies have with each other is equally significant to both of them and cannot be put at risk. James Song, KDB Daewoo Securities’ analyst, Seoul told the media that,” Apple needs Samsung to make the iPhone and iPad. Period. Samsung is the sole supplier of Apple’s processing chips and without Samsung, they can’t make these products.”  Though Samsung has been found guilty of copying innovative features of Apple’s products, its lawyer emphasized that the innovative components and wireless technology which were Samsung’s patents have made Apple products a reality today.

The daily struggle in the United State and worldwide related to finances is increasing.  So many find themselves living paycheck to paycheck, and it is often the case that by the time payday comes the money is already spent.  Payday loans may often seem to be the only option.  Borrowers in financial hardship lean on these to pay late bills or even just to have extra cash.  In the previous year more than 11 billion dollars was loaned in the form of payday loans, and this is why the business is booming.  Find out more about this struggle here.

Of course, this money has to be paid back, and according to Armen Keteyian, chief correspondent for CBS news, the money comes with crippling rates.  Consider the plight of Ramon Zayas.  Prostate cancer left him facing a pile of bills due and no way to pay them.  Facing his electricity being shut off, he and his wife chose to borrow $250 from a payday lender.  The 476% interest rate for this loan mean that the whole time Ramon thought he was paying off the loan, he was actually paying fees and interest.  The exorbitant interest alone had him paying $125 per month on a $250 loan.   In the end, the loan he thought he would pay back $325 to cover actually cost him $700.  Had he not gone to a bank to get out of the cycle, it would have been over $1,000.

Because of instances such as this, payday lending has been banned successfully in 17 states.  However, there are some lenders protected from state laws because they are associated with a Native American Tribe.  Actually, there are over 30 online payday lenders protected from laws in this way.   Recently the Federal Trade Commission has taken action that they hope will stop the ability of payday lenders associated with Native American Tribes to continue to take advantage of people with loans that end up costing much more than they realize.

Facebook users have good news for them; the largest social networking website all over the world has come up with a decision that it would finally remove all the inappropriate and embarrassing images, which were swanning over the internet for all these years. The website has kept millions of such pictures against its user’s will but has finally decided to bring them down forever.

Before this, if any picture was erased from an account, it would not get permanently deleted and would in fact, be stored by Facebook; any person having that picture’s direct link could therefore easily view it. From now on, the pictures once deleted would be entirely erased from the system within next 14 days and in case of delay it would take 30 days maximum. The photos will be removed immediately the moment a user deletes them.

The issue first came into the light some three years ago when a student from Cambridge complaint about it. The 28 year old student had discovered that the pictures which he had deleted from his facebook account were still there and were available to all others to see if there was any saved link available to them. Bonneau recently told the Sunday Times that the website has taken very long to respond to user’s demand and bring this change. He said that,” It has taken them very long time to do it because this change probably represents a huge engineering effort.” He further added that,” The lesson hopefully to the other companies is to build in privacy right from the start, because if you do not get it right first time, it can be a huge effort to fix.”

According to research, around 91 percent of employers are now using social networking websites such as twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace everyday to screen those who apply for jobs. 69 percent of employers have told that they rejected many candidates on the basis of their account information on these websites.

The present scenario is that as expected. Apple has been successful in completely cleansing Samsung’s clock leaving behind the company rushing for an appeal, and there happen to be a plenty of unanswered questions. What would be effect on the market? What importance does it hold to the rest of the Smartphone vendors with the products like that of an I-phone? But amidst these inundated questions the very first question that arises is that what place was acquired by Google in all of it. Google might not have been mentioned in the list of defendants, but Samsung was certainly in fraction a stalking horse for the complete platform of Android. That very horse has now been made to find its way to the glue factory.

Samsung would have been successful in making and designing devices, but most of the infringements happen to be prevalent to the operating system of the Android itself. For that issue, the fondle-slab design possessed by the phones as well as tablets that was decided by the bench of judges to be owned by Apple happens to be a basic element of the mobile platform of Google. Samsung could not turn out as the winners, but the decision which would be made by the jury would be having a great deal of effect in the continuing game linking Apple and Google. The verdict would be a little difficult for Google down the throat in several ways. Firstly, Samsung has been taking it on the chin in order to tune of $1B in the losses in addition to the likelihood of the fact that several products could be completely banned in the country of US. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 has already gone under the ban in the United States. Though it is doubtful that a judge would be banning the sales of the phone Galaxy S III, Samsung would have to pay the almighty Apple for this privilege – either in the shape of licensing fees up front else damages down the road. Samsung happens to be the number one distributor of the Android phones in United States. Loss of Samsung – else even the idea of raising its costs – would result in a huge blow to Google.

 The social media has somehow always been the ‘bad boy’. It has specially been accused for playing a major role in broadening the scope of the rumours regarding the recent north-east divergence. The government took a strong stand in this and blocked all possible objectionable content off the social networking sites and other websites. In an interview with the minister of communications and IT Kapil Sibal, said that the government has a list of over 310 URL number featuring objectionable material which has been restricted, though there is no way any person/organisation could be identified, thus, clearing that it is in no way targeting any single individual or their accounts or any specific websites. Google and facebook is said to be cooperating.

Over the last few days the government has been criticised a lot for blocking various URLs which, by the ‘aam janta’ is seen as a measure to quieten people with conflicting opinions with the government.  It was added that strict action is only being taken against those accounts which are igniting or are responsible in igniting such a distress in the country through rumours, but nothing is being done to any other account, be it on Facebook or twitter and even SMSes are free of any kind of censorship.

Hoping for a speedy recovery, India.