What’s Really Going on With Windows 8?

We all know that these days, guys at Microsoft are very busy preparing the next major version of their Windows family. Recently, they have finished the 2^nd milestone of Windows 8… But that’s also leaked news! This time they are very strict about leaking information to the press. To tell you the truth, in Windows 7, we received a load of leaked info and screenshots at this stage. But what’s happening with Windows 8? It’s a big mystery

!

In Windows 7, we got the first public beta with their third milestone. But in Windows 8, we can’t say what will happen. Recently, at the CES, Microsoft officially announced that Windows 8 is going to support ARM and SoC (System on a Chip) devices. This will take it beyond our normal x86 and x64 processors to things like the ARM-based devices built by NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

Another leaked source has mentioned that Windows 8 is going to have a brand new graphics system which is said to have more Silverlight on it. But, these facts are unofficial! The biggest problem is we have no much information to tell you what they are really cooking in those lab…

Are they cooking something big and innovative which could change the whole world? Well, if that’s the case, then secrecy might be the best policy! But still, we cannot say anything until we get the public beta! So, what do you think? What are they doing with all these secrecy? Will we ever get a public beta?

Read more »

A 'stay-sober' pill: Coming to a pharmacy near you?

A new in-development drug treatment may help prevent drunkenness and potentially stave off those embarrassing moments of public intoxication. Photo: Sonja Pacho/Corbis

Korea already sells supposedly hangover-free alcohol, but what if a pill could stop you from getting drunk in the first place? That's the premise of a new "stay sober" tablet reportedly under development in Australia. The pill, which limits the effect of alcohol on the brain, is being tested on mice — who showed no signs of becoming "tipsy," despite being administered enough alcohol to make them "fall over," reports Britain's Telegraph. Would this just take the fun out of drinking? Here's what you should know:

How does the pill work?
It relies on naloxone, an FDA-approved drug that is typically used to treat heroine overdoses. Researchers used naloxone to target the brain's glial cells, which the immune system uses to protect the brain from outside attack. Mice who were injected with the drug and then given alcohol showed no loss of motor skills. The "groundbreaking discovery" here, says Nick Greene of the Village Voice, is that our immune systems may have more to do with drunkenness than our nervous systems.

And this would work on people, too?
Possibly. The pill "may benefit alcoholics and binge drinkers," says Rheana Murray of the New York Daily News, and could even keep heavy drinkers from embarrassing themselves at their company Christmas party.

When can I get it? 
Not for awhile. There are still some kinks to work out before a "stay sober" pill study could be attempted on humans. "Even the most treacherous frat house hazing," says Dan Childs at ABC, "probably would not involve separating the lightweights from the boozehounds, injecting them with alcohol-filled syringes, and setting them loose on an obstacle course" — as this study did with mice. Regardless, says Greene, "it's a stupid invention" that makes drinking "less fun." The researchers might as well be working on "cake that tastes like arugula."

Sources: ABC News, NY Daily News, Telegraph, Village Voice and http://theweek.com/article/index/219892/a-stay-sober-pill-coming-to-a-pharmacy-near-you

Read more »

The Tan Commandments

I 1f the sight of your newly bared body gives you the white frights and you plan to color up with instant tanners for your dress-up event, consider the five rules to tan by. Do not sunbathe, sun bake or do anything under the sun that involves getting ‘‘a tan’’. For that to happen you will need to get ‘‘sunburn’’. Think about it.

Tanned limbs should be toned limbs. Rough skin can be moisturized. Dry skin can be sloughed off – salt and oil mixtures work.

Hairy limbs can be waxed, depilated, or shaved.

The downside of tanners is the agent dihydroxyacetone (DHA), but the cosmetic labs are working on its giveaway chemical smell and the drying effect it has on the skin.

Applying a tanner that will develop its full riches in an overheated, airless workplace – or worse, an overheated airless pub or restaurant – is never a good idea. Tanner try-outs are best limited to your own backyard or any other place where a fresh breeze is blowing.

Colors, fragrances and application methods of fake tanners are many, but products that give an instant glow then develop over a day or two to a soft natural color are popular this season.

23 4

5$89.50 A thick, creamy tint that leaves a high shine and glimmer. As it dries the red-brown sheen develops but the color tint remains consistent. Streak free. A faint scent of caramel.

$29.99 a fine spray from the wide nozzle is easily sprayed on inner arms and backs of legs. Good for an allover body tan. Dries quickly but takes a few applications to get the coverage right. A natural color with golden/yellow tones. A pleasant citrus smell.

$39. Dries quickly leaving a high shine bronze shade. A good product for legs that are winter-white but best apply lightly. A light, pleasant fragrance. Washes off.

$24.99 A new product that slicks on to the skin – feels slightly sticky at first, then dries to a natural (no glimmer) color. Can rub off on clothing if not given time to dry completely. A tanner to apply over a few days – stopping when your reach the desired nut-brown maiden look. Give an even color, leaves a moisturized feeling. Shake before using.

45 A bright golden, quite thick cream that soaks in rapidly but still takes time to dry quickly. The recommended time is 15 minutes. Good for all-over color but easy to use too much. Take care around the bony parts – ankles, knees, hands, but its lack of sheen makes it a natural for ageing skin (backs of hands, chicken legs).

$29.90 A bright white fruit-fragranced oily cream, this is a skin nourishes that would be beneficial all year, not just in the sunny months. Contains some DHA, so will continue to color the skin. $44.95 It sprays unevenly and sporadically. The bulky can is awkward to hold and the tan application is streaky. The shade of the tan is orange. It has a metallic scent.

$29.95 Billed as ‘‘spray-on perfect legs in an instant’’, it is easy to apply and the ‘‘instant’’ tan covers freckles and imperfections and looks natural. It goes on like foundation and doesn’t streak. The ‘‘wait 60 seconds and dress’’ is true. The product has a strong chemical scent. The golden color lasts well.

$34.90 A gel product, it is initially dark, and one application was enough (it lasted three days). It takes around 20 minutes to dry. It has a pleasant if initially overpowering scent. It delivered its promise to ‘‘build a natural looking tan enhanced with shimmering mineral’’. Leaves light dusting of gold glitter on the skin – maybe it’s best for an evening-wear tan? $42.50 it makes a lot of sense to include sun protection in a fake tan product. Dubbed a ‘‘light milk sunscreen’’, the thin cream is the color of milky cocoa. The tint it leaves on the skin is a pinkish tan, described by a redhead as ‘‘a good color match with my freckles’’. Takes 15 minutes to dry. As with all SPF products, it needs to be reapplied every couple of hours. Available from pharmacies. Fairfax

Original Post:- http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

Read more »

How carriers will make money (from you) on 4G

4G phones haven't been easy to sell but cell phone carriers are developing new ways to make more money from these phones.

Cell phone carriers are trying to earn more revenue from offering 4G networks.

Wireless networks can sell more data and sell data about consumers to generate revenue.

Carriers are improving audio quality and selling it through "voice over LTE".

Editor's note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

(CNN) -- How do U.S. wireless carriers expect their investments in new 4G high-speed networks to pay off? This shift is about more than simply providing mobile data -- and it could even bring some long-overdue improvements to the humble telephone call.

At the Open Mobile Summit conference last week in San Francisco, a panel of carrier executives and wireless industry experts discussed the revenue-generating opportunities of offering 4G service.

This is a big concern for carriers, since their costly move to 3G networks a few years ago appears to have financially benefited other players in the mobile industry (such as Apple) more than the carriers themselves.

There are some obvious ways that carriers plan to make money from their 4G networks. First, these networks will allow wireless carriers to sell more data -- a key part of their business model as most U.S. carriers move away from offering unlimited data plans.

Still, despite heavy marketing, 4G phones and services haven't been easy to sell to the average mobile consumer. As Scott Devitt, a consumer Internet analyst with Morgan Stanley, noted: "For most consumers, the value of 4G is not really clear at this point -- except for watching mobile video."

Consequently U.S. carriers are starting to look hard at less-obvious ways to demonstrate the value of 4G to consumers

"The phone call hasn't been significantly improved or enhanced since the introduction of touch tone dialing," observed Rob Glaser, a partner with the venture capital firm Accel Partners." 4G is already allowing people to do great things with their phones -- but most people still spend about 47% of their time on their cell phones making regular phone calls."

Sprint CTO Stephen Bye said, "It is important to not lose sight of what customers see as important. Despite how much carriers are focusing on 4G data speed, most customers measure network success based on voice-call quality."

Improving the audio quality and clarity of voice calls is one reason why some U.S. carriers are working to implement "voice over LTE" (VOLTE) technology. Earlier this year Verizon announced plans to start selling VOLTE-enabled phones in early 2012.

Earlier, Verizon director of ecosystem development Brian Higgins told CNN that "high-definition audio fidelity will be a major selling point" for Verizon -- implying that the carrier might be hoping to sell VOLTE as some kind of premium service, at least initially. That's another way to make extra money from a 4G network.

The discount carrier Metro PCS may be moving faster than Verizon toward deploying VoLTE for its customers. Already, Metro PCS has begun migrating text and multimedia messaging traffic to its LTE network. (Traditionally, SMS/MMS messaging is handled over the same base carrier network as voice calls.)

But Connected Planet notes that Metro PCS has less wireless spectrum access than Verizon. Also, Metro PCS never rolled out 3G technology as extensively as the major carriers. So, since 4G and VOLTE could help Metro PCS squeeze more mileage from its existing spectrum, this could mean that Metro PCS might offer these as basic -- not premium -- services.

That would make for interesting competition in the consumer mobile market -- especially since MetroPCS focuses on the no-contract mobile market.

If VoLTE calling becomes commonplace, it could change how people pay for cell phone service. If most mobile voice calls happen over data networks, then carriers may stop selling "minutes" altogether and shift to charging solely for data packages.

But initially, as carriers first start marketing "high definition calling," they may face some consumer pushback due to perceived value.

Consumers who get VoLTE phones and service might not always experience clearer phone calls, since only calls placed between VoLTE-enabled phones are expected to sound better. Calls between a VoLTE-enabled phone and a regular cell phone are expected to sound the same.

As the recent backpedaling by major banks on proposed debit card fees indicates, right now corporations are wary of consumer revolts against mounting bills.

Right now wireless carriers generally bill customers for service for each mobile device they use (with the exception of cell phone "family plans"). But these days, consumers also use tablets, gaming consoles and other devices over carrier networks.

If consumers revolt against the cumulative sticker shock of multiple monthly bills for connectivity, carriers may begin to move away from device-specific billing -- which includes tethering charges.

There is one more way that wireless carriers can make money from 4G: selling data about consumers.

David Small, CTO for Verizon Wireless, raised the point that 4G will allow users to do even more with their cell phones and other wireless devices -- which means carriers will be gathering more consumer data than ever before via their networks.

"All that data, about all the facets of users' lives -- that's got value," Small said. "And that's a revenue opportunity for us."

Sprint CTO Bye agreed, but cautiously: "We know there's a fine line between monetization and trust for our customers. We think consumer data would be more useful in the aggregate, for machine-to-machine interfaces, without bringing it down to a particular person."

The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of Amy Gahran.

Read more »

Verizon offers nation's fastest 4G service

Verizon Wireless offers the nation's fastest 4G service, according to a new report from Root metrics.

HIGHLIGHTS STORY

1. Verizon performed at 4G speeds in 66% of tests -- better than AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile

2. 4G speed means a download speed of at least three megabits per second

3. Root Metrics compared 4G networks from the four major U.S. carriers in 27 cities

CNN -- Forget the 4G marketing hype. Which U.S. carriers really offer the fastest mobile-data networks? According to a new report from Root Metrics (a company which conducts its own field tests of wireless networks), Verizon Wireless currently offers the nation's fastest 4G -- by far.

Root Metrics recently compared 4G networks from the four major U.S. carriers in 27 cities. Across all cities, Verizon performed at 4G speeds in 66% of tests.

What qualifies as 4G speed? According to Root Metrics, that's a download speed of at least three megabits per second -- fast enough to download a 30-minute standard-definition TV episode in less than 10 minutes.

"In cities where we could test Verizon's LTE (network), their average download speeds were roughly equivalent with the other carriers' maximum download speeds. In several markets, Verizon's average download speeds actually exceeded the maximum speeds of the other carriers," the report said.

What about the other carriers? According to the report, "AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint offered similar performances to one another overall and jockeyed back and forth behind Verizon across the markets. AT&T and T-Mobile were especially close: AT&T offered 4G speed in 40.7% of our tests, while T-Mobile recorded 4G speed in 39.5% of our tests."

Of course, carriers do not deploy 4G networks evenly across a given metro area. They tend to focus deployment in more densely populated areas, and along major highways and office or shopping districts. Depending on the city and the carrier, they may also deploy more 4G resources in wealthier neighborhoods.

So the report noted: "In those cities where LTE was not available, Verizon performed markedly slower. Where LTE is present, Verizon is easily the fastest; where LTE is not, Verizon is among the slowest carriers for data delivery."

Most mobile users don't download huge files to their phones, so "upper 3G" download speeds (1.5-3 Mbps, according to Root Metrics) will still seem pretty impressive to a typical mobile user. And even "lower 3G" speeds (between 500 kilobytes/second and 1.5 Mbps) are adequate for most mobile activities. On this front, AT&T's HSPA+ network is pretty dependable, said Root Metrics:

"AT&T delivered 3G speeds more consistently than the other carriers: they recorded upper 3G speed in 28% of our tests and lower 3G speed in 20% of our tests. AT&T fell below 3G speeds in only 11% of our tests, the lowest percentage of any of the carriers."

T-Mobile's performance was mostly similar to AT&T's in terms of 4G, but "disparities emerge when comparing T-Mobile's non-4G tests to AT&T's. When T-Mobile didn't hit 4G, they ... were more prone to slipping to slower 3G speeds."

Sprint may offer more consumer-friendly 4G data plans than AT&T or Verizon -- but there's a performance tradeoff. Root Metrics found "a significant disparity between cities where Sprint had Wi MAX available and those where Wi MAX was either not present or access to it proved sporadic. For instance, Sprint delivered a market-best average download speed of 4.6 Mbps in Wi MAX-enabled Kansas City, while recording a noticeably slow 0.5 Mbps in non-Wi MAX Buffalo."

If you like to post or live-stream audio or video from your phone to the Internet, you probably care about upload speeds -- which means you might want to avoid Sprint, unless it offers a Wi MAX network in your city.

"Sprint's average upload speeds were consistently slow. Sprint was the only carrier to never record an average upload speed above 1.0 Mbps in any of the markets we tested," said the report.

Sprint also markets cell phone service through several discount carriers that focus on no-contract mobile plans, such as Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile -- and some of these brands are starting to market 4G phones and service.

Julia Dey, vice president of marketing for Root Metrics, clarified that the company's numbers for Sprint would apply to other carriers that rely on Sprint's networks. If you're unsure, you can ask the discount carriers whether they use Sprint's network in your city -- and whether it's a Wi MAX network or not.

Metro PCS (which never rolled out much of a 3G network) has been aggressively deploying its own 4G LTE network. The current Root Metrics 4G comparison report does not include Metro PCS, but Dey says Root Metrics is starting to add Metro PCS and other carriers to its field testing regimen. The company plans to start publishing city reports with data from these carriers by the end of this year.

In addition to rating carriers' 4G performance across all of the cities, the report rated cities according to how much choice local residents have in 4G carriers.

When rating cities for 4G access and quality, Root Metrics took more than speed into account: By their reckoning, a "4G city" must also offer a choice of reliable 4G providers.

In all, 19 of the 27 cities Root Metrics examined had at least three (and sometimes four) carriers offering download speeds of at least 3 Mbps in more than 40% of their field tests. Denver and Portland, Oregon, topped this list, achieving 4G speeds in over 61% of tests.

The remaining eight 4G cities had at least two carriers meeting this benchmark. Philadelphia and Chicago were at the bottom of this category, each reaching 4G speeds in about 42% of field tests.

If you're trying to find the best cell phone network where you live, don't just rely on carrier coverage maps or speed claims -- which are often based on theoretical maximum output from cell towers. Root Metrics offers coverage maps based on data gathered via its own field testing team, plus crowdsource data gathered via its iPhone and Android apps In the last year it has also published mobile performance reports for about three dozen major U.S. metro areas.

Open Signal Maps, another source to check, offers similar crowds ourced data gathered via its Android app.

Read more »

The Elder Scrolls Sky rim brings fantasy world to life.

Fend off dragons and use magical powers while exploring beautiful landscapes that make you feel like you are in a real world.

HIGHLIGHTS STORY

1. Everything in the game is designed to make you feel like you are in a real world

2. There are hundreds of quests for players to explore the beautiful landscapes

3. The game allows you to "Be who you want to be and do what you want to do"

4. Glitches with personal interactions in the game are annoying but can be overlooked

"The Elder Scrolls V: Sky rim," the sweeping, epic fantasy game set for release Friday, presents a beautiful landscape with hundreds of quests for players to explore. But there are limits to how detailed it gets before some parts break down.

The game builds off of lessons learned from the older titles in the franchise, and developers worked hard to make this new region of Sky rim come alive. Players get to start as one of 10 different races -- from Argonians (lizard men) and Khajiit (cat men) to the more typical humans, elves or orcs.

You don't choose a class for your character as in previous games. Developers at Bethesda Game Studios wanted gamers to have more flexibility to play however they wanted. There are still skills to be learned and enhanced, but the player could potentially become skilled at wielding a sword and shield before deciding they want to learn to use magic spells.

"Be who you want to be and do what you want to do," game director Todd Howard said. "You can choose your abilities as the game goes on and get rewarded for your choices."

Obviously, focusing on one discipline will increase your power faster than if you tried to learn to be a thief, then a mage, then a fighter. However, the options are there to let you change your mind if you are so inclined.

The environments are amazing and not just for show. Climb to any of the tall mountaintops and look around. If you can see it, you can walk to it. Everything in the game is designed to make you feel like you are in a real world.

Moving around in such an open environment can be done on foot, via carriage or on horseback. Once you visit a place, you can then return using a fast travel mode that gets you there without incident, but it does use up the same in-game time as if you had walked there.

Cities have their own unique style, and certain creatures can only be found in what could be called their natural habitats. Nearly everything can be picked up, examined and possibly sold later to someone else. But you'll get weighted down in a hurry if you grab every plate and cup you come across.

Non-player characters also have their own look and feel. But it's this person-to-person interaction where some of the detail breaks down.

When your character walks into a room, everyone turns to face you. On one quest, I entered a party and all the party-goers kept looking at me while they were walking around the room -- or even into each other. Even while talking to someone else, their eyes were locked on my position. It was creepy.

The animation of the non-player characters also seems stiff and repetitive when compared to the rest of the richly detailed and free-flowing environment. They will also occasionally walk themselves into corners and not be able to figure a way out. Poor things.

Enemies also occasionally suffer from the same bug. Creatures pursuing you will get hung up on a pot or doorway and not be able to move. The player is then able to attack repeatedly with ranged weapons or spells with impunity.

Combat controls differ between the console and PC versions, but the premise is the same. Each of the character's hands can hold a weapon or cast a spell. Changing weapons or spells, even in mid-combat, simply requires a pause to reassign new items.

Potions, poisons and other items are accessed in a similar manner. The trick is to not get so involved in the fight that you lose track of your health when there are 15 healing potions in your inventory.

Not everything is out to kill you and, indeed, some creatures you come across will actually help you battle your foes. Finding out who is inherently going to stab you as opposed to shake your hand is usually a trial-and-error proposition, but one that can quickly be spun to your advantage.

Oh, and there are dragons.

Dragons are key to many of the stories told in the game, but there are also random dragons that swoop over towns while you are trying to sell some loot. The choice then becomes whether to battle the dragon right away (and damage the town) or track him back to his lair.

Hundreds of quests, including 180 specific storyline quests, will keep players interested for many hours. Some of the quests are very specific.

"Other quests are random or can change depending on the outcomes of previous missions," Howard said. "It is a game for people who play a lot of games."

"The Elder Scrolls V: Sky rim" is truly a wide-open game with many possibilities and visually stunning places to explore. There are many "wow" moments to discover, and those personal interaction bugs are a mere annoyance that can be overlooked.

Players will feel like they truly are in Sky rim. Just keep an eye on the sky.

Read more »

Sneaky mal ware just needs a few clicks to take control.

Criminals are getting sneakier. These days, computer viruses, Trojans, root kits and other unfriendly software (collectively known as mal ware) can be foisted on our systems without our even noticing.

In the early days of mal ware, the idea was simply to show people that their systems had been compromised; a virus was sometimes nothing more than a thumbing of the perpetrator’s nose at his victims (what else would explain a virus that just made the letters you typed tumble to the bottom of the screen?). But as time went on, mal ware went from mischievous to malicious, and destruction became the name of the game.

A roundup of The Globe's Small Business Summit

Today’s mal ware authors aim for secrecy. Their goal is often to hide on your system and steal as much information as possible – banking passwords, credit card numbers, confidential files, and anything else of value. Or they may want to use your computer to launch attacks on others.

It’s embarrassingly easy to become a pawn in the bad guys’ games, as security vendor McAfee shows us in a little exercise known as the Mal ware Experience.

The Mal ware Experience is a class that can be anything from a few hours to a couple of days long. It is designed to give people the opportunity to experience mal ware in comfort and safety, says current custodian Jon Carpenter, an anti-mal ware competitive review manager at McAfee Labs. Mr. Carpenter has been working with the Mal ware Experience for almost a decade, and has been building new versions of it, to reflect the current mal ware universe, for the last five or six years.

At McAfee's recent Focus 2011 conference, Mr. Carpenter and Labs colleague Toralv Dirro presented a truncated version of the Experience to members of the media.

During the class, you become both a bad guy and his victim. You work on a laptop that is carefully isolated from any available networks and with external storage disabled (you are, after all, working with live mal ware, and don’t want it to escape). It contains three virtual machines (VMs): the victim's computer, a compromised web server, and the attacker's PC.

Then you unleash your inner hacker. Working from a script, you first construct the trap, configuring the web server with a Trojan horse – a program that performs a benign or useful function while sneakily installing mal ware on the victim’s machine in the background. It is housed on a website crafted to resemble a known site – in this case, an anti-virus vendor's site. So far, so good.

Next, you bait the hook by composing an e-mail to the victim, in the guise of a promotion for a free anti-mal ware tool. This will persuade the user to download the Trojan.

Then the scenario flips, and you become the victim.

Being a trusting soul, you open the e-mail on the victim VM and see the link to what you think is your anti-mal ware vendor’s website. A sharp-eyed person might notice, while hovering the cursor over the link, that the URL is slightly different from the legitimate vendor URL, but hackers usually count on the fact that the message looks convincing enough that a large percentage of recipients will click through.

That starts the download of your Trojan, which has been given the same name as the real anti-virus program.

Since you, as victim, have willingly downloaded the fake anti-virus program, you then run it (your system is virus-free, it says – how nice – a total lie, since it just installed the attacker’s mal ware), and the hackers immediately have another computer under their control.

Yes, it really is that easy.

Now that the victim’s computer is your slave, you as hacker can have some fun. You can pop back to the attacker machine and explore the command and control console for your mal ware to discover what mischief it can perform. For example, there’s a key logger to capture every keystroke your victim types (very handy for grabbing passwords and credit card numbers). The next item in the script is even more insidious: you’re going to silently install another piece of mal ware, the Zeus Trojan, on your victim’s machine.

This time the victim has to do nothing. All the attacker needs to do is set up the configuration script for your mal ware, then instruct the first Trojan to install it on the target system. In a few minutes, the mal ware will report whether it was correctly installed and you’re ready to wreak more havoc.

Let’s say you want to steal the victim’s Facebook credentials. On the attacker machine, it’s a matter of entering the URL you want monitored, letting the mal ware synch with the victim’s machine, then sitting back and waiting.

Soon, everything you need to know if you wanted to hijack the victim’s account is now at your fingertips, and the victim is none the wiser.

The Mal ware Experience includes a few more tricks as well, such as redirecting the victim’s surfing to a malicious website.

“We want to make people aware of what’s possible, but not to encourage them to try it,” explains Mr. Carpenter. “It’s all about raising awareness.”

And raise awareness he has, by presenting the class to members of the media, university students, police forces, and even the British House of Lords, to demonstrate how easy it is for computers to become infected.

Mr. Carpenter then points out ways to stay infection-free, such as not clicking on links in unsolicited e-mails, and examining links to ensure the site name is spelled correctly (slight misspellings are easy to miss, and can lead to malicious sites).

“I’m a firm believer in finding the weakest link,” he says. “It’s important that users are aware of the risks. The [anti-mal ware] industry tries hard to make users aware.”

Read more »

The $15-billion ambition to reshape Manhattan's skyline

The High Line park comes to an abrupt end on the west side of Manhattan, as a chain link fence keeps anyone from stumbling into a massive train yard that handles much of the island’s commuter rail traffic.

Within a few years, that fence be will gone and an entire city block will have been built atop the 26-acre rail yard. Literally on top  the trains will continue to run on the same tracks they are on today, but a $1.5-billion platform will keep them out of sight.

A rail yard rejuvenation

Five thousand apartments will sprout from the newly-built artificial land mass, along with a million square feet of retail space and six million square feet of office space the same amount that can be found in all of Saskatchewan. That’s three office towers, nine residential buildings and dozens of stores. There are also plans for a school, a cultural centre and 12 acres of open park space.

The $15-billion project is ambitious even by New York standards, and will result in an entirely new neighb our hood on what had been considered a fully built-out island. But in the meantime, much of the site is surrounded by wooden hoarding bearing the name of Canada’s largest reale state developer – Oxford Properties.

The project is the company’s bold step into the United States. And for the hundreds of thousands of pensioners and workers who rely on the company to generate solid returns to fund their retirement – Oxford is the real estate arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and owns and manages $17-billion of buildings – the stakes couldn’t be any higher.

This sliver of Manhattan is about to become a proving ground for some of the biggest players in Canadian real estate. Just across the street, Brookfield Office Properties, which is controlled by Toronto’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc., has its own project that will add millions more feet of office space.

That all of this is going ahead, despite the threat of another recession, illustrates the health of the Canadian property sector. Developers and landlords here came through the recession in far better shape than their American counterparts, due to tighter banking regulations and a healthier leasing market in Canada. They have the money, and are counting on better economic times in America’s largest city to make their bets pay out.

But projects of this size are still gambles. The last downturn saw Wall Street shed tens of thousands of jobs, and companies scrambled to unload office space. The threat of high vacancies has kept most domestic builders on the sidelines, and American banks aren’t keen to finance new projects. Indeed, Oxford came into the Manhattan project only after a number of big-name U.S. developers and financial players – including none other than Goldman Sachs – pulled out.

The last time the city saw such a transformation was more than 100 years ago, when Park Avenue and Grand Central Station were covered with the platform that is now crossed by millions of people a year without a second thought. If all goes according to plan, the hidden tracks below Hudson Yards will also be forgotten by the time the first residents move in.

“What we are doing here is building a new neighb our hood on the island of Manhattan,” said Blake Hutcheson, the chief executive officer of Oxford Properties. “You don’t do that every day.”

With marketing now under way and construction scheduled to start next year, the Canadian developer is set on a course that will transform it from an unknown foreign investor to one of New York’s most prominent landlords. It’s doing it with the help of Related Companies, a large and ambitious New York developer that is keen to use Canadian money to further its U.S. aspirations.

But before that can happen, an awful lot needs to go right. There are competing towers already under way at the World Trade Center site that can offer space at roughly the same price and be ready sooner. Brookfield’s new project calls for three new office towers – also on top of a railway trench.

Oxford scored an important victory in late October when it conscripted luxury goods maker Coach as a lead tenant, signing it up to occupy more than one-third of the first tower and ensuring work will proceed in the new year. Prices and terms were not disclosed.

Read more »

China’s ski resorts missing just one thing: skiers

On a bright day last winter, the managers of wan long ski resort in northern. China decided it was the perfect time to take aerial photos of the mountain. The bird’s-eye view revealed something strange: The parking lot was packed but the ski runs were empty. At ground level, the mystery was easily solved: Visitors had ditched their skis to dine on braised pork in the restaurant, play cards in the tea house and go for foot massages in the spa.

Mountain China Resorts (MCG-X)

0.20     -0.00   -2.50%

As of Nov 11, 2011 10:10

Range:

• 1 Day
• 5 Day
• 1 Year

View Larger Chart

RCMP Sino Forest probe unlikely to yield results

On the face of things, the skiing industry has boomed in China. The country had fewer than 10,000 skiers and nine small skiable hills in 1996. That swelled to about five million skiers and 186 possible destinations at the end of last year, according to the Chinese Ski Association.

Those strong numbers are deceptive. There is still little in the way of a dedicated skiing community in China. So when it comes to selling lift tickets or chalets, it has been a painful decade for the developers of Chinese ski resorts.

They have had to learn the hard way that what might be considered après-ski activities elsewhere in the world must be in-lieu-of-ski activities in China if they want to attract crowds.

“Skiing in China is just at the point of takeoff. I’d say that 99 per cent of ski resorts are losing money. No one is making a profit,” says Zeng Mingsen, sales director at Wanlong, about four hours’ drive from Beijing.

Rather than throwing in the towel, though, developers are now upping the ante. Still clinging to the promise of the Chinese market, they are building bigger, better resorts that they believe are more in line with local tastes.

At Wanlong, construction crews have spent the summer and autumn giving the facilities a facelift. The lodge at the base of the mountain has added a sunroom and new restaurants to cater to those who prefer to spend their day inside eating rather than skiing. The main hotel has expanded its spa with a jade-floored steam room. The priciest mountainside villas have been spruced up with mahjong tables.

Those improvements are modest compared to the ambitions of other resorts in China. In the far north, Yabuli, the country’s biggest established resort, has partnered with Club Med and aimed for a broader customer base, plugging its horse sledding and yoga as much as the mountain itself.

“In the past, we concentrated on the skiing. Now we are mainly focused on being an all-round winter resort. Only 48 per cent of our visitors last year actually came for the skiing,” says Patrick CaoYue, executive vice-president of Mountain China Resorts, the developers of Yabuli.

That is also the approach at Chang baishan. On the border with North Korea, it might not seem the obvious choice for a winter resort but it is the tallest mountain range in northeastern China and already popular among tourists.

Wanda, a major Chinese property company, is developing a vast ski resort at Chang baishan that it says will be able to host Olympic-calibre events. But it is the extras – a shopping street, a conference centre, a theatre, a museum dedicated to mountain shamans – that it is counting on to draw the crowds.

Apart from the food coming out of their kitchens, there is little that marks the hotels and villas at China’s winter resorts as distinctively Chinese.

“Skiing vacations as a concept come from Europe and America. This lifestyle is not something that China invented,” Mr. Cao says. “People come because they want a taste of that.

“Getting a Canadian or an American visa might be too remote, but here they can see a place that looks a bit like Whistler – they can get that experience.”

Read more »

Let the sun shine, and it’ll keep you charged

Sunny days are a real treat, especially as winter approaches. They warm the heart, improve morale and now, they even provide a power source for many of those electronics that run our lives.

Smart phones, e-readers, cameras and music players all live in our pockets, purses and bags, get used a lot, and tend to run out of juice at the most annoying moments – for example, when you’re on the road trying to make a sale

.

Backup batteries abound, but most need a USB port or A/C plug to recharge them once they’ve provided a power transfusion to a hungry device.

But if you’re nowhere near a plug, don’t worry. The sun can often do the job.

Enter the Power Trip, from Ottawa-based Eco sol. In a package about the size of a deck of cards, the Power Trip houses a battery that you can top up via the usual USB port or wall socket (the plug swivels out from the side), or using the solar panel that fills most of one side. Just sit it on a sunny windowsill.

Like its USB-powered sibling, the Power Stick, it comes with several connectors that will feed devices with micro- or mini-USB ports, and it will connect to Apple devices. A fully charged Power Trip can deliver five full charges to your smart phone; a microprocessor prevents phone damage from overcharging. I tested it with a Black Berry, followed by a Kobo e-reader, both of which the Power Trip handled with aplomb, with plenty of power left over for other devices. A power meter on the side of the battery shows the state of the charge.

The Power Trip comes with a handy cloth bag that holds the battery and the connectors. The connectors plug into a full-sized USB port on the side of the Power Trip, or you can just use a standard USB cable to charge devices instead.

Oh, yes – as an added bonus, it also has 4GB, 8GB or 16GB of memory. Prices start at $109 (U.S.) for the 4GB model.

Trickle charging your phone while on the go can help avoid those embarrassing moments when it cuts out in the middle of an important call. Several computer bags offer built-in solar panels for just that purpose.

The $159 solar backpack from Eclipse, for example, can provide up to four watts of power from the flexible panel on its front pocket. It connects to devices using a car charger adapter, and has enough power to feed a phone or music player; laptops, however, are beyond its scope.

Its padded computer pocket holds a laptop with a screen as big as 15 inches, and it also boasts a generous compartment for books and clothes, and several accessory pockets, including a front-zippered pouch that holds pens and CDs, and even has a removable clip for USB memory sticks or keys.

Either sunshine or room light can power the $89.99 Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750. It’s a slim, flat little beast with solar cells across the top. Once it’s charged, it can get by without a ray of light for up to three months. The press of a button on the keyboard lets you know whether ambient light is sufficient for charging and, if you’ve installed the Logitech software, it will also launch an app on your computer showing charging status and remaining power.

The keyboard talks to the computer via a tiny USB wireless transceiver that’s small enough to remain in the port all the time and can also connect to other compatible devices. The touch is surprisingly good, with slightly concave keys.

There are, of course, devices that want fresh batteries inserted from time to time, rather than allowing themselves to be recharged. There’s a sunny solution to that issue too: the C. Crane Solar Powered Battery Charger. The device’s battery charging time varies, depending on the type and capacity of the battery, from a couple of hours to several days.

The lid of the charger can be positioned to catch maximum rays, and there’s a little meter inside the unit showing battery charge.

Read more »

Kindle Fire will be hottest tablet since the iPad

HIGHLIGHTS  STORY

1. The iPad faces stiff competition from the Kindle Fire and Nook tablets next week

2. Kindle Fire, priced at $199, may be the most succesful tablet since the iPad

3. The full-color 7-inch tablet has access to millions of movies, songs, books and magazines

4. Barnes & Noble's $249 Nook tablet may also prove popular

CNN -- The iPad is one of the most disruptive technologies of the past 5 years. Along with the iPhone, it birthed a new era of touch computing that does away with the mouse and keyboard altogether. And yet the iPad's undisputed dominance of the blossoming tablet market may not last forever. In fact, the iPad is about to get some stiff competition finally.

To understand why the iPad dominates the tablet sector is not difficult: Not only was it the first of the new wave of touchscreen tablets, but it's also the most desirable in the eyes of consumers.

The iPhone had a few chinks in its armor early on: It was only available on one network in the U.S., leaving room for competitors to thrive on other networks. This Achilles Heel isn't such a problem for the iPad: Not only is it available on both AT&T and Verizon, but many consumers simply buy the Wi-Fi version, meaning the carrier issue isn't as relevant.

Competitors were also able to best the iPhone, which initially cost at least $499, on price: Cheaper alternatives using Google Android became abundant, especially when carrier subsidies were taken into consideration. And yet rivals to the iPad cost about the same and lack the caché of the original.

Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of Mashable.com.

If you want something like the iPad, your best choice has been ... the iPad.

Things are about to change, however. Two affordable and promising tablet contenders are going on sale next week.

On Tuesday, Amazon releases its Kindle Fire. For only $199 -- versus $499 for the iPad -- you get a full-color, 7-inch touchscreen tablet. You also get access to a millions of movies, TV shows, songs, books and magazines. Not to mention that Amazon has its own version of Android's app store, and the Kindle Fire comes with a new Web browser that claims to be faster than the competition.

Then on Wednesday comes Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet, which has similar specs as the Kindle Fire but more memory and storage. It's priced at $249 -- half the cost of an iPad.

Of the two, the early favorite to emerge as the iPad's top rival is the Kindle Fire. More than any other competitor, Amazon is able to spar with Apple by controlling all the pieces of the puzzle -- from the device itself to the content that you'll consume on it.

This "end to end" solution mimics Apple's strategy -- it should mean that the user experience is radically better than other iPad alternatives. And while Amazon stops short of running its own operating system -- the tablet runs a modified version of Google's Android -- they've also made changes to the interface that make it feel more holistic.

The fact that Amazon is a major distributor of books, movies, TV shows and music has another huge advantage: The company can afford to take a slight loss on the price of the device (and reportedly does), and make up for it by selling content.

Amazon.com has been pushing the Kindle Fire to its millions of customers, even going so far as to offer free streaming movies and TV shows to all its Amazon Prime customers (as it already does on the Web).

Mark my words: The Amazon Kindle Fire will be the most successful tablet device since the iPad. Five hundred dollars is a steep price to pay for many tablet-craving consumers, but paying $200 for a similar device is comparatively painless.

In fact, a research firm surveyed 2,600 consumers to gauge interest in the new tablet and found that pre-launch demand for the Kindle Fire is higher than demand for the iPad before its launch.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think the Kindle Fire is better than the iPad. I do think, however, that the mass market is far more price sensitive than the early-adopter crowd. At the very least, the Kindle Fire is set to become the world's second-most popular tablet.

At that price, I wouldn't even bet against the Fire dethroning the iPad as the market leader.

Read more »

iPhone battery issues for Apple fixes.

Is your battery draining faster on Apple's iPhone? It should fix the problem and download the iios 5.0.1 update.

HIGHLIGHTS STORY

1.  iios 5.0.1 was released to update and fix issues that drained the iPhone's battery .

2.  Users of Apple's iPhone 4S and other iios 5 operated phones reported shorter battery lives.

3.  Apple admitted that ios 5 had battery performance issues.

(CNN) -- Apple has released iios 5.0.1, an update to its mobile IOS that fixes a series of issues that drained the iPhone's battery.

iios 5.0.1 is the first update to Apple's iios 5, which brought the notifications tray, increased performance and iCloud to the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

In addition to fixing the iios battery issue, 5.0.1. adds multitouch gestures to the original iPad, fixes iCloud bugs and improves voice recognition for Australian iPhone users. This is the first IOS update available both via iTunes and over-the-air.

Not long after the release of the iPhone 4S, users began reporting that their phone's batteries were draining faster than before. This issue affected not just iPhone 4S users though, but anybody using iios 5.

Apple eventually figured out that there were bugs in iios 5 that were causing the battery drain and enlisted developers to help them find the bug.

On November 2, Apple admitted that iios 5 had battery performance issues and announced that the company would fix the problem with iios 5.0.1. Apple has released several betas of the updated IOS in the last week.

Our testing of the beta has shown that iios 5.0.1 provides a noticeable improvement to the iPhone's battery life. We're still testing the updated IOS though, and will let you know what else we find.

Read more »

Laser helps detect roadside bombs

  Every molecule vibrates with a unique frequency - so the laser could "sense" bombs while scanning the ground from a safe distance.

The Michigan State University team's work is another attempt to curb the number of deaths from roadside bombs in places such as Afghanistan.

The research appears in the journal Applied Physical Letters.

An improvised explosive device is a homemade bomb and more than half the deaths of coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been as a result of IEDs.

The lead developer of the laser sensor, Dr Marcos Dantus, said detecting IEDs has always been a challenge because of the chemical compounds present in the environment that mask the bomb's molecules.

"Having molecular structure sensitivity is critical for identifying explosives and avoiding unnecessary evacuation of buildings and closing roads due to false alarms," he said.

The invention uses a laser beam to probe the chemical composition of an object at a certain distance from the laser.

The beam combines short pulses that "kick" the molecules to make them vibrate with longer pulses.

"The laser and the method we've developed were originally intended for microscopes, but we were able to adapt and broaden its use to demonstrate its effectiveness for standoff detection of explosives," said Dr Dantus.

The researcher said he was not able to describe the technology behind the invention in great detail because of the project's sensitive nature.

"I cannot give you more specific information regarding its implementation," he told BBC News.

Read more »