NORAD Santa trackers having record holiday

 Santa's piling up more than presents this year. The big man's trackers at NORAD say Santa Claus is also breaking records this Christmas Eve.

Volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado were fielding 4,000 calls an hour Saturday morning, on pace to break a record. Also, Santa's NORAD Facebook page exceeded 840,000 "likes" by midmorning. Last year, Santa had 716,000 "likes."

Volunteers at NORAD Tracks Santa said kids started calling at 4 a.m. Saturday to find out where Santa was.
"The phones are ringing like crazy," Lt. Cmdr. Bill Lewis said Saturday.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been telling anxious children about Santa's whereabouts every year since 1955. That was the year a Colorado Springs newspaper ad invited kids to call Santa on a hotline, but the number had a typo, and dozens of kids wound up talking to the Continental Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD's predecessor.
The officers on duty played along and began sharing reports on Santa's progress. It's now a deep-rooted tradition at NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command that monitors the North American skies and seas from a control center at Peterson.
NORAD's Santa updates are blowing up on social media, too. In addition to the website and Facebook and Twitter pages, Santa this year has a new tracking app for smart phones. The app includes the Elf Toss, a game similar to Angry Birds.
On the Net:

http://www.noradsanta.org/


Ap.org

IBM's Five Predictions for the Next Five Years

Biometric passwords? Mind-reading headsets? Junk mail you'll look forward to? As with all predictions, the answer is "maybe"

In each of the past five years, IBM has come up with a list of five innovationsit believes will become popular within five years. In this, the sixth year, IBM has come up with the following technologies it thinks will gain traction. Hold on to your sci-fi novels, because some of these are pretty far out there. And some of them, well, I wish we had them today.

• People power will come to life. Advances in technology will allow us to trap the kinetic energy generated (and wasted) from walking, jogging, bicycling, and even from water flowing through pipes. A bicycle charging your iPhone? There’s nothing wrong with that, though I think it might be a while before we see this actually become a mainstream practice.

• You will never need a password again. Biometrics will finally replace the password and thus redefine the word “hack.” Jokes aside, IBM believes multifactor biometrics will become pervasive. “Biometric data—facial definitions, retinal scans, and voice files—will be composited through software to build your DNA-unique online password.” Based on the increasing hours we spend online, I would say we need such solutions to come to market ASAP.

• Mind reading is no longer science fiction. Scientists are working on headsets with sensors that can read brain activity and recognize facial expressions, excitement, and more without needing any physical inputs from the wearer. “Within [five] years, we will begin to see early applications of this technology in the gaming and entertainment industry,” IBM notes. It will also be good for folks who have suffered from strokes and have brain disorders. Personally, I’m not sure this is commercially viable within the stated five years.

• The digital divide will cease to exist. Mobile phones will make it easy for even the poorest of poor to get connected. In the U.S. and other parts of the world, this is already happening.

• Junk mail will become priority mail. “In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem that spam is dead. At the same time, spam filters will be so precise you’ll never be bothered by unwanted sales pitches again,” notes IBM. I have just one thing to say about this prediction: OMG.

HOW GOOD ARE IBM PREDICTIONS?

New predictions aside, IBM’s track record of predictions over the past five years has been somewhat mixed. Let’s take a step back to 2006 and look at its predictions:

• We will be able to access health care remotely, from just about anywhere in the world.
• Real-time speech translation—once a vision only in science fiction—will become the norm.
• There will be a 3D Internet.
• Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance.
• Our mobile phones will start to read our minds.

Remote health care is a reality, but real-time speech translation is, well, not quite as real. The 3D Internet: We’re still waiting for that, but those mobile phones are becoming awfully smart. As I said, it’s mixed in its predictions. In 2007, IBM correctly predicted driving would be assisted by software and your phones would become “your wallet, ticket broker, concierge, bank, shopping buddy, and more.” But that was right after the iPhone was launched.

As another example, IBM in 2009 predicted city buildings would “sense and respond” like living organisms. That sensor-based future is finally unfolding two years later. That same year, it predicted cars and buses would run on hydrogen and biofuels. Well, that’s half-true. We have some places where some buses and some cars are running on biofuels. Its prediction that cities will develop a healthier immune system due to connectedness, however, is quite far from reality—although we still have a little more than two years to go before we can say IBM got those wrong.

Bottom line: IBM’s Five in Five makes a nice cheat sheet to keep an eye on the future and also focus on key trends that might go big. I can’t wait for the 2012 edition.

Businessweek.com

5 Moves Microsoft Must Make In 2012

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's to-do list for 2012 should include acquisitions, a strong tablet launch, and a move into services.

 Microsoft remains the world's biggest software company, but it might not be for long unless it reestablishes itself, and its brands, as the products of choice for tech users in the consumer and enterprise markets. Once the unquestioned king of personal computing, Microsoft has become almost irrelevant in key markets like mobility and search, and even seemingly once unassailable franchises like Windows and Explorer are under threat.

Here are some moves the company must make next year if it hopes to regain some relevance.

1. Launch a tablet.

There may be no more pointed an indicator of what ails Microsoft than its fumbling when it comes to tech's hottest market--tablets. At the Consumer Electronics Show way back in January, 2010, CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a range of prototypes meant to assure the public that Windows would be a player in slates. But those efforts turned out to be so kludgy that even longtime ally HP ditched its plans for a Windows tablet and opted for webOS.

Two years later, Microsoft has yet to launch a legitimate entry. What's worse, there are indications that it could be another two years before a capable Windows tablet hits the mainstream.

By then, rivals like Apple and Google will have third-generation systems into the channel, and even peripheral players like Amazon and Barnes & Noble will have carved out solid niches. Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder believes that if Microsoft can't get a solid contender into the tablet market until 2013, it might be too late. "On tablets, Windows 8 is going to be very late to the party," said Gownder.

Microsoft needs to get a tablet out next year, not in 2013, or the race may be over.

2. Ship Windows 8.

On a similar note, Microsoft needs to get Windows 8 out the door next year. There can't be Windows 8 tablets without Windows 8, and the moribund PC market also could use the new OS in time for the 2012 holiday season. Consumers and even many business pros will only continue to purchase traditional desktops and laptops to the extent that they mirror the experience they have gotten used to on their smartphones and laptops, an experience that is all about touch and apps.

With its Metro interface, borrowed from Windows Phone, Windows 8 presents a more mobile look and feel, whether it's running on x86 or ARM chips. As Windows chief Steven Sinofsky noted at Microsoft's recent BUILD conference, many attendees who were given touch-based systems to play with continued to try to interact with their non-touch PCs by pressing the screen.

"People say touch is only for small devices or lightweight things. I promise you the minute you use a touch device with Windows 8, by the time you go back to your laptop or desktop you're going to be hitting that screen. You'll have fingerprints all over your monitor if it doesn't support touch," Sinofsky said

3. Jump into services.

Microsoft will ultimately need to come to terms with the fact that its customers are becoming less willing to pay for the type of software from which it makes most of its money--operating systems and desktop applications. Nobody buys an iPad because it runs iOS, they buy it for the Apple experience. Android does have some brand recognition as an OS, but it's free. Microsoft's other big software cash cow, Office, is also feeling pressure from free or low-cost offerings in the form of Google Apps and, to a lesser extent, from OpenOffice-based products like IBM's Lotus Symphony.\

o compensate, Microsoft needs to ramp up its efforts in enterprise tech services. The explosion in new computing form factors and architectures, from mobility to social networking and the cloud, means integration will remain a major challenge for IT shops for the foreseeable future, and they'll need help with all that heavy lifting and should be willing to pay for it. At the same time, all this Web 2.0 stuff has many companies rethinking their business models, a trend that provides an opportunity for high-end business consulting services.

IBM successfully made the transition to services and consulting once it saw that PCs were becoming a commodity. Microsoft needs to follow the same path now that software is becoming commoditized. It has the cash to pursue an acquisition of an Accenture, with whom it already has a services joint venture, or a Cap Gemini.

4. Lead With Xbox.

Despite its troubles over the past year, Microsoft has had one resounding success--the Xbox Kinect system. The company sold 10 million units in the four months after it launched the device on Nov. 4, 2010. Kinect features motion and speech recognition technologies that let users control the Xbox through physical gestures and vocal commands. In addition to filling Microsoft's coffers, Kinect has elevated the Xbox brand into the leading gaming and entertainment system.

The company needs to leverage that brand recognition across its other lines. It could start by launching a line of consumer phones and tablets that, even if they run Windows under the hood, carry the Xbox livery. That could be the beginnings of a strategy under which Xbox is the face of Microsoft's consumer products, while Windows remains the brand for the enterprise. In the consumer space, Windows has become your father's Oldsmobile, but in business it remains a trusted name that implies security and compatibility.

5. Take the Yahoo plunge.

Microsoft has toyed with acquiring Yahoo for the past several years, at one time making an offer as high as $33 per share. The Web portal could now be acquired for less than half of that. Reports indicate that Redmond may in fact be part of a consortium, which also includes Silver Lake and TPG Capital, that is looking to acquire a chunk of Yahoo.

Microsoft should go all the way. It already handles search for Yahoo via Bing, and despite Yahoo's missteps over the past couple of years, it remains the Web's most popular portal. Microsoft's own MSN, meanwhile, is an also ran. Yahoo could give Microsoft a much needed (and far less confusing) platform to pitch cloud services such as e-mail and apps to consumers and small businesses.

The new year is just around the corner Mr. Ballmer--have at it.

Informationweek.com

Are there Higgs bosons in space?

Rather than using a 17-mile-long collider, can't we just find them out there?

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland, report that they're hot on the trail of an elusive elementary particle known as the Higgs boson. It's only a matter of time before they'll have the infamous "God particle" in handcuffs, they say. But after years of particle- and head-bashing at the LHC, one burning question is whether there's an easier way to do this. Instead of constructing an 17-mile-long, high-energy collider to generate a Higgs particle from scratch, couldn't we just go look for one in nature?

And if so, where in space might it be?

John Gunion, first author of "The Higgs Hunter's Guide" (Basic Books, 1990) and a professor of physics at the University of California, Davis, said Higgs bosons regularly pop into existence all over space., 

Quantum fluctuations — momentary bursts of energy from nowhere that are permitted by the rules of quantum mechanics — cause pairs of the particles to spontaneously arise out of the vacuum, then annihilate each other an instant later.

Because these freebie Higgs have extremely high energies, the rules of quantum mechanics dictate that they don't get to stick around for as long as lesser particles would. So, if you're a Higgs hunter, how much time do you have to catch these bosons before they disappear? "Shorter than 1-trillionth-of-1-trillionth of a second," Gunion said.

Gordon Kane, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan and co-author of "The Higgs Hunter's Guide," said that a quantum fluctuation is rare in any one place. "But there are lots of places it can happen (all of space), so altogether it happens pretty often, but you aren't there to see it."

Aside from strange quantum effects, there are several other events in space that produce Higgs bosons, the physicists said.

"Black holes give off pairs of Higgs bosons, among many other things," Gunion said. "They produce these Higgs particles at their horizons, and if you put a detector there, you would see them. But the detector would be gobbled up pretty quick by the black hole."

Unfortunately we can't just aim our earthbound telescopes at black holes and hope to glimpse a Higgs, because the particle will have decayed long before getting here, he added. 

Supernovas, the explosions of dying stars, produce bursts of particles that are moving fast enough to create Higgs bosons when they collide. (Imagine the particle collisions at the LHC, but in space.)

However, getting a close look at a Higgs from a supernova is just as tricky as peering at one from a black hole: Your detector would have to be sitting next to the supernova aimed at exactly the right place at exactly the right time to see the Higgs before it decays. And then, of course, the detector would get destroyed by the stellar explosion.

Lastly, perhaps the deepest question of all is why Higgs bosons — which draw so much attention from scientists because they are the particles that imbue all other particles with their mass — don't exist everywhere all the time. In short, if there's no Higgs in me, why do I not weigh zero pounds?

"That's a complicated question," said Craig Blocker, a Higgs-hunting physicist at Brandeis University. "It has to do with quantum mechanics. In quantum theory, all particles correspond to what we call fields. For example, electromagnetic fields are what photons (particles of light) correspond to, and the Higgs particle corresponds to the Higgs field. Each particle has its own field, and most fields are everywhere all the time. But you have to get enough energy to excite those fields so that it looks like a particle to us. Otherwise we don't know the field is there."

Quantum fluctuations, black holes and supernovas all have what it takes to make the Higgs field look like a Higgs particle. However, because these events happen too far away and for too short a time, it seems that the LHC is our best bet.

Msn.com

New operating system for space: High-tech tycoons

 SEATTLE (AP) — The tycoons of cyberspace are looking to bankroll America's resurgence in outer space, reviving "Star Trek" dreams that first interested them in science.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen made the latest step Tuesday, unveiling plans for a new commercial spaceship that, instead of blasting off a launch pad, would be carried high into the atmosphere by the widest plane ever built before it fires its rockets.

He joins Silicon Valley powerhouses Elon Musk of PayPal and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. in a new private space race that attempts to fill the gap left when the U.S. government ended the space shuttle program.

Musk, whose Space Exploration Technologies will send its Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station in February, will provide the capsule and booster rocket for Allen's venture, which is called Stratolaunch. Bezos is building a rival private spaceship.

Allen is working with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who collaborated with the tycoon in 2004 to win a $10 million prize for the first flight of a private spaceship that went into space but not orbit.

Allen says his enormous airplane and spaceship system will go to "the next big step: a private orbital space platform business."

The new system is "a radical change" in how people can get to space, and it will "keep America at the forefront of space exploration," Allen said.

Their plane will have a 380-foot wingspan — longer than a football field and wider than the biggest aircraft ever, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

It will launch a space capsule equipped with a booster rocket, which will send the spacecraft into orbit. This method saves money by not using rocket fuel to get off the ground. The spaceship may hold as many as six people.

"When I was growing up, America's space program was the symbol of aspiration," said Allen, who mentioned his love of science fiction and early human spaceflights. "For me, the fascination with space never ended. I never stopped dreaming what might be possible."

For those attracted to difficult technical challenges, space is the ultimate challenge, Allen said.

"It's also the ultimate adventure. We all grew up devouring science fiction and watching Mercury and Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle. And now we are able to be involved in moving things to the next level," he said, adding that he admires people like his former Microsoft colleague Charles Simonyi who have gone into space to experience it.

Allen is not alone in having such dreams, and the money to gamble on making them come true.

Bezos set up the secretive private space company Blue Origin, which has received $3.7 million in NASA startup funds to develop a rocket to carry astronauts. Its August flight test ended in failure.

"Space was the inspiration that got people into high-tech ... at least individuals in their 40s and 50s," said Peter Diamandis, who created the space prize Allen won earlier and is a high-tech mogul-turned space business leader himself. "Now they're coming full circle."

Diamandis helped found a company that sends tourists to space for at least $25 million a ride, and seven of the eight rides involved high-tech executives living out their space dreams. Simonyi paid at least $20 million apiece for two rides into orbit and attended Allen's Tuesday news conference, saying he wouldn't mind a third flight.

"Space has a draw for humanity," not just high-tech billionaires, Simonyi said, but he acknowledged that most people don't have the cash to take that trip.

Space experts welcome the burst of high-tech interest in a technology that 50 years ago spurred the development of computers.

"Space travel the way we used to do it has a '50s and '60s ring to it," said retired George Washington University space policy professor John Logsdon. "These guys have a vision of revitalizing a sector that makes it 21st century."

But Logsdon said the size of the capsule and rocket going to space seemed kind of small to him, only carrying 13,000 pounds. It didn't seem like a game-changer, he said.

Stratolaunch's air-launch method is already used by an older rocket company, Orbital Sciences Corp., to launch satellites. It's also the same method used by the first plane to break the sound barrier more than 50 years ago.

Stratolaunch, to be based in Huntsville, Ala., bills its method of getting to space as "any orbit, any time." Rutan will build the carrier aircraft, which will use six 747 engines. The first unmanned test flight is tentatively scheduled for 2016.

NASA, in a statement, welcomed Allen to the space business, saying his plan "has the potential to make future access to low-Earth orbit more competitive, timely, and less expensive."

Unlike its competitors, Allen's company isn't relying on startup money from NASA, which is encouraging private companies to take the load of hauling cargo and astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The space agency, which retired the space shuttle fleet earlier this year, plans to leave that more routine work to private companies and concentrate on deep space human exploration of an asteroid, the moon and even Mars.

Allen said his interest comes not just because of the end of the shuttle program or changes in government funding for space, but he does see an incredible opportunity right now for the private sector to move the needle on space travel.

Allen's company is looking at making money from tourists and launching small communications satellites, as well as from NASA and the Defense Department, said former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, a Stratolaunch board member who spoke at a Tuesday news conference.

Just three months ago, Griffin was testifying before Congress that he thought the Obama administration's reliance on private companies for space travel "does not withstand a conventional business case analysis."

This is different because it's private money, with no help or dependence on government dollars, said Griffin, who served under President George W. Bush.

Allen and Rutan collaborated on 2004's SpaceShipOne, which was also launched in the air from a special aircraft in back-to-back flights. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic licensed the technology and is developing SpaceShipTwo to carry tourists to space. But Allen's first efforts were more a hobby, while this would be more a business, Logsdon said.

SpaceShipOne cost $28 million, but this will cost much more, officials said.

Allen left Microsoft Corp. in 1983, and has pursued many varied interests since then. He's the owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team as well as the NBA's Portland Trailblazers. He also founded a Seattle museum that emphasizes science fiction.

Allen said this venture fits with his technology bent.

"I'm a huge fan of anything to push the boundaries of science," Allen said.

Ap.org

Nokia Exec: 'Kids Today Fed Up With iPhone, Confused by Android'

 Kids today! You just can't satisfy them. Well, Apple and Google can't--but, apparently, Nokia can.

According to the Nokia Director of Portfolio, Product Marketing and Sales, Niels Munksgaard, the youth of today are fed up with Apple's iPhone and confused by Google's Android platform. Er…yeah, okay.

"What we see is that youth are pretty much fed up with iPhones," Munksgaard told Pocket-lint in an interview Tuesday. "Everyone has the iPhone. Also, many are not happy with the complexity of Android and the lack of security."

Sure, Niels, because what kids today are really interested in is…smartphone security. That's why people who jailbreak their iPhones or root their Android devices are usually middle-aged.

Munksgaard goes on to say that the youth that "wants to be on the cutting edge and try something new are turning to the Windows phone platform." This of course explains why everyone is jumping on the Windows Phone 7 ship and totally rejecting phones that offer little "cutting edge" improvement, such as Apple's iPhone 4S. And why Android has such a small, shrinking percentage of the smartphone marketshare.

That's all sarcasm, of course. While Windows Phone 7 sales have been dropping precipitously, the iPhone and Android OS continue to shine--Apple sold over 1 million pre-order iPhone 4S's in less than 24 hours, while Android has been the best-selling smartphone OS since the fourth quarter of 2010.

Still, Munksgaard believes that Nokia has something different to offer the market, such as the brightly-colored designs of the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 phones. Munksgaard says that Nokia wants to deliver services and phones that are different--"The marketplace is extremely crowded. I refer to it as a sea of sameness. When you walk up to a retail shelf at Phones4U and see the number of black mono-blocks sitting on the shelf, it is very confusing to the consumer."

Nokia also plans to offer different services, such as Nokia Mix Radio,Nokia Drive, and Nokia Maps. Nokia Mix Radio, for example, will deliver 15 million music tracks, sorted by genre or taste, that can be downloaded for offline listening. With Nokia Mix Radio you can skip six tracks per hour--so it's a lot like a built-in Pandora. The good news, of course, is that it works out of the box and costs nothing extra.

Pcworld.com

Which Samsung Galaxy Tab is right for you?

 With new models coming out nearly every week, picking an Android tablet is more difficult than ever. Even if you decide to go for one of Samsung's Galaxy Tabs, you'll have to go through yet another round of decision-making. With four available versions — the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the 8.9, the 7.0 Plus, and the original 7.0 — available in the United States, it's handy to compare them against each other if you don't have a concrete choice from the start.




Is bigger better?
The most obvious and one of the most important aspects to consider is size. If you have an on-the-go lifestyle, either of the 7-inch Tabs could be the best option. Compared to the 10.1's 0.34-inch depth, the original Tab and the 7.0 Plus are a little bit thicker, at 0.47-inch and 0.39-inch respectively. However, placed next to each other, you'll notice how much larger the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is. Three inches doesn't sound like much, but it's still a substantial increase over the base model's 7-inch expanse.
While it's true that 7-inch tablets fit more easily inside purses and even coat pockets, the 10.1 is still quite light; at 1.25 pounds, it still won't weigh you down much. If the size of the screen matters to you, don't worry — the 10.1 is still convenient to carry around. Obviously, if you prefer an intermediate tablet between the two sizes, then 8.9 fits the bill. It's the same thickness as the 10.1 but a bit lighter, at 1.04 pounds.
The 10.1 and the 8.9 tablets have screens with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, while the 7-inch Tabs' screens have a lower resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels that's standard for their size. It's pretty simple to choose if screen real estate is of prime importance to you — just get the largest tablet (or the biggest one that fits your budget).
Under the hood
Do you tend to keep a lot of large files such as movies and videos on your mobile device? The 10.1 has a 64GB version available as an upgrade from the 16GB and 32GB ones, although it has no expandable card slot. All the other Galaxy Tabs are only available in 16GB and 32GB models, but the original Tab and the 7.0 Plus can at least accommodate microSD cards to provide up to 32GB in additional, removable, and swappable storage capacity.
The three newest Galaxy Tabs (the 10.1, 7.0 Plus, and 8.9) run Android Honeycomb and have 1GB of RAM. The exception is the original 7-inch Tab, which is equipped with Froyo and only has 512MB of storage. This means the three 2011 models have more advanced software and can handle multitasking better than the very first 7-inch Tab, which is to be expected, since the 7.0 Plus is a revamp of the first Galaxy Tab.
Planning to use your Tab for video calls or to take pictures when the need arises? There's no difference to worry about — all models have 3-megapixel rear-facing and 2-megapixel front-facing cameras.


Rated battery life is pretty impressive for all models, with the 10.1 and the 8.9 promising up to nine hours of video playback, the 7.0 Plus promising up to eight hours, and the original Tab up to seven hours. Remember, though, when it comes to surfing the web, using 4G or 3G will drain your battery faster than using Wi-Fi.
Connectivity, price, and carriers
Aside from the 7.0 Plus, all the other models have Wi-Fi-only versions that are cheaper than those with 3G, HSPA+ 4G, or 4G LTE connections. If you don't spend long stretches of time away from places with Wi-Fi, or if you have a phone or a device that can act as a mobile hotspot, you may not need a tablet with mobile broadband. However, if you do need mobile internet, you can take your pick among several plans offered by U.S. carriers.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is available on T-Mobile for $399.99 up front after a $50 mail-in rebate, with an HSPA+ 4G data plan starting at $29.99 per month. You can also get it from Verizon for $530 with the carrier's 4G LTE plan for $30 per month on a two-year contract. Sprint offers the wifi version of the 10.1, which it explicitly advertises together with its 4G mobile hotspot devices.
You can get the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 from AT&T with 4G LTE connectivity for $629.99 without commitment or $479.99 with a two-year contract that will run you $35 per month. T-Mobile, on the other hand, offers the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus for a down payment of $249.99 with an HSPA+ 4G data plan on a two-year contract.
If you still prefer getting the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab even though the 7.0 Plus is now available in the United States, all four major carriers — AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile — offer the device. As it's the oldest Galaxy Tab, make sure to look out for price cuts. If budget is your biggest concern, a deep enough discount could compensate for the original Tab's shortcomings. No-contract, Wi-Fi-only, and 3G versions of all the tablets are available through various retail stores like Amazon and Best Buy.
Make a confident choice
Faced with a herd of lookalikes, choosing the right Samsung Galaxy Tab can seem like a daunting task. Do you value screen size or is budget your main concern? Maybe you just want something on the pocketable side. Get in touch with your needs, and you'll be able to sift through Samsung's army of tabs to make a decision with confidence.




Usatoday.com

Amazon's Kindle Fire will fail, says one expert

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Predictions for the Kindle Fire have ranged from it being the iPad killer to its less expensive equal, but one thing the New York Times' David Streitfeld writes almost everyone can agree on -- it has some kinks to work out.

 Consumer complaints, such as the lack of external volume control and a slow touch screen, were recently validated by a post from "usability expert" Jakob Nielsen.

Nielsen wrote last week that the device would be a failure because of how poor the user experience is.

Part of the problem is its size. Nielsen remains unconvinced that 7-inch tablets will be as popular because they are too small. Magazine publishers and app developers need to design their products specifically for the smaller screen if devices like the Kindle Fire are going to catch on.

"The most striking observation from testing the Fire is that everything is much too small on the screen, leading to frequent tap errors and accidental activation," Nielsen wrote. "You haven't seen the fat-finger problem in its full glory until you've watched users struggle to touch things on the Fire."

Much has already been written about how Amazon loses money on the device itself -- it costs more to make than stores charge for it.

But Amazon's game all along has been to make money by treating the device as an extension of its storefront. If you buy a Kindle, you are going to buy your books, your movies and your music from the Amazon store.

That won't happen if people don't buy the device, but so far it seems that is not a problem. Though it declines to release numbers, Amazon says that the Kindle Fire is its most successful product launch ever.

Some analysts have predicted that robust sales will continue for the Kindle Fire next year, but Nielsen thinks that bad reviews from early adopters will slow the strong sales.

Amazon is set to unveil an update soon, so will it quiet the Kindle Fire's early critics?

Reuters.com

Astronomers Find Biggest Black Holes Yet

 Astronomers are reporting that they have taken the measure of the biggest, baddest black holes yet found in the universe, abyssal yawns 10 times the size of our solar system into which billions of Suns have vanished like a guilty thought.

 Such holes, they say, might be the gravitational cornerstones of galaxies and clues to the fates of violent quasars, the almost supernaturally powerful explosions in the hearts of young galaxies that dominated the early years of the universe.
 One of these newly surveyed monsters, which weighs as much as 21 billion Suns, is in an egg-shaped swirl of stars known as NGC 4889, the brightest galaxy in a sprawling cloud of thousands of galaxies about 336 million light-years away in the Coma constellation.
 The other black hole, a graveyard for the equivalent of 9.7 billion Suns, more or less, lurks in the center of NGC 3842, a galaxy that anchors another cluster known as Abell 1367, about 331 million light-years away in Leo.
 “These are the most massive reliably measured black holes ever,” Nicholas J. McConnell, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an e-mail, referring to the new observations.
 These results are more than just cool and record-setting. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope over the years have shown that such monster black holes seem to inhabit the centers of all galaxies — the bigger the galaxy, the bigger the black hole. Researchers said the new work could shed light on the role these black holes play in the formation and evolution of galaxies.
 The previous record-holder was in the galaxy M87, a member of the Virgo cluster some 54 million light-years from here, where a black hole weighed in at a mere 6.3 billion solar masses. The new black holes, however, were even larger than astronomers had predicted based on the earlier measurements, suggesting that there is something special about how the most massive galaxies are built.
 “Measurements of these massive black holes will help us understand how their host galaxies were assembled, and how the holes achieved such monstrous mass,” Mr. McConnell said.

 Mr. McConnell and his thesis adviser, Chung-Pei Ma, led a team of astronomers who used telescopes in Hawaii, Texas and outer space to weigh the black holes in the centers of galaxies by clocking the speeds of stars zooming around them; the faster the stars are going, the more gravity — and thus mass — is needed to keep the stars from flying away. They report their work in the journal Nature, which will be published online on Wednesday.
 Martin Rees, a cosmologist at Cambridge University, called the new work “an incremental step,” noting that the study of these monsters has been a part of his life for a long time. “It’s good to learn about even bigger ones,” he said.
 Black holes, regions of space where gravity is so intense that not even light can escape from it, are among the weirdest of the predictions of Albert Einstein’s curved-space theory of gravity, general relativity — so weird that Einstein himself did not believe it. He once wrote to a friend that there ought to be a law of nature forbidding such a thing.
 But he was wrong. And some of his successors, like Dr. Rees and a colleague at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking, have spent their careers studying the implications for physics of objects that can wrap spacetime around themselves like a magician’s cloak and disappear.
 Such is the fate, astronomers agree, of some massive stars once they run out of fuel and collapse upon themselves. Indeed the galaxy is littered with stellar-mass black holes detectable by the X-rays spit by doomed matter swirling around them like water in a drain. And there seem to be giant ones in the heart of every galaxy.

 One question astronomers would like answered is how these black holes got so big, billions of times bigger than a typical dead star. Dr. Ma described it as a kind of nature-versus-nurture argument, explaining that black holes could grow by merging with other black holes as galaxies merge to get bigger — “nature” — or by swallowing gas around them — “nurture.”
 “It’s a bit like asking: Are taller children produced by taller parents or by eating a lot of spinach?” Dr. Ma wrote in an e-mail. “For black holes we are not sure.”

 Astronomers also think the supermassive black holes in galaxies could be the missing link between the early universe and today. In the early days of the universe, quasars, thought to be powered by giant black holes in cataclysmic feeding frenzies, were fountaining energy into space.
 Where are those quasars now? The new work supports a growing suspicion that those formerly boisterous black holes are among us now, but, having stopped their boisterous growth, are sleeping.
 Mr. McConnell said, “Our discovery of extremely massive black holes in the largest present-day galaxies suggests that these galaxies could be the ancient remains of voracious ancestors.”
Let’s try not to awaken them.


Nytimes.com

Windows Store For Windows 8: Your Questions Answered

 As Microsoft readies the debut of Windows 8 beta code for February it's sharing more about one of the biggest additions to the upcoming operating system, a brand new app store. Microsoft is calling it Windows Store and it will feature what are called Metro-style apps designed for both Windows 8 tablets, laptops, and desktop PCs. Metro-style apps are primarily for managing photos, entertainment, social networking, and messaging on Windows 8 devices.

The Windows Store, Microsoft said Tuesday, will be the only way for consumers to purchase and install Windows 8 Metro-style apps.
In other words, Microsoft will have complete control over what you can put on your PC when using apps in the new touch-friendly Metro interface. This is a dramatic departure from Microsoft's previously more open philosophy that let anyone download to their PC any software they wanted from any source they wanted.
Microsoft is making this change to ensure Metro-style apps are better protected from malware, bugs and other typical PC problems. The end result, however, is that you must rely on Microsoft's judgment about which apps are and are not appropriate when using Metro-style apps. But in a nod to Microsoft's past, traditional PC software applications for Windows will still be available from third parties in the same way they are available today for Windows 7.
Microsoft's new app store will be similar to Apple's Mac App Store launched in January and available for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion. Although Apple still allows users to download Mac apps from outside sources.

Here's what you need to know about Microsoft's Metro-style walled garden inside Windows 8.

When Will The Windows Store Be Available?
Microsoft plans to ship the first version of the Windows Store with the public beta release of Windows 8 in late February. Microsoft had previously been cagey about when the Windows 8 beta was coming.
During the beta period only free apps will be available in the Windows Store. Microsoft plans to roll out its app payment platform at a later date.

Which Apps Will Be Available At Launch?

Microsoft didn't offer many details about apps saying only a select number of developers have been invited to offer apps during the Windows 8 beta period. On Tuesday at a Microsoft event announcing the Windows Store, the company demoed Metro-style apps such as Evernote, eBay, Cut The Rope (a popular mobile game by ZeptoLabs), and digital books from Disney. It's a good bet that at least some of these apps will be part of the Windows Store during the Windows 8 beta.
The software giant is also running a developer contest that will put eight apps from smaller app makers in the Windows Store during the beta period.
How Much Will Apps Cost?
The Windows Store will include free, and paid apps starting at $1.49.

Will There Be Trial Versions Of Apps?

Yes. Microsoft will allow app trials in its store. Developers can set trials to be time-based such as a 7-day trial period. App makers can also offer a feature-based trial that limits the app's functionality until you upgrade to the paid version.
Will The Windows Store Have In-App Purchases And Subscriptions?
Yes. But unlike Apple's iOS store, Microsoft will allow app makers to use their own payment platforms if they prefer. So newspapers could sell subscriptions using their own payment systems without going through Microsoft.

How Will The Windows Store Be Organized?

Microsoft says the Windows Store is "designed for discovery." In other words, the company claims it will be easy to find the apps you want in its app store. But the Windows Store doesn't appear to be organized all that differently from other app stores.
The Windows Store will let you browse apps by category, ranked lists, editorial curation and search. Windows Store app lists will include latest apps, most popular apps, and fast rising. You will also see personalized recommendations for apps based on your download history.
Is The Windows Store Web Based?

No, the Windows Store is a Metro-style app inside Windows 8; however, Microsoft will offer a web-based catalog of Windows Store apps for web browsing. Currently dubbed Windows Store Preview, the web version will be indexed by search engines, and display a complete catalog of apps. Clicking on a link from search results will bring you to the online app catalog. If you are running Windows 8, you will then see a button prompting you to open the Windows Store app to install the program.
App developers can also add a line of code to their sites that will create a "Get the app" button inside Internet Explorer 10 that links directly to the Windows Store. It's not clear if other browser will be able to display these links. Apple offers similar links that open the iTunes application in Windows or Mac, but these links work in almost all major browsers.
Microsoft's Windows Store sounds promising for the software giant and is likely to convince many developers to create Metro-style apps for Windows 8. Not only is Windows the largest consumer software platform in the world, but Microsoft also plans to offer developers an 80 percent cut of app revenue after their app makes $25,000. Most app stores including Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market offer developers a 70 percent cut of app sales.

Pcworld.com

Google and Verizon Battle Over Mobile Payments

It always gets ugly when there’s money involved.
Just days before Google’s next flagship smartphone launch, Google and Verizon are locked in a public battle over mobile payments, with both companies vying for a foothold in the fledgling mobile e-commerce arena.
The issue in question: Whether Google’s e-commerce app — dubbed Google Wallet — should appear on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the biggest Android smartphone launch of 2011. Google says Verizon doesn’t want Wallet on the phone.
“Verizon asked us not to include this functionality in the product,” a Google spokesman told Wired in an e-mail late Monday evening.
Unfortunately for Google, it doesn’t have much time to negotiate, as rumor says the phone is set to debut in the United States this Friday, Dec. 9, on Verizon’s 4G LTE network.
One of the phone’s marquee features is its NFC (near-field communication) technology, which allows the phone to communicate with other NFC-enabled devices and terminals. In theory, NFC could allow you to pay for coffee at a nearby Peet’s, or swap information between two NFC-capable phones. Google Wallet, then, is Google’s e-commerce app that takes advantage of NFC technology, allowing users to buy small retail items with a simple wave of their phones.
Verizon’s anti-Wallet stance is a big problem for Google, as Google needs as many devices running Wallet as it can get. As of today, only the Sprint-carried Nexus S 4G is capable of using the Google Wallet app. This means that out of the 200-plus devices running the Android operating system, only one can run Wallet.
In its effort to push Wallet to mainstream consumers, Google already faces significant barriers — infrastructure installation, retail employee training, weak consumer awareness — so this latest diss from Verizon only makes its job harder.
So why would Verizon want to keep Wallet off of its phones?
On Tuesday morning, Verizon cried concerns about the way Wallet handles security. In an e-mail, a Verizon spokesman told Wired.com the following:
Recent reports that Verizon is blocking Google Wallet on our devices are false. Verizon does not block applications.
Google Wallet does not simply access the operating system and basic hardware of our phones like thousands of other applications. Instead, in order to work as architected by Google, Google Wallet needs to be integrated into a new, secure and proprietary hardware element in our phones.
We are continuing our commercial discussions with Google on this issue.
Verizon’s statements are true. Part of what makes Google Wallet a safe payments app is its integration with so-called “secure element” hardware, essentially a chip that houses your credit card credentials on the phone itself.
Nonetheless, for Verizon to raise concerns about app implementation this late in the game seems disingenuous. “Sprint didn’t seem to balk at the security, and they’ve had it up and running on phones for some time now,” said Greg Sterling, owner of Sterling Market Consulting and a long-time contributor to Search Engine Land. “It seems like it could be a delaying tactic.”
Verizon already has skin in the mobile payments game, so it may indeed be acting to slow Wallet’s adoption on a second handset. Last year, three out of the four major telcos in the U.S. — Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile — came together to form Isis, a carrier-backed version of a digital wallet just like Google’s.
Currently, Sprint is the only major carrier to eschew Isis support — just like it’s the only carrier to offer a phone with Google Wallet. Naturally, if carriers decide to prop up Isis by knocking down Google Wallet, it’s feasible that Wallet will also be barred in upcoming phones carried by AT&T and T-Mobile.
An Isis spokesman declined to comment, referring Wired.com to Verizon’s previous statement.
“This is a question of Verizon not wanting Google to beat them to the punch,” said Simon Buckingham, CEO of mobile app store Appitalism Inc., in an interview. “It’s a power struggle over a major land grab for U.S. territory.”
Isis lacks a number of features Google Wallet offers — not the least of which includes an actual released product. Wallet has been on the market for months now, and launched with the support of Mastercard and a significant number of retail partners. Google is also working with Visa, AmEx and others to bring more card support to the app. Further, Google Wallet works in conjunction with Google Offers, the company’s Groupon-like daily deals program.
Conversely, Isis hasn’t launched, and has yet to gain the support of any major credit card companies. But the carriers have something that Google doesn’t have: Millions of credit card-backed customer accounts. With an initiative like Isis, mobile customers could ostensibly funnel their mobile wallet purchases to their monthly phone bills. That means no new credit card numbers to register, and no significant barriers to entry. It’s a fast track into mobile e-commerce.
But blocking Wallet in an effort to prop up Isis may also be short-sighted.
“It reeks of anti-competitive behavior,” said Sterling. “These days, the moment anyone does anything anti-competitive, you see class-action lawsuits and even possible congressional consequences.”
Regardless of how this plays out, it’s an annoying sticking point for Google’s mobile payments app. Google has made it more than clear that NFC-based economics is the way of the future, and the company will continue to push handset manufacturers into creating devices with NFC chips inside.
Wired.com