Innovative news

24/07/2015

worldwide

World wide renowned Potty training expert from US
http://tinyurl.com/worldwid-trusted-poty-training

16/11/2014

How to Easily Hand Off Activities Between Your Mac and i-Devices


Alyssa Bereznak
The term “Continuity” may sound like a word your boss made up to describe a bureaucratic company procedure, but, believe it or not, it’s one of Apple’s most exciting innovations of the past year.

A feature baked into the company’s latest desktop operating system, it eliminates the distance between your mobile devices and your computer, allowing you to easily transfer your digital activities between your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod.

Its capabilities run wide and far: You can receive phone calls and send texts on your computer, transfer files between your phone and Mac, and many more Mac-to-iPhone and iPhone-to-Mac activities that my colleague David Pogue details here.

Continuity’s most seductive use, however, is what Apple calls Handoff: the ability to start something on your phone or tablet and switch midway through to your desktop computer.

For example, with Handoff you can start writing an email on your phone as you walk to work, and finish it on your computer when you sit down at your desk. Or you can open a Keynote presentation on your phone and then automatically throw it onto your iPad for your co-workers to examine.

When it works properly, it’s a no-fuss way to get stuff done across multiple Apple devices. And there’s nothing cooler than a person who can effortlessly control the technology around her, as opposed to the other way around.

But as seamless as it appears, the setup this feature requires is not entirely intuitive. Below is a quick instructional guide on making Handoff happen:

11/11/2014

You Can Now Edit Your Captions on Instagram. Here’s How

Alyssa Bereznak
t’s hard to believe this took so long, but everyone’s favorite filter-tinged photo-sharing network has finally made it possible to edit captions.

“When you share a moment to Instagram, a typo shouldn’t get in the way,” the company wrote on its blog. “This has been one of the top requests that we’ve heard from the community, and we’re excited to finally bring it to you today.”

After you share a photo, you can tap the three dots in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The photo below is an example of when I could’ve really used this feature: I was so excited to introduce my new cat to the world that I misspelled her name. (My friends still call her Chole instead of Chloe to tease me.)

Instagram photo of a cat

A new Edit button will appear in the menu below your image. Just tap it to edit your caption.

Instagram photo of a cat

Type in what you really meant to say, and you’re good to go.

Instagram photo of a cat

My colleague Daniel Bean also points out that this is a good opportunity to change any overly affectionate captions beneath photos of your ex to “I hate you,” or “NOT WORTH IT” or something like that.

10/11/2014

Review: Is Google's Nexus 9 the Ultimate iPad Killer?
When it comes to tablets, Apple’s iPads reign supreme. But there are excellent competitors from players like Google, Samsung, and Amazon.

The latest: the Nexus 9. The newest member of Google’s Nexus family, this is an 8.9-inch tablet that falls between Apple’s iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, size-wise. And of all the iPad alternatives out there — I’m looking at you Samsung and Amazon — the Nexus 9 may be the best you can buy. Here’s why.

Size and design
The Nexus 9 is Google’s tablet, but it’s not actually made by the tech giant. You see, Google’s Nexus line is meant to represent the company’s take on how Android devices should look, feel, and cost. Because Google isn’t in the manufacturing business, it has other device makers build its products. The Nexus 9, for example, is built by HTC.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the Nexus 9’s looks.

Google Nexus 9 tablet

Like most of Google’s Nexus devices, the Nexus 9 features a sleek, simple design. Its back panel is covered in a soft-touch material that helps keep the tablet from sliding out of your hands. There’s an aluminum frame underneath it.

I’m a huge fan of soft-touch materials like the kind found on the back of the Nexus 9 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Unfortunately, they tend to pick up fingerprint smudges, which can make the back of the Nexus 9 look kind of gross.

Running along the back of the tablet is a large Nexus logo. Up top is the slate’s 8-megapixel rear camera, which sticks out slightly from the tablet’s body. Up front, positioned above and below the Nexus 9’s display, are HTC’s dual BoomSound speakers, which blast out ludicrously vivid audio.

While Apple’s iPad Air 2 is the thinnest tablet in the world, the Nexus 9 isn’t exactly chunky. At 0.31 inches thick, the Nexus 9 is just a hair thicker than the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3 (0.29 inches). Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.4, an equally impressive tablet, falls between the Air 2 and the Nexus 9 at 0.26 inches thick. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 measures 0.3 inches thick.

Google Nexus 9 tablet

Weighing 0.93 pounds, the Nexus is a bit lighter than the iPad Air 2 (0.96 pounds), but heavier than the iPad mini 3 and Galaxy Tab S 8.4, which weigh 0.75 pounds and 0.65 pounds, respectively. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 weighs 0.83 pounds.

05/11/2014

It’s Call of Duty season! Listen closely, and you can hear the fist-bumps of a million stoked dudebros.

I kid. Call of Duty is for everyone, though the name certainly comes with some baggage. Perhaps it makes you think of chest-thumping 10-year-olds screaming obscenities into your headset, or demonically proficient pro gamers playing it like a sport, or Activision boss Bobby Kotick laughing maniacally while swimming in a pool of gold like Scrooge McDuck.

But the most popular shooter franchise in the world got there on the strength of its superb gunplay, blazing speed, and consistently high production values, and while it’s got legions of haters, it’s got just as many die-hard fans, too.

What’s remarkable about Advanced Warfare, the 11th core game in the series, is that it might actually please both camps. Sporting a fresh sci-fi setting and armed to the teeth with interesting new abilities, it’s the fastest, smartest, and tightest Call of Duty in years.

The game’s solo campaign whisks players around the globe in the boots of Jack Mitchell, a soldier fighting the good fight on the futuristic battlefields of 2054. Mitchell eventually hooks up with Jonathan Irons (played by Kevin Spacey), the tech-savvy head of a private military company out to corner the market on war. So off you go, shooting up terrorists to preserve freedom, though of course it gets a bit more complicated along the way.

Past Call of Duty games featured multiple playable characters, but here, you play only as Mitchell. It’s a small tweak that helps keep the plot clean and focused. You’ll know exactly why you’re blasting whomever you happen to be blasting, a pleasant change from the meandering plots of past games.

05/11/2014

It’s Call of Duty season! Listen closely, and you can hear the fist-bumps of a million stoked dudebros.

I kid. Call of Duty is for everyone, though the name certainly comes with some baggage. Perhaps it makes you think of chest-thumping 10-year-olds screaming obscenities into your headset, or demonically proficient pro gamers playing it like a sport, or Activision boss Bobby Kotick laughing maniacally while swimming in a pool of gold like Scrooge McDuck.

But the most popular shooter franchise in the world got there on the strength of its superb gunplay, blazing speed, and consistently high production values, and while it’s got legions of haters, it’s got just as many die-hard fans, too.

What’s remarkable about Advanced Warfare, the 11th core game in the series, is that it might actually please both camps. Sporting a fresh sci-fi setting and armed to the teeth with interesting new abilities, it’s the fastest, smartest, and tightest Call of Duty in years.

The game’s solo campaign whisks players around the globe in the boots of Jack Mitchell, a soldier fighting the good fight on the futuristic battlefields of 2054. Mitchell eventually hooks up with Jonathan Irons (played by Kevin Spacey), the tech-savvy head of a private military company out to corner the market on war. So off you go, shooting up terrorists to preserve freedom, though of course it gets a bit more complicated along the way.

Past Call of Duty games featured multiple playable characters, but here, you play only as Mitchell. It’s a small tweak that helps keep the plot clean and focused. You’ll know exactly why you’re blasting whomever you happen to be blasting, a pleasant change from the meandering plots of past games.

03/11/2014

Google’s iPad-Fighting Nexus 9 Tablet Goes on Sale for $399

Google’s newest tablet, the Nexus 9, has just gone on sale, and you might want to sn**ch one up before they’re sold out.

The $399 tablet is essentially Google’s simultaneous answer to Apple’s $499 iPad Air 2 and $399 iPad mini 3. The Nexus 9 comes with an 8.9-inch display that’s smaller than the Air 2’s 9.7-inch screen but larger than the mini 3’s 7.9-inch panel.

Running on Google’s latest Android operating system, the sweetly named Android 5.0 Lollipop, the Nexus 9 gets a sumptuous soft-touch material on its back panel and aluminum edges, giving the tablet a premium feel.

Around back, there’s an 8-megapixel camera, while the front of the tablet gets a 1.6-megapixel camera. The iPad Air 2 comes with an 8-megapixel iSight camera and a 1.2-megapixel FaceTime camera. The mini 3 gets a 5-megapixel rear camera and the same FaceTime camera as the Air 2.

Inside, the Nexus 9 features a powerful quad-core Nvidia processor, 2 GB of RAM, and your choice of 16 or 32 GB of storage. That should match up nicely with the iPad Air 2’s new A8X processor and the mini 3’s A7 chip, which is to say all three tablets will likely handle anything you can throw at them.

Unfortunately, none of these tablets offer microSD card slots, which means once you fill up their onboard storage, you’ll have to rely on the cloud for saving your music and movies.

Google says the Nexus 9’s battery is good for up to 9.5 hours of Web surfing over Wi-Fi or video playback. The Air 2 and mini 3 promise 10 hours of Web browsing and video playback. It’s worth noting, though, that those numbers are based on each company’s estimates.

The one thing holding back the Nexus 9 might just be the fact that Android doesn’t offer many tablet-specific apps, which means things like Facebook will look stretched out on the 9’s large display. (Both iPads get tablet apps that have been specifically built to fit their screens.)

The Nexus is on sale now through Google’s Play store, BestBuy.com, and Amazon.com. A 16 GB version costs $399, while a 32 GB version will run you $479. An LTE data-capable Nexus with 32 GB of storage is also available for $599
Daniel Howley
Daniel Howley

02/11/2014

Microsoft Announces New Mac Editions of Office and Outlook

Microsoft understands that Mac people have just as much work to get done as its Windows PC owners do. So, as it’s done for the past umpteen years, the company has announced that it will again bring its latest Office suite of programs for spreadsheets, word processing, email, and more to Apple’s line of computers.

But not until next year.

The company wrote in a blog post Friday about its plans to bring the successor to Office 2011 for Mac, which will include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote, sometime in the second half of 2015. Its popular email software program, Outlook, is being released now, ahead of the pack, available for download by Office 365 subscribers.

Microsoft’s pay-by-the-month 365 program, starting at $6.99, allows subscribers to download and install the latest versions of Office software to PC and mobile devices, as well as access its tools online from any Web browser. The company also sells stand-alone software packages of Office for desktop the old fashioned way, with the full version starting at $219.
Daniel Bean
Editorial Assistant

30/10/2014

8 Smartphones That Get Amazing Battery Life

Daniel Bean

The Turbo is not alone in offering excellent battery life. Here are some of the best-performing battery beast smartphones on the market today.

1. Samsung Galaxy Note 4

One of the best phablets (phone/tablets) you can buy today, the Galaxy Note 4 by Samsung is certainly packing in the battery department. Even with addition of a higher-quality and power-hungrier screen over last year’s model, the Note 4 tests at about 28.5 hours of talk time or almost 11 hours of Web browsing.

2. OnePlus One

Known as the “hero phone” for Android enthusiasts, you can buy a high-powered, unlocked, and off-contract OnePlus One for only $299. What makes the deal sweeter is that this phone touts just about the best battery life stats for a phone its size, coming in with a “typical real-life usage” time of eight hours and five minutes. It tested well enough to edge out the Samsung Galaxy S5, the HTC One (M8), and the LG G3 (all much more expensive phones) in the same trial.

3. BlackBerry Passport

Hey, remember BlackBerry? The once-dominant business-class smartphone company is back with probably its strangest phone yet: the Passport. Sure, it’s huge and has a weirdly square touchscreen, but the big battery on this thing should last you a couple of work days (24 hours of 3G talk time and 14.5 days on standby, BlackBerry says).

4. Huawei Ascend Mate 2

In case you haven’t noticed, the way things typically go with handset devices is like this: A big phone equals a big battery life. This theme is certainly upheld by the humongous (and reasonably priced) Huawei Ascend Mate 2. It packs a 6-inch screen and claims about 25 hours of use on one charge, which checks out with reviews we’ve seen. Other tests also have the Mate 2 providing for up to 18 hours of Web browsing on a single charge.

5. Nokia Lumia 1520

Don’t count Nokia/Microsoft out of this category. The Lumia 1520, the largest Windows phone that money can buy, clocks in with a formidable talk time of almost 29 hours, according to tech reviewers who have put it through its paces. Web browsing time, at about 12.5 hours, is a little more disappointing when compared with other giant phones, but still great in its own right.

6. iPhone 6 Plus

A year and a half ago, some people were calling the iPhone phablet a unicorn. But it’s real, and it gets spectacular battery life — 24 hours of talk time or 12 hours of Web browsing, Apple says. Much better than its little sibling, the iPhone 6, we should add.

7. Samsung Galaxy S5

Considering that it’s the small phone of this collection, the Samsung Galaxy S5 sure seems worth a mention in the battery-life department. Samsung claims that its popular phone will give you 21 hours of talk time, 10 hours of Web surfing, or 12 hours of HD movie watching on a single charge. And that all seems to be corroborated by industry tests.

8. Droid Turbo

One of the key focuses in Verizon’s Droid line of Android phones is power. Its latest announcement, the Motorola-made Droid Turbo, seems like a breakthrough for the series, claiming a whopping 48 hours of battery life per charge. Naturally, no one (except for Motorola) has had a real chance to test the battery claims here. But if true, this modestly sized device could be the coup de grâce for any other company trying its hand at building a long-lasting smartphone battery

29/10/2014

Apple Killed the iPod Classic Because It ‘Couldn’t Get the Parts Anymore’

Despite there still being a demand for the iconic MP3 player, in September, Apple quietly discontinued the iPod Classic, removing it from its website and retail stores.

The move, just six weeks before what would have been its 13th birthday was seen as an admission that physical and even digital albums are dead and that music streaming is the future.

However, during his headline interview at the WSJD Live Conference on Monday evening, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that the decision to ax the click wheel iPod was down to parts.

“We couldn’t get the parts anymore. They don’t make them anymore,” said Cook, according to Engadget. “We would have to make a whole new product … the engineering work to do that would be massive … The number of people who wanted it is very small.”

The iPod Classic offered owners 160 GB of disk space for their music, video and photo collections, and what made it so innovative at the time was the combination of the click wheel for easy searching and operation and the use of a spinning physical hard disk for storage which enabled the device to hold a huge amount of data without breaking the bank.

Although the iPod’s days have been numbered since the launch of the first iPhone back in 2007 the device is loved by many, particularly those with large record collections and those who spend a lot of time traveling.

However times change and even Apple, which pioneered the digital music market with the iTunes Store is finding that it has to adapt.

28/10/2014

Microsoft to Slash Xbox One Price by $50 Until Year’s End

Microsoft just unveiled its newest weapon in the fight to yank the Xbox One game console out of its sales rut: cold hard cash.

Starting Nov. 2, Microsoft will offer a temporary $50 price cut across its Xbox One line in the U.S., until the end of the year. The company said in a statement the Xbox One model that comes with the Kinect motion camera accessory will retail for $449, down from $499. The standalone Xbox One without Kinect will sell for $349 from its earlier $399 price tag. Microsoft says other regions may have specific promotional offers, including possible price cuts; the company already implemented a similar strategy in the UK.

The changes mean the entry-level Xbox One will gain a new feature as well: a price nearly 13 percent lower than Sony’s PlayStation 4. That video game console, which was released a week before the Xbox One last November, has outsold the Xbox One in the U.S. for nine straight months this year, according to industry watcher NPD Group.

The price cut comes at a crucial time. Most of the video game industry’s highest profile new games are released during this time, including installments from best-selling franchises like the military-style shooting games Call of Duty and Battlefield, as well as action adventure titles like Assassin’s Creed.

Microsoft’s strategy is also different from that of Sony, its primary competitor. That company has hammered out deals to ensure PlayStation 4 owners can get specialized access to storylines and features for popular games, a strategy the company says makes its device more appealing.

Microsoft has focused more on appealing to consumers’ wallets to gain ground. In March, the company gave away a popular new space-age shooting game called Titanfall for free when consumers bought a new Xbox One. In May, when Microsoft announced the Kinect-less Xbox One, it sweetened the deal for its Xbox Live Gold social network for gamers, giving gamers two free downloadable titles each month to those who ponied up $60. Sony’s PlayStation Plus service gives its members a similar deal.

Xbox fans will likely celebrate the move, but investors may see it as a sign the Xbox is struggling. A price cut is a “last resort,” according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

Consider that Microsoft has obscured the health of Xbox sales by choosing not to release sales data since April, when it announced its 5 millionth unit shipped to retailers. Sony, meanwhile, has proudly broadcast its sales of the PS4 throughout the past year. In August, Sony’s device notched its 10 millionth sale, and in September, NPD said it had been the best-selling console in the U.S.

Game consoles have notoriously razor-thin margins. Microsoft was earning around $29 per console sold, according to research firm IHS when it first went on sale last year for $500, and even less after sharing that remainder with retailers. A $50 price cut could force Microsoft to take a heavier loss on each Xbox unit sold.

“What matters to them [Microsoft] is winning the customer over, getting them to sign up for Xbox Live, buying the software, buying 20 pieces of downloadable content,” Pachter added. “Xbox may lose $50 or $100 a console, but when you add it all up, I think it’s about winning the customer over.”
Nick Statt, CNET
October 27, 2014

27/10/2014

Sony Xperia Z3v: Verizon's PlayStation Phone Reviewed

Daniel Howley
Most consumers today know Sony for its PlayStation gaming consoles, TVs, movies, and the legendary Walkman. You’d be forgiven, though, if you didn’t know that the Japanese tech giant also offers a line of smartphones. But just one carrier, T-Mobile, currently sells Sony’s handsets. Until now, that is.

Verizon, which hasn’t offered a Sony smartphone for years, is rolling out its exclusive Sony Xperia Z3v. Available for $199 with a two-year contract, the Z3v is a competitor to mainstream, high-end phones like the Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Galaxy S5.

The Z3v is a good phone with unique features — it lets you stream PlayStation 4 games! — but compared with those power hitters, it’s not quite in the same league.

Design
Despite its name, the Z3v more closely resembles Sony’s bulkier Xperia Z2 rather than the newer, slimmer, sleeker, and overall better-looking Xperia Z3, which is available on T-Mobile.

image

In fact, at 0.35 inches thick, the Z3v is thicker than both the Z2 (0.32 inches) and the Z3 (0.30) inches. To compare, Apple’s iPhone 6, which at $199 costs the same as the Z3v, measures just 0.27 inches thick, while Samsung’s Galaxy S5 is 0.31 inches thick. In other words, the Z3v is not for the skinny-jeans contingent.

The Z3v is also relatively heavy, weighing 6 ounces, compared with the iPhone 6’s 4.6 ounces and the Galaxy S5’s 5.1 ounces. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the Xperia Z3v sports a 5.2-inch display, while the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5 have 4.7-inch and 5.1-inch displays, respectively.

So it’s chunky. But how does the Xperia Z3v feel? Not bad. Its heft is noticeable when you pick it up, but it’s not uncomfortable. Built with an aluminum frame and a glass back panel, the Z3v feels like a premium handset. Unfortunately, that glass back also picks up a lot of fingerprint grime. Yuck.

image

Like the Z2 and Z3, the Z3v is waterproof and dustproof. In fact, you can take this phone down to 5 feet underwater for 30 minutes, and it’ll keep on ticking. The S5 is waterproof up to 3 feet for 30 minutes, while the iPhone 6 models don’t offer any waterproofing. The Z3v does have those annoying port covers over its microUSB, SIM card, and microSD card slots, though, to keep it watertight.