HP CHROMEBOOK 11 REVIEW

Hewlett- Packard's new Chromebook 11 is a laptop at heart, but it's light and portable enough to work well in places where you'd normally prefer a tablet.

The Chromebook is small enough to rest comfortably on your lap and easy to carry when you need to pick up and go.

The drawback is it relies heavily on the internet to run various services, so you'll need to plan ahead if you're looking to write that great masterpiece without access to Wi-Fi. That's because Chromebook doesn't run Windows or Mac OS, like the majority of laptops. Rather, it uses Google's Chrome OS system, which needs a steady internet connection.

Although it's possible to use apps while offline, Chromebooks are really designed for offline use. Many apps don't work fully or at all without internet connection, or they need to be configured while you still have the connection to work offline. It's not as simple as installing a program and expecting it to work wherever you are. In addition, Chromebooks have little storage on the devices; Google steers you toward its online storage service, Drive, for your documents, photos, music and movies.

Chromebook aren't meant for graphic designers who use sophisticated software, such as Adobe's Photoshop, or business executives who rely on Microsoft's PowerPoint slides. These notebooks are for people who primarily use Google's online services, including search, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps and Google's players for music and video. That includes schoolchildren who need a computer for homework and merchants who want something small next to a cash register.

The Chromebook 11 takes just a few seconds to power up, as Chrome OS doesn't have a lot to load on the device itself.

chrome OS notebooks are also cheap.  The chromebook 11 cost just $199 model from acer. But the new chromebook has many high-end feature inspired by a much pricier model the $1,299 chromebook pixel designed and made by Google through contract factories in Asia.  The new chromebook's speakers are underneath the keyboard, so sound projects out at you. Its outer shell is sleek and smooth . It doesn't have the pixel's metal exterior, but there's magnesium underneath the plastic to keep the laptop study.  The chromebook 11 has no sharp edges or corners or even screw holes.  There's no either, which keeps the device quiet and light- at just 2.3 pounds (1 kilogram).

The Chrome has 11.6 inch screen , measured diagonally.The Chromebook has a low resolution but it promises a battery life of up to 6 hours. 100 Gb of storage through Google Drive for two years.

That's not an issue if you're online most of time. The days of one device per person in, let alone per household, I have seen Chromebook 11 a great secondary computer for many people who want it just for internet purpose and those who have ready access to Wi-Fi connection.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 10.1 (2014 EDITION) REVIEW

Remember when people used personal computers - desktops and laptops - to check email, view video and keep tabs on Facebook? Back in that far-away era, I'd have several windows open for web browsers, a word processor, a photo editor and sometimes a reader for PDF documents.

I miss that capability on mobile devices, particularly on full-size tablets with a decent amount of display space. With iPads and Android tablets, I'm typically limited to one window displayed at a time; other apps run in background, out of sight. With Windows 8 tablets, I can run two windows side by side, but I'm constrained in what I can do with them. It gets better with the Windows 8.1 update due our next week, but it's still not free for all I had with PC's.

Samsung's new tablet formally called Galaxy Note 10.1 - 2014 Edition, supporting a 10.1 inch display, measured diagonally, the Note tablet goes on sale in US at a price of $550.

The first of the multitasking features, called Multi-Window, has been available in Samsung devices for about a year, but it works with many more apps now. You can run two apps side by side, such as Facebook on one side and YouTube video on the other.

Like Windows 8 tablets, you're limited to just two apps. You can change how much of the screen each one takes, a capability coming with Windows 8.1, but you can't choose to have a window take up just the top left corner, the way you can on PCs. In addition, Multi-Window isn't a universal feature. Apps for Netflix and Hulu won't work,for instance. You currently have about 18 apps to choose from, including Facebook and a variety of Google and Samsung apps.

  With that limitation,it's nice that Samsung Electronics Co. is supplementing  Multi-window with a feature called Pen Window.

With it, simply draw a box on the screen with the included stylus, and choose one of seven apps to open in a new window. Do it again and again until you open all seven apps, if you wish. That's nine in all, counting the two with Multi-window. Each Pen Window app appears in a window that floats over your main app. You can move that window around on your screen and resize it, just as you can on PC's. 

For now, Pen window on the tablet works with YouTube, the calculator, the alarm clock, your contacts list, the wb browser and two chat apps - Samsung ChatOn and Google's Hangouts. I like the fact that you can open all of them and keep them out of the way in a minimized state. That way, it's just one click when you need the calculator and one click when you're done.

Beyond multitasking, the new Note tablet offers a My Magazine mode giving you personalized highlights, such as news topics of interest, content from social media feeds and suggestions on things to do and see, based on your current location. It's good concept, though Facebook isn't available through it yet.

The new tablet also gives you quick access to the tools you can accomplish with its stylus. PEN Window is one. Another feature lets you add notes to a screenshot of what you see. Another lets you clip a section of a Web page and store it with a Web link.

Pen Window is more difficult than necessary to set up. You need to take out the stylus for an Air Command tool to appear on the screen. You choose Pen window, then draw a box on your screen with your stylus. Then you choose the app you want to open. Do all of that again to get additional apps, after figuring out how to get Air Command again with your stylus already out. It would have been simpler to have a button on the home screen that you can tap with your finger or stylus.

In addition, Samsung have done more with apps in minimized state. Google's chat app is reduced to a circular icon. It could have flashed or changed colours to notify me of a new chat message, rather than make me open and close it regularly to check.

The tablet's back is still made of plastic, but it feels like leather - an improvement over previous Samsung devices. The tablet feel heavy, at 1.2 pounds, but that's still lighter than the 1.4 pounds for the full-size iPad.

Samsung's tablet price is around $550 but no iPad has stylus feature in it.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 3 SPECS

                                           

           
NETWORK

2G - GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900)
3G - HSPA + 50/900/1900/2100 MHz)
Wi-Fi - 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Wi-Fi Direct - Yes
Bluetooth Version - BT4.0 (PBAP, A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSP, OPP, SAP, HID, PAN, DI, MAP)

OS
Android 4.3

CHIPSET

Cpu Type -  OCTA
Cpu Speed - 1.9GHz + 1.3 GHz Quad

DISPLAY

Technology - FHD sAMOLED
Color Depth - 16M
Size -14.4cms
Resolution - 1920 x 1080
S Pen - Yes

MEMORY
32GB

CAMERA

Camera Resolution(Front) - CMOS, 2MP
Camera Resolution (Rear) - CMOS, 13MP
Flash - Power HCRI LED (1EA)
Auto Focus - Yes

SENSORS

Accelerometer, Geomagnetic, Gyro, RGB light, Barometer, Proximity, Gesture, Temperature and Humidity, Hall.

PHYSICAL SPECIFICATION

Dimension(HxWxD) - 151.1 x 79.2 x8.3mm
Weight  - 168g

CONNECTORS

USB - USB 2.0, USB 3.0 (MTP only)
Earjack - 3.5mm
External memory slot - Micro SD slot (up to 64GB)
SIM support - Micro SIM

BATTERY

Standard Battery - 3200mAh
Talk Time(W-CDMA) - Up to 20 hours
Standby Time(W-CDMA) - Up to 490 hours

LOCATION

AGPS, GLONASS

AUDIO AND VIDEO

Video Format - Format: MP4, M4V,3GP, WMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, WEBMCodec: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VC-1, VP8, WMV7/8, MP3, Sorenson Spark, HEVC

Video Frame rate - Up to 60fps
Audio Format - MP3,AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-WB, AMR-NB, Vorbis, FLAC, WMA, WAV  

FIVE iOS 7 USEFUL TIPS

Apple's new iPhone's and iOS 7 operating system for mobile devices are packed with new features, although not of all them are readily apparent. I've had a chance to learn a few tricks in the week I spent with both the iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s, which come with iOS 7 installed.

Here are five things to know if you download the software on one of Apple's older mobile devices starting Wednesday or buy a new iPhone starting Friday. The update is available for free for the iPhone 4, 4s and 5 models, the iPad 2 and later, the iPad Mini and iPod Touch released last year. You'll need about 3 gigabytes of free storage.

1. Control Center and swipes

Many of the improvement added to iOS 7 are delivered after swiping from various edges of the screen. This redesign is meant to make it easier to navigate, but there is no guide for knowing when and how to swipe. Fortunately, you can still use an iPhone the traditional way by tapping in an icon or  button, even if you don't learn all the new ways to swipe.

As a general rule of thumb, keep swiping from various edges to see what happens. If you discover something neat, remember it for next time. swiping may produce different results if you're in the lock screen, the screen or an app.

Here's a guide to  the basic swipes:

- From the lock screen, swipe up from the bottom right corner to access the camera. This is a holdover from iOS 6.

- Whether locked or unlocked, swipe up from anywhere else along the bottom edge to get the Control Center. It gives you easy access to frequently accessed setting such as Airplane Mode and Wi-Fi. It also gets you to key such as the flashlight feature and the clock, for timing how long the turkey needs to be in the oven, there's a volume control, but only for audio and video playback. You need the volume buttons for the ringer and alerts.

- Swipe down from  the top edge to get the Notification Center. You'll see the day's highlights, including the whether, appointments and stocks quotes. Tap on "All" or "Missed" near the top to get recent notifications from Gmail, Facebook and other services.

- Swipe down from anywhere else on the screen to get a search box.

- From various Apple apps, try swiping from the left or the right. Not every will respond, but many will. With the Safari browser, for instance, you can use the left and right swipes in place of the back and forward buttons.

2. Organizing and sharing photos

The new Photos app organizes your photos into moments, based on when and where you took the photos. Several moments will be grouped into a collection, such as a vacation to Europe. Collections will then be grouped by year. It's all automated, so you can't unorganized photos.

From any moments, collection or year, click on the header on top of the photos to pull out a map showing all the places you've been, with the number of shots taken at each. You can share entire moments, by hitting "Share" on the right side of that header. a Menu should pop out from the bottom. It's tricky because it's easy to miss and hit "Select" above it instead.

Once you have the moments or set of Photos chosen  another menu will op out from the bottom giving you such choices are sharing by email, Facebook, Flickr or text messaging.

3. Ask Siri

Frustrated with siri's inability to hear what you're trying to say? Instead of repeating yourself over and over, you can click "tap to edit" to make the change manually. You shouldn't have to with voice search, but fixing one letter is still easier than having to type in the entire phrase.

Just for fun, you can give Siri a sex change by going to the Settings, choosing "General," then "Siri,"
then "Voice Gender". You can now Siri to change phone settings and return recent calls. And Siri will speak out turn-by-turn direction when walking. Before, the vocal instructions were limited to driving directions in Maps.

4. Freebies

Apple's new streaming music service, iTunes Radio, is easy to find. click on the Music icon at the bottom of each home screen, then choose "Radio at the bottom. Create music stations by choosing some genres you like. Then fine-tune your picks by hitting the star when a tune is playing. You can ask the service to play more songs like it or remove that song from future playlists entirely. You can also create new stations based on specific songs or artists. The service will try to find other songs like them.

Best of all, it's free. Just Prepare to put up with some ads, unless you subscribe to Apple's iTunes Match for $25 a year.

Meanwhile, you might qualify for some free app- Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, Keynote fro presentations, iPhoto for photo editing and iMovie fro movie editing. They usually cost $5 or $10 each. To qualify, You need to buy a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. The offer is retroactive to Sept. 1. Once a new device is activated, the app can be downloaded for free to other devices on the same account, as long as the device is upgraded to iOS 7.

5. Fingerprinting

With the new fingerprint ID system on the iPhone 5s, there's no longer a reason to avoid protecting your phone with a passcode. I know passcodes can be very disruptive. I've often lost my train of thought before I could get to an app to jot something down. But your fingerprint now bypasses the need to type in four-digit code in many situations.

It's easy to set up. The iPhone will walk you through scanning one finger when you get up the p hone. You can scan four more fingers - your or someone else's - by going to the settings. Go to "General", then "Passcode & Fingerprint".

I'm still confronted with passcode screens, especially when i need to authenticate an app purchase. It took me a few day to realize that even though you're asked for a passcode, the fingerprint usually works unless the phone specifically tells you otherwise.

One more thing: The Screen needs to be on for the fingerprint sensor to work. To save a step, just press on the home button firmly and let the button pop back up. but keep your finger lightly touching the button's surface. The hard press will activate the screen, and the light touch will unlock the phone.

HTC ONE MAX REVIEW

                 HTC ONE MAX

DESIGN AND BUILD 

And this time the brushed aluminium back comes off. Still feeling solid as a whole, a small toggle on the left-hand side allows the back to be peeled off. Inside, goodies include a micro SIM slot and micro SD card slot but that 3,300mAh battery is sealed in tight.     

FINGERPRINT SCANNER

HTC's big gamble with the One Max, which in all other respects is a blown-up HTC One, is the fingerprint reader beneath the rear camera lens. Swiping your finger down the blank grey-black square on the back can be used to unlock your One Max without a PIN and launch specific apps. Up to three digits can be scanned in, which makes sense considering your thumb and little finger should be grasping your slab of a phone as if their very existence depends upon not dropping it.

SCREEN - AS HUGE AND STUNNING AS EXPECTED

Any gripes you have with One Max's build or fingerprint tech instantly disappear as soon as you load up a good looking movie or luscious game on the 5.9in Full HD screen. It's a great size to watch movies on. Sense is now more spaced out,too, and there are rows five-apps wide instead of four on the home screens. Viewing webpages the supreme contrast and clear resolution make for that appear lovely and smooth.
          
HTC One Max Tech Specs

Operating System: Android 4.3 with Sense 5.5
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, 1.7GHZ quad-core.
RAM: 2GB
Screen: 5.9in Full HD 1080p
Camera: unspecified UltraPixel camera, BSI with 1080p video, front:2.1 MP
Storage: 16/32GB + micro SD up to 64GB
Data: 3G/4G LTE
Battery: 3300mAh
Dimensions: 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.29mm
Weight: 217g
Connections: Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX, NFC, IR blaster, microUSB 2.0 with MHL.
  
CAMERA

If you're happy to buy a phone this big, perhaps camera quality isn't your biggest concern, the Max's rear cam is reliable enough. Sticking with the One's UltraPixel system of larger pixels we think 4MP but HTC hasn't specified plus a f/2.0 aperture and BSI sensor, results are unsurprisingly similar to its smaller comrade. 

HUAWEI MOBILE WIFI E5220

The Huawei Mobile WiFi E5220 is a pocket-sized wireless router that lets you share a mobile broadband connection with up to 10 Wi-Fi devices,but only supports 3G, not 4G. Huawei claims it has a maximum download speed of 21.6 Mbps and an upload speed of 5.8 Mbps, but real-world speeds depend on your location and which network you're on.
When copying files between two computers on the E5220's local wireless network, we got 16.9Mbps at a distance of one metre, 18Mbps at 10m and 3.7Mbps at 20m. These are fast speeds for a portable router.
We found it tricky to price off the router's back panel, but once it's open, the battery and SIM card are east to install. You should also make a note of the default wireless network name and password (on a label next to the SIM slot), which you'll need to connect to the router. With a password already set, your wireless network is secure as soon as you start using it, rather than after you've spent time configuring the wireless security set-up. 

The simple web interface shows you the router's connection status to your mobile network, as well as which PC's are connected and how much data you've used, which is essential if you're on a capped plan.

The E5220 is a good portable router let down only by the lack of 4G support and a fiddly battery cover.

SPECIFICATION

802.11n, 3G modem, no Ethernet ports, 30g, 68x71x26mm(HxWxD), One-year warranty, Part Code E5220s-2.

PRICE
$77.57

LIFE IS LIKE A BOOK

LIFE is like a book

Some chapters are sad,

Some happy and some very exciting.

But if you never turn the page, 

you will never know 

what the next chapter holds. 

BOSE NEW SPEAKERS SOUNDLINK MINI TOTALLY AWESOME

DESIGN

It has a flat metal grill and a solid aluminium shell, the SoundLink Mini evokes the image of a radio from the 1960s, yet sleeker and more updated for today. It measures just 2 by 7.1 by 2.3 inches (HWD), and its satisfyingly sturdy-feeling 1.5pound heft and aluminium casing give an impression of solidity. The controls are arranged neatly in a row of rubber buttons on the top of the speaker, with raised Volume Up/ Down buttons franked by Power and Mute buttons on the left and Bluetooth and Auxiliary input buttons on the right. 

The right side of the speaker holds a power connector and a 3.5mm audio input. The back is covered by a metallic grille just like the front's, nut without a Bose logo painted on it, showing the passive radiator built into the speaker. A large rectangular foot on the bottom of the speaker keeps it in place and covers the rechargeable battery, along with contact points for the included charging cradle and a micro USB port.

CHARGING

Unlike many other Bluetooth speakers, the SoundLink Mini doesn't charge through its micro USB port; that's only for servicing the speaker and upgrading the firmware. According to Bose, the speaker's battery can last 7 hours on a charge.

PERFORMANCE

For its small size, the SoundLink Mini puts out some impressive sound. It has more directional sound, but it also put more power and sounded just as good placed against a wall and facing entire room. Although the bass made the speaker itself shake, its small size limited its ability to deliver real wall-shaking bass, though the reverb and harsh riffs of Daft Punk's "Robot Rock" created a suitably large-sounding soundscape. The SoundLink Mini's solid high-mid performance gave it a slight edge over the Logitech UE Boom, which can sound slightly tinny in comparison.

The BoseLink Mini is a little powerhouse that produces clear, solid sound, but for its size and price its performance is impressive.

PRICE - $199.95

3D STORAGE DRIVES WITH 100TB+ CAPACITY TO COME IN FUTURE

As long as engineers at Florida International University have found a way of breaking the 2D limitation of magnetic hard drive storage. By moving to three dimensions, the researchers have massively increased areal density, with the possibility of 100-terabyte (and larger) hard drives now firmly on the horizon.

While we've covered a lot of magnetic storage breakthroughs, they have all been fundamentally 2D in their implementation, and thus are ultimately restricted by superparamagnetic limits (magnetic bits can only be so small, before neighboring bits/changes in temperature can randomly after the magnetism). Heat-assisted magnetic recording(HAMR), for example, can allow for magnetic grains that are just a few nanometres across an areal densities in the terabits-per-square-inch domain - but even then, we're still looking at a hard cap of around 60 terabytes per hard drive.

To move beyond the limits imposed by superparamagnetism, the only solution is move beyond simple 2D improvements - making magnetic
grains smaller - and instead move into the third dimension. 

At Florida International University, the researchers have created a new hard drive platter that allows for the writing and reading of 3D magnetic data. In essence, instead of having just one magnetic layer, the new platter has three magnetic layers, with isolation (insulation) layers sandwiched in between. On a conventional hard drive platter, a magnetic site stores just a single bit - here, a triple stack of magnetic layers, each magnetic site can store up to eight bits of data (north/north/north, south/south/south, N/N/S, N/S/S, etc.)

To read data, a weakly magnetic head is used to measure the vector sum of three magnetic fields. To write data, each layer of the recording medium has slightly different properties, so that they can only be written by a specific type and strength of magnetic field, which is output by a special recording head.

How data is stored on multilayer 3D (ML-3D) recording medium

For now, FIU's new magnetic recording medium is an in-the-lab tech demo. Where conventional hard drive platters are mass-produced using a simple process (magnetron sputtering), FIU's platter is more like a small disc of silicon that goes through dozens of painstaking process, including e-beam lithographic patterning. This isn't to say that multilayer 3D (ML-3D) recording won't become a reality, but alternatives such as HAMR are much closer to commercial adoption. That ML-3D might be used to create 100-terabyte (or larger) hard drives in the future, though, still exciting news - and, interestingly, perhaps the technology that will finally kill off magnetic tape, which is still hanging in there as the preferred bulk offline storage medium.

GOOGLE NEXUS 7 REWIEW

GOOGLE NEXUS 7

PHYSICAL FEATURES AND NETWORKING

The new Nexus 7 is slimmer, lighter, and more comfortable to hold than the original, which was already more comfortable to hold than Apple's oddly wide iPad mini. This model is 4.5 by 7.9 by 0.34 inches (HWD) and 10.2 ounces, with tampered sides and a soft-touch back that somehow feels classier than the original Nexus 7's faux leather.
There are very few ports here just micro USB, headphone, and microphone and marginally narrower side bezels framing the sharp 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS LCD panel, which is a big advance from the original's 1,280-by-800 screen. At 323ppi, it's almost exactly the same density as the Apple iPhone 5's Retina display and higher than any iPad's. It's bright enough for most circumstances, colors are very true, and viewing angles are good. But the screen is small enough to not totally kill battery life. We got 7 hours 37 minutes of video playback on maximum brightness. That's shorter than the 10 hours commanded by last year's Nexus 7, which sported a less-dense screen, but it's still quite a respectable.
The Nexus 7 comes in three models. The first two are Wi-Fi only, with support for 802.11a/b/g/n on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands(the latter another upgrade from last year). The third unit works on Verizon's LTE network and AT& T's and T-Mobile's LTE and 3G networks.
All of the models have GPS, which makes this tablet a killer in-car navigation system. The GPS on my test model locked in very quickly. The tablet also has Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC, although surprisingly there's no support for Google Wallet.

PERFORMANCE, OS, AND APPS

The Nexus 7 is the first Android tablet, running a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm S4 Pro APQ8064 processor. Think of this tablet as about two-thirds of the way up the current performance ladder, with the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone at the top. It almost doubled the performance of last year's Nvidia Tegra3 - based Nexus 7 on pure processor and graphic banchmarks and positively crushed the iPad mini on the Geekbench system benchmark: The mini scored only 748; this guy 2,643. Using the chrome browser, the Nexus 7 beat the iPad mini on the SunSpider browser benchmark by about 30 percent.
Real-world performance isn't solely dependent on processor speed: How many pixels you'are pushing, the OS, and third-party apps are also important. That's where the Nexus 7 ran into a bit of trouble. Some of test apps either didn't show up in the market or got buggy.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted, for instance, displayed weird graphics artifacts. Netflix's UI was sluggish, although videos played just fine. 
Asphalt 7: Heat, one of my standard test games, didn't even show up on a search. Sometimes when searching Google's own Play store, animations would get jittery or the text box would loose focus.



The popular video player MX player quit on launch. I suspect a lot of these problems are Android 4.3 issues that will get solved quickly as the app creators update their work.

MULTIMEDIA: VIEWING AND CAPTURING 

With no memory card slot, I suggest buying the 32GB Nexus 7 (with 26GB available) over the $229 16GB unit. The new Nexus 7 adds a 5 megapixel rear camera to the tablet, keeping the 1 megapixel front camera as well.
The new Android 4.3 camera app's UI is extremely simple, although you still get some options like capture size,a countdown timer, a few scene modes, panarama, and Photo Sphere. Photos taken with the main camera were clear enough in good light, although bright areas were washed out and there was some visible color noise. In low light, the noise really ramped up. Front camera images tended to be very soft, even smeary(but not blurry)in low light. The main camera captured 1080p video at 30 frames per second (fps) indoors and out; the front camera captured 720p at 30 fps. There's no image stabilization, but there is a time-lapse mode.
The front camera is fine for video chatting, and the main camera will suffice for augmented-reality apps, bar code scanners, language translators, and all the things you really should be using a tablet camera for (not snapshots). 

Asus amped up the stereo speakers here, and they're now quite loud, although they're still tinny. Fraunhofer surround sound gives some real stereo separation material coded for it, such as Google Play movies. Still, the only way you're going to get bass in with headphones.
The Nexus 7 had no problem playing MPEG-4 and H.264 videos in resolution up to 10809, as well as streaming Netflix and Google Play movies.There's no DivX or Xvid support by default.
The Nexus 7 doesn't have any wired way to output video to a TV, but it works with Google's Chromecast to play some streaming(not local)  media on TVs. 

Small tablets are most often used for some media, some gaming, some Web browsing, and some ebook reading. Provided third-party developers update their apps for Android 4.3 and I think they will, soon - the new Nexus is best because of its sharp screen, comfortable ergonomics, and solid performance at an ideal price.