switzerland gazebo: October 2013

Thursday, October 31, 2013

How the Nexus 5 Compares to Its Toughest Smartphone Competition

Finally, the long-awaited Nexus 5 has arrived in the form of 5 inches of pure, unfiltered Android just the way Google always intended. That all sounds nice, but as Google's flagship response to other big dogs like the iPhone 5S and Lumia 1020, does the refreshed Nexus have the specs to keep up with the competition (at least one paper)? We put together the comparison charts below to find out.

Sprint Nexus 5: $149 for 16GB on contract; preorders Nov. 1, available Nov. 8

Nexus is returning to Sprint. After skipping the Nexus 4 — and after suffering the pains of being a CDMA carrier with an openy phone in the Galaxy Nexus (it finally got Android 4.3 today) — Sprint has offered up its Nexus 5 plans. You'll be paying $149 on contract for a 16GB version (after $50 rebate). Pre-orders start Friday, Nov. 1. And, yes, it'll use Sprint's new "Spark" tech for LTE data.

If you're into Sprint's One Up service, the phone will run you $18.75 a month.

Full presser after the break.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/YsJhcc1T388/story01.htm
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Musicwood: Film Review

The Bottom Line

This compelling, eco-themed documentary will be of vital interest to anyone who loves acoustic guitars.

Opens

Nov. 1

Director

Maxine Trump

The Taylor, Martin and Gibson guitar companies may be longtime competitors, but they have one goal in common: to guarantee the continued supply of the high-quality wood essential to their product. Maxine Trump’s documentary Musicwood vividly illustrates the scope of the problem in its depiction of the battle to preserve the rapidly diminishing forests essential to supplying the next Bob Dylan with a high-quality acoustic guitar to strum.

The film’s central conflict is a complicated one, insofar as it involves Native American loggers, not a group that would normally be thought of as being harmful to the environment. But their stewardship of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, a rainforest whose Sitka Spruce tree is ideal for the building of the soundboards of acoustic guitars, has created problems. The supply is quickly being extinguished as the forests have fallen victim to their practice of clear-cutting, which destroys wide swaths in one fell swoop. Much of the wood goes not to the guitar manufacturers, but rather to Asian-based companies who need it to fuel that region’s ever growing construction industry.

Documenting the quest of the company’s CEOs to battle the foresting practices with the help of the environmental group Greenpeace, the film delivers a compelling portrait of the complicated issues involved. The filmmaker’s sympathies are made evident by the presence of numerous prominent musicians -- Steve Earle, Kaki King, members of such groups as Lambchop and Yo La Tengo, among others -- who movingly testify to the glories of the acoustic guitar as well as providing music for the soundtrack.

The heroes and villains of the story are not always clear -- Gibson, for instance, runs afoul of the U.S. government after it begins importing rosewood, another vital ingredient, from Madagascar. At times the film borders on being overly sentimental, such as an interview with one veteran guitar-maker who says, “It’s all I’ve ever done…I’m unemployable.” But anyone who’s ever lovingly handled a beautifully made guitar will be made uneasy by this account of the embattled industry’s struggles.

Opens Nov. 1 (Helpman Productions)

Director: Maxine Trump

Producers: Josh Granger, Maxine Trump

Director of photography: Curt Wallin

Editor: Josh Granger

Not rated, 80 min.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/reviews/film/~3/0XuJjhBgBfY/musicwood-film-review-652199
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Kate Bosworth Fronts Los Angeles Confidential

With her new film "Big Sur" slated to hit theaters this Friday (November 1st), Kate Bosworth soaked up the spotlight by covering the November 2013 issue of Los Angeles Confidential magazine.

During her interview with the publication, the 30-year-old actress opened up about her relationship with husband Michael Polish and her new life as a married woman.

Check out a few highlights from Miss Bosworth's Q&A session below. For more, be sure to visit Los Angeles Confidential!

On her new home:

"One of the last untamed territories in America - we'll have grizzlies roaming around. We're on a lake, so we can just go ice-skating. It's beautiful, so as we start a family, we can really create a special place there together."

On Jasper:

"I've never had an older sister or brother, and she's an only child, so I feel we really understand each other in a special way. If I can make a positive impact on her life, that will me incredibly happy. Having Jasper in my life takes me right back to being that age. It's challenging - its a time when you're so hard on yourself, and not for a great reason, but because you haven't experienced enough to be able to understand a lot of things."

On Michael:

"I knew I didn't want to mess anything up because I wanted to work with him again. There's this moment where you think, I hope this is everything that I think it is, and then we both sort of looked at each other - that was the moment when you decide to really trust, where we said, 'Yes this is it.' I feel like I've known him my whole life, and he feels like he's known me my whole life. And that's something very special that's difficult to describe without sounding like a Hallmark card."

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/kate-bosworth/kate-bosworth-fronts-los-angeles-confidential-1075157
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Google releases 1st phone powered by 'Kit Kat'

This image provided by Google shows its new Nexus 5 phone, which was unveiled Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. The Nexus 5 phone is the first device to run on the latest version of Google's Android operating system, nicknamed after the Kit Kat candy bar. The phone and software are designed to learn and anticipate a person’s interest and needs. (AP Photo/Google)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is selling a new Android smartphone that it hopes will become more like a clairvoyant friend than a piece of hardware.

The Nexus 5 phone unveiled Thursday is the first device to run on Kit Kat, the latest version of Google's Android operating system.

As with previous Nexus phones, the latest will be sold only at full retail price, without subsidies that come with two-year contract agreements. It goes on sale Thursday in Google's online Play store starting at $349, undercutting many rival phones at contract-free prices. The phone will work on most U.S. wireless networks, but not Verizon's. A Nexus 5 model also is available for European markets.

The Nexus 5 and Kit Kat software underscore Google's ambition to ingrain its search engine and virtual assistant, Google Now, even deeper into people's lives. In the process, Google Inc. hopes to gather more insights that will enable it to sell more advertising, which generates most of its revenue.

It'll be easier for Google to learn about a person's habits and needs so it can display helpful information, such as an online post from a favorite blog or a suggestion to use Fandango's movie-ticketing service when standing in a long line at a movie theater.

When visiting a tourist attraction such as Yellowstone National Park, Google Now might automatically show information about geysers from the Web.

"We want to get to the point where you glance at your phone and it always delights you with what you need," said Sundar Pichai, a Google executive who oversees Android.

The new phone's $349 price threatens to lure more cost-conscious consumers away from Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which retails for $649 for the 5S and $549 for the 5C when sold without a traditional two-year service agreement.

In an unusual twist for a software upgrade, Google built Kit Kat so it would work on cheaper smartphones equipped with less computing memory than top-of-the-line devices.

The move reflects the Mountain View, Calif., company's desire to broaden use of the most recent version of Android. More than 1 billion Android devices have been activated, but a significant number are still using a 3-year-old flavor known as Gingerbread. That version remains popular because it works on those cheaper phones.

The mishmash of Android systems has made it tougher on app developers, who haven't been able to fully embrace the new features in previous upgrades without risking older phones not being to run their software. By contrast, Apple makes its iOS upgrades free all at once to several recent models. With Kit Kat, Google has a chance to bring older and cheaper phones up to date.

Google plans to make Kit Kat available for other devices within the next few weeks, but it will be up to individual manufacturers and their wireless carrier partners to decide if and when they will make the update available.

With the release of Kit Kat, Google also has improved its voice recognition technology so it can engage in more meaningful dialogue with users.

Kit Kat also showcases a new feature in Google's search technology to fuse results from the Web and applications installed on a phone. For instance, a request for a certain restaurant will show information drawn both from the Web and the app for the reservation service OpenTable Inc. Initially, only OpenTable and nine other mobile app makers have enabled this, but more are coming. This feature will also show up on other devices, including the iPhone, but for now it works best on the Nexus 5.

The new phone features a screen that measures nearly 5 inches diagonally — about an inch longer than the iPhone — and weighs about 4.6 ounces. That's about the same as the cheaper iPhone 5C, but more than the iPhone 5S's 4 ounces.

The Nexus 5 also includes a feature, called the "dialer," that will display phone numbers pulled directly from the Web instead of just a person's contact list.

___

Online:

https://play.google.com/store/devices

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-31-Google-Nexus%20Phone/id-bf58f3c4322a4d9b99371e8b7b90667e
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Tina Fey to write, produce new comedy for NBC

FILE - This Feb. 18, 2013 file photo shows actress Ellie Kemper at the Vanity Fair and Juicy Couture Celebration for the 2013 Vanities Calendar at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. NBC has ordered 13 episodes of a new singlecam comedy from multiple Emmy Award winners Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Ellie Kemper is set to star. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — NBC says it's ordering 13 episodes of a new comedy created by Tina Fey and starring Ellie Kemper of "The Office."

The network says Kemper will play a woman who flees a doomsday cult and begins a new life in New York city. The actress had joined "The Office" as Erin the receptionist in the show's 2009 season.

NBC says Fey created the new series with Robert Carlock, who was an executive producer on her Emmy-winning series "30 Rock." The pair will join in writing the new comedy and serve as executive producers along with David Miner.

NBC says the new show, as yet untitled, is scheduled to debut in fall 2014.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-31-TV-NBC-Tina%20Fey/id-d6bcb9d95b784a27b0e5bf6e0fc3525e
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Apple's New iWork: 3 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

Apple has -- compared to most technology companies -- nearly unlimited resources. Billions in the bank and plenty of time between upgrades. If Apple can expend resources to shave thickness in 1/100th of a millimeter increments off the iPad to create the iPad Air, the company sure as heck ought to be able to figure out a word processing application.

Real updates to Apple's iWork suite of apps -- Pages, Numbers and Keynote -- have been a long time coming, so when Apple updated the suite with a free upgrade that plays well with iOS 7 and with Web browsers, plenty of users jumped into the new version without looking. Unfortunately, a good many found they had leapt into a shallow pool full of sharp rocks.

Feature parity with iWork '09 is not one-to-one with the new iWork, and users are complaining in all sorts of places online. In one discussion thread on the Apple Support Communities pages, there are nearly 400 posts and more than 25,000 views on a question asking why Apple got rid of so many useful features in the new Pages -- and it then goes on to list them in excruciating crowdsourced detail.

Personally, despite typing words most days of the year, I've always had a love-hate relationship with Pages, as well as with Numbers and Keynote. Mostly Pages, though. Microsoft Word is a bloated mess of features, ribbons, toolbars and all sorts of distracting crud, and while Pages has always been leaner in its set of features, it's bloated in that there is far too much wasted white space that is very difficult to pare down -- at least, in my opinion.

I want lean and mean where almost nothing gets in the way of the words. When I'm making posters designed to help find a lost cat, yeah, templates and such are nice -- but that's just me.

The point is, any sort of power user has all sorts of personal needs around software applications and, more importantly, all sorts of habits and preferences. Consequently, mass upgrades have a tendency to irritate some of the most important users. If Apple is willing to anger and disappoint its power users, though, what's the better play here? Who's the new user?

Apple's New 'More Important' Users

Unfortunately, I see two realistic possible reasons for Apple's iWork upgrade debacle: 1) Apple dropped the ball and lost features by accident and changed things in ways that were dumb because it didn't put enough resources or time into the upgrade and new version; or 2) Apple reset iWork on purpose for a greater good.

While reason No. 1 is possible, I have a hard time believing it. Apple has -- compared to most technology companies -- nearly unlimited resources. Billions in the bank and plenty of time between upgrades. If Apple can expend resources to shave thickness in 1/100th of a millimeter increments off the iPad to create the iPad Air, the company sure as heck ought to be able to figure out a word processing application.

That means it was on purpose. Apple reset iWork with a reasonable -- but not complete -- set of features that most of the world would need and likely use. More importantly, it still is a suite of applications that creates files that can be shared seamlessly between iOS devices, Macs and Web browsers -- as well as edited collaboratively on the fly via iCloud. The goal is to take iWork to the masses.

More to the point, I think Apple is paying attention to the education market in a whole new way, and while iWork will handle the needs of many individuals and business users -- who also like free -- Apple is really resetting iWork so that it's ready to rock and roll for students.

94 Percent of the Education Tablet Market

In Apple's earnings call with investors earlier this week, CEO Tim Cook said the iPad's educational market share is "unheard of," and at 94 percent, he's right. That's astounding. Especially with all the cheap competition trying to get in -- and when most of the PCs in education these days are still Windows-based.

If iWork is free and upgrades are free, Apple just removed a hindrance for IT management and cost at schools -- and for students at home. At the same time, if these apps can be used via iCloud for free via Web browsers, kids can work anywhere on their reports and projects, even if they don't have Macs or iPads at home.

And they can do it collaboratively. In the school districts I'm aware of, collaboration and group projects seem to be on the rise. If student work shifts away from Microsoft Word and PowerPoint toward iWork and Apple, wow -- this would be a major coup for Apple.

Forget being "compatible" with PowerPoint. What if a majority of kids created their presentations first on Keynote instead of PowerPoint? That's a huge mindshare shift, and it's not just about battling Microsoft in an office suite battle fought on tablets -- it marginalizes Android as an OS in schools, too.

Side Effect of Bigger Goals

If more people can seamlessly use iWork everywhere, that's a good thing. However, I see the iWork messiness as a Apple choosing to take three steps forward and one step back while it marches toward a different goal.

I remain baffled as to how a company that can compress magic into tiny devices and ship it all over the world still can't get word processing right.

MacNewsWorld columnist Chris Maxcer has been writing about the tech industry since the birth of the email newsletter, and he still remembers the clacking Mac keyboards from high school -- Apple's seed-planting strategy at work. While he enjoys elegant gear and sublime tech, there's something to be said for turning it all off -- or most of it -- to go outside. To catch him, take a "firstnamelastname" guess at WickedCoolBite.com.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/79317.html
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Recover files from a dead external drive

Xolelwa Mzili's PC no longer sees her external hard drive. Can she recover the files?

Because they're used heavily for backup and sneakernet, we tend to assume that every file on an external hard drive also exists elsewhere. But if a file is only on the external drive, it is not backed up and can be lost.

So if you keep any files exclusively on an external hard drive, you need a backup of that drive.

But enough of the lecture. Let's see if you can get your files back. It all depends on how badly the drive is damaged, and how much money you're willing to spend to restore it.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com.]

First of all, is the drive making a clicking or scraping noise that it never made before? If so, you'll have to send it to a recovery service. More on that below.

If there are no suspicious noises, the problem could be with your PC. Try another USB port. If none of your USB ports work, try another computer.

Still can't get at those files? It's time to take a hard look at that drive. Open up an external hard drive, and you'll find an internal hard drive inside. If you can figure out how to open the enclosure, you might find a lose connection that's easily fixed. Or you can remove the internal drive and connect that to your computer, either by installing it as a second drive inside a desktop PC, or by using a SATA-USB adapter or enclosure. These are available for about $20.

If these solutions don't work, the problem is with the drive. Your only option, again, is to send it to a data recovery service, such as DriveSavers and Ontrack. Those are the best known, but I can't say that they're any better than lesser-known, possibly less-expensive services. I've never had to use one myself, and there's no practical method for thoroughly testing data retrieval companies.

Even with the best of these services, there's no guarantee you'll get your files back. Your drive may be too damaged. If they successfully retrieve your files, expect to pay hundreds of dollars, and maybe more than a thousand.

Now don't you wish you had backed up that drive?

Lincoln Spector Contributing Editor, PCWorld

When he isn't bicycling, prowling used bookstores, or watching movies, PC World Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema.
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New FAA Guidelines Permit More Device Use, All The Way From Take-Off To Landing

For years now, most of us have been quietly not turning off our phones and devices at landing and take off, and merely putting the screens to sleep and stuffing them in seat pockets instead. Now, we’ll be able to do that officially and more, according to the FAA. The American government organization overseeing air travel today announced that travelers won’t face regulations that are quite as strict when it comes to electronics on planes.

Don’t start celebrating just yet – this doesn’t mean you can continue playing Candy Crush while waiting for your massive, heavy hunk of metal to defy physics and launch itself into the air as of this very moment. The changes will differ depending on each airline, the FAA says, since there are differences between types of planes and how things are run at each different carrier, but the FAA anticipates that most will allow passengers to use their gadgets “in airplane mode, gate-to-gate, by the end of the year.”

Passengers can use e-book readers, play games and watch videos on devices, and can hold gadgets during both take-off and landing, or else stow them in the seatback pocket. These gadgets need to be in Airplane Mode or have cell service turned off during both landing and taxi/take-off, but you can actually use Wi-Fi during your flight and continue to use Bluetooth accessories connected to your phone.

There are still some things the FAA says travelers need to be aware of regarding these rules, to make sure they’re still in compliance with guidelines. Here’s a full list of those points flagged by the regulatory organization:

1. Make safety your first priority.

2. Changes to PED policies will not happen immediately and will vary by airline. Check with your airline to see if and when you can use your PED.

3. Current PED policies remain in effect until an airline completes a safety assessment, gets FAA approval, and changes its PED policy.

4. Cell phones may not be used for voice communications.

5. Devices must be used in airplane mode or with the cellular connection disabled. You may use the WiFi connection on your device if the plane has an installed WiFi system and the airline allows its use. You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards.

6. Properly stow heavier devices under seats or in the overhead bins during takeoff and landing. These items could impede evacuation of an aircraft or may injure you or someone else in the event of turbulence or an accident.

7. During the safety briefing, put down electronic devices, books and newspapers and listen to the crewmember’s instructions.

8. It only takes a few minutes to secure items according to the crew’s instructions during takeoff and landing.

9. In some instances of low visibility – about one percent of flights – some landing systems may not be proved PED tolerant, so you may be asked to turn off your device.

10. Always follow crew instructions and immediately turn off your device if asked.

Earlier this year, the FAA seemed ready to relax the rules around personal electronics use in-flight, but they quickly noted that this didn’t mean we’d see blanket bans lifted immediately. Now, the FAA is taking pains to roll this out more quickly, and is “streamlining” approval of the new rules via clear instructions and guidelines for airlines about implementation of device use. Delta has announced that it’s the first to submit its plan to comply with the new regulations, and that it will do so by November 1, it hopes.

With any luck, some passengers might be able to watch Home Alone 2 on their new iPad Air while winging their way home to enjoy a family Christmas dinner. It’s about time.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BRpwAm8ipcw/
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Nexus 5 Rumor Roundup: Everything We Think We Know (Updated)

The Nexus 5 has been leaked so many times, it seems highly likely that it'll be official soon—maybe even today. But why wait? Here's what we think we know about Google's next superphone:

13 Wonderful Posters That Capture San Francisco In a Single Image

San Francisco is not large, but it does contain multitudes. Though many have left their hearts in the seven-by-seven mile spot at the tippy-top of this Pacific Ocean-lined peninsula, each and every loyal local and on-the-road vagabond who’s made his way through the beautiful Bay Area hub forms a highly personal take on the place.