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Sony announced today that it is shuttering 20 of its 31 retail stores located throughout the States. The 11 remaining stores are located near major markets. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As the company’s press release states, this move is designed to place Sony in a more competitive stance. The Sony of today is in flux. It’s offloading unprofitable divisions left and right in an attempt to right the capsizing ship and sold off its PC business just last month. The company has eliminated over 12,000 positions over the last two years. These store closings will kill an additional 5,000 jobs. Sony is clearly looking for any way to reduce its liabilities and size. Even though it’s had retail stores for more than a decade, the stores never took off despite a rebranding in 2011. They used to be called Sony Style stores and were awash in Sony products. They were lifestyle stores, designed to showcase product rather than sell it.
But while Sony’s retail strategy was influx in 2010 and 2011, Apple’s stores were taking off. Sony later cloned Apple stores and dropped the word Style from the name. But it didn’t work.
Retail is hard. Ask Circuit City, Gateway and small town computer shops. To be successful it requires equal parts luck and skill. Sony clearly doesn’t have either.
Apple has been busy in the IT department. Today, it released a slew of improvements and alterations to its large-scale deployment tools for education and enterprise customers.
Some of the tweaks get way out in the weeds of deployment strategies, so they’ll only be really exciting for the actual pros who deal with this stuff. But the big picture is that Apple is looking to make deployments at enormous scales more appealing for the people in charge of purchasing and maintaining iPhones and iPads. This, hopefully, will result in more major purchases by organizations and fewer negative stories about failed management scenarios. The changes are outlined in a series of documents Apple posted on its IT deployment page today. These include changes to its Device Enrollment Program, Volume Purchase Program and the Apple ID for Students service. A new iOS deployment technical reference guide and Device Enrollment Program guide have been issued, updating its older versions with new options for device management. A new overview document provides a quick cheat sheet for enterprise folks looking to utilize the tools Apple provides to mass purchase apps and roll out huge numbers of iOS devices at a time. And a new iOS Security Document has been posted that provides in-depth details on how Touch ID and the A7’s Secure Enclave work.
I’ve had conversations with IT pros and people who roll out large iPad installs in the past and they’ve mentioned that one of the things that has continued to cause Windows devices to hold some appeal is their better remote installation and configuration support. To that end, Apple has made some updates to improve that situation.
Both the enterprise and education programs now have support for Mobile Device Management hands-free configuration. This ‘zero touch’ setup has been a long-requested feature for many pros, as it eliminates the need to cable up every deployed device and install a profile via Apple’s Configurator utility.
The zero touch configuration allows an organization to sign up for a profile and order devices directly from Apple that come pre-configured with all of their security and configuration choices. They can then manage them directly without ever having to touch them physically. Additionally, the ability to lock these profiles to the devices means that the end user won’t be able to remove them and do what they want to the devices willy nilly.
This way, the load is taken off of IT departments in the rollout phase and the user is able to customize and play with the devices without mucking up security profiles. It will also allow IT departments to easily and wirelessly conform users’ own devices to their company security policies with a simple opt-in.
“The other bit that’s interesting is that DEP-enrollment now allows admins to require and force MDM enrollment on devices they own,” Fraser Speirs, Head of Computing and IT at Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland, pointed out to TechCrunch. “This is huge for schools. The lack of enforceability of MDM enrollment was — by my guess — the central problem in the now-infamous Los Angeles Unified School District ‘hacking’ scandal.”
Schools in LA had deployed a large amount of iPads, but had to recall them after students were found deleting the enrollment profiles on their devices. This allowed the students to use them to *gasp* browse the web as they pleased and install unapproved apps on their personal units. The anarchy would not stand and the district began reconsidering its rollout — which has since resumed. These kinds of high-profile flubs likely didn’t do anything to help the momentum of Apple’s organizational rollouts. This enforcement should allow customization, while preventing circumvention of IT rules.
In short, it should make iPads even more attractive to these markets.
The Volume Purchase Program has also gotten a nice overhaul. It’s now available in all 10 VPP countries for both enterprise and education partners, allowing these organizations to bulk buy applications for installation on bunches of devices at once. These purchases are generally offered with hefty discounts, which makes them more appealing to schools with tight budgets.
In addition, VPP purchases are now able to be made via purchase orders by enterprise customers, something that was only available to IT pros in the past. Offering PO support to IT departments is going to open up VPP purchases to a huge segment that previously had no way to requisition software from Apple.
In the educational market specifically, Apple has opened up the ability for students under the age of 13 to obtain their own Apple ID. After a school is enrolled, they can request IDs from Apple, who will then send a communication to the parent, who will then be guided through the registration process. The school is then notified that the student has been given consent.
Though under-13 IDs were opened up late last year, the new changes open the way for students, specifically, to sign up — in a way that is COPPA-compliant. They require parental consent to sign up, for one. And these Apple IDs are limited in a specific set of ways.
For instance, a student Apple ID account features limited ad tracking, doesn’t allow them to opt-in to marketing and there is no iCloud email support by default. They also do not require a credit card to sign up and can notify a parent or guardian of any change in the terms of the account. These accounts convert over to a full account with all normal rights and privileges once the student reaches age 13. Apple has provided a new parent guide that details the exact process and allowances of these special Apple IDs and a guide for institutions who will utilize them.
“I think the overarching story here is that these changes are all about making deployments scale up to genuinely massive numbers,” says Speirs. “School districts are topping out at around 50k units right now — to my knowledge — but there are obviously bigger deployments in other areas of education – and enterprise.”
For now, we’ve confirmed that the Device Enrollment Program will only affect devices purchased by organizations directly from Apple. This means that schools like Speirs’, who work through retailers, won’t be able to use the program to pre-configure devices — yet. But that will likely be on the way.
“I do think these are major steps forward for IT organizations,” Carl Howe, Vice President, Research and Data Sciences at Yankee Group, told TechCrunch. “In many organizations, IT spends much of its time being ‘the department of no,’ where they tell employees that they can’t do things for reasons of manageability or security. By making Apple devices more manageable and being transparent with its security, Apple is helping those IT organizations go from being the department of no to ‘the department of yes.’ And given that ease of use boosts security compliance, the fact that this can be done in ways that don’t require the end-user to do anything special (i.e., their device gets provisioned to them fully linked up to their organization, secured, etc.), it should make Apple devices even more popular in businesses than they already are.”
iOS devices have gained a large amount of popularity in organizations by leveraging the bring your own device trend. If the boss gets a new iPad and loves it, the IT department will have no choice but to support it somehow. But in order to spur growth, and to keep the vaunted ease of use of iPads and iPhones intact, Apple has to continue to refine its offerings for device deployment.
These changes are an attempt to keep the way that people use an institutional iOS device and a consumer iOS device as close to parity as possible. If you’ve ever jumped through hoops to configure a company-issued laptop or phone, then you know how much of a pain that can be. If you imagine doing that 50,000 times, you can see why these improvements could spur a nice surge of adoption by purchasing departments.
PROS Large, vivid screen Excellent battery life and performance Office and videoconferencing apps are built in
CONS No wired display connection Flip cover doubles as a flimsy stand Avoid using it for pictures Exceptionally high price
AT A GLANCE
Spending $750 for an Android tablet seems exorbitant. But the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro offers a larger screen, excellent battery life, and access to the Android and Samsung app stores. When one considers the wealth of inexpensive Android tablets available, the idea of paying $750 for a 12-inch Android tablet seems inconceivable. But if now isn’t the time for consumers to start thinking of large Android tablets as legitimate Windows laptop replacements, that day isn’t far off. That’s right: a Windows laptop replacement. That’s the only way to consider the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, a massive tablet that, like the Microsoft Surface, works best on a desk. Samsung’s 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro (7.95 mm thick, 1.65 pounds) is virtually identical to the Galaxy Tab Pro, save for the addition of an S-Pen stylus.
This is not a competitor to smaller tablets like the Nexus 7. Indeed, if last year’s Galaxy Note 3 smartphone doubles as a reporter’s notebook, then the new Galaxy Note Pro is something akin to an electronic legal pad. And with a surprisingly complete selection of productivity apps in both Google Play and Samsung’s own app store, this massive Android tablet can help you get real work done.
The Galaxy Note Pro lacks an integrated keyboard, and the cover, which does double duty as a stand, is a little flimsy.
The Note Pro is available for either $750 for a 32GB model, or $850 for 64GB of onboard storage. So far, Samsung has yet to announce the price for a model with an integrated LTE WLAN chip. According to Samsung, the Wi-Fi version of the Note Pro houses a 1.9GHz quad-core ARM Cortex A15 chip, powering Android 4.4 (KitKat). Our performance tests produced a Sunspider score of 0.97 seconds (which hits the upper echelons of the tablet market), and a PeaceKeeper score of 815. For the sake of comparison, the iPad 3 managed 516 in PeaceKeeper, and the Dell XPS 10 hit 324 (higher scores are better).
The Samsung ‘Surface’
It’s not much of a stretch to consider the Note Pro as Samsung’s response to Microsoft’s Surface 2 Pro, which starts at $899 for 64GB of onboard storage. Both the Note Pro and the Surface Pro 2 ship with foldable keyboard covers; the Note Pro’s can be configured so that it wakes up and unlocks the tablet when flipped back. But while the Note Pro’s cover actually doubles as a stand, it’s not immediately obvious that it does so.
The Note Pro also lacks an integrated keyboard, such as the Surface’s Type and Touch Covers. In fact, to use it as a laptop replacement, you’ll need to buy a Bluetooth keyboard and possibly a mouse. That completely eliminates its use as a “lap top” computer.
Physically, the Note Pro looks like a Note 3, flipped on its edge. The tablet is designed to be held in landscape mode, with the physical home button mounted between the back and applications buttons. Near the top sits the 2-megapixel front-facing camera, with an 8-megapixel camera at the back. (Unfortunately, the cover lacks a rear camera cutout, so when thumbing the camera button, you’ll have to awkwardly hold up the cover.) Volume and power switches sit on the top, while an all-important microSD card slot sits on the side.
An underrated productivity tool
Like the Note 3, the Note Pro uses the new USB 3.0 connector, collecting juice through a high-output charging plug. Charging the Note Pro takes about three to four hours, but battery life is excellent: You’ll see two, possibly even three days or so of casual use from its integrated 9,500 mAh battery, and our looping video test ran down the battery in 8 hours, 37 minutes. That’s on par with the Dell XPS 10 tablet.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use the Note Pro on long flights. The tablet, its stand and a Bluetooth keyboard will take up too much room on a seat-back tray. But you can still use the tablet for mid-flight video playback in your hands. The 12.2-inch display boasts a 2560×1600 resolution and 247 ppi pixel density, and you can even hook up an external monitor care of an optional external HDMI dongle for $39.99.
One of the problems with Samsung’s latest devices, beginning with the Galaxy S4 smartphone, is their overwhelming number of largely extraneous features, such as the “smart pause” feature that supposedly pauses video playback when you look away. You’ll see a number of these still hidden deep within the Note Pro’s settings menus—but thankfully turned off.
Feel free to mix and match entertainment and work apps—the Note Pro can handle both.
The default home screen contains a giant reminder widget for S Note, so that you don’t forget the S Pen. Equally useless New York Times and Twitter widgets can be tossed out. And, fortunately, a collection of news and entertainment apps, such as WatchON and a version of Samsung’s Flipboard-like My Magazine app, are confined on the peripheral screens.
You can use the pen to draw your own windows, as I did, using the S Pen.
As with the Note phones, pulling out the S Pen triggers several options, including an Action Memo; the ability to save content into a Scrapbook; and my favorite, the Pen Window. The Pen Window lets you run a second app inside a window, providing Android with a desktop-like multitasking environment. You simply draw a box, and when it’s done, select the app you want to fill the space.
Samsung, however, now has a better option: Multi Window mode, which Samsung has made available on only the largest Galaxy Tab and Note tablets. To trigger Multi Window mode, you swipe in from the right-hand side, via a list of supported apps. (YouTube is supported, for example, but Angry Birds is not. And, inexplicably, Chrome is not supported by Pen Window mode, but it is under the Multi Window view.) Dragging one app to the main screen fills it. Dragging a second “snaps” the screen into two halves—and so on, up to a total of four screens. On a smaller tablet, this is a gimmick, but on a larger tablet like the Note Pro, it’s surprisingly useful.
Multi Window can show four apps at once, or you can snap two. This is amazingly useful.
A viable office suite
More impressive are the numerous productivity apps that are either available via the Note Pro itself or via Samsung’s own app store. Apps such as Cisco’s WebEx, a Samsung Remote PC app (an alternative to Microsoft’s own Android app, Microsoft Remote Desktop), and the Hancom Viewer are all included. On Google Play, Hancom’s Hanword, a word processor, cost over $17 at press time, but on the Note Pro, it’s free, as are similar apps to view and edit PowerPoint and Excel documents.
The Hancom apps ship in both “viewer” and editable versions, and the Note Pro tends to open files in the “viewer” version first without an option to choose the editing app, which is annoying. Google’s own Quickoffice is also installed. Aside from some possible font compatibility issues, the Hancom apps seemed to work surprisingly well.
Keep in mind one thing: With the Note Pro, these productivity apps are free. If you purchase a Surface Pro 2, you’ll also need to pay for a subscription to Office 365 or a standalone copy of Office 2013. That pushes the long-term cost up.
Hancom’s app suite makes the Note Pro a viable productivity tablet.
Samsung inexplicably omitted the VPN app that it included on the Note 3, meaning that you’ll need to search out an Android version, such as Cisco’s Easy Connect, on the Play Store. In all, though, I found Android versions of virtually every productivity app I wanted from either the Samsung or Google Play, giving me a PC-like experience on an Android tablet.
This is the bottom line. Windows PCs and Macs represent the power-user extremes of the computing experience, owning everything from Adobe Photoshop to the latest first-person shooters. But tablets are for centrist users: Android tablets and iPads dominate casual gaming, and more and more light-productivity apps are being written for those platforms.
The sum of its parts—a large screen, excellent fantastic battery life, multi-app windows, and equivalent PC software—not only make the Note Pro a viable choice for a tablet enthusiast, but a jumping-off point for an adventuresome road warrior to leave the Windows world entirely. If only Samsung could knock another $150 or so off the price.
If you’re the type of person who can never have too much cloud storage, Microsoft just added a nice deal: 100GB of OneDrive storage as a Bing Reward offer.
Normally, amassing the credits needed to redeem a Bing Reward takes some time and effort. But with just a little bit of work, you’ll probably earn this one almost immediately.
If you prefer to use Bing as your search engine, or don’t mind switching back and forth between Bing and Google, Microsoft’s Bing Rewards is a worthwhile loyalty program. Each time you visit Bing, Microsoft records the visit. Over time, users are awarded “credits” for their visits as well as visiting a dashboard to pick up additional tasks or for referring friends to the service.
Microsoft is offering a free 200-credit bonus to friends you invite to Bing Rewards.
Now Microsoft is offering 100GB of OneDrive (nee SkyDrive) storage for one year for 100 credits. (Microsoft officials have said previously that any unused storage will vanish after the year expires, but Microsoft won’t delete any files.)
Through the end of February, Microsoft is also offering a free 200-credit bonus to friends you invite to Bing Rewards. And if they complete Silver-level status (which basically means they need to click through a “tour” or two), you’ll get 200 credits as well. It’s a bit spammy, so you’re more likely to convince your friends to participate if you pitch it as a “scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” deal.
Microsoft already hands out 7GB of free OneDrive cloud storage to new users who sign up for the service. As part of it rebranding SkyDrive to OneDrive marketing effort, Microsoft also handed out an additional 3GB if you simply turned on the camera-backup feature on your smartphone (iOS, Android, or Windows Phone). Referring a friend to OneDrive will earn you another 500MB, up to a maximum of 5GB.
The additional OneDrive storage deal might not be the best offer you can get. Microsoft offers a 5-percent discount at the Microsoft Store for just 50 credits, for example, and other deals include $5 gift cards at Amazon or Starbucks for 525 credits.
If you prefer Google’s search engine, you’ll probably want to stick with it. But if you’re willing to check out Bing, Microsoft will reward you with tangible benefits.
Dense concentrations of Wi-Fi access points and routers in large cities could be attacked by malware able to spread silently from node to node, researchers at the University of Liverpool have shown for the first time.
In the experiment conducted by Jonny Milliken, Valerio Selis and Professor Alan Marshall, a specially-crafted virus called ‘Chameleon’ was pitted against a range of common access points with poorly-secured management interfaces (i.e. using default passwords). Once access had been achieved, Chameleon then attempted to take control of the device by re-flashing its firmware with a replacement, open source OpenWrt. Attackers gaining control in this way would be able to monitor traffic for credentials or other data but the team’s real discovery was that Chameleon would also be able to spread and infect other routers in its neighbourhood in a manner similar to an “airborne virus.”
Having proved the concept in the lab, the team modelled the attack against the sort of Wi-Fi density found in two cities, Belfast and London, finding that even using an infection rate of five to ten percent, Chameleon would be able to infect several thousand access points within a few months.
Outbreak…and resistance
Although this sounds like a small number and a long timescale, in a large city each one of these access points could be serving anything from a handful to many thousands of people, so attackers would have gained access to potentially large amounts of valuable data.
Most striking of all, because many access points are left untouched and unmanaged, the attack would be hard to detect. Access points using encryption would offer a small challenge to the extent that re-flashing them would destroy the embedded key. This would need to be captured first.
The team doesn’t reveal which brands or classes of access point or router were vulnerable to Chameleon but were in no doubt that the re-flashing attack would work in the real world.
“In some cases it will work, in some cases it will fail; some are resilient against it, some are not,” Professor Alan Marshall told Techworld.
“It was assumed that it wasn’t possible to develop a virus that could attack WiFi networks but we demonstrated that this is possible and that it can spread quickly. We are now able to use the data generated from this study to develop a new technique to identify when an attack is likely,” said Marshall.
Attack the weakest (access) points
“Whilst many APs are sufficiently encrypted and password protected, the virus simply moved on to find those which weren’t strongly protected including open access WiFi points common in locations such as coffee shops and airports.”
According to Marshall, the solution is to embed intrusion prevention technology into access points, something he was pursuing through Queen’s University Belfast spin-out, Traffic Observation and Management.
The research highlights the unprotected state of router/access point technology, which rely on correctly-configured encryption and management to keep out attackers. But there is growing evidence that even without direct wireless attacks, these devices are riddled with vulnerabilities.
Microsoft has again painted a grim picture for customers who remain on Windows XP and Office 2003 after it ends support for the old OS and suite in early April, but it’s unclear if the company is succeeding in its campaign to convince holdouts to upgrade.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft reiterated that consumers and businesses that stick with the products past the April 8 deadline will face severe security risks and be unable to take advantage of technical advances. “Computers currently running Windows XP and Office 2003 won’t stop working on April 9, but over time security and performance will be affected,” reads the post.
Specifically, Windows XP PCs won’t be able to run many “newer” applications or work with new hardware due to unsupported drivers. Additionally, PCs running the OS will become easy prey to malware, because Microsoft won’t release new security updates and bug fixes for it, nor offer support services and technical content updates. Office 2003, on the other hand, can’t provide modern mobility and cloud capabilities, according to Microsoft.
Unsurprisingly the solution the company offers is for customers to adopt Windows 8.1 and Office 365, while acknowledging that in most instances PCs running Windows XP lack the hardware specs to run the new OS. “The majority of PCs running Windows XP are not capable of upgrading to Windows 8.1 due to the age of the hardware,” the post reads.
Windows XP remains quite popular despite its age—it was first released in 2001. According to the latest figures from NetApplications, Windows XP has an almost 30 percent share of the desktop OS market, second only to Windows 7 which has about 47 percent. By contrast, Windows 8, which started shipping in October 2012, and its 8.1 update, released a year later, have a combined share of about 10.6 percent.
Windows 8 and its update have drawn criticism for their touch-optimized interface and a series of disruptive bugs. Microsoft is promising another update for the spring that will make the OS friendlier for mouse-and-keyboard users, but the impression in the marketplace is that Microsoft has struggled to get Windows 8 right. The most pessimistic critics have likened Windows 8 to the disastrous Windows Vista, released in 2007 and generally panned.
Office 2003 is also still heavily used. According to the results of a Forrester Research survey released in October, Office 2003 was in use in 28 percent of businesses polled, behind Office 2007 (51 percent) and Office 2010 (85 percent). The latest version of Office—called Office 2013 when sold via traditional perpetual license and Office 365 when sold via an annual subscription—was at the time used in 22 percent of companies polled, and with a slower adoption than Office 2010 at a comparable stage of release, according to Forrester.
As a high school boy in 2007, I always use Nimbuzz on my Nokia 8080 Java phone to keep in touch with my classmates. It was quite handy as it was the only reliable way to have a live chat with my friends & contacts on Facebook—yes, back in the days, you have to refresh Facebook mobile for new new messages—and Gtalk, send instant messages to my phonebook contacts and update my twitter status from my mobile phone.
Nimbuzz was an all-round app that does everything.
Nimbuzz was an all-round app that does everything. You can connect your accounts on various Instant messengers (IM) such as Gtalk, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL, Skype, Facebook IM and Twitting live updates. In fact, I made my very first VOIP (voice over internet protocol) call on mobile phone with Nimbuzz in 2012—it was a 3G phone, a Nokia Symbian phone, even.
However, these days, Nimbuzz has been ‘reduced’ to less than a shadow of its former self. At best, it will serve as free mobile application that lets you connect and exchange instant messages with your phonebook contacts within app.
Nimbuzz, WhatsApp & BBM Battle
Even in the days of Nokia Sybiam series, Nimbuzz was at its climax, introducing voice call over 3G, file sharing and other exciting features. For an application that got downloaded by over 10 million users on GetJar app store in 2009, Nimbuzz seems to have depreciated from gloss to gross, prompting us to wonder what really happened to place such a glowing candle under the bushel.
I will tell you what, smartphones happened. Facebook and Twitter now have their own apps for messaging and posting update. BBM and WhatsApp has dominated the mobile IM industry.
Nimbuzz was displayed in favor of WhatsApp and BBM in the smartphone era.
The BBM idea was working quite perfectly in 2010/2011. Despite its single platform limitation at the time, people find it very convenient and easy to exchange instant message through a pre-installed app on their BlackBerry device rather than downloading a third party application.
While Nimbuzz battles with voice call over 3G, Whastsapp will go on to seize an opportunity to explore other platforms that BBM could not cover. With the introduction of file sharing and voice messenger, WhatsApp became the favorite messaging app for Android and iOS users, pulling some users from Blackberry as well. The application has over 9 million downloads on the Android platform alone and almost a double figure across other platforms.
The major reason behind the success of Whatsapp was its cross-platform availability and easy to use interface. This feature was not available on Nimbuzz untill recently. On the other hand BBM was integrated into Blackberry, with over 15 Million phones sold out by RIM in 2011, Nimbuzz unsurprisingly, was crushed under the weight of this IM giants.
What is Nimbuzz doing these days?
With the fall from grace in the IM industry, Nimbuzz seems to be throwing their weight behind their new Nimbuzz Social. In their own words:
Nimbuzz Social is the new content destination for you. With Nimbuzz social get local news and content across world, real time.
Earlier this week one of the leading leading global information and communications technology (ICT) giants Huawei registered a new name, Huawei Ascend G6 4G smart phone to the already populated smartphone industry. The 4G LTE-enabled Android device is set to face tough competitions from the likes of Samsung Galaxy S5 and Tecno P5 in the smartphone market, especially in Africa, Asia & Middle East where the the later has left it’s mark.
The smartphone device will be featuring the latest version of 4G technology – CAT 4 – giving you a super speedy internet connection.
Inside Ascend G6
The new 4G LTE-enabled smartphone brings ease of use back to smartphone ownership and opens up a world of fun and colorful new ways to stay connected without boundaries.
With a 4.5-inch qHD display, 5-megapixel front-facing camera and Emotion UI 2.0 , the product is an ideal companion for those who want to share better.
With the product, there are also endless opportunities to explore surroundings with multi-shot capture, horizontal shooting and panoramic functions, thanks to the five plastic elements (5P) lens of the 8-megapixel AF BSI f/2.0 aperture rear-facing camera.
Alternatively, the voice-activated hands-free ‘selfie’ function shows off camera-ready poses.
Describing the product, , Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group, said it is stylish, colorful, and lightning fast smartphone designed to break down barriers.
With its handy 4G LTE connectivity, he said that it is easy-to-use interface and dynamic cameras offering a multitude of photographic opportunities.
Interestingly, filming or photographing in low light is a breeze with Ascend G6 4G’s in-built Sony IMX134 sensor, blue glass infrared filter and integrated camera flash for sharp, clear images.
Featuring the latest version of the intuitive, easy-to-use interface, Emotion UI 2.0, HUAWEI Ascend G6 4G brings smartphone use within reach for everyone
However, the phone brings vibrant color to life with its crystal clear 4.5-inch qHD 960 x 540 LCD display and 245PPI. At 7.85mm slim and weighing 115g, Ascend G6 4G builds upon the stylish ‘double C’ design of the popular Ascend P6 smartphone and is available in a range of colors including black with light gunmetal grey or rose gold highlights, or in white with pink or champagne gold .
Unsurprisingly for a phone which is going to come in at under $330 the Huawei Ascend G6 sports an all plastic construction, although it is solid and the thick, faux-metal band which runs round the circumference keeps everything together nicely.
Available in black, white, pink, gold or blue colors, the product runs on a powerful quad-core 1.2 GHz processor and robust 2000 mAh lithium polymer battery with up to 30 percent power saving, HUAWEI Ascend G6 4G is 4G LTE-enabled to make connectivity faster and more reliable than ever before.
Movies can be downloaded in minutes and work files uploaded in seconds with speeds of up to 150 Mbps. Smart photo album, internet, notification and permission management provides full control over the information shared.
In addition, the ‘one key scan’ function maintains peak performance through ‘phone speed tracking’, ‘power conservation’, ‘storage cleaning’ and ‘harassment filter.’ Ascend G6 4G also supports NFC sharing for mobile payments.
The product offers an enhanced smartphone camera experience with Huawei’s proprietary self-focus tips and preview screen.
The four plastic element (4P) lens featured on the 5-megapixel front-facing camera provides audio controlled spontaneous snapping, auto-scene recognition and auto-facial enhancement. Featuring 88 degree wide-angle shooting, Ascend G6 4G enables you to take all-inclusive photos that will wow family and friends.
Add an extra dimension to photos with the ‘Voice Photo’ function that takes photos accompanied by 10-second audio clips that can be shared via Facebook and WeChat, such as at a wedding when you capture the bride and groom saying “I do.” Price When Rated: $350$330 Our Rating: 3.5 Operating System: OS Android 4.3 Jelly Bean
Meta, the augmented reality technology company, has captured the attention of the gadget world with the launch of the Meta Pro, the $3,000 headset that aims to bridge the gap between fully immersive virtual reality tools such as the Oculus Rift and (relatively) more subtle wearable devices such as Google Glass. You can read much more about the Meta Pro, which TechCrunch named one of the best devices at this most recent CES conference in Las Vegas, here.
The Meta Pro is up for sale online now, but it won’t start shipping to customers until this summer. So we stopped by Meta’s Portola Valley, California headquarters to get an early look at the latest prototype of the device.
There are any number of uses for the Meta Pro, as the company has an SDK which allows developers to create programs to use with the glasses. In a news today, Techcrunchwrote on their website:
In our visit, Meta’s CEO and founder Meron Gribetz showed us how the glasses can be used in place of traditional CAD software to design a 3D printed object using only your hands. I’m told that the final version of the glasses which will ship to users this summer will be a bit lighter and more sleek in the design, but this prototype gives a good idea of the core technology and capabilities.
Meta, which makes wearable devices with augmented reality technology, is a particularly ambitious breed of startup — a staff of fewer than 50 employees squaring away against competition from the likes of Google and Apple. But then again, it took a good deal of ambition for Gribetz to set out a few years ago on his own with the goal of building a real-life version of something that had previously only been seen in movies such as Iron Man. It will be exciting to see how this technology continues to develop as more people play with it.
This post was first seen on Techcruch | Image & video credit: Laptopmaga.
Google has begun pushing its “Auto Backup” photo archival software to Mac and Windows users via the company’s social networking platform, Google+. The promotion is new, we’ve confirmed, though the software itself was first launched back in December.
At that time, Google began offering the desktop utility as a part of its older Picasa photo-sharing platform, which confusingly (and oddly) somehow still has its own domain, despite the fact that Google has been integrating Google+ into everything it owns, from search to Gmail to YouTube. When the version of Picasa for Mac and Windows launched at the end of last year, a separate tool called “Auto Backup” appeared. This app runs in the background, similar to something like Google Drive or Google Music, in order to upload all your photos to Google+, including those from SD cards.
Now some users are noticing that a link to the same software is appearing on Google+, when they click into the “Photos” section of the social networking website.
The prompt appears underneath the “Upload Photos” button from the Google+ Photos top-level navigation. Here, a dialog box explains that the software will automatically save your photos and videos to Google+, where they’ll be marked private unless you choose to share them. You can also access Google+ Photos to then see this prompt if you’re a Chrome user who clicks through on the “Photos” icon from the app launcher (the top-right square grid-like button).
After you download the utility, or dismiss the prompt in another way, it may be difficult to get the message to reappear, I’ve found. There doesn’t seem to be a website or section on Google+ where users can find links to directly download this software for themselves. For instance, the Google+ Photos “Take a Tour” page points to the “Auto Backup” app (which is actually just the Google+ app) on Google Play and the iTunes App Store, but links to “Auto Backup” for Mac and Windows are nowhere to be found.
For what it’s worth, if you do decide to take advantage of the utility, be aware that it will not respect the folder structure you may have in place on your computer. That is, it will take the photos from all the albums you point it to and place them in one album on Google+ where you could then choose to share or organize them as you like.
What the software’s appearance means in terms of Google’s larger plans to shutter the Picasa brand and domain remains to be seen, of course. For whatever reason, Google continues to develop and update its Picasa desktop software, despite its competition with Google+ in terms of feature set (photo editing, organization, etc.) and mindshare.
This post was first seen on Techcrunch. Images are as seen on the post page.
Live wallpapers refreshes your Android screen and keeps your device alive. While some of you will go down as legends in this field, a lot of us are yet to explore the excitement of Android live wallpapers. Whichever category you fall into, here is a chance to try a new thing, applaud your favourite wallpapers that made the list or tell us which wallpaper you feel should have been listed.
The wallpapers listed in this post are all live wallpapers, less-buggy and elegant in appearance. Also, the wallpapers are responsive and can adapt to any device or screen size.
Read on as we list 15 Android live wallpaper that attracted us this week or in the past two weeks.
We have been following this wallpaper for quite sometimes now. It’s consistency and clean fascinating layout has earned it a first slot in our listing today. This is your a ticket to get Koi (amazing fishes) swimming around your smartphone or tablet. This wallpaper comes with 3D rendered in OpenGL 2.0, with fully interactive water that supports multitouch.
Funny Monkey Live Wallpaper – Download Install an arrogant monkey your Android device. Funny Monkey Live Wallpaper. It is not a polite monkey. As you touch the monkey on the head she will show you the “Fuck You”. Tap it in her hand and the monkey will break the screen on the phone (cracked screen). The monkey is funny and she loves to laugh. Tickle the monkey in her leg and she is going to laugh.
Alarm Clock Live Wallpaper is a digital clock and alarm on your home screen. It features: – One-touch snooze. – Set alarm tone, time, and reoccurring days. – 24 hour clock support. – Alarm will still sound even if device’s screen is off.
It is always good to have a beer in your hand, it gives you energy, confidence, and might make you drunk! Drink responsibly and we hope nobody gets charged for DUI!
Love to create ripples in bathtub and watch them subside. Now you could create same kind of waves in your cell phone. All you have to do is, set the wall paper on your screen and touch the point where you like to see ripples appear.
IDG NEWS SERVICE – HTC didn’t do much to fan the flames of future Windows Phones on Friday, stating that “nothing concrete” is in the works regarding future products.
HTC executives took to the pages of Reddit for an “Ask Me Anything” session that covered the company’s product strategy, with regards to features like its use of the Sense UI versus its Google Play Edition.
Unfortunately, the company was vague when talking about the future of Windows Phone. User “0157h7” asked, point blank, “Is HTC done with Windows Phone?”
Leigh Momii, a product manager for HTC, weighed in.
To say “done with Windows Phone” is a pretty blanket statement. I don’t think a company such as ourselves can ever say that point blank. As strong partners of Microsoft, we’re working with Microsoft on the Blue update on Windows Phone 8X and will continue to take new products into consideration. Nothing concrete right now, but who knows!
Or, as user “jpspiderman” put it: “So far they’ve said that they haven’t written off Windows Phone completely but that’s all they’ve said — no real commitment.”
“What he said,” the HTC team replied.
The future of Windows Phone may be from Nokia, not HTC.
It wouldn’t be unusual if HTC decided to put its Windows Phone plans on hold, or scuttle them completely. When Microsoft announced the $7.17 billion deal last year, IDC had just reported that Nokia made 81.6 percent of all Windows Phones sold. “Clarity helps make the market for all Windows Phones,” Microsoft said, a bit of doublespeak that implied that acquiring Nokia would actually promote diversity among Windows Phone partners. That in turn prompted several analysts to question the deal and its long-term effects on the Windows Phone ecosystem.
If nothing else, it appears that HTC 8X users will at least be receiving the Windows Blue update, another name for Windows Phone 8.1. But if you’re looking for new Windows Phone hardware, it seems like you should stay focused on Nokia and phones like its new Lumia Icon, for now.
IDG NEWS SERVICE – Virgin Atlantic revealed last week that it is testing the use of Google Glass devices among its staff to see how the technology could be used to improve the experience of the airline’s highest-paying passengers.
The Google Glass spectacles include a small screen that can be used to deliver apps, directions, social media streams, and webpages just above the right eye. The wearable computer also allows wearers to take a picture, record a video, and read messages.
Over the next six weeks, concierge staff working in Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class Wing at London Heathrow’s Terminal 3 will aim to use Google Glass to check-in customers and provide them with flight information, weather and local events at their destination and translate any foreign language information.
In order to make this possible, Virgin Atlantic has integrated Google Glass with a purpose-built dispatch app built by SITA and the Virgin Atlantic passenger service system.
Sony’s SmartWatch
The dispatch app manages all task allocation and concierge availability. It also pushes individual passenger information directly to the assigned concierge’s smart glasses just as the passenger arrives at the Upper Class Wing.
Virgin Atlantic said Google Glass also has the potential to tell staff their passengers’ dietary and refreshment preferences.
The airline is also testing the use of Sony’s SmartWatch 2 over the same six-week time period.
“The fact that air travel has become so accessible has led to some of the sheen being lost for many passengers,” said Dave Bulmad, Virgin Atlantic IT director. “By being the first in the industry to test how Google Glass and other wearable technology can improve customer experience we are…putting innovation at the heart of the flying experience.
Google Glass and other wearables are being tested by an increasing number of businesses, including the New York Police Department, which said last week that it was investigating whether the technology could be used to help enforce the law.
Lyft is raising yet another big round of funding, according to sources. The company, which is seeking to make ride-sharing mainstream in cities across the U.S. and around the world, is expected to use the new cash to fund expansion into new cities and territories.
We’ve heard Lyft has pitched a number of venture firms and late-stage institutional investors, but hedge fund Coatue Management seems to be in the lead for the deal. Coatue has recently invested in hot companies like Box, Snapchat, and HotelTonight, and is part of a growing trend of hedge funds making bets on later-stage startups with traction.
Andreessen Horowitz, which led Lyft’s $60 million Series C round, is also expected to contribute a large chunk of cash. Other investors in Lyft include Founders Fund, Floodgate, Mayfield Fund, K9 Ventures, Ooga Labs, fbFund, and Keith Rabois.
The company was founded as Zimride back in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2012 — when it shifted from long-range to on-demand ride-sharing — that things began to really take off.
With the launch of the Lyft mobile application, it broke new ground in enabling passengers to get rides from other people with a car and spare time on their hands. Due to the success of the on-demand platform, the company rebranded as Lyft and sold its legacy Zimride assets to Enterprise Holdings last summer.
After its initial stint in San Francisco, Lyft began expanding to other cities early last year and now is offering service in 20 markets throughout the U.S. But like Uber, which also offers on-demand rides via mobile app, Lyft has plans to aggressively increase the number of international cities that it operates in beginning this year.
The additional funding will be vital to getting it on the right track toward that goal, as it bulks up operations both in its San Francisco headquarters and in remote offices around the world.
In the meantime, Lyft is trying to get more regulators and local officials comfortable with the idea of letting unlicensed drivers give rides to passengers around town. To that end, it recently hired Google X legal director David Estrada as its VP of government relations.
The company also announced the creation of a peer-to-peer rideshare insurance coalitionthat includes other transportation companies, as well as regulators and insurance providers, to figure out the tricky issue of insurance for its drivers.
Lyft, Coatue, and Andreessen Horowitz all declined to comment.
Out of over 500 million Twitter users, only 30% can boast of knowing their way around Twitter main website without clicking. Though the new Twitter interface is pretty much like the old one, using keyboard shortcuts could prove useful when you want to perform a quick task.
If you use the main Twitter website, we can help you out with some seriously useful keyboard shortcuts. Whether it’s navigational tricks or keyboard actions, these handy shortcuts will save you tons of time.
To view the complete list of keyboard shortcuts from your Twitter account at any time. Click on the Gear Icon on the menu bar and select Keyboard shortcuts.
Twitter is rolling out a new design on the web today that eliminates the pop-up compose window and brings its look more in line with its mobile apps.
We’ve been seeing Twitter test versions of this design for some time now, but this particular one appears to be the test bucket that got the best reaction from users.
It looks, in some ways, a lot like the old version of Twitter — with a profile box and other information presented to the left of the main timeline. One of the biggest changes, of course, is that there is now an inline compose box on the left side, allowing you to pound out tweets without having to deal with the pop-up compose box. The pop up is still accessible via the ‘new tweet’ button in the upper right corner and the keyboard shortcut.
Placing a compose box right in the left column should make the interface feel a bit lighter weight, inviting people to tweet out a bit more than placing it ‘under’ the compose button. I’d guess that this was aimed at converting lurkers to tweeters.
If some of you are looking at this design and thinking ‘hmm, this is how mine has looked for weeks’, then congratulations, you’re in one of Twitter’s test buckets. The company experiments heavily, giving 1% of its users a tweaked or refreshed design and testing how they interact with it before rolling out changes on a wider scale. We’ve been getting reports of this particular design — or one with some of its elements — for a few weeks now.
The alignment of Twitter’s web edition with its mobile versions for iOS and Android certainly makes sense. A large recent release saw major changes in both design and functionality. The web version has lagged a bit behind those releases in the interim, but now feels much more at home.
AMD has released the latest beta driver of its Catalyst software, making its Mantle API a reality for those with supported graphics cards.
AMD’s Catalyst 14.1 beta driver was expected last week, although a few glitches delayed the release. Over the weekend, AMD published the beta driver to its Web site. Note that you’ll need to uninstall the current driver before installing the beta.
AMD is positioning Mantle as a low-level API optimized for its own hardware, offering significantly better performance than the generic DirectX API that powers both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards and integrated CPU/GPU chips, known as APUs. (For more, see our earlier deep dive into Mantle technology.)
So far, just one game, EA’s Battlefield 4, has been optimized for Mantle, although a tech demo of an upcoming game, Star Swarm, has also been released. According to AMD, gamers who load the new beta Catalyst driver should see up to 45% improvement in frame rate running Battlefield 4, and 200% when using the driver and playing the Star Swarm demo. A few other games, including the Thief reboot and Wing Commandercreator Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen, will also support Mantle, the developers have said.
PCWorld hasn’t had a chance to test Mantle yet, but real-world tests conducted by Anandtech showed gains of up to 30 percent when running Battlefield 4 on an Intel i7 4960x CPU. Naturally, because the Catalyst driver is a beta, future improvements are expected.
The new driver also includes support for AMD’s “frame pacing” technology, which smooths the handoffs between multiple GPUs working together in a Crossfire alignment to an “even and regular pace,” according to AMD.
AMD says that the following graphics cards will support the new Catalyst driver, and by extension, Mantle: the AMD Radeon R9 and R7 cards, plus the Radeon HD 8000 and 7000 series, and as well as the A10-7000 and A8-7000 APUs. Don’t expect to see the same dramatic gains in frame rate using the older cards, however, AMD warns—you’ll have to wait for future updates to see those improvements.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) said Monday that it plans to require vehicle-to-vehicle communications in future generations of cars, eventually making the technology as ubiquitous as seat belts.
Specifically, the DOT said that it will prepare a report on its findings on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications for publication in the coming weeks. That report will become the foundation for a new V2V regulatory framework, to be published later.
Google has said that its self-driving cars will use V2V communications in addition to its LIDAR systems.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), part of the DOT, “will then begin working on a regulatory proposal that would require V2V devices in new vehicles in a future year, consistent with applicable legal requirements, Executive Orders, and guidance,” the DOT said in a statement Monday. The DOT said it believes that the signal this announcement sends to the market will significantly enhance development of this technology and pave the way for market penetration of V2V safety applications.
Vehicle-to-vehicle communications refers to the emergence of Wi-Fi-like radios that could be mounted in cars and communicate with one another. Also known as Dedicated Short-Range Communications, V2V car-mounted radios would constantly communicate with other vehicles within range, providing speed and directional data to other cars’ safety and navigation systems. The idea is that a car racing around a blind curve would “know” that a car was heading in the opposite direction, or a car would receive warnings that cars ahead were coming to an unexpected stop.
In August, 2012, DOT launched what it called the Safety Pilot “model deployment” in Ann Arbor, Mich., where nearly 3,000 vehicles were deployed in the largest-ever road test of V2V technology. DOT testing demonstrated the interoperability of V2V technology among products from different vehicle manufacturers and suppliers and has demonstrated that they work in real-world environments, it said.
“V2V crash avoidance technology has game-changing potential to significantly reduce the number of crashes, injuries and deaths on our nation’s roads,” said NHTSA’s acting administrator, David Friedman, in a statement. “Decades from now, it’s likely we’ll look back at this time period as one in which the historical arc of transportation safety considerably changed for the better, similar to the introduction of standards for seat belts, airbags, and electronic stability control technology.”
At this point, the DOT doesn’t envision that the V2V data would do anything more than sound an alert, rather than trigger the braking or steering systems. The DOT also said that the data would not be used to track drivers. “In fact, the system as contemplated contains several layers of security and privacy protection to ensure that vehicles can rely on messages sent from other vehicles and that a vehicle or group of vehicles would be identifiable through defined procedures only if there is a need to fix a safety problem,” the DOT said.
This enthusiastic wing-pup may someday be out of a job, if V2V systems start communicating location and speed data directly from car to car.
Vehicle communications systems have been in place for some years, with bus systems in London, the San Francisco Bay Area’s BART system, and others broadcasting their estimated times of arrival at the next station, based upon their location data. It’s this vision of the future that Scott F. Belcher, president and chief executive of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), said he endorsed.
“Thanks to the strong commitment by U.S. DOT and automotive leaders, and years of investment by countless innovators and industry pioneers, the vision of ‘talking’ cars that avoid crashes is well on the way to becoming a reality,” Belcher said in a statement. “And we’re not just talking about cars talking to cars, but about cars talking to bikes, trucks talking to motorcycles, and even buses talking to pedestrians. This promises to significantly reduce the number of deaths and injuries on our nation’s roads while unleashing a new wave of innovation from advanced traffic management systems and smart mobility apps to real-time traffic, transit and parking information. We look forward to working with U.S. DOT, the automakers, and high-tech industry to ensure that issues such as security and privacy are addressed as we work toward full scale adoption of this life-saving technology.”
Germany’s federal prosecutor is considering if there is enough evidence to warrant a formal, criminal investigation into the German government’s alleged involvement in the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program, a spokeswoman said Monday.
Privacy and human rights campaigners including the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), the International League for Human Rights (ILMR) and Digitalcourage on Monday filed a criminal complaint against the German federal government and the presidents of the German secret services for their alleged involvement in illegal and prohibited covert intelligence activities, they said in a news release.
The complaint also targeted German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the German Minister of the Interior as well as U.S., British and German secret agents who are all accused of violating the right to privacy and obstruction of justice by cooperating with the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ to electronically spy on German citizens, they said.
According to the groups, these activities are felonies and violate German criminal law. “With this criminal complaint, we hope to finally initiate investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General against the German government,” they said.
However, for the moment it remains unclear if the group’s effort is going to have the intended effect.
The Federal Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice, located in Karlsruhe, did not yet receive the group’s criminal complaint, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor said. But when they do, it wouldn’t be the first, she said, declining to reveal how many complaints related to the NSA affair the federal prosecution had received.
The agency has taken very seriously the media reports about alleged mass monitoring of phone calls and emails from millions of German citizens as well as reports on the alleged spying of the chancellor’s mobile phone, she said.
Therefore, the attorney general has asked the relevant federal authorities to share their knowledge about the operations to achieve a secure factual basis for examining the initial suspicion, she said. But because not all the necessary comments are available it is too early to make a final decision about a formal criminal investigation, she said.
The groups called it “unacceptable that the public offices have not helped in the investigation of these crimes even if the spying is widely visible.” They also asked to hear Snowden as a technical expert and witness, and called on German citizens to file similar criminal complaints with the federal prosecution.
The criminal complaint follows similar complaints filed in France and Belgium, the campaigners said. In August, the French public prosecutor started a preliminary inquiry into allegations that the NSA spied on French citizens with its Prism program.
Microsoft is almost ready to put Windows XP out to pasture, but the popular operating system refuses to die. The latest worldwide numbers from Net Applications show Windows XP market share actually grew by 0.25 percentage points in January, compared to the month previous.
This is the first time Windows XP has gained in market share based on Net Applications’ freely available data, which reaches back to 2009.
We’ve dropped a line to Net Applications to see if the company has any explanation about why Windows XP might have bounced back in January, and we’ll update this story accordingly.
With the deadline for Windows XP’s end of life looming in April, it’s tempting to see the old system’s apparent resurgence as an embarrassment for Microsoft as Windows 8 stumbles in the market place. But could there be another, less sinister reason for the bounce?
In December 2013, the browser usage numbers from Net Applications showed Windows XP with a 28.98 market share. But check out the next pie chart…
The surge may not be real
First, if you look at the top of Net Applications’ report for January 2014 it says, “This report contains preview data that has NOT been reviewed by Quality Assurance.” So there’s that.Also, StatCounter, a a competing metrics service, registered a 0.64 percent decline for Windows XP during the same time. So who should we believe?
Perhaps neither. There are problems with how Net Applications and StatCounter measure market share. Both companies rely on browser hits to determine OS popularity, so the companies are really counting the number of Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 computers that go online during a given month.
That method may be generally accurate since today’s PCs (including Windows XP machines) are essentially web browsing machines. But when you’re looking at modest gains for a particular flavor of Windows, relying on browser data may not be perfectly trustworthy.
One month later, Windows XP shows a modest surge, possibly explained by people digging out old machines from closets to work on them before the XPocalypse.
But what if it’s true?
Assuming Net Applications is spot on, it’s also easy to see why a bunch of Windows XP machines might suddenly go online. As I wrote above, Windows XP’s end of life is just around the corner on April 8. When that happens, Microsoft will cease delivering security patches for the system.
So enterprises and small businesses may be yanking old Windows XP machines out of closets, warehouses, and backrooms as they take stock of company hardware and any data stored on antiquated computers.
Factor in curious home users wondering if they can upgrade their machine to Windows 8 or install a Linux variant on their aging hardware, and it’s easy to see where the modest uptick came from.
That’s all speculation mind you, but it makes a certain amount of sense.
The XP problem
Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that Windows XP still has a massive install base, second only to Windows 7. It’s likely there will still be a huge user base for Windows XP later in 2014, and tech companies are preparing to support the system in a limited fashion after April.
To help out Windows XP users who refuse to quit, Google will support Chrome for Windows XP until April 2015. And Microsoft says Windows XP’s anti-malware engine will continue to get updates until July 14, 2015. But security software can only detect malware attacks, and won’t permanently fix any critical flaws after April 8—and there will be flaws in Windows XP, bet on it.
If you do plan on sticking with the aging OS, we’ve just published a primer on what you should do to remain as safe as possible with Windows XP. But if you’re able to quit the system, you should do so very soon.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As the company’s press release states, this move is designed to place Sony in a more competitive stance. The Sony of today is in flux. It’s offloading unprofitable divisions left and right in an attempt to right the capsizing ship and sold off its PC business just last month. The company has eliminated over 12,000 positions over the last two years. These store closings will kill an additional 5,000 jobs.
The Note Pro also lacks an integrated keyboard, such as the Surface’s Type and Touch Covers. In fact, to use it as a laptop replacement, you’ll need to buy a Bluetooth keyboard and possibly a mouse. That completely eliminates its use as a “lap top” computer.
