Wednesday 31 December 2014

Why Do Expats Go Home? - The Yucatan Times



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Thursday 18 December 2014

Chinese Firms Do Deals in Portugal - Wall Street Journal



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UK visa rules for some non-EU citizens illegal – European Court - Irish Times



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Top Story: In the driver's seat - Durango Telegraph



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European Court of Justice rules British visa requirement illegal - Irish Times



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European Court of Justice rules British visa requirement illegal - Irish Times



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UK government dealt blow as EU supreme court deems family visa rule illegal - International Business Times UK



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Monday 15 December 2014

Tablet computers slashed to £35 EACH as Christmas price war hots up

Cheap: The 7in Android-based Giani Entity


A Christmas price war has seen retailers slash the cost of a tablet computer to £35.


The 7in Android-based Giani Entity is being offered on website thebrilliantgiftshop.co.uk at 65% off its original price of £99.


Features include wi-fi networking; a front-facing camera and up to six hours music, 2.5 hours video and 2.5 hours of web browsing.


Tesco


Price war: The Hudl 2 from Tesco costs £129

The site, which aims to undercut rivals Argos, Tesco, Amazon and Google, also has a Cello tablet at £69.


The Hudl 2 from Tesco is £129 and the 7in Bush costs £69.99 at Argos.


Tablets are set to be one of this year's top Christmas gifts, outselling PCs.


Demand: Giani Entity features include wi-fi networking and a front-facing camera


Joe Fogwill, N Brown Group PLC Buying and Merchandising Director, said: 'With tablets at the top of most people's Christmas list we wanted to make sure that we offered the best value one you can get on the market and that's exactly what we've done.


'And with more and more of our customers choosing to shop online we wanted to make it easy and affordable to get hold of one.'


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Thursday 11 December 2014

$1 million 'bonus' for 5 schools in tablet project

$1 million 'bonus' for 5 schools in tablet project


GOVERNMENT has set aside $1 million to reward five schools that are showing academic improvements from utilisation of the tablet computers provided under the Tablets in Schools Pilot project.


Students who demonstrate excellent technology skills from use of the tablets will also benefit from the allocation.


Phillip Paulwell, the technology minister, said his ministry, along with the ministry of education, will be monitoring the progress of the 38 educational institutions that will benefit from the 25,000 computer tablets that are being provided under the project. The top five schools will receive a total sum of $500,000.


'For those schools that show marked improvements over their previous situation, we are going to (make one award) for each category of school - basic, primary, high school, and teachers' college. Those that come out on top, each will get $100,000 to show that the tablets are working,' Paulwell said.


He was addressing this week's tablet distribution at the St Benedict's Primary School in St. Andrew, where 640 students were presented with devices.


Noting the significant earning potential of persons who excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Minister Paulwell said, 'We will be watching to see how well the students perform in those subjects. We have another set of money to reward those schools, and those students.' Those with creative talents will be awarded $500,000.


'Where the schools identify youngsters who (on their own) can create applications, who can do their own programming on our tablets, we are going to have a national competition where the best boy and girl will get $500,000,' he said.


Education Minister Ronald Thwaites, and Member of Parliament for East Rural St. Andrew Damion Crawford, welcomed the computers for the students, while emphasising how it can aid their learning.


Meanwhile, Minister Paulwell reported that of the nine tablets that have been stolen, four have been recovered.


He said the tracking device on the computers helped in their recovery, and appealed to persons with the remaining five computers to leave them at the nearest police station or school. He warned that 'once the authorities (police) have to go for them, arrests will be made'.


More than 16,000 tablets have already been distributed to students under the $1.4 billion pilot project.


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Tips on buying a tablet computer

When it comes to electronics, tablet computers are at the top of the holiday wish list again this year. Before you buy, there are a few important decisions to make. You need to decide the size - will it be a 7, 8, 9 or 10-inch screen. And what operating system do you want? There's iOS from Apple with the iPad, the Android system that's in lots of different models and Windows. 'The research shows most of us are using these tablets at home,' said Jim Barry, the Digital Answer Man for the Consumer Electronics Association. 'If you're going to use it at home and you have a Wi-Fi system, get the one that's just Wi-Fi. Don't pay the extra $100 for the one that has both Wi-Fi and a 3G or 4G phone system. You probably won't use that.' In that case, think about whether you want to put the extra money into more memory, Barry says. You can get a basic table for around $200. One with all the bells and whistles and lots of memory can run close to a thousand dollars.


More Info:Consumer Reports: Tablet Buying Guide


YouNews RYC Gene Coulon Park Clam Lights

Rainier Yacht Club, located on south east lake Washington asked its members to decorate their boats for the annual parade to Clam Lights at Gene Coulon Park, The boat leave Rainier Beach at 6:45 traveling south along lake Washington shore, cross over and get to the park around 7:15 these pictures were taken last Friday the 5th, from one of the boats participating


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Wednesday 10 December 2014

Wireless charging is coming to your tablet, computer


Wireless charging is an exciting frontier, but few have ventured to make it available. We've not really seen it roll out on a large scale, either, as competing charging standards battle for supremacy. Freescale has introduced a new wireless charging system that breaks tradition. Rather than trying to charge your smartphone, their 15-watt wireless charging pad will take aim at your tablet, and possibly even laptop (someday, of course). Their products are also expected to hit in the first quarter of 2015.


Denis Cabrol, director of global marketing and business development for Freescale's MCU group, said 'Today's mobile products offer a broader range of features, functionality and form factors than ever before, requiring developers of wireless charging systems to accommodate larger batteries and enable faster recharge speeds. Freescale's industry-first 15 W solution is engineered to address these evolving market requirements, while helping to streamline product development and unleash design creativity.'


Freescale sees their product as being implemented everywhere, too. Airline seats, coffee shop and restaurant tables - even your car's console. Their big, bad charging platform also takes advantage of Qi, Wireless Power Consortium, and the Power Matters Alliance; the three standards vying for your wireless charging attention.


Aside from tablets and computers, the Freescale charging mat could also power your larger smartphone - like a Nexus 6 or Note 4 - quickly.


It's more power than ever, but not a new concept, and definitely not a new missive for where and when we'll be charging wirelessly. Until now, nobody has really been able to deliver on their concept in a significant way, but we're hopeful Freescale can make it happen.


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Tuesday 2 December 2014

Comptroller: Many DOE Tablets, Computers Missing, Unopened

By: Lindsey Christ Text size: +-

TWC News: Comptroller: Many DOE Tablets, Computers Missing, UnopenedPlay now


The Department of Education has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on computers and tablets over the past few years, but a new audit by the city comptroller says many of those devices are missing or are sitting unopened. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

Computers and tablets seem to have a habit of disappearing, off desks in schools and out of the Department of Education's record books.


'This is very troubling when parents expect every computer, every tool to be used in the classroom for their children,' said City Comptroller Scott Stringer.


In an investigation of nine schools, plus the Department of Education's central office, the city comptroller's office says it was unable to locate more than 1,800 computers and 250 tablets, even after working with the Department of Education to try to find the missing hardware.


'We only looked at 10 locations, and this is the mess we found. But there's 2,000 locations,' Stringer said. 'Even at Tweed, Department of Education headquarters, they couldn't account for 600 computers right in the middle of the main headquarters. There's something wrong.'


The Department of Education does not use a central database to keep track of computers and tablets, but Stringer says there is already a system in place that could easily be used to do that. In its formal response to his audit, though, the Department of Education says it believes creating a central inventory system is neither cost effective nor practical.


'We have a right as taxpayers to make sure that every computer, every tablet is accounted for,' Stringer said.


It's not just the missing hardware. Auditors say they discovered 394 computers and tablets still in their packaging, some bought back in 2011. At one school, one-quarter of the devices purchased in recent years remained unopened.


'The notion that we can't account for thousands of computers, and that we found, our auditors found unpacked computers that should be in the classroom, points to a very serious issue,' Stringer said.


The Department of Education says it has asked all schools to update inventory lists in an effort to locate missing and unopened devices.


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Audit: NYC School Computers Going Unused Or Missing


NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - More than 2,000 computers and tablets are missing or unused at New York City schools, according to a new audit by the city comptroller.


The audit by city Comptroller Scott Stringer found the Department of Education didn't know where 1,800 laptop and desk computers it had purchased for 10 locations were. It found nearly 400 other devices were never unpacked.


Stringer says the audit represents a sample of sites and is concerned it's 'just the tip of the iceberg.'


'Parents expect their kids to be ready for 21st century and they want technology for their children,' he said.


He says in a time period from 2011 to 2013, he also found boxes of unpacked tablets at three locations and more than 600 missing computers from doe headquarters.


'Perhaps there's an inventory control problem at the Department of Education,' he said. 'We must account for every tablet computer in the whole school system.'


Stringer wants the Department of Education to make a centralized inventory system, keeping track of all purchases and the computers locations. He also wants every missing computer found.


'All we've asked is to see the computers,' he said. 'Just show us the computers.'


Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm told the Wall Street Journal the audit ignored some information provided by her staff.


She said sometimes equipment isn't put to immediate use because of insufficient Wi-Fi bandwidth and the need to train staff to use it.


The DOE said it will use the audit's recommendations and issued a statement saying, 'We are committed to providing our city's school children technological resources that enables them to thrive in the classroom and identifying ways to catalog all equipment to ensure we are using all available resources to serve our students.'


Check Out These Other Stories From CBSNewYork.com:

(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. best-budget-tablet.blogspot.com contributed to this report.)


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Sunday 30 November 2014

David Cameron's EU speech: full text - BBC News



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Canada to Announce New Immigrant Investor Plan - Nasdaq



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Does the Asus PadFone/Tablet combo represent the future of personal computing?

All of us know our smartphones are actually powerful personal computers that fit into our pocket. I have been in the PC industry for 35 years and my first PC had an 8088 Intel processor in it and sported a 4.77 MHZ processor speed. The processor in my iPhone 6 Plus runs at 1.4 GHz and has two billion transistors in it.


One of the more interesting comparisons of computer speeds often uses the Apollo Mission computer in 1969 vs the computing power in smartphones today.


The folks at The Daily Grate actually compared how much more powerful your phone is compared to the computers that tracked ALL the Apollo missions and flew men through the narrowest event windows while guiding a tin can in the infinite reaches of space:


Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC)

Dimensions: 24 x 12.5 x 6.5 inches


Weight: 70 pounds


Processor speed: 1 MHz


Memory: 2,048 words (32,768 bits or roughly 4kB)


Display: Seven-segment numeric


Price: $150,000 (est.)


Apple iPhone 5s

Dimensions: 4.87 inches x 2.31 inches


Weight: 3.95 ounces


Processor speed: 1.3GHz, dual-core


Memory: 64GB


Display: 4-inch diagonal Multi-Touch display, 1136 x 640 pixel resolution at 326 ppi


I am not sure if the Apollo crew actually understood how underpowered the computers were that guided them to the moon but thankfully they did not question it and made their historic journeys and came back in one piece.


However, the idea we have this kind of computing power in our pocket is, I believe, a significant fact and one that could make a smartphone the most important computing device we have and eventually be used to power all types of personal computing products.


About 23 years ago, I wrote a research paper on what I called 'a vision for modular computing'. I have had to travel a great deal in my career and, in the early days, I carried around portable computers that looked like Singer sewing machines. Once clamshell based laptops came out, I started carrying them but even they weighed six to nine lbs and had short battery lives. But I envisioned (actually, longed for) a time when I could carry a small modular computing core with me and plug in to a TV in my hotel room or in to a connector on a plane where a keyboard would be on the flip side of a seat tray and the screen was on the backside of the seat in front of me. Or plug in to a connector at my office where it would be connected to a display and keyboard. You get the idea. I wanted the full power of a personal computer in a small device that could connect to all types of stationary devices. Now I know I was describing what smartphones have become today although they have the screen and keyboards built in as part of their design.


In one of the more interesting products I have seen come to market this year, Asus created something that embodies that original vision I had for modular computing. The Asus PadFone X Mini is a unique product that includes a smartphone that slides into a tablet and powers the actual tablet. The idea is all of the intelligence and computer power is based in the smartphone and the tablet becomes kind of a slave that mirrors what is on the smartphone. The tablet has a 7″ screen as well as another battery in it. That means you can power it off of the phone's or the tablet's battery or can charge both at the same time. You can even charge the phone in the docked tablet.


However, if you undock the phone from the tablet it does nothing. All you get is a blank screen since the actual computer power comes from the smartphone when it is docked. Here is a video of how the docking works.


Actually, this is one of the great bargains I have seen for the holidays. The smartphone and tablet together cost $199 without a contract. It works with AT&T's Go prepaid program where you can get unlimited talk and text for $60 a month. The unlimited texting covers 2 GB of data using ultra fast LTE and all other unlimited data uses the slower 2G. They also have a cheaper plan for $45 that has 1 GB of data using LTE and all other unlimited data using 2G. This is one of the best combo deals you can buy.


But the idea the computing power is in the smartphone and can be used to power other things like a tablet is quite interesting and very modular in design. I am hearing another angle on this in the works coming out of the China supply chain that takes a smartphone and lets you pop it into a laptop clamshell design and use the smartphone as the core CPU. It mirrors the OS and the apps on a 12″ laptop screen with a full keyboard.


Motorola had a product like this on the market a few years back called the Atrix Smartphone with LapDock. However, it never took off for a number of reasons, the main one being smartphones in 2011 weren't powerful enough to actually deliver a full laptop experience. Even though Motorola was early with this concept, now that smartphones are getting as powerful as some of the laptops on the market today, this concept of using a smartphone docked to a laptop shell is being tossed around in design shops in Asia. We could see new versions of this idea sometime in 2015.


Since I have been researching this concept for decades, I still think this idea has a lot of potential. What Asus delivers with the PadFone could just be scratching the surface of this design concept. It would not surprise me if, someday, my original modular computing vision finally plays itself out in ways that make the smartphone the center of our computing experience as it becomes docked into tablets, laptops and desktops that power our future computing experiences.


Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is the President of Creative Strategies, Inc. He is recognized as one of the leading industry consultants, analysts and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has served as a consultant to most of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba and numerous others.


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