Microsoft tries to show the benefits of Windows 8 every once in a while, in an attempt to convince users that it?s worth upgrading to the new operating system.
PC management service Soluto recommends everyone to wait until Windows Blue comes to the market and only then decide if dumping Windows 7 is indeed a good choice.
?If you?re pragmatic about using the Windows operating system with a keyboard and mouse - there?s no rush. Wait and see what ?Windows Blue? has in store for us before you upgrade,? the company says in a recent report.
With Windows 8, Microsoft tried to innovate, Soluto writes, so it?s only up to users to decide whether the company has actually managed to achieve its goal or not.
?In the market is that if you don?t innovate, you die. Microsoft had to innovate, and time will tell if their big bet was good or bad,? it explains.
Windows 8.1, internally codenamed Blue, will hit the market next month in preview form, while the full version of the operating system is expected to be released later this year.
LeBron James drove the lane for an uncontested layup with just over two seconds remaining in overtime Wednesday night, leading the Miami Heat to a 103-102 win over the Indiana Pacers in a highly-entertaining Game 1 of the NBA's Eastern Conference finals.
James had his ninth career playoff triple-double, scoring 30 points with 10 assists and 10 rebounds. But curiously, he was merely an afterthought for much the game?s 53 minutes. What truly resonated were the crucial performances of some lesser-known players at Miami?s AmericanAirlines Arena.
This was a very physical contest from the start, with James uncharacteristically getting whistled twice with personal fouls in the first quarter, after which he would sit through the remainder of the second quarter. In his place, Chris ?Birdman? Andersen came in and was instrumental in keeping the Heat to within seven points at the half. He finished with 16 points on the night on 7-of-7 shooting from the field to go with three important blocks that resulted in transition points. On one such play, he blocked a shot under the hoop and scored the transition dunk himself.
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Miami as a whole got five players in double figures, including, in addition to James and Andersen, Chris Bosh (17 points), Dwyane Wade (19, to go with 6 rebounds and 5 assists), and Mario Chalmers, who had 10 points, including two three-pointers.
Seemingly from the start, Indiana dictated the pace of the game ? keeping it at a slow, half-court tempo. For the season, they gave up a miserly 90 points a game (2nd in the NBA only to Memphis), and never permitted the Heat to get their transition game going effectively. 58 personal fouls and 40 turnovers (20 each) were compiled by the two teams. Players were flying into the stands, over one another, and were rolling on the floor on what seemed like every possession.
On the offensive side for the Pacers were David West?s amazing 18 first half points (he finished with 26 on 11-of-17 shooting), and Paul George, who after scoring only 2 points in the first half, caught fire, netting 25 in the latter frames (with 8 in the overtime period), including some endgame heroics. In the last moments of the fourth quarter, he hit a 32-foot three-pointer to tie the game at 92. And with just over two seconds remaining in the overtime period, having been fouled while attempting a desperation shot from behind the arc, calmly tossed in three foul shots to get Indiana back in the lead, 102-101.
Indiana, in addition to West and George, had two others in double-digit scoring: Roy Hibbert, with 19 points to go with 9 rebounds, and Tyler Hansbrough, who had 10 points, including some important third quarter buckets while West was benched with foul trouble. The Pacers also got ten boards from Lance Stephenson, who continues his inspired play throughout these playoffs, and seven assists from George Hill, who logged nearly 45 minutes of playing time while playing through a concussion sustained in the last playoff series against the New York Knicks.
George?s other-worldly accomplishments, however, were deflated by a critical coaching miscue by Indiana coach Frank Vogel, who opted to keep big man Hibbert on the bench for the final Miami play. He later admitted that given another chance, he would do things differently. Hibbert had the team?s only two blocked shots during the game, and without him, James drove the lane unopposed for an easy left-handed layup. A big question now looms for Vogel and his Pacers: will they be resilient and play through what was obviously an enormous disappointment in losing Game 1, or will there be carryover to Friday?s Game 2 in Miami. Great teams reboot; it?s Indiana?s choice.
With the HD Hero2, GoPro established itself as the go-to name for action cameras. The GoPro Hero3 Black Edition ($399.99 direct) is an impressive upgrade for an already excellent product, slimming down the dimensions and adding features like 4K (or Ultra HD) video recording capability. There are some problems with the Wi-Fi implementation?namely issues with battery life?but the superb video quality, ease of use, and plentitude of mounting options keep the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition at the top of the pack. It's an easy pick for our Editors' Choice award for action cameras.
Design and Features The Hero3 is basically a slimmed-down Hero2, measuring 1.6 by 2.3 by 0.8 inches (HWD) and 2.6 ounces versus 1.6 by 2.4 by 1.2 inches (HWD) and 3.3 ounces. You get the same silver cuboid design, with two control buttons, a monochrome LCD, and a wide-angle lens. Competitors, like the Sony Action Cam?or Drift Innovation HD Ghost, have more bullet-like designs, which make them more suitable for side-mounting on helmets and goggle straps.
All of the controls basically run through the two main buttons; one located on the front and one on top. The front button acts as a power toggle and mode selector; tapping it cycles through video recording, still capture, burst still capture, and the settings menu. The top button is used to start recording, grab a photo, and navigate through the menu system. It can be a bit cumbersome to dig into menus and settings, but that's been true of all GoPros. The two button setup, along with the LED indicators and loud audible beep, makes it easy to trigger recordings even when the camera is mounted on helmets.
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Along the left edge are micro HDMI and mini USB ports, as well as a microSD card slot that supports cards up to 64GB. There are also two LED indicators on the face of the Hero3; a red one indicates recording status while a blue one indicates Wi-Fi status. On the right edge is a small Wi-Fi On/Off button, with three small drilled holes for the microphone above it. The back houses the battery compartment and another small red LED to indicate recording status.
There are a ton of accessories available for the Hero3, ranging from various mounts to attachable BacPacs that add things like an LCD screen. The Black Edition comes with the camera, a waterproof housing (submergible to 197 feet), a Wi-Fi remote, rechargeable battery, 3-way pivot arm, curved adhesive mount, flat adhesive mount, and a USB charging cable. The Wi-Fi remote is waterproof and lets you trigger recording wirelessly, but during testing we found it cumbersome to pair and a bit unnecessary unless you have a multi-camera shoot (the Wi-Fi remote can control up to 50 GoPros). On top of that, during testing, the Wi-Fi feature was a huge draw on battery life. You can set up an ad-hoc network between the Hero3 and a smartphone, and use the free iOS or Android app to control recording, use your smartphone as a viewfinder, and transfer files for uploading to the Web.
Video Quality and Conclusions The GoPro Hero3 Black Edition is easily the most versatile action camera available. Where most cameras can do 720p60 and 1080p30, the Hero3 can also do 720p at 120 frames per second, 1080p60, and even 4K video at 15 frames per second. Sony's Action Cam recently added 1080p60 with a firmware update and the Drift HD Ghost tops out at 1080p30 and 720p60, but neither support 4K. ?
For testing, we sent the Hero3, Sony Action Cam, and Drift HD Ghost out with our photographer on his most recent ski trip. Video quality at 1080p60 on the Hero3 was excellent, with crisp details, true-to-life colors, and smooth frame rates. Even with challenging lighting conditions, the Hero3 captured video that was full of detail and low on image noise. The Sony Action Cam, on the other hand, was unable to match the Hero3 in clarity or crispness, with video that was noticeably grainier and lacked the same level of sharp details that the Hero3 captured. The Drift HD Ghost's video lies somewhere between the two, with sharp details and pleasantly saturated, if not completely accurate colors. More demanding video enthusiasts will also be thrilled with GoPro's inclusion of Protune firmware, which allows far greater control over color correction.
We also tested out the Hero3's 4K shooting mode, which you won't find in any other action camera, or even most high-end consumer camcorders for that matter. The footage is limited to 15 frames per second, making it pretty choppy, but you just won't be able to find this level of detail in any other competitor.
Still image quality is good, as long as you can live with the distortion introduced by such a wide angle lens. The Hero3 can shoot 12-, 7-, or 5-megapixel stills, and has a number of burst or time-lapse photo modes. Burst shooting can capture 30 shots in a second, while continuous shooting mode can capture 3, 5, or 10 photos per second. Time-lapse mode offers 0.5-, 1-, 2-, 5-, 10-, 30-, and 60-second intervals for shots. Images shot at 12MP are sharp and full of detail, but still no match for a good point-and-shoot with a zoom lens.
If you're looking for an action camera that can keep up with all of your extreme exploits, the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition should be at the top of your list. It's brimming with features and shooting modes, including the unrivaled ability to capture 4K video, and delivers some of the crispest video footage we've seen in the category. It's eminently easy to use and there's also a huge diversity of mounting options available. Our only gripe is the huge battery drain brought on by the built-in Wi-Fi, but you also don't ever have to use that feature. That said, the Hero3 Black Edition is packing enough goods to handily nab our Editors' Choice.?
May 22, 2013 ? Brain freeze is practically a rite of summer. It happens when you eat ice cream or gulp something ice cold too quickly. The scientific term is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, but that's a mouthful. Brain freeze is your body's way of putting on the brakes, telling you to slow down and take it easy. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin, Ph.D., explains how it works.
"Brain freeze is really a type of headache that is rapid in onset, but rapidly resolved as well," he said. "Our mouths are highly vascularized, including the tongue -- that's why we take our temperatures there. But drinking a cold beverage fast doesn't give the mouth time to absorb the cold very well."
Here's how it happens: When you slurp a really cold drink or eat ice cream too fast you are rapidly changing the temperature in the back of the throat at the juncture of the internal carotoid artery, which feeds blood to the brain, and the anterior cerebral artery, which is where brain tissue starts.
"One thing the brain doesn't like is for things to change, and brain freeze is a mechanism to prevent you from doing that," Godwin said.
The brain can't actually feel pain despite its billions of neurons, Godwin said, but the pain associated with brain freeze is sensed by receptors in the outer covering of the brain called the meninges, where the two arteries meet. When the cold hits, it causes a dilation and contraction of these arteries and that's the sensation that the brain is interpreting as pain.
Analyzing brain freeze may seem like silly science to some, but "it's helpful in understanding other types of headaches," Godwin said.
"We can't easily give people migraines or a cluster headache, but we can easily induce brain freeze without any long-term problems," he said. "We can learn something about headache mechanisms and extend that to our understanding to develop better treatments for patients."
Is there a cure for brain freeze? Yes -- stop drinking the icy cold beverage. You can also jam your tongue up to the roof of your mouth because it's warm or drink something tepid to normalize the temperature in your mouth.
AMD has been willing to tease its 2013 ultra-mobile APU (accelerated processing unit) strategy through PCs like the Acer Aspire V5, but today it's spilling the beans in earnest. The headliner for many is the company's just-shipping Elite Mobility line, or Temash: the A4 and A6 designs are built for tablets, like Hondo was, but their Jaguar-based system-on-chip designs should be faster in both CPU and graphics power without a hit to battery life. AMD estimates that the Radeon HD 8280G video core in an Elite Mobility A6 is about five times faster a Clover Trail-based Atom and twice as fast as Hondo, but lasts about 45 percent longer on battery than an Intel Core i3. And that's while untethered -- that Turbo Dock feature is still in place to boost speeds by over 30 percent when a dock is around for extra cooling.
The E1, E2, A4 and A6 mainstream APUs based on Kabini, meanwhile, are all about tackling the Pentium and Core i3 chips that go into entry-level laptops. AMD reckons that the dual-core (E-series) and quad-core (A-series) parts are up to 88 percent faster overall than their ancestors, and can even punch above their weight class: the E1's Radeon HD 8000-level graphics are up to 66 percent faster than those of a much thirstier, Trinity-era A4 chip. Battery life is a specialty as well, with up to 10 hours when idle and 9 hours of web use. That's typically 2 to 3 hours more than Kabini's Brazos ancestor could manage. AMD wasn't specific on when these mainstream APUs would first ship when we were briefed, but we had the opportunity to benchmark an A4-based reference laptop. Read on past the break for the scores and some early impressions.
??? ??? Publisher's: Brant Clifton examines the embarrassment of the the scandal ridden Obama Administration in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.
??? Outrageous. The IRS was asking a religious non-profit about the substance of its prayers. Outrageous. A Christian mentoring organization was asked about the specific backgrounds of the students it mentors. Outrageous. (Do Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson or Bill Barber get scrutinized like this? Hell, NO.)
??? While members of Congress got lots of great face-time on the mainstream media - verbally abusing the IRS - the administration quietly sunk our nation deeper into debt:
??? On May 19, the United States hit its debt ceiling after adding $300 billion in more debt since lawmakers suspended the ceiling in February.
??? But the cash won't run dry until at least Labor Day, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, whose department can employ a variety of cash management tools to continue spending beyond the official debt deadline.
??? Congress last hit the debt ceiling in January. The President and Congress then decided to "suspend" the debt limit through May 18. This is the first time that lawmakers adopted a debt ceiling date instead of a dollar amount. The Congressional Budget Office explains:
??? On May 19, the debt limit will be raised to its previous value - $16.394 trillion - plus the amount of borrowing that occurred while the limit was suspended (that is, from early February to May 18).
??? In other words, the President and Congress decided in February that they would continue borrowing through May 18, with the new debt limit becoming the then-current limit of $16.394 trillion plus whatever was added on since then. Washington racked up $300 billion in more debt in less than four months, making the current limit $16.7 trillion.
??? This is the pattern of recurrent budget negotiation crises:
??? Spend;
??? Spend some more;
??? Run up against the debt ceiling;
??? Resort to "extraordinary measures" to ward off a possible default for a while; and finally,
??? Settle for inadequate measures that fail to curb soaring debt in the future.
??? [...]
??? As the failed super committee negotiations (which resulted in the all-around-hated sequestration) demonstrated, lawmakers need to put in law real policy changes to the entitlement programs, and not push off tough decisions to a new committee that's doomed to fail from the get-go.
??? [...]
??? Our nation is on a dangerous fiscal course, and the debt ceiling is lawmakers' opportunity to grab the oars and steer us out of the coming debt storm.
??? The IRS scandal demonstrates the propensity for big government to harrass, and violate the rights of, average Americans. We still haven't figured out what exactly was going on in Benghazi. One thing we have learned from that affair is that its a 50-50 proposition whether our government will come to the defense of Americans under fire by foreign hostiles.
??? The whole debt thing - if serious action is not taken - will bring our nation down. It doesn't need to be swept off the stage. It needs to be front and center. It needs to be dealt with NOW.
Way to go Colorado. This is a great honor for shelter pets and such a wonderful way to encourage people to adopt, not buy, their next family member.
Colorado Makes Shelter Dogs and Cats New State Pet
KREX News Room, John Dias
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.- Governor Hickenlooper signed a new bill into law making shelter dogs and cats Colorado?s official state pet.
Although pet adoption rates in Mesa County are already higher the other areas, officials are hoping this will bring more awareness to these pets looking for a good home.
This proposal was brought forward by Colorado schoolchildren and officials at Mesa County Animal Services tell NewsChannel 5 they?re excited about that feature because these kids are future pet owners.
?I think that the animal-human bond is very strong,? said Penny McCarty, director of Mesa County Animal Services. ?I think that we respect that in our community.?
McCarty says the community is already so supportive of local pet agencies, but she's thrilled Colorado has named shelter dogs and cats the official state pet.
?Last year in our community, we adopted 2,226 animals,? said McCarty.
?We need to get all of these dogs that have been lost, a new home,? said Jacee Apple, new dog owner. ?Make sure they get a nice family that is going to take care of them.?
It?s not just adoption rates McCarty is hoping will increase, but also help raise the bar higher for an already soaring amount of missing pets that are brought back safely to their owners.
?Our return to owner rate is 70 percent, which is more than double the national average,? said McCarty. ?We have a good community of pet owners.?
Officials want this new trend to spread to other states in the future.
This new law did come with some controversy, as opponents are saying that this could create an area for business transactions and that some of these animals may not even be from our state.
