Category: News

In an interview with “We Feed the World,” Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck touted that his company is the largest foodstuff corporation in the world, worth $65 billion. He went on to proclaim that water is not a human right and that corporations such as his should control water…

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) recently released its 2012 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report and the findings are truly astounding. According to the latest available data, Americans and people living in America collectively spent a whopping $11 billion…

Former long-serving U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas isn’t mincing words when describing the scene in and around Boston following the April 15 terrorist bombing of the famous annual Boston Marathon. To him, the tactics local police and federal agents used when searching for…

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), spring is a time for rejuvenation and regeneration. Outdoor nature reflects this as foliage returns and flowers blossom while birds fill the air with their celebratory singing. We should also follow this seasonal event by practicing…

There are few health afflictions that affect people living in modern civilization more regularly than cavities. With an abundance of junk food available, it becomes more and more difficult for the average person to maintain a diet that is optimal for body and mouth…

The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against disgraced bicyclist Lance Armstrong in an attempt to recover millions of dollars in endorsements paid to him and his U.S. Postal Service team after he admitted that illegal blood doping helped him win a record seven Tour…

Most Americans know that our public servants are human beings too, and as such are far from perfect, but we also expect them to, at all times, at least make a serious attempt to set the standards of behavior, even if they sometimes fall short of those standards themselves…

In the first-ever study of its type, Canadian researchers have shown that flax seed consumption reduces the risk of breast cancer by 28 percent in postmenopausal women and flax bread consumption reduces risk by 26 percent in both pre- and postmenopausal women. These…

Why should we care about detoxification? Because millions of people are needlessly (unconsciously) suffering from fatigue, headaches, insomnia, allergies, depression and a host of degenerative diseases due to excessive exposure to toxic substances. And, I believe, it’s…

A study of the effect of DHA and vitamin supplements on aggressive and impulsive behaviors showed that DHA, but not the vitamins, had a positive effect. The study group included 200 young men, with an average age of 20 years, with no history of antisocial behavior…

Researchers from the Netherlands claim to have found a better way to develop and monitor the effects of treatment protocols for cancer patients, but it involves taking doctors out of the picture. As reported by the U.K.’s Independent, a team of scientists from Maastricht…

In the wake of revelations – thanks in every way to the alternative media – that the Department of Homeland Security had planned to purchase and stockpile as much as 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, a pair of U.S. lawmakers are proposing legislation that would prevent…

It would have been so simple. Flood Afghanistan with Monsanto GMOs. Truckloads of seeds. Tanks full of Roundup herbicide. Result? Nutritionally deficient food crops, chronic disease, poisoning with Roundup. Perfect. And we know how to do it, because we’ve been doing…

Many people understand the need for a healthier lifestyle. Many of us are trying to eat better, exercise and take vitamins to fill in the nutritional gaps in our diets. Unfortunately, you may not realize what you are really buying, unless you are reading every label…

So much for Apple’s tablet reign that analysts stoutly stood by even just months ago. Android kicks ass, crushing iOS shipments during first quarter, according to IDC. Among the top four, the fruit-logo company posted the lowest year-over-year growth (65.3 percent), and considerably less than the overall market (142.4 percent). Meanwhile, the company’s market share fell by 18.5 points to 39.6 percent.

Among tablet manufacturers, Apple is market leader, with the question being for how much longer. Samsung share rose 282.6 percent — ASUS even more (350 percent). Strong Nexus 7 shipments pushed ASUS past Amazon to take third place. ASUS’ challenge and opportunity could be Google I/O, where the tablet launched last year and new model is rumored for the event starting May 15. Challenge is maintaining shipments during product transition; opportunity is capitalizing on new sales.

Measured by operating system, Android soared 247.5 percent year over year, with market share rising to 56.5 percent from 39.4 percent. iOS was near mirror opposite, falling from 58.1 percent to 39.6 percent.

Despite share losses and slower growth, “sustained demand for the iPad mini and increasingly strong commercial shipments led to a better-than expected first quarter for Apple”, Tom Mainelli, IDC research director, says. “In addition, by moving the iPad launch to the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple seems to have avoided the typical first-quarter slowdown that traditionally occurred when consumers held off buying in January and February in anticipation of a new product launch in March”.

So there’s the silver lining. For the previous three years, new iPads launched in March or April. Apple launched a second iPad in late 2012 concurrent with the mini’s introduction, changing the release cycle.

Microsoft is the quarter’s biggest surprise, with tablet shipments soaring 700 percent, arguably from smaller base. IDC puts Surface shipments at 900,000 for the quarter, majority the Pro model. A week ago, Strategy Analytics also tallied stronger-than-expected Q1 Surface shipments.

NPD DisplaySearch predicts that 7-7.9-inch tablets will account for nearly half of tablet shipments this year, a big shift downward in screen size. Microsoft is headed there, too.

Top Five Tablet Vendors, Shipments, and Market Share, First Quarter 2013 (Shipments in millions) 

Vendor	1Q13 Unit Shipments	1Q13 Market Share	1Q12 Unit Shipments	1Q12 Market Share	Year-over-Year Growth
1. Apple	19.5	39.6%	11.8	58.1%	65.3%
2. Samsung	8.8	17.9%	2.3	11.3%	282.6%
3. ASUS	2.7	5.5%	0.6	3.1%	350.0%
4. Amazon.com Inc.	1.8	3.7%	0.7	3.6%	157.1%
5. Microsoft	0.9	1.8%	0.0	N/A	N/A
Others	15.5	31.5%	4.9	24.1%	216.3%
Total	49.2	100.0%	20.3	100.0%	142.4%

Source: IDC Worldwide Tablet Tracker, May 1, 2013

Last month, CFO Peter Klein said that Microsoft is “working closely with OEMs on a new suite of small touch devices powered by Windows. These devices will have competitive price points, partly enabled by our latest OEM offerings designed specifically for these smaller devices, and will be available in the coming months”.

Ryan Reith, IDC program manager, sees little promise in “smaller screen Windows RT and Windows 8 tablets hitting the market. He emphasizes: “The notion that this will be the saving grace is flawed. Clearly the market is moving toward smart 7-8 inch devices, but Microsoft’s larger challenges center around consumer messaging and lower cost competition”.

Top Tablet Operating Systems, Shipments, and Market Share, 2013 Q1 (Shipments in Millions) 

Vendor	1Q13 Unit Shipments	1Q13 Market Share	1Q12 Unit Shipments	1Q12 Market Share	Year-over-Year Growth
Android	27.8	56.5%	8.0	39.4%	247.5%
iOS	19.5	39.6%	11.8	58.1%	65.3%
Windows	1.6	3.3%	0.2	1.0%	700.0%
Windows RT	0.2	0.4%	0.0	N/A	N/A
Others	0.1	0.2%	0.2	1.0%	-50.0%
Total	49.2	100.0%	20.3	100.0%	142.4%

Source: IDC Worldwide Tablet Tracker, May 1, 2013

Execution will be everything. “If these challenges are addressed, along with the desired screen size variations, then we could see Microsoft make even further headway in 2013 and beyond”, Reith emphasizes.

Unlike smartphones, where Apple and Samsung, Android and iOS, dominate the market, tablets are increasingly uncertain, particularly in context of iPad’s share losses (even as shipments rise). Where Windows Phone unlikely will gain much share, plenty of opportunity remains for Windows 8/RT. Shipments through fourth quarter will answer how much.

Your PC is behaving strangely. You think it might have been infected by something, but your regular antivirus tool hasn’t raised an alert. And so you decide to try and investigate the problem yourself.

Figuring out where to begin can be difficult, though. Which drivers should you investigate, which startup programs or processes? If you want to manually search for malware but aren’t sure where to start, then the free Malware Scene Investigator could prove very useful.

The program is a tiny download (500KB), portable and extremely easy to use. Close any running programs, launch Malware Scene Investigator, click Start Scan, and a tabbed interface then displays the results in two forms. Clicking Report provides a quick summary, while the Detailed Log tab gives you a more in-depth view.

The program may be small, but Malware Scene Investigator isn’t short on ambition. The program aims to highlight HOSTS file manipulation, unknown drivers, and dubious proxy settings. It looks for unusual disk partitions, Registry modifications or startup programs. You’ll be warned of executable files in your temporary folders (a common route for malware), and the report includes general information about your PC’s state (open network connections, running processes, scheduled tasks, recently created \Windows\System32 files, and more).

We tested this out on a test PC, and the program generally did very well. It highlighted some active third-party drivers, for instance; picked out an unusual Windows service setting; even warned us about a suspicious startup entry which we had already become concerned about separately. This turned out to be entirely innocent, but it was impressive that, while we had spent some time in identifying this file, Malware Scene Investigator managed to highlight the same executable in around two seconds.

Checking for outdated software was less successful, though, at least in our case. The program claimed that we had an outdated version of Flash installed, but this wasn’t true: it just hadn’t identified our installed Flash version correctly.

Malware Scene Investigator isn’t for novices, then. And you can’t rely 100% on everything it says: the program can only give you pointers as to what you should investigate next.

But, if you are worried a PC has been infected by malware, or just want a general security check, then the program is worth a try, and it certainly deserves a place in your security toolkit.

Photo Credit:  Johan Swanepoel/Shutterstock

Activision on Wednesday announced that the latest installment of its best-selling Call of Duty franchise, called Call of Duty: Ghost, will launch later this year on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and “next generation platforms.” The latest Call of Duty game is being developed by Infinity Ward, the studio behind the original Call of Duty and the critically acclaimed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series. Activision’s first-person shooter has consistently shattered game sale records year after year and its latest installment is expected to continue this trend. Call of Duty: Ghost is scheduled to be released on November 5th. Starting today, fans can pre-order the game at retail stores. Activision’s press release follows below.

Continue reading…

Xeround is shutting down its free MySQL database service next week. An email went out May 1 alerting customers that they should move their database instance to another service before midnight eastern time May 8 to avoid downtime.

The two paid versions of the MySQL service — which runs on Amazon Web Services; Rackspace, AppFog, Heroku and HP Cloud — were not mentioned in the email.

Cloud vendors who came with an array of free or near-free services on a variety of clouds now appear to be narrowing their focus. AppFog said it was doing just that last week when it said it was dropping Rackspace from its stable of supported clouds.

Xeround could not be reached for comment but rivals are circling — ClearDB and Cloudant posting tweets to woo Xeround users.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Migrating media applications to the private cloud: best practices for businesses
• Cloud computing infrastructure: 2012 and beyond
• Public, private or hybrid? How to move to the cloud

As can be seen in the above graphic, Jelly Bean continues its growth, which is nowhere near last month’s increase of 8.5%.  Unfortunately, the numbers still aren’t at a point where Google (and Android customers) should be satisfied.  Of course the Jelly Bean numbers will naturally rise as newer phones are released and older phones become discontinued, but we would like to see this happening at a much higher rate— this starts with the manufacturers.

They need to start developing their skins/bloatware for updates more efficiently, or getting rid of it altogether. (Which would make a lot of us pretty happy.)  Stock Android with unlocked bootloaders for all phones is still somewhere in fantasyland, but hopefully the imminent release of Android 4.3 (or 5.0) will make OS-integration simpler.  

Some great news for the oft-forgotten Droid Bionic this month— Motorola finally dished out their Jelly Bean update to the phone, causing Bionic owners to rejoice everywhere! (Probably making up the majority of the 3.4% increase…)

Here are this month’s numbers:

• 1.6 Donut: 0.1%
• 2.1 Eclair:  1.7%
• 2.2 Froyo: 3.7%
• 2.3 Gingerbread: 38.5%
• 3.2 Honeycomb: 0.1%
• 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: 27.5%
• 4.1 and 4.2 Jelly Bean: 28.4%

Devices with Gingerbread slowly continue to go down, and devices with Jelly Bean saw a solid 3.4% increase in the past month.  We’ll update you guys next month with Google’s next release of distribution statistics.

Source: Android Developers

Come comment on this article: Latest Android Distribution Reveals Gingerbread Down 1.3% and Jelly Bean Up 3.4%

With hectic schedules, it can be hard to keep track of everything in your news feed. That’s why we created the TalkAndroid Daily Dose. This is where we recap the day’s hottest stories so you can get yourself up to speed in quick fashion. Happy reading!!

Reviews

Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review: The smartest smartphone ever

Apps

HTC ditching HTC Watch support in 6 countries on May 31

EA Brings iOS Hit Monopoly Hotels to Google Play, Lowers Price of Need For Speed: Most Wanted to $0.99

T-Mobile offers MLB.com At Bat 2013 for free through June 30th

Ingress players level 2 and up begin receiving extra invitation codes

Cameras

Samsung quietly working on the EK-GN120, a Galaxy Camera that’s also identified as a mobile phone

Carriers

AT&T bumping up LTE coverage in 9 regions, adding 17 new regions

T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger is complete, new company now known as T-Mobile US

Google

Google I/O 2013 full schedule released

Google Glass

Bulletproof is a 3rd Party Application That Brings A Much-Needed Lockscreen to Google Glass

Phones

HTC M4 looks like a smaller HTC One with mid-range specs

Motorola XT1055 shows up in benchmarks with Snapdragon 600

AT&T and LG make the Optimus G Pro official, pre-orders start May 3

Hands on with the AT&T Optimus G Pro smartphone

Samsung Galaxy S 4 bootloader unlock picks up steam with latest hack

Samsung Galaxy Note III rumored to have octa-core processor, octa-core GPU, and 3GB of RAM

More details emerge for Sony’s ‘Honami’ handset, includes Snapdragon 800 and 20MP Cybershot G lens

T-Mobile Sony Xperia Z with LTE passes through FCC

Tablets

HP SlateBook 10 X2 leaks, packs Jelly Bean and NVIDIA Tegra 4

Updates

Latest Android Distribution Reveals Gingerbread Down 1.3% and Jelly Bean Up 3.4%

Miscellaneous

Android tablets pull ahead in Q1 2013, running on 56.5% of all tablets shipped

Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid Daily Dose for May 1, 2013