Category: News

The Street has called for Apple (AAPL) to launch a low-end iPhone that will help it attack emerging markets, but it also continues to panic over what might happen to the company’s margins once the new phone launches. Barclays Capital is the latest firm to revive the Apple margin conversation and it lowered its price target on Apple shares to $530 from $575 in the process. In a recent note picked up by ValueWalk on Thursday, Barclays analysts argue that Apple must somehow prove to investors that margins will not dip below 35%.

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Facebook unveiled a new News Feed design today that places more of an emphasis on the things users care about. Before the unveiling, there were rumors that the design would feature separate feeds for things like music, images and more. That turned out to be true as each separate feed will get its own place in the News Feed.

When the News Feed goes live, users will see the News Feed appear in the top right corner of the screen. All of the feeds will be organized based upon how much a user utilizes them with the most used feeds appearing near the top.

So, what kind of feeds can we expect to see? The first is the “All Friends Feed” that lists every post from every friend in chronological order. As rumored, Facebook will provide a redesigned “Music Feed” and “Photo Feed” as well. The “Music Feed” will show what musicians are posting alongside what friends are listening to. It also shows any albums that were recently released alongside any nearby concerts from bands that you’re following. The “Photo Feed” is more self-explanatory in that it features every photo posted by friends and family in chronological order.

Outside of those feeds, the other feeds get a bit more interesting. The first of these more unique feeds is the “Following Feed” that lists all the posts from the brands, pages and public figures you follow in chronological order. Facebook was sure to emphasize that those on this feed will see every post made by pages they follow. It seems to suggest that promoted posts won’t have an effect here, and brands concerned over users not seeing their content will have a safe haven here.

The other feeds include the “Best Friends Feed” and “Games Feed” which are pretty self-explanatory. The former collects all the posts from those designated as best friends, and the games feed will display every game that your friends are playing.

Last but not least, the “Most Recent” feed isn’t going anywhere. This will collect all of the posts from friends and pages in chronological order.

Some desktop users will begin seeing the new News Feed on Facebook starting today as Facebook is rolling out in a limited fashion. Mobile users will see it show up in the coming weeks.

Update: AT&T’s blog post about the Jelly Bean update is live again and HTC One X owners should get the update starting today, March 7th.

AT&T’s HTC One X was released in May 2012 and users have been waiting for an update to Jelly Bean ever since. Now, thanks to a post on the AT&T Consumer Blog, an update is coming very soon. However, it appears that someone may have jumped the gun as the blog post no longer exists. Thanks to Google, a cached version exists which says the HTC One X will start receiving 4.1 Jelly Bean on March 7th. Users will also get access to the following features:

• AT&T Locker – Allows you to automatically store photos, videos and documents securely in the cloud, so you can access and share from your smartphone or computer.
• AT&T DriveMode®  – Helps curb texting and driving.  The app can be set-up to automatically send a customizable reply to incoming messages once a vehicle starts moving 25 mph. The auto-reply message is similar to an “out-of-office alert” and can reply to texts, emails and wireless callers letting your friends know that you are driving and unable to respond.*
• AT&T Messages – Displays all your texts, calls, and voicemail messages together in a single inbox, easily accessible from your computer, tablet, or mobile phone.

We’re guessing the update may have been slightly delayed which is why the post was pulled. Either way, AT&T HTC One X owners should expect an update to Jelly Bean any day now and if you do own the One X, let us know in the comments if you’ve received the update yet or not.

Source: AT&T Consumer Blog (Cached version)

Come comment on this article: AT&T Hints At HTC One X Finally Receiving Jelly Bean [Update Is Now Live]

Today, at Facebook’s big new news feed event, Facebook unveiled a brand new news feed. And it’s all about photos and other visuals that makes for a much more media-rich experience.

“Our mission is to make the world more open and connected,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the “news feed is one of the most important services that we build.”

“Our goal…is give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper.” Zuckerberg went on to say that it it should have a “broad diversity of content,” both globally and locally, and it should be “visually rich and engaging.”

Facebook says that the news feed is almost 50% photos and other visual content. And page posts is nearly 25%. “News feed needs to reflect this evolving face,” said Zuckerberg

First off, Facebook is putting photos front and center on the news feed. Albums also get a facelift, with better placement.

Articles posted in the news feed also sport bigger photos, more text description, and organizational logos that show you where the article is coming from.

Timeline snippets now appear inside the news feed when people friend someone or when people like pages.

Places snippets, as well.

Also, more prominence for third-party content like Pinterest. It’s also more photo-oriented.

When friends share a video, it’s now shown much bigger in the news feed. Friends who have shared it appear on the left, complete with profile photos. You can hover over these friends to find out more information.

“We’ve completely rebuilt each story to be much more vibrant and colorful and highlight the content that your friends are sharing. Photos, news articles, maps and events all look brighter and more beautiful,” says Facebook.

Like we expected, Facebook also unveiled new content-specific feeds: All Friends, Photos, Music, and Following (which will show you all the content from the pages you like and the people you “follow”).

The new desktop news feed experience will be very close to what you’ll get on mobile.

“With the new design, now Facebook has the same look and feel on mobile, tablet and web. For example, the left-hand menu is accessible anywhere you go on Facebook. You also have a way to jump right to the top of News Feed whenever new stories come in,” says Facebook.

So, Facebook wants a consistent experience and have borrowed elements from mobile to implement on desktop and vice versa.

The new news feed (desktop version) will begin to roll out slowly starting today.

Developing…

Another day, another decision in the ongoing patent war between Apple and Samsung. This time around, Samsung took Apple to court on the grounds that Apple’s way of processing and transmitting data on 3G networks violated three of Samsung’s patents in the UK. The English court ruled in favor of Apple, ruling that Samsung’s three claims against apple were all invalid resulting in the charges against Apple to be dropped. These patent wars have been going on since 2011 and show no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Source: Reuters

Come comment on this article: Samsung loses patent case in UK, Apple clear of 3G network patent violations

Matrix Partners, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture firm, has brought aboard a new general partner. Jared Fliesler joins the firm from the privately held payments company Square, where he served as VP of user acquisition and business operations. Prior to Square, Fliesler was an executive with Slide and is credited with helping to negotiate the company’s $200 million sale to Google in 2010.

PRESS RELEASE:

Matrix Partners, a premier venture capital firm with a 30-year history, today announced that Jared Fliesler has joined Matrix as a general partner. He will be based in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. Fliesler comes to Matrix from Square, where he served as Vice President of User Acquisition and Business Operations. Prior to Square he held senior positions at Google and Slide.

“Jared thrives on resolving complex issues unique to emerging tech companies. He’s an expert at helping small teams scale, navigating through product changes and implementing creative marketing techniques,” said Dana Stalder, Matrix general partner. “And it is his ability to cultivate strong relationships with founders that makes him such a strong fit for Matrix and an asset to our portfolio companies.”

Fliesler, 28, comes to Matrix after helping grow Square’s payment processing business from $2 billion annualized to more than $10 billion and the number of activated accounts from 800,000 to more than 3 million. Under his leadership, Fliesler’s teams scaled retail availability from a few hundred locations to nearly 40,000, optimized risk metrics to the best in the company’s history, and successfully executed on a number of key partnerships.

Prior to Square, Fliesler was an early employee at Slide, where he focused on growing both its footprint and revenue. After Google’s acquisition of Slide in 2010, Fliesler went on to run product and operations for the Slide group within Google. There he was responsible for crafting the product strategy with a focus on mobile and social products, ultimately leading to the successful launch of PhotoVine.

“Only an incredible opportunity could get me to leave Square, and that’s what I found at Matrix,” said Fliesler. “I want to have the biggest possible impact and I can do that best by working closely with entrepreneurs to solve their most pressing problems at the whiteboard. Matrix not only values but expects this type of active partnership; it’s not a firm that simply writes a check and walks away.”

At Matrix, Fliesler will focus primarily on early-stage companies across a broad number of areas. He will also assist companies across the portfolio with their growth and product strategies.

To learn more please read the Matrix blog post here.

About Matrix Partners:
Matrix Partners is a premier venture capital firm that has generated outstanding returns for more than three decades. By focusing on early-stage investments and emphasizing long-term relationships with entrepreneurs, the firm has delivered several of the industry’s top performing funds of all time. Matrix Partners has offices in Cambridge and Waltham, MA; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Mumbai, India; and Beijing and Shanghai, China. Matrix Partners has invested in several game-changing, industry-leading businesses such as Apple Computer, Aruba, HubSpot, JBoss, Netezza, Phone.com, Polyvore, Starent Networks, Tivoli Systems, Veritas, Zendesk, and Zong.

The post Square’s Jared Fliesler Joins Matrix Partners as General Partner appeared first on peHUB.

“We have a lot of data, but we have no idea what we should do with it.” The director of the foundation looked plaintively across the table at me. “We were thinking of having a hackathon, or maybe running an app competition,” he smiled. His co-workers nodded eagerly. I shuddered.

I have this conversation about once a week. Awash in data, an organization — be it a healthcare nonprofit, a government agency, or a tech company — desperately wants to capitalize on the insights that the “Big Data” hype has promised them. Increasingly, they are turning to hackathons — weekend events where coders, data geeks, and designers conspire to build software solutions in just 48 hours — to get new ideas and fill their capacity gap. There’s a lot to be said for hackathons: They give the technology community great social opportunities and reward them with money and fame for their solutions, and companies get free access to a community of diligent experts they otherwise wouldn’t know how to reach. For all of these upsides, however, hackathons are not ideal for solving big problems like reducing poverty, reforming politics, or improving education and, when they’re used to interpret data for social impact, they can be downright dangerous.

At DataKind we run “DataDives”, weekend events that team nonprofits with pro bono data scientists to solve tough social problems. They are not easy to get right. Data events like these require special requirements beyond your average hackathon. You need to have a clear problem definition, include people who understand the data not just data analysis, and be deeply sensitive with the data you’re analyzing.

Any data scientist worth their salary will tell you that you should start with a question, NOT the data. Unfortunately, data hackathons often lack clear problem definitions. Most companies think that if you can just get hackers, pizza, and data together in a room, magic will happen. This is the same as if Habitat for Humanity gathered its volunteers around a pile of wood and said, “Have at it!” By the end of the day you’d be left with a half of a sunroom with 14 outlets in it.

Without subject matter experts available to articulate problems in advance, you get results like those from the Reinvent Green Hackathon. Reinvent Green was a city initiative in NYC aimed at having technologists improve sustainability in New York. Winners of this hackathon included an app to help cyclists “bikepool” together and a farmer’s market inventory app. These apps are great on their own, but they don’t solve the city’s sustainability problems. They solve the participants’ problems because as a young affluent hacker, my problem isn’t improving the city’s recycling programs, it’s finding kale on Saturdays.

To avoid this problem, organizations have to be willing to put time and effort into scoping problems with the technologists ahead of time. Reinvent Green could have invited recycling managers, urban planners, or other experts to converse with the hackers before the event. Organizations also need to be willing to get down-and-dirty with the data geeks during the weekend. It’s not enough to just throw the data over the wall and hope for the best.

Subject matter experts are doubly needed to assess the results of the work, especially when you’re dealing with sensitive data about human behavior. As data scientists, we are well equipped to explain the “what” of data, but rarely should we touch the question of “why” on matters we are not experts in. Take for example a finding from the data team at Uber that prostitution arrests increased on Wednesdays based on Oakland Crime Data. One hypothesis for the uptick was that welfare checks are distributed on Wednesdays, meaning more welfare recipients had money to spend on prostitution. Wild, right? However, one commenter on Uber’s site who had worked with the Oakland Police Department pointed out that prostitution arrests occur on quieter nights, so maybe there weren’t more prostitution incidents on Wednesdays, just more prostitution arrests. If experts in the data — like arresting police officers — had been involved, this would have been apparent.

Statisticians have long known that data analysis helps us understand our world, but never fully explains it. George Box famously said “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” What this means is that we must be vigilant in communicating that, while all of this new big data will give us new and wonderful insights into our world, no single result should stand as the ultimate truth.

Take, for example, a project the Grameen Foundation brought to a DataKind event. The Community Knowledge Worker program employs Ugandan workers to provide rural farmers with timely agricultural information via cellphone. Grameen wanted to use the mobile data to evaluate which of their workers in Uganda were “good” and which were “bad”. If you only look at the number of times a worker gives someone information, a certain set of people are identified as good performers. If you instead look at the number of farmers a worker gives information to, a very different set is seen as effective. Which metric is right? Well, both of them. And neither of them. They are merely different perspectives on the same data. Together they form a richer picture of the world for Grameen Foundation, but neither should be considered “right”.

We live in exciting and promising times. The flood of data we are collecting will yield new and earth-changing insights, some of which will be made by enthusiastic volunteers at hackathons. Let’s lay the foundation for their success by bringing together world-class teams to ask the right questions, collaborating on the best interpretations of the data, and striving, always, to be sensitive. Data isn’t just a spreadsheet or a database: It’s us. It’s the people we care about. It’s our world. Let’s not just hack it.

Please join the conversation and check back for regular updates. Follow the Scaling Social Impact insight center on Twitter @ScalingSocial and register to stay informed and give us feedback.

Now that it’s spent some time trying to navigate the gap between churning out PC accessories and actual, honest-to-goodness gaming computers, the folks at Razer have seen fit to look for some experts for guidance. To that end, Razer announced earlier today that it has appointed entrepreneur and former VoodooPC founder Rahul Sood to serve as advisor to the company’s board of directors.

While Sood’s recent turns as GM of Microsoft’s Bing Fund angel fund/incubator and as head of Microsoft’s new global startups group have a strictly entrepreneurial bent, he’s no stranger to the sorts of issues that Razer (and CEO Min-Liang Tan) are facing. If anything, he seems like a natural fit for the role given his own experience crafting a business out of game-centric hardware — his first venture, VoodooPC, operated as a high-end gaming PC boutique of sorts before being acquired by HP in mid-2006.

His recent endeavors have taken him away from his roots as a champion of PC gaming performance, but Sood still seems to look at the PC gaming space with some degree of fondness. In a statement released by Razer earlier today, Sood noted that he saw the company as “the spiritual successor to [his] previous work at VoodooPC,” a sentiment he first expressed publicly after spending some time with Razer’s pricey Blade gaming laptop last year.

Frankly, Razer could use a bit of guidance. After carving out a name for itself as a proprietor of popular gaming mice and keyboards, it’s relatively newfound zeal for peculiar computers took some by surprise. While the Blade gaming laptop soon gained a rabid following for its no-compromise approach to gaming portables, the company is now looking to make another splash with its Razer Edge gaming tablet. Tablets and high-end gaming are two things that have arguably never gone well together, and Sood’s experience bringing these sorts of enthusiast devices to market could be a big boon for Razer.

 

Team Rovio is at it again bringing the world yet another cool and catchy title called The Croods for the masses to become immersed in. The game is based off of Dreamworks’ animated film and has players playing as Grug who will try to hunt and gather resources for his family. Set in a fantasy world, Grug will need to find and make the various wild animals his own in order to grow the world. The premise of the game is fairly straightforward, but it quickly becomes complicated when Grug has to encounter a variety of creatures and deal with in-laws that are just as much of a threat as the wild animals.

The game is due out next week, but while you wait to get in on the gameplay, feel free to check out the trailer below to get a better feel of the game.

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Come comment on this article: Rovio launching The Croods in the Play Store on March 14th

Ed. note: This is cross-posted from The Commerce Blog

Yesterday, I was in California to talk with business executives who are part of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. We discussed key issues facing them as they continue to grow, create jobs, and drive both innovation and competitiveness here in the U.S.

They just completed an annual survey of their own membership. The biggest business challenge that they identified was their ability to attract and retain a skilled workforce.

I let them know that President Obama understands that we are in a global competition for talent and we want the best people right here in the U.S.

I gave two examples that are part of his commonsense plan for immigration reform:

First, many foreign graduate students come to the U.S. and study areas like science, technology, engineering and mathematics—STEM fields—at our universities. Upon graduation, we can't afford to lose those high-skilled workers to a competitor nation simply because they can't get a green card. That's why we need to "staple" a green card to their degrees, especially if there is a U.S. company that needs their particular knowledge or expertise to keep growing and creating more American jobs.

read more

The Associated Press is reporting that a giant wave hit two tourists on a beach in Cabo San Lucas, dragging them out to sea and killing one of them.

A 65-year-old woman was killed by the freak wave, while a 70-year-old man is now in serious condition. The wave struck near the famous El Arco natural arch at the resort community, located at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.

The AP report quotes state police as saying the man and woman were walking along the beach to their hotel when the incident occurred. The Navy was dispatched to recuse them, but the woman later died.

Officials have not released the names of either of the victims, though authorities told the AP that the woman was carrying a driver’s license from Wisconsin, while the man was carrying one from Nebraska.

Cabo San Lucas is a popular tourist destination for its beaches. Tourists and cruise ships come to the beach resorts there to scuba dive, watch the abundant marine life, and surf the waves.

Ever wondered whether AC or DC hurts more? Thankfully, this guy decided to do the legwork so you don’t have to. Unless you really want to – but I can’t condone that. Ok, fine. Go lick a battery you masochist. That’s all I can suggest.

[Mehdi Sadaghdar]

If Michael Dell and his cohorts at Silverlake Partners thought their $24 billion buyout plan for Dell announced a month ago would be a slam dunk, they have another think coming.

Several other interested parties have surfaced, including billionaire Carl Icahn, and when Icahn gets involved things definitely get more complicated. In a letter to Dell’s board Icahn said the existing offer substantially undervalues Dell’s worth.  Icahn put forward his own suggestion that  the company remain public and issue a $9 per share special dividend, as reported in Bloomberg. Blackstone Group LP has also reportedly expressed interest in Dell.

If Dell’s board does not agree to his proposal, Icahn vowed “years of litigation.”  He is not the only disgruntled shareholder. Southeastern Asset Management, which owns about 8.4 percent of Dell shares, maintains that the “take-private” price of $13.65 per share is not enough and reiterated its “demand that the Board of Directors pursue proposals that are more favorable to shareholders,” according to a note from Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um. As of Thursday Dell shares were trading at $14.27, well above the offer price.

DELL data by YCharts

Dell hardware rivals Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo have also taken an interest in Dell, although whether they’re doing so more to get a chance to gather competitive intelligence from Dell’s books or if they’re genuinely interested in an offer is a huge question. The thought of HP buying Dell after its recent travails is mind boggling, but then again it’s done a lot of mind-boggling things over the past few years.

One former Dell executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, has been critical of the buyout from day one. In his view, this deal was done solely to benefit the new owners at the expense of shareholders. “The management team will trim the fat and resell [what’s left] in a better operating margin scenario … Dell is playing out the buy low, sell high scheme,” he noted. However, he also maintained that the risk is high for the buyers. Things are changing fast, and the market may be cleverer than they are, he added.

It is somewhat astonishing that Dell, once the world’s largest PC company, finds itself in these straits. But then again, legacy players from the last IT era — HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM — are all in the same boat. The technology world has shifted under their feet to a world of low-priced scale-out hardware and open source software with substantially lower margins. The advent, first of virtualization and then cloud computing, means that individual companies no longer have to buy nearly as much hardware gear as they used to and  it’s by no means clear that all of these legacy powers will survive, let alone prosper.

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

• IT spending update, third quarter 2012
• New challenges for the IT organization
• The future of notebooks: Following in the footsteps of the MacBook Air

 

Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z tablet is making its way to Japan and will be available Friday, March 22nd. Pre-orders start March 9th and consumers can expect a cost around 85,470 Yen or $906 US for the LTE version. The WiFi-only version won’t go on sale in Japan until April 13th with pricing expected to be around 60,000 Yen or $652 US. Here are the specs in case you’ve forgotten:

• 10.1 inch 1920×1200 shatter proof and scratch-resistant display (224 ppi)
• 6.9 mm thin and water resistant up to one meter for 30 minutes
• 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 quad-core processor
• 2GB RAM and Adreno 320 GPU
• 32GB internal storage with microSD card support
• 8 megapixel rear-facing camera
• 2.2 megapixel front-facing camera with 1080p video support
• Available with LTE or WiFi-only
• Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
• 6,000 mAh battery

Source: Xperia Blog

Come comment on this article: Sony Xperia Tablet Z With LTE Hits Japan March 22nd

My joy at receiving Nexus 7 32GB HSPA as a day-after-Christmas present turned to deep disappointment just two weeks later. Google replaced the device, and a second runs down the battery in about 15 hours, whether sitting idle or actively used. Near as I can tell, and others share my problem, Android 4.2 is root problem. My woes with the replacement tablet started with the point-two update, while others suffering similar misery report troubles with 4.2.1. Google really needs to fix this problem. Fast.

I wasted many hours troubleshooting. The prescribed fix is restore and reset, which I’ve done about a half-dozen times. No change. Perhaps the cellular radio drains the battery fast. I removed the SIM. No change. Maybe one of my apps keeps Nexus 7 from going idle. I restored and set up with my wife’s Google account. No change. The battery app consistently lists the “screen” as top consumer, which suggests something prevents the tablet from going idle. Last night, I charged up. Nine hours and thirty-minutes later, there is 45 percent charge. At that rate, I’ll set a new record: 16 — maybe even 17 — hours to zero. What a lucky day this is.

Battery Drains When Off

My story starts with the returned tablet, which developed problems almost immediately after updating to Android 4.2.1. I observed unusually high battery drain when idle, considerably more than the 8GB tablet reviewed last summer. I got such good life, I didn’t think about it. Definitely days. Stated standby in Google product marketing is 300 hours, 8 hours used. I easily got as good or better.

I never found out how much with the first 32 gigger, because the tablet got so little screen time before dying. Being busy the week after Christmas, I let Nexus 7 sit idle for three or four days, only to find the screen dark when looking to use it. My 8GB model never burned down the charge that fast. I plugged in, charged up and didn’t worry. This time, I turned off the device. Two days later, the tablet wouldn’t turn on. WTH? Plugging in revealed a dead battery. While off!

On January 11, I posted to Google+ asking if anyone knew if the 3G radio somehow remained on even when the device was off and explained: “The last two times I turned off the tablet after using. Both times, the second this morning, Nexus 7 wouldn’t turn on. Black screen…all attempts to resuscitate my device have failed. I’m unhappy returning it; being new and not much used”.

I called Google Play customer support, which after hearing my problem and troubleshooting efforts, quickly processed a return. I received an email with link to order a new device at no charge, but got a $299 temporary authorization placed on my credit card (in case the defective unit wasn’t returned). The replacement arrived two days later, and I shipped back the old one. Battery life returned to being exceptional.

Replacement Tablet Troubled, Too

But that changed after updating to Android 4.2.2. which started rolling out to Nexus devices on February 11. On Sunday February 17, I asked on Google+ if any one else had problems with battery drain:

Yesterday, I awoke to find the tablet dark, about 18 hours after charging. Nexus 7 wouldn’t respond even after an hour on the socket. So I tried USB port on Surface Pro, which stirred some life. I later plugged into electrical and charged. This morning, I awoke to the battery drained again, well, nearly. Just 5 percent. This is highly abnormal. I did update to Android 4.2.2 either Thursday or Friday, I don’t recall which.

If you check the online forums, many posters warn never to let Nexus 7 run down the battery, because restarting the device can be rather difficult.

The failed troubleshooting started. Two days later, I lamented: “For my purposes, the device is ruined. Battery life is consistently 15 hours or less no matter how little or much used. Sitting idle, unused, battery burns down in 15 hours. Gone are days of stand-by time”.

While I had searched online for anyone else having problems, not until the weekend just passed did my efforts produce something enlightening and disappointing: Google Group discussion about Nexus 7 battery problems. The first post is November 18. Android 4.2 released five days earlier.

Nexus-shared Misery

Not only was I not alone, but other Google device owners had problems with Android 4.2 and 4.2.1, too. Some struggled with Galaxy Nexus as well. Muhammad Mulla posts about the 8GB Nexus 7:

I have found that after the Nexus 7 OTA update to Android 4.2, my battery is draining a lot more quickly. There is also a square shape appearing on the side of the unlock screen. The battery drain issue is the most concerning, however. Previously the screen would be the highest power consumer, as it should be. Now, since the 4.2 update, battery drain is showing as 51 percent for Android OS, Google services as 13 percent and the screen as 9 percent. I am finding time between charges to be much shorter with similar usage.

Strange, for me, screen time increased with discharging problems. He, like me, runs stock Android, unrooted. “I am having exactly the same issue, in fact mine is draining even when ‘sleeping’”, Paul Apted responds. “If I leave the Nexus in sleep mode at night, in the morning it has gone through 40 percent of the battery. On other forums a reset is suggested”.

That didn’t work for me, while other posters report success.

“After a factory reset my standby usage was better, but after about a week it went bad again (mostly ‘Android OS’)”, Joel Luth posts. Then he states what I also observed: “We’re chasing multiple causes for the standby battery drain. Some of us see Android OS as the big consumer, others Play, Maps, Google Services, whatever. What helps one person may not help others because they have a different root problem”.

December-vintage Devices

While different Nexus device users report similar battery-drain problems, there is little consistency what the device shows as the biggest consumer. Charge-to-zero times vary, as well. I should feel lucky. DionJL says his “tablet rubs through a full charge in under 11 hours with no use”.

On my replacement Nexus 7, battery doesn’t discharge when turned off. Helen Ochej reports same kind of problem I had with my first 32GB model, which is same purchase vintage as hers:

I’ve had my Nexus 7 since December 2012. I don’t use it every day, so I turn if off when I’m done with it. After several days of not using it, I find the battery totally discharged. The first time this happened, I recharged it, but had to reboot to get it to display. It just doesn’t seem to hold a charge very long when it is not used every day. I’m disappointed when I pick it up when I’m going out, only to find it totally dead.

There are plenty more posts like these, lots of troubleshooting stories and modest success. Poster mrsi reports battery problems after updating to Android 4.2 — resolved by what I consider drastic action: “If you go to settings -> apps -> swipe to show ALL -> then select ‘google play services’, you can hit DISABLE. This asked me whether I wanted to uninstall the updates to this app — I said yes. Viola. My Nexus 7 now lasts 72 hours again on standby”.

Evan Selinske “Got my Nexus tab on Xmas — worked great for two days while I ignored the prompts to update. After doing so, the battery drain was immediate and dramatic”. He observed Google Play services as “running constantly no matter what I did so I ignored all the dire warnings and disabled it. Result: After one day (it’s early, I know) all seems peachy. Except of course for the effing update in the first place”.

I haven’t tried that one yet.

Report from Google+

Last night I posted again to Google+ about my battery woes, asking who else might have them. Brian Fagioli has “battery drain on WiFi Nexus 7 since 4.2.2”. Kevin Gault is “running into the same battery drain on my GNex after going to 4.2.2. With so many having battery drain issues, I’m thinking it is more an issue with the OS than the hardware”.

At this point, I get about 5 percent of the standby time that Google marketing promises. That’s unacceptable. Nexus 7 is pretty much useless to me now. I can’t sell it for enough, not wanting to pass on the problem to someone else. I may see if Google Play will issue a refund. Whichever, something is not right here.

Last fall Motorola hinted that they were planning to start moving the interfaces for their devices to being closer to a stock Android experience. Owners of Motorola DROID RAZR and DROID RAZR MAXX devices will see the fruits of that change in strategy as Motorola starts to officially roll out their Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update. According to Motorola’s software upgrade page, several Motorola specific applications have been removed and replaced with stock Android apps.

The upgrade to Jelly Bean comes with the usual set of improvements like Google Now, Voice Search, a new keyboard, camera upgrades, and the latest Chrome Browser. The new twist though comes in the list of items not included in the update. Motorola has removed MOTOACTV, MOTOPRINT, Social Location, Verizon Video on Demand, Alarm and Timer. They specifically indicate that Alarm and Timer have been replaced by Google Clock. In a similar manner, Motorola’s My Gallery has been replaced with the standard Google Gallery app and the My Music app has been replaced by the Google Play Music app. Motorola’s change log also indicates fixes for several apps have been included, mainly to make them function a little quicker and sync more often.

Owners of the devices can wait for a notification message on their smartphone that the upgrade is ready to be installed and then follow the directions. If they do not want to wait, the update can be forced by going to Settings -> About phone -> System updates -> Download. Once upgraded, users cannot revert to Ice Cream Sandwich.

source: Motorola

Come comment on this article: Motorola DROID RAZR/DROID RAZR MAXX Jelly Bean 4.1.2 update gets closer to stock Android

Kakenya Ntaiya was engaged at 5-years-old, her family members regularly whispering in her ear, “Your husband just passed by.” This was the traditional path that unfolded before girls in the Maasai village in Kenya where Ntaiya grew up.

Kakenya Ntaiya: A girl who demanded school “In Maasai culture, the boys are brought up to be warriors, the girls are brought up to be mothers,” says Ntaiya in today’s incredible talk, given at TEDxMidAtlantic. “Everything I had to do from that moment was to prepare me to be the perfect woman by age 12.”

But Ntaiya had a different dream — to be a teacher. And so she offered her father a trade: she would go through with the traditional ceremony that marked her rite of passage into womanhood — which included clitoral circumcision — if he allowed her to go back to school and continue her education.

“The day before the ceremony, we were dancing, having excitement — we did not sleep,” says Ntaiya, remembering the week-long lead-up. But she also recalls the painful circumcision itself and the long healing process. “Three weeks later, I was healed and was back in high school. I was more determined to be a teacher now so that I could make a difference.”

Eventually, Ntaiya she got a scholarship to study at Randolph Macon College in the United States and convinced her village elders to allow her to go.

“My father is not the only father I have.  Everybody who is my dad’s age in the community is my father, by default, and they dictate what my future is,” she explains. “When the men heard that a woman had gotten an opportunity to go to school, they said, ‘This should have gone to a boy. We can’t do this.’”

Ntaiya has great reverence for her Masaai culture — she opens her talk saying, “You know what’s cool? I’m one of them.” To hear how she used her culture’s traditions to get the men of her village to support her education and how — upon returning to the village after graduate school — she was able to gain their support for founding a school for girls, listen to this powerful talk.

As she says, “I learned that ceremony I went through is called female genital mutilation. I learned that it was against the law in Kenya. I learned that I did not have to trade part of my body to get an education … As we speak right now, 125 girls will never be mutilated. 125 girls will not be married when they are 12-years-old. 125 girls are creating and achieving their dreams.”

Below, get to know more about Kakenya Ntaiya.

In addition to her work with The Kakenya Center for Excellence, Ntaiya is an emerging explorer with National Geographic. Here, a video she made explaining more about her motivation in founding her school for girls.

“When I started learning about the things I was in school, it really taught me that this should not be happening to young girls. These girls needed a place where they could be nurtured and a place where they could be told that marriage is not the end,” explains Ntaiya. “I have girls in my school right now — they have dreams of wanting to be pilots, they want to be doctors. They want to explore the world.”

Here, an essay Ntaiya wrote upon returning to Enoosaen, Kenya, to visit her family in 2008:

“I was so glad to be home after a two-year absence but my sense of relaxation was almost immediately replaced by a sense of desperation. The needs of the community are plainly overwhelming; lack of basic needs such as water, power, proper roads, proper education facilities, health care facilities—these are the first things you notice as you near my village. As I drove home on a dusty road, I could not help but wonder how strong my people are and how spoiled I have become living in America. Why did I even complain that there was dust on my nine-month-old son who was having fun watching the open road?” Read the full journal entry »

Here, Ntaiya’s journal entry, written after the groundbreaking event for The Kakenya Center for Excellence in 2008:

“I was very excited but also nervous. I was not sure if the community would turnout in big numbers for the event or if the only attendees would be from supporting women’s groups—Empiris group, the Kakenya Center for Excellence Committee and my friends from Vital Voices.

In preparation for the event, women from the village spent the whole night cooking: a bull was slaughtered and coupled with all of the other wonderful food that we have in Kenya. A film crew from America was busy shooting footage and other guests were beginning to arrive, traveling on rough roads for four hours to reach Enoosaen. I felt truly blessed to have such a group of supporters and friends. “Why worry about the ones who don’t want to come?” I consoled myself.

As you may have guessed, the turn out was unbelievable.” Read the full journal entry »

In 2010, here’s what Ntaiya wrote while raising money for a dormitory for the school:

“I remember my own first experience as a boarder at age fourteen when the doors of education were opened to me. For the first time, I had my own bed with a mattress, bed sheets and a blanket. I even owned my very own towel! As is the case with our girls, I had always shared a bed with my sisters and we used a cow skin as a mattress. We shared the blanket and we never had bed sheets. So, I was completely thrilled to have my own little bed and sheets and towels. You can imagine that our girls will be just that happy to have their own belongings too!” Read the full journal entry »

And here is what she wrote after receiving a grant to help finish the dormitory in 2010:

“When I received the call from Aaron that ‘Kakenya’ had won an award, I could not believe it. I was stunned speechless. When he went on to tell me that the award came with $25,000 that Vital Voices was going to donate to the school, I was overjoyed. The money would make a huge impact on our girls.

We had started building the dormitory, but we were $40,000 short, and Phase 1 must be completed by the first week in January. If construction was not finished, I worried that we would need to choose between not admitting the next group of girls and admitting them without housing. Just as bad would be having to send the 63 girls we currently house in an unused classroom—the one we need for the new students in January—back to their homes at the end of every day. We would no longer be a boarding school in a safe, sheltering environment. Most girls would need to walk long distances—up to 5 miles each way—and would be subjected to the dangers of animal and human predators, And for the 63 girls, the necessity of moving off campus would demoralize them. Although they have been sleeping two to a bed, they have been happy, self-confident girls with a growing sense of academic excellence and a higher self-esteem. Walking would necessitate lengthy chores at home and greatly diminished time for homework, along with the complete loss of extra-curricular activities on which our school prides itself.

The award has renewed hope.”  Read this full journal entry »

And here, watch 7 more inspiring TED Talks from people who went to great lengths to get, and give, an education »

Over the past four years, TV makers have shipped about a billion television sets. If you combined them, that would be equivalent to a single TV set with a 330-million-square-meter screen, according to IHS, a market research company. That is about the same size as the country of Norway. Of course, no one knows what screen size those sets have, but it’s still a fun (if unscientific) stat. As for me, I am about to move and so I am getting rid of all the screens in my house except for four: MacBook Pro (Retina), iPad (Original), Kindle Paperwhite and iPhone5. Everything else is going to eBay.

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