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Over the weekend, Coffee County, Tennessee Commissioner Barry West posted a photo on his public Facebook profile that has many in the area and across the country up in arms (no pun intended).

The image, which is being called a “hate filled post targeted at Muslims,” features an older man in a cowboy hat aiming down the sights of a long-barreled shotgun. “HOW TO WINK AT A MUSLIM,” says the caption. Here’s a screencap of the post, courtesy of The Daily Dot. West has since deleted the post:

West says that he didn’t actually create the image, but he did share it. He also said that it was meant to be humorous.

“Why am I being singled out?” he asked.

“I’m prejudiced against anyone who’s trying to tear down this country, Muslims, Mexicans, anybody,” he told The Tullahoma News. “If you come into this country illegally or harm us or take away benefits, I’m against it”

“I just showed it to somebody else,” he continued. “If you’re going to harm this country, I’m not in favor of you…I don’t appreciate people trying to tear down this country.”

Concerned with a recent string of anti-Muslim acts in Middle Tennessee, The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro had this to say:

“This does not only incite hatred but also violence against law-abiding citizens of our great country. Mr. West obviously lacks in wisdom and judgment and, therefore, cannot be trusted as commissioner. I wonder what would Mr. West’s response would be if the same photo was posted by someone with a caption that says: ‘How to Wink at Mr. West, a Coffee County Commissioner?’”

West is also drawing criticism from groups on Facebook, like the Christian Left.

“Coffee County, TN Commissioner Barry West (D) posted this on his facebook page on Saturday. This is a hate filled post targeted at Muslims and is not acceptable from anyone, let alone someone holding a public office!
Tell Commissioner Barry West this is NOT acceptable and that he needs to apologize to the Muslim community immediately,” they say in a post.

Coffee County Mayor David Pennington has released a statement distancing himself from West:

“As the Mayor of Coffee County I apologize to the Muslim people. I have no control over what the commissioners do outside of public meetings. I personally wouldn’t have done it, I have a great relationship with the Muslim community.”

Three people die every minute from tuberculosis — a treatable and largely preventable disease. Resistant forms continue to thrive, and increased travel makes the global threat very real. We face a public health emergency.

Without adequate financing, ministries of health and even private hospitals in developing countries often don’t have the resources needed to purchase diagnostic equipment, train workers, and ensure access to appropriate treatment. These obstacles make it difficult to track or report disease rates and also to purchase medications in sufficient quantity to create economies of scale.

What can the health care industry do to help fight disease, while still maintaining its commitments to shareholders?

While currently crippled by inadequate infrastructure in many countries, low- and middle-income countries will be the fastest-growing markets for pharmaceuticals and medical devices over the next decade. We at Beckton, Dickinson saw the opportunity to marry public health and business objectives through our Global Health Initiative, which we established to find sustainable ways to fortify over-burdened and under-resourced health care systems in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our teams work in partnership to provide technical assistance and training to expand lab workers’ skills, secure pricing agreements to increase access to our products, and design medical technologies appropriate for resource-limited settings.

Fast and accurate diagnosis is essential in effectively treating a TB patient and preventing the further spread of the disease. Unfortunately, in sub-Saharan Africa, many labs use outdated diagnostic equipment, and the public health systems lack the infrastructure needed to ensure that patient specimens are properly transported and analyzed. Addressing systemic problems requires long-term commitment and cross-sector collaboration; a partial solution, such as donating equipment, is useless if workers are unable to use it or patients don’t receive their diagnoses.

Our vision is to establish sustainable health care systems that offer high-quality care using high-quality products, whether from BD or someone else. Our motives are both idealistic and realistic: We want to improve the standards and quality of health care in areas of the world afflicted with the greatest burden of disease, and we also expect to benefit from early experience in a nascent market. That is, we are after real shared value.

In partnership with the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Centers for Disease Control, we designed a platform to invest in the labs for TB and HIV in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Mozambique (and eventually in other high-growth markets like India).

Public-private partnerships are not new to corporate social responsibility, but we believe the breadth and scale of our lab-strengthening partnership are rare. Through the many challenges we’ve faced along the way, we’ve gained some insights that we hope will serve us and others as we continue to try to transform health care systems in Africa, India, and beyond:

• Set and measure ambitious goals — together. In a large, multi-country, multi-organization partnership, it’s critical that all parties be equally invested in its high-level goals, not just rhetorically, or even philosophically, but because they each really have something equally ambitious to gain. Seeking to “improve the quality of laboratory diagnostics critical for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and TB,” certainly aligns with the missions of the CDC and local ministries of health to dramatically improve the quality of care in developing nations. But it also aligns with BD’s goal of improving our knowledge of developing markets and our understanding of specific customer challenges, so that we can adapt or develop new technologies appropriate for these diverse settings and then bring these technologies to market.
• Redefine ROI. Rarely do public-private partnerships result in increased short-term sales, and if you measure ROI that way, your initiative will be doomed. A wiser approach recognizes benefits like improved reputation, strengthened customer relationships, and a deeper appreciation for an emerging market. While we cannot make a causal link from the initiative to BD’s bottom line, we do see our business growing successfully in the markets where we’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with partners, and can credit these collaborations as a catalyst that has enabled our company to develop its business in these challenging yet high-potential markets.
• Learn in order to teach. Partnerships are rarely straightforward, and determining underlying needs for program beneficiaries is often part of the process. To improve national TB programs, for example, we needed to improve not only the labs but also the tracking process of TB specimens from the patient to the lab, and we needed to learn how. To do so, we enlisted one of our NGO partners to teach our IT team how to use geographic information systems (GIS). We then, in turn, trained local lab workers, who then trained others.
• Make a multi-year commitment. After five years, BD, PEPFAR, and our local partners have made significant progress. But we are a long way from conquering TB or transforming these markets into sustained customers. That said, we hope that in the next five years through our continued collaboration, we’ll be able to show continued improvements in labs around the world.

Today’s health care marketplace calls for global problem solvers, not just products, and that is something we should all strive for — together.

Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, today announced that the merger of T-Mobile and MetroPCS Communications is complete. The two companies will now be known under the name T-Mobile US, and stock in the company has begun trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TMUS.

The new T-Mobile US board of directors will have 11 members, which will include two board members from MetroPCS. Tim Höttges, the CFO of Deutsche Telekom, will be the board’s chairman.

“The combination of T-Mobile and MetroPCS creates an even stronger disruptive force in the U.S. wireless market,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile US. “Together, as America’s ‘Un-carrier’, we’ll continue our legacy of marketplace innovation by tearing up the old playbook and rewriting the rules of wireless to benefit consumers.”

The newly rebranded carrier is still the fourth-largest carrier in the U.S. but now has 43 million subscribers, putting it closer to Sprint Nextel’s subscriber numbers. T-Mobile estimates that the companies’ combined 2012 financial results would have reflected $24.8 billion in revenue.

“By uniting T-Mobile and MetroPCS, we have created a dynamic new player in the wireless industry that has the right strategy and management team in place to compete successfully in today’s marketplace,” said Höttges. “We look forward to realizing the tremendous potential of the new T-Mobile.”

It’s spring time so it must mean another edition of the Galaxy S line. The Galaxy S 4 was introduced with some pomp and circumstance last month at Radio City Music Hall. The event itself didn’t get a lot of praise, but the fact that the design of the GS4 didn’t change all that much from last year’s Galaxy S III left some people even more disappointed. Samsung didn’t hold much back in terms of specs, but the GS4 has zero to do with that. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the quality of the build. It’s the software features. Samsung started promoting software features with the Galaxy S III, and they turned up the dial even more this year. The Galaxy S III proved to be the most successful Android phone ever, and Samsung has even bigger plans for the Galaxy S 4. Does it live up to the hype? Well skip on past the break to find out.

Design

When the Galaxy S 4 was introduced, I started hearing rumblings that Samsung pulled an Apple, which means the Galaxy S 4 is nothing more than a Galaxy S III S, as in the iPhone 3S and 4S. Those versions of the iPhone were minor spec bumps with minimal changes to the phone itself. Don’t be fooled folks, the Galaxy S 4 is nothing like that. Yes the phone looks the same as last year’s model, but it’s a lot thinner (7.9mm vs 8.6mm) and it has a better and larger display (5-inches 1080p vs 4.8-inches 720p). Apple used the same exact design as the previous years in their 3S and 4S versions. On top of all this, the GS4 brings an upgraded processor, rear camera, and battery. The Galaxy S 4 might not offer much more than other current flagship phones in terms of pure hardware, but it’s far from a minor spec bump when comparing it to the Galaxy S III.

As I mentioned, the Galaxy S 4 looks very much like the Galaxy S III, which means it has an all plastic body. Quality of materials is where Samsung gets hammered by the critics, including myself, but if you look at Samsung’s sales, they have proven that the average consumer isn’t concerned with that. Samsung believes that consumers want light and durable phones and that’s what they give them. This is probably the only area in which Samsung hasn’t copied Apple, and for whatever reason, it has worked out for them. Samsung still implemented some minor changes in the overall look like a cross-stitched pattern on the back battery cover and front face of the phone. You will also find the edges to be straighter, which gives you a better grip. The phone is thinner, but it’s also narrower (2.75-inches vs 2.78-inches) and weighs less (4.6oz vs 4.7oz) than the Galaxy S III. It’s hard to believe that the GS4 is smaller and lighter than the GSIII when you consider the GS4 display is larger, but it’s very subtle. You wouldn’t know it unless someone told you.

As far as buttons and ports go, everything is the same as last year except you will find the power button and volume rocker to be a little longer and they added an IR blaster. The top has the earphone jack towards the left with the IR blaster towards the right, and the bottom has the microUSB port in the middle. The right side has the power button towards the top and the left side has the volume rocker, also towards the top. The main buttons on the front have the same layout as other Samsung phones. The large home button is here again for yet another year with a slightly different shape, and the back button is to the right while the menu button is to the left. Samsung continues its tradition of going against Android principles with these buttons, but it isn’t about Android for Samsung.

Just like the Galaxy S III, the Galaxy S 4 features a removable battery and microSD slot for expanding memory. It’s also one of the few flagship phones that has a removable backplate. This is where you will find the 2,600mAh battery along with the microSD slot and SIM slot.

I know many fans wanted to see a phone with a different design, but Samsung is taking a cue from Apple because consumers like familiarity. This doesn’t mean that Samsung won’t make changes in the future, but when major changes are made every year, it hurts brand marketing. Most consumers are upgrading their phones every two years so it makes no sense to put major R&D dollars into annual design changes. I personally prefer changes more often, but companies like Samsung and Apple know exactly what they are doing, and their sales and market shares prove that.

Hardware

It might not be about the specs anymore, but Samsung held nothing back with the Galaxy S 4. It has a 5.0-inch 1080p (1920 x 1080) Super AMOLED display, a 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor (certain regions will get the Exynos 5 octa-core clocked at 1.6GHz), Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB of storage, mircoSDXC slot for up to 64GB of extra storage, 13 MP rear camera, 2.1MP front camera, 2600mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi Dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, MHL 2.0, IR blaster, DLNA, WiFi Direct, and NFC. As for radios, each variant is different. This review is on the Sprint version, which has 850 / 1900 CDMA / EVDO and 850 / 1900 GSM / EDGE / UMTS / HSPA+.

Performance

Since I am testing the U.S. version, my experience is based on the quad-core Snapdragon 600. It’s the same CPU found on the HTC One and the LG Optimus G Pro, but the Galaxy S 4 is clocked a little faster (1.9GHz vs 1.7GHz). The overseas version has the Exynos Octa 5, which features 4 Cortex-A15s along with 4 Cortex-A7s. Samsung’s J.K. Shin says it doesn’t matter which version you have because you won’t be able tell the difference. While I don’t have any first hand experience with it, I tend to agree. I mentioned in my HTC One review that it’s getting a little ridiculous to review CPU performance because phones are so fast now that it really isn’t going to be noticeable to the average consumer. The AnTuTu came in at 24,722, which is slightly higher than the HTC One’s 23,538. The bottomline is that the Galaxy S 4 is going to feel a lot faster than the U.S. version of the Galaxy S III. It’s fast, what more can I say?

The Galaxy S 4 features a 5-inch Super AMOLED 1080p display. It’s probably the best display we have seen from Samsung, but how does it stack up against the LCD 3 display found on the DROID DNA and HTC One? It is very very close and unless you are an absolute display snob, you’re going to have a hard time picking one of them. It really comes down to what color representation you like. Holding them side by side, you can see slight differences with color temperatures, but neither one looks off when looking at either display separate from the other. I will say the HTC One seems to have better viewing angles and I think it’s better in sunlight, but again these are minimal differences.

After listening to the stereo speakers on the HTC One, the Galaxy S 4 seemed so blah. It’s on par with just about every other smartphone, but HTC has set the bar at an all time high. I personally don’t listen to much music from my phone’s speaker, but for the occasional YouTube video it gets the job done.

Battery

The Galaxy S 4 has a much larger battery than the Galaxy S III (2,600mAh vs 2,100mAh), but don’t expect that much more in performance Unfortunately 1080p displays use more energy than 720p displays. I conducted my usual rundown test in which I run continuous video while WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth are turned on (WiFi and Bluetooth not connected). and I was able to get about 9 hours. Unfortunately we didn’t conduct the same test on the Galaxy S III, but for normal use, I didn’t find a big difference. You should get about 16 to 17 hours of moderate use, which is pretty good for a phone with a 5-inch 1080p display. It should be noted that the GS4 bested the HTC One for both the rundown test and daily use, thanks to the bigger battery (2,600mAh vs 2,300mAh)

Software

The software is really what the Galaxy S 4 is all about. I don’t mean the user interface, which is called TouchWiz. I mean the software features. If you watched the Unpacked Event, you might have noticed that they only spent a few minutes talking about the specs of the GS4. The rest of the time was to tell us about the new software features. It’s these features that make the Galaxy S 4 so smart. Even if you don’t care about them, you cannot tell me there is another phone on the market that can do as much as the Galaxy S 4 out of the box.

Before we get into all that, lets talk about TouchWiz. It probably isn’t the most popular user interface, but Samsung has kept it consistent, which is better for consumers. Consumers like that consistency, and it’s one of the reasons they keep coming back for more. Some of the changes include an updated settings menu, a new sidebar for multitasking, and an improved power toggle menu. In addition, Samsung added a new menu that you will see during the initial setup process (when you turn the phone on for the first time). This menu briefly tells you about many of the newer features, and you are given a choice to toggle them on or off.

Here’s a video showing you the startup menu along with the major TouchWiz changes for this year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As to software features, Samsung has added a bunch of stuff to the Galaxy S 4. In my opinion, it’s a little overwhelming for the average consumer as they are unlikely to ever utilize the majority of them, but Samsung’s approach is to throw in as much as they can whether they are used or not. There are a couple of reasons why they do this. The first is that it creates differentiation. The more proprietary features, the more distance they create from other Android manufacturers. At the same time, they lock in consumers to the brand since they aren’t available elsewhere, at least by the trademarked name. The second reason is for marketing the Samsung Galaxy brand. Many of these features are marketable and create excitement for consumers. I don’t have anything to back this up, but I feel confident that most Galaxy S III users never used S Beam, but we all remember that commercial when the wife beamed a video to her husband before his trip. Samsung is all about building the brand and these features are what solidifies it. I will go through some of the newer features in this section, but you will also find many of the newer camera related features in the camera section.

Air View and Air Gestures

Air View was first seen on the Galaxy Note II, but you needed an S Pen to utilize it. Now you can hover your finger over emails to read the text without actually opening it, and you can see the pictures in a folder without actually tapping it. You can even use your finger as a magnifying glass in the stock browser.

Air Gestures will let you navigate by waving your hand. Instead of swiping your finger from picture to picture in your gallery, you can wave your hand instead. You can even answer your phone without picking it up.

Here’s a video showing you how they work and how to setup both Air View and Air Gestures.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Smart Pause and Smart Scroll

Sometimes when you’re watching a video, you need to look away at something else. Wouldn’t it be nice if the video paused automatically? That’s exactly what Smart Pause does, and when you return to looking down at the video, it will continue playing from where it left off. It’s pretty nifty when it works, but I found that it’s very dependent on light. You can forget it working in the dark, but I found it didn’t want to work in average light either.

Smart Scroll works with emails and web pages. When you read a webpage, you will eventually get to the bottom of your display. You have two choices: Either swipe up to reveal more information or let Smart Scroll do it for you. This one is pretty spotty as well depending on how you set it up. It can be setup to work by tilting the device or by tilting your head.

The video below shows you how both Smart Pause and Smart Scroll work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Easy Mode

This one might be the best kept secret on the Galaxy S 4. Easy Mode has been around since the Galaxy S III, but it’s more refined on the GS4. It’s for the smartphone beginner or the person who just isn’t that tech savvy. Easy Mode will transform your Galaxy S 4 into a very simple interface with larger icons and a simplified settings menu. You won’t find widgets other than the ones that are locked in for weather and calendar, and you won’t find any of the newer features found in this section. The bottomline is that anyone can own a Galaxy S 4 with Easy Mode.

For a better idea of how it works, check out this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

S Translator and Optical Reader

S Translator is essentially a lesser version of Google Translate, and it allows you to get language translations via text or by the spoken word. It translates Brazilian Portuguese, English (UK), English (US), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish. If you’re in another country, you could literally have a conversation with someone even if they don’t speak the same language as you. S Translator also has predefined phrases for you to use and allows you to favorite some translations that you might use more often for quick access.

The optical reader also serves as a translator by scanning written text on documents. It can also scan QR codes as well as create a new contact based on information from a business card.

This video shows you how S Translator and the Optical Reader work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

WatchOn

Just like the HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 features an IR blaster along with a companion app to see what’s on TV and get recommendations. Samsung’s version is called WatchON, which is built by Peel. WatchON lets you control your TV as well as a cable or satellite box through the IR blaster at the top of Galaxy S 4. You will need to go through an initial setup, but soon after, you will be able see your TV guide on your GS4 and get recommendations based on your interests. Just tap on a show or sporting event to get more information, and once more to change the channel to that particular program. You can still set up an AV receiver, but for whatever reason it’s not included in the initial setup process. If you hit the volume key, you will be prompted to select your TV or to setup an AV receiver. I never hit the volume key because I knew I didn’t use the TV to control it, so I never knew this would happen. I found this out after I recorded the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Group Play

This is basically last year’s Group Share option, but with the addition of being able to share music as well. Just like Group Share, you can share a document or picture on several Galaxy devices for collaboration, but you can also share songs as well. This means you can play a song on several devices for a more full room experience. You can share via NFC or by creating or joining a group manually.

Last but not least is the Samsung Hub, which isn’t new, but it has a new look to it that’s more pleasing. If you’re not familiar with Samsung Hub, it’s where you can go for your music, TV, movies, games, and books. With the Music Hub, you can stream over 19 million songs (with a subscription) and create custom stations similar to what Pandora and Slacker offers. The Videos section offers a wide variety of movies for purchase or rent as well as TV shows for purchase. The Games section features games that are available through Samsung Apps. Most of them are available in the Google Play Store, but there does appear to be some exclusives. The Books section is where you can purchase books, magazines, and newspapers.

Still to come is S Health and the Knox Security Suite. S Health will launch in June and will be your fitness companion. They will offer accessories similar to the Nike Fuel band, and you will be able to keep track of all your workouts. Knox is the enterprise security application that allows users to completely separate their work and personal stuff on one phone. It’s similar to the multi-user account option that’s on Android 4.2+ in that employees will be able to switch from work mode to personal mode and everything will be separate. We are not sure exactly when Knox will launch, but it will probably be sometime over the summer.

As you can see, Samsung is throwing everything but the kitchen sink in the Galaxy S 4. Yes it’s confusing, but this plan of attack is working well for Samsung. Lets also not forget that all the features that are on the Galaxy S III are still onboard such as multi window multitasking, S Voice, S Beam, AllShare, and Photo Share. With so many features, no one can argue that the Galaxy S 4 isn’t the smartest smartphone. Unfortunately since there are so many features, you will find less usable space than competing smartphones. For example, the 16GB version only has about 9GB of usable space. Thankfully you can use the microSD slot for expandability.

Camera

Samsung upgraded their lens to 13MP, which is now the new norm. HTC, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction and now offers a 4MP with UltraPixels on the HTC One. HTC promises superior low light performance while Samsung’s 13MP will give you more detail for cropping and/or zooming in. The low light performance comes from the size of the pixels. Samsung is using a 1.12-micrometers pixel and HTC is using a 2.0-micrometers pixel. The bottomline is that the Galaxy S 4 doesn’t perform as well in low light, but on the other hand, your pictures will have more detail. Overall it’s a good camera and fans of the Galaxy S III will be happy with it. Here are some pictures to judge for yourself. The last two were in very low light conditions.

Now let’s talk about the updated camera interface and the new features:

Interface and Dual Camera

Samsung changed the camera software as well as added a slew of new features or modes. The camera software has a new look and a new navigating wheel to select one of the many camera modes. One of the coolest new features is the Dual Camera function, which lets you utilize both the front and back lens at the same time for both photos and videos. So if you’re taking a picture of your family, you can be included in the image as well. You can resize the image from the front lens as well as move it around. You can even select from a number of themes such as a postage stamp or a heart.

We put together a hands on tutorial showing you the new camera interface as well as how to use the Dual Camera function.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Drama Shot and Eraser

Drama Shot allows you to take consecutive shots of something moving and put multiple images in one picture. For example, you could take a picture of a motorcyclist going over a jump, and the finished product might include five or six images of the jump itself in one picture.

Eraser mode lets you erase unwanted subjects from a photo. Say you are in a crowded park and trying to take a picture of the family. It’s hard to get a shot in which somebody isn’t walking into the picture. With Eraser mode, you can easily remove these people.

The one problem with both of these modes is that you have to be in either mode to utilize it. If you’re taking a picture in Auto mode and someone decides to jump in, you can’t remove them. Drama Shot is the same way. You can’t reproduce a Drama Shot from video or burst shots. One more issue is that if you plan on taking more photos, you will need to do your editing and fine tuning right after you take the photo. On the other hand, the HTC One allows you to do either of these after the fact if you are using the Zoe feature.

Here’s a video showing you how both Drama Shot and the Eraser work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Animated Shot and Sound & Shot

Animation Shot allows you to make an image that has movement in it. In other words, an animated GIF. The best part of it is that you can fine tune the duration as well as what parts of the image you want to actually show movement.

Sound & Shot is simply adding voice to a photo. Take a picture, but hold it for another eight seconds for an audio message such as, “We miss you Grammy” or “I love you Mommy.”

Here’s how Animation Shot and Sound & Shot work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Story Album

Story Album lets you select photos from a particular event and a “Story Album” will automatically be created. You can still customize the photos and even select themes. When you’re happy with your album, you can print it out or order a professionally printed version for yourself or for a gift. You can even save copies to your dropbox account. Here’s how it works.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Closing

Samsung is the reigning king of Android and although I don’t think the Galaxy S 4 is the best smartphone available, it doesn’t matter because it’s got enough to keep their brand loyalty. It’s faster, thinner, smaller, and has more features than any other phone. Of course these features are mostly a gimmick, but they solidify Samsung’s Galaxy brand as well as their differentiation from other manufacturers. Most of all, the Galaxy series appeals to everyone. Samsung continues to offer a microSD slot as well as a removable battery to appease those that continue to desire them.

The only real complaint anyone can have on this phone is that it looks like last year’s model and the quality of materials is subpar. Unfortunately for competitors like HTC, those things are not held high by mainstream consumers. But don’t misunderstand me, the Galaxy S 4 might not be the highest quality phone, but it’s well built, durable, and light.

If I were buying a phone today, I would opt for the HTC One because of the quality build and what I feel is the one killer feature in the Video Highlights powered by Zoe. On the other hand, most of the Android smartphone buyers already own a Galaxy S or Note phone and familiarity is king when it comes to technology. The Galaxy S 4 provides that as well as a solid experience.

Samsung’s tagline is that the Galaxy S 4 is a life companion. I think this is true for most of us regardless of what brand smartphone we have in our pocket, but kudos to Samsung for coming up with yet another great marketing strategy. The Galaxy S 4 may lack in the looks department, but it’s by far the smartest smartphone on earth. That makes it one helluva companion even if you don’t utilize everything that it offers.

Come comment on this article: Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review: The smartest smartphone ever

Fitness games are still relatively popular, but there’s only so many workouts that can be stored on a DVD. Microsoft foresaw this problem, and has teamed up with DailyBurn to bring its daily workout videos to Internet Explorer on Xbox.

DailyBurn announced today that it has built a Web app that’s accessible via Internet Explorer for Xbox 360. The Web app features all the workout videos that subscribers enjoy on DailyBurn with the added bonus of a custom experience tailored specifically for Xbox.

DailyBurn on Xbox already sounds good enough, but the app also features tablet integration that allows users to keep track of their calories burned over the course of the workout. It also keeps track of other stats so you adjust your workout accordingly.

DailyBurn is now available on Internet Explorer for Xbox. Just hit up the URL and start losing weight with your Xbox.

News today from Twitter where security guru Dan Rosenberg, @djrbliss, posted an image of a Samsung Galaxy S 4 with what appears to be an unlocked bootloader that he managed to hack. Rosenberg had already achieved root on the new devices on launch day when he figured out an unlock tool intended for Motorola devices would also work on the Galaxy S 4 thanks to the use of Qualcomm chips. The downside is that nothing much can be done once rooted and the risk related to bricking a brand new device is a little higher than normal as no recovery options or stock images are available yet. Hopefully Rosenberg’s work is about to change some of that as his image appears to indicate that he has recovery running. Rosenberg is expected to release more details later today on exactly what he has achieved and how others may replicate his efforts.

source: @djrbliss

Come comment on this article: Samsung Galaxy S 4 bootloader unlock picks up steam with latest hack

Police have reportedly taken three classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev into custody for questioning, but are stressing that they are not considered to be suspects at this time.

Authorities arrested the three students to find out whether bomb-making materials were taken from Tsarnaev’s dorm room at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth just after the bombings. They were all roommates of the accused bomber; two were reportedly arrested several days ago, while the other was taken in this morning.

The students have apparently been under close FBI scrutiny for two weeks and will attend a court hearing later today. They are expected to face charges of obstruction of justice, as it is believed they aided Tsarnaev after the bombings. Authorities say they have no evidence at this time that there is a danger to the public at large.

“Please be advised that there is no threat to public safety,” the Boston Police said in a statement.

Recently, consumer electronics have tended to be more about closing things down then opening them up, but New York-based Adafruit is working to help reverse that trend, and to make it so that people aren’t afraid of what’s inside their devices, and instead become more comfortable with electronics components and the concepts behind how gadgets actually work. Adafruit founder and CEO Limor Fried was on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY today, and talked about how her company is going about achieving that goal.

The mission helps the company generate revenue, by priming an audience early on to become buyers of the components, DIY kits and open-source devices Adafruit sells through its online store. The key is to start young, Fried says, and to take advantage of urges that children already have around exploring their environment and the things around them.

“At a certain age, they just want to be comfortable with it, and everyone here probably liked to take stuff apart,” he said. “That’s how we learn, we take stuff apart and then we learn from them. That’s how software works, too.” With software, we pull apart the code to find out how it’s put together, she said, and we should be doing the same thing with hardware.

“We open the box,” she said, referring to our instincts when young. “The gadgets you have now, tablets and smartphones, theyr’e not easy to open anymore, so we provide that.” The idea is to make sure that if the need to break something down and repair it does arise, we aren’t afraid of it, and we don’t feel like we need eight years of specific education just to replace a broken capacitor.

Adafruit recently launched a video series for children called Circuit Playground to help familiarize them with electronics at a very early age. The company also put out a coloring book for electronics, which you can print out and use under a creative commons license. This is designed less to provide a rigorous early-age electrical engineering education regimen, and more to help get kids comfortable with terms, designs and shapes early on so that they’ll find it easier to pursue that kind of formal training later on. Basically, it’s about planting the seed for a generation of makers to come.

Asked about Adafruit’s identity, and whether it’s an educational organization or a business, Fried said her company is an ‘educational, tutorial company” that then has essentially a gift shop at the end. The model works in the same way that art supply stores functions; you could technically make your own paint, she says, but most people don’t because it’s easier to buy. Budding electronics hobbyists can likewise build their own PCBs, but they instead turn to supply stores and pre-fab components like those supplied by Adafruit. But in the end, the emphasis is on education and open source.

Fried envisions a world where people treat hardware the same way they do software, by mostly leveraging open source tools to quickly start up their own companies. But that change represents a major shift that will require fundamental changes in how we think about hardware, and Adafruit is trying to bring that about starting as early in our educational lives as possible.

Amazon is not one to miss out on any revenue market and today proves this by making its free Kindle apps more appealing to customers who are either blind or visually impaired. The upgrades are not available on all platforms yet, but are certainly a move in the right direction.

New features will allow customers to access the read aloud feature for the more than 1.8 million titles available in the Kindle Store and seamlessly navigate within their library or within a book, including consistent title, menu and button names.

Customers can also read character-by-character, word-by-word, line-by-line, or continuously. The update brings the ability to search for a book within their library or search within a book, add and delete notes, bookmarks. It even highlights lookup words in the dictionary or from Wikipedia.

“We’re excited to introduce these new features to our Kindle for iOS app, making it easier than ever for our blind and visually impaired customers to access the vast selection of over 1.8 million books in the Kindle Store on their iPhone or iPad”, Dorothy Nicholls, Vice President for Amazon Kindle, says.

All of this sounds great, but for now it will only sound wonderful to Apple fans — the enhancements are for the iOS Kindle app only. However, the online retailer promises that these will come to other mobile devices soon. For now, Apple customers can visit the iTunes Store to grab the latest version of the free Kindle app and take advantage of the new updates.

Sprint Nextel today announced that it is still planning to shut down the Nextel National Network by the end of June.

The company has stated that June 29 will be the final day of full Nextel iDEN network service. On Sunday, June 30, iDEN phones will not receive voice or data. Sprint stated the equipment that powers the network will be switched off that day “in rapid succession.” The Nextel push-to-talk service will be converted to Sprint’s CDMA network.

By the time the shutdown comes, Nextel customers will have had just over one year to prepare for it. In addition to the letters and emails Sprint has already sent throughout the year, the company will also be sending text messages and using “other communications tactics” in the days leading up to the shutdown.

“Our shutdown communications are meant to give customers more than enough lead time to plan their migration,” said Bob Azzi, SVP of the network division at Sprint. “This has been especially important for public safety, first responders, health care users and others who rely on the service to protect and preserve people’s lives. We strongly urge customers to migrate now, rather than wait until the last minute.”

Sprint has been losing large numbers of subscribers who are leaving the Nextel platform. The wireless carrier is currently in talks for a $20 billion merger with SoftBank, though it is also entertaining a $25 billion offer from Dish Network.

The growing pains of big data were apparent at the Data 2.0 Summit on Tuesday in San Francisco.

During one panel, the assertion that data science is dead was indeed debated. Along with the habitual tension between end user requirements for businesses and consumers and the “elitist” ideas of data scientists and engineers, other themes explored included increasing accessibility to data, as well as changing behaviors and encouraging better decision-making with data. Everyone from sales and marketing people to fitness enthusiasts, it turns out, can be motivated by pretty pictures.

As IBM’s Alah Keahey put it during a panel, “there is a hunger for friendly data,” and visualization can help to humanize those threatening terabytes. Here are a selection of new, and new-to-us, visualization tools that came up at the meeting.

Bringing climate change home: Databasin.org

A mapping and analytics platform from the Conservation Biology Institute that has 10,000 datasets on everything you need to understand how extreme weather will impact natural resources, renewable energy, and endangered species. Here is one projection of maximum temperatures in 2080.

Sparkvis by Chloe Fan

This app is for the quantified self junkie who loves to interpret their burned calories as abstract art. The research behind the colorful display of Fitbit (see disclosure) data is explained here. Image via QuantifiedSelf.com

Disqus Gravity

The commenting platform’s diverse content is brought together in an interactive and live visualization. Pulling from about 500 sites that use Disqus, Gravity brings together the “small” data of individual comments within the context of 11 content categories. Another visualization, Orbital, shows realtime comments geolocated on a spinning globe.

IBM Many Eyes

Originally conceived by visualization guru Martin Wattenberg and colleagues in 2007, Many Eyes lets you plug in any dataset and generate nifty figures. Here, for example, is the distribution of U.S. foreign aid over a 60-year period.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of GigaOM. Om Malik, founder of GigaOM, is also a venture partner at True.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Camera certainly made a splash when it was released last year and the Korean giant has plans on introducing some sort of a follow-up to the unique device. A mysterious EK-GN120 device surfaced on the Bluetooth website and obtained the coveted Bluetooth 4.0 certification. While there are no particular details that indicate what the new camera will bring– there is some speculation that the newest edition of the Galaxy Camera will be well… more than just a camera, thanks to the device being listed as a “mobile phone” under the Product Type. So it’s possible that the new device will feature some sort of calling functionality or something of that nature.

So now that the cat is out of the bag, we’ll be on the lookout for any new leaks regarding this intriguing new device— so stay tuned.

source:  Bluetooth SIG
via: SamMobile

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

Here’s a question for you: Is a company-provided device a benefit? You don’t pay for hardware, software or service but might get older gear as hidden personal cost. I ask, because if Gartner is right, you’ll soon pay, whether or not you want to. A survey of CIOs finds that 38 percent of companies plan to stop providing employees with devices by 2016. Wait a bit before reading on and think about what that really means.

“We’re finally reaching the point where IT officially recognizes what has always been going on: People use their business device for nonwork purposes”, David Willis, Gartner vice president, says. As someone working from home full time since May 1999, I must confess to rarely using company-issued computers or other devices. But that was my choice, and one often not supported by IT departments. Now, for many workers, there will be only choice of bringing their own.

BYOD Trends

So-called “bring your own device” is not a new trend. Cell phones, laptops and PDAs like BlackBerries and Palms are among the devices coming in the back door before being approved to go out the front door, starting in the 1990s. Numbers are larger with smartphones and tablets, but nothing more. What’s different now: Economics. As companies slash budgets amid troubled times, letting more employees bring their own makes increasing sense. Meanwhile, cloud services shift some of the in-house software development and corporate need to support specialized homegrown applications across managed devices.

“BYOD strategies are the most radical change to the economics and the culture of client computing in business in decades”, Willis says. Mid-size companies with 2,500 to 5,000 employees are biggest adopters. Globally, BYOD is standard operations in three of the four BRIC countries — Brazil, India and China. Adoption is lowest in Europe; United States twice as much.

In many emerging markets, there is no switch from company supplied to bring your own. But in geographies like North America, compelled-BYOD means employees will pay for devices or services they didn’t before. Fundamentally, companies shift some, or all, the financial responsibility to workers.

Shifting Costs

Right now, about half of companies with BYOD programs subsidize devices. Gartner sees rapid increase in the number of companies offering nothing whatsoever and recommends they do just that. Rather, at most, there should be compensation for service, such as cellular for smartphones. “The employee owns the device, and the company helps to cover usage costs”, Willis says.

Conceptually, BYOD eases other, hidden costs. If the company supplies device and software, employees demand support and complain more. If they bring their own, they feel more ownership, responsibility, reducing IT helpdesk and related costs.

By 2017, Gartner expects that one-half of employers will demand employees provide their own devices for work purposes. This represents a stunning shift in costs. Most companies don’t provide cars or other transportation for people to get to work. Should they provide laptops, smartphones and tablets, too? That’s a question for you to answer in comments.

Security Matters

BYOD is the answer to the “How do you we cut tech costs?” question, but not necessarily the right one. During my days as an analyst in the last decade, I counseled companies to beware of commingled behavior and data around devices employees used professionally and personally. For sure, someone buying the device is more likely to use it personally — hey it’s theirs — creating, if nothing else, security risks. They potentially increase, when the starting point of management is employee rather than employer.

Willis sees security differently, and perhaps he’s right. The new trend recognizes what I’ve done for 14 years — “use a personal device in business. Once you realize that, you’ll understand you need to protect data in another way besides locking down the full device”. He’s right about that. Nevertheless, is it really sensible for companies to essentially encourage data leakage that increases security and privacy risks?

Debating this topic in BetaNews group chat today, Ian Barker makes an astute security observation: “I suppose if it’s your own laptop you’re less likely to leave it on the train!” Yeah, that’s an even more common trend, eh? Bring your own device home from work?

Photo Credit:  CLIPAREA l Custom media/Shutterstock

Enrique Llamas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Lacking confidence? Not a team player? Not willing to contribute to group discussions? Enrique had thought he was all of those things. So why did he receive such a negative performance evaluation? Enrique felt hurt by the news and wanted to figure out where things could have gone wrong.

Enrique had started his job as a consultant at a firm in Houston, Texas, a few months earlier and was very keen on making a positive impression with his superiors. But this was Enrique’s first experience working abroad, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to do that. In Mexico, where Enrique was from, he knew exactly what to do. To succeed, a young consultant should get along with others, do good work, and respect his boss. Enrique figured that the same things mattered in the U.S., so that’s what he did. He worked long hours and made sure that his work was top quality. Interestingly, that did not seem to be a problem in his performance review.

What was a problem, however, was the fact that he was not a “team player” and was “unwilling to contribute in team discussions.” That was only partially true, Enrique thought. With peers, he was quite willing and able to participate, but when his boss and his boss’s boss were in the room, Enrique did what he would have done in Mexico: let his superiors guide the meeting and be available to help or contribute if asked. Enrique was very concerned about this negative evaluation and was also highly motivated to succeed. What could he do to improve things going forward?

If you think that it’s hard to impress your boss in your native culture, imagine what it’s like in a different culture where the way you’d naturally make a positive impression falls flat. That was certainly the case for Enrique and is also the case for hundreds of thousands of professionals in the world who work for bosses with very different expectations for how to make a positive impression. Consider, for example, the case of an employee from China working for a Brazilian manager in Brazil. In China, employees are typically valued for their formality, reserve, and self-control, but in Brazil, it would be close to the opposite. The Brazilian professional culture is quite informal and emotionally expressive. People will typically call each other by their first name at work and often by their nicknames. This is true with colleagues and even with bosses. In many Brazilian companies, there is little formal protocol, and the atmosphere is light and casual, often with a great deal of joking among colleagues. So, imagine someone from China trying to get to know and ultimately impress her Brazilian boss — and how challenging it might be to make this switch.

So how do you impress a foreign boss? The good news is that you start with what you’d typically do in your native culture: do great work, show loyalty to your boss and to the organization, and help your boss accomplish his or her professional goals. The challenging part, however, is that the way in which you accomplish each of these tasks can vary quite significantly across cultures. For example, “doing great work” in some cultures can mean listening carefully to what your boss tells you to do and then performing a given task in a very precise and accurate manner. In other cultures, it might mean something completely different, like taking the initiative, volunteering for assignments, thinking outside of the box, and being an independent producer that your boss can always count on. You can see how these different images of effectiveness can be in great conflict. So, the first key piece of advice when trying to impress a foreign boss is to step outside of your own cultural comfort zone and work hard to learn how to impress in the local context you’re in.

The second piece of advice is to get to know your boss. Not all foreign bosses are the same. That should be obvious, but it’s something people often overlook in a foreign culture because they are blinded by the most obvious difference — national culture — when the reality is that many other differences matter as well. For example, regional culture can play an important role in determining your boss’s expectations. What impresses in Manhattan may not necessarily impress in Sioux City, Iowa. Industry culture matters as well. What impresses at Morgan Stanley might not necessarily impress at Facebook or Caterpillar, or at that small advertising agency down the road. Finally, personal experience also matters a great deal in determining a boss’s expectations. Imagine two American bosses: one, a “local” who grew up in the United States, speaks only English, and who has spent his entire career working for American companies; and the second, a “cosmopolitan,” who lived and worked for a decade in Asia, and possesses a strong working knowledge of Mandarin. Do you think these two would necessarily have the same expectations of a foreign-born worker trying to impress?

When impressing a foreign boss, the devil is in the details. Don’t underestimate cultural differences, but also don’t be blinded by them. Consult with colleagues, find a cultural mentor, and do your own careful observations. In short, customize to your context, and your work will pay dividends in any cultural environment.

Edge-based intrusion prevention and security information and event management (SIEM) are failing to meet the demands of faster and more sophisticated threats, and a new generation of analytic tools have evolved to meet those challenges. These tools have the power to reshape the security dynamic, but they may require you to rethink your infrastructure, staffing and policies.

Where can human analysis and augmentation provide the greatest benefit? How should businesses recruit and train security staff to best handle the new realities? Or should you outsource to an MSSP?

For a discussion about these and other questions related to security analysis, join GigaOM Research and our sponsor Click Security for “The data-driven security analyst,” a free analyst webinar on Tuesday, May 14, 2013, at 10 a.m. PT.

Our experts will address these questions:

• Security analytics: truly proactive or just faster forensics?
• The benefits and limitations of automation
• The new security toolkit
• The new security analyst: policeman or investigator?
• How to hire for or cultivate the new security skill set

Speakers include:

• Cormac Foster, research director, GigaOM Research
• Salvatore D’Agostino, CEO, IDmachines
• Bob Gourley, editor, CTOvision.com
• Brian Smith, CTO and founder, Click Security

Register here to claim your spot in this May 14 webinar.

Not everybody can be online all the time. For those moments, it’s best to leave a message. That was a little difficult in Skype for Windows as you could only leave text-based messages before, but that all changed this week.

Skype announced this week that it’s rolling out the preview of Skype Video Messaging for Windows desktop users. To be more specific, Windows 7 users can now send short video messages to friends that are currently offline. The feature will be coming to Windows 8 soon.

Windows desktop users are just the latest to get Skype Video Messaging. Microsoft notes that the feature is available in preview for those using Skype on Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android. Those on Windows 8 and Windows Phone can receive video messages, but they have yet to gain the ability to record messages. Skype says it will be fixing that soon.

If you want to try out Skype Video Messaging for yourself, you’ll have to download the Skype 6.5 beta for Windows. You can grab that here. Alongside the new feature, the beta also includes two small fixes to help increase stability when calling:

In other news, Skype recently announced that Outlook.com users can now make video calls from within their browser. More info on that here.

It looks like HTC is going to be refocusing its efforts this summer, starting with announcing that it will be dropping HTC Watch support in 6 European countries come May 31.  These countries include Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.  Due to the massive unpopularity of this application, this won’t affect too many of you. HTC released this comment:

“As we continue to deliver new content for HTC Watch, we’ve made the decision to focus our efforts on markets with the highest engagement. After May 31, we’ll discontinue support for HTC Watch in countries with less application traffic”.

There is a solid alternative in Google Play Movies, which would obviously be a solid fallback plan— however, the Google service is only available in Spain, with none of the other countries listed above.

If you’re from one of the above countries and know of some good alternatives, let us know below in the comments!

Come comment on this article: HTC ditching HTC Watch support in 6 countries on May 31

There has been much hue and cry about the New York Times passing USA Today in circulation to become the second-largest newspaper in the United States, thanks in part to a boost from the NYT’s digital susbcription plan, which reportedly boosted circulation to almost 2 million daily readers. These numbers are notoriously dodgy, however — and if anything, they have gotten worse instead of better with the arrival of online measurement and new digital devices.

The real bottom line is that until newspapers start coming clean about their readership — both to themselves and to their advertisers — they are going to continue to miss the forest for the trees.

The latest circulation gains for the NYT and others came courtesy of the Alliance for Audited Media (formerly known as the Audit Bureau of Circulations), an industry group composed of advertising agencies and publishers. The group notes that the numbers are not really comparable to the previous year’s results for a number of reasons, including the fact that some newspapers have launched new subscription formats, stopped printing every day and so on.

Counting readers multiple times

As Edmund Lee at Bloomberg points out, the AAM survey — which is somewhat ironically locked behind a paywall — also allows publishers to count their readers multiple times, according to rules adopted recently by the group. In other words, newspapers can count someone who reads the newspaper in print, on the web and on their Kindle as three separate readers. But doesn’t this inflate their readership numbers unreasonably? It sure does. The bottom line is that no one really knows what the “real” readership numbers are for newspapers.

@mathewi @BGrueskin It's not *unduplicated* audience. Doesn't strike me as any more phony-baloney than "passalong" readership numbers.—
Scott Klein (@kleinmatic) May 01, 2013

Some argue this has always been the case with newspapers, which is true: publishers have routinely engaged in all kinds of shady tricks to boost their circulation — including special discounts for bulk purchases by hotels and airlines and other giveaways, and even dumping large quantities into ravines or pulping them after printing. On top of that, many papers have inflated their readership numbers for years by claiming that each copy gets read by as many as five people, an estimate that borders on the ridiculous.

Newspapers need to come clean

This defence boils down to: “Newspapers have always done this, and no one believes these numbers anyway, so what difference does it make?” A pretty weak defence, you might argue — and you would be right.

@mathewi @BGrueskin That’s harder than it looks. We can’t even come up with web metrics we all agree on.—
Scott Klein (@kleinmatic) May 01, 2013

The other line of defence is that online measurement is also chaotic and confusing at best, and that since websites can’t even agree on whose numbers are correct, why should newspapers be any different? It’s true that measurement of online traffic is murky, with providers like comScore often giving wildly inaccurate estimates when compared with a site’s internal numbers. But this is a little like saying newspapers don’t have to tell the truth because no one else does either.

If newspapers are competing with online publishers and digital-native content companies for both readers and advertising, which they clearly are, then they have to be better than their competition — being just as inaccurate is hardly helping their cause. And they should be spending a lot more time on trying to measure real engagement (repeat visits, time spent, etc.) than on simplistic and flawed vanity metrics like raw circulation numbers. That is a mug’s game.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Shutterstock / Donskarpo

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Last year, the Walt Disney Company bought Lucasfilm and announced that Star Wars: Episode VII will be coming in 2015. Other Star Wars films, will also be coming in the future, including spin-offs. Since that time, Star Wars fans have debated and speculated on where the new movies will take the franchise and whether the original movies’ stars will (or should) make an appearance.

Now, the rumors and teasing that Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher may return to their roles as Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa have been addressed by one of the actors.

Fisher spoke during a panel at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo this weekend, telling the crowd how much fun it was to choke Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi. According to a Calgary Herald report on the event, Fisher joked about starring in the upcoming Disney Star Wars movie. From the report:

“I like being bought by Disney, because they never wanted to buy me before,” she said during a talk at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. “I’m glad they are doing a new movie because they are sending a trainer to my house so I can get in really good shape. So I’m really eating a lot of sugar in advance, as you can see. By the time I really get down to it I will have eaten everything.”

Though Fisher could have been joking, her appearance in the next Star Wars movie is all but confirmed at this point. Her social media followers will no doubt be watching closely to see whether Disney’s trainer can whip the 57-year-old author into slave bikini shape.

Carrie Fisher182 days ago

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