California Vacation Packages - 5 Reasons Why The iPhone 5c Might Be a Flop

Source      - http://www.zdnet.com/
By            - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
Category  - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Rumors are circulating that Apple is cutting orders for the iPhone 5c in the face of weak demand, and this in turn is fueling speculation that the handset might be a misstep by the Cupertino giant.

But if the iPhone 5c ends up being a flop, what's behind the failure?

First off, I think that it is far too early to call the iPhone 5c a flop. Even if Apple is cutting orders, this could be part of the normal scaling back that happens following a launch as Apple re-evaluates the supply chain and balances things out. This sort of thing is normal.

Apple likes there to be as short a gap as possible between stuff coming off the assembly line, and that stuff being sold, and strives to have around 4 to 6 weeks of channel inventory. Given that iPhone 5c handsets (of all colors) are shipping within 24 hours, while the higher-priced flagship iPhone 5s is on 2 to 3 week back order, it makes sense for Apple to concentrate more on the iPhone 5s.

Another point worth bearing in mind is that we are unlikely to ever find out the sales figures of the individual handset models as Apple only reports data on iPhone sales as a whole. So if iPhone 5c sales are poor, but this is offset by strong iPhone 5s sales (and there's data to suggest that the latter is outselling the former by a significant margin) then the overall effect on sales will be hard to notice. Pundits and analysts like to focus on iPhone sales figures, but revenue and margin data are more telling and as a rule are better indicators of the health of the product line.

Finally, it's worth pointing out that a lot of people who buy handsets are locked into contract and upgrade cycles, and this could mean a delayed or extended upgrade cycle that extends well beyond the initial release. This may be doubly so for the non-flagship handset where consumers might be unwilling to pay unlocked prices to get their hands on the phone and instead wait until they are eligible for a subsidized upgrade.

But, if despite all I've said above, the iPhone 5c is judged to be a flop, what could be the reason behind it being a flop? Here are five possible reasons why.

1) Old model in new clothes

While the iPhone 5c is undeniably a new handset, under the shiny polycarbonate shell it is essentially a rebadged iPhone 5. While it is unquestionably an upgrade for anyone running a non-retina display iPhone, for those already owning an iPhone 4s or iPhone 5, there's not much new beyond the color.

2) No sane color option

The iPhone 5c comes in white, pink, yellow, blue, and green, there's no subdued black/charcoal/space grey option. Given that a black (or a variant on black) has always seemed to be the most popular choice of finish, the fact that it is not on offer might be putting a damper on sales.

On top of that, the lack of a red option is particularly surprising, especially given Apple's desire to gain a foothold in the Chinese market (red is a color traditionally seen as symbolizing good fortune).

3) Stuck with one color

You can dress up the iPhone 5c is different colored silicone skins (at $29 a pop) or you can use third-party cases, but as to the actual color of your handset, you're stuck with it for the duration of ownership.

For the trendy or teens with short attention spans, this is a concept that might not float.

As an aside, the most popular color in the UK according to iPhoneStockChecker is pink, accounting for 46 percent of sales, followed by blue at 32 percent, and green at 12 percent. White is low down the list at 9 percent, and the yellow version seems to be the ugly duckling, only chosen by one out of every 100 buyers.

4) Price shock

Apple lists an unlocked 16GB iPhone 5c at $549, which is only $100 less than a 16GB iPhone 5s. You can pick up unlocked handsets for less than this, but that high official price – which got a lot of press attention at the iPhone unveiling – will have undoubtedly put some people off.

5) Second best

The popular perception is that iPhone buyers are swayed by style, and that owning the attest and greatest handset is a status symbol of sorts.

While there no denying that the iPhone 5c is a new handset, it isn't a flagship handset, and with so much attention focused on the iPhone 5s, does this make the iPhone 5c seems a lesser, inferior, second best purchase?

The bottom line

Apple CEO Tim Cook is on record as saying that the company doesn't fear cannibalization, and that extends as far as its own products cannibalizing one another. At the end of the day, whether consumers are buying the iPhone 5s or the iPhone 5c (or the older iPhone 4s), people are still buying an Apple product as opposed to the competition.

If the iPhone 5c is a viable product, then chances are that we'll see similar models coming down the pipe in the future, if not, then we may see Apple shift away from this approach. This is how businesses do business.

California Vacation Packages - So You've Lost Your Locked Smartphone Or Tablet? Here's How To Get It Back

Source      - http://www.zdnet.com/
By             - Matt Baxter-Reynolds
Category  - California Vacation Packages
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita
 

California Vacation Packages

A standout point for me in Tuesday's Apple announcement was that 50 percent of people lock their iPhones. I was surprised it was that high -- it seems every week I say to someone, "Dude, do you really not lock your phone?" My guess would have been closer to 20 percent.

Anyway, I'm grateful that Apple is putting more awareness out there around the importance of locking portable devices. After all, your whole life is on there -- it really should be locked regardless of how many dozens of times you have to key in your PIN each day.

Locking your smartphone or tablet creates a problem though. How do you get it back if you lose it?

The one and only time I've lost my old school pre-smartphone phone, someone found it and handed it in at a local police station. An officer there just went through my address book and called the one marked "Mum and Dad". I got the phone back the same day.

But if it's locked -- that's a different story.

Old school

The simplest thing to do here is to get your contact information on your lock screen. That way when someone finds your phone they see the contact information and call you on an alternative number.

When I discussed this on Twitter, generally people weren't happy with that. The preferred option from my self-selecting collection of friendly technologists was that you use the "Find my Whatever" feature offered by the platform and use that.

However, that won't work with Wi-Fi only devices, like my iPad. It will probably work better with a smartphone admittedly, but think about this for a moment. If you've lost your phone, you want this really, really easy. You want anyone just to pick up your phone and get it back to you. A message on the lock screen is the simplest way to do this.

On old school BlackBerry OS 7 phones this has always been a feature. (In fact, you could push it out as enterprise policy to all the devices in your purview.) Weirdly, as we pivoted to current generation post-PC devices this brilliant idea of just having the device render "If lost…" info onto the lock screen didn't quite make it through to the new era.

If you don't want to spend any money on this and you do want to fiddle around, take a picture, and Photoshop in the contact information. Then set that image to the lock screen background.

California Vacation Packages - Samsung Said To Introduce Watch-Like Phone Next Month

Source - http://www.bloomberg.com/
By - Jungah Lee
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) will introduce a wristwatch-like device named the Galaxy Gear next month that can make phone calls, surf the Web and handle e-mails, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

The Galaxy Gear will be powered by Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android operating system and go on sale this year to beat a potentially competing product from Apple Inc. (AAPL), the people said. The device will be unveiled Sept. 4, two days before the IFA consumer electronics show begins in Berlin, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the plans are private. 

Asia’s biggest technology company is racing other electronics makers, including Sony Corp. (6758), to create a new industry of wearable devices as the market for top-end handsets nears saturation. The global watch industry will generate more than $60 billion in sales this year, and the first companies to sell devices that multitask could lock customers into their platform, boosting sales of smartphones, tablets and TVs. 

“It will carve a niche for sure as this is an initial product in the market,” said Chung Chang Won, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Seoul. “Wearable devices could be one of the trends in the smartphone market, but I’m not sure yet whether watches or glasses will set the trend.” 

The Galaxy Gear being released next month won’t have a flexible display, though the company is continuing to work on developing a bendable screen, one person said. It will be unveiled the same day as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, a combination smartphone and tablet computer.

Apple Watch

Apple had a team of about 100 designers working on watch-like device, two people familiar with the matter said in February. The Cupertino, California-based company is seeking to introduce its device this year, one of the people familiar said at the time. 

Samsung became the world’s largest smartphone maker last year, overtaking Apple. The Suwon, South Korea-based company had about 33 percent of the global smartphone market in the second quarter, while the iPhone maker fell to a three-year low as more consumers chose inexpensive handsets from Chinese makers, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. 

Samsung posted second-quarter earnings July 26 that missed analyst estimates as sales growth for the flagship Galaxy S4 was curbed by slowing demand for high-end handsets. Shares have fallen 15 percent this year in Seoul trading, compared with a 4 percent decline in the benchmark Kospi index. 

Samsung released the Galaxy S4 smartphone in April and plans at least two other high-end handsets this year, including a device using the Tizen operating system. 

Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, said in a March interview the company was working on a watch device.

California Vacation Packages - Risk of Human-to-Human Spread of Deadly New Bird Flu Virus Higher Than Previously Thought

Source - http://news.yahoo.com/
By - Dina Fine Maron
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Before this year the H7N9 bird flu virus linked to 133 human infections and 43 deaths was never seen in people. All the available evidence suggests that an effective biological barrier apparently kept a pandemic at bay—humans only contracted the novel virus via direct contact with poultry or environments such as live bird markets rather than by human-to-human transmission. New analysis from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), however, suggests that the virus is closer to becoming a disease transmitted among humans than previously thought.

A large study comparing the genomes of the five reported human H7N9 strains with 37 H7N9 viruses isolated from more than 10,000 poultry market, farm and slaughterhouse samples from across China suggests that the virus would only need small mutations in its protein structure in order to become easily transmissible among humans. Moreover, testing in ferrets—widely considered to the best proxy for humans in flu testing—finds that one lethal strain of the virus that killed the first H7N9 victim in China is transmissible via respiratory droplet, meaning that it could conceivably be spread by coughing and sneezing. The new results are published in Science today. “Our findings indicate nothing to reduce the concern that these viruses can transmit between humans,” says study author Hualan Chen of the CAAS.

The new findings are “worrisome,” says Charles Chiu, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “For this particular virus, for H7N9, whether or not there is human-to-human transmission is a critical question.”

Since April the number of H7N9 cases has abruptly dropped, but public health officials are concerned that, like other avian influenza viruses that have seasonal infection patterns, H7N9 could mount a resurgence in the fall. With more cases of H7N9 there would be more opportunities for the virus to mutate among humans and, consequently, make the necessary amino acid changes to create human-to-human transmissible H7N9. The H7N9 viruses isolated from birds and humans are already closely genetically related. In the Science analysis researchers found the viruses can bind to human airway receptors, but they maintain the ability to bind to avian airway receptors, too. In order for the virus to be transmissible among humans, it must further mutate to lose its ability to bind to avian airway receptors—a genetic re-sorting the authors say might be possible with only a few amino acid changes.

The Science paper’s results diverge somewhat from earlier research. A study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control published in Nature last week also considered H7N9 transmission in ferrets and found that although ferrets housed together transmit the flu, when the animals were physically separated but shared the same air via a net between their cages, the healthy ferrets only rarely contracted the virus. In that work CDC researchers looked at respiratory droplet transmission in two different strains of H7N9 and found that in a strain originating in Anhui Province, China, only two out of six ferrets contracted the virus whereas in a strain from Shanghai, only one out of three ferrets contracted the virus. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

In the new study researchers also looked at multiple H7N9 strains and found the virus was similarly transmitted via direct contact. But in contrast to the authors of the Nature reports, they found that all three ferrets exposed to the Anhui H7N9 strain contracted the virus when exposed via respiratory droplets. The Science study authors ran the experiment twice and received the same results.

The significance of the conflicting airborne infection figures from the two studies is unclear because both studies looked at very small numbers of ferrets. Some of the discrepancy could have stemmed from differences in the lab environments. Alternatively, the virus may have changed slightly as the samples grew in the labs. What these studies, along with other existing research, make clear is that H7N9 can indeed spread via airborne transmission, but that this mode of transmission is not very effective compared with direct contact, says Richard Webby, an influenza expert at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. The new Science report “adds a whole lot of data to the growing list of evidence that this virus is something we need to be worried about,” he says.

Adding to the virus transmission concerns is the fact that chickens, ducks and mice experimentally infected with avian strains of H7N9 show no visible disease symptoms. In outbreaks of H5N1, another flu strain, severely infected poultry served as a warning knell for human infection. But H7N9 could silently spread in poultry markets and there would be no easy way to detect it.

Chiu says that the new findings should prompt more robust surveillance of poultry populations. Other public health measures to combat the virus in humans include washing hands, avoiding touching the eyes, nose and mouth, and coughing into the elbow to help stop the spread of transmission. “Replication in humans,” the authors wrote, “will provide further opportunities for the virus to acquire more mutations and become more virulent and transmissible in the human population.”

California Vacation Packages - Apple Wins Patent Suit Against Samsung in Tokyo On Touch Panels

Source - http://www.businessweek.com/
By - Takashi Amano and Mariko Yasu
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Apple Inc. (AAPL) won a patent lawsuit in Japan, as a Tokyo judge ruled that Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) smartphones and a tablet computer infringed on its visual effects for touch panels.

Samsung and Apple, the world’s two biggest smartphone makers, have each scored victories in patent disputes fought over four continents since the maker of the iPhone accused Asia’s biggest electronics maker of “slavishly copying” its devices. The companies, are competing for dominance of a global mobile-device market estimated by researcher Yankee Group at $346 billion in 2012.

Samsung infringed Apple’s patent on the way an iPad or iPhone screen seems to bounce when a user scrolls to the end of a file, the Cupertino, California-based company said in the lawsuit.

In August, Tokyo District Judge Tamotsu Shoji ruled against Apple in a lawsuit that claimed Samsung smartphones and tablet computers infringe on an invention for synchronizing music and video data with servers.

The Tokyo District Court in February rejected Samsung’s request to suspend sales of iPhones and iPads in the nation.

Shipments of tablet computers in Japan jumped 104 percent to 5.68 million units in the year ended March, according to Tokyo-based MM Research Institute Ltd. Apple controlled 53 percent of the market, while Samsung ranked fifth with a 4.3 percent share, the researcher said last month.

Smartphone shipments rose 4 percent to 6.81 million units in Japan during the first three months of 2013, according to research company IDC. Apple had 40 percent of sales, while Samsung didn’t rank in the top five, the researcher said last week.

California Vacation Packages - Insurance Rates Climbing In Florida

Source - http://www.weartv.com/
By - Press Release
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

It's been nearly eight years since a hurricane caused widespread damage in Florida, but rates for homeowners insurance have still been climbing. With hurricane season starting Saturday, authorities say there's a chance rates may finally stabilize. Some homeowners say they feel like they're being eaten alive by insurance premiums, and they want some relief. Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation has been approving more than 100 rate hike requests a year since 2009, including requests to hike rates by double-digits. "It's really high," said Chuck Taylor. Chuck Taylor and his neighbors in Garcon Point say they've had no choice but to keep shelling out big bucks for insurance. "If you live down here, you have to have your house up elevated when you rebuild and then you pay flood insurance. Flood insurance doesn't cover any of that, so you're paying insurance twice," Taylor said. This year's hurricane season could determine how much homeowners pay. Florida's Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty says there's a chance rates may finally even out, if no major storms come our way this year. Taylor is skeptical of that prediction. "I really don't see it going down that much," Taylor said. His neighbor, Judy Wagner, however, has a different perspective. "There are storms other places, too. And I mean, the insurance companies are paying for those. You know, you have to pay for where you live," said Judy Wagner. The state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, meanwhile, is expected to ask for rate hikes for 2014.

California Vacation Packages - Twitter Will Reportedly Launch Music App This Weekend

Source - http://news.cnet.com/
By - Steven Musil
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Twitter is rumored to preparing for the launch this weekend of its much rumored Twitter Music app.

The microblogging service plans to launch its standalone music app tomorrow, sources familiar with the matter tell AllThingsD. Still other sources say the app will launch during this weekend's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, but not necessarily on Friday.

CNET has contacted Twitter for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

 The report comes on the heels of Twitter confirming that it has purchased music discovery service We Are Hunted. CNET reported in March that Twitter had acquired the music discovery service last year and was using its technology to build a standalone music app.

A person familiar with the matter told CNET at the time that the app, to be called Twitter Music, could be released on iOS by the end of March.

Twitter Music is said to suggest artists and songs to listen to based on a variety of signals, and be personalized based on which accounts a user follows on Twitter. Songs are streamed to the app via SoundCloud.

American Idol host Ryan Seacrest confirmed the app's existence in a series of tweets yesterday that indicated he was "lovin" using it.

California Vacation Packages - Facebook To Reveal 'New Home On Android' At April 4 Event

Source - http://abcnews.go.com/
By - JOANNA STERN
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Facebook is calling the press back to its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., again -- and this time it's to show off a new Android-based product.

The invitations to the April 4 event, which were sent to members of the media this evening via e-mail, reveal only that the company will be showing off its "new home on Android."

Already, rumors are beginning to fly about what Facebook might announce.

TechCrunch reported that Facebook will unveil phone software based on Google's Android operating system. The software will have "extra Facebook functionality built in." According to the report, the phone software will run on hardware made by HTC.

According to 9to5Google, the two companies have been working on a marketing campaign for the phone.

HTC, a Taiwanese phone maker, released The Status in 2011, an Android phone that had Facebook branding and specialized Facebook software. The phone wasn't marketed by Facebook and received poor reviews. The company recently announced its new HTC One Android phone.

RELATED: Facebook Says New Mobile Products Coming, but No Facebook Phone

Amazon has taken a similar route, creating its own version of Android software to run on its Kindle Fire. It places Amazon's services front and center.

Facebook has been rumored to be working on a phone of its own for a number of months now. However, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company is focused on mobile and is a mobile company, he has denied the existence of plans for a "Facebook phone."

"We want to support an ecosystem where other apps can build on top of Facebook," Zuckberg said on an earnings call last year. "There are a lot of things you can build in other operating systems, as well, that aren't really taking, that aren't really like building out a whole phone, which wouldn't make much sense for us to do."

In the last number of months, Facebook has released a slew of new mobile products, including its Poke app and additions to its Messenger app, which added free calling.

ABC News will have the latest on Facebook's Android announcement on April 4.

California Vacation Packages - L.A. Archdiocese To Pay $10M In Priest Abuse Cases

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Michael Winter
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay four men almost $10 million to settle allegations of sexual abuse by a former priest who more than a quarter century ago had confessed to molesting children, attorneys said Tuesday.

Two brothers will receive $4 million each, and the other two men will get nearly $1 million apiece, said John Manly, a plaintiff's attorney.

The settlement is the first since the Catholic Church released thousands of internal records detailing the actions of the defrocked priest, Michael Baker, and how church officials responded. Baker was convicted in 2007 of child molestation and paroled in 2011.

In January, as the files were about to be made public, a California judge ordered the archdiocese to identify all priests and church officials named in the documents.

STORY: L.A. Diocese told to identify officials in abuse cases

The confidential files -- medical and psychiatric records, abuse reports, church memos and letters with the Vatican -- revealed that in 1986, Baker told Cardinal Roger Mahony that he had abused boys beginning in 1974. Mahony removed Baker from ministry and sent him to New Mexico for psychological treatment.

A year later, however, he returned with a doctor's recommendation that he not spend any time with minors and that he should be defrocked immediately if he did. Nonetheless, the abuse continued until 2000, when Baker was finally removed.

Mahony retired as Los Angeles archbishop in 2011. Last month, his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, stripped him of his official duties.

Mahony is in Rome participating in the conclave selecting the next pope. He was aware of the settlement, J. Michael Hennigan, an archdiocese attorney, told the Associated Press.

"We have for a long, long time said that we made serious mistakes with Michael Baker, and we had always taken the position in these cases that whatever Baker did we were responsible for," he said. "That was never an issue."

Two cases were scheduled for civil trial in April.

Another plaintiff attorney, Vince Finaldi, told the Los Angeles Times that he believed that the release of the files was a major factor in the settlement.

"Once we got the files it confirmed everything we had argued for years and years," Finaldi said. "Cardinal Mahony's fingerprints were all over the case."

California Vacation Packages - Teenage Girl's Father Launches Facebook Court Challenge

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By - Press Release
Category - California Vacation Packages

Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

A Northern Ireland man has launched a legal challenge to compel Facebook to stop his teenage daughter using the site or publishing suggestive images.

The social media company should be forced to do more to stop the 13-year-old girl having highly sexualised contact with men, the High Court heard.

The case could have major implications for Facebook in the UK.

If the girl's father wins, it could make it much harder for children to use the social networking site.

In court on Wednesday, a lawyer for the girl's father claimed Facebook's open registration system allowed children to log-in and warned that it could put them at risk from paedophiles.

Under Facebook's policy, no-one under 13 is allowed to use the site. But the girl from Northern Ireland, who is subject to a care order, has reportedly posted suggestive images of herself on it since she was 12.

She has used up to four different accounts on the site and has been in contact with a man who is restrained from any contact with her, the court sitting in Belfast heard on Wednesday.

Her father's lawyers want to secure an injunction compelling Facebook to take steps to prevent her using the site or publishing images.

A barrister claimed there had been a breach of her privacy. He argued that her highly sexualised contact with men on the site was degrading, abusive and harassing.

He said that Facebook's open registration system was flawed because 13-year-olds cannot enter a contract or legally consent to their data being used.

Even younger children could claim to be the required age and give themselves a fake name, the lawyer argued.

He said Facebook could change its terms of registration to require users to verify their identity and age.

A judge is to deliver his decision on whether to grant the injunction later this week.