Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita - iPhone 5s Review: A Great Phone With Some More Forward Thinking Needed

Source       - http://gma.yahoo.com/
By             - JOANNA STERN
Category   - Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita

"Forward thinking." That's the tag line you'll find splattered across Apple's iPhone 5s billboards or commercials. "It's not just what's next. But what should be next," the company writes about its latest phone on its website. 

It's Apple marketing at its best -- flowery, affirmative, well-crafted phrases -- but on paper the phone is really just a set of updated specs from its previous iPhone 5. The iPhone 5s packs only three new noteworthy features: a faster 64-bit processor, an improved camera and flash, and a new fingerprint sensor. Oh, and, of course, there's that new gold color choice. 

But when those features are combined with the iPhone 5s' beautiful aluminum design and high-quality Retina display, does the phone really pave the way for the future of smartphones? Does it set a new bar for the hundreds of other phones that will be released this year? Or is it just an example of darn good marketing?

The Good Changes
I can tell the difference between my iPhone 5s review unit and my own iPhone 5 in two ways -- the gold, shimmering hue on the back and the golden ring around the home button of Apple's 5s. 

Yes, the phone has the same elegant design as the 5, though that shouldn't bother anyone. It is still one of the most beautiful gadgets ever created. The only phone this year to even try to overshadow the iPhone's design and craftsmanship has been the HTC One. Just that one phone out of an interminable number of Android and Windows phone devices even came close to matching Apple's design prowess.

But where the iPhone 5s begins to show its first signs of forward thinking is with the fingerprint sensor now embedded in its home button. Called TouchID, the technology works just as Apple promised. Register up to five fingerprints, tap on the button and you're logged on to the phone. No need to input a password or swipe to unlock.

It works extremely well, which is not something always said about fingerprint technology. Just try some of the ones on a Windows laptop, and you'll know that constant pop-ups and other malfunctions stand in the way of it being a seamless experience. That's not the case with Apple's solution, and it makes logging on to the phone much faster than entering a PIN or password.

The phone itself is also faster, or at least that's what Apple's 64-bit A7 chip promises. While some apps and games, including Infinity Blade 3 and Sing! Karaoke, have been built to take advantage of the processor, and the improvement over the iPhone 5 is clear when it comes to everyday activities such as launching apps or surfing the web, I haven't noticed a difference. Still, this is one fast phone; you'll be hard pressed to find lag, and it will give you the power you need in the years to come. Future thinking, indeed.

The Camera
Apple says more apps will be on the way to take advantage of the faster silicon, but its own camera app is already tapping into that speed, including the slow-mo and burst mode features. Both of the new features are really fun to play with and add a lot to the already top-notch camera experience.

And the improved camera sensor, which now captures more light, might be the biggest upgrade for most people. When it comes to performance in darker settings, especially in dimly lit restaurants, shots are noticeably better and clearer when taken with the 5s than with the iPhone 5 or 5c. Even photos I took on a bright sunny day seemed to look crisper.

The iPhone 5s' camera is one of the main reasons to buy this phone over any other out there. Yes, the Nokia Lumia 1020's 41-megapixel camera takes great shots, but it is a very chunky phone. And while the Galaxy S4 and HTC One take good shots, they do not capture photos as well balanced and crisp as the ones taken with the iPhone 5s. It's simply worth it for the better Instagrams alone.

The Non-Changes
All those aforementioned changes keep Apple's iPhone ahead of the pack in very crucial ways, but there are some other places where the case for the most forward-thinking phone hasn't been made.

The first is with battery life. Apple said users of the iPhone 5s should see a 25 percent bump in endurance, but I haven't experienced that. It could be some of the early iOS 7 battery problems, but I still have been getting a little less than a full day of juice -- about 10 hours or so. Some Android phones, such as the Moto X, seem to last at least 20 percent longer, although they are thicker and not as well-designed as the iPhone. We have come a long way since the first iPhone's five or so hours of battery life, but I haven't given up on a smartphone future that does away with ugly battery cases.

And then there is the screen. I'll be the first to admit that a 5.5-inch or 6.3-inch screen is overload for a smartphone, but there are times now when I feel the 4-inch display on the iPhone is too cramped. The Moto X's 4.7-inch display seems to be the ideal blend of screen real estate and manageability.

Lastly there is the software. Despite some people having problems adjusting to the change and some getting sick, iOS 7 is a very worthy upgrade, especially when it comes to the addition of such new features as Control Center. But as I said in my review of iOS 7, there are places where I wish Apple had gone further. Android's deep customization options and integration with Google Now provide software features that go beyond what we expect from our phones today.

The Bottom Line
The iPhone 5s is a great phone, especially if you are upgrading from the iPhone 4 or 4s, but it's not as compelling if you have the iPhone 5 or even some competing Android handsets. When it comes to camera performance, the security convenience provided by the fingerprint reader, general design and app selection and quality, the iPhone 5s is at the top of the heap and does set the bar in the crowded smartphone market.

But while the iPhone 5s is the most forward thinking iPhone and one of the best phones to have in your pocket or bag, some of those various non-changes sure do indicate that there is plenty more forward thinking Apple can do.

Hotels In Northern California - Apple iPad Mini With Sharper Display Faces Delay

Source      - http://finance.yahoo.com/
By            - Clare Jim and Reiji Murai
Category  - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Apple Inc will be unable to widely roll out a new version of the iPad Mini with a high-resolution "retina" display this month, people who work in the company's supply chain said, leaving the gadget without the sharper screen found on rival tablets from Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

Apple's supply chain is only now gearing up to make retina displays for the iPad Mini, which means the gadgets could be available in only limited quantities this year, if at all, and the company may miss the chance to cash in on the year-end holiday shopping season, the sources said.

Cupertino, California-based Apple has come under pressure to preserve market share and bolster sales against rivals that are rapidly raising specifications and lowering prices.

It remains unclear exactly what new features and modifications could find their way into the next iPad Mini, which the sources said was due to be unveiled this month.

But higher-resolution screens and cameras, as well as thinner and lighter dimensions, are among the improvements users have come to expect with updated smartphones and tablets.

"If they don't put in retina ... there will be howls," said Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester.

Apple declined to comment about any product launches and the sources at companies in Apple's supply chain declined to be identified due to the confidentiality of the matter.

DISPLAY DISAPPOINTMENT

Apple defines retina display as resolution that is detailed enough that the human eye can't detect pixelation.

The feature is available on some full-sized iPads, and similar resolutions are available on iPad Mini competitors such as Google's Nexus 7, as well as Amazon's seven-inch Kindle Fire HDX due to go on sale this month.

The reason behind the delays in manufacturing the retina display screens for the iPad Mini were unclear. One source at a supplier said there were delays in Apple's certification of panel producers, which were given strict power-saving requirements.

LG Display Co Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's display unit and Sharp Corp all vied to manufacture the panels, supply chain sources said.

The three display makers declined to comment.

Given the time required to ramp up screen production, a retina display-equipped iPad Mini would not be available in large volumes until early next year, the sources said.

The sources expected Apple to either wait until early next year for a full-fledged launch of a retina display iPad Mini, or to make a retina version only available in limited quantities before the end of the year.

Apple has also told suppliers to reduce costs, two of the sources said, with one person saying the U.S. firm is looking at rolling out an iPad Mini with a smaller 8 gigabytes of memory.

Less memory may allow Apple to lower the price of the Mini to boost sales in emerging markets like China where cheaper tablets, many of them running Google's Android operating system, are gaining market share.

"Right now the iPad Mini is more expensive than everyone else in the 7- to 8-inch tablet segment," said Arthur Liao, an analyst for Fubon Securities in Taipei. "If it could reduce its price by even just $50, it would appeal to more consumers."

The iPad's total market share almost halved to 32.5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, while Android devices, including Samsung's Galaxy series, gained nearly a quarter to 62.6 percent, a survey by tech research company IDC showed.

Amazon's new 7-inch Kindle Fire is priced from $229 for 16GB wifi-only models, while Google's second-generation Nexus 7 offers a similar screen size and storage capacity at the same price. By comparison, the cheapest model in Apple's current 7.9-inch iPad Mini lineup with 16GB storage size starts at $329.

Anyone expecting Apple to dramatically cut prices is likely to be disappointed, analysts said, pointing to the higher-than-expected price tag for the iPhone 5C unveiled this month.

"Don't expect the prices to be significantly lower," said one of the sources. "Even though Apple aims to cut down on component costs, it still ends up around the same as the current Mini because the new Mini will have upgraded specifications."

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Satellites Reveal New Views Of Pakistan's 'Earthquake Island'

Source      - http://www.nbcnews.com/
By            - Becky Oskin
Category  - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita

Earth performed the ultimate magic trick last week, making an island appear out of nowhere. The new island is a remarkable side effect of a deadly Sept. 24 earthquake in Pakistan that killed more than 500 people.

Satellite images snapped a few days after the earthquake-triggered island emerged offshore, near the town of Gwadar, reveal that the strange structure is round and relatively flat, with cracks and fissures like a child's dried-up mud pie.

The French Pleiades satellite mapped the muddy hill's dimensions, which measure 576.4 feet (175.7 meters) long by 524.9 feet (160 m) wide. Aerial photos from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography suggest the gray-colored mound is about 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 meters) high.

Gwadar is about 230 miles (380 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter. The magnitude-7.7 earthquake was probably centered on the Chaman Fault, Shuhab Khan, a geoscientist at the University of Houston told LiveScience last week.

Geologists think the new island, named Zalzala Koh, is made of erupted mud, spewed from the seafloor when either trapped gases escaped or subsurface water was violently expelled.

The new island could be the result of a mud volcano. Mud volcanoes form when hot water underground mixes with sediments and gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. If the noxious slurry finds a release valve, such as a crack opened by earthquake shaking, a mud volcano erupts, according to James Hein, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Santa Cruz, Calif. Geologists from the Pakistan Navy report that Zalzala Koh is releasing flammable gas. But seafloor sediments commonly hold methane-producing bacteria, so the possible methane coming from the island isn't a clincher to its identity.

Shaking from the powerful Sept. 24 earthquake could have also loosened the seafloor sediments offshore of Pakistan, jiggling them like jelly. The great rivers coming down from the Himalayas dump tons of water-saturated sediment into the Arabian Sea every year. The new island could be a gigantic example of a liquefaction blow, when seismic shaking makes saturated sediments act like liquid, and trapped water suddenly escapes, Michael Manga, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience.

Similar islands have appeared offshore of Pakistan after strong earthquakes in the region in 2001 and 1945. If the earlier examples hold, the soft mud island won't last a year, disappearing under the erosive power of the pounding of waves from monsoon storms.

Six Flags Magic Mountain - Dollar Steady As U.S. Government Shutdown To Start

Source      - http://www.reuters.com/
By            - Dominic Lau
Category  - Six Flags Magic Mountain
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Six Flags Magic Mountain

The dollar held steady on Tuesday even though much of the U.S. government was due to start shutting down after Congress failed to find a compromise on a bill to fund government operations.

Competing spending measures flew back and forth between Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate late into Monday night in Washington but Congress deadlocked over Republican efforts to use the temporary spending bill as a way to delay implementation of President Barack Obama's health care program.

It comes a few weeks ahead of the next political battle to raise the federal government's debt ceiling. Failure to do the latter by mid-October could result in a historic U.S. debt default that would threaten the U.S. economy and send ripples around the globe.

S&P stock futures inched up 0.2 percent, unchanged from earlier price action after the cash index fell 0.6 percent on Monday, while U.S. Treasury futures slipped 5 ticks.

As many as one million U.S. federal employees could face unpaid furloughs, but a shutdown would be unlikely to affect the United States's sovereign credit rating.

Investors are accustomed to political battles in Washington resulting in a last-minute accord and voiced scepticism any shutdown would last for an extended period.

"It may have a knock-on effect on the timing of the potential tapering (by the Federal Reserve). It could have a knock-on effect on the production of economic data. It could have a real impact on consumption if it lasts for more than a day," said a senior trader at a foreign bank in Tokyo.

"People in the market are kind of interpreting this as a kabuki drama if you like, but we are little more concerned than that."

The dollar .DXY was down 0.1 percent against a basket of currencies. It was steady at 98.15 yen, having climbed off a one-month low of 97.50 on Monday as Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was expected to announce his economic growth and tax strategy later on Tuesday.

Japanese manufacturers' sentiment improved sharply in the three months to September to a near six-year high, a closely-watched central bank survey showed on Tuesday, cementing the case for Abe to proceed with a planned sales tax increase next year.

"This is very constructive in terms of the assessment of the current economic situation. There is no reason that Prime Minister Abe should stop raising the (sales) tax," said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan in Tokyo.

Japan's Nikkei share average .N225 rose 0.3 percent after climbing as much as 1.3 percent earlier in the session.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.2 percent, though it was still not too far away from a two-week low after it slid 1.5 percent in the previous session. Regional trading activity was expected to be light with China and Hong Kong closed for National Day holiday.

China's manufacturing growth edged up only slightly last month with the official Purchasing Managers' Index rising to 51.1 from August's 51.0, but below expectations and adding to worries that its economy recovery has foundered.

In the commodity markets, gold edged up 0.2 percent to $1,329 an ounce after gaining 7.6 percent in July-September, reversing three straight quarters of decline.

Brent crude dipped 0.6 percent to around $107.7 a barrel after gaining 6 percent in the third quarter, also ending a three-quarter losing streak.

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Gmail’s Ongoing Email Slowdown Nearing Resolution

Source      - http://techcrunch.com/
By             - Sarah Perez
Category   - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

Good news! Today you can blame your non-responsiveness to all those important emails you’ve been ignoring on Google itself. The company’s online email service Gmail has been experiencing issues leading to delayed emails and attachments failing to download, the company confirmed. Earlier this morning, Google said an estimated 0.24 percent of its Gmail user base was affected by these problems, but in an update released later this afternoon, the delays were said to being affecting “less than 50 percent of Gmail users.”

Given the wording of that announcement, it sounded like, at first, things were getting worse instead of better. Gmail has some 425 million users, according to a public announcement detailing the size of its user base, which was revealed last summer at its Google I/O developer conference.

Google has been providing regular updates regarding the situation throughout the day, the first appearing at 10:25 a.m. ET and noting that it was then starting to investigate reports of an issue with Gmail. This was followed by an update over an hour later that informed customers that delays were involved and some attachments were failing to load.

Updates released at 12:43 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:05 p.m., and 2:45 p.m. ET so far only said that the team is continuing to investigate the problem and will update when there’s more information available.

At 3:00 p.m. ET, the company added that the service has been restored for some users, and it expects full resolution within an hour, but this time frame may change. Google did not say which percentage of the “less than 50 percent” of users has had service restored.

We reached out to Google via email for comment on what may have caused this issue, and other details, but you know…

Meeting Space Santa Clarita - Facebook Finally Lets You Edit Posts

Source      - http://mashable.com/
By             - Pete Pachal
Category   - Meeting Space Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Meeting Space Santa Clarita

If autocorrect has ever ruined your Facebook post, your prayers have been answered. Facebook introduced the ability to edit status updates starting Thursday.

The latest update for the Android Facebook app adds the ability to "edit your posts and comments and tap to see all your changes." However, the editing has not been enabled on any of the Android devices we experimented with.

The editing feature will roll out to Facebook users on the web and Android devices over the next day, Facebook confirmed to Mashable. The editing feature is not included in the latest iOS app, but will likely get pushed out in the next update. Users will see the option to "Edit Post" when they click on the drop-down arrow in the top-right corner of a post.

Editing posts was potentially dicey territory for Facebook, since the it brings the danger of a bait-and-switch with followers. A user could conceivably write, "Who likes ice cream?" and get hundreds of Likes and affirming comments, then edit the post to read, "Who wants to beat up some cats?"

Facebook addresses this issue by marking the post as edited and letting users access the history of any edited post with a click. Google+, which has let users edit posts for some time, works in a similar fashion.

Facebook has been slowly granting users more editing capabilities over their content. Users can edit photo captions (that is, status updates with a photo attached) and the ability to edit comments arrived a few months ago. 

It's likely Facebook examined all the potential abuses and concluded the risk in letting users alter posts was minimal. It makes sense: Any user who would mislead followers or friends with a post they intend to maliciously edit would likely soon find themselves with few followers or friends of any value.

For journalists on Facebook, the value of editing posts is even greater. As Mashable's Emily Banks has argued, being able to edit a post in a transparent fashion makes Facebook posts more like articles on a website, and now reporters will be able to make corrections without deleting entire updates and losing conversation threads.

What's your take on editing posts: Yea or nay? Have your say in the comments.

Attractions In Santa Clarita - Apple Beats Android In Smartphone Wars

Source      - http://www.bostonglobe.com/
By             - Hiawatha Bray
Category   - Attractions In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Attractions In Santa Clarita

Apple’s timing was perfect. The new iPhone 5s hit the stores two years after I bought an iPhone 4s, entitling me to a $200 trade-in, and a painless upgrade.

But the contract on my other phone had run out a few months earlier. So I picked up an HTC One, powered by Google Inc.’s Android operating system. And I am delighted with it. Android began by aping the iPhone, but it has evolved into software so good that the flow of borrowed ideas runs both ways, with Apple adding a number of Android’s best features.

So which is better? After comparing the way each phone handles several important tasks, it was an easy call. Android’s fine; Apple’s even finer.

This comparison was no cakewalk. Android’s features can vary from phone to phone. It has open-source software, so phone makers like Samsung Corp. and HTC Corp. add their own special tweaks. Phones running Apple’s iOS 7 and its older brother, iOS 6, always work the same way. Still, we can make a few worthwhile side-by-side critiques.

Let’s start with utilities — the tools and controls used to set up the phone and get basic tasks done. Android has long done it better. There is no hunting for the settings control. Just pull down the notifications bar at the top of the screen and there it is. Want to add app shortcuts to a screen? Just touch it to view your options.

The new iOS 7 has caught up in a big way. It now has Control Center, a marvelous menu that pulls up from the bottom of the screen. Control Center allows instant access to a bunch of vital utilities — airplane mode, screen brightness, music volume, a timer, and a calculator. It even has a flashlight mode, so there is no need to download a separate app for that. You can do all these things with an Android, but not quite so easily. Advantage: Apple.

Android came up with the idea of posting notifications of incoming messages on a pull-down menu at the top of the screen, but Apple is perfecting it. The iOS version has always been superior to Android’s and in iOS 7 it has gotten much better. I especially like the today feature, which tells you the day’s appointments, the local weather, and even a preview of what is on tap tomorrow. In this department, Android has lots of catching up to do.

How about device security? The fingerprint scanner on the new iPhone 5s is cool, but a team of German hackers have already figured out how to beat it. Maybe we should stick to the old-school password system that the iPhone uses as a backup. Androids have password protection, too. But what they did not have for a long time was something like Apple’s Find My iPhone feature. This lets users find a lost or stolen phone and remotely wipe the information on it, to protect sensitive data. The new iOS 7 just added a kill switch that can remotely lock the phone to make it permanently useless to thieves.

But Android has closed the gap on security. Last month, it launched Android Device Manager, a website where a user can see their phone’s location on a map. They can order it to blast out a ringtone, or delete stored information. This week, Android added a remote locking feature of its own. With this new tool, my Android phone is as secure as the iPhone.

Both iOS and Android offer excellent speech recognition tools. Android’s Google Now service has actually worked better for me than the iPhone’s vaunted Siri system. Google Now is great for all kinds of online searching, and it even launches the apps on Android phones with a voice command. But the iOS 7 Siri upgrade has pushed Apple back into the lead. It is much faster than the previous edition, with a more pleasant, human-sounding voice (female or male). And it has a heap of features that Androiders can only dream of. You can ask Siri to read your e-mail aloud, play a favorite piece of music, or run a hashtag search on Twitter. I have no doubt that Google will soon pull even, but for now, give it up for Apple.

I still prefer my HTC One. It runs fast as a laser, its screen is much bigger than that of the 5s, and I’m addicted to HTC’s custom-designed screen interface, which displays the latest news headlines and Facebook messages. With help from a few good apps, it can do nearly anything the iPhone 5s can do. Yet the iPhone’s combination of beauty and efficiency is as magical as ever.