Monthly Archives: January 2016

You Can Set Up Your Smart Home Now _ if You’re Tenacious by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A fully automated home is still years away, but the building blocks are already here: the phone that turns on the coffee maker from the bedroom, the thermostat that controls the lights when you’re away, the window shades that lift when you say “good…

Published: January 7, 2016 at 04:56AM

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HTC One M9 Android 6.0 update available in Taiwan

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HTC is slowly delivering on its promise of rolling out Android 6.0 to its phones. Earlier today, HTC One M9 owners in Taiwan started receiving notifications to download the Android Marshmallow build for their phones. Updating the HTC One M9 to Android 6.0 requires the installation of two separate update files. The first is only 65MB, while the second (which is the actual Android M update) is a whopping 1.38GB. Downloading and installing the two updates will take nearly an hour, so we recommend you have a stable WiFi connection and at least a 50% battery charge before getting started.

If you have not seen the update notification on your HTC One M9 in Taiwan, you can go to Settings > About > Software Updates > Check now to manually ping HTC’s update server.

There are not a lot of cosmetic differences between Android Lollipop and Marshmallow, but HTC One M9 users will now have access to Google Now on Tap, Android Doze and Adaptive Storage which allows you to incorporate your microSD card into the phone’s system storage.

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How Satellite Technology Can Help California’s Water Woes

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It’s raining hard here in Southern California for the second day in a row.  After four years of drought its a welcome change, but is also causing problems.  Again today my cell phone sounded an alarm for flash flooding, and the areas affected by previous fires are in real danger of mudslides.  We are predicted to get a substantial amount of precipitation from one of the strongest El Nino events in a very long time.  Still, the experts tell us that this one season will be unlikely to overcome our water woes.

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Polaroid Power and Snap smartphones unveiled

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Over at CES Polaroid has announced a couple of new smartphones (or 4, if you count display diagonal options). Not a major player on the smartphone scene, Polaroid has placed the focus of the new models on affordability.

Polaroid Snap

The Polaroid Snap is the lower-specced model, and comes in three display sizes: 5″, 5.5″, and 6″. Whatever the diagonal, resolution is 1,280 x 720 pixels, so pixel density gets progressively worse with the larger displays, dipping as low as 244ppi.

The Snaps are all be powered by a quad-core processor as part of an unnamed chipset, and feature 1GB of 2GB of RAM paired with 8GB and 16GB of storage respectively. They sport a 13MP/5MP camera combo and snappers are coupled with LED flashes.

LTE radios are on board and the Snap will launch on Android 5.1.1 with a Marshmallow update coming some time in the future. List prices range from $130 to $180, depending on display size.

Polaroid Power

The Polaroid Power is a more heavily-equipped phablet with a FullHD 6-inch display. There’s an octa-core processor running things, but again Polaroid chose not to reveal its make and model. The chip may be unknown, but the smartphone comes with a generous 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

The rear camera is the same as the one on the Snap, on paper at least, employing a 13MP sensor. On the front though, there’s an 8MP cam without a flash – there’s no room for gimmicks on the more serious Power.

And if you think Power makes it sound like it will have a whopping battery, you’re wrong, and then you’re right. The power pack inside the smartphone has a 3,000mAh capacity, but Polaroid is bundling an 8,000mAh power bank with the smartphone. LTE support, Lollipop out of the box and Marshmallow later – same as the Snap. This one will cost $250, which is not entirely unreasonable for the hardware.

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A Slippery Slope: ISM’s PMI Reveals Softness in Commodity Markets

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Trading on China’s stock markets was suspended for the second day in a row, European share prices are plunging and the Dow hit a three month low. There’s your setting for this month’s Manufacturing ISM®Report On Business® (or click here for a more graphical version)–definitely not a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

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