United To Offer Wi-Fi On Flights

United Airlines has installed Panasonic Avionics Corporation's Ku-band satellite technology on some of its wide-body aircraft in order to provide Wi-Fi Internet service to passengers. Internet service will first be offered on long-haul flights, followed later this year on shorter flights.

 

The first planes to get the satellite Internet service are Boeing 747s, which are used to cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and two Airbus 319s, which are used for some cross-country domestic routes. United said it should have the satellite-based Wi-Fi service available on about 300 planes by the end of the year. This includes its Boeing 737, 757, 767, 777, and 787 aircraft. (The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is not expected to enter service for United until the third quarter.)

United will offer the Wi-Fi service to passengers at a range of price points. Interestingly, the airline will offer two different speeds, though it hasn't specified exactly what those speeds will be. The slower service will cost between $3.99 and $14.99 and faster service will cost between $5.99 and $19.99 per flight, depending on the duration. United pointed out that both ranges are initial prices and noted that they may evolve over time.

The Ku-band satellite-based service offers faster data speeds than some competing air-to-ground services, such as GoGo. Before it merged with Continental, United offered GoGo on some of its long-haul, cross-country flights. Continental, however, never offered Wi-Fi Internet service to passengers.

GoGo, which is run by Aircell, uses land-based towers to communicate with aircraft as they fly overhead. The service is used by a wide range of air carriers, including American Airlines and Delta Airlines.

"Satellite-based Wi-Fi service enables us to better serve our customers and offer them more of what they want in a global airline," said Jim Compton, vice chairman and chief revenue officer at United. "With this new service, we continue to build the airline that customers want to fly."

The service will allow passengers to use their smartphones, tablets, netbooks and laptops while in the air. They'll be able to browse the Internet, upload and download files, and use instant messenger systems. Tools such as VoIP calling will likely not be supported.

United has yet to specify exactly when the service will become available.  

Weather Channel Apps Top 100M Downloads, 38M Monthly Mobile Users

The most popular weather app around has just hit a significant milestone: 100 million downloads.

The Weather Channel has just announced that their family of apps has crossed this threshold. That includes iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The iOS app was first launched in 2007, and the Android app followed in 2008. Last July is when it finally landed on the Windows Phone on the Nokia Lumia.

“This is a huge achievement for us – only a very small, select number of companies can say they have this reach and consumer loyalty – and I want to thank our users and our employees,” said Cameron Clayton, digital division president, The Weather Company. “Reaching this milestone is a testament not only to our amazing users who continue to seek out – and use – The Weather Channel on their devices, but also to our hard-working team, which continues its efforts to create the best app available on every screen.”

According to their stats, the apps register 38 million users per month on mobile, and six million on tablets. Over the past year, which has been a pretty crazy year for weather, Hurricane Sandy and Christmas were the two events that drove the most app use. On December 26th, the Weather Channel family of apps saw 137.5 million views, which is an all-time record.

Back in May, The Weather Channel app v5.0 launched in the App Store as a pretty significant redesign, both in the UI and the features. Apart from changes to the way the app looks (for the better, I might add), the new app added social integration from Facebook and Twitter – so users could see the weather chatter in their area. It also added improved severe weather alerts, something that I’m sure came in handy for plenty of users in 2012.

Cellular iPad Mini, 4th-Gen iPad Coming to China on Friday

Apple has just announced that the Cellular + Wi-Fi versions of their two newest tablet offerings will become available in Chain by the end of the week.

The Cellular + Wi-Fi iPad Mini and 4th-gen iPad with Retina display will launch in China this Friday, January 18th.

The iPad Mini and the 4th-gen iPad will be available through Apple Stores, the Online Store, and other authorized Apple retailers.

The Wi-Fi-only versions of the two devices have been available in China for over a month. They landed in the country back on December 7th, just a week before the iPhone 5 launched there.

“iPad mini with Wi-Fi + Cellular models come in black & slate or white & silver for a suggested retail price of $459 (US) for the 16GB model, $559 (US) for the 32GB model and $659 (US) for the 64GB model. 

The fourth generation iPad with Wi-Fi + Cellular models come in black or white for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model.”

The newest iPads are currently available in over 100 countries. 

Facebook Unveils Graph Search

Well, here we go. Facebook is doing search.

Facebook revealed “Graph Search” today at its event in California. CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that this is not “web search”.

“We are not indexing the web,” he says. “We are indexing our map of the graph, which is really big and constantly changing. Almost a million new people every day. 240 billion photos. 1 billion people. 1 trillion connections.”

“Friend connections, locations, likes, comments, tags, it all adds up to indexing all this content and making it so you can retrieve it instantaneously is a really hard technical problem.”

The offering will appear as a bigger search bar at the top of the page, and when you search for something, you can actually retitle the search results page as you see fit.
“Graph Search and web search are very different,” the company says. “Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: ‘hip hop’) and provide the best possible results that match those keywords. With Graph Search you combine phrases (for example: ‘my friends in New York who like Jay-Z’) to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that’s been shared on Facebook. We believe they have very different uses.”
“Another big difference from web search is that every piece of content on Facebook has its own audience, and most content isn’t public,” the company adds. “We’ve built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook. It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook.”
OK, so Facebook isn’t doing web search (yet). That doesn’t mean that this couldn’t represent a significant threat to Google in the way that other types of search and information discovery tools pose a threat. Amazon, for example, has been taking away a significant amount of product searches that would have once been performed at Google.
Google has been doing its damnedest to provide you with relevant social search results, but we all knew this would not be possible without Facebook, as long as Facebook is the dominant social network that it has become. When Google lost the Twitter firehose, that only complicated things further. Twitter Search can be thought of as another one of these information discovery tools that could be viewed, collectively, as a threat to Google’s dominance in search. Facebook, obviously, is a big piece of the puzzle.
Even still, this doesn’t look like a Google killer by any stretch of the imagination, but a handy Facebook tool? Perhaps. It’s no secret that search on Facebook has pretty much been a joke up until this point.
And if you’re looking for web search from Facebook, it still has Bing.
In terms of Google losing any search market share, it’s really about Google losing more queries for different types of searches – people’s decreased reliance on Google for finding information.
Let’s also remember that Facebook’s mission is to “Make the world more open and connected,” as opposed to Google’s, which is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.” Those are pretty different, and today’s offering definitely fits more into Facebook’s plan. Facebook considers Graph Search “a new way to navigate these connections and make them more useful”.
Graph Search is in limited beta. The company notes that it’s still in “very early development”. It’s only available in English, and currently only works for a subset of content on Facebook. Posts and open graph actions aren’t available yet (though Facebook says it will be working on these in the coming months). It currently focuses on people, places, photos and interests.
The company also says that mobile, more languages, and the open graph are on the agenda for the future. Once it has all of that, it’s going to be a lot more powerful feature, without question. Think about the open graph, specifically, and how many sites on the web are connected to Facebook. Hint: it’s quite a few.

 Right now, you have to go here to sign up to join a waiting list to use the feature. When you sign up, Facebook tells you you’ll see an announcement on Facebook, and you can switch to the new experience.
Facebook says the roll out will be slow so they can see how people use it, and make improvements accordingly.

New iPad App

Get all the latest news from Financial News on the iPad.

Free to download and view iPad Highlights - a selection of our best content from the week especially available on iPad.

For full access get a Financial News licence.  WebSite Here



Features:

• Online / Offline viewing
• Save articles for reading later
• View our latest Photo Galleries
• Trending, see what everyone else is reading
• Customise the news sections within the app
• Read the weekly print edition 

GALAXY Camera GC100

Like much of the company's industrial designs, the Samsung Galaxy Camera is a slick-looking device. The front of the camera is clad in white, with a large 23mm lens on the right, and a small rubberized grip on the left. The back is simply a large 4.8-inch touch screen.

Overall, we like the design, with one caveat: There's no place to comfortably rest your right thumb. If we were to place our thumb on the camera where it felt most natural, it would be in contact with the touch screen. Instead, our thumb was left to hover, somewhat uncomfortably.

Physical controls are minimal, too. The top has a shutter button surrounded by a small circular zoom ring, and a minuscule power button in the middle. The left side has a button to activate the flash. On the right side is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a small flap that covers a microUSB port. The bottom has a tripod mount as well as a door that opens to reveal the battery, SIM card, microSD card and a microHDMI port.

Measuring 5.07 x 2.79 x 0.75 inches and weighing 10.8 ounces, the Galaxy Camera falls somewhere between compact point-and-shoots and micro four-thirds cameras in terms of weight and size. While you'll have trouble fitting it in a pants pocket, it slid easily into our jacket. Still, we noticed its weight. By comparison, the smaller Android-powered Nikon Coolpix S800c weighs only 6.5 ounces.

Display

The 4.8-inch 1280 x 720 HD Super Clear LCD display on the Galaxy Camera is plenty large for surfing the Web, watching YouTube clips, and yes, taking photos. This is the same size display as you'll find on the Galaxy S III, but it's much brighter than that handset's AMOLED screen. We're talking about the difference between 426 lux and 210 lux on our light meter, which means you should have no problem using the Galaxy Camera outdoors.

Interface

The Galaxy Camera runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with the nonintrusive TouchWiz, so those who are familiar with Google's mobile operating system on smart phones should have no trouble navigating the Galaxy Camera. One difference, though, is that the Camera app is always present in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.

Wisely, when you first turn on the camera, it opens right into the Camera app. Only by pressing the on-screen Home button do you get to the Android interface. Samsung starts you out with three home screens, though you can add more. Pulling down from the top brings up notifications, as well as settings for wireless connectivity, mobile data and brightness.

As with smartphones, the Galaxy Camera has full access to the Google Play store and all the apps within. While it does not support Google Now, it does have Google voice typing, as well as Samsung voice typing, which uses Vlingo technology.

Performance

Packing a 1.4-GHz quad core Exynos processor, the Galaxy Camera can hang with the top Android smartphones on the market. Its An3DBench score of 7,589 is about 400 points higher than the average, and even beats out fire-breathers such as the Droid DNA by about 300 points.

On the CPU portion of the Benchmark test, the Galaxy Camera scored 4,047, which is 1,400 points higher than average, but bested by the DNA (4,752) and the Droid RAZR HD (4,685).

Navigating through menus and opening apps was quick and smooth, although we noticed occasional slowdowns when trying to access the gallery while uploading video to Dropbox.

The camera has 8GB of storage built in, and can accept microSD cards up to 64GB in size.

Camera Features

In addition to a 16-MP sensor, the Galaxy Camera features a 21X optical zoom lens, enabling you to get a lot closer to your subject than any smartphone. The camera's ISO ranges from 100 to 3200, the f-stop from 2.8 to 8.0, and shutter speeds up to 1/2000th of a second.

The Galaxy Camera has 14 shooting modes, including burst, panorama, macro, waterfall and sunset. In Auto, the camera selects what it thinks is the best mode for shooting, but we wish there was some on-screen indication of what the device picked.

While the Galaxy Camera has a fully manual mode, we found it very cumbersome to use. The on-screen dials used to change shutter speed, f-stop, and the like obscure the bulk of the display, so you can't easily see what's changing. Plus, the animation to display or hide the controls takes a second or so to complete, so you wouldn't want to use this mode when trying to capture something at the spur of the moment.

Panorama mode worked, but there were a few instances where it stitched photos together incorrectly. We did like that the on-screen guide helped to keep the camera level, though.

Voice controls let us say a phrase -- i.e "Say cheese," "smile," "capture," or "shoot" -- to fire off the camera or activate other controls, including zooming in or out, using the flash or recording video. This worked well, and is especially useful if you're trying to take a group photo.

Like its Galaxy S III phones, the Galaxy Camera has a number of Samsung's sharing features, including Buddy Photo Share, Share Shot and AllShare. Buddy Photo Share recognizes your friends' faces and makes it easy to share photos with a tap. Share Shot uses Wi-Fi Direct to let you share photos with multiple users at once (provided they have a Samsung Galaxy phone, tablet or camera with this feature). Lastly, AllShare enables Galaxy Camera owners to beam photos and videos to compatible TVs.

Photo Quality

Overall, photos taken with the Galaxy Camera's 16MP looked good, but not overwhelmingly better than what we'd see from a smartphone.

A nighttime shot of a lit Christmas tree was illuminated well, as were the surrounding trees, but we needed to take a few shots to get a clear image. Even at an ISO of 3200, we noticed a fair amount of noise in photos, but not to the point where it was overly distracting.

Using the macro mode, we could make out the finer details in a rose as well as the baby's breath in a bouquet of flowers, and could see individual hairs on a cat.

Indoor shots of a fireplace and red leather chairs were also lush and vibrant, but when compared with a photo taken with an iPhone 4S, reds seemed artificially bright.

Video

The Galaxy Camera can record video up to 1080p at 30 frames per second. It did a great job capturing the spirit of the holidays when we filmed a sextet playing Christmas tunes. The camera zoomed in smoothly, but briefly lost focus as we zoomed back out. Still, we could make out the details in all the instruments, and the camera's lone microphone picked up the tune perfectly.

A nighttime shot of a train arriving at a station also came out well.

While shooting video, you can also press the shutter button to take still shots of whatever you're recording. This feature also worked well; as we filmed cars passing by, the camera was able to capture crisp stills of individual autos.

The camera can also record slo-mo video at 120 fps (768 x 720). A film of our friend running toward us at full tilt looked hilarious when replayed on our computer, though we wish the resolution were higher.

Apps

Samsung includes two editing programs, Photo Wizard and Video Wizard, on the Galaxy Camera. Both were easy to use and handy for making simple edits. The Photo Wizard also has a number of filters, from the basic Sepia and Retro, to more advanced filters such as Tilt Shift.

However, when using Video Wizard, we found it wouldn't run in the background. You have to wait for it to finish exporting a file before you can do anything else with the camera.

The Galaxy Camera has access AT&T Locker, a free photo and video sharing service. Accessible via an app on the camera, users get 5GB of cloud storage for free, where they can upload photos and video, and share the content via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or email. If you want more storage, it will run you $3.99 per month for 30GB or $9.99 per month for 100GB.

Data Speeds

Unfortunately, the Galaxy Camera can only use AT&T's HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul network, not its much faster 4G LTE network. Using Speedtest.net, the Galaxy Camera averaged 1.65 Mbps downloads and 0.9 Mbps uploads in our testing. Uploading a 16-MP photo (a 3.8MB file) to Dropbox took 1 minute and 50 seconds, versus 17 seconds over our Wi-Fi network. A 30-second 1080p video (62.5 MB) took more than 10 minutes to upload, compared with about 2 minutes via Wi-Fi.

Data Plans

AT&T offers its Mobile Share plans for those who want to connect the Galaxy Camera via cellular. For example, if you already own an AT&T smartphone, the starting plan costs $40 per month for unlimited talk and text and 1GB, plus $10 per month for the camera. The next tier is 4GB for $70 per month, plus $10 per device.

An individual 4G Camera DataConnect plan starts at $14.99 a month for 250MB of data; the next plan costs $30 a month for 3GB, and a $50 per month plan gets you 5GB of data.

Verdict

Considering all the photos and videos that are uploaded to social networks from smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy Camera EK-GC100 seems like a smart idea. You get a higher resolution than most camera phones, plus a 21x optical zoom and built-in editing apps. Plus, the Galaxy Camera offers a host of sharing features. However, $499 plus $10 per month is a lot to ask for a camera that's not only bulky but doesn't support AT&T's fastest 4G LTE speeds.

Although you'll have to spend a bit more, we'd recommend a compact interchangeable lens camera, such as one from the Sony NEX line. What you'll lose in instant gratification will be made up with better photo quality.

Technology That Can Transform The Workplace

When the internet was initially introduced, it had little impact on the way in which businesses operated. It was only in the late 1980s that the internet began to truly revolutionise the way in which business was done locally and internationally.

The modern workplace of today is now almost completely reliant on the internet and modern technology. It has forever changed the way in which we communicate and work, speeding up processes that before where highly expensive and time consuming. This article will cover some of the most important technological developments and how they have transformed the business world.

Cloud storage is one of the most important technological developments to have changed the way in which we work. Long gone are the days of having highly expensive networking systems for the sharing of data within a business. With cloud based storage, information is stored remotely, and is accessible from anywhere.
Cloud storage has therefore gone on to revolutionise the way information is distributed by businesses, both internally and externally. Cloud based storage has also meant that even small businesses can have some form of IT infrastructure at extremely low costs, streamlining the way in which small businesses operate.


Smartphones and tablets
These devices have become extremely prevalent in the modern age, allowing for business owners and workers to be accessible 24/7 through a number of channels such as email, text, video and voice calling and VOIP. These devices when paired with cloud based storage can allow for workers to access vital information at any time and location. These new technologies have been shown to save small business owners and workers approximately 11 hours a week, boosting productivity and profits to new heights.
Networking and VOIP
The way in which businesses communicate internally and externally has dramatically changed since the 90s. With the many networking developments made, offices all over the world can operate as if they were all in one building through the use of services such as mpls and mitel. International business has become much less reliant on business trips as most conversations can be done over the internet through video conferencing. This in turn has saved businesses huge amounts of time and money as their workforce can be put to work on more pressing projects.
Technology has undoubtedly changed the small and large business world for the better as it has freed business owners and workers from the shackles of time consuming clerical work and brought clients and co-workers closer together, regardless of the distances separating them.

Adobe Photoshop And Premiere Elements 11 Are Back

Adobe’s photo editing software is something of a novelty here at The Tech Labs, especially considering we have a decent list of tutorials for Photoshop. Unfortunately, most of Adobe’s software isn’t newbie friendly. Essentially, that means the average user would find it difficult to navigate and perform even the most basic functions in Adobe’s software.

Recognizing this, Adobe created a suite of photo editing and organizing applications that are designed for use by those who are less “tech savvy.” The user friendly software that we’re talking about is called Adobe Premiere Elements.

Adobe is now back with Photoshop CS6, and Adobe Premiere Elements 11. Both of which have been totally redesigned to be more “user-friendly.”

The user interface is what received the most change in the newer software versions. The UI has now been improved with more attractive colors and a more streamlined design. The theme, icons, and fonts are brighter compared to older versions, which had darker backgrounds and styles.
Both Premiere Elements 11 and Photoshop CS6 have now been designed to be seamless as far as the user interface goes. They offer the same basic features and photo editing modes (quick, guided and expert) so that if you’re familiar with one software suite you will have no problem transitioning to the other.
Plenty of new features have also been implemented. For example, both CS6 and Premiere Elements 11 now ship with a photo organizer that allows you to sort photos based on people in the picture, locations, and even events. A brand new feature in the Adobe photo organizing suite is the option to view Google maps geo-tagging information associated with a photo.

Brand new filters can be applied to photos with a comic book style theme, like pen and ink, comic, and novel. That is on top of the various filters that already existed in previous software versions.
Photos can now be shared easily via social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and even email. You can import and manage your personal photos, edit all pertinent information, and perform visual edits. Once you’ve finished with the photo, you can then easily share it to your network of choice within the Adobe software- there is no need to open your browser.
Guided Edits, mentioned above, are new also. They let folks who aren’t so well versed with the Photoshop and Elements software to take advantage of the professional photo editing tools. Effects like vignette, high and low-key and tilt-shift can be used by following through a guided edit process, which helps you modify an image step by step.

Other new features include:

• Professional quality video editing with Premiere Elements 11
• Tons of effects, transitions, themes, titles, disc menus and professional quality sound effects for use during video edits
• Integrated video sharing with Vimeo
• New user interface with easily recognizable “one-click” icons
• New object extraction methods for erasing backgrounds or pulling objects from an image

When Will Adobe Premiere Elements 11 And Photoshop CS6 Be Available?

The Adobe Premiere Elements 11 products, including Photoshop Elements 11 and Adobe Premiere Elements 11 software for Windows and Mac, are available now via Adobe’s official website. According to Adobe, the software will also be available at retail outlets soon; from places such as Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, New Egg, Office Depot and Staples.
The Photoshop Elements 11 & Premiere Elements 11 bundle is available now for $149.99, with upgrade pricing at $119.99. Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Adobe Premiere Elements 11 are available separately for $99.99, with upgrade pricing at $79.99.

The Windows 8 Box Illustrations And Prices Have Been Revealed

Windows 8 officially launches October 26^th, which isn’t that far away at all. In fact, it’s less than two weeks away (as of the time of this writing).
We’ve covered Windows 8 extensively here at The Tech Labs, and as you can see we’ve got quite a bit of information stacked up about Microsoft’s latest OS.
So, you can imagine our delight when we found out that Microsoft revealed the Windows 8 box art and final pricing options. We’re sure there are some more secrets out there concerning the latest Windows OS, but nothing is as valuable as this news!

Okay, so we’ll admit, knowing the Windows 8 box design is not as influential as knowing something like how the new user interface works. Still, the box art reveal is pretty exciting nonetheless.
Microsoft has taken a break from traditional box styles with Windows 8. Sure, the box design looks a lot more retro (think late 80s / early 90s style), but the aesthetics are minimal, to say the least.
Newegg is to blame for the release of the box art, and they’ve also released information about all of the Windows 8 versions that will be up for grabs at the end of October.
If you must know, Microsoft claims the new packaging is 41% lighter, and thanks to their move to paper based materials they’ve also made an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. Basically the new Windows 8 packaging is remarkably green.
The new packaging will include one of five different illustrations, all of which can be viewed on Microsoft’s Facebook page.