Review : Samsung Series 9

The torrent of Ultrabooks shows no sign of abating, but until now one major manufacturer has been conspicuously absent from the slim and light fracas. We caught a glimpse of Samsung’s sensible Series 5 – a semi-successful attempt to subvert the Ultrabook template by restoring the optical drive into a swollen 14in chassis – but now the spotlight falls on to the real deal: its no-expenses-spared refresh of the Series 9.

The transformation is remarkable. By taking the design ethos of the original and starting afresh, Samsung has produced a physically stunning laptop. It was hardly overweight before, but Samsung has pared down the chassis to a mere sliver of navy blue. Tapering from a few millimetres thick at its front edge to only 15mm at the rear – yes, that includes the rubber feet – the Series 9 is the dictionary definition of svelte.

And in a world where looks are as important as feel, Samsung strikes another blow: the Series 9 is outstandingly well made. It’s easily the equal of its price rivals, Apple’s MacBook Air or, for the Windows purists, Asus’ Zenbook UX31E. It feels deliciously solid in the hand, barely flinching as we attempted to flex it out of shape. For a laptop that weighs only 1.16kg, it’s a stunning feat of engineering.

Samsung has also addressed the connectivity issues of its predecessor: the ports are no longer hidden on dropdown flaps on the edges. Instead, the silver metallic strip running around the edge flares out as it reaches the hinge. Here, there’s just enough room for USB 3, micro-HDMI and a miniaturised Gigabit Ethernet connection on the left edge, while a USB 2 port on the other is accompanied by an SD card slot and mini-VGA. Bear in mind, though, that while an adapter for the miniature Ethernet connection is included, the full-sized D-SUB adapter is a £22 optional extra.

Stop pawing the Series 9 long enough to turn it on, and there are some neat touches. The most obvious is the brightness sensor that lights up the keyboard as the ambient light dims. Four brightness levels ensure the keys never disappear out of sight, and the backlighting only kicks in when it’s needed, thus conserving battery power.

Display

The brightness sensor keeps the matte 13.3in display in check, too, automatically adjusting the backlight to suit your surroundings. We did notice it shifting a little too readily on the odd occasion, but that’s nit-picking. With the LED backlight capable of reaching a brilliant 472cd/m2, and the matte display banishing distracting reflections, the Series 9 remains usable in almost any lighting conditions without having to reach for the brightness control.

In quality terms, though, the Samsung’s display blows away the current competition. The 1,600 x 900 resolution makes for a crisp, well-proportioned desktop; viewing angles are unbelievably wide, both vertically and horizontally; and the 760:1 contrast ratio means the picture oozes solidity and depth. Colour accuracy isn’t exemplary – the factory calibration of the MacBook Air helps it retain its lead here – and there’s a tendency for skin tones to look just a little too ruddy and warm, but it’s by no means bad. For now, this is the gold standard by which all other Ultrabook displays will be judged.

The Series 9’s audio performance is unusually assured. Quite how Samsung has crammed in such a tuneful set of speakers, we have no idea. There’s little real bass, but just enough body, clarity and volume to make any genre of music listenable.

Performance

Flick the lid open, and Windows 7 resumes from sleep in a couple of seconds. It isn’t quite as spritely as some, however, and this is probably due to the SanDisk SSD. While sequential read and write speeds reach 431MB/sec and 309MB/sec respectively, the performance with small 4K files is poor, with read and write speeds slowing to 9.6MB/sec and 6.75MB/sec.

And as it might be reasonable to expect a generous specification at this price, the Series 9 is disappointing. The Core i5-2467M processor is more often found in the cheaper Ultrabook models, and is partnered with the usual 4GB of DDR3 RAM. With a result of 0.55 in our benchmarks, the Series 9 is fast enough, but it’s behind the cheaper Asus Zenbook UX31E. One benefit such modest hardware brings is that the Series 9 is almost silent; it was only once we loaded up our Crysis benchmark that the Series 9’s chassis warmed to the touch, and the tiny internal fans whirred into action.

And somehow Samsung has also wrung reasonable stamina from the Series 9’s tiny chassis. With hardly any room for a battery, the Series 9 lasted a reasonable 6hrs 57mins in our light-use battery test. Heavy use wasn’t quite as impressive, with the battery running dry in 1hr 53mins.

Keyboard & touchpad

Our time with the Samsung threw up little in the way of serious annoyances. While there’s the nagging doubt that the keyboard isn’t quite as good as some of the Ultrabook competition, it’s largely trouble-free. The Scrabble-tile keys have very little travel, but the light spring at the end of each keystroke and the sensible layout make amends. It was only once we really picked up the touch-typing pace that we craved a little more feedback from each dig of the finger.

The touchpad will prove more controversial. Like many of its peers, it integrates the buttons into the pad itself; dab anywhere, and it gives way with a quiet, muffled click – just like a MacBook Air. Strangely, though, depressing the pad only registers a button press if you click in the bottom-left or bottom-right corner – click anywhere else, and it does nothing at all. It’s a baffling and annoying design decision.

Other than that, the pad works well. All the usual two-finger gestures – zooming, rotating and scrolling – feel fluid, and the combination of three-fingered swipes flicks between applications, minimises the currently open ones, or opens Flip 3D. It’s still nowhere near as slick as the Apple touchpad/OS X combination, but it’s the match of any of its Ultrabook rivals.

Conclusion

Despite its weaknesses, the Series 9 is a bewitching prospect: the combination of beauty, burly build and a class-leading display are enough to set anyone’s credit card twitching. And you’ve got to hand it to Samsung: the pricing is bold at £100 dearer than a comparable MacBook Air, and £200 more than the Asus Zenbook UX31E.

There are caveats. For £1,200, we’d expect nothing less than brilliance, and Samsung’s Series 9 isn’t quite there yet. That touchpad blots its copybook, the specification isn’t what we’d like, and although it’s the most desirable Ultrabook we’ve yet seen, we can’t help feeling tempted to opt for a MacBook Air, a copy of Windows 7 and a handful of change. It’s good, but not quite good enough.

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Police arrest woman over internet terror connections

The Metropolitan Police have arrested a woman that officers allege is involved with organising terror over the internet.

The arrest was made in an investigation that also saw a Moroccan arrested in Italy amid accusations that he was running a terror training group on Facebook and may have been planning an attack in Milan.

“Officers from the MPS Counter Terrorism Command have today arrested a 40-year-old woman on suspicion of offences under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000,” the Met said in a statement.

“Her arrest is in connection with an alleged posting of extremist material on the internet. We are liaising with the Italian authorities to establish whether there is any link to an arrest they made earlier this morning.”

Her arrest is in connection with an alleged posting of extremist material on the internet

According to the police, the London arrest was made in the early hours of this morning and police are continuing to search the suspect's home.

The link between the Italian arrest of a 20-year-old man and the London suspect is still being investigated, but police in Italy claim their arrest involves a possible terrorist whose computer contained plans of a Milan synagogue and who had been involved with a suspect website.

The arrest was the "result of monitoring of the internet that we've been doing for a while on a radical Islamic website,” Claudio Galzerano, head of Italy's police anti-terrorism unit, told BBC News.

Galzerano also said the man had operated a secret Facebook group with around a dozen members where posts included "instructions and manuals for explosive devices".

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BBC confirms commercial download plans

The BBC has confirmed plans to add a paid-for download service to its digital portfolio, giving viewers the option of “downloading to own” programmes shortly after broadcast.

The idea of a commercial download service was mooted earlier this year, and the BBC has confirmed it plans to push ahead with what is now dubbed “Project Barcelona”.

In a speech to the Royal Television Society, director general Mark Thompson laid out plans for an iTunes-like store where publishers could make their wares available for download. Unlike iPlayer, the content would be available permanently.

“The idea behind Barcelona is simple,” Thompson said. “It is that, for as much of our content as possible, in addition to the existing iPlayer window, another download-to-own window would open soon after transmission.

"If you wanted to purchase a digital copy of a programme to own and keep, you could pay what would generally be a relatively modest charge for doing so."

This is not a second licence-fee by stealth or any reduction in the current public service offering from the BBC - it’s the exact analogy of going into a High Street shop to buy a DVD

When the idea was first reported, it raised concerns among licence payers that they were being charged for the same content twice, given that the Beeb is funded by the taxpayer. Thompson, however, played down the fears, claiming commercial copies were already available to end users.

“This is not a second licence-fee by stealth or any reduction in the current public service offering from the BBC - it’s the exact analogy of going into a High Street shop to buy a DVD or, before that, a VHS cassette,” he said.

“For decades the British public have understood the distinction between watching Dad’s Army on BBC One and then going out to buy a permanent copy of it. Barcelona is the digital equivalent of doing the second.”

"Non-exclusive"

The content wouldn't be restricted to the BBC's own site, Thompson said, adding that it would be working with other retailers to provide content.

“The window would be non-exclusive,” Thompson said. “The BBC would open up one digital shop, but the expectation would be that all this content would also be made available for other existing providers to sell if they wish and that producers could exploit this download-to-own window in any way they wanted.

“The important point is that the window would be open-ended – in other words, the programmes would be available permanently.”

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PowerAMC 15.1 (PowerDesigner) + Patch

About

PowerDesigner (PowerAMC) is a collaborative enterprise modelling tool produced by Sybase. PowerDesigner runs under Microsoft Windows as a nativeapplication, and runs under Eclipse through a plugin. PowerDesigner supports model-driven architecture software design. PowerDesigner uses the .pdm file format.

PowerDesigner data modeling tool market share in 2002 was 39%. PowerDesigner is priced from $3,000 to $7,500 USD per developer seat.^[2]

Download

1°\ You can download te program from 1net --->> Here

2°\ Download patch from --->> 

*copy ptach into the poweramc folder (C:\Program Files\Sybase\PowerAMC 15) then patch the programe

thnx..

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Yahoo sues Facebook over advertising patents

Yahoo has sued Facebook over ten patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the web.

The lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, marks a major escalation of patent litigation that has already swept up the smartphone and tablet sectors and high-tech stalwarts such as Apple, Microsoft and Samsung.

Yahoo said late last month it was seeking licensing fees from Facebook over its patents and that other companies have already agreed to such licensing deals.

Yahoo's patent lawsuit follows Facebook's announcement of plans for an initial public offering that could value the company at about $100 billion.

Facebook spokesman Jonathan Thaw said Facebook learned of the lawsuit through the media.

If what Yahoo is saying is literally true, then it seems like a lot of companies would be liable

"We're disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation," he said.

In an emailed statement, Yahoo said it was confident it would prevail.

"Unfortunately, the matter with Facebook remains unresolved and we are compelled to seek redress in federal court," the company said.

Yahoo has seen its revenues decline in recent years at a time when rivals such as Facebook and Google have thrived.

In January, Yahoo appointed former PayPal president Scott Thompson as its new chief executive, replacing Carol Bartz, who was fired in September.

Online advertising

In the lawsuit, Yahoo says Facebook was considered "one of the worst performing sites for advertising" prior to adapting Yahoo's ideas.

"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, has conceded that the design of Facebook is not novel and is based on the ideas of others," the lawsuit said.

Only two of the ten patents at issue are directly related to social networking technology. Most focus on online advertising, including methods for preventing "click fraud," as well as privacy and technology for customising the information users see on a web page.

"If what Yahoo is saying is literally true, then it seems like a lot of companies would be liable," said Shubha Ghosh, a professor who specialises in intellectual property at The University of Wisconsin Law School. But, he added, much would depend on whether a judge defines the patents broadly or narrowly.

The lawsuit is a change for Yahoo because the company has never initiated offensive patent litigation against such a large publicly traded company.

A classic defence for companies targeted with patent claims is to threaten a countersuit using its own patents. But Yahoo possesses far more patents than Facebook. According to a US government database, Yahoo has over 3,300 patents and published patent applications, while Facebook has 160.

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Ofcom clears 4G launch for this year

The UK could see 4G mobile data arrive this year after Ofcom approved plans by Everything Everywhere to use some of its existing spectrum to run LTE services.

The 4G auction process has been dragging out for years, with the sale of spectrum space at 800MHz and 2.6GHz not expected until the end of this year at the earliest, with services expected in 2014.

The sudden change of fortune for data-hungry mobile users follows an appeal from mobile operator Everything Everywhere, which asked for permission to run LTE services over its 1800MHz spectrum previously used for 2G mobile services.

Allowing Everything Everywhere to reuse its spectrum in this way is likely to bring material benefits to consumers, including faster mobile broadband speeds

“Allowing Everything Everywhere to reuse its spectrum in this way is likely to bring material benefits to consumers, including faster mobile broadband speeds and – depending on how Everything Everywhere uses the spectrum – potentially wider mobile broadband coverage in rural areas,” Ofcom said.

Ofcom said it had “considered whether allowing Everything Everywhere to use this spectrum in this way would distort competition, and provisionally concluded that it would not”.

Potential hurdles

However, rivals could still block the application from Everything Everywhere, an alliance of Orange and T-Mobile.

According to Ofcom, operators have until 17 April to comment on the consultation and could seek legal recourse to prevent Everything Everywhere from using the spectrum.

Although Ofcom told us that O2 and Vodafone, for example, were able to apply for the same permission using their existing spectrum in the 900MHz range, it is understood that they hold less spare spectrum and could mount a challenge.

Neither company has yet to respond to requests for comment.

Everything Everywhere's appeal follows claims last month that it was ready to roll out services by the end of the year.

“Everything Everywhere’s vision is to launch 4G for Britain as soon as possible, and the roll out of 3.5G HSPA+ and our 4G trials across Britain are major steps towards delivering on that promise,” said Olaf Swantee, CEO at Everything Everywhere.

“Subject to regulatory approval by the spring, Everything Everywhere will be in a position to begin the roll out of 4G before the end of the year.”

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Sony unveils "touchless" touchscreen smartphone

Sony has unveiled a smartphone that allows some web browsing without touching the screen.

The Sony Xperia Sola features "floating touch" navigation, which the firm says offers "magic web browsing without touching the screen" - although the gesture system appears to be limited to choosing links.

According to Sony, users hover their finger above links on the screen "so it acts like a moving cursor, without actually having to touch the screen".

"Once the desired link is found it can be highlighted and a simple tap will load the page," Sony explained, promising the tech will be used for more in the future. "Floating touch will evolve with new user functionality and applications through software updates and engagement with developers."

We'll have to get our hands on - or above - an Xperia Sola to review before we can say whether that is any more useful than merely touching the screen, however.

Calum MacDougall, head of Xperia marketing for Sony Mobile Communications, said the system gives "consumers a fun new way to browse the web and latest technology to show off".

The Xperia Sola also features Sony's NFC SmartTags, which allow users to automate basic functions for the phone to perform, such as switching to silent mode, when it is moved near a tag.

Aside from those features, the Xperia Sola is a 3.7in Android handset, running version 2.3 - but upgrading to 4.0 this summer - on a dual-core 1Ghz processor. It features a 5-megapixel camera, which Sony goes from "from sleep to snap in a little over a second with a single key press".

The Sola will arrive in the second quarter, with a spokesperson saying it was a "mid-range phone" and would be "priced accordingly".

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NATO chief targeted in Facebook scam

NATO's top military commander has been targeted by a social engineering attempt - with Chinese spies blamed for the attack.

According to a report in the Observer, the simple scam involved the perpetrators setting up a false Facebook account in the name of Admiral James Stavridis, and trying to persuade friends and family to befriend that account.

NATO said it wasn't clear who was behind the social engineering attack that could have been used to develop a picture of the admiral's personal life, although security experts have pointed the finger at China.

The most senior people in NATO were warned about this kind of activity

A NATO official told the paper that Stavridis - the supreme allied commander Europe (SACEUR) - had been targeted on several occasions in the past two years.

"There have been several fake SACEUR pages,” a spokesperson said. “Facebook has cooperated in taking them down… the most important thing is for Facebook to get rid of them."

The security threat is the latest in a series of attacks blamed on China, with experts in the US and UK blaming the country for a series of military and corporate intrusions in recent years. NATO said it had raised the issue of social network impersonation with its staff.

According to the report, NATO was now in regular contact with Facebook account managers and that the fake pages were usually deleted within 24 to 28 hours of being discovered. A spokesperson for Facebook told us: "We removed the profile for violating our terms within a business day of receiving a report."

With high-level hacks notoriously difficult to prove with precision, officials have been reluctant to point the finger at China publicly, but another security source told the Observer that “the most senior people in NATO were warned about this kind of activity. The belief is that China is behind this".

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Browsers to bridge Metro and desktop in Windows 8

Browsers will be one app class that works in both desktop and Metro modes in Windows 8, Mozilla has revealed.

Mozilla revealed last month it would release a beta of a Windows 8 version of the open source Firefox browser in the second half of the year.

As porting work begins, a Firefox developer has noted there's three classes of apps for Microsoft's next-gen Windows OS: desktop, Metro Style, and browsers that work across both UIs.

"Firefox will fall into the third category, meaning you can run Firefox as a desktop application, and you can run it as a Metro application," said Mozilla developer Brian Bondy in a blog post.

"Unlike Metro applications, Metro Style enabled desktop browsers have the ability to run outside of the Metro sandbox," he said. "Meaning not only can we build a browser, but we can build a powerful browser which gives an experience equal to that of a classic desktop browser."

He noted a browser must be set as the default browser for it to work across both UIs. "So if Firefox is not the default browser on a system, you can't use it in Metro mode," he said. "This is a decision made by Microsoft."

Questions remain

Bondy added he was unsure if the rival browser to Microsoft's Internet Explorer would be included in the Windows app store "since it is not of Metro application type".

Development work has already started on the Windows 8 version of Firefox, but Bondy suggested it was slow going because Microsoft had released little information about the special browser class of apps.

He added that it was too early in the development stages to work on UI or to know if Flash will be supported, as it's not allowed on the Metro version of IE10. "There may be some technical restrictions and we haven't decided one way or the other if we really want it," Bondy said.

Mozilla is set to release version 11 of the Firefox browser this week, featuring add-on syncing and easier migration from Google Chrome, after moving to a faster release cycle last year.

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Microsoft: OnLive tablet app breaks Windows licensing

Software that puts Windows 7 onto Android and iOS tablets is breaking licensing agreements, Microsoft has said.

OnLive's apps offer a Windows desktop through the cloud. OnLive Desktop uses the company's cloud gaming system to serve up the Office suite to tablet users, via a free app as well as a £4.99/month pro version.

Microsoft has now said the OnLive service is not "properly licensed", following the release of the two products over the past few weeks.

"We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved," said Joe Matz, Microsoft's corporate vice-president for licensing and pricing, in a blog post.

Matz pointed out that it's possible to use a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) system, so long as the end customer has a licensing agreement with Microsoft. "The hosting hardware must be dedicated to, and for the benefit of the customer, and may not be shared by or with any other customers of that partner," he said.

Companies can also offer "desktop-like functionality" under the Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) without the end user having a license. "However, it is important to note that SPLA does not support delivery of Windows 7 as a hosted client or provide the ability to access Office as a service through Windows 7," Matz said. "Office may only be provided as a service if it is hosted on Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services."

The statement is likely to spur more complaints about the complexity of Microsoft's licensing system, with one commenter on the post saying it "is long past time for Microsoft to address the shortcomings within its current licensing policy with regard to VDI".

The company claimed such rules were necessary to protect its IP. "Our licensing terms provide clarity and consistency for our partners, ensure a quality experience for end customers using Windows across a variety of devices, and protect our intellectual property," Matz said. "It’s important to us and to our partners that we’re serious about issues of compliance."

OnLive has yet to respond to requests for comment.

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Apple iPhoto ditches Google Maps

Apple has ditched Google Maps for its iPhoto application, becoming the second company to shift to an open source alternative in the last ten days.

The iPhone manufacturer will use data from OpenStreetMap to show where a photograph was taken.

“The desktop version of iPhoto, and indeed all of Apple’s iOS apps until now, use Google Maps,” OpenStreetMap said. “The new iPhoto for iOS, however, uses Apple’s own map tiles – made from OpenStreetMap.”

The crowd-sourced data will be tweaked and re-presented by Apple, although the dataset set being used is, according to OpenStreetMap, an older version of the mapping data from 2010.

Last week, location service FourSquare said it too would be moving away from Google's maps, citing changes to the way the company charged for access to its information.

Google announced changes to its Maps API rates last year, with fees of $4 per thousand requests among other licencing models.

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