How to Build a Long Lasting Relationship

 A careful study of relationships today among youth shows that relationships hardly strive, but crash before leaving the ground. Luckily, it is not only youths who wish to build long lasting relationships so ignore this if you are merely youthful and not actually a youth. The most responsible factor here is that in some basic cultures, ethics of relationships are not followed. If you don't live in a basic culture, you are in luck! There ares four basic ways you can build a long lasting relationship that can last for a lifetime. But before we get to that, we have to underscore the meaning of a healthy relationship. A healthy relationship can be one of the best ingredients to your life. Good relationships improve your life in all aspects, strengthening your health, your mind and your connections with others as well. On the same vein, it could be one of the greatest drains if the relationship is not working. We need to see a relationships as an investment; the more we add to it the more strong and productive it will be for us. Love and relationships take work, commitment, and a willingness to adapt and change through life as a team. Everyone’s relationship is unique, and people come together for many different reasons. There are some things that good relationships have in common. Knowing the basic principles of healthy relationships helps keep them meaningful, fulfilling and exciting in both happy times and sad: What makes a healthy love relationship?

 

Steps

1. Stay involved with each other: Some relationships get stuck in peaceful coexistence, but without truly relating to each other and working together. While it may seem stable on the surface, lack of involvement and communication increases distance. When you need to talk about something important, the connection and understanding may no longer be there. Many relationships get bogged down in the struggle of general survival, keeping a roof over your heads, feeding the family, dealing with extended family, elderly parents etc. Try not to only work on these things but on the two of you as well. 

 

 

2 Get through all your conflicts with your partner: Some couples talk things out quietly, while others may raise their voices and passionately disagree. The key in a strong relationship, though, is not to be fearful of conflict. You need to be safe to express things that bother you without fear of retaliation, and be able to resolve conflict without humiliation, degradation or insisting on being right.  

 

 

3 Keeping outside relationships and interests alive: No one person can meet all of our needs, and expecting too much from someone can put a lot of unhealthy pressure on a relationship. Having friends and outside interests not only strengthens your social network, but brings new insights and stimulation to the relationship, too. 

 

 

4 Communicate in an honest, direct way to your partner: When both people feel comfortable expressing their needs, fears and desires, trust and bonds are strengthened. Critical to communication are nonverbal cues—body language like eye contact, leaning forward or away, or touching someone’s arm.

10 steps to heal a broken heart

The searing pain of a failed relationship is the greatest suffering many of us will ever experience. Now, leading hypnotist Paul McKenna and psychotherapist Dr Hugh Willbourn claim they can teach you to mend a broken heart. Using their unique 10 step method, you can remove emotional pain and feel free to enjoy life fully again - in days.

• ACCEPT THE PAIN

Accept that you will have to go through some pain. It is an unavoidable truth that if you loved enough to be heartbroken, you have to experience some suffering.
When you lose something that mattered to you, it is natural and important to feel sad about it: that feeling is an essential part of the healing process.
The problem with broken-hearted people is that they seem to be reliving their misery over and over again. If you cannot seem to break the cycle of painful memories, the chances are that you are locked into repeating dysfunctional patterns of behaviour. Your pain has become a mental habit. This habit can, and must, be broken.
This is not to belittle the strength of your feelings or the importance of the habits you've built up during your relationship. Without habit, none of us would function. But there comes a time when the pain becomes unhealthy.
When you enter your bedroom at night, you switch on the light without thinking. If you obsess about your ex, and feel unhappy all the time, it's likely that your unconscious mind is 'switching on' your emotions in exactly the same way.
Without realising it, you have programmed yourself to feel a pang of grief every time you hear that tune you danced to, or see your ex's empty chair across the kitchen table.


• CHANGE YOUR HABITS
Now you have to break those connections. Turn off the music that reminds you of your ex. Make your home look and feel different from when your loved one was around. Move the furniture.
Take up a new activity. And keep moving: exercise is the single most effective therapy for depression.
The point of these changes is to break up the old associations and give yourself a new environment for your new life. The changes you make don't have to be permanent. Even if it is just using a different shampoo and deleting your ex's number from the memory of your mobile, change something. Now.

• CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS

The next step is to do the same thing on the inside - transform your habits of thought. In a relationship, we build up a huge array of such habits. When the love affair ends, these patterns can still be running.
To change your thinking habits, you need to understand a little more about them.
Have you ever witnessed the same event as someone else, and later found out their account of it was completely different from yours? Each of you saw the event through a 'frame', made up of your personal beliefs, feelings and internal habits.
If you are finding it devastatingly difficult to handle the end of your relationship, you may need to change this 'frame'. You will need to reframe your heartbreak. Stop seeing it as the end of your happiness. Instead, turn it into a challenge; view it as an opportunity.
Being heartbroken can make you feel worthless and hopeless - but that is because the frame you are using is too narrow. Learning to see your situation with a different frame is a wonderful liberation.

• VIEW YOUR RELATIONSHIP FROM THE OUTSIDE

The following exercise will help you look at your circumstances from different points of view, so you gain helpful insights.
1. Think about the break-up of your relationship. What are the judgments or generalisations you have made about yourself and your ex?
2. Now think of someone you admire - a character from history or a real friend. Imagine they are watching a movie of this part of your life, and step into their shoes to watch it instead. Imagine what their comments would be.
3. Now imagine that a neutral observer is watching the movie of your life. Step into their shoes and watch it from there.
4. Notice the differences that you see from each point of view. Which ones are helpful? Which ones make you feel better? Use these perspectives to view your relationship in a new light.
People who get over difficulties well rarely see what has happened to them as a disaster. They frame it as a challenge. It is a matter of a point of view. It is not what happens to us, but how we interpret it that determines the outcome for us.

• CHANGE HOW YOU SEE YOURSELF AND HIM

The next stage is to focus on your mental picture of your lost love. By changing how you represent your ex in your mind, you can greatly reduce or even eliminate your distress.
You must learn to control your 'visualisation'. Every single one of us makes pictures in our imagination - and we can all learn how to change the pictures. It is important to learn to do this, because our bodies react to what we imagine in the same way that they react to what is actually happening to us. Memory and imagination affect our feelings in the same way as reality does.
We are constantly altering our state by the pictures we make in our imagination and the way we talk to ourselves. So it is vital to control those pictures and not let them run away with our feelings.

• CHANGE HOW YOU SEE YOUR PAST

1. Answer the following question. Which side of your front door is the lock on? To answer, you have had to make a mental picture of the door. You have made a visualisation.
2. Now try to imagine what your front door would look like if it was bright orange or had yellow stripes down it. Make it bigger. Move it away so that it is smaller. Move it further away and down a bit so you are looking down on it. Make it open. Change it in different ways.
3. Think about your ex now. As soon as you remember what someone looks like, you are using visualisation. What is the expression on his or her face? Observe what your ex is wearing and what he or she is doing. Where do you see the picture of them? In front of you, or to the left or the right? Is it lifesize or smaller? Is it a movie or a still image? Is it solid or transparent? Now, as you keep that image in your mind's eye, notice the feelings that arise. Make a note of those feelings.
4. Now you could remember or imagine them differently. You can imagine you are a great film director. You can reshoot the scenes of your memory and imagination in any way you want. You can change the action, soundtrack, lighting, camera angles, framing, focus and speed. Change how you are visualising your ex and notice how it affects your feelings.
5. Bring to mind the picture you had of your ex.
6. Notice where it appears and how big it is.
7. Now drain the colour out until it looks like an old black and white picture.
8. Move the image further away until it is one-tenth of its original size.
9. Shrink it even further, right down to a little black dot.
10. Notice how your feelings have changed and compare how you feel now to the note you made earlier.
You will notice that some changes have a bigger effect than others. Images that are closer, bigger, brighter and more colourful have greater emotional intensity than those that are duller, smaller and further away.
Standing outside your memories and watching as if they were a movie helps you distance yourself from them.

• FALL OUR OF LOVE - FOR GOOD

Now you are ready to tackle the central problem using the visualisation technique. Part of being heartbroken is the fact that you still feel in love. It hurts because part of you is still attached to your ex. This exercise helps that piece of you release itself.
1. List five occasions when you felt very in love with your ex. List them so you can easily call them to mind.
2. Start with the first of those memories. Play with it. Move the image away from you so that you can see yourself in the picture. Make it small.
3. Drain out the colour so it is black and white, then make it transparent. When you look at your memory like this, it will seem as if the event is happening to someone else, and the emotional intensity will be reduced still further. You are starting to re-code your memory.
4. When you have finished re-coding the first memory, do the same for the next one. Work through them until you have done all five.
5. Remember in detail five negative experiences with your expartner, where you felt very definitely put off by him or her. List the five experiences.
6. Take the least appealing memory and fully return to that moment. Try to relive it.
7. Now turn up the colour and the clarity. Make the memory as bright and clear as you can, and experience the feelings more and more strongly.
8. Go through each of the other four negative memories of your ex-partner, and relive them. Carry on until even thinking about them puts you off.
When you think about the bad experiences again and again, the negative memories begin to join up so that there is no space between them for the feelings of love, yearning and regret.
Concentrate on the exercise and do it methodically. Some people have found that doing this just once makes them feel different. To make sure the effect sticks, do it every day for two weeks.

• UNDERSTAND YOUR EMOTIONS

The next stage is to learn to understand your emotional reactions better. Your feelings of heartbreak are unlikely to disappear unless you cope with what they are trying to tell you.
An emotion is a bit like someone knocking on your door to deliver a message. If you don't answer, it keeps knocking until you do open up.
Opening the door to your feelings means learning to understand them. This can be hard, because heartbreak is complicated by other feelings: anger, fear and shame.

• BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL FIND LOVE AGAIN

You could fall into the trap of remaining convinced that your ex is the only person you could ever love. This is unlikely to be true on a planet with six billion people.
So why do you believe it? Can it be because you are desperately trying to avoid accepting that the relationship is over? Or are you afraid that the bad feelings associated with heartbreak will never go away?
That fear makes you anxious, and keeps you feeling bad for longer. The burden of your heartbreak has grown heavier, and a vicious circle has been established.

• LIVING HAPPILY AFTER YOUR BREAK-UP

A good way of giving yourself a boost - and coping with complicated feelings - is to imagine a bright future.
1. Imagine the future as a corridor in front of you. Imagine walking down it, away from the present, towards a door.
2. Open the door, and see beyond it a world in which you have recovered from your heartbreaking relationship.
3. See what you look like, what you are wearing, where you are going, whom you are seeing.
4. Now step into this new world and into the new happy you. Imagine the whole experience from the inside, seeing what you would see, hearing what you would hear, and feeling how good and happy things are now.
It is not a matter of believing the image is real: just imagine it as vividly as possible.
In heartbreak, there is often a backlog of emotional learning to get through. Do one bit at a time. Your unconscious mind will protect you, and give you a rest so that you can deal with the next bit. You will learn to step out of the memories, leave them behind, and start a new life.

How to use your PS4 as a media streamer without DLNA

How to use your PS4 as a media streamer without DLNA

As it stands, the PS4 doesn’t ship with DLNA streaming capability, ironically making the PS3 a better media center device. It’s certainly possible that we’ll see support for the standardpatched in eventually, but how are we supposed to play our media library on the PS4 right now? Thankfully, there is a way, and it’s all thanks to an app called Plex.

With this handy little app, you can stream just about any video from your computer or NASdirectly to your PS4. It only takes a few minutes to get going, so let’s jump right in.

Install the Plex server

First off, you need to install the Plex Media Server. Download it, install it, and then launch the executable. It’s simple enough, and it’s available on Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD (FreeNAS). While you’re at it, sign-up for a free Plex account if you haven’t done so already.

Configure server settings

Once the application is running, you can configure your settings as you please. Choose your server’s name, add your media folders to the Plex library, and tweak your networking options as you see fit. If you need to change the port configuration, you’ll need to toggle on the advanced mode by clicking the “Show Advanced” button in the upper right. Most people shouldn’t need to tinker too much, but the options are available.

Purchase a Plex Pass

For the time being, the Plex App on PS4 is only available for Plex members with paid accounts. Eventually, you’ll be able to separately buy access to the PS4 app without the Plex Pass, but the subscription is mandatory for now. So if you want the streamlined experience, head on over to the Plex website, and buy a Plex Pass.

Download the Plex app

Now that your account is properly configured, go into the PlayStation store, and navigate to the “Apps” section. You’ll find the Plex app itself is free, so initiate the download. Once it’s done installing, you’ll find the Plex app under the “TV & Video” section of the PS4’s main menu. Alternately, you can always go to the “Library” menu, and navigate to “Applications.”

Generate a PIN

Launch the Plex app on your PS4, and you’ll be greeted with four alphanumeric characters. You’ll need this code to pair your account with your PS4.

Pair your PS4 to your account

Now, head on over to the PIN login page on the Plex website, sign in with your premium account, and enter the four characters being displayed on the PS4. Press the “Connect” button, and you’ll be greeted with a message. If it tells you that the PIN was activated, you’re ready to rock. If you get an error, go back to your PS4, and generate a new code in the Plex app.

Enjoy yourself

Finally, you’ll be able to stream movies and TV shows on your PS4 quickly and easily. Music and channel support isn’t implemented in the PS4 app just yet, but that functionality will be added in at a later date.

Will the PS4 and Xbox One receive 4K support this year?

Will the PS4 and Xbox One receive 4K support this year?

Consumer electronics companies have begun the 4K push, and now it seems everyone is scrambling to get their houses in order. The PS4 and Xbox One are already technically capable of outputting 4K video, but considering how much these consoles struggle to reach 1080p, is 4K really feasible with the existing hardware? Netflix seems to think we’re in for PS4 and Xbox One hardware revisions this year, but are Sony and Microsoft willing to burn their early adopters?

Back in January, Netflix’s Neil Hunt said publicly that Sony had supposedly promised a PS4 hardware revision with improved 4K support in mind. Earlier this week, Forbes followed up with Hunt, and he maintains that both the Xbox One and PS4 will see hardware refreshes at around the two-year mark. Specifically, he believes that they’ll include updated internals aimed at supporting 4K video playback.

The Forbes article posits that the console makers could move to HDMI 2.0, include a dedicated H.265 decoder, and implement HDCP 2.2 support. I asked ExtremeTech’s resident hardware expert Joel Hruska for his thoughts, and while he agrees that the updated hardware is within the realm of possibility, there are other solutions available. Specifically, Joel believes that Sony and Microsoft could work with AMD to implement functional software-based H.265 decoders using either the CPU or the GPU on the existing hardware. Truth be told, a hardware refresh isn’t necessarily required for 4K video support.

More importantly, native 4K gaming is never going to happen in a meaningful capacity with this generation’s CPUs and GPUs, so the 2160p30 limitation of HDMI 1.4 isn’t a major factor. After all, the vast majority of video is still being produced at 24 or 30 frames per second. Without 60fps games to play at 4K, why should they even bother moving to HDMI 2.0 for the current generation?

The PS4 and Xbox One will most certainly be redesigned at some point, but I’m skeptical that either console maker is willing to implement major new features. For example, the PS3 Slim was released three years after the initial PS3 launch, but it was largely a cost-cutting measure. While it became slimmer and more power efficient, it actually lost some features from the previous models. Considering how sensitive these companies are to consumer backlash, I find it hard to believe that either one will attempt to screw over the early adopters — especially since we’re not even at the two-year anniversary yet.

Vital email security researcher may call it quits over lack of funds

Vital email security researcher may call it quits over lack of funds

One of the most troubling problems in computer security at virtually every level is the chronic underfunding of the developers who work on it. This was driven home with particular vengeance in 2014 as multiple security bugs in critical standards were found (and in some cases, ruthlessly exploited). These episodes exposed the fact that while multi-billion dollar corporations build products that rely on standards like OpenSSL, they only rarely contribute back to these standards in a meaningful fashion. Now, its secure email that’s facing a critical loss — one of the most important developers, Werner Koch, has effectively given notice that he’ll cease developing secure email tools if he can’t find funding for his work.

ProPublica has the details on this story, which traces Koch’s work on Gnu Privacy Guard and the Windows secure email client, GPG4Win. Since 1997, Koch has maintained and improved his own secure email software. He credits a talk by Richard Stallman for giving him the idea — at the time, the Pretty Good Privacy software package wasn’t available for export, which led RMS to challenge European programmers to create their own implementation.

Koch, speaking at an event.

Since then, Koch has worked at very low wages to create and maintain an email privacy tool that huge corporations have leveraged and that people like Edward Snowden depended onto contact Greenwald and other journalists, often without much in the way of compensation or recognition. A crowd-funded campaign he set up to help fund his work had made just $47,000 out of a $137,000 target as of December, his own website currently shows it funded at 80,707€. How much of that has poured in over the past few days is unclear.

Refuting the “many eyes” myth and the comprehensive need for better security

One of the standard talking points for why open source code is supposedly better than its closed-source equivalent is that open source software supposedly has many more eyes looking over it, correcting bugs, and contributing to a better final product. In many cases, this may be true — but one of the lessons of Heartbleed is that eyeballs have to be lookingfor bugs before they get caught. That means comprehensive software audits, which takes time and costs money — money that in many cases, these fundamental programs haven’t had.

Funding alone can’t keep a project available, but the Internet depends on a number of core standards that aren’t the responsibility of large nonprofits or well-funded open-source foundations, but are funded practically as out-of-pocket shoestrings. Once upon a time, the NSA and other government agencies might have had a role to play in helping to secure these standards, but it’s doubtful that such help would be received with anything but a gimlet eye in the current regime — especially since the NSA apparently exploited the Heartbleed bug for years.

Still, it’s obvious that something needs to change. Funding Werner Koch’s own GPG is a great first step, but private donations aren’t going to give us more than a band-aid solution to a larger problem. Securing these software packages and standards needs to be something that corporations and individuals recognize as a common interest and a pursuit well worth funding.

Office for Touch may be the Office you’ve always wanted

Office for Touch may be the Office you’ve always wanted

Even though they are only Preview versions, Microsoft’s new Office for Windows 10 Touch applications are fast, clean-looking, and fun to use. After a day of working with them, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them for much of my regular work. In fact, after getting used to them, you may wonder why Microsoft didn’t ship a simplified version of Office sooner. After years of most users complaining about the over-whelming feature creep in Office for the Desktop, here finally is a stripped-down version that has only the features most of us need day-to-day.

The touch-friendly Office applications keep the basic user interface of Office 2013 — a high-level set of ribbon-based panels with a single-document interface for the editing area. However, Microsoft has thinned out the command structure quite a bit. Ironically, this comes after years of customers asking Microsoft for the ability to customize the ribbon for themselves and being ignored. The 10-12 different areas of the Ribbon have been reduced to six or seven. The ribbon panels have also been greatly simplified — just like Microsoft did with the touch-friendly version of OneNote — to a single line of options under each heading. All of the applications have “Fire, Home, Insert, Review, and View” command headings, with Word adding Layout, Excel adding Formulas, and PowerPoint adding Transitions and Slideshow. A small set of task icons, including Sharing and Feedback, also live off to the right of the command bar.

Finally: A use for the Ribbon!

In Touch, Microsoft’s often-maligned Ribbon interface has found a natural ally. When using a mouse, clicking back and forth between Ribbon panels to get to a command adds an extra step compared to using a set of drop-down menus. When using Touch, it feels quite natural to click on the desired panel, and then on the command.

PowerPoint’s new Ink Tools make me want to give a talk

Sometimes it is the little things that create loyalty. For veteran presenters, the Ink Tools available in PowerPoints Slideshow mode may be one of them. PowerPoint already lets you point & annotate slides when presenting, but the UI is a little tricky — especially in a dark room. Now there are simple pen, highlighter, and eraser tools you can operate with either your mouse or a stylus to annotate slides during a talk, without having to click through menus to get to them. The annotations are kept completely separate, are easy to erase, and don’t mess up your presentation. This is a great way to add some spontaneity to a presentation without too much extra effort. I can easily see having a Windows tablet (the Surface Pro 3 is pretty ideal in this case) nearly flat in front of me while I present. I can then illustrate my points by sketching on the screen. Ink isn’t a replacement for looking up at a projected screen with a laser pointer (it is a lot better if you are looking at the same image as the audience, rather than appearing to be some sort of Wizard of Oz behind the curtain), but for detailed annotations — or Webinars where no one can see you anyway — it will be very helpful.

Excel for Touch is cool, but is it enough?

Microsoft has done an excellent job of creating a touch-friendly spreadsheet with Excel Preview. It is pretty easy to select cells, rows, or columns with fingers or a stylus. Once you make a selection, handles pop-up to make it easy to manipulate. As with the other touch-friendly Office apps, the simplified ribbon is also easy to use. I was a little surprised to find that this version of Excel doesn’t run macros (at least those written in VBA). Perhaps that will be changed before the final release, but macros are such an important part of so many models that it will definitely limit its usefulness.

Some rough edges, but nothing insurmountable

As befits an initial preview there are some parts that don’t work right yet. The new apps get very confused when you shift your device in and out of Tablet Mode, for example. Presumably this is the sort of thing Microsoft will fix long before the final version is released. The integrated sharing using OneDrive is cool, but not all documents can be opened by the set of Office online tools. It would also be nice to see other Sharing options — like Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive. I also expect Microsoft will add back some of the commands from the full version of Office, based on feedback it receives from the Windows Insider community. By the time the Office applications for Touch are released, there is no reason they shouldn’t provide an excellent productivity suite — if your favorite commands are among those Microsoft decides to include.

Did Microsoft throw the baby out with the bath water?

As much as nearly everyone bemoans the complexity of the traditional version of Microsoft Office, using the new tools reminds me of using many of the more-simplistic tools against which it has long competed and won. Word for Touch seems a lot like a touch-enabled version of T/Maker from the 1990s, or a touch-friendly version of WordPress, for example. There isn’t anything wrong with that, and it is probably the product most of us would like to use for creating documents, but is Word for Touch still special enough to command customer loyalty without all of the advanced features Microsoft has packed into the Desktop version of Word over the years? Likewise, if this version of Excel won’t run macros, it risks being reduced to the level of one of the many available Excel clones.

Since Office for Touch is expected to be free for tablets and small laptops, its goal is to maintain Microsoft’s market share, not to create revenue directly. As with Office for Android and for iOS, this is a really-good, if a bit late, strategy. I have no doubt that it will be wildly popular with anyone using Windows on a touch-enabled device — and perhaps even for many who just want a simpler version of their desktop tools. It may also lure many Windows users back from Google Docs. Whether it will convince anyone to buy a Windows tablet instead of a competitor remains to be seen.

If you want to try out Microsoft’s Preview of Office for Touch (also called Office for Windows 10, or Office version 16), you need to be running the latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview, and look for “Word Preview,” “Excel Preview,” and “PowerPoint Preview” in the Store (Beta) — the version of the Store with the gray icon, not the green one.

The first Ubuntu phone is finally going on sale next week

The first Ubuntu phone is finally going on sale next week

When Canonical unveiled its Ubuntu Edge concept phone on Indiegogo a couple of years ago, two things were clear: the ludicrously high funding goal showed that Canonical’s main goal was to generate hype rather than funds, and the company was taking a more aggressive approach to give Linux some mainstream appeal. If Ubuntu was treading water in the desktop space, maybe it could do a lap or two in the mobile market? The Edge didn’t meet its funding goal, but next week — two years after the concept was revealed — the first Ubuntu mobile phone will go on sale.

The Ubuntu Edge that could’ve been.

Around one year ago — almost to date — we learned that Canonical managed to wrangle a couple of partners to help manufacture Ubuntu mobile phones, Meizu and BQ Readers. Since then, though, what we mostly heard was silence. Next week, BQ will be able to say it sold the world’s first Ubuntu smartphone. Canonical’s mobile OS will be placed on BQ’s Aquaris E4.5, traditionally a midrange Android phone, sporting a 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex A7 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, and a micro SD card slot packed underneath a 4.5-inch 540×960 display, alongside a 8MP rear camera and 5MP front camera. There’s no LTE compatibility, but the phone does have two micro SIM slots. It’s not exactly the Ubuntu Edge, which promised to be a super phone that can morphfrom mobile to a full desktop environment, but for Canonical — at least at this stage — it’ll do. It’s clear that Canonical is simply testing the market with as little risk as possible, and seeing how big of a draw the unique Ubuntu mobile experience will be.

Canonical and BQ plan to generate hype not through the midrange specs, but through exclusivity. Not only will this be the only purchasable Ubuntu smartphone for now, but it will initially be sold through online flash sales, creating an air of urgency — and if you’ve been clamoring for an Ubuntu mobile device since the failed Edge campaign, you’re out of luck if you’re out of Europe. Canonical, at least, is working on a strategy to make the phone available in US markets, but there isn’t a definitive timeframe.

If you’re in Europe, you’ll have to keep an eye on both Canonical and BQ, as the flash sales seem to be just that — a flash. If you’re invested in the mobile Ubuntu alternative, hope that your European brethren gobble up the phones and help build a viable market.

Apple looking to help cut the cord with web-based TV bundle service

Apple looking to help cut the cord with web-based TV bundle service

With an abundance of cheap, easy-to-use media streamers flooding store shelves and a plethora of services flooding the digital marketplace, it may seem like it’s too late for any company to get in on the game and carve out its own share of the market — unless that company has enough influence to change a market all on its own. Recent reports suggest that Apple is looking to make its own streaming TV service, and with an influence as wide as Apple’s, the market could dramatically shift should that plan come to fruition.

One of the longest-running (and ongoing) Apple rumors is that the company has been planning to make a television, and considering its attention to detail and aesthetics, that has always been a juicy prospect. Instead, the company made a media streamer, the Apple TV, and named it after what would almost certainly be the name of its mythical television. Now, it seems, if Apple doesn’t want to get into TV hardware, it will at least get into TV services. Industry insiders are reporting that Apple is exploring deals with TV programmers that would allow the company to offer programming bundles that customers could pick and choose.

Rather than offer everything available through traditional cable services, Apple would bundle together certain packages and sell them on its own streaming service. Unless you’re very lucky with your viewing habits, the bundles won’t offer everything you want to watch, and thus won’t spark a cord-cutting revolution, but the breadth of the bundles could at least soften the blow of dumping your cable package. It could very easily offer “live” programming as well, considering competitors — such as Dish with its Sling TV — have managed to strike similar deals.

The Apple TV is simply a device that delivers other companies’ services and content; these reports don’t mention anything of Apple attempting to create its own content. If Apple does manage to get people paying for its own offering of television programming and those customers are watching it over Apple’s own hardware delivery mechanism, it would be remiss to think Apple wouldn’t want to further conquer the market by then getting customers to watch its own original content. Sony is already giving it a go with PlayStation Vue, Netflix proved original non-cable content can garner acclaim, and Apple is arguably an even bigger mover and shaker than either.

For now, these reports are just that — reports. However, if Apple is actively discussing plans with content creators and providers, then that at least means the company is seeing if the venture would be worthwhile. If so, why would Apple not do something worth doing?

ET deals: Save $150 (29092.50 Nigerian Naira) on a HP Envy 15t laptop

ET deals: Save $150 (29092.50 Nigerian Naira)  on a HP Envy 15t laptop

Laptops have been getting smaller, lighter, and more focused on casual computing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that trend, but these tiny low-power machines aren’t a proper fit for everyone. Some of us need more powerful machines to get work done, and so netbooks and Ultrabooks aren’t even on the table. Thankfully, we found a deal at HP for $150 off of a 15-inch laptop with a quad-core CPU and dedicated graphics — no need to pay retail for a laptop with some real muscle.

So, what is this portable powerhouse packing? The HP Envy 15t has a quad-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i7 CPU, dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 850M graphics, 8GB of DDR3L RAM, a 750GB 5400RPM hard drive, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi support. Paired with a 15.6-inch 1080p display and a very respectable 6-cell 47WHr lithium-ion battery, it’s easy to see why this is a perfect fit for engineers, designers, and other professionals on a budget.

Normally, this configuration sells for $899.99, but you can save $150 off that price if you use our promo code “15HPLOGICBUY” in your shopping cart. That takes the price down to $749.99 — over 16% off of the initial asking price. Frankly, this is an excellent compromise between price and performance. You could spend $200 on a Chromebook or $2000 for a MacBook Pro, but this is really the sweet spot for your average professional.

• HP Envy 15t laptop for $749 (MSRP: $899.99 — Coupon code: 15HPLOGICBUY)

ET deals: Dell Optiplex 3020 Micro desktop PC for $329

ET deals: Dell Optiplex 3020 Micro desktop PC for $329  ----- #63,809.55k Nigerian Naira

If you’re tired of keeping around a loud, bulky PC on your desk, take a look at the OptiPlex 3020 Micro from Dell. This tiny machine might not look like much, but it’s more than enough computer for everyday tasks like web browsing and e-mail. Even better, it’s incredibly affordable, so it makes for a perfect office PC.

Currently, there are two stand-out configurations worth mentioning here. First off, let’s talk about the cheaper dual-core model. It sports a 3.0 GHz Intel Core i3 CPU, integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. Secondly, we have the beefier quad-core model. Inside of it is a 2.0GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, integrated Intel HD 4600 graphics, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. They’re mostly identical, but clearly the CPU and GPU are superior in the quad-core configuration.

The starting price for the dual-core Optiplex 3020 micro is $612.86, but Dell currently has it on sale $569. If you apply the coupon code “SHBGD1LVLCD199” in your cart, your subtotal will drop to just $329. Similarly, that very same coupon code will drop the quad-core model down to $469. Whichever config matches your needs, you’ll end up with an awesome tiny PC.

• Dell Optiplex 3020 micro desktop PC with a dual-core Intel Core i3 CPU for $329(Starting price: $612.86 — Coupon code: SHBGD1LVLCD199)
• Dell Optiplex 3020 micro desktop PC with a quad-core Intel Core 15 CPU for $469(starting price: $812.86 — Coupon code: SHBGD1LVLCD199)

Check out these other outstanding deals:

Today, we found a fantastic bargain on two Dell monitors as well. Both models feature IPS LED-lit displays with a full 1080p resolution. Even better, they both come with $100 eGift cards — just use coupon code “7ZB7SD?2L3CWV2” for the best price.

• Dell S2340L 23-inch IPS LED-lit monitor for $170.99 with $100 Dell eGift card (MSRP: $219.99 — Coupon code: 7ZB7SD?2L3CWV2)
• Dell S2415H 24-inch IPS LED-lit monitor for $197.99 with $100 Dell eGift card (MSRP: $259.99 — Coupon code: 7ZB7SD?2L3CWV2)

Did chip espionage, IP theft give Samsung its 14nm manufacturing lead?

Did chip espionage, IP theft give Samsung its 14nm manufacturing lead?

For most of the past decade, the semiconductor industry has been led by the same pair of companies: Intel was the most-advanced integrated device manufacturer (IDM) and led the entire market, while TSMC was the most advanced contract manufacturer (sometimes called a pure-play foundry). Samsung’s leapfrog over TSMC to become the 14nm provider of choice. A recent article has argued that Samsung’s sudden change in fortunes was no fortuitous accident, but the result of sniping several critical TSMC employees. One man in particular is alleged to have boosted Samsung’s efforts — Liang Mong-song.

TSMC first sued Liang back in 2011, alleging that the chip designer had given trade secrets to Samsung and broken his non-compete agreement. As evidence, the company submitted a lengthy report it commissioned from outside experts which compared various features of TSMC products against the manufacturing characteristics of their Samsung counterparts. As Samsung moved to lower process nodes, TSMC argued that its products began to increasingly resemble TSMC’s own hardware. According to TSMC’s engineers, the two foundries’ now have nearly identical 14/16nm process nodes.

China to have most robots in world by 2017: IFR

China to have most robots in world by 2017: IFR

China will have more robots operating in its production plants by 2017 than any other country as it cranks up automation of its car and electronics factories, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) said on Thursday. 

Already the biggest market in the $9.5 billion global robot trade -- or $29 billion including associated software, peripherals and systems engineering -- China lags far behind its more industrialized peers in terms of robot density. 

China has just 30 robots per 10,000 workers employed in manufacturing industries, compared with 437 in South Korea, 323 in Japan, 282 in Germany and 152 in the United States. 

But a race by carmakers to build plants in China along with wage inflation that has eroded the competitiveness of Chinese labour will push the operational stock of industrial robots to more than double to 428,000 by 2017, the IFR estimates. 

"Companies are forced to invest ever more in robots to be more productive and raise quality," said Gudrun Litzenberger, general secretary of the Frankfurt-based IFR. 

"In the current phase it's the auto industry, but in the next two or three years it will be driven by the electronics industry," she said. 

Japanese robot makers still have the lion's share of the market, with about 60 percent, but Chinese suppliers are growing fast, with about a quarter of the market. Most of the rest are supplied by European and US manufacturers. 

Four foreign robot makers -- Switzerland's ABB, Germany's Kuka, and Japan's Yaskawa and Fanuc -- already have production sites in China and more are expected to follow. 

"The automation of China's production plants has just started," said Per Vegard Nerseth, Managing Director of ABB Robotics. "We have witnessed swift, almost explosive growth over the last two or three years, surpassing even our expectations." 

The automotive industry is by far the largest customer for robots in China, accounting for about 40 percent of robots in operation, as China is both the world's biggest car market and its biggest production site. 

European carmakers such as Volkswagen and Daimler which have invested heavily in China are bringing their robotics suppliers with them, Litzenberger said. 

The electronics industry is expected to follow. 

Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, which makes Apple iPhones and iPads among other products, is already making its own Foxbot robots as well as using robots bought from other suppliers.

BMW fixes security flaw that left locks open to hackers

 

 

BMW has patched a security flaw that left 2.2 million cars, including Rolls Royce and Mini models, open to hackers.

The flaw affected models fitted with BMW's ConnectedDrive software, which uses an on-board Sim card.

The software operated door locks, air conditioning and traffic updates but no driving firmware such as brakes or steering, BMW said.

No cars have actually been hacked, but the flaw was identified by German motorist association ADAC.

ADAC's researchers found the cars would try to communicate via a spoofed phone network, leaving potential hackers able to control anything activated by the Sim.

The patch, which would be applied automatically, included making data from the car encrypted via HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) - the same security commonly used for online banking, BMW said.

"On the one hand, data are encrypted with the HTTPS protocol, and on the other hand, the identity of the BMW Group server is checked by the vehicle before data are transmitted over the mobile phone network," it said in a statement.

This should have already been in place, said security expert Graham Cluley.

Hey, Gmail me that cash you owe

 

It's the social situation we all try to avoid; forgetting to pay someone back because we don't have any cash, or that card reader thingie, to do it online.

Well Google are having a go at making debt settling easier, by allowing users to transfer funds on email.

It's coming in over the next few weeks for all Gmail users who are over 18 in the UK. 

Users will have to click the "£" icon which will soon appear on emails, and enter the amount they wish to send.

 

Google made the announcement on an official blog post and says the service will be free. 

If you're really desperate for that score to be settled, you can even send requests for how much money you'd like to receive.

Users without a Gmail account will also be able to be sent cash - everyone will have to set up a Google wallet balance, and link it to their debit card or bank account.

Google Gives WebView the Cold Shoulder

 

 

 

Google has decided not to fix vulnerabilities in WebView for Android 4.3 and older, sparking heated discussions among developers.

Those versions of WebView run on the WebKit browser. Fixing them "required changes to significant portions of the code and was no longer practical to do so safely," Adrian Ludwig, lead engineer for Android security, explained last week in a post.

Ludwig recommended steps users and developers can take to mitigate the potential exploitation of WebView vulnerabilities without updating to Lollipop, or Android 5.0.

The decision will leave 930 million users of Android devices in the lurch, Tod Bearsley warned earlier this month.

Apple: what do you do after becoming the world’s most profitable company?

 

 

When Apple became the most profitable company in history last week, analysts could hardly contain their excitement.

“Stunning”, “outstanding”, “a monster” were some of the analysts’ reactions to numbers showing the Silicon Valley firm had made $18bn (£12bn) in just three months – by selling 34,000 iPhones an hour around the clock from October to December. It now has $178bn cash in the bank.

But after all the commotion, the questions began. For a company that has come back from the brink of bankruptcy less than 20 years ago, how long can the good news continue? Here are the six big questions facing the world’s biggest corporate success.

Financially, is this the peak?

Apple was 90 days away from bankruptcy when Steve Jobs rejoined it in 1997– as he later revealed – but Apple now tends to downplay its financial success ahead of quarterly profit announcements in order to surprise investors and analysts.

This quarter’s profits were on another scale, though. Sales in the three months to the end of December were up 30% to $74.6bn. Those profits of $18bn were up 37%.

It was the fastest quarterly growth since March 2012, but then Apple was half the size it is now. As Apple’s chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, said: “For a company of our size that is not a small feat.”

Katy Huberty, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, said it was a “quarter for the record books” and increased her share price target from $126 to $133, indicating she believes there is more growth to come. The shares, which jumped 5% in after-hours trading following Apple’s results, closed at $117 on Friday.

The big challenge now, says Geoff Blaber, vice-president of research for CCS Insight, is to find the next growth opportunity. “Western Europe and north America are becoming saturated: to have room for growth Apple has to rely on taking growth from [Google’s] Android operating system based devices,” he says. “The big, big, focus is on China and to a lesser extent India.”

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Apple’s revenue in the year to September to grow 22%, but growth to slow to 4% in the following year.

Are there many more people left who want an iPhone?

Apple sold a record 74.5m mobiles in the quarter, 46% more than in the same period a year earlier. “Demand for iPhone has been staggering, shattering our high expectations,” chief executive Tim Cook said. “This volume is hard to comprehend.”

The phones accounted for two-thirds of Apple’s revenue, and were worth more than Microsoft and Google’s latest quarterly sales combined.

“Seems like the whole world wants an iPhone,” Steven Milunovich, an analyst at UBS, wrote in a note to investors, pointing out that consumers had demanded even more phones but Apple couldn’t produce them fast enough until recently.

$35 Raspberry Pi 2 Faster, Runs Windows 10

 

 

 

The Pi Foundation on Monday announced that it has released the latest version of its "entry-level PC." The Raspberry Pi 2 is now available for US$35, the same price as the previous Model B+.

This build-it-yourself computer features an 800MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, which will offer six times the performance of the previous system. It also includes double the memory with 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM.

The Raspberry Pi 2 will be fully compatible with the Pi 1, and because it utilizes the ARMv7 processor, it can run a full range of ARM GNU/Linux software including Snappy Ubuntu Core and, notably, Microsoft's Windows 10.

The Pi 2 is available now from retail partners including element14 and RS Components. 

Anyone who builds a PC around the Raspberry Pi 2 will have immediate access to open source Ubuntu. Additionally, the Pi Foundation announced that for the past six months they've been working closely with Microsoft to bring the forthcoming Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi 2.

The Pi 2 compatible version of Windows 10 will be available free of charge to those makers who purchased the system, the Foundation added. However, there could still be some limitations on what the Windows version might offer.