Celebrating Year of the Horse – Chinese New Year

Celebrations began all over the world for Chinese New Year in colorful way. The official seven day holiday is declared in China for people to celebrate the Year of Horse. The red colored streets of the towns where celebrations are getting conducted are marked by parades and prayers all around in typical Chinese way.

Chinese New Year Celebrations in China

Things are little bit change this time as revelers in China are being encouraged not to set off fireworks due to concerns about pollution. But fireworks are an integral part of the celebrations in China. According to a survey, many of the people in Shanghai revealed that they are not buying any crackers for fireworks for this holiday season.

Welcoming the Year of Horse

On the other side in Southern California, many of the shopping centers are packed with customers making most of holiday season to buy valuables. Asian residents in the California are getting encouraged with colorful dragon at Grove or ribbon dancers at some places such as Santa Monica Place. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti will be grand marshal of Golden Dragon Parade on Saturday, put on by Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles and may begin at afternoon 1 p.m in Chinatown.

Chinese temple in Kuala Lumpur

Shopping Malls in California attracting Asian customers by celebratinf the Year of The Horse by festooning their courtyards.  They decorated malls with paper lanterns and hired some experts in traditional Chinese arts. The decorative strategies by shopping mall owner are pretty impressive to fascinate some customers.

Chinese New Year at Grove

 In Manhattan, major landmark of the city Empire State Building is lighted with red and gold color. The building is decorated nicely to kick off New Year festivities, the beautiful colors are meant to represent fireworks for the event celebrations which began on Friday and lasts until 15 days.

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Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty in Boston Bombing Case

Washington - Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Attorneys for suspect will ask for leniency, arguing he was confused and following orders from his elder brother. They are seeking death penalty for the suspect saying in court papers that the deadly plot was committed in an especially heinous and cruel manner.

According to the report in Los Angeles Times, Attorney General Eric H Holder Jr’s decision, announced Thursday, marks the first time the Obama administration will attempt to execute an accused terrorist in a federal court case. But whether the 20-year-old immigrant will be sentenced to death will be subject to an intense legal fight.

Tsarnaev's defense attorneys will argue for leniency, portraying him as a confused young man under the spell of his more militant older brother, who was killed in a police shootout. The case is being handled in Massachusetts, where capital punishment is unpopular and no one has been put to death in more than 65 years. A plea agreement could be reached in exchange for dropping the death penalty, as has occurred in past cases.

But citing Tsarnaev's "lack of remorse", the Justice Department said it planned to proceed on behalf of the three people killed and 264 others injured on April 15 by a pair of pipe bombs hidden in backpacks near the marathon finish line.

Boston US Attorney Carmen M Ortiz expressed support for the decision in a court filing. She cited the substantial planning and premeditation in the attacks and multiple deaths, including 8-year-old Martin Richard, a particularly vulnerable victim. Further, prosecutors said Tsarnaev, a Kyrgyzstan native who was largely raised in the Boston area, carried out a betrayal of the United States.

Jarrod Clowery of Stoneham, who was hospitalized with shrapnel in his legs after the attack, said he was relieved he would not have to decide Tsarnaev's fate. ‘Those guys were tried and convicted by a power higher than all of us,’ he said. Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a former high-ranking Justice Department official, expressed confidence that Tsarnaev would face justice: 'One way or another, based on the evidence, Tsarnaev will die in prison'.

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Google Selling Motorola Mobile Unit to Lenovo

Smartphone market is on its peak at this time and Lenovo’s purchase of Google’s phone business may create a big role on the competitors in the same category. There is already a Smartphone price competition we see in the market which is squeezing the leaders like Samsung.

SEOUL, capital city of South Korea, the news about Google Inc’s selling its phone business to Lenovo Group Limited is creating a formidable player in a market for cheap makers. Presently, Samsung Electronics Corporation is dominating the Smartphone market around the world. This Corporation, Samsung has maneuvered a partnership with Google on its popular Android operating system into a 30% share of global Smartphone shipments.

Motorola is good company and has certain reputation mobile manufacturing market. It is one of the best mobile corporations in the Asia. Recent publications of Motorola Smartphones are pretty impressive in the market but it misses the publicity of brand value. Moto devices haven’t exactly sold like hotcakes.

Google has decided to handover the Motorola Mobility into the eager hands of Chinese hardware giant Lenovo, which may also useful for Moto people. Motorola could truly benefit from Lenovo as it has many product making talents. Motorola has Launched Android handsets last year with futuristic features. Motorola products such as Moto X and Droid Maxx has many innovative capabilities but not able to gear up in the market which dominated by other phones such as Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and GS4, LG’s Nexus 5 and G2.

Lenovo acquisition of Motorola from Google may turn the things for Motorola Corporation to boast their products in the market compare to the other top selling products available. Lenovo is a big firm and expected to change the total behavior of the Moto mobiles if required to push up sales.

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Secure Smartphone from Spy Agencies

It is known to all that spy agencies have been catching personal data from Smartphone apps. National Security Agency (NSA) and one more British agency used PowerPoint Slides has been uncovered recently which indicates that they are intercepting the data through Smartphone and mobile phone apps.

Few major news channels such as The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica already reported about the collection of personal data on the basis of the documents provided by Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor. The documents showed that GCHQ British Agency and NSA has already collected some data which is transmitted through Angry Birds, Facebook, Flickr, Flixter, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Maps and Photobucket.

They are collecting not only huge personal data but also even more intrusive information is being transmitted through open cellular networks through apps themselves. This data includes user’s religion, sexual orientation, marital status etc which is transmitted from third party ad networks which place ads in mobile apps.

The agencies, NSA and GCHQ are interested in the personal data of very few people. For people residing in United States, NSA need court orders to look into your data after it has been collected. Spying of a Smartphone is not difficult in nowadays as we know that Smartphone apps have been playing fast and loose with users’ personal data.

Also Read NSA Building Quantum Computer to Crack Encryption Types

Spying of data makes you upset, experts suggests that you should secure your Smartphone to make it harder for spy agencies to gather data from your phone. Following are some of the steps you should take care before using Smarthphones.

If you are playing a game on mobile then make sure that your mobile device is turned into airplane mode. Many of the games won’t require Internet connection to run and killing of network connection will block the ads to stop data transmission. While Connecting to internet turn to virtual private network which may trouble for hackers to eavesdrop on data transmission.

Wait until you completely connected to internet through your mobile phone for updating your social media accounts. Better to install HTTPS browser plugin everywhere, you can get it for free to connect to internet securely. Turn off WiFi, GPS and geolocation as they are used to pinpoint your location later you can turn it on when you actually need them.

In other way, simply you can get rid of Smartphone if possible to stay away from these kinds of spying agencies.

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Americans Anxious Over Future Says Poll Report

President Barack Obama will lay out his agenda for the year on Tuesday night before a nation increasingly worried about his abilities, dissatisfied with the economy and fearful for the country's future, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
 

According to an article in Wall Street Journal by By Neil King Jr. and Patrick O'Connor, Since the rise of modern polling in the 1930s, only George W. Bush has begun his sixth year in the White House on rockier ground than Mr. Obama. At the same time, the public supports many of the themes and policy ideas Mr. Obama looks set to emphasize in his annual State of the Union address to Congress. Large majorities of respondents said they want the White House and lawmakers to focus on job creation and early-childhood education, and a slimmer majority favored increasing the minimum wage.

Just over half of the 800 Americans participating in the Jan. 22-25 poll want the government to play a role in reducing income inequality, and Mr. Obama is expected to back proposals in those areas as part of a broader effort to narrow the gap between rich and poor. Mr. Obama didn't see much progress on his call in last year's address for swift action to tighten gun laws, address climate change and raise the minimum wage. A comprehensive immigration bill he backed passed the Senate, but House Republicans say they will pursue a piecemeal approach.

The president is expected to revive many of those ideas in this year's speech. "You lay outgoals at the beginning of the year that aren't limited to, you know, a one-year evaluation," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, who defended the president's record, telling reporters on Monday that historians would judge the president's legislative record to date as "huge and important." The survey found that just over half of Americans disapprove of the president's job performance, with 43% approving, a trough that remains little changed since the early summer.

Nearly six in 10 say they are uncertain, worried or pessimistic about what he will do with the remainder of his presidency. Disapproval for Congress, too, is near its all-time high. Mr. Obama's congressional address may offer him the best chance of the year "to try to achieve a reset with a focus on the economy after last year's glitches with Obamacare," said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey.Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who also helped craft the poll, said Mr. Obama's personal standing has taken such a hit over the past year that "re-establishing his approval rating will be very difficult."

White House aides say the president also plans to use the nationally televised address to make a case for increased efforts—through executive action, if necessary—to expand hiring, infrastructure development, job training and educational opportunities, while taking moves to combat climate change. Nearly three-quarters of poll respondents said the president should also make a top priority of reducing the federal budget deficit, an objective that Mr. Obama hasn't emphasized recently. Deficit reduction ranked second as a priority, after job creation, among a list of issues presented to respondents.

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Google and Samsung Sign Patent Deal

Google Inc and Samsung Electronics Corporation has signed an agreement to cross license their patents to reduce the risk of costly legal disputes over intellectual property and likely fostering collaborate between the two tech giants.

Seoul-based Samsung said Monday that the deal covers patents to be filed over the next 10 years as well as existing patents. Financial terms were not disclosed. Allen Lo, a deputy general counsel at Google, said in a statement that the deal allows the two to reduce the potential for litigation and to focus on innovation. Samsung said it also paves the way for deeper collaboration on research and development for Samsung and Google. The two already collaborate on smartphones and televisions.

The announcement means there will be a higher possibility for Samsung to participate in Google's key projects as a hardware partner, said Chung Chang-won, an analyst at Nomura Financial Investment Co. Chung picked wearable PCs, which connect everyday objects such as glasses to wireless networks, and Google's self-driving cars as the products that Samsung could join forces on with Google.

Samsung is the world's largest maker of popular consumer electronics such as smartphones and televisions, and key tech components such as memory chips for mobile phones and PCs. Google, the world's largest search company and maker of the most used mobile operating system, Android, has been moving to acquire hardware manufacturers such as Motorola Mobility and Nest Labs.

Tech companies often use litigation to stop rivals from using patents without permission but many of the disputes end in cross-licensing agreements outside court. Samsung, maker of Android-powered Galaxy devices, is in legal fights with Apple. CEOs of Samsung and Apple are scheduled to meet next month to give a try at settlement per U.S. court's request.

Google Acquired DeepMind, An Artificial Intelligence Company

Google has acquired DeepMind Technologies, an artificial intelligence company in London, reportedly for US$400 million. A Google representative confirmed the deal Sunday via email, but said the company’s isn’t providing any additional information at this time.

News website Re/code said in a report on Sunday that Google was paying $400 million for the company, founded by games prodigy and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. The company claims on its website that it combines “the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms.” It said its first commercial applications are in simulations, e-commerce and games.

Google announced this month it was paying $3.2 billion in cash to acquire Nest, a maker of smart smoke alarms and thermostats, in what is seen as a bid to expand into the connected home market. It also acquired in January a security firm called Impermium, to boost its expertise in countering spam and abuse.

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Gmail Interruption Leaves Many Dark

According to the report in Mercury News, Google’s Gmail service was interrupted for more than an hour on Friday. The interruption is still unexplained and it also affected Google Plus social network and some of the other Google’s web services which include Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk. Google corporation’s services such as Gmail and Google Plus are widely used email service in the entire world.

The interruption surprised many and people were unaware about the outage of the system server. Explanation is still pending from Google as they are not yet offered any clarification on this issue. It was nuisance for many businesses and individuals who rely on the Google’s web based email services. Some of the users diverted themselves to other social media networking sites to make people aware of the Google partial interruption.

The Gmail outage started after 11 am Pacific Standard Time, but no serious fallout was reported from anywhere. Analysts say that Google has been updating its Gmail reliability. Everybody know that Gmail is started as a free consumer service which is now one of the several web based programs that Google sells to large corporations and government agencies.

Users reacted differently about this interruption from Google, Carter Pearson, a Twitter user tweeted as, “Had to walk across my office to talk to someone earlier, Thanks a lot, @gmail”. Aaron Levie, CEO of cloud storage startup Box, tweeted in a post as, “Gmail is down. World productivity is slowly fgrinding to a haly,”.

Gmail, an free email service by Google corporation is very popular than its rivals in the same category.  Other free email provider, Yahoo also suffered a similar kind of problem in the last month. These kind of interruptions may happen to any service providers. For now it is more good that it didn’t caused any major damage for users.

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Facebook is Zoonotic and Will Die in Near Time

It is known fact that major social networking site, Facebook is losing its visitors from last one year and according to US scientists it will lose 80 percent of users within the next three years. This once king of social networking sites has spread like an infectious disease and will die like a zoonotic plague, said by the researchers at Princeton University.

They predict that the site will be abandoned by large number of users by the year 2017 because of the other competitors in the same category. Facebook is going to celebrate its tenth birthday on February 4 and has survived competitors such as Bebo and MySpace but it will lose 80 per cent of its users in next three years by experts claim.

A prediction, by researchers John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, based on the number of search terms for Facebook into Google; it peaked in December 2012 and has begun to slide off since then. The corporation is yet to update investors on its updated traffic numbers at the end of the month. Its last October report showed 1.2 billion monthly active users.

Despite the high competition in the market and growing popularity of the other social networking sites such as Snapchat, Twitter and new comer Cooler Facebook Company is releasing its new features to enhance the application to be friendlier with users. Web experts saying that Facebook might have lost desktop visitors as the mobile phone usage is increasing highly in daily life.

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Study Confirms Texting While Walking can be Dangerous

According to a study by researchers proved we can’t walk straight while texting. If you have a hobby of texting or reading messages while on the road by foot or driving a vehicle, you need to recheck your habits. According to the report in USA Today, a study confirms that texting can make you walk like a robot and drive like a drunk.

Physical Therapist, Ms. Siobhan Schabrun, also the lead author of the study, said that the use of a Phone for texting or reading on the road may influence your ability to walk or drive. This influence may has higher chance when texting than reading message updates. In this fast forwarding world of technology it is hard to stop this while walking, but people should take care of themselves and others who is walking or driving on the road.

It is not always comic to hear about the falling of pedestrians on the road, onto the train tracks and stepping into water fountains. Some of them may become disasters which may cause to their life also. Government also making people aware of these actions to take care by displaying ads at traffic signals and major junctions about texting and reading.

Nowadays we see people handling their mobile phones while walking on the pavements.  Maryland, in the year 2012, a fifteen year old girl was hit by a car and dead while looking at her phone. There is a rise in traffic accident deaths in U.S. pedestrian has been partly attributed to cell phone use. People must avoid texting and reading while on the road, if not must be careful while handling smartphones or any other mobile devices while on pavements. 

Don’t Text while Walking

The study was conducted by Schabrun and her colleagues to notify what exactly what happens when a person is handling a phone affects his or gait. They observed 26 healthy and young people to walk through under a gaze of eight cameras and captured their motions while texting. All of the people are well habituated with texting and not able to walk straight while texting.

The motions of the people while texting by the researchers can put pedestrians at risk by drifting themselves away from their intended path. In a statement by Schabrun, the study results were reported in Plos One scientific journal.

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More Friend Updates in Altered Facebook Algorithm

Social Media major, Facebook has reportedly updated its News Feed Algorithm yesterday which let users to get more friend updates than other informative pages that they liked. The corporation also added auto play videos and announced Trending section integration into news feed recently. With this algorithm update, it seems that they are getting back to the basics.

This update will help Facebook users to get more friends activity than the pages that they follow. That means, from now onwards your Facebook profile page shows more of your friends activity and less commercial or non commercial page updates. This change may reflect in user satisfaction for Facebook to make it more reliable and status information provider.

Facebook News Feed Updated

Internal testing of Facebook Corporation suggested this update which may increase user sharing on the site, as they are more interested in sharing their own status than other page updates. A larger quantity of text-only status updates can be seen on Facebook user profile pages from now, as reported in a popular online magazine.

According to Digital Trends, this new update from Facebook will promote updates that include links by pages over posts from the same accounts without links. That means a status update which has links included from a page account will show up in newsfeeds more than a simple text status update from the same account.

In the words of Mr. Chris Turitzin, Product Manager of Facebook, wrote, that the latest Facebook update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from pages as a different category to text status updates from friends in profile. “We are learning that posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types. This will help us show people more content they want to see”, he added.

Page admins may expect the decrease in distribution of the updates because of Facebook News Feed’s new update. But they can clearly differentiate between link update and text update from their posts. Now the questions rise for page admins such as what kind of updates should they post in pages to increase distribution and user engagement? Chris suggested using link-share for the page after the link post update as it provides more visual and compelling experience for people seeing them in their feeds.

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