Google Nexus 4 Review

For the Android purist, only an unlocked Nexus phone will do – since network-subsidised Android phones are somewhat compromised, thanks to their skins, carrier modifications, and infrequent OS updates. Enter the Google Nexus 4 (£239 sim-free for the 8GB model), a totally streamlined smartphone running the new Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS in its stock form.

The phone is manufactured by LG now, rather than Samsung which made last year’s Galaxy Nexus, and the price is very tempting. Indeed, the Nexus 4 represents a great deal for what amounts to the cleanest – and in our opinion, best – Android experience you can get, despite a few significant flaws.

Design and display

From a short distance, the Nexus 4 looks almost identical to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. But that’s an illusion; instead of the hard plastic sides and back of the Samsung version, the LG model is nicely finished in clear glass on the back, with a lovely sparkling pattern that seems to move as you tilt the handset.

The sides are finished with a grippy soft touch rubber, and there’s a smoked chrome accent ring around the front. The phone measures 69 x 9 x 134mm (WxDxH), and weighs 139 grams. It's a beautiful design that befits a Nexus: Understated, classy, and without frills.

There's not much in the way of hardware controls. The right side features a lone power button, while the left panel houses a chrome volume rocker and a micro-SIM card slot; if you want to switch SIM cards, you open it using a tiny metal key LG provides in the package. A standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack is found up top, while the microUSB port for charging and syncing the phone is on the bottom of the phone.

The 4.7in IPS LCD packs a 1,280 x 768 resolution, and is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass 2. There's less of a gap between the glass and display than before, which is noticeable when you tilt it on its side. The screen is responsive and feels great to the touch. Whites are significantly brighter than the dim, yellowish ones on the Galaxy Nexus. Web pages on the iPhone 5 still look better, thanks to better viewing angles and a still brighter screen, and the iPhone 5's fonts are also kerned more closely and easier to read. But the Nexus 4 display is a tremendous improvement, and it's considerably larger than the iPhone 5's 4in screen. In my tests, typing on the on-screen keyboard was comfortable and responsive in both portrait and landscape modes.

Performance and hardware

The phone’s voice quality was generally good, even excellent in the earpiece, with plenty of gain, and a crisp, natural tone. Transmissions through the mic were a little thin and robotic sounding, though, and the noise cancelling algorithm seemed to struggle with some moderate construction noise in the background. Reception was solid, and a huge improvement over the spotty reception I experienced with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Calls sounded clear through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset, though it was a little unreliable; I had trouble getting calls to stay in the headset, and while I could trigger voice dialling over Bluetooth, Android's built-in voice recognition never understood the number I was trying to dial. The speakerphone gets quite loud, but it has a piercing tone at maximum volume that's uncomfortable to listen to.

We're still testing the Nexus 4's 2100mAh battery and will update this review as soon as we have a result. It's worth noting that the Nexus 4 also supports wireless charging with compatible charging pads (although it doesn't come with one of these). Wireless charging is useful, but not as perfect as it sounds; you still have to plug the wireless charging mat into the wall. But at least you don't have to plug and unplug the actual phone each time.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core 1.5GHz processor (with built-in Adreno 320 GPU) and 2GB RAM pack a real performance punch. The phone became quite warm during benchmark tests, even hot towards the top of the back panel – but it never overheated. The results were about what I had expected – roughly equivalent to the Optimus G, with excellent gaming performance, though the Chrome browser wasn't quite as fast as it is on the Galaxy S III.

In terms of connectivity, there’s no LTE on board the Nexus 4, but you do get HSPA+ 42 support which can still provide some pretty nippy surfing (besides, not everyone can get on EE’s 4G LTE network yet, by any means). You get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and the phone had no problem connecting to our WPA2-encrypted 5GHz office network.

As for the fresh version of Android the Nexus carries, Jelly Bean 4.2 is an evolutionary but nonetheless welcome upgrade over 4.1, thanks to its new Photo Sphere and Miracast features (more on those in a moment). You can also swipe over the keyboard when typing, similar to the venerable Swype keyboard, but with improved predictive text capability. The Nexus 4 fits five icons across the app tray instead of four, and there are five home screens you can swipe between and customise.

Specifications

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/hardware/phones/reviews/google-nexus-4-review/#ixzz3qFih5xQM

Manufacturer and Device	(LG/Google) Nexus 4
Screen Details	1,280 x 768-pixel IPS capacitive touchscreen
Bands	850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100, 1700
Physical Keyboard	No
Operating System	Android 4.2
Network	GSM, UMTS
High-Speed Data	EDGE, HSPA+ 42
Form Factor	Candy Bar
Megapixels	8 MP
Bluetooth	Yes
Camera	Yes
Camera Flash	Yes
microSD Slot	No
802.11x	Yes
Processor Speed	1.5 GHz
Screen Size	4.7in
CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4
Storage Capacity	8GB/16GB
GPS	Yes

Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/hardware/phones/reviews/google-nexus-4-review/#ixzz3qFjFVWWy

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Nintendo Land Opens the Wii U Amusement Park Gates

Should You Get in Line?

The Wii U Deluxe Set comes bundled with Nintendo Land, which is sure to show off the console’s new capabilities. But what’s its fun factor?
Let’s find out.
Nintendo Land currently holds a 76 on Metacritic, based on 20 reviews. Opinions are pretty split on the game’s second day. Ten reviews are positive and ten are mixed.
Here are the highlights:
• The game’s most flattering review comes from IGN. The outlet gives Nintendo Land an 87/100 for following in Wii Sports’ footsteps. The reviewer was pleasantly surprised by the game’s ability to show off the new tablet, while delivering mini-games full of depth and rich content.
• Giant Bomb enjoyed the game, as well. They gave the mini-game collection an 80/100 and really enjoyed the theme park setting. The review suggested that the majority of mini-games offer tons of fun, but a couple of attractions wear thin pretty quickly. According to the review, the game thrives when users take full advantage of the multiplayer.
• Edge Magazine agreed that the game is at its best when you aren’t playing alone. The publication gave the game a 70/100. They feel the game’s magic disappears when you enter single player mode. That said, the purchase still might be worth it for the party game experience.
• 70/100 is a pretty popular score for this title. GameTrailers went a point lower and labeled the game 69/100. The review didn’t feel that this mini-games collection lived up to the legend of Wii Sports. The games that are the most addicting require too much additional hardware and the rest lose their magic too quickly.
In general, Nintendo Land seems well-suited for social groups of players that have enough peripherals to pass around. It’s not quite Wii Sports, but it’s still a fun way to show off the console’s capabilities when friends stop over.

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Meteor Shower

Leonid meteor shower: how to get the best view

The Leonid meteor shower reaches a peak this weekend. Then Tuesday may bring a rare chance to see 600-year old meteors

If you missed the Perseids back in August, fear not. It is now time for the second grand meteor shower of the year. The Leonids are visible for much of November with the best nights for viewing this year predicted to be 17 and 20 November.
In terms of numbers, the Leonids do not compare to the Perseids, which reach 100 meteors an hour, but it's quality not quantity that counts here. Whereas the Perseids can often be faint, the Leonids have a reputation for brightness.
Extremely bright meteors, known as fireballs, are often associated with this shower. These are produced by dust grains about 10 millimetres across burning up in our atmosphere.
All meteor showers result from the Earth ploughing through streams of cosmic dust, jettisoned by comets as they orbit the Sun.
The Leonids originate from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which was discovered by prolific hunter Ernst Tempel on 19 December 1865. The comet bears a second name because American astronomer Horace Parnell Tuttle independently reported it on 6 January 1866.
Around 5 billion tonnes of dust are estimated to lie in the various streams associated with Tempel-Tuttle. During this month's meteor storm, some 10-15 tonnes of that will end up in our atmosphere to produce the shooting stars.
Tempel-Tuttle orbits the sun once every 33 years. Every time it completes another orbit, it lays a new dust stream. These go into orbit around the sun, and Earth usually hits a different one every year. Computer simulations can predict their movement and even date the year each was deposited.
According to Russian astronomer Mikhail Maslov, although the general peak of all the accumulated dust streams takes place on Saturday 17 November, on Tuesday 20 November Earth will encounter debris that dates from the comet's passage of 1400. This could give a second peak in the shower.
Tempel-Tuttle's dust streams can still be dense when Earth hits them. Occasionally this results in a meteor storm, when thousands of brilliant Leonids streak across the sky. One such storm happened in 2001.
Nothing so dramatic is expected this year from the 1400 stream. Nevertheless, any bright streaks of light you see on that night are the demise of dust grains released into space 15 years before Henry V's victory at the Battle of Agincourt.
According to Maslov, the next storm will probably not happen until 2022 when the Earth slams into a stream left behind in 1733.
If you wrap up extremely warmly during the night of 16–17 November, and again in the early hours of 20 November, you should be rewarded with between 10 and 15 bright meteors an hour. Take a deck chair and find a spot well away from streetlights.
The meteors will radiate from the constellation Leo – hence their name – and they will be visible from both northern and southern hemispheres.
Stuart Clark is the author of The Sky's Dark Labyrinth (Polygon)

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Green Investing

What is Green Investing?

Although green investing can be interpreted in different ways depending on an investor’s moral values and financial objectives, we define it loosely as follows:

Green investing is a process of making investment decisions based on environmentally conscious criteria with a purpose of:

* actively improving the health of the environment, and

* generating a certain amount of financial return on investments made.

The key point to keep in mind when discussing this area is that investors are all too aware of the environmental problems around the globe. They want to use their money to encourage the development of solutions to these problems.

In other words, environmental investors put their values at the front of their investment decision-making.

Yes indeed, values have recently become a new dimension of the investment universe. They are now driving the demand for a wider range of investment products which incorporate investors’ desire “to do well [financially] by doing good [ethically]”.

Making Sense of Terminology

If you want to try your hand at value-based investments, you can easily get lost in the sea of terminology and ambiguities surrounding this field.

Let’s try to make sense of the terms used.

Green investing is generally associated with the following commonly used terms:

•           Environmental Investing

•           Ethical Investing

•           Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), or simply Responsible Investing

•           Sustainable Investing

To understand what exactly these phrases mean, let’s introduce a concept of investment screening (or screens).

To construct portfolios of value-based investments, investment professionals use the processes of negative screening and positive screening.

Negative screening is used to sift out investments in sin industries, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, weapons manufacturing.

Conversely, positive screening is used to include good industries and companies; for example, “pollution solution” industry, or the companies which promote outstanding business and social practices such as fair trade operations.

There is a clear trend among investment professionals to use positive screening instead of simply avoiding the industries that their clients disagree with.

Getting back to our terms above.

Green investing applies positive screens to select industries and companies which are actively involved in solving environmental issues, rather than simply choosing environmentally neutral ones.

Among the most prominent industries here are:

•           Renewable Energy

•           Water Technology

•           Green Cars

•           Green Building

•           Energy Efficiency

•           Reforestation

We discuss green industries in more detail here.

Green investing is a “niche” opportunity which focuses on environmentally proactive sectors.

Environmental investing is its synonym and can be defined in the same way. We discuss environmental investing in more detail here.

Ethical investing, socially responsible investing and sustainable investing are wider concepts.

Ethical investing applies negative screens to eliminate “unethical” industries considered to cause harm to people and the environment. (1) Such industries may include alcohol, tobacco, gambling etc.

Socially responsible investing (SRI) uses both negative and positive screens to eliminate undesirable industries and include desirable ones (2), for example green industries discussed above.

However, recently there seems to be a progress towards interchangeable use of both terms, and ethical investing is often defined within the same boundaries as SRI (i.e., applying both positive and negative screens). (3)

It is interesting to note that many socially responsible mutual funds have policies of non-investment in animal testing companies.

This is crucially important as animal testing is just one of the causes of animal endangerment that may even lead to animal extinction.

Sustainable investing is a more recent concept, and its main difference from SRI appears to be its emphasis on companies of any sector which are “best of breed” (or “best of class”, or “best of sector”), i.e. the ones that best meet a defined set of environmental, social and governance criteria (ESG).

Theoretically sustainable investments can be made in any industry, but in practice many sustainable investment funds still apply traditional SRI exclusions although “values-based exclusions should be understood as additive or collateral to the primary financial focus” (4).

Since there are a lot of similarities between these two concepts, they are also often used interchangeably.

I have even stumbled upon a creative attempt to combine these two ideas into one definition.

Calvert Group provides the following definition:

SRI = Sustainable and Responsible Investing (5)

as compared to the historic definition of:

SRI = Socially Responsible Investing

So be it then!

Conclusion

We can see that green investing can be defined either as a separate value-based investment category; or as part of ethical, socially responsible or sustainable investing.

Already, there are many value-based investment products both in the US and internationally.

They offer a number of investment opportunities which investors can choose according to their own ethical and financial objectives.

For environmental investors, putting money into funds and companies with the environmental focus is, of course, the best way forward.

www.tropical-rainforest-animals.com

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