Sony finally puts full weight behind Xperia phones

While Sony has famously been siloed in the past -- with different businesses and units working without any coordination or knowledge of what the others are doing -- Nookala said he is on the phone with the PlayStation team at least once a month, talking not only about the products, but common marketing strategies.

The next big campaign is the FIFA World Cup, the world's largest sporting event where Sony just happens to be a sponsor. Nookala pointed to June as the next potential catalyst to spark sales and boost the perception of the company.

"It's a good way to bring this into the mainstream," said Calum MacDougall, director of product marketing for the Xperia franchise, in the interview.

Bold words from what amounts to the new kid on the block for smartphones. While Sony is still a force to be reckoned with in areas such as televisions, video games, and cameras, it has struggled to make a name for itself when it comes to phones. But Sony hopes that will change, particularly in the US market, where the company believes it can more fully take advantage of its heft and influence in the consumer electronics market to push its smartphones. Nookala called the Xperia Z1S, currently being sold in the US by T-Mobile, a turning point for the company and the first time Sony has brought its full resources behind the device. The company, for instance, is specifically targeting T-Mobile customers who are also PlayStation fans, knowing there's already a brand affinity there, and offered discounts on the phone for anyone who purchased a PlayStation 4. The Xperia Z1S also came preloaded with the Sony PlayStation app, and some customers who bought the phone got a one-year membership to PlayStation Plus. A new "One Sony" While Sony has famously been siloed in the past -- with different businesses and units working without any coordination or knowledge of what the others are doing -- Nookala said he is on the phone with the PlayStation team at least once a month, talking not only about the products, but common marketing strategies. "[CEO Kaz Hirai] talks about One Sony, and it's starting to become a factor," he said. The next big campaign is the FIFA World Cup, the world's largest sporting event where Sony just happens to be a sponsor. Nookala pointed to June as the next potential catalyst to spark sales and boost the perception of the company. "It's a good way to bring this into the mainstream," said Calum MacDougall, director of product marketing for the Xperia franchise, in the interview. The sales pitch for the Xperia Z1S isn't just the hardware, but also the media content and family of accessory devices that are created by Sony itself, Nookala said. Whether they are Bluetooth speakers and headphones, those sorts of accessories are rarely made by the smartphone vendor themselves.

In addition, Nookala explained that the company had initially wanted to focus on locking down the Japanese and European markets. Now that there is stability in those areas, it is bringing its eyes back on to the US.

MacDougall said that the awareness of Sony's brand in connection to smartphones has grown significantly over the last 18 months.

Intel's 730 Series solid-state drive reviewed

Intel's X25-M solid-state drive was a special piece of hardware back in the day. The SSD market was still in its infancy, and the X25-M represented the chip-maker's initial entry into an exciting new arena. It was a pretty good first offering, too. The drive had wicked-fast performance, and it was reasonably affordable for its day. Intel's chip-making prowess, combined with its expertise in designing storage and memory controllers, seemed perfectly suited to tackling solid-state storage.

The X25-M's flash controller anchored three generations of desktop SSDs before it was finally retired. Instead of using another in-house chip, Intel started playing the field. A brief affair with Marvell produced the 510 Series, and its long-term relationship with SandForce fueled a string of successors.

SPECIFICATIONS

Intel’s direction with the SSD 730 Series family is towards the digital media professional, workstations and the PC enthusiast. It has a preliminary release date of March 18, 2014, and will be available in capacities of 240 and 480GB. Performance for the 240GB capacity is listed at 550/270MB/s throughout with up to 85K/56K IOPS read and write while the 480GB capacity increases significantly to 550/470MB/s throughput and 89K/74K IOPS read and write. Intel’s sale of the 730, however, highlights a two drive RAID performance of over 1GB/s throughput and up to 168K IOPS.

Power consumption for the 730 is listed at 1.4W Idle and 3.8W active for the 240GB with 5.5W active for the 480GB. The 240GB is rated at 50GB per day while the 480GB is rated at 70GB per day lifetime endurance for the length of the five-year warranty. Read latency is 50µs at 240GB, along with 65µs for the 480GB and the form factor is that of a ultrathin 7mm 2.5″ notebook size.

COMPONENTS

We spoke of the similarities between the SSD 730 and the previously released DC S3500 and we invite you to check out our previous report for comparison. The SSD 730 contains the Intel 3rd Gen PC29AS21CA0 6Gbps eight channel controller along with 2 modules of Micron DRAM cache memory. This controller is architected by Intel with Intel firmware. The 3rd generation Intel controller is manufactured exclusively for Intel. Intel contracts LSI for the manufacturing of this controller.Although there are 16 modules of memory on the 730, and similar to what we saw in the DC S3500, Intel goes against the grain in its NAND memory configuration.

If you look closely at the memory product numbers on both sides, you will find there are 14 modules of 29F32BO8MCMF2 (32GB), a module of 29F64B08NCMF2 (64GB) and a module of 29F16B08LCMF2 (16GB) for a total of 528GB of RAW memory.

The product number of the SSD730 memory is the same as the DC S3500, given exception to the marking of ‘-ES-’ on the end of the product number. Given the high endurance of this SSD, we might think that the memory would be HE memory, however, literature speaks to it as being ‘Compute Quality Components.

Lastly, the two capacitors on the side of the PCB remain in place, as with the previous 3500 and 3700 versions, to provide UPS protection should a power failure occur.

NASA to launch satellite in collaboration with ISRO

Washington: US space agency NASA on Tuesday said it would launch a water-related satellite in collaboration with India's ISRO. The NASA-Indian Space Research Organisation Synthetic Aperture Radar mission is a part of its plan to launch in the next seven years a series of satellite related to water and draught, the agency said. Among others include the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2); Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Follow-on and Surface Water Ocean Topography mission. These satellite missions join more than a dozen NASA airborne sensors focused on regional-scale issues, understanding detailed Earth science processes and calibrating and validating NASA satellites," the space agency said. NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing," it said. "The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet," it said. NASA said it is scheduled to launch three new Earth science missions this year, which will contribute to water cycle research and water-related national policy decisions.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, a joint satellite project with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency scheduled for launch Thursday, February 27, will inaugurate an unprecedented international satellite constellation that will produce the first nearly global observations of rainfall and snowfall. The new information will help answer questions about our planet's life-sustaining water cycle, and improve water resource management and weather forecasting. "ISS-RapidScat, scheduled to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in June, will extend the data record of ocean winds around the globe. The data are a key factor in climate research, weather and marine forecasting and tracking of storms and hurricanes," NASA said. The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), launching in November, will inform water resource management decisions on water availability. SMAP data also will aid in predictions of plant growth and agricultural productivity, improve short-term weather forecasts and long-term climate change projections, and advance our ability to monitor droughts and predict floods and mitigate their related impacts on people's lives," the space agency said.

How do I know if a website is secure

Internet security is a matter of great concern for internet users. It is important to know if a website is secure or not while surfing the internet. A secure website creates a safe connection between the website and the web browser so that entered data, such as personal information, credit card details, banking information, etc, is not accessible to unauthorized entities. When the browser opens a secured connection, "https" can be seen in the URL instead of just http. To know if a website is secure or not, look for the locked yellow colored padlock symbol on the lower right corner of the browser window.

Determine if you are on a secured page or not.

Some web sites use a secure connection between the web site and your browser. This may be important to you, for instance, if you want to pay online for a product or a service and have to enter credit card information or other personal information. To know if your browser is viewing a secure web site, you can look in the lower right part of the window. There is a small box in the frame of the window to the left of the area that describes which zone you are in (usually the Internet zone, with a globe icon). If you see a yellow padlock icon, the web site you are viewing is a "secure web site." If the box is empty, the web site does not have a secure connection with your browser. You can also have a look at the URL: if it starts with "[https://]", you are on a secured page; if the URL starts with "http://", you're not.

Google Launcher compatible with Nexus devices running KitKat Arrives On Google Play Store

While the actual launcher component is merely a stub placed on top of the Google Search/Now app, it does enable the useful ability of swiping to the left-most pane of the homescreen to access Google Now. When Nexus devices (other than the N5) were updated to Android 4.4, many users were frustrated that the feature was omitted.

Android: When the Nexus 5 first came out, there were whispers that its new launcher would arrive on all devices. While you could sideload it yourself, there wasn’t a simple option to download it from Google and get updates. Until now.

Unfortunately, the app only seems to be available for a limited number of devices right now. If you have a recent Nexus or Google Play Edition device, you’re in, but everyone else has to wait. Given that Australia hasn’t seen any official Google Play Edition devices, it’s not a very long list. Still, that’s a few more phones than were officially supported before. Hopefully, it’s only a matter of time before more devices get on the list. Hit the link to see if it happens to be available for your device.

Remember when the launcher on the Nexus 5 turned into the Google Now Launcher? We told you at the time that its appearance on the Play store as an app for everyone was likely imminent as it included a way to import settings from your old launcher.

How to Set Picture Password & Customize LockScreen in Windows 8

What is Picture password :

Picture password is a feature introduced with Windows 8 that allows you to create three different gestures on any image of your choice and use those gestures as your password. The gesture can be any combination of circles, straight lines,and taps. For example if the picture you chose was of a face your picture password could be a tap on each eye and then a circle around the mouth.

How do I enable a Windows 8 picture password ?

Customize Lockscreen in Windows 8 :

By default, the lock screen shows notifications from the Messaging, Mail, Calendar and Weather apps. But maybe you'd like to see Twitter updates or info from another app, or you'd like to change the image. You can easily customize all that.

Step: 1

Open Windows 8 Charm Bar (Windows+C) while you are on desktop and click on Settings button. You can directly open the Charm Settings using the Windows+I hot key.

Step: 2

In the Charm Bar settings, click on Change PC Settings  to open your device Metro Settings.

Step: 3

In PC Settings, open the Personalization tab  to show all the customization options. Select Lock screen here to personalize it.

Step: 4

You can easily change the default background image for the Lock screen here. Windows 8 gives you some photo suggestions to choose from. If you want to apply a personal image, click on the Browse button  to select the image from your hard disk.

Now Let us now see how we can customize the apps that are pinned to the lock screen.

When you change the lock screen background photo, you will see the option to select the apps that show on the lock screen. In here you can click on the plus button to choose a new metro app to display on the lock screen. A user can select a maximum of eight apps for the Windows 8 lock screen.

Click on Quick connect , after entering the correct credentials

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo launched

Samsung has officially unveiled the lite version of its Galaxy Note 3 flagship phone, the Galaxy Note 3 Neo.

Galaxy Note 3 Neo sports a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. The non-LTE (4G) version of the phone is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor (Samsung has not mentioned the name of the chip though).

The device, which has already made an appearance on Samsung's Polish website, will be available globally in three colour variants - black, white and green in February.

The phone has 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage expandable up to 64GB via microSD card. The phone is backed by a 3100mAh battery.

The Galaxy Note 3 Neo sports an 8MP rear camera with BSI sensor, auto focus, smart stabilization, and LED flash (with high CRI), and a 2MP front facing camera with BSI sensor. The phone runs android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Samsung's TouchWiz UI layer on top. It packs a stylus (S-Pen) complete with most software features of Note 3 including Air Command, Easy Clip, Multi Window and My Magazine.

In terms of connectivity options, the phone supports Gigabit WiFi (802.11ac), NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and Infrared blaster port.

How To Download Your ENTIRE FaceBook Profile

Facebook has rolled out a slick new feature recently that they made no announcement of, and most people aren't even aware that it exists. So here's a tutorial on exactly how to download the ENTIRE contents of your FaceBook profile. It'll get everything ... all of your statuses, all comments on your statuses, all photos in your photo albums, all inbox messages (no sent-box messages though ), and so forth, all the way back to when you signed up!

As you can imagine, this can be very private, personal information, so be sure to safeguard the file once it finishes downloading if you don't want peeping eyes on it. On the other hand, FaceBook can sometimes be squirrely and you never know if they may arbitrarily decide to delete or block you out of your profile, so it's a good idea to grab it every so often, just in case.

Step: 1

Go to your Account Settings.

Step: 2

Look down to where it says "Download Your Information" and click "Learn more"

Step: 3

Read the information on this page just so that you know, and then click on the Download button.

Step: 4

The next screen you'll see is the following one. It's basically just another informative screen saying it'll take a while to create. Click the Download button.

Step: 5

But this one just tells you to expect an email from FaceBook when it's all ready to download. Click OK.

Step: 6

Once you receive the email from FaceBook letting you know that your profile is all ready to download, The first screen you'll see after clicking your facebook profile download link is this one. You're asked to re-enter your normal facebook password to confirm that it's really you wanting to download the file. Do so and then click Continue ...just click the link in the email to begin the profile download process Now that you've confirmed that it's really you, and that you want to download your facebook profile, you'll see this screen. It's more of the same ... and also tells you the file size. Click Download Now ...

Step: 7

That pops up your standard file download dialog. Choose where you want to Save it, etc., and click "OK".

Step: 8

After it's done downloading, you'll be able to unzip the file, and it'll have a directory structure all laid out, and an index.html file. You just double-click on the index.html file to load it in your browser, and it'll essentially be a clone of your profile as of the date you downloaded it.

Things to note:

• It does not "auto-update" as you enter new statuses, get comments, add pictures, etc. If you want the latest, you'll always have to go through this process again, and re-download the latest copy of your facebook profile.

• It has style sheets included, but they weren't working properly for me at the time of this writing, so it looked rather plain once loaded in your browser.

• Again, be sure to hide, rename, encrypt, whatever you need to do to keep this file private if you don't want anyone else seeing it's contents.

• There are some things missing in the downloaded version, such as all other mailboxes besides your inbox, unfortunately. You also can't see who "liked" your comments / statuses if there are more than one, you just get the count. You also can't click on some profiles, which would be a nice thing for facebook to add to this. I'm sure there are more, but I haven't fully explored the downloaded copy yet. Still, this is a nice start and am pretty impressed / happy that facebook added this feature.

Nokia really is going Android with the launch of three 'gateway drug' devices called X

The last gasp of Nokia's devices unit before it gets sold to Microsoft is a radical departure from its normal Windows Phone smartphone strategy: three devices running Android. Three years after ditching Symbian for Windows Phone, and mere months before being absorbed into the Microsoft empire, Nokia has released its first Android mobile phones. The devices, called the Nokia X, X+ and XL, were unveiled at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona on Monday. The widely-leaked Nokia X is a low-end device and appears to be aimed at emerging markets. It comes with a four-inch screen with an IPS display and three-megapixel camera. The X+ has the same four-inch screen, but adds an SD card slot. The XL has a five-inch screen and two-megapixel front-facing camera. All three run dual-core Snapdragon processors from Qualcomm. The devices are available in green, red, yellow, red and bright blue. The X, available now, will go for €89, the X+ is priced at €99 and slated for an early Q2 release, while the XL, also planned for early Q2, will cost €109. "The devices will be available broadly, starting in growth markets," Microsoft devices head Stephen Elop said, across Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

What makes the devices remarkable is that they won't be powered by Nokia's traditional choice for its lower-end handsets, the Series 40-based Asha OS, or its preferred smartphone operating system, Windows Phone. Instead, the X family will be running Android. Handset makers can use Android in two ways: by using the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) or by also using Google Mobile Services (GMS) which gives makers access to a raft of additional functionality, including likes of the Play app store and Google Maps. The former is a free-for-all, the latter requires handset makers to pass a certification process, and it isn't open source.

Android, but no Google :

Nokia has gone for AOSP for the X family, which means anyone buying the X, XL and X+ won't get access to the million or so apps available on Google Play. However, Android devs can port their Play apps to the handset in what Elop said would be "a matter of hours if even that", and the company will be offering a curated selection of apps through the Nokia store on the devices. X and X+ users can get apps from other Android app stores like Yandex, or in the case of the X+, sideload via the micro SD card.

Despite being a slap in the face to Windows Phone, the Android-powered X and X+ do have a whiff of Redmond about it: Nokia's custom UI is tile-based, a nod to Windows Phone's own live tiles, including the ability to resize tiles. It will also feature Fastlane The phone will come with a range of Microsoft services already onboard: Skype, Nokia MixRadio and OneDrive. "Nokia X takes people to Microsoft's cloud not to Google's. This was very deliberate... with this Microsoft will be able to reach people it has never before," Elop said. The release of the X family is a notable break with Nokia's past mobile strategy: although the company had used Symbian and experimented with MeeGo — both open source OSes — in the past, Nokia subsequently abandoned both to throw in its lot with Microsoft.

Gateway to Microsoft :

According to Elop, while it may not involve a Microsoft OS, the Android-based X family will serve to bring more users to the company in emerging markets. The X family will be "a feeder system for Lumia", he said, and "gives people a gateway" to Microsoft's Windows Phone products. It looks like Microsoft is getting serious about emerging markets, with the devices chief announcing that both the Lumia and X ranges will get price drops in an effort to grow market share: the Lumia range will go to "lower and lower price points" in the not so distant future, he said, with the X family then "trending below that".

Despite its newfound interest in Android, the Lumia will remain Microsoft's true focus on mobile. "Lumia continues to be our primary smartphone strategy," Elop said, adding all the company "innovation" will come to Lumia first. The rumours of Nokia considering making an Android handset first surfaced last year, when the New York Times reported that the company had a working Lumia Android prototype when it began negotiations with Microsoft in February over a possible sale of its handset business. When the acquisition was confirmed in September — a €5.4bn deal that would see Microsoft take over its devices and services unit and license Nokia patents for 10 years - it was assumed that the Android plan had been shelved.

TCS to set up world's largest corporate learning centre

Country's largest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Saturday said it will set up the world's largest corporate learning and development centre in Thiruvananthapuram with a total capacity to train 50,000 professionals every year. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the facility. The learning facility will be built over area of 6.1 million square feet and will have the capacity to train 15,000 professionals at one time and 50,000 professionals annually, TCS said in a statement. Located on a 97-acre property in the Technopark area of the city, the campus will also have residential accommodation for professionals and faculty at the centre, it added. TCS has been present in Thiruvananthapuram since 1997 and since then it has been the hub of our global learning and development efforts," TCS Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director N Chandrasekaran said. The TCS Learning Campus will be the new benchmark for corporate learning worldwide and this iconic facility will produce world class professionals to meet the future needs of the IT industry, he added.

The project will provide direct employment to over 2,000 skilled and unskilled local people for a period of 4 years. An integral part of the project will be the skill development programmes run by TCS to upgrade the skills of local youth and facilitate opportunities to work in the construction project, through contractors. TCS employs over 2,85,000 professionals worldwide and plans to hire 50,000 professionals in 2013-14. It spends over 15 million hours on learning and development programmes for its employees every year. Over the last 5 years till date, the company has trained over 1.43 lakh IT professionals in India and abroad.

LinkedIn launches Chinese website, to censor content

Professional social networking website LinkedIn launched a Chinese language version of its website on Monday, a move that could jumpstart its expansion into the world's largest internet market by users even as the company acknowledged it will have to police what some of them say on its website. LinkedIn chief executive Jeff Weiner acknowledged in a blog post that the company would have to censor some of the content that users post on its website in order to comply with Chinese rules. But Weiner said that the benefits of providing its online service to people in China outweighed those concerns. He vowed that the company would be "transparent" about its practices as it builds up its presence in a country it said is home to one in five of the "knowledge workers" that are LinkedIn's core audience. Extending our service in China raises difficult questions, but it is clear to us that the decision to proceed is the right one," Weiner said. China is a difficult country for foreign internet companies to operate in. Beijing censors sensitive terms from the internet and blocks social networks Facebook and Twitter, a widespread effort that analysts say is geared towards maintaining the Communist Party's hold on power and preserving social stability.

Google, the world's No. 1 internet search engine, relocated its Chinese language search service to Hong Kong from mainland China in 2006 following a dispute with the Chinese government over censorship and cyberattacks that Google said originated in China. Weiner said that China's restrictions on content would be implemented "only when and to the extent required." LinkedIn already has more than 4 million users in China who use its English language website, but the company has signalled that it was interested in making a broader expansion into China.

Infosys to set up delivery centre in Brazil

Expanding its presence in Latin America, software services major Infosys on Thursday said it would establish a delivery centre in Araraquara (Brazil), which will deliver application management services for clients. Initially, the 100-seat facility in Brazil will house 25 people and provide SAP Application Management services to Citrosuco, the world's leading orange juice producer. "With this new centre, Infosys and its subsidiaries are further expanding their footprint in Latin America with operations across Brazil, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Argentina, employing over 1,700 people," India's second largest software services exporter said in a statement. Favourable business environment created by the government and availability of a highly skilled, multilingual workforce makes Brazil an ideal location for the new delivery centre, it added. The centre will also deliver application management services supporting critical business operations, including SAP ERP systems to other clients across Brazil. "The new facility in Brazil will be a key part of our global network of delivery centres. It will strengthen our ability to drive innovation and growth for our clients in Latin America," Infosys Brazil Country Head Claudio Elsas said. Infosys had set up operations in Brazil in 2009 and the company and its subsidiaries employ more than 700 people in the country. Of late, Indian IT firms have been increasingly looking at South America for BPOs, KPOs and call centres as it can be used in a near-shore business model to service their North American clients. This also leads to lesser requirement of visas for their employees, thereby reducing costs. North America contributes to over 60 per cent of the revenues of the USD 108 billion India IT-ITes sector.

Challenging for PC sales IDC in 2014

PC sales are expected to face yet another challenging year during 2014 because of pressures from devices such as smartphones and tablets as well as spill-over of economic and political uncertainties of last year, research firm IDC said. "2014 is expected to remain another challenging year for the PC market , as competition will only grow among the devices," IDC Asia/Pacific Research Manager (Client Devices) Handoko Andi said on Tuesday. Besides, exchange rate pressures, political risks and economic uncertainties will all likely spill-over into 2014 as well, Andi said in a release. "That being said, if the big ticket education projects from last year get repeated, or if the Wintel (Windows + Intel) eco-system is able to bring low-price full function PCs to the market, these are all potential upsides that could help drive volumes in the upcoming year," Andi added. Last year, even education projects failed to arrest the decline in PC shipments. According to IDC, PC sales fell by 10 per cent to 108 million units in 2013 in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan), its second consecutive yearly decline, due to smartphones and tablets cannibalising PC shipments on the consumer side. "The economic sluggishness in big emerging markets in the region adversely affected buying sentiments, with the education sector projects being a lone bright spot in the commercial space, without which the region could have dropped even further," IDC said. On the consumer side, smartphone and tablet distractions spread throughout the region this year, further contributing to the sharp decline in the PC market, it added. "The year ended on a somber note for the PC market, as it declined for the second consecutive year.

Distraction from competing devices, ongoing pessimism in the economy and exchange rate pressures were among the factors impacting the market this year," Andi said. In Q4 of 2013 specifically, the market came in 2 per cent below IDC's initial forecasts with a 9 per cent year-on-year decline, IDC said. "While, most of the region was generally in line with forecasts, Thailand stood out as an exception, as the market there was plagued by the ongoing political turmoil. Shipment volumes this quarter will likely be the lowest in Thailand in the last four years," it added. In 2013, Lenovo retained its top spot, although it could not shrug off the slump in its home market China, posting an annual decline in 2013 as a result, IDC said. HP's year-on-year growth in 2013 was almost entirely due to fulfilments for a big education project in India. Weakness in China arrested an otherwise good year for Dell in the region, despite the internal distractions affecting the vendor, it added. ASUS too fell in line with the overall market trend, declining year-on-year, while Acer continued to struggle with its product strategy, declining in nearly all markets in the region this year, IDC said.

3D 'Air-Touch' projects touchable images above your smartphone

A recent study published in a an issue of the IEEE's Journal of Display Technology, by Gue-Zhen Wang from the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, has demonstrated a 3D 'Air-Touch' system which allows users to touch floating 3D images displayed by a mobile device, reports Phys.org. The system opens up a wide range of novel applications, the scientists say. "The 3D Air-Touch system in mobile devices can offer non-contact finger detection and limited viewpoint for operating on a floating image, which can be applied to 3D games, interactive digital signage and so on," said Wang. "Although current technology still has some issues, such as yield rate, sensor uniformity and so on, we predict that this technology could become available in the near future." Whilst the interactive system is not so much a new innovation, implementing it on small mobile devices has always been a harder challenge than on larger screens. Most 3D systems we see in the market today require additional devices or cameras for motion detection purposes, which is inconvenient for mobility.

Cameras on mobile devices also limit the field of view and most 3D systems require fairly bright lighting in order to capture movements with accuracy. In order to come up with a solution around all the restrictions, Wang has designed a 3D system where optical sensors are embedded in the display pixels in a 4-inch display screen. An infrared backlight is also incorporated into the device whilst angular scanning illuminators are added to the edges o the display to provide lighting. In the study, Wang has demonstrated an overall good performance in experiments testing the 3D Air Touch system. The 3D touch prototype has a depth range of 3 cm with maximum error of 0.45 cm at large depths and smaller errors for smaller depths. So at the moment the Jenga blocks tower in the illustration (top) could only, in reality, be 3cm tall... The researchers claim that the stated range can be increased by improving the sensor sensitivity and scanning resolution. It's currently a single-touch system due to the difficulties in dealing with occlusion effects using such a compact sensor system.

How To Replace Defective HDD On Software RAID5 In Windows Server

If you're using software RAID 5, you have three or more dynamic disks should be configured. If you lose a single disk from the set, no data is lost. Because of data and parity information stored on the remaining disks. If you need to replace the disk follow the procedure below.

Step: 1

Replace the dead disk with a new on in the server.

Step: 2

Access the Disk Management node of Server Manager.

Step: 3

Your replacement disk will be found and you'll be prompted to initialize the disk.

Step: 4

Once it's initialized, right-click the disk and select convert to Dynamic Disk...

Step: 5

Ensure that only your new disk is selected to convert and click OK.

Step: 6

Scroll down to the disk that's missing for your RAID 5 set, right-clicks it, and select Repair Volume...

Step: 7

Your new disk will be listed to be used as the replacement. Make sure it's selected and click OK.

Step: 8

Scroll down to the disk that's missing for your RAID 5 set, right-clicks it, and select Repair Volume...

Try and minimize the workload on the RAID 5 while it's re syncing because a heavy load will slow down the rebuild.

How to Remove Windows is not genuine Notification in Windows 7

Sometimes when we buy Windows 7 DVD from the market , if it is pirated , so after installation we will get error message like windows is not genuine as shown below :

Step: 1

Open the command prompt as Administrator

Step: 2

In the Command prompt type the command “SLMGR -REARM” and hit enter , make sure type the correct command otherwise it will not work.

Step: 3

When we press enter , it will start executing the above command and below window will appear .

Step: 4

Now reboot your Machine and now onwards you will not get message like “Windows 7 build 7600 This copy of windows is not genuine”

Windows 9 release date

We don't know if Windows 9 will be available as an upgrade from Windows 7 that you can buy as a standalone product or if you'll have to have Windows 8 to get the upgrade. But it may not be with us for a while yet - Windows business chief Tami Reller has talked about "multiple selling seasons" for Windows 8, meaning that we'll likely have several versions of it. However, in January 2014 well-known Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott said he believes the company plans to release Windows 9 (codenamed Threshold) in April 2015, less than three years after Windows 8. The thinking appears to be that the Windows 8 name is now too tarnished and that - in contrast to Reller's comments above - Microsoft wishes to clear things out by releasing Windows 9 instead.

"Maturing and fixing the "Metro" design language used by Windows will be a major focus area of Threshold," Thurrott added. "It's not clear what changes are coming, but it's safe to assume that a windowed mode that works on the desktop is part of that." We're expecting to hear more details on Windows 9 at Build 2014, Microsoft's annual developers' conference. It was expected to focus on Windows Phone and Xbox this year, but major Windows news would trump the lot.

Windows 9 to be smaller, with more apps :

In the last Microsoft earnings call CFO Peter Klein made it clear that Microsoft has got the message that Windows 8 tablets need to be cheaper; "we know that our growth depends on our ability to give customers the exciting hardware they want, at the price-points they demand."

Windows 9 power management :

A recent Channel 9 video featuring Bruce Worthington, who leads the team working on Windows power management fundamentals, included some rather technical details about saving power in Windows and the improvement in Windows 8. "If you look at the number of times we would wake up the CPU per second," he explained, "for Windows 7 you would typically see numbers on the order of one millisecond. We would literally be waking up the CPU a thousand times per second. If you look at Windows 8, on a clean system, we have numbers that are better than a hundred milliseconds. "

Now that Windows Phone 8 is based on the Windows Phone kernel, power management has to get better. "Now we're looking forward to the next release and we can get even farther - especially as we start interacting more and more with our phone brethren. "They want us to be quiet for multiple seconds at a time. They even talk about minutes in some scenarios which is pretty far afield for us, to be thinking about minutes of being completely quiet. At least getting into the multi-second we're definitely ready to think about that."

Especially with Intel Haswell bringing Connected Standby to Core systems, not just low-power Atom tablets, saving power looks like a priority for Windows 9 (especially if it comes out at the same time as Intel's new chips. "For the next release there's all kinds of things we've already identified that are going be quite challenging but at the same time the user is going to get a tremendous boost forward," Worthington promised.

Windows 9 gestures and experiences :

There are features we predicted for Windows 8 based on Microsoft patents and technologies we've seen demonstrated by Microsoft leaders like CTO Craig Mundie that didn't make it into the OS. There are features Microsoft plans for every version of Windows that get cut to ship on time; sometimes they reappear, sometimes they don't. Kinect-based 3D gestures might be on the cards this time around, especially as we hear that some notebooks will soon get 3D cameras - although from other suppliers rather than Microsoft.

Using two cheap webcams rather than an expensive 3D camera could make gesture recognition hardware cheap enough for laptops and then you could wave at the screen from a distance. And maybe Direct Experience will arrive in Windows 9. The patent explains this as a way of starting Windows to play media files in a special purpose operating system and there are improvements in Hyper-V for Windows Server 8 that Microsoft could use to make Windows 9 work better for this, like being able to move a virtual machine from one place to another while it's running. Maybe that would even work with the next version of the Xbox - which will be based on the Windows kernel and is expected to ship in the autumn.

Create a unique password on your router :

Once you have logged into your router, the first thing you should do to secure your network is to change the default password* of the router to something more secure. This will prevent others from accessing the router and you can easily maintain the security settings that you want. You can change the password from the Administration settings on your router’s settings page. The default values are generally admin / password. One obvious question is whether Windows 9 will be 64-bit only - something that Microsoft threatened even before Windows 7 shipped - but that's going to depend on what chips are in PCs.

5 Tips - Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8

Time is running out for Windows XP users. Soon it will see the end of all official support - including security upgrades - from Microsoft. To protect yourself and take advantage of the many productivity enhancements that Microsoft's more recent operating systems have to offer, it's time to step up. Here are five tips to make the upgrade from XP go seamlessly.

Windows 7 Professional and 8 Pro are much more powerful operating systems than Windows XP, and like most pieces of software, they run best on modern hardware. You'll experience the best results if you upgrade your computer at the same time as your operating system. The HP EliteBook series is a light, compact family of laptops that packs in plenty of power for today's computing needs.

If new hardware isn’t in the budget and you want to upgrade an existing device, download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor or the Windows 8.1 Upgrade Assistant to get an inventory of your computer's components and a solid look at what is and isn’t compatible. Be sure to secure drivers for any components that are connected to your PC – mice, keyboards, hard drives, printers, and all the rest. If you're running old applications, there's a chance they won't work under Windows 7 Professional or 8 Pro. You'll need to make a decision about what to do after you upgrade: Either upgrade to a newer version of the software that does support Windows 7 Professional/8 Pro, or use an emulator mode to keep the old application running.

Naturally you want to back up and copy over all your user data, particularly everything in XP's “C:\Documents and Settings” folder. But Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8 Pro have slightly different default folders than Windows XP, so if you're migrating your information manually, you'll want to be aware of where these files should go. The key folders -- or "Libraries" as Windows 7 Professional and 8 Pro call them -- are Music, Pictures, and Videos. Put the appropriate files of each type in these libraries, then drop everything else into the Documents folder. To make things even simpler, use Windows Easy Transfer.

Windows 7 Professional offers Windows XP Mode as a free download. This program lets you run older XP software that wouldn't otherwise be compatible with Windows 7 Professional. But, while XP Mode is supported with Windows 7 Professional, it isn’t officially available with Windows 8 Pro (although you can make it work with a bit of know-how). Whichever OS you’re upgrading to, it may be best to consider that a stopgap solution to use while you get up to speed. Cloud-based services are a great option to consider for replacing outdated programs. For example, if your old version of Office won't run on Windows 7 Professional or 8 Pro, try the online Office 365 or Google Docs instead. Take a virtual walk through Microsoft’s software store to get an idea of some of the great new products that are available.

Copying data back and forth to external thumb drives can be tedious and error-prone, so try using the cloud instead. Services like the new Windows OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) let you stash mountains of data on the web, then access it later from any other PC. Backing up your user files to one of these systems makes migration as painless as possible and adds an extra layer of protection for your data. As with any software migration, upgrading from XP to Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 Pro involves some risk, and some users may not be comfortable enough with process to handle mission-critical computers that contain essential data. If you don't have (or can’t afford) on-site IT staff to offer aid, outside help is readily available. HP's XP Migration Services group is staffed by experts who can ensure applications are compatible with your new OS and guide you through the upgrade process, from determining readiness to rolling out the upgraded systems. Outsourcing your upgrade not only offers peace of mind, it also saves you time and gets you back up and running as quickly as possible.

Samsung Galaxy S5 price not revealed, April 11 release date set

The Samsung Galaxy S5 has finally been revealed, after weeks, if not months, of anticipation. While the company has detailed the numerous hardware and features of the flagship smartphone, it has chosen not to mention price. The Korean manufacturer however did say the Galaxy S5 would launch in 150 countries, starting from 11 April 2014.

The biggest new features being touted on the Galaxy S5 by Samsung include a fingerprint scanner on the home button, a heart rate sensor placed near the 16-megapixel camera, and the IP67 certification that makes it dust and water-resistant. The smartphone also features a new design in terms of the back panel now being perforated, and available with four colours at launch, and optional designer back panels.

This week the folks at Samsung have begun detailing the Samsung Galaxy S5 for everything from its data speed to its camera. With a 16-megapixel back-facing camera and a 5-megapixel camera up front, the Samsung Galaxy S5 continues to be a leader in the industry. But Samsung is pushing a litany of effects and new abilities to make certain they’re ahead of the pack.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 will ship with Android 4.4.2 KitKat. It features a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display with a 1080x1920 pixel full-HD resolution. It is powered by an unnamed 2.5GHz quad-core processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. The Galaxy S5 will be available in 16GB and 32GB variants, with microSD card expandability up to 64GB.

The Galaxy S5 bears a 16-megapixel rear camera with HDR (for video as well), and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. The rear camera can record UHD video @30 fps along with HDR and video stabilization functionality.

Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with MIMO functionality, ANT+, Bluetooth 4.0, USB3.0, NFC, and Infrared remote functionality. A Download Booster is also being touted, which combines LTE and Wi-Fi for faster download. It features a 2800mAh battery, rated to deliver 21 hours of talktime, and 390 hours of standby time.

The smartphone weighs in at 145 grams (slightly heavier than the Galaxy S4), and has dimensions of 142x72.5x8.1mm (slightly thicker than the S4's 7.9mm).

Nokia announces the X and X+, its first Android-based budget phones

The phones under the Nokia X family are not pure Android phones; these phones instead run a forked variant of Android, similar to the way Amazon does for its Kindle Fire lineup. Nokia has taken the open-source elements of Android and has pulled in other elements of Asha and Windows Phone to offer users a different experience.

Nokia is officially launching its very first Android devices, known as the X and the X+, on stage at its annual Mobile World Congress press conference. We were all taken aback by the second (and third) device (since only one leaked), so it's incredible to see Nokia make such a huge foray into enemy territory. The X will have a 4-inch, 840 x 480 IPS screen, 512MB RAM, 4GB of storage expandable storage via microSD slot and 3-megapixel camera, while the X+ sports the same specs but more RAM (768 MB) and an included 4GB microSD card. You won't be getting Google's apps or Play store, however as both handsets will be based on the forked AOSP Android OS. Nokia says that'll have the advantages of the Android ecosystem, but with a "differentiated experience." So far, Here Maps, MixRadio, Skype and Outlook are being featured on the Nokia Store. You can access the Nokia and third party stores using the devices, but not Google Play, obviously. We've heard SwiftKey will be available on the Nokia X range (and for free, too), as will BBM, which is also coming to Windows Phone sometime "this summer."

Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL form a new family of Nokia's affordable smartphones. The Nokia X is the entry-level model in the family, will cost 89 euros, and will be available immediately in select markets. The Nokia X+ offers more memory and storage. It's priced at 99 euros and will be available in early Q2 2014. Finally, the Nokia XL packs a 5-inch screen, 5 megapixel rear-facing and 2 megapixel front-facing camera. It will be priced at 109 euros and be available in early Q2 2014.

"The X family boasts Nokia's exciting, high quality hardware design and a range of bright colours. The brand new, tile-based Home screen offers you a simple, elegant way to manage your apps and phone functions and also reintroduces a redesigned version of the enormously popular Fastlane notifications centre - a second Home screen if you like - from the latest Asha devices," said Nokia.

Google Glass public release

• Google Glass is an augmented reality head-mounted display, allowing hands-free access to the web.
• The product resembles normal eyeglasses where the lens is replaced by a small electronic screen. It provides interaction via natural language voice commands, as well as eye-tracking technology.
• A miniature gyroscope can tell the user's position and orientation at all times. On the side frame is audio output, and a touch control pad, while on top is a button for recording photos and videos with a built-in camera. It is available to developers by 2013 and for the general public by 2014.
• The design allows for integration of the display into people's day-to-day eyewear. It is light and weighs less than most sunglasses. A prototype unveiled in 2012 received criticism over the potential for Google to insert advertising (its main source of revenue) into the user's field of vision. However, the company denied it would use adverts.

Google Nexus 5

The Nexus 5 is the best that Google has to offer right now. It is a lean, mean Android machine, beyond the reach of OEM embellishment and carrier bloatware. It delivers a streamlined experience that's stylish, refined, and lightning fast, and it does all this at a jaw-droppingly low price. You can snag the 16GB version of the Nexus 5 for £299 or you can lay down an extra £40 and get the 32GB version for £339. In terms of hardware the Nexus 5 is a premium smartphone, it just doesn't have a premium price tag. The Nexus 5 can just about hold its own with the top devices on the market, including the iPhone 5S (starting at £550), the Samsung Galaxy S4 (now reduced to £420), the HTC One (which you can find for £430), and the Sony Xperia Z1 (now reduced to £430). A 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset and 2GB RAM place this on the cutting edge. The 5-inch 1080p display is no slouch either, and the Nexus 5 sports the very latest platform update in Android 4.4 KitKat, with the elegant Google Experience Launcher on top.

If you're wondering how Google can offer the Nexus 5 for that much less than its competitors, then you might point an accusatory finger at the camera and the battery life, but make no mistake - this phone is a real bargain. The Nexus line of smartphones may have started out as reference devices to show off the platform, but Google has improved Android immeasurably since the Nexus One and it has refined its strategy in the marketplace. The price tag makes it conceivable that you might buy the Nexus 5 off-contract and then seek out the best deal for service. If you have the cash ready, you'll almost certainly get a better deal that way. Just in case you don't, O2 and Vodafone are offering it for no money down on two-year contracts. I never expected to fall in love with the Nexus 5, but it seduced me. It certainly has its flaws, and we'll get into them in due course, but it's also a beautiful phone that sets a new benchmark for Android.

The Nexus 5 is a vessel. Google's flagship is supposed to compete at the premium end of the market, but it would prefer the software, not the hardware to be the star of the show. To that end, it is almost completely devoid of superfluous detail. As I rest it vertically on the arm of my couch it conjures visions of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. To soften it off and make it more comfortable to hold, the corners are rounded. This black slab (which also comes in white) is all about the screen and the entire front of the Nexus 5 is glass. The only details that break it up are the round earpiece centre top and the front-facing camera to the left of it. There is actually an LED notification light down below the screen, but you'll only see that when it blinks into life.

Despite having a five-inch display, the Nexus 5 measures just 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6mm and the bezels are nice and thin. With a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which translates to 445ppi, the Nexus 5 display looks crisp and accurate. It's an IPS display, and while critics will point to AMOLED's superior brightness and black levels, you'd be hard pressed to notice.

The back and sides are soft-touch, matte plastic and it only weighs 130g, just like the Galaxy S4. Flip it over and you'll see a couple of design flourishes. The word "Nexus" is embossed in lowercase gloss, with a tiny LG logo below it. Up top on the left you'll find the glaring round eye of the 8MP camera, which is surprisingly big. A tiny LED flash is just below.

The bottom edge has a standard microUSB port and there are two grilles either side of it - the Nexus 5 only has one speaker in there; the other hides a microphone. Up top you'll see the standard 3.5mm headphone port and a tiny hole for an extra microphone. On the left spine there's a ceramic volume rocker, with no markings. On the right spine there's a ceramic power button and the SIM tray, which you'll need a SIM tool or a pin to pop out. The Nexus 5 does not open, so there's no microSD card support or battery switching. The Nexus 5 is one of the most comfortable phones I've ever used. It is comparably slow to heat up, so there are no issues holding it while watching movies or during extended gaming sessions. The soft-touch finish contrasts perfectly with the ceramic buttons, which makes them very easy to find and use without looking.

There are negatives. The camera lens protrudes enough to make you worry about it taking the brunt of any impact when the Nexus 5 is put down on a flat surface. That glass expanse, without any protective lip or border, suggests that a drop could easily result in disaster and scratches might be easy to come by. There's also the inevitable smudging from fingerprints, which turns up on the back and the front, but that's a common problem.

It's not a flashy design, but the Nexus 5 does feel solid and well made. It may be a little big for easy one-handed operation if you don't have big hands, but the extra screen size will justify that trade-off for most people. At this price, the design of the Nexus 5 is impressive. It's understated, almost making the iPhone 5S look gaudy, and it feels more expensive than the Galaxy S4.

The price

The big USP that differentiates this phone from the crowd is the value for money it represents. £299 for a premium Android smartphone that's this good is a steal. Even at £339 for the 32GB version, the Nexus 5 is seriously undercutting the competition. Apple devices are expensive. The iPhone 5S starts at £549 for the 16GB version and you'll have to lay out an extra £80 to get a 32GB model for £629, or pay a whopping £709 if you want the 64GB version. While Apple is comfortable with its premium pricing strategy, you get the sense that the Nexus 5 has really put pressure on the competing Android flagships.

The camera

It would be fair to say that the camera in the Nexus 5 was a bit of a disaster on release. It's an 8MP shooter with optical image stabilization that's intended to be a good substitute for a point-and-shoot camera. There's nothing wrong with the hardware, but the software let it down badly. The camera was far too slow to focus and could be slow to launch, which killed your chances of capturing those spontaneous moments with friends and family.

Speed

The Nexus 5 is really about speed and power. The snappy processor dovetails with the Android 4.4 platform beautifully. Google did not cut any corners with the quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor. It is a cutting-edge CPU that has been paired with the Adreno 330 GPU.

Interface and performance

The display on the Nexus 5 is excellent, which makes this a great device for consuming entertainment. LG's mature IPS LCD technology really delivers. The colours look accurate and the 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution on the 4.95-inch screen translates to an amazing 445ppi (pixels per inch). The display on the Nexus 5 is also not as bright as its competitors, which has a slight impact on legibility, particularly in direct sunlight. On the whole, Google's compelling proposition is a premium smartphone that doesn't have to feel uncomfortable in flagship company. It has achieved a winning price without compromising on quality. The Nexus 5 also boasts the exclusive Google Experience Launcher. You'll find the touch sensitive trio of back, home, and multitasking at the bottom. The app dock sits above them with an app drawer icon in the centre which will take to you full app list. The rest of the dock is customisable so you can add your favourites and have them accessible on every home screen. Drag an icon to the right and you can create a new home screen. There doesn't seem to be a limit, and if you empty a home screen it simply disappears. Swipe left to right on the home screen and you'll find Google Now, which can also be brought to life by the magic words "okay Google" uttered on the home screen (though you will need to set your language to US English in Settings > Google > Search > Voice for that to work). Notifications and quick settings are easily accessed by pulling down the notification shade from the top of the screen. Android has the best notification system around, and you can find everything you need to know in here.

Battery life

I have had to charge the Nexus 5 every day since I started using it. Starting out with a full battery it's generally 30% or below by the end of the day, and for really heavy usage days it needed a top-up before bedtime. Now, there isn't really any such thing as "normal" usage, but it would be fair to say that I'm a heavy user. I take my phone everywhere and use it frequently. I left Wi-Fi and mobile data on at all times, enabled location tracking with high accuracy, and opted into Google Now. A typical day will include a cumulative hour of gaming, maybe 90 minutes worth of web browsing, a couple of photos, and a smattering of app action in Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Flipboard, not to mention obsessive email checks (even with it set to a 15 minute refresh rate). What this reveals, beyond my worrying smartphone addiction, is that the Nexus 5 is fairly typical. The battery lasts, on average, a good third longer than my 18 month-old Galaxy S3, but it's nowhere near the longevity of the last phone I tested, which happened to be the BlackBerry Z30. That's probably not an entirely fair comparison, because there was a lot less to enjoy on the BB. Initially the battery life is very erratic, but this is no cause for concern, because you should find that it settles down after the first few days. Remember that downloading and installing a burst of apps tends to eat the battery life fast. Downloading and installing an exceptionally large game, such as Asphalt 8: Airborne, which is 1.6GB, using Wi-Fi actually ate a staggering 10% of my battery. If you use the Nexus 5 to navigate with turn-by-turn directions or play a graphically intensive game, like the aforementioned, Asphalt 8 then you will really notice a major drain. The Nexus 5 battery dropped 3% in ten minutes of gaming. Streaming a 55 minute episode of Breaking Bad through Netflix ate 20% of the remaining battery life. A 15 minute call drained just 2% away. I should also point out that my home is outside 4G range, so if you've got LTE coverage that could drain the juice faster. On days when I was able to get an LTE connection I didn't notice a major difference, but your mileage may vary. The Nexus 5 battery is rated at 2,300mAh, a bit lower than the Galaxy S4's 2,600mAh battery. Our 90 minute video NyanGareth battery test, with the screen at full brightness, knocked the Nexus 5 from fully-charged down to 74%.

The essentials

Inside or outside, in a busy shop, or a deserted street, the Nexus 5 made and received calls with no problems. Callers reported my dulcet tones came through loud and clear, even with my four year-old son screaming in the background, which points to some good noise cancellation skills. I also found callers came through with plenty of volume and clarity on my end. The speakerphone isn't as clear, but it does the job. The phone app has been overhauled in Android 4.4 and it's very convenient to use. The last call is listed at the top and then you get three big contact spaces for your most frequently contacted friends and family. The rest of the list follows and it fills in as you make and receive calls. Most of the time there's no need to scroll or search for the people you want to talk to. When you do need to call a more distant contact you can just type in the search bar at the top and you'll rarely have to enter more than a couple of letters before they pop up. You can also search for local businesses in here and call them directly, which can be very handy when you need a pizza at short notice. I love the keyboard on the Nexus 5. Google has definitely made improvements, because for the first few days I would pause after a staccato burst of typing to go back and make corrections, only to find that the text was error-free. The swiping option has also been improved, making one-handed typing much easier. The purity of the Google experience on offer here is unmatched anywhere else. Cast an eye over the pre-installed apps, from Maps to Hangouts, from Gmail to Quickoffice, from the Chrome browser to YouTube, the strength of the Google ecosystem is impressive. Swipe to the right on the home screen and there's Google Now, ready to serve. The Nexus 5 offers everything that's good about Google in a streamlined format. We can't move on without discussing the newly merged Hangouts app, which puts Google's chat messenger together with your standard text messaging. It means you have one port of call for chatting to friends and family via text (assuming you use Hangouts). On the downside the text message threads are separated from the instant messaging threads, and there's no clever auto-detect, so you have to manually choose your method. It's good to see integration generally, especially when it reduces the number of apps you need on your phone, but Hangouts needs a bit more work.

Media

Streaming movies or TV shows is a simple prospect on the Nexus 5. The screen quality is perfect for high definition video, and your chance of encountering stuttering is entirely based upon on the strength of your internet connection. As you'd expect audio sounds better through headphones. The speaker is fairly loud, but it can get a little crackly when there are sudden jumps in volume. Google would prefer you to use its services, so you'll find the Play umbrella of apps in the shape of Movies & TV, Games, Books, Music, Newsstand, all offering filtered windows on the Play Store content and your own collection.

Music

Whether you're listening to music you own and load into the device, or via Google Play Music's streaming service, it all takes places within the app. The only thing is when you want to purchase stuff, it will redirect you to the Google Play Store app. It makes the experience feel disjointed, but it's not a deal breaker. Music quality through the speaker is not very good. As we mentioned earlier, the speaker isn't very loud, and there is only one small speaker at the base of the phone. With decent headsets on, however, it sounds great. The nice thing about KitKat is that it will show your music art and music player controls from your lock screen. Other apps will do this sometimes, too, like Spotify, but it's a nice touch that just adds to the overall experience of using the device. Whether you're bringing over your own music or using Google Play's service, or other apps like Spotify or Rdio, you won't have much to worry about when it comes to how the Nexus 5 will handle it. Android 4.4 on the Nexus 5 also offers exclusive low-power audio playback, which is supposed to be good for up to 60 hours.

Movies

Videos and multimedia are handled by a few apps depending on what you're doing. First, there is YouTube, which is an obvious one. If you're opening YouTube videos from apps like Facebook or Twitter, or from the web, they will open in the YouTube app. Otherwise, you guessed it, it's more Google Play stuff. If you're on the home screen, you'll see the film icon that says "Play Movies & T.." and in the app list it's shown as "Play Movies &.." It's a little ridiculous, but what you're looking at is Play Movies & TV. If you have a Google Play account, you can download and stream movies and TV shows. The nice thing about that is if you're offline, you can still view your downloaded movies. If this is your first Android device, or your first time using Google Play for multimedia, you should know that when you purchase something, it's yours. At least as far as playing it when you want, on any Android device you want. This means you can play your content on your Nexus 5, and other Android tablets and phones running Android 4.0 or higher, which is pretty great. HD movies and TV video quality and sound have been great, but we do have to reiterate that it sounds best through a headset given the Nexus 5's speaker issues. In all, the video quality is generally good whether you're viewing streaming or downloaded content, or videos recorded with the device, and even better when viewed in HD thanks to the 1080p display.

Games

For gamers the Nexus 5 can handle anything you throw it at it. Extensive sessions with simple games like Nimble Quest presented no problems, and neither did graphically intensive titles such as Asphalt 8 or Frontline Commando. If you do plan on playing a lot of games, or you'd like to store an extensive music or video library on your Nexus 5 then you should definitely opt for the 32GB version. It's worth remembering that you can upload 15GB of files to Google Drive, or use Google+ as an unlimited photo backup, as long as you store them at standard size (the longest edge must be 2048 pixels or less). You can also store up to 20,000 of your own songs in the cloud with Play Music and stream them to your Nexus 5.