The 10 Best Android Tablets

Tulisan 10 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Android tablets had a rocky start, but since Google released its tablet-specific operating system, Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" last year, we’ve seen a steady flow of high-quality Android tablets. And that's a good thing, since they provide viable alternatives to the Apple iPad, which has dominated the tablet market since its first release in early 2010. One of the major benefits of Android over the iPad and the never-quite-caught-on BlackBerry PlayBook, is that instead of a single hardware choice, you can access the OS on a number of different tablets.

The only hitch there: There isn't a single version of Android. Nine months after the Honeycomb release, Google unveiled Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (ICS) last November, which takes Gingerbread (the phone OS) and Honeycomb (the tablet OS) and merges them. Six months later and we've only seen Android 4.0 on a handful of tablets. (Only four of the 10 here currently run ICS.) Android has notorious problems with timely OS updates.

With ICS, Google continues to fine tune Android, making the tablet experience a very good one. The biggest issue with the platform, however, continues to be the lack of tablet-specific third-party apps and an easy way to find them through Google Play (formerly the Android Market). Android tablet apps are still in the low hundreds, while apps designed specifically for the iPad continue to climb into the tens of thousands (90,000K+ at the time of this writing).

Given its Google roots, though, Android continues to be the most configurable tablet operating system you’ll find. It's a master multitasker with an excellent notification system, and top-notch integration with Google services like Gmail, Google Chat, and Google Maps.

Turns out that one of the most compelling Android tablet we've seen so far doesn't even run Honeycomb, never mind Ice Cream Sandwich: Amazon's Kindle Fire uses a highly modified version of Gingerbread (Android 2.3), which is meant for phones. It's not perfect, but the smaller 7-inch screen, and Amazon's OS tweaks, along with its own high-quality content ecosystem and on-board Appstore make for one of the best tablet entertainment experiences you can find. And its $200 price, in a market where most tablets can cost more than twice as much, means Amazon has a real chance to steal some market share from Apple.

If the Kindle Fire doesn't do it for you, or you can't wait for an ICS tablet like the forthcoming Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, or others announced at Mobile World Congress, check out the slideshow for a look at top-rated Android tablets you can get now, or compare these tablets side by side.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/266915/the-10-best-android-tablets

Cool New iPad 3 Cases

Tulisan 9 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Apple's new iPad packs a new processor, better graphics, an ultra-sharp display, and improved cameras. But even with all that extra power packed inside, the new iPad looks just like the old iPad. Visually, there's only one thing setting the two tablets apart: The new iPad is just .03 inch thicker. That's less than a millimeter—.76mm to be exact. Just enough to make you wonder if an iPad 2 case will fit on a new iPad.

The good news is, many of the cases made for the iPad 2 will fit the new iPad. Apple's own Smart Cover, for example, will work with both the iPad 2 and the new iPad. But compatibility isn't guaranteed, especially with, say, a shell that snaps on to the back of the tablet. To make things clear, most case manufacturers are releasing new iPad-specific case lines (or some call them iPad 3 cases). And that's what we've rounded up here: Cases that are guaranteed to work with the third-generation iPad.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/295481/cool-new-ipad-3-cases

Phones With the Best Battery Life

Tulisan 8 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Have you ever felt your cell phone vibrate and pulled it out of your pocket, expecting to to see a text or e-mail message, only to see a low-battery warning instead? Surely, you've uttered the dreaded words, "My phone is dying, so I have to say this fast!"

It may be time to consider investing in a phone with better battery life.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of carrying an extra battery or charger around, or even strapping a battery case to my phone is not all that appealing. But I’m realistic. Smartphones, with their big touch screens and fast processors, suck up a lot of power, so I’m not expecting to make it through the week on a single charge. Still, there’s no excuse for not being able to make it through the day.

For every phone we review here at PCMag we test continuous talk time, to measure just how much chatting you can do between charges. Although talk time doesn’t account for all the other ways we use our phones throughout the day, it’s still a useful indication of how long you can expect your battery to last. For most smartphones running on a 3G network, the average talk time is a little over five hours, which isn't bad. There are also a good number of phones that fall in the six-hour range, which is even better. For the phones that support it, we also measure audio streaming time over 4G LTE, because 4G has proven to be a major battery suck. Right now, the average streaming time is just under four hours.

For this list, we’re rounding up phones that delivered at least seven hours of talk time—some go well beyond that—which should be more than enough juice to get you from morning to evening without a charge.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/264094/phones-with-the-best-battery-life

The Best Android Phones

Tulisan 7 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

These days, it seems like there's always a newer, faster Android phone on the horizon. Last month Samsung unveiled the latest handset in its successful Galaxy S line. It won't be available to U.S. consumers until later this month, but with a quad-core processor, a 1,280-by-720 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display, an 8-megapixel camera, Android 4.0, 4G LTE support, voice control, and facial-recognition features, the Galaxy S III will likely be worth the wait. And a variant of the phone will be available on every major U.S. carrier.

That's one of the best things about Android: Choice. The open nature of the platform means that you can find dozens of Android phones from a variety of manufacturers on each carrier. At the time of this writing, there were more than 20 Android handsets available on Verizon Wireless alone. According to research firm NPD, Android owned 47 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in the last quarter of 2011.

That's a lot of very similar phones to choose from. To come up with our list of top Android phones, we've chosen two to three winners for each of the four major carriers from our highest-rated phones. And for the contract-phobic, we've thrown in the best unlocked handset. If you've settled on Android as your mobile platform, and you're in the market for a new phone right now, these models are your best bets. But the way things are going, we can assure you that there's another great 'Droid right around the corner.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/264635/the-best-android-phones

The Best Android Phones

Tulisan 7 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Browser Wars: Chrome vs. IE9 vs. Firefox

Tulisan 6 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

You really can't go wrong with any Web browser choice these days. Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, all are fast, standards compliant, and feature rich. A lot boils down to what you're comfortable with and which features are most important to you. For many people, the choice is moving to the product offered their favorite search site. The last time we compared all five major Web browsers Google Chrome had just over 12 percent of the market. That's now doubled, and it looks like Chrome's market share will pass Firefox's soon.

Speed
I'd like to think the reason for this was my awarding Chrome the PCMag Editors' Choice, but there are other possible good reasons for Chrome's rise. Foremost among them is speed. Links to download the browser on the leading search site, and bundles with PC makers doesn't hurt either. But Chrome adds a few compelling features all its own: Chrome Instant means you'll often see your page before you've even finished typing its address or title. And it's the only browser with a built-in Flash player and PDF reader.

More

But Chrome doesn't have a monopoly on unique features or speed. Internet Explorer 9 brought Microsoft's fading browser a need boost, with JavaScript speed comparable to Chrome, and even started its own performance improving trend—graphics hardware acceleration. Now Firefox and Chrome come along with their own graphics hardware acceleration, and other browsers will surely follow. But IE still offers some distinguishing points, most of which come from its close integration with Windows 7. (IE 9 and up will only run on Windows 7 or Vista.) Pinned sites is a big one. This lets users keep a permanent button for a site in the taskbar, which opens a browser with the site's own branding, rather than IEs.

Sync
While many browsers offer ability to sync your bookmarks, settings, and history Firefox offers perhaps the strongest, even syncing with its mobile Android version. I've often been shocked to come home to a PC, fire up the browser, and see the exact same group of tabs I'd left at work. Speaking of Tabs, Firefox offers one of the most innovative way to organize lots of tabs, with its Panorama tab-grouping feature. Lately, Firefox has made progress in startup time and memory usage, longstanding complaints.

Perhaps the most innovative browser of all over the years has been the Norwegian-made Opera. Opera introduce a good many of the standard features we take for granted—built-in search, popup blocking, and even tabs themselves. Recently, Amazon has taken a page from Opera by emulating Opera Mini and Opera Turbo's Web caching speedup. Opera's bag of tricks include Unite—which actually turns your browser into a Web server, so that you can host your photos, or even a chat. Lately, the Nordic company has added live tiles on its Speed Dial new-tab page, not unlike those to be featured in Windows 8.

Style
And don't rule out Apple's Safari in your browser shopping. Though this browser is mostly associated with Mac OS, the stylish tech company makes a Windows version, too. Only Safari offers a Reader view, which lets you focus on the text of publication styles sites. More recently, Apple's added a Reading List feature, which saves sites you want to peruse later. Safari also sports Apple's trademark design prowess, particularly in its Top Sites gallery new-tab page and its Cover Flow view of your history and bookmarks.

Standards
Other things you'll want to take into consideration when choosing a browser include support for HTML5 and Privacy. Both of these are moving targets, with Chrome leading the pack on the first and Internet Explorer on the latter, with its Tracking Protection. In the reviews below, you'll see appraisals of how each player performs in these areas, along with several different types of speed tests and detailed feature analyses. But remember, don't be afraid to try the browsers out for yourself—they're all a free download away!

Google Chrome 15
Chrome Instant means your Web page is ready to read before you finish typing the address. This, its speed, minimalist design, and advanced support for HTML5 have deservedly been attracting more and more users to the browser. New hardware acceleration makes Chrome a speed maven at any task.

Firefox 8
Firefox 4 got Mozilla back into the game, and the versions keep coming at a much faster clip, now that Mozilla hews to a Chrome-like rapid release schedule. These frequent versions haven't brought the kind of earth-shattering changes we used to see in new full-number Firefox updates, but the development teams have tackled issues of importance to a lot of Web users—startup time, memory use, and of course security. This lean, fast, customizable browser can hold its own against any competitor, and it offers graphics hardware acceleration.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9)
Microsoft's latest browser is faster, trimmer, more compliant with HTML5—a major improvement over its predecessor. It also brings some unique capabilities like tab-pinning and hardware acceleration, but only Windows 7 and Vista users need apply.

Opera 11.5
Like the other current browsers Opera is fast, compliant with HTML5, and spare of interface. Long an innovator, recently it's added unique things like Unite, which turns the browser into a server, and Turbo, which speeds up the Web on slow connections through caching. Extension support actually followed other browsers, but Oslo still innovates with tab stacking, visual mouse gestures, and live Speed Dial tiles.

Safari 5
Safari is a fast, beautiful browser, but the Reader view and Reading List makes it even more enticing. Leading support for HTML 5 features will also be important, but you can already get that in other browsers, too. Safari's gorgeous styling, strong bookmarking, RSS reader, and vivid new-tab page will also appeal to many.

Sumber :

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2365692,00.asp

Tsunami Dock Washes up In Oregon

Tulisan 5 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

A concrete dock torn from a port in northern Japan by last year's tsunami has floated ashore in the US state of Oregon, more than eight thousand kilometres across the Pacific Ocean.

The dock is more than twenty metres long and weighs one-hundred-and-sixty-five tons.

A Japanese consulate official in Portland, Oregon, said a commemorative plaque showed it had come from the fishing port of Misawa.

Radiation checks proved negative, but scientists warn that invasive species foreign to the area may have hitched a ride.

Misawa in northern Japan lost four docks in the tsunami last March.

Sumber :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/bahasa_inggris/2012/06/120607_dwi_uighur_tsunami.shtml

Japan's Radiation Phone

Tulisan 4 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Japanese mobile phones are known for their advanced features – they can be used to swipe through barriers at train stations, watch television, or even measure body fat and tell the user if they have bad breath.

Now Softbank, a major mobile network, has launched a handset with a built-in Geiger counter. It has a button that users can press to see how much radiation they are being exposed to. Sales are likely to be driven by widespread fear over the meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power station last year.

One of the Japan's mobile networks is planning to launch a phone with a built in radiation monitor. 

Many Japanese say they don't trust reassurances from the Government and the plant's operator, TEPCO. Sales of conventional Geiger counters have soared and in some places people have clubbed together to buy expensive equipment to check for radiation in food.

Softbank is yet to announce a price for the radiation-monitoring phone, which will be released in the summer, saying only that it will be affordable.

Sumber :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/bahasa_inggris/2012/06/120604_witn_japan_phone.shtml

Massive new marine reserve of Australia

Tulisan 3 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Australia has announced the creation of the world's largest network of protected marine areas, covering 1.7 million km2 of ocean around its coast.

The move is aimed at conserving marine life and limiting the scope for exploiting oil and natural gas. Australia's Environment Minister, Tony Burke, said the plan was akin to creating an ocean network of national parks.

There have been objections from oil and natural gas companies as well as the fishing industry.

The move comes as nations gather in Rio de Janeiro for a major UN summit on sustainable development.

Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Sumber :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/bahasa_inggris/2012/06/120614_dwi_nokia.shtml

Ailing Nokia Faces More Cuts

Tulisan 2 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

The troubled mobile phone maker, Nokia, has announced another round of massive redundancies.

It says it'll be shedding a fifth of its workforce -- 10.000 -- by the end of next year. Nokia said the cuts were necessary to guarantee the future of the company.

It said it would now be focussing on its most popular products and services.

The Finnish company was for a long time the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, but has been struggling to compete with smartphones made by Samsung and Apple.

Sumber :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/bahasa_inggris/2012/06/120614_dwi_nokia.shtml

Danger of Smoking in the Morning

Danger of Smoking in the Morning

Tulisan 1 - Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

 

Artikel-bahasainggris.blogspot.com - Smoking in the morning, especially accompanied by a cup of coffee, has become a ritual that hard to break. However, these habits seem to need to be stopped from smoking at the beginning of the day is more dangerous than smoking on the day or night.

Research shows that smoking after waking up would increase the risk of lung cancer, neck and head. "Morning smokers have high levels of nicotine and other toxins from tobacco in his body. They are also more addicted than smokers who refrained from smoking a half hour or so after waking up," said researcher Joshua Muscat of Penn State College of Medicine.

To find out why some smokers get cancer and not, Muscat and his team examined the link between cancer risk is there with the habit of first cigarette in the morning.

The first study involved 4775 patients with lung cancer and 2835 of other smokers without lung cancer. Those who smoke 30 minutes after waking up 1.79 times higher risk of suffering from lung cancer than those who waited more than 60 minutes. Meanwhile, those who smoked 31-60 minutes after waking up had 1.31 times the risk compared to those who wait at least an hour.

The second study involved 1055 people with brain and neck cancer and 795 people who smoked but did not suffer brain and neck cancer. Those who smoked within 30 minutes when you wake up 1.59 times the risk of brain and neck cancer compared with those who waited an hour.

The risk of smokers who smoked 31-60 minutes after waking up 1.42 times than those who wait at least an hour.

Sumber : http://artikel-bahasainggris.blogspot.com/2011/08/danger-of-smoking-in-morning.html