Insight: Mayflower, meet Exxon: When oil spilled in an Arkansas town

By Edward McAllister

MAYFLOWER, Arkansas (Reuters) - Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter's 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Arkansas, when his wife came inside and said something was wrong.

After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he immediately dialed 911.

"I don't know what's going on, but I've got a river of oil coming down the street at me," Andrews told the operator.

Five minutes later, the slick of noxious black crude spewing from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline was eight feet wide, six inches deep and growing fast.

Within half an hour, a representative from Exxon Mobil Corp was on the scene. By the next day, Exxon's agents had contacted the evacuated residents and were writing checks for their living expenses.

Three days after the spill on the afternoon of March 29, 120 workers had descended on the town, a number that would eventually swell to more than 600 from across the country, including company doctors, communication specialists and wildlife experts.

Now, nearly two weeks after the 5,000-barrel spill occurred on Good Friday, a picture has emerged of a giant oil company thrust into a small blue-collar community, intricately managing not just the cleanup of a major spill, but also using its large check book to try to win over the townsfolk and seek to limit the fallout.

At stake is not just the reputation of the world's largest publicly traded oil company, but the spill's impact on a fractious national debate about the effect of shipping increasing amounts of tarry Canadian crude across the United States.

"We are trying to make sure that people are not financially impacted by this," said Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers. "We will honor all valid claims."

The incident in Mayflower, 25 miles north of Little Rock, pales in comparison to the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, when hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude spilled from an Exxon oil tanker into Alaskan waters. It's too early to estimate the financial cost from Mayflower to Exxon, but it is likely to be a drop in the bucket for the $400 billion company.

But the spill has stoked a national debate about the safety of carrying crude in pipelines across the United States just as politicians weigh whether to approve the mega Keystone XL pipeline that will help to link the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, with oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

And although significant pipeline spills happen every three days on average in the United States, according to federal data, rarely do they occur in a town and rarely in these volumes.

ROUND NUMBERS

As efforts to clean up the sprawling mess grew over the Easter weekend, a parallel response was developing behind the scenes, one in which Exxon oversaw every issue surrounding the spill - from sick children at the local school and oiled ducks in the creek, to the residents displaced from 22 homes.

When eight students, who were vomiting and complained of headaches, were sent home from Mayflower Elementary School on the Monday morning after the spill, an Exxon Mobil doctor arrived quickly on the scene. The doctor quelled concerns about the air quality around the school, which is just a block south of the spill site, according to school principal Candie Watts.

"The doctor explained that some students would have greater sensitivity than others, but because of the air tests done, there was no cause for alarm," Watts said.

Exxon has given the school $15,000 to pay for a party planned after state exams next week. The money will also help pay for a playground upgrade, new computers and an electronic announcement sign, Watts said.

Exxon has also offered to put money towards a new school science and math program, she said.

"We do have a room that was built to be a science lab, but we've never been able to supply it with resources or a teacher," Watts said. "We would like to speak with them about that."

Exxon confirmed it was paying for the party. It could not immediately confirm if any discussions were being held about the math and science program.

Meanwhile, Exxon was quickly in contact with the residents in the North Woods housing development who had been evacuated from their homes and were staying in nearby hotels.

Company agents sat down with residents, estimating their cost of living and cutting checks for each family in weekly amounts, including for hotel rooms, meals and gasoline.

"They said if it didn't cost what I gave you, take the rest and keep it in your pocket," said Andrews, the Mayflower resident. "If I said something cost $140, he said $200. He said he liked round numbers."

Exxon bought Andrews a lift chair for his disabled mother-in-law and offered to pay for any damage the oil caused to his two vehicles, which he expected would come to about $500.

Exxon confirmed it was paying for the living expenses of displaced residents and that they could pocket any leftover money if the checks were larger than needed.

Gerald Baron, an expert on emergency management communications at PR consultancy Agincourt Strategies, said Exxon's Mayflower play book is not unique.

"It is their instinct to pay first and ask questions later," said Baron. "That is par for the course for the oil industry majors. They don't want to alienate people whose backyard they're working in."

ACT OF DESPERATION

It remains to be seen if the oil giant succeeds in its efforts to placate Mayflower residents and stem liabilities. The cause of the pipe's rupture is still under investigation and some residents said they are seeking legal advice, or will consider doing so in the future if house prices plunge. The area had been one of the most desirable parts of town.

As an oil spill through a town is very rare, it is difficult to find a precedent for the outcome of any legal proceedings.

Exxon has not so far offered to pay for affected houses or any loss in their value, according to its spokesman Jeffers. When asked if Exxon plans to compensate for any loss in housing value, he said only that "valid claims" will be addressed.

Mayflower, with a predominantly white, Republican population of 2,234, is normally a quiet, commuter town off Interstate 40, with a few one-story stores, a diner, a Baptist church and a couple of gas stations along its one main strip.

But the peace was shattered after the oil spill, as heavy machinery and trucks and workers tried to halt the flow of crude along the storm drains and creeks that cross the town's center. The pipeline can carry more than 90,000 barrels a day of crude from Illinois to Texas.

The loss in pipeline tariffs - which amount to more than $5 per barrel, according to government data - could cost Exxon more than $3 million a week while the pipeline is shut, based on Reuters calculations. It is unclear when it will reopen.

The response to the spill was initially a local effort, as emergency responders rushed to keep the oil from running into Lake Conway, a prized local fishing spot that attracts tourists from across Arkansas.

Less than an hour after the rupture was discovered on Exxon's Pegasus pipeline at 2.45 p.m. CT (1945 GMT) on March 29, Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson was overseeing the construction of makeshift dams out of piles of gravel, sand and plywood sourced from nearby stores.

"There is no oil in that open water. It's the locals that got it done," said Dodson, who described their efforts as "an act of desperation."

Exxon soon sent in contractors from oil clean-up specialists United States Environmental Services (USES) with absorbent booms. USES hired air quality monitors from a private firm and they were taking measurements shortly after 5 p.m. CT.

Secure behind an eight-foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire, the joint command center comprised a makeshift warehouse and a fleet of mobile units. Inside, Exxon representatives worked with town, state and federal officials.

Security guards monitored the entrance, refusing entry to anyone without clearance, and reporters were directed to an Exxon Mobil phone line.

By mid-week, in the marshy woods around the compound, hundreds of workers in yellow hazmat suits bagged up brush and leaves blackened by the spill. Pumps sucked up oil into large tankers. Lawns were being dug up in the North Woods area.

One of the workers said they were told not to stand near the road while wearing their hazmat suits for fear that it would alarm residents.

Exxon contractor Wildlife Response Services from Seabrook, Texas, took charge of affected wildlife on the Tuesday after the spill, replacing a nearby volunteer organization that initially dealt with oiled birds. In all, 23 ducks, a river rat and five turtles have died because of the spill, Exxon said on April 8.

The company has defended itself against any criticism from environmentalists about its handling of the spill. On a blog on April 5, Exxon listed a number of "whoppers" that it claimed had been said, including that the company had ordered a no fly zone over the spill.

All the while, Exxon imprinted itself on town life. Orders for more than 500 sandwiches were placed from a Subway store one day and a local deli the next - the equivalent of catering for about a quarter of the town's normal population.

"They are spreading the love around town," said Julie Jeffery, owner of Julie Ann's deli in Mayflower just after serving up 500 sandwiches and burgers for the responders.

DISASTER AREA

While many in town have applauded Exxon's cleanup efforts and even welcomed their presence, the effects of the spill will linger - at least for a while.

Many of the homeowners in North Woods told Reuters they had been unaware that Exxon's pipeline, which was built in the late 1940s, ran just yards from their houses, buried in the woods near where local children played.

Exxon said it is required by regulators to notify people every two years who are within 650 feet of the pipeline. "We go beyond that to 1,300 feet," Jeffers said.

The $150,000 properties in the sought-after neighborhood rarely spend more than a few weeks on the market - some last just a few days. Now, displaced residents are worried that North Woods' reputation has been tarnished and could knock significant value off their properties.

So far, four displaced residents have been given the option to return permanently. The rest are staying in nearby hotels.

Jonathan Jameson, a chiropractor who works in Mayflower, closed a deal to purchase a house at 19 North Starlite Road just two hours before the spill.

"I went round to look at the house on Tuesday and it looked like a disaster area," Jameson said. "It is definitely going to affect the value of the house," he said, adding that his property had not been damaged by the oil. Jameson said he is seeking legal advice from a local law firm. He did not want to say how much he paid for the house.

It is difficult to know what will be the lasting impact of the spill on Mayflower's real estate market as there are few examples of major residential spills.

Sandara Bridges, a real estate broker in Mayflower, said it will be virtually impossible to sell a house in the neighborhood in the near term.

"No one is going to buy their houses in the middle of this. Someone would have to be nuts to do that," she said.

Bridges said that if the spill is cleaned up properly and there are no residual effects, it's possible for prices to begin to recover in six months.

(Additional reporting by David Sheppard, Joshua Schneyer and Matthew Robinson in New York, Patrick Rucker in Washington, and Kristen Hays and Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-mayflower-meet-exxon-oil-spilled-arkansas-town-162404095.html

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The Pitfalls Of Negotiating With Yourself (talking-points-memo)

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How to Build a Greener Office Building

Seattle's new Bullitt Center?which will house eco-conscious tenants such as the International Living Future Institutue and the University of Washington Integrated Design Lab?is the brainchild of Bullitt Foundation president Denis Hayes. He's the guy who coordinated the first Earth Day, which, not surprisingly, will serve as the grand opening date for the center. Hayes spent more than two years sourcing materials for the office building as part of his attempt to build the largest structure to qualify for the Living Design Challenge.

The solar panels dangling over the downtown Seattle sidewalks and the composting toilets on the sixth floor have gotten most of the publicity as the Bullitt Center has grown skyward. But there's more to sustainability for a 50,000-square-foot structure than net-zero energy usage (check), onsite wastewater treatment (check, check), and harvesting rainwater (check, check, check): The builders have tried to filter out all toxic chemicals from the construction process. Here's how.

Lead-Free Living

Use lead-free paint?that's the way most people would think about removing lead from a building. But most lead actually lies behind your walls, in brass and bronze plumbing systems. Getting an entirely lead-free system, even for the wastewater pipes, was quite challenging until recently.

While most bronze or brass fixtures contain 4 to 6 percent lead, Bullitt officials say, new laws in California and Vermont require manufacturers to offer plumbing products with only .25 percent lead. As a result, over the last two years more and more lead-free products have hit the market. While it's expensive, removing lead?whether from paint, roofing materials, textiles or plumbing?is doable.

Making Their Own Mixes

The Bullitt Center needed an airtight building envelope, which requires a liquid-applied air barrier instead of traditional Tyvek-type wrapping. Prosoco offers the leading product, but, according to the company's materials list, that product contained phthalates. This group of chemicals added to the barrier keeps it stretchy and plastic-like, but some studies have linked those chemicals to reports of hormone imbalances in humans. (Apple has been involved in a similar controversy for putting phthalates in those ubiquitous white earbuds.)

Phthalates fall on the LBC red list, so the Bullitt Center had to look elsewhere. That is, until Prosoco spent the next four months in research and development in its Portland, Ore., facility, reworking the formula to remove phthalates. The new version is going into the Bullitt Center, and it works well enough that Prosoco says it plans to reformulate its entire FastFlash line to go phthalate-free.

No More Neoprene

Chlorinated rubber?most of us know it as Neoprene, its trade name?is considered a dioxin believed to cause cancer, according to the CDC. But chlorinated rubber has long had a place in buildings, where it's used for sound insulation and gasket coupling. After working with Bullitt's plumbing subcontractor and its list of suppliers, the design team discovered that EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) synthetic rubber gets the same result as Neoprene but without the same health concerns.

Flushing Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is prevalent in the building industry; it's possibly the most intrusive chemical on the red list. As a volatile organic compound, it slowly emits into the air over the lifetime of a product and is known to cause asthma and cancer, according to the CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The reason it's so widely used is because of its amazing binding ability; formaldehyde helps to make composite materials such as plywood rigid.

Formaldehyde is so common that the Bullitt Center couldn't get rid of it completely?there's just no formaldehyde-free replacement for structural plywood. To try to make a small difference, builders opted for phenol formaldehyde instead of the more traditional, and more dangerous, urea form. The center used Forest Stewardship Council?approved wood for all nonstructural components, such as cabinetry and casework. In the interior fiberglass insulation, the Bullitt Center steered away from formaldehyde altogether and used a product with a plant-based binder instead.

Picking Out PVC

While the Bullitt designers fully expected to eradicate PVC (polyvinyl chloride) from its plumbing system, using HDPE (high-density polyethylene) in its stead because of its lack of chlorination leaving it without dioxin issues, they weren't expecting to find PVC so ubiquitous throughout the wiring system. PVC, which contains carcinogenic chlorination dioxins, had a way of showing up in all wiring types, used as both insulation and in wiring jackets. Along with the HDPE for piping, the center features ABS plastic (acrylonitrile butadience styrene) and other similar products to strip the center of PVC.

Cleaning Out Concrete

Concrete isn't just water, cement, and rock. A multitude of chemicals get added to differing concrete mixes depending on the need and environment. The Bullitt Center waded through more than a dozen batch designs to cut red-list chemicals and avoid using materials not from Washington State (some suppliers were pushing China-made products). The end result gave the Bullitt Center a locally sourced, toxin-free concrete. It also increased the fly ash quotient, which cut down on CO₂ emissions during the creation process. Fly ash is a by-product of coal-generated electricity, and it can replace up to 50 percent of the mix's portland cement. Using fly ash reduces the carbon emissions of the entire concrete creation process.

Follow Tim Newcomb on Twitter at @tdnewcomb.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/architecture/how-to-build-a-greener-office-building-15332845?src=rss

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How Apple's App Store crackdown could hurt mobile game discovery

Yannick LeJacq , NBC News contributor ? ? ? 2 hrs.

Earlier this week in a peculiar sudden change of direction, Apple removed the app-discovery application AppGratis from the iTunes App Store ? leaving AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat "in total disbelief," seeing as the tech giant had approved an iPad version of his app just days before its ouster.

Apple's reasoning behind pulling AppGratis from iTunes was that it was in violation of several of the App Stores' terms of service, which prohibit apps from promoting other studios' software products.

The tech blog All Things D is now reporting that sources familiar with the App Store's current shake-up say the AppGratis takedown is just the beginning of a renewed enforcement policy by Apple to police against these kinds of discoverability apps.

This is, no doubt, a move on Apple's part to protect the integrity of its own internal ranking and scoring system ? to make all third party developers, in other words, beholden to Apple's standards and metrics (and only Apple's) when it comes to the App Store. But the crackdown on discoverability tools could have far-reaching and crushing implications for app developers who rely on user acquisition not just as a point-of-sale, but as a means to boost user retention and monetization.

A large chunk of these apps are free-to-play mobile games, including everything from hit casual games like "Angry Birds" and "Temple Run" to high-grossing "midcore" games like "Clash of Clans" ? a game that apparently makes developer Supercell $1 million a day. Except for rare cases of runaway "premium" mobile games like "Infinity Blade," the vast majority of mobile games work on this sort of download now, pay later business mindset. And in the cases in which mobile game developers can't immediately convert their users into paying customers (which happens very, very often, seeing as a one to five percent conversion rate is considered normal), they have to do what all other freemium service providers do: turn to advertising, usually helping one another by pushing a fellow game developer's game.

Unfortunately, while this type of strategy may help support the entire mobile gaming ecosystem, it also plays right into the hands of Apple's App Store police. Apple already has a history of targeting app developers, particular game developers, for this very reason ? in 2011, the company began to remove apps that offered in-game currency in exchange for downloading other apps, and in 2012 it went after Tapjoy what TechCrunch's Michael Arrington called an "app download circle jerk." Depending on how stringent Apple chooses to be, any mobile developer from Zynga to HeyZap (a FourSquare-ish social discoverability app for mobile games) could be the next target.

A representative from Apple was not immediately available for comment.

Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email atylejacq@gmail.com

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Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Tablet Review | Best Android Tablets

Between the Galaxy Note tablet and phone lines, Samsung has single-handedly made pen computing relevant again. However, neither the relatively compact 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II phone nor the heavierGalaxy Note 10.1 is the ideal size for mobile note-taking and drawing. Enter the Galaxy Note 8.0, which is thin and light enough to hold in one hand yet large enough to write on without running out of space. With a host of pen-enabled apps and custom Android features, TV remote control ability and Samsung's multitasking prowess, the Note 8.0 provides a great balance of power and portability. But at $399 (or $70 more than the iPad mini) is this tablet worth the money?

Design

Click to EnlargeRoughly the size of a steno pad, the Galaxy Note 8.0 fits comfortably in our left hand while we held its stylus in our right hand for writing. At 8.3 x 5.35 x .31 inches and 12 ounces, the new Note is considerably lighter than the 1.4 pound Galaxy Note 10.1, but understandably heavier than the 6.4 ounce Galaxy Note II phone. The 7.9-inch iPad Mini weighs an ounce less and is a bit smaller (7.87 x 5.3 x 0.28, 11 ounces) while the 7-inch Nexus 7 weighs the same 12 ounces while having a slightly smaller frame (7.8 x 4.7 x .41 inches).

Click to EnlargeLike other Samsung Galaxy series devices, the Note 8.0 is made from glossy white plastic with a chrome accent that rings around its sides. While not particularly attractive, particularly in comparison to the iPad mini's premium metallic design, this functional chassis has room for a few key ports. The left side houses a microSD card slot which allows users to add their own inexpensive memory storage memory (a 32GB card costs around $25). The bottom right corner has a bay for storing the stylus, something many competitors' pen-based tablets have lacked, and the bottom surface itself has a standard microUSB charging port. In addition to its power and volume buttons, the right side of the tablet also holds an infrared port that allows the Note 8.0 to double as a remote control.

MORE: 25 Best Android Apps

Display

Click to EnlargeThough the Galaxy Note 8.0 doesn't use Super AMOLED screen technology, its 1280 x 800 TFT screen provides bright, colorful images that are filled with detail. When we played a 1080p trailer for the Avengers on the Note 8.0, colors like Captain America's blue costume and Black Widow's Red Hair looked particularly vibrant. When we watched the same trailer on a Galaxy Note II, which has the same resolution on its 5.7-inch, Super AMOLED display, fine detailers were just a little sharper while the colors were even more lively, but less true-to-life.

Click to EnlargeThough the Note 8.0's density of 189 PPI is significantly lower than the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro's mark of 401 PPI, fine details like the cloth on Captain America's suit were much sharper on the tablet than the phone.

At 489 lux on our light meter, the Galaxy Note 8.0's screen is significantly brighter than the 371 tablet category average, the Google Nexus 7 (314 lux), the iPad Mini (432) and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (454). With its brightness turned up all the way, we were able to view the screen in direct sunlight, but just barely. Viewing angles from left to right and top or bottom were solid, but the highly reflective screen bounced light back at us when we were viewing darker scenes in a movie.

Audio

Click to EnlargeThe Galaxy Note 8.0's speakers emitted sound that was loud enough to fill a small room, but too tinny and unpleasant for music listening. When we played Patrice Rushen's bass-heavy "Forget Me Nots," the sound was flat, distant and lifeless. Motley Crue's guitar and drum heavy "Shout at the Devil," was so tinny that it was almost painful to listen to. Even worse, the speakers are mounted on the bottom of the tablet when held in landscape mode, causing our hands to muffle the speakers.

User Interface and Multitasking

Click to EnlargeLike other Samsung Galaxy devices, the Galaxy Note 8.0 uses Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system with Samsung's TouchWiz interface. Unlike stock Android, which uses virtual navigation buttons, the Note 8.0 has capacitive menu and back buttons along with a physical home button built into the bottom of its bezel. Where regular Android has a task switching button and puts a menu button into the apps themselves, Samsung's use of a dedicated menu button requires you to press and hold the home button to get a list of running tasks. To get Google Now on the tablet, you must press and hold the menu button rather than swiping up from the home button like you would on stock Android.

Click to EnlargeThe TouchWiz notification drawer provides another point of differentiation, as it contains a brightness slider and toggle buttons for screen rotation, Wi-Fi, GPS, Sound, Bluetooth and Reading Mode, among others. We found these shortcuts to be quite convenient. Samsung provides five desktops, which come default with a time widget, a calendar widget, a Flipboard widget and a widget that makes it easy to create new notes in the bundled S Note app.

Click to EnlargeOur favorite TouchWiz feature on the Galaxy Note 8.0 is its Multi Window view. By long pressing the back button, we launched a menu bar on the left side of the screen with shortcuts to the web browser, Gmail, Email, contacts, the gallery and several other key apps. If we dragged an app from this bar onto the desktop, the app would launch at full screen. However, if we already had one of these Multi Window-capable apps running and dragged over a second one, the screen would split in two, with each app taking up half of the space. We could then drag the separator bar between the two apps to make one app take up more screen real estate than the other.

Click to EnlargeWe particularly appreciated having the our corporate email open right next to the browser so we could write a message while doing research on the web. With the Galaxy Note 8.0, Multi Window now works with 20 different apps, including Facebook and Polaris Office. However,we wish that the Note 8.0 also allowed us to turn all our apps into floating windows like the larger Galaxy Note 10.1 does with its Cascade mode.

We also enjoyed using pop-up play, a different multitasking feature that allowed us to play videos in a draggable, resizable layer on top of the desktop. However, unlike LG which has a similar feature called QSlide on its phones, Samsung doesn't let you change the opacity of the playback window so you can see through it.

MORE:How to Get Samsung's, LG's Best Features on Any Android Phone

Pen Integration and Air View

As with its other Galaxy Note devices, Samsung has built pen support into many areas of the user interface. The Air View feature provides previews of many types content when you hover over objects with the S Pen stylus. When we held our pen above thumbnails in the gallery app, they expanded to show larger versions of the images. And when we held the pen tip on top of a video playbar, we got a thumbnail of that moment of footage. In the email inbox, we were able to see attachment file names without opening individual messages, just by hovering over the paperclip icon. Even third-party apps now support Air View previews, such as Flipboard. We could preview stories just by hovering over brands' respective buttons in the app.

Click to EnlargeIf you see anything on the Galaxy Note 8.0's screen and want to include it in a note, social media post, email or other document, all you have to do is hold down the button on the S Pen and draw a box or other shape around the portion of the screen you want to clip. After clipping, you'll be able to decide which app to send the graphic to or you can just keep it in your clipboard to paste into the document of your choice. We particularly enjoyed clipping a piece of a web page and then dragging it into the email client where it became a PNG attachment and we were able to email it out.

It almost goes without saying that you can use the S Pen to navigate around the operating system without touching the screen. However, on the Galaxy Note 8.0, you can also tap the back and menu navigation buttons with the stylus, something you could not do on previous Galaxy Note devices.

Keyboard and Handwriting Recognition

Click to EnlargeInstead of using the stock Android keyboard, Samsung includes its own virtual keyboard, which features large, well-spaced keys. You also get a number of powerful options, including trace typing and handwriting recognition. Typing in either portrait or landscape mode, we found the light gray keys easy to target, and we appreciated the keyboard's strong next-word prediction ability. For example, when we started typing the sentence "What do," it correctly prompted us correctly with "you" and "think" as the next two words, correctly guessing that we wanted to write the sentence "what do you think."

We also appreciate Samsung's support for haptic feedback. Once we enabled Key-tap vibration in the settings menu, we got a small amount of tactile response when we tapped the keys. However, we wish that the feedback was a little stronger.

Disabled by default, the keyboard has a trace typing feature that, like Swype, lets you form words by drawing a line between the letters. As is often the case with trace keyboards, we found the word prediction lacking on uncommon nouns. The keyboard incorrectly suggested "Abrams" when we typed "Avram," but it got other words like "mother," "Intel" and "Kenneth" right on the first trace.

Click to EnlargeThis wouldn't be a pen-enabled tablet without a handwriting recognition keyboard, and Samsung includes a really accurate one. Tapping the pen icon on the keyboard replaced the keys with a yellow, ruled drawing area where we could write letters and watch as the keyboard turned them into characters and inserted them into our document. As we scribbled a variety of words including uncommon nouns like our name, the keyboard usually converted them correctly, even though our handwriting was absolutely terrible. We were particularly pleased to see that the app had palm rejection, which prevented us from accidentally drawing or tapping the back button with the heel of our hand.

Pen-Enabled Apps

Click to EnlargeSamsung includes several powerful note-taking and drawing apps to help you make the most of the S Pen. S Note allows you to create complex documents which combine drawings, handwriting, ASCII text and multimedia. The app has a list of several templates, ranging from a lined sheet of blank paper to a happy birthday card to a meeting notes form with fields for date, location, attendees and agenda. On any page you can either draw whatever you want and leave it as a graphic, draw text and convert it to ASCII, draw a shape and let the program turn it into a perfect square or circle or draw a mathematical formula and let S Pen find the solution. You can also insert audio, video or photos.

Click to EnlargePerhaps our favorite new feature of S Pen is Idea Sketch, which provides clip art based on a word you draw. When we activated Idea Sketch from the "insert picture" menu in S Note, we were presented with a blank box where we could scribble in a keyword. When we scribbled the word "dog," the software connected to the cloud for a moment then suggested a line art graphic of a dog, which we inserted in our document. We got several line art results when we drew the word "man."

Click to EnlargePaper Artist is a simple drawing app that lets you take any image and color it in or sketch over it with a pencil. Different effects let you make the photo look like a pastel sketch or water color. We particularly enjoyed taking a photo of a baby and coloring it in comic book style.

Awesome Note HD, a popular note-taking and to-do list app on iOS, makes its first Android appearance on the Galaxy Note 8.0. The app features a dizzying array of functions, including the ability to write a diary, keep a calendar, maintain a to-do list or even jot down ideas or a shopping list. A Samsung exclusive, you won't find Awesome Note in the Google Play store.

Click to EnlargeThe Galaxy Note 8.0 also comes wih Polaris Office 8, a powerful office app that lets users create and edits Word, PowerPoint and Excel compatible documents. Though the app is primarily designed for keyboard text entry, we love its Free Draw feature, which let us draw an image write into our Word doc.

Remote Control Functionality

Click to EnlargeSamsung's WatchOn not only allows you to control your TV using the Note 8.0's IR port, but also provides a very detailed program guide with a comprehensive video search feature. Setting WatchOn up was a breeze. The app first detected our location using GPS, then prompted us to enter our cable provider, TV manufacturer and cable box manufacturer while testing to make sure those devices responded to the infrared signal.

One we completed the WatchOn setup, the app delivered a very attractive program guide with a list of current titles viewable by subject matter or by channel lineup. For each title, we had the opportunity to either tap a button to watch it now or to view a detailed description. When we looked under the Action-Adventure genre and clicked on G.I. Joe, one of more than two dozen recommendations, WatchOn changed the channel on our cable box so we could watch that movie.

Click to EnlargeWatchOn's search function is its most intriguing feature, because it gives results not only from TV listings, but also from YouTube and Samsung's Media Hub store. Unfortunately, in our experience, the results were way too broad for the searches we conducted. A search for Captain America returned 2,045 TV listings which contained either the word "Captain" or "America" but not both, a list of 67 movies which did not include the Captain America movie, and a few YouTube videos that actually were about the topic we searched for. Enclosing our search term in quotes did not change the results.

When we did click through to a movie listing, we were given the choice to buy or rent it from Samsung's Media Hub or BlockBuster On Demand. Purchase options and prices varied depending on title. For example, 2001: A Space Odyssey was available to either rent for $2.99 or buy for $14.99 or while Avatar was only available to buy for $17.99

Though WatchOn is based on Peel technology, Samsung also includes a standalone Peel SmartRemote app, which provides just the TV listings without the universal search option.

Reading Mode

Click to EnlargeAvailable as a setting in the notification drawer, Samsung's Reading mode improves the legibility of text in apps you use primarily for reading. After configuring Reading Mode to work in Chrome browser, Google Play Magazines and Google Play Books, we tried reading an issue of Popular Mechanics. With the mode on, text appearead crisper and the white background looked more off-white than white, making it slightly easier on our eyes.

Tablet Apps

Click to EnlargeWhile Apple's iPad mini has access to over a hundred thousands of apps that are optimized for a tablet display, Android tablets like the Galaxy Note 8.0 provide fewer choices. Google highlights some tablet apps in the Play store, but many key titles we tried such as Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, ESPN Score Center and CBS News looked primitive and stretched in landscape mode on the Galaxy Note 8.0, even though these same apps have extra columns to take advantage of the added screen real estate on the iPad mini.

Click to EnlargeFortunately, all of Samsung's preloaded apps are optimized for the Galaxy Note 8.0's wide screen. We particularly appreciated apps that added extra columns like the Email client, which puts a list of mailboxes in a pane on the left side of the screen while the list of messages sits on the right. When we opened an individual message, the left pane showed a list of all messages in that mailbox while the right showed the open email. The S Planner Calendar app shows the calendar on one side of the screen and detail about the day's meetings on another while the Music Hub and Games Hubs both have tiles that stretch across the screen.

Several third-party apps in the Google Play market are also tablet-optimized. Rhapsody shows an album cover on one side of the screen while the playlist is on the other. TweetCaster puts a navigation column next to your feed. Google's YouTube, Play Store, Gmail and Maps apps all have multiple columns too.

Cameras

Click to EnlargeThe Galaxy Note 8.0's rear-facing 5-MP camera took reasonable pictures in ideal lighting situations, but dull washed out pictures in low light. When we shot images of the New York skyline on a sunny afternoon, colors were accurate and details like the brick lines on a building were sharp. We got similarly solid results when we captured photos of a baby in a very sunny room. However, when we shot the same subject in dim lighting, colors were washed out and the image was noisy. Most disappointingly, the camera takes a long 2 seconds to fire, making it difficult to catch those fleeting moments when your toddler is doing something cute; there's also no burst mode. When other mobile devices like the HTC One take the first shot in .7 seconds and subsequent shots even faster, that time seems glatial.

Click to EnlargeUnlike the Galaxy S4, the Galaxy Note 8.0 doesn't have many unique camera features. You'll find a handful of boring filters that let you change your photos into sepia, black and white or negative modes and a panorama mode which produced an accurate 360 degree image of our rooftop. Plus, the Note 8.0 has a Smile Mode, which is supposed to automatically fire the camera when your subject is smiling. When testing this mode, however, we found that it was too slow to fire when a toddler quickly turned his head. When a slower-moving adult smiled, the camera accurately detected it and shot a photo.

The rear camera shoots competent video, but only at up to 720p resolution. When we recorded a clip of some cars rolling down the street in bright light, colors seemed a bit washed out and fine details like bricks on buildings were a bit blurry.

The 1.3-MP front-facing camera took sharp photos of our face under most conditions. When we shot an image under the overhead lights in our office, fine details like the pores in our skin were visible. However, when we took a photo with the sun behind us, our image washed out.

Performance

Click to EnlargeWith its 1.6-GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor and 2GB of RAM, the Galaxy Note 8.0 packs plenty of power. Whether we were watching a movie, switching between tasks, stitching together a panorama or zooming around the track in the jetski racer Riptide GP, the system was extremely smooth and responsive.

On Quadrant, a synthetic Android benchmark that measures overall performance, the Galaxy Note 8.0 scored a strong 6,810, more than double the 3,164 tablet category average and the 3,357 offered by the Galaxy Nexus 7 and its 1.3-GHz Tegra 3 CPU. On Geekbench, another synthetic test that runs on iOS as well as Android, the Galaxy Note 8.0 scored a solid 2,068, on par with the 2,069 category average but well ahead of the dual-core 5-powered Apple iPad mini's mark of 753 and the Nexus 7's 1,405 score.

On An3DBench, a synthetic benchmark that measures graphics performance, the Galaxy Note 8.0 scored a strong 7,746, comfortably above the 7,358 category average and about the same as the Google Nexus 7's mark of 7,782.

Battery Life

With its 4,600 mAH battery, the Galaxy Note 8.0 lasted a modest 7 hours and 12 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. That time is nearly identical to the 7 hour and 13-minute tablet category average and just behind the Google Nexus 7's time of 7 hours and 26 minutes. However, the Apple iPad mini (10:33) lasted over 3 hours longer.

Verdict

Click to EnlargeWIth a design that's optimal for scribbling on the go, deep pen support, a bright and colorful screen and loads of powerful preloaded software, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is the best note-taking tablet on the market. Unfortunately, at $399, the Note 8.0 is $70 more than the iPad mini , which has access to thousands more tablet-optimized apps, and $200 more than the Nexus 7, which also provides a compelling Android experience. However, if you're willing to pay a premium for a pen-enabled tablet, the Galaxy Note 8.0 is the slate for you.

Source: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/tablets/samsung-galaxy-note-8.aspx

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Advancing secure communications: A better single-photon emitter for quantum cryptography

Advancing secure communications: A better single-photon emitter for quantum cryptography

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

In a development that could make the advanced form of secure communications known as quantum cryptography more practical, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a simpler, more efficient single-photon emitter that can be made using traditional semiconductor processing techniques.

Single-photon emitters release one particle of light, or photon, at a time, as opposed to devices like lasers that release a stream of them. Single-photon emitters are essential for quantum cryptography, which keeps secrets safe by taking advantage of the so-called observer effect: The very act of an eavesdropper listening in jumbles the message. This is because in the quantum realm, observing a system always changes it.

For quantum cryptography to work, it's necessary to encode the message?which could be a bank password or a piece of military intelligence, for example?just one photon at a time. That way, the sender and the recipient will know whether anyone has tampered with the message.

While the U-M researchers didn't make the first single-photon emitter, they say their new device improves upon the current technology and is much easier to make.

"This thing is very, very simple. It is all based on silicon," said Pallab Bhattacharya, the Charles M. Vest Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the James R. Mellor Professor of Engineering.

Bhattacharya, who leads this project, is a co-author of a paper on the work published in Nature Communications on April 9.

Bhattacharya's emitter is a single nanowire made of gallium nitride with a very small region of indium gallium nitride that behaves as a quantum dot. A quantum dot is a nanostructure that can generate a bit of information. In the binary code of conventional computers, a bit is a 0 or a 1. A quantum bit can be either or both at the same time.

The semiconducting materials the new emitter is made of are commonly used in LEDs and solar cells. The researchers grew the nanowires on a wafer of silicon. Because their technique is silicon-based, the infrastructure to manufacture the emitters on a larger scale already exists. Silicon is the basis of modern electronics.

"This is a big step in that it produces the pathway to realizing a practical electrically injected single-photon emitter," Bhattacharya said.

Key enablers of the new technology are size and compactness.

"By making the diameter of the nanowire very small and by altering the composition over a very small section of it, a quantum dot is realized," Bhattacharya said. "The quantum dot emits single-photons upon electrical excitation."

The U-M emitter is fueled by electricity, rather than light?another aspect that makes it more practical. And each photon it emits possesses the same degree of linear polarization. Polarization refers to the orientation of the electric field of a beam of light. Most other single-photon emitters release light particles with a random polarization.

"So half might have one polarization and the other half might have the other," Bhattacharya said. "So in cryptic message, if you want to code them, you would only be able to use 50 percent of the photons. With our device, you could use almost all of them."

This device operates at cold temperatures, but the researchers are working on one that operates closer to room temperature.

The paper is titled "Electrically-driven polarized single-photon emission from an InGaN quantum dot in a GaN nanowire." The first author is Saniya Deshpande, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science. The work is supported by the National Science Foundation. The device was fabricated at the U-M Lurie Nanofabrication Facility.

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University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu/

Thanks to University of Michigan for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127675/Advancing_secure_communications__A_better_single_photon_emitter_for_quantum_cryptography

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Chemical in Red Meat Linked to Cardiovascular Disease (Voice Of America)

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