Nokia Lumia 920 Reviews

If you are considering purchasing the Nokia Lumia 920 or Nokia Lumia 820 over here in the United Kingdom, you will require a wireless charging solution so you can charge the handset, and it appears that you can now order a wireless charging accessory for the aforementioned Lumia devices.

According to a report by Phone Arena there are now a few wireless accessories for both the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820 up for order over at UK etailer Clove, and some of the price tags for the accessories might be a bitter pill to swallow for some.
So what Lumia accessories do Clove have up for order? Well there is the Nokia Lumia 820 wireless charging shell, which commands a price tag of £19.99 including VAT, a wireless charging plate for both the Windows Phone 8 handsets costing £54.99 including VAT, or there is the wireless charging stand for both the Lumia handsets commanding a rather hefty price of £69.99 inclusive of VAT, or if you prefer you can order the wireless charging pillow by Fatboy, again for both the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 and costing £79.99 including VAT.

For those that would also like to own a portable wireless speaker, Clove also has the Nokia JBL Playup portable wireless speaker up for order, however the price might make up cringe a bit as the NFC connecting speaker commands a hefty price tag of £144.99 inclusive of VAT.
However, although you can slap in an order for the accessories, Clove currently doesn’t have a confirmed release date, but do expect the wireless accessories to be available for the launch of the Nokia smartphones.
Have to say most of those wireless accessories do seem a bit steep on price, so what do our readers think, could these prices be a deal breaker for the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820?

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How to acts "Hojo Motor"

It still amazes me that with all our posts dedicated to trying to help homeowners save energy, our most popular posts are on free energy scams (mainly magniwork and hojo motor).  I’ve gone back and forth with the energy ignorant in the comment section of these posts, but I’ve never written a post dedicated to explaining why these products just won’t work.  This post is speaking to those who are confused about perpetual motion devices that claim to create more energy than they consume.  If you notice in the title, I state they “don’t” work, not that they “won’t” work.  They don’t work according to the existing laws of physics.  The future is unknowable.
Perpetual motion devices have been attempted for as long as man started making complicated machinery. The goal of many unfortunate inventors  has been to create a machine that will produce useful work in a closed loop system, or in a system without any external forces.  Donald Simanek maintains an excellent history at attempts to create perpetual motion devices in his Museum of Unworkable Devices.
In scientific terms, perpetual motion devices are impossible under the current laws of thermodynamics.   Being humans with tiny little brains, our understanding of the universe is limited, so there is always the possibility that the laws of physics will expand and/or change over time.  But as the laws currently exist, the two that are most frequently cited regarding perpetual motion devices are the first and second law of thermodynamics.  In summary (quotes attributed to C.P. Snow):

1. First law of thermodynamics – Conservation of energy.  Energy can be transformed from one form to another, but it can’t be created or destroyed.  “You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).”
   
2. Second law of thermodynamics – Entropy. Systems always flow to a state of disorder.  “You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).“
   

Wikipedia classifies the different categories of perpetual motion devices as follows:
“One classification of perpetual motion machines refers to the particular law of thermodynamics the machines purport to violate:

• A perpetual motion machine of the first kind produces work without the input of energy. It thus violates the first law of thermodynamics: the law of conservation of energy.
• A perpetual motion machine of the second kind is a machine which spontaneously converts thermal energy into mechanical work. When the thermal energy is equivalent to the work done, this does not violate the law of conservation of energy. However it does violate the more subtle second law of thermodynamics (see also entropy). The signature of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind is that there is only one heat reservoir involved, which is being spontaneously cooled without involving a transfer of heat to a cooler reservoir. This conversion of heat into useful work, without any side effect, is impossible, according to the second law of thermodynamics.

A more obscure category is a perpetual motion machine of the third kind, usually (but not always)defined as one that completely eliminates friction and other dissipative forces, to maintain motion forever (due to its mass inertia). Third in this case refers solely to the position in the above classification scheme, not the third law of thermodynamics. Although it is impossible to make such a machine, as dissipation can never be 100% eliminated in a mechanical system, it is nevertheless possible to get very close to this ideal (see examples in the Low Friction section). Such a machine would not serve as a source of energy but would have utility as a perpetual energy storage device.”
In summary, here are reasons why perpetual motion energy generation devices don’t work:
Conservation of Energy – Say the law of conservation of energy wasn’t a law.  You create a perpetual motion device that somehow overcomes all of the external forces mentioned above and you have a device that can operate itself perpetually (similar to the perpetual motion machine of the second kind listed above).  Now, your device can operate forever, but how can you extract any work from it?  If you take energy out of your machine, you will slow it down!  And no, magnets don’t “create” energy, they just create a propulsion force.  To make magnets do work you have to add energy (i.e. spin them).
I’m not sure I can spend too much time on this one point, because this is ultimately at the heart of perpetual motion energy generation machines.  If someone claims they can get energy out of a system, that energy has to come from SOMEWHERE!  It can come from the sun (nuclear), wind (which is created by the sun), gravity (one way trip), coal/natural gas/oil (dead organisms initially powered by sun), nuclear, humans (powered by food which is powered by sun), etc.  ENERGY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE. There is no free lunch.
Now, there is this tiny little issue of dark energy (also mentioned at the end of this post), but it is outside the scope of this discussion because I don’t know too many inventors claiming their perpetual motion device operates on dark energy.
Friction and external forces – This is really an expansion of the law of conservation of energy. Friction occurs when molecules of one thing come in contact with molecules of another thing.  Rub your hands together and feel heat generated.  That heat is energy leaving your body.  Anything operating on Earth will encounter external forces.
Thought exercise time!  Think about driving your car down a flat highway.  Bring your car up to speed.  Go ahead, whatever speed you want, there is no speed limit here.  Now take your foot off the accelerator.  What happens?  You car is going to slow down and eventually stop because of air resistance (or friction between the air outside and the body of your car), rolling resistance between your tires and the road (or friction between asphalt and rubber) because gravity (external force) is pulling your car towards the earth, and the internal friction between all the working parts of your car (pistons, wheel bearings, crank shaft, etc.).
Ok, we’re done with the cute little thought exercise.  Now imagine that car is some perpetual motion machine.  Guess what, all those external forces are still there!
Entropy – This is the hardest to explain but it is also the most obvious.  Basically, everything in the universe wants to go to a state of disorder. Buildings don’t build themselves, and when they’re built, they fall down.  Heat always flows from hot to cold. Everything dies.  Everything falls apart.  Maybe one day the universe will start collapsing in on itself, time will reverse itself, and this won’t be the case.  But in the known lifespan of the universe (13.75 billion years) entropy has always (100% of the time) increased.   A perpetual motion machine would result in no net disorder, which has never happened in 13.75 billion years.  Not a fan of history dictating future, that’s fine, how are you going to get past conservation of energy?
Michio Kaku (who graduated first in his Harvard physics class, received his doctorate from Berkeley, and taught at Princeton) addresses perpetual motion machines in chapter 14 of his excellent book Physics of the Impossible.  In his book, Kaku breaks down “impossible” into three classes (summarized below):

• Class 1 impossibility – impossible today but do not violate known laws of physics
• Class 2 impossibility – technologies that sit at the edge of our understanding.  If possible, they may be realized thousands or millions of years in the future
• Class 3 impossibility – technologies that violate the known laws of physics.  If possible, these technologies would represent a shift in our understanding of physics

Kaku labels perpetual motion a Class 3 impossibility (teleportation and telepathy are Class 1, time machines are a Class 2).  He states in the closing of chapter 14 on perpetual motion:

Because creating a true perpetual motion machine may require us to reevaluate the fundamental laws of physics on a cosmological scale, I would rank perpetual motion machines as a Class III impossibility; that is, either they are truly impossible, or we would need to fundamentally change our understanding of fundamental physics on a cosmological scale in order to make such a machine possible.  Dark energy remains one of the greatest unfinished chapters in modern science

Do you understand why I’m referencing this?  An expert in theoretical physics labels perpetual motion as 1 of only 2 class 3 impossibilities in all of theoretical physics (the other being precognition).
Finally, I must address a claim that I see all the time regarding free energy devices.  Conspiracy theorists claim that the big bad energy companies are suppressing free energy devices because it will destroy their profits.  This is complete and utter rubbish. Let me tell you how I would get around this issue if I had stumbled on the greatest discovery in all of history:

1. Chronicle my discovery in exhausting detail.  Paper, electronic, pictures, videos, etc.  Create hard copies and store them with trusted love ones.  Email electronic copies to email addresses I make up on multiple different hosts.  Take out multiple safety deposit boxes in many different states/countries and store identical copies of my research in each one.
2. Create a company whose purpose is to build and sell my device or power from my device.  Make sure to find a good attorney to ensure all legal work is in proper order.  Getting a good attorney is critical.
3. Go to investors/universities/press and demonstrate my findings.  Sell shares of my company if capital is needed.  Venture capital guys are pretty good at making money on any kind of idea, there is no need to go to the energy companies.
4. Become the richest and most famous person in the world while alleviating many of the world’s problems.

How could the big bad energy companies hurt my plan?  They couldn’t.  Nobody can stop someone else who has a powerful idea.  Sure, the person who created the idea could be murdered, but if step 1 is followed properly, the idea still lives on. Would you really fear death if you had the idea to change the lives of 7 billion people?  Blaming large energy corporations is the cowards excuse for why his/her favorite perpetual motion device won’t work.  Of interesting note is Andrea Rossi and his cold fusion energy generator.  Rossi seems to be following the steps above, and is in the middle of step 3.  We’ll see if the device (which is not perpetual motion, but is cheap, clean energy) works or not.  Hopefully he reaches step 4.
Hopefully you now understand why perpetual motions machines won’t work according to the existing laws of thermodynamics.  Could the future change and could dark energy provide unlimited power?  Sure it can, but until then, machines will never operate perpetually, much less create free energy.

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Have TV networks, AP already called 19 states

Television networks and the Associated Press will skip exit polling in 19 states in the upcoming presidential election, apparently deciding those states have already gone to President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

800px-University_at_Buffalo_voting_boothThe Post said an official at the National Election Pool confirmed it will only focus on 31 states on November 6, when the nation elects a president. People in the 19 excluded states will be included in some national exit polling.

The Pool is a cooperative agreement between the television networks and the AP to combine resources to do exit polls, which the news outlets have done for several decades.

The 19 states include Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Almost all of those 19 states are in the Republican camp, and it would give Mitt Romney a 138 to 19 lead in the electoral vote right at the start of election night.

Cost cuts are one of the reasons for the moves, along with issues conducting telephone polls and compiling data for early voters.

Exit polls have had a murky history, at best, in recent elections.

The National Election Pool projected that John Kerry would take Ohio and Nevada in its 2004 exit polling. Those states went to George W. Bush in the actual electoral vote count and decided that contest in the Electoral College.

Exit polling data from Florida in 2000, which forecast an Al Gore victory, also caused major confusion with television networks, which had to retract calling the presidential election for Gore, based on the exit poll data.

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Film dramatizing bin Laden raid

• FILE - In this May 1, 2011 image released by the White House and digitally altered by the source to obscure the details of a document on the table, President Barack Obama, second from left, Vice President Joe …

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A film dramatizing the death of Osama bin Laden is set to debut next month on the National Geographic Channel, two days before the presidential election.

"Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden," from The Weinstein Co. and Voltage Pictures, will air Sunday, Nov. 4, the channel said Thursday. President Barack Obama faces Republican challenger Mitt Romney at the polls two days later.
Weinstein co-chairman Harvey Weinstein is a prominent fundraiser for Obama's re-election campaign, which has touted bin Laden's death as an example of the president's leadership.

 [Watch: Exclusive 'Seal Team Six' trailer]

National Geographic Channel chose the film's debut date to help promote the start of its fall season, channel President Howard T. Owens said Thursday.
"Harvey obviously doesn't schedule our network," Owens said. He added that the channel is "not political. We are opportunistic from a programming perspective."
National Geographic Channel did take into account Weinstein's desire to get out ahead of a competitive movie about the U.S. Navy SEALs' hunt for the al-Qaida leader, Owens said.
"Zero Dark Thirty," from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Oscars for "The Hurt Locker," is scheduled to be released in theaters at the end of the year.

"Seal Team Six," directed by John Stockwell ("Into the Blue"), also was intended for a big-screen release until the channel made what it called a "preemptive bid" for it. The film will be available to Netflix U.S. subscribers a day after its premiere.

Owens said he and Weinstein have a previous business relationship: Owens represented Miramax Television while working at the William Morris Agency.

"Seal Team Six," whose cast includes Cam Gigandet, Anson Mount, Freddy Rodriquez and Xzibit, is the channel's first original film drawn from real events and is part of a programming expansion that includes the recently announced "Killing Lincoln," based on Bill O'Reilly's best-selling book.

The depiction of the bin Laden raid in Pakistan was vetted by experts that included a recently retired Navy SEAL and a bin Laden historian, the channel said.

"While some aspects of the characterizations have been dramatized for creative reasons, the core story is an accurate portrayal of an event that ended the longest manhunt in American history," according to a news release from the channel.

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Google’s Street View

Google‘s Street View is now available on mobile browsers, meaning you can enjoy all of Google’s street-level photo imagery on your smartphone.
To check it out, go to maps.google.com in your mobile browser, search for a location, and click on the “pegman” icon at the bottom right of the screen to access Street View.
While that sounds simple enough, the feature could definitely use some improvements. For example, it’s impossible to access Street View from the regular map view — you actually have to search for a specific location first for the pegman to become available. Furthermore, Street View opens in a new browser window, and always starts centered at a default location in a city, instead of your current location.
Finally, the zoom feature, present in the desktop version of Street View, is absent here.
All of the above makes the feature a lot less useful than it could be, but it’s a start. Unfortunately, on the iPhone it’s also an unpleasant reminder of how much better the feature might be if a native iOS app, which got replaced by Apple Maps in iOS 6, was available.

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Are You Know Facebook Commercial???

I am trying to wrap my head around Facebook’s first commercial. It was created to celebrate the social media platform’s 1 billion active monthly users and my takeaway is that Facebook is an empty chair.
Clint Eastwood would be pleased.
Actually, Eastwood knows something about good advertising. He was the voice behind Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl spot that was so stirring people thought it was a political ad. It wasn’t, but it effectively drove home the message and, until Eastwood talked to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention, it made Eastwood the coolest octogenarian on the planet.

Like that Eastwood ad, this Facebook’s spot features a heartfelt, though anonymous, voiceover and some mournful music…and also chairs…a lot of them
Chairs, of course, are a metaphor for what Facebook is for us. From the voiceover:

“Chairs. They’re made so people can sit down and take a break. Anyone can sit on a chair and if the chair is a large enough they can sit down together and tell jokes or make up stories or just listen. Chairs are for people and that’s why chairs are like Facebook.”

When you read it and see it on a page, it sounds sort of obvious and ridiculous. Of course chairs are for people! People invented them. We also like to call big chairs “couches,” not chairs.
The ad tries to drive home the concept with a series of images of chairs, many chairs.
Facebook is also like:

• Doorbells
• Airplanes
• Bridges
All of them are described as things we use to get together. I can buy “airplanes” and “bridges,” but “doorbells?”
Facebook is also like dancefloors and basketball. Okay, I can see that, a little. These are gathering places, though most of us who are busy working, raising families and doing a billion other things are unlikely to hit the dancefloor anytime soon. Facebook’s benefit is that you can use it without having to go someplace else like a dance floor or a stadium — just pick up your smartphone.
I actually think Facebook is on surer footing when it compares the social network to a “great nation.” It’s now big enough to be many great nations.
Facebook then talks about the universe, but it’s no longer comparing the service — I think. Unless Mark Zuckerberg wants us to think of Facebook as “vast, and dark and makes us wonder if we are alone.”
Actually, Facebook is there, the ad says, to remind us that we’re not alone. That’s clearly the spot’s best line, but this coda doesn’t really work.
Here’s why:
The preceding minute and 10 seconds were spent confusing us with lame analogies.
The elegiac and evocative video does not show a single computer. In fact, the only visible technologies in the whole spot are a flat screen display over a lecture hall, the basketball court scoreboard and a 1950’s-era telephone. No smartphones, no tablets, no computers, no HDTVs, nothing.
When people are sitting in those all-important chairs, they’re reading paper books and newspapers! The first chair isn’t even in a modern home; it’s floating amidst the trees in a beautiful forest.
This is not the ad to tell people why Facebook is so wonderful or so important in so many millions of people’s lives.
If I were making an ad for Facebook, I would have shown Mark Zuckerberg (though I do not think I would have let him speak) and maybe some of the regular people and faces that work on the social network. I would seek to humanize and connect the audience to the people with whom we trust our deepest thoughts, desires, images and videos. Facebook is not a faceless blue-and white interface that sucks in your personal data and spits out new posts and “likes” at an alarming rate. It is a place run by people just like you and me. It cares because the people behind it care.
Obviously, I’d make all this look just as beautiful as the current commercial. I would show Zuckerberg smiling and talking to coworkers (though you still wouldn’t be able to hear his voice) and maybe even intersperse a couple of screens of images of the early years, just so I could take back the original story of Facebook from The Social Network.
The whole concept makes me tear up a little bit.
Facebook is not a chair, or a doorbell or a dancefloor. It’s the first truly global social network, a vast conversation that involves one-seventh of the world’s population. Facebook’s goal is not to make it mysterious, but more accessible and inviting for the remaining 6 billion people. This ad misses that mark.
Now I’m going to go sit in a chair for a while. I need to be alone.

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Sri Lanka beat Pakistan

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka produced a clinical bowling display to beat Pakistan by 16 runs and storm into the final of the ICC World Twenty20 on Thursday.
After managing a modest 139 for four on a slow Premadasa track, Sri Lankan duo of Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis stifled the Pakistan batsmen in the final overs to restrict them to 123 for seven.
Pakistan needed 32 runs off last three overs which is considered to be quite achievable by Twenty20 standards but Mendis and Malinga held their nerves giving only five and four runs respectively of the 18th and 19th over.
Nuwan Kulasekara, who bowled the 20th over, didn't have any pressure on him as he gave only seven runs to send the capacity crowd into a tizzy.
Left-arm spinner Rangana Herath used the conditions to perfection as he recorded the best figures of three for 25 in four overs. Malinga gave only 19 runs in his four overs while Mendis was also impressive with figures two for 27.
Chasing a target of 140 was a tricky one on the slow Premadasa track as batsmen often got confused whether to attack or rotate the strike.
Imran Nazir was in his element as he tried to hit each and every ball out of the sight but failed to connect most of them before he dragged one off Mendis onto his stumps. Nazir made 20 with the help of three fours.
Then it was Angelo Mathews who got Sri Lanka back into the game trapping in-form Nasir Jamshed leg before and then deceived Kamran Akmal with a slower one.
From 57 for three, Pakistan soon became 64 for four, as Herath bowled Shoaib Malik with a classical left-armer's delivery. He flighted one to invite Malik for a drive and the ball turned a shade after pitching to knock the batsman's off-stump.
Having got a reprieve at 24, Hafeez who till now was happy to play the waiting game, chanced his arms. First he pulled Mathews for a boundary and then reverse swept Herath. He followed it up with a straight six.
But Hafeez finally departed for 42 when he was stumped trying to give Herath the charge.
Shahid Afridi's woeful time with the bat continued as Herath cleaned up in the next ball to register his third wicket.
Pakistan were tottering at 91 for six at that stage and from there victory became out of question.
Earlier, electing to bat, some scratchy batting by opener Tillekaratne Dilshan hampered Sri Lanka's chances of putting up a big total as they managed only 139 for four in their stipulated 20 overs.
While skipper Mahela Jayawardene had provided the right start with a 36-ball-42, Dilshan struggled throughout the middle overs as he managed only 35 off 42 balls.
The Lankans managed 16 runs of the final over when Thisara Perera hit a couple of fours while Angelo Mathews also managed a thickish edge.
Shahid Afridi, Mohammed Hafeez, Umar Gul and Saeed Ajmal got a wicket each but more importantly didn't go for too many runs.
The decision to promote left-hander Jeevan Mendis above Mathews and Perrera was baffling as the former played a lot of dot balls that added to the pressure on Dilshan.
Jayawardene's batting was a treat to watch. He perished trying to play the sweep shot one too many but till he was executing it with ease in the first 10 overs, there was no better sight.
A shrewd thinker, Jayawardene saw that off-spinner Ajmal, with his doosras, leg-spinner Afridi and slow left-arm orthodox Raza Hassan were all spinning the ball away from him. In the circumstances, he found the reverse sweep as the safest option and he played it with consummate ease.
He started with a slog sweep of Hassan and then got a couple of boundaries off Ajmal -- first one was a lap shot over short fine leg and then a reverse sweep.
Watching Jayawardene take charge, Dilshan, who had started off on a rousing note with two boundaries in the first two overs, played the second fiddle.
The Lankan captain first reverse swept Afridi for a boundary and then in the bowler's next over, the Lankan skipper hit him over extra cover for another boundary as it brought up the 50.
Such was Jayawardene's dominance that he scored 34 of the first 50 runs with Dilshan's contribution being only 15.
In the 11th over, Afridi finally got his man when Jayawardene shuffled across the off-stump to play another lap-shot but it didn't have the power to clear Hassan stationed at short fine leg.
Jayawardene's 42 came off 36 balls during which he struck boundaries.
New man in Kumar Sangakkara started on a positive fashion hitting three lovely fours but perished trying to be over-ambitious being holed out at long-on off Hafeez's bowling. Sangakkara managed only 18.
The home team reached 100 at the end of the 15th over but their struggle started after that.
Dilshan and left-hander Mendis played too many dot balls in that phase which increased the pressure on the home team. In fact Dilshan's struggle was to such an extent that it took him 31 deliveries to hit his third boundary having hit the second one in the second over.
Umar Gul, introduced in the 16th over, bowled fast and full to both Dilshan and Mendis to make their life miserable.
Mendis was adjudged leg before to a delivery that pitched on blockhole but TV replays showed that Gul had overstepped and the decision was reversed. Finally, Gul ended Dilshan's misery with another fuller delivery that the batsman missed to be adjudged leg-before.
The Dilshan-Mendis duo could add only 33 runs in the five overs they played together. Mendis was then stumped off an Ajmal delivery when he tried to give the charge after struggling for 18 deliveries to score his 15.

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