The TAG Challenge

A one-day competition based in part on 2009's DARPA Red Balloon challenge. Teams will face off to see if anyone can track five "thieves" in cities around the world.

If you had to track down fugitives hidden in five cities around the world, would one day and a $5,000 reward be enough to succeed? And if so, how?
That's what the people behind the TAG Challenge want to know--and what the whole world will soon find out.

On March 31, mug shots of five "suspects" will be published, and it'll be game on in a global hunt for "jewel thieves" in Bratislava, Slovakia; Stockholm; London; Washington, D.C.; and New York City, each of whom will spend 12 hours that day in public areas. The first team to upload photographs of each of the five by noon eastern time on April 1 will win the competition--and with it, a ton of international glory.
Then again, there's a good chance no one will win, given the limited time available to contestants.
The competition is based in part on 2009's DARPA Red Balloon Challenge--in which DARPA hid 10 balloons around the United States and offered a $40,000 prize to the first team that could find them all in a single day.

The TAG Challenge is about learning whether it's possible to implement something similar, said lead organizer Joshua deLara, but in a way that has functional meaning to law enforcement and international security agencies interested in seeing how social media could be used to track fugitives or missing persons.

Barclays bank could be fined for contactless card frauds

UK : An investigation found users of the bank’s “contactless” debit or credit cards, designed to make payment when held next to special “readers”, could have their details stolen without their knowledge.

But Channel 4 News found that special “readers” built into new mobile phones can take data from the cards in wallets and pockets in just one swipe.

Using data taken from a card, researchers commissioned by the programme were able to buy “multiple goods online” through Amazon.com.


The programme said it was only able to "access the details of Barclay issued Visa cards" as other banks and systems weren't accessible.


Thomas Cannon, of ViaForensics, a mobile phone security company which undertook the research, said: "All I did was I tapped my phone over your wallet.

On Friday night the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, raised the prospect of potential fines for Barclays, which he said had “big questions” to answer. Officials from his office are due to meet with Barclays executives on Monday.


A Barclays spokesman admitted the bank was “understandably concerned about these transactions”.

Amazon was unavailable for comment. Amazon is just one of several websites that does not require any additional information in order to turn basic credit and debit card details into purchases.

How do cats survive falls from great heights?

Cats' remarkable ability to survive falls from great heights is a simple and predictable matter of physics, evolutionary biology, and physiology, veterinarians and biologists say "We do know that animals exhibit this behaviour," says Jake Socha, a biomechanist at Virginia Tech university.

In the study, 132 cats brought to a New York City emergency veterinary clinic after falls from high-rise buildings, 90% of treated cats survived and only 37% needed emergency treatment to keep them alive. One that fell 32 stories onto concrete suffered only a chipped tooth and a collapsed lung and was released after 48 hours.

From the moment they're in the air to the instant after they hit the ground, cats' bodies are built to survive high falls, scientists say.

Pressure: They have a relatively large surface area in proportion to their weight, thus reducing the force at which they hit the pavement.

Terminal Velocity:  Cats reach terminal velocity, the speed at which the downward tug of gravity is matched by the upward push of wind resistance, at a slow speed compared to large animals like humans and horses.

For instance, an average-sized cat with its limbs extended achieves a terminal velocity of about 60mph (97km/h), while an average-sized man reaches a terminal velocity of about 120mph (193km/h), according to the 1987 study by veterinarians Wayne Whitney and Cheryl Mehlhaff.

Cats can also spread their legs out to create a sort of parachute effect, says Andrew Biewener, a professor of organismal and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, although it is unclear how much this slows the rate of descent.

"They splay out their legs, which is going to expand their surface area of the body, and that increases the drag resistance," he says.

Balancing centre of gravity: Through natural selection, cats have developed a keen instinct for sensing which way is down, analogous to the mechanism humans use for balance, biologists say.

Then - if given enough time - they are able to twist their bodies like a gymnast, astronaut or skydiver and spin their tails in order to position their feet under their bodies and land on them.

Shock Absorbing:  When they do land, cats' muscular legs - made for climbing trees - act as shock absorbers. "Cats have long, compliant legs," says Jim Usherwood of the structure and motion lab at the Royal Veterinary College. "They've got decent muscles. In that they're able to jump quite well, the same muscles divert energy into decelerating rather than breaking bones."

The springy legs increase the distance over which the force of the collision with the ground dissipates, says Dr Biewener.

"The impact forces are much higher in stiff collisions," he says. "If they can increase the collision time over a longer period, that reduces the impact force."

And a cat's legs are angled under the body rather than extended downward, like human or horse legs.

"You're not transmitting the forces really directly," says Dr Socha.

"If the cat were to land with its legs directly under him in a column and hold him stiff, those bones would all break. But they go off to the side and the joints then bend, and you're now taking that energy and putting it into the joints and you're getting less of a force at the bone itself."

Student Loan Debt Hits $1 Trillion, Deemed 'Too Big To Fail' By One Federal Agency

The student loan debt market is now "too big to fail", says Rohit Chopra, the student loan ombudsman for the newly created Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.

Speaking on Wednesday to a conference hosted by the Consumer Bankers Association in Austin, Texas, Chopra highlighted the sobering news that total student loan debt in the United States now exceeds an eye-popping $1 trillion, a record high. In prepared remarks published on the CFPB's blog, Chopra writes:

Students borrowed $117 billion in just federal student loans last year. And students continue to borrow private student loans, which lack the income-based repayment and deferment options of federal student loans. If current trends continue, there will be consequences not just for young people, but for all of us.
If that wasn't disturbing enough, now comes news that the interest rate on new subsidized student loans from the federal government, called Stafford loans, are set to double to 6.8 percent on July 1 if Congress does not prevent the federal program keeping those interest rates low from expiring.

If interest rates on new subsidized student loans double, the average student loan borrower on the standard 10-year plan will need to pay $2,800 more over the life of the loan, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, cited by Time. Students who borrow the maximum $23,000 will have to pay $5,000 more under the 10-year plan -- and $11,000 more under the 20-year plan.

More troubling, a new survey reveals that students are generally confused and ill-informed about the what the money they borrow will cost them in the long run.

Nearly two in three student loan borrowers were surprised by some of the terms of their student loans, according to a recent study by Young Invincibles. Oftentimes, students borrow money from multiple lenders.

"This fragmentation may make it more difficult for them to understand the implications of their student-loan decisions," wrote Healey Whitsett, author of the Young Invincibles study.

While there's a limit to how much college students can borrow in public loans, private loans have no ceiling. Public lenders are more forgiving than private lenders when it comes to financial relief, according to FinAid.org. Some borrowers are also misled by loans that come with variable interest rates, which mean the loan gets progressively more expensive to pay back.

The student debt crisis is causing some students to rise up in protest. More than 130,000 college students have written letters to Congress asking them to stop the interest rate on new Stafford loans from doubling.
(Huffington Post)

Globe-Trotting Gnome Highlights Earth's Weird Gravity

(LiveScience) There aren't too many gardens at the South Pole. But there are, apparently, garden gnomes.

A globe-trotting little garden gnome dubbed "Kern" recently visited Amundsen-Scott Research Station at the geographic South Pole in Antarctica. The inanimate traveler's trip was a take on the "Traveling Gnome Prank," a joke that's been in vogue since the 1980s, when pranksters started stealing garden gnomes and sending photographs of the statuettes in front of famous sightseeing spots to their owners.

Kern's travels have a scientific bent, however. The precision scale company Kern & Sohn is teaming up with schools and research stations worldwide to highlight the variations of gravity across the globe.

"Most people don't realize Earth's gravity actually varies slightly," Tommy Fimpel, one of the experiment's coordinators, explained in a statement. "One of the main causes is variations in the shape of the planet. Believe it or not, the Earth is actually slightly potato-shaped, so you'll weigh up to 0.5 percent more or less, depending on where you go."

Even glaciers can change an area's gravity; a mysterious dip in gravity over Canada is likely the result of now-melted glaciers that left behind an imprint from which Earth is still rebounding.

"We thought our Gnome Experiment would be a fun way to measure the phenomenon," Fimpel said.

So far, Kern has traveled, via the mail, to places as far-flung as Lima, Mumbai, Mexico, South Africa, San Francisco, New Caledonia, Sydney and the South Pole. [Photos of Globe-Trotting Gnome]

At the South Pole, where Kern landed last month, the gnome tipped the scale at 309.82 grams, his heaviest measurement yet. That's because the inertia produced by Earth's rotation is stronger at the poles, said Marie McLane, a researcher with the United States Antarctic program and Kern's "host" on the visit to Antarctica. Earth is also slightly squished in shape, with a bulge at the equator, so the planet is less thick at the poles, also contributing to a stronger gravitational effect.

Kern jetted off to Japan after hitting Antarctica, weighing in at 307.9 grams in Tokyo. His next stop is at Snolab in Canada, an underground research station 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) below the Earth's surface. From there, Kern will visit the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator, at CERN near Geneva.

Kern's journey to Antarctica didn't only highlight the gravitational vagaries of Earth; it also shed light on the planet's elusive garden gnome population. The gnome's visit inspired McLane to do some detective work around the Amundsen-Scott Research Station. She found five little gnomes already lurking in labs and other spots around the station — including one, fittingly enough, guarding a greenhouse.

Thief Accidentally Dials 911 While Stealing

Connecticut: A 46-year old man was stealing about 700 pounds of scrap metals from a Southington merchant when he accidentally dialled 911 from his cellphone. The man was arrested after the robbery.

WFSB-TV reports he was charged Thursday with third-degree criminal trespassing and sixth-degree larceny. He was released on bond and is scheduled to appear in court April 2.

Asking prospective employees for facebook passwords not illegal?

By Emma Barnett

Telegraph

The growing trend for bosses asking prospective employees for their Facebook usernames and passwords is not illegal say employment lawyers.

There have been several cases reported in the US of people being asked for their Facebook passwords while being interviewed for a role.
Justin Bassett, a New York-based statistician, had just finished answering some standard character questions in a job interview, when he was asked to hand over his Facebook login information after his interviewer could not find his profile on the site, according to the Boston Globe.
Bassett refused and withdrew his job application, as he did not want to be employed by a business which would invade his privacy to such an extent.
While Lee Williams, an online retail worker from the Midlands, told The Telegraph that he was asked by his managing director for his Facebook login details, after his boss had looked him up on the social network and could not see any details about him as his privacy settings were locked down. The boss thought that Williams was hiding something by not having his profile publicly available.
Williams refused to hand his password over. His boss persisted with his request, but then let it go without taking any further action. Williams still works for the company, but did not wish to name it.

Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights for the TUC, has warned that the practice is likely to start happening more and more in the UK.
“Once something like this starts happening in the US, it is likely to come over here – especially in American businesses which have outposts in UK. If interviewers in the US are adopting this practice of asking prospective staff for access to their Facebook accounts, they will start doing it over here.”
She described the request as both “dangerous and unnecessary”.
“I think it’s very dangerous and unnecessary to start asking people for access into their personal lives. Once you start asking people to reveal everything about themselves, which is irrelevant to their ability to be able to do a job, you are getting into a tricky area. It’s the equivalent of getting people to spy on prospective staff down at the pub before hiring them.
“It’s also quite a lazy way by bosses to get a full picture of somebody and shows that their interviewing process is unsatisfactory.”
Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer, policy, responded: "In recent months, we’ve seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles or private information. This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability
"The most alarming of these practices is the reported incidences of employers asking prospective or actual employees to reveal their passwords. If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends. We have worked really hard at Facebook to give you the tools to control who sees your information...That’s why we’ve made it a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password."
Since the rise of social networking, there have been growing number of cases around the world where people have been sacked for writing disparaging comments about their jobs on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Two months ago, John Flexman, a former human resources executive, began a tribunal against his former employer, BG Group (a major gas exploration firm based in Reading, Berks), accusing the firm of forcing him out after he put his CV online through LinkedIn. He is thought to be the first person in the country to bring a case for constructive dismissal after a dispute with bosses over his profile on the professional networking site.
Flexman is claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds from BG Group, where he earned a £68,000 salary from his job in charge of graduate recruitment. The outcome is due later this year.
However, these American examples are some of the first reported cases of prospective employees being asked for their logins as a way of vetting them before the job is theirs.
Paula Whelan, an employment partner at Shakespeares law firm, said there was nothing to stop employers from asking for logins into social media. However, prospective employees had every right to refuse to hand over the said information.
“Prospective employees have every right to say 'no' as it is a request to access personal information and has nothing to do with somebody’s capability to do a job. And I cannot see any reason why a boss could not at least ask the question as there is nothing they can do to force an interviewee to hand over their Facebook login,” she explained.
Whelan also said that it would be extremely difficult if a person thought they didn’t get a job because they refused to hand over their login details when asked, to prove it was discrimination.
However, Ed Goodwyn, a partner in the employment team at Pinsent Masons, said that the legal situation was very different if a boss asked a current employee for their Facebook password while employed or continued to access their account post interview without telling them.
He said it would be “a breach of the implied duty of trust and confidence” between employer and employee and urged bosses to draft clear social media policies.

Warwick and Queen Mary Universities to Share Lecturers

Students at Warwick University and at Queen Mary, University of London are to share lecturers in what will be one of the closest alliances yet between two higher education institutions in England. Academics at the two universities will teach each other's English, history and computer science undergraduates from this autumn.

The universities will not be merging timetables in these subjects, but said this could be possible in coming years. In future, more subjects are likely to be jointly taught. The two institutions, which are 80 miles apart, will also share teams that work on increasing the diversity of their student populations, and will work together on their outreach activities in schools.

They will conduct far more research together in future and are advertising for two post-doctoral research fellow posts, one in each university, to collaborate in the history of mental health, discrete mathematics, the renaissance, and functional molecular materials. The universities denied that their "strategic partnership" would lead to a merger and said they would not be making redundancies as a result of it.

But Prof Simon Gaskell, Queen Mary's principal, said the partnership was a response to the "high level of uncertainty" that had been created by ministers reducing public funding for higher education and raising the maximum tuition fees to £9,000 a year. Both institutions will charge the maximum fees this autumn. The government has also made it more difficult to recruit overseas students, who pay higher fees than their UK peers.

Gaskell said many universities would respond to these pressures with a "fundamentally cautious approach", but that neither Queen Mary nor Warwick intended to do so. "Critical to new approaches will be the achievement of the right balance between competition and collaboration," he said.

Original source here.

Student Discovers New Scorpion Species In Death Valley, Southern California

A new species of scorpion has been discovered in Death Valley National Park, Southern California, biologists say.
The LA Times reported that Matthew Graham, a doctoral student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, first spotted the specimen while using ultraviolet light during a night-time survey of the park.

Adult scorpions give off a glow in UV light. "When you come across a scorpion, they glow a bright green color, which is really easy to see in contrast to the surrounding darkness," Michael M. Webber, a University of Las Vegas Nevada Ph.D. candidate and co-author on a paper describing the scorpion, told OurAmazingPlanet. After verifying its features, the species — about half-an-inch long and possibly a subterranean dweller — was named Wernerius inyoensis. The graduate students named the scorpion after the Inyo Mountains where it was found in 2009.

It appears to be closely related to two other species found in the southwestern desert: The Wernerius spicatus, which lives in Joshua Tree National Park, and Wernerius mumai, which lives along the lower Colorado River near Parker, Arizona.

Scorpions, which according to the LATimes evolved around 400 million years ago, can be found across every continent. Wernerius inyoensis is one of the smallest ever discovered in North America, OurAmazingPlanet wrote.

Source:Global Post

Spanish new low-cost airline Iberia Express launched

Spain's Iberia has launched a new entry in Europe's competitive market for low-cost airlines. The new airline, Iberia Express, begins on Sunday with prices starting at 25 euros (£21) for a one-way ticket.

Iberia Express will cover Spanish cities including Madrid and the islands such as Ibiza, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. The launch comes after Spain's fourth-largest airline Spanair collapsed in January, stranding 20,000 passengers.

Iberia is owned by the same parent company as British Airways. The low-cost Iberia Express has 500 staff and has a fleet of four Airbus A320 aircraft, according to Iberia chief executive Luis Gallego.

"The containment of costs will allow Iberia Express to grow and compete with the low-cost operators," he said.

(BBC)

BBC TV Teaches Children Yi, Er, San

A new TV cartoon show in Britain is teaching toddlers how to speak Mandarin - a sign, experts say, of the language's growing popularity around the world.The Lingo Show is broadcast weekdays on the BBC's CBeebies channel, whose target audience is children under 6 years old, and aims to introduce Chinese, French and Spanish words to young viewers through a range of colorful characters.

Since making its debut this month, the show is already proving a hit, with its companion games website reportedly attracting 238,000 visitors in the first week, or a quarter of all CBeebies' visitors that week.

Episodes so far have featured a bug called Wei, who introduced familiar objects in Mandarin.Wearing roller- skates and a crash helmet, Wei teaches children the basics of Chinese, such as numbers up to 10 and colors, through games and songs.


Later episodes follow the adventures of French bug Jargonaise and Spanish bug Queso.

Read More

Where Boys Can Make The Grade

No girls allowed. It's not a sign posted outside a tree house fort, but a possible new approach to education. "Boys generally become physically and mentally mature later than girls," said Lu Qisheng,principal of Shanghai No 8 High School, which is trying to change its senior high school division into a boys-only campus.


"Boys are often outperformed by girls in schools and colleges." In Shanghai, boy students in 2011 scored lower than girl students on average in the annual senior high school entrance exam. Their disadvantages are mainly in English and Chinese.


"What the school will do is to develop boys' advantages, which were often under valued orignored in co-ed schools. Here, boys will be given more opportunities for exercise and performance, which will increase their virility, fortitude and endurance," Lu said. The school is expected to enroll its first batch of students this autumn.


It would be the first boys-only campus in Shanghai, part of an education cooperation program between the Huangpu district education bureau and East China Normal University.

A private all-boys high school was established in Beijing in 2003, while an experimental class for 32 boys was set up in Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu province in 2010. The under-representation of boys in schools and colleges has long been discussed by educators and sociologists, and how to give appropriate education for boys is also underdebate.


Wang Ronghua, director of the Shanghai Education Development Foundation, has often expressed his concern over the poor performance of boys in schools and colleges, which hehas claimed will have a negative impact on the country's science and technological innovations.


During China's top legislative meeting earlier this month, Wang, who is also a lawmaker,proposed giving male students gender-specific education while simultaneously lowering the barfor them to enter college. According to Wang, about 80 percent of the high school students who were rated as "poor students" are male.

"Ability in languages are highly valued in entrance exams, in which boys have fewer advantages," Wang said.

But not all experts applaud the idea. "It's very necessary for educators to make some changes and adjustments in modes of education and methods toward boys. But there is no need for students to enter a boys-only school," said Wen Jun, head of the Institute of Sociology of Shanghai-based East China Normal University.


"It might be feasible as a trial project but no advantage can be seen in the long term," he added. Children have to learn how to deal with different people and things during their growth, inwhich school plays a crucial role. Isolation from the opposite sex will not be a good choice for children's growth," Wen said.

Xue Yali, an assistant researcher from the Family Education Research Center under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, stressed the importance of the role of family and parents. "Some parents often attribute the poor academic performance of their sons to outside pressures and the precociousness of girls. Actually, what they need to do is to rethink their educational methods," Xue said.

A boy student contacted by China Daily said he doesn't like the idea of an all-boys school. "Boys and girls have complementary advantages," said Guo Kai, a 16-year-old student fromTianjin No 2 High School.

"A boys-only school is a sort of discrimination. There is no need to separate them from girls,"he said.
A teacher also spoke against the boys-only school."If I had a boy, I wouldn't send him to an all-boys school. The poor performance of boys in their studies can't be attributed to the co-ed system. It's due to the academic evaluation system,"said Wang Fei, a 33-year-old male teacher at Shanghai Maritime University.


"In schools, a lot of the curriculum requires students to memorize and recite, such as English vocabulary and grammar, which are not an advantage for boys." Lin Jie, who graduated from the girls-only Shanghai No 3 Girls High School, said the good thing about an all-boys school is that group work and team spirit can be easily established. "Without girls, boys can face their vulnerabilities, which is good for them to improve themselves."

Source:chinadaily.com

Concern Over Nursery Staff Skills

Childcare qualifications often don’t insist on basic numeracy or literacy skills while pupils with the poorest academic records are pushed towards working with children as an alternative to hairdressing. And some nurseries are taking on staff without any qualifications at all, according to the Nutbrown Review’s interim findings which were published last week.

Anne Longfield, the chief executive of 4Children, the national charity that campaigns for children’s services, said that the findings were a “wake-up call”. “This is a shocking oversight that parents would be very unhappy about. It is shameful that you need higher qualifications to get into hairdressing or animal care,” she said.

Dr Hilary Emery, National Children’s Bureau chief executive said, 'The report echoes what our networks are telling us, that there is much confusion and concern over the level, quality and variation of child care qualifications.” Cathy Nutbrown who wrote the report concluded that the profession was seen as “low-status, low-paid and low-skilled” and was a turn-off for the brighest pupils.

Professor Nutbrown said there needed to be well taught courses leading to reliable qualifications. “Expectations of learners in terms of literacy and numeracy are unduly low,” she wrote. “The 'hair or care’ stereotype still exists for many considering a course in the early years, yet many other sectors have raised their expectations in relation to enrolment.”

She added: “My interim report sets out the shared concerns among the workforce about their qualifications system.” Prof Nutbrown will set out her recommendations in the summer but has suggested raising entry requirements for courses and bringing a licence for nursery workers similar to that of nurses.

Mrs Longfield, added, “'The suggestion of introducing a licence to work in early years is brave and forward thinking and we fully support this. The care and education of our children is of utmost importance and it seems only right that we provide children and their parents with the kind of assurance of quality that we have come to expect as a norm in other professions and positions of trust.

Children’s minister Sarah Teather said, 'I welcome Professor Nutbrown’s interim report. We know the earliest years of a child’s life are so important to their development so it’s vital we have a workforce with the right knowledge and skills.’

Original source here.

Headline March 26th, 2012 / "Cyberspace - or - Catch 22 !?"

"Cyberspace - or - Catch 22 !?"

Respectful dedication Ayub Khan Ommaya / Professor George Washington University

Dr. Shaukat A. Bangash / CEO Quaid-e-Azam International Hospital

Long time ago Time magazine brought forth a gushingly Utopian 'special issue' called "Welcome to Cyberspace". Getting on the cover of Time meant that, as a cultural phenomenon, you'd begun to develop the attributes and form of a "black hole".

Come 2012 and we seem to have proved Time right by spending more money on Computers than say, TV.  But what is surprising and in many ways very alarming is that, no one has really bothered to just what or where exactly is this space called 'Cyberspace?'.

It is now apparent that Time likes the definition of Cyberspect in William Gibson's 1984 novel, Neuromancer: "lines of light ranged in non-space of the mind, clusters, and constellations of data like city light, receding...."

That clears everything up , doesn't it? Most students and even people don't realize that these quoted-ad-nauseum words don't belong to the author, or even to his hero, Case. Gibson is just too smart writer for that. He assigns the "city light" spiel to the nameless narrator of an official video history of "The Matrix," the network of Computers from which Cyberspace emanates.

The actual Cyberspace in which cowboy Case goes a-gunning is a  much weirder and more provocative environment, where blood ad screen somehow merge, where system and aircraft crash with equal force.

Its a place specific to one novel -- the artists imaginative landscape. In this sense there is nothing new about Gibson's Cyberspace. But this is getting a bit artsy for cyberspace. In truth were merely talking data here, the fact-o-sphere, the continuum of tedium .

That "city lights, receding" line is fiercely  prosaic! And computer theorist J P Barlow got the future inkling on Cyberspace right: "Cyberspace is that place you are in when you are talking on the telephone." That sounds a lot closer to matrix!! So dear readers don't miss the next startling part tomorrow! When total contraria enlightens you!

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless

Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook review

Full Review

The Samsung Series 5 is late to the Ultrabook party, but it's an affordable option with excellent usability and a massive 500GB hard drive

Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook review

Love

• 500GB HDD
• Brilliant touchpad
• Nice price

Hate

• Unremarkable design
• Average battery life

Samsung has plenty of experience in crafting slim, powerful laptops but unlike its premium Series 9 ultraportable, the company’s first Ultrabook, the Samsung Series 5 appears to be more of an ‘everyman’ device.
It won’t out-power Ultrabook rivals like the Dell XPS 13, Acer Aspire S3 or Asus Zenbook UX31 and it doesn’t look jaw-droppingly attractive but importantly, and some would say crucially, it won’t cost you the earth either.

Samsung Series 5: Features

The Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook is available in two screen sizes, a 13.3-inch model and a 14-inch version, available for £799 and £849 respectively. Considering the majority of Ultrabooks retail for between £899 and £1100, this makes the Samsung Series 5 an attractive proposition for anyone on a budget.
Both models pack in mid-level Intel Core i5-2467M processors, but the 14-inch model comes with an optical drive and a HDD capable of being upgraded to an impressive 1TB of storage space.

Our review unit was the smaller 13.3-inch model but at 20mm in thickness, the Series 5 is still one of the bulkier Ultrabooks we’ve seen. It’s comparable to the HP Envy 14 Spectre but unlike that machine, the chassis doesn’t feel chunky. It has the sloping, blade-like appearance of other Ultrabooks and weighs a miniscule 1.5kg.
The outward design is attractive without being breath-taking. The plain silver design is equally well placed at home or the office and the brushed metal finish won’t attract smudges the same way a reflective surface would.

Samsung Series 5: Screen

Samsung takes a certain amount of pride in its bright screens, and the 300nit screen on the Samsung Series 5 is no exception. The lack of a Super-TFT coating means bright lights and reflections don’t interfere with usability.
This should prove popular with anyone looking to use the Series 5 as a mobile workstation although media enthusiasts might miss the richer colours and deeper contrast supplied by a reflective coating. The 1366 x 768 pixel resolution is perfectly serviceable for watching films in 720p high definition and the silver bezel doesn’t intrude on the experience.

Samsung Series 5: Performance

Samsung has taken the middle ground on equipping the Series 5, opting for an Intel Core i5-2467M (1.6GHz) CPU, 4GB RAM and a 1366 x 768 screen resolution. The processor is part of the Sandy Bridge family (a prerequisite for Ultrabook-class) and so the graphics memory is built into the CPU core.
Don’t expect any hard gaming on the Series 5 – if that’s what you’re looking for; Samsung has crafted the Series 7 Gamer especially for you.

Gaming aside, the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 chip doesn’t do a bad job. You’ll find streaming movies over Netflix or using editing programs like Photoshop and Dreamweaver is within the grasp of this machine.
If you do crave a slightly bigger graphical grunt, the larger 14-inch Series 5 packs in a dedicated AMD Radeon HD7550M GPU. And, while both machines come with 4GB RAM as standard, there’s the option to upgrade to 8GB for a bit of extra future proofing.

Samsung Series 5: Battery

 

Predictably, the battery life on the Samsung Series 5 is neither wonderful, nor woeful. We squeezed a reasonable 191 minutes from the Battery Eater benchmarking program - running with a looped 720p high-definition video in the background.
Samsung quotes 6.4 hours of regular use on a single charge and with care, you can certainly manage this – lasting you almost an entire day at the office. This should be more than sufficient for most users but ideally we like to see Ultrabooks score past the 200-minute mark.

Samsung Series 5: Verdict

Samsung has produced a well-rounded and affordable Ultrabook in the Series 5.  Thanks to a spacious keyboard, comfortable touchpad and anti-glare screen, this would suit anyone looking for a mobile workstation. The inclusion of a 500GB hard disk drive is something we haven’t seen in an Ultrabook yet and impressively, Samsung has managed to keep the weight down to 1.8kg.
Lastly, although power and battery life are sacrificed, the price-point of the Series 5 Ultrabook is particularly attractive and may give this machine a fighting chance against its better styled and more powerful rivals.


Source: t3