IPHONE MINI? | Apple to unveil new product on March 21

Apple Inc sent an invite to reporters on Thursday for an event at its Cupertino, California headquarters on March 21, possibly signaling the unveiling of a new, smaller iPhone.

The world’s best-known technology company often reveals new products at such events. It is expected to update its flagship iPhone and iPad products soon.

Some Wall Street analysts expect the company to use the event to unveil a four-inch (10-cm) screen phone, reintroducing the smaller size after enlarging screens with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 2014.

Apple shares have risen in the past two weeks as Wall Street bet the company will launch a less expensive iPhone this month to boost sales in developing countries like China.

With U.S. consumers upgrading their smartphones less often, manufacturers have been relying on China for growth.

source: interaksyon.com

Preorders for Galaxy S7 phones stronger than expected — Samsung

SEOUL — Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has seen stronger-than-expected preorders for its new flagship Galaxy S7 smartphones launching this week, a senior company executive said on Thursday.

Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung’s handsets business, did not give a figure or disclose sales targets during a press briefing for the phones, which go on sale in South Korea and other markets on Friday.

But he said Samsung expects the S7s to help revive sales in China, the world’s top smartphone market where researchers say the Korean firm is lagging its competitors.

The Galaxy S7s offer incremental upgrades, leading some analysts to predict sales in the first year will be weaker than last year’s Galaxy S6s.

source: interaksyon.com

Solar eclipse begins sweeping across Indonesia

TERNATE, Indonesia - A solar eclipse began sweeping across the vast Indonesian archipelago on Wednesday, with hordes of sky gazers set to watch the spectacle, which will be marked by parties, prayers, and tribal rituals.

The moon began to move between the Earth and sun at 6:19 a.m. (2319 GMT Tuesday), the official Meteorology, Climate and Geophysics Agency said.

A rare total solar eclipse will be visible in a broad arc across the country about an hour later.

All direct sunlight will be blocked for a short time from the western island of Sumatra, to the spice-fringed Maluku Islands thousands of miles to the east, before the total eclipse sweeps out across the Pacific Ocean.

From a festival featuring live bands, to fun runs, and traditional dances, events are being organized across the country for an estimated 10,000 foreign visitors and 100,000 domestic tourists who will be witnessing the phenomenon.

Hotels in the best viewing spots filled up weeks ago -- in the city of Ternate, in the Maluku Islands, officials have had to find extra space for tourists on boats.

"It's an extraordinary spectacle that only takes place about once a year in one part of the world," said Arnaud Fischer, a 33-year-old French tourist, who has witnessed several eclipses and was set to watch Wednesday's in Ternate.

I Gde Pitana, the government's head of foreign tourism, described the phenomenon as "a tourism attraction created by God."

However there are concerns that clouds could obscure the view in some places, as it is currently the wet season in Indonesia.

It will be a deeply spiritual experience for many in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, with the faithful being urged by Islamic authorities to perform special eclipse prayers.

"Our Prophet Mohammed said the prayer signifies the greatness of Allah, who created this wonderful phenomenon," said Ma'ruf Amin, chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country's top Islamic clerical body.

Tribal rituals

Some of Indonesia's tribespeople are fearful of the phenomenon, however. Members of the Dayak tribe in one part of Borneo island will perform a ritual to ensure that the sun, which they view as the source of life, does not disappear entirely.

The total eclipse will sweep across 12 out of 34 provinces in Indonesia, which stretches about 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometres) from east to west, before heading across the Pacific Ocean.

It will be visible for between just one and a half to three minutes in most places.

Partial eclipses will be visible in northern Australia and parts of Southeast Asia.

Before hitting Sumatra, the eclipse sweeps across Sulawesi and Borneo, then moves over the Malukus and heads out into the ocean.

One of the most popular events for foreign tourists will be a festival close to Palu, in Sulawesi.

Among those coming to Indonesia is Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who recently hit the headlines after a $40,000 toilet custom-built for her visit to Cambodia went unused.

She will be watching the spectacle in Ternate, although officials insist that no luxury commode has been built for her on this occasion.

The last total solar eclipse occurred on March 20, 2015, only visible from the Faroe Islands and Norway's Arctic Svalbard archipelago.

Total eclipses occur when the moon moves between the Earth and the Sun, and the three bodies align precisely.

As seen from Earth, the moon is just broad enough to cover the solar face, creating a breath-taking silver halo in an indigo sky.

source: interaksyon.com

WORLD’S FIRST LIQUID-COOLED LAPTOP | Republic of Gamers pushes gaming to the extreme

MANILA, Philippines — Republic of Gamers (ROG), the World’s undisputed No. 1 gaming laptop, celebrates its 10th Anniversary with a bang with the much-anticipated launch of its most powerful laptop yet, the ROG GX700.

With unmatched specs and industry-leading innovations, the Republic of Gamers rocks the entire gaming industry with the ROG GX700′s liquid-cooled design — a world’s first — guaranteeing users a gaming experience like never before.

With such an incredible feat, the Republic of Gamers makes another unprecedented move by inviting only a select few to get to experience for themselves just how powerful and one-of-a-kind this gaming laptop is.

Only 20 of the country’s most avid and top gamers and hardcore users will only be able to exclusively get their hands on this limited-edition beast of a machine as it set to hit the Philippine shores. These very few, lucky individuals – collectively, the “Legendary 20” – will surely make history as one of the first people to experience the powerhouse gaming device that is the ROG GX700

The perks and the works: The ultra-exclusive ‘Legendary 20′

For the Legendary 20, the ROG GX700 is packed with an arsenal of accessories and items that will further highlight the exclusivity of this elite gaming group: an ROG Sica Gaming Mouse, ROG Command Case (a premium black luggage case that not only ensures that the ROG GX700 is kept safe, but also for the user to bring the ROG GX700 wherever you want in absolute comfort and style); a Personalized Legendary 20 Luggage Tag (a stylish bag tag that proudly displays the name of the respective owner) and finally, a Legendary 20 Jacket (a decked-out Legendary 20 signature-style jacket tailor-fit to the Legendary 20 member).

Aside from owning these items and the bragging rights of being one of the very few to own the majestic ROG GX700 not only in the Philippines, but also in the entire world, members of the exclusive Legendary 20 are also automatically entitled to top-notch perks and privileges including: VIP-access to any and all ROG-related events in the country, and participation in exclusive Legendary 20 activities, which includes a private DOTA tournament with an ROG endorser.

GX700 – Desktop class performance in a laptop 

The flagship GX700VO being the world’s first water-cooled gaming laptop is capable of overclocking because of its exclusive hydro overclocking system.

Powering up this beast is a powerful Intel Core i7-6820HK (Overclocking Unlocked) Quad-Core processor. When the laptop is docked to its water-cooling station, the said CPU can be overclocked to a remarkable 4GHz in stable voltage. In addition, the onboard 32GB DDR4 RAM at 2133MHz can also be overclocked as high as to 2800 MHz.

Of course graphics is also Best in Class. The ROG GX700VO is equipped with a desktop class NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 that has 8GB of GDDR5 VRAM. When water-cooled, it allows the chip to run in its full potential, thereby eliminating the bottleneck of low thermal headroom. Speed is not only in processing but also in storage on the GX700VO, which is packed with two 256GB NVMe PCIe SSD set-up in RAID0, allowing up to 3.5GB/s read/write speeds.

And highlighting the trump card of this notebook, the “Hydro Cooling System,” which made this notebook the world’s first water-cooled notebook, is the pinnacle of this year’s innovation for ASUS and ROG. Featuring two radiators, and a behemoth of fans with variable speed control through the built-in ROG Command Control Center software; the cooling module allows for the system to run cooler in idle, and be overclocked as wanted, or needed, and allows for a full desktop replacement for all those wanting to lug around a system that’s highly capable of Full-HD gaming.

source: interaksyon.com

Trump, Cruz in 2-way Republican race; Sanders still in race in Democratic contest

WASHINGTON DC - Donald Trump kept a firm grip on his lead in the Republican race for the White House on Sunday but Senator Ted Cruz emerged as his strongest challenger in weekend primaries with mixed outcomes.

Hillary Clinton extended her frontrunner status in the Democratic contests but Senator Bernie Sanders showed he is still in the race with a few victories.

Sanders won the Maine Democratic caucuses, according to US media projections.

Clinton and Sanders also faced off in a televised debate in Flint, Michigan, just two days before a crucial primary in that delegate-rich northern industrial state.

They tackled the scandal surrounding the lead-contaminated water in the city, with Sanders railing against the "disgrace beyond belief" and both calling for more accountability.

Republicans saw a stormy week in which panicked party leaders trained their biggest guns on Trump, the billionaire who has galvanized disaffected voters with an anti-immigrant, anti-free trade campaign filled with insults, attacks on minorities, and mockery of the political establishment.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio won by a whopping 71 percent the Republican primary election in Puerto Rico, a US commonwealth where residents do not vote in November's general election.

But the victory -- only the second, after Minnesota, for Rubio -- hands the youthful Cuban American contender the 23 party convention delegates at play.

Trump now has 384 delegates to 300 for Cruz and 151 for Rubio. Kasich has 37 delegates.

To win the Republican nomination outright, a candidate must win 1,237 delegates.

Failure to hit that number would result in a Republican nominating convention in July that could require multiple rounds of voting by delegates, something not seen in decades but which could conceivably throw the race to someone other than Trump.

Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential nominee who denounced Trump as a "phony" and a "fraud" this week, said he expected to endorse one of the three other candidates before the party convention.

Asked if he would reject the nomination if drafted, Romney said such a scenario would be "absurd" but left the door open to it, in an interview with CBS's Face the Nation.

Pressure on Rubio
On Saturday, only ultra-conservative Cruz scored victories against Trump -- in Kansas and Maine. Trump won in Louisiana and Kentucky, but Cruz picked up more delegates overall.

Rubio picked up only a few delegates, unable to capitalize on the establishment assault on Trump, who called on Rubio to step aside.

"I would love to be able to take on Ted one on one," Trump said in Florida, minutes after winning in Kentucky on Saturday. "That will be easy."

Cruz also urged Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich to drop out, arguing that the anti-Trump vote will be split as long as they remain in the race.

"If we're divided, Donald wins," he warned. "The field needs to continue to narrow."

But both Rubio and Kasich were expected to stay in at least until the primaries in their winner-take-all home states.

The next big day on the electoral calendar is Tuesday, when Michigan and Mississippi have Democratic and Republican primaries.

Republican-only nominating contests also are being held that day in Idaho and Hawaii. Puerto Rico also holds a Republican primary on Sunday.

Clinton nearly halfway there

After Saturday's contests, Clinton had 1,121 delegates, nearly half the 2,383 needed to win the Democratic nomination.

The former secretary of state won in Louisiana, the biggest prize of the night, but Sanders won in Kansas and Nebraska, pushing his total to seven victories in 18 contests.

Clinton was favored in Louisiana thanks to overwhelming support from African-American voters, while Sanders has tended to do best in states with largely white voters.

"What we are seeing in many cases is not just a racial divide but a generational divide. We are doing better and better with younger people whether they're black, Latino, or white," Sanders said on CNN's "State of the Union" show.

"If the turnout is high in Maine today, I think we have a good chance of winning there as well. So I think we're showing strength all across this country."

End

source: interaksyon.com

UFC 196: Tate dethrones Holm, McGregor stunned by Diaz

Miesha Tate scored a sensational victory over reigning bantamweight champion Holly Holm in Las Vegas, choking her out late in the fifth round to win the title Holm took from Ronda Rousey in November.

After a cagey first round in which few significant blows were landed, the 34-year-old Holm was in trouble in the second round but managed to survive by keeping Tate at bay with her longer reach.

Tate managed to get Holm back on the mat late in the fifth and final round, but despite an acrobatic attempt to escape by the champion, Tate clung on to render her unconscious and claim the title.

“She went out like a champion. I have so much respect for this woman,” the 29-year-old told the octagon announcer as she received the belt.

McGregor stunned

Meanwhile, UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor was choked into submission by Nate Diaz in a stunning reverse at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

McGregor, who was denied a chance to become the first fighter to hold two UFC belts at the same time when lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos pulled out with a foot injury, struggled in the second round after Diaz landed a heavy blow.

McGregor had landed some heavy shots of his own in the first round but couldn’t put the 30-year-old away, and an effort to take the fight to the mat backfired when Diaz got behind him to apply the rear naked choke hold that ended the fight.

source: interaksyon.com

Criminals like Apple iPhones because of encryption — Police

Some criminals have switched to new iPhones as their “device of choice” to commit wrongdoing due to strong encryption Apple Inc has placed on their products, three law enforcement groups said in a court filing.

The groups told a judge overseeing Apple’s battle with the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday that, among other things, they were aware of “numerous instances” in which criminals who previously used so-called throwaway burner phones had switched to iPhones. They did not list a specific instance.

The brief by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and two others also cited a jailhouse phone call intercepted by New York authorities in 2015, in which an inmate called Apple’s encrypted operating system a “gift from God.”

The government obtained a court order last month requiring Apple to write new software to disable passcode protection and allow access to an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December killings in San Bernardino, California.

Apple asked that the order be vacated, arguing such a move would set a dangerous precedent and threaten customer security.

Tech industry leaders including Google, Facebook and Microsoft and more than two dozen other companies filed legal briefs on Thursday supporting Apple. The Justice Department received support from law enforcement groups and six relatives of San Bernardino victims.

The law enforcement groups said in their brief that Apple’s stance poses a grave threat to investigations across the country.

The FBI says Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were inspired by Islamist militants when they shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 at a holiday party. The couple later died in a shootout with police and the FBI said it wants to read the data on Farook’s work phone to investigate any links with militant groups.

In a filing on Thursday, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said at least two 911 calls from the time of the shooting reported three assailants, not two.

Even though those reports were “not corroborated,” if in fact there were three attackers it would be important to crack open the iPhone “to identify as of yet unknown co-conspirators,” the District Attorney’s filing stated.

Apple has said it respects the FBI and has cooperated by turning over data in its possession.

The latest request is different, Apple says, because it requires them to crack a phone with a software tool that does not currently exist.

source: interaksyon.com

US payrolls surge, bolster Fed rate hike prospects

WASHINGTON - US employment gains surged in February, the clearest sign yet of labor market strength that could further ease fears the economy was heading into recession and allow the Federal Reserve to gradually raise interest rates this year.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 242,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. The unemployment rate held at an eight-year low of 4.9 percent even as more people piled into the labor market.

"This is the best news the Fed could have expected going into the meeting. With jobs bouncing back, you can be sure that rate hikes are just around the corner," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York.

The economy added 30,000 more jobs in December and January than previously reported. The only blemish in the report was a three-cent drop in average hourly earnings, but that was mostly because of a calendar quirk.

The average length of the workweek also fell last month.

Economists had forecast employment increasing by 190,000 last month and the jobless rate holding steady.

The employment report added to data such as consumer and business spending in suggesting the economy had regained momentum after growth slowed to a 1.0 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter. Growth estimates for the first quarter are around a 2.5 percent rate.

Fears of a recession in the wake of poor economic reports in December and slowing growth in China sparked a global stock market rout at the start of the year, causing financial market conditions to tighten.

Financial markets have priced out bets of a rate rise at the Fed's March 15-16 policy meeting and see a roughly 50 percent chance of a hike at the September and November meetings, according to CME FedWatch.

Economists, however, believe the strong jobs market and improved growth outlook, together with signs that inflation is creeping up, could prompt the Fed to lift borrowing costs in June.

The Fed raised its key overnight interest rate in December for the first time in nearly a decade.

Prices of U.S. Treasuries fell after the data, while U.S. stock index futures rose. The U.S. dollar gained against the euro and hit session highs against the yen and Swiss franc.

Slower wage growth
Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said the economy needs to create just under 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with growth in the working-age population.

The labor force participation rate, or the share of working-age Americans who are employed or at least looking for a job, increased two-tenths of a percentage point to 62.9 percent, the highest level in just over a year.

Adding to the report's strength, a broad measure of joblessness that includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 9.7 percent.

The employment-to-population ratio also increased to 59.8 percent last month, the highest since April 2009, from 59.6 percent in January.

While wage growth weakened in February, it was largely payback for January's jump, which was driven by a calendar quirk. Growth in wages is seen accelerating as the labor market settles into full employment.

The drop in average hourly earnings lowered the year-on-year gain in earnings to 2.2 percent from 2.5 percent in January. The average workweek fell to 34.4 hours from 34.6 hours in January.

In February, job gains were almost broad-based, though manufacturing and mining employment fell. The services sector created 245,000 jobs after adding 153,000 jobs in January. Mining lost a further 18,000 jobs after shedding 9,000 positions in January.

Mining payrolls have declined by 171,000 jobs since peaking in September 2014, with three-fourths of the losses in support activities. More losses are likely after oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. said last month it would cut a further 5,000 jobs because of a prolonged slump in oil prices.

Manufacturing employment lost 16,000 jobs, reversing some of January's surprise increase. Private education jobs rebounded after plunging in January. Construction payrolls increased 19,000 and government added 12,000 jobs.

source: interaksyon.com

Bob Dylan sells treasure trove of archive material

Bob Dylan has sold his personal archive of notes, draft lyrics, poems, artwork and photographs to the University of Tulsa, where they will be made available to scholars and curated for public exhibitions, the school said on Wednesday.

The 6,000 item collection spans nearly the entire length of Dylan’s 55 year-long career, and many have never been seen before. The collection was acquired by the George Kaiser Foundation and the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.

The collection also includes master recording tapes of Dylan’s entire music catalog, along with hundreds of hours of film video.

The Foundation and the university did not say how much the Bob Dylan Archive cost, but the New York Times, which was given an exclusive preview, said it was sold for $15 million to $20 million.

Tulsa is also the home of a museum dedicated to folk singer Woody Guthrie, one of Dylan’s early influences.

“I’m glad that my archives, which have been collected all these years, have finally found a home and are to be included with the works of Woody Guthrie… To me, it makes a lot of sense and it’s a great honor,” Dylan said in a statement.

Despite being regarded as “the voice of a generation” for his influential songs of the 1960s and 1970s, Dylan, now 74, has mostly kept his items out of the public eye, resulting in high prices when they occasionally come up for auction.

A handwritten copy of the song “Like a Rolling Stone” sold for a record $2 million at a New York auction in 2014, while the electric guitar he played at 1965 Newport Folk Festival sold for nearly $1 million in 2013.

The archives handed over to the University of Tulsa include two notebooks with lyrics from the 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks,” and Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to his 1964 song “Chimes of Freedom” scrawled on hotel notepaper dotted with cigarette burns. There is also correspondence between Dylan and the late beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

source: interaksyon.com

Peugeot Citroen reveals ‘real-world’ fuel consumption

GENEVA, Switzerland — Leading French automobile manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen published Tuesday “real-world” fuel consumption figures for three of its diesel cars, seeking to win over wary customers after the Volkswagen pollution cheating scandal.

Peugeot Citroen said the initiative was a world first, launched in the aftermath of German rival Volkswagen’s admission last year that it had fitted 11 million diesel engines worldwide with devices that fool official pollution tests.

“We were obviously shocked by what happened with Volkswagen-gate and in some way, like the profession, the whole automobile industry, we were affected by the situation and deeply upset,” Carlos Tavares, chairman of the group’s managing board, said on the sidelines of the Geneva International Motor Show.

“It was important to safeguard our customers’ trust in relation to knowing their automobiles’ consumption,” he told a conference.

The French car maker said the results were based on tests designed by two environmental groups, Transport & Environment and France Nature Environment.

The cars were driven on public roads in town, outside town and on motorways near Paris in “real-life” driving conditions with passengers, luggage, roads with hills and the air conditioning switched on, Peugeot Citroen said in a statement.

“Peugeot Citroen is the first car maker to adopt such an approach,” the company said.

Peugeot Citroen promised to reveal the real-world fuel consumption results for 30 models “before summer 2016″.

Learn from past mistakes
As expected, all the “real-world” fuel consumption figures exceeded the results of the existing official laboratory-style New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) tests, which were thrown into question by the Volkswagen scandal.

The “real world” tests showed:

- A medium-sized sedan Peugeot 308 consumed 5.0 litres for 100 kilometres, compared to just 3.2 litres in the NEDC tests;

- A Citroen C4 Picasso people carrier drank 5.6 litres for 100 km, compared to 4.0 litres in the NEDC tests;

- And the premium subcompact DS 3 used 4.9 litres over 100 km, compared to 3.6 litres in the NEDC tests.

All three cars were equipped with 1.6-litre, 120-horsepower engines with manual gearboxes.

New official tests called the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedures, aimed at better measuring real-world fuel or energy consumption and pollution emissions are being defined for introduction in 2017.

For now, the official NEDC tests are the only recognised thermometer for car performance in Europe, said Gilles Le Borgne, head of research and development at Peugeot Citroen.

“If others want to join our initiative we would be delighted,” he said, adding however that no other manufacturer had shown interest in doing so.

Peugeot Citroen first announced the real-world testing initiative in November last year, two months after the Volkswagen cheating scandal broke.

Volkswagen admitted the existence of the illegal cheat software on diesel engines which limits the output of toxic nitrogen oxides during emissions tests by regulators.

But when the vehicles are in actual use, the software allows them to spew poisonous gases far above permitted levels.

Volkswagen chief Matthias Mueller called in Geneva on Monday for his company to “learn from past mistakes”.

In 2015, VW’s own-brand sales fell five percent to 5.82 million vehicles worldwide, the first decline in 11 years, the company has revealed. On top of lost earnings, VW is facing a barrage of legal complaints related to the scandal.

source: interaksyon.com