Art
Blog
bookkeeping
books
broadcasting
children
ebooks
Ecommerce
Education
email
entertainment
Facebook
Flickr
games
Google
india
iPhone
laptops
Movies
Music
News
online marketplace
online TV
Opinions
parenting
Photography
Profiles
Publishing
Rentals
reviews
search
self-employed
social network
social networking
Social Networks
SOHO
teachers
Travel
twitter
Video
videography
Videos
Web authoring
website creation
youtube
Samsung Galaxy S4 – A game changer? Should Apple Worry?
The mobile phones industry has been a fast growing and a fast changing industry. New technologies have been introduced in the past 20 years or so that made cellular phones part of our lives in every way. Companies have been moving ups and downs in terms of market share and domination of the cellular phone business. Consumers taste have been changing over the years with the changing in technology. For example mobile phones were decreasing in size, and the smallest phones were the coolest and most expensive but that is not the case now. Who knew that 5-inch smartphones can be popular? Consumers prefer smartphones with big screens to be able to do the many other tasks that are becoming essential and I am not talking about making phone calls. Making phone calls becoming the least used function in the smartphone with many users spend more time surfing the web, checking emails and watching videos.
When the PC maker Dell Inc. introduced the 5-inch screen smartphone known as the Dell Streak it didn’t generate that much attention. The Dell Streak idea was to give consumers a hybrid smartphone, so it could be used both as a phone and also as a tablet because of its big 5-inch screen. Sales didn’t meet expectations and the reason was that consumers didn’t like the idea of carrying a smartphone that size. The Dell Streak was discontinued in 2010.
(Video Courtesy of CNET)
We can reflect back on this fast changing business by looking at those companies who were once on the top and now they struggle to survive. Nokia for example, it was the world’s largest mobile phones manufacturer, well not any more. Nokia has missed on the smartphone revolution and tried to catch up late. It seems that Nokia executives didn’t see it coming for two years. Nokia realized late that cellular phones evolved into something more than just a device to make phone calls, it changed into a device that can do most of the functions that the personal computer does, and that device became known as the smartphone. Of course Nokia is playing catch up, we hope they will succeed.
Research in Motion the Canadian based company and the maker of the BlackBerry enjoyed a period of great success few years before Apple got into the cellular phone business. BlackBerry was once a class of its own when it came to cellular phones. Blackberry introduced many unique and cool features such as secure email and the internet. Apple decided to get into the mobile phone business and introduced the first generation iPhone. Apple promised then to bring the full experience of the internet to the cellular phones and not just a water down version. The smartphone revolution started and the rest is history and apple has iPhone 5 in the market.
Apple became the biggest smartphone seller in the world. People were lining up get the best smartphone in the market. The majority of the other companies started catching up with several products to some degree of success. No one came close to compete with the iPhone with the exception of one smartphone and that was the Galaxy smartphones line made by the Korean based electronic manufacturer Samsung Inc. Samsung electronics introduced several smartphones but its top of the line smartphone the Galaxy became an iPhone competitor. Backed by Google’s Android operating system, the Galaxy line of smartphones gain great popularity with many features that out performed the iPhone. Samsung out performed apple and sold more galaxy devices globally than apple sold iPhones. However Apple still has the Lion share of the smartphones sale in the U.S with 29% compare to Samsung share of 21%. Apple didn’t introduce any major breakthrough in innovation and technology to convince consumers to stick with the pricey iPhone devices since the iPhone 4 was released.
Will the new Samsung Galaxy S4 with enhanced software features help Samsung expand its market share in the U.S? Business analyst believe Samsung will take over Apple spot and become the world’s biggest smartphone seller globally and in the U.S. Apple of course still has an advantage during the holiday season because it sells more smartphones than any other company, thanks to Apple die hard fans who line up to buy the new Apple products. That advantage may not be a great help or long lived if apple doesn’t come up with a smarter smartphone and soon. Apple has to change the iPhone design and come up with a breakthrough in technology and innovation to stay in the lead at least in the U.S market. The stiff competition between Apple and Samsung can also widen the play field as apple may be experimenting with other devices such as the smart watch.
Samsung Galexy S4 Specifications
GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network LTE (market dependent)
SIM Micro-SIM
Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2013, April 26th
BODY Dimensions 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm (5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 in)
Weight 130 g (4.59 oz)
DISPLAY Type Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches (~441 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes
Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 3 – TouchWiz UI
SOUND Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes
MEMORY Card slot microSD, up to 64 GB
Internal 16/32/64 GB storage, 2 GB RAM
DATA GPRS Yes
EDGE Yes
Speed HSDPA, 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth Yes, v4.0 with A2DP, EDR, LE
NFC Yes
Infrared port Yes
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB On-the-go, USB Host
CAMERA Primary 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, HDR
Video Yes, 1080p@60fps, 1080p@30fps, dual-video rec.
Secondary Yes, 2 MP, 1080p@30fps, dual video call
OS Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
Chipset Exynos 5 Octa 5410
CPU Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
GPU PowerVR SGX 544MP3
Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, temperature, humidity, gesture
Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
Browser HTML5, Adobe Flash
Radio TBD
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support and GLONASS
Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
Colors White Frost, Black Mist
Additional Features
– Wireless charging (market dependent)
– S-Voice natural language commands and dictation
– Smart stay, Smart pause, Smart scroll
– Air gestures
– Dropbox (50 GB storage)
– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
– TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
– SNS integration
– MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
– MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
– Organizer
– Image/video editor
– Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
– Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa
– Voice memo/dial/commands
– Predictive text input (Swype)
BATTERY Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery
Most Popular Apps for Android and iOS
Smartphone Apps are taking web design by storm. Apps are everywhere and there are huge numbers of apps made by developers for the two most popular platforms and those of course Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems. Apps business is becoming a huge market with a share value of 25 billion dollars. Developers compete to publish apps daily. With so many apps offered for free or with a price tag, users face the dilemma of what apps to download that fit their needs without downloading many useless apps that slow down their smartphones and eat up their memory. The list below are examples of the most popular and good apps to have.
Haze
This app is a nice weather app that puts some color in the weather forecast with Haze. It’s a fun weather app with animations and an audiovisual interface that is both simple and addictive.
Price: $.99
iPhone
Cam Me
This app will let you go hands free. With this camera app you you dont need the camera timer on your smartphone. Just wave and smile.
Price: Free
iPhone
Swiftkey
The newest Swiftkey update provides more accurate corrections and better predictions than other keyboard apps. Touchscreen typing is still hard to get to master, some screens faster than others.
Price: $3.99
Android
Winston
This app give users the power to listen without having to read, with Winston users can have their Twitter and Facebook feeds, or areas of the news that interest them, read aloud in a really nice voice. Moreover users can wirelessly connect to Apple TV via AirPlay to watch/listen on a bigger screen.
Price: Free
iOS
Switchcam
The new web app automatically synchronizes footage of an event from multiple cameras and turns it into one tidy interactive video where viewers control the produced feeds.
Price: Free
Any camera. Just upload to the service.
Kickstarter
The crowdfunding platform for creative startups has been around for a few years. What is new is its sleek, simple iPhone app. Now users can search, pledge and track those indie art projects while on the go.
Price: Free
iPhone, iPod Touch
Find. Eat. Drink.
This app give users great tools to find the best places to eat and drink on the go. Recommendations are collected by industry insiders; chefs, bartenders, baristas, butchers, pitmasters.
Price: Free
iPhone, website
Flayvr
This app allows users to take back control of their smartphone’s camera roll. Flavyr instantly organizes photos by date and seamlessly patches video and photos into the same collection. .
Price: Free
iPhone, Android.
Evernote Hello
Evernote’s latest update of their contact-management app offers a business card scanner and the “Hello Connect,” which allows two or more people in a room running the app to wirelessly sync up their contact info. It’s info swapping made easier.
Sunrise
Why go several places if you can achieve your goals with one. Sunrise, a new calendar app built by two ex-Foursquare designers, pulls together your appointments from Google Calendar, Facebook Events and Birthdays and weather outlooks.
Price: Free
iPhone
Vine
This is a Twitter app introduced by Twitter that lets users capture and share short looping videos, it has been a great success. Big brands, news outlets and creative Twitter users have flocked to it. The limitation for producing creative content in six seconds is both the beauty and challenge of Vine.
Price: Free
iPhone
Pixplit
This is a nice twist on the crowded photo-collage app space. with Pixplit useres collaborate in a network where friends create social photos (called Splits) together in a single frame using their mobile phones. Post a photo, slice into a frame and wait for another user to fill out the picture, often from another part of the world.
Price: Free
iPhone
Any.Do
This popular reminder app is a cool tool to support a new feature called Any.Do Moment, it is a quick and fun overview of your day and the things you have on your list in a simple list broken into four sections.
Price: Free
iPhone, Android
Showscoop
This app is for people who like to go to concerts, you’ll want to check out Showscoop.This app gives users a chance to rate live music shows they see and share those ratings with others.
Price: Free
iPhone
Hotel Tonight
This app makes it easy to search for and book hotels at discounted prices up to 70% off if booked by noon. This app has been around for a few years, but they update the app all the time, often adding new cities.
Price: Free
iPhone, Android
CineMama
This is desinged specifically for pregnant women from the March of Dimes. using this app woomen can create a time-lapse video of their pregnancy, and get health tips along the way.
Price: Free
iPhone
Llama
This cool android app switch your phone ringer off for you if you forget to do it by the time you get to work or to a meeting or to a classroom. It’s pure brilliance via automated convenience.
Price: Free
Android
Eventster
Eventster this mobile app helps users discover nightlife, concerts, festivals, sports, theater around you. This app also allows users to search their surroundings based on tastes and interests.
Price: Free
iPhone
BeNaughty – Android App
BeNaughty.com is a popular Android dating App that has received mixed reviews. Smartphones have been dominating the technology advances in web development and telecommunication for the past five years. Web applications for smartphones are becoming the next big thing as more people using their smartphones to access the internet. BeNaughty is an Android App that is designed to function as a full dating website with many features but with the convenient and the simplicity of a smartphone App. The success of this dating App promote its designers to introduce newer version with newly enhanced features such as free chat rooms that gave it a great boost in the Android market place.
The number of downloads of this App reached over 25000 downloads and counting. The designers of the this dating App learned from customer’s reviews and made more improvements on the user interface to make it easy and fun to search and find singles. The new version received more positive reviews. Members use the advanced App to search the large database for singles using several attributes to find their closest match fast and easy.
Cupid.com
Cupid.com is one of the most popular dating websites. It has been expanding its market to include many countries and languages world wide. The success of this dating site is in its ability to simplify the dating process. Cupid.com offers members friendly and simple design. Furthermore it give users the ability to interact to find their matches faster.The majority of the other dating sites require members to answer lengthy list of questions and then use their answers to find possible matches in an automated method that proved to be useless and troublesome in many cases.The reason cupid.com became success is that it adapted the human factor as the best way for match making. People find their matches by socializing and interacting with each other not by answering to long questions.
Attractions between people can depend on differences sometimes and not only on similarities. Many members joined cupid.com because it gave them the power to choose the people they are interested in instead of being automatically matched with someone. Cupid.com enables its members to start directly talking and then meeting single men and single women in their areas without having to answer to complicated and long questions that produce little to no results.
Canoodle.com
Canoodle.com is a new dating website that introduces a new concept in dating. The website uses social media to connect people based on their interests, their likes and dislikes. Social media became a very powerful tool to connect people who share the same interests, values and personal traits. Canoodle uses social media to make dating fast, easy and fun. The website gives users the ability to log in using their Facebook credentials for example. New users can become members and log in using other social media accounts or emails. Once joining canoodle, new members can explore the many built in features that make it easy and fast for them to find their matches. Members can search potential partners from the pool of many who already joined the service and narrow it down to the closest match.
The majority of other dating websites matches people based on their locations and interests taken from their inputs and profiles. The process is not accurate and also time consuming. Canoodle not only uses member’s profiles to connect them, it also save its members time and efforts to find their best matches by using the power of social media to connect potential partners with their closest matches.
Why You Need To Invest In Good Company Branding
Entrepreneurs today are focused on making the big bucks, and quickly. Being in such a rush, they tend to forget one of the most important details of a business and marketing campaign: the brand. In order to ensure success for your business, you will need to leave no stone unturned when it comes to investing in good company branding.
Why is it so important? Keep reading to find out.
Consistency
Branding brings consistency, which is good for your customer base. Consistency ensures that your customers return, which will allow your marketing costs to go down when you start hitting sales goals. Investing in and developing a good company brand will allow your customers to know what to expect from you, and also allow them to be able to rely on you. Finding a company with a track record of high quality branding is a must, look at the companies they’ve previously dealt with Guerilla Branding and Turquoise are a couple examples of branding agencies that have dealt with large brands.
Aesthetic Appeal
Branding is marketing in itself, because people will go for what looks good. A major part of branding is developing a consistent aesthetic appeal. You want your business to have a look that the customers will be attracted to. Many people judge books by their covers, and you want to pull them in as well. Developing good company branding will help you do just that.
Memorability
You want customers to remember your company, right? It’s proven that visual cues have a much greater impact on people’s memories than audio cues. This is another reason why you want to invest in good company branding. Your logo, website layout, and anything else that require design really matter if you want people to know who you are.
Higher Price
Branding actually allows you to charge more for your products/services. If people go to a cheap looking website, they will be expecting cheap prices that you’ll be forced to abide by. If they go to a high-quality looking website, that was truly invested in, then they will be more inclined to purchase premium priced products and services. These are four of the reasons it’s better to invest in good company branding. All this involves is investing in a logo, a website layout, and a communications image that your customers can look at and think “quality”. If you can do that, your sales will increase, and your marketing costs will diminish because the customers you achieve will be customers that you’re more likely to keep. You’ll be able to say goodbye to the stress of finding customers, because you’ll be keeping the ones you land.
Education Loans – The Great, The Good and The Total Waste
Education is very important factor in self development and enhancement of success. StartupWizz.com best reviews are submitted by students who had startup ideas or started a business and became successful entrepreneurs. The best startups and great companies were founded by college students. Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft founded his company while attending Harvard where he later dropped out to focus on his company. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple also attended college and later dropped out of college to build Apple. We also have to mention Google and Yahoo those great companies that were founded by graduate students.
The U.S education loan system has been a great source for students who don’t have the financial means to achieve their dreams of obtaining their education. Many students who achieved success and established their high paying careers owe their success to the government funded education loans. Education loans are widely available to full time students with good academic standing. Obtaining an education loan is not hard, students first need to get accepted into a program of study to attend as a full time, then fill the proper applications with the financial aide office at their college. Moreover students also apply for the loan online with the department of education. Students have to maintain a full time status and passing grades as a condition to maintain the flow of money from the education loan.
Students can borrow money to pay college tuition and living expenses while attending schools. U.S College education is expensive, and cost has been rising over the rate of inflation for the past 30 years or more. Most colleges estimate the cost of attending their programs between $20,000 to $40,00 per year, and that number can grow higher for some private colleges.
Despite the great benefit of the education loan program for many students, other students didn’t enjoy the same success, even worse they end up with a very bad case of financial ruin. In this article I will try to explain the three categories of students who borrowed money to full fill their dream of obtaining the great education.
The Great
In this category students use the education loan system provided by the department of education to pay for school. The fact that college graduates make more money than those who have high school diplomas makes it wise to finance college education even by taking loans with fixed interest rate. For the long term, students in this category will get a very good return on investment. Soon after graduation they will make more money. College graduates will increase their earnings by an average of one million dollar over their life time.
In this category students study high paying professions such as medicine, law and dentistry. After graduation most doctors and lawyers become high earner and for medical doctors in a high demanding field they will be able to repay their loans and increase their earning over time. Also in this category any one who made a good use of the education and was able to obtain a good paying job with the government or the private sector or those who became successful entrepreneurs.
The Good
This category is any one who borrowed money to finance their education and after graduation they found an average job and start earning more money. They earn enough money to maintain a good standard of living while repaying their education loan. This category of students made a good return on investment from their education because they used their college degree to find a job to earn more money. Examples of majors in this category are Engineering majors, natural sciences and nursing.
The Total Waste
This category are those students who borrowed money to pay for college and after graduation either they were unable to find work, or they were able to find jobs that pay the minimum. In this category those unlucky students borrowed more money to finish their education. Majors of study that belong to this category are fields that have low demand and low paying salaries . Examples in this category are those who studied History, social studies and English majors, or those who went to vocational schools and promised to get rich quick. For those who studied low paying majors and borrowed $100,000 in loans, it will be hard for them to make their loan payments, and that if they were lucky to find jobs. The payed salaries in these fields are $30000/year in average.
What makes things worse also the recession and the high U.S unemployment rate of over 14% which makes it harder for newly graduates in the low demanding fields in this category to find jobs of any kind. Many former students in this category still owe big amount of money on their loans, and they are struggling to find work while the interests are mounting.
How to Manage Your Education loans?
Education is a great investment and also a great self fulfillment.For those students who can’t afford to pay for college education, education loans become their only choice. It is important for students and and their mentors to understand how education loans work. Furthermore they should pay close attention to these points:
-
–
- Education is an investment and as for any investment students should know and research their potions well.
- Students should determine what type of education they really want and how to achieve the best return on investment .
- Students should borrow the minimum and responsibly, and if they have a part time job while attending school they should keep it if they can, and not depend fully on loans.
- Remember there are only six months grace period after graduation, then after that loan repayment will start. The higher your loan is the higher your monthly payment will be.
- Unlike other banks and credit cards loans education loans can’t be erased or forgiven with bankruptcy. These type of loans are directly or indirectly supplied by the government.
–
–
–
–
EntrepreneurLead.com – World-Class Coaching for Entrepreneurs
EntrepreneurLead.com a startup that help to serve the needs of Entrepreneurs and Businesses in regards to Business Planning, Marketing Strategy, Brand Promotion, and overall cost minimization.
With shocking statistics revealing that the majority of businesses started do not exist past five years, EntrepreneurLead.com has been created and launched. This innovative new site provides start-ups and existing small businesses with the tools and resources to start, build, grow, and maintain profitable products and services. “Working with many startups and failing small businesses over the years has helped me gain insight into the most common reasons why so many entrepreneurs struggle to not only start, but also maintain a profitable business” says creator of EntrepreneurLead.com and long-term Business Consultant Nicole Elmore. “Throughout my growth as an entrepreneur, I have made quite a few mistakes that I have learned greatly from and that I can now share with aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups to coach them and help them succeed in their niche.”
EntrepreneurLead.com differentiates itself from any other services for entrepreneurs by offering a large variety of services and features which, when all integrated with each other, allow businesses to get all of their coaching, business planning, strategizing, promotion, and management accomplished in one place. Some of the free services include, but are not limited to:
• A tool and resource directory for entrepreneurs and small businesses • Cutting Edge Assessments • Business Forms and Templates • Free Ebooks • E-Mail Courses.
The site currently offers a free membership with basic coaching, including one of their most popular articles “22 Ways to Promote your Business for FREE”, but will also launch two paid coaching programs: 1) The Supreme Business Plan Workshop which will provide in-depth lessons and examples on what should be covered in a professional Business Plan and how to form a business strategy that will ensure long-term growth & sustainability. 2) The Ultimate Entrepreneur Bootcamp offers world-class guidance and mentorship from forming a business idea, deciding on what business to build, through pre start-up planning, the start-up itself, raising capital, managing, marketing, and growing your business into a profitable source of income with great bonuses, tests, free templates and forms.
CyberStockroom – Inventory Management Simplified
CyberStockRoom.com is a startup that provides a web-based inventory management software designed for small businesses. The online service does not require any software or equipment installation. Features include: Full barcode integration and automatic SKU recognition, state of the art visualizations of Inventory levels, Online POS service, easy importing functions to easily go live in minutes and much more!
Small business owners know how much they need inventory management software but they’re not at all interested in the technicalities involved. CyberStockroom’s SaaS solution hides all these complexities and presents the user with an easy-to-use, intuitive, robust and secure service that gives them real control over their business and their products.
The cloud based software features very powerful tools that are critical for effective inventory control. It provides many features such as full bar-code integration, automatic SKU recognition, real-time Cost of Goods Sold Calculations, state of the art product level visualizations, inventory importing functionality and much more. At the heart of this business startup is the full collaboration with clients. This startup built a company culture of being fully attuned to client’s needs, concerns and requests. Unlike other inventory management providers in the market out there, this startup is trying to distinguish it self by providing higher level of commitment and responsiveness to users. CyberStockroom offers Free trial for small business owners and managers. CyberStockRoom believes that clients will be excited and motivated to make it an integral part of their business. It’s extremely easy to get started – anyone can log on with their existing accounts (Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo or MSN account) or create a new account.
MBAprojectsearch.com
mbaprojectsearch.com is a startup that provides freelance opportunities and internships for MBAs(students and alums). It’s completely free for both MBAs and businesses. This startup is created by students who wanted to supplement the internship by giving MBAs more opportunities to make real-world connections with employers. The site also features full and part-time jobs. .
What’s so great about this business is that it has over 1000 total projects, jobs, and internships, and it posts between 10 and 20 new ones per day. Currently, the database of students is expanding exponentially, and have students from across the country (HBS, GSB, Darden, Columbia, Tuck, Ross, MSB, Fuqua, Tippie, Wisconsin, Booth, Kellogg, Stern, Babson, Wash U, etc.) and world (international students from Sauder, LBS, IESE, Oxford, and Indian School of Business students).
Socially!