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Galaxy Tab users to get TouchWiz update tomorrow

Owners of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet will receive an update starting tomorrow that will deliver the TouchWiz UX interface and a host of other enhancements.

Sent OTA (over the air), the update package will include Samsung's revamped Media Hub service, Samsung Kies 2.0 support for PCs and Macs, and mobile features for the enterprise crowd.

The most notable feature of the update, the customizable TouchWiz interface, runs on top of Android 3.1 Honeycomb. Among its many options is a Live Panel, which offers home screen widgets that show you the latest news, weather, e-mail, … Read more

Liquid Contact Indicators removed from iPad 2

According to French Apple site Hardmac, Apple's infamous (to some) Liquid Contact Indicators--sensors responsible for allowing Apple technicians to determine if your device has had substantial contact with liquids--are not present in the newly released iPad 2.

Many problems have come about because of Apple's liquid sensors, even resulting in lawsuits, and causing Apple to adjust how it handles indicators that have been activated.

As a manager in an Apple Store a couple years ago, when the first Liquid Submersion Indicators, as they were named then, were included on the original iPhone, we were told that the sensors … Read more

Highlight messages sent only to you in Gmail, Outlook 2010

As your e-mail inbox fills up, it can be difficult to distinguish the important messages from the ones you can read later--if at all. One way to help identify personal e-mails from impersonal ones is by the number of recipients. By highlighting messages sent only to you, you're less likely to miss mail requiring your immediate attention.

Last November I described how to merge multiple e-mail accounts and organize them by using filters and labels. This can help shuttle less-important messages out of your inbox and into folders you can peruse at your leisure.

But not all the non-filtered … Read more

Apple changes a name that could change repair policies

Apple has changed the name of one of the key components used to determine whether or not damage was caused by liquid submersion. Though the change is subtle, now the Liquid Contact Indicator, it could signal a change in Apple's repair policies.

Formally the Liquid Submersion Indicator, a sensor that is meant to determine if the device (now on iPhones, iPods, and iPads) has been immersed in liquid, has been the subject of many consumer complaints saying the indicator was not accurate in particular climates.

When I worked in Apple Retail, as part of the original iPhone launch, we … Read more

A GPS device from the 1920s

What did people do before the days of GPS satellites and battery-sucking A-GPS phones? Not only was there a navigational device that gave driving directions in the early 20th century, it was small enough to fit on your wrist.

This product from the 1920s is a scroll-map navigator in the shape of a watch. It came with tiny interchangeable instructions that you scrolled manually to see which roads to take when driving.

Named the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator, this relic from the past was a British product that would have cost about 5 pounds at the time, about 50 … Read more

What to do when MobileMe is down

Occasionally Apple will need to perform system maintenance or have to deal with an unexpected service interruption. In these cases, there are some primary functions on MobileMe that will most likely be unavailable, as well as some that should still be operable.… Read more

Google adds World Bank data to search results

The next time you search Google for life expectancies or number of Internet users in the U.S., you'll find the specific figures plus an interactive chart letting you compare the U.S. with other countries.

Since Wednesday, Google has been tapping into data from the World Bank to provide key details and interactive charts on specific topics along with its own search results. The goal is to better help you search for and compare certain types of public data.

The World Bank is providing Google with facts and figures on 17 key indicators, including population growth, fertility rate, gross national product, and energy use.

Enter one of the 17 indicators into a Google search. You can phrase it as the specific indicator, for example, "population world," or type it as a natural question: "What is the population of the world?"

At the top of the search results, you'll find a thumbnail chart along with the latest statistics. (According to the World Bank, 72.4 percent of the U.S. population is on the Internet as of 2008.) Click on the chart or accompanying link, and up pops a larger interactive graph where you can visually compare the U.S. with other countries by clicking on their check boxes.

You can embed the chart's HTML in your own blog or Web page and opt for the data to be updated automatically anytime the World Bank's information changes. Finally, a link for more info brings you directly to the World Bank's Web site where you can dig further into the results of your search.

This latest partnership with World Bank is part of Google's effort to offer data beyond that which it can grab from your average Web page. Back in April, the search giant started integrating stats and charts from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But the World Bank is the first source to provide global data for Google. The World Bank's figures come from its World Development Indicators (WDI), a collection of data derived from its own research and that of 30 other sources. The global data includes statistics on social, financial, and environmental areas encompassing more than 100 different countries.… Read more

Simple golf calculator

Handicap Manager for Excel provides golfers with an opportunity to calculate and store their scores on a limitless number of courses. This program's organization makes it simple to operate.

The program's interface is familiar and intuitively laid out, thanks primarily to being based on Microsoft Excel. With simple menus that lead you through the various spreadsheets, you won't have trouble tabulating statistics. Fill up this program first by navigating through the Golf Course information. You enter a course's name, par, rating, and slope, which all helps calculate the handicap later. Next, enter all your information, such … Read more