Volume 1, Issue 2

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

YouTube Flips Switch on 360° Videos...2

4 Tips & Tricks Every Android User Needs to Know...3

6 Free Android Apps That Are Worth Checking Out...4

Thoughts on the New MacBook...6

Tech Jokes

1. Dude1: "I need to copy this from my computer into your computer!" Dude2: "Easy, select the text, right click and choose copy, then UNPLUG the mouse and PLUG IT in my computer, right click and choose paste"

2. There’s no more 301 jokes because they have all been moved permanently.

3. An SEO expert walks into a bar, bars, pub, public house, Irish pub, drinks, beer, cocktails...

4. I tried to come up with an IPv4 joke, but the good ones were all already

Forget third-party widgets, Google's Search app will now let you use your voice to toggle several settings on Android Lollipop devices . A recent update to the Google Search app on Android 5.0 Lollipop devices will allow users to toggle their Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and flashlight (camera LED) with their voice. The device will also need to be running the most recent version of the Google Search app for these voice commands to work. To test them, you can tap the search button in the app, or wake the service with the "OK, Google" command, if you have that set up. Next, simply ask the service to toggle your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or the flashlight. For example: "OK, Google, turn on Bluetooth." A Google Now card appears and shows you what's being toggled. You

can touch the card to adjust the toggle if you asked for the wrong one or changed your mind. Additionally, if you have the volume on, you'll hear confirmation of the action being spoken to you. Right now this feature only works for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the flashlight. However, it will still bring up shortcuts to your other settings -- like GPS, NFC and Airplane mode -- if you ask it to toggle them. Source: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/toggle-android-5-0-device-settings-with-your-voice/

YouTube Flips Switch on 360° Videos

Toggle Android 5.0 device settings with your voice.

As we inch closer to a world in which virtual reality is no longer science fiction, YouTube is taking the early lead as the destination of choice for 360-degree videos made specifically for VR headgear. Parent company Google on Friday flipped the switch on 360-degree video uploading but don't get excited just yet.

Google offers up a few tips to get the most out of your 360-degree camera. For starters, you’ll want to encode video at a high resolution. YouTube currently supports 360 degree videos with 24, 25 or 30 frames per second with plans to add higher frame rates soon.

Another restriction you’ll find is that only four cameras – Giroptic 360cam, IC Real Tech Allie, Kodak SP360 and Ricoh Theta – are compatible with YouTube as of today.

This list will no doubt swell as more cameras hit the market.

Assuming you have the right camera, it’s still not as simple as just upload a video like normal. Uploaders will need to include certain metadata for 360-degree playback which can either be enabled by running a YouTube-created app or through a Python script. Details for both methods can be found by clicking here.

While it’s cool to see YouTube jumping onboard the 360-degree bandwagon early, don’t expect much in terms of quality right now as it being compared to that of a 2004 flip phone. Remember those? When viewing these videos you can use the mouse to pan around on a desktop or laptop but only with Chrome.

Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/60054-youtube-flips-switch-360-degree-videos-image-quality.html

2

Keyboard Shortcuts - + Math Edition + -

Alt+0215 - Multiplication

symbol (×)

Alt+0247 - Division

symbol (÷)

Alt+224 - Alpha symbol

(α)

Alt+225 - Beta symbol

(ß)

Alt+227 - Pi symbol (π)

Alt+228– Uppercase

Sigma/Summation

symbol (Σ)

Alt+230 - Mu/Micro

symbol (µ)

Alt+233 - Theta symbol

(Θ)

Alt+234 - Omega symbol

(Ω)

Alt+236 - Infinity symbol

(∞)

Alt+239 - Intersection

symbol (∩)

Alt+240 - Exactly

Identical symbol (≡)

Alt+241 - Plus or Minus

symbol (±)

Alt+242 - Greater Than

or Equal to symbol (≥)

Alt+243– Less Than or

Equal to symbol (≤)

Alt+247 - Approximately

Equal to symbol (≈)

Alt+248 - Degree symbol

(°)

Alt+251 - Square Root

symbol (√)

4 Tips & Tricks Every Android User Needs to Know by Ben Stegner

Android is an awesome mobile operating system, but feeling lost while using it is completely understandable. Below are some tips and tricks that will give you even more control over your device. Let’s begin!

Control Your Default Apps and Notifications

When you open a link on Android, if you have multiple apps that can handle it, you’ll have to choose which one you’d like to use. This pop-up includes two choices: Just Once and Always. Choosing the former means you’ll be asked next time you try to open a similar link, while the latter sets that app as default for those kind of links. If you always open a particular link with the same app, it makes sense to just set it as the default.

Should you need to clear that app due to a mistake, just head to Settings > Apps > [App Name] and choose Clear Defaults to reset your choice.

While you’re in settings, you can also clear the Show Notifications box if you’d prefer not to be notified by an app at all.

Make Changes to Your Apps on the Play Store

Google Play is the place to get all kinds of apps for your Android. You might however be irritated by some of the behaviors it exhibit. So here’s how to fix them.

First, you might notice that apps automatically update without you having to explicitly tell them to. Since keeping everything up to date keeps you safe, it’s wise to leave this enabled so your apps don’t become horribly outdated. However, some may be concerned about these updates using their data plan or otherwise object to the practice.

If you want to take on the responsibility for updates, open the Play Store on your phone and tap the slide-out menu in the top left, followed by Settings. In this menu, you can turn auto updates off completely, enable them on WiFi only, or let them run at any time. The WiFi option is probably the wisest choice, but it’s up to you.

Turn Off Autocorrect

Autocorrect is essential on most Android devices, as typing on a tiny keyboard doesn’t lend itself well to accuracy. The best keyboards all implement autocorrect with varying degrees of success, but sometimes you don’t want your phone to assume it knows what you mean. For those times when you’re just jotting down notes or practicing your typing accuracy, you can easily turn off auto-correction.

Take a Screenshot

Screenshots are extremely useful for illustrating an issue you’re having or for capturing a funny moment, perhaps in a text message or on Facebook. Thankfully, in recent versions of Android, the action for taking a screenshot has been simplified. Just push Power + Volume Down (might not work for older android devices) at any time to take a picture of what’s on the screen. It will be saved to your Gallery; from there you can send it to a friend or post it online.

Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-tips-tricks-every-android-user-needs-know/ 3

6 FREE ANDROID APPS THAT ARE

WORTH CHECKING OUT.

1. Nova Launcher - blows

away almost every other

Android launcher available.

This launcher offers the

best balance of

performance and options.

2. Commandr For Google

Now - this app adds a

number of useful

commands to Google Now.

After using it, you'll wonder

why Google didn't include

this much power in Google

Now from the beginning.

3. Malwarebytes - this

antimalware app is top of

its class. Maybe you will

never need it -- but on the

off chance that you do,

you'll be glad its there

4. WPS Office - one of the

best mobile productivity

suite. It's lightweight, full-

featured, cloud-ready, fully

Word/PowerPoint/Excel

compatible and supports

wireless printing.

5. Chaos Control - a task

manager based on GTD

methodology and does an

outstanding job of keeping

you on track.

6. MacroDroid - a task

automation and

configuration app that

focuses heavily on usability

with a simple UI and logical

step by step process.

To see other top apps check out the full article : http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-free-android-apps-that-are-worth-checking-out/

Accelerating the Web By SICARII13

As web users, an important aspect of web surfing, other than UI, is page load time. No user likes to sit before their screen watching the loading indicator for a few seconds after typing a URL. From a designer/developer stand-point, slow page load times affects a website’s search engine ranking. To address this matter and improve content delivery, web acceleration is used.

Web Acceleration is the process of speeding up the transfer of content between a Web server and a client browser. Web accelerators can be a self-contained hardware appliance or installable software and may be installed on the client (browsing) computer or mobile device, on ISP servers, on the server computer/network, or a combination.

In order for high traffic sites to support hundreds, and at times thousands, of users and to scale to meet high volumes, modern computing best practices require adding more servers to handle more requests. Continuously adding web servers can become an expensive endeavor. Web Acceleration uses various methods to speed delivery of both static and dynamic content enabling Web servers to handle more client requests without the need for more hardware.

Web accelerators may use several techniques to achieve a reduction in access time which includes:

HTTP Optimization: One of the

primary ways to accelerate Web traffic is by using a Load Balancer or Reverse Proxy server to optimize HTTP traffic as it flows between clients and back-end servers. Through HTTP optimization techniques, the Load Balancer sits in between clients and servers accepting requests for Web content and sending them to the server pool in a streamlined and efficient manner that maximizes speed and server utilization.

Caching and pre-fetching: Web Acceleration servers can cache or locally store commonly requested information so that additional time and effort is not wasted to fetch that content over and over from back-end Web servers, resulting in overall content acceleration. If the Web content changes from time to time then the Web Accelerator can refresh it’s cache at a specified interval.

Compression: A Web Accelerator can compress large documents that are being passed back and forth such as images to speed up transfer times.

SSL Processing: Some advanced Web Accelerators can offload additional processing to free up back-end Web server resources such as encrypting and decrypting documents during secure SSL transmissions.

Find out how “Loading Affects Your Bottom Line“ here: https://sicarii13.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/accelerating-the-web/

4

CHIPS Upcoming Events LACE Workshop on March 20th

Start studying we will be having mock interviews at the workshop.

Imagine a future in which a device connected to a computer can print a solid object. A future in which we can have tangible goods as well as intangible services delivered to our desktops or high-street shops over the Internet. And a future in which the everyday "atomization" of virtual objects into hard reality has turned the mass pre-production and stock-holding of a wide range of goods and spare parts into no more than an historical legacy.

Such a future may sound like it is being plucked from the worlds of Star Trek. However, while transporter devices that can instantaneously deliver us to remote locations may remain a fantasy, 3D printers capable of outputting physical objects have been in both development and application for over three decades, and are now starting to present a whole host of new digital manufacturing capabilities. 3D printing may therefore soon do for manufacturing what computers and the Internet have already done for the creation, processing and storage of information. Such a possibility has also started to capture mainstream media attention. The Economist, for example, has now published several articles on 3D printing, including The Printed World (February 2011), and most recently the superb 3D Printing Scales Up (September 2013).

Whether or not they arrive en-masse in the home, 3D printers have many promising areas of potential future application. They may, for example, be used to output spare parts for all manner of products, and which could not possibly be stocked as part of the inventory of even the best physical store. Hence, rather than throwing away a broken item (something unlikely to be justified a decade or two hence due to resource depletion and enforced recycling), faulty goods will be able to be taken to a local facility that

will call up the appropriate spare parts online and simply print them out.

3D printers may also be used to make future buildings. To this end, a team at Loughborough University is working on a 3D concrete printing project that could allow large building components to be 3D printed on-site to any design, and with improved

thermal properties.

Another possible future application is in the use of 3D printers to create replacement organs for the human body. This is known as bio printing, and is an area of rapid development.

In an age in which the news, books, music, video and even our

communities are all the subjects of digital dematerialization, the development and application of 3D printing reminds us that human beings have both a physical and a psychological need to keep at least one foot in the real world. 3D printing has a bright future, not least in rapid prototyping (where its impact is already highly significant), but also in the manufacture of many kinds of plastic and metal objects, in medicine, in the arts, and in outer space. Desktop 3D printers for the home are already a reality, and should cost no more than a few hundred dollars by 2015. 3D printers capable of outputting in colour and multiple materials also exist and will continue to improve to a point where functional products will be able to be output. As devices that will provide a solid bridge between cyberspace and the physical world -- and as an important manifestation of the Second Digital Revolution, 3D printing is therefore likely to play some part in all of our futures.

5

A Look at 3D Printing : Could this be the manifestation of the 2nd Digital Revolution?

Have Something to Share?

Send your articles to chips@ncu.edu.jm and see them

here!

When Apple announced its new MacBook last week, I was initially excited.

A Retina display — with resolution of 2,304 by 1,440 pixels — and a hugely promising 9 hours of battery life with active Web use sounded like exactly what I wanted. Plus, it weighs only slightly more than an iPad, at just 2 pounds. A nicer keyboard and a “force touch” trackpad are nifty add-ons, if not anything anyone had actually asked for.

Even the USB-C port that others have complained about didn’t bother me. I’m actually a huge fan of USB-C, partly because it finally addresses the age-old problem with USB ports: Lack of symmetry. As everyone who has ever used one can attest, there’s a huge usability flaw with USB, in that you have to plug it in with the correct side up, but there’s not an easy way to tell which is the correct side without looking closely at the plug and the receptacle. The USB-C connector, by contrast, is reversible, so you can plug it in whatever way you want.

More than that, USB is quickly turning into a nearly ubiquitous standard not only for high-speed data transfer but also for powering up devices, from smartphones to cameras to Nintendo DSes. Using it to recharge a MacBook seems like a clever and logical next step.

But when I looked closer, it became

clear that the MacBook is suffering from two serious flaws.

One, that processor! It’s a 1.1GHz or 1.2GHz Intel Core M processor, aka the “Broadwell” line of chips. Apple and other PC makers, not to mention Intel itself, have done a great job of obfuscating the differences between their chips over the past few years. Let me simplify it for you: This is a mobile chip, not a PC chip. It means the MacBook is actually closer to an iPad than it is to a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air. Don’t plan on running processor-intensive applications like PhotoShop, Logic Pro, or graphics-intensive Mac games on this device. Sure, you can probably run them, but you’ll quickly discover why Apple markets its truly powerful MacBook Pro at people who actually want to run applications like this.

Two, the USB-C port: There’s only one. While that might seem like an elegant move towards design simplicity, the fact that it is the MacBook’s source of power and only wired peripheral port is a huge

drawback. If, like many laptop users, you like to plug in your laptop while connecting it to an external monitor, you’ll be out of luck with the MacBook. It will force you to choose between recharging and connecting to a monitor. And if you want to connect to a monitor, you’ll need to buy a $79 adapter cable.

In short, this is a $1,300 netbook, more comparable to Google’s latest Chromebook Pixel than anything else.

Cult of Mac writes that the MacBook is a down payment on the future of laptops. Other PC makers may mock the MacBook today, but in a year or two, Apple will address some of the more glaring flaws (maybe adding a second USB-C port), drop the price, and mop up the competition. It followed this playbook with the initial MacBook Air, which was ridiculously overpriced and limited when it first came out, but which is an affordable workhorse today.

If Apple is indeed moving towards a more tablet-centric future, I have a suggestion: Make that Retina screen into a touchscreen, and make the keyboard detachable.

But if you did that, you’d have something a lot like Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3, wouldn’t you?

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/15/why-i-changed-my-mind-about-the-new-macbook/

Thoughts On The New MacBook by Dylan Tweney

Department of Computer and Information Sciences

Northern Caribbean University

Manchester Road, Mandeville,

Manchester.

Phone: +1876 963-7276 * E-mail: cis@ncu.edu.jm

Website: http://cis.ncu.edu.jm