Nokia Lumia 920 Hands On
Visually, the Lumia 920 looks almost identical to the Lumia 800 and
the Lumia 900. Although Nokia has been recycling this design for some
time now, it still looks beautiful. Nokia has once again used
polycarbonate plastic for the unibody design, which has a glossy finish
that looks and feels great.
Much has been said about the weight of the Lumia 920. There is no
doubt that the phone is heavier than many of the current high-end
smartphones out there on the market today. But is that really a bad
thing? Not really. It takes a while to adjust to the weight if you're
moving from a lighter device but after a couple of hours you hardly
notice it. It's also not that big an issue when it comes to carrying it
around in your pocket. The solid polycarbonate body and the heft also
means the phone feels built to last like few devices out there.
Moving on, the Lumia 920 uses a 4.5-inch, 1280 x 768 resolution,
PureMotion HD+ LCD with ClearBlack technology. That sounds like a lot of
jargon but what's important is that the display looks fantastic. The
colors are vivid yet natural and Nokia's PureMotion tech ensures no
motion blur while scrolling. The sunlight visibility is also excellent,
thanks to the ClearBlack technology. Compared side by side to a Galaxy S
III directly under the sun, the Lumia 920's display was a lot clearer
and less washed out. Also, you can use the touchscreen on the Lumia 920
even through gloves.
In terms of software, the Lumia 920 is running Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 operating system. Compared to other devices on the market, Nokia's Lumia series gets the benefit of Nokia's superior apps and services (Maps, Music, etc.) and also some exclusive games and apps from third party developers that you won't find on devices from, say, HTC.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, this is still Windows Phone 8, which means the app ecosystem is still in its infancy. Although Microsoft does like to boast of increasing app numbers at every event, the reality is that Windows Phone still lacks most of the major apps and games that you can get on iOS or Android, making a switch a rather difficult decision. In our short time with the Lumia 920, this was the only thing that bothered us the most, with everything else being very impressive.
Nokia is yet to announce when the Lumia 920 goes on sale in India and at what price. It is expected to go on sale some time in January and we hope Nokia does not overprice it at launch, unlike some of their recent high-end devices. The hardware is good enough to go head to head with the best smartphones out there but the software is still lacking, which is something both Nokia and the buyers need to keep in mind.
This Is Your Body on Stress
A Second Look at Stress
"It's probably just stress." How many times have you
heard those words from your doctor -- or uttered them yourself -- as you
complained about the latest ache in your shoulder or pain in your
stomach? Before you write it off as just stress, think again. Stress
isn't something to be ignored. It's a whole-body experience that, if
left unchecked and untreated, can make you old before your time. No body
part is spared. From your brain and heart to your muscles and immune
system, stress can affect every part of you, leaving you vulnerable to
pain, illness, and disease. Stress-related complaints account for at
least three-quarters of office visits to doctors, and more than 40
percent of all adults suffer health problems as a result of stress. But
research shows that stress affects men and women differently -- not just
physically, but in the way they cope with it. A poll by the American
Academy of Family Physicians, based in Leawood, Kansas, showed that 42
percent of women regularly fail to manage their stress, compared with 31
percent of men.
So why don't we take stress more seriously? Probably because
people think of stress as an emotional state. They don't realize that
this emotional response triggers a cascade of physical changes. Of
course, a little stress isn't always bad. The pressure of a job deadline
can inspire a burst of creativity; the adrenaline triggered during an
emergency can help us think clearly and act quickly. But the daily,
unrelenting stress that many people experience -- bills, work, unruly
kids -- can be remarkably hard on the body. When daily life means your
internal stress switch gets stuck in the "on" position, stress can start
to take an exacting toll on virtually every body part.
If you're a human mammal, however, stress comes from something more insidious than a toothy predator: anxiety triggered by the passive-aggressive boss, the 30-year mortgage, and the job of caring for children as well as the ill parent. It's not just high blood pressure or heart attacks. Stress can give you headaches, back pain, indigestion, depression, diabetes, and sleep problems. Stress can make you fat, cause your hair to fall out, and ruin your sex life. It wears on your heart, your memory, and your immune system, and may even give a boost to those rogue cells that can eventually lead to cancer.
It's impossible to predict exactly how stress will take its toll and where you will feel it most. Some people tense up and feel aches in their muscles; others get headaches or tightness in the chest. How your body responds to stress is determined by genetics, your lifestyle, and even your earliest life experiences (childhood trauma and emotional distress can make you more vulnerable to stress as an adult). Whether you have power and control at work, close friendships and a good marriage also play a role.Visible physical reactions are only the most obvious signs. Inside the body, stress triggers changes that can take years to show up. "Stress definitely takes a quiet toll,"
The Early-Aging Effect
That toll can make your body age more
quickly than it should. Increasingly, medical researchers are viewing
our ability to cope with stress as one of the most important factors for
predicting how well the heart, brain, and other organs withstand wear
and tear. Nuns who have demonstrated optimism, a positive
attitude, adaptability, and a sense of humor all have aged better than
nuns without those personality traits. The women have led remarkably
similar lives -- eating the same foods, living in the same places, and
interacting with the same people. The more positive nuns
may have developed more effective coping strategies that stressed their
bodies less, allowing them to lead more energetic lives -- and to live
more than 10 years longer. But just because you're feeling stressed out now doesn't mean
you're destined for premature aging. Understanding the stress effect
gives you more opportunities to manage it before it does any real harm.
And because stress affects so much of the body, there's a big payoff
once you learn how to deal with it.
The Right Way to Manage Stress
Most of us just treat the
symptoms -- taking an aspirin for a headache or a sleep aid for insomnia
-- without focusing on the underlying cause. And even when we do try to
relieve the source of our stress, it's usually too little too late:
taking a weekend off or squeezing in a brief vacation. What you need is a
whole-body approach, but it has to be the right approach, one that has
an impact on your actual, everyday life.
Think of it this way: One week away won't help your stress the
other 51 weeks a year. Stress is in your life every day, doing its
damage. Stress management works only if you make it a daily part of your
health routine, like brushing your teeth and getting enough sleep. The
best starting point is to take care of yourself. Get used to the idea
that everyday stress is inevitable and what matters is how you respond
to it. Part of that is mental -- you need to be on top of how you
respond to the stressors life hits you with. The rest is physical. A
healthy body can weather the ravages of stress better than an unhealthy
one. Stress-proof your body by eating the right foods, getting enough
sleep, and exercising. Some strategies that can help:
- Pay attention to your aches and pains. They're early warning signs. One of the first places stress shows up is in the shoulders and the back of the head. That telltale tightness is your body telling you to take action and find an outlet for your stress before it has time to do even more damage.
- Stay close to friends and family. Stress releases oxytocin, the bonding hormone that's also produced when mothers breastfeed their babies. (Men produce this hormone, too, but while a woman's estrogen enhances the effects of oxytocin, a man's testosterone inhibits it.) Stress causes the release of this "tend and befriend" hormone -- triggering a desire to pull children and friends close. This closeness in turn releases more oxytocin, which actually helps dampen stress hormones. In fact, studies show that breast-cancer patients who join support groups have lower levels of stress hormones. Therefore, when you're stressed out, use women's secret weapon against stress: Call your mom, call a friend, or have some fun with your kids. Stress levels drop when you like the company you're keeping.
- Choose the right exercise. The body's stress response evolved to help us fight off a threat or run away from danger. Under stress your body sends a spurt of glucose to your muscles to give you a burst of speed and strength. There's also a shutdown mechanism: Once you actually escaped from a predator, you would stop running. Your body would interpret that as "the threat is gone" and shut down the stress response.
- That's why exercise still helps relieve stress. First exercising -- then stopping -- mimics this energy spurt/shutdown reaction. Your body doesn't know that the stress you're trying to escape is an annoying boss or a family crisis. It just processes the fact that you've responded, then relaxed. It doesn't take much. A quick walk, 10 minutes on the treadmill, or a game of tug with the family beagle usually is enough to release your stress and turn down the stress response.
Make sure you pick an exercise you like. If you loathe slogging away on a treadmill, the activity may actually add to your stress. Something to think about as you devise your mini-escape from the rat race: In actual rodent studies, animals forced to exercise show a surge in stress hormones, while rodents allowed to trot freely on the exercise wheel when they want to have lower levels of stress hormones.- Try to gain a sense of control over something. Workers who have little control over their day have more workplace stress than managers with power. While you may not be able to change your job, it still helps to find control where you can. Volunteer for projects at work that interest you. Restore order to a messy kitchen drawer.
- Laugh it up. You wouldn't think that time in front of the
tube would do much for your health, but studies show that half an hour
to an hour of nightly television comedy can be a medical plus.
In an Indiana study, women cancer patients had lower stress hormones and higher natural "killer" cell activity (killer cells attack viruses and cancers) Laughter pushes cortisol levels down and increases killer cell levels. The immune-boosting effects of laughter lasted as long as 12 hour.
In another study, diabetic patients who had suffered a heart attack were "prescribed" a nightly 30-minute regimen of TV comedy. After a year they showed drops in blood pressure, used less medication for chest pain, and had 80 percent fewer heart attacks than a control group that didn't regularly watch funny television.
- Cuddle your kids. This will make you feel better, but that's not all. It's stress innoculation. Whether a child grows up in a stable, loving home or a stressful environment has a huge impact on his or her ability to cope with stress as an adult.
- If self-help doesn't help, consult a professional. Though no one can eliminate everything that stresses her, you can try to control the emotional reactions that turn on your stress response. It's not easy, needless to say. Some people benefit from therapy that teaches stress-coping skills. Learning meditation is another way to build calmness into your life. Ask your primary care doctor for advice on finding experts who can help.
Stress Stop: Your Heart
Stress Response 1: Rapid
release of glucose and fatty acids into the bloodstream gives you a
burst of energy. But if your muscles don't use that glucose to run from
danger, chronic stress can leave you with blood sugar levels that are
elevated or fluctuating out of control.
Damage Alert
- Blood sugar swings can leave you tired and worsen diabetes, if you have it.
- High bloodstream levels of glucose and fatty acids also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Stress prompts the body to release cortisol, which makes the arteries more vulnerable to the buildup of cholesterol. This may explain why some studies have found a link between stress and high cholesterol.
- There's growing evidence that stress increases the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that include collecting fat around the waistline, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and high triglyceride levels. Possible result: cardiovascular disease.
Stress Response2: An increase in heart rate,
blood pressure, and breathing delivers more oxygen faster throughout
your body. These physiological changes help your body react with
strength and stamina during an emergency.
Damage Alert
- Chronic stress can mean lasting high blood pressure and a lot more wear and tear on the heart. One study showed that male government workers in London with stressful jobs for more than 14 years were almost twice as likely to have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and insulin intolerance compared with workers who weren't exposed to stress. The most stressed-out workers? Those with demanding jobs who had very little control over how they spent their day.
- Even short-term, intense stress poses a risk. Short-term deadline pressure are at six times higher risk of heart attack in the following 24 hours.
Stress Stop: Your Immune System
Stress Response:
Stress hormones help shut down body functions that aren't needed in an
emergency, including your immune system. An alternative theory proposes
that your immune system first goes into overdrive, then shuts down. The body essentially turns off its long-term building
"projects" so it can put all its energy and resources into dealing with
the immediate crisis.
Damage Alert
- Ideally, these functions are shut down just long enough for you to get out of immediate danger. When the stress hormones keep coming, your immune response and other functions suffer.
- When researchers injected a cold virus into 394 volunteers, those who reported having very little stress in their lives had such supercharged immune systems that they were half as likely to get sick as volunteers who described having high stress levels.
Stress Stop: Your Waistline
Stress Response: There's
growing evidence that chronic stress can make you thick around the
middle -- both heavier in general and more likely to accumulate
dangerous abdominal fat. The stress hormone cortisol causes fat to be
stored around the abdomen. Stress hormones also play a role in certain
medical conditions that cause weight gain, such as night-eating syndrome
(binge eating in the middle of the night). However, short-term
overeating may result in a temporary lowering of stress hormones.
Damage Alert
The stress response of accumulating fat at the abdomen, rather than
at the hips, is linked to heart disease. A women who
stored fat at the waist to pear-shaped women who stored fat at the hips
found that women with abdominal fat consistently secreted more cortisol
in response to stressful lab tasks than women with hip fat.
The above study also suggests that women who tend to accumulate
abdominal fat should make an extra effort to manage stress since their
body shape shows that their physical response to it is stronger.
Stress-induced weight gain takes a significant long-term toll on
the body and adds to your overall stress load. Animal research suggests
that stress may trigger the brain's reward center, causing us to seek
out better-tasting "comfort foods" -- and that the weight we gain eating
them may cause stress hormones to drop. This information comes from a
series of studies in which stressed-out rats posted higher levels of
corticosterone (the rat equivalent of cortisol), ate more and got fatter
around the belly. But then something surprising happened. Once the rats
started getting fat, their stress hormone levels dropped. The results
suggest that overeating may be a coping mechanism to help lower the
body's stress level, The problem is that even though the eating makes you feel
better and appears to solve the cortisol problem, being overweight is
itself a form of stress on the body.
Judge turns down Apple’s request to ban Samsung smartphones
Apple had been awarded $1.05 billion in damages in August after a US jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. The Samsung products run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.
After the jury verdict, Apple asked US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose to impose a permanent sales ban against 26 mostly older Samsung phones, though any injunction could potentially have been extended to Samsung’s newer Galaxy products.
In her order founded that Apple had not presented enough evidence to show that its patented features drove consumer demand for the entire iPhone.
“The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple’s patents,”
“Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple,” “it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions.”
In a separate order, rejected a bid by Samsung for a new trial based on an allegation that the jury foreman was improperly biased in favor of Apple.
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