Monthly Archives: November 2012

Real Talk Texas Episode 9 Part 1 KLIF 11/11/12
Steve is joined by Estate Planning Expert, Lori Ashmore Peters, to discuss the importance of protecting your estate with a Will. Over 70% of Americans don #39;t have a Will. This creates unnecessary court costs for the family and friends of the recently departed. Daughter of retired Probate Judge Joseph Ashmore, Lori has fought to protect the estates of Dallas families since 1996. As a managing attorney at the Firm founded by her father, Probate Law and Estate Planning is in Lori #39;s DNA. Learn tips and techniques to legally ensure your family is properly taken care of in the event of your absence and find out what can happen to your property in Texas Probate Courts if your Will was drafted without the oversight of an attorney.From:realtalktexasradioViews:0 0ratingsTime:08:05More inNews Politics

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Real Talk Texas Episode 9 Part 1 KLIF 11/11/12 - Video

Real Talk Texas Episode 9 Part 2 KLIF 11/11/12
Steve is joined by Estate Planning Expert, Lori Ashmore Peters, to discuss the importance of protecting your estate with a Will. Over 70% of Americans don #39;t have a Will. This creates unnecessary court costs for the family and friends of the recently departed. Daughter of retired Probate Judge Joseph Ashmore, Lori has fought to protect the estates of Dallas families since 1996. As a managing attorney at the Firm founded by her father, Probate Law and Estate Planning is in Lori #39;s DNA. Learn tips and techniques to legally ensure your family is properly taken care of in the event of your absence and find out what can happen to your property in Texas Probate Courts if your Will was drafted without the oversight of an attorney.From:realtalktexasradioViews:0 0ratingsTime:11:35More inNews Politics

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Real Talk Texas Episode 9 Part 2 KLIF 11/11/12 - Video

HTC DROID DNA with 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches display (~441 ppi )
HTC DROID DNA with 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches (~441 ppi )From:flagphonesViews:0 0ratingsTime:03:19More inScience Technology

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HTC DROID DNA with 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches display (~441 ppi ) - Video

Real Talk Texas Episode 9 Part 4 KLIF 11/11/12
Steve is joined by Estate Planning Expert, Lori Ashmore Peters, to discuss the importance of protecting your estate with a Will. Over 70% of Americans don #39;t have a Will. This creates unnecessary court costs for the family and friends of the recently departed. Daughter of retired Probate Judge Joseph Ashmore, Lori has fought to protect the estates of Dallas families since 1996. As a managing attorney at the Firm founded by her father, Probate Law and Estate Planning is in Lori #39;s DNA. Learn tips and techniques to legally ensure your family is properly taken care of in the event of your absence and find out what can happen to your property in Texas Probate Courts if your Will was drafted without the oversight of an attorney.From:realtalktexasradioViews:0 0ratingsTime:11:34More inNews Politics

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Real Talk Texas Episode 9 Part 4 KLIF 11/11/12 - Video

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless said on Tuesday that it plans to sell HTC Corp's latest smartphone, the Droid DNA, as its flagship phone for the holiday season.

The device may help HTC in its battle against arch-rivals Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc, to which it has heavily lost ground in recent years.

While Verizon Wireless also sells Samsung and Apple phones, its promise that the Droid DNA is its "flagship for the season" may indicate heavier marketing of that particular device.

"We think it's poised to be a real blockbuster for the holidays and certainly into 2013," Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer Tami Erwin said at a press event.

The Droid DNA will cost $199 to customers who sign a two-year contract and goes on sale November 21, the day before Thanksgiving, the un-official start of the shopping season.

The device has a large 5-inch display and a high-resolution image quality for photographs and video.

The DNA's displays pictures with a 440 pixels per inch density, which according to HTC is the sharpest resolution so far on a smartphone screen. In comparison, Apple's latest iPhone offers a 326 pixels per inch display while the Samsung Galaxy S III has 306 pixels per inch.

"This screen is really what sets Droid DNA apart," said Jonah Becker, HTC's design director who took the unusual step of comparing several of the phone's features directly with Samsung devices at the event.

The executive said the phone's display had an 80 degrees viewing angle, which was much wider than that of the Galaxy S III, and he said that the display is also brighter than the S III, Samsung's flagship phone.

HTC likely made the Samsung comparison because both HTC and Samsung devices run on Google Inc Android software, Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said.

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Verizon to sell HTC's Droid DNA smartphone as holiday flagship

The HTC Droid DNA - oh, sorry, the "Droid DNA by HTC" - is Verizon Wireless's new flagship smartphone. It beats every other phone on the market on specs, with an amazing 443-pixel-per-inch 1,920-by-1,080 screen. I got a little time with it today, and I was pleasantly surprised in several different ways.

I've always been a fan of HTC's materials and design, but I'm not a fan of big phones. Here, though, HTC has designed a big phone that doesn't feel like one. While the DNA is definitely a Phone of Size, I found it much easier to cradle in my hand than competing "phablets" like either generation of Samsung's Galaxy Note. A big part of that is the very narrow bezel around the 5-inch screen. That keeps the phone narrow, which is a much bigger component of comfort than a phone's length.

The much-vaunted 1080p Super LCD 3 screen is certainly sharp. In Web pages, it seemed almost too sharp; I could easily call up text that was too small for my eyes to read. But showing a 1080p version of the new James Bond movie (how did Verizon get hold of that?), the sharpness really paid off. No details were lost. I'll be interested to see whether the super-high-res screen is a drag on the Qualcomm S4 Pro processor, the way the Google Nexus 10 tablet's super-duper-high-res screen drags down its Samsung Exynos processor.

Speaking of the quad-core S4 Pro, I was surprised to find this powerful processor in a phone that was slim, light, and appeared to run relatively cool. It makes other S4 Pro phone, the LG Optimus G, feels boxy and plasticky.

The Droid DNA runs Android 4.1 with HTC's Sense 4+ extensions. I saw a colorful contact book widget made of thumbnails of faces, a super-high-res photo gallery widget, and the usual elegant weather and clock widgets. Everything ran very smoothly, but that's what you should expect from an S4 Pro-based device.

Verizon loaded a bunch of bloatware on here, so be warned. There are a few Verizon apps, along with an American Express app, Amazon and Reign of Amira, a new game designed by Qualcomm to show off the S4 Pro. I'd like to see how it performs on Need for Speed: Most Wanted, my current top gaming stress test.

We'll have a full review of the HTC Droid DNA before it hits shelves on November 21. For now, check out our hands on and unboxing slides above, as well as HTC: We're Not Backing Away From Android.

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HTC Droid DNA : Hands On and Unboxing

For the first time, researchers have used DNA sequencing to help bring an infectious disease outbreak in a hospital to a close.

This helped stop the outbreak earlier, saving possible harm to patients. This approach is much more accurate than current methods used to detect hospital outbreaks.

Using this technology, the team revealed that the outbreak had extended into the wider community, a conclusion that could not be reached with available methods. They also used sequencing to link the outbreak to an unsuspecting carrier, who was treated to eradicate MRSA.

We are always seeking ways to improve our patient care and wanted to explore the role that the latest sequencing technologies could play in the control of infections in hospitals, says Dr Nick Brown, author, consultant microbiologist at the Health Protection Agency and infection control doctor at Addenbrookes Hospital Cambridge.

Our aim is to prevent outbreaks, and in the event that they occur to identify these rapidly and accurately and bring them under control. What we have glimpsed through this pioneering study is a future in which new sequencing methods will help us to identify, manage and stop hospital outbreaks and deliver even better patient care.

Over a six month period, the hospital infection control team used standard protocols to identify 12 patients who were carrying MRSA. However, this standard approach alone could not give enough information to confirm or refute whether or not an ongoing outbreak was actually taking place.

In this study, the researchers analysed MRSA isolates from these 12 patients with DNA sequencing technology and demonstrated clearly that all the MRSA bacteria were closely related and that this was an outbreak.

They also revealed that the outbreak was more extensive than previously realised, finding that over twice as many people were carrying or were infected with the same outbreak strain. Many of these additional cases were people who had recent links to the hospital but were otherwise healthy and living in the community when they developed a MRSA infection.

While this sequencing study was underway, the infection control team identified a new case of MRSA carriage in the Special Care Baby Unit, which occurred 64 days after the last MRSA-positive patient had left the same unit.

The team used advanced DNA sequencing to show in real time that this strain was also part of the outbreak, despite the lack of apparent links between this case and previous patients. This raised the possibility that an individual was unknowingly carrying and transmitting the outbreak MRSA strain.

Excerpt from:
DNA sequence maps superbug outbreak

13 November 2012 Last updated at 11:15 ET

Police in Northern Ireland can retain indefinitely DNA samples and fingerprints of convicted offenders, the High Court in Belfast has ruled.

Judges rejected a test case which tried to establish the policy was a breach of privacy rights.

A European ruling had found it was wrong to retain the profiles of people who had been found innocent.

Lawyers for a man convicted of drink-driving had tried to get this extended to those guilty of "lesser offences".

They had predicted that if judges backed their case, it could lead to the destruction of vast amounts of police records throughout Europe.

The retention of data serves the additional purpose of discouraging a convicted offender from re-offending

According to records, there are some 700,000 fingerprints and 123,000 DNA samples on the database in Northern Ireland alone.

Fergus Gaughran provided his fingerprints, a photograph and DNA profiles after being arrested for suspected drink-driving near Camlough, County Armagh in October 2008.

He later pleaded guilty to the offence and was disqualified from driving for a year.

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Judges reject DNA samples appeal

Owners must give consent for the DNA sample to be taken from their pet, but once they are on the database their behaviour can be logged for their entire lifetime.

According to council documents, the council resolved that the dog warden should visit 'fouling hotspots' in the villages to try and catch the offenders, as well as explore the creating a canine DNA database.

The council stated: "(This meeting) was in response to complaints from residents that some dog owners living in the parish were not picking up after their dogs.

"Notices regarding fining owners should be renewed and that the dog warden should make regular visits to the area.

"If this still remains a problem (we will look into the possibility of taking) DNA from the poo and tracing it back to the dog and its owner."

However locals fear the plans represent a 'Big Brother' society.

Margaret Greenway, 54, said: "You wouldn't expect a human being to be forced to give a DNA sample unless they were suspected of something serious.

"To expect a dog to do this for something so small is just too much. "There has been a problem with dog fouling around this area but I don't think this is the way to solve it."

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DNA database to catch foul dogs

You can't help but feel that there's always a mix of good news and bad news when a new Android phone is launched. The good news is that there's a brand new phone for people to choose. The bad? That a phone you bought yesterday feels utterly outdated.

The new Droid DNA by HTC is that exact mixture of good and bad news. The phone tops all the new Android phones when it comes to raw hardware specs. Yes, it even beats the brand new Nexus 4 by Google and LG, and the Samsung Galaxy Note II, which just launched on T-Mobile and other networks.

WATCH: Droid DNA First Look Video

So what does this phone have that the others don't? A full 1080p screen, to start. The Droid DNA is the first smartphone ever to have a 1920 x 1080-resolution, 5-inch screen. By comparison, the Nexus 4 has a 4.7-inch 1280 x 768-resoution display and the iPhone 5 has a 4-inch, 1136 x 640 screen.

What that resolution translates to is very, very crisp text and images. A 1080p video on the phone looks incredibly crisp, and thanks to the SuperLCD 3 technology the colors are vibrant and realistic. And that's based on some hands-on experience with the phone; not just the company's marketing materials.

Beyond the screen, the Droid DNA is full of other top-of-the line hardware components. It is powered by a quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, and runs on Verizon's LTE network. The phone runs Android 4.1, or Jelly Bean, with HTC's own Sense software. Similar to the software it had on its HTC One X, the customizations don't slow down the performance of the phone and add some nice animations and design elements.

HTC seems to have done most of the improvements on the software for the camera. The phone has an 8-megapixel camera with HTC's ImageSense software and hardware, which improves optics and adds some new photo features. The new sightseeing mode, for example, lets you launch the camera just by pressing the lock button; it automatically launches the camera so you don't miss a shot when you are out and about seeing a new place.

The 2.1-megapixel, front-facing camera has also been improved with a wide-angle lens. The Auto Portrait software also counts down before taking a self-portrait so you can prepare your hair or make sure you don't have anything in your teeth.

And even with all that inside, the DNA is just 4mm thick. While the large screen makes it a bit unwieldy to hold and really isn't for anyone with smaller hands, the soft-touch back and the curved edges give it a nice feel. HTC still says it can provide a full day's worth of battery life, but you can't swap out the battery if it doesn't live up to the promise.

It's one well-rounded piece of hardware, but how can we know that the next great Android phone won't come out next week or next month? Has the spec contest finally leveled off?

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Droid DNA : More Android with More Pixels