Review: Nexus 9

Gizmag reviews the biggest Nexus tablet to date, the HTC/Google Nexus 9 (Photo: Will Shanklin/Gizmag.com)

Though Nexus phones have been around since 2010, Nexus tablets only started popping up a couple of years ago. Do the same things that worked in the Nexus 7 also work on a 9-inch sequel? Read on, for Gizmag's take on the new HTC-made Nexus 9.

The Nexus 9 sits in a strange middle ground. It isn't quite a small tablet or a full-sized tablet. Nor is it a budget tablet or a premium tablet. It's a 'tweener through-and-through, ultimately sitting somewhere between the best and the rest.

The Nexus 9 does have some terrific qualities. Its 8.9-in screen size is a nice middle-ground between "big" and "mini." If you like the 8.9-in screen size on the larger Kindle Fires – but don't like their Amazon shopping mall software – this could be the tablet for you.

It's also the rare Android tablet with an iPad-like 4:3 aspect ratio (meaning its screen is shaped a bit more boxy, a bit less oblong). I think 4:3 is the best ratio for tablets, as you can enjoy it just as easily in portrait mode or landscape mode.

The screen is also sharp and bright, with the same resolution as iPad Retina Displays. Colors don't quite pop or appear to be sitting smack dab on the surface to the degree that they do on the iPad Air 2, but there's little to be concerned about with screen quality.

The Nexus 9 has the same generic-looking matte plastic back that we saw on the Nexus 5 and 2013 Nexus 7. It worked well enough on those budget devices: you knew you were getting high-end hardware everywhere else, so a little plastic on the outside was a small price to pay.

But starting at US$400, the Nexus 9 is far from a budget tablet. Google handed manufacturing duties over to HTC, a company known of late for its premium designs, but the Nexus 9 doesn't take advantage of that at all. It feels like it could have just as easily been made by Asus or LG.

In fairness, there is a metal band running around the tablet's edge, so it isn't all plastic. But unlike the Galaxy Note 4, where a similar design approach paid dividends, the Nexus 9's casing doesn't strike me as high-end.

The Nexus 9 feels pretty light in hand, but it doesn't hold a candle to the featherweight designs we've seen in the last year from Apple and Samsung. It's only about 3 percent lighter than the iPad Air 2, despite having a 14 percent smaller face.

Like many other aspects of the Nexus 9, its weight isn't a strike against it ... but it also isn't a reason to choose it.

The Nexus 9 feels comfortable in hand, but joins the Galaxy Tab S in having one big annoyance: when holding the tablet in portrait mode with one hand, you have to be careful not to rest your finger on the side of the screen.

When you're gripping the sides of Apple's iPad Airs and iPad minis, you can rest your finger on the edge of the screen without registering it as a touch. You can swipe to your heart's content with the other hand, and it will respond as if your other thumb wasn't resting on the screen. The Nexus 9 doesn't have this edge-touch rejection.

Narrow side bezels are one of my favorite things about modern tablets. But what good are they if they make you compromise the way you hold the tablet? So far Apple is the only major tablet-maker to have addressed this.

The Nexus 9 runs Android 5.0 "Lollipop," which gives Google's OS a makeover. The new "Material Design" is a cosmetic change on the scale of Apple's flat-design shift in iOS 7 and OS X Yosemite, giving Android a cleaner and more modern look. I think it looks terrific.

Lollipop also has some big under-the-hood tweaks (Android runtime in place of Dalvik) and broader changes like better cross-device syncing. But on the user level, Material Design is by far the most noticeable difference (stay tuned for a deeper dive on Lollipop).

I have to note that I ran into a surprising number of crashes in third-party apps (Netflix, Hulu Plus and Geekbench 3), but HTC assures me that our review unit is running pre-release software and those issues should be remedied in the final shipping software.

The Nexus 9 is the first 64-bit Android tablet – and it's a speed demon. Tasks like scrolling and zooming are just a hair choppy compared to the latest iOS devices, but multitasking is lightning-fast. On the whole, performance isn't remotely a concern.

Battery life is solid enough, but not great. In our benchmark, where we stream video over Wi-Fi with brightness at 75 percent, the Nexus 9 dropped 24 percentage points per hour. That's well short of the iPad Air 2, which dropped 14 percent per hour in the same test.

The Nexus 9 has a surprisingly good camera. It even has a flash. Few of us buy tablets for their cameras, but you might be surprised how crisp and clear the Nexus 9's shots are.

The Nexus 9 is a very good tablet. It isn't the best, and it no longer gives you the most bang for your buck ... but my complaints are also fairly minor.

Oddly enough, it moves in more of an iPad-like direction – with its larger screen, 4:3 aspect ratio and higher price. The problem with that, though, is that the Nexus is now pitting itself as a direct rival to the iPad. In many ways, it falls short.

The first two iPad Airs have bigger screens, higher-end builds, longer battery life and better tablet app selections than the Nexus 9. They're also thinner and (relative to size) lighter. Samsung's Galaxy Tab S ticks many of those same boxes.

The Nexus 7 had a clear identity: high-end specs stuffed into a small and cheap tablet. And though the Nexus 9 gets better in every other way, it loses that clear value proposition. At $300, it would have been a terrific buy. But at $400, it's hard to recommend over the iPad Air 1.

Just because something isn't the best, though, doesn't mean it's no good at all. And the Nexus 9 is still among the best tablets of the year. It's going to make a lot of people happy. Its biggest fault is that it decided to run against the fastest thoroughbreds.

The Google/HTC Nexus 9 starts shipping today, starting at $400 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi only model.

Names and Destiny

It is a regular belief that one’s name determines his/her destiny. This belief has been around for so many years and has been proven true. Once a baby is born, the name given to that child goes a long way in influencing his/her way of life. These days, parents do a lot of research before naming their children because they would not want to contribute to the waywardness of that child. Different cultures has names that influence the destiny of a child that is why parents give their children that has good meaning in their different cultural background. Through finding out the true meaning of your name you can discover your potentials.

 

Although Destiny is a name on its own, it means one’s fate or fortune. It is mostly given to female children but the male version of this name could be Destin, Dustin or Dustan. In most African countries, when a baby is born they are given a name in their dialect and another name in English mainly for public use. Due to the fact that one name is in their dialect it will be difficult for anyone with evil intentions to know the meaning so it is a form of protection.

In Roman countries, names are weighed equally with one’s destiny. It is only those with victorious names that were chosen to be leaders in the Roman Empire. In Europe, Runic systems are used to understand the meaning and personality attached to a name. Each Runic symbol has a special meaning and in order to understand the meaning of your name, you will convert the name to a set of runic symbol and then the personality and attributes of your name will be understood.

 

Scientists has carried out a research and discovered that children with horrible names experience bad luck, they lack self-confidence, come out with low grades and are usually faced with emotional problems. Giving your children unusual and successful names will make them successful in life.

Biblically, names carry spiritual meanings. Even the book of proverbs 22 verse 1 says that a good name is greater than all the wealth one can acquire. Make sure you choose a name not for its literal meaning but for its spiritual meaning because a child’s name goes a long way to impact his/her life.

Before choosing a name for your child, make sure you make your research to find out the meaning of the name so that you will not end up being the cause of your child’s downfall.

Nanoparticle-based material turns up the heat on concentrated solar power

A new coating material developed by UCSD researchers could help make concentrated solar power (CSP) plants more efficient (Photo: Shutterstock)

The key factor when it comes to solar power plant efficiency – be they of the photovoltaic or concentrated solar power (CSP) variety – is the amount of light that can be captured by the light-absorbing material and converted into electricity or heat. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have developed a new nanoparticle-based material that promises to improve the efficiency of CSP plants with its ability to absorb and convert over 90 percent of the sunlight it captures into heat.

Unlike photovoltaic (PV)-based solar power plants, which convert light directly into electricity, CSP plants generally use sunlight, concentrated onto a small area, to generate heat and drive a steam turbine to generate electricity. Because this is similar to the process used by fossil fuel power plants, CSP technology has the potential to be retrofitted to existing power plants to make them more environmentally friendly. The technology also has advantages over PV plants with its ability to generate electricity 24 hours a day by storing heat captured during the day in thermal tanks.

CSP plants commonly uses large numbers of mirrors to focus sunlight onto a tower spray painted with a black paint material that is designed to maximize sunlight absorption. However, being subjected to such high temperatures day after day degrades the material, meaning such plants usually need to be shut down once a year or so to allow the degraded light-absorbing material to be chipped off and a new coating applied and cured.

To overcome this problem, the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) SunShot program challenged UCSD researchers to develop a material able to operate at higher temperatures than existing materials and for much longer. With financial support from the SunShot program, a multidisciplinary team at UCSD developed a material using particles ranging in size from 10 nanometers to 10 micrometers.

When spray-painted onto a metal substrate for thermal and mechanical testing, the researchers found that the "multiscale" surface these particles form is able to withstand not only temperatures in excess of 700° C (1,292° F), but also years of exposure to air and humidity. The structures are also able to trap and absorb around 90 to 95 percent of light, while letting less than 30 percent of infrared light at near the peak of 500° C (932° F) black-body radiation escape.

The researchers say CSP plants currently account for around 3.5 gigawatts of power worldwide, but that this number is set to increase significantly with construction underway on plants that will provide up to 20 GW in the near future. The material developed at UCSD could help improve the efficiency and cut maintenance costs of CSP plants, going some way to achieving the goal of the Sunshot Initiative launched by then-Energy Secretary Steven P. Chu in 2010 that aims to make solar power cost competitive with other means of electricity generation by 2020.

Details of the material can be found in a paper published in the journal Nano Energy.

SpaceShipTwo pilots named as crash investigation begins

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has begun an investigation into the crash of SpaceShipTwo (Image: NTSB)

The pilots of the SpaceShipTwo spaceplane that crashed during a test flight on Friday have been identified. Meanwhile, Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) held a press conference on Saturday evening, where he provided details of the ongoing accident investigation.

In a press release, Scaled Composites (pdf), the builder of the vehicle, named the deceased crew member as co-pilot Michael Alsbury. The survivor is Director of Flight Operations at Scaled Composites Peter Siebold, who was piloting the spacecraft and is in hospital with severe injuries, though doctors say he is awake and alert.

Taking questions from the media, Hart said the the NTSB is conducting interviews with flight test staff and witnesses, though Siebold will not be questioned until doctors permit it. So far, no cause of the crash has been determined.

The crew of SpaceShipTwo were identified as pilot Peter Siebold (left) and co-pilot Michael Alsbury (image: Scaled Composites)

According to Hart, the FBI has aided the investigation by documenting the scene, so the debris can be removed quickly. He said that this was particularly important for one area of the crash site because a railway line needed to be reopened. Hart says that the wreckage from SpaceShipTwo is scattered across five miles (8 km) of the Mojave desert from northeast to southwest, and that the tailbooms, fuselage, fuel, methane and nitrous oxide tanks, cockpit, and engine have been recovered.

Despite this progress, many basic facts remain unknown. For example, while Alsbury was found inside the spacecraft, Investigators do not know how Siebold got out or how his parachute deployed. However, it is known from the debris spread that SpaceShipTwo broke up in the air.

Hart says that since this was a test flight, there will be a great deal of information to work with. The vehicle carried six cameras, a range camera was trained on it from Edwards Air Force Base, chase aircraft recorded video, and there are over 1,000 parameters of telemetry data.

The site investigation is scheduled to take four to seven days, followed by off site investigations and a year of analysis. In the meantime, Virgin Galactic is free to resume all operations, though the NTSB will provide recommendations.

In a statement, Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said, "The hardest part of the tragic accident is the loss of one of SpaceShipTwo’s brave test pilots, Michael Alsbury. Someone asked if I knew him. Sadly, I did not know him – because he worked for Scaled Composites – but I had had the privilege of shaking his hand briefly after he’d co-piloted SpaceShipTwo’s first powered flight and on that exciting morning in Mojave I had congratulated him on the achievement."

Some employees of Scaled Composites have also launched a gofundme campaign to raise money to help out Mike Alsbury's family, which can be found here.

The video below is of the first NTSB press conference on Saturday.

Bluesmart smart carry on brings luggage into the 21st century

The Bluesmart smart carry on brings a wealth of technology features into the world of luggage (Photo: Bluesmart)

Let’s face it, air travel sucks. You are crammed in a small cylinder at 35,000 feet with a herd of other people like cattle, noshing on junk food a cranky flight attendant pitches at you while hurrying by. Worst of all, you forgot to charge your tablet and now can’t watch all those Marvel movies you wanted to catch up on. A solution could exist to at least this last problem though, courtesy of a new so-called "connected carry-on" called Bluesmart that packs a built-in battery capable of charging your gadgets many times over.

It is, admittedly, a little weird to think about a suitcase as being technology-enabled. In a world where leaving cell phones and tablets on in airplane mode during take offs and landings was only recently given the green light, the idea of a carry-on that communicates to your smartphone wirelessly through Bluetooth seems quite foreign. It is something those behind Bluesmart swear the travel industry is ready for though, claiming they’ve gotten through airport security many times with prototypes without any problems.

A very feature laden design

Much of the interaction between a Bluesmart and your iPhone or Android device involves making use of a special app. With this app you can control a variety of the carry-on’s features, including locking/unlocking its integrated TSA-approved lock, giving you its current overall weight when you pull up on the handle to activate its built-in digital scale, tracking its location globally through a GPS module tucked into it and providing real time trip reports with multiple data points.

In addition, the Bluesmart has built into it a number of security features that work in part with the app to make sure you don’t leave it behind. These include proximity distance alerts, the ability to find the hand luggage with the help of a proximity map and automatically locking when you are away from it.

For those who have tablets and laptops, this luggage aims to provide some convenience to your travels while making use of these devices. A special compartment on the front of the Bluesmart is designed to hold this gear, while also reportedly making them easy to be removed for showing to security officials. There’s also the previously mentioned built-in battery, which is reported capable of fully recharging a smartphone six times over.

The team behind Bluesmart is looking to add more features as well, including support for other smartphone platforms, support for smart watches like the Apple Watch and a planned API. This type of future planning will likely come after the initial software and product build out, which at this point from a crowdfunding perspective looks to be a go given the huge response the carry on has attracted on Indiegogo.

As all of the early adopter packages have now been snapped up, the first available pledge level is set at US$265. If all goes to plan, the first connected hand luggage is scheduled for delivery in August 2015.

More information on the Bluesmart can be seen in the pitch video below.