Samsung Galaxy S III review: Good -- but not perfect

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19 hrs.

Wilson Rothman

Microsoft has to do it. That's what I keep telling myself. In order to convert people from the cloud-powered "ecosystems" of Apple or Google... Read more

5 hrs.

Rosa Golijan

At least two heads turned when I received my Samsung Galaxy S III recently. How could they not when I loudly exclaimed?? alright, practically squealed?? that "it's here, it's here." Those same two heads shook, an hour later, as their owners watched me hurl?obscenities?at the gadget.

"You were supposed to be perfect! Why aren't you perfect, you stupid ..."

Don't get me wrong,?I had high expectations for the Galaxy S III???and the smartphone met most of them. But what it failed to do is provide the perfection I craved, a reason to abandon my trusted iPhone 4S and finally switch to Android. It's just too rough around the edges (metaphorically speaking, of course, as its actual edges are flawlessly curved).

The Galaxy S III is easy on the eyes with its big, bright screen, smooth corners, and almost frighteningly slender body. It's powerful and speedy (for some benchmarks, check out Laptop Mag). It has a camera decent enough to make a basic point-and-shoot?unnecessary. It's battery will get you through a day.?And boy-oh-boy, many of Samsung's tweaks make Android look oh-so-appealing.

That's the big picture, of course. The?details ? the devil's always in those, isn't he? ? are where the Samsung Galaxy S III struggles to amaze.?

When the folks of Samsung first showed off?the device, they pushed its "natural interaction" front and center. This was supposed to be a phone that can listen, watch and respond in ways never experience before. Unfortunately the features which should make all that happen are unpolished.

The Galaxy S III is supposed to?recognize?whether you are looking at it or not,?and appropriately maintain comfortable?screen brightness levels. Either my eyes somehow elude all detection or the phone was trying to tell me to take a break from staring at it?? because it refused to keep the screen from dimming at times.

S Voice is a feature which is basically a counterpart to Apple's Siri. It is a personal assistant of sorts and supposed to recognize natural language. Unfortunately it's often unresponsive and prone to mangling commands, even if they are the simple ones provided as examples. (And don't even think about asking a Galaxy S III whether you'll need an umbrella in Tampa,?Florida on Friday. Such a complex?question, which is quickly answered by Siri, baffles the Samsung device.)

The Galaxy S III cleverly starts dialing a contact if you open his or her details then lift the phone to your ear. I quickly became enamored with this small but incredibly useful feature. Unfortunately it sometimes takes the device a moment or two to recognize that it's being held against my ear?? and I could definitely have manually placed the call by that point.

Are you noticing the pattern? The Galaxy S III is a solid phone. It has all the basics covered well, but it disappoints when it comes to the features that should have pushed it over the top. It's a sleek?rocket ship adorned with rusty bells and whistles.

So what's the verdict? Well, if you're an iPhone-obsessed individual like yours truly, stick with your beloved iOS device?? because the Galaxy S III won't impress you as much as you'd want it to. But if you're already an Android smartphone user and looking for an upgrade? Jog, don't walk, to the nearest store. Just because I don't think the Galaxy S III tears away the label of "best smartphone on the market right now" away from the iPhone 4S doesn't mean that it's not the best Android device at the moment.

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

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Melanie Sykes - Melanie Sykes Goes Public With 'twitter Boyfriend'

Melanie Sykes and her toy-boy Jack Cockings went public with their relationship during a day out in London this week. Despite the cloudy weather, the television presenter opted to wear a pair of extremely short workout shorts, with bright pink vest and sports trainers, as she and Jack wandered around Hampstead.

The 41-year-old and her new beau certainly played up for the cameras, laughing and joking, with Sykes at one point grabbing her own bottom with two hands. Melanie asked the photographers not to take any pictures of her sons Roman and Valentino, though seemed happy enough for the paparazzi to snap herself and new boyfriend Jack. The couple reportedly met on the micro-blogging site Twitter, sending each other a number of raunchy public messages. According to the UK's Metro newspaper, Sykes wad ridiculed for writing, "Jack the rabbit I need some bunny love so hop to it!! Xxx boing boing!!! Loooooool xxxxxxx", before adding, "'I've got the raging horn, please take me", and later telling followers she had "the giddiest knickers" of her life.

Sykes was previously married to the Italian actor Daniel Caltagirone, though they split in 2008 after having two children together. The couple's divorce was finalised in June 2009.

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Nortel finance execs caught up in tax fight

Nortel Networks Corp. has asked a bankruptcy judge to shield two of its finance executives--one current, one former--from the state of Michigan, which says the state Treasury's owed $1.7 million and someone's going to pay.

In a filing Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., Nortel asked a judge to enjoin the state from trying to collect taxes during the bankruptcy case. Nortel also wants the bankruptcy court to issue a ruling that its executives can't personally be held liable for the unpaid bills.

A spokeswoman for Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette declined comment on the Nortel tax dispute Monday, citing active litigation.

The tax tiff is not the biggest-ticket item in the bankruptcy of the telecommunications company, which is now in its fourth year. Long out of business, Nortel in the U.S. is sitting on more than $1 billion of its own cash and is angling for a share of $7.3 billion in proceeds from Nortel's global liquidation.

But the dispute highlights the perils of corporate tax trouble for executives who hold the pursestrings of companies that are circling the drain.

It's especially perilous in Michigan, a state that has seen perhaps more than its fair share of collapsed businesses and heard more than its share of excuses, said Stephen Dunn, an attorney who hands civil tax disputes for businesses. He's with Dunn Counsel PLC.

"What happens in Michigan when a business ceases operating and it owes Michigan taxes--and I mean any taxes--the taxes are assessed personally against the responsible officers," Mr. Dunn said.

"The state of Michigan is saying,'If you have the benefit of doing business in our state, if your company doesn't pay its taxes, you cannot just slip away and avoid liability,'" Mr. Dunn said.

Nortel U.S. Vice President of Finance Allen Stout and Jeff Wood, a former Nortel tax vice president who now works for Ernst & Young, got letters this year from Michigan's Treasury, the state's business tax collector. As executives with the power to say who gets paid and who doesn't, they fit the definition of responsible person, in Michigan's view.

Mr. Stout's January letter warned he could be held

...

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U.S. Steel warns imports threatening pipe market

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Epson WorkForce WF-7520

Aimed squarely at micro, small, and home offices that need wide-format printing at up to 13 by 19-inch supertabloid size?and even larger?the Epson WorkForce WF-7520 ($299.99 direct) offers almost any feature you might want in a multi-function printer (MFP). Among the most important is that it includes two trays, so you can load one with letter-size paper and one with a larger size, to let you easily use one printer for all your printing. Factor in the fast speed and reasonably high-quality output, and it easily earns a place on your short list if you need to print at larger than letter and legal size.

The WF-7520 is directly competitive with both the Brother MFC-J6910DW ($350 street, 4 stars) and the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J6710DW ($300 street, 4 stars). However, there are two key differences between both Brother models on the one hand and the WF-7520 on the other. Both Brother printers are limited to printing on a maximum 11 by 17 inch paper (tabloid size). The WF-7520 can handle standard sizes up to 13 by 19 inches and custom sizes up to 13 by 44 inches. The other difference is a higher cost per page for the WF-7520, a point I'll come back to later. For the moment, just note that whatever advantages the WF-7520 offers, it costs more to print with.

The Basics, Setup, and Speed
The WF-7520's MFP features include printing, scanning, and faxing, including over a network, and being able to work as a standalone fax machine and copier. Its strong points start with paper handling for both printing and scanning. The two 250-sheet paper trays can each hold paper as large as 13 by 19 inches, and they make it easy to load two paper sizes at once so you can switch between them. Also worth mention is the built-in duplexer for printing on both sides of the page.

For scanning, both the flatbed and the 30-page ADF can handle up to tabloid-size paper, and the ADF can duplex by turning the page over during scanning. A particularly nice touch is that the combination of a duplexing ADF and duplexing printer lets you copy both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies. Even better, unlike many MFPs with duplexing ADFs, the WF-7520 can scan in duplex for faxing and scanning as well as for copying.

Setup is standard, with the printer offering both Ethernet and WiFi network support. For my tests I connected it to a wired network and printed from a Windows Vista system.

On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), I clocked the WF-7520 at an effective 3.9 pages per minute (ppm), making it a close match to the MFC-J6910DW and MFC-J6710DW, which both came in at 4.1 ppm. Photo speed was also closely matched, with the Epson printer averaging 2 minutes 34 seconds for a 4 by 6 and both Brother printers coming in only slightly faster, at 2:23.

Output Quality and Other Issues
When it comes to output quality, the WF-7520 is par for an inkjet for text and graphics, and above par for photos. Text in my tests was easily good enough for any business application, with many fonts highly readable at sizes as small as 5 points. With graphics, I saw some minor banding in some full-page output in default mode. However, depending on your level of perfectionism, you may well consider even the default output good enough for handing out to customers or clients who you need to impress with a sense of your professionalism. The graphics quality overall is certainly suitable for almost any business use.

Photos in my tests were better than what I expect to see from drugstore prints. Black and white photos in particular scored well by not showing any tints at any shade of gray. The WF-7520 isn't quite in the same class for photos as the best inkjets aimed at serious amateur photographers and professionals, but the quality is easily good enough by most people's standards to let you print a photo at large size for framing.

Not so incidentally, photos are also the one category of output where the WF-7520 has an advantage over both Brother printers. For some offices, or for dual use in a home and home office, that alone might make it your preferred choice. Similarly, its ability to print on larger paper than the Brother printers can handle makes it the obvious choice if you need to print at the larger size. However, many offices can do without either feature. And, as I've already mentioned, the Brother printers have a clear advantage in running costs.

Based on cartridge prices and claimed yield, the running cost for the WF-7520 is 3.2 cents for a standard letter-size mono page and 11.3 cents for color. That works out to 1.5 cents more per page than the Brother printers' claimed cost for mono and 3.4 cents more for color. Depending on how many pages you print, this can add up to a large difference over the lifetime of the printer, and it's a strong argument in favor of either Brother printer.

That said, if you must have high-quality photos or the ability to print on paper larger than tabloid size, the Epson WorkForce WF-7520 may well be your printer of choice. And if running cost isn't a critical issue, the Epson WF-7520 offers enough capability to make it a more than reasonable choice in any case.

More Multi-function Printer Reviews:
??? HP Officejet 150 Mobile All-in-One
??? Epson WorkForce WF-7520
??? Kodak ESP 3.2 All-in-One Printer
??? Samsung SCX-5639FR
??? HP Officejet 4620 e-All-in-One
?? more

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England eliminates Sweden from Euros with 3-2 win

England's Danny Welbeck celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group D match between Sweden and England in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

England's Danny Welbeck celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group D match between Sweden and England in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

England's Theo Walcott celebrates after scoring during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group D match between Sweden and England in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

England's Danny Welbeck, right, celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group D match between Sweden and England in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

England's Danny Welbeck celebrates after scoring his side's third goal during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group D match between Sweden and England in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Sweden's Olof Mellberg, left, and England's Andy Carroll jump for the ball during the Euro 2012 soccer championship Group D match between Sweden and England in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, June 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) ? Theo Walcott finally got his chance at the European Championship, and he only needed three minutes to make it count.

Walcott scored shortly after coming on as a substitute and then set up Danny Welbeck for a sublime winner as England rallied for an entertaining 3-2 win over Sweden on Friday.

The result eliminated Sweden from the European Championship and put England on course for the quarterfinals. The English only need a draw against co-host Ukraine in the final group game to advance.

"Just to make my first appearance in such a high-profile arena it just means so much to me," Walcott said. "It's been a long time waiting and hopefully there'll be more to come from me."

Walcott was overlooked for his younger Arsenal teammate Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in England's opening game of the tournament, only coming on in injury time, and again began on the bench on Friday in favor of James Milner and Ashley Young. But after England wasted a halftime lead to fall behind 2-1 against a Sweden team desperate for a victory, coach Roy Hodgson turned to Walcott in the 61st minute.

Three minutes later, Walcott put England level with a swerving shot from distance after a corner was headed out to the speedy winger outside the area.

He followed that up by breaking into the area and sending a low cross to Welbeck, who flicked a backheel past a diving Andreas Isaksson in the 78th to give England its first win over Sweden in a competitive game in eight tries.

"It was a very clever finish," Hodgson said. "It was goal worthy, in my opinion, of winning the game."

England gets Wayne Rooney back in the next game after a suspension, but with Walcott and Andy Carroll both putting in strong performances, Hodgson will a tough decision as to who will be on the bench.

"We all know the ability Theo has got and that's the same right across the squad, so whoever comes on the pitch is going to make a difference," Welbeck said. "I'm very happy for Theo."

After a 1-1 draw against France, Friday's victory may silence some of the critics who thought England had become too defensive-minded under Hodgson as it proved that it can score goals when it needs to.

"We felt, from the first game, that we wanted to pick it up a bit more offensively," Walcott said. "And if you score three goals that's the main thing."

Sweden, for its part, let a second-half lead slip away for the second game in a row after falling 2-1 to Ukraine in its opener. While the Swedes put in a much-improved performance on Friday, they once again failed to shut their opponents down defensively.

"I thought we were a much better team than them," Sweden captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic said. "We've taken the lead in two games now after 60 minutes and then lost it. ... But today we played exactly the way we want to play."

In a game that featured plenty of chances for both sides, Carroll had given England the halftime lead with a powerful header in the 23rd minute that showed exactly why Hodgson elected to start the tall Liverpool forward up front. Carroll got between two defenders to meet Steven Gerrard's cross into the area as Sweden was once again exposed in the air.

But Sweden fought back through an unlikely source in Mellberg, whose shot past Joe Hart was pushed into the net by Glen Johnson. The veteran defender, who has said he will quit international football after this tournament, then rose highest to meet a long free kick from Sebastian Larsson to put the Swedes ahead in the 59th.

"It was a cracking game of football," Hodgson said. "We were reasonably comfortable at halftime and had a good control of the game before they rocked us on our heels."

But Walcott then started the English comeback when a corner was headed out to the Arsenal winger outside the area and his shot wrong-footed Isaksson, who was falling the wrong way and flailing with his arms as he watched the ball fly into the middle of the net.

"They were much more effective than we were," Sweden coach Erik Hamren said. "I'm really proud of the players. We showed the mentality and the attitude I wanted to see. ... But to win games you need also a little bit of luck."

___

Lineups:

Sweden: Andreas Isaksson, Andreas Granqvist (Mikael Lustig, 66), Olof Mellberg, Jonas Olsson, Martin Olsson, Anders Svensson, Kim Kallstrom, Sebastian Larsson, Rasmus Elm (Christian Wilhelmsson, 81), Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Johan Elmander (Markus Rosenberg, 79).

England: Joe Hart, Glen Johnson, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Andy Carroll, Ashley Young, Joleon Lescott, James Milner (Theo Walcott, 61), Scott Parker, Danny Welbeck (Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, 90).

Associated Press

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RNC threatens opening of high school football season

By ROB SHAW | The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 15, 2012
Updated: June 15, 2012 - 7:18 AM

TAMPA --

The opening Friday of?high school football season in Hillsborough County could be in jeopardy during the week of the Republican National Convention.

The same is true for any?fall sports events ? swimming, volleyball, cross country and golf ? scheduled?the week of Aug.?27.

That's because officials with the Hillsborough County school district are concerned about traffic and whether enough law enforcement officers will be available to provide security for the sporting events.

Some of the football games scheduled for Aug.?31 include Robinson at Jefferson, Blake at Leto and Brandon at Armwood.

"We are working with law enforcement to see if we need to postpone, reschedule or what," said Stephen Hegarty, spokesman for the school district. "It is quite possible it will be a completely different schedule."

So many Tampa police officers and Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies will be working during the convention, from Aug.?27 to 30, there may not enough of them available to work the athletic events.

Even on Aug.?31, the Friday after the convention ends, the officers and deputies who typically work football games may be too tired to pull extra duty.

"That's why this is such a challenge," Hegarty said. "I don't know what Friday is going to look like, and that is when we do football games."

The transportation issues revolve around teams located outside the downtown area that playing teams closer to the area where the convention will have a big impact.

Andrea Davis, spokeswoman for Tampa police, said the department has offered the district use of its school resource officers to work athletic events.

The department will have one officer at each middle school and each high school during the day ? even during the convention. Those officers, Davis said, could also staff any athletic events planned for the school.

But that may not be enough.

The number of officers assigned to a game depends on the magnitude of the rivalry and expected attendance. The need could range from as few as two officers to as many as eight, police said.

Off-duty law enforcement officers work football and volleyball games in the fall. Occasionally, they are hired for swim meets, too.

The first day of the school year is Aug. 21, the week before the convention.

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