Samsung's Gear 2 smartwatch thinks a new OS will solve its problems

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Gear 2, Samsung's followup to its debut dud of a smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear, is here.

Planned for an April release, the redesigned watch -- along with a cheaper, camera-less counterpart, the Gear 2 Neo -- is slimmer, lighter and packs more processing power than its predecessor. Samsung also added a new heart rate monitor for additional fitness tracking, and improved battery life to two or three days.

More interestingly, Samsung ditched Google's Android operating system in favor of Samsung's own Tizen OS, but says the watch will still be compatible with "dozens of Samsung Galaxy smartphones," which use Android.
Rumors prior to the formal announcement of the Gear 2 suggested that Samsung wanted the watch to run its own OS to attract the first wave of smartwatch and wearable developers, much like Apple was able to do with the iPhone.
Samsung hasn't said much about how the change in software affects the device in the short or long term, but chances are it's not going to make much of a difference either way: its flawed approach to the smartwatch seems intact.
Users will likely swipe and tap their way through the screens and menus of standalone smartwatch apps. There probably isn't any great leap in voice recognition or predictive/contextual delivery of information. Ultimately, those apps will do little more than direct users back to their smartphones, which offer an easier, more informative and more functional experience.
And that might still be the biggest flaw in Samsung's thinking. It's still viewing its Gear line as standalone devices, instead of as an extension of the smartphone, which they very much are. Rather than take the info being passed along from the various apps on a smartphone and integrating that into a singular interface, Samsung thinks that standalone apps will enhance the experience. The problem is that interacting with standalone apps on the original Galaxy Gear was a hassle.


Samsung can push its own Tizen OS and attempt to woo all the developers it wants, but it is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. If the core experience is flawed, no app in the world can save that.
Additionally, it adds an extra, unnecessary obstacle for any other Android hardware maker who would want its device to work with the watch. Samsung could have embraced Android as much as possible so that hardware makers and app developers had to do very little to work with the Gear smartwatch. Instead, both camps would now have to dedicate time and money to making their products work with the Gear 2.
Then again, Samsung seems OK only having the Gear work with its own smartphones.
Samsung's hardware changes to the Gear 2 seem like positive ones, but those changes only address the minor problems which plagued the original. Yes, it was big and clunky, but that didn't seem like the reason people were returning the device in droves. The lack of utility it served in people's lives was the likely culprit.
If changes to the Gear 2 software don't address many of the core, conceptual issues which plagued the Galaxy Gear -- limited utility and wonky interactions -- it could find itself again heading back to the drawing board for the Gear 3

Bill Gates regains top spot as world's richest person

Bill Gates' total net worth was estimated at $76bn this year

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has regained the top spot as the world's richest person, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of global billionaires.

Mr Gates' total net worth was estimated at $76bn (£45.5bn) this year, up from $67bn in 2013.
His rise in wealth knocked Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim off the top spot into second place.
In total, there were a record 1,645 billionaires, according to Forbes.
The funds needed to make it into the top 20 ranking are now $31bn, up from $23bn last year, Forbes said.
Mr Gates has been top of the list for 15 of the last 20 years, according to Forbes.

How rich?

A billion:

• 1,000,000,000
• One thousand million

A trillion:

• 1,000,000,000,000
• One million million

Technology firms featured heavily in the list, with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg becoming the biggest gainer in net worth.

His fortune more than doubled to $28.5bn, boosted by a sharp rise in the price of the social network's shares.
The social network's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, also made the list for the first time.
WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton entered the list at number 202 and 551 respectively, thanks to Facebook's $19bn purchase of the messaging app.
US continues to dominate The world's largest economy, the US, continues to have the most billionaires, with 492.
By region, Europe boasted the most billionaires outside the US, with 468 in total, closely followed by Asia, which had 444 billionaires.
Landlord Gerald Grosvenor and family were the richest British family to make the list, with a net worth estimated at $13bn.
Known formally as the 6th Duke of Westminster, he owns 190 acres in Belgravia, an area adjacent to Buckingham Palace and one of London's most expensive neighbourhoods.

How Mt.Gox went down

By fisko @smartsavar

  

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Bitcoin skeptics say the digital currency is doomed.

They're wrong. But the failure of Mt.Gox shows the agony of an evolving industry without any government oversight and led by tech entrepreneurs with zero financial experience.

The shutdown of Mt.Gox -- one of the world's largest bitcoin exchanges -- and the potential loss of more than $400 million worth of bitcoins is the result of abysmal mismanagement at the company.

Mt.Gox is blaming a costly computer hack for its current troubles. But in reality, the company was in dire financial straits long before that. Cash flow issues are to blame, as the exchange balanced a tiny revenue stream with a giant burning hole in its pocket.

By its own account, Mt.Gox collected only $380,450 in revenue during most of 2012. But it lost 13 times that the next year, when U.S. government agents seized $5 million from its accounts for allegedly lying on bank documents.
Such a massive loss would cripple any business, but Mt.Gox remained open. It's still unclear how it could pay its customers -- or its bills -- after losing so much money.
Ever since, though, customers noticed Mt.Gox was slow to process transactions. That gave it the aura of a Ponzi scheme. You could join Mt.Gox and give it your money, but cashing out was near impossible.

Things grew worse on Feb. 7, when it halted withdrawals. The company's computer programmers hadn't accounted for a quirk in the way Bitcoin works, allowing cyber attackers to dupe Mt.Gox with a scheme resembling receipt fraud. When Mt.Gox discovered it was under attack, it stopped any investors from pulling their money out of their trading platform.

By the time trading at Mt.Gox was halted entirely late Monday, the price of a Bitcoin there had dropped significantly, to $130. Meanwhile it was trading for more than four times that on other exchanges.

The Mt.Gox website was back online Wednesday, but only with a statement saying that the exchange had been closed to "protect the site and our users."
CEO Mark Karpeles also posted a statement saying he was still in Japan and working with "different parties" to resolve the exchange's issues.

The fact that Mt.Gox's management potentially lost all of its customers' deposits to theft is nothing short of gross incompetence. The cyberthieves would have needed to trick Mt.Gox repeatedly -- withdrawing money, faking a receipt and demanding yet another withdrawal. Now imagine doing that for a prolonged period -- unnoticed -- to the tune of millions of dollars and emptying the company's accounts.
The lack of transparency is also astounding. A company with millions of dollars is staying silent about what's going on. At most, it offers the occasional cryptic message assuring customers it's "closely monitoring the situation and will react accordingly."

For now, Mt.Gox customers are left with more questions than answers: Was Mt.Gox really just an insolvent bank with insufficient reserves? Did it use clients' incoming funds to pay out exiting ones? And why the lack of transparency with loyal customers?

U.S. regulators won't be there to help them get their money back. Mt.Gox is based in Tokyo and isn't subject to the strict controls of Wall Street firms. It also isn't insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as most standard American bank accounts are.

The Manhattan U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Wednesday on reports that a subpoena had been issued on Mt. Gox.
Japanese regulators have been reluctant to intervene until now. On Wednesday, Japan's government said it was assessing the situation and would take action if necessary.

U.S. officials like New York State's top financial regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, jumped at the opportunity to say this is exactly why more government regulation is necessary. U.S. Senator Tom Carper, who heads the homeland security committee, called it a lesson for policymakers.

Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner, said Mt.Gox's failure shows the risk inherent in sending your cash to Bitcoin exchanges -- most of which are located abroad in places like Slovenia and Hong Kong. There's little assurance you'll ever get that money back.

"The problems at Mt.Gox -- lack of strong controls and tight regulation -- are systemic to the Bitcoin industry. The reputational damage will spread," Williams said. "What was the largest exchange is now a collapsed tower of toxic sludge."
Sensing the oncoming wave of doubt, several other Bitcoin exchanges and digital wallet providers sought to reassure investors by taking a harder line with Mt.Gox.

"This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company's abhorrent actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry," the groups said in a statement.

The executives who signed the letter cast Mt.Gox's downfall as the typical industry evolution that weeds out bad actors. Tom Samson is a Bitcoin faithful in Portland, Ore., who sees Mt.Gox's failure as merely a bump in the road.

"I for one am glad to see Mt.Gox finally die. They've been giving Bitcoin a bad name for far too long," he said. "Onwards and upwards.

Is this the end of bitcoin?...

Here is a story from sumbody who failed to heed the warnings about Bitcoin-trading website Mt.Gox

Lost $700

Alex Krusz knew he should have pulled his bitcoins out of the Mt.Gox trading website. He sensed trouble early on.
The website was riddled with technical problems -- slow to process withdrawals and displaying user passwords in plain text.
But like many others who used Mt.Gox to buy and sell bitcoins, Krusz found that it was much easier to deposit funds than it was to get them back. When Krusz tried to withdraw bitcoins from the Tokyo-based exchange last year, Mt.Gox suddenly demanded extra verification: a photo ID, a copy of a utility bill and a short questionnaire. He never got around to it.
Then Mt.Gox took down its website this week, putting in jeopardy more than $400 million of bitcoins held by its customers.
Krusz, a 30-year-old web developer in Somerville, Mass., feels like his 1.2 bitcoins, valued at $700 today, were pickpocketed.
"I don't ever expect to get that back," he said. "It's not going to break me,but in the long run, I've probably lost more than that because I think Bitcoin will continue to grow in value."

Dating multiple girls at the same time for real !!!

When it comes to women, any guy will tell you that variety is the spice of life. Lately our culture seems to be embracing the concept of multiple partners.

Let's face it: Men like new and different. It's just the way we're made. In fact, according to Tim Birkhead, author of Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition , sexual promiscuity is the norm, rather than the exception, throughout the animal kingdom.

But for women, just the opposite seems to be true. Even though the female double standard is alive and kicking (when a woman wants to date more than one man, she's "exploring her options," but if a guy goes multiple, he's a typical male pig who can't make a commitment), a woman's ultimate goal is still marriage, meaning committing to one sex partner for the rest of her life.

Dating multiple women at once is a heaven and a hell. You get to experience a lot of the fun parts of dating without much commitment. But you're also constantly having to keep your story straight in case one of the women comes to suspect something is wrong. Maybe you have what it takes to date multiple women at once.

To date multiple women at once, you must implore either the honest strategy or deceptive strategy.

Let me teach you how to use the honest strategy. This is essentially the difference between being a gentleman and being “that asshole.” Womanizing assumes some sort of deception. In contrast, dating multiple women is about being indecisive and actively avoiding monogamy. It has zero to do with duplicity or running game.

Tell a girl on the first date (or even beforehand) that you are not looking to date only one girl. Remind her that this means she can date other guys, too. For example: "I'm not looking into dating anyone exclusively right now, so if you want to go on dates with other guys, that's fine with me." Some women find this acceptable and might even enjoy the freedom. Or, she might be put off. Either way, telling the truth from the start will make your life easier and avoid breaking someone's heart.

Don't hide that you're going on dates with other girls, but don't specify it either, unless she asks. Let's say she asks you how the day before was, and you were on a date. You could say "It went well. I went to the movies. Saw that new movie frozen that just came out, it was pretty good." You don't need to specify that it was a date, or who you went with. But if she asks, don't lie.

Now let me teach you how to use the deceptive strategy. Make sure each girl has no idea who the other is, or that they run in 100% different social circles or schools.

When you buy one girl something, buy the same gift for the other girl, too. That way you will never forget which present you bought for whom.

Keep a date planner and make sure it's always hidden. Use pet names such as "honey" or "sweetheart" to avoid mixing up their names.

Avoid relating with the girls on Facebook or twitter. That way, the girls don't run into each other on there.

Be careful when "double booking" --that is, going on dates with two different girls on the same day. It's very risky.

DO NOT GO TO THE SAME PLACES with different girls and don't bring the girls around your friends if you're worried they'll spill the beans.

How to date multiple women at once

Hey Guys,

A couple of keys, used by some of most affluent self-made men to unlock the secrets of how they became wealthy, famous and successful, was how they used honesty and integrity in their relationships.

According to science and even quoted in Napoleon Hill's best selling book, Think and Grow Rich, all men, by nature are polygamists.

And when a man aligns with his nature and learns how to trans-mutate his sexual energy , he can harness this power to excel in any and all areas of his life.

Check it out. If you could discover a couple of systems that teach you everything you needed to know about how to ethically date multiple girlfriends at the same time, this information could lead you into discovering the secrets of harnessing incredible self confidence, Would you be interested?

If you are not interested, STOP READING NOW!!!

Okay, if you're still with me, it must mean you want to explore how to improve the quality of your life by ethically dating multiple girlfriends at the same time.

Guys, if you are here hoping to find some sneaky trick on how to manipulate women, you've come to the wrong place.

This is about how to develop your mindset that will attract the types of women who want this type of life style.(Which is a lot more than you expect!)

I don't want to manipulate anyone. If you want to be in a polygamous, or poly-amorous lifestyle and do so in a healthy relationship like one of my padi papa...lol. That's the key. This is about relating to people and letting them know your desires in a healthy manner.

Dating one woman can be challenging, so it goes without saying that dating several women at a time can pose many potential obstacles—the biggest being not making yourself look like a complete asshole.

In my next post, I will teach you how to maintain your integrity, even if monogamy isn't in the cards, in dating multiple women.