Best Buy offering between $200 and $350 for Microsoft Surface trade-ins

As it has previously done for iPads, Best Buy is now running a trade-in promotion for Microsoft's Surface tablet. The retailer is guaranteeing that customers will receive a gift card worth at least $200 when they trade in a working Surface at a participating Best Buy location. The most Best Buy will give you is $350, so if making maximum profit is your goal, eBay or Craigslist may be a better option for offloading your current Surface ahead of Microsoft's latest hardware. Then again, these deals are never really the most lucrative path; they're an easy and quick way to get back at least some cash for an old device. To be eligible, the Surface that's being traded in must power on, be free of any water / liquid damage, and the screen can't be cracked. The gift card promotion runs through October 21st, just one day before the arrival of Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2.

iPhone 5S users report 'Blue Screen Of Death' reboots

Apple's latest iPhone 5S has an unexpected feature: the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD). While it's typically an error found on older Windows PCs, a number of iPhone 5S users are reporting random reboots on their handsets following a BSOD. The blue screen reboots appear to be iPhone 5S specific and are largely occurring with Apple's own iWork apps that come free with all new iOS devices. Videos detailing the issue show that multitasking between apps seems to trigger the BSOD. iPhone 5S users are also reporting random reboots during device use. Apple has released iOS 7.0.2 to primarily fix lock-screen security bugs, but the latest version does not address the reboot issues. Several threads on Apple's support forums highlight the problem, and a number of Twitter users have also expressed their frustration. One workaround to alleviate the iWork-related reboots is to disable iCloud syncing for Apple's Pages, Keynote, and Numbers apps. We've reached out to Apple to comment on the blue screen reboots, and we'll update you accordingly.

Google will start using your picture to sell products to friends

Google users will soon find themselves unwittingly advertising products for the company, thanks to a massive change Google is making to its terms of service. First reported by the New York Times, the change categorizes a user's follows, comments, and +1s as "shared endorsements" for a product or service. These shared endorsements can be used to build ads across the platform, pulling in a user's profile name and photograph to help boost the ad's credibility.

Google hasn't specified what these new ads will look like, but the expanded terms of service would allow much more social information to be included in the shared endorsement. The changes will be advertised on Google's homepage and in search results, so the company hopes that users will be aware of the changes before they go into place on November 11th. Google will build ads using information from adult users, so anyone under the age of 18 will be automatically opted out. Google+ has never enjoyed the organic success of its competitors, and the enormous, potentially severe privacy implications of the change certainly aren't going to help. The new advertising model is similar to Facebook, which shows which of your friends have liked an business or service on its social networking site. As with Facebook, Google provides the ability to opt out of the new shared endorsement program. Users who have previously opted out of sharing their +1s with friends will also be opted out of the expanded shared endorsements, but for everyone else the new feature will be automatically enabled on November 11th.

Google's new 'Chromebook for everyone' is a sleek 11-inch HP laptop

At an event in New York City this morning, Google announced the new HP Chromebook 11. The Chromebook 11 is a low-cost Chrome OS laptop, with an 11-inch, 1366 x 768 pixel IPS display and Chromebook Pixel inspired design. The new laptop, which Google is selling for $279, is available to order from Google Play, Best Buy, Amazon, and direct from HP today. A 4G LTE-equipped version is planned, but pricing and availability have yet to be announced. Included with the purchase is two years of 100GB Google Drive storage, a 60-day trial of Google Play Music All Access, and 12 free sessions of GoGo in-flight internet. The design of the Chromebook 11 is quite reminiscent of the now-retired plastic MacBook. It has sleek lines and ports on only the left hand side. Google has also hidden all of speaker grills and screws, giving the design a cleaner appearance. Google is offering the laptop in black or white with Chrome-appropriate blue, red, yellow, or green accents. The black version looks almost exactly like a glossy edition of the original CR-48 reference Chromebook, with its lack of branding and clean lines. Despite its smaller size, the Chromebook 11 still packs a full-size Chrome keyboard and has a fully clickable touchpad. There is also a VGA webcam embedded into the bezel surrounding the display. Google has put the laptop's speakers beneath the keyboard — much in the same way it did with the Chromebook Pixel — which it says prevent muffled sound when you are using the device on your lap.

"Chromebook 11 offers a 'Pixel-inspired' design at a price most people can afford" Google is touting the Chromebook 11's new display, which it claims is as much as 50 percent brighter than most laptops on the market. Its IPS panel offers 176 degree viewing angles and a very wide color gamut. In our brief look at the Chromebook, we found the screen to be a perfectly fine laptop display, and the added brightness was certainly noticeable. The Chromebook 11 is plastic, but Google says that it has a magnesium frame, which makes it stronger and more rigid. The laptop is strikingly light when you pick it up — it's weighs only 2.3 pounds — but it still feels solid and well built for the most part, with only a few creaks here and there. It is powered by a dual-core Samsung Exynos 5250 processor and 2GB of RAM, and has 16GB of internal storage. It also has two Micro USB 2.0 ports and a Slimport video out port. Google expects about six hours of battery life from the Chromebook 11 with active use. Interestingly, the only way to charge the laptop is through a Micro USB port, which Google says is more convenient for many users that might be carrying around a smartphone or tablet charger with them. Google is quick to note that Chromebooks now claim as much as 25 percent of the sub-$300 laptop market, and the Samsung Chromebook has been the number one selling laptop on Amazon since its debut. The Chromebook 11 appears to offer everything that we liked about the Samsung version, but with a nicer display and design. If history is any guide, Google likely has another hit on its hands with the Chromebook 11.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review (2013)

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review (2013) The best ebook reader becomes both bookstore and library By David Pierce on October 7, 2013 11:00 am Email @piercedavid 109Comments Kindle Paperwhite 1024px 2 inShare Amazon won the ebook reader war. Like the iPod, the Swiffer, or Jell-O, the Kindle is just what you buy when you want what it does. Barnes & Noble and Sony went down swinging trying to compete, and Kobo and Iriver are but gnats to be swatted by the great Amazon behemoth. Last year’s $119 Kindle Paperwhite was the best ebook reader ever made, the default choice, the one I recommend to everyone without a second’s thought — and 12 months later it still is. There isn't even viable competition at this point. Yet there’s still a new Paperwhite this fall, a new $119 E Ink reader with a series of hardware upgrades and some new software as well. A few things have been changed, but this is very much the same device it was a year ago. It’s Amazon at the height of its powers, with nothing to prove and nothing to lose. The question now: when you win a market, when no one else even really puts up a fight anymore, what do you do next? In the Kindle’s case, you make sure the Paperwhite never gets stashed in a drawer somewhere, a forgotten impulse buy. You find new and clever ways to make sure people keep right on reading, and buying, books. It happened repeatedly: I would pick up a Paperwhite to test it out, read for a while, and then discover that I was holding the device I bought a year ago instead of my review unit. Only the most discerning of readers will notice the differences in hardware here: a slightly changed Kindle logo, a slightly higher-contrast screen. The only obvious change, the only way I could reliably identify one device from the other, is by the logo on the back. Where there was once a subtle, muted Kindle logo, there’s now a glossy black "Amazon" etched into the soft-touch black back. Otherwise it’s the same size, the same weight, the same months-long battery life, the same everything. It’s still comfortable, easy to use in one hand, and as handsomely understated as ever. It’s sturdy enough that you don’t need a case like the leather folio Amazon sells, but I’ve grown to love the case — with a magnetized flap that turns the device on when you open it, and a nicely rough texture, opening up the case feels like opening up a well-loved hardback. It’s wonderful. "The hardware's better, but it's not really different" P1010022-560 The new Paperwhite comes with a new, slightly more even frontlight, and a faster processor. The light is certainly better, a little whiter and spread a bit more evenly around the screen with fewer dark patches; I noticed it more than the higher-contrast E Ink display, but neither changed the experience of using the Paperwhite in any meaningful way. The light is still wonderfully versatile, dim enough to work in a totally dark room and bright enough to kill most of the glare in a well-lit room. As for the processor, I still can’t tell what’s real and what’s placebo. Page turns do seem slightly faster, especially combined with the more receptive touch screen — I found myself rarely having to swipe multiple times to turn a page, which hasn’t always been the case with Kindles. Nothing else about the Paperwhite seemed more responsive, though. Typing, scrolling through the store, even turning the device on and off all feel the same, though they are a beat faster in side-by-side tests with last year's model. They’re slow because E Ink is slow, flashing the page anytime something complex happens, but it’s never really a problem. The Paperwhite has always been a great, utilitarian device that does exactly what it’s supposed to. I still hold out hope that we’ll one day see a flexible-display Kindle or a color Kindle, but those are pipe dreams. Right now, Amazon’s built as good a reading device as is probably possible for $119. This year, Amazon’s focus isn’t hardware. It’s figured out how to build something we’ll read with, so what’s next? Figuring out how to make us read more, buy more, and get others to do the same. That’s what this year’s Paperwhite is all about. P1010054-1024 For better and for worse, the experience of using the Paperwhite remains the same. The UI is still simple and obvious, letting book covers do most of the design work. The file support is still woefully lacking — you can read PDFs and Word documents, but without EPUB support you basically can’t read any books you didn’t buy from Amazon. When we met with Kindle executives to talk about the upcoming MatchBook feature, which will let you buy a physical book and then get the Kindle version for only a few dollars more, they laid out Amazon’s vision. Print books will be more like artifacts, they told us, like vinyl records — more work, and more money, but that’s part of the appeal. Ebooks will become the commodity, like MP3s, not the perfect solution but the easiest and most common way we’ll read. "Amazon's not killing print books — it's just relegating them to art pieces" To ease that transition, Amazon’s paying close attention to how we read physical books. One common complaint about ebooks is that it’s hard to flip around, to quickly move between pages — if you read Game of Thrones or The Lord of The Rings, you're constantly consulting maps and indices lest you get lost following Frodo around Middle Earth. The new Paperwhite comes with a clever approximation of the feature: you can bookmark any page with two taps, and swipe down to find that bookmarked page in a pop-up window at any time. It takes three seconds to bring up the index or the map, and one tap to get back to your reading. As a perpetual thumb-in-the-back reader, this alone makes me want to read more on the Paperwhite. P1010010-1024 Also in the interest of helping you figure out what in the world is going on inside your book, Amazon’s great "X-Ray" feature continues to get better and better. Long-press on the name of a place, a character, or basically anything else relevant to your book, and a pop-up window shows you everything you need to know: a biography, where else that person has appeared in the book, even useful trivia. After spending three Game of Thrones books forgetting the difference between Ser Lloris and Ser Jorah, and trying to remember that Littlefinger and Lord Petyr Baelish are the same person with fairly fickle loyalties, having a quick reference guide at my fingertips was a lifesaver. If X-Ray doesn’t have your answers, you can always look up a word in the dictionary, or now on Wikipedia, all from within that pop-up. "For textbooks or anything complex, X-Ray is a lifesaver" P1010055-560 Words you look up get saved into the new Vocabulary Builder app, which serves as a repository for your literary stupidity. It’ll automatically make flash cards for the words you’re learning, and let you mark ones you’ve mastered — I finally know what "solopsistic" means, which is nice, but I don’t know that I’ll be using the app very often. These are all nice features, all designed to make the reading experience a little easier, a little simpler. (Books are hard.) But the best new feature’s coming soon: the Paperwhite will integrate with Goodreads, the social network for readers that Amazon acquired in March. Goodreads will let you share notes with your friends — a sort of social marginalia that could be really fun — or just see what your friends are reading and whether or not they like it. It’s going to make those recommendations at the bottom of the Paperwhite’s homescreen a lot more useful, and is a compelling reason for people to keep picking up their Kindles. It's also going to make my already itchy book-buying finger even more dangerous, since every book my friends recommend will be just one click away. Amazon is quickly learning to emulate what’s great about physical books, while still offering what’s uniquely possible on an ebook reader. The reading experience is still wonderfully customizable, with plenty of font and margin options, and I’m almost getting used to not having page-turn buttons thanks to the better touchscreen. But with easier reference tools and (hopefully) the first decent social network ebook readers have ever seen, digital’s more compelling than ever.

Secret Codes For Android Mobile Phones:

Secret Codes For Android Mobile Phones: 1. Complete Information About your Phone *#*#4636#*#* This code can be used to get some interesting information about your phone and battery. Usage statistics 2. Factory data reset *#*#7780#*#* This code can be used for a factory data reset. It'll remove following things: Google account settings stored in your phone System and application data and settings Downloaded applications It'll NOT remove: Current system software and bundled application SD card files e.g. photos, music files, etc. Note: Once you give this code, you get a prompt screen asking you to click on "Reset phone" button. So you get a chance to cancel your operation. 3. Format Android Phone *2767*3855# Think before you give this code. This code is used for factory format. It'll remove all files and settings including the internal memory storage. It'll also reinstall the phone firmware. Note: Once you give this code, there is no way to cancel the operation unless you remove the battery from the phone. So think twice before giving this code. 4. Phone Camera Update *#*#34971539#*#* This code is used to get information about phone camera. It shows following 4 menus: Update camera firmware in image (Don't try this option) Update camera firmware in SD card Get camera firmware version Get firmware update count WARNING: Never use the first option otherwise your phone camera will stop working and you'll need to take your phone to service center to reinstall camera firmware. 5. End Call/Power *#*#7594#*#* This one is my favorite one. This code can be used to change the "End Call / Power" button action in your phone. Be default, if you long press the button, it shows a screen asking you to select any option from Silent mode, AirPlane mode and Power off. You can change this action using this code. You can enable direct power off on this button so you don't need to waste your time in selecting the option. 6. File Copy for Creating Backup *#*#273283*255*663282*#*#* This code opens a File copy screen where you can backup your media files e.g. Images, Sound, Video and Voice memo. 7. Service Mode *#*#197328640#*#* This code can be used to enter into Service mode. You can run various tests and change settings in the service mode. 8. WLAN, GPS and Bluetooth Test Codes: *#*#232339#*#* OR *#*#526#*#* OR *#*#528#*#* - WLAN test (Use "Menu" button to start various tests) *#*#232338#*#* - Shows WiFi MAC address *#*#1472365#*#* - GPS test *#*#1575#*#* - Another GPS test *#*#232331#*#* - Bluetooth test *#*#232337#*# - Shows Bluetooth device address 9. Codes to get Firmware version information: *#*#4986*2650468#*#* - PDA, Phone, H/W, RFCallDate *#*#1234#*#* - PDA and Phone *#*#1111#*#* - FTA SW Version *#*#2222#*#* - FTA HW Version *#*#44336#*#* - PDA, Phone, CSC, Build Time, Changelist number 10. Codes to launch various Factory Tests: *#*#0283#*#* - Packet Loopback *#*#0*#*#* - LCD test *#*#0673#*#* OR *#*#0289#*#* - Melody test *#*#0842#*#* - Device test (Vibration test and BackLight test) *#*#2663#*#* - Touch screen version *#*#2664#*#* - Touch screen test *#*#0588#*#* - Proximity sensor test *#*#3264#*#* - RAM version