BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in China has handed down heavy sentences to a Tibetan monk and his nephew for inciting eight people to set themselves on fire in anti-Chinese protests, media said on Thursday, the first time punishment has been meted out over such protests.
Nearly 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule since 2009, with most of them dying from their injuries.
Lorang Konchok, 40, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in the Aba prefecture in Sichuan province, while his nephew, Losang Tsering, 31, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the Xinhua state news agency said.
In practice, a death sentence with a two-year reprieve is commuted to life imprisonment or reduced to a fixed-term later.
"The two incited and coerced eight people to self-immolate, resulting in three deaths," Xinhua said, citing the Intermediate People's Court in Aba prefecture.
Last December, Xinhua reported that Lorang Konchok, who was detained with his nephew in August, confessed to police that he had followed instructions from exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his followers.
Lorang Konchok and his nephew passed on information about each self-immolation, including photographs, to overseas contacts belonging to a Tibetan independence organisation with mobile telephones, Xinhua said.
China has repeatedly denounced the Dalai Lama and exiled Tibetan groups for fomenting the self-immolations.
Beijing considers Nobel peace laureate the Dalai Lama, who fled from China in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, a separatist. The Dalai Lama says he is merely seeking greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.
He has called on China to investigate the self-immolations. He has said he is not encouraging them has called them "understandable".
China has defended its iron-fisted rule in Tibet, saying the remote region suffered from dire poverty, brutal exploitation and economic stagnation until 1950, when Communist troops "peacefully liberated" it.
Tibetan areas in China have been largely closed to foreign reporters, making an independent assessment of the situation there impossible.
Chinese police arrested a Tibetan man last week for allegedly encouraging a monk to burn himself to death, as part of a new tactic to discourage suicide protests against Chinese rule.
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Immigration reform is in the air. A bipartisan Senate group unveiled its proposals on Monday, and the president is scheduled to announce his own package on Tuesday. Both contain provisions for legalizing some 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the US.
But, just as there promises to be no easy consensus on a final deal, there is little agreement about how much the overall reforms will actually stem the flow of illegal immigration across America?s borders. Critics of the proposals say a path to citizenship invites more undocumented migrants, while supporters of the move to legalize many who have lived and worked in the US for years say it is not an open invitation to new illegal immigration.
Critics point to the lessons from the last time Congress tackled his issue, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), a 1986 law that legalized 3 million undocumented immigrants. Both sides acknowledge the law produced substantial fraud, leading to nearly triple the number of new residents created by the law.
RECOMMENDED: Could you pass a US citizenship test?
"The message will go out,? says Ira Mehlman, Seattle-based national spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), ?telling people to bring their rent receipts and pay stubs real or not.? The situation will be a replay of the 1986 law, only on a larger scale, he says. It?s simple math, says Mr. Mehlman, adding, ?how can you possibly do background checks on 11 million people? It just won?t happen.?
This expectation sells this target population short, says Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). ?Nobody wants to go where they are not wanted and cannot legally find a job to support them or their family,? he says. ?I do not foresee a wave of illegal immigration, because most of these people realize the political situation in the US is very dire when it comes to undocumented immigrants.?
Census data released at the end of 2012 show a slowing of the immigration tide. The number of undocumented immigrants fell to 11.1 million, down from a high of some 12 million in 2007, following more than a decade of increases. A Pew Center analysis of these data finds that ?there is net zero migration taking place from Mexico to the United States,? points out Villanova University immigration specialist Catherine Wilson, via e-mail.
The proposed reforms will not encourage illegal immigration in the future for three reasons, says David Koelsch, director the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
The proposed pathways to legal status will be long and expensive, he says via e-mail, ?So any reward for future illegal immigration is distant.?
The birth rate in Mexico is in rapid decline and domestic industry's wages are rising, ?making the US less attractive,? he says.
The US economy is still not recovered, "so there is not a strong draw for illegal immigration,? he adds. A sustained 1.75 to 2.25 percent growth rate does not even keep our native population employed, he says.
The reality ?is that our border is more secure than it has been in years past and as immigration talks heat up, our border agents and patrol will be well aware of the need for greater vigilance,? says immigration lawyer and law professor Michael Wildes, who is managing partner of Wildes & Weinberg in New York City and represented the government in immigration cases in his time as a US Attorney.
The law needs to have enough teeth that it doesn't open the door to greater illegal immigration, he adds. ?Whether that means tougher sanctions or steeper fines is up to Congress to decide. But the penalties need to be more stringent because once a pathway to citizenship is defined, there is even less of an excuse for employers to hire undocumented workers and for folks to come here illegally and remain illegal.?
While the numbers tell a story of declining illegal immigration, still a path to citizenship for those now in the country illegally may be a political problem for those who want to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, says David Mark, editor-in-chief of the website, Politix.
?It just seems like common sense to most people that if you make it easier to become legal, that will attract others as well,? he adds. ?It is naive to think otherwise.?
RECOMMENDED: Could you pass a US citizenship test?
Rep. Paul 'Skip' Stam (R-Wake) said the measure is among several targeting the N.C. Education?Lottery?that may come up during the legislative session.
By Associated Press / January 25, 2013
North Carolina lawmakers are discussing a draft proposal that would prohibit sales oflottery?tickets to people who receive public assistance or who are in bankruptcy.
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The Insider reports?that Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, R-Wake, said the measure is among several targeting the N.C. Education?Lottery?that may come up during the legislative session.
"We're giving them?welfare?to help them live, and yet by selling them a ticket, we're taking away their money that is there to provide them the barest of necessities," Stam said.
Stam it would be difficult for store clerks to know which players get help. But Stam suggested that in obvious cases, such as when customers pay for groceries with food stamps, they shouldn't be allowed to buy?lotterytickets at the same time.
Another proposal would remove the word "Education" from the N.C. Education?Lottery?for advertising purposes. Stam said the word "education" shouldn't be used to sell "something that is essentially a scam," especially because?lottery?proceeds account for a small percentage of state education funding.
"It's just inappropriate to take what is a very important function of state government ... and use that as a selling point, when obviously the more educated you are, the less likely you are to play the?lottery," he said.
Stam said he believes many?lottery?ads are deceptive because they don't state the probabilities of winning particular prize amounts. The?lottery?advertises large cash payouts, he said, but the actual prizes are smaller after taxes and other deductions. The fact that the?lottery?doesn't give the actual values of prizes when advertising larger amounts is "just fraudulent," he said.
Alice Garland, executive director of the?lottery, said last week that she believed taking "Education" out of the title would cut into?lottery?sales.
Lottery?spokesman Van Denton said officials haven't fully reviewed all of the legislative proposals to gauge the impacts, but he did say the?lottery?tries to keep up with best practices in the industry, he said.
"We work hard to make sure players have the information they need to play the?lottery?... and to make good choices about how to spend their money," Denton said.
Although the odds of winning each different prize amount aren't listed on each ticket, they are available on thelottery?website and in the?lottery?"play centers" at retail locations. The?lottery?also publishes on its website the number of prizes remaining at all prize levels in scratch-off games.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 Issue 04, Volume 17.
RIVERSIDE - Established authors, poets and creative writing professors will share insights regarding what it takes to get published during UC Riverside's 36th annual "Writers Week," which begins Feb. 4.
"We have an amazing line-up this year," said Tom Lutz, a UCR creative writing professor and editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books. "As Southern California's longest-running literary event, Writers Week provides extraordinary opportunities for LARB. For writers, the combination is great, especially writers who are launching new books."
Opening day will feature a lecture by Los Angeles Times Editor-in-Chief Davan Maharaj, who will assess contemporary journalism and spotlight where he believes the industry is going.
The reservation-only talk is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Feb. 4, at the UCR University Theatre.
Several of the campus's resident authors, including Tod Goldberg, who teaches Writing for Advertisement [ The Tutoring Center ] the Performing Arts at UCR-Palm Desert, will be on hand, as well as others involved in the university's Master of Fine Arts Program.
Authors about to debut new works are slated to speak, including Reyna Grande, Ruben Martinez and David Shields.
Poets Jacqueline Berger, Wanda Coleman, Patricia Hampl and Sheila Sanderson will be giving talks, as will novelists Aimee Phan, Jayne Anne Phillips and Mariah Young.
The event will also feature interactive panel discussions and opportunities to engage Writers Week authors one-on-one, as well as purchase their books on-site.
All activities -- free and open to the public -- will be centered at the CHASS Interdisciplinary Building, except for the closing night keynote address, which Phillips is scheduled to deliver at the UCR Culver Center of the Arts on the downtown Riverside Main Street pedestrian mall.
Jan. 23, 2013 ? In experiments on rats outfitted with tiny goggles, scientists say they have learned that the brain's initial vision processing center not only relays visual stimuli, but also can "learn" time intervals and create specifically timed expectations of future rewards. The research, by a team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sheds new light on learning and memory-making, the investigators say, and could help explain why people with Alzheimer's disease have trouble remembering recent events.
Results of the study, in the journal Neuron, suggest that connections within nerve cell networks in the vision-processing center can be strengthened by the neurochemical acetylcholine (ACh), which the brain is thought to secrete after a reward is received. Only nerve cell networks recently stimulated by a flash of light delivered through the goggles are affected by ACh, which in turn allows those nerve networks to associate the visual cue with the reward. Because brain structures are highly conserved in mammals, the findings likely have parallels in humans, they say.
"We've discovered that nerve cells in this part of the brain, the primary visual cortex, seem to be able to develop molecular memories, helping us understand how animals learn to predict rewarding outcomes," says Marshall Hussain Shuler, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuroscience at the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
To maximize survival, an animal's brain has to remember what cues precede a positive or negative event, allowing the animal to alter its behavior to increase rewards and decrease mishaps. In the Hopkins-MIT study, the researchers sought clarity about how the brain links visual information to more complex information about time and reward.
The presiding theory, Hussain Shuler says, assumed that this connection was made in areas devoted to "high-level" processing, like the frontal cortex, which is known to be important for learning and memory. The primary visual cortex seemed to simply receive information from the eyes and "re-piece" the visual world together before presenting it to decision-making parts of the brain.
To monitor the vision-reward connection process, the team fitted rats with special goggles that let researchers flash a light before either their left or right eye. Thirsty rats with goggles were given access to a water spout inside a testing chamber. When they approached the water spout, a brief visual cue was presented to one eye.
If light was sent to the left eye, the water spout would have to be licked a few times before water came to the rat; if light was sent to the right eye, the rat would have to lick many more times before water came. After a few daily sessions of such "conditioning" (not unlike Pavlov's famous dog-bell-reward experiments), the rats learned how long they would have to lick before getting a water reward. If they didn't get the reward in the expected amount of time, they would give up and leave the spout.
Monitoring the pattern of electrical signals given off by individual nerve cells in the rat brains, the researchers found that the signals' "spikes" weren't just reflecting the visual cue alone. Rather, the signals seemed to relay the time of expected reward delivery through altered spiking patterns. They also saw that many nerve cells seemed to report one or the other visual cue-reward interval, but not both. In cells stimulated by a flash to the left eye, the electrical signal returned to its baseline after a short delay, in sync with the timing of the water reward; a cue to the right eye correlated with a longer delay, also in sync with the reward. According to the researchers, the amount of time that passed before nerve cells returned to their resting state was the brain's way of setting up a "timed expectation."
Knowing that the basal forebrain is implicated in learning, the researchers wanted to know if their observations could be explained by nerves from the basal forebrain delivering ACh to the vision-processing center. To remove those nerve cells from the equation, they paired a neurotoxin with a "homing device" that targets only ACh-releasing neurons coming from the basal forebrain. They then repeated their experiments in trained rats that received the neurotoxin and in those that didn't, and found that the nerve cell signals continued to relay the old time intervals, suggesting that ACh and the basal forebrain weren't needed to express previously learned time information.
The researchers next used those same rats to ask if ACh is necessary for nerve cells to learn new time delays. To do that, they switched the visual cues so that a flash in the left eye meant a long delay and one in the right eye meant a short one. Vision-processing nerve cells in the rats in which ACh delivery was left intact adapted their signals to the new associations; but those in the rats that no longer received ACh continued to relay the old associations, suggesting that ACh is necessary to make new associations but not to express old ones.
Hussain Shuler explains, "When a reward is received, ACh is sent throughout the brain and reinforces only those nerve cell connections that were recently active. The process of conditioning continues to strengthen these nerve connections, giving rise to a timed expectation of reward in the brain."
According to Hussain Shuler, studies have shown that Alzheimer's patients have low levels of ACh and have trouble forming new memories. Though medication may elevate ACh, alleviation of symptoms is limited. "Our research explains that limitation," he says. "Therapeutically, we predict that the problem isn't just low levels of ACh -- the timing of ACh delivery is key."
Other authors of the report include Emma Roach of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Alexander Chubykin and Mark Bear of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH084911), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (F31DA026687), the National Eye Institute (R01EYO12309), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD046943) and The Johns Hopkins University.
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SAVE the planet, save your pension. A new report claims that environmental problems could bust pension funds by 2050.
Aled Jones of Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK, and his colleagues drew together evidence about a wide range of environmental problems, from water shortages to atmospheric pollution to climate change. They plugged these into models used to predict the values of pension funds.
Jones ran several scenarios, varying how quickly governments and industry responded to environmental problems. The results are published by the UK's Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFA). In almost all cases the value of funds began to fall before 2100. In the worst-case scenario, where governments and markets did nothing, values dropped steeply from around 2020 and fell to zero by 2050.
"Despite strong evidence that there is a risk that resource constraints could have significant economic impacts, these risks are not being factored in by many actors in the global economy," says Peter Tompkins of the IFA.
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CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's bespectacled and shaven-headed information minister stands solemnly at the microphone to impart the latest news on President Hugo Chavez's cancer.
For a couple of minutes, vague descriptions of the patient's "stability", "progressive tendency" or "complications" waft across TV and radio airwaves into millions of Venezuelan homes.
"You see, he's recovering," says one Venezuelan man in a group watching live one of Information Minister Ernesto Villegas' medical updates, almost a national ritual since the socialist Chavez disappeared from public view six weeks ago.
"Rubbish - it's obvious he's dying," retorts another as the friends draw varying conclusions from the confusing report.
The handling of information over Chavez's condition has become as controversial as the man himself, and every official word is picked over ad nauseam in Venezuela's own version of the "Kremlinology" analysis of political minutiae in the former Soviet Union.
Since Chavez underwent his fourth and most serious cancer operation in Cuba on December 11, he has not spoken a word in public. The government has tried to fill the information void with regular communiques - nearly 30 so far - by Villegas and Vice-President Nicolas Maduro.
They are often tricky to interpret.
READING BETWEEN LINES
"President Chavez's state of health continues to be delicate, presenting complications that are being attended in a process not exempt of risk," read one statement just after Christmas, when there were rumors Chavez was on life support.
Some of the most specific have referred to Chavez's "breathing insufficiency" due to a lung infection. The term covers a large gamut of possibilities in Venezuelans' minds.
"The patient is in a state of progressive and favorable recovery of the normal values of his vital signs," said another communique, begging the question of what state he was in prior to that apparent upturn.
While the words "stability" and "progressive" have cropped up over and over, the first appearance of the word "stationary" in a January 7 communique puzzled some.
"The president finds himself in a stationary situation in relation to what was described in the most recent report," it read. "Treatment is being applied permanently and rigorously, and the patient is assimilating it," it added, without a word on what that treatment consisted of.
On Christmas Eve, mixing their messages, Villegas said Chavez was in "absolute rest" while Maduro assured Venezuelans a few hours later he was exercising. Of late, the communiques have become more optimistic about Chavez's "favorable evolution" and "new phase" with officials hinting at a possible homecoming.
Such language, critics say, is reminiscent of the confusion over various Russian leaders' illnesses, from Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924 to a stream of others during the Cold War, or the secrecy-shrouded demise of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
There is a parallel, too, with the official reticence in Cuba over the health problems of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, who mentored Chavez and is his closest ally.
By contrast, other Latin American leaders who have in recent years suffered cancer - including from Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay - have authorized doctors to release full details.
At first, after being diagnosed with cancer in the pelvic region in mid-2011, Chavez was his own spokesman. His emotive personality always came through, fighting back tears when explaining the illness then brimming with joy at declarations of recovery that later proved wrong.
Yet throughout the speeches, there were few hard medical details, rather descriptions of a "baseball-sized tumor" or the "miracle" of recovery, and musings on his journey to the "abyss" laced with quotes from German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche.
INTERNET 'ORACLES'
Many Venezuelans have been going to unofficial internet "sources" to hunt for more about Chavez's health.
Most high-profile are Nelson Bocaranda, an opposition journalist and columnist with more than a million Twitter followers, and Jose Rafael Marquina, a Venezuelan doctor in Miami whose tweets alternate between complex medical terminology and caustic political attacks.
Both men claim close sources among the Cuban, Venezuelan and Brazilian doctors treating Chavez. But plenty of would-be Internet oracles have got it wrong - various forecasts and talk of Chavez's death have been premature and embarrassing.
Amid the barrage of opposition complaints over secrecy, the government says it has never been more open and lashes out at ill-intentioned "necrophiliacs" demanding more.
Opposition leaders want an independent medical committee to travel to Havana to see if Chavez is fit to continue in power. If not, he would have to hand over to a caretaker president prior to a new election as mandated by the constitution.
One group of humorists sought to lighten the grave national mood - and lampoon officials - with a merciless take on the Villegas-Maduro information double act.
"Commander Chavez is stable in that situation I won't tell you about," its spoof Villegas said. "He requires unspecified treatment to calm supposed problems that could affect him, or not, in the place of the illness, I mean, that thing."
They were no less biting with Maduro, putting into his mouth a phrase reminiscent of English writer George Orwell's famous send-up of totalitarianism in the book 'Animal Farm': "The president is stable, some days less stable, some days more stable, and sometimes in a state of excessive stability."
Such mockery infuriates Chavez's allies, who say opponents and foreign media are showing glee at his suffering.
One pro-government analyst acknowledged officials had been less than forthcoming, but said they were entitled to be given the "warlike" atmosphere in Venezuela, where opposition leaders spent years trying to force Chavez from office through national strikes, a failed coup and an oil industry shutdown.
Villegas himself described the mood as similar to the brief putsch against Chavez in April of 2002, when foes exulted while supporters trusted in the president's return.
"No one believed it and they said we were liars," said Villegas, who worked at state TV at the time. "Then he came back, took out his crucifix and spoke. It can happen just like that again you know, friends."
(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Diego Ore, Editing by Brian Ellsworth, Kieran Murray and Claudia Parsons)
You may be engaging in a healthy amount of exercise (or you might be over- exercising as well), but the thought processes behind it are still damaging.Being motivated to exercise purely as a means to burn calories, as opposed to improving the health of your body is a red flag.
?Exercise is good for you. You?re not doing anything wrong, keep exercising. It will make you fit and strong and lean. You?re not exercising too much, those other people are just jealous. You?re only feeling tired because you?re so unfit, exercise more. You have to work hard if you want results.?
That was what my ED said to me day in and day out to keep me trapped and compulsively exercising. I know now that voice was lying. I work as an exercise scientist, personal trainer and group fitness instructor and study exercise physiology at university so a very large portion of my life revolves around exercise.
When I first started exercising, I genuinely loved and enjoyed it, but as my ED developed it began to use this to its advantage. I began exercising excessively and obsessively, yet despite all my own knowledge about exercise I still wasn?t open to the thought that I was doing anything unhealthy and denied it when anyone asked.
Exercise, as a general rule, is good for you. However, there are two factors which shift exercise from the ?good for your health? to the ?bad for your health? basket: exercising to the detriment of your body and exercising to the detriment of your mind.
1. Exercising to the detriment of your body is the result of the amount of exercise you?re doing and the lack of recovery your body is receiving.
At this point, you might even still be enjoying exercising (as I was at the beginning) however your body will eventually begin to feel tired, sore and weak. You may experience dizzy spells, fainting, irregular or absent menstrual cycles, difficulty sleeping, increased injuries or illness. The amount of exercise that is healthy will vary from person to person ? what is healthy for an iron man isn?t healthy for me. My ED told me that the amount of exercise I was doing was perfectly healthy, because athletes do it and they?re healthy. Athletes also gradually build up to that level over many years, they fuel their bodies appropriately, they have regular recovery sessions and they stop or reduce exercise when injured/sick.
2. Exercising to the detriment of your mind develops because of reasons why you are exercising and the thoughts behind it.
You may be engaging in a healthy amount of exercise (or you might be over- exercising as well), but the thought processes behind it are still damaging. Being motivated to exercise purely as a means to burn calories, as opposed to improving the health of your body is a red flag. If you are consistently prioritizing exercise over social situations/study/work, feeling anxious or guilty at the thought of missing an exercise session, exercising because you ?have to? rather than because you ?want to? and/or spending a large amount of time thinking about or planning exercise, it is likely that you?ve developed an unhealthy obsession with exercise that leaves little room in your thoughts and life for other things.
Signs that you may be compulsively exercising or over-training:
Irregular or absent menstrual cycles
Depression
Difficulty sleeping
Muscle soreness, aches and injuries
Prioritizing exercise over social events/work/study
Exercising despite being sick or injured
Inability to miss an exercise session or feeling guilty for missing an exercise session
Exercising because you ?have to? rather than because you ?want to?
Exercising purely to burn calories
Consistently thinking about exercise
Exercising at inappropriate times (eg middle of the night)
So, what is healthy exercise?
Healthy exercise occurs when we exercise because it makes us feel good, physically, emotionally and mentally. As mentioned earlier, it?s difficult to set general guidelines on what constitutes the right amount of exercise for everyone; for most people 2-5 hours per week is an appropriate range. However, with some thought and listening to your body (and maybe some professional advice) you can determine the healthiest amount of exercise for you.
Signs of healthy exercise
Exercise makes you feel good ? physically, mentally and emotionally
You can take a day/week/month off of exercise without feeling anxious or guilty
You rest and recover if you are sore, injured, tired or sick
You engage in physical activity that you enjoy (walking, dancing, kayaking, cycling etc), rather than the type you think you should do/burns the most calories
You allocate no more time to thinking about exercise than you would to household chores or what?s on television
You are comfortable with missing an exercise session to attend a social event/work/study
You think about exercise as a way to keep your mind and body fit, strong and healthy; as opposed to simply a way to burn calories or change your body shape
?
At times, I still battle with compulsive exercising; recovery takes time and I have my slip ups, but I?ve come a long way from where I used to be. I can now recognize when I?m engaging in ED behaviours. I always find it helpful to think about what advice I would give to a friend about healthy exercise and aim to apply that advice to myself.
__________________
About the Author
Jodie is recovering from EDNOS and is enjoying feeling happiness in her life again. She is working to create change in the fitness industry (and hopefully the world) by encouraging the development of positive body image and advocating for health over appearance. Jodie works as an exercise scientist and group fitness instructor whilst studying her Masters in Clinical Exercise Physiology. She loves reading, her cat, and planning her wedding for June. Follow Jodie on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AHealthyParadigm
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This press release that arrived in the inbox this morning was interesting to me because I wasn?t aware that Technicolor, which has a long and illustrious history as a technology company, is making a push into original content development. In addition to The Deep, they are developing Berkeley Breathed?s Pete & Pickles, and Atomic Puppet, a co-production with Mercury Filmworks. Should these projects move forward, the animation would be produced at Technicolor?s studio in Bangalore, India.
Paris (France) ? January 22, 2013 ? Technicolor (Euronext Paris: TCH) has optioned the rights for the international hit graphic novel series, THE DEEP, created by writer Tom Taylor (Star Wars: Blood Ties, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Injustice: Gods Among Us) and illustrator James Brouwer (Justice League Beyond), and published by Gestalt Comics.
The Deep: Here Be Dragons graphic novel won the Aurealis Award (Australia?s annual literary awards for science fiction, fantasy and fiction) for ?Best Illustrated Book / Graphic Novel? of 2011 and was also nominated for ?Best Children?s Fiction (illustrated).? Technicolor Digital Productions aims to develop and produce 26 half-hour episodes of THE DEEP, which follows the incredible adventures of a family of underwater explorers. The CGI-animated series targets Kids 8 ? 12 and their families. Each self-contained episode of THE DEEP will bring the family a step closer to unraveling the mysteries of the deep sea; and every story will be filled with action, adventure, incredible sea monsters, fantastic vehicles, unbelievable bravery, and the odd family squabble, of course!
?THE DEEP is one of those unique properties that truly appeals to all ages and genders by delivering compelling entertainment in the form of enthralling adventure, heart-pounding danger, laugh out loud humor and incredible discoveries all wrapped in unbreakable familial relationships,? said Steven Wendland, Vice President, Technicolor Digital Productions. ?It?s the family we all dreamed of being a part of when we were kids and are anxious and excited to share with our own children now.?
?Technicolor is the ideal animation studio to bring THE DEEP to life,? added Robert Chandler, Executive Producer, THE DEEP. ?The CG team at Technicolor has the ability not only to visually knock your socks off, but also to deliver moments of tenderness, character and heart. That?s why THE DEEP and Technicolor make a great partnership. It is that special combination which leads to creating great series and stories.?
THE DEEP follows the Nekton family, comprised of the independent and fearless 12 year old Antaeus, Ant to his friends; his analytical 15 year old sister Fontaine, an astute navigator; and their parents Will, an oceanographer and former Olympic swimmer, and Kaiko, a marine biologist who is fiercely protective of all sea life, including Ant?s pet fish, Jeffrey. Continuing a long family legacy, the Nektons live aboard a state of the art submarine, The Aronnax, while exploring unchartered areas of the earth?s oceans. Each member of the family has unique skills and are all equally passionate about sea life conservation. They seek to solve the ultimate mysteries that appear to be connected to a place we know as Atlantis.
THE DEEP was created by multi-award-winning playwright, screenwriter and author Tom Taylor, best known for his many Star Wars graphic novels and comic books for Lucasfilm and Dark Horse Comics; and illustrator James Brouwer who has worked as a pre-production and concept artist on a range of film, television and games projects for major studios. Brouwer moved into comics in 2011 with The Deep: Here Be Dragons and has since illustrated for DC Comics.
Technicolor Digital Productions produces high-quality CG animation for feature films, television, direct-to-video, commercials, video games and location-based entertainment through its industry-leading production facility in Bangalore, India. The group launched its original content development initiative in 2010 and is currently in development on several projects, including Berkeley Breathed?s Pete & Pickles, and Atomic Puppet, a co-production with Mercury Filmworks. Complementing its services business with original content creation, Technical Digital Productions continues to work with major animation clients including Nickelodeon, DreamWorks Animation, Electronic Arts, Mattel, Rockstar Games, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Square Enix.
Clays and carbonates found in a Martian crater might be deposits from groundwater that could have nourished life long after the planet's surface dried up
8th-century tree rings hint at close-range space blast
High levels of carbon-14 in two Japanese cedars may be one of the first signs of a nearby gamma-ray burst
3D sonar uncovers skeleton of Civil War battleship
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Global mercury treaty will take decades to work
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In this clip, head-mounted cameras show penguin behaviour
Intimate details of Adelie penguin feeding behaviour have been filmed by Japanese scientists.
Using video cameras and accelerometers attached to free-swimming penguins, researchers have gained a unique insight into the birds' hunting techniques.
Adelie penguins adopted different strategies depending on whether they were hunting fish or krill.
The findings are published in the journal PNAS.
Lead scientist Dr Yuuki Watanabe from the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo, Japan, told BBC Nature: "Foraging is the most basic activity of animals, but details of foraging behaviour are poorly known, especially in marine animals."
Although previous studies had examined Adelie penguin's (Pygoscelis adeliae) foraging style using video apparatus or sensor technology, results were limited.
"Previously some researchers attached video cameras to marine animals to observe their foraging behaviour, but this was just a few hours."
"In other studies, researchers attached various sensors to marine animals to record indirect signals of prey capture. This method lasted for long periods, but has never been validated in the field," said Dr Watanabe.
To overcome these difficulties, the Japanese scientists decided to use a combination of video footage and indirect signals.
Indirect signals include acceleration of the head, temperature changes in the digestive tract or beak opening movements, all of which indicate that feeding may have occurred.
Modern technologies mean that accelerometers are small enough for the scientists to attach two accelerators to each penguin - one on the head and another on the back.
"We recorded both movies and indirect signals, successfully validating the indirect signals using video footage," explained Dr Watanabe.
"We assumed that penguins move their heads relative to their body when they capture prey; this was confirmed by the footage."
Using these methods the team was able to ascertain when and how the penguins were feeding.
Fast food
With the results of the combined technologies, scientists were able to draw further conclusions about the Adelie penguins' feeding strategy.
The penguins' foraging area is largely covered by marine ice and their primary food sources include two species of krill and Pagothenia borchgrevinki - a fish whose blood contains antifreeze proteins.
The Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a shrimp-like crustacean that grows to approximately 6cm long. Antarctic coastal krill (E. crystallorophias) lives farther south than any other species of krill.
Krill is an important part of the Antarctic ecosystem, with around half of its biomass being consumed annually by marine predators such as penguins, squid, whales and fish.
When capturing krill, the penguins swam upward then changed direction at the point of predation, making darting movements with their head.
The team discovered that Adelie penguins can catch krill at a rate of up to two krill per second, despite krill displaying escape behaviours.
Furthermore the researchers found that the camouflage defence of the fish P. borchgrevinki didn't work with foraging Adelie penguins.
The penguins were regularly able to capture the fish from below - the direction from which the fish is camouflaged against the backdrop of marine ice.
Dr Watanabe said: "I was surprised by how the penguins repeatedly captured P. borchgrevinki underneath the sea ice. This fish is known to be well camouflaged."
The technology used to support the findings has a wider application for further study. Dr Watanabe commented, "Our method can be applied to many marine animals to understand the spatial and temporal variability of foraging behaviour."
Join BBC Nature on Facebook and Twitter @BBCNature.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]As private internet use increases, internet products such as video streaming become more prevalent and as more businesses become reliant on fast broadband connections we're going to need a more solid infrastructure to ...
When we first bought our home, we upgraded to a new 200 amp electrical service and rewired much of the home. With that project done, we installed a hydronic?furnace? a tankless water heater hooked up to an air handler that pumps warm air to the ducts throughout the house. Unfortunately, our home had old galvanized steel water pipes which were too rusty to hook up to the water heat. We finally planned and started the water repipe project.
One lesson I learned right away is that any infrastructure work impacts the rest of the home. We took this opportunity to shift the garage wall five feet in to gain some space in the basement. We worked with my neighbor to frame out a 2?4 wall. I got a chance to play with a framing nailer and a powder-actuated nail gun. It uses a .22 caliber shell to shoot a nail into the concrete floor. Before any of this could happen, my friends and I pulled down lathe and plaster and some blown in insulation.
Here?s a view of the basement side of the wall. At this point, I demoed most of the old wall. The old 2?4 are rock hard. They don?t make framing lumber like they used to.
After the old wall went down, the cat boxes were temporarily housed there. We also found that the walls weren?t insulated and some of the plumbing was slowly leaking over the years. Fortunately moving the wall back opened up access to the plumbing upstairs. The old tank water heater was unsafely sitting in the middle of the basement floor.
To level out the floor, I borrowed my neighbors rotary hammer to creak up some of the concrete and remove the old footings. I learned that concrete work is heavy, back-breaking, and very dirty.
Here I got a clean slab removed, the old footing came up in one piece. I ended up expanding that hole almost to the drain line to lower it to the point where I could roughly level the floor.
The plumber suggested that while we were doing the repipe project that I consider replacing the line to the water main. That meant bribing two amazing friends over to help me dig up a 2 feet deep trench from the sidewalk to the house. It didn?t sound like much until we started digging up rocks and tree roots. We broke sweat pretty quickly and no hidden treasures were found.
We worked with a local independent plumber based out of West Seattle. He came over for three days to run the water lines and replace all the connections. I enjoyed working with an?independent?than a large company. There?s a lot more pride in craftsmanship and ownership in the project. I tagged along with him for a few hours a day to learn the technique and most importantly, to have an understanding and confidence in my new system. Hopefully I didn?t annoy him too much along the way.
Here?s the new 1? pex line that runs to the house. I insulated the line while we had access to it before I filled the dirt back in.
Although it was a hard project, it was well worth it to replace this old steel line that went to my house. The rust is to be expected. That coupling is a patch job from a long time ago. Many homeowners forgo the process of replacing the supply line to the home because of the cost of trenching. One big benefit was that I was able to move the water shutoff into my mechanical room and build out the water lines in a more planned fashion than try to retrofit to an existing supply.
Here?s a in progress shot of our new mechanical room. The tankless is to the left with new copper piping thanks to my plumber. That is hooked up to Pex lines that supply the air handler and provides cold and hot water for the house. The tankless is rated to cost me $200 a year vs. $650 for the tank heater. We?ll have to do some more benchmarking to figure out the actual operational cost.
The tankless provides both hot water for the furnace and hot water for home use.
The wall we built earlier provided new spacing for the revamped plumbing. We got rid of most of the steel drain lines that never drained the tub well. The old washer drained into a utility sink. We now have a drain built into our new 2?6 wall. Once the wallboard goes up, it?ll be a clean look. You can?t tell from the picture but we also got hot and cold running into an outside spigot.
A lesson I learned was that plumbers specialize in plumbing. He roughed in the lines to the bathroom but had to leave copper stubs until the wall was patched. This way, the person doing the patch could cut the pipe to the right length to flush mount the shut off valve. I took a stab at it and rough cut some 1/2 inch dry wall. It was hard finding solid structure to screw the drywall onto. Using a pipe cutter, I cut the copper stubs, attached the valve and hooked up the water lines and drains.
I applied drywall mud in the joints, put a layer of mesh tape and added the first layer of mud. After it dried, I lightly sanded and added a second layer of mud with a larger knife. After that dried, I added the finish layer of mud and smoothed it out with my largest knife. A lot of sanding later, I have a smooth wall that?s ready for texturing, priming, and painting. Now I know why these guys charge so much. It?s not hard, it just takes a lot of time.
Up next, I have a lot of finish work to do to clean up the mechanical room, dress up the laundry room, and finish out the garage so I have a place to store my tools.
Popular Google Reader app Press has been updated with new performance improvements, as well as various bug fixes. The second update for the app brings it up to version 1.1.1, and since updating we're noticing that the app does seem a good bit nippier -- especially when syncing large numbers of unread articles.
If you'd previously tried out Press but had been put off by issues with speed and responsiveness, now might be the chance to give it another try. You can find the download link above; as always, it costs $1.99 and is limited those running Android 4.0 and above. Existing users can update by heading to the "My Apps" section in the Google Play Store app.
Watch out, folks: Pantech is moving up the AT&T food chain. Once known in the US as little more than a budget brand, the Korean company is learning that it's possible to push out a device with premium components without increasing the going price (while choosing an outside-the-box design at the same time). The latest piece of evidence supporting this is the Discover, a $50 smartphone with enough trimmings to turn some heads. But will the phone set a new precedent for its pricing tier, or is it just blindly checking off items on a spec sheet to-do list? Follow us after the break and find out.
On our stage at CES, Pantech's Manager of US Marketing Chandra Thompson told us that nearly 60 percent of the company's employees are dedicated to R&D, a claim that certainly can't be made by very many companies. We were quite surprised to hear that from a company like Pantech -- it caters almost exclusively to the penny-pinching demographic in the US, so it's easy to dismiss its hardware as cheap and unexciting.
Au contraire, naysayers: the Discover, Pantech's latest budget-friendly offering on AT&T, actually bucks the trend of the stereotypical slab, making it a visually arresting device to behold. The curvaceous back is chock-full of contours, but each one is done up in a way that enhances how the phone feels when you hold it in your hands. (We can't help but be reminded of the Sony Xperia arc when looking at it.) In fact, we'll go ahead and say that the Discover is one of the most comfortable phones we've used in recent history; its chassis hits the ruler at 134.2 x 68.6 x 9.1mm (5.3 x 2.7 x 0.36 inches) and gives us a solid grip that made us confident it wouldn't slip out of our grasp. It's also relatively light, weighing in at 4.76 ounces (135g).
Much of that has to do with the textured plastic material on the removable back panel, which adds just the right amount of traction without drawing too much attention to itself. The Discover is not only attractive; it also exudes durability. If you've only handled it for a few minutes it might be hard to tell that the device is as inexpensive as it is. We were happy to discover (pun not intended) that the back doesn't flex or creak when you add pressure, lending even more credibility to the phone relative to its pricing tier.
The front of the device shows off the 4.8-inch 720p TFT screen, with a 2MP front-facing camera and the typical array of sensors above. You won't find any capacitive nav buttons on the bottom, as the Discover uses virtual keys instead. To take the place of the missing keys, you'll expectedly find a Pantech logo.
The sides are where the Discover starts to get really interesting. The phone bulges near the top to make room for a pair of 3D surround sound speakers, and the back cover tapers inward to meet up with the chrome edge. The speaker grilles are dotted with a snowflake-like pattern -- the only hole in this analogy is that they're all exactly alike. On the left side, adjacent to the grille, you'll find a volume rocker that blends in perfectly with the rest of the chrome trim; the top end houses the power button and 3.5mm headphone jack, while the bottom end is where you plug in your micro-USB charger.
Completing our tour, we take you to the back of the Discover, which is where the 12.6MP rear-end camera module is located, with the LED flash directly beneath. You'll also see a pair of logos for AT&T and Pantech, but neither is so ridiculously large so as to distract from the overall elegance of the device. Rip open that removable cover and you'll find slots for the micro-SIM and microSD cards, as well as the replaceable 2,100mAh battery and NFC contacts.
Antenna-wise, the Discover is packed with plenty of radios: GSM / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900; HSPA+ / UMTS 850/1900/2100; and LTE 700/850/1900/AWS. While most observers may be puzzled by the inclusion of four LTE bands when AT&T's network is only currently utilizing two (700 / AWS), it actually means that your device will continue working properly if the operator decides to begin refarming 850 / 1900 HSPA+ spectrum for the use of LTE. Many of AT&T's latest phones offer the same new LTE setup, but it's typically not advertised -- in the past we've had to dig into each handset's FCC filings to figure it out.
Rounding out the specs, the Discover also offers aGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11a/b/g/n, 16GB of internal storage and supports DLNA. That microSD slot is capable of holding cards up to 32GB in size. There is, however, one glaring omission: there's no LED notification light.
Display
Now, let's dive deeper into the display itself. Typically, the only time we see a $50 phone sporting a panel with a 720p (1,280 x 720) resolution is either when it's on sale or is near the end of its retail shelf life (such is the case with the HTC One X). Thus, the fact that Pantech is pushing out a device with a higher-end screen at such a low price point should be enough to get any budget-conscious consumer excited. But how is it in real life? How does the display hold up against similar offerings?
While the HTC One X still holds the crown for best 720p display, the Discover doesn't disappoint. It's not quite as bright as the One X, but it certainly bests the Galaxy S III in this area. We also like the decent viewing angles and natural-looking colors -- it's definitely less saturated than the GS III, but then again, most phones are. It doesn't use a PenTile matrix, so the fonts were crisp and easy to read without any jagged edges getting in our way.
Software
Pantech is just as creative in its firmware design as it is in hardware. The Discover runs Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), though company reps have told us that Jelly Bean is in the works -- unfortunately, they wouldn't tell us which version, but this is at least a step in the right direction. Despite the fact it's running now-antiquated firmware, it at least throws in quite a few differentiators that make its custom skin one of the most unique we've encountered on this side of the Pacific.
For starters, the app dock on the front screen allows 14 total icons, instead of the standard four. How so? If you look carefully, you'll see arrows on either side of the dock indicating that you can swipe left or right for more shortcuts, folders or apps. We imagine this will only come in handy if you prefer using most of your front screen space for widgets, but it's a nice touch regardless.
Additionally, while the virtual nav buttons at the bottom of the display feature the usual suite of back, home and recent apps, Pantech throws in a tiny menu button on the right-hand side that's visible only on the front screen. (It doesn't replace or duplicate the settings buttons you'll find in most apps.) Pressing it brings up a menu that overlays the app dock and offers widgets, wallpaper, themes, settings and tips. Sounds great in theory, but it's absolutely pointless since long-pressing the home screen achieves exactly the same result.
Moving on to the app menu, you'll first notice that widgets are nowhere to be found -- you'll need to access them using the settings bar. Pantech has chosen to use the tab space on top to enhance the group-viewing experience. Essentially, you can choose to put any of your apps into customizable groups -- just as if they're a separate folder -- and each group you create gets its own tab up on top. You can also assign each tab its own specific color and change the name to whatever you want; even better, you can also long-press the tab to install the entire group as a folder on your home screen, making it less work for you to set up groups in multiple places.
The navigation menu also has a few tweaks of its own: the top of the menu features a quick settings bar (nothing new there) and a second bar for settings shortcuts. This bar, which can be collapsed if you deem it unnecessary, includes icons for sound, WiFi, display, Bluetooth and more -- the idea is to get you one step closer to these individual settings, thus reducing the amount of time you spend trying to reach them. We don't foresee this saving more than a fraction of a second, but it's there for you as an option if you want.
Pantech is also taking a page out of Samsung's book by introducing its own set of motion / gesture controls. The concept is roughly the same: by waving your hand left and right over the front-facing camera, you can answer calls and navigate through pics and music without touching the screen. It worked much better than we expected; the camera recognized our hands from as far away as two feet.
Speaking of looking to Samsung for inspiration, the Discover also features a pop-up video option. When you begin watching a video, tap the proper button near the top of the screen and it hovers above whatever app you want to use simultaneously. You can also do something similar in the music app: the press of a button will float a "now playing" widget (which can be switched to playlist view as well) above your other programs.
Easy Experience Mode is offered with the Pantech Discover. We went into more detail on this particular feature in our review of the Flex, but in a nutshell: Easy Experience is essentially a special introductory launcher that helps first-time smartphone users settle into the whirlwind world of Android without experiencing as drastic a learning curve. There's less stuff to customize, the font and icons are a little larger and the app menu is much more streamlined. Not much is different on the Discover, with the exception of a new toggle switch on the main UI, which makes it pretty easy to go back and forth between the two modes.
As you might expect, you'll still have the normal onslaught of preloaded apps (though fortunately Pantech lets you hide unwanted apps or tuck them away in groups), but AT&T is pushing one new program in particular: DriveMode. The app is intended to prevent drivers from reading texts or taking calls when on the road. When your driving speed is above 25MPH, the service (which can be disabled if you prefer) sends an automatic SMS response to anyone who calls you or sends a text, letting them know you'll get in touch with them as soon as you've finished your journey. It definitely does the job as intended -- when we first began this review, our unit had the service enabled by default, and it showed up as soon as we hit the right speed. (Disclaimer: the reviewer was in the passenger seat when making this discovery.)
Lastly, the Discover uses the same stock Skyfire browser as the HTC One VX and LG Optimus G (among others). This means it comes with the love-or-hate browser bar at the bottom of the screen that offers several shortcuts and other settings. It appears that this particular browser is here to stay, and we shouldn't be surprised to see it continue to surface on future AT&T models.
One major quirk with the UI is that Pantech doesn't really take full advantage of the vertical space afforded to it. In addition to the virtual keys taking up room at the bottom of the screen, most of the phone's UI elements are much larger than your typical device. The app dock on the front screen, the extra settings in the navigation menu and even the tabs on top of the app menu are easy to press, but you only get this benefit by sacrificing precious screen real estate.
Camera
The weakest link in every Pantech phone we've ever reviewed is the camera. The 8MP sensor used in the Flex was certainly an improvement over the 5MP models used previously, but it still couldn't hold a candle to Samsung's and HTC's 8-megapixel units. So what did we get out of the Discover's 12.6-megapixel rear-facing cam? Pixel count isn't everything, after all.
First, let's go over the user interface on the camera. The shutter button sidebar consists of a few toggle switches: front / rear, camcorder and HDR. The other sidebar is where you'll find your various settings, as well as shortcuts that can be customized to specific things you tweak the most (this bar is free of shortcuts by default -- you have to add them in at your leisure). Among the listed settings are exposure, flash, resolution, white balance, color effects and focus mode (in which you can choose between touch focus and tracking focus). Long-pressing the viewfinder in touch mode will lock your focus, and then you can touch the screen another time to lock exposure.
Speaking of which, the Discover is missing the ability to lock focus on objects in low-light or near-dark conditions; the phone doesn't give us the option to use LED flash as a focus mechanism prior to taking the shot, so you may need to take several images in low light before it truly comes out the way it should. The LED flash itself is sufficiently bright, so that particular part of the camera isn't an issue.
In fact, low-light images in general didn't turn out very well. Perhaps a big part of the problem is the fact that Pantech didn't throw in any special modes like the ones you'll find on the One X, Galaxy S III and other flagships. No low-light, night or candlelight modes are offered; the phone doesn't even have macro mode. Unfortunately, it's just not as decked out as we'd like it to be. Frankly, this is to be expected on a phone that is geared toward the budget user, but we have a hard time understanding exactly why Pantech would go through the effort of boosting the megapixel count without enhancing the actual image-taking experience.
While we have a difficult time recommending the Discover's camera over the proven modules found on the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III, the images on the Discover were still at least par with what we originally expected (which unfortunately isn't saying much). We had quite a few issues with washed-out colors, middling dynamic range and soft focus. The upside is that white balance seemed to be pretty good. Regardless, it's not the point-and-shoot replacement you'd like it to be.
We actually didn't have so much to complain about with the video capture performance (MPEG-4, 18 Mbps bit rate, 30fps frame rate). It was very smooth when catching motion or panning, and the mics picked up our voice loud and clear. Its only drawback was that it couldn't properly handle sunlight without ultimately washing out the colors in the process.
Performance and battery life
On the performance side, the Discover doesn't bring anything new to the table. It sports the same 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor that we enjoyed on the Burst and Flex, along with 1GB RAM and an Adreno 225 GPU. Thus, it shouldn't come as any surprise that its actual output is nearly the same. Responsiveness is great and lag is near non-existent when performing most processor-heavy tasks. All told, we didn't feel like we were using a subpar handset. Gaming was also as smooth as we've come to expect on an S4 Plus device. Here's how the Discover benchmarks against some similarly priced phones on AT&T's network:
Pantech Discover
HTC One VX
LG Escape
Quadrant v2
5,782
5,242
5,026
Vellamo 2.0
1,928
1,268
1,461
AnTuTu 3.0
9,652
10,552
N/A
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms)
1,614
1,504
1,598
GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt 1080p Offscreen (fps)
14
12
11
CF-Bench
9,824
7,423
8,112
SunSpider: lower scores are better.
In terms of battery life, our standard endurance test -- looping a video with a series of notifications rolling in the background -- went on for six hours and 45 minutes. That's hardly spectacular, but it's still better than what we saw on the HTC One VX. What this means is that moderate users can make it through an entire day before having to charge up the phone, but anyone who uses the device extensively will get a solid nine or 10 hours out of it. However, unless you're barely using it, you shouldn't expect it to last overnight and into the next day.
On AT&T's LTE network in Salt Lake City, the Discover zoomed through speed tests at an average of 18 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up. Keep in mind that this number may vary depending on the strength of your local network. We had mixed results with the phone's WiFi performance; on multiple occasions it randomly disconnected from our preferred network and would refuse to reconnect again (it often would get stuck in an endless loop, going back and forth between "connecting" and "saved"). Quickly shutting WiFi off and then turning it on again typically resolved the problem, but that's of course an annoyance.
When it came to actually making phone calls, our callers could hear us perfectly loud and clear. Noise cancelling was in full force, as callers had no idea that we were in a noisy room. On our end, other voices came through crystal clear, although the volume was a little softer than we would have preferred.
So what about the dual 3D surround sound speakers on the Discover? In a couple words: not bad. Thing is, it's louder than your typical budget phone, so in that sense you're getting your money's worth; however, we could barely tell any difference between it and the audio output on flagship phones like the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S III. In fact, when doing direct comparisons between the three devices, the Discover's sound was on the tinny side and not as full or rich as the others. Again, it's pretty good for its intended price range, but not the best out there. One other thing: while the surround sound concept works okay when the phone's in portrait mode, it's a completely different story when you're watching movies in landscape, since both speakers are on the same side. It's pretty difficult to mimic stereo sound very well with this kind of setup.
Pricing and comparison
Going by the spec sheet alone, the Pantech Discover blows away any other brand-new device in its price range -- you may see some better-specced phones on sale around the $50 margin, but this surpasses any other budget or midrange phone that has begun at this particular cost. On AT&T's network, the next in line would be the HTC One VX, a phone that for the same amount of money snags you a qHD display, 5MP rear camera, 8GB internal storage and a few other mid-range specs to go along with it. While we were fond of the VX, the Discover ultimately offers more bang for your buck.
Wrap-up
With each of its recent phones, Pantech has shown that it's possible to make an inexpensive handset without sacrificing premium components. It specializes in the lower-end (in the US, at least), and it does its job very well. With a going price of $50 (after a two-year commitment), it's sure to turn quite a few heads. It's far from perfect, of course, but right now, at least, we have a hard time seeing how anyone could make a better budget device.
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