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2012年2月22日 星期三

Union Mosaic closing in on stake in Royal

The company's president, Paweena Laowiwatwong, said the acquisition would help Union Mosaic develop a variety of products to support business growth. The move will help both companies jointly develop new products at a cost lower than what each would have incurred if it had gone about it on its own.

After negotiations,Low prices on projectorlamp from Projector Point London UK.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injectionmould manufacture, Union Mosaic Industry has offered to buy between 94.28 million and 125.71 million shares from RCI's existing shareholders through a partial tender offer at Bt0.90 per share. The deal would require a budget of between Bt84.86 million and Bt113.14 million.

At present, Royal Ceramic Industry is engaged in the manufacture, import and sales of both floor and wall tiles. Products distributed by RCI are divided into three categories:

n Glazed wall tiles: These are ceramic units in the form of plain, monoporosa, and special-pattern or decorative tiles, made using a third-firing technique.

n Porcelain tiles: These are produced by using the best available technique with a firing temperature of 1,China professional plasticmoulds,200 degrees Celsius, thereby creating a tile that is stronger than natural stone and other types of tiles. Also, porcelain tile is beautiful like natural stone and has a low water-absorption rate, which is suitable for both floor and wall covering.

n Clay tiles: These are produced by using an extrusion technology that creates a highly durable tile,Iowa Mold tooling designs and manufacturers mechanics trucks, resulting from the density produced by a vacuum system. Clay tiles are produced in various shapes that can be used indoors and outdoors, including in a factory for heavy-duty work.

At present, RCI has registered capital of Bt620.61 million,Iowa Mold tooling designs and manufacturers mechanics trucks, comprising 620,612,296 ordinary shares at a par value of Bt1 per share, and paid-up capital of Bt314.28, comprising 314,285,710 ordinary shares at a par value of Bt1 per share.

The company recorded revenue of Bt800.16 million and net loss of Bt106.26 million in the first nine months of last year.

Paweena said that after this deal Union Mosaic Industry would also set aside an investment budget of Bt100 million to install new machinery for manufacture of ceramic tiles. This will improve the company's mechanisation and automation.

It will support its two new products - Rexury Tile and Duragres Full HD Tiles - that will be launched this year.

According to its investment plan this year, Paweena said the company targeted revenue of Bt2.7 billion, up 8 per cent from last year. The company reported revenue of Bt2.49 billion and net profit of Bt121 million for 2011.

2012年1月16日 星期一

So many green cars, so few buyers

As is the norm, Cobo Hall, the home of the North American International Auto Show, was littered with hybrids of one stripe or another, along with a smattering of full-on electric cars. There was even an indoor arena where journalists and punters alike could take the electrified ride of their choice for a drive. That's the good news. The bad news is that hybrids are simply not selling.

While the number of hybrid and/or pure electric vehicles has grown enormously of late, the number of buyers willing to put their cash on the barrel has not. Canadians have purchased almost 18 million vehicles over the past 11 years. Of that number,Find the Farm cubepuzzles at the Melissa and Doug online store. just 58,000 were hybrids. So, why the antipathy?

In the earlier days, the reason was likely the fact that this was emerging, untested technology. As such, many — wisely to my mind — applied that old axiom of not buying a new car in its first year.

That was then. To date, the modern hybrid has proven to be as reliable as anything on the road.The mold consists of two primary components, the injectionmoulds and the ejector mold . There are many Toyota Prius taxis that have 300,000 and 400,000 kilometres on the odometer, and they still purr away as quietly and efficiently as ever. And many of them are still storing electric energy in the original battery.

The next step is the addition of plug-in capability to a regular hybrid. Ford will launch no fewer than three plug-in hybrids within the next year or so, including the next C-Max. The plug-in advantage is simple — the electric-only driving range rises enormously, which cuts fuel consumption and emissions. This is one part of the green solution. The better solution, however,This profile page summarizes all known activity of the domain billabongboardshortscloths. is found with the extended-range electric vehicle. At this point, the only extended-range electric vehicle available — and, make no mistake, it is an electric vehicle and not a glorified hybrid — is the Chevrolet Volt.

The Volt's strategy is very simple. Plug it in, recharge the main battery and, for the first 60 km of the drive, the car is powered electrically. When the battery is exhausted, a gasoline engine comes to life and begins to drive a generator that then powers the electric motor. At no time does the gasoline engine ever drive the vehicle — there is no physical connection.

The Volt also stores excess power produced by the engine as well as energy captured through regenerative braking. This allows it to run on electricity even after the battery's driving range has been exhausted. It all sounds very complex, which it is, but it also works so seamlessly that, when tooling about town, the Volt drives like an electric vehicle, and that includes the time the gasoline engine is servicing the electric motor.

The proof of how well the whole lot comes together is found in the numbers of my Volt tester: It had consumed an average of 3.6 litres per 100 km over the first 4,353 km put on its odometer. That, by any standard, is exceptionally good. For the commuter who has a round trip of less than 60 km, the Volt could actually suffer from a problem, albeit a welcome one — bad gas!

The Volt is about to get some competition in the form of the Mercedes B-Class E-Cell Plus concept shown in Detroit, which will go into production in 2014. When the B-Class was totally redesigned (the next-generation model will hit Canadian roads later this year), it was designed to accommodate all powertrain forms. As such, the platform will accept anything from a conventional gasoline engine and gearbox to the fuel cell-powered version coming down the road. Between these two bookends sits the E-Cell Plus. In principle, it operates just like the Volt but with a twist — as well as driving a generator at speeds below 60 km an hour, the engine can be used to power the E-Cell at highway speeds. It uses both the electric motor and gasoline engine to drive the vehicle through a newly developed automatic transmission.

The E-Cell's electric side comprises a 136-horsepower electric motor and a lithium ion battery. While Mercedes-Benz does not list the battery's size at this point, the company says it will supply 100 km of electric-only driving, which is enough to satisfy the demands of 80% of all commuters. The gasoline side features a three-cylinder turbocharged engine that puts out 67 hp. While this may seem a little on the light side,The BEDDINGE mattress is made for the beddinges set.Essential usbmemorydrive Projects & Tips. Mercedes says the electric/gasoline combination delivers enough power to whisk the E-Cell Plus to 100 km/h in less than 11 seconds and on to a top speed of 150 km/h while returning an extended range of 600 km.

The extended-range electric vehicle is going to provide the bridge between the need to cut automotive pollution and the dawning of the hydrogen age. These vehicles are extremely frugal, which means they produce significantly fewer emission than the very best gasoline-only automobile and conventional hybrids. However, key to this technology's success is found in the fact that it does not leave the driver with a bad dose of range anxiety after driving 80 km. That is the single biggest hurdle facing all pure electric rides such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf.

2012年1月9日 星期一

Police station at top of SPLOST wish list

After detailing the electrical, security and air vent system flaws of the outdated Centerville police station for an hour, City Administrator Patrick Eidson leaned in and laid it out straight.

“It’s falling apart,” he said. “I just don’t know no other way to put it.”

A new $3 million police department building is the most costly item Centerville listed to receive funds from a proposed Houston County special purpose local option sales tax residents will vote on March 6.

Houston officials have said the six-year renewal of the SPLOST, which has been continuous since 2001, would generate about $155 million for projects throughout Warner Robins, Perry,Choose from our large selection of cableties, Centerville and the unincorporated areas of the county.

Centerville would be allotted 3.3 percent of that, or about $5.1 million. If passed, the county sales tax would remain at 7 percent.

Mayor John Harley and Eidson said a new law enforcement center has been discussed since the 2006 SPLOST, and now is the right time to move forward with the needed structure.

The current police station is located on North Houston Lake Boulevard in a 53-year-old building, opened when the city incorporated and required only one officer, Eidson said. The building originally housed the police department, the fire department, the water department and City Hall. A library was later added on.

Those departments have since moved to new and improved facilities. The police department remains -- now with 18 officers.

Over the years, two additions were added to the original house-like structure. With those additions came new -- and separate -- air ventilation and electrical systems, officials said. The attic is a cobweb of those wires and ducts,Ventilation fans are the workhorses of these panasonicventilationsystem, and labels tell the employees which switch controls which room’s temperature.

“We’re barely getting by with the facility we have,” said Chief Sidney Andrews, adding that the city has spent about $50,000 in the last two years to keep the building functioning.There are 240 distinct solutions of the Soma cubepuzzle,

The internal layout of the building has become puzzling and inefficient with the new additions, Eidson and Harley said.

“It’s a maze and what you would consider wasted space, but that’s because of how the maze is, you really can’t use the space,” Eidson said.

Security cameras have been installed to watch the two holding cells, which are black metal cages bolted to the ground with little more than six inches separating them from the ceiling. One cell sits beneath a tiled ceiling that some inmates have tried to climb into, Andrews said.

New evidence is stored in six standard locker cabinets secured with Master locks. Old evidence is stored in a fenced-off area of the garage. Suspects are taken in under three carports instead of a secured sallyport, usually a small garage-like area officers drive into to separate the suspect from the public before exiting the car.

Andrews said the inefficient space and security concerns created by the additions prevent the department from flourishing in the community and the state.

He said he would like to begin a citizens police academy, for which the curriculum is almost completed, but won’t do so until a new building is constructed. In the current building, the training room where the students would gather is adjacent to the interview room where suspects are questioned.

“It’s not secure,” the chief said on a tour of the facility last week. “I wouldn’t feel safe bringing citizens in here.If you have a kidneystones,”

He said the current facility also is preventing the department from receiving state accreditation,This profile page summarizes all known activity of the domain billabongboardshortscloths. which would lower insurance premiums and set the city up for grants.

The current building could also become a financial burden, Andrews said. He said the city’s insurance company heavily questioned renewing the policy this year, insisting on caution signs to alert patrons of high or low steps.

City Council approved a measure this year to allow McLees, Boggs & Selby Architects, a Macon-based firm, to inspect two city-owned properties -- land behind the old library on Church Street and the current police department -- for viability. The work was done at no cost under the condition the firm would lead the project, Eidson said.

Andrews and Eidson said they envision a modern two-story building that is about the same size as the current building -- which is almost 3,000 square feet -- but with more efficient spaces.

They said they also want the building to be as up-to-date in technology as possible, have secure holding cells, a secure evidence room and a single ventilation system.

“We just want the small things at this point,” Eidson said.

The officials said plans for the new facility have halted until the March referendum vote. If it doesn’t pass, the city won’t have the funding, they said.

“Council wants to wait and see what the voters have to say before plans continue,” Eidson said.

County officials have repeatedly sold the SPLOST as a way to keep property taxes down because to raise the same amount of money through property taxes would require a large millage rate increase.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending that to council,” Eidson said.

Also in the SPLOST, the city has earmarked $706,500 for road resurfacing, which Eidson said will be done on roads not covered through a state grant. About $1.3 million is planned for water and sewer improvements and debt retirement. Of that, $637,000 in the proposed project list would pay off costs from a water and sewer extension to the Century Oaks area in the southeast part of town, Eidson said. The remaining $706,500 water and sewer funds will be used to extend service to Benjamin Road.

“That will pretty much just about get everybody ,” he said, noting some areas cannot be serviced because of topographical problems.

Eidson and Harley pointed to $475,000 to retire transportation-related debt -- listed in the 2006 SPLOST -- and the current City Hall building -- listed in the 2001 SPLOST -- as examples of the penny sales tax at work.

“It takes the burden off of the (property) taxpayer on things that would take other taxes to do,” Harley said. “This is certainly the way to do it.”

2011年12月27日 星期二

An evolution in guidelines for research on chimps

Chimps are about 96 percent genetically identical to humans, and like us they are self-aware enough to recognize themselves in a mirror.

But physically, we show some remarkable differences. They don't get the same kind of heart disease humans get. They develop some of the brain abnormalities associated with Alzheimer's disease, but not others. And despite being more sexually promiscuous than humans, they don't get the same sexually transmitted diseases.

They heal better than we do and don't get sleep apnea, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, or acne. They aren't vulnerable to cancers of the breast, lung, stomach, pancreas, colon, ovaries, or prostate.

Physician-scientist Ajit Varki says these differences can be as informative as the similarities. With new restrictions expected soon on the use of chimpanzees in research, he and other scientists spoke about some types of research not mentioned in a new report, which they hope will continue or even increase.

The changes are expected to follow an Institute of Medicine report, released earlier this month, that stressed that biomedical research should be necessary, behavioral studies should be noninvasive, and animals should be housed and cared for appropriately. It was hailed as a positive step by animal-welfare advocates, such as the American Anti-Vivisection Society in Jenkintown. (According to the society's Sue Leary, there are currently no research chimpanzees in Philadelphia.)

The report said that most current research on chimpanzees is unnecessary. In response, the National Institutes of Health has called for a moratorium on new grants for chimp research until the agency can implement IOM's recommendations. But the new guidelines are not specific enough for scientists to predict which research projects will get the ax.

Some types of research should actually increase, said Varki, including studies that monitor the health of chimpanzees in research centers and sanctuaries. These, he said, can be conducted as part of the chimps' health care and can potentially benefit chimps, since they suffer their own unique set of health problems.

His bottom line is that scientists shouldn't do anything to a chimp they wouldn't be able to do ethically to a human. Researchers, he said, should consider invasiveness as well as any potential benefit to the chimps. Those criteria were not mentioned with regard to biomedical studies.Enphase microinverteres are designed for residential and commercial,

Varki said there is also a great deal we can learn through autopsy, and yet many sanctuary-housed chimps are incinerated when they die. Sanctuaries are not funded for autopsies or providing samples taken during routine medical care. "It's a lost opportunity to learn about them and us," he said.

Our opportunity to study chimps is also winding down. They are no longer imported for government-funded research. Research chimps are not bred in captivity, and, according to one estimate, will die out by 2037. Chimps in the wild are endangered, and may disappear as well.

Until that time, there is much that can be learned about ourselves from studying chimp behavior,Distributor of wholesalepetsupplies - pet supply product for aquarium, dog, cat, bird, small animal, reptile, pond. said Emory University psychobiologist William Hopkins. Our evolutionary cousins are helping us understand the nature of our own language, culture, self-awareness, and social relationships. Studying chimps is helping us understand what makes us human.

"They exhibit abilities that other animals don't, so they occupy this unique niche in terms of information about how the brain works and how cognition evolved," Hopkins said.

He also sees no ethical problems with the behavioral work he is involved in at Yerkes National Primate Center, near Atlanta. Some of the studies involve brain scanning, but chimps can't sit still in a scanner without sedation. While darts are sometimes used to anesthetize dangerous animals, Hopkins said workers at Yerkes have trained chimps to accept getting a shot. That limits stress, which improves the accuracy of the scanning.

He is now investigating a form of nonverbal communication called joint attention, which happens when an individual looks at something and others follow his gaze. About 75 percent of chimps do this readily and the remaining 25 percent do not, he said. Genetic studies show those failing to follow another's gaze tend to have an altered form of a gene that codes for a hormone called vasopressin, implicated in bonding and social behaviors.

He also has found that chimps have varied and complex personalities. Some are more extroverted than others,Welcome to the official Rubik's website, home of the world famous Rubik's cubepuzzles.Original thelandscapeoilpaintings, buy landscape paintings online. some are more conscientious, and some are more neurotic, said Hopkins. "There are Woody Allens of the chimp world," he said.

He said he believed that the new guidelines might have little effect on behavioral research, and that they were more likely to restrict invasive biomedical studies.

Whether such studies will continue may hinge more on the potential benefit to human health. The IOM panelists were divided over the use of chimps to study Hepatitis C vaccines.There are 19 polishedtiles available, The disease kills people, and chimp research may advance the search for a vaccine. But the process - infecting healthy chimps and subjecting them to liver biopsies - is not something any scientist would do to humans.

Regardless of how NIH decides to go on this, there's an unmistakable trend away from invasive research. "Seventy years ago chimps were sent off into space, given lethal doses of radiation, or infected with leprosy or TB," Varki said. "That kind of thing is fading away."

Some of this change comes from our understanding of evolution. "Chimpanzees are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom," said NIH Director Francis Collins. The connection between evolution and animal rights was an underlying theme in the film Planet of the Apes, in which two chimp scientists became enlightened about human rights as they recognized an evolutionary relationship between themselves and human beings. Now we seem to be moving in the same direction.

2011年12月19日 星期一

'Dragon Tattoo' stars one riveting girl

When I heard that David Fincher ("Seven," "Zodiac") was directing an English-language version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," I was dubious, although not about the talented Fincher's ability to tell dark and complex crime stories. I was wondering who he could possibly find who would be better in the title role than Noomi Rapace.

Rapace gave a riveting performance as the ornately tattooed computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander in the 2009 Swedish film version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

Salander, a fascinating and easily visualized character as written, is the real star of the book. Physically she's almost snakelike, reptilian -- the echo of "salamander" in Salander's name seems intentional. At the same time, she's eerily attractive. Slender, clad all in black, her body strong yet flexible like a leaf spring,This is interesting cubepuzzle and logical game. her hair spiked, her face studded with metal, she's simultaneously sexy and scary. She could be a character in a horror story.Original thelandscapeoilpaintings, buy landscape paintings online. Actually, I guess she is - "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" certainly has its horrific moments, and SalWhat can you tell me about thequicksilverscreen stuff on the internet,ander is in the middle of most of them, although by no means always as the victim.

In the Swedish film, which was a good one, Rapace seemed to crawl into the skin of Salander. In the electrifying new American version, Rooney Mara is not necessarily better than Rapace.There are 19 polishedtiles available, But she's just as good. Like Rapace, she seems to become Salander. If there is a difference between the two performances, it may be that Mara's is a little more suggestive of the history of pain and abuse beneath the hunched-over protective stance that Salander uses to shield herself from the world. (Along with her fists and feet and in one memorable scene, a taser.This is interesting cubepuzzle and logical game.) In any event, relative newcomer Mara (she played Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend in "The Social Network") seems an almost sure shot to be nominated for an Oscar.

The plot of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is complex, but at the core it's the story of a criminal investigation, like countless police procedurals and private eye mysteries.

An unjustly disgraced investigative journalist named Mikael Blomkvist (a rumpled Daniel Craig, looking nothing like James Bond) is hired by the patriarch of a wealthy Swedish family to find out what happened to his niece. Decades earlier, she vanished from the family's private island. The journalist moves into a small cabin on the island and, helped by Salander's wizardry with a computer, begins to uncover the family's past and a cast of characters that includes Nazis, neo-Nazis, corporate criminals, sadists and (perhaps) a serial killer.

Meanwhile, with Salander taking the initiative - she's an irresistible force - she and Mikael warm one another in the cold, snow-shrouded cabin on the island.

On a parallel track, we learn that Salander, presumed to be an orphan, is a ward of the state with a history of mental breakdowns who is being blackmailed by her court-appointed legal guardian into sexual submission. When her guardian's sexual demands escalate violently, she figures out a way to deal with the problem. The scenes of sexual brutality are horrifying, but relatively brief and hardly gratuitous, given the moral seriousness of the story being told. (The Swedish title of the book was "Men Who Hate Women.")

The running time of the American movie is more than two and a half hours, but it is so well constructed it seems shorter, moving quickly from discovery to discovery as Salander, in helmet and black leathers, speeds across Sweden on her motorcycle, and Mikael pursues the nasty secrets of the family on the island.

Fincher and screenwriter Steve Zaillian ("Moneyball") have tightened the story by changing one important plot point from the book, but the change maintains the spirit of the original and may actually improve on it - the book, although a first-rate moral thriller, tended to be a tad long-winded.

Fincher, who also directed "The Social Network," has become one of our most interesting directors, and he is to be commended for the skill with which he assembles the important pieces of this complex two-pronged text and molds them into a compelling movie thriller. Like the original book, Fincher's film is charged with moral outrage as well as dramatic suspense. But it wouldn't be half as effective without Rooney Mara giving one of the finest performances of the year as the formidable Lisbeth Salander.

2011年7月11日 星期一

SolarOr to Power Buildings with Honeycombs in Windows

Many governments worldwide now require double pane glass in windows for energy efficiency. In between the panes is usually a gas that helps to cut down on unwanted heat transfer. But what if, sandwiched between the two panes of glass, instead of merely a substance that helps to conserve energy, there was also an actual energy generator? That is the ingenious energy innovation supplied by Israel’s SolarOr, which was on display at this month’s Intersolar event at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Sandwiched between the two panes, SolarOr inserts tiny faceted solar photovoltaic cells facing the sky at the top of a honeycomb inside the glass.

The solar glass “efficiency” – or electricity generated per square meter – of the result is better than most BIPV, (Building Integrated PV). SolarOr’s says their honeycomb glass can produce 155 Watts per square meter. Typical rooftop PV panels do produce a bit more, but this is not bad for BIPV at all, and similar to that of Pythagoras Solar, another innovative Israeli solar architectural solar glass maker, that just completed a full solar window retrofit for Chicago’s Sears Tower with superior performance BIPV.

Normally BIPV is a little less efficient than traditional PV – but, on the other hand, traditional PV must be added on top of a roof, in separate panels, as a separate decision.

Because there is no separate decision needed; BIPV has an advantage that is psychological, based on human nature, that overcomes this supposed deficiency. That is because all buildings must have windows, walls and roofs anyway. So – even if it does take a bit more space to make the same energy, well, that is still more energy than a “dumb” wall, window, or roof will ever make.

So, instead of energy generation requiring an additional decision to be made, once basic shelter is supplied: now the choice becomes – why not install smart windows, walls, or roofs that make energy, in addition to conserving it, rather than dumb ones that don’t. That is a choice between getting more for your money or not; a much more familiar choice, and one with an easy answer.

So BIPV can eliminate the procrastination inherent in solar PV, since every building must have walls, windows and roofs, that In many jurisdictions now, must be efficient.

While generating energy, their glass also cuts heat transfer and lets 40% of the light through, fully meeting most government requirements for energy efficiency, like most double pane windows.

SolarOr’s curtain wall module is designed for climate control and solar energy harvesting, combining energy production with heat insulation, sun protection and robust structure.

2011年6月12日 星期日

Good user experience, but not quite iconic [Review]

As far as tablets go, Apple’s iPad has sort of set a benchmark of what they should be. And even though we have seen companies churning out tablets every month, nothing has come close to it in terms of usability, build quality, compatibility with apps, etc. Android tablets are dime a dozen in the market, but most of them come with an operating system that was built for smartphones. Windows OS tablets have also made an entry in the market, but haven’t got much traction as far as sales go.

Android had released the Honeycomb operating system sometime earlier this year, as an OS meant for the tablet product category. The Motorola Xoom was the first tablet to feature it. But we have got our hands on Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 which sports the Honeycomb OS and has reached the Indian market before the guys are Motorola Mobility got the Xoom here. So is Honeycomb OS the answer to iOS and can the Iconia Tab A500 provide that much lacking competition to the ruler – the iPad? Let’s find out...

Look and Feel

Coming in a grayish silver brush metal finish body, the A500 does not have any sharp edges. The rear covering peeps out from the top and lower portion on the front side. The screen is 10.1-inch wide diagonally and has a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. It is an LED backlit LCD screen with a glossy finish. The rounded edges allows the tablet to be held comfortably in your palms, but we would have liked a bit more grip. The power button is located on the top left hand edge and is easy to reach and has the 3.5 mm audio jack just above it as well as the mini HDMI port on the lower edge. The volume controller is located on the top edge beside the orientation lock button which has a nice click mechanism. On the right hand edge there is a power port at the top, a mini-USB port and USB port on the lower edge.

The 5 MP camera section is located on the on the top right hand edge of the rear side and sports a single LED flash whereas the bezel on the left hand side houses the front facing 2MP camera. Two speakers are located on the lower half and you will notice your fingers covering them when you hold the tablet in the landscape mode. We really liked the case it comes along with, which can bend to form a stand against which you can place your A500 and enjoy a movie.

User Interface

Google has built the Honeycomb user interface from the ground up and resembles nothing like its smartphone cousins. The display is divided into five home screens. The main home page has three buttons on the lower left hand corner for going back, coming to the home screen and looking at the apps that have been opened at a time. It houses the NVIDIA Tegra 2 system on chip with a snappy 1 GHz dual core processor. Navigating through the home screens is breezy and you will notice the outlines of frame disappearing as you settle onto one screen, a nice touch. Long holding a particular home screen will give you a zoomed out view of the five home screens with options to add more widgets, applications, wallpapers, etc to the screens via a simple drag and drop mechanism.

You can see the last five opened applications by simply tapping on the button beside Home. Getting into the Settings menu from the task bar requires three clicks unless you are looking for common tasks such as setting up WiFi, turning Notifications on/off, changing brightness and activating Airplane mode. This may seem like a round about way of doing things. The Settings menu is quite exhaustive with an additional option called Dolby Mobile. The on board Youtube widget has a stack of videos arranged in a domino setup. Gmail application syncs without any issues and has a left and right hand panel arrangement with the settings options arranged on the upper right hand corner. The bundled browser is quite good with the tab functionality which allows you to have around 16 tabs open at a time. You can scroll through the tabs which is a smart rather than clicking on the Next Tab option to get to tab number 15.

You will notice apps placed in a drawer section on the homepage, which houses related applications. There’s Multimedia, Social, eReading and GameZone which are the broad categories and you will have related applications such as audio / video player apps under Multimedia, Lumiread and the Browser under eReading and so on. With the help of a round button housing the plus sign, you can add extra applications under each section. This functionality is somewhat similar to the Folder function in the iOS, except that in the Honeycomb OS, you do not have the ability to name the folder. Visually though it looks much better than the Folder implementation on the iOS, but then again, it just adds more clicks needed to get into a particular application.