Droid Razr officially shown with Android 4.0 ICS delights

The Motorola Droid RAZR has been a hugely popular phone but the long wait for the update to the latest Android operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, is beginning to frustrate some owners. Indeed it?s not just RAZR owners still waiting for the ICS update but while the wait goes on we do at least have news of some videos that have come to light showing 4.0 ICS in action on the Droid RAZR.

We?ve been bringing readers all the news on the latest information issued about ICS updates from various manufacturers and carriers. In a recent Verizon roundup we gave the latest timeframe for the ICS update for the Droid RAZR as still due in Q2 so hopefully it won?t be too much longer. The video that you can see below this story gives an idea of what the RAZR with Ice Cream Sandwich will look like and how to navigate around it and is one of a series of available videos.

The videos were brought to our attention by Endadget and while there have been previous leaked looks of ICS on Motorola devices, the video below is just one of 9 official demos on the Motorola Japan website all using the Droid RAZR. Other videos show the browser, Webtop 3.0, camera,the new lock screen, screenshots, a time lapse video, dialer, notifications and more. You can see every one of the videos at this Motorola Japan link but bear in mind, as you would expect, most of the audios are in Japanese.

From what we can see it looks as though Motorola has done a pretty decent job so why not take a look at the video below and tell us what you think. Are you a Droid RAZR owner avidly waiting for the Android 4.0 ICS update? From what you can see do you approve of what?s on your way? Let us know with your comments.

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Obtain Really Cheap Car Insurance Within Jacksonville Florida

As most individuals are aware, if you put the language ?Car Insurance in Florida? into any internet search engine you will discover literally dozens of sites that permit you to create fast and straightforward comparisons of prices for car insurance between a wide array of insurance companies. One of the very most affecting component could be the kinds too as monetary examples of policy you employ if you get your Florida car insurance. But you must do a bit research before you decide to finalize having a company cheapest Florida auto insurance. Cheap Miami car insurance could be ideal, wouldn?t it? Of course it could You?d love to drive around a hot town, with your convertible top down and the wind blowing using your hair, all with all the knowledge that you, and your vehicle, are fully protected without stopping a huge chunk of your paycheck each month for car insurance premiums. As a nation, we?re slimming down our cell phone packages, cancelling magazine subscriptions and everybody, it seems, is looking to get a cheap auto insurance company. Its actually not entirely too difficult to do here, and while you will most likely find that you may have to do a bit research, the final results can be exponential.

First and foremost, just how which you pay is actually pretty important here, believe it or not. Also, if you?ve a teenager, you will definitely want them to adopt the course as well, as you now that theyre inside the highest bracket for car insurance rates. Just about every improvement inside your boundaries and also type of protection impact your insurance policy. So, youll find that it is actually pretty impressive for just about anyone, since there really are discounts for folks who are in virtually any stage of their life.

Your location. By visiting websites like AM Best and JD Powers, one can learn about your insurance companys reliability. This locks inside the price so that the rate can?t be changed. More often than not, youll be linked to a company that actually knows what they are doing. Do you have other insurance policies with all the same company? Do you?ve a homeowner?s policy, or even a life insurance policy or even a health policy with all the same company? If so you probably qualify to get a Multi-Policy Discount.

The something that you simply may choose to know, before you obtain started, and before you receive behind the wheel of your vehicle again, is the fact that not having car insurance is from the law. Every year a company will assess the amount of miles that you simply travel. There are lots of insurance firms present online, but not all of them are really that great. When promotions are going on, its not unlikely to have a heavily discounted rate for your car insurance policy once they are, and never only that, they often throw in certain kind of other goodie that makes the deal almost too good being true. Call the service representative to locate out which groups they offer discounts to.

Your vehicle. Also, if you have a teenager, you will definitely want them to take the course as well, while you now that theyre inside the highest bracket for car insurance rates. With that being the case, theres a good dependence on you to definitely check them out pretty diligently. Every year a company will assess the amount of miles that you simply travel. You could find this information around the internet with little difficulty or you may simply call your local insurance agent.

If youre looking to receive something great in Cheap Florida auto insurance, be sure that youre on the lookout for just about any type of discount that you may be applicable for. Or your car?s mileage, rather. Obviously, you?ll want to pick the best quote. If car owners still think it is being a trouble, they can consult the Florida Department of Financial Services for easy guidance.

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Schools Barred From Handcuffing Students

Schools Barred From Handcuffing Students (ABC News)

Public schools in Jackson, Miss., will no longer be allowed to handcuff students to poles or other objects, under a settlement with the Southern Poverty Law Center reached in U.S. District Court.

Jody Owens, director of the Mississippi office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the Capital City Alternatives school in Mississippi's largest district ?must immediately stop handcuffing students, a practice used to punish even such things as dress-code violations.

"The focus should be education, not incarceration and it's tantamount to child abuse when children are handcuffed to railings for something as simple as not having the appropriate belt or inappropriate shoe strings," Owens said.

The way students had been disciplined in the school was abusive, she said.

"We have some students who have gone on record to say it's happened to them three or four days in a row," Owens said. "We know there are some students who actually had to eat their lunch with one hand handcuffed to a railing."

According to the settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee, district employees will stop handcuffing students younger than 13, and can only handcuff older students for crimes, and no student may be handcuffed to railings, poles, desks, chairs or other objects.

"It's apparent there were severe problems that we hope now are being addressed and will be alleviated," Lee told lawyers in court Friday, just before signing the settlement order.

CCA Principal Marie Harris said in her deposition that some did handcuff students, but that it was done for student safety.

The ruling requires the school to change its approach in dealing with emotionally challenged students. The school was ordered to conduct a "climate assessment" that includes students, parents and teachers, as well as a mandate that all teachers be trained to deal with students with emotional and behavioral management problems, Owens said.

"We're excited to have a comprehensive settlement that changes not only the practice of handcuffing kids to railings but in addition the settlement focuses on changing the overall climate of this school from one that's jail like to one that focuses on education," Owens said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Shopping Lists & Product Reviews: Property Tax Appeals

Property Tax Appeals

Posted by Savvy_Mama at 7:34 AM .

Property owners who feel that the value of their property has been wrongly estimated or if they have been undervalued or was not given its due exemption need to file nc property tax appeals. Whether it?s for a residential property or an income-earning property, the property owner needs to follow all the required steps in filing for property tax appeals. It is also advisable that the property owner seeks the assistance of a lawyer to ensure that they are given the proper legal representation.

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Solar Cell Efficiency Breathrough from Northwestern University Researchers

A team of researchers at the Northwestern University has advanced up with an innovative breakthrough in solar cell efficiency. The researchers have shaped up a reliable dye-sensitized solar panel that is cheaper and can ensure better power efficiency than the regular cells.

The inventive solar technology is really a variant of the Gr?tzel cell, a kind of dye-sensitized solar cell, which makes use of semiconductor titanium oxide in place of the conventional silicon material. The outcome is that the solar cell, which is named after the Swiss chemist Michel Gr?tzel, delivers better power efficiency and is inexpensive, less toxic and certainly environmental in several aspects, the researchers claim.

In fact, the breakthrough the researchers have achieved is their successful attempt to solve a persisting problem with the Gr?tzel design. Since it makes use of an organic liquid as its electrolyte, there is a chance that it may leak in various conditions. The leaked liquid is threatening because it will corrode the entire cell. Well, it is here the Northwestern University researchers have proved their credential well. They developed a fresh material called the CsSnI3 that can solidify the liquid and prevent seepage under any condition.

The CsSnI3 is a very slim film compound, which merges cesium, iodine and tin. It is basically added in liquid form to dye-coat nanoparticles, but it turns to a solid mass so that there won?t be any leakage issue. Well, as per the lead researcher, Robert P.H Chang, it is the first demo of a solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell that can definitely ensure better efficiency than the current solar technologies.

Via: Gizmag

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Romney promises to maintain US military power

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks during a campaign event at the Veterans Museum & Memorial Center, Monday, May 28, 2012 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks during a campaign event at the Veterans Museum & Memorial Center, Monday, May 28, 2012 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets veterans after speaking at a campaign stop at the Veterans Museum & Memorial Center, Monday, May 28, 2012 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, center, stands with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., second from right and San Diego Veteran of the year Marine David Dicky while during a campaign stop at the Veterans Museum & Memorial Center, Monday, May 28, 2012, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

David and Cynthea Brown, of San Diego, wait for the start of a campaign event with Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., at the Veterans Museum & Memorial Center, Monday, May 28, 2012 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

SAN DIEGO (AP) ? Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, on the brink of clinching the Republican nomination, promised Monday to maintain an American military "with no comparable power anywhere in the world."

Romney spoke a day before Texas voters were likely to give him enough delegates to formally clinch the Republican presidential nomination, a formality that cements his status as President Barack Obama's general election opponent.

"It's a big day tomorrow," Romney said late Monday. "I'm looking forward to the good news."

Texas' Tuesday primary offers 152 delegates, and Romney is just 58 delegates shy of the 1,144 needed to become the nominee. Romney will be in Las Vegas on Tuesday attending a fundraiser hosted by celebrity real estate mogul Donald Trump.

Trump earlier in the week returned to the controversy over where Obama was born.

Romney has declined to repudiate Trump for embracing the fringe view, saying Monday evening that while he doesn't agree with all the people who support him, he appreciates their help to get him at least 50.1 percent of the vote in November.

Trump again contended this week that Obama was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia, pointing to information in a catalog from a literary agency that represented Obama two decades ago. That view has been debunked repeatedly. Obama released his long-form birth certificate in April 2011 showing he was born in Hawaii while Trump weighed entering the Republican primary race.

Earlier Monday Romney faced a San Diego crowd estimated at 5,000 in what was billed as a Memorial Day service paying tribute to the nation's war dead, not a campaign rally.

Without naming his general election rival, Romney drew clear contrasts with Obama on the issue of defense.

The Democratic president has proposed reducing the size of the military following the end of the U.S. combat role in Iraq and plans to remove troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

"We have two courses we can follow: One is to follow in the pathway of Europe, to shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs," Romney said outside the Veterans Memorial Center and Museum. "The other is to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world."

The White House and congressional Republicans have agreed to cut $487 billion in military spending over the next decade. Even with Obama's proposed cuts in the military budget, the U.S. would remain by far the world's dominant military power. The Pentagon's budget this year exceeds $600 billion. Closest rival China said this year its defense budget will top $100 billion for the first time, although the U.S. claims China spends twice as much.

Across the country in Washington, Obama marked the solemn holiday with remembrances at Arlington National Cemetery, and later at the Vietnam War Memorial marking the 50th anniversary of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

He noted that for the first time in nine years "Americans are not fighting and dying in Iraq. After a decade under the dark cloud of war, we can see the light of the new day on the horizon."

The candidates' comments underscored the political and practical effects the presidential contest could have on America's role in the world.

A new Gallup survey found that veterans prefer Romney over Obama by a double-digit margin, 58 percent to 34 percent. That voting bloc, consisting mostly of older men, makes up 13 percent of the adult population.

Obama won the presidency handily four years ago while losing veterans by 10 points to Sen. John McCain, a former Navy pilot. Neither Obama nor Romney served in the military. Romney's campaign says that during the Vietnam War he received deferments for his Mormon mission to France and academic studies. He later entered the draft lottery, but his number was not called, a spokesman said. Obama, 50, was a child during the Vietnam conflict.

In San Diego, Romney was joined by McCain, a Vietnam veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war. McCain said that Romney, "I believe, is fully qualified to be commander in chief."

Romney noted that he visited Afghanistan and Iraq during his term as Massachusetts governor. But he has limited foreign policy experience.

Still, Romney has been critical of Obama's plans to reduce the military, in addition to the administration's policy toward Syria's handling of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's government.

In a written statement Sunday, Romney said Obama "can no longer ignore calls from congressional leaders in both parties to take more assertive steps in Syria." Romney said the current approach has only given Syrian leaders more time to crackdown on protesters.

World leaders blame the Syrian government for the weekend killing of more than 100 people, including 49 children and 34 women, following peaceful protests.

"I wish I could tell you that the world is a safe place today. It is not," Romney said Monday, ticking off a list of threats including Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Venezuela and Mexican drug cartels. He did not mention Syria.

Romney said Monday that America's military might is needed "not so that we just win wars, but so we can prevent wars."

"A strong America is the best deterrent to war that has ever been invented," he said.

Associated Press

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China on the capitalist road

China Daily, the largest English-language newspaper in China, carried a front-page headline last week: "Village Gratitude Shows Integrity of Task."

Not clear what that's about, and the opening sentence isn't much help: "On a hot afternoon, Zhou Yi picked up a bag of freshly boiled eggs that had been left on the doorstep of the committee office in Chaqulak village in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region." I figured this must be some feel-good story about the noble, uncorrupted country folk taking care of the less fortunate in their midst.

But read on. Zhou Yi is not a homeless man dependent on the generosity of his fellow peasants who have little enough for themselves, etc. He is one of a group of "regional-level officials sent to live in Chaqulak as part of an initiative to provide officials with firsthand experience of working at the grass-roots." The officials were grateful for the eggs. Apparently they don't get a per diem.

A program to send bureaucrats into the countryside to see what real work is like? It's possible the story is not so simple, and maybe China Daily has an agenda here. But it sure sounds like what went on during Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, doesn't it? The founding editor of China Daily himself spent nine years doing menial work on a farm somewhere before he was allowed to return to Beijing.

I thought that stuff didn't happen anymore. In 1979, just three years after the Cultural Revolution collapsed, Deng Xiaoping reversed course and China started down the capitalist road, with stunning results that any visitor can see: small towns converted into huge cities with millions of people living in high-rises, driving cars (or taking new subways); choking on pollution but nevertheless happy to be enjoying the fruits of a free-market economy.

And yet the Communist Party retains absolute political power (although there are now real elections at the village level, with multiple candidates and all the fixin's). In fact, the party takes credit for reforming the economy, and may even deserve it.

So how does all this fit together? How free is the average Chinese citizen? How much communism is left in the Communist Party? Will free-market capitalism inevitably lead to democracy? Or have the Chinese discovered some new Confucian synthesis of free markets and authoritarian rule?

These are the kind of questions that an American visitor to China will naturally have. And after eight days there (in a small group of journalists whose way was paid by a foundation funded by a Hong Kong billionaire), I now have all the answers.

Actually, whatever insights I may have gained during my visit came mostly from reading James Fallows' new book, "China Airborne," on the plane coming home. Fallows spent several years in China with the explicit and full-time purpose of trying to understand it. He writes that to talk about China (population 1.3 billion) as a single entity is absurd:

"When acting on the international stage, or when imposing some internal political rules, the central government can operate as a coordinated entity. But most of the time, visitors ? and Chinese people too ? see vividly and exclusively the little patch of 'China' that is in front of them, with only a guess as to how representative it might be of happenings anywhere else."

Fortunately, while Fallows was learning about China firsthand, I was in Washington taking an advanced course in guesswork at the National Punditry Institute. So here is my best guess about China: More than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's pretty well established that freedom and democracy really are universal appetites. Everybody wants them, with no special exemption for Asian cultures.

But would you give up your right to vote in exchange for a job in the city, indoor plumbing, a TV? That's what many Chinese people believe their country is doing: moving slowly in introducing democracy in order not to interfere with the mad dash to capitalism.

The Chinese are still ruled by a regime that killed millions in defense of a philosophy it no longer believes in. But now it rules with a lighter, and somewhat whimsical touch.

An older dissident type told us that young adults didn't even know about the events 23 years ago in Tiananmen Square. We asked a bunch of college students. They giggled and snorted: Of course they knew about Tiananmen Square. Would they write about it in the school paper? More snorting: Of course not. They seemed perfectly comfortable with the anomaly, maybe because they think it won't last.

Even more comfortable was a huge manufacturing firm that had set up a series of inspirational posters near the front door. Most of them were filled with business school babble about corporate culture. In this environment, one poster about the important role of the Communist Party stood out. And in fact the party had supplied funds to get this company started. In every other respect, it seemed like a big company anywhere in the capitalist world. (And I was there for more than 45 minutes, listening to a discussion in a foreign language, so I know.)

The best-known bit of totalitarian-style repression in China is the notorious "one child" policy. It is still the rule, but it is enforced somewhat sporadically. If you are an only child of your parents, you yourself may have more than one. Some people who can afford it just pay the fine as a cost of having children. And meanwhile China faces a shortage of working-age people to support a growing number of old folks. So even putting ethical issues aside, the whole thing looks like a mistake. It won't last.

Yes, the Chinese Communist Party continues to do terrible things, as the case of Chen Guangcheng demonstrates. But the party also seems to function as sort of a Rotary Club that you join if you want to get ahead in China's raucous, utterly non-communist economy.

Michael Kinsley, a former editorial page editor of The Times, is a Bloomberg View columnist.

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