Samsung Galaxy Note 4: First Impressions

After years of promoting its phones as "the next big thing," Samsung is realizing that bigger isn't necessarily better.Two new Galaxy Note smartphones from Samsung are about the same size as last year's Note 3. What's different: A side screen on one of them and sharper cameras on both. Samsung also unveiled new wearable devices, including a virtual-reality headset, as part of its holiday lineup. The devices won't start selling until October or later, and prices for most haven't been announced yet.
Based on about an hour with these new gadgets at a Samsung event in New York, I find them impressive. But whether that's enough to win over potential iPhone customers will depend on what app developers do with these new features.
There's speculation Apple will unveil the iPhone 6 in two sizes next week, with the larger one at 5.5 inches. If that's the case, Samsung loses much of its size advantage and will have to make a compelling case for these other features.
Galaxy Note phones
Samsung's Galaxy Note phones have always been too big for me, but I know some people prefer larger screens because text is easier to read and video is easier to watch.
The new Galaxy Note 4 is a successor to last year's Note 3 and retains its 5.7-inch screen. The Galaxy Note Edge's screen is 5.6 inches and extends over the right edge and curves toward the back, creating a second display on the side.
The side display is my favorite of the new phone features. It can show weather and time while the phone is laid on a table or nightstand. You can add icons for quick access to apps you use frequently, such as Gmail or Netflix. You also get a panel of tools such as the flashlight. This panel is something Apple's iPhone have had for a year, and I'm glad to finally see it on an Android phone.
But it's too early to tell whether this side screen will ultimately be essential or merely a gimmick. Seeing weather and time on the side while in bed is neat, but I could simply grab the phone and check the home screen. I do that all the time when texts come in and the alarm clock rings.
It will take app developers - at Samsung and elsewhere - to invent new uses for that side screen. Their willingness to spend time on that could depend on how many people buy Edge phones, and how many people buy Edge phones could depend on what app developers do with it. See the quandary?
Both phones have 16-megapixel rear cameras to match that in the 5.1-inch Galaxy S5 (Review | Pictures). The front cameras offer 3.7 megapixels, better than most phones. Software will help more people fit into selfies by stitching together a few side-by-side images. I'm not a big taker of selfies as I look awful in them, but those who take a lot might appreciate this feature and the better front camera.
The Note phones also borrow some concepts from personal computers. The button on the included stylus will act like the mouse button on PCs. There are new ways to resize windows and have multiple apps run side by side on the same screen. This won't work with every app, so its usefulness will depend on how many bother to adopt the feature.
Gear VR Headset
The VR is a $200 helmet with a slot for attaching the Note 4 phone at eye level, so you're looking at the phone's display up close as if you were seeing through goggles. The VR has sensors to gauge your head's position and instructs the phone which part of a 360-degree, spherical video to display.
If you look down, for instance, the VR tells the phone to show you what the floor in the video looks like. Turn around to see what's behind you. I felt as though I was attending a Coldplay concert as the portion of the video I see changes as I look up, down and around. Likewise, a lion and elephants appeared up close as I watched video of an African safari.
The visuals were impressive, though I got dizzy after a few minutes and had to remove the VR to return to reality.
This device will need compelling content to be useful. Gamers might like this, but everyday consumers could tire of it quickly. Samsung could face the same problem it does with the side screen: Consumers won't buy it without enough content, and enough content won't be available without consumers.
Making things tougher is the fact that the VR works only with the Note 4 - not even the Edge. And there's no guarantee the VR will work with future phones such as a Note 5. That will further limit the VR's appeal.
Gear S Smartwatch
Smartwatches have been constrained in requiring a companion smartphone nearby. If that's the case, do you really need a second device to check email and Facebook? I can just check the phone.
The Gear S tries to solve that by working independently. It has its own SIM card, so it can grab notifications and other data over a 3G cellular connection. You can have calls from your main phone forwarded to the watch, as long as the phone is from Samsung. You can also make calls from the watch, but it'll appear as coming from a different number than your main phone. It's not yet clear how your wireless carrier will charge for service. Does it count as its own phone line, or is it a connected device, which costs less for service?
The watch also has a GPS sensor, so your runs are more accurately tracked than what the watch's pedometer can do. It also offers turn-by-turn directions for walking, using Here Maps from Nokia.
The Gear S is one to watch - no pun intended - though it's not certain yet whether Samsung will release it in the U.S.

'Good Rahul Gandhi Was Silent, Or Congress Would Have Done Worse': Amit Shah

Amit Shah was on his first visit to Mumbai after being appointed BJP President.

Mumbai:  Rahul Gandhi provoked a volley of barbs from the ruling BJP today after commenting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi "played the drums in Japan while ignoring problems back home."

In a stinging retort, BJP president Amit Shah said, "Digvijaya Singh said we lost because Rahul Gandhi keeps quiet. Digvijaya ji, it's good that he is silent, otherwise Congress wouldn't have got even 44 seats."

Mr Shah, on his first visit to Mumbai after becoming BJP chief, also targeted the Congress for what he described its misrule in Maharashtra, which is due for polls later this year. "For the past 15 years, what have the Congress and NCP done? Scams, scams, scams. I will need a week to finish the list," he said.

Veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh's admission in a recent interview that Mr Gandhi's silence on critical issues had cost the party in the "war of perception" has sparked a fresh leadership debate within the Congress.

Mr Gandhi today confronted questions about a rift within his party, between the "old guard" and younger leaders. "These types of tensions have always been there. We will deal with that," said the 44-year-old Congress vice president dismissively.

But several BJP leaders used the Congress turmoil to hit back at Mr Gandhi.

"Why should we listen to him when his own party members are not listening to him?" said union minister Venkaiah Naidu.

The BJP government completed 100 days in office this week. The party came to power in May after winning a massive mandate, decimating the Congress, which was reduced to its lowest ever tally.

Will Exit Coal Probe If Court Orders, Says CBI Chief After Petition in Supreme Court

File photo of CBI Director Ranjit Sinha

New Delhi:  CBI chief Ranjit Sinha must be removed from the coal scam that his agency is investigating, lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan has said in the Supreme Court, which will hear his petition on Tuesday.

"If the court orders (it), I will recuse myself," Mr Sinha said.

Mr Bhushan's demand is based on a visitors' diary maintained by security guards at the CBI chief's home. The entries allegedly show that Mr Sinha met at his Delhi residence with representatives of Reliance Telecom, a company being investigated in the telecom scam, and Congress leaders including Vijay Darda whose firms and relatives have been linked to the coal scandal.

"I have met officials of Reliance but have I shown favour to anyone?" Mr Sinha told NDTV on Wednesday, denying inappropriate behaviour.

On Monday, the top court will review the controversial diary. On Tuesday, it will take up Mr Bhushan's request to sequester Mr Sinha from the CBI's inquest of how and why coal blocks were allocated by the government without a transparent bidding process, resulting in losses worth 1.86 lakh crores, according to the government's auditor.

Last week, the Supreme Court declared that all coal block allocations since 1993 - nearly 200 in all - are illegal. It has not yet decided whether to cancel the licenses en masse. Mr Bhushan says that Mr Sinha's role in the investigation deserves scrutiny because last year, he ceded that a status report on "Coal-Gate", meant to be confidential for the court, had been reviewed and amended by the government. Mr Bhushan wants a Special Investigation Team to determine whether Mr Sinha misused his office to help some of those accused of breaking the law.

It is on Mr Bhushan's request that the Supreme Court has been monitoring the CBI's scrutiny of the alleged crony capitalism that determined who got coal and telecom resources. The CBI has said that former Telecom Minister A Raja accepted bribes from companies including Reliance in exchange for out-of-turn mobile network licenses.

Back to Our Roots: Would Humans be Better Off Eating a Paleolithic Diet?

Raw foodists and other campaign groups are eager for us to return to the sort of food our ancient ancestors ate. But how much truth is there in their various claims, and is there any real benefit for us in the 21st century?


A friend is reading a new book called Go Wild: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilisation. It has inspired him to go a bit "paleo", diet-wise. It says, for instance, that humans were not meant to eat grains. I don't want to dis a book that could help people become more mentally and physically healthy, but the notion that human beings were somehow designed (by God? by Mother Nature?) to only ever eat or do certain things, and that these things were dictated in some heyday hundreds of thousands of years ago, comes up a lot, and smells a little like baloney to me.

Raw foodists claim we were not meant to eat anything cooked. Some vegetarian campaign groups are adamant the "natural human diet", as eaten by our ancestors, is herbivorous. Paleo dieters say we were designed to eat lots of meat and veg, and agree with the gluten-free clan that eating grains was never part of the master plan for human nutrition. Are any of them right?


Evolution lessons


Guess what? There was never any master plan for human nutrition. Evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk, in her recent book, Paleofantasy, challenges misconceptions about evolution. We may be almost genetically identical to how we were 40-50,000 years ago, but it's not that simple. We are also, genetically speaking, 98% chimp and 35% daffodil. "How you use that DNA" must be taken into account, says Zuk. Evolution happens in fits and starts and we have changed plenty, she adds. Some populations developed the ability to digest lactose - the dairy sugar - after weaning (which no mammal had done before), about 5-7,500 years ago. This was a result of cattle farming, and the gene became common in, for example, northern Europe. Furthermore, "there are genes that control the production of amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch, and populations with a long history of eating grains, such as in Japan, have more copies of amylase genes than people from other parts of the world, so it's clear there have been lots of genetic changes, over a relatively short period of time".

She also thinks it's unhelpful to view evolution as perfectionist, so statements such as "we were perfectly adapted to ..." are guff. As the Nobel-prize-winning scientist François Jacob once said: "Evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer." It takes what it has and jerry rigs it together so that it works at the time, says Zuk, "and it just has to be good enough".


The paleolithic diet


This eating programme permits meat, fruit and veg, fish, nuts and seeds, and eschews coffee, booze, starches (spuds are out), grains, legumes, "processed" food and dairy. Colorado State University scientist and paleo diet exponent Loren Cordain says that westerners now get 70% of their diet from four sources: refined grains, refined sugars, dairy products and refined vegetable oils. It is clear that the modern diet isn't working out for us, but why the dramatic U-turn to paleolithic? Because, the theory goes, when that period finally came to a close 10,000 years ago, we started farming and that's when our diets started to go pear-shaped. And Cordain holds to the notion that, genetically speaking, "we are basically stone agers living in the fast lane", and therefore our optimum diet is paleo.

However, anthropological pedants have pointed out that paleolithic hunter-gatherers' diets were many and varied according to where they wandered, and part of the secret of our success is that we have always been omnivores. Besides, says Zuk, "increasingly people are starting to think that early humans ate more grains than we originally assumed". She cites a 2010 study that found evidence in Europe of starch grains having been ground into flour and mixed with water 30,000 years ago. Furthermore, you can only really do the diet if you are wealthy. As Daniel Lieberman, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology, has it: "A) we can't feed the whole world on grass-fed beef, sorry, and b) there are still a lot of question marks around eating as much meat as you possibly can."


Raw food


"It is a return to the way we were designed to eat. Nature doesn't make mistakes; it gives each species everything it needs in order to thrive. If we were meant to eat cooked food, we would have been born with built-in ovens!" This is from the raw-food website fresh-network.com. Can it be true, I ask the eminent NHS consultant gastroenterologist David Sanders. The way to sort this out, he suggests, is to ask: "Do you develop a disease as a result of eating cooked food? The answer is no." Plus, cooking has the benefit of rendering meat safer to eat, and toxic foods edible, such as potatoes and kidney beans.

However, it is true that our genus, Homo, has been unable to cook food for most of its existence so far. "If you picture the two million years of Homo's existence on a 24-hour clock," says Cordain, "it wasn't until between 20 and 40 minutes to midnight that we could cook. So our genome was conditioned by vastly different foods." The raw foodists have a point then? "It's not a practical point, because we live in a completely different world," he says, "so we need to take the best of their world, utilise it, and leave the worst behind - which is eating raw meat."


Vegetarianism


We have always had small canine teeth and lacked strong claws, reason those who think humans are natural herbivores. But scientists can tell whether our ancestors ate meat by analysing their bones and, says Cordain, "in the bones we dig up from Africa from two million years ago, and from Neanderthals in Europe, and Homo erectus in Asia, there's not a single exception. They were all omnivores and ate a lot of meat. Zuk also mentions one anthropological theory: that before he were hunters, we scavenged other animals' prey.


Gluten free


Sanders, who is chair of the Coeliac UK Health Advisory Committee, says he is inclined to agree with the statement that our bodies aren't designed to eat gluten, or at least quite so much of it, which is why coeliac's disease, gluten allergy and intolerance are all on the rise. "A slice of bread has about 2.5g of gluten so you think that's what you've had, but then it's in your Mars bar, X, Y and Z - they've all got gluten in them." He doesn't follow a gluten-free diet, however, because he doesn't have any symptoms associated with it. These sorts of decisions are a personal calculation and come down to common sense.