π day

Happy birthday, Einstein! But this is also Pi Day, and a very special Pi Day at that.

Why so special? The date is 3/14/15, the first five digits in the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

And—get ready for this—at 26 minutes and 53 seconds after 9 a.m., we will pass a date and time represented by the first10 digits of π. Very exciting! If you miss it, there will be one more chance at 9 p.m. After that, you’ll have to wait another 100 years for that auspicious moment to happen again, assuming that we will still be writing our Julian calendar dates as we do in America. It ought to be a great moment for conspiracy theorists; they are missing a terrific opportunity to warn us about cables snapping on suspension bridges, oil rig draw-works no longer pumping in Texas, and countless highway accidents when the mechanisms of rack and pinion steering freeze.

Benchmark & Calibrate Your Android Device’s Battery With Battery Kit

Most smartphones are notorious for their rather inadequate battery life. Although manufacturers are trying to overcome this nuisance by making bigger and long lasting batteries, heavy mobile users who stream media, browse the web and use social media services on their smartphones a lot have a hard time going through the whole day on a single charge. This is where battery saving apps come handy and let users get the most out of their phone’s batteries by analyzing their performance and turning off unused mobile features. Battery Kit is one such Android app that carries many advanced features such as the ability to detect wake locks, calibrate the battery, view various useful stats, perform benchmark testing and more.

You might not like Battery Kit’s interface, but it’s fairly functional at what it does. The big bold buttons make it easy to navigate between the different menus and screens of the app. Battery Kit’s strength lies in its advanced benchmarking tool that helps you assess your battery’s performance by putting it through a series of audio, video and browsing tests. The app drains the battery until it reaches 15% threshold, followed by presenting you with the test results. You can, of course, choose specific device features such as Wifi, Bluetooth, mobile data, auto brightness etc. to be enabled or disabled  before commencing the test.
  
If it’s an audio or video test, you can also specify output volume. Likewise, the browser test comprises of uninterrupted page reloads. Once a test is complet, Battery Kit displays statistical data about battery consumption, giving you an insight on how your battery might perform in everyday situations.
Besides the included benchmark tools, you can also view other statistical information such as charge history, and wake locks that are caused by processes, network, CPU or kernel etc.

  
You can also set a notification to be displayed when the battery is fully charged, which can help you know when to unplug your device from the charger. The Pro version also has a built-in battery calibrator that lets you recalibrate your battery after instances such as flashing a new ROM. Battery Kit also monitors your battery’s health, letting you keep an eye on its operating temperature to keep its performance from getting too degraded.
  
If you’re looking for an advanced battery app, Battery Kit is definitely worth giving a shot.
Install Battery Kit from Play Store (Free)
Install Battery Kit Pro from Play Store (Paid)

How To Fix Battery Drain Issue On A Rooted Android Device

On several Android forums around the web, Android users have been regularly reporting rapidly draining batteries after flashing custom ROMs (such as Cyanogenmod 7, MIUI and other lesser known ROMs) to their devices. As you would already know, numerous factors contribute towards hogging and draining your limited battery resources, but on the positive side, there are certain effective methods that can help you with rectifying said issue, and get the maximum life out of your Android’s battery. In what follows, we will provide you with a step-by-step solution to said problem.

The battery indicator in the status/notification bar is a reflection of the batterystats.bin file in the data/system/ directory. Every time a custom ROM is flashed on to a device, it is recommended that the battery be software recalibrated or user might experienced an accelerated battery drain.

The accelerated drain is caused by the “off-mark” battery stats file that fools the battery into “thinking” that it has reached the end or peak of its capacity before it is actually fully drained or charged. To remedy said problem,

• Charge your device to 100%. If after a previous attempt to calibrate the battery, your device fails to charge above a fixed level, it is possible that it has been calibrated incorrectly. If so, power it off and plug it in for charging until the LED indicator turns green. If your device does not sport an LED indicator, it probably shows an on-screen graphic. If not, you’ll have to check the battery level by powering it on.
• Reboot into recovery. If your custom ROM does not provide a shortcut to rebooting  into recovery, you may use ROM Manager to do so or simply power off your device for a more manual approach. If your device is already powered off, hold down the (device-specific) key combination that brings up the bootloader and select Recovery.
• Wipe Battery Stats. The following screenshots demonstrate how to wipe battery stats in ClockworkMod Recovery v2.5.0.7. Select advanced > Wipe Battery Stats > Yes – Wipe Battery Stats.

• Return to the main system recovery menu and reboot (reboot system now).
• Once rebooted, unplug your device and let the battery discharge completely.

Check Battery Charge And Discharge Speed On Your Android Device

When I first started using a Nexus 5, or more precisely when I first saw that the battery on the Nexus was low and I plugged it in to charge I realized within a few hours that it was charging absurdly slow. Naturally I tweeted about it and got suggestions to only use the original data cable for charging or to use a wall socket to charge instead of my laptop. Some people just said it was a Nexus/Android thing. What would have been instrumental in determining whether there was a problem with the cable, the output the device was getting from my laptop, or if it was just me being impatient was an app like Ampere. It’s a battery health app that detects the charge and discharge rate for an Android device. It will also give you an overview of your battery and for a small price you can disable the in-app ads and at the same time unlock the notification bar feature. The app does not require your device to be rooted.

Install Ampere and launch it. It takes ten seconds to detect the information for your device. The information you get tells you the current temperature of your device, the voltage input it’s getting from the power source and the number of mA (milliamps) it is receiving or losing.
It can also detect if the device is charging too fast or too slowly which helps determine if something is wrong with your data cable or if the device isn’t getting enough charge from a wall socket or a laptop.

The app’s pro version adds a customizable notification that tells you the current state of the charge or discharge when you pull down the notification bar. Before you install the app read it’s description where the developers have provided a list of known devices that it doesn’t work on due to hardware limitations. Ampere requires Android 4.3 and above.
Install Ampere From The Google Play Store

What All Can You Do If You Were Bill Gates

This is what you can buy with Bill Gates’ fortune
Forbes recently published its annual billionaire’s list, naming the richest people in the world in 2015.

Claiming top spot once again was Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is worth an estimated $79.2 billion – or R934.6 billion.

The 2015 list counted 1,826 billionaires across the globe, worth a total of $7.05 trillion – up from $6.4 trillion in 2014.

Now that we have already analysed who has gained and lost wealth over the past year, and seen where South Africa’s richest men and women fit in, we can move onto more pressing issues – like how we would spend all that money.

What you can buy with $79.2 billion

To keep things simple, and to allow for a wider choice, we looked at dollar prices of all items on the list.

Army of Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SuperVeloces

Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SuperVeloce
Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SuperVeloce
Revealed at the Geneva Motor Show this week, the LP 750-4 is Lamborghini’s fastest production car ever made.

Packing a 6.6-litre V12 engine which produces 559kw, the Italian hypercar will do 0 – 100 in 2.8 seconds.

With Gates’ fortune and Lamborghini’s asking price of $370,000, you could buy an army of 197,027 of arguably the best-looking cars in the world.

If Lamborghini is willing to make that many, that is.

Fleet of Gulfstream G650ERs

Gulfstream G650ER
Gulfstream G650ER
The Gulfstream G650ER is unmatched when it comes comfort and luxury in a small private planes – or so I have read.

The G650ER has a range of 13,890km, takes up to 18 passengers, and can travel at maximum speed of 1,133km/h.

In term of its interior, the cabin includes HD wide-screen TVs, a convection oven, porcelain dinnerware, and handcrafted seats as standard.

At a price of $66.5 million each, Gates could purchase a 1,096-strong fleet of the Gulfstreams.

World’s most expensive island

Lanai Island
Lanai Island
Hawaii’s Lana’i island is currently owned by Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who bought 98% of the exotic paradise for $500 million.

Lana’i is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at 364km², and, according to legend, used to be inhabited by man-eating spirits.

If you don’t mind sharing two percent of the island with the US government, and if you had access to Gate’s wealth, you could purchase the island 145 times over.

With tropical weather and beautiful scenery, it’s not a bad spot to retire.

Mozambique’s entire economy

Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique’s Gross Domestic Product for 2013 was $15.63 billion.

For those of you whose economics is a bit rusty, the GDP is the value of all goods and services produced in a country within a specific period of time – in this case 2013.

Gate’s fortune of $79.2 billion is just over 4.6 times more than our neighbours make in an entire year, and that’s including all the drunk tourists who spend millions on rum and raspberry cocktails every December.

Your favourite soccer teams, and all the players

Manchester United
Manchester United
According to Forbes’ list of wealthiest soccer teams in the world, if you had Gates’ money you would be able to buy the top five most valuable soccer teams in the world (and all their players) and still have cash to spare.

The top five teams by value are listed below.

Real Madrid – $3.4 billion
Barcelona – $3.2 billion
Manchester United – $2.8 billion
Bayern Munich – $1.8 billion
Arsenal – $1.3 billion.
With the teams above only totaling $12.5 billion, this would hardly put a dent in Gates’ wealth.

Arsenal fans should petition Gates to buy the club – maybe then they would acquire some decent players and finally have a shot at winning the league.

About 10% of Apple

Apple dollar

In February 2015, Apple broke a global record being the first publicly listed company in the world to be valued over $700 billion.

Currently, the electronics giant is worth even more than that, with a market capitalisation sitting at $752 billion.

The world’s richest man could own just over 10% of the world’s richest company, and has a total fortune equal to just less than half (44.5%) of its $178 billion cash reserves

Spartan Leaks

Thanks in no small parts to a Russian website, we’ve been provided with a very detailed look at the features of the new Spartan browser, along with plenty of leaked images.

Microsoft showcased their new solution at their January event — but we are yet to get access to this new web browser in any official preview build until now. These leaked screenshots, though, give us a better look at the Spartan user interface.

Starting off with the enhanced tab functionality of the browser.

Users will get suggested options right here when they look to open a new tab. This was, of course, present in Internet Explorer, but instead of a full dedicated screen, we have it more streamlined here.

Redmond is also focusing on the adaptive design of Spartan. We’ve already seen how the browser looks on phones, and the screenshots below show how the UI will scale on tablets. On the desktop, there appears to be a limit on how far the browser can be vertically manipulated.

Several features are missing what is, very clearly, an early preview build of Spartan.

Navigation keyboard shortcuts from previous version of IE seem to be present here, though, meaning regular users will not be required to relearn them.

In many ways, this is just a modern reincarnation of Internet Explorer.

But one that is built for mobile devices, with a cross platform user interface and the added advantage that of a universal application that works on all form and factor of Windows hardware.

Still early days, but so far, Spartan is shaping up to be a winner.

World of Goo

World of Goo is another hit game that recently made the jump to Android much like Osmos did and at roughly the same time. It's another level based pseudo puzzle game with excellent execution. It currently has a 4.9 rating on the Android Market and it deserves that rating. If you aren't familiar with this game yet then read on... otherwise feel free to jump right into downloading and playing it.
World of Goo pits you with the goal of getting your little goo droplets from here to there in a 'bridge building' manner. In essence you'll be dragging droplets to new spots on the screen and a pair of lines will follow you to show the connection you're about to build. Move too far away and you won't be able to make the connection. As the name of the game states, you are building with a somewhat flexible goo substance so don't expect rock hard connections, but rather connections that flop back and forth as you work to build up and across to the giant pipe in the sky.

Graphically the game is good and the audio is nicely integrated to make for a smooth game play experience. The touch controls work well with the occasionally irritation of too many little goo balls being too close together so it can be hard to single out just one when there are different types of balls in later levels... a minor irritation. Likewise, an errant tap here or there can result in a connection being deleting and your whole structure tumbling back to the ground. Be careful out there! The neat thing about this game is the variety present in the many levels meaning that each level is typically a leap and bound beyond the previous one offering up a new challenge versus being another variant on a theme. This game keeps you guessing and thinking...

The game also includes 'hints' along the way to attempt to provide some guidance as to what to do next. For example, an early level features balloon goo droplets in that they move back and forth like the black goo, but can be dragged into position and act as balloons. It took me a couple minutes to piece together what the sign painter was trying to say as the level was quite different from those preceding it and the progression found in most puzzle games. The feeling of frustration set in initially as did the equal and opposite feeling of accomplishment once I figured it out. The game also plays very much like an open sandbox where I'm sure there's not just one path to victory.

In addition to the many levels the game includes which are divided amongst several nicely themed chapters there's also an ongoing competition to build the tallest tower although that might not be obvious at first. As you play the game you'll have a goal of saving a number of goo drops and often you'll exceed that goal. Each of those extra droplets goes to your 'goo bank' which you can use in an effort to build the tallest structure which is ranked on a global leader board.

As stated in the first paragraph, this is a great, great game! It's premium priced at $5, but that price is fully justified, but it gets better... they even have a free demo containing the first chapter's worth of levels to get you started before you plunk down your cash. There's no reason not to try it... and then buy it. 5/5 stars.