Category — Innovation

OLED and several other innovations in television may be on the horizon, but LCD, plasma and LED TV are the latest technologies widely available for televisions today. And between LCD, plasma, and LED, the latter are becoming more and more popular and are generally very high in quality. Samsung even integrated 3D technology into their latest and greatest models of LED television and introduced the world’s first 3D LED TV this year. The drawback is that they are much more expensive than LCD or plasma TVs. Before you decide to buy a LED TV, here are a few things to look at.

First of all, it is informative to start with what an LED TV actually is and how it works. LED is light emitting diode. What you should keep in mind is that a LED television is not truely a LED TV, but just a LCD TV that uses LED as backlight. This is different from traditional LCD TVs which use a fluorescent as backlight.

There are two kinds of LED television. The first type is called the RGB Dynamic, which has LED scattered all around at the back of the panel. This allows the TV to have a higher contrast ratio and to portray the black and white areas in truer color. This way it doesn’t get in the way of the detail and allows small bright objects on a dark background to shine.

The second type is called the Edge-Lit LED TVs, where the LED is located around the edges of the screen. This method distributes light across the screen and allows the television to remain very thin. Some models are even less than an inch thick.

The benefit of LED TVs are that they have higher dynamic contrasts compared to other types of TVs (dynamic contrast is the balance between the black and white areas on a TV). Besides that, an LED TV is typically thinner than other flat-screen TV and has a good range of color balance, with more colors. They are also environmentally friendlier.

Another benefit of LED TVs is that these units have better black levels than traditional TV units, with richer colors and brighter color span. They also have a longer lifespan than the plasma or LCD. Plasma and LCDs typically start to show damaged pixels or sometimes die after a few years of usage.

The main drawback of LED TVs however is that, at least for today, they cost much more than the average flat screen TVs. And though they are touted as environmentally friendly, they can use more energy than either LCD or plasma TVs.

While the quality difference between LED TV and traditional flat screen TV is quite obvious, the LED TV cost is considerably higher making the value questionable. Is the improvement is picture quality with an LED TV worth the extra cost at this point? Probably not for most people.  That’s why some people might still prefer to go for LCD or plasma which are much cheaper and with acceptable quality.

In the end, the best LED TV is for those who can spend the money and want top notch quality. For people on a budget that still want a beautiful looking television, they may consider looking into plasma or LCD which are still miles better than the previous generation of televisions and a great value now that prices have dropped considerably.

Whenever you buy something, certain precautions are taken to ensure the product stays fresh and damage free. Finding proper storage and keeping the product clean is always the top priority. When it comes to laptops, additional care is given when transporting the delicate device.

Lots of products are available to take care and maintain laptops. There are solutions and fabrics to clean the surface and screen and programs to keep the software and operating system to run smoothly. But when it comes to holding the product, only a laptop sleeves can suffice to provide the necessary cover the product needs.

Many manufacturers offer very unique sleeves for the device. Some are made with recycled materials, which is perfect for naturalists and ecology concerned individuals. They also come in all sizes and shapes to house any laptops that consumers have.

The design is also considered to be one of the important aspects in buying a sleeve. Beauty is on the eye of the beholder and this is very true to consumers as they apply it when buying a cover for the laptop. Certain designs are modern and some are a bit classy, and even a few produce extraordinary looking covers that go beyond the limits of design principles.

The sleeve should have the capability to keep the laptop safe from any external hazards. Lots of products lose their luster and smoothness because of scratches and other damage on their surface. Cover sleeves should not only provide scratch resistant surface but also provide shock cushioning to prevent cracks from bumps and falls.

A laptop sleeve is an indispensable tool for people on the go. They need to keep their hard earned investment in a clean, dry and safe compartment, protecting files that they are working on as well as the device that holds them.

For any firms who are thinking of getting into the high frequency trading (HFT) space, one of the most significant barriers they have to overcome is that of technology. In order to compete with the big boys (i.e. the Wall Street firms with deep pockets) any new players thinking of implementing an HFT system need to make some pretty savvy tech decisions. So if you are in this position, what kind of things do you need to take into consideration?

One of the things you should think about first is taking advantage of services offered by firms already established in the space, such as exchanges, managed services/hosting providers, and even some sell-side brokerage firms. This is smart strategy to lower the cost of entry for new participants. There are other advantages as well.

Many exchanges are now offering rack space in their own data centers to HFT firms who are looking for “co-location” in order to reduce latency down to the lowest levels. This comes down to basic physics. The shorter physical distance an electronic order message needs to travel before it is executed, the faster it will hit a bid or offer on the electronic market. Don’t forget, we are talking in microseconds here, so if you can consistently beat your competitors to the best prices on the order book, you will hold a significant advantage. This is not widely considered out of HFT circles, but within the high frequency trading community, traders know that microseconds can add up to millions of real pounds, dollars, or yen. The better your software and systems and the closer you are to the exchange, the better chance you have for trade execution.

Where it is impossible to take out rack space at the exchange, a number of service providers have now sprung up, providing “proximity hosting”. This is basically a one-stop shop where they will provide not only rack space in a data center very close to the exchange, but also computer hardware, storage and network communications to the exchange itself. This definitely lowers the barriers to entry for new high frequency trading participants.

Many service providers, such as Cisco and BT Radianz for example, are tailoring these services specifically for new high frequency trading firms, providing the entire infrastructure needed to get started, in a completely hosted environment. So the technology barriers are getting lower all the time.

Here is an excellent primer on high frequency trading and the New York Stock Exchange:

Last week we journeyed out to limehouse town hall in hackney to witness the latest Dorkbot event.

Dorktbot London is the UK chapter of a global collective dedicated to people ‘doing strange things with electricity’. Now, this might sound pretty niche (and it is), but we fervently believe that the hackers are the future – look at Linux.

Anyways,the most fun presentation we saw was Brock Craft who had worked out a way to translate card data into music using a standard swipe machine. he did a demo of the resulting art project: the delightful ‘brockenspiel’. Of course, this being dorkbot, someone just *happened* to have a laser card reader to hand and the attached photo shows the collective delight when that worked too. Brock’s own site has a nice little video of how it all works.