Ramping up wind energy research

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2011) ? As the percentage of wind energy contributing to the power grid continues to increase, the variable nature of wind can make it difficult to keep the generation and the load balanced.

But recent work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in conjunction with AWS Truepower, may help this balance through a project that alerts control room operators of wind conditions and energy forecasts so they can make well-informed scheduling decisions. This is especially important during extreme events, such as ramps, when there is a sharp increase or decrease in the wind speed over a short period of time, which leads to a large rise or fall in the amount of power generated.

"We're trying to forecast wind energy at any given time," said Chandrika Kamath, the LLNL lead on the project. "One of our goals is to help the people in the control room at the utilities determine when ramp events may occur and how that will affect the power generation from a particular wind farm."

The project, dubbed WindSENSE, is funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

To understand ramp events better, Kamath used data-mining techniques to determine if weather conditions in wind farm regions can be effective indicators of days when ramp events are likely to occur. She used wind energy and weather data from two regions -- the Tehachapi Pass in Southern California and the Columbia Basin region on the Oregon-Washington border.

"Our work identified important weather variables associated with ramp events," Kamath said. "This information could be used by the schedulers to reduce the number of data streams they need to monitor when they schedule wind energy on the power grid."

With wind farms predicted to provide more energy for the grid, Kamath said it is necessary to get the wind speed predictions on target.

Wind farms in the Tehachapi Pass currently produce 700 megawatts (MW) of power, but soon will be producing 3,000 MW. In the Columbia Basin, the farms were producing 700 MW of power in 2007, but by 2009, they were producing 3,000 MW. So it is important that the wind forecasts are accurate, especially during ramp events, when the energy can change by over 1,000 MW in an hour.

"The observation targeting research conducted as part of the WindSENSE project resulted in the development and testing of algorithms to provide guidance on where to gather data to improve wind forecast performance," said John Zack, director of forecasting of AWS Truepower. "These new software tools have the potential to help forecast providers and users make informed decisions and maximize their weather sensor deployment investment."

The wind generation forecasts used by utilities are based on computer simulations, driven by observations assimilated into the time progression of the simulation. Observations of certain variables at certain locations have more value than others in reducing the forecast errors in the extreme events, the location of the event and the look-ahead period.

Part of the WindSENSE effort was to identify the locations and the types of sensors that can most improve short-term and extreme-event forecasts. The team used an Ensemble Sensitivity Analysis approach to identify these locations and variables.

"We're trying to reduce the barriers to integrating wind energy on the grid by analyzing historical data and identifying the new data we should collect so we can improve the decision making by the control room operators, " Chandrika said. "Our work is leading to a better understanding of the characteristics and the predictability of the variability associated with wind generation resources."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111214125857.htm

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Theater named for 'Addams Family' star John Astin

BALTIMORE (AP) ? A renovated theater at Johns Hopkins University has been renamed for "The Addams Family" actor John Astin.

Astin starred as Gomez Addams in the television show from 1964 to 1966. He has taught at the university since 2001 and is credited with revitalizing the school's theater program.

The Baltimore Sun reports that the 104-seat John Astin Theater recently underwent a $210,000 makeover.

Astin graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1952.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-12-06-Addams%20Family-Theater/id-7de999aa3936451ca793af4913bac6ca

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Contrite Boeheim commits to child abuse awareness

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim reacts after apologizing for statements he made earlier about the Bernie Fine sexual abuse case after Syracuse defeated Florida 72-68 in an NCAA college basketball game in Syracuse, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim reacts after apologizing for statements he made earlier about the Bernie Fine sexual abuse case after Syracuse defeated Florida 72-68 in an NCAA college basketball game in Syracuse, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim reacts after apologizing for statements he made earlier about the Bernie Fine sexual abuse case after Syracuse defeated Florida 72-68 in an NCAA college basketball game in Syracuse, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim reacts after apologizing for statements he made earlier about the Bernie Fine sexual abuse case after Syracuse defeated Florida 72-68 in an NCAA college basketball game in Syracuse, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim apologizes for statements he made previously about the Bernie Fine sexual abuse case after Syracuse defeated Florida 72-68 in an NCAA college basketball game in Syracuse, N.Y., Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) ? Two weeks after vilifying two former ballboys who accused his longtime assistant of child molestation, Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim said Saturday he'll campaign against child abuse even though he knows his motives will be questioned.

"We believed in helping kids long before this. I'm sure people are always going to question why you do something, but we're going to do this and continue to do it," Boeheim said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "We don't do it for what people might say."

The comments came a day after a postgame press conference in which a drawn-looking Boeheim apologized in a halting voice for initially disparaging the men who accused Bernie Fine of molesting them as minors. Fine has denied the allegations.

A few people had called on Boeheim to resign or be fired when the accusations first surfaced, and he was criticized as callous for saying the accusations were lies motivated by money.

Boeheim first softened his stance earlier this week. After Fine was fired Sunday, Boeheim released a statement saying he regretted any statements he made that might have been "insensitive to victims of abuse." Then on Tuesday, Boeheim apologized but said again he didn't regret defending his old friend based on the information he had at the time and said he had never worried about his job status in 36 years.

By Friday, he was far more contrite.

"I believe I misspoke very badly in my response to the allegations that have been made," said Boeheim, who paused frequently during a postgame press conference. "I shouldn't have questioned what the accusers expressed or their motives. I am really sorry that I did that, and I regret any harm that I caused."

Boeheim and his wife, Juli, spent time Thursday at the McMahon/Ryan Child Advocacy Center in Syracuse. He said they want to raise awareness about the pervasiveness of child abuse.

"We're going to try to do this because it's our community, and that's what we're going to continue to do," Boeheim told the AP.

He insists the marked shift in his public statements over two weeks is real and not being scripted by the university's chancellor or other outside forces.

"I think in some ways it definitely is genuine," said Nick Caneo, a 19-year-old sophomore studying economics, said of the center visit. "But on top of it, it definitely is a PR thing,"

Mark Grimm, an adjunct media professor at Siena College, said he was shocked by how unprepared Boeheim was Tuesday night.

"Clearly, he took a radical turn between the Tuesday and Friday press conferences. There's no question. He was in over his head there for a while," Grimm said. "They give him a standing ovation when he walks in the Carrier Dome, but remember, these are hard-core Syracuse fans. The whole other community ? many of them are appalled."

University spokesman Kevin Quinn declined comment.

Boeheim is easily the most recognized person in this upstate New York city of 145,000 and the public face of Syracuse University. Forbes magazine puts the worth of Boeheim's squad at $17 million, eighth best in the NCAA, while the industry research group SportsOneSourceGroup says the team probably accounts for $40 million a year in merchandise sales.

And in a city where the economy has faltered along with the rest of the Rust Belt, and where headlines often involve the words, "record-setting snow," there's another reason to support the coach: Basketball is a balm.

Not anymore.

That changed Nov. 17, when the allegations against Fine were made public.

One of Fine's accusers, Bobby Davis, now 39, told ESPN that Fine molested him beginning in 1984 and that the sexual contact continued until he was around 27. A ball boy for six years, Davis said the abuse occurred at Fine's home, at Syracuse basketball facilities and on team road trips, including the 1987 Final Four. Davis' stepbrother, Mike Lang, 45, who also was a ball boy, told ESPN that Fine began molesting him while he was in the fifth or sixth grade.

A third accuser, 23-year-old Zach Tomaselli of Lewiston, Maine, came forward last Sunday. He said he told police that Fine molested him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room after a game. He said Fine touched him "multiple" times in that one incident.

The allegations have rattled the Syracuse community, especially so soon after the Penn State child sex abuse case in which former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is accused in a grand jury indictment of sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period.

Chancellor Nancy Cantor immediately made it clear in an e-mail to the Syracuse community that the school would not tolerate abuse: "We know that many question whether or not a university in today's world can shine a harsh light on its athletics programs. We are aware that many wonder if university administrations are willing to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing that may disrupt a successful sports program. I can assure you I am not, and my fellow administrators are not. We hold everyone in our community to high standards and we don't tolerate illegal, abusive or unethical behavior ?no matter who you are."

Boeheim, who's paid a salary around $1.5 million, is a lifer.

Born and raised in nearby Lyons, Boeheim enrolled at Syracuse in 1962, was a walk-on with the basketball team that year, and by his senior season was a team captain along with Dave Bing. After graduating, Boeheim played pro ball in Scranton, Pa., then returned to Syracuse as a graduate assistant in 1969. He's been there ever since.

For the city and the university, there are plenty of reasons to protect Boeheim's reputation and the basketball program:

? The Syracuse Convention and Tourism estimates the university pumps $179 million in travel-related spending into the region every year.

? Just two NCAA teams, Syracuse and Kentucky, have drawn an average of more than 20,000 fans per game in each of the past 10 seasons.

? In his 36th season, there have been eight Big East titles, 28 NCAA Tournament appearances, three title games and a national championship in 2003.

Now, Boeheim's trying to shift the focus from his program to child abuse awareness.

Although he and his wife previously raised money for the McMahon/Ryan center, Boeheim said they want to raise awareness.

"We started working with them last summer," he said Saturday. "We met with them the other day, not just to be fundraisers but to bring more awareness to people in this area. In our area there's not as much awareness as there needs to be."

Julie Cecile, director of the McMahon/Ryan Center, said Boeheim spent about an hour at the facility Thursday.

"He was really sincere. He really was," Cecile said. "He's been with us since last year, and I think it's an ongoing education. We just have to really use this as a teachable moment, make people realize that there is a problem, and I think that he's going to be able to do that."

The center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending child abuse through intervention and education.

Boeheim said he was surprised to learn how many child abuse victims don't come forward.

"I don't think people realize how much abuse there is and how much work needs to be done," Boeheim said. "That's what I think I learned from talking to people at McMahon/Ryan house; people don't realize the magnitude of this problem. I really don't, and it's something that needs to be addressed in this community. We have started to now realize we need to do more than ever."

___

AP Basketball Writer Jim O'Connell in New York and AP Writers John Kekis, Meghan Barr and Ben Dobbin in Syracuse contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-12-03-Syracuse-Fine%20Investigation-Boeheim/id-ef7b0e78a4e54724a4886518315ad59f

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Daily App Deals: Get TripIt for Android for Free in Today's App Deals [Deals]

The Daily App Deals post is a round-up of the best app discounts of the day, as well as some notable mentions for ones that are on sale.

The Best

TripIt (Amazon Appstore) Previously $3.99, now Free. TripIt for Android gathers all of your travel related arrangements into one place for easier access when the information is most needed. Sync your travel information with your calendar and share it with family, friends, and colleagues. Get it for Free. (via LogicBuy)

Free

iOS

Windows

The Rest

iOS

Android

Windows

Mac

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/WMM84KXh1rU/daily-app-deals-get-tripit-for-android-for-free-in-todays-app-deals

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Singer Mindy McCready's 5-year-old son in custody

FILE - In this undated file photo, country singer Mindy McCready performs in Nashville, Tenn. A missing persons report has been filed for McCready and her 5-year-old son Zander. The Department of Children and Families says the report was filed with Cape Coral Police Tuesday night after McCready took Zander from McCready's father's home. McCready doesn't have custody of her son ? her mother does ? and was allowed to visit the boy at her father's home. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, file)

FILE - In this undated file photo, country singer Mindy McCready performs in Nashville, Tenn. A missing persons report has been filed for McCready and her 5-year-old son Zander. The Department of Children and Families says the report was filed with Cape Coral Police Tuesday night after McCready took Zander from McCready's father's home. McCready doesn't have custody of her son ? her mother does ? and was allowed to visit the boy at her father's home. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, file)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) ? By the time Arkansas authorities took country singer Mindy McCready's 5-year-old son from her and into custody on Friday evening, one thing had already become apparent to much of America: McCready's life has come to resemble a bad country song.

Since her success in the mid-1990s as a honey-voiced success story out of Nashville, McCready has been increasingly known for her personal foibles instead of her music.

This week's custody battle was the latest in a long saga of personal heartache and brushes with the law.

Florida Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Terri Durdaller said in an email Friday night that her agency was working with Arkansas state officials to bring McCready's son, Zander, back to his maternal grandmother in Florida. His grandmother has been his guardian since 2007.

Officials say he's safe and in good health.

Gayle Inge, Zander's grandmother and McCready's mother, was tearful when she talked about the news by phone Friday night with The Associated Press.

"I'm real excited that he's safe," she said. "But I can't explain what this is like. We feel for Mindy and we feel for Zander."

Inge said Zander was taken into custody at McCready's boyfriend's lake home in Arkansas. Inge said that her son ? McCready's half-brother ? texted McCready, who responded with a text that said her mother would never see her again.

"I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her that I love her," Inge said, adding that her daughter and grandson were found by authorities "hiding in a closet."

McCready, who turned 36 on Wednesday, did not respond to emails late Friday.

The evening's developments capped a days-long struggle between McCready ? who is seven months pregnant with twins ? and several others, including state of Florida child welfare authorities, a Fort Myers, Fla. judge and her own mother.

Authorities say McCready took the boy during a visit late last month to her father's Florida home, where she was allowed to visit the boy. McCready's parents are divorced.

A Florida judge signed an order Thursday telling authorities to take the boy into custody and return him. It's not yet clear whether the singer could face criminal charges.

McCready said earlier in the week that she would not bring her son back from Tennessee, where she has a home, despite violating the custody arrangement. She told the AP that her son had suffered abuse at her mother's house, a claim that Inge vehemently denies.

"I'm doing all this to protect Zander, not stay out of trouble," McCready wrote in an email to the AP on Thursday. "I don't think I should be in trouble for protecting my son in the first place."

McCready told the AP Wednesday night she was in Tennessee and couldn't travel because she is pregnant with twins.

The boy's father, Billy McKnight, told NBC's "Today" show Friday he spoke on the phone with McCready and their boy after the judge's 5 p.m. EST Thursday deadline expired.

"He did sound healthy and ok. He wasn't crying or scared," McKnight said about their son.

"I think she believes she has a case and doesn't realize she's pushing her luck on this one," he said.

McCready and her mother have had a long custody battle over the boy, who was living with McCready's mother.

"We can confirm that Zander has been taken into custody and we are working with Arkansas state officials to bring him back to his legal guardian in Florida," Durdaller wrote late Friday. "He is safe and in good health.

McCready had provided a series of emails to the AP with Lee County Judge James Seals' ruling to return the boy.

"Mom has violated the court's custody order and we are simply restoring the child back into our custody," the judge wrote. "Nothing more. Nothing less. The court makes no judgment about whether Mom will or will not competently care for the child while in her custody. It only wants the child back where the court placed him."

McCready found fame in the mid-1990s when she moved to Nashville at the age of 18, armed with only her karaoke tapes. Her first album, "Ten Thousand Angels," sold two million copies.

Her next four albums weren't as successful. Her personal troubles began encroaching on her professional success. According to her website, she suffers from severe depression.

McCready fought the release of a tape in which she reportedly talked about former Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, with whom she had an affair as a teenager.

In August, she filed a libel suit against her mother and the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., over a story published in the tabloid newspaper that quoted Inge.

And in 2008, McCready was admitted to a hospital after police said she cut her wrists and took several pills in a suicide attempt.

During the TV show "Celebrity Rehab 3" in 2010, McCready came off as a sympathetic figure, and host Dr. Drew Pinsky called her an angel in the season finale.

Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-03-People-McCready/id-0d0c2180ea67424d88e487b861b73bf9

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Democrats to pursue protections for voting rights (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/168685463?client_source=feed&format=rss

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'Holiday' tree rattles chains of 'Christmas' fans (tbo)

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Occupy Wall Street Turns on Barack Obama (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Even though President Barack Obama has tried to embrace the Occupy Wall Street movement, the favor has not been returned. This was in evidence last night when the president was at a fund raiser in New York, according to the New York Times.

About a 100 occupiers marched near the Sheraton Hotel near 53rd and Seventh Street, carrying signs, and shouting accusations against the president for being, in their view, a corporate puppet. This is an astonishing development for a president who rode to the Oval Office on the themes of "hope and change" with the ovations of some of the same people ringing in his ears who are now jeering at him. Such are the fortunes of politics

This comes on the heels of an incident a week ago in which Occupy Wall Street protestors heckled the president during a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire. At the time, Obama tried to identify himself with the protestors, according to ABC News, by talking about how the American dream was, "slipping away."

Apparently Occupy Wall Street is having none of it. This suggests that there is deep discontent for the president from the far left. Almost three years after Obama was sworn into office, economic malaise persists. The promise of hope and change has become the reality of anxiety and despair.

Almost two years ago, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, addressing a tea party convention, jeered, "How's that hopey, changey thing working out for ya?" The answer, coming from Occupy Wall Street, seems to be, "Not much."

How this will affect the 2012 elections are so far a matter of conjecture. It is doubtful, if they bother to vote at all, that any of the Occupy Wall Street protestors will flock to Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. But they will certainly not be motivated to turn out for Obama, as they were in 2008. A lot of them will stay home, though if there is a left-wing third party candidate many may decide to support him instead.

Obama's hope of somehow harnessing the Occupy Wall Street movement as a left-wing of the tea party is a pipe dream. Obama was yesterday's messiah. He has turned out to be a false prophet and his erstwhile supporters are out for revenge.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111201/pl_ac/10571611_occupy_wall_street_turns_on_barack_obama

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Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

Welcome to the big leagues. The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime feels like the first laptop-class Android tablet, with its quad-core 1.4GHz processor, clever add-on keyboard dock, and its support for USB storage and console gamepads. This is easily the most impressive Android tablet ever. But with such startling specs, it's outstripping the weak app selection available for Google's Android Honeycomb OS. Although there are a few standout apps for the platform, the lack of a thriving Android tablet app community makes the Transformer Prime a less sure choice than it should be.

Physical Description and Battery Life
The 1.3-pound Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime ($499 for 32GB, $599 for 64GB) is a very long, narrow tablet at 10.4 by 7.1 inches, but it's very slim at 0.3 inches. It comes in silver or purple. There's a power/dock connector on the bottom, a MicroUSB slot and MicroSD card slot on the left, a standard 3.5-mm headset jack on the right and a somewhat annoyingly recessed power button on top. The tablet connects to the Web using Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and it also has Bluetooth.

Turn the tablet on to experience a slightly altered version of Google Android Honeycomb (3.2), with some custom widgets, slightly altered icons, and some exciting new settings when you tap on the lower left corner of the screen. One of the settings boosts the sharp 1280-by-800 IPS LCD into an extra-bright 600 nit mode, which takes the screen from slightly dimmer than the Apple iPad 2's ($499, 4.5 stars) to somewhat brighter, albeit at the cost of battery life.

But why are you buying this tablet without the $149 keyboard dock? The dock turns the Prime into a netbook, adding a six-row keyboard, whose keys are? 94 percent as wide as standard laptop keys, and a trackpad below that. The keyboard's top row is all function keys, and there's a separate menu button; many Android features are mapped to keys so you won't always need to touch the screen, although you'll still have to reach forward for things like scrolling Web pages. The keys are comfortable to type on, but the trackpad button is extremely stiff.

Almost as importantly as the keyboard, the dock adds an extra battery and a full-sized USB port so you can plug in flash drives, hard drives, or gaming controllers.

Tegra 3's added power doesn't mean shorter battery life. It should mean longer battery life in many cases. In our standard test, with screen brightness turned to max, processor speed at normal, playing a video file until the tablet fails, we got a very respectable 7 hours 38 minutes of playback, almost exactly the life of the iPad 2.

With screen brightness at 50 percent and the power profile set to "balanced," Asus and Nvidia claim 10 hours of video playback. Plugging in the dock, which adds its extra battery, adds another 5-6 hours of life. The Transformer Prime is truly an all-day device.

Performance
This is the fastest, most powerful tablet we've ever tested. And yes, that includes the iPad 2. The secret ingredient is Nvidia's five-core Tegra 3 chipset, including four cores which work together at up to 1.4GHz each and a "companion core" which runs alone and sips power during idle moments.

You won't see the blinding speed when you're poking around the main UI or some of Google's apps, as they're occasionally nonresponsive, although screen transitions are a bit more fluid than on other Android tablets. But in an app that's programmed well for this tablet (or in our benchmarks), the power comes out.

The Prime has three Performance modes that you can set in the status bar. Power Saving mode caps the processor cores at between 600MHz and 1GHz depending on usage, caps video frame rates at 35 fps and lowers the screen brightness, all to save power. Balanced mode caps the quad-core processor at 1.2GHz per core. Normal mode goes all out.

In Normal mode, the Prime scored a breathtaking 10,619 on the Antutu system benchmark, roughly doubling the score of even fast devices like the HTC Jetstream ($549, 3 stars), with its 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. Much faster RAM and CPU scores made the difference; the tablet was on par with other recent devices for database access and SD I/O. The processor had less effect on Sunspider and Browsermark browsing benchmarks, although the scores of 17ms at Sunspider and 98324 at Browsermark were among the best we've seen on a tablet. Switching the modes down to Balanced, and then Power Saving had the expected effect. First I lost about 10 percent of the speed, and then half.

This is a spectacular tablet for gaming. The boat game Riptide GP has more realistic water effects than on the iPad; I also played Zen Pinball and Big Top THD, both with rich, gorgeous, well-lit graphics. Adding the dock lets you plug in real gaming controllers, although it also forces you to play in landscape mode. Playing Riptide with a PlayStation 3 SixAxis controller was the best time I've had playing a game on a mobile device, ever. It's much more responsive than tilting the screen. Zen Pinball is also much more playable with real buttons, though I would have liked to be able to play it in portrait mode. (Asus says the tablet also supports some Bluetooth controllers; but we didn't test those.) Touch screens just aren't the natural interface for many games. A good game controller can make all the difference.

Adobe's new PS Touch, an Android version of Photoshop, also showcases the tablet's raw power. The app lets you perform complex, multilayered transformations on images. Combine it with Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro, get a stylus, and you have a terrific tablet for artists. The quad-core processor greatly speeds up PS Touch: A filter that makes a photo look like an acrylic painting took 1.4 seconds, as opposed to 5.3 on the dual-core Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1($499.99, 3.5 stars).

I did run into some bugs during testing. The Market app stalled out a lot. The Browsermark benchmark sometimes crashed the browser. Occasionally while typing in office suites, the cursor jumped around for no apparent reason. When I plugged a USB stick into the dock too quickly after docking the tablet, the tablet wouldn't recognize USB memory until after a cold boot. Scrubbing through a 7.46GB MKV video file made the video player quit at one point; a reboot solved that, too. ?

There's only one perplexing sore point: It takes at least twice as long to cold boot this tablet than any other I've tested. The Prime takes about a minute to boot; the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1and Apple iPad 2 take about 30 seconds.

Apps, Such As They Are
This is the first tablet review I've actually written on the tablet. That says a lot, but it doesn't say enough.

The Transformer Prime runs Android 3.2, just like most other Android tablets nowadays. An upgrade to Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" is coming soon, Asus pledges. It comes with all the typical Google apps, plus some custom widgets and 8GB of cloud storage from Asus.

The problem is, as always, finding apps that take advantage of the Prime's hardware is much, much harder than it should be. The vast majority of the apps in Google's and Amazon's app stores are designed to work well on small, cheap smartphones, not to show off what a quad-core tablet can do. Google steadfastly refuses to force developers to include the "Max API" flag, an existing tag which could segregate the low-power, low-res phone apps away from tablet users. Nvidia has improved the situation a bit with its Tegra Zone, a free alternative app store which spotlights games designed for its Tegra 2 and 3 devices.

For office work, you have the choice of a few suites; I tried DocumentsToGo and OfficeSuite Pro. They're functional but quite basic. The keyboard dock works with them to enable popular keyboard shortcuts, though, so you can shift-select and then hit control-X to cut text, for instance. And you'll have to post your document online; as with all Android devices, there's no built-in support for printers.

The Android interface also doesn't have a quick way to easily flip between several windows. You can say the same about iOS, of course. But I have the Prime next to my Windows 7 netbook right now, and I'm missing the fluidity of being able to have two windows on a screen or to flip between tabs of things without poking the multitasking button at the bottom of the Android interface. The Prime's hardware can do a lot of things at once, but the software doesn't spotlight that.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/zc2J8X6cW4g/0,2817,2397083,00.asp

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