Genie Francis Coming Back to General Hospital

General Hospital fans are in for a pleasant surprise this February!

Soap star Genie Francis will make her triumphant return to the show that made her famous next month, reprising her role as Laura Spencer for GH's 50th anniversary, reports Entertainment Weekly.

Video: Genie Francis Dishes on her Return to Daytime and the Future of Soaps

The legendary actress returned to the daytime soap circuit last May on CBS' The Young and The Restless after a four-year break from her storied career at GH from 1976 to 2008.

Last June, Francis opened up to ET about her decision to jump back into TV after spending some time away from Port Charles.

"It was a chance to play a different type of character," beamed the 50-year-old star of playing bad-girl Genevieve on Y&R.

Read More..

'Dark Knight' massacre 911 calls played in court; sounds of gunfire & crying heard

AP

People gather outside the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colo., at the scene of a mass shooting.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Chilling 911 calls that captured the sound of dozens of flying bullets — and a young teen weeping over the body of her dead 6-year-old cousin — were replayed at a “Dark Knight’’ massacre pre-trial hearing today.

Panicked moviegoer Kevin Quinonez was the first to call 911 — and can be heard shouting, “There’s some guy ... after us!’’ amid the gunfire.

Reuters

James Holmes, suspect in a July 20 shooting rampage at a movie theatre which left 12 people dead and 70 more wounded, is seen in this undated police handout photo released by the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office in Littleton, Colorado

“You can hear at least 30 shots in the background,’’ testified Aurora, Colo., police Detective Randy Hansen of the 27-second phone call from Quinonez, who survived.

The second wrenching 911 call came from a sobbing 13-year-old relative of both Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6, who died in the bloodbath, and the dead girl’s mom, who was left paralyzed.

“My two cousins, they’re sitting on the floor ... one of them” is not breathing, the stricken teen told the dispatcher.

As the 911 operator tried to give the girl instructions on how to perform CPR, the child replies, “I can’t hear! ... It’s too loud! ... I can’t hear you! I’m so sorry.’’

The playing of the tapes in the Centennial, Colo., courtroom left some survivors and relatives of the dead there in tears.

“It hurts because you can hear the gunshots and people screaming,” said Chantel Blunk, whose husband, Jonathan, was among the 12 killed in the Aurora movie theater July 20.

As for alleged killer James Holmes — who dyed his hair flaming red and called himself “the Joker’’ after the slaughter at “The Dark Knight Rises’’ Batman flick — “He’s just sitting there. There’s no emotion,’’ she said incredulously.

“How can you just sit there?”

A judge has been holding hearings as required this week to determine whether there is enough evidence to bring Holmes, now 25, to trial.

Also testifying today were FBI and ATF agents who revealed the excruciating lengths to which Holmes allegedly set a massive booby trap for police back at his apartment.

The deadly set-up included three jars of “improvised,’’ or homemade, napalm and the chemical thermite — which burns so intensely that even water can’t put it out.

The home’s carpet was saturated with gasoline, trip wires crisscrossed the rooms, and before he left for the theater, Holmes had allegedly placed a boom-box in a white garbage bag outside his door rigged to play white noise for 40 minutes — and then set off a blast of music.

Neighbors would call the cops to complain, he reasoned, thus luring officers there to their death, officials have said.

Residents never called the cops.

After being tipped off by Holmes himself to the trap when he was busted, the cops used a remote-controlled robot to search the apartment.

“We could see ... a trip wire. It looked like a fishing line running from the door jam contacted to a thermos. We later learned it was full of glycerine,’’ said FBI Agent Garrett Gumbinner.

“The thermos was positioned over a frying pan that was full of potassium permanganate. When it mixes with glycerin, it would cause sparks.’’

Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy

jennifer.bain@nypost.com

Read More..

Magic Jack ends suit against Net Talk

A suit between Magic Jack and a Miami-based rival has ended.

Net Talk, with headquarters in suburban Miami-Dade, announced Tuesday that Magic Jack had dropped its patent-infringement suit against Net Talk over the company’s Internet phone service. Magic Jack is one of the best-known providers of VOIP (voice over Internet protocol), and sued Net Talk in April over the competitor’s product.

In December, both sides agreed to drop the legal action, and the federal case was dismissed.

DOUGLAS HANKS

Read More..

Federal trial: Fellow cops’ letter to Miami PD internal affairs sparked FBI probe of sergeant

Members of the Miami Police Department’s drug-fighting squad turned against their boss, Sgt. Raul Iglesias, accusing him in an unsigned letter of “stealing drugs and money as they are recovered from the hands of criminals.”

“In most instances there is a discrepancy in the amount of drugs and money [Iglesias] gives back to the officers to be reported in the arrest affidavit and turned into [the] property [room],” stated the April 13, 2010 letter, sent to the department’s internal affairs/corruption unit that April. “This happens 2-3 times per 4-day work week.”

“The officers are stunned each time, but feel they have no recourse,” the letter concluded. “This has turned into a hostile work environment.”

The anonymously written letter sparked an FBI investigation that led to the federal prosecution of Iglesias, 40, who is standing trial on nine counts of conspiracy to possess cocaine, violating suspects’ civil rights, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

But Iglesias’ defense attorney, Rick Diaz, has chipped away at the broad-stroked allegations in the letter, which underscore the indictment brought against the 18-year police veteran. Diaz introduced the letter as evidence Monday, in an effort to demonstrate to jurors that the feds’ case is overcooked and vengeful.

Diaz, on cross-examination, compelled detective Suberto Hernandez, a member of the Crime Suppression Unit under Iglesias, to admit that he collaborated on the letter, though he said he did not write it. Hernandez further testified he never actually saw Iglesias plant drugs on a suspect, or steal narcotics or money, from dope dealers.

“I did not,” Hernandez said repeatedly, adding that he did not know the author of the letter.

Two other detectives in Iglesias’ former unit, Rossicia Allen and Calvin Chalumeau, also testified Monday they knew about the letter sent to internal affairs, but did not participate in preparing it. Both also said they never witnessed Iglesias plant drugs on any suspect.

But Chalumeau testified Iglesias stole an unspecified amount of money seized from a Miami crack-cocaine dealer in April 2010, just days before the letter was sent to internal affairs.

Earlier in the trial, Hernandez, the detective, testified he found no drugs on a man who was suspected of buying small rocks of crack-cocaine from a dealer in a downtown Miami parking lot in early 2010.

Hernandez and fellow detective Luis Valdes told jurors that Iglesias asked the pair if they had any “throw-down dope” to plant on the suspected buyer after the initial search of the man during the Jan. 27, 2010, surveillance operation turned up no drugs.

Iglesias then told the detectives he found a tiny plastic baggie with cocaine residue in the back pocket of the suspect’s jeans — though neither detective saw Iglesias search the suspect. His defense attorney, Diaz, challenged the detectives’ stories and suggested that Iglesias simply found evidence that Hernandez had overlooked.

But the detectives said Iglesias called another detective from the police gang unit, Ricardo Martinez, who came to the scene and shook hands with Iglesias. After meeting with Martinez, Iglesias then produced a small baggie of cocaine.

Prosecutors Ricardo Del Toro and Michael Berger say Martinez — who was convicted of fencing stolen Bluetooth headsets in an unrelated case in 2011 — gave the bag of cocaine to Iglesias. But prosecutors are not expected to call Martinez as a witness.

Overall, the charges against Iglesias stem from what federal prosecutors have described as four separate incidents of misconduct over four months in 2010, when Iglesias supervised the undercover CSU.

Iglesias — an ex-Marine and Iraq War veteran — is accused of planting powdered cocaine on the suspect in January 2010, stealing cash after the arrest of a crack-cocaine dealer that April, ripping off drugs and money from a dope distributor that May, and then lying to investigators about a box of money left in an abandoned car as part of an FBI sting.

One member of Iglesias’ CSU team, former detective Roberto Asanza, has already pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug charges from the alleged rip-off, and may testify against Iglesias later in the trial.

Iglesias, who was relieved of duty with pay in 2010, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Read More..

Year-end Wii U sales steady, says Nintendo chief

KYOTO (Reuters) – Nintendo Co Ltd‘s year-end sales of its Wii U games console were steady, though not as strong as when its Wii predecessor was first launched, the Japanese game maker’s top executive told Reuters on Monday.

The company, which grew from making playing cards in the late 19th century into the blockbuster Super Mario video game series, is pinning its hopes on the Wii U after posting a first operating loss last year, as gamers ditch console games to play on smartphones and tablets.

“At the end of the Christmas season, it wasn’t as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom. But sales are not bad, and I feel it’s selling steadily,” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in an interview.

Iwata gave no details on sales or forecasts, but said Nintendo needed to focus on developing attractive software for its 3DS handheld device to draw new users, and increase Wii U sales as it battles competition from popular mobile devices. The Wii U carries video content from Netflix Inc and Hulu, and has a dedicated social gaming network called Miiverse, which allows users to interact and share games tips.

Nintendo said in October it aimed to sell 5.5 million Wii U devices by end-March. Wii U, the successor to the blockbuster Wii machine, went on sale in the United States on November 18. The company later said it sold more than 400,000 of the video game consoles in the first week.

Nintendo sold 638,339 Wii U consoles in Japan between December 8 and 30, according to data from game magazine publisher Enterbrain. The company has sold nearly 100 million of the original Wii units since its launch in 2006.

Rival Microsoft Corp sold more than 750,000 of its Xbox 360 console during the Black Friday week in November – one of the busiest U.S. consumer shopping periods of the year, beating sales of both Sony Corp’s

DOUBLE CHALLENGE

Iwata acknowledged the challenge of producing two Wii U models at the same time, as most customers wanted the premium package, which sold out quickly in many places, while there was a glut of the slightly cheaper Wii U model on store shelves.

“It was the first time Nintendo released two models of the game console at the same time … and I believe there was a challenge with balancing this. Specifically, inventory levels for the premium, deluxe package was unbalanced as many people wanted that version and couldn’t find it,” he said.

Iwata noted a weaker yen would have little impact on Nintendo’s profits this fiscal year, but would positively impact its foreign denominated assets.

Nintendo’s Osaka-listed shares earlier ended down nearly 2.1 percent on Monday at 8,980 yen, and have fallen 15 percent since the Wii U was launched.

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Year-end Wii U sales steady, says Nintendo chief
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/year-end-wii-u-sales-steady-says-nintendo-chief/
Link To Post : Year-end Wii U sales steady, says Nintendo chief
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

EXCLUSIVE: Pics of Lindsay Lohan Mom Dina Lohan with a Black Eye

After alleging that her ex-husband Michael Lohan physically abused her when they were married, Dina Lohan has now released old photos of herself with a black eye.

RELATED: Michael Lohan Responds to Abuse Allegations

Michael vehemently denies abusing Dina, telling ET, "[Dina] hit me with an ice tray, and I turned around and swung ... I didn't punch her. I didn't do anything deliberately to attack her. I swung out of reflex ... she's twisting everything."

During an interview with the New York Daily News, the mother of four alleged that Michael physically abused her in front of their daughter Lindsay Lohan, claiming, "that's why she's so screwed up." In the vintage photos, Dina is carrying a baby.

In a recent interview with ET's Christina McLarty, Dina revealed details about the alleged abuse, saying, "I will tell my story ... about abuse and how I've survived it and how my children have survived it. It shed some light on my children's behavior, having to witness it."

Read More..

EMT union fume over alleged plea deal for B'klyn assistant DA accused of attacking medic: letter

An EMT union members are fuming mad over what it calls plans by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to give a sweetheart plea deal to a Brooklyn assistant DA accused of attacking a medic in an ambulance last November, according to a union letter obtained by the Post today.

Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Michael Jaccarino, 30, will appear in court tomorrow on charges he drunkenly pummeled and choked EMT Teresa Soler, 46, inside an ambulance after she picked him up in November.

“It is said that the Manhattan DA office will not present the case in a grand jury and that he will plea bargain,” union vice president Joe Conzo raged in the letter to union members.

“Members should be outraged and come out to support EMT Teresa Soler by appearing in Manhattan Criminal Court.”

Law-enforcement sources said the Manhattan DA’s office is considering offering Jaccarino a plea deal instead of pursuing felony charges, but no deal has been offered yet and no deal is expected to be offered tomorrow.

Reached on the phone, Conzo confirmed the letter and said Jaccarino should be prosecuted as seriously as if he had attacked a cop.

“Nobody should be given special treatment,” he said.

Also, another drunken Brooklyn assistant district attorney was busted in December after he refused to pay cab fare – and then told responding cops that he “outranked” them, law-enforcement sources said at the time.

Jaccarino was suspended without pay following the alleged beatdown.

Soler could not be reached.

jsaul@nypost.com

Read More..

Florida company provides electrical power for the world

More than 4,000 miles from its home base in Doral, Energy International is helping keep the lights on and the power grid humming in Gibraltar, the British territory on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

Energy International, a global provider of power plants and energy solutions, sent a temporary plant that will provide power for at least the next two years while a more permanent fix is sought for the territory’s erratic and aging electrical system.

The Doral company was founded 14 years ago as MCA Power Systems and its initial goal was to pursue energy contracts in Latin America. It began 2000 with a name change and in recent years its focus has become global.

“The world needs energy,’’ said Brett Hall, EI’s vice president of finance.

While the 2007-2008 recession curtailed the growth of worldwide energy demand, the U.S. Energy Information Agency has projected that global demand for electricity will increase by 2.3 percent annually from 2008 to 2035.

The potential is especially strong in developing nations. The International Energy Agency estimated that in 2009, 21 percent of the world’s population — 1.4 billion people — didn’t have access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of people without power rises to 69 percent.

Energy International has expanded sales from Latin America and the Caribbean to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, boosting revenue from $100 million annually in 2009 to more than $300 million today, Hall said. This year, EI is anticipating revenue of $350 million to $375 million.

In the next seven years the company, which is privately owned by American shareholders and affiliated with Gecolsa — the Caterpillar dealership in Colombia — hopes revenue will top $1 billion, he said.

Even though Energy International is based in the United States, it does little work domestically. Its sweet spot is emerging economies and contracts of $100 million or less.

“Our focus is to do whatever makes the most economic sense for a particular market,’’ said Hall.

“We’re not going to be building a nuclear power plant,’’ he said. But EI will accommodate its solutions to local fuel supplies whether it’s biofuel, natural gas or heavy fuels that are more prevalent.

When it comes to the type of temporary power solution needed by Gibraltar, which had been plagued by a string of power outages at its archaic electrical facilities, EI can have a temporary plant up and running in 30 to 40 days, supplying the engineering, rental turbines and other equipment and doing the installation.

“We were able to support Gibraltar’s power needs on short notice,’’ said Andres Molano, EI’s vice president of sales. “Some of their equipment required major maintenance and they needed to stop their plants.’’

EI, one of the world’s largest suppliers of interim energy solutions, signed a $12 million contract with the government of Gibraltar in November and the plant was operational by Dec. 21. The agreement includes an option for a three-year extension.

The equipment now in use in Gibraltar is considered part of EI’s fleet and will move on to other energy emergencies when its service in the territory famed for the Rock of Gibraltar is complete.

But when it comes to its permanent power plants, EI will build a facility for a client looking to generate its own power or construct a plant, run it and sell power directly to the final user.

“We can do all the work ourselves. We have all the skills in house — finance, design, operations, maintenance, building and the equipment,’’ said Hall.

Energy International has moved into the Middle East, completing projects in Oman and Yemen and establishing a subsidiary in Dubai in 2012 to pursue business in Africa and the Middle East, said Molano.

“Africa is new to us, but we believe there are opportunities there,’’ he said.

The company also is looking for continued growth in Latin America, especially in Colombia, which is now attracting foreign investors who previously had been spooked by violence.

Remote areas of the Amazon where temporary power solutions are needed also represent opportunity for the company.

“EI is very fortunate to be in a position in which we have more excellent opportunities than capital.’’ said Hall, so this year it will be concentrating on raising equity to finance growth.

“One of our biggest challenges in 2013,’’ Hall said, “will be to find investors or joint venture partners to provide capital that will enable EI to perform these projects so our aggressive revenue growth targets can be achieved.’’

Read More..

State appeals order to pay for special autism treatment

Already facing sharp criticism over policies that have resulted in the rationing of care to severely disabled children, Florida healthcare regulators are challenging a federal judge’s order that the state provide a costly — but potentially life-changing — treatment to children with autism.

Last spring, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard struck down the state’s refusal to pay for applied behavior analysis (ABA) for autistic children, calling the state’s policy “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”

The court case involved three autistic youngsters — then-5-year-old K.G., 2-year-old I.G. and 4-year-old C.C. — whose efforts to obtain behavioral therapy had been denied by the state’s Medicaid insurance program for needy and disabled people. Lenard ordered that the three children be given the care they sought — and that the state provide such care to other autistic children, as well.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration has appealed the order, and, in a pleading submitted in November, argued that the ruling strips the state of its ability to weigh requests for the therapy on a case-by-case basis to ensure the treatments are “medically necessary.”

“There is no evidentiary support for the district court’s conclusion that [behavior analysis] services are medically necessary for all autistic Medicaid recipients under 21,” the brief said. “In fact, the evidence established that ABA treatment is not medically necessary, or even effective, in all cases. Some children do not respond to ABA treatment at all, and, in all other cases, the efficacy of ABA treatment diminishes rapidly after early age.”

Autism, typically diagnosed around age 2, is one of the most common developmental disabilities, afflicting about one in 88 children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The neurological disorder often affects a child’s ability to speak, learn and interact with others.

In her March order, Lenard described as “outrageous” AHCA’s position that the behavioral therapy is not widely accepted by experts in the field. Though AHCA had for years refused to pay for the treatment for impoverished families, state law already requires commercial carriers to provide it to Floridians with private insurance — meaning children from poor families were being denied services to which more-affluent families had access.

Behavioral analysis is designed to improve the behavior, language and cognitive development of autistic children so they can lead more-normal lives.

“It is imperative,” the Miami judge wrote, “that autistic children in Florida receive [behavior therapy] immediately to prevent irreversible harm to these children’s health and development.”

Florida’s system of care for disabled and medically fragile children has generated significant controversy in recent months.

In September, the U.S. Justice Department accused the state of systematically cutting in-home nursing care for disabled children, resulting in hundreds of youngsters being warehoused in geriatric nursing homes.

On Monday, about nine state lawmakers will attend a “town hall” meeting in Sunrise to hear from families that have complained that AHCA and a sister department, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, have so poorly funded services for disabled children that they feel they are being forced to institutionalize their loved ones.

Read More..

Handset makers scurry to join Year of the Phablet

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Call it phablet, phonelet, tweener or super smartphone, but the clunky mobile phone – closer in size to a tablet than the smartphone of a couple of years back – is here to stay.

A surprise hit of 2012, it is drawing in more users, more handset makers and is shaping the way we consume content.

“We expect 2013 to be the year of the phablet,” said Neil Mawston, UK-based executive director of Strategy Analytics‘ global wireless practice.

While Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has blazed a trail with its once-mocked Galaxy Note devices, now other manufacturers are scurrying to catch up.

At this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Chinese telecommunications giants ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will launch their own.

ZTE, which collaborated with Italy’s designer Stefano Giovannoni for the Nubia phablet, is scheduled to launch its 5-inch Grand S, while Huawei brings out the Ascend Mate, sporting a whopping 6.1-inch screen, making it only slightly smaller than Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet.

“Users have realized that a nearly 5-inch screen smartphone isn’t such a cumbersome device,” said Joshua Flood, senior analyst at ABI Research in Britain.

Driving the phablet’s shift to the mainstream is a confluence of trends. Users prefer larger screens because they are consuming more visual content on mobile devices than before, and using them less for voice calls – the phablet’s weak spot.

And as WiFi-only tablets become more popular, so has interest among commuters in devices that combine the best of both, while on the move.

According to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, the monthly data traffic for every smartphone will rise fourfold between now and 2018 to 1,900 megabytes.

The upshot is a market for phablets that will quadruple in value to $ 135 billion in three years, according to Barclays. Shipments of gadgets that are 5 inches or bigger in screen size will surge by nearly nine-fold to 228 million during the same period, though estimates vary because no one can agree on where smartphones stop and phablets start.

But that’s the point, some say.

“I think phone size was a preconceived notion based on voice usage,” said John Berns, a Singapore-based executive who works in the information technology industry. He recently upgraded his Note for the newer Note 2 and bought another for his girlfriend for Christmas. “Smaller was better until phones got smart, became visual.”

Samsung has been both the engine and beneficiary. While other players shipped devices with larger screens earlier – Dell Inc launched its Streak in 2010 – it was only when the Korean behemoth launched the Galaxy Note in late 2011, with its 5.3-inch screen, that users took an interest.

“The Streak was launched at a time when 3-inch smartphones were standard and the leap to a 5-inch Streak was a jump too far for consumers,” says Strategy Analytics’ Mawston.

“The Galaxy Note was launched when 4-inch smartphones had become commonplace, and the leap to 5-inch was no longer such a chasm.”

THE BIGGER, THE BETTER

Since then Samsung has bet big on bigger: its updated Note has a 5.5-inch screen and its flagship Galaxy S3 – the best-selling smartphone in the third quarter of 2012 – has a screen that puts it in the phablet category for some analysts.

Samsung accounted for around three quarters of all phablets shipped last year, according to Barclays’ Taipei-based analyst Dale Gai.

Samsung’s marketing heft has paved the way for others. LG Electronics Inc accounted for 14 percent of shipments in the third quarter of last year, according to Strategy Analytics.

HTC Corp’s 5-inch Butterfly – called the Droid DNA in the United States – has been selling well in places where Samsung is less dominant, according to Taipei-based Yuanta Securities analyst Dennis Chan. The first batch sold out soon after its December launch in Taiwan.

“I don’t think we can say that Samsung invented phablets,” said Lv Qianhao, head of handset strategy at ZTE. “But it did do a lot to promote this product category, which helped create tremendous demand.”

Phablets are also proving popular in emerging markets.

A poll of nearly 5,000 readers of Yahoo’s Indonesian website chose Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 as their favorite mobile phone of 2012, ahead of the iPhone 5.

Kristian Tjahjono, a technology journalist who posted the poll, said phablets were a natural fit for Indonesians who liked tablets but also liked making phone calls.

But while those in such markets who can afford them are going for the high-end devices, the door is opening for cheaper models. Tjahjono pointed to Lenovo’s 5-inch S880, which has a lower resolution screen and sells for about $ 250, which is around a third of the price of Galaxy Note 2.

SWEET SPOT

Falling component prices will add to demand. The total cost of an upper-end phablet, its bill of materials, will likely fall to 2,000 yuan ($ 323) this year, says Gai from Barclays, and will halve within two years.

“One thousand yuan is a very sweet spot for China,” he said.

India is also a fan.

Vivek Deshpande, who manages global strategy for Shenzhen-based mobile phone maker Zopo, says that while the Indian and Chinese markets are different, they both share a common appetite for aspirational devices: phones big enough for their owners to show off. This is changing the direction of lower end players.

“Zopo’s primary focus is now on phablets,” said Deshpande.

Even Samsung is pushing its own creation downmarket: In Las Vegas it will unveil the Galaxy Grand, a 5-inch device that lacks some of the resolution and muscle of its bigger brethren but will be aimed at markets like India. There is a version offering a dual SIM slot, a popular feature for those wanting to arbitrage cheaper call and data plans.

As phablets slide into the mainstream, handset makers are trying to find ways of differentiating.

As well as hiring Italian designer Giovannoni better known for his minimalist, sleek bathrooms, ZTE also came up with an onscreen keypad that inclines to one side of the screen, depending on whether the user is left- or right-handed.

Samsung, however, not only has first mover advantage, it can also build on its expertise in display.

Barclay’s Gai says Samsung is expected to introduce a thinner, unbreakable AMOLED screen which will leave room for bigger batteries.

“That will put Samsung in good stead to still dominate the market,” he said. Despite pressure in China, Gai estimates Samsung’s share of smartphones with 5-inch or larger screens to fall only from 73 percent in 2012 to 58 percent in 2016, which is still the lion’s share.

By then consumers will see the phablet for what it is, says Horace Dediu, a Finnish analyst who runs a technology blog asymco.com. Its rise is part of a wider march of computing power into wherever we reside – the living room, the train, bed or work.

“It makes sense that we’re moving towards a time where we are served not by a computer or a netbook or a phone, but rather that we have these screens scattered around and available for us to play with,” he said. “In a way the phablet is not a bulky phone but a very delicate computer.”

(Editing by Emily Kaiser)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Handset makers scurry to join Year of the Phablet
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/handset-makers-scurry-to-join-year-of-the-phablet/
Link To Post : Handset makers scurry to join Year of the Phablet
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..