The Nokia 1020 represents something fairly remarkable: the nearly flawless melding of a smartphone and a camera. The assumption up until now was that while such a mash-up wasn’t strictly impossible, it would surely require a laundry list of unpleasant compromises. Instead, what we’ve got is an entirely new kind of gadget. One that, most remarkably of all, works as advertised.
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WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) – Nearly half of the mortgages modified in 2009 under the Obama administration’s signature homeowner rescue effort are in default again, according to a report on Wednesday that raised concerns about the program’s effectiveness.
The report from the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), the watchdog for the aid effort, said 46 percent of the struggling homeowners who received loan modifications in 2009 under the Home Affordable Modification Program had redefaulted.
The Obama administration launched HAMP in 2009 to aid struggling homeowners impacted by the housing boom and bust. The program, extended in May by two years to help more struggling borrowers keep their homes, draws from the Treasury Department’s financial bailout fund and pays lenders and servicers to rewrite loan terms for borrowers who can’t make their current mortgage payments.
“This is a program where there’s not enough people being helped,” Christy Romero, special inspector general for SIGTARP, told Reuters. “Ultimately, the Treasury needs to make good on its promise that TARP is not just a bailout for the largest financial institutions but it will also help bailout homeowners.”
While HAMP has helped about 865,100 homeowners avoid foreclosure over the lifetime of the program through permanent loan modifications, more than 306,000 homeowners had redefaulted on their modified mortgages as of the end of April, the report stated.
According to the inspector general, of the 865,100 homeowners in an active permanent HAMP modification, about 10 percent have missed one to two monthly mortgage payments and are at risk of continuing the default trend.
The administration has refined the HAMP program since its inception to broaden its reach, including by expanding eligibility and increasing payments to mortgage companies that lower borrowers’ monthly payments. When it was unveiled, the administration estimated that the foreclosure prevention program would offer a lifeline to as many as 4 million homeowners.
The inspector general urged the Treasury to try to determine why borrowers were going off track and said it should require mortgage servicers to look for early warning signals.
“Exactly why people are falling out of HAMP isn’t well understood by Treasury,” said Romero. “If redefaults are happening at an alarming rate, then you’ve got to stop that and change the program somehow where you stop the trend.”
A Treasury official, who requested anonymity, told reporters that redefault rates were moving lower.
“There will always be an inherent risk of homeowner redefault rate in a program like this given the very difficult circumstances that people who need modifications face,” the official said. “The longer they are in there, the less likely they are to redefault.”
The Treasury has set aside $38.5 billion of its TARP funds to pay for the program, but of that amount it has only spent $8.6 billion, or 22 percent.
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The Moto X has been leaked extensively, and with the DROID handsets being revealed, we saw some of those leaked features make an appearance, likely confirming what we can expect with the Moto X. Following up with that, however, has been a rather extensive leak of screenshots over at Android Police showing some of the features the Moto X will be offering users, among them being a Motorola Connect Chrome extension and Lost Phone Tracking.
First up is Motorola Assist, which you can see the screenshots for in the image above. This will reportedly be the alternative to the Smart Actions with the DROID handsets, and will serve functions like automatically putting the Moto X into hands-free mode when the user is driving, and silencing the handset during a meeting.
There’s also Motorola Migrate, which makes it easy to migrate data from a previous handset over the Moto X. Touchless Control and Launch Phrase, meanwhile, further confirm that the device will have voice control capabilities. One of the screenshots show the training page for the launch phrase, and advises users to “Move to a quiet room. Like, seriously silent.”
The Lost Phone Tracking feature is what it sounds like – an integrated way to track the handset if it is lost, with one of the screenshots under “Motorola Device ID” detailing the Google account being used for, among other things, “Lost Phone Web Portal,” as well as the Motorola Connect feature. The Motorola Connect Chrome Extension will allow users to sync text messages and calls with Chrome.
Rounding it all out is Active Display and Active Notifications, with the former working to conserve battery life by fading notifications in and out and selectively lighting the pixels needed to show the display. These won’t appear, according to the screenshot, if the phone is in your pocket, if it is placed facedown, or if the user is currently on a call. Active Notifications, meanwhile, give users extensive control over the notification settings.
SOURCE: Android Police
Moto X screenshots show Lost Phone Tracking, Connect Chrome Extension and more is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It seems like new Nexus 7s are everywhere, so we’re not surprised one of the tablets floating around has finally been subjected to a quick round of benchmarking. Android Police has dug deep into the specs, confirming this slate — device codenamed “Razor” — has internals nearly identical to the Nexus 4, with a Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU running at 1.5GHz and 2GB of RAM behind its 1920×1200 7-inch screen. Running the 3DMark and AnTuTu benchmarks revealed scores slightly higher than the Nexus 4, but we’ll probably have to wait just a little longer to find out exactly what its Android 4.3 OS is bringing to the table.
Update: Droid-Life points out that Best Buy has kicked off pre-orders early for the 16GB and 32GB variants. The pricing ($229 and $269, respectively), release date (July 30th) and specs are all well-known by now, but if you’re willing to be the next person to buy one, you can get in line at the link below.
Update deux: Best Buy has pulled the pre-order pages. Sadface. [Thanks, Charlie]
Correction: OK, so the pre-order pages haven’t been taken down, as such. You will no longer find them by searching Best Buy’s site, but the direct URLs are still live and they confirm the key specs (see the source links).
Source: Android Police, Droid-Life, Best Buy (16GB), Best Buy (32GB)
NTT has developed wearable textile electrodes which can be worn on the inside of a shirt, and can continuously monitor the electrical activity of the heart over an extended period of time.
The wearable electrodes are fabricated from a conductive fiber, consisting of a silk or a synthetic fibre core coated with a conductive polymer called PEDOT-PSS.
This conductive polymer has excellent biocompatibility, and can deliver ECG measurements with a stability equivalent to that of conventional medical electrodes, without the need for attaching the electrodes to the skin with an electrolyte paste or gel.
As the textile electrodes are soft to the touch, flexible and breathable, long term monitoring which places no burden on the wearer is now possible. Studies conducted by NTT showed no signs of skin irritation or contact dermatitis after long-term use.
NTT now plans to conduct further experimentation, this time with 100 wearers, to further investigate their safety and effectiveness.
In the future, these wearable electrodes could be used to aid home or remote medical care, reducing the risk of heart attack through early detection and treatment of heart irregularities, or in fields such as sports, general fitness and scientific research.
This content is provided by DigInfo.tv, AkihabaraNews Official Partner.
The night of the Trayvon Martin verdict, debates ensued all over the country.
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ViewSonic intends to deliver a new range of displays for business customers, where these new displays would arrive in the form of the TD2740 and TD3240. The former would be a 27” display which targets both consumer and commercial markets, […]
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Geeks come in all shapes, sizes, forms, kinds, heights, hair colors, ethnicities and yes, even gender. This lovely little music video by The Doubleclicks shows off geek girls who have "Nothing to Prove" about their geekiness. Geek girls are constantly and wrongfully tested about their geekiness because us dimwitted males can’t believe they exist. They don’t have to be fake geek girls just because they’re girls, people! Everyone should enjoy whatever it is they want to enjoy (well, unless they’re hurting people and that’s a whole ‘nother story). So geek on. And be proud.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
