Hasta La Gadget!

It really wouldn’t surprise anyone to see Samsung launch multiple variants of its Galaxy S5 flagship because that is exactly what it has being doing for the last couple of years. Even though the 2014 flagship is both water and dust resistant the company is still expected to release an “Active” variant of the Galaxy S5. Apparently it’ll be even more rugged, following in the footsteps of the Galaxy S4 Active. Today a flurry of Galaxy S5 Active pictures have surfaced online giving us a pretty good look at the device.

The pictures come from none other than serial Twitter leaker @evleaks who already has a very credible track record. He leaked all of the Galaxy S5 Active pictures you see here today and has revealed several details about this smartphone over the last few weeks as well.

Evidently the Galaxy S5 Active seems to be rugged than the Galaxy S5, with an angular shape and raised navigational buttons. Its also believed to have a customizable hardware key allowing users to set a feature they would like access to at the touch of a button.

The specifications are believed to be the same as Samsung Galaxy S5, which comes with a full HD 1080p display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and a 16 megapixel rear camera. Pricing and availability information hasn’t trickled out. Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S5 Active next month.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Active Pictures Leaked Online

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Galaxy S5 Active, Samsung,

We have all heard the rumors that HTC is working on a variant of its latest flagship that offers the same specifications but in a plastic body. Today the company itself gives us an opportunity to look at it by unveiling the HTC One E8 on its website. Apparently that’s what the moniker is going to be in China, we’ve known the device as the HTC M8 Ace. It touts a plastic body but brings most of the specifications that debuted with HTC One M8.

This may truly be a Galaxy S5 competitor given that HTC can cut Samsung’s flagship on price. By using plastic the company reduces its production cost and can pass off those savings to customers. Since specifications are at par with this year’s M8 flagship its not like customers will have to compromise on performance.

Specifications listed on HTC’s website include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHz, Android 4.4 with Sense 6.0, 5 megapixel front camera, BoomSound front facing speakers and Motion Launch camera. It doesn’t have the Duo Camera that debuted with HTC One M8, instead it comes with a 13 megapixel rear shooter. 4G LTE compatibility is onboard as well.

While the website doesn’t list the display’s size its believed to be the same 5-inch full HD panel found on this year’s HTC flagship. Price hasn’t been revealed as yet. The company will have to competitively price it to ensure that its able to take on rivals from other Chinese manufacturers. A formal announcement is expected next week and maybe HTC will even tell us if this is going to make its way to other markets.

HTC One E8 Unveiled

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, HTC, htc m8 ace,

On Wednesday, award-winning novelist, poet and activist Maya Angelou died at age 86. As the world mourns the loss of an international icon and one of society’s most influential voices, her incredible words of wisdom and beautiful poetry will continue to live on.

“Phenomenal Woman”

“Still I Rise”

“When I Think About Myself”

“On The Pulse Of The Morning”

“His Day Is Done”– A Tribute To Nelson Mandela

Local conservatives defended the actions of the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly with a “tax reform rally” on Wednesday touting the legislature’s accomplishments.

The North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit advocacy group backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, held an event in Raleigh billed as a celebration of legislation passed by the assembly last year that overhauled the state’s tax regime.

The tax reform bill deprived North Carolina of an estimated $600 million in annual revenue by giving an income tax break of $2,434 to a family of four making $250,000 a year — a similar family making just $20,000 saves only $3 a year, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The bill, which also eliminated the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and raised sales taxes, meant that the estimated 80 percent of North Carolina families with annual incomes below $84,000 would see higher taxes.

Americans for Prosperity may have hoped to demonstrate that there is grassroots support for the legislature’s actions. The event Wednesday looked like anything but an equivalent of a Moral Monday protest, however: there was no civil disobedience as a few dozen attendees sat, subdued. And there were no fiery speeches by the state’s NAACP leader — attendees enjoyed speakers like conservative commenter and journalist Tucker Carlson.

State Republicans had been dismissive of the Moral Monday protests, but may have thought that an event to push back on the movement’s policy criticisms was necessary.

In the same week, 14 protesters affiliated with the state’s Moral Monday movement were arrested for staging a sit-in at Speaker Thom Tillis’ office to draw attention to the legislature’s refusal to expand Medicaid, support for hydraulic fracking, cuts to unemployment benefits, freezes to teacher pay, cuts to public education and laws implementing voter identification and restricting abortion access.

Last year’s Moral Monday protests led to more than 900 total arrests, with some events drawing more than 10,000 people to the State Capitol.

Americans for Prosperity’s announcement that it will also run television ads promoting the tax law may indicate a desire to prop up Tillis, the GOP’s Senate nominee, by influencing how voters judge the law’s impact as he works to unseat Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.).

“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”
-Acts 20:35

Consider the congregation member who for years has visited the sick in his parish, but who is fearful to seek pastoral care himself when a loved one contracts AIDS. Or the women who volunteers to be a mentor to unemployed congregants, but finds herself too embarrassed to seek help herself when she loses her job.

In a culture that prizes rugged individualism, and can interpret personal needs as a sign of weakness, many Americans find it is more acceptable to give than to receive.

Yet the blessings appear to multiply when you are able to do both, according to new research.

Americans who both meet the needs of others and are cared for in a nurturing community are much more likely to love and trust their neighbors, studies indicate.

That appears to be particularly true in religious communities where caring for one another affirms the central admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.

One new national study found congregation members who assisted others and received care themselves were dramatically more likely to place “complete trust” in their fellow worshipers than members who only gave or received help.

What’s more, the trust and caring relationships members build in their congregations do not appear to end at the door of the church, temple or mosque.

The 2012 Measuring Morality Study indicates that the most religiously active Americans are more likely to both be trusting and to strive to be compassionate and merciful.

Giving individuals who are able to accept acts of mercy from others appear most likely to love their neighbors.

Reciprocity matters

It is not only religious communities that benefit from mutual care.

The worker who receives help from a mentor is more likely to extend help to a colleague. And, in any organization, the member who visits someone in the hospital and is himself consoled by other members at a loved one’s funeral is likely to have more positive feelings about others in the group.

But more than self-interest is involved, research indicates.

In a new study involving 125 part-time MBA students, researchers found the concept of “paying it forward,” or helping others if you have been helped, had stronger and more lasting effects in helping others than acting out of consideration of a future self-benefit.

Such actions arising from an attitude of gratitude toward others appear also to contribute to a “virtuous cycle” of cooperation, the study found. As participants “developed a history of helping one another, more and more of them had reasons to feel grateful and to reflect on benefits received, paying it forward as a result,” said researchers Wayne Baker of the University of Michigan and Nathaniel Bulkley of Innovation Places LLC.

Still, religious communities appear to be especially fertile grounds for building greater trust and more tolerant and compassionate attitudes toward others, some research suggests. These communities offer their most active members multiple opportunities to build social ties and volunteer in an environment that promotes loving one’s neighbor.

Consider these findings from the 2012 Measuring Morality Study:

• People who need people: Half of Americans who attend services more than once a week describe themselves as being comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them. Just a third of people who never attend embrace such dependence. Nearly twice as many non-attenders as frequent attenders said they found it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them.
• Helping hands: Seven in 10 of the most frequent attenders, compared to less than half of nonchurchgoers, see themselves in the statement, “It’s very important to me to help the people around me. I want to care for their well-being.”
• Mercy, mercy: Nine in 10 of the most active churchgoers say being caring compassionate, merciful and cooperative is an important part of who they are; two-thirds of non-attenders attach the same importance to those characteristics.

Religious communities may have special incentives based on teaching and tradition to value acts of caring for one another, researchers note.

“It speaks to a lot of ways that we expect religion to function,” said sociologist Jeffrey Seymour of Gustavus Adolphus College.

Trust in synergy

Giving and receiving help do matter on their own, according to a study of more than 1,100 member or affiliates of religious communities based on data from the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study.

Congregants who only gave help to other members were twice as likely to fully trust their fellow worshipers as participants who neither gave nor received help. Members who only received help were nearly three times as likely to have the same high level of trust.

But it was the combination of both that made the biggest difference, with givers and receivers being more than five times as likely to have complete trust. Researchers Seymour, Karen Gregg of the University of St. Francis, and Michael Welch and Jessica Collett of the University of Notre Dame reported the findings in the latest issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Yet being able to accept support from others does not come easy for many Americans.

In congregations, the message of being a cheerful and gracious giver is rarely balanced with the idea of seeing the same signs of grace in receiving care from others.

Leaders of religious communities and other organizations may want to consider promoting cultures that place value both on being able to accept help and to “pay it forward” to others, suggest Seymour and Baker, author of the new book, “United America.”

The bottom line: It is blessed to both give and receive.

David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.