Monday, June 18, 2012

Digital revolution bypassing UK education

Digital revolution bypassing UK education [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Jun-2012
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Contact: Pressoffice
Pressoffice@esrc.ac.uk
Economic & Social Research Council

Teaching and learning in the 21st century needs to be 'turbo-charged' by educational technology rather than using technologies designed for other purposes, according to a new report developed by the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Programme (TEL) - a five-year research programme funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The report System Upgrade: Realising the vision for UK Education is the work of academics, industry and practitioners from across the UK. They warn that to prosper in the 21st century, people need to be confident digital collaborators and communicators, discerning users of the internet, and equipped with computational thinking skills such as understanding how to use and write the computer programs that underpin emails, searches and maps.

Enhancing learning through digital technology can make this happen and should be seen as an investment, not a cost, the researchers say. Without more support, UK schools will be left offering a largely analogue education in a digital world.

"The world is becoming increasingly digital. These technologies have transformed the way we work, communicate, bank, shop and play. But they have not yet transformed our education system," says Professor Richard Noss, director of the TEL Programme at the Institute of Education. "Education needs to catch up. The system needs to be upgraded. If it isn't, our children and our country will fall seriously behind in the digital revolution. And when that happens we will find computers shaping us rather than us using them to shape the world," says Noss.

System Upgrade (available at www.tel.ac.uk) makes 12 recommendations with the potential to transform education's use of technology. They include developing virtual worlds to help disadvantaged students, using artificial intelligence to personalise learning, and putting computational thinking at the heart of the curriculum. Digital 'power tools' to help teachers create and share lessons are also on the TEL agenda.

"Schools need to engage the Xbox generation. They need to be able to take advantage of the innovative teaching methods and flexible learning environments that technology enhanced learning offers. Only then will they be able to teach their pupils the skills to enable them to succeed in the globalised, digital workplace," says Professor Noss.

System Upgrade will be launched by Lord Knight of Weymouth, a former Labour schools minister who has long been frustrated by the failure of digital technologies to transform education.

###

For further information contact:

Richard Noss
Email: r.noss@ioe.ac.uk
Telephone 0777 333 1578

James O'Toole
Email: j.otoole@ioe.ac.uk
Telephone 07789 380 971

Download the report at the TEL website.

ESRC Press Office:

Danielle Moore
Email: danielle.moore@esrc.ac.uk
Telephone 01793 413122

Jeanine Woolley
Email: jeanine.woolley@esrc.ac.uk
Telephone 01793 413119

Notes for editors

1. System Upgrade: realising the vision for UK education will be launched in Attlee Room in the House of Lords on June 13 at 8:30-10:00.

2. TEL is a UK 12m ESRC/EPSRC funded programme running from 2007-2012 led by Professor Richard Noss at the London Knowledge Lab.

3. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC's total budget for 2012/13 is 205 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes. More at www.esrc.ac.uk

4. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK.



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Digital revolution bypassing UK education [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Pressoffice
Pressoffice@esrc.ac.uk
Economic & Social Research Council

Teaching and learning in the 21st century needs to be 'turbo-charged' by educational technology rather than using technologies designed for other purposes, according to a new report developed by the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Programme (TEL) - a five-year research programme funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The report System Upgrade: Realising the vision for UK Education is the work of academics, industry and practitioners from across the UK. They warn that to prosper in the 21st century, people need to be confident digital collaborators and communicators, discerning users of the internet, and equipped with computational thinking skills such as understanding how to use and write the computer programs that underpin emails, searches and maps.

Enhancing learning through digital technology can make this happen and should be seen as an investment, not a cost, the researchers say. Without more support, UK schools will be left offering a largely analogue education in a digital world.

"The world is becoming increasingly digital. These technologies have transformed the way we work, communicate, bank, shop and play. But they have not yet transformed our education system," says Professor Richard Noss, director of the TEL Programme at the Institute of Education. "Education needs to catch up. The system needs to be upgraded. If it isn't, our children and our country will fall seriously behind in the digital revolution. And when that happens we will find computers shaping us rather than us using them to shape the world," says Noss.

System Upgrade (available at www.tel.ac.uk) makes 12 recommendations with the potential to transform education's use of technology. They include developing virtual worlds to help disadvantaged students, using artificial intelligence to personalise learning, and putting computational thinking at the heart of the curriculum. Digital 'power tools' to help teachers create and share lessons are also on the TEL agenda.

"Schools need to engage the Xbox generation. They need to be able to take advantage of the innovative teaching methods and flexible learning environments that technology enhanced learning offers. Only then will they be able to teach their pupils the skills to enable them to succeed in the globalised, digital workplace," says Professor Noss.

System Upgrade will be launched by Lord Knight of Weymouth, a former Labour schools minister who has long been frustrated by the failure of digital technologies to transform education.

###

For further information contact:

Richard Noss
Email: r.noss@ioe.ac.uk
Telephone 0777 333 1578

James O'Toole
Email: j.otoole@ioe.ac.uk
Telephone 07789 380 971

Download the report at the TEL website.

ESRC Press Office:

Danielle Moore
Email: danielle.moore@esrc.ac.uk
Telephone 01793 413122

Jeanine Woolley
Email: jeanine.woolley@esrc.ac.uk
Telephone 01793 413119

Notes for editors

1. System Upgrade: realising the vision for UK education will be launched in Attlee Room in the House of Lords on June 13 at 8:30-10:00.

2. TEL is a UK 12m ESRC/EPSRC funded programme running from 2007-2012 led by Professor Richard Noss at the London Knowledge Lab.

3. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC's total budget for 2012/13 is 205 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes. More at www.esrc.ac.uk

4. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK.



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Friday, June 15, 2012

NASA sees intensifying Hurricane Carlotta threatening Mexico

NASA sees intensifying Hurricane Carlotta threatening Mexico [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 15-Jun-2012
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Contact: Rob Gutro
Robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
443-858-1779
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over Carlotta when it was a tropical storm and found areas of heavy rain throughout and powerful high thunderstorms almost 10 miles high, hinting the storm would strengthen into a hurricane. By 8 a.m. EDT on June 15, Carlotta became the first hurricane of the eastern Pacific Ocean season.

As Carlotta neared the western coast of Mexico, warnings and watches were posted. On Friday, June 15, 2012, a hurricane warning was in effect for the Pacific Coast of Mexico from Salina Cruz to Acapulco. A hurricane watch is in effect for the Pacific Coast of Mexico east of Salina Cruz to Barra De Tonala, and west of Acapulco to Tecpan De Galeana.

A 3-D perspective image was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. by Hal Pierce of SSAI, who works on the TRMM mission team. Hal noted that the TRMM Precipitation Radar shows there were several powerful thunderstorms taller than 15km (~9.3 miles). The tallest convective thunderstorm towers, reaching above 16km (~9.9 miles), were seen on the northwestern side of the developing tropical cyclone. Those convective towers or "hot towers" usually indicate strengthening within 6 hours, and Carlotta did, indeed, become a hurricane.

TRMM imagery also showed that the storm was getting better organized with several areas of heavy rainfall located in forming convective rain bands.

At 11 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. PDT) Hurricane Carlotta's maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph making it officially the first hurricane of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane season.

Carlotta was located about 120 miles (195 km) south-southeast of Puerto Angel and 330 miles (530 km) southeast of Acapulco, Mexico. Because tropical-storm-force winds extend out 50 miles (85 kilometer) from Carlotta's center, Puerto Angel was not yet experiencing them at 11 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. PDT), but that will change as Carlotta draws ever closer.

Carlotta's center was near latitude 14.0 north and longitude 96.0 west. Carlotta was moving to the northwest near 12 mph (19 kph) and is expected to continue in that direction over the next 24 hours before turning to the west-northwest and back to sea.

As Carlotta nears the coast, rainfall poses one of the biggest threats. Heavy rains resulting in flooding and landslides are then possible as Carlotta interacts with rugged terrain near the southwestern coast of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center has forecast accumulations of 3 to 5 inches (75 to 125 mm) with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches (300 mm) over the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Storm surge and hurricane-force winds are also expected.

###

For updated forecasts over the weekend, visit the National Hurricane Center website: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov. Additional updates will also be available on NASA Hurricane's Facebook and Twitter pages.



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NASA sees intensifying Hurricane Carlotta threatening Mexico [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 15-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Rob Gutro
Robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
443-858-1779
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over Carlotta when it was a tropical storm and found areas of heavy rain throughout and powerful high thunderstorms almost 10 miles high, hinting the storm would strengthen into a hurricane. By 8 a.m. EDT on June 15, Carlotta became the first hurricane of the eastern Pacific Ocean season.

As Carlotta neared the western coast of Mexico, warnings and watches were posted. On Friday, June 15, 2012, a hurricane warning was in effect for the Pacific Coast of Mexico from Salina Cruz to Acapulco. A hurricane watch is in effect for the Pacific Coast of Mexico east of Salina Cruz to Barra De Tonala, and west of Acapulco to Tecpan De Galeana.

A 3-D perspective image was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. by Hal Pierce of SSAI, who works on the TRMM mission team. Hal noted that the TRMM Precipitation Radar shows there were several powerful thunderstorms taller than 15km (~9.3 miles). The tallest convective thunderstorm towers, reaching above 16km (~9.9 miles), were seen on the northwestern side of the developing tropical cyclone. Those convective towers or "hot towers" usually indicate strengthening within 6 hours, and Carlotta did, indeed, become a hurricane.

TRMM imagery also showed that the storm was getting better organized with several areas of heavy rainfall located in forming convective rain bands.

At 11 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. PDT) Hurricane Carlotta's maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph making it officially the first hurricane of the Eastern Pacific Ocean hurricane season.

Carlotta was located about 120 miles (195 km) south-southeast of Puerto Angel and 330 miles (530 km) southeast of Acapulco, Mexico. Because tropical-storm-force winds extend out 50 miles (85 kilometer) from Carlotta's center, Puerto Angel was not yet experiencing them at 11 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. PDT), but that will change as Carlotta draws ever closer.

Carlotta's center was near latitude 14.0 north and longitude 96.0 west. Carlotta was moving to the northwest near 12 mph (19 kph) and is expected to continue in that direction over the next 24 hours before turning to the west-northwest and back to sea.

As Carlotta nears the coast, rainfall poses one of the biggest threats. Heavy rains resulting in flooding and landslides are then possible as Carlotta interacts with rugged terrain near the southwestern coast of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center has forecast accumulations of 3 to 5 inches (75 to 125 mm) with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches (300 mm) over the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Storm surge and hurricane-force winds are also expected.

###

For updated forecasts over the weekend, visit the National Hurricane Center website: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov. Additional updates will also be available on NASA Hurricane's Facebook and Twitter pages.



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?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


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I'm sorry, but I won't accept reservations. First to submit are the ones that get the role.

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Thursday, June 14, 2012

$1 billion per day leaving Greek banks (Americablog)

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Forest Service: Wildfires intensify need for forest management

Service chief Tom Tidwell says forests need to be returned to a more natural state to prevent so-called "super fires."

By Susan Montoya Bryan,?The Associated Press / June 13, 2012

Poudre Fire Authority crews battle a wildfire in a mountainous area about 15 miles west of Fort Collins, Colo., on June 10, 2012.

(AP Photo/The Denver Post, Helen H. Richardson)

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A combination of decades of vigorous fire suppression and the waning of the timber industry over environmental concerns has left many forests a tangled, overgrown mess, subject to the kind of super-fires that are now regularly consuming hundreds of homes and millions of acres.

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As firefighters continue to battle massive blazes in New Mexico and Colorado, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell is renewing his call to restore forests to a more natural state, in which fire was a part of the landscape and in many instances was far less destructive.

The Forest Service is on a mission to set the clock back to zero and the urgency couldn't be greater, Tidwell said. The plan calls for accelerating restoration programs ? everything from prescribed fire and mechanical thinning ? by 20 percent each year in key areas that are facing the greatest danger of a catastrophic fire.

This year's target: 4 million acres. The budget: About $1 billion.

IN PICTURES: Colorado wildfires

"We need to understand the conditions we're facing today," Tidwell told The Associated Press in an interview. "They're different than what we used to deal with. We're seeing erratic fire behavior, more erratic weather."

In southern New Mexico, a lightning-sparked fire raced across more than 34,000 acres in a matter of three days, damaging or destroying at least 224 homes and other structures in the mountains outside of the resort community of Ruidoso. Hundreds of residents remained out of their homes Wednesday.

The Little Bear blaze has scorched 58 square miles in the Sierra Blanca range and containment stood at 35 percent after crews used a two-day break in the hot, windy weather to build miles of fire lines and conduct burnout operations.

To the north, smoke from a fire burning in Colorado was blowing into southeastern Wyoming and smudging the skies above Cheyenne on Wednesday. That blaze, about 15 miles west of Fort Collins, has burned 73 square miles, destroyed more than 100 structures and forced hundreds of people from their homes.

More than 1,000 firefighters labored to build containment lines as air tankers and helicopters focused on protecting buildings from the High Park fire.

The accelerated restoration effort is focused on several landscape-scale projects, the largest of which is a 20-year plan that calls for restoring 2.4 million acres across four forests in northern Arizona. The Forest Service recently awarded a contract to start thinning the first 300,000 acres.

A similar project is planned in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico, where a historic fire ripped through 244 square miles and threatened one of the national's premier nuclear laboratories just last summer.

Another concern is the 8.6 million acres of standing trees killed by beetle infestations. Restoration projects from Oregon and South Dakota to Colorado are aimed at tackling that problem. One of those, the White River National Forest collaborative project, is expected to result in more than 190,000 tons of biomass through thinning.

Forest officials estimate the cost of fire suppression in some of the areas targeted for restoration could be reduced by up to 50 percent because of the work.

The directive doesn't stop at the landscape level, however. Each forest in the Southwest is part of a pilot project that pools regular watershed and wildlife program funds for restoration. Regional forester Corbin Newman said that amounts to millions of dollars.

In an era of tight budgets and taxed resources, forest officials acknowledged that restoration will be a challenge. They said part of the solution is setting priorities and forming more partnerships with states, municipalities and even water utilities given the impacts catastrophic fires can have on watersheds. Some 66 million Americans rely on drinking water that flows from the nation's forests.

Still, there are millions of acres ? wilderness and roadless, rugged areas ? where mechanical thinning won't be an option. In those areas, fire will have to take its natural course.

"Everybody has to keep in mind that fire will play a huge significant role in our landscape for the rest of time," Newman said. "Sometimes people think through either restoration or suppression we can just make fires go away. We have to remind folks we're just trying put fire back into its natural processes and cycles as opposed to what we're seeing in today's world."

With more natural fires, experts contend the forest has a better chance of recovering. Severe fires tend to sterilize the soil, destroy any banks of seeds stored in the ground and leave mountainsides primed for erosion.

Newman and other forest officials lamented that educating people about the complexity of restoring forests and fire's natural role will take something more than Smokey Bear, the black bear that became the nation's most successful symbol of fire prevention in the 1940s.

Tidwell said campaigns are under way at the federal and state level to address the benefits of restoration, particularly prescribed fire under the right conditions.

"We're going to have trade-offs of either dealing with smoke at different times of the year or dealing with what we're dealing with now," he said, pointing to the fires burning across the country.

Across the West:

? Utah: Two wildfires blackened 4,000 acres in Fishlake National Forest in southern Utah. Meanwhile, a preliminary report found an air tanker that wrecked June 3 while fighting a wildfire in southern Utah veered off its flight path while following a lead plane moments before crashing into mountainous terrain. Both pilots in the tanker died; they were from Boise, Idaho. The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday it's still investigating the cause of the crash.

? Wyoming: Investigators determined a 2,800-acre fire burning in Guernsey State Park was human-caused. It is 95 percent contained, while a 13-square-mile fire in Medicine Bow National Forest is fully contained. The risk of new fires is high in much of the state because of dry air and expected strong winds.

? Arizona: A 2,600-acre wildfire in the Tonto National Forest northwest of Phoenix is 40 percent contained. It's not threatening any buildings. Crews fully contained a wildfire that had forced the evacuation of the historic mining town of Crown King. Firefighters were also maintaining a perimeter around a 400-acre forest fire outside Grand Canyon National Park. The blaze about 11 miles southeast of Grand Canyon Village isn't expected to deter visitors to the park.

IN PICTURES: Colorado wildfires

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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2


An Android smartphone without the phone, the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 ($199.99 list) is the same price as the Apple?iPod Touch ($199, 5 stars), but doesn't quite measure up. It's good enough, though, for people who want to run Android apps without investing in a smartphone and a data plan.?

Physical Design and Networking
Looking a lot like a midrange Android smartphone, the Galaxy Player 4.2 is constructed from black and chrome plastic, with a physical Home button beneath the 4.2-inch, 800-by-480 IPS LCD screen. It's slim at 2.6 by 4.89 by .35 inches (HWD) and light at 4 ounces, but it doesn't have the premium feel of the iPod touch.

There's a 2-megapixel camera around back and a VGA camera on the front. The power and headphone jacks are on the bottom panel, and the MicroSD card slot is under the removable plastic back, next to the removable battery. The player comes with unremarkable earbuds and a power adapter.

The Galaxy Player 4.2 connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, albeit only at 2.4 (not 5) GHz. The player also integrates GPS, which is of questionable value, as pretty much everywhere you'd need GPS, you won't have an Internet connection. There's Bluetooth too, and the player can act as a Bluetooth headset for another phone.?

Performance
Performance is adequate but uninspiring. The Galaxy Player 4.2 is basically a 2010-era Galaxy S phone, with a single-core?1GHz Cortex-A8 processor running Android 2.3. (Don't expect an Android 4.0 update.) Benchmarks are roughly on par with lower-midrange smartphones like the LG Optimus M+ ($129,?3.5 stars), LG Optimus Elite ($29.99,?3 stars), and Samsung Exhibit II ($199.99,?3.5 stars). It's what you'd expect at this price.

The Player comes with all the standard Android apps, so you can browse the Web, check your email, chat online, and such. The Home screen comes set up with attractive clock and weather widgets, but of course, this being Android, you can toss those out and replace them with others if you'd like.

Samsung bundles some really ambitious games with the Galaxy Player 4.2, though: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and FIFA 12. Both are console-quality titles that require massive extra downloads (290MB and 1.6GB respectively) and both run adequately, but not perfectly smoothly. I'd stick more with casual games on this device.

Smart View is another interesting pre-loaded app; it turns the Galaxy Player 4.2 into a smart remote control for a Samsung TV. I tested it with a Samsung UN46ES8000F ($2,999.99, 3.5 stars). The app configured automatically, and let me pick apps from the HDTV's Smart Hub. But the main, virtual remote is a series of scrolling screens, and it took quite a few flicks to get to the feature I was looking for sometimes. If you're looking for a fancy remote for your TV, a Samsung tablet like the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) ($249,?4 stars) would be a better bet because of its greater real estate.

Otherwise, the Google Play market is here, and the Galaxy Player 4.2 is compatible with the 400,000 apps there.

Multimedia, Storage and Battery Life
The Galaxy Player comes with about 6.5GB of storage, but did you see how big those game downloads are? A memory card is practically a must here; it's a good thing that our 64GB SanDisk card worked fine.

True to its name, the Galaxy Player can handle a range of music and video formats including MP3, AAC, MPEG4, H.264, DivX, Xvid, and WMV. It handles files up to 720p HD, but not 1080p HD video. There's an FM radio onboard, which works when headphones are plugged in. Sound quality is very good, with no hiss, and the music player comes with an equalizer option offering various scenarios for different types of music.

It's hard to get your video onto a TV, though. The Galaxy Player didn't support our MHL HDMI adapter, and attempts to stream video over Samsung's AllShare DLNA app ended in endless buffering.

The 2-megapixel camera offers no surprises, capturing moderately sharp photos in daylight, and somewhat blurry ones in low light. The images aren't noisy, but two megapixels is behind the times. The VGA front camera, on the other hand, is hideously noisy. The main camera records smooth-enough 640-by-480 video at 25 frames per second indoors and out.

We got 6 hours, 57 minutes of solid video playback with the screen set to maximum brightness. That's longer than the competing iPod touch, and promises a solid day's worth of use.

Conclusions
If you want to run 400,000 Android apps and don't want to invest in a smartphone, the Galaxy Player 4.2 is among your better bets. It's less expensive and more capable than the older Galaxy Player 4.0 and the Sony NQZ-Z1000 ($249, 3 stars), and has a decent screen resolution unlike the Galaxy Player 3.6 ($149, 3 stars). We'd give this handheld a higher rating if it wasn't running last year's version of Android on two-year-old hardware, but even so, it performs well.

The Apple iPod touch is a better device overall: the same price, but slimmer, with a higher-quality display, better video recording, even more apps, and a stronger track record for software updates.?It's not so much better to outweigh the platform question, though. Maybe you hate iTunes with a burning passion.?Maybe you need a lot of storage (a Galaxy Player with 64GB card bought from Amazon costs $263; a 64GB iPod touch is $399.) While the iPod touch is still our Editors' Choice MP3 player, the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 is a top pick for?Android partisans who don't want an Android phone.

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