Have you observed this cute feature in photos taken in Windows 10 Mobile

I saw this effect for the first time in Lumia 950. I am sure it is not only  in the higher version but also more recent Windows smart phones. You might have also found it in the pictures you recently captured and saved to your Camera Roll. Perhaps you might not have associated these (.nar files) with the cute effect you  observed. You (in the Photo tile) click on one of these images and it opens up and comes to life briefly (Live Images)  before settling to a still that you have been used to all along (almost like a very short video). These are live pictures.

If you look at the properties of these picture you will see the .nar extension. NAR extension refers to Nikon Capture Advanced Raw file.

If you try to attach it with a message you will get two options, an image or a video. I sent it out to my wife to her iPhone 6S and she got a video. The video effect on iPhone 6S is Ok but not like it is on Windows 10 Phone Lumia 950. You have got to see it to know how it looks. This is developing area  of  rich capture. You probably will not see the effect on the browser in your computer although I have uploaded a .var file here. It has to be the phone which has the right software. You may trying saving this file without changing the extension and opening the saved file with a PHOTO app on your Windows 10 Computer.

Mall artist singing Hawaiian Songs

There is always something going on at Kahala Mall in Honolulu. Here is a local artist singing to the crowds more interested in buying trinkets on the side-walk sale than music.

Here is the famous Hawaiian Wedding Song.

If you like art, get to know these Hawaiian artists..

I recently visited the Honolulu Museum of art at First Hawaiian Center in downtown Honolulu to see George Wollards recent sculptures with the theme 'Drawing a Bead'. I think this exhibition will be open till Feb 5, 2016 and paintings by Tom Lieber and works of Hannah Day, Nelson Flack, Chenta Laury and Carl Jennings with the theme 'Dreaming of Nature' were also on display.

The admission and parking are free.
http://honolulumuseum.org/12002-first_hawaiian_center
Here is the address:
Hawaiian Art Museum (808-532-8701)

While George uses natrual objects such as stone and wood often chopped out of trees or recovered from fallen ones and decorated with cashew lacquer from Korea, the others use conventional materials. George really brings out brilliant colors from these otherwise grey objects and are very beautiful to look at.

Here on display are also various Geode's. I had seen quite a lot of them when I was living in Brazil, but this museum has quite a few good pieces. Here is a rather large geode.

If you are tired of the beaches or it is too cold outside may be you should visit and take a look and enjoy.

Here are some of the photos of some of the other displays.

Tom Lieber

Chenta Laury

Hannah Day

You own a Windows 10 laptop or tablet, then better find out how good your battery is...

In both cases you can get the information about your battery (especially if you want to replace it) using the power configuration command as in:
---------
C:\Users\powercfg /?
You get the help for power configuration as shown here:
------------
C:\Users\Jayaram>powercfg /?
POWERCFG /COMMAND [ARGUMENTS]
Description:
  Enables users to control power settings on a local system.
  For detailed command and option information, run "POWERCFG /? "
Command List:
  /LIST, /L          Lists all power schemes.
  /QUERY, /Q         Displays the contents of a power scheme.
  /CHANGE, /X        Modifies a setting value in the current power scheme.
  /CHANGENAME        Modifies the name and description of a power scheme.
  /DUPLICATESCHEME   Duplicates a power scheme.
  /DELETE, /D        Deletes a power scheme.
  /DELETESETTING     Deletes a power setting.
  /SETACTIVE, /S     Makes a power scheme active on the system.
  /GETACTIVESCHEME   Retrieves the currently active power scheme.
  /SETACVALUEINDEX   Sets the value associated with a power setting
                     while the system is powered by AC power.
  /SETDCVALUEINDEX   Sets the value associated with a power setting
                     while the system is powered by DC power.
  /IMPORT            Imports all power settings from a file.
  /EXPORT            Exports a power scheme to a file.
  /ALIASES           Displays all aliases and their corresponding GUIDs.
  /GETSECURITYDESCRIPTOR
                     Gets a security descriptor associated with a specified
                     power setting, power scheme, or action.
  /SETSECURITYDESCRIPTOR
                     Sets a security descriptor associated with a
                     power setting, power scheme, or action.
  /HIBERNATE, /H     Enables and disables the hibernate feature.
  /AVAILABLESLEEPSTATES, /A
                     Reports the sleep states available on the system.
  /DEVICEQUERY       Returns a list of devices that meet specified criteria.
  /DEVICEENABLEWAKE  Enables a device to wake the system from a sleep state.
  /DEVICEDISABLEWAKE Disables a device from waking the system from a sleep
                     state.
  /LASTWAKE          Reports information about what woke the system from the
                     last sleep transition.
  /WAKETIMERS        Enumerates active wake timers.
  /REQUESTS          Enumerates application and driver Power Requests.
  /REQUESTSOVERRIDE  Sets a Power Request override for a particular Process,
                     Service, or Driver.
  /ENERGY            Analyzes the system for common energy-efficiency and
                     battery life problems.
  /BATTERYREPORT     Generates a report of battery usage.
  /SLEEPSTUDY        Generates a diagnostic connected standby report.
  /SRUMUTIL          Dumps Energy Estimation data from System Resource Usage Monitor (SRUM).
-----
One of the arguments is 'batteryreport'.
Now if you type as shown here:
--
C:\Users\Jayaram>powercfg /batteryreport
Battery life report will get saved to C:\Users\Jayaram\battery-report.html.

Type as shown below, the HTML file will be launched in a browser.
C:\Users\Jayaram>battery-report.html
C:\Users\Jayaram>

Your battery report is saved to a html file.  This file is launched when you run the command, battery-report.html as above.
Here is the generated file (only partly shown):

These are the main sections in the report:

Battery details
Installed Batteries
Recent Usage
Battery Usage
Usage History
Battery Capacity History
Battery Life Estimates

It may be interesting to run this file once in 3 months and keep a record. When you are not using you can switch off (for long expected durations of inactivity), or let it sleep (for shorter durations of inactivity). Adjust your battery saver settings in Windows 10 Settings.

These nice things have happenned on President Obama's watch...

Two historic events that will shape the future of Iran and Cuba.

Iran Nuclear Deal

It has been great for those who were released from Iranian prisons and the people of Iran who can now participate little more freely with the rest of the world.

There are lots of talk about pros and cons of the deal, but the bottom line is the mere avoidance of yet another unwinnable war in the middle east should be great conmfort for the tax payers who would have to foot the bill.

Lifting of Cuban Trade Embargo

It is great to know people who are only less than 100 miles can talk and interact with each other normally.

Urgent: Do not answer this telepone call

There is something wrong about this number. The telephone operator (AT&T) in my case flagged it as an international call. I do not know any from this area code (assuming it is 718).

This web site flags it as something that may be related to terrorist, but I am not sure.
http://stopting.us/en/number/71891729910

I called up www.donotcall.gov and added my telephone numbers.

Is it related to terrorists? I am not sure. I did not answer although for the last two, three days he/she attempting to talk to me.

This TV will not fit in my living room

TV as you know may change drastically in the future. Samsung's 170" TV's display is made up of smaller displays that fit together seamlessly as you see from this GIF image from Samsung site. This is not in the market right now but you bet, it will be there soon. Watch the video at the end of this post


What you have that you can buy is this SUHD TV (78" SUHD 4K Curved Smart TV JS9500 Series 9) from SAMSUNG. Image from Samsung site.

Watch this monster TV in a YouTubeVideo.

Nikon's KeyMission 360 looks great

This 360 Degree camera from Nikon is very impressive. Probably it will take out GoPro quite easily when it enters the market. It might already in the market even.

KeyMission 360's key features:

True 360 Degree Views
 Imaging like never before

4K Ultra HD
 Dual lenses and image sensors produce a single immersive, ultra-high-definition video and still image.

Waterproof
 Good to 100ft

Shockproof
 Does not care for dust, shock and low temperature

Wi-Fi

Here is a video from Nikon site: