Samsung Galaxy S III I747

GENERAL

2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network LTE 700 MHz Class 17
Announced 2012, June
Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2012, June 18th

SIZE

Dimensions 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm
Weight 134 g
Touch-sensitive controls

BATTERY

Stand-by Time not available
Standard battery, Li-Ion 2100 mAh

MEMORY

Phonebook
Internal 16 GB storage, 2 GB RAM
Card slot up to 64 GB Mobile with Memory Card
Description Card slot microSD

FEATURES

Speed HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE, C
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging (IM), Push Mail,
SMS(threaded view), RSS
Browser HTML, Internet Mobile Phones
HTML, Adobe Flash
Colors Pebble blue, Marble white
Entertainment Radio: TBD 
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic 
- TV-out (via MHL A/V link) 
- MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player 
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
FM Radio, MP3 Player, Games, Video Editor, Photo editor, Mobiles with FM Radio Gaming Mobiles
Voice Memo Yes
GPS Receiver Yes


PDF Viewer Yes
Photo Editor Yes
Google Maps Yes
A-GPS support and GLONASS 
- Java MIDP emulator 
- MicroSIM card support only 
- S-Voice natural language commands and dictation 
- Smart Stay eye tracking 
- Dropbox (50 GB storage) 
- Organizer 
- Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) 
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration 
- Voice memo/dial/commands 
- Predictive text input (Swype)

DATA

NFC Yes
Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, EDR Bluetooth Mobiles
USB microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB On-the-go USB Mobiles
GPRS Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps GPRS Mobiles
EDGE Class 12 EDGE Mobiles
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot WLAN Mobiles

DISPLAY

Type Touch Screen, 16M colors
Size 720 x 1280, 4.8 inches
Description (~306 ppi pixel density) 
- Multitouch 
- Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 2 
- TouchWiz UI v4.0
Description Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen

CAMERA

Primary 8 MP, 3264x2448 8 MP Mobiles, Camera Mobiles
Video Auto Focus, Video, Video Call
LED flash 
- Features: Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization 
- Video: 1080p@30fps 
- Secondary: 1.9 MP, 720p@30fps

SOUND

Alert types
MP3 , WAV,
Type MP3, WAV ringtones
Vibration Yes
Loudspeaker - 3.5mm jack

MISC

SAR US 0.74 W/kg (head) 0.82 W/kg (body)
SAR EU 0.20 W/kg (head)

China set for space mission of first woman astronaut

China is about to launch its fourth manned space mission. It is sending a crew of three, including the nation's first female astronaut, to the orbiting Tiangong space lab. Their Shenzhou-9 capsule is set to lift off from the Jiuquan spaceport on the edge of the Gobi desert at 18:37 local time (10:37 GMT; 1137 BST).

A Long March 2F rocket will put the astronauts on a path to dock with Tiangong in a couple of days' time. They will then spend over a week living and working in orbit before returning to Earth. The mission is commanded by Jing Haipeng, who is making his second spaceflight after participating in the Shenzhou-7 outing in 2008 - the mission that included China's first spacewalk. Jing's flight engineers are both first-timers. Liu Yang will look after the medical experiments during the mission.

Liu Wang, a People's Liberation Army fighter pilot, has got his chance after spending 14 years in the China National Space Administration's astronaut corps. Liu Yang, on the other hand, has emerged as China's first woman spacefarer after just two years of training. Her role in the mission will be to run the medical experiments in orbit.

Shenzhou-9 follows on from the unmanned Shenzhou-8 venture last year that tested the technologies required to join a capsule to the Tiangong lab. Those manoeuvres went very well and gave Chinese officials the confidence to send up humans. When it arrives at Tiangong, the Shenzhou-9 craft is expected to make a fully automated docking, but there is a plan to try a manual docking later in the mission.

This would see the crew uncouple their vehicle from the lab, retreat to a defined distance and then command their ship to re-attach itself. Liu Wang will take the lead in this activity. "We've done many simulations," he said during the pre-launch press conference. "We've mastered the techniques and skills. China has first class technologies and astronauts, and therefore I'm confident we will fulfil the manual rendezvous."

Tiangong is the next step in a strategy that Beijing authorities hope will lead ultimately to the construction and operation of a large, permanently manned space station. It is merely the prototype for the modules China expects to build and join in orbit. Mastering the rendezvous and docking procedures is central to this strategy.

At about 60 tonnes in mass, this proposed station would be considerably smaller than the 400-tonne international platform operated by the US, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, but its mere presence in the sky would nonetheless represent a remarkable achievement.

Concept drawings describe a core module weighing some 20-22 tonnes, flanked by two slightly smaller laboratory vessels. Officials say it would be supplied by freighters in exactly the same way that robotic cargo ships keep the International Space Station (ISS) today stocked with fuel, food, water, air and spare parts.

China is investing billions of dollars in its space programme. It has a strong space science effort under way, with two orbiting satellites having already been launched to the Moon. A third mission is expected to put a rover on the lunar surface. The Asian country is also deploying its own satellite-navigation system known as BeiDou, or Compass.

Before leaving Earth, Lui Yang said the Shenzhou-9 mission would generate further pride in Chinese people. "When I was a pilot I flew in the sky; now as an astronaut, I'm going into space. It's higher and it's farther," she said. "I have a lot of tasks to fulfil, but besides these tasks I want to feel the unique environment in space and admire the views. I want to explore a beautiful Earth, a beautiful home. I want to record all my feelings and my work, to share with my friends, and my comrades and my future colleagues."

Nik Wallenda historic tightrope walk over Niagara Falls

A man from a celebrated family of professional daredevils has completed a tightrope walk across Niagara Falls in a televised stunt. Nik Wallenda braved wind and heavy spray to make the 1,800ft (550m) walk from the US to Canada on a 2-inch (61mm) wire. Thousands watched from Goat Island, where he began the crossing, suspended 150 feet (46 metres) above the falls.

It is the first such feat over Niagara Falls in over a century. Mr Wallenda is the seventh generation of the famed Flying Wallendas. The family has performed for more than 200 years, including the signature act that gave the group their name, where two pairs of performers walk the wire, each supporting another aerialist on a pole.

Those two aerialists, in turn, carry a pole upon which the seventh member of the troupe balances in a chair. The family has suffered two deaths from falls while performing, including Mr Wallenda's great-grandfather in 1978.

Mr Wallenda wore a safety harness attaching him to the wire, a precaution insisted on by ABC, the US broadcaster which sponsored the live broadcast of his walk. Prior to the walk, he said he had not performed with a harness before, but that it would not take away from the event. After he arrived, Mr Wallenda was asked to hand over his US passport to officially enter Canada.

The 33-year-old had estimated the total cost of the walk would be around $1.3m (£830,000), including creating and installing the steel wire, as well as permits and security on both sides of the border. Legal liability had prevented ABC from funding all of Mr Walenda's costs and materials, so he had taken to online site IndieGoGo to raise further funds. 

Mother gorillas use a type of "baby talk" when communicating with infants

Mother gorillas use a type of "baby talk" when communicating with infants, according to scientists. The team studied captive western lowland gorillas, watching and filming the animals as they interacted. These animals have a wide repertoire of communication gestures, so the team focused on facial expressions and hand signals used in play.

Eva Maria Luef from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, led the research. She and her colleague Katja Liebal filmed 120 hours of footage of the gorillas at Leipzig Zoo and Howletts and Port Lympne Wild Animal Parks in the UK.

Analysing this footage revealed that, when they played with infants, adult females used more tactile gestures than they used with other adults; they would "touch, stroke and lightly slap" the youngsters. "The infants also received more repetition," explained Dr Luef.

She described one particularly motherly gesture which the researchers call "hand-on. This is where mothers put the flat hand of their hand on top of the [infant's] head," said Dr Luef. "It means 'stop it.'"

Gorillas often use this gesture with one another; it is a signal that appears to mean that an animal has "had enough". But with an infant, the female would repeat the action several times. The researchers describe this motherly communication as "non-vocal motherese".

They say that it helps infants to build the repertoire of signals they will use as adults, in order to communicate with the rest of the gorilla group. "It also shows that older animals possess a certain awareness of the infants' immature communication skills," said Dr Luef.

Prof Richard Byrne from the University of St Andrews said that he doubted the research shed any light on the evolution of human "babytalk". The researcher explained the importance of the way in which adults talk to babies, describing it as a "natural but very smart way of conveying the details of how we construct complex grammar". But he added that, since gorillas do not acquire language, they have "no need of such an adaptation". "So I suspect this is not the same at all," he said.

"[But] it is interesting that the adults gesture in a different way to babies than among each other. "This suggest that adults understand that communicating to infants is going to be tricky, and plan their gesturing accordingly."

Important Facts


Gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans all belong to the great ape family


The best of the non-human communicators are the chimpanzees. 


In the wild, the animals use up to 66 distinct gestures, each with a different meaning.