Microsoft Daylight Savings Time

Infuse 4G Review

AT&T’s Samsung Infuse 4G is described as “big. brilliant. thin”. That’s an accurate description which is almost surprising for marketing message. However, it does summarize fairly well what the phone is about. As a former “computer graphics guy”, I sometimes say that “the display is the computer”, and this is particularly true for the Infuse 4G: its big 4.5” display draws a lot of “wooo” and “ahhh”, but such a large display often gets a love (mostly), or hate, reaction. For a big phone, it is also relatively light: it’s lighter than the iPhone 4. So, how is it to carry the Samsung Infuse 4G around and use it in the real world? Is it as good as AT&T says it is? I tried it for a couple of weeks, and in this review I’ll tell you about its greatness and its pitfalls.

We all use smartphones in different ways, so it’s important that I tell you where I come from: I check my email (a lot!) with Microsoft Exchange, and I reply only moderately because a virtual keyboard is not as productive as a physical one. I browse the web several times a day to check on news sites, but I rarely watch movies or play music. I don’t call much – maybe 10mn a day. On the “apps” side, I have a couple of social networks, but I rarely play games – even Angry Birds. This usage pattern will affect battery life and the perception of what features are useful.

Display : 4.5” 800×480

The USB connector is conveniently located at the bottom of the phone, which ensures that you can use it relatively comfortably, even while charging. A 3.5mm audio jack plug is present at the top of the phone. This is a classic location that works.

There are few buttons on the side (volume control and power), which is a good thing because it avoids accidental clicks. I personally find the Power button to be a little too recessed and I find myself searching for it sometimes… I use it dozens of time a day.

The back side has a texture that provides additional “grip”, which is great, but it also feels like plastic, well, because it is made of plastic. On the other hand, the frame all around the phone is made of metal, which makes the phone’s structure very rigid. Samsung has chosen to use a mix of very light and very strong materials to keep the weight down.When holding the Samsung Infuse 4G, it immediately feels lighter, even when compared to much smaller phones, like the iPhone 4.

Russia will likely abolish Daylight Saving Time, Microsoft will ...

Remember when I wondered out loud about Russia abolishing daylight saving time?

Well, I do. We've been following this quite closely at Microsoft, and have seen the news updates.  I have really improved my understanding of the Cyrillic alphabet in the last few months.

From the “more detail than you want to know department”: this Bill went through what’s called the first reading with their legislature (the State Duma) this past week (April 19) and will likely be signed into law within the next 14-20 days, and effective 60 days after it’s official publication. But our engineering and services teams are already anticipating this change.

As we understand it, Russia will not “fall back” and revert to the established Russian Standard time zones this fall. Instead, the country will remain on perpetual “Summer Time”. From a technical standpoint, this can be a challenging way to handle a permanent transition away from DST. Instead, we would recommend that the move back to Standard time be done on the current schedule in October 2011, and then Russia eliminate the “spring forward” change to Summer Time in March 2012. This will be known, I think, as “Decree time” which will be one hour ahead of standard daylight time (known as “summer time” or DST today).

We also know that other countries – including Ukraine and Belarus – may follow Russia’s lead in their move to abolish DST. I expect that as Russia enacts this Bill into law we will see other countries in the region follow suit.

[Added 05312011] We anticipate that this will be signed into law in the next month or so, likely by the beginning of July, 2011.

A few interesting facts on DST:

As you may know, daylight saving time was originally proposed and adopted as a response to energy conservation early in the 20th century. It was repealed after World War I in 1919, and then reinstated by the Uniform Time Act of 1966 in the U.S.

Originally, a report by the California Energy Commission in 2001 (available here ) concluded that both Daylight Saving Time would probably save marginal amounts of electricity. At the time, California considered adopting DST throughout the year to address the electricity problems in the state in 2000. For the proposed Summer Double DST, the study suggested that the state would “save hundreds of millions of dollars because it would shift electricity use to low demand (cheaper) morning hours and decrease electricity use during higher demand hours.

Seize the Daylight, The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time

Spring Forward, The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time

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