Snow Tire vs Regular Tire.

 

Snow tires which also known as winter tires have tread patterns specifically designed to dig down and bite into snow and ice, plus they are made from softer rubber compounds that retain their flexibility in cold weather, which allows the tire to better conform to the surface of the road. 

Meanwhile, regular tires tend to get hard and brittle in cold temperatures. As a result, winter tires keep a better grip on snowy and icy surfaces than regular all-season or summer tires. Grip is critical and not just to avoid getting stuck but to ensure that the car can stop and steer. 

Life-saving safety technologies such as antilock brakes, electronic stability control and all-wheel-drive cannot do their jobs if the tires can’t maintain their grip on the road surface.

All-seasons tires for car.

All-season, which also known as all-weather tires are designed to cope with all sorts of conditions, including dry roads and rain, but they are not optimized for any one condition. They are generally made from harder materials that don’t conform to the road surface as well in low temperatures. 

Implementing snow tires just on the drive wheels of the car.

Putting just two snow tires on the car is a bad idea. If you have a front-wheel-drive car and put snow tires on the front only, the back wheels won’t have anywhere near as much grip as the front wheels. This will make the car much more likely to spin out while braking or cornering. Likewise, if you put snow tires just on the back wheels of a rear-wheel-drive car, the wheels that do the steering won’t grip as well as those that provide the power, so the car may not respond when the steering wheel is turned. It will simple plow straight ahead. Therefore, it is better to always install snow tires as a full set of four. 

It is not a good idea to leave the snow tires on all year.

Snow tires tend to be noisier, plus the softer compounds from which they are made means they will wear out faster, especially in warm weather. Wear is critical, because winter tires rely on their deep tread to dig into snow and ice. As soon as the snow is gone for good, remove your snow tires and reinstall your regular tires.

Since you are savvy enough to use snow tires, you don’t need to stick with the all-season tires that came with your car for the rest of the year. You can choose a “summer” tire that will provide better handling, better traction in the rain, or a smoother, quieter ride. 

Sources from Aaron Gold, - About.com Guide.

Virtual Teleconferencing

Avaya brings out virtual avatar teleconferencing, Web.Alive.

In this new era of technology, rising costs have made businesses look for more innovative ways to communicate with their employees across the globe, and network specialists Avaya says it has just the solution in Web.Alive.

Web.Alive is the company’s teleconferencing solution that allows users to step into a virtual conference room to interact with their colleagues globally. It is used to improve everyday communication between colleagues.

The solution virtually replicates the environment in which you would like to meet your colleagues, be it in a conference room, your own office or in a lobby.

Once logged in, users will be represented as an avatar and will meet their colleagues’ avatars to begin the discussion.

In addition, there are also keyboard shortcuts that allow users to execute gestures in the virtual environment, such as bow and wave.

However, don’t be fooled by its game-like nature. Although it may be a polygon avatar representing you in the virtual world, Web.Alive is equipped with security features and all the items needed for presentations, such as an interactive whiteboard and a built-in web browser. 

The interactive whiteboard can be used to highlight points in a presentation while the browser allows user to do a quick check on facts and figures on the internet. If you want to hold a private discussion with your colleague, you can engage the feature.

Teske said the technology can be used outside the business worlds and applied in education or even the tourism industry. In tourism, it can be used to simulate towns, so that tourist can familiarize themselves with a place before visiting it.

Avaya said a university in Wisconsin has already deployed Web.Alive to create a virtual environment for collaboration and training.

However, one thing that is presently working against Web.Alive is the quality, which largely depends on the local network bandwidth. To counter this, Teske said some of the interactions can be tweaked, like lowering the quality of rendered images, so conversations can be carried out without much interruption.

Web.Alive has been getting attention from several countries in Asia Pacific especially in Indonesia and it is foresees that it is set to pick up even further in the region.

To learn more about Web.Alive, go to avayalive.com.

Sources from Jo Timbuong – The Star Online

Hong Kong Get Its First Apple Store.

A whole new reason to visit Hong Kong, as Apple Inc. opened its first Apple Store at International Financial Center Mall in Hong Kong on Saturday, 24^th September 2011, at 9.00 a.m.

When you are in Hong Kong for the next time, remember to visit the Apple Store, IFC mall (International Financial Center Mall) and enjoy a shopping experience that’s uniquely Apple. Inside the store, all Apple products are available for you to purchase and you can spend as much time as you like trying them out. You can check out the MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air, listen to music on iPod, watch everything iPhone can do or experience the magic of iPad. At the store you can meet Specialists who can answer your queries and help you set up your new Apple product before you leave the store. Else, visit the Genius Bar to get free hands-on technical support. 

Genius Bar is a place where you can get expert advice in any Apple Retail Store when you have questions or need hands-on technical support for your Mac, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, or iPhone. 

Sources from Apple, http://www.apple.com/hk/en/retail/ifcmall/