SECOND ISSUE! Whole School celebrates World Book Day! For Students, By Students. In other News: Photography Top Tips (what is the golden hour?!

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1 January/February 2017 For Students, By Students SECOND ISSUE! After a hugely successful launch issue, here s your next instalment of all things CCS. From technology issues to photography tips and Sports Award winners, we ve got something for everyone. Looks like we re here to stay..! Whole School celebrates World Book Day! In other News: Photography Top Tips (what is the golden hour?!) Samsung goes up in flames! World Book Day Sports Award Winners

2 Editorial Page 2 Inside this issue: Competition Time! Deadline extended! We need a new logo for the student newspaper! Hand in your entries to Mrs Vince The top 3 entries will be published in the next issue and the winning design will become our logo! 2 Editorial 3 Photography Top Tips 4 Are Apple prices too high? 5 continued... 6 Samsung goes up in flames 7 continued... 8 In other news... Welcome back! So, here s your next issue! Thanks for reading the first issue, we ve had lots of positive feedback! This issue features a new regular top tips section on photography, so get involved and send us your pictures! Remember, CCS Chronicle is for students, by students so we need your input. See you next time! Don t forget, briefings are held every Monday lunchtime in C22 schoolnewspaper@ccs.northants.sch.uk for more details or to submit content for the next issue!

3 Photography Page 3 Tips on how to get the best picture Reported by E. Delafield Hello I am Eloise and my favourite hobby is photography, however it is very difficult to get the perfect photo in the right place at the right time. Well these tips and tricks will ensure that you will have the perfect photo! With the golden hour : Without the golden hour : With this photo that I took in the garden, I had to go outside at the golden hour. What is the golden hour you may ask? Well the golden hour is a certain hour where the sun hits the object, plant or thing that you are taking a picture of perfectly. If you don t take the picture at the golden hour then the picture can sometimes look dull and dark, like the bottom photo. More tips next time! Are you keen on photography? Send us your pictures! Try out the golden hour tip!

4 Are Apple prices too high? Page 4 Reported by N. Ebulubu I was recently looking through tech news and noticed an article that caught my attention more than any other did, most probably because I could relate to it. The article discussed the issue of cheap IPhone chargers. The BBC reported that the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), a UK association that represents trading standards, tested 400 substitute chargers for Apple products. Of the 400 chargers tested only three were sufficiently insulated to protect against electric shocks, this was a pass rate of below one percent. I went browsing on the app store just to see the types of accessories you cans buy and the price ranges. I found some of the prices ridiculously high, to say the least. There were numerous add-on products for ipads and Apple TVs. A Belkin stand for an Apple pencil cost 20! In the description, it says that its purpose is to hold the pencil and keep it at an easy distance for use. It specifically states that it does not even charge the Apple pencil! For 20 and its purpose, I feel as though this accessory is quite overpriced. Wouldn t you agree? Focusing on chargers specifically, a lightening to USB cable costs 20 for a 1-metre cable ( 30 for a 2-metre cable). The USB power adaptor plug costs 20. Let s say someone wanted to buy a new adapter and cable, let s also say they would like to purchase a 2-metre cable. Collectively both items would cost around 50!! This is a lot of money and it s certainly not money everyone has spare to spend on chargers. Some say they use planned obsolescence so that their products have a limited life span and customers have to purchase new items. There have been notices that that as new software and hardware come out, and updates to the operating systems occur, the older generation products start to fall apart and start lagging. However even new iphones have this problem. They also put new features on their products, which mean you have to buy more add-ons. For example with the new iphones, you have to buy a new adaptor since the headphone jack ports are not on them. In addition, the new MacBooks have headphone jack ports and the iphone 7 does not. This means you cannot plug your iphone 7 into the new MacBook using Apple's iphone charging cables; you get dragged into spending extortionate amounts on accessories to make certain devices compatible with each other. Some say it often feels like Apple went backwards with their innovations.

5 Continued... Page 5 In addition to all this, the price of getting an iphone screen replaced and fixed by Apple could cost you up to 250 but going to a local kiosk will cost way less. However, there can also be problems with getting it fixed cheaply. From an economic view, Yes Apple have to make profits being a big company, however charging such prices will make people go to cheaper options and Apple could lose consume demand and hence lose some of their profit. Lowering prices and maybe selling things as a package that seem reasonable (for example, a charger plug and cable for around 15-20) would make more people want to buy and therefore increase their profits. Despite all that, Apple products do have many good features. To name a few, they have very high quality apps on the Appstore and offer a great user experience as they focus on the details of what they create. They have great privacy controls and an enhanced security system with the added touch ID. One of my friends has a music teacher who has said they prefer using Apple applications to edit music than any other option; Apple music provides an excellent quality of sound. With all its great features, some would argue that the prices are not too high at all. With all its great features, some would argue that the prices are not too high at all Join the debate! Do you think Apple products are worth the price? Are you throwing your money away?!

6 Samsung goes up in flames. Page 6 Samsung creates the world s first Smartphone hand warmer... The aftermath of one of the biggest controversies of 2016 and the future Reported by J. Legg If you haven't heard already I am talking about Samsung s new handset called the Galaxy Note 7 that caused quite a concern when the batteries began to explode. So why are they exploding and if you own one how can you stop it becoming a pocket rocket? Well the biggest factor is HEAT most phones nowadays have Lithium ion batteries that are highly reactive and very sensitive to changes in heat and voltage. The phone in particular has been exploding through these two methods and usually modern handsets are supposed to turn off if they get too hot and prevent too much voltage being stored inside the battery itself but in this case, not at all. The best way to prevent this for any phone really is to keep it relatively cool and don't leave it on charge for extended amounts of time, e.g a whole day. Samsung achieved this feat of excellence by using cheap suppliers that had less consistent quality and different suppliers to meet the raw demand and to keep buyer power. Its been a horrible occurrence for them, the handset has been banned in many countries for flights, its been recalled TWICE and eventually Samsung pulled the plug on the phone, killing the brand along with it. This fiasco is estimated to cost just under 14 Bn in lost reputation, lost sales and lost future sales across all their products. But and this is a strong but; unlike its competitors, Samsung s profits don't depend on a single product. Samsung sells a lot of different things and therefore is more resilient to this kind of event until of course your TV explodes, then they're really finished. A company such as Apple would have been hit a lot harder by an incident like this as their performance is heavily dependent on the success of the iphone brand. So What Does This Mean for the Smartphone World? I think personally this opens up a new avenue for potential business, customers will now have to concern themselves about the safety of the devices they buy. Especially parents who buy products for their children as gifts. This generates a USP, so if a company like Google was to incorporate safer batteries into their brand new phone line, this would be making the product unique against its competition and with the current events, be quite a powerful one.

7 Continued... Page 7 Customers will now be a lot more interested in the features and components of new handsets. Companies will have to try even harder to squeeze new features out of a heavily saturated market. Apple is a great example of this as over the past 3 years they have produced the same phone design with very little change year on year simply because the technology is plateauing. This year Apple tried to woo customers over by removing features while retaining the flagship price a clear example that businesses will literally try anything to retain their market share. As for Samsung, I don t think many people will be buying their phones for a while. No amount of marketing and added value will rejuvenate the brand for at least two years. Although I don t believe this would happen again and you d probably be safe too. It s a tough time ahead for Samsung and I ll be interested to see how this stirs up the market. Have you or someone you know been affected by this? Let us know!

8 In other news... Page 8 This year s annual CCS Sports Awards celebrated some fantastic achievements! Here are just a few of the winners! Don t forget to use your World Book Day token and enter the competition! If you enjoy creative writing, why not send us something for the next issue? Get involved! contributions to: schoolnewspaper@ccs.northants.sch.uk See you next time!