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- Review: Toshiba 46SL753
- Asus and Kinect designers offer PC motion controller
- Tutorial: How your secure your Linux system
- Facebook worth $50 billion, Apple worth $300 billion
- AMD announces first Fusion chips
- Tutorial: How to make an external laptop graphics adaptor
- Review: Panasonic SC-BTT350D
- Tutorial: 25 tips to help you get more from your media
- WIN! 8 copies of Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD
| Posted: 04 Jan 2011 01:30 AM PST  The Toshiba 46SL753, with its contemporary styling, is a 46-inch 2D LED-backlit, full HD flatscreen that can be wall or stand-mounted. However, it looks distinctly average, with a bezel wide enough to drive a bus through. Toshiba fans hankering for a 3D experience need to wait for the forthcoming WL768 model. The 46SL753 nevertheless builds in some impressive 21st century tech. Most notably, its DTT tuner caters for Freeview HD channels, in addition to the EPG, digital teletext, subtitles and multiple soundtracks. Analogue channels (with Nicam and teletext) are covered, too, should you live in the middle of nowhere. Then there's the integrated media player, which will pull compatible content off your DLNA home network (wirelessly, with an optional dongle) or a USB storage device. There's also an SD card slot, meaning you can whip the card from your digital camera and temporarily convert this Tosh into a large-scale picture frame. Unfortunately, the digital wizardry of the 46SL753 stops short of providing iPlayer compatibility. Come to think of it, you don't get internet video of any kind; the content portals so beloved by the likes of Panasonic, Philips and Samsung are conspicuous by their absence. Fear not, though, as Toshiba has included a D-Sub VGA port for your laptop or PC. Dedicated computer hardware tends to deliver far better results from online services than the limited capabilities of a TV, and you're not ring-fenced by a brand, either. CEC it and see In other respects, the connections are impressive. Four 1080p24 compatible HDMI ports (one of which is side-mounted), two Scarts and a component input cater for just about every current source eventuality. The integral digital tuner has been endowed with a digital audio output and a CI slot for Pay-TV upgrades. CEC device control (known here as 'Regza-Link') will enable the basic functions of many recent source components to be driven by the TV's handset – I found this worked fine on a Panasonic Blu-ray recorder. The gloss-finished handset itself could be of better design. For a start, it's not backlit. Another criticism is its central joypad, which is surrounded by a disc of additional controls. The spacing between the two regions is insufficient, and as a result, you can accidentally nudge into effect the wrong function. Similar criticisms can be made of the handsets supplied with recent Sony sets. However, Sony TVs take advantage of the company's excellent Xross Media Bar onscreen user interface. Compared to this, the 46SL753's menu system is plain boring. However, it's well-designed – making this Tosh easy enough to drive. Indeed, the friendly wizard-driven auto-setup routine kicks off the flawless tuning process. The whole roster of functions can be adjusted from the menu system. The 'SoundNavi' audio system, which boasts a non-adjustable graphic equaliser, can be optimised for wall or stand-mounting. On the visual side, adjustments include colour temperature (with R/G/B tweaks), film stabilisation (motion smoothness), gamma and black/white level. Other features include sleep/programme timers; a proper mains switch; the ability to display real-time picture brightness/colour histograms; an 'expert' mode for colour calibration; (defeatable) Autoview sensor-based brightness/contrast adjustment according to ambient lighting conditions; plus a range of picture/sound modes and aspect ratios. Good stuff. Performance The proof, as ever, is in the pudding. And this Toshiba is a bit like a Sara Lee chocolate gateaux – good, but not Michelin standard. With Blu-ray movies, I was impressed with the range and depth of colour offered here. The subjective balance of black, white and everything in between is also more than acceptable, thanks, no doubt, to the LED backlighting – although our Tech Labs rated its contrast below the standards set by much of the competition. I couldn't fault the brightness or the resolution of intricate details, as seen in the Blu-rays of Moon and Transformers. However, I would recommend you experiment with the picture settings using a calibration disc to get the most natural picture. Toshiba's proprietary processing isn't as obtrusive as that of some brands, with none of the awful 'greasing' of movement that makes film look so unnatural. There was, however, a little backlight inconsistency, visible at the extremities of the screen during profoundly dark scenes – although this is something we're seeing quite often with edge LED TVs. Switch to pics from the in-built tuner and things noticeably deteriorate. Compared to DVD playback via HDMI, SD Freeview pictures are rather soft – and a noise reduction feature does little to address the visible feathering that spoils sharply defined outlines. Strangely, pictures from digital broadcasts received on a PC tuner and streamed via my network actually looked better. On which subject, the 46SL753's media player lacks supports for codecs such as x.264/mkv and DivX/XviD. A pity. Deadman's chest Sound quality, though, is atrocious. It may as well be coming from an old tea chest. Lifeless and dull, there's a serious mid-band wedginess that renders dialogue unpleasant to hear. Those disappointing sonics are an affront to well-produced music programmes such as Later... with Jools Holland. The only good things that can be said here are a) Dolby Volume 'normalises' sound levels to reduce the 'jumps' frequently encountered when changing channel and b) the sound can be turned off altogether via a menu. It's about time that flatscreen TV manufacturers paid more attention to audio, but for now, I'd advise any buyers of this TV to stick with external AV gear. A 46-inch LED TV for £1,000 is not a bad deal, but Toshiba's problem – as has been the case for a few years now – is that Sony and Samsung can match that price with better featured sets. The 46SL753 leaves us hankering for the arrival of Tosh's CEVO TV more than ever. Related Links
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| Asus and Kinect designers offer PC motion controller Posted: 04 Jan 2011 01:08 AM PST  Taiwanese computer manufacturer Asus has announced plans to release a motion-controller for PC, designed by PrimeSense – the company that developed the Kinect control tech for Microsoft's Xbox 360. PrimeSense has partnered with Eee PC makers Asus, with the PC specialist also promising an online store to sell games and apps that will be compatible with the controller. Focus on multimedia over gaming Asus is calling the controller the "WAVI Xtion," with the focus more on multimedia control via movement, as opposed to a heavy focus on gaming as is the case with Kinect. "PrimeSense, the leader in sensing and recognition technologies, and Asus, a leading enterprise in the new digital era, announced today that PrimeSense Immersive Natural Interaction solutions will be embedded in WAVI Xtion, a next generation user interface device developed by ASUS to extend PC usage to the living room," reads the launch press release. "The WAVI Xtion media center for the PC leverages ultra-wide band wireless link and PrimeSense 3D sensing solution to provide controller-free interaction experiences in the living room. Users can browse multimedia content, access the Internet and social networks, and enjoy full body interaction in a more user-friendly and natural living room experience." Asus hopes that third party developers will create apps to sell online at the "Xtion Online Store." The news of Asus' new PC motion controller follows a slew of stories about Kinect hacks, with enterprising bedroom hackers making use of Kinect's motion tech in some interesting 'unofficial' ways. Asus hopes to release the Wavi Xtion in February of this year. Expect more when we get a hands on with the tech at the PrimeSense and Asus booths at CES this week. 
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| Tutorial: How your secure your Linux system Posted: 04 Jan 2011 01:00 AM PST  Are you running Linux just because you think it's safer than Windows? Think again. Sure, security is a built-in (and not a bolt-on) feature and extends right from the Linux kernel to the desktop, but it still leaves enough room to let someone muck about with your /home folder. Linux might be impervious to viruses and worms written for Windows, but that's just a small subset of the larger issue. Attackers have various tricks up their sleeves to get to those precious bits and bytes that make up everything from your mugshot to your credit card details. Computers that connect to the internet are the ones most exposed to attackers, although computers that never get to see online action are just as vulnerable. Think of that ageing laptop or that old hard disk you just chucked away without a second thought. Bad move. With the kind of data recovery tools available today (many as a free download) it doesn't matter what OS was installed on the disk. If it holds data – corrupted or otherwise – it can be retrieved, bank accounts recreated, chat transcripts reconstructed, images restitched. But don't be scared. Don't stop using the computer. While it's virtually impossible to make a machine connected to the internet impenetrable to attacks, you can make an attacker's task difficult and also ensure they have nothing to learn from a compromised system. Best of all, with Linux, and some pieces of open source software, it doesn't take much effort to secure your Linux installation. There is no golden rule for security that applies in every single case, and even if there were it would have been cracked already. Security is something that needs to be worked upon, and personalised. Follow the tips and tools in this tutorial as we show you how to adapt them to your very own Linux installation. Follow these six tips to get a safer computer the easy way 1. Keep up with security updates
All mainstream Linux desktop distros (such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) have security teams that work with the package teams to make sure you stay on top of any security vulnerabilities. Generally these teams work with each other to make sure that security patches are available as soon as a vulnerability is discovered. Your distro will have a repository solely dedicated to security updates. All you have to do is make sure the security specific repository is enabled (chances are it will be, by default), and choose whether you'd like to install the updates automatically or manually at the press of a button. For example, under Ubuntu, head over to System > Administration > Software Sources. Here, under the Updates tab, specify how frequently the distro should ping the security repository for updates, and whether you'd like to install them without confirmation, or just be notified about the updates. The latter is a better option, because it lets you review the updates before installing them. But chances are they'll be fine, and you can save yourself some time by having your distro install them automatically. In addition to the updates, distros also have a security mailing list to announce vulnerabilities, and also share packages to fix them. It's generally a good idea to keep an eye on the security list for your distro, and look out for any security updates to packages that are critical to you. There's a small lag between the announcement and the package being pushed to the repository; the security mailing lists guide the impatient on how to grab and install the updates manually. 2. Disable unnecessary services
A Linux desktop distro starts a number of services to be of use to as many people as possible. But one really doesn't need all these services. For example, do you really need Samba for sharing files over the network on your secure server, or the Bluetooth service to connect to Bluetooth devices on a computer that doesn't have a Bluetooth adapter? All distros let you control the services that run on your Linux installation, and you should make full use of this customisation feature. Under Ubuntu, head to System > Preferences > Startup Applications. Here you can remove check marks next to the services you wish to disable. But be careful when turning off services. Some applications might stop functioning because you decided to disable a service on which they rely. For example, many server applications rely on databases, so before you turn off MySQL or PostgreSQL you should make sure you aren't running any applications that rely on them. 3. Restrict root access
Most distros these days don't allow you to login as root at boot time, which is good. When you have to execute a task that requires super user privileges you'll be prompted for a password. It might be a little irritating but it goes a long way to making sure that admin tasks are isolated from the user. You can restrict access privileges for a user from under System > Administration > Users and Groups. Here you can broadly categorise a user as a desktop user or a system administrator or customise access privileges manually. By default, users are created as with 'Desktop user' permissions and can't install software or change settings that affect other users. On the command line, the su command (on Fedora, and the like) lets normal users switch to the root account, while the sudo command (on Debian, Ubuntu, etc) grants more privileges to the user. The usage of these commands can be limited to a particular group, which prevents any user from administering the system. sudo is also the more secure of the two, and it keeps an access log under /var/log/auth.log. Make a habit of regularly scanning the log for failed and successful sudo attempts. 4. Don't auto-mount devices
If you're really concerned about security, you need to lean on the customisation feature of the Users And Groups settings. One of the areas to look at is auto-mounting devices. Most distros auto-mount USB drives and CDs as soon as they are inserted. It's convenient, but allows anybody to just walk up to your machine, plug in a USB disk and copy all your data. To avoid such a situation, go to to System > Administration > Users and Groups, select your user and head to the Advanced Settings > User Privileges tab. Make sure you uncheck the boxes corresponding to the Access External Storage Devices Automatically option, the Mount Userspace Filesystems, and Use CD-ROM Drives option. When unchecked, these options will prompt the user for a password before giving them access to these devices. You might also want to disable sharing files on the network, as well as require the user to enter a password before connecting to the Ethernet and wireless devices. By disabling access to configure printers you prevent important data from being printed. 5. Don't stay on the bleeding edge
Packages included in a desktop Linux distribution are updated regularly. Besides the official repositories, there are custom repositories for third-party software. While developers do take care to scan the packages for vulnerabilities before pushing them on to the repository, it's almost inevitable that some updates with defects do get through. While it's good to keep the system updated, from a security point of view, not all updates are good for the system. Some updates conflict with existing installed package or may even pull in new dependencies that may make the system more prone to attack. All this is why you should only update packages if you have to. Scan the updates and look for updates to packages that are critical to you. Most package managers also make it possible to check an update and display its changelog and a brief description of the changes. UI changes can safely be ignored or delayed until a package has been thoroughly tested. Instead, look out for and grab updates that offer a fix to existing issues with packages. 6. Don't upgrade every six months
Most major desktop Linux distributions make a new release every six months, but you don't have to install every last upgrade just because it's there. Debian, for example, offers three distributions to choose from based on the extent of the stability of the software available in it. After Debian 6.0, stable releases will be made every two years. Other distros take a different approach to guarantee secure releases. Ubuntu marks certain releases as LTS (or Long Term Support). A desktop release of the LTS version is supported for three years, and a server release is supported for five years, which is a lot longer than the 18 months for a standard Ubuntu release. Although not up to date, these releases are much more secure from a security point of view, with packages that are a lot more stable and more thoroughly tested than their latest versions. If running a secure system is your goal, you should think of sticking to one of these long-term stable releases and avoid the temptation to upgrade as soon as the latest version of your becomes available. Out of the box, a Linux installation is much more secure than other operating systems. That is, until you connect to the internet. Once online, a desktop Linux installation, in its bid to be of use to as many users as possible, leaves enough room to be exposed to attacks and intrusions. Don't sweat though. Help is only a terminal away. All Linux distros ship with Iptables, which is a part of the kernel that enables sysadmins to filter network packets. Configuring it manually is impossible for all but the elite, but in the true spirit of open source the community offers a number of graphical front-ends that make setting up a firewall a walk in the park. One such graphical firewall is Firestarter.
We didn't start the fire Firestarter simplifies the process of configuring the settings for a firewall. It can limit access on ports that are running services that might be prone to outside attacks, and you can also use it to glance at the network traffic passing across the machine you're running it on. Most distros bundle Firestarter in their repos, so installing it shouldn't be a problem. When you start it for the first time, the firewall launches a simple configuration wizard that prompts you to select the network interface on which it will be active. If you have multiple devices with one connecting to the internal network, Firestarter can act as gateway and share the internet connection with the rest of the network. By default, Firestarter only filters through connections that are in response to connection requests from the firewall host. The advantage of doing things this way is that it blocks access to services like Telnet, which can be exploited to gain access to your machine without your knowledge. Tweaking the firewall doesn't take much effort either. If you have an app that requires access on certain ports, such as a Torrent client, you need to punch holes in your firewall to allow incoming connections. That's easily done from under the Policy tab. Right-click inside the space under Allow Service and select Add Rule. From the pull-down menu, select the service you want to allow, say Samba, select the source IP (anyone opens the port to all) and you're done. To restrict outgoing traffic, select Outbound Traffic Policy from the drop-down list. Now you can select either the Permissive or the Restrictive option. If you select the Permissive option, you'll have to add the hosts you want to block in a blacklist. Restrictive is the opposite, and only allows connections from the listed hosts, denying the rest. When running in restrictive mode, Firestarter will log all connection refusals under the Events tab. As you spot a connection you want to allow for your users, right-click on the entry and select the option to either allow the connection for everyone or just when it originates from a particular source. You can also monitor active connections to the firewall from Firestarter's main interface. It shows you the status of the service, gives you a summary of inbound and outbound connections, and the amount of data that has passed through an interface. In addition to listing the source and destination of the traffic, it'll also tell you the port the data is travelling through, the service running on that port and the program that's calling the shots. Encrypt your filesystem If you really want to keep others from reading your files, user passwords won't cut it. For instance, there's very little to stop a user with higher access permissions, like the root user, from gawking at stuff under your home directory. What you need is to encrypt your data so that it's unintelligible to people without the means to decrypt it. The smart way to do this is to encrypt the whole filesystem, which would automatically encrypt any data kept on it. This is where TrueCrypt shines.
It lets you carve a virtual slice out of your Linux partition that will act as a standalone encrypted filesystem. You then mount it, use it to store and read files as you would from a normal partition, then unmount it, and Bob's your uncle. When it isn't mounted, the encrypted filesystem appears to be a random jumble of bits. TrueCrypt isn't available in any distribution's repository due to licensing issues, but installing it is a trivial affair. Grab it from its website, extract the Tar archive, and install it via the graphical setup. Just make sure your distro has the Fuse library, and the device mapper tools. Create an encrypted volume Before you can use TrueCrypt you'll have to create an encrypted volume to store files on, so launch the app and click on the Create Volume button. This will launch the Volume Creation Wizard, which lets you either create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or an encrypted volume within an entire partition, or even a disk such as a removable USB drive. If you select the first option to create a virtual disk, TrueCrypt will ask you to point it to a file on the disk that'll be the encrypted volume. If the file exists, TrueCrypt will recreate it, using one of the eight encryption algorithms. Next, specify the size of the encrypted volume and format it as an FAT filesystem, which makes it accessible from other operating systems as well as Linux. Finally, choose a password to mount the encrypted volume. To store files on the volume you'll have to mount it. Select the file that's your encrypted volume from the TrueCrypt main interface, and press the Mount button. The app will prompt for the password of the volume before it can be mounted. You also get the option to mount the volume as read-only, if all you have to do is read files from it. By default, TrueCrypt chooses not to remember the name of the file that's your encrypted volume. This is a security feature, and adds another roadblock in the path of an intruder. If you ask the app to remember the name of the file, anyone with physical access to the computer can select the file from a pull-down menu and mount the encrypted volume. They'll still have to get past your password though. Once the encrypted volume is mounted you can save files to it just like you do with a normal volume. TrueCrypt uses your modern hardware at its disposal to encrypt and decrypt files on the fly; which is to say it minimises the lag due to the overhead of converting unreadable bitstream into meaningful data that can be read by your text editor or played by your media player. When you're through, unmount the volume with the Dismount button within the program. Think formatting a disk is enough? Think again Removing a file from the disk seems like a simple operation: just right-click on the file and send it to the trash. Command line users may use the rm command do do the same thing. Unfortunately, none of these methods actually deletes a file or a folder. They just hypnotise the filesystem to forget where a file is located in the disk. These newly liberated disk locations are then added to the filesystem's pool of free address, and can point to new files. That works in theory, but in practice the humongous size of partitions means that the disk locations that hold the deleted file may actually harbour them long enough for recovery tools to reconstruct them.
That's where shred comes in. Shred overwrites a file's space on the disk to make sure the space contains only garbage. You might also want to use the --remove option to make sure it deletes the original file as well. Shredding a file can be a lengthy affair, as it overwrites the location 25 times. You can manipulate the number of rewrites with the -n switch, like this: $ shred --remove -n 5 -v top-secret.txt Shred works well on devices like /dev/sdb, which negates the use of the --remove switch, because you wouldn't want to remove the device. There's a caveat here. Shred assumes the filesystem rewrites the file in place. This would render it useless on modern journalled filesystems such as ext3. Shred also fails to wipe traces of the data being deleted in several places, such as the swap, RAM, and the filesystem journal. An effective and secure deletion strategy requires the secure delete tools. Secure-delete The secure-delete tools include srm to securely remove the files, smem and sswap to wipe traces of data from the physical and SWAP memory, and sfill to ensure the free space on the disk doesn't point to old deleted files. The tools make use of cryptographic algorithms especially designed to make sure deleted files are unrecoverable. Once it's installed, make sure you remove the file or a directory with: $ srm -v ../the-hole/eicar.com.txt Add the -r switch to recursively delete a directory. When you're done, make sure you wipe off residual traces from your RAM with smem, which may take a considerable amount of time depending on the size of the physical memory it has to wipe. You can speed up the process with the -l switch, which reduces the number of rewrite passes (this is less secure). Top off the process by disabling swap with swapoff , wiping it clean with sswap , and then re-enabling it with swapon . The sfill command comes in handy when you are discarding a disk. Use it from a live CD on an unmounted partition to wipe the free space. Remove junk They might not be as bad as the other operating system, but all Linux distros tend to accumulate a lot of crud over a period of time. But why blame Linux? The junk files are the legacy of the plethora of apps you have running on top of your kernel. You can pin their habit of collecting fluff to of the way the applications are configured to give you a better user experience. And not only do all those log files, the temporary internet files and the various app caches accumulate to take up a considerable amount of disk space, they pose a great threat to your privacy. Instead of trolling through the filesystem and emptying the various tmp/ directories, use BleachBit. It's a one-stop shop for removing all the crud that the apps have preserved.
BleachBit has a set of about 70 pre-defined cleaners, each of which works on a particular app such as Firefox, Google Chrome, Adobe Reader, OpenOffice.org and more. The cleaners are tuned to wipe the dead weight off the applications and give them a performance boost. The lightweight BleachBit is available in the repositories of all major distributions, though you might want to grab the latest build from its website. The project also releases bonus cleaner packs for older versions. The BleachBit GUI is divided into two frames. On the left-hand side you select the apps that you wish to clean; this expands to give you more options specific to that app. In the right-hand frame, you get a brief explanation of each of these checkable options. Get cleaning To clean an area, such as Firefox's cache, simply click on the checkbox next to it. Some cleanup operations require you to trawl through a large location and involve more than a simple delete operation. BleachBit will warn you when selecting such a task that might take up a considerable amount of time, for example, wiping the swap memory. Before you ask BleachBit to zap the useless files in the apps you've selected, use the Preview button to review the list of files it'll delete. If you encounter a file that you don't want to delete, such as the cache of a particular Firefox user, you can add it to a whitelist. This is a list of files that BleachBit will not touch, even if the broader cleaner that they come under has marked them for removal. You can specify any files or folders to bypass under the Whitelist tab under Edit > Preferences. BleachBit also has a command line interface. For example, the following command cleans cookies under Firefox and Google Chrome: $ bleachbit --delete firefox.cookies google_chrome.cookies Use the --preview switch to get a list of files before removal. The CLI makes BleachBit scriptable for automated daily runs. To add a cron job to nuke regularly created files, such as rotated logs and cookies daily at 2.00 am, edit the crontab with crontab -e and add the following line: 0 2 * * * bleachbit --delete firefox.cookies google_chrome. cookies system.rotated_logs If daily sounds too frequent, you should at least run the app before creating backups. You can also use BleachBit to speed up certain apps, house clean the distro by fixing broken shortcuts, delete language packs and empty physical RAM and swap memory. Browse anonymously Pull a Keyser Soze on the internet – make it think you don't exist… On the internet, sometimes the best form of privacy is being anonymous. It's difficult for an attacker to get to you if they can't pinpoint you on the network. And no one covers your tracks better than the combination of Privoxy and Tor. Tor protects privacy via a distributed network of relays run by volunteers spread across the world. This helps prevent anybody monitoring your internet connections from learning what sites you visit. Tor works with web browsers, instant messaging programs and many other TCP-based apps. But the various app protocols and associated programs can be coaxed into revealing information about the user, which is where Privoxy comes into the picture. Tor depends on Privoxy and its filtering capabilities to enhance privacy.
Begin by pulling Privoxy from your distro repositories, then head into your browser's advanced settings where you can change its proxy settings. Here just fill in 127.0.0.1 for the HTTP proxy, and specify 8118 as the port. That's all there's to it. When you're done, start the Privoxy daemon with /etc/ init.d/privoxy start. You can now access Privoxy's interface from http://config.privoxy.org or http://p.p. To hook up Privoxy with Tor, you first need to set up Tor's package repository. This is easily done by adding the following line to your Ubuntu or Debian installation: deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org main Replace with the name for your distro, like karmic, or sid. Then add the GPG key used to sign the packages by running the following: gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89 gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8 F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add - If you use Yum, create a torproject.repo under /etc/ yum/repos.d with the following content: [torproject] Again replace DISTRIBUTION with the name of your Fedora or CentOS release, such as centos5 or fc13. Now fetch Tor via the package manager, which will also pull in additional packages like the Vidalia Tor GUI controller. Make sure you don't install the Polipo web proxy app, since we are using Privoxy and the two might conflict because they operate on the same port. The last step is to get Privoxy and Tor to talk to each other. For this just edit the Privoxy config file under /etc/privoxy and uncomment the following line: # forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 Also uncomment the following lines to make sure the local network is still reachable: # forward 192.168.*.*/ . Presto! Now all our internet traffic that passes through the Tor and Privoxy proxies is masked. 
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| Facebook worth $50 billion, Apple worth $300 billion Posted: 04 Jan 2011 12:29 AM PST  Facebook is now said to be valued at at $50 billion (£32.27 billion), following a new round of $500 million private investment. Elsewhere, Apple has most recently been valued at $300 billion, following a 2 per cent stock surge to kick off the new year. Cash injection The latest cash injection into the world's biggest online social network comes from Goldman Sachs and Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies. Goldman Sachs will invest $450 million in Facebook, while DST will invest $50 million, according to a New York Times' source. Both companies plan to raise an addition $1 billion in extra funding, according to the source, reportedly close to the deal. "I don't think it's a replacement for a public offering, I just think it's a mechanism for delaying it," opined Jeremy Liew, managing director at venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. Apple's latest $300 billion valuation follows a massively successful 2010, marked by the highlights of the launch of the iPhone 4 and the iPad. Apple is set to release the iPad 2 at some point early in 2011, and is also rumoured to be launching a Verizon iPhone in the US in the near future. 
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| AMD announces first Fusion chips Posted: 03 Jan 2011 09:01 PM PST  AMD has launched the first-generation of its new Fusion chips that combine both GPU and CPU functions on the same die, something that AMD calles an APU, or accelerated processing unit. AMD is planning various changes to its line-up as 2011 shapes up to be a truly revolutionary year in terms of computing architecture. Designed to coincide with CES and another big announcement from a certain other chip manufacturer, AMD the new chips sit on the Brazos platform.The processors used will come in two different guises – a super low-power Ontario processor needing only 9W of power – and the 18W Zacate chip for more mainstream notebooks. AMD has turned its attention toward netbooks – a stronghold for Intel with Atom. AMD is promising huge advances in battery life from netbooks and laptops running these chips – though we'll have to wait until we get kit to see how this really pans out. Not only that, the company also hopes its expertise in graphics will hit home with buyers looking for a low power, portable netbook but who still want DirectX 11 graphics. Bobcat and Bulldozer Both of these chips are based on a new core which has been codenamed Bobcat – it's based on a 40nm manufacturing process. After Zacate, AMD is planning a 32nm core called Llano, which will be with us during the first half of this year. The company also will debut its long awaited high-performance x86 multi-core CPU architecture codenamed Bulldozer.
In basic architectural terms, Bulldozer looks even more revolutionary than Intel's new Sandy Bridge. With Bulldozer AMD will do away with the conventional notion of CPU cores and created a much more modular chip designed to deliver a better balance of integer and floating point performance. If Bulldozer manages to even to close the gap significantly to Intel's Sandy Bridge, that will be some achievement. 
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| Tutorial: How to make an external laptop graphics adaptor Posted: 03 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST  Laptop graphics have always been something of a joke performance wise. Nvidia and AMD do try, but cramming all those millions of transistors into a low-power, compact package just leads to massive expense and an inability to upgrade. Wouldn't it be perfect if you could simply use a standard external graphics card to power your laptop's 3D graphics? The good news is that you can. The suitably technical-sounding PE4H is just that; a passive PCI-e x16 to x1 adaptor, which enables you to plug an external graphics card into a laptop's ExpressCard slot. Currently we're only aware of it being available from the Taiwanese firm www.hwtools.net for around $100 including shipping. We'd like to say it's as simple as that, but this project does have a few sticking points. The first we've already mentioned: a laptop with an ExpressCard slot. The second is Windows 7, as it handles multiple display drivers far more adeptly than anything else. We're told Windows XP is next best with Vista being least desirable. Also if your laptop has more than 2GB of memory a 64-bit installation is also required, as otherwise you'll hit the 4GB address space limit hard. The big issue here is that it'll cause the allocation of memory for the graphics card to fail. Even though the card has its own memory the processor still needs to be able to address it, this address space is added on top of any existing system memory plus any other hardware resources, including the integrated graphics memory space. The final sticking point is that there are certain laptop models that this simply won't work with or have some serious documented issues. Some of these can be worked around and others cannot, but before you run off and spend your money it's best to check if people have reported issues with your model. The best two sources for compatibility can be found on the Notebook Review forum and Village Tronic. The former is the best, offering detailed system configuration and how many issues are solved. The PE4H comes with the adaptor itself, an ExpressCard, data cable, Molex power cable and ATX power switch. Alongside this you'll need a suitable power supply, the adaptor can take a 12 to 15v supply but for higher-end cards you'll need a desktop PSU anyway. Plus for neatness we're going to house it all inside a mini-barebones case.
The walkthrough below details putting together a system. The main thing to be aware of is before plugging the ExpressCard into the laptop, you will need to have Windows fully booted and to have the graphics card powered up. It's important to do this so Windows can recognise and install the correct drivers. If everything goes smoothly you'll have multi-card, multi-monitor system, where there was none before. This might not be evident but it has happened, check the Display Properties Control Panel to see if the new display is detected and active. Troubleshooting In our case we encountered a couple of issues on our Lenovo X200 at this stage, which we can see other people encountering. If the card isn't detected reboot and see how the BIOS handles the new device. For us booting produced a stream of POST errors complaining about PCI resource allocation problems. A BIOS update later and we had a booting system but one that was running incredibly slowly. Our next step was to try inserting the card immediately after pressing the power button and that seemed to sort this out. Similarly another trick is to put the laptop to sleep insert the card and power back up. Whatever voodoo cured the problem, once it was up and running we didn't have any further problems and the device could be happily hot swapped. All of these issues are connected to allocation of the PCI address space for the card. Once it's up and running it just works, albeit within the limitations of a x1 PCI-e system. You may have spotted that the adaptor card offers four PCI-e connections, the obvious question is how do you connect those additional PCI-e lanes? Most laptops use a mini-PCI-e add-in card for its wireless adaptor, other laptops actually have spare mini-PCI-e ports for 3G modems and the like. If you can locate one of these and add-in one of the HWTool PM3N mini-PCI-e adaptors, then it's possible to upgrade to an x2 system where the performance hit narrows to around 75 percent of the graphic card's full performance. This, of course, requires a second cable to be trailed from the laptop to the adaptor, as it turns out these are mini HDMI (Type-C) cables, so can be picked up from various sources such as www.lindy.com. Use something like SiSoft Sandra to see what chipset your laptop has and what devices are attached to them, the Hardware Buses report tool is best. The older ICH6/7M Southbridge can provide up to four PCI-e ports. The newer ICH8/9M and HM55 chipsets can go to six, with the latest HM/QM/QS57 range providing up to eight. You need to use the ports in matched pairs for it to work, so ports one and two or three and four. DIY desktop graphics for your notebook We remember getting excited about an Asus prototype called the XG Station a few years back at Computex in Taipei. That device promised to do something similar to this project. It never made it to the UK though, but did pop up in Australia in 2008 before promptly disappearing within a year. No matter, we'll show you how to hook up your own spare PCI-e graphics card to your laptop. It just takes the right bits of hardware and an ExpressCard equipped laptop. We're even going to look at an easy way to package the whole lot into an external case. 1. The kit you will need to make your adaptor
The catchy named PE4H from www.hwtools.net comes with a x16 PCI-e adaptor, the ExpressCard interface, an ATX power switch, plus the necessary Molex power cable and PCI Express data cable. 2. Grab a passive PCI Express adaptor
The adaptor that takes the PCI Express graphics card is called a passive adaptor, which is actually not doing any processing or routing, it's simply connecting two buses together. 3. Connect the GPU to the ExpressCard
Getting started is easy enough, plug the graphics card into the adaptor and connect the data cable to the first PCI-e port and to the ExpressCard, not forgetting the power cable. 4. Get a PSU powering your graphics card
So you can use a standard PC system power supply for your graphics card an ATX power adaptor is supplied, which will attach to the 20/24-pin power cable of the PSU. 5. Everything hooked up and ready to go
With a basic PCI Express graphics card the set-up looks a little like this (with or without a loop in the cable). At this point you don't want to connect the ExpressCard but you can boot your laptop. 6. Now, power up the pixel pusher
Before you go ahead and connect the ExpressCard to your laptop, you must make sure that the graphics card is powered up, so turn on the ATX switch and power up the PSU. 7. Get in on some ExpressCard action
With your Windows OS laptop up and running along with external graphics card, you can now safely push the ExpressCard into its slot, being careful not to knock over the graphics card in the process! 8. Displays ahoy, as far as the eye can see
If you have a compatible laptop, then after a flicker or two and perhaps a reboot, the laptop should detect the new graphics card and automatically start installing the driver. 9. Control, multimonitor is a go
If everything has worked correctly then you will now have a multimonitor system that you can configure from the Windows Display Control Panel. 10. Put her safe 'n' sound in the mini
To create a neat external box, we're going to cheat a little and just shanghai this rather nice mini barebones box. We won't need the original mobo though we might be able to use the PSU. 11. Compact and decidely bijou
This box has space for two PCI cards, so even a double-width graphics card should easily fit inside the chassis and the PCI-e adaptor sits nicely, where the mobo used to be. 12. Get the power that you really need
It's important to make sure the power supply unit's 12v rail will meet the power supply needs of the card. Check the Wikipedia entry to look up the TDP of your chipset if you're unsure. 13. Get a cable, that is Type C
We're going to route the connecting cable out of the side of the case. To make life easier it'd be best to pick up a longer mini HDMI (Type-C) cable, which is actually what the cable is. 14. Connect up the power button
The ATX PSU is activated by connecting pins 14 and 15 (20-pin) or 16 and 17 (24-pin) together. It's the green wire and any black wire, so you could connect up the case's power switch instead. 15. And this is one I made earlier…
And here she is, our neatly finished solution for getting desktop graphics on your weedy laptop. The mini-case, as it turns out, makes quite a handy monitor stand. Or you can just hide it away. 
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| Posted: 03 Jan 2011 01:30 AM PST  The art of designing AV kit to look contemporary and even attractive is a skill that seems to have passed Panasonic by – its designers refuse to match the exterior aesthetics or the menu systems of its products to the technological innovation that lies within their often dour exteriors. The BTT350's main unit, for example, looks almost the same as one of the brand's early DVD players, or dare I say it, a late VCR. Yet, this innocuous box is capable of serving up eye-popping full HD 3D images, to say nothing of its multimedia talents, including VieraCast internet video, DLNA networking, SD card playback and a built-in iPod/iPhone dock. It's also a fully-fledged home cinema system, with 5.1 capability out of the box and the potential to deliver 7.1 surround sound by adding extra speakers and an optional wireless kit. As per the main unit itself, the dinky sound boxes are remarkably unassuming to look at, if solidly built, although the side-firing sub looks as if it were made from MDF offcuts and warrants, like the main unit, being kept out of sight. Be warned that when you place an iPod in the recessed dock on the top of the unit the overall height goes from 62mm to 150mm, which may be too much of a snug fit for some shelving systems. Easy route The connections are hardly generous, but they do tick most of the AV boxes. Naturally, there's an HDMI v1.4, and this has an audio return channel, through which you can route your TV's sound, while using the single digital optical input for a games console, perhaps. The BTT350 is a DLNA fiend that's easy to integrate into a home network using wired or wireless LAN connections. The DY-WL10 wi-fi adapter is an invaluable optional extra that simplifies the process of setting up a network and accessing Panasonic's rather limited VieraCast internet video service. It seems incongruous to find a composite video output on the rear of the unit, but this is the only video conduit that functions with the iPod dock. You can access an iPod's music folders using HDMI or digital optical, but if you really want a laugh try watching a video on a 50-inch plasma using composite video. It's similar to watching TV through a fish tank. Setting up the system is straightforward, thanks to the colour-coded speaker wires and an easy setup wizard that guides you effortlessly through the various parameters, provided you don't lose interest when navigating the soporifically dull menus. There's no auto setup microphone; instead you can adjust the level of each channel manually while listening to white noise. Call me Mr Sad, but I think this is actually kinda fun. There are four 'easy listening' DSP modes: flat; heavy; clear and soft. Setup enables you to choose which input is used for your TV's sound and whether or not to convert all sources to multichannel output. You can also engage Quick Start or Low Power standby, which registers 0.2W on the consumption scale. The remote control is compact yet nicely laid out using Panasonic's eclectic Start button as the route to all sources and functions. The main annoyance is the absence of an eject button on the handset. By default, the centre channel has a few more dB up its sleeve than the other satellites, and this allows subtle dialogue to shine through, such as The Thing's mutterings on the Brooklyn Bridge scene in The Fantastic Four's DTS MA-HD soundtrack on Blu-ray. Yet the subwoofer lacks subtlety and blooms slightly when the going gets tough. It also vibrates uncomfortably with bass-heavy music. My THX test disc showed that rear effects can be nicely imaged, but as expected from such compact satellites, the upper part of the spectrum is clipped, producing a raspy metallic sound, especially at high volume when the cabinets also rattle. So long as you don't drive it too hard, though, the BTT350 will reward you with decent, involving audio, infinitely superior to any flatscreen's built-in speakers. 2D demon Picture wise, the system is no slouch either. On both 42-inch Panasonic and 50-inch Samsung 3D plasmas it conjured up a highly-polished and engrossing Monsters vs Aliens 3D experience. But in fact it's with 2D that the player's prowess is best observed. With Avatar and The Fantastic Four detail levels don't quite match some of the elite decks out there, but overall images are, vibrant and capable of subtle gradations even in low light. There's a lot about the BTT350 that won't make a home cinema enthusiast get overexcited. But it is a well built and solid performer that's very reasonably priced, so could be an ideal first step on the ladder for an AV novice. Related Links
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| Tutorial: 25 tips to help you get more from your media Posted: 03 Jan 2011 01:00 AM PST  Forget hard work – your PC is a hub of all things entertaining, from games to videos and music, and you're going to be distracted no matter how hard you try to get something done. Feel like you're achieving something while giving in to procrastination by making your media library bend to your every whim. 1. Get the right player Playing back media properly comes down to two things: the right player and the right codecs. You should deal with the former first, and there are plenty of choices out there that are more robust than (but perhaps not as pretty as) Windows Media Player. The first option to try out is VLC, a highly regarded multi-platform player with a few fairly advanced abilities. Alternatively, try Media Player Classic – less capable, but more compatible with a wide range of formats. 2. Download a codec pack Codecs are a tricky business – try to delve any deeper than installing them and hoping they work and you'll be in for weeks of reading about exactly what they're doing. The simplest thing to do is install a codec pack, hand-picked by the community for compatibility. The primary free one is XP Codec Pack. Don't worry about the name – it's fully compatible with later versions of Windows. There are other packs out there too, but these aren't necessarily safe/legal to use, so tread carefully. 3. Tweak the EQ Soundcards often include advanced interfaces that enable you to mess around with the way sound is output. Your results will vary depending on your PC's sound hardware, but you'll find the settings screen in Control Panel. Go to 'Hardware and Sound | Sound', find your device in the Playback tab and then click 'Properties'. 4. Stream to consoles While your PC is probably able to play back multiple file formats, your other devices might not be. Even the Xbox 360, which is generally quite capable of playing back video, baulks at certain types. The solution is to transcode that video and send it to the console in a different way, a job that's handled admirably by Tversity. You can use it to set up a UPnP interface to stream to consoles, and convert formats like YouTube directly. 5. Move Live TV Tversity covers the task of shifting pre-formatted video files on a local network well, but to move TV streams around your house – or over the internet – you'll need Orb. It's an elegant solution. Install the software, get it running and you'll be able to point any browser to the website at http://mycast.orb.com to start watching your home media – including the output of your TV card – from other devices. 6. Get more to watch You can probably find places to download TV shows off your own back. We're not about to incriminate ourselves by pointing you to the all-too obvious illegitimate sources of material that can be found all over the web. Finding legal content is probably more difficult. Start by checking out www.clearbits.net, a site dedicated to helping legitimate content providers share their works by bittorrent. 7. Explore the classics If you just want something to watch, why not dig out something from the olden days? The Internet Archive, found at www.archive.org, contains a wealth of interesting abandoned content from times gone by, and even modern content that's deemed worthy of preservation. Dig through and find a movie or slice of audio that you like, and use the links in the left-hand column to download the content in your choice of formats. 8. Grab content from Youtube Miro, formerly known as Democracy Player, is a fantastic all-in-one media player and downloader with one particular talent – searching through streaming video sites and grabbing content for later consumption. It couldn't be easier. Download Miro from www.getmiro.com, install the player, open it and use the Video Search function in the left-hand column to find what you're looking for. Just click the 'Download' button next to the content you want and it will be stored in Miro's video library. Make sure you start the video playing and click the 'Keep' button if you want to hang on to it – otherwise, Miro automatically deletes downloads after a certain expiry time. 9. Convert to your mobile device Videora is generally considered the best free conversion application for getting all sorts of videos onto your iPhone or PSP for offline viewing. You can even convert FLV files, which is handy if you've extracted a bunch of them with Miro. Download the program from www.videora.com, then install it – keeping an eye out for the chunk of insidious crapware it attempts to install halfway through – and navigate through the (rather horrible) interface. From there, video conversion is a simple point-and-click job. 10. Stream Live TV If you've been around the internet for some years, then you'll know of the folly of live streaming. It's a great idea, but not one that works well. You can try, though! Your first port of call, for a variety of European stations and worldwide news, should be www.tvlizer.com, the latest in a long line of aggregation sites. Then you should check out www.tvcatchup.com for a decent selection of UK channels. You can even use this site on your mobile devices, but don't expect miracles. 11. Remote control VLC VLC has a little hidden functionality that enables you to control it from any PC in the house. If you're using your laptop and have a movie running on the box under your TV, for example, just point your laptop's web browser to the IP address of the media PC at port 80 – 192.168.1.2:8080, for example – and voila! Full remote control access. There's a free iPhone app that performs the same function, although it's a little heavy on the ads for the full (paid-for) version. 12. Find some more remotes The best known remote control application for the iPhone is Apple's own iTunes remote app, and it works particularly well – if you can stand to use iTunes. You'll also find an app for controlling popular homebrew media centre XBMC, although this one doesn't have a free version. And if you happen to have an internet-connected Blu-ray player and a bunch of films from Universal, hunt out pocketBLU. It's a very specific iPhone remote control that only works in these particular circumstances. Is it any wonder the Blu-ray format hasn't really taken off yet? 13. Back up your library Make a copy of your media on an external drive to protect it from electronic death. Simple! With most applications you'll need to hunt through your various folders and copy files manually, but if iTunes has one saving grace, it's the program's ability to make this task easy. Start by consolidating your library ('File | Library | Consolidate Library') to bring all of your media content into one folder, and then copy that folder (usually '\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents \My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music') to your backup disc. 14. Master metadata If you have a huge music collection, you'll know how annoying it is when certain tracks aren't properly tagged. You could wade through and tweak all of your tags yourself, or you could download Picard from www.musicbrainz.org and have it do the hard work for you. The community-supported audio-tagger uses a vast database of shared information to get things right, and if there's something it doesn't know, you'll be helping the next person who's in your situation by adding to its repertoire. 15. Go completely mad
VLC has one final trick up its sleeve: it can display your videos in the classic ASCII style. If you've ever wanted to watch an epilepsy-inducing video made up of ANSI-coloured text characters, now's your chance. Just go to the 'Preferences' screen, hit the 'Video' section and change the output mode to 'Colour AsCii Art'. You might need to stop and then restart your video to see it in action. 5 quick Windows Media Center tips 16. Skip the startup There's no need for the animation that pops up when you start Media Center. Luckily, it's simple to stop it. Right-click the shortcut and, in the 'Target' box, add the phrase /nostart upanimation after the text that's already there. Click 'Apply', and you're set. 17. Straight to the library There are other switches you can add: try /homepage :Music BrowsePage.xml /Push StartPage:True to force the program to start in the media library. To jump to live TV, try /homepage: Video Fullscreen.xml /PushStart Page:True – Live TV. 18. Skip further The Quick Skip button hops you forward 30 seconds, but let's make it three minutes. Run regedit, go to 'HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\VideoSettings' and change the value of 'Skip AheadInterval' to 180000. 19. Integrate Twitter Point your browser to www.mcezone.com/plugins.php and grab the plug-in. Unzip the file, double-click the installer and find it in Media Center's 'Extras' section. Log in with your usual details and you'll be able to tweet while watching. 20. Watch IPTV If you only install one plug-in into Media Center, make it TunerFree MCE. Grab it from www.tunerfree.tv and install it. You'll then gain access to the terrestrial TV channels, as well as all of the various on-demand content that's provided by services such as BBC iPlayer and 4oD. 5 quick VLC tips 21. Play YouTube videos If you go to the Media menu and choose 'Open Network Stream', you can paste in the address of a YouTube video and have VLC play the highest-quality version available in its own interface. This means easy skipping, multi-monitor fullscreen, and you won't need a browser open. 22. Rip on the fly Want a quick way to take clips from DVDs or any other video source? In the View menu, select 'Advanced Controls'. Play back a video and hit the record button that's displayed. A recording of the current video, in MP4 format, will appear in your Videos directory. 23. Set as wallpaper Pointless it may be, but VLC's ability to access the DirectX video layer means you can use a video as your wallpaper. Hit [Ctrl]+[P] to bring up the Preferences screen and, under 'Video', choose 'DirectX output'. Restart VLC, then select 'Enable wallpaper mode' on the same screen. Pretty! 24. Take it with you If you're taking videos around on a hard drive, why not include a copy of VLC with them? PortableApps has compiled a version that's only 20MB in size and doesn't require installation, so it will run off your external drive. See www.portableapps.com. 25. Download an alternative VLC being a free, open-source application, others have taken the code and run with it. We recommend checking out Kantaris for an alternative with a heap more features built in, notably a gorgeous user interface. You can download Kantaris from www.kantaris.org. 
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| WIN! 8 copies of Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD Posted: 03 Jan 2011 01:00 AM PST  TechRadar has teamed up with Nero to give away eight copies of Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD worth £79.99 each. Nero Multimedia Suite 10 Platinum HD builds upon the 3-in-1 multimedia management tools introduced earlier this year in Nero Multimedia Suite 10, which focused on video editing, burning and backup. Nero completes the High Definition experience with the introduction of Blu-ray playback capabilities and new tools to help create, edit, burn, backup and share HD content anytime and anywhere. It incorporates BD-Live 2.0 Blu-ray disc playback, the Move It plug-in for easy media transfer and conversion between mobile devices and PC, as well as the Nero Creative Collection Pack 1 with new Picture-in-Picture (PiP) effects, as well as additional transition effects and Movie Themes. To be in with a chance of winning one of these eight prizes, visit our Nero competition page.
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