Sponsored
Techradar |
- Windows Phone 7 NoDo update: when will you get it?
- Valve adds Skype audio codec for in-game chat
- Digital Economy Act challenged in High Court
- Budget 2011 invests in UK technology with new innovation centre
- Review: Epson Stylus Photo PX660
- Spotify to broadcast its first live gig
- Review: Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD
- Updated: 10 best 32-inch LCD TVs in the world today
- UK ISPs formulate new plan to block The Pirate Bay
- In Depth: The home of 2020: everything's a screen
- US court says 'no dice' to Google books deal
- US court says 'no dice' to Google books deal
- Dixons joins Nintendo 3DS midnight UK launch party
- Review: XTZ 99 Series
- Review: XTZ 99 Series
- Dixons joins Nintendo 3DS midnight UK launch party
- In Depth: iPad 3 rumours: what you need to know
- In Depth: iPad 3 rumours: what you need to know
- Jobs: 'No plans' to ditch iPod Classic
- Jobs: 'No plans' to ditch iPod Classic
- Review: Packard Bell EasyNote TS
- Review: Sony SMP-N100
- Review: Sony SMP-N100
- Review: Packard Bell EasyNote TS
- Review: Jamo D500 THX Select2
| Windows Phone 7 NoDo update: when will you get it? Posted: 23 Mar 2011 10:01 AM PDT  Microsoft's so-called 'NoDo' Windows Phone 7 update was released this week, but just when will you be able to get copying and pasting on your Win Pho handset? Good news if you've got an unlocked handset and are reading this in the UK or Europe; you should be all set. Try connecting your handset to Zune (with a wire, we're afraid) and the update should be ready and waiting for you. O2 Windows Phone 7 update O2 tells us that their Windows Phone 7 customers can expect the update to hit in early April – so O2 customers could be updated as soon as next weekend, if they're lucky. Vodafone Windows Phone 7 update Vodafone sent TechRadar the following statement regarding the update: "The updates for the Vodafone-ranged HTC 7 Trophy and LG Optimus 7 have been approved by Vodafone and will be distributed by Microsoft in due course As soon as we know this is available to our customers, we will post the info on our eForum." Given that it sounds like the update is hot to trot, we'd hope that Microsoft will release it to Vodafone customers fairly soon. We have contacted Three and EverythingEverywhere and will update this post as soon as we hear back from them with an ETA on the NoDo update. It's worth noting that the update will not be available as an over the air download – you'll have to connect your handset to a PC or Mac and run the Zune software to get it. 
| ||||
| Valve adds Skype audio codec for in-game chat Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:55 AM PDT  Valve has updated Steam this week, adding a number of new game updates along with much-improved voice-quality for in-game chats, courtesy of the Skype-developed SILK audio codec. In addition to adding a beta for a new campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 (called 'Cold Stream') the PC gaming developer has upgraded its voice chat tech with the SILK codec. Shoot and chat SILK was originally developed by VoIP specialists Skype, featuring a 'dynamic bit rate protocol' which allows the bandwidth on voice chat to vary up to 30kbps, which is twice the rate that Steam Voice previously allowed. In addition to better quality voice chat, Valve is also promising improved connectivity and reliability with Steam Voice, outlined on the Steam website. Skype's SILK technology will work with any game that uses the Steamworks API, which basically means the forthcoming Portal 2 just got even more exciting! 
| ||||
| Digital Economy Act challenged in High Court Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:28 AM PDT  Sections of the UK's controversial Digital Economy Act are being challenged in Britain's High Court this week. ISPs BT and TalkTalk both called for the judicial review, claiming that the original legislation was rushed through parliament too quickly, without proper debate or consideration. Both companies are unhappy with the impact the Digital Economy Act may well have on individual users' right to privacy, in addition to the fact that it puts the onus on ISPs to police online copyright theft. Simon Milner, BT's head of industry policy, notes that it is a "big deal to be judicially reviewing primary legislation but we took advice and there were very clearly were some real problems," hence the company is "going to court to get legal clarity." Policing the pirates The UK High Court will now be required to consider whether or not the Digital Economy Act is in line with European legislation. ISPs such as BT and TalkTalk would rather consider a different approach, such as blocking selected sites, as opposed to mass letter writing to warn alleged pirates following tip-offs from rights owners, which is the current recommendation from the Act. Discredited legal firm ACS: Law recently hit the headlines earlier this year after sending out thousands of letters on behalf of its client Mediacat, with the latter company since having ceased trading. British dance record label Ministry of Sound has recently reviewed its own strategy of bombarding alleged filesharers with threatening letters. Via BBC News 
| ||||
| Budget 2011 invests in UK technology with new innovation centre Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:17 AM PDT  Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne today delivered the UK's 2011 budget, which spelled good news for UK tech. The government is investing in a new technology innovation centre intended to push the country to the forefront of technological, er, innovation. It doesn't take a seasoned economist to know that technology spells big bucks; even in financially stretched times, we consumers seem to find enough pennies down the back of the sofa for the latest tech – the rise and rise of tablets over the past eighteen months demonstrates that quite nicely. All about the money money money So investing in technology is a wise move for the country's coffers – and great for us because we're all for British tech taking over the world. The new "technology and innovation centre" is likely to be the first of a series of six manufacturing and engineering centres in an initiative revealed by Nick Clegg and Vince Cable earlier this week. £100m has also been promised to the UK science scene, with the money to be used to commercialise research. 
| ||||
| Review: Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Posted: 23 Mar 2011 09:16 AM PDT _on_White_with_print_sample-200-200.jpg) Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Overview Smartly presented in a mix of contrasting gloss and matte black surfaces and nicely rounded styling, the PX660 boasts 'better-than-lab-quality' photo printing abilities, along with a 2400dpi scanner and multi-format memory card reader. Everything is linked by a neat and intuitive control panel which enables direct printing from memory cards or PictBridge-compatible cameras, along with standalone photocopying.
As usual for Epson printers, each ink cartridge is individually replaceable. Theoretically, this keeps running costs down to a minimum if you use a lot of one particular ink colour but, as we'll see later, the PX660 isn't exactly cheap to run. Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Features At the heart of the PX660 is Epson's tried and tested micro-piezo print head technology. This differs from the system used in every other make of inkjet printer, as the ink isn't boiled to force a rapid expansion that expels it from the print head. There are 90 nozzles for black and each colour of ink, delivering Epson's typical maximum resolution of 5760x1440dpi, along with AVDT (Advanced Variable-sized Droplet Technology), that enables droplets as small as a near-microscopic 1.5pl (pico-litre). Up on top, the CIS (Contact Image Sensor) A4 scanner is standard fare, with a reasonable 1200x2400dpi resolution while, down below, there's a PictBridge port and dual-slot card readers. The first of these takes MS Pro, SD and xD cards while the second is for CompactFlash cards, which will please many D-SLR photographers as CF slots are lacking on most of the latest HP and Lexmark all-in-one printers. There's also a specialist tray for direct printing onto white-faced CDs and DVDs, which is supported by design software that comes with the printer and is great for creating professional-looking discs. One thing that's lacking is the dual trays featured on most Canon inkjet printers, requiring you to switch between plain and photo paper in the single, rear-mounted upright feeder each time you want to swap between document and photo printing. There's also no Wi-Fi or Ethernet connectivity, so the printer needs to be hooked up to a PC via a USB cable. Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Handling and print times Like other new and recent models in Epson's all-in-one printer range, the PX660 has a particularly intuitive touch-sensitive control panel for standalone use, either photocopying or printing from memory cards or a USB pen. It's based around a not overly large 6.3cm (2.5-inch) colour LCD but the neat thing is that individual controls only light up if and when their functions are relevant to the task in hand. The same approach is taken in some of Canon's latest printers and, in our view, it makes control slightly easier than with the touchscreen LCDs fitted to some of the new HP and Lexmark models. Epson printers are typically a little sluggish, especially in 'Best' quality photo modes, and the PX660 is no exception. In our tests, it returned the same highest-quality mode speeds as the entry-level Stylus Photo P50, taking 4 minutes 57 seconds to produce a borderless A4 print, and 1 minute 54 seconds for a borderless 6x4-inch print. Dropping to the regular 'Photo' quality setting, print speeds increases to a more respectable 2 minutes 2 seconds for A4 and 26 seconds for 6x4-inch photos, with practically no discernable drop in quality. Scanning speeds were pretty average, at 22 seconds for a full A4 photo print and 10 seconds for a 6x4 photo, both being scanned at 300dpi. Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Performance The PX660 made a good job of our printer test chart, with accurate colour rendition and very good tonal range, managing to clearly differentiate between steps at both the lightest and darkest ends of the greyscale bar. There was marginal jaggedness in some of the finest diagonal lines and concentric circles but certainly no worse than we'd expect from even the most up-market inkjet printers. In standard colour mode, colour reproduction is quite faithful and accurate, while the 'vivid' mode has the effect of brightening green and blue hues, while marginally darkening reds, which gives landscapes a bit more punch. A Photo Enhance option is also available with an auto mode or manually selectable choices like people, landscape and night scene. It works reasonably well but, in our tests, skin tones were a little cool and unflattering in the standard colour setting and the 'people' enhancement merely made the whole print brighter, rather than warming skin tones for more flattering results. Scan quality was less than impressive because, while colour accuracy and sharpness were good, with plenty of resolution of fine detail, nearly all of our photo scans had noticeable banding, with streaky lines running across the images. Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Prints
As printed by the Epson Stylus Photo PX660
As printed by the Epson Stylus Photo PX660
As printed by the Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Ink costs Refreshingly for a printer at this price, Epson gives the option of fitting standard-yield (Hummingbird) or high-yield (Owl) ink cartridges for the PX660. However, while the high-yield cartridges enable you to change cartridges rather less often, they're also considerably more expensive. It's disappointing that, while ink costs with the standard-yield cartridges are pretty high at about 20p and 77p for 6x4-inch and A4 photo prints respectively, you'll probably only save a couple of pence per print if you buy the high-yield cartridges. Once you add genuine Epson Premium Glossy photo paper into the equation, overall photo print prices work out to about 36p for a 6x4-inch print and £1.45 for A4. Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Specification Paper sizes Epson Stylus Photo PX660: Verdict The PX660 isn't cheap to buy and it's certainly not cheap to run, which draws attention to the areas in which it's lacking. Compared with printers like the Canon PIXMA MG5250, photo print speed is quite slow at the maximum quality setting, scan quality is disappointing, and there's no Wi-Fi connectivity. On the plus side, however, the PX660's traditional range of six dye-based photo inks gives a generous colour space and a very smooth appearance to subtly graduated tones and colours. The onboard controls for direct, standalone use are particularly intuitive, and the colour mode settings for standard, vivid and various photo enhancements work well. Skin tones proved a little on the cool side in our tests but, on the whole, the PX660 is a good quality printer at the price. Related Links
| ||||
| Spotify to broadcast its first live gig Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:50 AM PDT  Spotify has announced plans to stream a live broadcast of its first ever gig from Koko in London. The event, which is part of the Nissan Juke 'Behind the Hit' campaign, takes part on 5 April at Camden's Koko, with a headline DJ set by Elly Jackson from La Roux. Other acts on the bill include Delphic, The Naked And Famous and Pony Pony Run Run. Spotify targets gig and festival fans Jackson's DJ set is set to include the track 'Helly' by Nissan Juke Behind The Hit competition winner Ben Daniels. Jonathan Foster, General Manager Europe of Spotify, says that "giving our users access to great live music in their own home is the next step in the Spotify experience," promising more live music broadcasts on the way in future. Nissan GB's online marketing manager Andy Jackson, explains more about the objective of his campaign, claiming that: "The aim of the 'Behind the Hit' competition was to find an uplifting song that sets the mood when you're driving for a night out. We feel we've done that with Helly and look forward to the first public hearing at Koko and through Spotify." 
| ||||
| Review: Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD Posted: 23 Mar 2011 08:36 AM PDT  Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Overview Based on Epson's acclaimed Claria dye-based inks, the PX820FWD is first and foremost a photo printer. The mix of cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks, plus light cyan and light magenta, enable a generous gamut, or colour space, along with impressive dynamic range. Even so, it seems like a photo printer dressed up in business suit, as it adds plenty of office-friendly functions like standalone faxing and photocopying, complete with an ADF (Auto Document Feeder) for multi-page documents. There's also an auto duplex unit tacked onto the back for easy double-sided document printing, and the printer is well-connected with USB, Ethernet and Wi-Fi built in. The host of document printing extras seems a little odd, as there's no pigment-based black ink in the PC820FWD's line-up. Black dye-based ink often makes for greyish, feint looking text but the Epson is above average in this respect, delivering crisp-looking documents. Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Features Like Epson's mid-range Stylus Photo PX660, the PX820FWD uses the same six Claria inks, available in standard-yield or high-yield cartridges, feeding print heads that deliver a maximum of 5760x1440dpi resolution with a minimum droplet size of 1.5pl (pico-litre). However, the PX820FWD's print heads have twice as many nozzles per colour, at 180 instead of 90, enabling faster print speeds. The scanner is also a more high-res affair, boasting a maximum resolution of 4800x4800dpi. Unlike most Epson printers, there's no rear-mounted paper feeder. Instead, you get a dual-input cassette that slots into the bottom of the printer. The main tray holds A4 paper while a secondary tray is adjustable for 6x4-inch, 7x5-inch and 16:9 wide format photo papers. The photo tray is motorised so it engages automatically for photo printing but, if you want to create full A4 photo prints, you still need to empty the plain paper out of the main tray and replace it with photo paper, which is a bit of a Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Handling and printing times Handling is refined, thanks to a particularly intuitive 19.cm 'smart-navigation' touch-panel. This goes one better than the control panel on the PX660 because, as well as touch-sensitive icons that only illuminate and become visible when they have an active role to play, the colour LCD at the centre of the panel is also a touch-screen in its own right. Suffice it to say that standalone photocopying, faxing (complete with 60 speed-dial memory locations) and direct photo printing from CompactFlash, MS Pro, SD or xD cards is as simple as can be. The ADF also makes for simple faxing or photocopying of multi-page documents, although you can still bypass this and place photos for scanning or copying directly onto the scanner's platen. Print speeds are respectable rather than dazzling, at least in Best quality mode. In our tests, the PX820FWD averaged 2 minutes 54 seconds for borderless A4 prints and 58 seconds per 6x4-inch print. However, the first postcard sized print takes a little longer, as the motorised tray needs to engage before printing can commence. Printing is a lot quicker in normal Photo quality mode, at 1 minute 3 seconds for A4 and 15 seconds per 6x4-inch print. There's practically no perceptible difference in quality between Photo and Best modes, although on a very few prints we saw very marginally more detail in extreme lowlights using the highest quality mode. Scan times are pretty quick, at 15 seconds for a full A4 scan and 7 seconds for a 6x4-inch photo, both measured at 300dpi. Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Performance Considering that the PX820FW uses exactly the same range of Claria inks that we've seen on many Epson A4 printers over the last couple of years, colour rendition came as quite a shock. Indeed, colour was so inaccurate that we double-checked that all the cartridges were in their correct slots. Reds in particular were way off the mark, with pure bright red looking more like a murky maroon. In the end, we updated the printer driver that was supplied on Epson's installation CD, replacing it with the latest edition that's available online, and this made a huge difference. Even so, reds in our test chart were still noticeably darker than expected. Fine lines and challenging diagonals and concentric circles from our test chart were faithfully reproduced and each of the blocks in the greyscale bar were clearly distinguishable. Landscape images looked their best in the printer's Vivid colour mode, or when using the automatic Photo Enhance option, both of which gave punchier (and practically identical) results. Skin tones using the standard colour option were a little muddy, but a touch warmer than on many Epson printers, whereas the Photo Enhance 'People' option brightened up flesh tones to give more pleasing results. Scanning proved accurate in our tests, with good tonal range and colour rendition. There was also none of the streakiness of lines running across scans, which we suffered with the PX660. Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Prints
As produced by the Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD
As produced by the Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD
As produced by the Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Specification Paper sizes Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Ink costs You can use either standard-yield (Hummingbird) or high-yield (Owl) cartridges in the PX820FW. However, the high-yield cartridges are considerably more expensive so actual cost-savings are negligible, at around a couple of pence per photo print. Combined with Epson Premium Glossy photo paper, print costs are likely to average out to around 36p and £1.45 per 6x4-inch and A4 print sizes respectively. Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD: Verdict There's no denying that the PX820FWD is very expensive for an A4 printer, and running costs are above average as well. Wi-Fi connectivity is nice to have, especially if you like to print photos from your laptop, from anywhere around the home, but the auto duplex unit, auto document feeder and standalone fax facility cater to office jobs that most of us don't require from a photo printer. While the PX820FWD is a fair bit faster than Epson's own PX660, it costs much more than twice the price and photo quality is no better. In fact, the PX820FWD's skin tones and red hues can look a little muddy by comparison. Related Links
| ||||
| Updated: 10 best 32-inch LCD TVs in the world today Posted: 23 Mar 2011 07:42 AM PDT  Our constantly updated list of the best 32-inch TVs in the world. Which is the best 32-inch TV?Most living rooms can't physically take a TV much bigger than 32-inch, making this size by far the best for a lot of people in the UK. But within this size division, there's plenty of choice. A basic HD-ready set can be found for less than £300 is you search hard, though it's just as easy to spend over £2k. There's only one certainty at this size - your new TV will be a LCD TV. If you're lucky it could have LED backlighting, but it won't be a plasma; LG used to make plasmas at this size, but there's not one on sale currently. A typical circa £500 purchase will sport a Full HD screen, have at least three HDMI inputs, and some kind of 100Hz scanning, though the latter feature varies so much in effectiveness that you've simply got to see it in action in the shop before you shell out any extra cash.
Full HD, media streaming and even built-in Freesat HD or Freeview HD - it's all possible on these small TVs. Freeview HD is on some of these TVs, but not all. If you've got Sky or Virgin, of course, a Freeview HD tuner is mere frippery, and worse, will add unnecessarily to the cost. And besides, if you're not among the 50 per cent of the UK population that can receive Freeview HD broadcasts yet - and are set on finding a subscription-free hi-def solution - you're better off going for a TV with a built-in Freesat HD tuner. So what's the best 32-inch LCD TV for you? Read on to find out...
Panasonic TX-L32X20B - £289Basic, but those after a simple flat TV will love this LCD TV's contrast-rich pics
Read: Panasonic TX-L32X20B review
Panasonic TX-L32S20 - £370A Freeview HD tuner largely compensates for a lack of other frills Aside from a built-in Freeview HD tuner there;s little to get excited about on this run-of-the-mill Panaonsic TV, so why is it in our top ten? Using a Full HD IPS alpha LCD panel, this set does a good job of flattering standard-definition content such as DVDs and Freeview broadcasts, but really stretches its legs with HD; blacks still aren't at the level of those on the company's own plasma screens, they're pretty impressive by LCD standards. Read: full Panasonic TX-L32S20 full review
Sharp LC-32LE210E - £599Cute and good value edge-lit LED set sadly lacking Freeview HD Sharp's latest 32-inch TV is LED-powered and is cheap to boot. The edge-mounted backlight enables a depth of 46mm, about half as thick as a comparable CCFL-lit set. A good value TV that ignores Freeview HD and 100Hz, this Sharp gets away with it because of its high quality LED panel, novel record-to-USB functions, and low online price; one for those on a budget and just after the basics. Read: Sharp LC-32LE210E review
Sony KDL-32EX703Superb 32-inch LCD TV boasting internet widgets and Freeview HD After a lacklustre couple of years, the 32EX703 represents a stunning return to form for Sony. It's done an admirable job of squeezing as much as possible into this panel, with Freeview HD capability, an Ethernet port that enables access to a host of internet widgets (such as YouTube and Dailymotion), four HDMIs and Edgle-lit LED backlighting. The latter prives the headline act, with the set delivering eye-popping levels of detail and forensic precision within a wholly cinematic picture. Read: full Sony KDL-32EX703 review
Sony KDL-32NX503 - £600Stylish LCD TV with clever online functions and Freeview HD Boasting a new 'Monolithic' design that constitutes a single-layer fascia, boldly chunky black surround and a tilting desktop stand. The 32NX503's other big selling point, its networkability, kicks in with its connections. For alongside four HDMIs you will find an Ethernet port and a USB input, both capable of multiple talents. Sony's new Bravia Internet Video service (LoveFilm, Demand Five, YouTube and Eurosport video news) and DLNA are the result, making this the perfect 'network' TV. Elsewhere, the set carries Sony's latest Bravia Engine 3 video processor and Live Colour processing for richer saturations, and a mode for boosting whites, though its pictures aren't the highpoint - instead, this is a TV for anyone after standout style and comprehensive multimedia features. Read: full Sony KDL-32NX503 review
Philips 32PFL7605 - £620Excellent value edge LED TV lacking only an HD TV tuner Philips' 32PFL7605H is the latest in a procession of startlingly affordable, relatively small edge LED TVs – and here it means no significant compromises to performance. The set also manages to cling to an impressive roster of features despite its affordability, with highlights being its potent video processing mix and its online capability, especially open web access. Freeview HD is missing – a huge oversight, but virtually the only one in an otherwise unbeatable performance if judged purely on value. Read: Philips 32PFL7605 review
Samsung UE32C6000A super Freeview HD TV with added multimedia functions The so-called 'entry-level' model in Samsung's premium C6000 range of 2D Full HD LED panels is not cheap. And there's nothing budget about its features, which comprise a Freeview HD tuner, a broad range of picture and sound enhancement technologies and some handy multi-media capabilities – although not Samsung's internet TV portal (see the step-up UE32C6600 for that). With its premium qualities the 32UC6000 feels like a shrunken version of a larger screen and rather over-specified for a 32in model; this is a statement TV. Read: full Samsung UE32C6000 review
Panasonic TX-L32D28BP - £1,000Purple pro LED with Freeview HD and Freesat HD Also available in silver and white, the purple framed TX-L32D28BP marks Panasonic's first ever LED TV. It's not the only radical design change for Panasonic; the TX-L32D28BP features a hefty steel desktop stand that the screen itself slips onto. The end result of adding this 5kg stand is a TV that leans back slightly, while its subtly purple frame appears to dip away from the front; it doesn't - it's merely a clever 3D design. Freeview HD may be all the rage, but the TX-L32D28BP adds Freesat HD, too, along with its broadband entertainment portal, Viera Cast. The latter now includes widgets for Eurosport and Daily Motion news clips, though YouTube remains the highlight. Skype video calling, meanwhile, is now available - just add a Panasonic HD Communication Camera, the TY-CC10W, for £129.99. Most of the constituent parts of a reference Blu-ray picture are present on the TX-L32D28BP, though a touch more contrast and shadow detailing would take it alarmingly close to LED perfection. The TX-L32D28BP may be expensive, but it's got a load more talent than your average 32-inch LCD TV. Read: full Panasonic TX-L32D28BP full review
Philips 32PFL9705Direct LED and peerless picture quality make this one of the finest 32-inch sets ever made Philips likes to push boundaries with its flagship 9000 Series TVs and it's done this again in grandstanding style with the 32PFL9705. What's more, it's done it on two fronts. In feature terms, its expanded its multimedia support with the unique MediaConnect system, offering a really great way of getting your TV and PC to work together for people not comfortable with the usual more inscrutable TV file streaming approaches. The other area where the 32PFL9705 breaks new ground is with its picture quality. The use of direct LED lighting with local dimming really does make the set the best 32-inch LCD TV the world has ever produced. And you can't ask for much more than that. Read: full Philips 32PFL9705 review
| ||||
| UK ISPs formulate new plan to block The Pirate Bay Posted: 23 Mar 2011 07:37 AM PDT  A collaborative initiative between a number of British internet service providers is currently looking at ways to block Brits from downloading copyrighted material for free via The Pirate Bay and a number of other file-sharing websites. Around 100 file-sharing and cyberlocker sites are on the hit-list of those websites that rights holders in the music and film industries want UK ISPs to block. Communications minister, Ed Vaizey, is working with rights holders and British ISPs, such as BT and TalkTalk, in order to develop a voluntary code on internet policy and potential site blocking. Fighting rampant copyright theft Media regulator Ofcom is currently deliberating the possibility of how such website blocking would be implemented by UK ISPs, in the ongoing fight against rampant copyright theft online. Ofcom is expected to report back to Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt on the matter later in the spring. Meanwhile, BT and TalkTalk, two of the UK's leading ISPs, are in the High Court this week in an attempt to overturn the government's controversial Digital Economy Act, which they claim is in breach of European privacy and human rights legislation. Rights holders clearly feel that site blocking would be faster and more effective than the failing system of sending out mass notification letters to alleged copyright thieves. Via Slashdot and Torrentfreak.com 
| ||||
| In Depth: The home of 2020: everything's a screen Posted: 23 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT  The home of the future will be a living, breathing entity that reacts to our needs, provides entertainment in any room of the house and can even take care of you when you're sick. In many ways, the vision of robotic butlers and multiple high-def screens portrays a false concept - in the future digital home, anything can be a screen and the home itself will be a robot. Brian David Johnson, a futurist at Intel, describes the future home as much more inter-connected and internet-aware than we currently imagine. We have curiously understated how much media will be at our fingertips, for example. Johnson says by 2015 there will be 500 billion hours of entertainment online, or more than is humanly knowable, and as many as 15 billion devices in use. "The future home will know our daily routines," says Johnson, describing how there won't be just a few extra 'screens' in the home by that computer interfaces will be literally all around us, in every room. In-built intelligence This concept of a digitally aware home will anticipate what we want. For example, Johnson says a computer might read the news aloud in the bathroom, knowing the mirror has fogged over and there is no way to interact with a touchscreen. In the living room, multiple screens will provide a view of a sporting event, but the home will control audio levels automatically based on who is talking, where everyone is sitting, and even knowing whether you care about the outcome of the game or not. "The home will know which interface makes sense in which room," says Johnson. "It will know that in one room, voice feedback makes sense, but in another room the flow of human behavior will dictate that hand gestures make more sense in one room as a point of control than another." Eric Kintz, head of the video business unit at Logitech, agrees that the future digital home will encourage a much smoother flow of media consumption, that there won't just be independent, static screens in several rooms of the house but interfaces throughout the home. Kintz says, when you watch a video in one room, you will be able to take that video with you to the next room and keep watching. The home will know what you are watching and when you move into the next room. Another interesting scenario he describes, which is already somewhat in place using the Logitech Alert video surveillance system, is where the home transmits live video to friends and families. In this future concept, every room can send a video feed over the Internet. Kintz says this will be increasingly important as more people start working out of their homes and families become more geographically dispersed. He says video will play an important role in the future home because it has different kind of emotional impact than e-mail, social networking, or other means of communication. Sensor networks The future digital home will also involve distributed computing. Today, networks tend to run to and from a central server. In the next 30 years, sensor networks will operate in a more distributed way: each sensor will communicate with the next. So, a sensor in the ice box might send a message to the water filtration system that the water quality is running low. Or, the electric car in the garage will communicate directly with solar panels on the roof to manage energy draw. We see this already with home automation systems that use the zigbee wireless signal: a camera at the front door can communicate over a mesh network to a motion tracker in the hallway. If the motion sensor fails, the front door camera can communicate to the camera in the next room instead. Yet, distributed computing in the home will go much further than that. Jonathan Cluts is the director of the Microsoft Home project, which is an entire future home concept the company re-builds every two years and is located on the Redmond campus.
Cluts says distributed computing will be pervasive in the future home: knowing when you are low on milk based on sensors in the refrigerator, showing a list of possible meals you can cook and their recipes based on the food you have in the home. Cluts says the sensor networks will even extend out into the backyard, knowing that you are cooking on the grill and offering to play a news feed as you cook. In fact, Cluts says outdoor entertainment will become more common with weatherproof HD televisions and outdoor surround audio. Touchscreens on any surface One of the most interesting recent visions of the future home involved a video for Corning Incorporated. Touchscreens are used all around the home - on countertops, on appliances, and even in the car.
These concepts use a durable glass material with circuits embedded below the touchscreen, similar to the iPad. Corning admits that many of the touchscreens shown in the video are quite a few years away from reality, and depend greatly on the cost of manufacturing and developing new form factors. Yet, the digital home concept is moving ahead - Intel's Johnson says the number of screens in the home will increase dramatically in just the next five years. Entertainment will be all around us, along with news feeds, data about the home itself, and of course even more access to our work. 
| ||||
| US court says 'no dice' to Google books deal Posted: 23 Mar 2011 04:11 AM PDT  Google's plans for a digital super-library have been put on ice by the New York courts as a Judge has rejected a proposed settlement between Google and book publishers. The search giant's plan was to scan and digitise every book ever written, including rare and out of print titles. But the risk of authors not receiving payment for their re-published works became a contentious issue as some older works' copyright owners may be difficult to track down. In this scenario, Google would benefit financially from selling access to these 'orphaned' works without paying any royalties at all. Monopoly In 2008 Google negotiated a deal with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers which would have seen the search giant paying out about £77m to the copyright owners of scanned books. Judge Denny Chin, who previously delayed the hearing to wait for the amended settlement and ultimately rejected it, decided that this still didn't address all the relevant concerns including objections from Microsoft and Yahoo!. He wrote, "While the digitisation of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the [amended settlement agreement] would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case." Google the Librarian Google is disappointed by the ruling but not put off. Managing counsel for the search giant, Hilary Ware, said: "We'll review the Court's decision and consider our options. "Like many others, we believe this agreement has the potential to open up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the US today. "Regardless of the outcome, we'll continue to work to make more of the world's books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks." 
| ||||
| US court says 'no dice' to Google books deal Posted: 23 Mar 2011 04:11 AM PDT Google's plans for a digital super-library have been put on ice by the New York courts as a Judge has rejected a proposed settlement between Google and book publishers. The search giant's plan was to scan and digitise every book ever written, including rare and out of print titles. But the risk of authors not receiving payment for their re-published works became a contentious issue as some older works' copyright owners may be difficult to track down. In this scenario, Google would benefit financially from selling access to these 'orphaned' works without paying any royalties at all. Monopoly In 2008 Google negotiated a deal with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers which would have seen the search giant paying out about £77m to the copyright owners of scanned books. Judge Denny Chin, who previously delayed the hearing to wait for the amended settlement and ultimately rejected it, decided that this still didn't address all the relevant concerns including objections from Microsoft and Yahoo!. He wrote, "While the digitisation of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the [amended settlement agreement] would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case." Google the Librarian Google is disappointed by the ruling but not put off. Managing counsel for the search giant, Hilary Ware, said: "We'll review the Court's decision and consider our options. "Like many others, we believe this agreement has the potential to open up access to millions of books that are currently hard to find in the US today. "Regardless of the outcome, we'll continue to work to make more of the world's books discoverable online through Google Books and Google eBooks."
| ||||
| Dixons joins Nintendo 3DS midnight UK launch party Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:30 AM PDT  Dixons Retail has announced that it will be opening up its Oxford Street Currys store for a midnight launch of the Nintendo 3DS. Doors will open in London 23.45 on 24 March and the Birmingham flagship store will also start letting customers in from 23:30. As with the HMV midnight launch, there's a bit of an incentive for everyone to get there a little bit early. According to Dixons, the first 150 customers to enter either the London Oxford Street's Currys Digital or the Black store in Birmingham can pick up the new Nintendo 3DS console at a cut-down price of £179. They will also get a £75 voucher book, £5 off of selected Nintendo 3DS games, £15 off of Wii Fit and £20 off a Wii console. 3DS launch As 24 March is a school night, we're expecting the line-up to consist purely of adults wanting to get their 3D kicks and not children who have saved up their hard earned for the latest console. Yeah, right. If you are still a little unsure as to whether you should brave the mild spring-like weather and queue for a handheld gaming device, then check out the TechRadar Nintendo 3DS review. 
| ||||
| Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:30 AM PDT  I was once lucky enough to go to Sweden to make a TV show about tractor pulling. Blokes go along, eat smoked eels, get drunk with true determination, then hoot and holler while mad tractors fling mud around, and some announcer shouts: 'Fuuuull Puuuull!' And this is because the Swedes truly adore their fine engineering for its own sake, as well as what it can do, whether it's six V8 engines strapped onto one shaft for the Lego-sponsored tractor pullers, or a Volvo that just simply starts first time at 20˚C below zero! There is a fine core of speaker excellence coming out of Sweden, too, with real knowledge in the labour pool. The XTZ brand we see here is gorgeously built, and the drivers are all by SEAS (Scandinavian Electro Acoustic Systems), a Norwegian company that's been in the driver business since 1925, so it knows a thing or two. A relatively new company, XTZ (distributed in the UK by Audio Sanctum) has drawn expertise of all sorts from making to selling, across the whole industry. And while in Europe the company specialises in selling direct, in the UK you can get delivery-cost-only free demos in your own home to effectively offer the same service as mainland Europe, but without the delays and costs of UK shipping times from there. Sonic smorgasbord What XTZ has done is to take the poshest SEAS drivers, enclose them in shapely Piano Black cabinets, and then with a terribly Scandinavian relaxed attitude, engineered them to be as close as possible to having universal appeal. Not for XTZ are the rules of placement and execution cast in stone. On the contrary, each product in this 99 series is highly adjustable, starting with the plug holes. All speakers, for lower tones, need air space to bump against, a volume of breeze to use as 'acoustic suspension'. In fact, the 'Thiele/Small' parameter for the bounciness of a transducer cone's suspension assembly as a whole is known as the Vas – or equivalent volume of air to be as 'bouncy' as the driver. They also tend to have (like a ruler held on a desk's edge and twanged), a resonant wobbly frequency they 'like' best. Using all these parameters, a clever speaker designer can port an enclosure get a big advantage. You will have a 'tuned' frequency around which this port advantage accrues, and while the bass can be 3dB louder, at this point it'll drop away quickly below the tuned frequency. If you seal up a bass enclosure, the bass won't be as loud, but will drop as low as the driver's wobbliness allows, often deeper by far than a ported box can reach. Deciding how and by what centre frequency to tune a bass-end enclosure can be very difficult. But what if you had lots of different sized ports, with foam bungs you can shove up them? Then it gets really clever. This system's 99W12.16 subwoofer has two ports of different lengths. With two fat foam bungs you can stopper up both, either or neither hole, to offer up four different 'tunings', as described admirably in the well-written and only slightly Swedish/English manuals (which refers to the term 'Pondus' as a unit of weight…)
I plugged up just one port to offer the deepest tuning and then investigated the neat 99.25 bookshelf speaker. I had three. At first I thought the centre was identical but with the badge put on sideways, but, crucially, the fabulous leaf tweeter has also been swivelled vertically, to match those on the surrounds. There are superior aluminium phase-plug-equipped 6.5-inch SEAS 'Excel' midbass drivers in each of the five enclosures. The surrounds offer dual binding posts, joined until you choose to bi-wire or bi-amp, while the 99.36 towers have a triple still-joined set to offer up tri-wiring/tri-amping for their extra, deeper bass driver (also 6.5-inch but without a phase plug and far wobblier). They are fashioned from classic non-pressed paper, rather than the fabulous magnesium from which the mids are fabricated. Unbunged and set to go There are more ports to play with here: one on the 25s and three behind the 36s. You can again choose how to tune and play to your heart's content with foam bungs. Likewise, each has two jumpers on the back (or four on the big ones) used to adjust tweeter or woofer levels. These are exactly like high-end car component systems where the passive crossovers have resistors you can place in and out of circuit. This makes complete nonsense of the +3dB setting, as these resistors can only offer variable attenuation, or different amounts of 'cut' of levels. I set all to maximum, non-resisted and chose to run the all ports unbunged. During my audition I played some multichannel material from Linkin Park (a 5.1 DTS track on an ill-fated, but still worth snapping up DVD-A disc) and spun up The Polar Express on DVD. The Park damn well rocked, and when the eponymous train arrives in Zemeckis' movie, the room was not only filled with hugeness, but also with plenty of well-placed steam train detail. And the preceding part, with its challenging and tweaky sections (a metal hubcap in the kid's room being hit; a steaming radiator...) was just superb in so many ways, from deep, throbbing, well-held bass to tinkling, delicate, detailed highs.
For the money, this system really represents astonishing high-end value – don't let the direct sale nature put you off an audition. Yes, the styling isn't going to win any awards, but the tunability and sound quality is excellent. Related Links
| ||||
| Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:30 AM PDT I was once lucky enough to go to Sweden to make a TV show about tractor pulling. Blokes go along, eat smoked eels, get drunk with true determination, then hoot and holler while mad tractors fling mud around, and some announcer shouts: 'Fuuuull Puuuull!' And this is because the Swedes truly adore their fine engineering for its own sake, as well as what it can do, whether it's six V8 engines strapped onto one shaft for the Lego-sponsored tractor pullers, or a Volvo that just simply starts first time at 20˚C below zero! There is a fine core of speaker excellence coming out of Sweden, too, with real knowledge in the labour pool. The XTZ brand we see here is gorgeously built, and the drivers are all by SEAS (Scandinavian Electro Acoustic Systems), a Norwegian company that's been in the driver business since 1925, so it knows a thing or two. A relatively new company, XTZ (distributed in the UK by Audio Sanctum) has drawn expertise of all sorts from making to selling, across the whole industry. And while in Europe the company specialises in selling direct, in the UK you can get delivery-cost-only free demos in your own home to effectively offer the same service as mainland Europe, but without the delays and costs of UK shipping times from there. Sonic smorgasbord What XTZ has done is to take the poshest SEAS drivers, enclose them in shapely Piano Black cabinets, and then with a terribly Scandinavian relaxed attitude, engineered them to be as close as possible to having universal appeal. Not for XTZ are the rules of placement and execution cast in stone. On the contrary, each product in this 99 series is highly adjustable, starting with the plug holes. All speakers, for lower tones, need air space to bump against, a volume of breeze to use as 'acoustic suspension'. In fact, the 'Thiele/Small' parameter for the bounciness of a transducer cone's suspension assembly as a whole is known as the Vas – or equivalent volume of air to be as 'bouncy' as the driver. They also tend to have (like a ruler held on a desk's edge and twanged), a resonant wobbly frequency they 'like' best. Using all these parameters, a clever speaker designer can port an enclosure get a big advantage. You will have a 'tuned' frequency around which this port advantage accrues, and while the bass can be 3dB louder, at this point it'll drop away quickly below the tuned frequency. If you seal up a bass enclosure, the bass won't be as loud, but will drop as low as the driver's wobbliness allows, often deeper by far than a ported box can reach. Deciding how and by what centre frequency to tune a bass-end enclosure can be very difficult. But what if you had lots of different sized ports, with foam bungs you can shove up them? Then it gets really clever. This system's 99W12.16 subwoofer has two ports of different lengths. With two fat foam bungs you can stopper up both, either or neither hole, to offer up four different 'tunings', as described admirably in the well-written and only slightly Swedish/English manuals (which refers to the term 'Pondus' as a unit of weight…)
I plugged up just one port to offer the deepest tuning and then investigated the neat 99.25 bookshelf speaker. I had three. At first I thought the centre was identical but with the badge put on sideways, but, crucially, the fabulous leaf tweeter has also been swivelled vertically, to match those on the surrounds. There are superior aluminium phase-plug-equipped 6.5-inch SEAS 'Excel' midbass drivers in each of the five enclosures. The surrounds offer dual binding posts, joined until you choose to bi-wire or bi-amp, while the 99.36 towers have a triple still-joined set to offer up tri-wiring/tri-amping for their extra, deeper bass driver (also 6.5-inch but without a phase plug and far wobblier). They are fashioned from classic non-pressed paper, rather than the fabulous magnesium from which the mids are fabricated. Unbunged and set to go There are more ports to play with here: one on the 25s and three behind the 36s. You can again choose how to tune and play to your heart's content with foam bungs. Likewise, each has two jumpers on the back (or four on the big ones) used to adjust tweeter or woofer levels. These are exactly like high-end car component systems where the passive crossovers have resistors you can place in and out of circuit. This makes complete nonsense of the +3dB setting, as these resistors can only offer variable attenuation, or different amounts of 'cut' of levels. I set all to maximum, non-resisted and chose to run the all ports unbunged. During my audition I played some multichannel material from Linkin Park (a 5.1 DTS track on an ill-fated, but still worth snapping up DVD-A disc) and spun up The Polar Express on DVD. The Park damn well rocked, and when the eponymous train arrives in Zemeckis' movie, the room was not only filled with hugeness, but also with plenty of well-placed steam train detail. And the preceding part, with its challenging and tweaky sections (a metal hubcap in the kid's room being hit; a steaming radiator...) was just superb in so many ways, from deep, throbbing, well-held bass to tinkling, delicate, detailed highs.
For the money, this system really represents astonishing high-end value – don't let the direct sale nature put you off an audition. Yes, the styling isn't going to win any awards, but the tunability and sound quality is excellent. Related Links
| ||||
| Dixons joins Nintendo 3DS midnight UK launch party Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:30 AM PDT Dixons Retail has announced that it will be opening up its Oxford Street Currys store for a midnight launch of the Nintendo 3DS. Doors will open in London 23.45 on 24 March and the Birmingham flagship store will also start letting customers in from 23:30. As with the HMV midnight launch, there's a bit of an incentive for everyone to get there a little bit early. According to Dixons, the first 150 customers to enter either the London Oxford Street's Currys Digital or the Black store in Birmingham can pick up the new Nintendo 3DS console at a cut-down price of £179. They will also get a £75 voucher book, £5 off of selected Nintendo 3DS games, £15 off of Wii Fit and £20 off a Wii console. 3DS launch As 24 March is a school night, we're expecting the line-up to consist purely of adults wanting to get their 3D kicks and not children who have saved up their hard earned for the latest console. Yeah, right. If you are still a little unsure as to whether you should brave the mild spring-like weather and queue for a handheld gaming device, then check out the TechRadar Nintendo 3DS review.
| ||||
| In Depth: iPad 3 rumours: what you need to know Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:08 AM PDT  The UK iPad 2 release date is mere days away, but the rumour factory's already moved on: it's predicting iPad 3 specifications including chips, cameras and retina displays - with a little bit of help from mysterious, unnamed people who can't possibly be identified. How very convenient. So what's the word on the street about the next iPad? The iPad 3 release date is September 2011 This is the biggest rumour of all: an iPad 3 mere months after the iPad 2. An unnamed Apple employee says that the iPad 2 was a bit of a rush job, and "the third generation iPad is the one to make a song and dance about." Respected Apple watcher John Gruber added fuel to that particular fire by strongly hinting that the iPad 3 release date will be in September. Gruber, who was musing about the HP TouchPad's potential summer release said: "Summer feels like a long time away. "If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3." If Gruber is right about this and the iPad 3 features in an Apple autumn line-up, then it looks like Apple is going to start offering a new iPad every six months. The iPad 3 UK release date is a mystery With Apple apparently unable to meet demand for iPad 2, we'd expect a staggered release date for the iPad 3 too: if the US gets the iPad 3 in September, we'd expect the UK iPad 3 release date to be in October, or possibly even November. Apple won't want to miss the Christmas period, but the US comes first. The iPad 3 specs include a dual-core processor It's possible that the iPad 3 will have a brand spanking new processor, Apple's A6, but if the rumoured release date is correct then time is awfully tight: we'd certainly expect to see an A5, not an A6, in the iPhone 5 when it turns up this summer. Apple may well surprise us, of course, but we'd expect to see the same processor and graphics as the iPad 2 in the iPad 3: an A5 processor with PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics. This one comes down to the iPad 3 release date: if it's 2011, expect an A5. If it's 2012, expect a faster A6. The iPad 3 features include a retina display This was widely predicted for the iPad 2, but of course the current iPad doesn't have a double-resolution display: for now, that's something you'll only get in the iPhone 4. Could a Retina Display be one of the features Apple didn't quite get into the iPad 2? Could be! It's the very first thing on our iPad 3 wish list. The iPad 3 hardware could include an NFC chip Apple's very interested in Near Field Communications, and one particularly tasty rumour at Cult of Mac suggests that the iPhone 5 will use NFC to take over nearby Macs, enabling you to use your data and settings with a flick of the wrist. Since the iPad 3 will follow the iPhone 5, if NFC's in one it'll probably be in the other too. The iPad 3 specifications will include more storage The iPad 2 has the familiar 16/32/64GB storage options, but as flash storage comes down in price a 128GB option for the iPad 3 isn't impossible - although that might depend on the current horrible situation in Asia, where the tsunami has caused chaos in parts of the electronics industry. The iPad 3 features could include a Thunderbolt port Two generations of USB-free iPads suggest that Apple just isn't interested in adding one, but the new Thunderbolt port found in the 2011 MacBook Pro could be another story: it's a combined accessory/display connector with astonishingly fast performance. The iPad 3 may live in the cloud This has been talked about and leaked about for so long that, on the same principle that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, it's bound to come true eventually: a cloud-based MobileMe for storing your stuff on Apple's servers. A new iPad with iOS 5 and a new MobileMe would be lots of fun. The iPad 3 specs might include an SD card slot This was widely predicted for iPad 2 and, like the retina display, didn't materialise. One for version 3, perhaps? Using a separate adapter to read camera cards is rather inelegant and clunky. The iPad 3 specification should include a better camera The rear-facing camera on the iPad 2 isn't brilliant: an iPhone 4 camera and flash would do nicely. The iPad 3 price might be higher than the iPad 2 The iPad 2 didn't herald a price hike, but if the iPad 3's coming in September we don't think a massive iPad 2 price cut is very likely - which suggests that if the iPad 3 does appear then, it might be more of an iPad Pro - with a price to match. 
| ||||
| In Depth: iPad 3 rumours: what you need to know Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:08 AM PDT The UK iPad 2 release date is mere days away, but the rumour factory's already moved on: it's predicting iPad 3 specifications including chips, cameras and retina displays - with a little bit of help from mysterious, unnamed people who can't possibly be identified. How very convenient. So what's the word on the street about the next iPad? The iPad 3 release date is September 2011 This is the biggest rumour of all: an iPad 3 mere months after the iPad 2. An unnamed Apple employee says that the iPad 2 was a bit of a rush job, and "the third generation iPad is the one to make a song and dance about." Respected Apple watcher John Gruber added fuel to that particular fire by strongly hinting that the iPad 3 release date will be in September. Gruber, who was musing about the HP TouchPad's potential summer release said: "Summer feels like a long time away. "If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3." If Gruber is right about this and the iPad 3 features in an Apple autumn line-up, then it looks like Apple is going to start offering a new iPad every six months. The iPad 3 UK release date is a mystery With Apple apparently unable to meet demand for iPad 2, we'd expect a staggered release date for the iPad 3 too: if the US gets the iPad 3 in September, we'd expect the UK iPad 3 release date to be in October, or possibly even November. Apple won't want to miss the Christmas period, but the US comes first. The iPad 3 specs include a dual-core processor It's possible that the iPad 3 will have a brand spanking new processor, Apple's A6, but if the rumoured release date is correct then time is awfully tight: we'd certainly expect to see an A5, not an A6, in the iPhone 5 when it turns up this summer. Apple may well surprise us, of course, but we'd expect to see the same processor and graphics as the iPad 2 in the iPad 3: an A5 processor with PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics. This one comes down to the iPad 3 release date: if it's 2011, expect an A5. If it's 2012, expect a faster A6. The iPad 3 features include a retina display This was widely predicted for the iPad 2, but of course the current iPad doesn't have a double-resolution display: for now, that's something you'll only get in the iPhone 4. Could a Retina Display be one of the features Apple didn't quite get into the iPad 2? Could be! It's the very first thing on our iPad 3 wish list. The iPad 3 hardware could include an NFC chip Apple's very interested in Near Field Communications, and one particularly tasty rumour at Cult of Mac suggests that the iPhone 5 will use NFC to take over nearby Macs, enabling you to use your data and settings with a flick of the wrist. Since the iPad 3 will follow the iPhone 5, if NFC's in one it'll probably be in the other too. The iPad 3 specifications will include more storage The iPad 2 has the familiar 16/32/64GB storage options, but as flash storage comes down in price a 128GB option for the iPad 3 isn't impossible - although that might depend on the current horrible situation in Asia, where the tsunami has caused chaos in parts of the electronics industry. The iPad 3 features could include a Thunderbolt port Two generations of USB-free iPads suggest that Apple just isn't interested in adding one, but the new Thunderbolt port found in the 2011 MacBook Pro could be another story: it's a combined accessory/display connector with astonishingly fast performance. The iPad 3 may live in the cloud This has been talked about and leaked about for so long that, on the same principle that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, it's bound to come true eventually: a cloud-based MobileMe for storing your stuff on Apple's servers. A new iPad with iOS 5 and a new MobileMe would be lots of fun. The iPad 3 specs might include an SD card slot This was widely predicted for iPad 2 and, like the retina display, didn't materialise. One for version 3, perhaps? Using a separate adapter to read camera cards is rather inelegant and clunky. The iPad 3 specification should include a better camera The rear-facing camera on the iPad 2 isn't brilliant: an iPhone 4 camera and flash would do nicely. The iPad 3 price might be higher than the iPad 2 The iPad 2 didn't herald a price hike, but if the iPad 3's coming in September we don't think a massive iPad 2 price cut is very likely - which suggests that if the iPad 3 does appear then, it might be more of an iPad Pro - with a price to match.
| ||||
| Jobs: 'No plans' to ditch iPod Classic Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:02 AM PDT  Steve Jobs has responded to speculation that Apple is set to do away with the iPod Classic in a short email which states that there are 'no plans to' kill it. One iPod Classic fan emailed the illustrious CEO after the last "all-new" iPod line-up included refreshes of every iPod but the Classic. Back in September, the anonymous fan wrote, "Hello, I've heard a LOT of speculation that Apple is looking to kill the iPod Classic because it wasn't updated on Sept 1st, and that a lot of people would rather Touch. The iPod Classic is probably the best iPod in the line. PLEASE DON'T KILL IT!!!" Much love for the Classic Steve Jobs, never one to beat around the bush, simply replied, "We have no plans to." Of course, this email, which MacRumours is convinced is legit, is now six months old and Apple may well have had a change of heart; the iPod Classic's future may yet hang in the balance. With the company's tradition for announcing iPod refreshes in September, we have got a bit of a wait before we find out for sure. 
| ||||
| Jobs: 'No plans' to ditch iPod Classic Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:02 AM PDT Steve Jobs has responded to speculation that Apple is set to do away with the iPod Classic in a short email which states that there are 'no plans to' kill it. One iPod Classic fan emailed the illustrious CEO after the last "all-new" iPod line-up included refreshes of every iPod but the Classic. Back in September, the anonymous fan wrote, "Hello, I've heard a LOT of speculation that Apple is looking to kill the iPod Classic because it wasn't updated on Sept 1st, and that a lot of people would rather Touch. The iPod Classic is probably the best iPod in the line. PLEASE DON'T KILL IT!!!" Much love for the Classic Steve Jobs, never one to beat around the bush, simply replied, "We have no plans to." Of course, this email, which MacRumours is convinced is legit, is now six months old and Apple may well have had a change of heart; the iPod Classic's future may yet hang in the balance. With the company's tradition for announcing iPod refreshes in September, we have got a bit of a wait before we find out for sure.
| ||||
| Review: Packard Bell EasyNote TS Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PDT  It would be fair to say that we were a tad skeptical when we got our first look at the Packard Bell EasyNote TS. It's ostensibly a pretty laptop without much obviously going for it bar its shiny lid, so we were a little bit dismissive – that's the sort of stock response we reserve for anything in the sub-£500 bracket. Perhaps – and this does take a certain degree of humility to say – we shouldn't have been so hasty. Because while it's not up to the lofty 3D standards of the Sony Vaio F Series and it doesn't have the leg-melting power of the high-end Apple MacBook Pro, the EasyNote TS is a mid-range performer at a low-end price, and absolutely the sort of laptop we'd be happy to welcome into our own homes. And we see a lot of laptops, so that's no mean feat. Packard Bell was kind enough to send us the Ebony Black edition, perhaps to save our blushes at carrying around a coloured laptop, and having fully inspected the daisychain pattern – which also spreads over the wrist rest on the front of the case – we'd had to rescind our earlier assumption that this is in any way 'girly', at least on black; it's an utterly unisex pattern. Honest. It's a bit Louis Vuitton, if anything.
There's a pretty nifty chiclet keyboard spread across the entirety of the EasyNote TS, with a numerical pad, which is truly unusual for a laptop. It does mean the main typing surface is pushed over to the left of the unit, although the gesture-enabled trackpad (which is slick, responsive, and has a scroll section cleverly separated from the main body by a raised area) has been moved to match, which we applaud. SpecificationIt's important to separate the model we're testing here from other machines that also carry the EasyNote TS name, notably the HR100, a hefty Intel Core i7 monster kicking about at the high end. T he HR040 on test here opts for the much more reasonable Core i5-2410M, a cutting edge Sandy Bridge-class mobile processor running at 2.3GHz. This is, it's worth noting, exactly the same processor as the cheaper of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro models – which is quite the performer – and the Sony Vaio S. Both, we'd like to note, smaller and lighter than this hulking monster of a machine, although there's something to be said for running an energy-saving CPU in a larger machine, especially considering the rate at which Intel's current generation runs. The difference between this and an i7 might be significant, but we didn't feel hard done by.
Predictably, given its price point, Packard Bell hasn't gone the whole hog and stuck a GeForce card inside the HR040; you're stuck with the (actually rather good) Intel HD Graphics 3000 chipset built in to the processor. This pipes into a 16:9 15.6-inch LED LCD – slightly wider in form that your average 15-inch laptop screen, but absolutely perfect for watching TV or DVDs on thanks to its mainstream widescreen format. Inside there is the usual cavalcade of mid-to-low-end features: a 500GB hard drive, certainly not an unreasonable capacity of storage, along with 4GB of DDR3 – less than the 6GB the Core i7 model goes for, but enough that you won't be noticing any significant system slowdown even at a high load. There's a USB 3.0 port, HDMI out, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a DVD drive – not Blu-ray, sadly – to round things off.
Packard Bell's pack-in software is worth a mention; the full version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 comes bundled with every machine in the range, which is a really nice bonus, although the rest of the installed shovelware isn't worth much of a look. The much-heralded social networking software, for which there is a specific hotkey on the keyboard, is frankly rubbish. It seems to be limited to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and nothing else, as if they were the only social networks in existence. Which they're not. Alongside this is a selection of ad-supported games, such as Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled 2, and a useful backup tool. PerformanceThe low-end EasyNote TS is isn't a rip-roaring games machine however you spin it. There's no chance of it trumping a Core i7 gaming laptop, such as the Dell XPS 15. It's not quite an all-powerful media box either; it does the important bits, but lacks a Blu-ray drive or the 3D gimmmick of a Sony Vaio F, and its speakers, mounted above the keyboard, are a little bit weedy. But it is the most reasonably specced £500 laptop you'll find.
Let's start with the keyboard, for that's the real obvious draw when looking at the EasyNote TS open. The chiclet design is actually very effective, with little travel on the keys and a good amount of space between them. It's not quite as consistent as the keys on the 15-inch MacBook Pro; certain areas feel a little spongier than Apple's brilliantly designed keyboard, but we can't fault it for speed or accuracy. Whether you feel you really need a number pad is a matter of taste.
The screen is sharp and vibrant, but it suffers from the common flaw of low-price panels; a general inconsistency of brightness and an optimal viewing angle that's actually shorter than the panel itself. There's no good spot; either the top of the screen is washed out, or the bottom is. This is a shame, because Intel's HD Graphics 3000 system actually does a strong job at pushing pixels around, even if it's not quite up the the same level as the highest end of discrete GeForce or Radeon chipsets. It's in the same silicon package as the Sandy Bridge Core i5-2410 processor, and this clearly has its advantages; performance in 3D games is pretty decent, beyond what we'd expect from internal graphics, although you'll need to keep the resolution low in newer games. Basically this is a slickly presented machine that performs at its level, but feels a rung higher. It's not Packard Bell that's made the big muscle advancements, it's Intel; its selection of silicon steroids are really doing the trick. The Sandy Bridge processors are a vein-popping leap ahead of everything that went before, and this particular chip runs cool, fast, and the battery lasts an impressive length of time for such a large notebook. Benchmarks 3DMark 03 1024 x 768: 10,669 Verdict
There hasn't really been a reason to upgrade in the past few years, particularly if you can't afford the high end. But the EasyNote TS, which comes in at a resolutely mid-range price, is proof that the line between laptop levels is blurring, and the overall level rocketing up. It's fast enough, it's classily designed, it feels solid and it behaves well. We liked Presentation is a real strong point here. The keyboard, while very slightly inconsistent, is reminiscent of much pricier machines, such as the Apple MacBook Pro. The trackpad, with its gesture control and multi-touch capabilities, does its job admirably without getting annoying. This is a well-designed package overall; the case is glossy and classy, and the whole thing is put together well. But out of everything, we really liked the processor. Intel's Sandy Bridge range is a true example of next-gen chip design. It's blisteringly fast, handles graphics well and, in the case of the Core i5 on offer here, it runs coolly and efficiently. Let's not beat around the bush: this is a reason to upgrade on its own. The fact that this machine doesn't cost the earth is the icing on the cake. We disliked Nothing is perfect; no matter how much we clenched our teeth and scrunched our eyes up and wished really hard. The on-chip Intel HD Graphics 3000 didn't reach past the level of a two-generations old discrete graphics card. That's way ahead of integrated graphics chipsets of the past, but it's not quite a world-beater. And the screen. The poor, poor, low-cost widescreen panel, with its non-existent perfect viewing angle. We just want to give it a cuddle. Verdict This is a great machine at a great price. The Sandy Bridge processor inside is astonishing, the case is built well with an excellent full-size keyboard, and if you can forgive a few cut corners, this is an ideal non-gaming laptop. Related Links
| ||||
| Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PDT  There must be plenty of readers who have spent the best part of a grand on a cutting-edge full HD TV, only to discover that its replacement model is 'network-enabled'. Increasingly popular, this feature enables you to stream video from various websites, install widgets and play video content, music or photos stored on devices connected to your home network. The Sony SMP-N100 is a networkable media player with the same XrossMediaBar user interface used in the brand's network-laden Bravias. You connect the modestly-priced N100 to your home network (either by Wi-Fi or Ethernet) at one end and to your 'obsolete' TV at the other. HDMI is the preferred connection here, but component and composite are provided as alternatives. Digital audio, meanwhile, is available via HDMI and a standard optical port. Turn on the compact and glossy black box for the first time, and a wizard guides you through the basic installation. Wireless/wired network configuration is, as with other more advanced aspects of player setup, accessed via the XMB. The non-backlit remote also has Sony's signature, but its layout could be improved. Copy cat Also familiar to some will be the choice of content. It's pretty much a carbon-copy of what Sony's current Smart TVs are offering. And it's here that the N100 scores over the myriad of rival networked media players. None have the brand's tried-andtested GUI, or the variety of content (too much to list here) that it allows you to select. The N100 even supports iPlayer in HD, Demand Five (great for Neighbours fans) and the LOVEFiLM VOD service. Alas, there's currently no support for online photo albums such as Flickr or internet radio stations. All of the content is organised into categories: music, video and photos. In addition to the online providers, you'll find any available servers on your network; uPnP and DLNA are supported. The variety of video codecs offered is fair, but only DivX/XviD and MPEG1/2 can be accessed via a network. The rest can only be played by shoving the relevant content onto a USB storage device and plugging that into the front panel port provided. The device handles the ubiquitous MP3 and uncompressed WAV, but WMA and AAC have to be fed in via USB and FLAC isn't supported at all. Power consumption: Watts Standby: 0W Playing: 8W
Photo-wise, the N100 can only handle JPEGs, which are replayed in HD and look superb on a decent screen. I was very impressed with how well iPlayer fared, too, especially in HD. No playback glitches suggests that a sensible amount of buffer memory is built into the player. Some XviD encodes did, however, suffer from the odd 'freeze' or lip-sync error that proved too large for the player's onboard correction to deal with. Overall, though, the N100 exceeds my expectations with ease. Related Links
| ||||
| Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PDT There must be plenty of readers who have spent the best part of a grand on a cutting-edge full HD TV, only to discover that its replacement model is 'network-enabled'. Increasingly popular, this feature enables you to stream video from various websites, install widgets and play video content, music or photos stored on devices connected to your home network. The Sony SMP-N100 is a networkable media player with the same XrossMediaBar user interface used in the brand's network-laden Bravias. You connect the modestly-priced N100 to your home network (either by Wi-Fi or Ethernet) at one end and to your 'obsolete' TV at the other. HDMI is the preferred connection here, but component and composite are provided as alternatives. Digital audio, meanwhile, is available via HDMI and a standard optical port. Turn on the compact and glossy black box for the first time, and a wizard guides you through the basic installation. Wireless/wired network configuration is, as with other more advanced aspects of player setup, accessed via the XMB. The non-backlit remote also has Sony's signature, but its layout could be improved. Copy cat Also familiar to some will be the choice of content. It's pretty much a carbon-copy of what Sony's current Smart TVs are offering. And it's here that the N100 scores over the myriad of rival networked media players. None have the brand's tried-andtested GUI, or the variety of content (too much to list here) that it allows you to select. The N100 even supports iPlayer in HD, Demand Five (great for Neighbours fans) and the LOVEFiLM VOD service. Alas, there's currently no support for online photo albums such as Flickr or internet radio stations. All of the content is organised into categories: music, video and photos. In addition to the online providers, you'll find any available servers on your network; uPnP and DLNA are supported. The variety of video codecs offered is fair, but only DivX/XviD and MPEG1/2 can be accessed via a network. The rest can only be played by shoving the relevant content onto a USB storage device and plugging that into the front panel port provided. The device handles the ubiquitous MP3 and uncompressed WAV, but WMA and AAC have to be fed in via USB and FLAC isn't supported at all. Power consumption: Watts Standby: 0W Playing: 8W
Photo-wise, the N100 can only handle JPEGs, which are replayed in HD and look superb on a decent screen. I was very impressed with how well iPlayer fared, too, especially in HD. No playback glitches suggests that a sensible amount of buffer memory is built into the player. Some XviD encodes did, however, suffer from the odd 'freeze' or lip-sync error that proved too large for the player's onboard correction to deal with. Overall, though, the N100 exceeds my expectations with ease. Related Links
| ||||
| Review: Packard Bell EasyNote TS Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PDT It would be fair to say that we were a tad skeptical when we got our first look at the Packard Bell EasyNote TS. It's ostensibly a pretty laptop without much obviously going for it bar its shiny lid, so we were a little bit dismissive – that's the sort of stock response we reserve for anything in the sub-£500 bracket. Perhaps – and this does take a certain degree of humility to say – we shouldn't have been so hasty. Because while it's not up to the lofty 3D standards of the Sony Vaio F Series and it doesn't have the leg-melting power of the high-end Apple MacBook Pro, the EasyNote TS is a mid-range performer at a low-end price, and absolutely the sort of laptop we'd be happy to welcome into our own homes. And we see a lot of laptops, so that's no mean feat. Packard Bell was kind enough to send us the Ebony Black edition, perhaps to save our blushes at carrying around a coloured laptop, and having fully inspected the daisychain pattern – which also spreads over the wrist rest on the front of the case – we'd had to rescind our earlier assumption that this is in any way 'girly', at least on black; it's an utterly unisex pattern. Honest. It's a bit Louis Vuitton, if anything.
There's a pretty nifty chiclet keyboard spread across the entirety of the EasyNote TS, with a numerical pad, which is truly unusual for a laptop. It does mean the main typing surface is pushed over to the left of the unit, although the gesture-enabled trackpad (which is slick, responsive, and has a scroll section cleverly separated from the main body by a raised area) has been moved to match, which we applaud. SpecificationIt's important to separate the model we're testing here from other machines that also carry the EasyNote TS name, notably the HR100, a hefty Intel Core i7 monster kicking about at the high end. T he HR040 on test here opts for the much more reasonable Core i5-2410M, a cutting edge Sandy Bridge-class mobile processor running at 2.3GHz. This is, it's worth noting, exactly the same processor as the cheaper of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro models – which is quite the performer – and the Sony Vaio S. Both, we'd like to note, smaller and lighter than this hulking monster of a machine, although there's something to be said for running an energy-saving CPU in a larger machine, especially considering the rate at which Intel's current generation runs. The difference between this and an i7 might be significant, but we didn't feel hard done by.
Predictably, given its price point, Packard Bell hasn't gone the whole hog and stuck a GeForce card inside the HR040; you're stuck with the (actually rather good) Intel HD Graphics 3000 chipset built in to the processor. This pipes into a 16:9 15.6-inch LED LCD – slightly wider in form that your average 15-inch laptop screen, but absolutely perfect for watching TV or DVDs on thanks to its mainstream widescreen format. Inside there is the usual cavalcade of mid-to-low-end features: a 500GB hard drive, certainly not an unreasonable capacity of storage, along with 4GB of DDR3 – less than the 6GB the Core i7 model goes for, but enough that you won't be noticing any significant system slowdown even at a high load. There's a USB 3.0 port, HDMI out, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, and a DVD drive – not Blu-ray, sadly – to round things off.
Packard Bell's pack-in software is worth a mention; the full version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 comes bundled with every machine in the range, which is a really nice bonus, although the rest of the installed shovelware isn't worth much of a look. The much-heralded social networking software, for which there is a specific hotkey on the keyboard, is frankly rubbish. It seems to be limited to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and nothing else, as if they were the only social networks in existence. Which they're not. Alongside this is a selection of ad-supported games, such as Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled 2, and a useful backup tool. PerformanceThe low-end EasyNote TS is isn't a rip-roaring games machine however you spin it. There's no chance of it trumping a Core i7 gaming laptop, such as the Dell XPS 15. It's not quite an all-powerful media box either; it does the important bits, but lacks a Blu-ray drive or the 3D gimmmick of a Sony Vaio F, and its speakers, mounted above the keyboard, are a little bit weedy. But it is the most reasonably specced £500 laptop you'll find.
Let's start with the keyboard, for that's the real obvious draw when looking at the EasyNote TS open. The chiclet design is actually very effective, with little travel on the keys and a good amount of space between them. It's not quite as consistent as the keys on the 15-inch MacBook Pro; certain areas feel a little spongier than Apple's brilliantly designed keyboard, but we can't fault it for speed or accuracy. Whether you feel you really need a number pad is a matter of taste.
The screen is sharp and vibrant, but it suffers from the common flaw of low-price panels; a general inconsistency of brightness and an optimal viewing angle that's actually shorter than the panel itself. There's no good spot; either the top of the screen is washed out, or the bottom is. This is a shame, because Intel's HD Graphics 3000 system actually does a strong job at pushing pixels around, even if it's not quite up the the same level as the highest end of discrete GeForce or Radeon chipsets. It's in the same silicon package as the Sandy Bridge Core i5-2410 processor, and this clearly has its advantages; performance in 3D games is pretty decent, beyond what we'd expect from internal graphics, although you'll need to keep the resolution low in newer games. Basically this is a slickly presented machine that performs at its level, but feels a rung higher. It's not Packard Bell that's made the big muscle advancements, it's Intel; its selection of silicon steroids are really doing the trick. The Sandy Bridge processors are a vein-popping leap ahead of everything that went before, and this particular chip runs cool, fast, and the battery lasts an impressive length of time for such a large notebook. Benchmarks 3DMark 03 1024 x 768: 10,669 Verdict
There hasn't really been a reason to upgrade in the past few years, particularly if you can't afford the high end. But the EasyNote TS, which comes in at a resolutely mid-range price, is proof that the line between laptop levels is blurring, and the overall level rocketing up. It's fast enough, it's classily designed, it feels solid and it behaves well. We liked Presentation is a real strong point here. The keyboard, while very slightly inconsistent, is reminiscent of much pricier machines, such as the Apple MacBook Pro. The trackpad, with its gesture control and multi-touch capabilities, does its job admirably without getting annoying. This is a well-designed package overall; the case is glossy and classy, and the whole thing is put together well. But out of everything, we really liked the processor. Intel's Sandy Bridge range is a true example of next-gen chip design. It's blisteringly fast, handles graphics well and, in the case of the Core i5 on offer here, it runs coolly and efficiently. Let's not beat around the bush: this is a reason to upgrade on its own. The fact that this machine doesn't cost the earth is the icing on the cake. We disliked Nothing is perfect; no matter how much we clenched our teeth and scrunched our eyes up and wished really hard. The on-chip Intel HD Graphics 3000 didn't reach past the level of a two-generations old discrete graphics card. That's way ahead of integrated graphics chipsets of the past, but it's not quite a world-beater. And the screen. The poor, poor, low-cost widescreen panel, with its non-existent perfect viewing angle. We just want to give it a cuddle. Verdict This is a great machine at a great price. The Sandy Bridge processor inside is astonishing, the case is built well with an excellent full-size keyboard, and if you can forgive a few cut corners, this is an ideal non-gaming laptop. Related Links
| ||||
| Posted: 23 Mar 2011 02:30 AM PDT  To be fully THX approved, every single aspect of the system that plays a movie has to meet the THX criteria – and pay a fee to wear the coveted badge. The certification on the Jamo D500/D500 SUR speakers is proudly reproduced in their printed manuals. It's THX Select2, signalling they are a bit less intense than Ultra2 and designed to better suit European living spaces. The surround speakers are smallish slab-like boxes in two variants. A sealed left/centre/right (LCR) called D500 with five drivers, and a D500 SUR for use as a side or rear with the same number of speaker units in it, but differently arranged and a bit quieter. In the D500 LCR, you find two workman-like drivers to do the bang and the low register, one on each side of the front face beneath the Jamo/THX double-badged cloth grille. There are also two 3-inch midrangers, and a high-efficiency tweeter nestling in between. But what matters most is the THX Select2 certification, which decrees that thine rears shalt be diffuse dipolar types. So, on the D500 SUR, there is a single 5-inch driver under the grille firing forwards, plus a 3-inch and tweeter firing out of each end of the cabinet, along the walls in a dipole up and down, diffuse style. The sealed box woofer, called D650 (for its peak wattage) is pretty and simple, with its blue LED-framed volume knob on the front. You get a 12V trigger socket on the back for systems control and there's a nifty room boundary compensator knob to go with the continually variable phase. So if needs be, you can put the woofer in a corner, yet tame any mad room-boom thus induced with this control. This keeps bass better defined. You can set this by clever use of a real-time analyser in a full THX install, or simply do it by ear, as I did. The amp in the woofer is a BASH design and that means bigger grip than the wattage might suggest. The 12-inch speaker oozes power and control. The manual tells you that just one of these subs will hit the THX Select2 spec. (For an Ultra2 system you will need two of them). Spinning up some five-channel music, I quickly became dissatisfied. My taste runs more to the sitting-onstage-looking-out-at-the-audience sonic scenario, but THX is more suited to the classical live music recording where you will want only room ambience and even the shifting of feet and audience coughs rather than focused effects.
Cinematic soundtracks showed the system's ability much better. Iron Man 2 on Blu-ray delivered an immediate slap to the senses. It was huge and wonderful fun. This setup has some real oomph, but the sheer detail, articulation and effortless sonic placement is even more impressive. The weight of the sound as you see Iron Man flings himself out of a military transporter was tangibly in the room, hitting me pleasantly in the sternum. The real skill of these THX speakers is their ability with detail and accurate placement of sound elements while under massive pressure. When a lot is going on, the director can still grab your attention with incidental sounds. So, they sound brilliant, are gorgeous in their rich piano black finish and at £1,750 they're a bit of a bargain, too. Yes, Teufel's Select 2 system is £300 cheaper, but it's only available online – you can get a demo of this system before you buy. Related Links
|
| You are subscribed to email updates from techradar To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment