Sponsored
Techradar |
- Tutorial: How to overclock your RAM
- The week in camera news
- In Depth: How Linux is advancing astronomy
- Tutorial: How to repair your laptop
- Review: Adobe Premiere Elements 10
- Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
- Firefox 8 now available in beta
- Sharp 3D Aquos phones coming to Europe
- iPhone 5 cases show up at AT&T stores
- Updated: iPad 3 rumours: what you need to know
- Updated: iOS 5: all the latest details
- Google launches Chrome Zone in London store
- Updated: 12 best Android tablets in the world
- Tutorial: iTunes: the essential guide
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus announced
- Amazon thrown into the WebOS buyout rumour mix
- Nokia Sabre joins Sea Ray in Windows Phone line up?
- Carphone Warehouse launches new tablet and phone bundles
- YouTube hits earn Mortal Kombat a reboot
- Week in Tech: Amazon lights a Fire - but UK gets a single sparkler
- Pay TV and LoveFilm coming to Xbox Live?
- In Depth: Whatever happened to Second Life?
- eBay expects 70% phone surge ahead of iPhone 5 release
- Panasonic LX series to have larger sensor
- Kindle owns Amazon top 10 list
| Tutorial: How to overclock your RAM Posted: 02 Oct 2011 12:00 AM PDT  How to overlock your RAMOverclocking memory isn't quite the ticker-tape parade of increased performance found when boosting your GPU or CPU, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered. A lot of memory comes boasting great overclockability (of course it's a word) but many builders are so keen on tweaking other components, they plum forget all about it. Whilst tweaking your RAM is unlikely to yield noticeably higher frame rates in your favourite games, it can make a big difference to desktop use and file operations - and that alone makes it worth it. Plus, overclocking is one of the many things that make being a PC owner so great. We'd overclock our keyboards if we could. But how does one get the most out of those innocuous sticks of RAM? There are a number of approaches, and like CPU overclocking your best bet is to head into the BIOS. Since we mentioned CPUs, if you're already running your CPU overclocked that will affect your RAM; particularly if you've increased the BLCK setting. Likewise, upgrading your rig with high performance, high-headroom RAM can open up further possibilities for boosting your CPU. Intel 6 series chipsets (H61, H67, P67 and Z68) are highly integrated fellas. The reason you can't get far by boosting the BLCK anymore is because you're overclocking the whole Northbridge, which controls both the PCI-e and RAM clock settings too, and it's a big ask to demand all your other components overclock as well as your CPU and its huge cooler. Hertz me soThus, increasing BLCK is best used as a final measure to squeeze a few final Hertz from your CPU. If you've got RAM that can withstand timings as high as 2,133MHz though, you can squeeze a few Hertz more still, but it's memory frequency and latency that will give you the big RAM overclocks. When you've raised all these elements to their limits, there's still voltage increase to consider. Increasing voltage is like getting an overdraft - it buys you more room for manoeuvre, but increasing it by too much can be dangerous. We'd advise 1.7V is as high as you'd need to go; you could probably go higher without causing permanent damage, but it probably wouldn't allow you that much more performance. Project goal: Hit the rated speeds A lot of RAM is sold as overclocking-grade these days, but to squeeze the rated speeds out of your particular sticks will require a little overclocking nouse. Wringing out the RAM But we ought to be wringing every last drop of performance from our memory. By the end of this tutorial you'll be lowering the latency of your RAM like my tenuous metaphors lower the bar for humour in this mag. What's needed: A decent set of DDR3 RAM If you've got G.Skill's monstrous RipJawsX from the gaming rig in our system building feature then happy days. Those blue sticks overclock incredibly well. Otherwise pick a kit with high rated frequencies and that's got low-latency and/or low voltages. Jargon explainedCAS Latency: Time between the CPU asking for data and RAM releasing it. RAS to CAS delay: Time to organise a Row Access Strobe line and Column Access Strobe in memory. RAS Pre-charge: Or rTP, the time taken to disable one RAS line and active the next. Active to pre-charge delay: Or tRAS, the time taken between memory access. Memory tweaking tipsSix different ways to make the most of your memory 01. Enter the BIOS
The BIOS: Incomprehensible to some, but to the overclocker it's home. Here you'll find DRAM frequency, usually located in modern EFI BIOS' overclocking/volting options screen. Most DDR3 RAM runs at 1,333MHz, but overclocking RAM such as G.Skill's RipJawsX will happily run at 2,133MHz. Ramp it up incrementally, though. If your PC boots, restart it and increase the frequency some more. 02. Test your settings
Run the memory bandwidth test in SiSoft's Sandra. This will also give you an idea of just how much you've increased your memory throughput with the boosted RAM. Running a game won't give you much feedback; it's desktop responsiveness and speedy file operations you're after, so if your system remains stable while kicking about with Sandra, it's time to push it further. 03. BCLK tweaking
You probably won't get past 2,133 MHz in the DRAM frequency menu because the options go up in such large chunks, but that's not the end of the road for frequency boosting. You can use the BCLK (usually in the same BIOS menu) to raise CPU and RAM frequency together, and in much smaller increments - by 0.5 if need be. Remember though, you are overclocking the CPU as well… 04. Knowing me, knowing CPU
…which makes it harder to pinpoint exactly how much extra performance is coming from memory. Again, SiSoft's Sandra will give you accurate readouts by stressing memory only. If you've already overclocked your CPU within an inch of its life, including the base clock, obviously there's no further boost you can give to memory frequency here. 05. Know your SPD
The other pot o' performance gold is latency. To start tweaking this you'll need to know your RAM's stock SPD settings. CPU-Z will put you in the know with its SPD tab. They should read something like 7-8-7-24. Each number relates to the time it takes to perform specific functions - CAS latency, RAS to CAS delay, RAS precharge, and active to precharge delay. 06. Reduce latency
For overclocking, you'll want to focus your attention on CAS latency, which is the time it takes between the CPU to ask for data and memory to provide it. A lower response time is obviously better, so find CAS latency in your BIOS' DRAM timings screen, and lower it by as little as possible. If you ramped up frequency first, you'll likely be working back towards the stock timing. BenchmarksOur unflappable G.Skill RipJawsX 4 GB kit got put through its paces on an Asus P8Z68 V Pro board with a Core i5 2500K. We found the best performance increase in both synthetic and real-world tests came from increasing memory frequency. Lowering CAS latency reaped its own benefits, but we found the balance between the two should favour increased frequency.
Click here to view at full resolution 
| ||
| Posted: 01 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT  This week has been a quiet week in terms of camera launches, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been lots going on. We visited the Panasonic factory in Japan to see the first batch of X lenses roll off the production line, while Nikon has upset some of its fans... read on to find out more, each with links to the full story. Panasonic newsOn our whirlwind visit to Japan this week, we managed to sneak a peek at the brand new Panasonic X lenses going into production. Speaking to Angela Nicholson, our head of testing, Panasonic has also confirmed that there will not be a GH3 this year, but a professional level GF camera is likely to come soon. It was also revealed that the popular LX premium compact series is likely to have a larger sensor within its next iteration. Nikon newsFresh from the high of announcing the Nikon V1 and J1 mirrorless cameras last week, Nikon made a bit of a blunder on the Nikon USA Facebook page earlier in the week, suggesting that a photographer was only as good as their equipment. Several overreactions later, Nikon apologised for the gaffe, giving everyone else a lesson in how not to manage their social media. Olympus newsMeanwhile, Olympus has leapt to the defence of its compact system camera, the micro four thirds sensor in light of Nikon's entry into the mirrorless market. Mark Thackara from Olympus UK says that it's the PEN system as a whole that stands it apart, read more about what he had to say. Kodak newsIt was a bad week for Kodak after shares plummeted in the iconic photography brand following a £103 million loan announcement. Shareholders are said to be losing faith with the company, which hasn't made a profit since 2007. That's it for this week, stay tuned to TechRadar for all the latest camera news, reviews and more. If you've got anything to share, feel free to let us know over on our Twitter feed. 
| ||
| In Depth: How Linux is advancing astronomy Posted: 01 Oct 2011 04:00 AM PDT  How Linux is advancing astronomyGo to any gathering of amateur astronomers and almost all of the computers on show will be running Windows, with a handful displaying applications such as Nebulosity and Starry Night on a Mac OS X system. While Macs are still the preferred option for media creation, Windows has a better selection of astronomy apps, such as Maxim DL, and wider driver support for cameras and charge-coupled devices (CCDs).
PRO-GRADE: Telescopes in the Chilean desert Head into the professional world of astronomy, though, and Linux machines are ubiquitous. Speaking to science colleagues, fellow developers and reading this very magazine, it becomes clear that there are a wealth of options out there for avid stargazers and the same names and distros crop up again and again. Apart from astronomy software, the other key issue is driver support for telescope mounts and cameras. When it comes to commercial camera options, there are three approaches. The first, and probably cheapest, is using standard DSLR-type cameras, modified by removing the infrared blocking filter to increase sensitivity to night-sky objects such as faint emission nebula. These tend to give good wide-field views with telescopes, but suffer from a high level of noise when it comes to imaging. As you're typically exposing on an object for minutes at a time, building up over several hours or even days of exposure time, noise level is critical. Noise tends to look like speckles on the image, or an annoying glow in one or more corners (caused by thermal noise from the camera's electronics). The speckle is particularly bad, because the star fields look largely the same. Windows software such as Deep Sky Stacker or Maxim DL happily copes with this using calibration image frames. On Linux, Astrotack supports dark frame manipulation, and applications such as Siril can support the stacking of individual images. Controlling DSLRs in Linux starts with simple shutter/release and sensitivity control applications, which communicate to the camera via USB cables - the Canon EOS range is the most popular, because the cameras can easily be modified. You can then either transfer the images to the computer with a USB stick, or take out the CompactFlash (CF) card and insert it into a reader. Watch this space
ROSETTA NEBULA: This picture of the Rosette Nebula, taken by the author, is typical of the types of deep sky images possible using modest home equipment With the second approach - using dedicated astronomical cameras rather than commercial DSLRs - the noise issue is less of a problem. These cameras connect directly via USB, GigE or FireWire to your computer, and usually have one or more stages of integrated cooling, which reduces the problems caused by thermal noise. The downside is that they generally have smaller fields of view, or when they don't they cost about 10 times more. When picking a camera, the monochrome flavour is usually more flexible with astro imaging, because it permits the use of the CCD with specialist narrow-band filters, which pick up specific frequencies of light emitted by things such as nebulae. It also has the side benefit of eliminating almost all light pollution caused by street lights. This is usually how deep sky imagers who live in suburban areas get their pictures. On Linux, serious astro cameras for deep sky imaging, by companies such as SBIG, QSI and Finger Lakes, are supported, with applications including GoQat for the QSI series also handling some of the pre-processing dark frame subtraction, as well as having integrated autoguider support.
COOL OPERATOR: The Atik 383L+ cooled CCD camera, one of the most popular on the market An autoguider is a small camera that works alongside the deep sky imaging camera, and sends the telescope little corrections to its tracking systems to ensure you get pin-sharp stars. Telescopes usually track the sky in what's known as side-real tracking, which follows the motions of the stars across the sky as the Earth rotates, but even the more expensive telescope mounts have small errors. For visual use or short exposure use, this isn't a big problem, but when taking very long exposures it leads to unsharp and trailed star and object images. The autoguider effectively locks on to a star near where the main imaging camera is pointing, and keeps it locked in-between crosshairs. If the mount should move incorrectly, the camera picks this up and sends a command to the telescope mount to correct it. This is how 99% of all long exposure deep sky imaging is done, from the home observatory through to the Hubble Space Telescope. The third type of camera approach, typically for lunar, solar and planetary imaging, uses a high framerate webcam-type device to take a video of the object. The goal here again is to reduce noise, but mainly the effect of the atmospheric turbulence above us. With 100km of sky to punch through, large professional telescopes use adaptive optics lasers to measure this turbulence and send corrections to the telescope's mirrors. Adaptive optics is available in the amateur domain but it's expensive and only works with micro mirrors and no laser. For planetary and lunar imaging, the way most people beat the "seeing" (atmospheric mush) is to take hundreds of images in quick succession, as a video. Software combines these images, removing the ones where the seeing is not so good, and then composites the good frames to make one final sharp image. This is known professionally as "lucky" imaging, and while it was developed by professionals, the amateur community has taken to it far more. There is a lack of widespread driver support for CCD cameras in areas such as planetary and lunar imaging. However, companies such as Imaging Source and Lumenera, and firms that make the deep sky cameras we've already mentioned - SBIG, QSI and Finger Lakes - can or do provide Linux support for their products, and will, in many cases, assist with installation. If Linux is your platform of choice, check first that your camera is supported, though, because the deep sky ones mentioned are all quite expensive. When it comes to image post-processing, a few applications seem to be more popular than others on Linux. While their commercial Windows counterparts sometimes offer more options, these examples are no slouches.
STAR TREKKING: DS9 is a popular image-processing application both in professional astronomy and education For image processing and data reduction there is the multi-platform DS9. It's used widely in educational projects, as well as at research facilities by people such as the Faulkes Telescope team. Handling Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) along with other file formats, it enables photometric analysis, basic image processing, histogram adjustment and image mosaic creation. DS9 is simple, but effective at what it does. It required a download of the source and then some command line compilation but, as with many of the applications, the clear online instructions made this pretty straightforward on our Ubuntu system. Dancing with the stars
IMAGE MANIPULATION: SalsaJ is used in education to show students the ins and outs of image processing Again multi-platform, the Java-based image manipulation and processing tool SalsaJ is more comprehensive, and requires compiling and running initially from commandline interfaces. (There are software GUI-based tools that really help with this, but the command line approach is straightforward.) Widely used in education and available in multiple languages, SalsaJ also comes with online exercises for developing your astronomical skills, from measuring Doppler shift in exoplanets and looking at spectra, through to determining the weight of a galaxy.
OLD FAITHFUL: Gimp is one of the most popular Linux applications, offering many of the facilities of Photoshop Gimp is hugely popular and sports a Photoshopstyle UI. It supports the FITS file format, commonly used in astro photography, along with dozens of others and the range of options will enable you to process images to a level as good as those offered by its commercial counterpart. (Albeit with a steep learning curve and acceptance that the UI is possibly not as intuitive as Photoshop's.) In terms of actual imaging acquisition, we've mentioned GoQat for the QSI range. Another popular application that supports both deep sky imaging cameras and the high framerate webcam approach is wxAstroCapture, which runs under Kubuntu, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu. Again, with clear instructions I was able to get this running with my Artemis cooled deep sky cameras. While their implementation for Windows of ASCOM-compliant autoguider support was not in the Linux version, preventing very long exposure photography, the user interface and level of control matched many of the features of my typical workflow software on Windows. With just a few extra tweaks to support autoguiders and the filter wheel (an Atik USB-controlled five-position wheel to change the types of filters my monochrome cameras use), I could have run an entire imaging session just in Linux. As an astro imager, I focus on deep sky objects and imaging comets, and this is something that many people with an interest in astronomy and computers fall for. You see those lush Hubble-type images in magazines, and Linux will pretty much enable you to achieve the same effects. Professional observatories such as the VLT, Keck and so on all have toolsets, which are sometimes freely available, so you can dive in at the deep end and look at the applications' professional use on a day-to-day basis. Being able to tap into the vast software resources of professional observatories should set you in good stead. It does take some work, research and effort to get many aspects of astronomy on Linux working and ticking over - for free and with the stability that professional astronomers crave - but the future for Linux is looking better than ever. 
| ||
| Tutorial: How to repair your laptop Posted: 01 Oct 2011 02:00 AM PDT  How to repair your laptopWondering how to repair a broken laptop? We're going to crack open three common laptops; a netbook, an older gaming laptop and a modern Intel model. In the process we're going to take a look at just how we got inside, how easy it is to remove cases and components and once inside just what you can do in there. From replacing dodgy audio and data connections, to upgrading or replacing damaged parts. By the time you've read this guide no longer should you be afraid to open up your laptop. Like any epic quest you'll need the help of some trusty companions. The most important is a good precision screwdriver set. We picked up a cheap 11-piece set from a large yellow DIY store for £8. To shift firm screws a set of pliers is useful for giving a little more purchase to your screwdriver. For soldering duties a soldering kit including a stand and helper will also be required, these cost around £15 from eBay. A well-lit, clear work space is also advantageous. Somewhere you can store all the parts you remove and containers for the many, many tiny, easily lost screws laptops seem to produce. With all of that to hand let's start our teardown. How to repair your netbook
Starting small seems like a good idea to us and our first Dexter-style victim is a trusty netbook. This is an ideal place to start as the construction and internal components are at a minimum, reducing the internal clutter and confusion, plus it provides a perfect way of getting to know the basic insides of a laptop before we move on to more complex models. The first thing to do is disconnect this thing from the mains and remove the battery. This makes sure the damn netbook isn't going to try and spring back into life as we're poking around inside it. The other reason is that many models hide securing screws within the battery bay, so we need to poke around in there anyway. Before attempting any teardown it's worth stepping back and assessing how the land lies. For us this means checking to see what screws are clearly visible in the base, flexing obvious areas to see if they look like they will un-clip and trying to spot screws hidden behind rubber feet or stickers. The first job is to remove all the visible screws. Gentle strippingWe suggest having some sort of system for storing the screws. We tend to try and place them on the bench in a mirror of where they were unscrewed from. You could take a piece of A4 and draw an outline of the laptop and place the screws in the corresponding position on the paper. We do that as there's such a varied mix of sizes it saves trying to remember and guess where they should go. Alternatively you could sling them all into various tupperware pots, we just hope you have the kind of mind that can remember where they all go! If there are any access panels these will also need to be removed , but this is more of an issue with laptop models. Often on netbooks this simply isn't the case, they're not designed to be upgraded in this way, which is another good reason for performing a teardown. So you know just how to replace the hidden internals. With all the visible screws out of the way it's time to start teasing off the bottom of the netbook's chassis. There are dedicated pry tools for this usually made from plastic, though small flat-head precision screwdrivers work as well. Be as gentle as possible at this stage, the main thing is to check for any hidden screws that can often be hiding in the case. Once the main back has been removed as, you'll see for the other models, netbooks effectively come in two main pieces: the base and the display. Usually you won't want to detach the two unless you're performing a screen replacement but they will always come apart in two stages: the first being the electrical connections and the second being the physical hinge. Delving further than this into a netbook is a case of continuing to remove visible screen and cable connections, the next main piece being the motherboard and with that out of the way you're done. Dismantling an old friendArmed with just a screwdriver and our cunning 01. Start with the screws
We'll start with removing all the screws. Switching to your finger tools see how amenable the bottom of the case is to being removed, in this case the bottom pretty much fell off.
Normally you'll need a small flat-head driver to carefully un-clip the loosest area of the case and take it from there. Keep an eye out for screws hidden behind stickers or rubber feet. 02. Look at what you've done
Often this is as far as you'll need to venture as you have access to all the main components including the hard drive, memory expansion, wireless mini-PCI-e module, cooling module and backup battery. For keyboard and touchpad repairs, screen replacements and motherboard repairs you have to venture further. First, taking a photo for reference. 03. Getting sticky
There will be a lot of tape holding various wires and components tidily in place. You'll need to remove all of these, which is why a reference photo will be handy when putting everything back.
Some removable components, such as the hard drive or wireless module will be screwed into place. It's likely these will need to be removed if you want to remove the mobo. 04. The screening process
The last major component to go is the screen. On most models this is firmly held in place by a screw beside each hinge.
On top of this you'll find a number of cables going into the screen that carry the power, the video data, any wireless antenna that are embedded in it, plus data cables for webcams or mics. Undo and unplug these and the screen should come away. 05. Get your mother out
The keyboard, touchpad, speakers, chassis, LEDs and other sensors, such as Bluetooth adaptors will trail cables to the top and bottom sides of the mobo. The ribbon connectors usually flip up; older types have a pull up section. You'll often find the keyboard ribbon awkwardly connects to the underside, you may have to yank the mobo away from this. 06. Keyboard popping
Keyboards are usually stronger than they look as they are designed to be highly flexible. The main issue is trying to work out if they're designed to be removed from the outside or from inside. Often if you look along the top row of keys you can spy tabbed areas to insert a flat-head screwdriver and pop them out. With this model it had to be popped from the rear. How to repair your gaming laptopHow to repair your gaming laptop
If you like to super-size your laptop then you've got yourself a big-ass machine to lug around. When it comes to 17-inch, larger-screened models construction tends to be somewhat different to everything smaller, due to the additional weight of the screen and the extra features that can be put in there. The very size and weight of screens does mean they are more prone to damage from drops and also screen damage, never mind the extra kit high-end gaming models will be carrying around inside of them. The good news is we've generally found these bad boys to be easier to get into and disassemble. If you follow the walk-through it's often the case that removing the top fascias and keyboard provides access to much of the insides. While the screen can be easily removed for replacement. Cooling is a big issue with any gaming laptop we would typically expect at least two main fans, if not three, and there can be as many as four on crazy SLI models. Each of these will be wedged next to a heatpipe- connected heatsink that goes to the cooling block, which in turn is bolted to the GPU or CPU. Typically both mobile GPUs and CPUs aim to keep the thermal design power or TDP - that's needed to dissipate the heat - to 35W or below, but for extreme versions the heat profile can got up to 55W for Intel Extreme CPUs and 75W on the GPU side of things. This is why it's necessary to keep the vents clear and check for dust build up in the small heatsink fins. Hard to processOverheating usually characterises itself as instant shutdowns in the middle of a heavy load coupled with - oddly enough, Sherlock - high chassis temperatures. The situation is usually exacerbated by environmental issues, such as blocking the vents with your duvet, using your laptop in direct sunlight on a hot day or being backed up to a radiator while on top of having blocked vents. Externally air dusting vents doesn't really help, as it just pushes the dust back into the laptop, so removing the keyboard is usually a minimum requirement. For new laptops, contemplating upgrading the processor makes no sense but for older models, especially mid- or low-end ones, a cheap bump in processor speed could be a welcome one. It's often the case that the processor is socketed, which makes for an easy upgrade path. Assuming, of course, the laptop supports a faster processor. Current Intel Core i3/5/7 mobile processors use Socket 988/G1, the previous Socket 478/P was for the Core 2 mobile range, preceding that was Socket 478/M designed for the original Core mobile processor, but just to make things more confusing some older Core 2 chips also used this socket. AMD laptops use the company's confusing Socket S1Gx. Stay safe and only consider processors designed for the same socket. Physically the sockets are identical but, for example, S1G4 is DDR3 while S1G3 is DDR2. As with Intel chips we'd suggest if you're interested in a processor upgrade, stick with a GHz bump within the range of the model. Going in the topFor the big guys a top assault is the way to go 01. The spice of life
For larger 17-inch models, especially gaming-orientated ones often a top-down teardown approach is needed. For this older Dell XPS and for many other Dell models you can remove the top facia that covers the screen hinges, by folding the screen right back. Sometimes there are a couple of fixing screws along the back edge. 02. [Ctrl]-[x] the keyboard
Usually the keyboard is clipped into place but on larger models there can be a couple of screws to remove too. This is besides the inevitable ribbon that lurks underneath. With the keyboard removed, the top part of the chassis was only held in with a few screws. It's the same for the screen, once the hinge screws are removed, this can be lifted away. 03. Gaming power
Once the keyboard and screen are removed the base-unit usually stands alone as a self-contained unit. The two main parts we're interested in are the heatsinks; the smaller one you will find in all mid- to high-end models and is for the processor. The larger one is for cooling the GPU, once you've removed the screws for these the entire assembly should lift out. 04. Whip it out, boys
If the laptop processor is socketed then you have the option to replace it, if damaged, or even upgrade it. It's often possible to jump up a couple of notches on the GHz scale with mobile processors. If it is a socketed processor you should see the retaining screw poking out from the side of the cooling module, which you will need to loosen and remove. 05. Brain transplant
Just like the extra scene from Terminator 2 you now have access to the brain of the laptop, undo the retaining screw and it'll lift out like any normal processor from the ZIF socket. To ensure compatibility look up the original specification of the laptop and see what range of processors were offered for it. These will be supported by the BIOS in your model. 06. Tuck her into bed
Drop the processor carefully back into the ZIF socket and instead of a lever you just tighten the securing screw back up. Make sure you don't forget to apply a small amount of thermal paste to the processor before reinstalling the cooling module. Just as with a desktop processor it'll need this to efficiently transfer any heat off to the heatsink. How to fix a larger laptopFixing larger laptop models
For the final laptop model we've taken on a complex business-class model. Your standard 15-inch Intel Core model tends to be very simple inside, if you ever open one up you'll be lucky to find much more to it than the mobo and cooling module. Everything else is directly soldered to the mobo, this helps to cut costs across the board from development and manufacturing to maintenance and support. Effectively, they're not scary at all! Beyond regular upgrades the most common issues with laptops tend to be ports failing, primarily the power connector but this extends to headphone jacks and USB ports. If you're lucky the laptop design has these as removable modules or plug-in connectors, but this is unusual. More likely they are soldered directly onto the mobo making them harder to replace but not impossible. We've shown you below how you can replace both a soldered-on component and a plug-in module. This, in theory, will work for any component, however the easiest onboard components to replace are generally power sockets and audio jacks. We'd shy away from USB ports and they tend to have far more physical support due to their size. Fix her upAs we mentioned with netbooks, replacing an entire mobo isn't out of the question. They're easy enough to remove and transferring the CPU is straightforward too. If yours has one, the GPU can be switch too. Your main problem will be locating the replacement motherboard in the first place. eBay tends to be your best bet, but there's no harm checking to see if the original manufacturer will supply one direct, but it will remain costly. So far we've taken things about as far as we can, having stripped the system right down to the last component. The chassis can be damaged with cracks or have chunks taken out of them and you don't need to live with that. Most DIY stores sell epoxy putty, this is a solid form of epoxy that you can mould in your hand and sculpt to form a section of case or push into cracks and gaps. It sets rock hard so reinforcing and keeping a damaged chassis water proof. It's also possible to sand the set epoxy down and paint it for a professional finish. Another common pain that laptop owners have to suffer are external power supply unit failures. Again eBay is the simple answer, with replacement PSUs available at a fraction of the cost. Frayed power connectors are another annoyance with PSUs. Standard replacement DC power plugs are easily sourced on eBay or Maplin and are simple enough to fit. Screen repair
Once you've confirmed it is a broken screen you'll need to track down a suitable replacement either on eBay or from specialists such as at www.accupart.co.uk and it could cost as little as £60. If you're having other display problems such as a dim or flickering screen, the likely cause is the inverter that powers the screen. You should try and replace this first on its own, as it's a far cheaper part than the panel. If the problem turns out to be the panel's backlight then that will require a new panel. To access the panel itself remove the rubber grommets and the screws hidden beneath. This will free the plastic facia and provide access to the panel itself. You'll need to disconnect any cables connected to the back of the original panel and unscrew it from the securing frame. Installing the new panel is a case of reversing this process. Power connectorReplace a busted power connector to resurrect a dead laptop 01. Power issues
A commonly damaged component due to its heavy use is the power connector of a laptop. While some might like to put this down to some type of conspiracy theory it's actually more so corporate buyers know devices can be easily serviceable. So you'll find that many use drop-in replacements such as the pictured one available from eBay. 02. Drill down and down
The power connector is often located under many layers of your laptop. Ideally if it's an attached component, as in this case, you'll just need to order the correct part from the manufacturer or eBay. On cheaper models it's likely to be soldered directly to the mobo in which case follow the walk-through below. 03. Replace the damaged one
Lenovo has thoughtfully added millions of screws between us and the connector but also a bunch of removable add-in cards. Once there it's a case of attaching a single connector and a ground line, the rest is down to routing the cabling under the add-in network card. Connection replacementA common issue are damaged on-board connectors 01. Survey the damage
Crackling and intermittent cut outs can be caused by a few things but one of the main culprits beyond damaged cables is the connection itself. Over time the physical twisting and yanking, plus expansion from heat, can eventually break a solder spot and start to cause audio problems or make the entire connection fail. 02. Out with the old
To remove a mobo-soldered connection you'll need a soldering iron, solder and 2mm de-soldering braid. Place the braid over the solder spot, hold the iron on this for a second, add a small amount of solder, reapply the iron for a second and lift. The braid will suck up all the solder, simply repeat until it's all gone. 03. In with the new
Make sure you select the correct replacement connection. Push it firmly against the PCB and melt solder into the solder points. Try not to hold the soldering iron on a spot for more than a couple of seconds, else you're likely to start damaging plastics and components. Test and you should be done. 
| ||
| Review: Adobe Premiere Elements 10 Posted: 01 Oct 2011 01:30 AM PDT  With Final Cut Express discontinued, Adobe's Premiere Elements 10's closest rival, iMovie, comes free with every Mac or can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for just over £10. So how can an editing package that costs nearly eight times as much hope to compete? By offering tools and options that Apple left out of their own offering, such as being able to edit using multiple video layers, work with the native AVCHD files that came out of your HD camcorder (iMovie must reformat them, wasting time and storage space) and even design DVDs, complete with menus. So what does version 10 bring to the table? The whole emphasis is on sharing and tagging your clips to make them easier to find. Adobe split the editing process into two programs.
The Organizer takes care of importing, cataloguing and tagging your clips – be they photos or videos – while the main app is where you build your project. You can send a clip from the Organizer straight to places like YouTube, Flickr or Facebook without any kind of processing if you like, but the whole point of an editing program is to edit, so few people may take advantage of that option. Pan and zoomA new powerful pan and zoom tool is now available, so you can create complex motion across an individual photograph. Unlike iMovie, you're not limited to just setting an end and start frame, but you can create multiple focus points and move across them over time. You can even pause the view for a few seconds on a specific area. If editing feels too much like hard work, you can use the enhanced 'Auto-movie' options: choose the clips you want in the order you'd like to use them, select a theme and a few other parameters, and Premiere Elements will take care of the rest for you. You can of course customise the end result should you like to apply a more personal touch to your project. Colour-correcting video clips is now possible thanks to a new filter. By default, the process is automatic, but you can delve into it and manipulate the colours to your heart's content, even focusing solely on highlights, shadows or midtones. Export deluge
When it comes to exporting your work, you'll be deluged with options: some of the new features include being able to upload to places such as Facebook, Flickr or YouTube, save an HD-quality movie onto a standard DVD disc to play it back on a Blu-ray player (as long as the movie's relatively short, of course) or even export the whole project back into AVCHD format. All this sounds good, but sadly, there's a huge drawback to using Premiere Elements: if you're used to iMovie, you'll find the two-program approach confusing, and the lack of elegance can be felt throughout. You have to double-click on a clip to preview it in a floating window for instance; and accessing all the menus and options begins to feel as if you've left your Mac and are exploring a new interface paradigm, which can be frustrating at times. However, there's no doubt that you can achieve more with Adobe's Premiere Elements 10 than you can with Apple's iMovie. But before investing in it, make sure you experiment with the 30-day demo, which is available to download from www.adobe.com. That way you can see if this app suits your needs. 
| ||
| Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar Posted: 01 Oct 2011 12:00 AM PDT  This week's hottest reviews on TechRadarThis week's review line-up is dominated by Sony's new Tablet S - a mighty fine Android 3.0 tablet that really makes a design statement. We've also reviewed the high-end Panasonic TX-P42S30B plasma as well as Wacom's lest tablet. As a veritable giant in the consumer tech universe, Sony's landing on Planet Tablet was always going to be interesting. Launching alongside the fold-in-half Tablet P, the Tablet S has a unique wedge-shaped design and top-end specs. The Sony Tablet S has everything needed to be a fantastic tablet, and a front-runner in the Android race. The form factor makes it a superb buy for people who spend time on the move. If you're choosing an Android tablet you won't be disappointed, but if it's a shoot out between the Sony Tablet S and the iPad 2, unless you're a hardened Sony fan, then your money is still better spent with Apple's tab. Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D review Creative's Sound Blaster Recon3D is the world's first quad-core sound processor, which gives it the power to pull off impressive feats such as separate mic audio and in-game sound streams, and apply separate effects – including compression, surround and noise cancelling – to each stream. It's best friends with THX TruStudio, works with PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and sports a 'Scout Mode' button, which amplifies sound cues in-game to highlight nearby enemies. It's a feature-filled, high quality product, and versatile too. The excellent surround effect also makes the Recon3D (with the headset, of course) a good choice for movies. If you buy the bundle with the Tactic3D Omega headset, it's a much more attractive price, too. Unlike most of Panasonic's more high-end plasma TVs this year, we can't quite bring ourselves to give the P42S30 an unqualified recommendation. For while its impressively natural, contrast-favouring pictures are ideally suited to people who love watching films, its lack of brightness and vibrancy could be a turn off for people with very bright rooms or who prefer dynamism and punch to black level depth and motion clarity. Take a punt on the P42S30 though, and it's unlikely that you'll be disappointed. For in a normal environment its pictures display some great characteristics, including an excellent black level response, some natural colours (with HD in particular), a wide viewing angle, and sharp motion handling. You know all the good things about tablets such as the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Their beautiful screens, slick touch controls, speedy operations and excellent battery lives? What if you didn't bother with all of those, and made a really, really cheap tablet instead? Well, Binatone is here to answer that particular thought experiment, and you will be shocked – shocked! – to learn that the result is pretty undesirable. Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch review Thanks to OS X Lion we're all getting used to the idea of using gestures to do things on the Mac, but you can quickly hit the limit of what multi-touch can do – especially when you want to paint, draw or customise your photos. And that's where Wacom's Bamboo Fun Pen & Touch comes in.
This week's other reviewsDigital TV receivers Digital TV recorders Golden Media 990 CR HD PVR SPARK LX review href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/peripherals/input-devices/keyboards/microsoft-wireless-optical-dekstop-700-1028232/review">Microsoft Wireless Optical Dekstop 700 review Motherboards Printers Storage Seagate GoFlex Satellite 500GB review
Hands onsSoftware Hands on: Spotify on Facebook review 
| ||
| Firefox 8 now available in beta Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:31 AM PDT  Mozilla has announced the availability of Firefox Beta 8, insisting that the latest version of its browser will make 'browsing more convenient'. Mozilla's browser is now facing huge competition from Google Chrome, after years of fighting against Microsoft's Internet Explorer. And the latest version of Firefox will be a key release in terms of keeping hold of its audience share and competing with its rivals. Secure and innovativeThe beta "adds features and user interface elements that make browsing easier and tools that help developers build more secure and innovative Web experiences," according to Mozilla. That includes Twitter's arrival as a default search option, restoring tabs on demand – which allows users to opt only to refresh tabs when they are selected – and animated tab movement. Also on the update list is enhanced control of add-ons, WebSockets updates, HTML5 native right click menu and the integration of HTML5 media elements. You can download the beta version from http://blog.mozilla.com/futurereleases/2011/09/30/firefoxbeta8/ 
| ||
| Sharp 3D Aquos phones coming to Europe Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:04 AM PDT  Sharp has announced that it will be bringing its 3D mobile phone to Europe, marking the first time it has been released outside of Japan. Called the Aquos Phone SH-12C in Japan, the handset will be released in Europe in October – with France being the first to get the device, courtesy of Orange. The Aquos Phone comes with Android 2.3, has two cameras (both 8MP), 3D video recording, a 4.2-inch screen which shows 3D sans glasses, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G and Bluetooth. It also comes with an HDMI connection, so you can port your 3D goodness straight onto a TV. UK bound?The Japanese version of the phone does have an infrared connection, e-wallet functionality and also a TV tuner built in – these will probably be omitted from the European version of the phone. The 3D phone market in the UK isn't exactly burgeoning but we do have two models: the HTC Evo 3D and LG Optimus 3D. When it comes to specs, the Sharp Aquos phone has a smaller screen than the both the Optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D but only by a smidgen. Other than that, its specs pretty much match what is already on offer. There is a question mark as to whether it will come to Britain, however. So, for now, the Sharp Aquos Phone SH-12C UK release date is still unknown. 
| ||
| iPhone 5 cases show up at AT&T stores Posted: 30 Sep 2011 07:38 AM PDT  Someone somewhere has a crystal ball. An unnamed company has managed to make a bunch of silicon sleeves for the Apple iPhone 5 before the device is announced to the world. The cases, which have arrived at an AT&T retail shop in the US, show a wider device than the iPhone 4, with a tapered (some might say 'raindrop') design. The only other thing we can see is different from the iPhone 4 is that the mute button seems to be on the opposite side of the handset. One other detail worth noting is that the sleeve's packaging calls the product "Silicone sleeve Apple iPhone 5" - you'll note that it doesn't say iPhone 4S. But then you'll also note that the name is printed on a dodgy-looking white label. DubiousWe've spoken to more legit case manufacturers like CaseMate and Griffin in the past and have consistently been told that, while they use speculation and guess work to get most of the case design done in advance, accessory companies find out what the dimensions of new iPhones are when the rest of the world does. Case makers usually just tweak their accessory designs on the night of the iPhone launch and start manufacturing right away. Given that Apple's iPhone event isn't until next week, we're inclined to think that this is a prototype model errantly shipped to AT&T, an anonymous case maker taking a punt, a fake or a PR ploy.
That doesn't mean that the new iPhone won't be called the iPhone 5, nor that the tapered design won't come to pass – plenty of other case makers have hedged their bets with this new look – but we'll take a pinch of salt with these particular silicone iPhone 5 sleeves, thanks. brightcove : 1027846751001
| ||
| Updated: iPad 3 rumours: what you need to know Posted: 30 Sep 2011 06:59 AM PDT  iPad 3 rumoured release date and processorThe iPad 2 is out, and the rumour factory has 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? brightcove : 1065669898001iPad 3 release date Although numerous sources such asReutersreportedthat the new iPad 3 is due in the fourth quarter of 2011, the signs are it will be early in 2012. However, another rumour believes it could well be November. On 1 July, Digitimes reported that Taiwanese-based component suppliers were gearing up for production of iPad 3 and iPhone 5. However, during August, a rumour broke that Apple was set to delay the launch of the iPad 3, due to a shortage of retina displays from its suppliers LG and Samsung. The exciting news is that it looks as though we will get our Retina Display iPad at last, with Apple reportedly testing suppliers' current shipments of 2048 x 1536 resolution 9.7-inch displays. The iPad 3 UK release date is a mystery With Apple unable to meet initial demand for iPad 2, we'd expect a staggered release date for the iPad 3 too: Apple will most likely follow the pattern it has with the previous two iPad launches and do it all in the new year. 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. 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, see below. ...unless iPad 3 has a quad-core processor If the A6 is the next stage in the line - and we don't see a new iPad until 2012 - we could also be looking at a quad-core chip from Apple. Quad-core designs will be coming from all ARM partners late this year. Speaking on 26 August, an analyst said that an A6 couldn't appear in a future iPad until later in 2012. iPad 3 rumoured display and hardware specsiPad 3 display A retina display 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 an iPad 3 Retina Display be on the way? It's the very first thing on our iPad 3 wish list. Rumours of an HD screen on the iPad 3 gathered pace on 12 April 2011 when Digitimes reported that Apple is asking panel makers to provide screens that are capable of displaying higher image quality than the iPad 2. On 26 May 2011, we reported that the iPad 3 could launch with a Samsung-made AMOLED screen, following rumours that Apple has been in talks on the matter with Samsung execs. There have also been more LG and Samsung rumours, too. On 15 June we reported that the iOS 5 code hinted at a Retina Display for iPad 3. 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 and MacBook Air could be another story: it's a combined accessory/display connector with astonishingly fast performance. There could be more than one iPad 3 TUAW says the iOS 5 code features new code files for USB devices in the iOS 5 firmware, Through this, TUAW found references to an iPad3,1 and an iPad 3,2. The iPad 3 could be made by someone other than Foxconn Apple was said to be in talks with another Far Eastern manufacturer as the release of the iPad 3 nears. Digitimes says that as there was a fire at usual supplier Foxconn in May, Quanta Computer and Pegatron Technology could benefit. On 1 August it was reported that a contract had definitely gone to Pegatron rather than Foxconn. 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 could feature a carbon fibre case Apple has hired a carbon fibre expert, senior composites engineer Kevin Kenney, fuelling speculation that the next iPad could be encased in the lightweight material. 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. ...or maybe lower? It has also been suggested that the pricing of the iPad 3 could be lower. As it's already cheaper than most other new tablets, we call trash on this one. Could the iPad 3 actually be an iPad 2 Plus? An analyst has suggested that we could see an iPad 2 Plus on our Christmas wishlists. The so-called iPad 2 Plus isn't set to be a radical departure from the current iPad 2, with supply chain sources tipping an improved display (250-300 ppi as opposed to the current 132 ppi). 
| ||
| Updated: iOS 5: all the latest details Posted: 30 Sep 2011 06:53 AM PDT  iOS 5: release informationWe're expecting big things from Apple this year: the iPhone 5 (and possibly iPhone 4S) will be with us during the coming weeks after Apple announced a 4 October event. iOS 5 wasrevealed during theWWDC 2011 keynote back in June, but will it get a release when next week when the event happens - or will it be held back until the handset debuts? Read on for our list of all the new iOS 5 features but for a video rundown of what's new, check out our pal T3's video below: brightcove : 979666259001iOS 5 release date The iOS release date may coincide with the new iPhone, but Computerworld suggests that - according to past form - Apple will announce it in around two weeks from now. iOS 5 compatibility iOS 5 will work with iPhone 4 and 3GS (the latter is a surprise), iPad and iPad 2, and the iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen. We're also a little surprised to see it's going to be rolled out to the original iPad, but as it has the same hardware as the iPhone 4 we guess Apple doesn't have to cut it loose this time. iOS 5 goes PC-free Apple says it is "cutting the cable" with iOS 5 - just as well, as it claimed the iPad 2 was the first post-PC device earlier in the year. OS updates can be delivered over the air - you'll just received what's changed rather than the usual 600MB download - and devices can be activated without plugging them into iTunes. Ace. You can also now create and delete iOS calendars and mailboxes too, so you really can devolve your device from your PC or Mac. "You can activate on the device and you're ready to go," explained Apple's Scott Forstall. "Software updates are now over the air. So you no longer need to plug in to update your software. And they're now Delta updates. Instead of downloading the whole OS, you only download what's changed," he continued. "We said, why do people go back to a computer? Calendars, people create or delete them. You can do that now. Photo editing, you can do it on the devices. Even mail - you can create folders. "So if you want to cut the cord, you can." With iOS 5 and iCloud, you just enter your Apple ID and password, and iCloud will seamlessly integrate with your apps to automatically and wirelessly keep all of your mail, contacts, calendars, photos, apps, books, music and more, up-to-date across all your devices without ever having to connect to a computer. iOS 5: new featuresiOS 5 iMessage There's now a new messaging service - like text messaging or BlackBerry BBM - but between all iOS users. It's designed for those with iPads and iPod touches primarily, but is cross-device and integrates with the iPhone, too. The new application supports a multitude of features, including the ability to send pictures, videos or contacts, and also start a group message too. Real-time notifications mean you won't have to wait to see if someone is going to reply. This is a massive hit to RIM, which prides itself on BBM for BlackBerry. According to Apple, iMessage works both over Wi-Fi and 3G, and if you want to send a message all you have to do is tap the camera icon, pick a pic and you're away.
iOS 5 Notification Center The new OS has a new system for Notifications. More than 100 billion Notifications have been pushed so far, says Apple, but the company acknowledges that they're annoying. So now there will be a Notification Center to aggregate all the Notifications - you can access it by swiping down from the top of the screen. It is not persistent, but looks a lot like Android. It's on the lock screen, as well.  iOS 5 Newsstand Further to Apple's subscriptions model, you'll now be able to browse newspapers and magazines to download just as you can books and music. New issues you subscribe to are automatically downloaded.
iOS 5 Twitter support Much rumoured beforehand, Apple has introduced Twitter natively into iOS 5, with a 'one click' option for applications to let you use Twitter functionality. All you'll need to do is sign in through the Settings menu and any app can request integration with your Twitter account, meaning no more constant signing in to every new application you download. It's also fully integrated with the Camera and Photo apps, for example. You can also tweet articles from Safari and locations from Maps. iOS 5 Safari A new reading mode has been introduced in Safari, which removes distraction and provides you with a single, scrolling story. Bye bye, ads! You can now also email the contents of the story as well as the link. There's also a Reading List option so you can save stuff to look at later. We bet Read It Later and Instapaper are well chuffed about that. There's also tabbed browsing and lightning-fast window switching. iOS 5 Reminders A reminders feature enables you to store Lists, assign reminders to any dates or even location-specific info. These sync across devices and with iCal. iOS 5 Camera There's now a camera button on the lock screen, while you can also use the volume button to take pictures - a great addition. Apple says its camera is one of the most commonly used pieces of hardware on photo-sharing sites like Flickr, and has updated the functionality accordingly. Photo editing software for easy cropping and enhancement has been added in to iOS 5, and pinching to zoom will zoom in on images when you're trying to take a pic. iOS 5 Mail The app now has new elements like draggable addresses so you can pop them across from To to Cc or Bcc. Flagging and full-searchable messages have been added in too, plus rich text formatting for easier interaction with your e-mails. A built in dictionary makes it easier to keep your spelling under control, and for the iPad: a split keyboard. Simply grabbing it with your thumbs and sliding upwards will split it in two, making it easier to tap out emails more speedily. iOS 5 Game Center Game Center now lets you browse and download games directly, as well as introducing Achievementpoints, There's also Friend Discovery. Gamer profiles have been updated to include photos as well, plus turn-based gaming is baked right into the application for more responsive gaming. Want to look back at our predictions? Read our previous iOS 5 rumours below: iOS 5.0 release date isn't until September... iOS has been around long enough for a pattern to emerge: a springtime reveal and then a summertime launch with the latest iPhone. Not this time, Techcrunch says: while iOS 5 is likely to be shown off at the WWDC event in June, the iOS 5.0 release date will probably be in September. ...or maybe April According to "trusted sources", a German blog claimed that iOS 5.0 would be released at an Apple event in April. Apple had better get a move on, then. iOS 5 now looks as though it's being tested in the wild. On 1 May 2011, 9to5 Mac said that it had received word from developers who found that their apps are being tested with iOS 5. And earlier, on 27 April 2011, a tweet from app developer Future Tap said "Just received the first iOS 5.0 crash report. MKUserLocationBreadCrumb sounds interesting." ...and iOS 5.0 might not be on the iPhone 5 There are two possibilities here: either Apple is ripping up its existing annual schedule and keeping the iPhone 5 back until the Autumn too, in which case the iPhone 5 will be an iOS 5.0 device, or Apple is sticking to its annual release and we'll see an iPhone 5.0 in the summer without iOS 5.0. Our money's on the former: the superbly well-connected Jim Dalrymple says this year's WWDC is a software show, not a hardware event. iOS 5.0 has automatic app downloads Automatic app updates appear to be coming to iOS devices in the iOS 5 update. The rumour was kickstarted by a screengrab from iTunes which says, "If your device has Automatic Download enabled for apps, your updates will download to your device without having to sync." iOS 5.0 specifications include better notifications iOS's notification system for SMSes, missed calls and app messages is rubbish, but Cult of Mac reports that good news is coming in iOS 5.0: Apple is "working on a new notification system for iOS and will be buying a small company to build its technology into the operating system" - likely candidates include App Remix, whose Boxcar does what iOS doesn't.
NEW NOTIFICATIONS: Rumours suggest Apple's buying App Remix to boost iOS's notification system Amazingly, Apple is also building an earthquake early warning system into iOS 5 for iPhone users in Japan. The new service can be turned-on via the notifications centre. iOS 5.0 features include cloud music and photo sharing Amazon's already launched its cloud-based music service, but Apple's offering is more ambitious than a few gigs of server space: 9to5 Mac says there's a photo-based social service called Photo Stream in the Photos app and the much-rumoured, cloud-based iTunes service is likely to turn up alongside a revamped MobileMe. Could iOS 5.0 also include Spaces A patent filed by Apple suggests that iOS 5 will see 'Spaces' come to the iPad. The patent application shows a touchscreen device with Spaces controlled by multi-touch gestures, which hints at the gesture control that is only available to devs in iOS 4.3 becoming standard. iOS 5 removes UDID support It seems Apple is planning on removing UDID support from iOS 5 too - that's the Apple protocol iOS can use to track users. It seems app developers will have to track users themselves instead. iOS 5.0 features include beefed-up speech recognition iOS's voice recognition lags far behind Android's, but that might change with the release of iOS 5.0: according to analysts at Soleil Securities, " Apple's IOS 5.0 for the next-generation iPhone will likely feature deep voice control into the operating system and likely be demonstrated in June. We believe that Apple's partner for the underlying voice recognition technology is Nuance".
SPEAK AND SPELL: Apple and Nuance are reportedly beefing up iOS's speech recognition features On 9 August 2011, screenshots surfaced showing the iOS 5 speech-to text feature. The feature requires users only to tap the microphone icon next to the on-screen spacebar, and speak aloud. Does iOS 5 point the way to an LTE handset?That's what PCMag seems to think anyway... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
| ||
| Google launches Chrome Zone in London store Posted: 30 Sep 2011 06:08 AM PDT  Google has launched a 'shop-within-a-shop' at the flagship Currys and PC World superstore in London's Tottenham Court Road in order to sell its Chromebooks. The Chrome Zone has been daubed with a primary Google-style brush, and will look to explain the cloud OS notebooks to the general public. The only notebook on offer will, of course, be the Samsung Chromebook, with Acer's version yet to launch in this country, despite being badged as 'coming soon' since the launch in June. Great deal of thought"We've put a great deal of thought into the design of this Chrome Zone," said Arvind Desikan, head of consumer marketing for Google in the UK and Ireland. "Chromebooks are the perfect notebook computers for people who live on the web, and offer a faster, safer and more secure online experience, without all the time-consuming and confusing maintenance required by typical computers."
Mark Slater, category director at Dixons Retail, said: "Initial customer response to the launch of Samsung's Chromebook has been excellent and we are expecting a lot of customer interest and excitement now it is in-store. "It's the most revolutionary laptop on the market and as the leading electrical retailer in the UK we are thrilled that our flagship store has UK exclusivity to showcase this new technology to our customers. "We have dedicated staff who have been specifically trained in using the Chromebook to demonstrate all its unique benefits and features to customers." 
| ||
| Updated: 12 best Android tablets in the world Posted: 30 Sep 2011 06:00 AM PDT  12 best Android tabletsOur list of the best Android tablets in the world - regularly updated If you're looking for a tablet and don't fancy an iPad, then Android is the way to go. (Don't know what an Android tablet is? Check out: what is an Android tablet?) There are other options out there; Windows 7 tablets are available, the BlackBerry PlayBook is on sale now and the HP TouchPad has come and gone in a flurry of £99 panic-buying. But Android 3.0 is currently the main OS rival to the iPad, and the products are creeping onto the shelves one by one.
We've gone from zero Android tablets to stacks of the things in a very short space of time, and inevitably some are better than others. Some have ten-inch screens, others seven, and there are big differences in battery life, processing power and on-board RAM. So while we wait for the likes of the Asus Eee Pad Slider, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Amazon Kindle Fire, let's see what the current best tablets are...
 1. Asus Eee Pad TransformerBest Android tablet PC for: replacing your netbook We love the Asus Eee Pad Transformer. It's been around for a while now, but in our opinion, it's still the most compelling Android tablet available. Not only is it powerful and well featured, it's designed to work with a keyboard dock which turns it into a fully-fledged Android-powered netbook. The fact is that Android as an OS is still lagging behind iOS in terms of tablet usability, so products need a USP.And on that score, this is the tablet that changed the game. Look out also for the Asus Eee Pad Slider which comes packing a slide-out keyboard - it's coming soon and promises great things! Asus Eee Pad Transformer review
2. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1Best Android tablet for: the out-and-out tablet experience While the Transformer offers something a little different at an unbeatable price, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 offers a direct alternative to Apple's iPad 2. Sporting the Tegra 2 dual-core CPU, it's both marginally thinner and lighter than the iPad 2. This is some achievement, especially when you consider the fuss Apple made about how thin and light the iPad 2 was on launch. If you want an iPad-like tablet that's not an iPad, this is the one. The prices are the same as the iPad 2, so it's a straight shoot-out on features... Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 review
3. Sony Tablet SBest Android tablet for: PlayStation gaming As a veritable mega-giant in the consumer tech universe, Sony's landing on Planet Tablet was always going to be interesting. Blasting off alongside the fold-in-half Tablet P, the Tablet S has a unique wedge-shaped design and top-end specs. It's a very decent and refined tablet, and has the unique feature of having access to original PlayStation games. The only issue is that it's not as tidy as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and not as versatile as the Transformer. Apart from that, it's one of the best Android tablets out there.
4. Motorola XoomBest Android tablet for: sleek good looks and solid performance The Motorola Xoom was the first Honeycomb tablet to hit the shelves. Current prices are starting at about £330, which is great value for a 10-inch tablet of this calibre and it's thus worthy of your attention. Solid build quality, decent battery life, good performance.  5. Toshiba AT100 / ThriveBest Android tablet for: anyone who wants a full-size HDMI port There's a predicament with the Toshiba AT100: it has a certain appeal for advanced users who'll appreciate the slick performance, but the bulky size is a major problem. One brilliant move was to make the USB and HDMI ports full size. You can just unplug your Xbox and snap in the Toshiba AT100 when you want to watch on an HD TV. The tablet enables you to plug in a regular keyboard and mouse – this ease of adding peripherals is a win. Battery life is another bonus. Yet, the hefty size and weight (plus the passable screen quality) is the main reason we prefer other recent tablets.  6. LG Optimus PadBest Android tablet for: Playing around with 3D The consumer electronics giants are throwing everything at 3D, and LG has decided that its first Android tablet should play a role in its '3D is the best' hearts and minds mission. The tablet has dual-5MP cameras which work together to shoot 3D images and record 3D footage. Cool, huh? The problem is that there's no 3D screen, so if you want to watch your 3D movies you'll need to either plug the tablet into a 3D TV or watch in anaglyph 3D on the tablet's screen. If you're crazy about 3D, this is your next Android tablet.
7. Acer Iconia Tab A500Best Android tablet for: fans of brushed aluminium bodywork Acer's Android tablet is good looking and offers similar performance to the other Android 3.0 tablets on show here. We like it, but it's missing a bit of sparkle and there's not much on show here that we can cling on to. It's not as stylish as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and doesn't offer anything different like the Transformer does with its keyboard.
8. Acer Iconia Tab A100Best Android tablet for: budget 7-inch tablet performance It's hard to recommend the Acer Iconia Tab A100 in light of the 10-inch alternatives. Yet, for such as ebook fans and those who like smaller tabs, this is the best of the 7-inch lot. In some ways, the BlackBerry PlayBook is better in a technical sense – at least it does real multitasking – but it has too few apps. We like the A100 for an express purpose: greater mobility and book reading. For most tasks, a 10-inch tablet is a wiser bet. But for well under £300, this is not a bad product.
9. HTC FlyerBest Android tablet for: Portability and fans of Sense UI HTC has decided to release the tablet running on Android Gingerbread, which will upset some purists that believe these tablets should run on Honeycomb. However, the HTC Sense overlay deals with that, offering a new range of widgets and content to mask the fact it's running older versions of the OS (although a Honeycomb update is imminent). The new tablet has a 7-inch LCD screen, and comes with an aluminium unibody shell that feels very nice in the hand. However, with a price of nearly £600, can this tablet compete? |
 |  |
Tutorial: iTunes: the essential guide
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 04:45 AM PDT
iTunes: the essential guide
When Mac developer Casady & Greene sold its audio player, SoundJam MP, to Apple at the turn of the century, it couldn't possibly have imagined what would become of its poster child. Within a year it had been transformed into iTunes 1.0, then used as a launch pad for the very first iPod, and history was made.
Today, iTunes is a true giant among Apple applications - a massive, multi-platform colossus that bestrides millions of Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPods and iPads. It has helped turn Apple into one of the world's largest entertainment retailers.
And very soon it'll become an internet phenomenon too, thanks to the launch of iCloud and iTunes Connect - two new services due later this year and next, which will give you easy access to all the content you own, wherever you may be.
Of course, iTunes has only been able to become ubiquitous because of what it can do. You can use it to buy, rent or download music, movies and TV shows; listen to podcasts or thousands of internet radio stations; buy books; subscribe to magazines; and keep your iOS device loaded up with tons of clever, innovative and exciting apps that will keep you entertained at home and away. And, of course, it's free.
Indeed there's so much to iTunes that it can be tricky to know where to start, whether you are a new or experienced user. So we've put together this essential guide to help you get the best from iTunes, from the very basics to advanced tips and tricks, with particular emphasis on the key features of iTunes 10 and synchronising your stuff using an iPad, iPod or iPhone. Ready? Let's dive right in…
What iTunes is, what it does and how it can benefit you…
Because iTunes can do so much, it can seem daunting to use at first - there are so many options, tabs, sidebars and buttons to choose from. But when you break it down, it really is quite simple to get to grips with and you'll soon find yourself adding and enjoying content without a second thought.
One of the best ways to figure out what's going on is to look at the Source sidebar on the left of the iTunes window. Here your iTunes library is divided into different sub-sections - Music, Films, TV Programmes, Podcasts, iTunes U, Apps, Ringtones and Radio - and it's where all your media content is organised.
Below that is the Store section, which enables you to go shopping for new music, movies, and so on, using the iTunes Store, and to engage in some music-oriented social networking with Ping.
And you'll also find Genius, which helps you discover old favourites and new media. And, finally there are Playlists, which gives you different ways to enjoy your stuff by slicing it up into manageable, customisable chunks.
At the Source
You can listen to or watch anything that's in your library using the Source sidebar. Selecting any one of the options reveals relevant content in the middle window (the browser). This is where you can see, explore and play all the stuff in your library.
But what do you do if you can't find anything under Music or Films? You next step is to import or 'rip' content from media you own already, such as music CDs. The other option is to use your new iTunes account to do a little shopping at the iTunes Store.
Importing a music CD couldn't be easier - it will automatically appear in iTunes when you insert one into your Mac's optical drive and iTunes will scurry off to the internet to fetch details about it from the Gracenote online music database.
You can edit any details (these are known as ID tags or metatags) it finds by selecting a track or multiple tracks and selecting Command+I. You can also add in your own cover artwork either by scanning it in manually, doing a Google search or using the power of the iTunes Store.
iTunes imports songs using the same audio codec as the iTunes Store - 256kbps AAC - although you can easily change this by selecting Preferences > Import Settings from the iTunes main menu. Here you'll find a wide range of audio codecs to choose from - including MP3, WAV and Apple Lossless, although iTunes doesn't support more exotic codecs like Ogg Vorbis or FLAC.
To all but the most sensitive of ears, 256kbps AAC is virtually indistinguishable from CD quality and offers the best compromise between sound quality and storage space. Your mileage may vary.
Album artwork
To get album artwork from the iTunes Store you'll need to use either an existing Apple ID or an iTunes account (the two are usually interlinked); failing that, you'll have to create a new one.
Do this by selecting Store > Create Account from the iTunes main menu. Once you've done that you can import album artwork by going to the main menu again and selecting Advanced > Get Album Artwork.
Signing up for an iTunes Store account has several other benefits, of course: you can use it to buy and download a huge range of current and back-catalogue albums, music videos, books, movies and TV shows. You can also use your iTunes Store account to get a whole bunch of free stuff, from promotional singles and movie trailers to hundreds and hundreds of podcasts. You can even listen and watch study materials, courtesy of some of the world's leading universities, via iTunes U.
Moving pictures
Movie and TV content on iTunes is often available in both standard definition (640x480 resolution) and high definition (1280x720p) versions, with 1080p content rumoured to be available later this year. Watching HD content on the small screens of the iPhone or 11-inch MacBook Air may not be all that beneficial, but you can easily hook them up to an external monitor or a TV to make the most of the picture quality.
Neither do you have to buy movies outright - the iTunes Store also gives you the option to rent a whole range of films. You can store a rented movie on your Mac for up to 30 days without watching it, but once you do, you only have 48 hours to watch the remainder otherwise it will magically disappear.
Talking of the iPhone, we can't mention the features of iTunes without also including one of the main reasons why it exists at all: its close integration with iOS devices such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Setting up, managing and filling any of these devices with content is almost always done via iTunes, although that looks likely to change later this year with the introduction of iCloud.
How to share your iTunes library
Let your whole family in on the iTunes experience. Here's how…
For those of you who have multiple users on your Mac, you'll notice that iTunes creates individual folders for each one in Home/Music.
That's great if you'd rather not listen to your daughter's Glee soundtrack collection, but it's not so good if you want to share lots of stuff - music, movies, TV shows, and so on - because you could end up with gigabytes of duplicated content, a rapidly shrinking hard disk drive and a lot of wasted hours as everyone spends time on your Mac populating their own iTunes folders.
The smart way around this is to create a shared iTunes folder that lives either in Your Mac/Users/Shared on an external hard drive that's connected to your Mac either physically using FireWire, USB or Thunderbolt cables, or wirelessly using Apple AirPort.
Either way, everyone who uses your Mac can still have their own customised iTunes library - the only real difference is the way in which all of its media contents are stored. You can find out how to do this below in How to Share Music, Movies and More…
Get organised
The only tedious thing about merging an existing set of previously separate iTunes folders is that your new library will inevitably be filled with all kinds of nasties, from duplicated content to incorrectly tagged files with missing artwork.
Your only option at this stage is to put in some hours trying to sort the whole mess out, but there are a few tools that can help you. You can track down the most obvious duplicates by going to File > Display Duplicates and then select which ones you'd like to delete, or you can use something smarter such as Dupin ($15/£9, Doug's Apps For iTunes, www.dougscripts.com), which gives you a higher degree of control over what's kept or deleted.
You can also clean up dodgy file tags (artist name, album name, track name, and so on), either by selecting Advanced > Get Track Names from the iTunes menu bar (you'll need an internet connection for this to work) or to use something such as TuneUp (from $40/£25, TuneUpMedia, www.tuneupmedia.com), which uses audio fingerprint technology to identify songs, correctly label them and download artwork.
You can also get artwork for your Media Library from the iTunes Store by selecting Advanced > Get Album Artwork.
Other user accounts
Once you're happy with the contents of your new tidy iTunes Media folder, you now need to do the same for each user account. The best way to do this is to go to File > Add To Library again, but this time select only the contents you want to add. That way, every member of your family will have the media they want - and you'll have an overview of the whole library so you can manage the contents.
The only slight downer with iTunes here is that you'll periodically need to go through the Add To Library process again from time to time, since new content or changes made by other users of your Mac won't show up automatically when you open your own version of the iTunes library.
Home Sharing
Of course, if you have multiple Macs at home, sharing iTunes content between them becomes a whole different ballgame. You won't have to worry about duplicated content taking up space on your hard disk drive for one thing. But you can still share stuff between different Macs using Home Sharing, or you can just stream content from one Mac to another via Wi-Fi.
To do either of these things go to iTunes > Preferences and then select the Sharing tab. To share music with other Macs in your household select Share my Library and then choose whether you want to share the whole thing, or just selected Playlists. If you want to, you can set a password that other users have to enter to get access to your library - something that can come in handy if you want to share a playlist of sweary comedy records with your partner, but not your kids.
Home Sharing takes the concept one stage further by enabling you to copy the contents of your iTunes library between five different computers or devices using the same Apple ID. It's a great way to share the same content on a desktop Mac or a laptop at home, or even a computer at work.
You can rate and change the play counts of songs in your library from another Mac - the only catch is, you can't share content between different Apple IDs, only the same ID five different times. For more details, see How to use Home Sharing below.
As we've already hinted at in this feature, there may be some stuff in your iTunes Media that you simply don't want to share with younger family members, such as songs with explicit lyrics. This is where iTunes' Parental Controls come in. You can choose to restrict material by age range, rating, content (that is, whether or not it is labelled 'explicit') or even choose to switch off certain options altogether, including Podcasts, Radio, the iTunes Store and Shared Libraries.
You can also manually tag specific tracks, albums and other content using third-party apps such as Subler (donationware, Damiano Galassi, http://code.google.com/publisher) or MetaX (free, Rodney O. Kerstetter, Kerstetter.net).
How to share your music, movies and more
01. Share your Media library
The best place for your new library is in a shared folder on your Mac or on an external disk drive. Select iTunes > Preferences > Advanced; click on the Change button to swap the default iTunes Media folder location from iTunes > Music > iTunes to its new destination.
02. Get and stay organised
To make sure your files go and stay where they're supposed to select iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and choose Keep Media Folder Organised and Copy Files To iTunes Media Folder When Adding To Library. You'll need to do this for every user account.
03. Consolidate your library
Now you can copy any existing media files to their new location. In iTunes, go to File > Library > Organise Library and then select Consolidate Files. You can also keep your iTunes Media files organised in categories by selecting Re-organise Files In The Folder 'iTunes Media'.
How to use Home Sharing
01. Turn on Home Sharing
Home Sharing makes it easy to share content from one Mac with up to five other Macs. But it only works if you have an Apple ID and use the same one to log into each Mac. To activate Home Sharing, select Advanced > Turn On Home Sharing from the iTunes menu bar.
02. See and share
Home Sharing appears in the Source Bar in the main iTunes window. Listed below it are iTunes Media categories you can share between Macs. Selecting the Settings button enables each Mac to automatically be updated when you buy something from the iTunes Store.
03. Copying over content
Once you've found a track, album or movie you want to copy from one Mac to another, select it and click on the Import button. You can update playlists and ratings in your master library by selecting the Home Sharing option in iTunes > Preferences > Sharing.
Top 10 iTunes tips and tricks
Discover the little things that make such a big difference
01. Edit song info
iTunes makes it really easy to change the info about the songs and albums in your library at any time, simply by selecting the tracks you want to change and hitting Command+I. Do that and you get a pop-up window containing four different tabs - Info, Video, Sorting, Options.
One of the most popular changes is to select Gapless Album under Options. This helps to prevent those annoying breaks between different tracks that are meant to seamlessly flow one into the other - ideal for both your favourite classical and prog-rock albums.
02. Restore iTunes 9's look and feel
Apple introduced some interface changes with iTunes 10, the most controversial of which were ditching the colour icons on the Source sidebar, changing the 'traffic light' control buttons from horizontal to vertical and swapping out the old app icon with a new one.
If you prefer iTunes 9's look and feel, then check out http://shaunr.net. Here you'll find a number of changes for iTunes 10 but make sure you back up iTunes before making any updates.
03. Control from your iPhone
You don't have to sit at your Mac to control iTunes. Download Apple's Remote app (free) and take control of iTunes via Wi-Fi so you can play songs, watch movies and more wherever you are in your home.
To get iTunes and Remote to work together, go to Advanced > Turn On Home Sharing from iTunes menu bar. Open the app on your iOS device and the two should pair.
04. Any requests?
iTunes DJ is like a virtual radio station for your Mac, drawing music and other content at random from your library. You can even make song requests from another Mac or by using the Remote app for the iPhone and iPod touch.
The songs you request then appear in the iTunes DJ playlist. You can decide how quickly your requested song plays by voting for it so it moves up the playlist. To set up guest requests and voting, go to iTunes DJ > Settings.
05. Create your own ringtone
One way to personalise your iPhone is to use a custom ringtone. You can create your own using GarageBand '11, which includes an iPhone ringtone option.
Or you could take a song from your iTunes library and turn it into a ringtone using an app such as iAm Ringtone Maker Lite (free, Mac App Store). The app enables you to select the bit of song you want and save it in iTunes in the Ringtones folder
06. Be smart about playlists
Smart playlists are indeed very clever in iTunes. They enable you to create playlists that are based on certain rules - so you could have one that plays every single song by The Beatles except Yellow Submarine, for example, or another that includes 5-star songs only. Or both.
Apple includes some great examples to get you started - you'll find them in iTunes' Source bar, but it's easy to create your own. Just go to File > New Smart Playlist and try out the various rules. It's fun and easy to do.
07. Get iOS apps automatically
A feature of iCloud in iTunes 10.3 is the ability to automatically download purchases made on the iTunes Store using your Apple ID - so if you buy an app on your iPhone, it will download to your Mac. For now, you're limited to books and apps, but that will change when iCloud arrives in the autumn.
08. Stop iTunes file confusion
iTunes can sometimes mix up audiobooks with music or put music vids in with movies. Changing file metatags in iTunes doesn't always work since files can revert to old behaviour if you have to reimport them. But you can make media metatags stick by using an app such as MetaX (free).
09. Discover hidden preferences
There are lots of secret things you can do with iTunes 10 - add halfstar ratings or change orientation of the 'traffic light' control buttons, for example. You can access these preferences in one place with the Hidden Preferences app (free, http://dougscripts.com/itunes/).
10. Get free music
It may not be pretty to look at, but the built-in Radio is one of the best things about iTunes. It enables you to listen to thousands of hours of music and chat from hundreds of internet radio stations. And it's all completely free.
Radio categorises the radio streams for easy identification and you can easily tell what's currently playing. The only thing you can't do in iTunes is record the radio stream. But there are third-party apps around (Audio Hijack, £12, www.rogueamoeba.com, for instance) that enable you to do just that.
Get the best from the iTunes Store and Ping
Discover new music and find out what you're friends are listening to
One of the best - and (whisper it) worst - things about iTunes is arguably the iTunes Store. It's great because it's a quick and convenient way to find, buy and download the latest albums, music videos, podcasts, books and movies. It's bad because you can spend a heck of a lot of money and arguably it's helping to speed the decline of bricks-and-mortar stores.
iTunes 10 also introduces Ping, a quasi-social network that enables you to 'Like' and comment on songs you've listened to or bought and then share that information with friends and other Ping/iTunes Store users.
To get the best from both services, of course, you'll need an Apple ID and to log your payment details with the iTunes Store. This enables you to make one-click purchases of media without having to enter your bank or credit card details each time. It also enables you to book a Season Pass for a TV series, each new episode being automatically delivered to your iTunes account when it's available for download.
An Apple ID (essentially an iTunes Store account) is also necessary if you own an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, as you won't be able to download any of those weird and wonderful iOS apps without one.
The genius of Genius An Apple ID or iTunes account also enables you to use Genius - iTunes built-in recommendation engine. It's a great way to discover new music, movies and TV programmes based on content you already have in your iTunes library, as well as from other Genius users who have broadly similar tastes.
To use Genius go to Store > Turn On Genius from the iTunes menu bar, enter your Apple ID, accept the terms and conditions and then select Turn On Genius from the next screen. Genius will then scan your iTunes Media folder for content and deliver its recommendations to you.
You'll also notice the Source sidebar now has two new additions: Genius and Genius Mixes. Play any song from your library and then click on the Genius icon in the menu bar and Genius will automatically create a playlist based on your selection. The playlist can be as short as 25 songs or as long as 100.
You can also refresh the playlist at any time for a different selection of songs or even save the playlist - a great way to save any Genius playlists you particularly like.
Select Genius Mixes from the Source side and you'll immediately notice a grid of Genius playlists based on different musical categories. To play a Genius Mix simply select the playback controls at the centre of the Artwork.
Unfortunately you can't customise a Genius Mix or even see what its contents are. But it's a great way to keep your music collection fresh - and throw up a surprise or two.
The Genius is useful in another way, in that it enables Apple to make recommendations for you from the iTunes Store, based on what you like and others like already. You'll notice that the iTunes sidebar is populated with Genius Recommendations; clicking on the links here will take you to the relevant section of the iTunes Store so you can find out more or buy.
To hear or see a preview of anything in the iTunes Store, hold the cursor over its track number and it will turn into a Play button, which will then serve up a 30-second clip for you to watch or listen to.
Exploring the iTunes Store
Select iTunes Store from the Sources sidebar in the iTunes browser and you'll be able to see the main categories of content that are on offer. It's a bit like discovering the floor map in a department store with Music, Films, TV Programmes, the App Store, Books, Podcasts, iTunes U and Ping available.
Clicking on any one of these options will take you to a shop window for each section. On the right are various user account options and charts.
The most important bit of the iTunes Store though is right at the top in the iTunes toolbar, where you'll notice that the Search field has now turned into Search Store. It's by far the quickest way to find anything specific in the store, with the results page returning everything related to the search term, from music to podcasts to apps.
The easiest way to filter the result is to select one of the icons in the Filter By Media Type option in the search results sidebar on the left. Or you can also simply scroll down the page until you find the option you want. If you can't see what you want right away, clicking See All beside each Media Type opens up the field even more.
If your favourite artists are on iTunes, it's easy to keep tabs on what they're up to and get warning of when new stuff from them comes to the store. Click on their name and you're usually taken to a customised artist homepage, which enables you to sign up for new alerts, to see their biography and the full range of the content available from them.
If you've signed up to Ping, you'll also be able to 'Follow' them, and read any messages they've posted. Listed on the right sidebar under People you will find a list of fellow fans. Click on the See All option and iTunes will switch to a list showing them all. Beside each one you'll find a Follow button that enables you to follow them too.
Following other fans might seem a bit weird, but it's a great way to discover new music: clicking on any fan's profile enables you to see what other kinds of music they like on iTunes. The chances are that if they like something you already like, you'll like the stuff that they like to. And if that involves a singer, a band, a style of music you've never tried before, it could open up whole musical avenues.
If following random individuals on Ping seems a little stalkerish, then why not invite friends and family to join you too? You can ask people to join you on Ping by sending a message to their email address or by searching for friends using MobileMe, Windows Live, Yahoo or AOL - links to which are already built into iTunes.
Linking Ping to your Twitter account is another great way to find out who else is around. It also gives you the option to automatically send a new tweet every time you do something on Ping, whether that's liking a posting or posting a review.
Sync with your iPhone, iPod and iPad
It's easy to share your content between your Mac and iOS device. Here's how…
Ever since Apple launched the first iPod in 2001, it has been inextricably linked with iTunes - both as a way of filling it up with music and other content, and for managing settings and software updates. That largely remains true today with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, all of which are dependent on iTunes to a certain extent.
However, the physical ties - hooking up your iOS device to a Mac or PC via FireWire or USB - that bind them to each other will be severed in September with the launch of iCloud, iTunes Connect and iOS 5, which will finally enable iOS and OS X devices to synchronise with each other wirelessly via the internet - no cable required. You won't even need to activate your new iPhone via iTunes as you do now.
Having said that, being able to sync your iOS devices wirelessly won't always be either desirable or convenient, which is why iTunes on the Mac will continue to have a role for the foreseeable future. Whichever way you choose to sync your iOS device with your Mac, there are things you can do.
Whichever iOS device you plug in, you'll see it appear in the Sources sidebar. Click on it and a new view opens up in the main browser window, which enables you decide what kind of content you want to sync, from address books contacts and emails to movies, music and podcasts. Along the bottom is a Capacity bar that tells you how much space on your device certain kinds of content take up.
The first tab you come to - Summary - is arguably the most important. It tells you everything you need to know about your iOS device at a glance - from its name and storage capacity to the iOS software version it's running. The Summary table also enables you to update iOS or return the whole shebang to its factory settings - handy if your iOS device becomes corrupted for some reason or you just to want to clear it out before selling it on.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll come across Options, which includes a handy selection of settings you can toggle on and off so your iOS device behaves differently the next time you sync. These include the ability to sync only certain kinds of content, to live-convert higher bit rate songs in your Mac's iTunes library to 128kbps when you sync them with your iOS device, and to encrypt iTunes backups.
Synchronising content
Most of the other sections (music, films, TV programmes, podcasts and iTunes) work in a similar way. That is you can choose to synchronise the contents of each one of the areas automatically or manually (i.e. individually). The Automatic option works extremely well with a number of presets available that enable you to tweak at your leisure whatever content you want to get synchronised.
You could choose to watch all the episodes of a certain show, the oldest unwatched episodes or the three latest episodes, for example. You can even customise these rules so they work differently for every iOS device that you want to sync.
What you might not realise, however, is that you can also synchronise all kinds of other content between your Mac and your iOS device. And these are things that you may not have thought possible - hook up items such as your own photos, movies and music created using apps on your iPhone, iPod or iPad. In iTunes > Source sidebar > your iOS device, select the Apps tab at the top of the browser window, then scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see the File Sharing option.
The left pane shows all the applications you can synchronise files with; the right pane shows which files are being synced for each application.
Get things together
To synchronise a file, all you have to do is simply click on the application you want to sync, you can then drag and drop the file on to the right-hand pane. To finish off the sync, you then have to open the equivalent app on your iOS device and import it.
Ideally, you'd be able to seamlessly make any changes to documents on one platform and see them reflected on the other, just as you can with Dropbox. Unfortunately, we're not there yet. Instead you have to manually copy the new version back using the steps outlined below. We're hoping that will change with the arrival of iCloud and iOS5 in the autumn.
With iMovie, things become a little more complex. Projects created on iMovie for iPhone or iPad aren't compatible with iMovie for Mac, so you can't start working on a film project in one version and then finish it off with the other.
However, you can partially get around this by importing unedited footage from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into iMovie on your Mac. And you can export a completed iMovie project created on your iPhone into iTunes.
You can also transfer iMovie clips from your Mac to iMovie for iPhone or iPad using iTunes' File Sharing option, but you'll need to make them iOS-compatible first. The easiest way to do this is to add the clip you want to copy to a new project and then select Share > iTunes from the iMovie menu bar. In the drop-down window that appears, select which iOS devices you want to make your film clip compatible with and then select Publish. After a few minutes, an iOS-compatible version of your original film clip will appear in iTunes, under the Films tab.
How to share Pages documents using iTunes
01. Get set to sync
For this to work you will need to have Pages installed on your Mac and your iPhone or iPad. From the iTunes Source bar, select your iPhone or iPad and go to the Apps tab. Scroll to the bottom of the page until you get to File Sharing. Choose Pages from the left pane. The right pane will show the files that you can sync.
02. Drag, drop, transfer
Find the Pages document you want to sync with your iOS device and then drag and drop it into the right File Sharing pane in iTunes. Open up Pages on your iOS device and tap the '+' icon from the menu bar. Select Copy From and then tap the iTunes icon. Your file will now be transferred.
03. From mobile to Mac
To copy a document from Pages for iPhone to your Mac, open a document and then select the Tool icon from the menu bar. You'll now be presented with a range of options to choose from. Now go to Share and Print > Send to iTunes. The file is now available in iTunes on your Mac.
How to get iOS apps organised in iTunes
01. Synchronise apps
Synchronising iOS apps in iTunes is mainly painless except when iTunes decides to dump the apps you've chosen willy-nilly over several iOS screens. To tidy up, synchronise the apps you want on your iPhone or iPad first, then arrange them. Do it the other way and they'll just get messed up again.
02. Move your apps
Now that's done it's time to sort them. It's quicker and easier to do this in iTunes if you can. Choosing and moving iOS apps works in a similar way in iTunes as it does on your iPhone or iPad. Click on the app you want to move to highlight it, then click and drag it to its new location.
03. Moving many
You can group-move a bunch of apps by holding down the Command key as you click on each one. You can also create folders of iOS apps by dragging and dropping one onto another. Rinse and repeat until your files are organised. Now hit the Apply button again. There. All done.
| |
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus announced
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 04:28 AM PDT
-470-75.jpg)
Samsung has announced the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus – a Honeycomb version of its 7-inch tablet range.
Samsung seems to be loving the 7-inch section of the tablet market, probably because it is a place where Apple can't put them through the courts.
While the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 offers up a superior screen, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has some impressive specs.
Android 3.2
The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus runs the latest Android Honeycomb 3.2 and has been given a 1.2GHz dual core processor (up from 1GHz), 1GB of RAM, either 16GB or 32GB of built-in storage, 3-megapixel and 2-megapixel cameras on the back and front, respectively.
So far so Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 old version, but the chassis has been given a trim as well, it's now 9.96mm and the tablet has been made lighter, too – weighing in a 345g.
Other features include a microSD card slot, Wi-Fi, 3G (HSPA+), Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0 and Wi-Fi Direct.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus UK release date is "later this year" with pricing to be announced.
| |
Amazon thrown into the WebOS buyout rumour mix
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 04:07 AM PDT
Amazon is the latest company to be linked to the buyout of Palm, with the e-tailer heavily linked to purchasing the likes of WebOS from HP.
Amazon has been busy of late, announcing its first tablet, the Kindle Fire, and both a cheaper and touchscreen variant of its Kindle ebook reader.
Given that the Kindle Fire has come packing Android, the idea that the company would want WebOS is an interesting one.
HP has said that Amazon would make an ideal partner for WebOS but Amazon has not mentioned whether it would be interested in buying Palm.
In Amazon's basket?
If it was to buy Palm, and with it WebOS, it would mean the company would avoid any messy Android licensing problems in the future but it would also mean that – due to the fact it has only just announced new products – the company would have to wait at least six months to launch anything with WebOS on it.
One fact that is giving this rumour some weight is that former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, now at HP as a 'product innovator, is part of Amazon's board, so will have some clout as to whether Palm is acquired or not.
If it were to buy Palm, it would have to dig deep into its pockets – HP paid $1.2 billion for the company is 2010, although its price to a potential buyer will be far lower than this.
| |
Nokia Sabre joins Sea Ray in Windows Phone line up?
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 04:00 AM PDT
The Nokia Sabre looks set to join the Nokia Sea Ray in the company's Windows Phone launch line up, after Microsoft accidentally included the product name in a competition's terms and conditions.
Naturally, the text has since been changed to remove the product names which, in its removal, kind of makes the Nokia Sabre seem all the more likely.
However, the Sea Ray is just a product codename, so there's no guarantee that the Nokia Sabre will hit the shelves with that moniker.
Sabre tooth
The competition in question is run by Microsoft Canada, with Canadian developers invited to design two Mango apps in order to win the phones.
The Nokia Sea Ray was "accidentally" unveiled by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop in a "covert" video early in the summer. It might look familiar – that's because its chassis is basically the Nokia N9's – but other details are pretty scarce.
Sadly Elop hasn't been brandishing a Nokia Sabre in front of video cameras that were "supposed" to be "off", so no clues about what the sharp-sounding handset will look like yet.
Nokia's target was to get its first batch of Windows Phone handsets out by the end of this year, so we're priming ourselves for a launch any day now. Stay vigilant, comrades.
| |
Carphone Warehouse launches new tablet and phone bundles
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 03:22 AM PDT
Carphone Warehouse has launched a trio of new bundles that could see you get yourself a new handset and slate on one monthly bill.
Dubbed 'tethering' deals, Carphone reckons it's saving you money by alerting you to the fact you can tether your tablet to your phone's 3G connection, something that has been a feature of Android since FroYo (Android 2.2).
The deals will see you net a Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Galaxy Apollo together from £31 a month, the BlackBerry PlayBook and Curve 9300 together from £36 a month or, slightly out of leftfield, the Archos 101 and HTC Wildfire S together from £31 a month.
Marketing maestros
None of these devices are exactly at the bleeding edge of the mobile market, but we doff our hats to the clever plan to shift old Galaxy Tabs and stagnant PlayBook stock.
Carphone also invested in a spot of research to support its new deals, finding that only 9% of tablet users connect their slates to their smartphones' data connection.
The survey of 3,481 people conducted by YouGov also found that Android tablet owners are twice as likely to tether to their phones than iPad owners – probably because Android tethering is free and iOS tethering is not.
brightcove : 1050812308001
| |
YouTube hits earn Mortal Kombat a reboot
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 02:58 AM PDT
A Mortal Kombat web video that became a huge hit on YouTube has netted the director the chance to reboot the famous gaming franchise for the silver screen.
Kevin Tancharoen converted a script from Oren Uziel into an eight minute unauthorised short called Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, proving that the fighting game could make a return to cinemas and that he could cut it as a director of action films.
A web series called Mortal Kombat: Legacy followed which started in April this year, with the stars of the original – including Jeri Ryan – reprising their roles and garnering big audiences.
Fatality!
The success of those two offerings has now led to New Line signing up Tancharoen and Uziel for a new Mortal Kombat movie.
The gaming franchise made its debut in 1995 and performed well, but a series of flops on TV and cinema have followed.
It remains to be seen if this manages to catch the attention in the same way as the freely available shorts managed, but it will be interesting if the internet has served as the best possible trailer to reboot a franchise.
| |
Week in Tech: Amazon lights a Fire - but UK gets a single sparkler
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 02:30 AM PDT
Next week will be all about Apple, but this week it's Amazon's turn to shine: the firm has unveiled three new bits of Kindle kit that should delight customers and annoy rivals - or at least, they should in the US. For the time being, it seems, the best kit is US-only.
When Amazon boss Jeff Bezos took the stage, the word "tablet" was on everyone's lips - but instead of showing off the rumoured Kindleslab, he showed us a brand new Kindle instead.
The Kindle Touch keeps the e-ink display that makes e-readers special, but replaces the keyboard with a primitive touchscreen. It's no iPad, but it's perfectly capable of spotting finger taps to turn pages and bring up menus including the new X-Ray feature, which downloads relevant content such as explanations of places, terms or events. It's cheap, too: just $99 (£63) for the Wi-Fi version, and $150 (£96) for the 3G model.
That's not the cheapest new Kindle, though. That honour goes to the Kindle - there's no suffix - which is just $79 in the US.
Unfortunately crossing the Atlantic puts the price up to £89, although as Amazon told us that's because the $79 version is ad-supported, which is a service that isn't an option over here. When you compare the UK and US prices of the ad-free Kindles, things don't look so bad: the US price is $109, which works out at around £84.
Once again this Kindle does without a keyboard, although this time there's no touchscreen: instead, there are a couple of buttons and a four-way joystick.
There's good news and bad news about release dates: while the basic Kindle will arrive on UK doorsteps from the 12th of October, there's no sign of a release date for the Kindle Touch or the new Kindle tablet, the Kindle Fire.
Did we say Kindle tablet?
As Marc Chacksfield explains, "It's a 7-inch device that comes with Android, albeit a version that has been heavily altered by Amazon to make the best use of the company's e-shopping spine." Specs are reasonable - dual-core processor, IPS screen with gorilla glass, just 413g in weight - but the real secret is the software, which looks rather like Apple's Cover Flow.
It's the Amazon Kindle Fire.
The excitement moved our columnist Gary Marshall to channel Noddy Holder and burst into song. "So here it is, Merry Christmas / Everybody's having fun / Apart from all the Android firms / Who are probably chucking themselves off bridges right now," he sang.
"The original was a bit catchier, but you get the gist: unless Amazon's playing a great big joke and the Kindle Fire is as slow as a snail, then as far as the oh-so-lucrative Christmas shopping period in America is concerned Motorola, RIM, HP and the rest might as well pack up and go home."
Marshall predicts a two-horse tablet race this Christmas, with Amazon and Apple taking the lion's share of sales. Can tablets such as the PlayBook compete? Er, perhaps not, writes Chris Smith. RIM's Android app support looks disappointing, and "it's difficult to see how the PlayBook... can compete with the Kindle Fire even if the price points were similar."
The Fire is half the price of RIM's tablet. As Marshall puts it: "The Kindle Fire's going to fly off the shelves in the same way BlackBerry PlayBooks don't."
Kindle Fire owners will get two cool things: free cloud-based backup, and WhisperSync for movies and music. WhisperSync is the service that knows where you are in a book and lets you start from where you left off on other devices.
Unfortunately, we're not sure whether UK customers will get these services, as some of Amazon's US products aren't available over here: its cloud music service hasn't launched here yet, and while we can sign up for Amazon's premium delivery service Prime, we don't get the free streaming video US prime customers get - even though Amazon owns Lovefilm, which offers a UK video-on-demand service.
Will we get the Kindle Fire with the full complement of goodies - and if so, when? Amazon won't say, and we're not holding our breath: the original Kindle came out in 2007, and it didn't hit the UK for another two years.
| |
Pay TV and LoveFilm coming to Xbox Live?
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 02:24 AM PDT
Microsoft is looking to turn Xbox Live in a veritable media hub, with the addition of pay TV channels and LoveFilm.
This is according to a report by Bloomberg, which suggests that Microsoft is in the midst of signing a number of a deals with media companies including Time Warner, Sony, NBC and, more pertinently for the UK, LoveFilm.
Although nobody has gone on record as saying that this is happening, it is thought that we should see some of the services in place as soon as next week.
Live TV
Microsoft has made no secret of its desire to offer up TV content through Xbox Live. It already has Sky Player on board and back in E3 in June it revealed to the world that 2011 would be the year it would bring live TV to the console – although no partners were mentioned.
Its rival, Sony, has slowly but surely bolstered its TV streaming selection and already has the iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and LoveFilm on board.
LoveFilm has said its focus for the future is increasing its streaming output, so it makes sense for the company to launch on the Xbox – just this week it announced it is now coming to the Apple iPad.
| |
In Depth: Whatever happened to Second Life?
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 02:16 AM PDT
Whatever happened to Second Life?
In the mid-2000s, Second Life was one of the most talked-about things in tech.
Singer/songwriter Regina Spektor used the virtual world to conduct listening parties, while rapper Chamillionaire conducted virtual meet and greets. MTV sponsored in-world fashion shows, tech firms set up training centres and hip brands rushed to set up virtual storefronts; in the real world, Second Life was a business magazine cover star and the subject of breathless dozen-page spreads in tech titles.
Things have changed. SL hasn't been a cover star for a while, and reports tend to concentrate not on exciting new possibilities but on real-world concerns, such as SL creator Linden Lab laying off 30% of its workforce in 2010.
Many brands' stores have been deserted for years, and concurrency - that is, the number of people using the service at the same time - has been slipping. So what went wrong?
Don't believe the hype
Part of the problem is that the gentlemen and women of the press got a bit excited. Tateru Nino, one of the world's leading authorities on Second Life, puts it bluntly: "The media - both tech-press and newspapers/television - worked hard to build up Second Life as something that it wasn't and something that it was never intended to be," she told TechRadar.
"Whether that was out of some low-grade malice or simply because of a complete lack of understanding is an open question. Then they turned around and worked hard at savaging it for not being or becoming those things." Nino can provide plenty of examples.
With hindsight, much of the coverage was ridiculous: a fairly clunky-looking virtual world where people could hang around, interact and create and/or sell virtual goods, we were told, was "the future of the internet" (CNN), "the future of the operating system" (InfoWorld) and possibly "the future of the academic conference" (The Guardian).
So far, at least, it hasn't proven to be the future of any of those things, and while it remains the biggest virtual world - with user numbers continuing to grow since the hype bubble burst - its user base is dwarfed by real-world social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Where Second Life currently has around 1 million active users, Farmville claims 35.7 million.
Learning curve
One reason for the Second Life's relative lack of success is its famously steep learning curve. People understand Facebook immediately, but using Second Life for the first time is a bit like being dropped in the middle of a strange city where you don't speak the language and you don't have a guidebook.
As if a steep learning curve wasn't intimidating enough, the endless possibilities and the lack of hand-holding made the whole experience rather off-putting for new users. Despite Linden Lab's best efforts to improve this, the service still struggles to convert new sign-ups into long-term users.
"That's certainly going to continue to be a problem," Nino says. "Second Life is like the web, in that it's a platform in which content can be made, published and interacted with... that translates to a lot of complexity. Imagine you had one software program to browse the web, publish your blog posts, spell-check, IM your friends and co-workers, create and upload art, chat on IRC and all the other things you do in the web-based side of things. How complicated would the user interface for that program be?"
The difficulty for Linden Lab is that the SL viewer, the software you use to navigate the service, needs to balance user-friendliness with power. "That leaves us with a crowded UI full of options I don't need this minute, but I might need a minute later," Nino says.
"Worse, since most new users' only knowledge of Second Life comes from the media, they have no idea what Second Life is when they arrive - or more commonly, they have some completely wrong idea, like thinking it's a game or somesuch."
LOSING INTEREST: IBM was an early adopter and enthusiastic supporter of Second Life, although these days its presence is much smaller than it used to be
Nino reckons SL is more like a public park than a videogame. "It's not going to take you by the hand, lead you somewhere and show you a good time. You're in the park. It's up to you to have a good time, and not ruin things for other park users."
It's been suggested that Second Life should become more like a videogame: the dreaded term "gamification" has been bandied about, with some suggesting that in-world rewards could help smooth new users' path through the park.
"It has worked, to some degree, in the past," Nino says, noting that the newly-launched Second Life social network helps too by making it easier for users to connect and stay in touch with each other. Ultimately, though, "it's the in-world experience that keeps people coming back... or keeps them from coming back."
The future of Second Life
As early as 2007, some of Second Life's most enthusiastic brands were beginning to lose interest: virtual stores sat empty, and marketers began to pull out. As the LA Times reported, "the schedule of events on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s site was blank, and the green landscape of Dell Island was deserted. Signs posted on the window of the empty American Apparel store said it had closed up shop."
According to the LA Times, some marketers felt misled. "On its website, Second Life says the number of total residents is more than 8 million. But that counts people who signed in once and never returned, as well as multiple avatars for individual residents. Even at peak times, only about 30,000 to 40,000 users are logged on."
Second Life wasn't the only firm to do that - all social networks do it to some degree - but you can see why marketers might have been disappointed.
Then again, taking a Field of Dreams "build it and they will come" approach wasn't particularly smart, either.
"Imagine you whacked a shop in the High Street and filled it with brochures, but never had any staff there," Nino says. "What you can't do without is people. All the most successful venues (that aren't actually stores) in Second Life are staffed, and usually 24/7. That - and not being too dreadfully crap - and having enough patience are the secrets to a successful Second Life presence. Not the only ones, of course, but they're the ones you can't do without."
Make it better
Rod Humble is CEO of Linden Lab. "This year, we've been focused on improving Second Life's usability, performance and customer support - all things that will help turn more newcomers into active users, while also improving core service for our long-term customers," he told us.
Even simple steps such as streamlining the signup process have helped, resulting in "a very large uptick in daily completed registrations. We now see about 16,000 new signups per day."
Making Second Life more welcoming is a key concern. "Second life is huge - roughly 2050 square kilometres - and it's full of things that users have created," he says. "At any given time there are live music performances, immersive role-playing games, unique works of art and 3D environments to explore... in the past, though, it wasn't easy to know what was happening, especially for new users."
Linden Lab has added dynamic content such as details of upcoming events, suggested places to visit and details of hotspots where other users are gathering.
INCREASING APPEAL: Linden Lab wants to make Second Life more welcoming, and its destination guide showcases interesting content such as live music and even fashion shows
Second Life is also developing links with other social networks. We've already mentioned its own social networking features, which enable you to contact others when you're not actually logged onto Second Life, but Linden Lab is also forging links with external social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
However, as Humble describes it Second Life is almost an antidote to the social networking giants. "Second Life is different from most social experiences," he says. "Many customers do want to meet people and connect, but for many the ability to keep that identity separate from perhaps their other online identities is key. Many people use Second Life for a fun escape, or as a place to be expressive that is at odds with the stated desire of Facebook and Google to link you to a real name identity."
Humble continues: "This has allowed the forming of many specific groups where you can enjoy a hobby without concern that it would link back to your real life identity. For example, I am a rather rabid English soccer fan. In Second Life I can have a separate identity where I can rant away about the sport without concern that this will in any way be associated with my role as CEO of Linden Lab... we regard it as a high priority to offer that safe environment where people can create and delete identities at will."
Second lives
"Second Life is growing at an increasing rate, which is amazing for an eight-year-old place on the internet," Humble says. For Linden Lab, the future of Second Life is based on a better user experience across a wider range of devices. "It is now much more user-friendly than it was in the past, and in addition to continuing to improve usability, performance and support, we're adding new features that will make Second Life more interesting while helping it to grow," Humble says, noting that future plans could include apps for tablets and other mobile devices.
"If you haven't checked out Second Life recently, It's a much better experience than you might remember. It's easier to use, it's easier to connect with the people and content that fits your interests, and you can expect better performance and customer support as well."
Is that enough to make Second Life mainstream? "Mainstream doesn't mean 'most people use it'," Nino says. "It means 'most people don't think it's weird'. Barbie is pretty much girls in a narrow age band. But we don't think it's weird. iTunes? We thought that was weird. Now we don't. We stopped thinking digital music was weird, and that made it mainstream. They're virtual goods, no different from a house or a dress in Second Life, fundamentally. A bunch of ephemeral ones and zeros that we can make use of in limited ways through supported software and devices."
There's no doubt that iTunes is mainstream, and that Second Life currently isn't. "The difference is that - as a society - we approve of one and disapprove of the other," Nino says. "A few years ago society shunned both. We shunned the web, the internet, the telephone in their times. What are we going to think is normal next?"
| |
eBay expects 70% phone surge ahead of iPhone 5 release
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 02:13 AM PDT
With the iPhone 5 expected to be announced on 4 October, eBay is battening down the hatches and preparing its coffers for an influx of older iPhone models.
The online auction site reckons it'll see a 70 per cent rise in sales of previous iPhone models as people make room in their telephonic life for the new iPhone.
iPhones have enjoyed a wealth of popularity on eBay.co.uk, with over half a million iPhones changing hands since the first was launched, culminating in one being sold every two minutes on the UK site in 2010.
Battening down the hatches
It's the iPhone 4 that will get a second day in the sun after the new iPhone 5 release, with eBay pegging the aging handset for a surge in the run up to Christmas.
Why? Because last year, sales of the iPhone 3G on eBay outstripped the newer iPhone 4 as people hunted for a smartphone bargain.
"Our figures show that savvy shoppers are ready and waiting to get their hands on the iPhone 4 at a cut-down price," said Angus McCarey, retail director at eBay UK.
"The UK leads Europe in terms of smartphone adoption, which is helping to drive the triple digit growth of mobile shopping on eBay. Mobile is fundamentally changing retail as shoppers can now browse and shop on and offline in a seamless way."
brightcove : 1027846751001
| |
Panasonic LX series to have larger sensor
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 01:43 AM PDT
Panasonic's top-end compact camera could be set for an increase in sensor size according to Yoshiyuki Inoue, the company's Senior Engineering Planner.
Speaking to Techradar he said that although the LX3 had been very successful, its replacement the LX5 had not sold as well as Panasonic had hoped. So while the Panasonic LX5 is now getting on a bit, it seems the company has decided not to replace it just yet, but to consider how it can be made more attractive to enthusiast photographers. Though many may have expected a replacement to be announced this month a firmware update was issued instead.
Sensor size
One aspect that is being given serious consideration for the camera that replaces the LX5 is increasing the size of the sensor, Panasonic's Mr Uematsu even joked that it could have a 1in sensor like the new Nikon V1.
Panasonic's Lumix LX5 has 10.1 million effective pixels on a 1/1.63in sensor. Increasing the sensor size while keeping keep pixel count the same would bring a serious improvement in image quality at the higher sensitivity settings, making the LX6, or perhaps the LX7 a much more versatile camera. Current complaints about the LX5 centre around the high levels of (ISO) noise in images taken in low light when high sensitivity settings are required.
It is clear that Panasonic is still at the planning stage for the LX5's replacement and the company's Mr Uematsu has indicated that Photokina 2012 (the Hamberg-based trade show held every two years in September) is going to be an important one for Panasonic cameras.
| |
Kindle owns Amazon top 10 list
Posted: 30 Sep 2011 01:31 AM PDT
Amazon's US top 100 electronics sales list has shown just how powerful its Kindle brand, with the all but the top offering made up of the various flavours of ebook reader, and the Kindle Fire tablet taking top slot with a bullet.
There was little doubt that the newly announced Kindle family would sell well, but even pre-orders have taken the rankings by storm.
It is Amazon's Android tablet the Kindle Fire which dominates; a $200 price point is seen as the key factor, and it looks as if the internet giant has got a smash hit on its hands.
Thrift
Second place goes to the new entry-level special offer Kindle at $79 – with the thrift-seeker's ebook reader clearly catching the eye.
The more expensive Kindle Touch offerings are at positions three (Wi-Fi only) and four (3G), and the newly reduced $99 dollar old style Kindle – now called Kindle Keyboard is up to number five in the sales charts.
UK Kindle
In the UK, the only new Kindle to be announced for sale is the keyboard-less new-style Kindle priced at £89 – and it is in at number one, with the £109 Kindle Keyboard Wi-Fi only at number two and the 3G keyboard version at three.
We are still haranguing Amazon UK for a UK release date and prices for the Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire but the company has steadfastly refused to give us one just yet.
That almost certainly suggests that the UK will not get the first generation products in 2011.
| |
| 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