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Techradar

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• Why the personal cloud will define next-gen computing
• Download of the Day: Sticky Notes
• Running Man of Tech: Apple is going to make the world's best running watch
• In Depth: Nokia's 3310: the greatest phone of all time
• In Depth: An Apple for teacher: how tablets are changing education
• Buying Guide: The best iPhone 6 deals: March 2015
• Buying Guide: TR Top 10: Best soundbars for your TV
• Week in Gaming: Everything's getting delayed and I'm sat playing GTA 5 heists with two octopus arms
• Exclusive: Raspberry Pi CEO: I really want to see Amiga emulation on Raspberry Pi 2
• Review: Updated: Raspberry Pi 2
• The internet is everywhere – but where has the web gone?

Why the personal cloud will define next-gen computing Posted: 15 Mar 2015 01:55 AM PDT Introduction and the risks posed First it was BYOD, but no sooner are IT staff getting used to the idea of staff using unsanctioned and unprotected iPads and smartphones in the workplace than a new danger has emerged – the personal cloud. What is the personal cloud? "The personal cloud refers to cloud storage and collaboration solutions designed for consumers," says Ojas Rege, VP Strategy, MobileIron. A flexible and user-friendly place to store personal digital content, and always accessible, services include Dropbox (the 'king of the cloud' at 175 million users), Google Drive, Microsoft's OneDrive, Apple's iCloud and many others. All deal in online storage and file synchronisation – and all are hosting potentially sensitive corporate files from every workplace. Recent research from Trustmarque indicates that 40% of British office workers admit to using cloud applications that haven't been sanctioned or provided by IT departments. "As personal cloud continues to encroach on workplaces, businesses will have to change the way they deal with employees who want to use personal cloud, by empowering rather than restricting them," says Angelo di Ventura, Director, Trustmarque. "It's all about how we access the IT we need," says Peter Tebbutt, UK&I Country Leader, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. "We all have a collection of applications, web destinations, online services or content that we use in our personal or professional lives, and we want access to this unique collection regardless of which device we may be using." How are personal clouds changing workplace IT? In short: shadow IT. "Shadow IT is the use of technology outside IT's official mandate," explains Rege. "In the past, IT has tried to shut it down, but the personal cloud is so popular with employees that they use it regardless of whether they've been granted permission … the IT department is struggling with whether to restrict or support it, and how to actually pursue either option." The reason is simple. "Employees are used to having all their content and data available in one place, easily accessible on any device, and don't understand why that isn't an option at work," says di Ventura. "This is creating a challenge for CIOs and IT Directors, who must move their focus away from being the builders of IT systems to becoming the brokers of cloud services." He thinks that computing will change as we see more businesses considering cloud-enabled self-service, single sign-on and identity lifecycle management to simplify adoption, and reduce risk. "One challenge today is that Microsoft is no longer the default choice – Apple, Android, and BlackBerry have changed the expectation of the workplace and operating platform," says Tebbut. "Microsoft has lost its monopoly position and this will drive innovation and choice. Applications will have to work on multiple platforms, and computing will need to support this – and the personal cloud is a key driver and enabler of this." What dangers does the personal cloud bring? Security – or lack of. Personal cloud applications are unsecured and invisible to IT departments; potentially sensitive enterprise data now resides on a server the company can't protect. "You and your organisation are now relying on a provider that has no contractual obligation to your company to keep it secure," says Martin Warren, Cloud Solutions Marketing Manager, NetApp. "And what happens to that data if an employee leaves a company, either voluntarily or otherwise?" However, employees working remotely will do whatever they have to do to make their work-life as streamlined as possible. "The personal cloud makes employees more productive," says Rege, who thinks that saying no is not an option – it will fall on deaf ears. "As a result, IT must look at different ways of securing data, such as file-level security rather than storage-level security so that data can remain secure regardless of where employees store it." The challenge is to enforce security policies across authorised and unauthorised cloud services without affecting employees' productivity. That means no corporate firewall. Trustmarque's research found that 27% of cloud users said they had used cloud services and applications to get around the restrictions of corporate IT, which include limited data storage and email attachment limits. "The result is that employees are putting corporate data and networks at risk – one in five cloud users even admitted to uploading sensitive company information to file sharing and personal cloud storage applications," says di Ventura. "IT departments must be able to analyse the activities that pose the greatest risk – such as sharing data outside the company – and block them specifically to mitigate risk." Opportunities and the future What opportunities does the personal cloud bring? "For people who want to start or are running a business it is incredibly empowering," says Tom Povey, Director, MyFuturecloud, who thinks it can put small businesses on a level playing field with big competition. "The highly efficient internal communication systems that were once the preserve of big corporations are now open to anyone, as is the ability to work and operate from anywhere in the world – you no longer need physical infrastructure across the globe to be an international presence." It might be popular, but the personal cloud isn't finished yet. "There's a need for better interconnect between different cloud providers for the best possible user experience on all platforms," says Warren. One example is the latest update Dropbox has made to its iOS app, which allows content in a variety of apps to be saved directly to Dropbox. It's a small change but completes the circle by doing away with the need to email yourself a photo – from a work point of view, that's a hugely productive change. What will happen next with the personal cloud? Some think that IT departments need to claw back network sovereignty and take a hard line against personal cloud apps. "As cybersecurity concerns mount, IT departments need to prioritise network protection rather than trying to embrace personal cloud services used by employees," says Lubor Ptacek, VP Product Marketing at OpenText. "What enterprises need are cloud-based services that have been designed and built specifically for business." There's good reasoning behind this hard line since both the EU's Data Protection Directive and UK's Data Protection regulation mean that businesses are accountable for governing the transfer of personally identifiable information across Europe. "Organisations need clear visibility of data," says Ptacek, "and this is something personal cloud providers can't bring to the table." A more inclusive approach is the adoption of the hybrid cloud. The vast majority of cloud users (84% according to Trustmarque) say they haven't got or don't know if there is a cloud usage policy in their workplace. That apathy and disregard for IT diktats is only going to get worse. Perhaps there is only one choice for IT departments. "The personal cloud will have more of a role in enterprise computing as hybrid cloud architectures become the norm," says di Ventura. "Hybrid cloud will let organisations empower their users and keep them happy, while at the same time ensuring risk is minimised by using the right cloud for each workload." One way of IT departments wresting back some control of the personal cloud is to design their own personal cloud apps. "The personal cloud will continue to evolve towards professional uses, and it's likely that as in-house expertise and skills develop we will see more and more services coming from the enterprise IT departments themselves as opposed to apps sourced from the public app stores," says Tebbutt. What kind of business models are we seeing emerge built on the personal cloud? The consumerisation of IT that has been fostered by free cloud storage services is creating new ways of doing things. "Because they can no longer say 'no, you can't use XYZ service for company activities', IT managers are faced with a choice – let their users roam free or deploy equally approachable solutions that enable them to also control how data is created, used, and shared," says Jeff Denworth, SVP Marketing at CTERA. "The result is the proliferation of a new class of IT toolsets, IT controls and management capabilities coupled with an ease of use that simplifies the everyday work experience – all being democratised by a new class of IT-as-a-service platform providers." Denworth also predicts that new biometric approaches to data protection and authentication will also flourish. What could the personal cloud look like in 10 years? The personal cloud and shadow IT aren't likely to disappear, but the boundaries between them probably will. "In 10 years, there will be no distinction between the 'personal' and 'business' cloud," says Rege, who thinks that we're likely to see a holistic approach to the cloud in the workplace. "Security will exist at the file-level and employees will be able to use whichever productivity solution helps them do their jobs better." As well as free choice of apps and storage, and biometrically-locked files, the personal cloud is likely to link to new devices. Think wearables linked to business apps in the cloud, and smart homes controlled from afar with unlimited and low cost computing power that "evolves every aspect of the IT experience from reactive and productive to predictive, preventative and proactive," according to Denworth. Such is the popularity of personal cloud apps, that whatever it lacks, the personal cloud will probably overcome in time. Warren thinks that the personal cloud is already on a mission to become enterprise-grade. "Personal cloud companies are acutely aware that the existing model is not fit-for-purpose in an enterprise environment," he says. "We will begin to see personal cloud providers working more closely with enterprise-class cloud, infrastructure and security providers. Combining an intuitive interface with enterprise-grade resiliency and security is a compelling business proposition for companies of all sizes." How to ensure that shadow IT doesn't put your data at risk in 2015

Download of the Day: Sticky Notes Posted: 14 Mar 2015 11:57 PM PDT Keeping track of all the information in your life was hard enough before the internet came along to add a whole new ream of things to keep an eye on and Sticky Notes makes it easy to keep all those pesky little notes tidy. Why you need it If we all still grabbed a post-it note every time we saw a piece of information online that we wanted to remember then our desks would become a mess of light yellow and other colours with Post-It becoming the richest company on the planet. Thankfully Sticky Notes blasts that prospect out of the water, As one of the more simple Windows widgets out there, it has one main task of creating notes but there are plenty of other aspects that make it a useful program. Sitting in the system tray, you create notes by simply right clicking on the icon and then choosing the create new note option. Once you're happy with what you've typed it can be pinned to the desktop just as you would with a regular sticky note on the monitor of your actual PC. Otherwise notes can be saved and recalled at a later date or even tagged with an alarm if the information warrants it. Being that they're not made from paper there's even more personalisation than that though. Each one can be changed so that it is a different level of transparency up to 90% or just completely opaque and there's even the chance to adjust the background colour of each note with blue, green, pink, yellow and white to choose from as well as custom colours. So that notes don't create too much clutter they can be rolled up to a much smaller format and there are also shortcuts to open up all the notes created plus if everything gets a bit too much then they can all be hidden at the click of a mouse. Anyone looking to create notes that will stick around or go away depending on your state of affairs won't have anything to complain about when they download Sticky Notes. Key features Works on: Windows 7 and 8.1 Price: Free or $4.99 (around £3.32 or AU$6.46) for added features Say Goodbye To Desk Clutter: Scores of sticky notes all over your monitor will be a thing of the past thanks to this free virtual equivalent that will instead invade your desktop. Customise Your Notes: Buying all those different coloured packets of notes is also a thing of the past thanks to the ability to fully customise all notes with a pallet of colours plus the option to add your own options. Keep Them Tidy: Notes can be saved, hidden, cascaded and then brought back to the fore using the options menu or by setting up hotkeys.

Running Man of Tech: Apple is going to make the world's best running watch Posted: 14 Mar 2015 07:33 AM PDT This week I was speaking to a radio station about the new Apple Watch while stuck in Berlin airport following the 're-launch' of Cupertino's new wrist dweller. While trotting out the same answers about smart watches I'd offered to countless media outlets (yes, they're too expensive, and no, they don't do enough yet) the DJ asked something that made me pause. "So Apple is marketing this as a fitness device, right?" he belted into his microphone. "Why would they do that? It means the likes of me, who doesn't want to get fit and has no intention of doing it, simply won't buy it!" And he was right. Smart watches right now are no good for a lot of things, least of all running. And yet this activity is something Apple is pushing hard to associate its brand with, parading the likes of Christy Turlington Burns as one of the faces of the new Watch. It showed her completing half marathons with a thing that really is no more than a gadget-ised fashion accessory strapped to her wrist. The Apple Watch doesn't have GPS, it can't structure training plans to get you fitter, and the battery will last as long as a chocolate roll at an eight-year-old's birthday party. It's not in the same league as dedicated running watches by any stretch of the imagination, so for the enthusiast it's a non-starter. And for the runphobic, the Apple Watch has been presented in a way that doesn't feel inclusive by making such a big deal about the health benefits - if anything, it's saying 'if you're not going to fill that 30 mins of exercise ring each day, don't bother coming putting me on'. That's not the future we know While Apple doesn't need any pity given to it, the brand is in the same boat as all of the other smartwatch manufacturers: the batteries aren't big enough, the sensors are too large to fit in a slim design and everything costs too much. Really, they should have all waited a couple of years to perfect the tech before getting it out into the wild, but such is the feverish excitement to make a thing a THING before someone else makes it a THING that stuff gets pushed out prematurely. And yet I'm convinced Apple is going to make the best running watch of all time. Saying that it's no good for running now is like pointing out the first iPhone was no good for photography (it wasn't). But the iPhone has been the most popular camera in the world for a number of years, because, as the saying goes, 'the best camera is the one you have with you.' The same will go for the Apple Watch, still almost certain to be the world's best selling smart watch in a couple of years even with the high cost and limitations on tech, by the fact 'the best running watch is the one you have strapped to your wrist'. The battery life will improve rapidly, the sensors will miniaturise to the point where we'll have cadence, speed and elevation alongside the pre-requisite GPS. And, most importantly, developers from Nike, Adidas and Strava and a host of others will get their claws into the popular platform, making some truly great apps that will outstrip even what's available on phones and bringing the experience only available to expensive running watches to do-it-all smart ones. Because that's how we have to think about it: Apple will, Trojan-like, bring a powerful running watch to the wrists of millions, those that just bought it because it was a cool Apple thing. Think about how many people you know that have started running and are using a smartphone to help them do it - and imagine being able to do that without a cumbersome and ugly arm strap. While the Apple Watch will always be too expensive for some, and the current Apple Watch Sport seems to be there in name only (plus an easy way to make people feel better for dinging it up a little, because Apple has dubbed them an ACTIVE PERSON), the future looks a lot better. Should runners buy an Apple Watch this year? No way. For the same price you can get something hugely more useful from Garmin, Polar or even Adidas. But don't be surprised if you start seeing Apple Watches on the arms of competitors in 2017… or even on your own.

In Depth: Nokia's 3310: the greatest phone of all time Posted: 14 Mar 2015 06:00 AM PDT Nokia 3310: the phone we all love After being bought and then ransacked for its mobile phone know-how by Microsoft, Nokia as we know it is gone. But there was a shining time in the final moments of the 20th century where we saw Nokia launch a string of successful handsets that, for a while, would lead it to dominate the mobile market. Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, Nokia's line-up of straightforward mobile phones were loved by millions and made the Finnish telecoms company synonymous with class-leading mobile technology. 1996 saw the first of Nokia's 'smart' phones in the form of the 9000 communicator series that featured a data modem, internet access, email and more thanks to the built-in QWERTY keyboard and large 640 x 200 resolution screen. It was in 1999 however, when the 3210 was born, that Nokia got the combination of price, size and features right for the mass market. The predecessor to the 3310, it featured usable SMS messaging, the beloved game Snake, and was the first affordable mobile phone to come to market with a fully internal antenna. The success of the 3210 led Nokia to create the device that gets phone lovers the world over misty eyed: the 3310. This sleek, compact phone had all the features of the 3210, but in a smaller and lighter frame (133g vs 153g), many customisation options thanks to swappable front and rear panels, along with many other improvements to the internals and software. It was the out-right resilience of this iconic handset that today puts it in the mobile phone hall of fame, that and the fact that it sold over 126 million units since its launch September 1st 2000. The specifications Measuring 113 × 48 × 22 mm and weighing in at 133g, the Nokia 3310 wasn't the lightest phone around, but became well-known for feeling distinctly solid, while its smooth lines were afforded by using internal aerials rather than pointy external alternatives. Though the display might not look much next to pixel-popping quad HD screens on today's phones, the green-lit 84 x 48 pixel monochrome display was easily readable in bright light and had just enough detail to allow Nokia to add some character to the phone's UI and host playable games. The top edge of the phone packed a wide power button, while the menu navigation is done through the up/down arrow keys, and menu selections chosen with the blue menu button. The 'c' button acted as a 'back', 'undo' and 'delete' key, and the keypad always felt responsive - and could be easily cleaned if it didn't thanks to the removable facia. Dual band 900/1800MHz support meant it would work on any European network, and though the 900mAh NiMH battery had an official standby time of 260 hours, most users of the 3310 will attest that it seemed to last almost infinitely between charges. Alongside these ample specifications, a SIM-limited phonebook of 250 contacts, T9 predictive text input, 35 pre-loaded ringtones (and 7 slots for your own compositions) as well as a clock, stopwatch, timer, calculator and currency converter were all the 'smart' features you could ever want, or need, at that time. The Price Though it may not sound so incredibly cheap next to today's bumper selection of budget smartphones, the 3310 launched at £129.99 on a pay-as-you-go contract through the likes of Orange (now part of EE), Cellnet (BT's O2 predecessor) and One2One (which later became T-Mobile). Alternatively Vodafone would let you pick one up for just £29.99 with a 12 month contract (honestly, they used to exist). By the end of the 3310's popularity in late 2003, it was retailing for less than £45 in the new Tesco Mobile supermarket displays, and later went on to become a refurbished phone of choice to be distributed to the third world very cheaply. The competitors and the successors The Competitors Motorola V8088: For those looking for a compact alternative to the 3310, Motorola's V8088 was the one. It featured voice dialling, WAP web browsing and came in 4 awesome colours. On top of that, you could even set a screensaver to preserve the pixels on the 96 x 64 resolution screen. Futuristic. Ericsson T29: The T29 came along as an update to the popular T28 flip-phone, with an improved greyscale screen and an early version of WAP internet access. You could also answer the phone by flipping open the keyboard cover, which was incredibly cool. Sagem MC920: Those on the Vodafone network in 2000 were heavily pushed toward the MC920, by French mobile phone company Sagem. They touted loud speaker phone and vibrating ringer as its major features, but the external aerial made it look considerably 'past it' compared to the 3310. Nokia 8850: If you were a business bod with plenty of money, you would have probably chosen the 8890 over the 3310. Its chrome accents and sliding keyboard cover were very stylish for their time, and it was also smaller and much lighter than the 3310 'brick'. Sharp J-SH04: Meanwhile in Japan, Sharp released the 'J-Phone', the first ever camera-phone with a colour screen and a 0.1MP sensor. The Sha-Mail infrastructure allowed for the first ever type of picture messaging. It was way ahead of anything Europe or America had seen. The successors & Nokia's demise After the obvious success of the 3310 across Europe, it went on to spawn many other siblings. These included the improved 3315 which had a blue LCD and keypad backlight, became popular throughout Asia. The 3390 and 3395 were launched as alternatives for Northern America, whilst Australia got the 3315. In 2001 the 3330 and 3350 models brought with them WAP internet access, allowing you to download Java applets (mostly games) along with memory for a further 100 phonebook entries on the phone itself. By 2005 Nokia had launched true 3G smartphones such as the Nokia N80 which ran on the Symbian-based S60 software, and for the time featured a really usable 3MP camera and a full colour screen. In December of 2008, Symbian had already started to reach its peak and with the launch of the full keyboard-toting touchscreen N97 and candybar-style Nokia 5235 a year later, next to the iPhone and early Android handsets, the operating system was really starting to show its age. The final swansong of Symbian came in early 2012 with a 41MP camera onboard in the form of the 808 PureView, which to this day is regarded as having one of the best smartphone snappers around. 2011 saw Microsoft launch its first modern smartphone OS in the form of Windows Phone 7, which Nokia was keen to jump aboard, launching the Lumia 710 and 800 models at the Nokia World Conference in late October that year. Many more Lumia models launched over the following two years, but with Windows Phone never quite gaining traction alongside meteoric Android and iPhone sales, on September 3 2013 it was announced that Microsoft intended to acquire Nokia's mobile business for a deal totalling over US$7bn. After rumours of co-branded phones fizzled out, Microsoft announced in October 2014 that they had decided to phase out the Nokia branding entirely, with future Lumia models to exclusively bear the Microsoft name and Windows Phone logos. Longing for the good ol' days The Nokia 3310 was truly a giant of its time. If you didn't know someone who owned one, frankly I'd wager you were either living on the moon, or in the deepest darkest depths of Antarctica. It was the 3310, and its predecessor that brought a truly user-friendly, notoriously robust and affordable mobile phone to users the world over, and arguably was solely responsible for the massive popularisation in SMS messaging amongst teenagers and young adults in the early 2000s. Without the 3310 where would we be today? Would our iPhones have pointy external antennas? Would the mobile accessory market be where it is today without Xpress-on covers? Would we be crushing candy on a daily basis without the genius of Snake? If you've still got one of these glorious handsets tucked away in a drawer somewhere (or you gave it to your mum who is still using it), don't throw it away. You never know when you might need a phone that will survive the apocalypse. If that doesn't happen, it makes a great hammer, projectile or even body armour.

In Depth: An Apple for teacher: how tablets are changing education Posted: 14 Mar 2015 06:00 AM PDT A brave new world "If you're writing poetry, write it. Don't type it in just because you can." The classroom is changing, as new technologies dramatically alter the learning for both teachers and students. And at the heart of this change is the tablet. You might not think of the classroom as a key market for big companies such as Apple and Google, but according to research conducted by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), there will be nearly a million tablets in UK schools alone by 2016. That's indicative of a vast worldwide market. Manufacturers understandably want their share – and it comes with some significant benefits to education too. According to BESA, the iPad has the lead at the moment, with 50% of secondary schools preferring the iOS platform compared with 29% for Android. Apple has confirmed it's sold over 15 million iPads into education alone. That would explain the significant investment in dedicated education platforms: Apple has iTunes U to make virtual courses, iBook textbook creation, an education section in the App Store and the Apple Distinguished Educators program, where Google has only recently launched the Google Play for Education portal to help teachers find dedicated apps and books. The iPad has such popularity in education that the city of Sneek, Holland, there's an institution called the Master Steve JobsSchool. Here, Apple's tablet is more than a convenience – it's the foundation of the whole educational philosophy. Everything is channelled through the digital hub, and teachers are referred to as "coaches". This leads to a bigger question: is the iPad a tool for teachers to use, or could it actually replace them? A tool to make good teachers better Unsurprisingly, the answer from the schools I interviewed was emphatically "no". However, most are hugely enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by the iPad as a tool to allow good teachers to improve their educative skills. "The iPad in itself will not impact results on its own," said a blog post from the de Ferrers Academy, a state school that's been trialling 1:1 iPads for its GSCE and A Level students for three years, talking about the positive impact of the tablet in the classroom. "However, for staff [the benefits are] making effective use of it, the intense focus on leveraging its ability to transform/deliver rapid AFL, effective feedback, independent study/research… and 24/7 access to support and learning resources via iTunes U/Google Drive." To find out how teachers are using the iPads on a daily basis to improve their teaching I met with teachers Daniel Edwards (Director of Innovation and Learning) and Simon Armitage (Director of Communication) at the Stephen Perse Foundation schools in Cambridge, UK, where each child from 11 years old is given their own iPad. One of the things that came up time and again from the teachers I spoke to is the fact that tablets have a camera and large screen, massively opening up the way children can interact with homework, document their work to refer back and improve and more easily share with parents and teachers alike. For instance at the Stephen Perse Foundation schools, a class was set a task to identify 20 household objects, find out how they were made and use this information to explain how globalisation is present in every home. Instead of doing a list or a static video, one pupil looked at the two options and mixed them together, creating an iMovie that showed an animated map to represent the objects, adding in stop motion. "What was great was she clearly had fun and got the whole family involved," said Armitage. "Getting the parents involved is something we've struggled with at schools, but proved to be one of the most impactful areas," added Edwards. "If a child is doing video all around the home, the parents must be asking what's going on, they would have talked about the project, and parents love to see engagement in learning." Even for younger age groups, tablets are having a strong effect on learning, as a growing number of schools publish the children's work for parents to see. Even with strictly controlled use (and limited to one per three children) the children are more aware of what the projects they're doing mean. "If you post [pupil's projects] to a blog regularly, five-year-olds will say 'hang on' before you take a picture and then correct their work," said Edwards. "Trying to get that review process is almost impossible to get into the brain of child that young, so I'm told." The results are in Like the Stephen Perse Foundation schools, the de Ferrers academy has been running an iPad trial for three years, and has conducted studies which show an improvement in A-Level grades through tablet use – including a record result in Maths and Phsyics for the first group of students equipped with their own iPads in 2012. The same study showed a tremendous appetite for the new educational tool from the students, with 82% citing the tablet as having a "positive" or "very positive" effect on their learning experience. This upturn in results and attitude towards the technology is also giving teachers more freedom to develop a closer educational relationship with the pupils. Instead of simply dictating lessons from the front of the class, it lets teachers see where students have learned and where there's need for further clarification. This can come from a simple set of questions answered in an online test – giving instant answers and showing where the gaps in learning might be - to getting pupils to give audio recordings of their voice with projects. This information, and the speed at which it's returned, can then be used to prepare more targeted lesson plans, saving time and helping children learn more effectively in the process. Who's the teacher? Some parents might worry that the iPad will become a crutch for teachers, a way of easily creating lessons that are showy and exciting but don't really teach a child in the same way as traditional methods. But those using the technology believe it can enhance the established systems rather than replacing them. "The curriculum will define the content you require and the skills you would use to teach, but you would always adapt that, however you're teaching. That's the point," says Edwards. "For instance: a seven-year-old is given the water cycle to learn, and they've got to use a definition, an explanation, and a review. They can define it on paper, explain it and then review it by asking other people to comment. "But what the teacher wants is their unique voice. I can get an audio recording of each module from every student and I can get what they understand and don't from their voice – and you get more from that than what they write." Edwards also pointed out how this worked in the opposite direction, with the iPad allowing him to give more feedback without adding time to his working day. "I had one class I marked with written work, and one that I annotated and recorded my voice. When I read out the written feedback, it was about 30 seconds long, where my video was 90 seconds. That's three times as much feedback in the same length of time for marking, because I had this device in front of me." Putting U in the middle At the core of this iPad learning is iTunes U. Apple's online portal allows teachers to create courses that are available to all those enrolled. With over 1.3 billion course downloads already, it allows teachers to set up the lesson materials for each student level the night before and offers students access at any time to the resources used in lessons – meaning pupils of different abilities can be catered for in lesson plans by adding in different elements appropriate to their level. The resources in the iTunes U program are vast: it can include anything the teacher wishes, from web pages to PDFs to videos and pictures. Apps play a big part too, with students being asked to use dedicated tools to help explain elements of lessons more simply. Most of these courses are private, with a code needed from the teacher to get access. However, courses are increasingly being made public, allowing anyone to access to information on subjects ranging from evolution in the Galapagos to advanced geometry and calculus. But open it up as a non-teacher and iTunes U is a confusing place. It looks like a load of subjects with some random documents assigned. So why does Apple's education portal exist? Why are teachers putting their courses online for others to see? "They're not designed for remote learning," said Armitage. "[Teachers] on the outside say, 'Well, how am I supposed to teach using that?' Well, that's your bit." "It's a resource, a different point of view," adds Edwards. "[A teacher] can look at Simon's course from another school and take 15 of those resources and use them in their course. "There are loads of teachers posting content all over the place, telling people what they want to do, with which resources people can look at and use freely. It makes education in learning much easier." Having the courses centralised also allows pupils to manage their own learning – if they miss lessons through illness, all the information is there, rather than leaving the teacher to photocopy courses, send exercise books through and make phone calls to explain what was missed. The other element that attracts teachers to the Apple online portal is iBooks' textbook library. A vast number of volumes have already been created and can be instantly distributed to students, meaning no more back pain from lugging them to classes. But the ebook distribution model also allows teachers to be even more tailored: iBooks Author lets educators create their own bespoke textbooks for their classes. In fact, 45,000 have been created already for that purpose, including some made by the students themselves. These are then published through the Apple portal, making them available for other teachers to look at and include in their curriculum. But who pays for the tablets? Should parents have to pay? The key question that comes up time and again is one of cost: iPads are generally seen as a luxury device for consumers, so how can schools afford to equip students with devices? Should they not be looking at lower cost tablets? Greg Hughes, assistant principal at the de Ferrers Academy, says the school preferred the iPad over other devices due to elements like the App Store, as well as its low failure rate. "Cheaper devices seemed poorer in terms of performance, quality of camera and availability of apps," he said. "We love the fact that the iPad has such an easy learning curve. Students know how to use it almost instantaneously, so we haven't needed to give them any training all, just a few reminders about back-ups and so on. "The students view Apple products as 'cool' and for many of our students from challenging backgrounds, having access to their own device is both aspirational and transformational, for them and their families." The options to make Apple's tablets accessible are varied: from having a limited number of shared devices available for specific lessons, to the offer of school-funded iPads, schools are finding ways to get the devices into the hands of children. According to the BESA study, the preferred method is for the school to pay for and own the devices, although there is appetite in secondary schools for parents to pay for the tablet, as they would for art supplies or school trips. And anecdotally, parents seem to be happy paying for the devices where needed, as tablets and smartphones are already so commonplace that their use in education seems obvious – plus for any students on the Pupil Premium schemes (traditionally used for free school dinners and similar) it seems many schools are keen to use that money to help out with educational devices. But the notion of a school funding the entire deployment of iPads may be more feasible than some might think, with Hughes from the de Ferrers academy calling the experiment "cost-neutral." He pointed to a number of areas where costs have been saved through the deployment of iPads. These included: removing current virtual learning environments (saving about £10,000 a year), reductions in printing and photocopying (£20,000), cuts in computers and IT suite replacements (£45,000) and even moving to digital marking books, which would save thousands on its own. The outlay is significant, as it costs £300 to equip the students with the tablets, a high total when over a thousand students are involved. However, de Ferrers asks for £1 per week per year for full use of the iPad (including being able to take it home) with an option to buy it outright at the end of the course. Given that 65% of students take up this option, the initial cost to the school is reduced by two thirds. Are children safe online? With any new tool, and especially one connected to the internet, there are understandable worries from parents about putting this technology into the hands of children. Who is watching them and making sure that they're not doing anything that can harm them? Both schools I spoke to have robust systems in place to combat inappropriate use of the tablets, ensuring any device connected to the Wi-Fi network has restrictions on explicit or age-inappropriate content. Detailed device management also means the schools can see what apps are being installed on the tablets, allowing swift action to be taken. Both schools also made sure that parents were educated on how the iPad was used in schools, giving them input into what their child is doing online, which Edwards said had proved successful in helping parents understand the role of the tablet. "Often we get the child to get their smartphone out next to the parent so the child can access lots of things on the phone that the parent can't on the iPad thanks to our security," he added. Parents are encouraged to set their own restrictions too: when at home in the family Wi-Fi environment, a separate passcode that only they know will enable them to set the child's privileges on the iPad. Still work to do There are other issues that need to be ironed out before the use of tablets in schools becomes more widespread – the most obvious one being the wireless connectivity required to enable it. On average primary schools are only halfway towards an ideal level of broadband connectivity, according to BESA, although in the case of secondary schools, the situation is much better. It will require investment (both in the equipment and the security software), which adds to the cost of tablet deployment. And besides budget, one of the most pressing issues preventing tablet adoption is the training and support teachers need to use tablets effectively in classrooms. In the schools interviewed, this is primarily handled by one or two teachers engaged with the technology – however, for more widespread adoption there will need to be more readily available help. A number of schemes are being set up to help with this already, including iteach-UK, the iPad Academy and even Apple's own teacher training courses. However, government research is needed to show that the tablet has a huge – and positive – effect on education, otherwise already overburdened teachers aren't going to take time out of their schedule to learn more about something that may not be of use. Making a difference What's been clear from looking at how the tablet is currently used in the classroom is that it's had a transformational effect. It's expanding how teachers are working with students, saving money and helping give pupils more freedom in their learning experience. However, schools using iPads in the manner described above are still rare, with a lot of hurdles to overcome. Teachers need confidence (and training) in the technology, and board-wide agreement needs to happen over the implementation and funding to get the schemes off the ground. Other tablet options from Microsoft and Google will also become prevalent in the future, meaning teachers will have more choice in terms of functionality and cost as tablets become the norm in schools – and anything that makes the transition easier is likely to accelerate the rate at which digital slates become a daily part of education.

Buying Guide: The best iPhone 6 deals: March 2015 Posted: 14 Mar 2015 05:10 AM PDT Best iPhone 6 deals Apple's iPhone 6 has, as silly as it may sound, revitalised Apple's smartphone. It may not have looked like it was in danger from the outside, but a lack of new features would have been a disaster for Apple. Now though, the iPhone is stronger than ever. Two new phones in two new sizes, both with some great capacity options including 16, 64 and 128GB capacities. The new sizes are great, but it does add a bit of complexity to picking the best deal. As always, we'd advise you go into your purchase knowing how much space you're going to need, and don't be swayed when it comes time to spend your money. The UK's best iPhone 6 deal: The absolute cheapest way you can get an iPhone 6 at the moment is to get the silver, 16GB model on Vodafone. This will cost you £249 upfront, and then £22.50 per month. For that you get 100 minutes of calls, unlimited texts and 100mb of data. The contract length is, as you might expect, a full two years. Get this deal: direct from Vodafone Now let's break down the best iPhone 6 deals by network... Best iPhone 6 deals on EE EE is the network to go to if you want high-speed 4G Deal 1: So, we've scanned all the best deals, and the cheapest is for an iPhone 6 16GB. The up-front cost is £199 and monthly it's £23.49. For that, you get 1000 minutes, unlimited texts and 2GB of data. Get this deal: direct from Mobiles.co.uk Deal 2: With that in mind, the best deal for data on EE is for the 16GB iPhone. It will set you back £99 initially and £33.49 per month. You get a generous 4GB of data and both calls and texts are unlimited. Get this deal: direct from Carphone Warehouse Deal 3: If you want to get a phone for free - it's not really free, there's no such thing as a free phone - then the best price is £36.99 per month. For that, you get unlimited calls and texts and 2GB of data. In total, over the 24 months you'll pay £803.76 on that tariff. Get this deal: direct from Mobiles.co.uk Compare: all iPhone 6 deals Best iPhone 6 deals on O2 O2 is the network with extras, including the popular O2 Priority service Deal 1: On O2, the cheapest deal we can find is for theiPhone 6, 16GB in the gold. The up-front cost is £49.99 and then it's £33 per month with unlimited calls and texts. A reasonable 2GB of data is included, and you'll have to sign up for two years. Get this deal: direct from Mobiles.co.uk Deal 2: Although the best deal isn't bad for data, you can get a lot more. For example, O2 also offers a 5GB package with the iPhone 6 16GB gold. It's £99 up-front then £33 per month. Calls and texts are both unlimited. Get this deal: direct from Carphone Warehouse Deal 3: For those looking to spread the costs, O2 has a £38 per month deal on the iPhone 6 16GB you get unlimited calls and texts but just 2GB of data. That's probably enough for most people, but heavy users will struggle with that. Get this deal: direct from Carphone Warehouse Deal 4: As a bonus, O2 also offers reconditioned iPhones, these are really worth considering if you're on a budget. For £49.99 up-front and £28 per month you can have 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 500mb of data. Get this deal: reconditioned phone at Mobiles.co.uk Compare: all iPhone 6 deals Best iPhone 6 deals on Vodafone Vodafone prides itself in coverage and quality, it's often a bit mean with data, but there are extras like Spotify and Sky Sports Mobile thrown in. Deal 1: As of now, Vodafone is the best iPhone 6 deal of any of the networks. The iPhone in 16GB and silver is jus t£249 upfront then £22.50 per month. For that, you get 100 minutes of calls and unlimited texts but data is capped at just 100mb - not really enough for even light users. Get this deal: direct from Vodafone Deal 2: For those who need more data, Voda's best deal is for 4GB and that costs £35 per month with an up-front cost of £29.99. As with most high-limit data tariffs, calls and texts are both unlimited. Get this deal: direct from Carphone Warehouse Deal 3: If you want the cost of your handset rolled into each month, rather than paying for it up-front, take a look at theiPhone 6 16GB in silver for £30.50 per month. That includes 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 250mb of data. Again though, Vodafone can be properly stingy with its data, and 250mb is really nowhere near enough. Get this deal: direct from Mobiles.co.uk Compare: all iPhone 6 deals Best iPhone 6 deals on Three Three is one of few providers that offers unlimited data, and Feel at Home is amazing for regular travellers. Deal 1: The absolute best deal on Three at the moment is for an iPhone 6 with an up-front charge of £99 for the phone. Per month it's £35, and that gets you unlimited texts, 600 minutes of calls and 1GB of data. This is ideal for people who still make lots of phone calls. Get this deal: direct from Three.co.uk Deal 2: In terms of data packages, Three tends to keep it simple, so you can have 1GB, 2GB or unlimited. For those who love being online, unlimited tariffs start at £42, with a £99 phone. You also get 600 minutes of calls and unlimited texts. Get this deal: direct from Three.co.uk Deal 3: If it's a free phone you want, then Three has nothing for you. The lowest you can go is £9, and then you're paying a staggering £58 per month but you get unlimited everything. Get this deal: direct from Three.co.uk Three is often very cheap for SIM only deals, but when it comes to the iPhone, it's one of the most expensive providers out there. Compare: all iPhone 6 deals

Buying Guide: TR Top 10: Best soundbars for your TV Posted: 14 Mar 2015 05:02 AM PDT Ten best soundbars It's no secret that the audio quality on most TVs is dire. Not only are the speaker drivers vastly underpowered, they face in the wrong direction. It's a bit like going to see Beyoncé perform at Wembley stadium and finding her standing on stage with her back to you, singing into a megaphone. Buying the best soundbar is the easiest way of giving your TV some much-need sonic steroids as virtually all screens have the option of being used with an external speaker. What's the best soundbar? Soundbars come in many shapes and sizes, and range in price from under £100 to over £1,000. Cheaper models have basic connections (including a digital optical socket, which is essential), more expensive ones add superior HDMI inputs, wireless audio streaming (eg Bluetooth and AirPlay), better power, more refined speaker drivers, and decoding of Blu-ray sound formats. Design is also important, with some models able to sit in front of your TV on a stand, others may need a separate shelf or to be wall mounted. Whatever your budget though there are some cracking good acoustic upgrades to be had that can give your TV the sound it deserves. 1. Q Acoustics Media 4 Simple, no-nonsense TV connections with a superbly consistent sound Price: around £399 Buy: Amazon | John Lewis Possibly the best soundabr around. the design is maybe a tad dull but construction is rock-solid. Socketry eschews HDMI and the single optical input can't handle Dolby Digital (remember to set your TV to output PCM audio). There are no sound modes to mess around with and what you hear is what you get: simply a broad, powerful and refined soundstage. Vocals are rich and warm but most impressive is the built-in subwoofer, which is surprisingly potent and yet nuanced. Equally good Bluetooth audio seals the deal. 2. Yamaha YSP-2500 Home cinema enthusiasts look no further for versatility and sublime sounds Price: around £659 Buy: Amazon | John Lewis | HiSpek | Electrical Shop If hard core home cinema sound is more your thing the Yamaha YSP-2500 certainly trumps the Q Acoustics Media 4. Festooned with cutting-edge tech (its HDMIs are 4K compatible), the YSP-2500 uses 16 tiny beam drivers (and a separate wireless subwoofer) to deliver convincing surround sound from Blu-ray DTS HD MA and Dolby True HD bitstreams. There are multiple sound modes to experiment with (do try the excellent iOS/Android app). It sounds first rate with all sources, even ropey old repeats on Dave. 3. Sonos Playbar Turns your multi-room audio system into wireless surround sound Price: around £547 Buy: Amazon | Currys | John Lewis Like the Q Acoustics Media 4, the Sonos Playbar is a non-HDMI device that uses optical to hook up to a TV. Used simply on its own it delivers a massive sonic boost to your TV listening but operating it requires use of a smartphone or tablet app. The benefit though is that it can seamlessly segue in to a Sonos wireless system, and can even act as the front three speakers in a 5.1 setup with two Play:1s acting as rears. Read: Sonos Playbar review 4. Focal Dimension Flexible design and pure power, ideal for larger rooms Price: around £799 Buy: HiFi Gear | Audio Affair | Audio Express Uniquely versatile, the Focal Dimension can operate as a soundbar or as a soundbase, with its optional £329 plinth-style subwoofer. Fashioned from extruded aluminium, build quality is insanely good. The HDMI socket count is a bit low but it can decode hi-res Blu-ray soundtracks. It has hugely impressive power and its six channels have finely honed levels of clarity with a performance that's more polished than the contents of Roger Federer's trophy cabinet. 5. Canton DM 50 A soundbase that combines ease of use with great sonics Price: around £299 Buy: Amazon | John Lewis | Simply Electrical Aside from a pointless pseudo-surround mode, the Canton DM 50 stands out among all soundbases thanks to its neat design, top notch build quality and exceptional sound quality, both with regular daytime TV, complex movie soundtracks and music streamed by Bluetooth from a phone. Its scrolling display appears through the front grille when powered up and the base is a pleasure to operate thanks to a logically designed, slick looking menu and a willingness to accept volume commands from your TV's remote. 6. Samsung HW-H750 Excellent connectivity, valve amplification and audio streaming Price: around £395 Buy: Amazon | John Lewis | Co-op Electrical The HW-H750 is a compelling combination of the cutting-edge with the traditional. Its valve amplifier (which can be seen glowing behind a window) gives sound a pleasing warmth without losing clarity, while its wireless sub handles low-end rumble with aplomb. It's a highly versatile model with HDMI and Bluetooth plus it can hook on to a Samsung multi-room system and/or successfully play numerous hi-res audio files streamed over a home network. 7. Monitor Audio ASB-2 One for Apple AirPlay fans. No lack of audio quality either. Price: around £699 Buy: Amazon | Exceptional Audio It isn't pretty, and the Monitor Audio ASB-2 so unapologetically tall that it will require a dedicated shelf or wall mount. That said, it has some top drawer acoustic tech under the hood and betters the Samsung HW-H750 with DLNA, AirPlay and AirStream Direct (no router required) but lacks the more commonly used Bluetooth. You can hook up a separate subwoofer but the ASB-2 alone is capable of filling smaller rooms with a pleasingly resonant and meaty soundfield. Read: Monitor Audio ASB-2 review 8. Sony HT-CT770 Dolby decoding and a low profile for tight spaces Price: around £270 Buy: Amazon | John Lewis | AO | Currys Only 5cm tall, the Sony HT-CT770 is a good fit for placing in front of contemporary TV screens that sit low down on their stands. It's also got a decent spec including HDMIs and a Dolby Digital-friendly optical input. Build quality is reasonably good and the unit creates a powerful sound that has admirable room-filling qualities, albeit up to medium levels of volume. Bluetooth is on board but music isn't a patch on the Q Acoustics Media 4. 9. Toshiba SBM1W Compact yet highly capable, and a low price tag to boot Price: around £90 Buy: Amazon | Office Magic | Electrical Experience The SBM1W earns a place in our top 10 courtesy of a mightily impressive performance, despite its shoe-box dimensions and ultra-low price tag. Connectivity isn't too bad, with two types of digital input – optical and coaxial – plus analogue in and Bluetooth. It has a switch to compensate for off-axis placement and although the soundfield isn't the broadest around its sonics, aided ably by the tethered subwoofer, are immeasurably superior to regular built-in TV speakers. 10. Humax STE1000BSW World's thinnest soundbar does a surprisingly good job Price: around £179 Buy: Amazon | Argos | John Lewis Just 2cm deep and 6.6cm tall (on its stand) the STE1000BSW is a real eye-catcher and has plenty to recommend it including a remote that puts other manufacturers to shame. Operation is simple enough once you've learnt what status each LED light colour means and it has a selection of DSP modes that deliver unexpected results. Vocals can sound a bit thin and loud bass causes reverberation. That said, it's surprisingly powerful and does a good job with most sources, especially when wall-mounted.

Week in Gaming: Everything's getting delayed and I'm sat playing GTA 5 heists with two octopus arms Posted: 14 Mar 2015 03:00 AM PDT Who decided that GDC, PAX East and EGX Rezzed should all be crammed into one fortnight? Seriously. It might sound exciting to do three huge gaming exhibitions in two weeks, but when you're passed out on the floor with blood coming out of your eyes (which is probably just a symptom of exhaustion and definitely not something to worry the doctor about) then you start to wonder if the great God of Gaming could have maybe spread out the schedule a little bit more. Anyway, we're definitely not suffering from three kinds of jetlag and there's no fluids coming out of our eyes apart from the tears of joy at seeing all these lovely games. It's definitely not terrifying to have to write news stories about the billion things that have been announced and teased and released. Not at all. I love being swamped, it's my favourite. So in between Uncharted 4 and Project Cars being delayed (noooo) and the second episode of Telltale's excellent Tales from the Borderlands coming out next week (yaaaay) there's been lots of news. News about games. And I'm going to tell you some of it, after I have a nap. First up is GTA Heists, a new game mode that's just been added to the already pretty decent GTA V. Heists are your opportunity to get all dolled up (with a paper bag over your head) and go out on the town with friends (to rob a bank). Heists were promised to us wayyyyy back in the day when Trevor was but a twinkle in the eye. They've been a long time coming, but we can finally play them - as long as you're at least level 12 in GTA Online, own a high-end apartment (the cheapest is still $200,000) and have a decent internet connection and enough free time to be sure you won't drop out and infuriate all your co-heisters. Once you've sorted all that out, it's a piece of heist-cake. Each Heist has stages - scope out the bank, steal a nice armoured car, choose your team's outfits (the best part, if you ask me) and then, of course, the big heisty bit. Some of them are a bit sedate, and if you've only got time for a short Heist, it can be a bit disheartening to find out that the only bit you can do involves getting in a car and letting someone else (your Heist partner) drive (badly) to a point where you sit and look at a building. Once your get into the meat of a Heist, it gets very fun - each player is assigned a role, such as Lookout or Prison Officer, and sometimes divided into teams. Everything else is pretty damn cool, though - from the bit where you go into your Heist room in your fancy apartment and select the next move from a whiteboard, like a cool criminal, to the bit where you put paper bags over your head and beat up people because the game told you to. If you've ever wanted to play as someone who really hates other people but quite likes having their money, then GTA Heists is for you. But, as Sebastian the wise crab once said: "under the sea, under the sea, darling it's better down where it's wetter." Yes, we love Heists, but do you know what else we like? OCTOPUSES (or octopodes if you prefer the correct Greek plural). The greatest octopus of all, no, not the one that predicted the World Cup, or the ones that you find deep-fried in fancy pubs, I'm talking about the half-dad, half-cephalopod, all-man, Octodad - is now coming to Xbox One. He's been out on PlayStation, PC and Mac for a while now, flailing around with his many tentaculous limbs and charming us all with his story of love, acceptance and incredibly fun slapstick comedy. Have you ever tried to pick up your house keys with two dead arms? That's roughly what the gameplay of Octodad: Dadliest Catch is like. Any game with a pun as rad as "Dadliest Catch" is alright in my books to begin with, but trying to help Octodad through the trials of everyday life with the world's most puppety controls is a beautiful thing. Okay. News done. If you're at Rezzed, come say hi! If you're not at Rezzed, treasure your sleep and sanity. Kate out!

Exclusive: Raspberry Pi CEO: I really want to see Amiga emulation on Raspberry Pi 2 Posted: 14 Mar 2015 02:55 AM PDT Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton is looking to spark a nostalgic Amiga emulation revolution following the launch of the Raspberry Pi 2. Thanks to a faster, quad-core ARM CPU and double the RAM of the previous model, Upton is confident that the new $35 (£22.85/AU$45) board is more capable of handling more demanding Commodore Amiga games than its 2014 predecessor, the Model A+. He told TechRadar: "I really want to see Amiga emulation on this thing - they were beautiful machines. The original Pi is almost good enough to run some Amiga 500 games if you turn the hardware fidelity down, but you can't get the later ones that rely heavily on the exact cycle timings. "I think this [Raspberry Pi 2] will do a good Amiga 500 job, and there's a chance it could run Amiga 1200 games too." Preserving history But despite The Raspberry Pi 2's extra layer of muscle, Upton has mixed feelings about using the opportunity to update older classics with improved graphics. He said: "I was a real Team 17 fan. I bought Alien Breed for PS3, which unfortunately has the original graphics. You can't believe how low-resolution the whole thing is. "On the other hand, the Superfrog HD remix is brilliant, but it only has the enhanced graphics which kind of sucks." 5 best Raspbery Pi OS reviewed and rated

Review: Updated: Raspberry Pi 2 Posted: 14 Mar 2015 02:55 AM PDT When the Raspberry Pi appeared In 2012 few could have envisaged how popular the Raspberry Pi would be. In the years after its release the Raspberry Pi has become the most popular single-board computer on the market and spawned many imitators, but none with the rich community that has grown organically around the Raspberry Pi. The latest single-board computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation comes with the spec boost that we were all hoping for. The Raspberry Pi 2 is the latest in a long line of products from the Foundation and can run a number of Linux distros (and even Windows 10). It really is a barebone board in every sense -- even to the point where you will have to find your own micro-USB cable to power it up (a move made to cut down on costs). All things considered, the Raspberry Pi 2 really is amazing value at just £25 ($33, or AUS$45). It may be affordable, but this sequel packs a punch in the power department and has the potential to be used in a wide number of scenarios, including videogame emulation. Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton told TechRadar at the Pi 2's launch that he would love to see Amiga game emulation on the micro-computer. Since the release of the original Raspberry Pi there have been three versions of the flagship B model, starting at 256MB RAM and increasing to 512MB with the second B and B+. But in all of these models the system on a chip (SoC) has remained the trusty BCM2835 with an ARM v11 700Mhz CPU, the same as the Now TV box. The community has done wonderful things with these resources but now the spec boost that they were waiting for has arrived. Raspberry Pi CEO: I really want to see Amiga emulation on Raspberry Pi 2 In early February, the Raspberry Pi 2 arrived and the original ARM11 has been replaced with a Cortex-A5 CPU running at an improved 800MHz. But rather than stick with a single core, the Raspberry Pi 2 comes with four cores which speeds up the Raspberry Pi by as much as six times. To go with the new CPU, the amount of RAM has also been upgraded to 1GB. The rest of the hardware, however, matches that of the B+: a Videocore GPU, a 40-pin GPIO, four USB 2 ports and 10/100 Ethernet. Physically the Raspberry Pi 2 also has the same dimensions as the B+. Performance and benchmarks Specifications: SoC: Broadcom 2836 CPU: Quad-core ARM7 800MHz GPU: Videocore IV 250MHz Memory: 1GB GPIO: 40pin Ports: 4x USB 2.0, 100BaseT Ethernet, HDMI, MicroSD card Size: 85.60 × 56.5mm (about 3.2 x 2.1-inch) To show the improvements made to the Raspberry Pi 2, we wanted to run a few real-world benchmarks to show how powerful the new Pi actually is when compared to the B+. The first test on our list is booting both Pis from cold to login prompt. The B+ managed this is in 33 seconds versus 17 seconds for the Raspberry Pi 2. We then set both Pis to boot straight to desktop and the B+ managed 42 seconds while the Pi 2 came in at 21 seconds -- half the time of the B+! Once at the desktop we tested a few common applications. Creating a new world in Minecraft took 42 seconds on the B+, and 21 seconds on the Pi 2. Loading IDLE 3 took 13 seconds on the B+ and a mere 4 seconds on the Pi 2. Running SunSpider in the new optimised browser gave a glimpse at real-world performance. Over the suite of tests there was a 2.5 times boost in speed. Considering the complexities of multi-threading this sounds like a reasonable expectation. Even so, individual results showed a near four-fold increase on this unoptimised code. The Raspberry Pi B+ and Pi 2 both come with the same Videocore GPU as before and in our tests there was a small improvement in FPS (Frames Per Second) for the Raspberry Pi 2 largely thanks to the increased RAM present on the board. Our last test was file transfer speeds via Ethernet, for this we used scp to copy a 692MB Big Buck Bunny video file to each Pi. On the B+ we saw an average of 3.8MB/s and on the Pi 2 we saw 4.6MB/s, which is an 0.8MB/s speed increase. To discover for ourselves how Upton arrived at his claim that the Raspberry Pi 2 is six times more powerful than its predecessor, we ran a Sysbench test on both models. It clocked in at 509.58 on the B+, versus 74.68 on the Raspberry Pi 2 -- a 6.8x difference in favour of the newer model. The Raspberry Pi Foundation have released an updated Raspbian image which includes the ARMv7 kernel image necessary to use the new CPU. Applications written for the original Raspberry Pi are fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi 2, though -- building upon the rich projects that have been written since the initial launch of the Raspberry Pi. Final verdict The Raspberry Pi 2 is less than half the cost of a PS4 or Xbox One game but, given the time and effort, could provide far more satisfaction in the long run. Available since December, the new sleek Raspbian desktop runs well on the B+, but on the Pi 2, it feels like a responsive desktop that we normally see on our main computers. The speed increase provided by the quad-core CPU and 1GB RAM is more than welcome, and retaining the B+ form factor keeps a strong tie to the many existing add-ons. It is a powerful platform for hackers and makers and also a competent solution for a low-cost computer in schools and homes around the world. It should be noted that the Raspberry Pi 2 may prove a little daunting to newcomers -- particularly ones that have not come across Linux before, but there are plenty of resources out there to help you on your way. You'll have to grab yourself a micro-USB cable to get started, but they're fairly ubiquitous and can be had for next to nothing. The Raspberry Pi 2 answers a lot of the requests made by the community and provides a stable and well-supported platform for hackers, makers and learners to carry on making excellent projects for many years to come.

The internet is everywhere – but where has the web gone? Posted: 14 Mar 2015 01:10 AM PDT Introduction and evolution of the web The zettabyte era is almost here. According to Cisco, in 2018 alone over 1.6 zettabytes of annual global IP traffic will be generated, a figure greater than all of the IP traffic between 1984 and 2013. By then, Wi-Fi will contribute 61% of IP traffic, outrunning wired networks, with 5.2 billion global mobile users by 2019. It's said that the Internet of Things will see 50 billion devices talking to each other by 2020. The internet is in rude health – but how about the web? How is the web evolving? If it's the internet that provides the technical backbone, it's the worldwide web – the 'services side' – that reaches ever deeper into our lives. But it's changing, and fast… The most obvious change is that it has gone mobile. "The adoption of encrypted traffic over the HTTPS protocol has been rapid over the last couple of years," says Juho Snellman, Development Manager at Teclo Networks, whose customers include the Iliad-owned Free Mobile in France and MTS. "At some mobile operators it has increased from a few percent of total traffic a couple of years ago, to over a third of the traffic today, with no sign of the transition slowing down." There have been technical enhancements, too. "The HTML5 standard has added major functionality to browsers, making it a more powerful application platform (and) the adoption of encrypted traffic over the HTTPS protocol has been rapid over the last couple of years," says Snellman. However, by far the biggest change has seen the web become personal – and that's completely changing what it looks like. "The web started out as a content repository where search was the key enabler," says Richard Moulds, VP Strategy, Thales e-Security. "Web 2.0 was about user-driven content and social media was the big enabler, and Web 3.0 is all about personalisation where different users experience different things based on their history and preference. For this transition, big data is the key enabler – without massive data analytics, personalisation on a grand scale is not possible." Think Facebook, Twitter, Instagram; instead of browsing the web via search engines we're relying on our personalised news feeds to automatically find us content. Which platforms and channels are dominating content? According to the Pew Research Center's Internet Project, 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind, with 42% using multiple platforms. The dominant sites and platforms are obvious – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, and multiple smaller sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Vine. "The so-called 'GAFA' members – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon – are the main players, and between the four of them are defining forces on the internet across nearly every platform and channel," says Adam Croxen, Managing Director of Future Platforms. The vast majority of the web is run by one of these four companies. Moulds thinks there's nothing to worry about. "The whole point is that they don't dominate content, they merely enable it to be shared," he says. "The content is driven by users – the power of social media is in finding people you want to listen to." Social media feeds now regularly come with sponsored posts and all kinds of irritating content based, in theory, on our preferences, but Moulds thinks that the endgame of these early experiments is highly attractive. "If we can move beyond the generic concept of mass advertising to a truly personalised information feed based on our genuine preferences, then that saves a lot of time and might be a good thing," he says. Is Snapchat's Discover feature a sign of things to come? Curated content, rather than random social media feeds, appears to be making a comeback. Snapchat, the social network-cum-messaging app where people's photo and video messages disappear within 10 seconds, hosts a fascinating new attempt at content curation. Called Discover, it presents 12 individual, clickable sources of video features. The only problem? An excellent National Geographic video hub aside, Discover is dominated by trash (Mail Online, Cosmopolitan, People) and US sports; it should be called Distract. It's also completely un-interactive and un-shareable, which jars with the idea of random messaging between friends. Marco Nardone, CEO of random messaging app Fling, is less sure about SnapChat's new venture. "Snapchat has always been a fun way to message friends, but Discover is about taking the messaging model and turning it into a media outlet itself. This is taking Snapchat away from the private messaging arena altogether and I have to admit it's questionable as to whether this is the right approach to its evolution." However, Nardone can see where SnapChat is going with Discover. "With a third of all US millennials active on Snapchat, the company is obviously seeing the potential for it to be the next 'TV' platform." He's right; does anyone seriously think that the TV industry isn't already getting boiled down to being just some apps on a phone? It's another example of Web 3.0 changing how everything looks. Death of the browser? Is the web browser dying? A decade ago the desktop browser was the core of the worldwide web. It's since gone mobile, of course, though it's regarded as just one of many apps; phone users spend just 14% of their time on a browser. So is the web browser dead? "No, browsing is still a basic human activity, but web browsers will be as much about receiving and playing content that is pushed to them rather than purely content that is pulled through by the user," says Moulds. "The need to browse the web is reducing because we are in a tailored, personalised world where information is delivered to us before we knew we wanted it," says Croxen. "Desktop web browsing is shrinking in popularity, but it will definitely continue to hold a place for some time because there's always a need to search for something." Croxen thinks that the web is becoming less visible: "Rather than us making an active choice to use the internet, the services it provides will arrive as natural interventions at opportune moments." So the browser isn't dying at all, it's merely becoming automated. A technical challenge looms, too. "The protocols underlying the web are currently being replaced as the HTTP/2 standard is finalised," says Snellman. "These changes are not likely to be visible to the end user (but) the question is how well the web will manage to stay relevant compared to native smartphone applications." How do we keep the web open and decentralised? Some folks worry that the worldwide web is now under government and corporate control, and is becoming merely a tool for targeted advertising. "To counter this, people and businesses can own their own data and use it with other sources of information to create 'rich data', which is a far more valuable commodity than big data," says Mark Steel, CEO of Imago Techmedia, which runs IP EXPO Europe. The open web: taking back control from governments and giant corporations "Thus, the value of personal data will increase. At last year's IP EXPO Europe, worldwide web creator Tim Berners-Lee talked about the importance of net neutrality to preserve a web with no 'centre', which will need a new model of privacy – and fast." "The web's ubiquity will likely present contextual information constantly, without the need for it to be requested, as personal data becomes the oil that fuels business over the next 10 years," says Steel. What will the web look like in 10 years? "People will have ceased to regard the web as anything distinct – there will be boundaries between how content is delivered and what devices are used to control the world around us," says Mark Russell, CEO of affiliate marketing company Optimus Performance Marketing. "The web will be an invisible part of the world we inhabit." "The internet will become so ubiquitous and commoditised that consumers will no longer think about it," says Ian Dodson, Founder and Director of the Digital Marketing Institute. "We don't think about the availability of electricity to power our devices, and in the near future neither will we consider the availability of the 'web'. "It will become a diversified, ever present utility – it will power our cars, our white goods, our kids. We won't even consider its presence, and in that sense it will be a very different entity to the browser-driven environment we perceive today." However, the key to understanding the future is personalisation. "It will look different for everyone," says Moulds. "Grannies will see a very simple user interface, gamers another, business users another. There will be an infinite range of experiences from desktop computers through tablets, phones and wearable devices like watches – each will provide their own unique experience. With the arrival of wearables the web might even become sensory and tactile." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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