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- Next-gen Chromecast to be announced later this month
- Updated: How to watch the CNN Presidential Debate full video
- We bet you can't land the SpaceX Falcon rocket in this 8-bit game
- iOS Tips: iOS 9 News app: How to get the best news fast
- Galaxy S6 Edge and Apple Watch are champions of the T3 Awards 2015
- Buying Guide: 8 best on-ear headphones available today
- New BBC streaming service to bring Britain's best TV to the US
- BUYING GUIDE: T-Mobile: is it any good?
- Google makes it easy to offer a hand to Syrian refugees in crisis
- Microsoft's Nadella shows the softer side of Microsoft
- Review: Updated: New Nintendo 3DS
- Review: Updated: Amazon Fire TV Stick
- iRobot announces the Roomba 980, its suckiest vacuum yet
- Review: Updated: Amazon Fire TV
- New Steve Jobs movie trailer puts focus on Steve Jobs, the man
- Hands-on review: new Amazon Fire TV in pictures
- Review: Sony PSZ-HB2T
- Hands-on review: Amazon Fire 10 HD
- Updated: Amazon's new 7-inch Fire tablet is just $50
- Amazon's new Fire TV is a cheap way to get 4K in your living room
| Next-gen Chromecast to be announced later this month Posted: 17 Sep 2015 11:24 PM PDT  Google will be unveiling its new Chromecast by the end of the month, according to a report from 9to5Google, which says we can expect to see a host of new features. The upgraded media-streaming device is set to include improved Wi-Fi, support for content feeds, a new feature called "Fast Play" that the report speculates will enable faster connections and content access, and Chromecast Audio. Not to be confused with Google Cast for Audio, Chromecast Audio is speculated to enable the device to be plugged via an auxiliary chord directly into any speaker system, while also delivering multi-room support. Exactly what all these new features amount to remains unclear, but with a Google event scheduled for September 29, we won't have to wait long to find out.
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| Updated: How to watch the CNN Presidential Debate full video Posted: 17 Sep 2015 05:41 PM PDT  Watch the CNN Presidential Debate full video
The CNN Presidential Debate full video from last night shows that it was a lot like the first debate. Hosted by CNN anchor Jake Tapper, there were a lot of Donald Trump zingers, standout Carly Fiorina statements, President Reagan references and very few decided voters at the end of it all.
That's okay. The US election is still over a year away and there are at least eight more Republican Presidential Debate live streams to go, and that doesn't even count the upcoming Democratic Debates. We'll be here to serve you the full video to all of them. See the memorable jokes and one-liner highlights, then scrub through the entire video of last night's CNN debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. CNN Presidential Debate first debate highlightsBefore diving into the main CNN Presidential debate videos, let's take a look at what happened at the first debate, with four lowest-ranking candidates to poll at 1% or above.
It included just four candidates this time: Senator Lindsey Graham, Governor Bobby Jindal, Governor George Pataki and Senator Rick Santorum. Missing from the stage, for different reasons, were three candidates who appeared in the last debate. Carly Fiorina moved up to the main stage, as you'll see in the CNN Debate full video below, Texas Governor Rick Perry bowed out of the Presidential race completely and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore mounted less than the required 1% in nationwide polls. 10 CNN Presidential Debate video highlightsThe CNN Debate immediately began with the Republicans violating "Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment," which, for those who don't know, is "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."
Business mogul Donald Trump called out Senator Rand Paul for being the lowest polling candidate on the CNN debate stage, to which Paul said Trump picks on people's looks. Trump retorted in the full video, "I never attacked him or his looks, and believe me, there's plenty of subject matter right there." Trump was on the receiving end of a few zingers himself last night. Carly Fiorina addressed his the "look at her face" comment he reportedly said about the only female Republican candidate, according to Rolling Stone Magazine. It may have been the biggest applause line of the night. Oh, and there was some focus on the actual issues voters need to be concerned about in the November election next year. The economy, foreign policy and Planned Parenthood funding were hot topics through at the evening's CNN debate. Watch the CNN Presidential Debate full videoUpdate: CNN has finally posted the full debate video so that you can replay the entire Republican forum from last night on demand. However, the full video comes from its CNN Go, which requires a cable subscription log in after a brief ten minute window. Worse, the debate replay is filled with video playback errors. If the official CNN website debate video still isn't working, try watching the YouTube version. It's broken into five parts (it was a long debate), but at least it's not broken right now. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtoAjFwKBmU YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqBraF9lpK0 YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fZwTxVTCU8 YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BumKtz7YkU YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUiHKw4aBgHere are our live updates, as the CNN debate live stream happened How you could've watched it liveThe second 2016 Republican Presidential debate is on CNN right now. Session A already came to a close earlier in the night, but Session B is just starting to get good with Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina trading blows on the main stage. Like the previous debate held on Fox News, CNN's forum will have two segments. The later segment is the one to watch, as it pits front-runners Donald Trump and Jeb Bush against the eight other primetime contenders, including newcomer to the main stage, Carly Fiorina. The CNN debate is being held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California and started at 8pm ET / 5pm PT.
The first section, on the other hand, only had four candidates – Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham – and the CNN live stream starts at 6pm ET / 3pm PT. In case you can't make it to a TV in time for the debate, don't worry. There are plenty of ways to watch it online or a mobile device like an iPad. Watch the CNN debate live streamThis showdown is legen-wait for it-dary, legendary, and CNN doesn't want a single person to miss out on the 11-person political battle royale, so you can watch it online: Session A of the CNN Republican Primary Presidential Debate has begun. Follow along! While Fox required users to authenticate their cable subscription with a username and password, CNN said in a statement to Fortune that Wednesday's debate is going to be available "across CNN's mobile platforms without authentication. Users don't have to log-in to see the stream, [and] it will be available as soon as they visit CNN.com or access one of our apps." Now there's no excuse to go into work on Thursday without watching the event.
That means iOS and Android devices, including the iPad Air 2, iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy Note 5, will be able to get into the action by using CNN's mobile app while desktop and laptop users should simply head over to the CNN debate microsite. As you might imagine, this surge of traffic might periodically cause the stream to buffer or stall from time-to-time, according to CNN Head of U.S editorial operations Andrew Morse told Bustle that he and his team have been meeting daily and assures viewers that CNN can handle such viewership surges. UPDATE: So far, so good. Presidential debate time and scheduleSo now that you know where to watch the CNN debate online, it's probably a good idea to go over when the debate is going to be on. Like the debate on Fox News, Wednesday's CNN debate was held in two sessions, session A and session B. Session A kicked off the event at 6pm ET / 3pm PT with the four lowest rated politicians in the polls – Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham. Each has more than 1% of the vote in three separate polls. While all made good points, the overall sentiment was that they wanted to be at the prime time debate held later in the evening.
Why is it so small this time around? Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has recently dropped from the race while former HP executive Carly Fiorina has garnered enough popularity in the polls to be elevated to the later debate, leaving only four candidates. The last debate live stream was only about one-hour in length, though, that doesn't necessarily mean this one will follow suit. However, you can almost certainly expect some sort of pre-show and post-wrap content on CNN once the second session ends. Session B, however, is the one to watch. It started at 8pm ET / 5pm PT and is scheduled for a full two hours - though it has gone wildly past that. You can expect to see all the crew from August's debate back for round two from front-runners like real estate mogul Donald Trump and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, to some of the lesser supported candidates like current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and current Ohio governor John Kasich.
The first half of the debate focused mainly on foreign policy, with Jeb Bush and Donald Trump trading barbs, while the later half so far has focused on internal issues like energy concerns, job growth and marijuana legalization. Other issues for the debate include foreign policy and tax reform, two subjects that Trump and Bush have strong - and separate - feelings on. Just who'll come out as the stronger contender remains to be seen.
Watch Fox News Presidential Debate videoBrace yourself for 15 consecutive months of presidential debates, which started with last week's Fox News and Facebook-hosted 2016 Republican Primary Debate. You can still watch the back-and-forth video between Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and eight other top-tier candidates at this Presidential Debate. It originally aired at 9pm ET (6pm PT, 2am BST) on August 6. This wasn't actually the first presidential debate you could watch online last week, though. There was also a second-tier debate happening, four hours beforehand, for seven candidates with lower poll numbers. Both debates were live streamed, just in case you can't get to a television set in time for the verbal sparring. However, only the right credentials would let you watch it online in realtime initially. Here's how you could watch the Fox News GOP debate, for future reference, and see the replay right now. 10 Presidential Debate video highlights
Watch the Presidential Debate full videoFox News sent TechRadar its full debate video, so that it could be available to one and all, and offered it in both MP4 and Windows Media Video formats. It's conveniently split the night into six parts, too, just in case you want to load it onto your 16GB iPhone 6 that's already run out of space, one-by-one.
How the Presidential Debate live stream workedFox News is known as America's conservative cable news channel, but the right aisle-leaning network is actually fairly progressive when it comes to online live streaming technology. Eight years ago, Fox News began live streaming extra hours of programming, dubbed Strategy Room, with webcam-like quality and a makeshift table. Discussions were frank and unrushed.
It has since morphed into mirroring the cable channel and contrasts with MSNBC and CNN, which are just getting their online programming acts together. MSNBC in particular has a smaller, buggier video player. Of course, now that it's called Fox News Live and is a broadcast-level video service, it requires an authenticated cable subscription username and password. It's not unlike HBO Go. In fact, it uses the same username and password credentials you log in with to watch Game of Thrones. The good news is that it currently supports 279 cable and satellite providers, including Time Warner, Comcast, DirecTV, Charter, Verizon Fios. Even Sony's PlayStation Vue is represented. While Facebook co-hosted this event, it was merely providing analytics, user questions and online reaction, not live streaming the debate through the social network. Sorry, cord cutters. Presidential Debate time and scheduleFlipping through all of the cable news channels, it feels as if the Presidential Debate coverage has been going on forever, but the August 6 forum officially start time was 5pm ET (3pm PT, 10pm BST).
The live stream began with the seven candidates who haven't garnered enough attention in the national polls, but can get some air time and name recognition in front of an audience – albeit a smaller one.
This first debate featured former HP executive Carly Fiorina, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, current Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, current South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former New York Governor George Pataki and former Maryland Governor and late-comer Jim Gilmore. Some have criticized this GOP debate structure because it marginalized key Republican Presidential candidates, like Jindal, a current governor and the first Indian American governor in the US, and Fiorina, the only female candidate running for the GOP nomination. Both are stood out, according to the channel's post-debate analysts. This first debate was short, lasting just one hour, and is Fox News then hosted an online pre-show in between the two debates, which started at 6pm ET (3pm PT, 11 BST). It included highlights and analysis of the first debate, along with expectations of the what the channel is calling its "Primetime Debate." The official "Primetime Debate" started at 9pm ET (6pm PT, 2am BST), and lasted the scheduled two hours, followed by an 11pm ET (8pm PT, 4am BST) online post-debate show to wrap things up. The roster of ten (in order of current poll numbers) consisted of real estate mogul Donald Trump, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, current Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, surgeon Ben Carson, current Texas Senator Ted Cruz, current Florida Senator Marco Rubio, current Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and current Ohio governor John Kasich. Hillary Clinton was mentioned so much last week, you'd think she was at the debate. However, her on-stage performance will have to wait, as you'll read in our next section. How to watch Democratic Presidential DebateWhat about the Democrats, you ask? They'll have several debates, too, but have only just now announced the Democratic Presidential Debate schedule. Their first debate for the is supposed to happen on October 13 (CNN) in Nevada. By then, Republicans will already have two prime time debates in their binders full of debates. The second Democratic debate is November 14 (CBS) in Des Moines, Iowa, which is first state in the nation to vote in primaries (really, a "caucus").
That schedule from there on out follows the primary roadmap, with future debates happening four more times, in December 19 (ABC) in New Hampshire. January 17 (NBC) in South Carolina, February or March (Univision) in Miami and one last one in March (PBS) in Wisconsin. There are fewer scheduled debates for the Democrats (so far) and there are fewer declared candidates. Former First Lady, New York Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has the most name recognition, but there are others. Expect to see on stage former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, current Vermont Senator and declared Independent Bernie Sanders, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and current Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. Current Vice President Joe Biden is rumored to be running for President. The next Presidential debate and scheduleThis isn't the last Republican Presidential debate – far from it. There are going to be 12 GOP-sanctioned debates, including last week's Fox News debate. Most, if not all, debates should be live streamed, unlike previous years. Next up is a CNN-hosted debate at the Reagan Library, in Simi Valley, Calif. on September 16. Business cable networks get into the fray with a smaller CNBC debate in Boulder, Colorado on October 28 and a Fox Business debate in Wisconsin sometime in November.
CNN has the final debate of 2015 on December 15 in Nevada, and then it's back to Fox News in Iowa for a January debate. Three Republican debates happen in February in New Hampshire (ABC) and South Carolina (CBS), Houston, Texas (NBC). Fox, CNN and one unscheduled debate round out the GOP commissioned schedule. Tired of debates yet? That's okay. History has shown that the post-convention 2016 Presidential Debates are limited to three. There's also typically one Vice Presidential Debate, too. That's it. It's not like the old days. In 1858, then former Congressman Abraham Lincoln and and Senator Stephen A. Douglas debated seven times in their run for senate, according to the Commission for Presidential Debates. Those debates were decidedly NOT live streamed on the internet. As more debates happen, we'll update this page in real time to let you know when and where you can watch the Presidential Debates online, even if it takes 22 updates, one for every debate scheduled.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| We bet you can't land the SpaceX Falcon rocket in this 8-bit game Posted: 17 Sep 2015 04:52 PM PDT  An 8-bit game has emerged this week that takes on SpaceX's test mission to try to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating barge in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. While the rocket landed successfully, it unfortunately tipped over and exploded. SpaceX, which was founded by Tesla mogul Elon Musk, has plans to launch a privately-owned ship into orbit and have it return safely to earth. In the SpaceX Falcon 9 Lander game, which you can try for yourself over here, you basically need to try to safely land a rocket on a floating barge using your keyboard to control thrust, rotation and decent, all the while keeping an eye on how much fuel you have left. If you miss the barge, you'll explode. If you land too hard, you'll explode. If you tilt too much, your rocket will fall into the barge or the ocean and then explode. The game is a modified version of a Lunar Lander game made by a user named dixiklo using Scratch, a software created through the MIT Media Lab. We won't lie - it isn't possible, especially if you've played similar arcade games from days past. But once you do succeed, check out your success ratio and be humbled.  |
| iOS Tips: iOS 9 News app: How to get the best news fast Posted: 17 Sep 2015 03:47 PM PDT  iOS 9 is here, and even if it isn't as revolutionary as some of Apple's mobile operating systems, it does have plenty of new features - one of which is the News app. Replacing Newsstand, the News app is a Flipboard-style application that creates a personalized newsfeed just for you, based on your preferences and interests. Keep reading to learn how it works. Customizing the NewsWhen you fire up News for the first time you'll be asked to pick your favorite publications from a lengthy list. There's much more than what you can see initially; keep sliding up to see more publications. There's a lot here - everything from Sports Illustrated to Good Housekeeping to USA Today - so you should be able to find something you're interested in. But don't worry about making the perfect selections; you can always make changes later. After you've picked a few publications (or a whole bunch of them) you'll have the option to get personalized news sent straight to your inbox.
To continue personalizing your News experience, you should visit the Explore tab (at the bottom of the screen in the middle) next. Here you can pick more suggested channels: specific publications or topics (sports, politics, entertainment, etc.) that will pull in stories from a variety of sources. Tap on a topic to check it out, or hit the plus button to add it to your personalized feed. In addition, you can delve in further by scrolling down to the browse section, which lets you narrow your focus by picking from even more specific publications and topics. If you still can't find what you're looking for, click on the search tab to try to track down exactly what you want.
All the topics and publications you've chosen to add to your feed will appear under the Favorites tab. If you decide you're no longer interested in certain content, tap the Edit button in the upper-right corner, then hit the X that appears on each channel to remove it from your feed. Using Your News FeedNow that you've tailored your feed with the topics that interest you, you're ready to start reading. Go to the For You tab to see all the pertainent content compiled into an attractive, personalized, magazine-style list.
If you have the Show Story Previews option on in Settings > News, then you'll usually be taken to a shortened version of the story when you click on a headline. Sometimes you may be required to click through to the site to get the entire story. (If the Show Story Previews option is off, you may be taken straight to the content provider's site.) Also, when reading stories in preview mode, you'll often see a box with a subject below the headline. Tap it to be taken to more stories about the same type of subject. When browsing the headlines in the For You feed, you can press down on any story for a second to be provided with Share Story, Save or Like options. Icons for these same options can be found at the bottom of a page while reading a story. As you'd expect, Share Story lets you send a story link to yourself or others in a variety of ways, Like adds an easily identifiable heart icon to the story, and Save bookmarks a story so you can check it out later; you'll find it in the Saved tab at the bottom-right of the screen. From the Saved tab, you can also check your history in case you want to go back to a story you previously read.
And if you're wondering what happened to all your old magazines that were in the new-defunct Newsstand app, worry not — any magazines you subscribe to exist as their own apps and have been relocated to a Newsstand folder on your home screen.
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| Galaxy S6 Edge and Apple Watch are champions of the T3 Awards 2015 Posted: 17 Sep 2015 02:45 PM PDT  Yes, it's that time of the year again, where T3 pulls together every bit of technology that's been talked about over the past 12 months and decides which gadgets, cars and consoles deserve to be crowned champion. As ever, determining the winners was no easy task - especially when it came to two of the biggest categories. Apple walked away with the Gadget of the Year and Wearable Technology of the Year for the Apple Watch, which saw the company adding its first major product category since the iPad. Rob Carney, Editor of T3, said: "Once again Apple have produced a product that has galvanised a market. In a year of outstanding new products, this stood out to all of the judges and voting public as THE outstanding tech of 2015. The tech and fashion media have nothing in common, yet both enthused about Apple Watch." Phone of the Year went to Samsung for the Galaxy S6 Edge, which just managed to beat its sister phone, the Galaxy S6. Virtual reality is still the big "incoming" tech, but we're already incredibly impressed by what we've seen - so much so that Palmer Luckey, inventor of the Oculus Rift headset, took the Outstanding Achievement award. BMW won Car of the Year again, this time for the i8 hybrid sports coupé, while Home Technology of the Year went to Works With Nest, the system that lets Nest work with various devices around your house. Design Innovation was awarded to Microsoft's HoloLens headset, which, while not on the market just yet, impressed us hugely when we took it for a spin. Sony managed to hold onto the crown for Gaming Product of the Year for the PlayStation 4, and Amaozn Instant Video beat Netflix to The Entertainment Award. You can see the whole list of winners below. TV of the Year (sponsored by Sky) Wearable Technology of the Year (sponsored by Huffington Post) Home Technology of the Year Award (sponsored by The Gadget Show) Car of the Year (sponsored by Continental) Brand of the Year (sponsored by The Sun) Gaming Product of the Year (sponsored by GamesRadar+) Phone of the Year (sponsored by Techradar) The Entertainment Award Laptop or Tablet of the Year (sponsored by Sky News Swipe) Camera of the Year Design Innovation (sponsored by EE) Sound Award Gadget of the Year (sponsored by Continental) Outstanding Achievement Tech Personality T3 Hall of Fame  |
| Buying Guide: 8 best on-ear headphones available today Posted: 17 Sep 2015 01:30 PM PDT  Between two extremes, there's usually a middle ground. Between small and large is medium and in the case of headphones, on-ear headphones exist between over-ear and in-ear headphones. While startlingly similar to over-ear headphones in appearance, they fit to your head a little differently. Instead of enveloping your ears with a soft cushion, on-ear headphones create a light, breathable seal around your ear. Thus, the noise isolation is much less effective than in-ear or over-ear options. This might be a dealbreaker for some, but there are big benefits to consider here. On-ear headphones are usually more portable than its over-ear brethren and as such, they appeal to travelers and the fitness crowd. Taking a walk or a jog around town won't be as dangerous since you can hear traffic go by and be aware of potential hazards before it's too late. Check out our favorite picks below and you're sure to find something for every budget and taste in style.
1. Bang and Olufsen H2Posh headphones with grand sound and comfort Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: .34 pounds | Cable length: 3 feet | Frequency response: N/A | Drivers: Two 1.5" drivers | Driver type: N/A | Sensitivity: N/A | Impedance: N/A Comfortable Warm sound Not cheap Inline controls aren't universal When you wear the B&O H2, people will look at you with intrigue, desperately trying to figure out who makes it so they can buy their own later online. I should know: it's how I found out about them. The H2 sounds as good as it look. The sound performance should please even picky listeners with its warm, evenly-balanced sound. We're trained to assume that good looks are a guise, but the H2's slick design complements the sound performance quite nicely. Read the full review: Bang and Olufsen H2
2. Grado SR60eTruly excellent sound performance for a stellar price Acoustic design: Open | Weight: N/A | Cable length: N/A | Frequency response: 20Hz-20,000Hz | Drivers: N/A | Driver type: Dynamic | Sensitivity: 99db | Impedance: 32 ohm | Battery life: N/A | Wireless range: N/A | NFC: N/A Very comfortable Impressive definition for the price No inline controls or microphone For your money, you can't do better than Grado's SR60e. The third-generation of the Brooklyn, NY-based company's Prestige Series is its best and most refined yet. The SR60e in particular is a smart choice if you're looking for an entry-level set of headphones that sounds like it should cost you way more than it does. Its open-backed ear cup design makes them a more breathable experience than what most on-ear headphones can deliver. (Our review is for the SR60i, but the newer SR60e headphones are largely similar in design and performance) Read the full review: Grado SR60e
3. Plantronics BackBeat SenseStreet-wise wireless headphones with smart features Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: .30 pounds | Cable length: N/A | Frequency response: N/A | Drivers: N/A | Driver type: N/A | Sensitivity: N/A | Impedance: N/A | Battery life: 18 hours | Wireless range: +300 feet | NFC: No Universal controls Easy, fun to use Ear cups don't fold Might be pricey for some Plantronics' BackBeat Sense is a home run on nearly all accounts. The design yields comfort and appeal. Its sound performance, battery life and features all deliver without a hitch. Usually, there are a few things that I'd like to see fixed in a set of headphones. In the case of the BackBeat Sense, I wish that the ear cups could fold into the headband to be ultra-portable. But for a set of headphones that gets so much right, I can't nitpick. These cans are worth every penny for someone looking to leap for a classy-looking set of wireless headphones. Read the full review: Plantronics BackBeat Sense
4. Skullcandy GrindThese headphones pack a ton for a tiny price Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: N/A | Cable length: N/A | Frequency response: N/A | Drivers: N/A | Driver type: N/A | Sensitivity: N/A | Impedance: N/A | Battery life: N/A | Wireless range: N/A | NFC: No Stellar sound Unbeatable price Divisive style No volume controls You, like everyone else, probably wants a set of headphones that nails the tricky blend of design, useful features and incredible sound. You might think that you need to flush your savings to enjoy such a pair of cans. Protip: you don't. At $60 (£40, about AU$77), the Skullcandy Grind is priced well below its competitors, but the low price tag isn't a trick to get you in the door. It's an invitation to find everything you want in a set of headphones (and then some) for an unbeatable price. Read the full review: Skullcandy Grind
5. Klipsch Reference On-EarA near-perfect blend of comfort, performance and style Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: .44 pounds | Cable length: N/A | Frequency response: 20HZ-20kHz | Drivers: Two 1.5" drivers | Driver type: Dynamic | Sensitivity: 110db | Impedance: 32 ohms | Battery life: N/A | Wireless range: N/A | NFC: N/A Full sound reproduction Comfy as all get-out Error-prone inline controls Klipsch has delivered on making a set of on-ear headphones that are perfect for music lovers looking for true, unbiased sound reproduction of their music. Not to mention that this is the most comfortable pair of on-ear headphones I've worn yet. While their design may not offer the most amount of flexibility, the awesome sound reproduction of the Klipsch Reference On-Ear make them one of the more versatile options for headphones and a fantastic value at that. Read the full review: Klipsch Reference On-Ear
6. Jabra Move WirelessSporty Bluetooth headphones that aim to surprise Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: .33 pounds | Cable length: N/A | Frequency response: N/A | Drivers: N/A | Driver type: N/A | Sensitivity: N/A | Impedance: N/A | Battery life: 8+ hours | Wireless range: 30+ feet | NFC: No Bold design Lightweight Full sound Little noise isolation The Jabra Move Wireless may be a budget buy, but don't let that fool you: this set of on ear Bluetooth headphones is nothing but an all-around stellar product. From the fun and edgy design to excellent performance, these cans come recommended for anyone interested in wireless on the cheap. Read the full review: Jabra Move Wireless
7. Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2These raise the bar for design and performance Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: .42 pounds | Cable length: 3.9 feet | Frequency response: 10Hz-20kHz | Drivers: Two 1.5" drivers | Driver type: N/A | Sensitivity: 108db | Impedance: 22 ohm | Battery life: N/A | Wireless range: N/A | NFC: N/A Full, balanced sound Superb build quality Inline control is iOS only The Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2 isn't the most feature-rich option, but in terms of sheer sound and build quality, they easily raise the bar for the competition to follow. These audiophile-grade headphones are a must-buy for anyone serious about hearing music the way it was intended. So long as you have the money, there's not much else in the on-ear market that can match this package at this price point. Read the full review: Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2
8. Moto PulseFeatures and good looks on a budget Acoustic design: Closed | Weight: .24 pounds | Cable length: N/A | Frequency response: N/A | Drivers: Two 1.5" drivers | Driver type: N/A | Sensitivity: N/A | Impedance: N/A | Battery life: 18 hours | Wireless range: 60 feet | NFC: No Universal controls, 18-hour battery life, Very affordable Somewhat confusing button layout The Moto Pulse are on a mission to include the most value possible into a set of on-ear headphones. And Moto triumphs by including Bluetooth, stellar battery life and universal controls in this $59 (about £37, AU$80) package. The sound performance (save for the pulpy bass) doesn't measure up to what you'll find in the $59 Skullcandy Grind. However, on the whole, these are an easy recommendation if you're looking for a budgeted set of Bluetooth headphones that doesn't skimp out on features. Read the full review: Moto Pulse
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| New BBC streaming service to bring Britain's best TV to the US Posted: 17 Sep 2015 01:09 PM PDT  If you're a cable cutter and a BBC fan in the US, you're in luck - the British public broadcaster has announced it will launch a new streaming service stateside next year. "We're launching a new OTT [over-the-top] video service in America, offering BBC fans programs they wouldn't otherwise get, showcasing British actors, our program-makers and celebrating our culture," said Tony Hall, the BBC's director general, according to The Guardian. While in the UK the BBC has a free online video player called iPlayer, the new offering in the US will likely come with a monthly subscription fee, similar to Netflix or HBO Go. Unfortunately, we don't know the name of the service or the cost, or even when during next year it will launch. What's on at the BBC?Besides saying "programs they wouldn't otherwise get," the BBC hasn't revealed which shows the new service will include. US viewers already have access to a number of BBC programs through the BBC America channel, and the line up includes popular shows like Dr Who, Orphan Black, Sherlock and Top Gear. But as BBC America is only available through a cable subscription, it's still unclear how the new online service will work alongside it, but we're hoping that it will include all the shows currently on BBC America to give US viewers a true cord-cutter option. Of course, to stream new episodes, users can also choose to purchase seasons and episodes through digital platforms like Amazon, iTunes and Google Play right now.
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| BUYING GUIDE: T-Mobile: is it any good? Posted: 17 Sep 2015 12:38 PM PDT  Plans, perks and moreUpdated: T-Mobile has greatly expanded its international coverage area. T-Mobile has been making waves in the US wireless industry for well more than a year now, but is it really worth it to go to all the trouble of switching carriers? That's a question that plenty of smartphone users have probably asked themselves recently, and there are a lot of factors involved in answering. T-Mobile has gone to great lengths to brand itself as the "Un-carrier," but what does that really mean? It has unleashed features ranging from free Wi-Fi calling to unlimited international data, but how much do those flashy bonuses affect the minute-to-minute experience on the carrier? What about the various T-Mobile plans? How do they stack up to the competition?
I switched from a Samsung Galaxy S4 on Verizon to an iPhone 6 Plus and a Simple Choice T-Mobile Jump plan this month, and I believe I can shed a little bit of light on these questions and the T-Mobile iPhone 6 Plus experience in general. T-Mobile plansT-Mobile's Simple Choice plans are an undeniably good deal. Every T-Mobile prepaid plan comes with unlimited talk, text and data, though the carrier will kick you off its 4G LTE network if you go over your monthly allotment. That doesn't mean you're stuck without data service, and you don't get hit with a fee, either, but you are relegated to T-Mobile's slower Edge network. But when T-Mobile CEO John Legere brags that they're contract-free, what he really means is that they don't make you sign an "annual service contract" that binds you to them under threat of heavy fees if you leave.
You do, however, still have to sign a contract if you, for example, sign up for T-Mobile Jump and get a new phone on a payment plan. Here's how signing up for T-Mobile Jump works: if you open a new line and trade in an old device, you can get a new phone for no or little money down, then pay it off on a monthly basis over the course of at most two years. The contract you sign says you'll ultimately pay at least half the full price of your phone (after which you can upgrade), whether it takes you a year or a minute, and it's worth it for several reasons. For the iPhone 6 that means about $27 per month, and for the iPhone 6 Plus it's about $31, on top of the $10 per month that essentially covers your insurance. This can vary slightly. For example if you want more storage you might pay $100 or $200 upfront.
And for users who need to open up mobile service for more than just themselves, T-Mobile also has family plans including a four line family package for $100 that includes 10 GB of 4G LTE data. The Un-carrier also has a new unlimited data plan for users who only need two-lines, which provides unlimited talk and text for $100 per month. Meanwhile, additional lines (with a maximum of eight) can be added for $40 per month. Business classT-Mobile isn't just repaving the mobile world for everyday Joes, the pink carrier is also opening some of its killer deals for businesses. Whether you're a small outfit with less than 10 employees or a mega corporation with over a thousand workers, T-Mobile promises it's rates are 40% more affordable compared to AT&T and Verizon. Plans start at $16 per line, which then drops off to $15 when you sign up for more than 10. For bigger companies T-Mobile is also offering 100 lines for $1,500 and 1,000 lines for $15,000 per month. If you need any more than that, it'll be an additional $10 for every user.
Now what you get with every line includes 1GB of data included, plus unlimited talk and text. Users who want more data will be able to purchase 2GB for $10 or unlimited data for $30. Additionally there are pooled data options, which breaks down to $4.75 per gigabyte for an 100GB data minimum, $4.50 for a 500GB minimum and $4.25 for a 1TB minimum. You'll also get an additional gigabyte for every line you connect. Just like it's regular Simple Choice plans T-Mobile is opening up its additional service free of charge. These include free music streaming, Wi-Fi calling and all of Un-carrier's previous intatives. What's more setting up a business line with T-Mobile also nets you a free GoDaddy domain to launch your own website as well as a free custom email account provided through Microsoft. In case you want to attach a family plan to your business agreement, you'll be able to do that too and get 50% off a Simple Choice plan. All the perks
T-Mobile Jump worth itHere's why it's worth it: T-Mobile Jump is so named because it's the plan that easily (relatively, at least) lets you jump from device to device, but it also includes a comprehensive insurance plan. It's an extra $10 a month, but that's how much you'd probably be paying for insurance anyway. Jump covers you no matter what happens - including drunkenly dropping your phone in the toilet, which we've all done - and though you will have a deductible ($175 for the 6 Plus) it's better than paying full price for a new phone. The "Jump" part comes in once you've paid off half your phone's total price. That can come one year in if you just pay your monthly bills normally, or sooner if you decide to pay a lump sum all at once. Either way, that's when you can upgrade to a new device, and start paying that one off on the same system. Alternatively, you can just keep paying your monthly fees if you like your current phone, and eventually you'll pay it off and own it, and your bill will become that much cheaper per month.
The T-Mobile Simple Choice plans themselves are great, but switching to T-Mobile isn't all objectively positive. The $60 Jump plan I chose gets me 3GB of 4G LTE data and, once I use that up, unlimited Edge data. That network isn't just slower, though. It's also limited - for example you can't create a mobile hotspot and tether anymore once you use up your LTE allotment. When that happens you can always call T-Mobile up and have them bump your plan up for the month, which you'll have to do if, for example, you're on a business trip and you need to tether. The way Verizon handled that for me was to automatically charge me more and bump my plan up, which was annoying - but at least I didn't notice a change or hiccup in my service when that happened.
Un-contracts turns contracts upside downWhile T-Mobile is often considered the Un-carrier that did away with contracts it brought them back at its Un-carrier 9.0 event on March 18, 2015. But in a script flipping move, T-Mo's contracts are less about keeping users locked in but locking in their current rates. As such existing Simple Choice subscribers will be able to sign a deal to keep their plan at the same price for two full years. You'll also be able to leave your Un-contract agreement at any point you please. iPhone perksStarting with the iPhone 6, T-Mobile started throwing into some special deals for Apple fans. It all started in 2014 with a special that let veteran iPhone users trade in their older iOS devices to take off $50 to a few hundred dollars off the cost an a shiny new iPhone 6. With the iPhone 6S, T-Mobile has sweeten the deals even more by first powering the new handsets with its 700MHz network, which is designed for better signal penetration through walls and buildings. The Uncarrier is so sure it could provide the best service that it instated a Lifetime Coverage Guarantee allowing users to get a refund on their device and service if they're unsatisfied with empty bars at any point. Switching to T-MobileSwitching to T-MobileGoing from Verizon to T-Mobile is a jarring transition - in a good way. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have taken measures to compete with T-Mobile on some levels, but Verizon and other carriers' offerings and policies just pale in comparison with the Un-carrier's. Switching is painless because T-Mobile pays your early termination fee (ETF), albeit in the form of a Visa prepaid card and only up to $350. It's been a few weeks since I switched, and I still haven't received this card, but that's somewhat beside the point.
To make switching even easier for users, it has rolled out Carrier Freedom. The skinny is T-Mobile will pay up to $650 for any outstanding payments bills you might have with a competing carrier for your device. And that's $650 per line. Overall this should make it way easier for users to switch if they happen to still be paying off that Nexus 6 they still have with AT&T or Verizon. Carrier Freedom, isn't just limited to individuals either, businesses can also take advantage of as long as they have more than 10 lines. Business accounts with more than 10 users, meanwhile, will get $100 credits for every additional line.
This was a genius move on T-Mobile's part. Without the monetary penalty there's nothing holding you on a competing carrier, and there's no reason not to switch to T-Mobile. And on top of that I essentially didn't pay anything for my shiny new iPhone 6 Plus. Here's how it breaks down per month: I pay $31 for the phone, $10 for the Jump insurance, $60 for talk, text and data, and around $10 in taxes and fees. Altogether I'm paying the same roughly $110 a month that I was on Verizon. Verizon frequently penalized me for going over my 2GB of monthly data by charging me an extra $10 and automatically bumping me up to a bigger plan - and yes, that carried over to subsequent months, costing me even more money. So my monthly bill on Verizon was often $120, and now I'm paying less than that per month, plus I have a brand new cutting-edge smartphone and more data too.
T-Mobile's 4G LTE coverage admittedly isn't as good as its competitors'. That may be the Un-carrier's biggest weakness, although you probably won't notice if you're in a major city or another area with solid coverage. It does depend where you live, though, and my experience in Los Angeles has been fine. A T-Mobile speed test using Ookla revealed wildly varying download and upload speeds in different areas around Los Angeles, ranging from just 6MB up to 70MB per second. That's to be expected, though, and the fact is I haven't noticed any difference in service since I switched. No dropped calls, no glaring dead spots. T-Mobile iPhone 6 Plus experience has been perfectly smooth.
For example I was told explicitly that there weren't any additional taxes or fees beyond the actual costs of the plan and phone, so I had thought my bill would be $10 cheaper per month (they didn't count the taxes and fees in the number they showed me). In addition the T-Mobile employees I interacted with completely failed to mention all the awesome benefits of T-Mobile's pre-paid plans - all the "Un-carrier" stuff, in other words. I'll get into those below, but it would have been nice to have them spelled out for me instead of having to Google around for that info. T-Mobile: is it any good?Even though I'm committed to paying for this iPhone 6 Plus, I'm now paying either the same or less per month than I was on Verizon, and being on a T-Mobile pre-paid plan makes a huge difference compared with being locked into a two-year contract. Just the thought of being stuck with that plastic Galaxy S4 for another year was giving me a headache, and I feel lighter now that I've switched.
Naturally there are a variety of T-Mobile devices available, and you can also bring your own device. That's a good option if you don't want to commit to a T-Mobile Jump plan - or if you don't think you'll qualify, since a T-Mobile pre-paid plan without Jump doesn't require them to do a credit check. And let's not forget about all the other benefits that come with a T-Mobile Simple Choice plan. These are the "Un-carrier" moves that T-Mobile has been harping about for the last year and more.
My favorite so far is T-Mobile Music Freedom, which lets you stream an unlimited amount of music from Spotify, Google Play Music and more than two dozen other streaming music services. They just added 14 more this week, in fact. T-Mobile Music Freedom means streaming music data isn't counted against your monthly allotment. As an avid Spotify user, I'm thrilled by this. I love not having to juggle song files between my computer and phone, and that's also why I'm able to easily survive with the smallest storage options on my phones. But on Verizon I was frequently butting up against my data limit thanks to all the songs I was streaming. Now I don't have to worry about it.
T-Mobile also offers unlimited international data and texting in well over 100 countries around the world as part of its Simple Global initiative. This means there are no roaming fees and no extra charges at all when you travel abroad with your phone. It sounds too good to be real, but that's where T-Mobile is at right now. As of September 17, 2015, T-Mobile expanded its Simple Global coverage to 145 different countries including all of Europe and South America. The most recent expansion incorporated the Bahamas, Haiti and nine European nations. Overall if you look at the map, T-Mobile has network partners spread across the entirety of Europe and South America
Sprint, Verizon and AT&T all have their own versions of T-Mobile's Simple Choice plans, but ever since T-Mobile started its "Un-carrier revolution" its rivals have been playing catch-up, and they still are today. So: is T-Mobile any good? Is it worth switching to T-Mobile? The answer right now is overwhelmingly "yes," and with T-Mobile paying your cancellation fees for you, offering cheaper plans than the competition and providing so many awesome bonuses on top of that, there's literally nothing stopping you.  |
| Google makes it easy to offer a hand to Syrian refugees in crisis Posted: 17 Sep 2015 12:13 PM PDT  If you've gone to Google's search page on desktop in the past day or two, you may have noticed a new donate button at the top of the page. The button appears in a bar dark grey bar that reads: "Help refugees and migrants in urgent need. Google will match your donation." Earlier this week, the search giant committed to matching user donations of up to the first 5 million euros (about US$5.5 million) globally, after already donating about US$1 million to organizations involved with the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Donations will be split between four nonprofit organizations that include Doctors Without Borders, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and UN High Commissioner for Refugees. If you've so far ignored or dismissed the donate button, you'll find that it won't turn up the next time you go to google.com, likely due to a cookie that recognizes you've already seen it and aren't interested. But if are still interested in donating, you can head on over to Google's refugee relief page, with Google set to cover any processing fees.  |
| Microsoft's Nadella shows the softer side of Microsoft Posted: 17 Sep 2015 11:17 AM PDT  The common theme at Dreamforce 2015 is soul, and how a company has heart. The term was brought up during several keynotes on Wednesday, including a talk with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, a keynote by Saslesforce CEO Marc Benioff and in a fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Now into his second year leading Microsoft through the cloud-first, mobile-first vision, Nadella highlights that software and services is about collaboration, noting that Microsoft wants to "add value" for customers to help them "make decisions that make sense for them." In a chat with Wired's Jessi Hampel, Nadella showed its soul, or heart, a term that Benioff loosely describes as a company's vision to help shape, change and influence the world for the better, by announcing a $75 million project to bring technology to schools. The soul for Microsoft is education. Shaping the future"Education is what's going to make a difference," Nadella effused. It is education that will help make a difference in the world, and Nadella's vision is to help children participate in "the future economy." Nadella wants that also be part of Microsoft's culture, which he defines as the pursuit of excellence. His job as CEO is to help shape and define Microsoft's culture and give it soul. A better trained workforce through Nadella's help in bringing technology to education would certainly help Microsoft pursue greater excellence. During his keynote, Nadella calls out the non-profit Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) as a partner. Microsoft's technologyNadella showcased Microsoft's various technologies on stage during his keynote, including a demonstration of HoloLens. It's a mind-blowing piece of technology, Nadella said of HoloLens, showcasing the future of natural user interfaces and interactions that extend beyond just touch. Nadella even used an iPhone on stage, a phone that he said was not his own. The Apple smartphone was loaded with Microsoft's apps, a shift to the mobile-first vision that he's been espousing, and as such Nadella labelled the phone as an "iPhone Pro" loaded with Microsoft technology. Not all was successful on stage, as Nadella asked the iPhone, using Cortana, to show him his biggest opportunity risks. Cortana didn't quite understand the Microsoft CEO, and returned a few incorrect answers. But after several attempts, Cortana finally got it with a little backstage intervention. RealSense 3D for Windows Hello login was also demonstrated. Windows Hello helps to reduce the friction in keeping PCs secure, eliminating the password and replacing it with biometrics on Windows 10. In the end, Microsoft wants to make computing more personal and natural with these technologies, Nadella said. "The point is for each one of us to get more out of our lives," Nadella announced. Technology should help you get more out of your data to give you time back. That message was also conveyed earlier in the day when Uber's Kalanick said that the technology-driven ride-sharing company's goal is to reduce congestion, make commuting accessible and provide a reliable and safe ride. In the end, Kalanick said that city commuters could gain an hour back in their lives, time that they can either donate to the community, spend with family or enjoy on their own. The community aspect is part of the "soul" of Uber. The Nadella eraNadella's tenure at Microsoft is setting a softer tone for Microsoft, which is embracing rivals as partners. A few years ago, it would have been hard to envision Microsoft demonstrating technology on an iPhone or even embracing Salesforce, a competitor's Microsoft's own CRM platform. But Nadella is shaking things up, saying that he is setting the culture as the pursuit of excellence. This should help provide the opportunity for further collaborations and partnerships. Of the Nokia business deal that resulted in a massive write-down and layoffs, Nadella said that it's not about a device-centric approach, but the experience as a whole. "The PC was successful, but then there was the smartphone," Nadella said. "Microsoft has to support the mobility experience." His answer continues to call upon the mobile-first, cloud-first paradigm, to bring a better mobile and connected experience to users by using Microsoft technology. Whether that's Office or Cortana on an iPhone, or partnering with Salesforce to bring a better experience to Office 365 users, we're seeing a softer, more open Microsoft under Nadella.
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| Review: Updated: New Nintendo 3DS Posted: 17 Sep 2015 11:05 AM PDT  Introduction and designFor all the stuff it does well, Nintendo doesn't do itself many favours when it comes to naming conventions. After the messy and confused messaging of the Wii U and the perhaps even more confusing 2DS, it's now gone and named its latest 3DS the New Nintendo 3DS. To add to the confusion, there are two different models, a standard New 3DS and the New 3DS XL. Curiously, the smaller version is only launched in Europe, at a price of £150 (around US$240, AU$300). The US on the other hand only got the XL variant, however Nintendo has announced that it will bring the smaller version on Sep. 25 alongside Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. Why did Nintendo decide to stagger the release? One guess is that it's been keeping a close eye on consumer trends and, we assume, determined that everyone else prefers to go large. Just looking at it, though, you wouldn't be able to tell much difference between it and its prior form. It's less of a problem for the serious gamers and Nintendo nuts, but for the parents who are out to buy their kid a birthday present… well, you can see the problem.
But the New 3DS really is new. The alterations might not immediately strike you - many are under the hood - but the handheld has undergone a number of beneficial tweaks. From the addition of the right-stick near the face buttons and more powerful internals to the interchangeable faceplates, there are plenty of worthwhile tweaks that justify the upgrade. DesignI've never had a problem with the design of the 3DS and, clearly, neither has Nintendo. The clamshell shape is as familiar as ever, although it has been bumped up a smidge in size to accommodate a slightly larger display.
As an added bonus, Nintendo has granted the power of interchangeable faceplates to this smaller model. Nintendo sent me a rather eye-catching Luigi one to try but you'll have a vast range to choose from (Japan already has 40) if you fancy some added customisation. Why this is absent on the XL is a bit of a mystery to me - again, I imagine it comes down to market research.
Open it up and, again, it's a familiar site. As a nice little touch, the face buttons now replicate the colours of those on the SNES controller. But the biggy is the one we've been waiting on for far too long - a second analogue stick. Don't be fooled by that puny-looking grey nib that's sprouted on the right hand side - it's a fully-fledged C-stick capable of 360 degree movement. It feels stiff but it's surprisingly sensitive. During my time playing Majora's Mask it worked wonderfully for controlling the in-game camera. Much of that is down to the placement that makes thumb-jumping between face buttons and analogue stick super easy.
To go with your new analogue stick is a pair of added shoulder buttons, putting the much-berated Circle Pad Pro accessory out of a job. Thank goodness, it was ugly as sin. Meanwhile, the new ZL and ZR buttons sit side by side with the old shoulder pressers, making Nintendo's handheld finally feel complete.
But there's more; the wireless button is now gone, the start and select buttons both rest below the fact buttons, the volume slider sits on the left-hand side of the top screen, and the power button has shifted to the bottom right of the device. That last one is perhaps my only niggle with the new aesthetic as it makes turning the console on and off a tad more awkward than it should be.
Switching up the design isn't the only reason for changing the faceplates on the New 3DS - both the battery and MicroSD card lie beneath. The fact you need a screwdriver to change an SD card in 2015 is, in my eyes, a design flaw - especially when you consider how quickly those cards fill up. But that's not the strangest decision Nintendo has made on the New 3DS. No, the strangest decision was to not include a charger with the console. I guess the assumption is that most buyers will be upgraders from an older 3DS, but what about everyone else?
These days it's assumed that any gadget not running on AA batteries is going to come with some sort of charger in the box, and I think there are going to be a lot more disappointed people than Nintendo anticipates. Features and gamesIf I'm ordering the new features in terms of importance, the next on the list is the tremendously better 3D effect. The 3DS of yesterday demanded you kept your head in a 'sweet spot' to get the benefit of an extra dimension - now the 3D follows you around. Thanks to the console's new front-facing camera, the 3DS will follow your head and adjust the parallax to meet the angle of your focus. Much like when the 3DS and its stereoscopic function showed up in 2011, this new 3D feature is something you really have to see to understand. But I can tell you now, it makes a phenomenal difference; finally, I have a reason to push that 3D slider back up again.
That said, there's still much debate over whether the 3D effect of Nintendo's handheld is more than a gimmick, and Nintendo hasn't done much of late to prove otherwise. Pokemon X and Y, two of the biggest games to hit the 3DS, ignored the feature for the most part. The 2DS speaks for itself. Nintendo's new head-tracking 3D doesn't make it better in clarity and pop, but it does make it more consistent and comfortable to use, which is still a big improvement in my eyes.
What might be less noticeable when you pick up the 3DS is the added speed. Nintendo has swapped out the CPU for a faster model. Apps now open and close with added brevity, and a number of upcoming games will only be compatible with this newer model. Here's the rub of the New Nintendo 3DS. The Circle Pad Pro provides a (rather cumbersome) fix to anyone who wants to stick to their current model, but when it comes to new games that are New 3DS-compatible only, there's only one solution for those who don't upgrade: suck it up. That's going to cause fragmentation, but obsolescence is the very driver of technology so it's difficult to criticise Nintendo's decision to up the processor on a device that's nearly four years old.
Just how much grunt the new processor will lend the 3DS remains to be seen, but with the additional controls now part of the parcel it may be the only thing standing between the 3DS and a bunch of lovely Gamecube ports. The prospect of one day playing Mario Sunshine on my 3DS is pant-wettingly exciting. What's not been boosted significantly on the new model, however, is the New 3DS's camera. There's been a slight improvement for capturing pictures in low-light conditions, but overall it's a pretty weak feature that I'd say the console could do without were it not for augmented reality games like Face Raiders.
Nintendo's made one other preparation for the future, NFC, and this one is going to get a lot of use. The New 3DS comes with NFC built in, ready for Nintendo's army of Amiibo figurines. By placing an Amiibo on the bottom screen of the 3DS the two will interact, allowing you to level up your character, gain some bonus items, and more. Nintendo's toys are selling marvellously well at the moment (really, who's surprised?) and rolling out by the truckload, so expect to see plenty more characters - and much more interaction with the 3DS - in the near future. As for the games, I shouldn't need to tell you that they're in abundance. Good games too, which is where the technically superior PS Vita falls down.
The library of games available to 3DS owners is already vast and varied but it's no coincidence that Nintendo is launching its new handhelds on the same day as Majora's Mask 3D, the handheld port of its classic N64 Zelda adventure. That library will grow stronger with more powerful games, thanks to the new CPU, and I can't wait to see how far developers can push the handheld. It was recently announced that the multiplatform Unity engine is coming to the 3DS, with more than 50 Wii U games using it already. Unity powers most of the big Android and iOS games right now, and the result of this should be better quality games for the 3DS. It might also tie into Nintendo's foray into mobile gaming. But right now, this feels like it could well be the last episode in the 3DS saga. So, Nintendo, what comes next? VerdictNintendo has long been boss of the handheld market, but the fact it continues to be so successful in a market now dominated by smartphones is, quite frankly, damn impressive. The New 3DS means Nintendo should continue to hold its own for a while longer. With more power, extra controls and a reason to turn that 3D slider back up again, Nintendo's latest handheld is a welcome refresh that - despite some minor niggles - is definitely worth the upgrade. We likedAlmost every change Nintendo has made here is welcome, and the result is a handheld that finally feels complete. The 3D is now much more consistent, meaning less headaches and a more enjoyable experience, while the C-stick gives us what we've been asking for since 2011. We dislikedThere are a few niggles: having to remove the back with a screwdriver to change the microSD in 2015 seems crazy; the camera is still quite poor; and the name might cause some confusion for those less familiar with the Nintendo family. Final verdictThe New 3DS makes a number of small improvements, but put together they make for a console that's definitely worth the upgrade, especially as a number of future games will be incompatible with the older model. Faster, comprehensive, more powerful; Nintendo's best handheld finally feels complete.  |
| Review: Updated: Amazon Fire TV Stick Posted: 17 Sep 2015 11:00 AM PDT  Amazon Fire TV StickUpdate #1: The Amazon Fire TV Stick will be even better in 2015. Amazon announced today that its pint-sized streaming stick will be receiving the voice search remote that comes standard with the full-size box starting on October 22. The set-top box landscape has changed. It used to be a full-size battle royale where three titans – the Roku 3, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV – duked it out for control of your television. Then, in July of last year, Google released Chromecast, a set-top box built into a thumb drive form factor and fits entirely behind a TV. In many ways the Amazon Fire TV Stick, the successor to the full-size Fire TV, looks similar to Google's impulse buy offering from last year. But whatever it may look like, its arrival onto the set-top scene can only mean one thing: The time of the titans is over, and a new age of streaming sticks is here. The Fire TV Stick is petite and powerful, currently available in the US, as well as the UK. It fits flush with most TV's HDMI ports and, unlike its main competitor Chromecast, comes with a fairly decent remote. In terms of content, you'll find just about everything here. Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Showtime Anytime, HBO Go and more have already joined the party, while Amazon's Prime Instant Video basically sits at the head of the proverbial table.
Almost everything feels right about the Amazon Fire TV Stick, but most of all is its $40/£35 price tag. It's $10/£5 more than Chromecast, but $10/£10 less than the Roku Streaming Stick; it feels like a supremely good value for what you get in the box. Where Amazon Fire TV Stick stumbles, however, is its deep-rooted attachment to its mother service, Amazon Prime. Without Prime, the set-top stick feels devoid of personality.
Yes, you can still get those great aforementioned apps, yes you'll zip around from one section of the interface to the next thanks to its powerful components, and yes you'll even get a 30-day trial for free just for buying the streaming stick – but, after the trial runs out or you choose not to commit to Amazon's service, the whole experience feels sterile without Prime. Design, setup and performanceAt this point in the game, a streaming stick is nothing new. It's a plastic, thumb drive-sized device that plugs into any HDMI port (not just MHL-equipped ports) and draws power from a USB port on the TV or from a wall outlet via the included converter. The exterior itself isn't all that exciting – it's 3.3 x 1.0 x 0.5 inches (84.9 x 25.0 x 11.5 mm) and has the Amazon logo on one side – but it's the lack of any distinct features that help the Fire TV Stick blend into the back of any TV. It even comes with an HDMI extender cable in case you've got a wall-mounted setup and no additional space to spare in the back.
While these extras are something the $30 Chromecast comes standard with, the more expensive, $50 Roku Streaming Stick does not. Sometimes, it's the simple things in life that really count, and Amazon scores major points for putting the consumer first. After you've got the stick firmly seated in an HDMI port you've got to provide a power solution. You'll need to connect the micro-USB powered stick to either a USB port on the TV or, attach the adapter and plug it into the wall. If you choose the former, you'll get a warning when you boot the system up for the first time. It'll tell you that it can't draw enough power from the USB port to provide the ideal experience. The TV I used for testing, a TCL Roku TV (ironic, I know), had more than enough power for the job and never once did the streaming stick fail due to lack of juice. If you're in a similar situation, just ignore the warning and move on.But, besides the one micro-USB port on the exterior, you won't find any other ports on the sides of the Fire TV Jr., which means there's no way to hardwire the device to your router.
In practice, this lead to a few hiccups here and there, but because it's equipped with dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO) and supports 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi networks, the Stick can handle some the diciest of connections with ease, though, without a hard-line in this is certainly a YMMV situation. It's impressive that the Amazon Fire TV Stick requires so little energy, especially once you find out what the Fire TV Stick has going on inside the box – namely, a Broadcom dual-core processor, 1GB of memory and 8GB of storage. Comparing that to the Chromecast, which sports a single-core processor, 512MB of memory and 2GB of memory, Amazon's miniature stick comes out the clear winner. Apps and gamesWhere the full-size set-top boxes like the Nexus Player and Apple TV struggle with too little content to choose from on their platforms, Amazon Fire TV has an abundance of apps at your disposal. All of the primary suspects are here and accounted for: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, Showtime, NFL Network, Pandora, Spotify, Crackle, Rdio and more. While the Roku 3 sports over 1,000 channels (read: apps), the Fire TV Stick has a number closer to several hundred with multi-function apps and games mixed in with the entertainment channels.
Perusing the store, I discovered some new interesting apps like TripSmart – a travel channel that provides videos on exotic locales – and an old favorite, 2048, optimized for the big screen. Like Roku, there's a lot of shovelware mixed in with the good stuff, which means you'll have to root around the mud to find the two or three real gems in a given list. Games are also present and accounted for on Amazon's smaller system, and for the most part the less-intensive titles play incredibly well. Disappointingly though, you won't find many graphically demanding games here like The Walking Dead Season 1 or 2. Nor are you likely to spot Grand Theft Auto here anytime soon. That doesn't seem to be due to any fault of the hardware – the system boasts the right specs for those higher-end games – the content simply isn't there.
The lack of games doesn't necessarily hurt the system, however. If you want to have a streaming system that's jam-packed with gaming goodness, consider the full-size Amazon Fire TV or Nexus Player. Both have a dedicated gamepad sold separately and have a great selection of titles. Speaking of separate controllers, the full-size Amazon Fire controller can also be paired with the Fire TV Stick. But many of the 200-plus games available on the console don't necessarily need – or work better – with a controller instead of the standard remote. Home entertainment enthusiasts, on the other hand, will be glad to see Plex here, as it has been MIA on a few of the other systems I've tested recently. PlayStation TV: I'm looking at you. The launch line-up of apps is as strong as it's going to be outside of a Roku product, and though I wish it were a little more AAA game-oriented and much more platform-agnostic (searches only return Amazon content. Also, a shared Google Play library would more than make up for any shortcomings in selection). That said, this is still a fairly balanced ecosystem. RemoteOne of the biggest advantages of buying the Amazon Fire TV Stick over the other guys is the remote. It weighs next to nothing and errs on the cheap side, but on it you'll find a few sparse, but powerful, buttons: back, home, menu, rewind, play/pause and fast forward. At the top you'll find a circular directional pad and a central button that does just about everything else.
If you're a Fire TV owner you'll notice that this remote doesn't come with the built-in mic and voice-search button. The functionality still exists if you use the accompanying Fire TV app, but it doesn't exist on the pack-in peripheral. If you really need it, though, Amazon sells the full-size remote separately for $40 or allows you to sync your old Fire TV remote to the Stick without much of a problem.
The remote also works over Bluetooth, which means it won't need direct line of sight to the Stick itself – a handy feature considering 95% of users will want to keep the Fire TV out of sight behind the television. It may not win the award for "most durable remote," but the remote is exactly like the Stick: simple and efficient. Interface and navigationThe interface is a direct replica of the full-size Amazon Fire TV's menu. It's crowded and content-rich, making it a bustling, ever-evolving free-for-all for something to watch. It's may not be as clean-cut or aesthetically pleasing as some of the other menus we've seen on rival boxes, but Amazon chose to leave well enough alone and it's hard to argue against that reasoning. The users who'll see the most benefit here are compulsive Amazon media shoppers. Anytime you buy or rent a show or movie from Amazon, it will populate automatically in the "video library" sub-menu on the home screen. By doing this, Amazon builds a positive reinforcement cycle of buying new content on its storefront then showcasing everything you own in one centralized location. And, thankfully, zipping around from one section of the interface to the next takes no time at all. The hardware delivers responsive results in tenths of a second and, when you finally decide on what to watch, Amazon's predictive technology takes things one step further by pre-loading the first few seconds of the Amazon Instant movies you are most likely to watch. VerdictChromecast is still the all-around winner when it comes to streaming sticks. It's not as fast as Amazon's Fire TV Stick, nor is it as feature-packed as the Roku Streaming Stick, but it's reliable, plays nicely with Android devices (as does the Fire Stick) and costs less than a night on the town. The Roku Streaming Stick is the agnostic brother to the other two. If you can't decide which e-tailer to give your money to, and would rather give it to the services themselves, this is the streamer for you. It also has the most content than any other platform. However just be prepared to wait a bit longer for it to load, speed really isn't Roku's strong suit. Regarding the contender at hand, the Fire TV Stick is best suited for those people who have really sunk their teeth into the Amazon ecosphere. When you strip everything else away, it feels like a device specifically engineered for Amazon Prime subscribers and generally compulsive Amazon shoppers. If you're using Amazon's Cloud Drive to store photos, you'll be able to display them with two clicks on the remote. And if your watchlists get longer than your shopping list, you'll have a great time going through the store and finally catching that 2006 Martin Scorsese film with Leo Dicaprio. (It's called The Departed and it's fantastic.) We likedThe Amazon Fire Stick is dead simple to setup and, once it's going, you'll be impressed with just how much there is to see and do with the system. Menu screens populate in a fraction of a second and some smart on-board technology gets videos started faster than the competition. If you've bought into Amazon's tablet and media ecosystem, you'll almost definitely want the low-cost addition to add to your collection. It'll sync up seamlessly with these devices but, unlike Chromecast, doesn't require them in lieu of a remote. If you haven't already ponied up the $99 a year for Prime you'll find less here than on other systems but, at worst, you'll still have access to services like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Showtime Anytime and a few other key players. We dislikedYou also won't find the same kind of niche content on Amazon's storefront as you would on the Roku 3 or Roku Streaming Stick. There may not be a major clamor for that one Korean channel you've never heard of, but someone, somewhere will be slightly broken-hearted when they can't find it here. Content, as a whole, is also largely dependent on the Amazon Store. It makes sense why search results only display Amazon Video links, but there's nothing worse than paying $3.99 for a movie only to find out it was available on Netflix for free. Lastly, there just isn't a great selection of triple-A games. There's enough casual games for a lifetime, but if you're looking to play the highest-end games that Android has to offer, you'll need to upgrade to a full-size box. Final verdictIt's easy to dismiss the Fire TV Stick as a cash-in on the streaming stick fad, but doing so would be a real disservice to the work and innovation Amazon packed into its pint-sized product. It's a step forward for streaming sticks and sets a new standard of what is and is not acceptable from here on out. Namely, it provides a remote, a good interface and 99% of the key services for a very reasonable price tag. The only real faux-pas here is intentional, and that's the stick's almost unreasonable dependence on Amazon Prime to function in full. It's by far the least impartial of the three major streaming sticks – the other two being Chromecast and Roku – and around every corner is trying to sell you on a movie, game or TV show you didn't necessarily know you wanted until right then. It's not the best game console hybrid either. Though that's to be forgiven as its full-size sibling, the Amazon Fire TV and optional accompanying controller, are there to pick up the slack. The Fire TV Stick is a present from the ecommerce giant to media lovers everywhere. While it has its flaws, by and large the final product is one any TV or movie enthusiast will be happy with – as long as they have an Amazon Prime account.  |
| iRobot announces the Roomba 980, its suckiest vacuum yet Posted: 17 Sep 2015 11:00 AM PDT  Page 1iRobot CEO Colin Angle took the stage at an NYC launch event Wednesday to answer the burning question: would the next-gen Roomba suck even more than before? Through explaining how its latest Roomba, the 980, houses a variety of cutting-edge consumer robotics tech, he concluded that, yes, iRobot's latest efforts really do suck. Twice as much, to be specific. The Roomba 980 aims to improve on iRobot's current lineup, which currently commands nearly 70% of the home robotics market share. How? This Roomba cleans more of your house, does a better job in doing so, and also acts as the company's launchpad into the Internet of Things. But before Angle actually revealed the product, he gave us a history lesson to illustrate its improvements in robotics. Lewis & Clark, a lesson in roboticsAngle began by going backward: he dove into discussing the ambitious journey westward by 19th century explorers, Lewis & Clark, who were tasked with the not-very-simple job of finding the West Coast of the US. It's a captivating tale, but I was struggling to see how he would tie this back around to a new Roomba vacuum.
Then, he plotted the duo's path to the West on a screen. It was a jagged path, etched by trial and error. It took them over a year until they arrived at the Pacific. Angle then finally made the connection I'd been waiting for: this zig-zag, haphazard movement was how previous Roomba vacuums functioned. The Roomba 980 works more like Lewis & Clark's faster, more efficient travels back East. The trip, which took half the time, was made easier by following landmarks the explorers mapped out previously and by avoiding the pitfalls that lead to wasted time and resources. Roomba 980's trick for improved suckageThe new Roomba goes where no Roomba has gone before. Well, that's not really true. But it can traverse the rooms in your home with an enriched intelligence and efficiency. It does this by making an image-based map of the rooms in your home by utilizing its visual simultaneous localization and mapping technique, or vSLAM for short. iRobot claims that vSLAM is a breakthrough in technology for consumer robotics.
To understand the need for vSLAM, Angle divulged the company's initial struggle to affordably bring vision to the Roomba 980. Its higher-end robotics used in areas of conflict (ones too risky for a human to safely set foot in) are able to see using a laser-powered system. It's incredibly effective and accurate, but much too expensive to put into a consumer-facing product. In comes vSLAM, a set of technologies that pairs a standard camera to generate a visual map along with a set of sensors to help keep track of where the 980 has and hasn't cleaned yet. Working together, the system can also find and keep focus on areas that are particularly dirty until the muck is taken care of – much like how you would clean yourself.
This, and some other new and interesting functionality packed into the Roomba 980's brains, make up what the company is calling iAdapt 2.0. Some of its new-fangled capabilities allow the 980 to nap for a 90-minute charge when its 2-hour battery is zapped, then return to the exact point where it left off to finish the job. Older Roombas would call it a day once their batteries expired, but not the 980. Looking to improve on the vacuum's aim so it can navigate gently through your house (as to not ding up your belongings or fall down the stairs), iRobot's latest can detect subtle differences between hard floors and carpeting on the fly, even boosting the power output to suck even more when it's on carpet.
The camera detects - and remembers - furniture as points of interest in your home and can traverse in between chair legs and underneath hard-to-reach spots. Once the visual map is made, the 980 doesn't rely on the camera as much. Christian Cerda, an iRobot exec, even placed a cloth over the vacuum's camera, and it proceeded to clean intelligently by relying on its other sensors. Thanks to the Roomba 980's many methods of vision and dirt detection, iRobot hopes to closer mimic how humans use a push vacuum and to remedy the complaints that previous iterations of Roomba would clean the same areas over and over. iRobot claims that its latest doesn't tread the same spot twice without reason. Roomba's ties with IoTThe final part of the Roomba 980 package is its smart connected functionality. With an app called iRobot HOME, owners can wirelessly trigger the 980 to clean. Not only that, they can also schedule a daily cleaning and customize whether the 980 does a regular job or a deep clean from afar. And, unlike with previous Roomba models, the app reports the 980's activity, which allows you to double-check that it actually did its homework, so to speak, while you are away.
You can still trigger the Roomba to tidy up with a press of its "Clean" button located centrally on its top, but the app aims to make the process easy and convenient for users who aren't home to tend to chores themselves. The Roomba 980 launches today for $899 in the US. iRobot is looking to Q4 of this year for its entrance into global markets for an undetermined price. Convenience and overall "neat" factor aside, is iRobot's latest smart vacuum robot worth the money? Let us know if you're a current Roomba owner and whether this new one has you looking to upgrade.  |
| Review: Updated: Amazon Fire TV Posted: 17 Sep 2015 10:45 AM PDT  IntroductionUpdate #1: The Amazon Fire TV is due for a major upgrade come October 5, 2015. Dubbed the "new Amazon Fire TV" by our staff, it'll pack beefier internal components that support a 4K resolution, as well as a micro-SD slot for up to 128GB of expanded memory. We'll revisit this review once we get one in our homes. Original review below... With the introduction of Fire TV, behemoth online retailer Amazon has entered the streaming set-top box battle that may ultimately determine the future of how we get content into our TVs. The device is competitive on both price and performance with Roku 3, Apple TV and Google Chromecast and seems squarely aimed at overthrowing those established players. More competition has come along since its launch in 2014 (like the Nexus Player), but Amazon's stalwart box still holds one of the top two spots on our shelves. Why? The product, like Amazon itself, is friendly, powerful, and innovative and tackles some of the critical consumer complaints associated with the current streaming boxes. Amazon explicitly stated that it wanted to address three problem areas about the consumer streaming experience: poor performance, closed ecosystems and cumbersome search.
In terms of performance they have a clear winner on their hands. Fire TV is consistently snappy and responsive, thanks to some relatively beefy silicon inside. It's a fairly open platform too (you'll find Netflix and HBO Go here), but its interface consistently tilts toward Amazon's offerings. It can't access content from iTunes or Google Play (no surprise), but does support a wide array of third party services - including the highly coveted Sling TV app - and will presumably be adding more as time goes on. Third-party services, however, are relegated to second-class status within Fire TV's user interface. They sit in the system's "Apps" tab, while the system's prominent Movies, TV, Watchlist and My Library tabs all feed directly to Amazon's offerings. The system's first-party offerings are always in plain view and accessible directly from the home screen. Third-party offerings tend to take some clicking and scrolling to get to. While Amazon may overemphasize its own offerings, it's worth noting that the company has been putting serious work into beefing up its Amazon Prime Unlimited Streaming library. Along with a slate of well-produced original content, the company made a deal that will fold HBO's original programming (for shows more than 3 years old) into Prime Unlimited Streaming. They may not have Netflix's numbers yet, but Amazon is clearly becoming a serious player in the ongoing streaming services war. In addition, Amazon recently launched its Prime Music service on the Fire TV that gives Amazon Prime users streaming access to an extensive library of top-tier music across a panoply of genres. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm5BGZ8t7uEOther recent additions to the platform include Bluetooth headphone support, as well as expanded memory via USB - something users have been clamoring for since launch. Search has been addressed with a slick voice recognition feature that uses a microphone on the remote to allow consumers to speak their searches instead of hunting and pecking across an on-screen letter grid. With access to cloud processing to handle the heavy lifting of voice recognition, the system does an excellent job of understanding what you're trying to tell it. However, voice searches only scan for Amazon and Vevo content, an unfortunate decision that significantly undercuts the utility of this breakthrough feature. Amazon has announced that it will be adding support for searching the catalogs of Hulu Plus, Crackle and Showtime Anytime. However, even with these additions, the device's tantalizing voice search function remains deeply underpowered. Amazon has included some compelling extras, including the ability to view photos users have stored on Amazon Cloud Drive, and playback for Music purchased through its MP3 store. It's also put special focus on games with this system and thanks to a more powerful processor and Amazon's optional dedicated game controller ($40) Kindle Fire's gaming options surpass the Angry Birds-level options offered on similar devices. Still, most games are ports of existing Android titles that already run on the Kindle HDX, so while the games look and play well on the system, it doesn't have a patch on dedicated gaming consoles (which, to be fair, are typically far more expensive). One potential differentiator for families is Amazon's integration of its FreeTime area, which allows parents to precisely proscribe the content kids access and their time on the system. It's an interesting offering that's not available on most other streaming boxes, however, it has its own set of drawbacks as well (see FreeTime section for further details). Hardware and designThe box itself is about the size of a small external hard drive, or two CD jewel cases stacked on top of one another. Think of a tiny, squared-off version of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey lying flat. Its exterior is sleek and minimalist, with the only contrast coming from glossy black lettering on a matte black background. At 0.7 inches thick, all of its visual cues seem to be telling you, "Don't see me." Its rear side is devoted to the essential ports: power, HDMI, optical audio, Ethernet and USB.
Under the hood, Fire TV is quite powerful compared to its competitors, sporting a quad-core processor, a discrete GPU and 2GB of RAM. Amazon claims it has three times the processing power of Apple TV, Chromecast or Roku 3, and says it can process 57 billion floating point operations per second. You can wire it into your router via Ethernet, but if that's inconvenient, Fire TV also packs two dual-band Wi-Fi antennas. All of this adds up to notably snappy menu performance. Movie titles fly by in the interface, transitioning between services is fast and the system handles itself well when tasked with rendering games. The Fire TV's minimalist matte black remote is similar in functionality to Roku's, with seven glossy black buttons and a directional selector. It uses Bluetooth to communicate, eliminating line-of sight issues and allowing you to stash the box inside a cabinet or behind a TV. There are buttons for back, home, menu, rewind play/pause and fast forward. Topping the remote on its own is the microphone button that may one day be Fire TV's secret weapon (but not now, for more on this see the Interface and Search section).
SetupAs with Roku 3 and Apple TV, Fire TV's setup is eerily simple, and consists of connecting two or three wires (power, HDMI and an optional ethernet cable). If you don't have it wired to your router, the system will walk you through forging a WiFi connection. As with the Kindle Fire, when you order a Fire TV, Amazon pre-links it to your Amazon account, so after a quick (unskippable) tutorial video you're immediately able to browse Amazon Instant and Amazon Prime videos along with any photos in your cloud drive. Third party apps must be downloaded and set up separately with their own credentials. In terms of simplicity, the setup process is a win, but its lack of customization options leaves you at the mercy of the one-size-fits-all menu hierarchy Amazon has created (more on this later).
Movies and TVNaturally, the system provides full-spectrum access to Amazon's cloud video services, and Amazon Instant and Amazon Prime Video are both well (if not over) represented. At launch, Fire TV offered 40 third-party channels, a far cry from the hundreds available on Roku and Chromecast, but more are slowly-but-surely trickling in. Predictably however, iTunes and Google Play are not available on the system, nor are they likely to be. Amazon is touting Fire TV's innards as a competitive advantage in terms of movie performance, but while menus move quickly, our tests didn't uncover much difference in terms of speed to open third party apps or start playing videos as compared with Roku 3 or AppleTV.
Amazon's native offerings, on the other hand, clearly get a boost from living on their home hardware. First off, all of Amazon's content is accessible from the main menu of the system's OS and can start playing without first launching an app. Secondly, Amazon is introducing a feature called ASAP, which is designed to pre-cache video content for you based on your habits and preferences. I saw this in action when I watched the 11th episode of Alpha House (I had previously watched the first 10 episodes, but not on the Fire TV). Impressively, playback began instantaneously when I clicked, with no load time or buffering. Supposedly the system will make more inferences over time as it monitors my actions. It's a smart, effective system, but as only Amazon's offerings can use it, it's one more way the playing field inside Fire TV is tilted to the home team's advantage. Music, photos and gamingAmazon's added a music channel post-launch that allows consumers to access any music stored in their cloud drive (all MP3s bought through Amazon are stored in your Cloud Drive for free), as well as support for its Prime Music service, which offers access to a large library of quality music tracks organized into curated playlists. Fire TV also supports third party music services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn and, most recently, Rdio. The photo channel provides a way to access any photos or videos you have stored in Amazon Cloud Drive. Amazon provides a free 5GB of storage for all accounts, and more can be purchased via subscription. The system works simply and seamlessly. You can upload photos from your computer, or use Amazon's iOS or Android apps to automatically put any photos you take up on the cloud. In addition to letting you page through slide shows, Fire TV can be set to use your images as a screensaver when the system is idle. It's clear Amazon sees games as a key piece of their strategy with this box. The idea here seems to be to capture casual gamers who aren't sufficiently invested to buy a $400 to $500 dedicated games console, not a bad bet in a time when mobile gaming is reaching more consumers than ever. Since Fire TV runs the latest version of Amazon's Fire OS ("Mojito"), which is based on Android, it's relatively easy for existing Android games to be ported to work on the system and developers I spoke with from Telltale Games (The Walking Dead) and Mojang (Minecraft) both emphasized how easy it was to move their games onto the platform from their existing games, both of which already run on the Kindle Fire HDX.
Amazon's seriousness about gaming is best exemplified by its creation of a dedicated game controller for the system (sold separately, $40). While serviceable, the controller doesn't show the same polish as the rest of the system. Looking like a cross between an Xbox 360 controller and the Ouya controller, the feel of the face buttons and sticks is solid, but its shoulder buttons are a bit stiff and the triggers have a shallow travel that feels unsatisfying. It's worth noting that many of the games on the system (primarily those with simple tablet-type controls) are playable with only the remote. Standout titles include Minecraft, The Walking Dead Seasons 1 and 2, Telltale's Game of Thrones, Terraria, Zen Pinball, You Don't Know Jack, Crossy Road, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the original Sonic The Hedgehog games.
The controller also sports all the buttons on the remote (including play/pause, fwd and rew), allowing you to easily manipulate the system's media options via the controller. But the newest and most impressive capability of the box and its gamepad is the ability to stream games via GameFly's Fire TV-exclusive app. The app itself is free to download and currently supports 36 titles ranging from triple-A titles like Batman: Arkham City, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution and Darksiders 2 to lesser known titles like Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams and Blaz Blue: Continuum. The app streams at a solid 720p resolution and hovers around 30 frames per second. It firmly requires a wired ethernet connection however, and can't be used over Wi-Fi.
Overall performance was solid, but couldn't quite rival that of PlayStation Now or Nvidia Grid, the latter of which is free to owners of the competing Nvidia Shield Android TV set-top box. At around $10 for one month's access to 16 titles, the pricing is fair but might provide just enough of a barrier to entry to stop some users from investing in the service. Interface and searchAmazon has built an amazingly elegant solution to search in this device, thanks to a microphone embedded in the remote and cloud-powered voice recognition. Unfortunately, the way they have implemented this breakthrough feature is deeply anti-consumer. Voice recognition is accurate and solves the aggravating problem of tapping in your searches in via an on-screen letter grid. However, Amazon has destroyed most of the value of searching this way as voice searches scan only Amazon's native content library.
This search myopia isn't only limited to the voice feature though. Indeed there is currently no way to search across services on the device. When I search Roku for a film it tells me if it's on Netflix, Crackle and others as well as if it's on Amazon. I ran into several scenarios where I searched for content I know is on another service (that I'm already paying for) and was only presented the option of buying or renting it from Amazon. It's the device's most serious flaw and Amazon should address if they want their device to be as consumer-friendly as they claim. Amazon's self-bias is even more striking in the menu structure it has created. Of the 10 top-level tabs on its home screen (Search, Home, Movies, TV, Watchlist, Video Library, Games, Apps, Photos, Settings), all but three (Home, Games and Apps) are for Amazon services. Third party apps are relegated to the "Apps" tab. Thus, four of the highest-level menu items are devoted to different aspects of Amazon's video services, while a single menu item at the bottom of the page houses 40-plus third party apps. Certain high-profile apps (Netflix, Hulu) are profiled on the Home tab under Featured Apps and Games (which sits just below the "Recently Added To Prime" area). To make matters worse, the Apps tab is populated by games as well as apps (the Games tab only has games in it), making that area even more cluttered than it has to be. In short, Amazon seems to be going out of its way to bury third-party apps on the system. It's not a dealbreaker, as most consumers will be aware of the services they want on their device and figure out how to find them, but it's irksome that these services require several extra clicks to access and can't be customized. Tip: Voice search can be used to navigate to apps you have installed and is often the fastest and easiest way to find a given app. FreetimeFreeTime, FireTV's most ironically named feature, is there to make 100% sure your children are not free to watch whatever they would like. In addition, the service costs $5 per month, making it the opposite of both meanings of the word "free" (though Amazon does offer a 1-month free trial of the service). The idea behind FreeTime is a solid one. We're sure many parents would appreciate the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your children are only accessing content from trusted and age-appropriate sources. In practice, however, FreeTime has a long way to go before we can recommend paying extra money to access it (let alone recommend it as a reason to buy the system). The service operates by having parents create profiles for each child in the household, then white-list specific apps and video content they want that child to have access to. In addition, the system lets parents specify how much time each child is allowed to spend on the system per day in increments of 15 minutes, as well as blocking off certain times. For example, I could allow one child an hour of FireTV time between 4pm and 8pm. And if I were feeling especially mean, I could allow another child four hours of screen time, but only between 2am and 6am. Parents can also set whether a child's time spent on apps, video or either. The primary flaw in the system is its selection of video content. Currently FreeTime only allows parents to white-list individual videos that has been either purchased from Amazon or are available via Amazon Prime Instant Video. Netflix and other apps are available, but if you give your kid access, they can see every movie on that service (meaning that adding them to your child's library undermines the entire point of FreeTime). Given how open FireTV's ecosystem is and how much wonderful children's content is available on Hulu Plus, Netflix and others, it feels ridiculous (and possibly manipulative) to allow parent's to only proscribe choices that only come from Amazon's libraries. In addition, FreeTime must be activated for it to work. Once the system is signed into FreeTime mode for a given kid, the countdown timer starts and it's impossible to exit to the main menu without entering a PIN. However, if an unsupervised kid is tech-savvy enough to get the system turned on by themselves (and newsflash, most are) they'll have full access to everything until FreeTime is activated. Also, when the PIN is entered (as it must be to change content choices), the magic numbers are plainly visible on screen, not even obscured by asterisks. And this is all assuming that the FireTV is the only source of content connected to the TV. The idea of this being a serious impediment to any media-hungry kid over age six is a little absurd. The idea behind FreeTime is sound, but in its current half-executed form, it's largely useless, primarily due to its lack of hooks into the other video apps on the system. FreeTime is not yet a compelling reason to buy FireTV, even for those with small children they want to safely park in front of the flatscreen. Thankfully for FireTV, FreeTime is not its only trick and the box is compelling enough on its other merits to justify purchase. We hope to see Amazon work to improve this feature down the road.
Amazon Fire TV vs the Amazon Fire TV StickThe Amazon Fire TV Stick packs everything we love about the full-size box into a petite, powerful form factor. For better or worse the interfaces are identical and lean heavily on Prime content. The big differences between the two streamers are the remotes (the Stick's stick doesn't have a built-in mic), and the silicon inside the machines. By and large the Amazon Fire TV proper has better internals and therefore can play games like the gorgeously addicting Crossy Road and Zen Pinball without a problem. The Amazon Fire TV Stick has gaming capabilities too, however, you're more apt to find Solitaire and Threes than you are anything more complex. If you're just looking for a streamer and don't mind a bit more lag time when starting a show or film, then save yourself some cash and check out the pint-sized stick instead. VerdictAmazon is entering the set top box wars at a very interesting time and with a very compelling product, especially for heavy users of Amazon's digital services. At $100 it's priced competitively with Roku 3 and Apple TV, and we expect the gaps in its channel lineup to be filled in the coming months. It's clear now that the retailer was not waiting, it was watching. Almost every aspect of the Fire TV attempts to improve or refine the aspects of the Roku, Apple TV and Chromecast that currently vex consumers. And as a powerhouse retailer, it's certain Amazon put the reams of customer data to which it is privy to heavy use.
We likedIt's a beefy box with processing capacity to spare. Amazon services are quick and easy to access and its ASAP feature pre-caches Amazon content for you so you can watch instantly. Voice search is the kind of breakthrough you wonder why we didn't see earlier in these devices. It's an open system with most of the must-have apps and channels. Photos were a very pleasant surprise and Amazon seems to be attacking gaming with a diligence we have not seen from their competition. We dislikedIt's hard to escape the fact that Fire TV's interface tilts toward Amazon's offerings. We would like to see more visibility for third-party apps in the main menu, as well as customization offerings. The inability of its search function to scan across all of its services (as Roku does) makes the feature worthless unless you are only interested in Amazon's offerings. Customers who aren't sure where to find a particular piece of content will be forced back to searching the web for information. VerdictThis device is simple to use and works well. If you are significantly bought in to Amazon's services, it's hard to go wrong with this box. However, if you are not an Amazon customer or even an Amazon customer who doesn't have or want Amazon Prime, then you might think twice. The device is clearly tilted toward Amazon customers, and nothing short of a full UI overhaul is going to change that. We'd like to at least see Amazon allow some kind of user customization in the interface. Until then, we're calling this device great, but not perfect.  |
| New Steve Jobs movie trailer puts focus on Steve Jobs, the man Posted: 17 Sep 2015 10:09 AM PDT  With the new Steve Jobs movie release less than a month away, a new trailer gives us closer look at Michael Fassbender's performance of Jobs himself with all of the dramatic nature of the first trailer. The film has already seen its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, where it garnered very positive reviews from critics, as well as Steve Wozniak, who said he felt like he "was actually watching Steve Jobs and the others, not actors playing them." Starring Seth Rogen as Wozniak, alongside Fassbender, Jeff Daniels and Kate Winslet, the film is penned by Andy Sorkin, with Danny Boyle in the director's helm. The new trailer begins with Fassbender as Jobs saying: "What if a computer was a beautiful object? Something you wanted to look at and have in your home. And what if instead of being in the right hands, we put it in everyone's hands." From there we see him and his emotional journey through the three big moments of his career that the film focuses on - the 1984 launch of the Macintosh, NeXT in 1988 and the iMac in 1998. The film is due to hit cinemas in the US on October 9, and the UK on November 13. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=9&v=9XEh7arNSms |
| Hands-on review: new Amazon Fire TV in pictures Posted: 17 Sep 2015 09:27 AM PDT -470-75.JPG) The new Amazon Fire TV has just been announced and we've already had our hands on the new Ultra HD streaming device. Using the same basic chassis design as its Fire TV forebear, the new Amazon Fire TV actually has some pretty nifty new innards.
Cut to the chase What is it? The next generation of Amazon's media streaming box, the Fire TV When is it out? October 5 2015 How much does it cost? £79.99 / $99.99 for the base unit, with a US-exclusive Gaming Edition for $139.99 Why is it better? A faster processor, improved WiFi, Alexa voice control, 4K Ultra HD playback, HEVC support for 1080p content too
Boasting a 75% boost in overall performance the new 64-bit MediaTek quad-core processor and dedicated GPU silicon means its the first Amazon streamer capable of outputting in glorious 4K Ultra HD. Despite being a dedicated stream machine it does also come with 8GB of onboard storage - a fair way behind the recently announced new Apple TV - but it does though come with support for expanded storage via the microSD card slot in the rear.
That means the new Amazon Fire TV can potentially take cards up to 128GB in capacity to house all those downloaded games and applications. 4K Ultra HD playbackThe new Amazon Fire TV's flagship feature though is that Ultra HD output and with that comes the largest selection of UHD content around.
It has support for Amazon Prime Instant Video, Amazon Video and UHD Netflix.
As well as the ability to stream the 4K fun, it's also got support for Dolby Audio too when connected to your TV or AV receiver.
Voice remoteThe voice remote is also available with the new Amazon Fire TV Stick and is the real Siri-baiting feature of the new box. Alexa, the personal assistant from the Amazon Echo, is now available to the new Fire TV and, as well as helping you search for video content, will also give you access to weather, sports and traffic info too, all shown up on your TV.
And all for a lot less than Apple is asking for its Siri-on-a-TV box... GamingLike the new Apple TV, Amazon is talking up the gaming potential of its latest streaming device. For an extra £40 ($45) you can pick up the new Fire TV Game Controller, which now comes with voice search and an audio jack for those stealth late-night gaming sessions.
In the US only Amazon is offering an exclusive $140 Fire TV Gaming Edition pack. The premium bundle comes with the base Fire TV, the controller, a 32GB microSD card and two games - the excellent Shovel Knight and Duck Tales. That's just a taste of the new Amazon Fire TV box, but we'll have our full hands on review up soon.  |
| Posted: 17 Sep 2015 08:28 AM PDT  Introduction and designWhether it be for internal or external use, hard drives are everywhere and everyone always needs one for something. There are so many on the market and seemingly all function well to some extent in terms of speed and portability. So what makes a hard drive good? Well, it all depends on you. If you want something really small, that can be transported without issue, check out the Samsung Portable T1. If you want something with more capacity designed for a small-to-midsize business, then the Western Digital DL4100 is perfect for your outfit. But, if you are someone who needs a portable, high-speed hard drive, that suits your rugged lifestyle, then the Sony PSZ-HB2T 2TB ($189, £121.26, AU $256.22 for 1TB) drive is just for you. DesignWhat makes the Sony PSZ-HB2T a great option is that it has a silicon casing that protects the hard drive if it falls. If you work in a factory or out in a field, you never have to worry about your hard drive getting smashed and losing all of your work.
The silicon casing, which can be removed, has two plugs to cover both Thunderbolt and USB ports. The casing is built to provide a layer protection if you were to drop the Sony PSZ-HB2T. The casing can protect the drive from a drop of about 2 meters (6.56 ft). The PSZ-HB2T is 7 x 8 x 2 in. (17.78 x 20.32 x 5.08 cm WxDXH) in size and weighs 1.32 lbs (.6 kg). This is incredibly tiny for a hard drive and you won't even feel the weight in your backpack. What's also cool about the PSZ-HB2T is that it has two ports (one for USB and another for Thunderbolt). This provides compatibility for multiple devices (Mac and PC), and it gets transfer speeds of up to speeds of 122MB/s. SpecsSony created two models for for this hard drive unit, the PSZ-HB1T and the PSZ-HB2T. The difference? 1TB and read/write speeds. The model given to TechRadar was PSZ-HB2T - full 2TB glory. The 2TB model of the hard drive can record up to 300min of 4K XAVC footage, which equals about 60p at 600Mbps, which is pretty fast, although not record-breaking. Along with the hard drive, Sony provides two different connectors, the USB and the Thunderbolt cable. This is a nice touch, as you don't have to go and purchase something else after you buy the PSZ-HB2T. In addition to drop protection, the PSZ-HB2T is also IP5X dust-resistant standard and IPX4 splash-resistant standard, when covered by the silicon and hard case. PerformanceOverall, the PSZ-HB2T performs exactly as one would expect and want from a portable 2TB drive. I use a Mac for work and I have a Windows machine at home for gaming. I do a lot of switching between the two and I always have different flash drives and what not to work on. But, with the Sony PSZ-HB2T, it is nice to be able to have two different connections built in. With the Sony hard drive, I was able to easily switch between USB and Thunderbolt, depending on what I want to use, and it's simple.
PerformanceSony claims that the PSZ-HB2T can, on USB 3.0, can hit transfer speeds of 122mb/s. Doing a Read/Write test using ATTO Disk Benchmark did confirm that this statement is true. And, I tested it on two Windows computers and a Macbook Pro using an application called Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test (free on the App Store). The results are as follows:
Well done, Sony. Not only did the disk meet Sony's advertised speed, it actually performed better on Mac OS, which is pretty impressive. I spent the week using the Sony PSZ-HB2T and I was very happy with its performance. The silicon casing is a bit annoying if you are a daily traveler looking for something to use to go to and from work. But, since the silicon casing is removable, it is a temporary annoyance at worst. Since the PSZ-HB2T comes formatted in exFAT, it provides an easy way to swap between Windows and Mac OS X Operating systems as both OSes can read and write to an exFAT formatted disk. The switchover was easy and intuitive without any additional steps needed on my end. VerdictThere typically isn't much to say about a hard drive. Does it hold a lot of data? Does it transfer data quickly? Does it weigh you down? Will it crack if you drop it? The Sony PSZ-HB2T does a great job addressing these needs. We likedOverall, the Sony PSZ-HB2T provides an amazing combination of flexibility and durability. This 2TB drive can survive a two meter drop and write at up to 122/MBs. It comes with a USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt port, which gives you the option of switching between different operating systems without going through any trouble. It's a hard drive, but it's elegant, simple, sturdy and fast. We dislikedAlthough there isn't much to like about this hard drive, it might be worth waiting a few months to see if the price comes down. Unless you're paranoid about breaking your hard drive, there are comparable devices on the market that can be had for half the price that Sony is asking. Final verdictIf you don't care about transfer speeds or durability, then you don't need this hard drive. It's way too expensive to just purchase on a whim. But if you're a power user who needs something that will withstand the harsh realities of a rugged work environment, while also providing decent transfer speeds and port options, then the Sony PSZ-HB2T is right for you.  |
| Hands-on review: Amazon Fire 10 HD Posted: 17 Sep 2015 07:37 AM PDT /Fire%20HD%2010/HD10/Amazon%20Fire%20HD10%20review%20(4)-470-75.JPG) There might be some among us that though Amazon might give up on the tablet game - but instead the brand has gone away and created yet another iPad competitor. While journalists are usually labelled as lazy for instantly comparing Apple's device to any new tablet on the market, in this case it was Amazon making the claim. It said that it put the new Fire HD 10 in a tumble dryer for 200 revolutions to see how well it held up, and bar a few dents it was fine. It did the same with the iPad Air 2, and that apparently only lasted 30 cycles before the glass broke and created 'dangerous' fragments that could splinter into your finger.
However, all that did was show that you can drop your iPad 30 times onto a hard surface and it probably won't break - and that you're an idiot if you run your finger over broken glass. As you can guess with a tablet that's marketed as durable, it's not got the most premium of builds. But at £169.99, you probably won't expect that much. The plastic back and weight in the hand don't feel brilliant - it's definitely a case of getting what you're paying for - but the durability is good and there's little creak in the chassis.
A couple of speaker grilles at the bottom of the tablet fire out some meaty sound, but without being front facing it's hard to see how these will be useful when the HD 10 is placed on a table or bed to watch late at night - they're easily covered. The power button (which doubles as the screen lock) is a little hidden on the top right hand corner, and can be a bit fiddly to hit. The screen also takes a rather long amount of time to turn on - the quad-core chipset inside seems to struggle a little bit to come out of sleep mode.
The screen quality - while decent thanks to being IPS and laminated to the surface of the glass - still looks low-res, which is because this 10.1-inch tablet only has a 1280 x 800 resolution, which is almost criminal for a large tablet, and the lower price only just helps it get away with the spec. Given Amazon is touting this as a tablet for media, I'd have expected something higher resolution. If you've used any higher-end smartphone or new tablet lately, you'll definitely notice the drop in sharpness. The interface, FireOS 5 from Amazon, is another thing that will polarise opinion. If you're completely behind the notion of using your tablet for entertainment only, or are a novice user of the technology, then the way the brand has divided up the home screen into categories will appeal.
There's a section for video, music, audiobook and regular tomes (among others), with your most recent purchases on the top, and recommendations served below. However, it's slow to swipe through them all (partly because there's only 1GB of RAM inside, I'd wager) and if you're after a tablet that can use reams of apps, then you'll probably want to look elsewhere. Amazon Underground does offer a load of free apps, both in terms of upfront cost and in-app purchases, and the selection is pretty decent (thanks to being based on Android) - but this is clearly a tablet for those that only want to listen to music, play games and watch video.
Video is probably the biggest draw to this tablet, as the 16:10 aspect ratio is designed for video according to Amazon, giving you more movie into your eyes compared to the 4:3 tablets out there (such as the iPad, apparently) - it's a nice enough experience, but nothing dazzling. The other addition is 'Word Runner' - the same technique used on some smartwatches to let you speed read by flashing up a single word on the screen at a time, with the pace altering. It feels odd, but if you're desperate to suck up a book, it's an option. Early verdictIs the Amazon Fire HD 10 a decent tablet? It entirely depends how much you want to do with it, and how much you're willing to pay. If it's a stick-in-your-bag, watch a bit of Netflix or Amazon Prime Instant Video on the way to work, it's a decent choice and does the job. But extend out of that and you're going to be a little limited - this is a tablet to get you using your Amazon content and little else. For a low cost option to throw around on the couch and out and about, Amazon has done well - but it won't wow you the second you pick it up.  |
| Updated: Amazon's new 7-inch Fire tablet is just $50 Posted: 17 Sep 2015 06:37 AM PDT /7-inch/Press/Fire7-2015-Press-01-470-75.jpg) That's not a typo, Amazon's latest Fire 7 tablet will set you back just $49.99. For that more than manageable outlay you're treated to a 7-inch 1020 x 600 display, 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, VGA front and 2MP rear cameras, and a microSD port. Amazon claims the battery is good for up to seven hours, including reading, movies and games. It also reckons its new Fire 7 slate is twice as durable as the iPad Air 2. It runs Amazon's own, heavily modified version of Android - dubbed Fire OS - and all three new Fire tablets are running the latest version, Fire OS 5 "Bellini". This gives you a very different look and feel on screen, with Amazon's own services thrust to the front of the queue. The specs are far from the best on the market, but at this price point the new Fire 7 could still be quite a steal.
SupersizeAs their names suggest the new Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets sport high definition display and equally attractive starting price tags at $149.99 (for 8GB of storage) and $229.99 (for 16GB of storage) respectively. A 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM sit at the heart of both slates, plus each feature a 1280 x 800 resolution, 5MP rear camera, HD front snapper and microSD slot.
The resolution doesn't sound brilliant for either tablet, and could be a sign of how Amazon has kept its costs down. The 8-inch variant coming in black, magenta, blue, and tangerine, while its larger 10-inch counterpart only offers black and white. All three tablets will start shipping on September 30, with pre-orders open now.  |
| Amazon's new Fire TV is a cheap way to get 4K in your living room Posted: 17 Sep 2015 06:35 AM PDT  Amazon is taking another swing at the living room, introducing a brand new Fire TV box that adds 4K streaming. It's also announced a new Fire TV Stick that supports voice commands. The new Fire TV looks just like its predecessor (and the stick does too, in fact), but Amazon has packed in some new hardware including a faster processor – 75% faster, it claims – all of which should give Apple reason to be concerned. Of course, you'll need a 4K TV if you want to enjoy 4K movies or TV shows, along with a broadband speed of 15Mbps or higher. The good news is that with both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on the box, you'll have access to a fair bit of 4K content out of the gate. As well as the 8GB of onboard storage, the Fire TV now offers expandable storage via microSD card slot, enabling you boost it up to 128GB.
Burn baby burnThe controller has also been given some improvements which will enable it to last longer on two AAA batteries; it's also a tad faster. There's a new game controller too, which now works over Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth for better latency, and includes a built-in mic for voice controls. As for the TV Stick, beyond voice commands it's the same affair – you won't be getting a 4K upgrade here – but it will cost just £45/$50. As for the Fire TV, that's going to set you back £80/$99, which is a good price for access to 4K content. Both are available to pre-order today, with the Fire TV shipping on October 5 and the Stick rolling out on October 22.  |
My biggest complaint about switching to T-Mobile is actually the in-store experience. The staff at the store I went to were perfectly polite and helpful, but they were also either clueless or actively trying to mislead me.
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/7-inch/Press/Fire7-2015-Press-02-420-90.jpg "The new Amazon Fire 7 tablet")
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