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Focus On Imaging 2005 - Yet another Powershot from Canon
Imaging giant Canon continues to flood the compact digital camera market and made sure everyone knew about its latest models thanks to a huge stand at Focus On Imaging 2005.
Amongst the new digicams was the Powershot A520. The design is similar to the hugely popular Powershot A85 and Canon has added a total of 20 shooting modes to boost its ease-of-use appeal.
Will it be another success story, or has Canon simply rehashed the A85 to make a quick buck? We’ve just received an A520 review unit and you’ll be able to read a review in the June issue of PCW.
Focus on Imaging 2005 - Mini Exilim from Casio
One digital compact that really caught our attention today at the Focus On Imaging 2005 show was Casio’s latest Exilim offering. The Pro EX-P505 is actually far smaller than it looks and sits at just a little over 5cm tall. With a 5megapixel CCD, 5x optical zoom and a 2in flip and twist LCD monitor, the EX-P505 will be available later this month with a price tag of £399.99. Expect a full review soon.
Intel Developer Forum - Lazy Sunday afternoon
Here in a gloomy and damp San Francisco, assorted UK journalists can be spotted crawling out of their burrows in the hotel, just round the corner from the venue for this year's Intel Developer Forum (IDF).
All appeared to have arrived safely, although one poor soul was looking a little miffed after discovering that notebook PCs don't travel well in an unpressurised aircraft cargo hold, as 36,000ft and -50 degrees Celsius can do nasty things to the LCD screens, like make them go 'pop'.
But back to business - for IDF this year, Intel continues its assault on the English language, with 'platformization' apparently being The Big Thing. As far as we can tell, it's nothing to do with railways, but about more Centrino-style packaging deals of processors, chipsets and peripherals such as Wifi.
Tomorrow there's not a lot happening, as it's pretty much a press preview day, but there are a couple of sessions on nanotechnology and something called 'the family of *Ts'. Which is closely linked with 'platformization', apparently.
Check back regularly for the latest breaking news from IDF - as long as the Wifi's working in the conference hall, we'll be be here!
ATI unveils a big 'un
ATI have released the first shots of the 512MB mega version of the X850.
Look out for a full review in PCW when we can get our hands on one.
AMD demos multicore Athlon 64
In its annual attempt to take some of the wind out of the sails of Intel's Developer Forum behemoth (which starts in San Francisco next week), AMD today demonstrated a dual core 90nm Athlon 64 processor. This follows on the heels of last week's demo of multicore server and workstation CPUs at LinuxWorld, according to a press release that's just arrived at The Test Bed.
Here in the labs, we're not holding our breath, though - blood, stone and getting are words that spring to mind when it comes to getting evaluation samples out of them. That's why you haven't seen any comparisons of the new 64bit Pentium 4s versus the Athlon 64 here yet. Surely you would think AMD would be keen as mustard to get them head to head?
Philips Go Flat Out
If you're in the market for a new television, you should probably consider one of Philips' 2005 Flat TV range. Standout products include the 32PF9380, 37PF9380 and 42PF9380 LCD sets with 32in, 37in and 42in displays respectively.
All three sets feature support for high definition broadcasts via HDMI and DVI-I connectors, and also have a memory card reader and 802.11g Wifi connectivity.
Philips carried out side-by-side picture quality comparisons of its latest products and those of its competitors (Sony, Panasonic, Samsung etc.). Assuming there wasn’t any cheating going on (we couldn’t spot anything obvious), the Philips products were far superior.
The reasons behind their apparent superiority lie in a number of new technologies including Pixel Plus HD and Ambilight 2, which projects colours off to the left and right of the screen.
The colour and intensity of this light correspond closely to what’s happening on screen, giving the impression of a larger display.
We weren’t really sure whether the theory behind this was sound, so we decided to carry out some intensive testing of our own: lying about on a sofa while watching Finding Nemo on DVD.
All three models will be launched late Summer/Autumn 2005.
KLOSS barebones
The small form factor (SFF) PC revolution shows no danger of slowing down; the latest box to land on the Labs bench is the KLOSS KL-I915A from South Korean PC makers TriGem Computer.
While externally it resembles most of its competitors, if a little larger, internally it’s laid out in an unconventional manner for a SFF PC. It’s divided horizontally by an aluminium plate, on top of which sits the motherboard while the drive cages and power supply are located under it
Based around Intel’s 915G chipset and Socket 775, the design of the motherboard nods in the direction of Intel’s new BTX format, with both north and southbridge chips (both the passively cooled ) and capacitors lined up in the air flow, aiding cooling.
For full review Click here
Latest: 64bit Pentium 4 performance results
Looks like the new Pentium 4s certainly deliver the goods, at least according to our PCMark 04 results. The performance benefits of the Prescott core and large L2 cache over the old 3.46GHZ Northwood P4 EE are plainly evident.
And considering that the new P4 660 is about £200 cheaper than the old P4 EE, it definitely looks like the one to go for as it outperforms the old EE in many of the tests.
All these tests were run under Windows XP SP2. Unfortunately 64bit testing will have to wait until Windows XP 64bit Edition finally appears - and who knows when that might be..it's currently on Release Candidate 2, although you can download RC1 from the Microsoft web site. We don't run benchmarks on beta operating systems.
VIA ships 100 millionth chipset for AMD platform
VIA Technologies, Inc, the leading supplier of core-logic chipsets for AMD processor platforms, today announced the unique achievement of 100 million core-logic chipsets for AMD Athlon processors. The 100 millionth chipset, a VIA K8T890, will be presented to AMD by VIA President and CEO Wenchi Chen at a ceremony to be held in San Francisco on Thursday 24th February.
Giant among CPU coolers
Scythe’s FCS-50 is a beast of a cooler, weighing in at a 720g but its bulk hides some clever use of cooling technology. It mixes flat heatpipe and flow-through technologies and manages to be a cooler that can be used for overclocking or quiet PC use which is quite an achievement. It manages this by having a variable speed fan which can be adjusted from 4,600rpm (46.1dbA) in full blown overclocking mode down to 1,300rpm (15.1dbA) in quiet mode, which is a huge range of adjustment. If you are into some serious overclocking then another 8cm fan can be added to the FCS-50 - if you can stand the noise.
Usefully this huge cooler can also be fitted to almost every CPU socket currently available, with the exception of Intel’s latest 775.
Everything you need to fit the cooler including instructions is included in the box.
£45.38 (£39 ex VAT)
Contact QuietPC.com
Silence that noisy P4
The PHT-3600 from Nexus is specifically designed to give your P4 the silent treatment. Suitable for Socket 478 Pentiums up to 3.2GHz, as well as the latest Celerons, this well-built cooler is made from a single solid block of aluminium using Nexus patented Skivetek technology and topped off with a quiet (19dbA) 8cm fan.
Price £17.63 (£15 ex VAT)
Contact Novatech
PCDuo Enterprise v3
The recently released desktop management suite PCDuo Enterprise v3 now includes PC Remote Control vs 9 which was released yesterday. Some of the added functionality includes support for Linux and PDAs. As well as a redesigned system snapshot. Overall PCDuo Enterprise v3 is a very comprehensive suite and worth an indepth look.
PC Duo Enterprise £168 for 10 nodes
Vector Networks PC Duo Enterprise v3
Firewire 800 External Storage
Miglia Technology recently released their next generation DualDisk system, based on Firewire 800. A stylish slim robust aluminum casing, houses a Miglia Catalyst 912 board, created in partnership with Oxford Semiconductor and provides hardware level support for Raid 0 (Striping). Overall it is a fast (HDTach- 69.3MB/sec Average Read) and impressive external storage system.
DualDisk™ 320: £219 ex VAT.
DualDisk™ 500: £322 ex VAT.
Product information
Note: Whilst there have been problems with Firewire 400 / 800(IEEE 1934b) and Windows XP SP2 these have been addressed by Microsoft.
Knowledge based article
Nexus Prolong
Most of today’s high-end power supplies come with thermal sensors that don’t stop the supply and/or case fans spinning until the case internals reach a safe temperature, lengthening the life span of individual components.
With Nexus’s Prolong you can now have the same advantage with older supplies. It will keep the fans running for around 5 minutes after shutdown with the added advantage of dropping the fan power usage from 12V to 5V ensuring that the fans spin as quietly as possible.
Price £12 (£10.21 exVAT)
Contact KustomPC
Intel launches 64bit Pentium 4 processors
Intel has just launched a new range of 64bit Pentium 4 CPUs - the 6xx series - which finally gives it a product to pit against AMD's Athlon 64.
All the new CPUs feature 2MB of on-chip Level 2 cache as opposed to 1MB in previous versions. The new 3.73GHz Extreme Edition is based on a Prescott core rather than the old version's Northwood core, and loses its extra Level 3 cache as a result.
The new range also supports DEP (Data Execution Prevention) in XP SP2 (using the XD 'Execute Disable' bit). The P4 Extreme Edition gains a 1066MHz FSB speed whereas the 6xx mainstream products use an 800MHz FSB.
The 6xx series of P4s (but not the Extreme Edition) also feature an enhanced version of Speed Step power management, previously only found in mobile processors.
All the new CPUs are fabricated using a 90nm process and use an LGA775 socket.
Update: Intel has now revealed pricing details:
Philips' WACky wifi hifi
Philips has recently unveiled the WACS700 Wireless Audio Center and Station as part of its 2005 Connected Planet lineup. The WACS700 is a next-generation hifi with a 40GB hard drive and 802.11g wireless network capabilities.
Music can be played from the internal CD drive, or ripped and converted as 128kbit MP3s at up to 4-speed. Songs can then be streamed to up to five Audio Stations dotted around the home.
You can have a different song playing in each room, or listen in party mode, where the same track plays simultaneously on all stations. It also has a ‘My Music Follows Me’ option, which transfers audio from one room to another as you move around the home.
A WACS700 Audio Center plus a single receiver costs 899 euros. Audio enthusiasts watch out for a full review in a forthcoming issue of PCW.
Silence that drive
If your hard drives is suffering form heat exhaustion or rattles away like an empty railway carriage then the SBX-1000 Silent Box from Scythe offers a possible solution.
The well made enclosure consists of an anodised black aluminium frame with a cooling plate also made from aluminium. There is also a gel pack that fits between the heat spreader and the drive to further aid cooling. The top half is constructed from two types of rubber to minimise any vibration noise. The outer layer is made from NBR (Nitrile Butadiene Rubber) with the inner layers made from SBR (Styrene Butadiene Rubber).
Scythe’s Silent Box is suitable for both ATA and SATA with spin speeds up to 10.00rpm.
Price £37.60 (£32 ex VAT)
Contact Quiet PC
Barmy ideas Dept. #2
Reader J Stansfield has highlighted another instance of pay-per-view driver downloads, this time from Creative. It seems that these days all they seem to offer is driver updates rather than full driver downloads - if you've lost or damaged your installation CD, you'll need to buy a new one off them.
When will companies realise that the lack of a driver archive is an easy way to prompt users to switch to a rival product?
Scythe Kamakiri
Another to join the growing ranks of huge CPU coolers, the Kamakiri from Sythe weighs in at an impressive 0.67kg but equally as impressive is its build quality. Designed to use both heatpipe and fan technology, the Kamakiri has six copper heatpipes which are attached directly to the aluminium base of the cooler (which has one of the best finishes you are likely to come across on a CPU cooler.) which transfer the heat to over a 100 horizontal aluminium plates. Sitting in-between the two banks of plates is a 80mm fan which can adjusted from 1,300rpm (15.1dBA) up to a ear splitting 4,600rpm (46.1dBA) for serious overclocking.
The Kamakiri comes with fittings for all the most popular CPU sockets; Intel 370, 478 and 775, AMD Socket A, 754, 939 and 940.
Price £41.13 (£35 ex VAT)
Contact Quiet PC
Small format, large capacity drive from Toshiba
With more 2.5 inch drives becoming available in the channel it’s becoming easier to upgrade your notebooks hard drive or to seriously think about small (in physical size) RAID arrays.
The latest drive from Toshiba, the MK-1031GAS is the world’s first 100GB 2.5in drive. The drive uses two discs to achieve its capacity, with an areal density on each disc of 80Gb per sq.in.
With a spin speed of 4,200rpm and an 8MB buffer, data transfers should be nice and fast.
Price
£122.86 (£105.56 ex VAT)
Contact Ebuyer.com
Taxcalc saved
Those of you having sleepless nights after the demise of Intuit Taxcalc can rest easy once again. Assured Solution Providers (ASP), creators of Taxchecker, has bought the Taxcalc brand. Details are sketchy as ASP’s web site is currently under construction, but a totally revamped 2005 version is expected. Watch this space.
Where don't you want to go today?
Online route planning services can be wonderful - most of the time. But it pays to not take everything at face value. Try the route below.
- Go to MSN Mappoint
- Select Start address in Norway, City: Haugesund
- Select End address in Norway, City: Trondheim
- Click 'Get Directions'
- Enjoy the trip
Stop, thief!
With the BBC today reporting on a Cambridgeshire burglar who was caught in the act stealing a webcam, you may well be thinking of doing the same - catching a burglar that is, not stealing a webcam.
If you want to convert your PC in to a sophisticated security system, check out the current (May) issue of PCW. You’ll find reviews of the latest network webcams along with top tips for effective home security.
Shuttle CR40 - dual layer burner
If you are after a new DVD burner,
we've just tested the CR40, the latest dual layer, dual format drive from Shuttle.
DVD +R 16x burned on 16x media 6m
40sec
DVD+RW 4x burned on 4x media 13m
2sec (including quick format time)
DVD -R 16x burned on 4x media 14m
9sec
DVD-RW 4x burned on 4x media 14m
16sec (including quick format time)
DVD-DL 4x burned on 2.4x media, at 4x
speed was 29mins 18sec (7.8GB)
What the $&%@ is an access solution?
We've just had a call from a PR guy asking if we'd be interested in testing
his client's products. (The company's name is so
memorable I can't remember it, which is always a bad start when you are new to
a market.)
They are, he said, "access solutions". What the $&%@ are
access solutions?
He went on to say they are wireless access
solutions.....which gave us the clue. It's a broadband router. Yep, he said a
wireless ROW-ter. He's English, we're in the UK and it's a ROO-ter.
Anyway, we've come up with a few more PR friendly terms...
- rapid movement response mechanism (a mouse)
- alphanumeric human interface device (a keyboard)
- intangible objective activator (software)
- a realisation solution (your PC)
- shiny silver thingy (CD)
- big shiny silver thingy (DVD)
Feel free to add any more. We'd like to come up with an extensive list of
the 'real' names for everyday products, just to help those marketing and PR
folks.
iPodder
Podcasting, uses a new version of RSS software to handle large audio files, you subscribe to a set of feeds, and then can easily view the new feeds together, or each feed separately. It then can go straight onto your ipod or any other similar device. Its still in its infancy but content is growing fast - worth a look, see what takes your fancy ..from promo tracks to the good beer show.
Turning the tide
Although aimed at the sailing community, Tide Plotter 2005 from Belfield Software is also a useful tool for us sea anglers who live miles away from the coast.
Tide Plotter is an easy to use tidal prediction software programme that is available for the PC but, even better from an anglers point of view, includes versions for both Pocket PC (Windows Mobile 2003) and Windows Smart Phone 2003.
Features include high and low water times for over 350 UK ports (you also get tidal times for Irish, Dutch, Belgian and the French Channel ports), 24hr tidal graphs and phases of the moon.
There are several other versions available; an European version that adds ports from Norway to Gibraltar to the standard version as well as a US East Coast version.
The price for all this information? The standard UK version costs just £10.95 for all three O/S versions.
Benchmarks - how fast can you go
Would you like to see how fast your PC can go, well using the same Industry standard Benchmarks that we use, you too can give it a go. - we'll soon provide you with data to compare your results against.
Graphics Benchmarks - 3DMark05 and 3DMark03
System Benchmark - Sysmark04 - reference only
Don't ditch that drive
Instead of consigning that old hard drive to a dusty draw, why not make it into a portable storage drive. Vantec’s NexStar NST-350UF is an external hard drive enclosure that offers both USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces. An attractive slimline unit, the NST-350UF has aluminium covers to aid cooling and noise damping.
Fitting a drive inside is easy; the most difficult job is trying not to lose the tiny screws that hold the side plates in place – it’s a good job Vantec supply a few extra ones in the box.
The NST-350UF comes with a power supply, stand and both USB and FireWire cables.
Price £39.89 (£33.95 ex VAT)
Contact Tekheads
Beware false propositions this Valentine's Day
If you’re desperate to improve on last year’s Valentine card haul, try not to get too excited if your PC declares its undying love for you. Sophos has already detected two new Valentine’s Day viruses currently doing the rounds.
The Kipis-H worm is found in emails with the subject ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ and will disable your antivirus protection, leaving you open to attack via a backdoor Trojan.
The second worm, VBSWG-D, takes a more direct approach to breaking your heart. With the subject line ‘First Love Story...!!!’, the email contains a Vbs script displaying the rather harsh message ‘Happy F***ing Valentine...!!!’. It then shuts your PC down, but not before it’s sent itself to your entire address book.
Orange Goes 3G
Today we got our hands on one of the first handsets for Orange's fledgling 3G mobile phone network. The Samsung Z107 (also available on Vodafone Live!) uses a clamshell design with a rotating camera for taking pictures or making video calls. It can be used to browse the Internet, or if you prefer, you can also access Orange's online service (Orange World), which offers movie trailers, football clips and more. The Z107 is available now from £49.99. Watch out for a full review in the next issue of PCW.
Your dinner's in the printer
We might soon need to employ a chef to test inkjets in the labs, if a story from New Scientist is anything to go by. According to the report, a cordon bleu chef in Chicago has
[..] modified an inkjet printer to create dishes made of edible paper that can taste like anything from birthday cake to sushi.
Sounds like one for our resident gourmet Simon to investigate..freshly printed croissants, anyone?
Tip of the day - monitor your Internet connections
The built-in tool Netstat gives you a quick way of finding out what programs and services in Windows XP are connected to the Internet. Open a command prompt (Select Run from the Start menu and type in 'command'), then type 'netstat -b'. You'll get a list (see screenshot) of all active network connections, together with the name of the program or service responsible.
Missing figure in Intel's double vision
Intel's press release about its upcoming multicore processors has an odd omission - the number '4'. It talks about the "Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition". When we asked whether there was a '4' missing, we were told that the new CPU 'isn't branded Pentium 4'. Oh well, let's welcome the Intel® Pentium® PEE.
Labs tip - change display resolution from a batch file
If you need a quick way to change screen resolution, in our experience there's nothing quicker than the free utility ResSwitch. It runs from a command line and takes 4 parameters for horizontal/vertical resolution, colour depth and refresh rate, so you can create desktop shortcuts for your favourite resolutions, or even incorporate the command into batch files.
For example, creating a shortcut for 800x600 by 32-bit at 75Hz refresh would require the ResSwitch command:
ResSwitch.exe 800 600 32 75
Processor Revolution
Sony, IBM and Toshiba, who have been working on the Cell processor for around four years have just unveiled details on the processor, with one of its first major uses expected to be powering Sony's PlayStation 3 expected in 2006.
However its more than just a games console processor, designed as a Multi-core chip comprising a 64bit power processor core and multiple synergistic processor cores. It will make Intel’s and AMD multi-core ventures more crucial for their continued success and domination.
We could be on the verge of a revolution?
Tip of the day - Lock your PC
Fancy having a single-click lockdown utility for your Windows NT/2000/XP PC? Create a new shortcut on your desktop using these parameters (see the screenshot for clarity):
Target: %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation
Start in: %windir%
Assign a suitable icon to this new shortcut, and you can then plonk it on your Start menu or Quick Launch bar for one-click PC locking.
Two heads better than one
Intel have announced initial production runs of dual core processors, so it wont be too long now before we start to see these in action - currently aimed for the second quarter of 2005.
It plans to deliver two separate dual-core products and dual-core-enabled chipsets for its Pentium® processor-class families, including the Pentium®processor Extreme Edition, which will include Hyper-Threading Technology.
However before then, we should have results available for the latest Intel P4’s scheduled for launch in the next few weeks – so don’t stray too far.
Holographic Storage gathers pace
Japanese based Optware Corp. recently announced plans to create products based on its HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc). It will store between 100GB and 1TB of data and be able to transmit data as fast as 1G bit per second, using Collinear technology.
Whilst American based InPhase Technologies Inc. recently began shipping its Tapestry HDS5000 media, a recordable holographic drive based on WORM (Write Once Read Many) technology.
Along with a HVD Alliance launch set for early spring, you should expect to hear a lot more about these technologies in the coming months.
Barmy Ideas Dept. #1
So you thought driver downloads were free? Not any more, it seems. Umax has decided that users should pay for the privilege of replacing buggy drivers - it costs €2.99 to download the latest version of its VistaScan Version 3.55 drivers for some Umax scanners.
Meet the Test Bed team!
We're hardly shrinking violets here at the PCW Test Bed, so we've combed our hair (apart from Kelvyn) and put on our Sunday best just for you:
Simon Crisp - Labs project manager
Alex Arias - Labs project manager
Will Stapley - Staff writer
Rory Reid - Staff writer
Kelvyn Taylor - Deputy editor
Rob Jones - Slave driver Editor
Calling Linux & Mac users - Skype new release
Continuing to gather pace, Skype have released client software for both Linux ( SuSE 9 & newer, Mandrake 10.1 & newer, and Fedora Core 3 ) and Mac OS X. - so no excuse now.
Maxi Mac Mini
That didn't take long, did it? Already some bright spark has worked out how to overclock the Mac Mini. No doubt water cooling will be the next challenge. Beats using it as a doorstop, I suppose.
Linksys SRW224 Switch released
Linksys released the SRW224 Switch, designed for small businesses that require management features from a switch without the traditional high cost. Basically a 24 port switch, with two gigabit ports and an additional single mini-GBIC port. - thus allowing a fibre port to be included. Managing the switch through the WebView interface is clear and simple but basic. Overall a small but steady step up from an unmanaged switch and worth a look based on features/price.
Price £185 ex.VAT
DVD Results
Thanks to our sister publication in Holland, you'll find the latest detailed optical media test results including a summary of the products specification in the file below.
MSI's tarnished Diamond (update)
MSI seems to have caused a bit of an unwanted stir with the European launch of its flagship K8N Diamond SLI motherboard, according to its dedicated user forum. The problem is MSI's 'Dual Net' adapter, a combined 802.11g/Bluetooth PCI card that was supposed to be bundled with the £150 motherboard.
Except, it seems, in Europe. So all the European punters who stumped up the cash for pre-orders are more than a little peeved.
We've contacted MSI UK about this and they've promised us an answer, so stay tuned.
Oh, and we received a review sample of the board a few days ago, and yes, it has no Dual Net adapter. But it did have the word 'optional' in brackets next to the picture of the adapter on the box..
Update: MSI has just replied to our questions, and asked us to state that any UK customer with a complaint about this product should email MSI customer services for a resolution. All registered UK forum users have apparently been contacted, and correctly labelled products are being shipped to UK resellers.
VIA unveils new Pentium 4 chipsets
VIA Technologies have announced a new range of chipsets for Intel’s Pentium 4. The PT series brings PCI-E and DDR2 support, but the most interesting member of the family is the PT894 Pro which offers support for dual PCI-E graphics cards by using the VIA’s DualGFX Express techonolgy which offers a total of twenty PCI-E lanes.
The other chipsets in the line up are:-
PT880 Pro – PCI-E and DDR2 with the ability to support both AGP and PCI-E graphics cards on the same board through VIA’s Universal Graphics Interface (UGI).
PT894 Aimed at the mainstream performance market, it offers support for 1066MHz FSB processors.
MSN Search Unleashed
MSN have released the final version of MSN Search today, based on Microsoft’s own search engine it incorporates Direct Answers with Encarta, a refreshed index every two days for the 5 billion documents listed. Greater control with a search builder and Category searches for fine tuning. - In addition expect to see a redesigned MSN UK Homepage this week.
