Today BT met its deadline for upgrading all exchanges in the UK to offer 8Mbits/sec broadband to customers (meeting deadlines is something Microsoft and the builders of Wembley Stadium could learn from).

You'd think that with ISPs now able to offer faster broadband, they'd all be quick to shout about what they are doing - and many were. That is, except for BT.

We called BT to confirm the upgrade had happened, which it did. OK, we said, what is your ISP arm doing for customers? Are they going to get free upgrades to faster broadband?

BT has nothing to say until next week, we were told, when an official announcement will be made. Well great, but that's too late. We'll have lost interest by then.

BT has been crucified over broadband over the past few years, and given such an opportunity, it should have been shouting about the broadband packages it will now offer customers, not meekly hiding until it is ready to make its official announcement next week.

Faster broadband is great news - it will help kick start a range of services such as IPTV and video calling, but its own broadband arm not being ready to go public with its plans is just really poor.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you're after a fast PC, no matter what the cost, Chillblast's new Atlantis Fusion fits the bill perfectly.

Employing two of the latest ATI graphics cards in a Crossfire configuration and an overclocked FX-60, it absolutely blitzed through our benchmarks notching up the highest scores we've ever seen in 3Dmark05, PCmark05 and Sysmark 2004 SE.

To keep things cool and quiet, Chillblast water-cools both the graphics cards and processor.

At well over £3,000 it has a limited market, but take it from us: it's ridiculous fast.

You can read the full review now, and then check out how it trounces the competition in our Reportlabs benchmark site.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're now putting our Hands on articles online. They're packed with practicle how to advice, and unlike in the past, they're free.

Some of you may remember that we used to put them online in the past, but they cost 99p each. We've now scrapped the charge, but that did mean we've had to start our archive from scratch.

The latest explains how to boot Windows, Linux or run software applications from a USB flash drive, plus you'll also find our workshop on upgrading your Sky+ hard disk to record more programmes, how to change the Windows startup screen and more.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rock has just announced a new portable entertainment model in its notebook lineup.

The Pegasus 330 houses a digital tuner, 13.3in X-Glass screen and a quick-boot home theatre application.

It's available with a range of Core Duo processors, right up to the T2600 - currently the fastest mobile dual-core processor.

The stated weight of 2.1kg (it's not clear whether this includes the battery) is about the limit for an 'ultra-portable' notebook and Rock claim it will last for 3.5 hours on a single charge.

Going by the pictures, it doesn't have the same style factor as Sony's Vaio notebooks (such as the TX2-HP), but with prices starting at £880 it looks like better value for money.

We'll be getting a review sample in soon - until then, you can read more about the Pegasus 330 on Rock's website.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Western Digital has again updated its WD Passport Pocket Drives range of portable hard disks, pushing capacity to 6GB in a device that is roughly the size of a matchbox.

While 6GB is a tiny storage capacity in today's world, these USB2 disks are aimed at people that need to carry software applications, files and documents around with them. They weigh only 45 grams (or 1.6 ounces in old money), so are very light.

They work with both PCs and Macs, and are powered by the machine they are connectred to. Western Digital is pushing the latest Pocket Drives as devices to store your home entertainment, such as music, films or photos, but at 6GB, they are more likely to attract business users.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ulead has just announced that it's removing Blu-ray disc authoring capabilities from its recently released DVD Moviefactory 5 video editing software. The company will remove the BD DiscRecorder module from the program immediately. In a press release, Eldon C. M. Liu, president of Ulead, said:

“Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5 was originally developed with Blu-ray disc technology. We remain committed to providing customers the best video experience no matter the next generation disc format they choose and look forward to re-instating support for Blu-ray Disc when the current verification process is complete.”

Ulead says it's working with the Blu-ray Disc Licence Entity on testing and verification of the burning module. Moviefactory will retain support for authoring HD-DVD discs, the format that's a rival to Blu-ray.

If you've bought a copy of the software, Ulead says that a free copy of the BD DiscRecorder module will be made available to customers when the verification process is complete.

We've a review of DVD Moviefactory 5 on the PCW website

Posted by on March 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the number of homes with a broadband router increases, it looks like we're going to have to get used to companies coming up with bizarre ways of eating up our precious bandwidth.

The latest gadget is Nabaztag - a rabbit with built-in Wifi.

It's not a live rabbit with an 802.11g adapter stapled to it, but the toy variety instead. It will, however, keep you up to date with the latest weather and news reports, as well as stock market information. You can personalise your Nabaztag by updating your profile online.

According to the manufacturer, Violet, you'll soon fall hopelessly in love with your Nabaztag.

Playing out a certain scene from Fatal Attraction seems more likely to us though.

Nabaztag is available now from Firebox for the bargain price of £79.95.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've been getting a lot of complaints recently about the build quality of Sony Vaios and the company's customer service on our PCW Interactive blog.

We review Viaos regulaly, and usually rate them highly, but were concerned by the rising number of complaints.   

Sony came in to see us, and we discussed the issue at length. Colin Woodward, Sony's group product manager, IT, said the company was addressing the problems it had with customer service, putting in place changes in the way call centre agents deal with customers.

Apart from improving the 'paper' trail when a customer calls in, he said often agents would take a different view on the same problem - leaving customers confused on the course of action being taken.

These issues are being tackled, so if readers find problems continue, let us know.

Woodward said the percentage returns on faulty units is static, although sales have risen. So it's possible the total number of faulty Vaios being returned has gone up; but Sony's claimed return rate of two per cent is very low.

We've not been able to replicate the build problems people have had, so one option we hope to move on is getting a Vaio in on long term test. If that comes through, we'll write a follow up review on how it has performed in a few months, after continual usage.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (21)

Gaming notebooks don’t get any more powerful than this.

The brand new Mesh Pegasus 7800 SLI notebook incorporates not one, but two Nvidia Geforce 7800GTX graphics cards in an SLI configuration. Couple this with a whopping 19in screen and you’ve got yourself a staggeringly fast (and heavy) notebook.

It’s not cheap, but if you want high-end desktop performance on a notebook it’s well worth considering.

Read the full Mesh Pegasus 7800 SLI review.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you’re fed up replacing expensive inkjet cartridges every few months, laser printers offer a far better value for money alternative.

Sure, they might cost more initially, but total cost of ownership is far lower.

We’ve just posted a group test of eight of the latest colour lasers including models from Canon, HP, Konica Minolta and Xerox.

You’ll also find an indispensable guide to the real cost of printing.

Read the full group test.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft chief exec Steve Ballmer is interviewed in the latest edition of Fortune, and it's a pretty straight down the line piece, except for two interesting revelations: that he won't let his three children use iPods or Google.

Asked about whether he has an iPod, he says not, which you'd expect from the head of Microsoft. He goes on to tell Fortune: '.....at least on this one dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google and you don't use an iPod.'

Stopping your children from using an iPod is less of a problem - it's highly visible to dad if you're breaking his rules. But can he really be so sure they don't Google, just every now and then, when he's out of the room? 

He added that Microsoft believes it can break Apple's hold on the market with its iPod. He could hardly throw in the towel and admit defeat, but breaking the stranglehold of the iPod is going to be a tough job.

Ballmer believes people will increasingly turn to one device for communication and entertainment, which is the idea behind the Origami-based ultra portable PCs that Microsoft announced a few weeks back. These aren't available yet, but examples have been on show and however well they perform, one area they haven't cracked is the sleek portability of the iPod.

But ultra portable PCs are an interesting concept that could shake up the mobile entertainment market.

On the Xbox 360, he hopes that delays to the Playstation 3 will help Microsoft's console hit 10 million sales and hold the number one slot in the market. Sony told the Test Bed last week that although a blow, it didn't believe the delay to the PS3 would be too destructive, partly because of the brand loyalty in this market.

This we've seen in our Xbox 360/ Playstation 3 blog.

In a speech just before Christmas, Ballmer said his children didn't get early Xbox 360s, because of Sarbannes-Oxley rules. Now if there's one benefit you'd want from your dad being one of the most important men in technology, its a 360 before your mates.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

In our reviews of the new Intel Imac, Macbook Pro and Mac Mini, we highlighted that although Apple has given its software an Intel makeover the majority of third-party developers are yet to follow suit.

Now we're hearing imaging heavyweight Adobe is proving less than willing to provide a quick Intel update of its flagship products, which include Photoshop and Premiere.

Due to the vast numbers of professionals who use Imacs, this news will come as a huge blow to Apple.

You can read more about this on the PCW news site.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Still can't get used to the sight of BT competing with itself by offering web calls but it is doing so with enthusiasm. BT's Ben Matthews called on PCW Towers to tell us about the relaunch of its Broadband Talk service, which is being pitched for people who have a DSL link and want a second phone line.

New users get a VoIP-equipped modem; existing ones and users of other providers (including cable) can get an adapter costing £30. The effect is the same: you can plug in a DECT base-station and call VoiP from anywhere in the house whether or not your PC is on.

You can switch between VoIP and standard calls on the same handset by pressing 5; and you can plug another handset (or, presumably, a DECT base station using a different channel) into your main BT socket to provide the second standard line.

The VoIP phone gets an 055 or 056 number which can be called at standard rates from a PSTN phone. And this number supports features such as 1571, call waiting, caller display, three way calling, call forward and call reject.

There is the usual complexity of payment options varying with your date of birth and the phase of the moon. Basically PC-to-PC calls are free; for £2 a month (£2.99 for non-BT users) national landline calls are free in the evenings and at the weekend; for £7 a month (£7.99 for 'outsiders') this is the case all week.

Calls to mobiles start at 3.7p a minute and international charges are among the lowest available, Matthews claims.

There is much to be said for having both VoIP and standard calls available. It means you have a fallback if the web link goes down; and it answers one of the great fears about VoIP: what happens to 999 calls. PSTN lines are self-powered but VoIP usually depends on the mains, which may not be working during an emergency.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hot on the heels of delaying Windows Vista, Microsoft today admitted that its Office 2007 software is also being pushed backed to next year.

In many ways this is no great surprise, but it's another blow for consumers and retailers. In the UK, the biggest two points for people to invest in new machines is September, to coincide with school and university terms, and Christmas.

Talking with one manufacturer earlier today, they said Microsoft floated the delay as a possibility past them a fortnight ago, but held off announcing it.

Both manufacturers and retailers are pushing Microsoft to offer backwards upgrades, he added, so that anyone who buys an XP machine in the run up to Christmas can get a free upgrade to Vista.

The problem many face though is that they fine tune and tweak their systems for Vista - and then there's the issue of driver compatibility with peripherals - and so are reluctant to ship laptops or PCs that then need an OS upgrade within months. It is also too difficult an upgrade for many consumers, which means retailers then need to put a program in place.

According to one story we read today, up to 60 per cent of Vista's code has to be rewritten, and although an interesting article, there's nothing in it to back up that figure. But we've put the question to Microsoft, and await its answer.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Our latest Product of the Week podcast is now on the site, and this week, for a change, we've looked at three products and discussed how they've performed, their pros and cons.

First is the Evesham Axis Dominator 79GT PC, a dual core, Nvidia-based Gefore 7900 GT PC that also runs Windows Media Center. It is not, though, living room friendly in our opinion, but hey, each to his own.

We've also looked at the new Logitec keyboard and mouse for the Mac. Designed to appeal to Apple owner's exacting standards, it does come with one major flaw in our opinion.

Finally, with so much excitement around high definition, we've looked at Roxio's latest HD software, and we discussed in our podcast whether or not it is worth buying right now.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Test Bed visited BT's Adastral Park yesterday to see what it had up its sleeve for the future.

Various demonstrations were on show, ranging from services for banks to entice more customers into their branches and technology to help run hospitals more efficiently.

In the BT Pulse demo (based on technology in healthcare), one innovation called the 'smart blisterpack' caught our eye. Used instead of a bottle of pills, it's able to keep a record of when the pills are taken and will even ask the patient a series of questions, such as how tired they felt.

Of course, whether you'd feel like answering questions such as this, especially when you're already under the weather, is another matter.

Similarly, you could quite easily pop a pill from the packet but then forget to take it for another hour or so, which would result in misleading information for the doctor or pharmacy.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting idea.

RFID (radio frequency identification) tags were heavily used throughout BT Pulse. The tags were pasted on everything from medicine through to patient ID cards.

When placed on the green BT Pulse zones (as seen in this photo), they would automatically bring up relevant patient information or alter stock levels.

BT's Home 2.0 exhibition is sadly looking a little dated these days. It showcased a discontinued Sony Media Center as well as Sony's robotic dog Aibo, which has now been officially put to sleep along with the rest of Sony's robotics division.

Meanwhile, the network cameras (such as the Panasonic BL-C30 and Axis 205) have been the subject of PCW reviews for some time.

The mobile/landline service BT Fusion was shown in action, while the obligatory idea of a self-redorering fridge was mentioned but not displayed.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dell's decision to buy Alienware is an interesting one, but makes sense when you look at recent attempts by the company to push into the gaming market.

Alienware has built a healthy name for itself among gamers, makes great looking kit and more importantly has a reputation for fast machines. While Dell has been making machines for this market recently - the XPS range - the question to ask is would hard core gamers really use Dell?

For these people, kit has to have appeal and the muscle to stand out from the crowd, and not be a brand name said quietly with a degree of embarrasment. Put another way, buying a Dell gaming machine is a bit like buying your clothes from Marks and Spencers; it just ain't gonna happen.

You could argue that Dell owning Alienware is a bit like seeing your dad kitted out in clothes 20 years his junior, but it does give Alienware the financial muscle to make serious inroads into the gaming sector.

And if it retains its independence, it will still have the cool to be attractive to gamers

Posted by Rob Jones on March 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

After weeks of speculation around the web, Dell has finally bought US-based gaming PC maker Alienware. The remarkable similarity between the design of Alienware's and Dell's web sites must surely have been a big hint, but it's still quite an interesting development. Alienware will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary. Whether this will have any effect on Dell's plans for its high-end XPS PCs is not known.

At least it might now put paid to the endless "will Dell use AMD processors?" conversations - Alienware sells both Intel and AMD-based PCs and notebooks.

Posted by on March 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Distributed processing, such as that used for the Seti search for intelligent aliens, is being harnessed to check the reliability of web sites across the Internet.

Swedish web monitor Ipwalk has launched a beta version of code that uses the spare processesing power on the computers of volunteers.

The code, called Gigrib (it's explained in the link), aims to monitor the uptime of service-providers and web-hosting companies. You can get it here. 

Posted by Clive Akass on March 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pity the poor marketers trying to launch new products while trying to outguess the competition.

Acer will be showing off its new line-up of products on April 6, which is the day chosen by Toshiba to demonstrate its new range. And journalists, unlike photons, cannot be in two places at once.

The Acer line-up will include a whopping 20in notebook packing a slimline high definition HD DVD drive - presumably the drive manufactured by Toshiba that it is launching on the same day.

As they say: it's a small world.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shocking news from Microsoft - the launch of Windows Vista has been put back to January 2007.

Originally planned to be released way back in 2003, Vista is following the time-honoured tradition of delayed Microsoft operating systems.

This latest setback means Vista PCs won't be in stores in the run-up to Christmas, which will no doubt disappoint both retailers and customers.

You can read more about Vista's release woes on PCW's news site as well as our previous blogs on the six versions of Vista and a report suggesting half of all PCs won't be able to run the Vista interface.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Samsung came in to visit us today proudly clutching one of its new Blu-ray writers.

It's a pre-production model, but if all goes to plan you should see them hitting the shelves by mid-May.

We were a little taken aback by the IDE interface of the drive, especially since Intel is phasing IDE out in favour of Serial-ATA.

Chas Kalsi, Samsung's European Technical Manager for Optical Media Solutions, agreed with us and hopes to upgrade this by the time it's launched.

One of the main advantages Blu-ray has over rival format HD-DVD is the potential capacity. Blu-Ray discs at present max out at 25GB, but it looks like Verbatim will have quad-layer models (100GB) by this time next year.

Movies probably won't use more than 18GB, but the thought of cramming 100GB worth of data onto a single disc will no doubt appeal to many. Of course, lose that single disc and that's one hell of a lot of data down the pan.

Read more about Samsung's new Blu-Ray writer on the PCW news site.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've posted a flurry of reviews over the past few days - here are some of the highlights:

Onspeed Mobile
Fed up with a slow Internet connection through your mobile? Onspeed has a neat little product to help you out. We discuss it further in the Product of the Week podcast.

Evesham Axis Dominator 79GT PC
A good value for money PC running one of Nvidia's latest graphics cards

Acer N311
A powerful Pocket PC with a VGA screen, Wifi and Bluetooth

Sony Vaio TX2-HP
As compact as a fashion magazine but costing an arm and a leg; it can only be Sony's new TX series notebook

Western Digital My Book Essential Edition
A stylish external hard disk drive, but lacks a network option

TOCA 3
Drive yourself to distraction with more motor sports than you can shake a gearstick at

Posted by Will Stapley on March 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Performance graphics card maker eVGA has just dropped into our labs for a visit, armed with its versions of the Nvidia Geforce 7900 GT and GTX cards, which we'll be testing over the next couple of days.

EVGA overclocks Nvidia's reference design. The 7900 GTX core is clocked to 690MHz (from 650MHz on the reference design) and the memory to 1760MHz, rather than 1600MHz. The 7900 GT is clocked at 550MHz (core) and 1580MHz (memory).

As soon as testing is finished, we'll drop the results into the graphics section of Report Labs, and get a review online.

For those into watercooling, eVGA will bring out a Black Pearl version of the Geforce 7900 pretty soon. The eVGA Geforce 7800GTX Black Pearl was one of the fastest 7800GTXs we tested.  This version though won't include the water pump - that will be sold separately.

This will make it cheaper for exiting Black Pearl users, but means newcomers will have to shell out for the watercooling kit.

For anyone not planning to make the move from Geforce 7800 to 7900 - and the step in performance isn't that great - the G80 generation is likely to be ready for Christmas.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Linksys WVC54GC-UK wireless webcam packs its own web interface so that you do not need to have a PC on to access it. It means you can monitor your home or office from anywhere in the world using a web browser.

Its support for 11g Wifi links may not be that helpful as you still need to run a power connection to it. The device, which was shown at Cebit, is due to hit the shops about now but no price has been announced.

Also shown at Cebit was the little collection of cuddly toys pictured right. They also happen to be webcams and some models are wireless.

Exhibitor AEC, based in Shenzhen, China, describes them as toys and doubtless kids would love them. But, given the concern about paedophilia, there has to be some concern about disguising webcams destined for children's rooms.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're out and about and in need of an Internet connection, Free-hotspot.com has a new service that might be of interest.

As well as offering an online database of free wireless hotspots, it's now launched a phone service where you can speak to an operator who will then locate your nearest free Wifi zone.

Best of all, it's a freephone number.

The number is 00800 28 25 23 26 (note the double zero). As usual, if you ring from a mobile or payphone you might find you're charged for the call.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The possibility of a computer being able to read the human mind has always struck me as improbable, though neuroscience is advancing our understanding of the brain almost by the day using the latest scanning techniques.

These do have scary implications over what they may reveal to interrogators and marketeers.

But they are simply telling you which bits are working when the brain is doing different types of activity, which is fascinating and informative but a far cry from mind reading.

The brain does not have an output buffer that you can read off like that of a computer. What we speak or write, or convey in body language, is the brain's output as far as the outside world is concerned and may consist entirely of muscle-control signals.

Curiously, relatively coarse EEG techniques, which measure electrical activity from different points on the skull, do offer a way of allowing the brain to ‘talk’ to a computer.

You can generate a particular EEG signal by thinking about, say, moving a leg without actually moving it; so this can be used to send a signal to a computer.

Research teams in Europe and the US have been working on this Brain-Computer Interface for some time, mainly with the aim of enabling severely disabled people to communicate.

But users need weeks of training under current systems in order to be able to generate signals the computer can recognise.

The picture above shows EEG sensors on a model head, exhibited at Cebit, used in a new approach by researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology (FIRST) and the Benjamin Franklin Charite University in Berlin.

They are developing techniques to put the onus for learning onto the computer, with the aim of enabling it to extract, from the many signals generated in the brain each second, the ones associated with particular activities.

Researchers believe this could be used to move a cursor on a screen, allowing a paralysed person to ‘write’ by picking out letters; it could also be used to control a prosthetic device like an artificial limb.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The exterior design of both PCs and notebooks has become far more innovative in recent years, partly as a result of the convergence of computing and consumer electronics.

Apple chic has undoubtedly had an effect on PC design though it has never been the case that Macs had a monopoly on computing elegance, as a glance through PCW show reports of the past few years can demonstrate.

But the migration of powerful low-drain processors from notebooks to desktops has enabled the design of slimmer, quieter PCs (and Macs) because they require less cooling. The FIC models, pictured top left in a choice of pastel colours, are typical of one format being pushed at Cebit this year.

Similar models, the size of a large book, were on show from several companies including ECS (above right, in a choice of postures).

Shuttle showed a new mini x100 design styled like a hi-fi unit; Gigabyte also had a couple of living room models, as well as the concept design (above left), in which a PC system box could be stacked like hi-fi units on top of similarly styled peripheral boxes.

Some of the new designs were clearly aimed at women. Like the pink Asus notebook with its matching case (right).

  Of course this would limit the choice of clothes, but a company called  Ego computers, showed this notebook (left) with a choice of different covers. That is a plastic woman, by the way, not a real one.

A polar opposite in terms of target market is this Gigabyte gaming machine, which actually has a radiator cap for the water cooling like a car.

And if you think that is bizarre, take a look at this pimped model, which brings a new meaning to the term ‘home PC’.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to an article in Sound and Vision Magazine , Sony has stated that its first movie releases in the Blu-Ray format will not degrade the signal resolution when movies are played on older TVs that don't support the latest copyright-protected HDMI connections. Quoting Dan Eklund of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the article says that Sony has no plans to implement the 'Image Constraint Token' feature of the AACS copy-protection technology that lets producers reduce the resolution on analogue video outputs.

It also says that the first Blu-Ray titles are slated to appear in the US on 23rd May. We'll be looking at the first Blu-Ray players and PC drives from Samsung and Pioneer when they arrive at PCW over the next couple of weeks.

Posted by on March 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thousands of AOL users have had their service disrupted thanks to an antivirus glitch on Wednesday this week.

The problem occurred after running a Symantec Live Update - Symantec has more details on the problem and how to fix it.

Not exactly headline news, you might think, but it does raise an interesting point. More and more equipment is being brought into the home that depends on a live Internet connection.

For example, if you rely on VoIP and you lose your broadband connection you'll be left without a telephone service.

Similarly, IP security cameras will only be able to alert you to a break-in if your Internet connection is working.

What’s more, it looks like the forthcoming HD-DVD players (the standalone type) will require a permanent Internet connection in order to perform regular checks that the film you’re watching isn’t a pirate copy.

A broadband blackout at present is annoying, but in the future the consequences could be far more wide-reaching.

What devices in your household depend on a working broadband Internet connection? How much downtime do you experience each year? Leave your comments below…

Posted by Will Stapley on March 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The web site offering a reward for anyone who could get Windows XP to run on an Intel Mac claims to have a winner.

Winxponmac.com was offering a total of $13,854 (funded by donations) but, as yet, isn't posting any details about the winner or how he/she did it.

Read our review of the Intel Mac and its baby brother the Intel Mac Mini.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Eizo Flexscan S2410W
This dazzling 24in display might be expensive, but it’s still good value for money.

Star Wars Empire at War
Lead the Rebel Alliance or strike back as the Empire in this Star Wars-themed strategy game

Dlink DKVM-8E
Control multiple servers with this 8-port KVM switch for business users

Edimax BR-6204WG
A run of the mill router for those with cable Internet connections - you can also purchase aerial boosters for it.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the 31 March deadline for BT's plans to upgrade all its exchanges in the UK to offer 8Mbits/s broadband connections, we expect to see a flurry of service providers coming out with new packages.

Those in the DSL Max trial areas already offer faster download and upload speeds, but for others, the date can't come quick enough. It should make it far easier to offer services such as video on demand, video calls and better voice over IP packages.

These are possible now, but sometimes the quality can suffer. From the end of the month though customers around the UK will have access to up to 8Mbits downstream and 832Kbits/sec upstream, although many home users will only get packages that are up to 448Kbits/sec  upstream.

The final speed depends on how far you live from the exchange.

PlusNet has been quick to announce its offerings, although as the company has only around 200,000 customers, it will impact a small percentage of those using broadband in the UK.

It has said that existing customers on its £14.99 and £21.99 premium package will be upgraded for free to the new speeds and won't need to sign up to renewed a 12 month contract.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

As anyone who subscribes to Sky+ knows, it's a great way to control how you watch TV and when you watch your programmes.

But you'll also know how quickly the 40GB hard disk can fill up on the older Pace boxes. And then you're either deleting unwatched programmes, or a TV junkie until you've cleared some space.

So, if you've ever sat there thinking, why can't I record more programmes, we've just posted a workshop that shows you how to put a bigger hard disk in you Sky+ PVR, recommending the hard disk we think you should buy and what pitfuls to watch out for.

We quadrupled the space we had to record programmes and it only cost about £50. As ever with such upgrades though, you proceed at your own risk, and remember it invalidates your Sky warranty.

But to have so much space.....go on - you know it makes sense.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (14)

On Monday we posted a short story about the release of Onspeed Mobile.

We’ve been testing it for a couple of days now and so far we’re impressed.

Sites such as BBC News (the full site, not the mobile version) took over two minutes to load using a Nokia N70’s standard browser on a 3G connection. But using Onspeed Mobile’s browser, the same site took just 15 seconds to load.

It’s not just the speed increase that impressed us. The pages are reformatted depending on the mobile being used, making it far more readable.

---

Since posting this, our full review has gone live.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Love them or hate them, the man behind some of the biggest characters in gaming, including Mario and Donkey Kong, is holding a live webcast on Friday at 7pm GMT.

Shigeru Miyamoto, senior managing director and general manager of the Entertainment Analysis and Development Division at Nintendo, has been the force behind about 80 gaming projects.

Fans will be able to put questions to him on any of these plus the Nintendo platforms.

But, you have to pre-submit your questions by noon GMT on Wednesday - so you'd better get typing. How open he will be to tough questions we don't know, but the chat lasts only about 30 minutes, so he won't get through that many.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

They might be cumbersome, heavy and, in the main, unattractive, but desktop replacement notebooks are increasing in popularity.

We've just posted a review of the Mesh Pegasus 7800GTX and, thanks to the Athlon64 X2 4400+ and Geforce Go 7800GTX, it's certainly no slouch when it comes to 3D gaming.

Read the full review or, if performance is all that matters, check out the benchmark results.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

There must be plenty of red faces over at McAfee.

A recent update mistakenly highlighted certain system files as virus threats, causing genuine files to be quarantined. This included files associated with Microsoft Excel, Google's Toolbar Installer and even Windows XP.

McAfee has published a list of incorrectly identified files, and you can read more about the confusion on PCW's news site.

UPDATE:
If you're affected by this issue, check out McAfee's response and possible solutions.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

For anyone playing around with early versions of Microsoft Vista, or developing apps for the platform, ATI has just launched Catalyst beta drivers for the operating system.

They work with Vista build 5308. 

Posted by Rob Jones on March 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was the view from my taxi as it took me from my country retreat (see my earlier blog) to the nearest town at the weekend. Parts of Germany have had their heaviest snow for 50 years, but the Hannover region got off fairly lightly.

Our blogging engine was under the weather over the weekend too, so I could not post more promised pictures of Origami tablets.

Pictured above right is Samsung’s Q1 implementation of the Microsoft ultra-portable concept - if you click to enlarge, you can see the characteristic Origami split soft keyboard .

The Q1 has a 7in screen and offers a choice of low-drain Celeron or Pentium M processors. This has one of the most expensive price tags of this first generation at between $1000 to $1500, depending on configuration, though competitors are muttering that Samsung will charge more.

It has a flip-out support at the back so that it can stand on edge. Samsung has built a peripheral kit round it (below left): keyboard, and a DVD drive with a curious twin-plug USB lead: the second plug provides extra power.

This is the kind of thing UWB links would be good for: low range, low power, high data rate and no wires so you don’t need to plug things in.

Eventually these machines will be able to draw most of what they need from the ubiquitous network.

The Q1 also packs a DMB receiver, which would allow it to receiver multimedia broadcasts from the Dab radio infrastructure that Britain already has in place, a very interesting proposition.

The Asus ultra-mobile 960-gram R2H (right) packs a TV module too, this time for standard PAL.

It also has a fingerprint sensor for security and a camera, allowing the machine to be used for video calls or taking and sending snapshots – something that will surely become a standard feature of ultra mobile PCs.

Few technical specs were available but the R2H uses a low-drain Intel chip. Gigabyte and ECS both offered Intel-based Origami tablets, though ECS stressed that its models were likely to be rebandged when sold. Gigabyte's is pictured left.

The smaller Taiwanese manufacter Amtek was among vendors offering ultra-mobiles (right) based on Via's C7-M ULV processor which could bring minitab prices to £350 or below, according to Via. Amtek's model is pictured right.

Via was showing one called a Smart Caddie from a Japanese vendor called PBJ. A dedicated site went live today but currently has only a home page

Posted by Clive Akass on March 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was a hectic set of announcements at the Intel Developer Forum last week in San Francisco.

The company outlined upcoming major new projects and initiatives, its plans for future chip sets, its latest CPUs due later this year - and how the technology will change over the coming decade - and of course the ultra mobile PC, which uses Microsoft's origami software.

If you'd like to get a flavour of the event, listen to our podcast wrap up.

Download testbed_idf.mp3

Posted by Rob Jones on March 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Onspeed has just launched a version of its Internet utility specifically for mobile phones.

Just like the PC version, which promises to increase dial-up by 10x and broadband by 5x, Onspeed Mobile works by sending the web page you’re trying to access to Onspeed’s servers where it’s compressed.

The result is an apparent faster connection.

Impressively, Onspeed Mobile will also detect what type of phone you’ve got and reorganise the layout of the page according to screen size. And, thanks to the reduction in page sizes, data costs while surfing via your mobile are be lower.

The service costs £19.99 per year and works with any Java-enabled phone.

You can read the full review here.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

We announced Apple had given its Mac Mini an Intel makeover on the Testbed a few days ago and we've just posted our review of the Core Duo Mac Mini.

The integrated graphics are a real disappointment, but it's still a good alternative to a Windows-based PC and the Intel CPU gives it a real power boost.

Read the full review now.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's Product of the Week podcast has just gone live.

In it, we take a futher look at Samsung's ridiculously small LED projector - the SP-P300ME. Does it suit movies? Is there a drawback to using LED technology? Find out by listening to the podcast now.

To listen to this podcast and more, check out our Product of the Week page.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fans of Moore's Law will be pleased to hear that Intel says it will be alive and well for at least the next 10 to 15 years.

The company outlined a pretty agressive roadmap for the next decade or so in terms of shrinking dies sizes and outlined alternatives technologies it is investigating to eventually replace the transistor.

Following are a few excerpts from a speach given by Paolo Gargini, director technical strategy at Intel.

Moore's Law as it has evolved over the years.

This slide shows that the new dual core 65nm processor is smaller than the current generation Pentium Edition CPU.

This is an actual 45nm wafer. CPUs to this size are due next year and will be quad core.

One idea Intel is exploring is stacking. This is where the wafer is sliced in half, turned upside down and put on top of the other side.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The next version of Intel's Viiv platform, 1.5, will come out later this year, and including a number of enhancements, such as the ability to secure premium content such as Hollywood movies.

The PC platform, which launched in January, attempts to make it easier to set up the many technologies used in the home and get them working with each other.

One of the issues Viiv 1.5 will tackle is the ability to pump protected content, such as films, around the home across devices. This, said Don Macdonald, who is in charge of Viiv, is difficult to do because it has to cope with digital rights management (DRM).

It also has Media Center integration for Sky and Dorrington, which is Viiv software for Centrino notebooks. This gives the notebook more Viiv like features than a non-Viiv laptop.

Macdonald added that Intel had built several improvements into Microsoft's Windows Media Center software, including better power management, so that even when the PC is off, a user can still access content on the hard disk via another device over a wireless network. This was possible before, but only via an Ethernet cable.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the reference design for certified wireless USB (running in a hard disk drive), for which products should appear around the back end of this year.

Certified Wireless USB chips will appear in products such as hard disk drives, digital cameras, PCs and once small enough, mobile phones, we were told.

Provided you have a Wireless USB key (dongle) that conforms to the standard, it means that you can connect various devices to a PC, so that they can communicate and pass files without wires.

For some reason, Staccato Communications, one of the companies working on the technology, would not let us take a picture of the actual dongle, but it looks exactly the same current USB keys.

Up to 127 devices can be supported, so in theory, there shouldn't be any problems caused by interference. Range is going to be similar to Bluetooth, so generally devices will talk to each other when up to about 10m apart, and transfer rates are up to 480Mb/s.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 10, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

UPDATE: You can now read our full review of the Samsung Q1.

A few more details of the Origami tablet, which I managed to snatch a picture of (lright). You can see the novel soft keyboard split between the lower left and right of the screen.

I asked Kyu Uhm, vice president of Samsung computer-systems marketing team, whether the new interface meant Microsoft is giving up on handwriting recognition, which is actually good on a tablet. I also asked why the model shown used an ultra-low voltage Celeron rather than a more powerful dual-core.

It seems that the screen is only 800 by 600 resolution and there is autoscaling to render correctly web pages that have been designed for more typical higher resolutions. If the digitiser on the screen is of the same resolution then handwriting recognition may not work well.

Uhm said there will be a Celeron model at about 1000-1200 euros and a mobile Pentium version at around 1500 euros. There’s another press conference on this earlt tomorrow, so I’ll write more then.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

  Panasonic is developing a 4Gbyte SD card and will have it on the market by summer, the company said at Cebit today. The card follows a new Specification version 2.0 and looks the same size as a standard SD, but only devices supporting the spec will be able to use it.

It will be known as an SDHC (for high capacity) card and the spec allows for capacities of up to 32GBytes, with performance ratings going up to a Class 6 of 6Mbyte/sec transfer rate. Panasonic says the design on the card (left) may change

Posted by Clive Akass on March 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Panasonic says it has tried to give its first single-lens-reflex, launched today at Cebit, the look and feel of a 35mm camera. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet but as someone who finds it hard to read the tiny figures in camera configuration screens, I'm looking forward to getting solid  manual controls again. No word yet on price or launch date

Posted by Clive Akass on March 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The long awaited green response to ATI’s mighty R580 core has finally surfaced with the launch of Nvidia’s G71 (NV47) core.

As with its predecessor the 7800, the 7900 comes in two flavours - the high end GTX and the mainstream GT. Both have been designed for Extreme High Definition Gaming (XHD) on widescreens up to a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 with high image quality settings while maintaining high frame rates.

Each card will also have dual dual-link DVI connections.

While the 7900GTX has the dual slot heatpipe and heatsink cooling solution last seen on the 512MB 7800GTX, the 7900GT has a neat single slot solution with only the core being cooled, the memory chips are left bare.

You can read the full review of the 7900GT and we'll be posting our thoughts on the 7600GT in a short while.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest version of ATI's Catalyst driver has just been released.

Catalyst 6.3 has the usual array of bug fixes and a couple of new features, including a 5-10% boost in performance with Call of Duty 2.

It also includes Avivo Video Converter. As its name would suggest, this handles video conversion and supports various formats including Mpeg1/2/4, DivX, WMV and H.264. For more information on Avivo, take a look at ATI's site.

Alternatively, you can download Catalyst 6.3 and try it out for yourself straight away.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

LG showed the LG-V9000 phone (left) supporting DMB, the multimedia version of the Dab digital radio system used in Britain. Virgin is currently trialling a service which the phone could  presumably use, though DMB is a Korean specification.

LG is of course based in Korea, a country that has pioneered the use of Digital Multimedia Broadcasting. The V9000 has a 2.2in swivel screen and LG says it will screen video at 25 frames per second for two hours without a recharge. It also features 3D surround sound, a 1 megapixel camera, an MP3 player, TV capture and Bluetooth.

Regular readers of PCW may recall that I believe DMB services for handhelds and notebooks could evolve into what is in effect a new medium.

Most trials involve beaming standard TV content but this is treating small screens held up close as if they are televisions. Television is good for viewing medium-sized pictures at six feet and it is not good for text; DMB handhelds cannot match a TV for video but they can do text and images – and despite the cliché about a picture being worth a thousand word, text is usually unbeatable for conveying a lot of information very quickly.

The big question is whether DMB or its cousin DVB-H, a mobile version of the terrestrial digital TV signal, will win – if indeed either survive the trials and the scramble for radio spectrum.

LG president James Kim ducked that question at Cebit. “I think there is a place for both of them in Europe,” he said.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 8, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Intel tried to 'debunk the myth' today that Viiv PCs are too noisy for the living room, and posted charts showing the amount of heat and noise generated by a range of devices, including Starbucks coffee.

As you can see from the chart, Starbucks coffee is the hotest thing in the living room, followed closely by DVD players. The Golden Gate PC, said Intel, was cooler than most. But cooling usually needs fans, which can be noisy.

But, as Intel proves, Starbucks coffee is every bit as noisy as the average living room device (how many people put a night light in the living room?). The Golden Gate PC doesn't fare that well in our opinion, but we have to ask, what was Intel measuring, the coffee being slurped?

Posted by Rob Jones on March 8, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Cebit time again. Crisp air, brooding skies and snow-dusted hedgeless fields as the train leaves the airport for Hannover. Me still waking up from 5am drive for flight from Stansted. Then the city, and hassles.

There are not enough hotel beds during Cebit, so the good citizens have instituted what they quaintly call a ‘mutti’ (mother) system: they find people in town who will put you up for a few euros. This works very well; but you are after all in someone’s house – a house invariably so spotless and ordered as to make your reporter feel like a piece of litter. It cannot be that all Germans are this tidy, but those who aren’t evidently don’t get to be muttis.

There is nothing to touch a hotel room for giving you space abroad, and for the first time this year I thought I had got one for Cebit, out in the sticks but (so I understood) just 25 minutes from the Messe, where the world’s biggest computer show is held.

It dawned on me that I had received no receipt or precise directions from the local booking agents. Hosts need this receipt to get the money. I’ll spare you the details of the two hours I spent getting round that one, everyone (except me) being wonderfully polite and helpful with their rules.

So I end up at the station I am told is nearest to my hotel. The journey, though longer than 25 minutes, is tolerably quick thanks to

Hannover’s excellent transport system. I show the station travel adviser the address and ask: “Could you tell me how to get here?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she replied.

She consulted her oracle. “There’s one bus a day, at 6.20am. It takes half an hour,” she said.

I took a taxi, 15.20 euros on the clock.

It’s Tuesday evening and I’m back among the fields, in what is called an apartment hotel in a village near a large and rather striking slapheap. My hostess says her husband will shuttle me to the station in the morning. Lord knows what fun and games I going to have with the logistics, but I’ll be reporting from the show for the rest of the week.

Posted by Clive Akass on March 8, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intel has announced its next generation chipset Santa Rosa at its Developer Forum, along with a number of wireless technologies.

Along with Santa Rosa, Intel fleshed out plans for its Napa update later this year, particularly the new processors Conroe (desktop), Merom (mobile) and Woodcrest (server). The company also showed off its Robson Nand flash technology which enables faster boot times and demoed Wimax in the US for the very first time.

Much of the technology it pushed ties in with its home entertainment platform Viiv, which it also pushed heavily today.

That demo came close to disaster at one point when a bullish technology claim refused to work. Intel said it had produced the first buttonless remote control, which works by voice command.

But in trying to get it to work with a Viiv Media Center PC, it doggedly ignored his pleading commands of 'what time is Family Guy' three times before working for a relieved Don Macdonald, who is charge of the Viiv push.

What it did prove though, is that an otherwise sane man looks a bit of a fool talking into remote control, however advanced the technology, so we can't see it catching on any time soon.

We've gone into far more detail about the latest Santa Rosa announcements today in our news coverage, plus produced an image gallery of the key slides and moments from the presentations. 

Posted by Rob Jones on March 8, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

If Intel's chief technology officer Justin Rattner wwas Tony Blair, his message today at the Intel Developer Forum would have been 'energy efficiency, energy efficiency, energy efficiency'.

That is now the main focus for the chip giant, as it pushed Core Microarchitecture, and said in future all its CPUs would take up the Pentium M baton of good performance and low power. That means energy efficient core duo CPUs will in future go into laptops, desktops and servers.

It will move all processors to its 65nm design, and 45nm from summer next year. Other key improvements are that the L2 cache is bigger and shared and they can handle four instructions in a single clock cycle.

Rattner stressed that Intel has not partioned the cache, so it can now be shared acorss cores if one is idle. With more cache, instruction will be completed quicker. This is also the case in the instruction pipeline. With it handling four instructions per clock cycle, it uses less energy and completes tasks quicker.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 7, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not content with just one lens, Kodak has added a second ultra-wideangle lens to its new v570 digicam. It's a 5megapixel model and includes a 5x optical zoom.

We've just posted a full review of it and, on the whole, were impressed.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 7, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Toshiba today announced its new Qosmio G30 that comes complete with an HD DVD drive.

During the presentation, the name 'Blu-ray' obviously cropped up a fair amount, followed by various reasons why HD DVD is a far better format. It's still not clear which format will win the battle, but Toshiba clearly see HD DVD as the way to go.

While Blu-ray has the potential for far high capacities, HD DVD uses the same technology as standard DVD and, claims Toshiba, is cheaper to manufacture.

Whether people actually want a notebook with an HD DVD drive remains to be seen. We don't see too many people hooking one up to their LCD TV in the lounge. What's more, although the Qosmio's display is incredibly bright, HD is designed for screens far bigger than the 17in display on the G30.

Pricing for the Qosmio G30 is expected to be over the £2,000 mark and it should be available sometime in April.

Despite being pushed, representatives from Toshiba wouldn't specify and release dates for standalone HD DVD players.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 7, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Intel has reiterated that Skype was optimised to run on its dual core CPUs - to the detriment of AMD based machines claims the smaller chip company.

AMD dragged Skype into its legal row with Intel last week, claiming that while Intel dual core PCs could handle conference calls with up to 10 people, on an AMD dual core machine the voice over IP software allowed only five people to join the call.

Intel has never denied that it has a close partnership with Skype and announced some weeks back that the software was optimised for Intel's dual core CPUs.

A spokesman at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today said that the chip giant had collaborated with Skype to optimise the software for its dual core CPUs. Code was included in Skype  so that it could detect what processor was running in a PC, and if an Intel dual core CPU was detected, then up to 10 user conference sessions was enabled.

The code has now been hacked so that AMD machines can run 10 user conference calls, however it is unlikely many Skype users are going to launch 10 user conference calls.

But while the row appears on the surface like a fuss over nothing, AMD claims that it is indicative of Intel's anti-competitive regime, and an effort to put the smaller company at a disadvantage.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 7, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intel held a Tech-a-Palooza this afternoon in its pre-show briefing for the Intel Develop Forum, giving us three minute bite size chunks of information on a range of initiatives and projects.

Details were basic, but much of it Intel will expand upon over the coming days. So, we've filtered the three minutes even further, giving you the headline facts to each:

Simon Ellis, Intel UDI program manager
UDI (unified display interface)

• Goal to replace the VGA connector in a PC, which is now 18years old.
• Intel believes going digital and integrating into the silicon makes sense.
• Step beyond HDMI.
• Formed industry group to develop specification, understand interoperability and how to roll this out. Hope specification 1.0 is ready by end of Q2.
• Initially, cables will be UDI to HDMI.
• What are the benefits and why move from HDMI? This is HDMI but for the PC. The PC has different set of requirements. The protocols are the same, so it's HDMI for the PC. UDI doesn't carry audio, so if want this then need HDMI in PC. UDI has some extra modes. UDI also has an optimised interface for notebooks.

Matthew Theall, president, Homeplug Alliance
Homeplug Alliance

• Rejoined Homeplug Alliance last year. Trying to work on single open standard for the technology that uses electricity cables to create a network.
• Alliance had 43 members last autumn. Another 22 have now joined.
• There are now about 4.5m units in market. So beginning to see an explosion in products. By the end of the year expect between seven and eight million Homeplug products in use.
• Latest standard: Homeplug AV – high bandwidth. 200Mbits/s up from 14Mbits/s.
• First AV products are appearing now, such as Ethernet adaptors from Devolo and now Aztech, which was announced today.

Are 2 other standards being definined:

• Homeplug Broadband over Powerline – ratified by Q4
• Homeplug Command and Control. For home automation and control technologies. The technology will be based on Yitran's technology. Should have a specification by the end of the year.
• Says Homeplug fits in with Intel's wireless and Viiv plans.
• Accepts that the products are currently expensive, but believes that pricing will get more competitive as more appear on the market.

Jeff Ravencraft, Intel technology strategist
Certified Wireless USB and Ultra Wideband

• For certified wireless USB, as opposed to wireless USB products that are on the market, but outside the certification.
• Provides mechanism from device to host. One host can support up to 127 devices.
• It will deliver ease of use and plug and play that consumers get with USB.
• Security and interoperability administered through compliance program. If products pass they can use certified wireless USB logo on their product.
• Certified Wireless USB Association 1.0 specification now completed.

Ultra Wideband (UWB)

• Radio technology for very high data rates over short range.
• Specification adopted in December 05 and expect final approval in Q3.
• Regulations – Europe and Japan have now issued proposals for their versions of UWB

Matthew Eszenyi, Intel technology strategist
802.21 (mixed networks)

• For Martini access (any time, any place, anywhere). EG:To move from one hetrogeneous network to another, such as we now move from one cellphone provider to another in the mobile sector. Trying to do this with handhelds and laptops.
• Latest draft just being released to IEEE. Hopes standards work will be finished in 2007

Knut Grimsrud, Intel fellow
CE ATA initiative

• For small form factor disk drives in handheld devices. Specification was published within 6 months of the initiative starting.
• Expect announcements at IDF this week and demos showing CE ATA products

Joshua Smith, senior researcher
Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform (Wisp)

• Evolution of an idea that allows you to get rid of the battery in some instances.
• Makes embedded sensing measurements with no battery.
• Evolution of RFID, so a tag could be read at close range without a battery.

Eve Schooler, senior researcher
Distributed Detection and Inference project

• For intrusion detection and trying to stop false positives or new worms that propagate at such slow rates that they blend in with the background traffic on a network.
• By looking at the signal it can find an attack for instance. This information is shared among corroborating nodes.
• Impact: Want to show that a fully distributed architecture is viable in the network but also show that there is improved accuracy meaning networks have less false positives when combine distributed collaboration messaging with machine learning algorithms.
• Also aim to show that slower worms can be detected even though the worm looks like background traffic.
• Want to have more nodes used, which will equal greater corroboration. This can then be applied to different network issues.

Sumeet Sandhu, senior researcher
Distributed Communication

• Project concentrating on a lower layer than Distributed Detection and Inference project above.
• Challenge: As more devices are added to a wifi network we start to notice a performance degradation, because there are too many people using it.
• Frequency spectrum limited, but want to show that you can add more devices and still get good performance.
• Want to scale as Moores Law, so viewing network density as a good thing that should be used as a resource.
• One co-operative technology is multi hop relaying. So if device A can see the wireless network and device B can't, then A relays Bs packets.
• If you can convince users to use virtual arrays then they get back some of the gains you get with Mimo.
• So if you have a mobile phone that's running out of battery or can't get a signal, but there's a laptop nearby then use the laptop to get the mobile's packets through.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dell is the latest notebook manufacturer to release a model based on Intel's new Core Duo processor. The Inspiron 9400 runs off a T2500 - the 2GHz version of the dual-core CPU.

Although we have no qualms with the Inspiron 9400's processing power and battery life, 3D performance is poor thanks to the integrated graphics. At over £1,500, we expected to see an ATI or Nvidia graphics card included.

Read the full review here.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

ATI is driving down the cost of its graphics cards, citing a smooth production line as the reasoning.

The top-of-the-range X1900 XTX 512MB falls from £363 down to around £312, while the X1900 XT drops to £272.

The lower-end cards get a similar price-hack, with the X1600 Pro now costing just £62.

ATI has also hints at a new 256MB card that's about to be launched, but as yet hasn't released any further information.

We eagerly await Nvidia's response.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 6, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the eve of the Intel Developer Forum in the US, Skype has found itself dragged into the legal row between the chip giant and AMD.

AMD is claiming that Skype has been optimised to work better on Intel processors, where a PC running its dual core CPUs can cope with 10 people on a conference call, compared to only five when using an AMD machine.

The company has demanded legal documents to see if any anti competitive behaviour has been ongoing between the two to the detriment of AMD. 

This is part of AMD's anti-trust action against Intel, which it launched last summer.

We're flying out to San Francisco tomorrow for IDF, which kicks off for press and analysts on Monday, and we'll carry daily reports here and in our news section.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 4, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've just given Apple's latest notebook a thorough going-over.

As expected, the Macbook Pro continues Apple's Core Duo theme, housing a 2GHz version of Intel's dual-core processor.

It's much faster than the G4 processor found in the old Powerbook models, but the major obstacle facing Apple is that most software, including Adobe Photoshop, requires an update to benefit from the Core Duo.

Read the full review here.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We recently reviewed Terratec's dual-tuner PCI Express card, and now Pinnacle has joined in on the act with a similar model.

Unlike Terratec's PCI Express 2400i DT, the PCTV Dual DVT-T Pro uses a standard PCI slot, which opens it up to those without a PCI Express motherboard. At £69.99, it's also £20 cheaper than Terratec's model.

We'll be getting a review model in soon to check out the differences between the two.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've just posted our review of the Samsung SP-P300ME projector (the subject of two previous Testbed posts - POST ONE, POST TWO).

One of a new breed of projectors, this Samsung uses LEDs instead of the more conventional lamps found in standard projectors.

It's this LED technology that makes it the smallest projector we've ever seen.

Read the full review here.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 2, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week's Product of the Week Podcast has just gone live.

In it we discuss the Z-5450 5.1 surround sound speaker system from Logitech. Thanks to the built-in Wifi adapter, the two rear satellite speakers are wireless.

However, there is a catch - click here to find out more.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 2, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Terratec recently came out with a low-cost video encoding system - the Grabster AV150. It's a fairly basic piece of kit, acting as a bridge between your PC and video source.

By leaving the video encoding duties up to the bundled software, it's not as fast as hardware encoding devices such as the Plextor Convertx.

In its favour, the Grabster is a fair bit cheaper than Plextor's effort.

Read the full review here.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 2, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to a press release issued this morning, BT is pushing ahead with its plans for widespread 8Mb broadband in the UK.

Two new BT Wholesale products will be available to ISPs - BT ADSL Max and BT ADSL Max Premium. As well as offering fast download speeds, the Premium service provides a maximum upload speed of 832Kb.

Although a date of March 31st is quoted for the start of the BT Max offerings, some of the 5,300 exchanges in the UK will have to wait a little longer.

We'll keep you posted on ISP pricing for their 8Mb packages. To find out whether your exchange is ready for 8Mb via BT ADSL Max, keep an eye on BT's line checker.

Don't forget very few people will be able to achieve speeds of 8Mb. It all depends on how close you are to your exchange and the quality of wiring, but most should experience around 4Mb.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 2, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We blogged - and reviewed - Hela's rather strange Perific mouse recently, which attaches to your hand and can be used even when waved in the air.

Now the company has come up with another, err, innovation....The USB Massager.

Risking the danger of being picked up on sex sites, the clam shaped device vibrates at a healthy 3,600rpm and is described as the ideal corporate gift.

The £10 device will, says Hela, "comfortably reach any part of your body and a simple button activates its 26 vibrating rubber pimples".

We are so looking forward to getting this one into the office for review.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 2, 2006 | Permalink

The BBC is offering people a chance to edit classic shots of nature and the earth in the run up to the new David Attenborough series Planet Earth, which starts on March 5.

It is making available unbroadcast rushes and other material from its Open Earth Archive and is inviting you to use them to make a short 'advert' for planet Earth - presumably the lump of stuff we all live on, and not the series.

The competition closes on 30 April and winners will spend time in an edit suite with experts seeing how the professionals edit for BBC television. Details and rules are here

But the Open Earth Archive is the best prize of all, and it is available to anyone in Britain. You can download anything from it and edit it for non-commercial purposes. 

Posted by Clive Akass on March 1, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pioneer has just visited the Test Bed proudly bearing its BDR-101A internal Blu-Ray drive, which it expects to launch just as soon as it's managed to get copy-protection keys from the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) licensing body. Both Blu-Ray and its rival HD-DVD would have hit the streets a long time ago if there hadn't been so many political wrangles over the AACS scheme and its integration with other copy protection schemes, such as Blu-Ray's BD+, that have been demanded by Hollywood content producers.

Blu-Ray uses the AACS system to prevent or limit copying of copyrighted material such as movies. To play AACS-protected content, each link in the chain (disc, driver, playback software and, eventually, the graphics card) has to have an AACS key.

The company expects production of the drive to commence during April 2006, and although pricing isn't set it's estimated to be of the order of €600 (about £408). The BDR-101A supports write-once (BD-R) and rewritable (BD-RE) media, plus all DVD+/-R/RW formats and read-only BD-Rom and DVD-Rom. The first generation of Blu-Ray drives will be unable to play any type of CD-Rom, CD-R/RW or DVD-Ram discs, though. Second generation drives with CD and DVD-Ram support aren't expected before about September. The next gernation will also bring in Serial ATA interfaces.

Write-once BD-R Blu-Ray discs are expected to cost about $18 for a single-layer 25GB disc. Blu-Ray supports up to 8 layers, making 200GB discs a feasible option in the future. TDK is at the forefront of making Blu-Ray media, and its Durabis hard coating will no doubt be licensed to other disc manufacturers until such time as they come up with their own solutions. Discs that are uncoated need to be encased in a protective caddy to prevent damage to the recording layer, which is only 0.1mm below the surface of the disc.

We asked Pioneer about the possibility of mulit-format drives supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - the short answer is that there's no technical reason why these can't be made - Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both use blue-violet lasers. Which almost certainly means they'll eventually appear.

Watch out for a review of the BDR-101A when we get our hands on a production model in a few weeks' time.

Posted by on March 1, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're struggling to see why anyone would want to buy a single tuner TV card anymore for their PC, especially if it's going to be used as a personal video recorder.

Which equally means we don't see why any company would release them any more. Thankfully, most TV tuner manufacturers are catching onto the fact that people want two tuners minimum, so that they can watch one programme while another is being recorded.

Terratec's Cinergy 2400i DT, which we've just finished reviewing, falls into that bracket and although a bit expensive it only takes one slot in your PC - although it's the PCI Express slot, which could be a problem for some. And depending on where you live, its dual digital tuners are either a boon or a pain if you can't get Freeview.

Posted by Rob Jones on March 1, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

After launching the Intel Imac in January, Apple has now given the diminutive Mac Mini a similar makeover.

Two models are available, the most expensive being powered by a 1.66GHz Core Duo processor. It's by no means the fastest Core Duo (the T2600 model purrs away at 2.16GHz), but Apple is still quoting it to be up to four times faster than the previous 1.42GHz G4 Mac Mini. You also get an 80GB hard drive and DVD-RW.

The second model runs off a 1.5GHz single-core (that's Core Solo in Intel-speak) processor, has a 60GB hard drive and a DVD combo drive.

Both models start with just 512MB of Ram, upgradeable to 2GB.

ILife '06 and Front Row software (complete with remote control) are included but, despite the apparent demand, Apple is refusing to develop and Media Center-style application. Although Front Row lets you browse photos, there's no PVR functionality.

Worse still, Apple has stuck with the woefully inadequate Intel GMA950 integrated graphics. The poor graphics performance was our major gripe with the original Mac Mini and we had hoped Apple would sort it out.

Prices have been upped from the previous Mac Minis - the Core Duo sits at £599, while the Core Solo is £449.

We'll have more details and a full review for you soon.

Posted by Will Stapley on March 1, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)