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Intermittent artefacts prompt concerns over Nvidia's Geforce Go 7950GTX mobile graphics
As you may have already read in our news story, Nvidia has been busy hyping up its new Geforce Go 7950GTX mobile graphics cards.
We've currently got two notebooks housing this graphics card in the PCW Labs (a Rock and an Evesham) and both have been exhibiting some rather concerning artefacts.
As you can see from this screenshot of the Rock Xtreme CTX Pro in action, it's by no means a small problem and if you'd just spent over £1,800 on one you'd presumably be more that a little upset.
Interestingly, the problem seems to be intermittent. The Rock only suffered from them once (cured by a reboot), but the Evesham (which is being tested as we speak) is currently having a field day in terms of displaying rouge squiggly lines.
We suspect the problem is down to the Geforce Go 7950GTX simply being an overclocked version of the 7900GTX. We've asked Nvidia for a comment and are waiting to hear back.
Read the full Rock Xtreme CTX Pro notebook review.
ITN News channel joins the Virgin Moble Lobster 700TV
In our review of the Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV we didn't hide the fact that the limited channel line up was disappointing.
Making a step in the right direction, Virgin Mobile today announced ITN News is to join BBC One, ITV1, E4 and Channel 4.
Like the Channel 4 "Short Cuts" service, ITN News will be specifically made for mobile, providing 24hr rolling news. According to Virgin Mobile, Channel 4 will soon be providing a simulcast to fall in line with the BBC, ITV and E4 channels.
Although it's good to see an extra channel, our concerns over image quality and reception remain. We're also still doubtfull as to whether people actually want TV on their mobile.
Read the full Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV review.
Giving your computer to charity
There is a growing belief among many home users that you can't give your old computer to developing countries. With projects like the $100 One Laptop per Child initiative getting masses of publicity and a raft of countries including Libya, Argentina and Nigeria already placing orders of 1million laptops each, the emphasis has changed from re-using computers to just building cheap new ones.
Therefore please understand my surprise when I crossed the Computer Aid International stall at Linux World Expo in London last week. It sends Pentium 3 class computers and above to developing countries such as Kenya and Chile where they are put to good use in schools. You can drop your computers off at Computer Aid International's offices on Holloway Road in London. Alternatively individuals can get their old PCs and equipment picked up for £9.75 per box. This is an extremely affordable alternative to driving to a recycling centre or to the tip. It also has strong links with businesses who find it a competitive way of getting rid of their old equipment.
So what does all this have to do with Linux? Bill Gates has pledged $27bn to charity I hear you say. Despite this Microsoft software isn't always charity friendly because transferring software licenses is a legal minefield and completely impossible for businesses with corporate site-licenses. For this reason Computer Aid International must go through the hassle of formatting most computers and installing open source software on them. A positive side effect is that donors' private data will always be deleted.
Good environmental practice was also a recurring theme at Linux World. Ian Roberts from the Open Source Consortium pointed out that a computer's lifetime was 3-4 years when running Microsoft software or 6-8 years under less power-hungry Linux. This may well be true however he and every other delegate at Linux World appeared to be using modern and flashy laptops.
Toxic and organic apples don't mix
Yours truly was the PCW reporter in the field when Greenpeace got chucked out of Mac Expo today.
I was having a friendly chat with Greenpeace when a man in a black suit, who identified himself only as the events manager for Mac Expo, turned up and claimed there had been complaints of 'intimidation and antagonism' towards other stalls and visitors.
Up until then I had been chatting with Greenpeace about the research they had done. They offered me a free organic English apple and a leaflet about brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and other toxins used in PCs. Greenpeace told me how they'd pressured HP and Dell into setting up recycling campaigns and banning BFRs and other toxins from their products. HP and Dell account for 40 per cent of the PC market and are now considered amongst the most environmentally friendly in the industry. As we mentioned in our news story, Apple is the next target because it is one of the worst offenders.
When I asked the Mac Expo events manager for an explaination (and told him that I was a member of the press) he got red-faced and cited complaints from the visiting public for Greenpeace's eviction. When I later returned to the stall, Greenpeace had been replaced with two giggling girls pointing me in the direction of the Konica Minolta stand.
I did manage to have a quick chat with Paul Earnshaw, logistics coordinator at Greenpeace, who said: “it baffles me”. He paid £2000 to have a stall at Mac Expo and now feels a little cheated by Apple.
Solid-state Q1 road-test: Day 4
The Q1 Origami ultra-mobile has done me proud over the past couple of days. The array mics seem to work better than on the first version but that may be simply because I have been working in a relatively quiet environment. I’ve been able to use the Q1 to record meetings, taking synchronized written notes using Microsoft Notes.
The battery life seems to be around three hours with fairly heavy use of Wifi, which is far short of ideal, but there are power points in airport lounges I’ve been frequenting (this is written during a three-hour stopover at Cathay Pacific’s excellent facility at Hong Kong).
When I last used a Q1, earlier this year, I carried only the tablet and left a USB keyboard back at the hotel room for heavy work. This time I have come with the complete Origami bundle, which includes a suedette pouch that can fit both the tablet and a keyboard. This makes it rather bulky, which rather defeats the object, and I’d rather carry the two items separately. Samsung provides separate bags for them to allow you to do this.
The pouch, like the tablet, has a hinged support that props up the tablet when you are using it in typing mode. This works well, except that unlike a conventional notebook it is hard to use sitting with the tablet and keyboard resting on your knees. You can use handwriting recognition very comfortably in this position though.
The boot-up time may be slower than I expected from the solid-state disk but overall the machine has worked crisply even when running two or three applications back-to-back. I have even run Quark Xpress 7.0 desktop publisher, complete with the new Interactive Designer extension (launched today), on it.
I’ll be posting a formal review of the machine (and Interactive Designer) soon after I get back.
Swipe me - your kid has arrived at school
Wonderful sight at Acer’s birthday bash in Taipei last night: a Mozart orchestra in which all the players were elegantly dressed women save for the first violinist (traditionally the orchestra leader), who was a man. It would probably have caused a riot by massed ranks of feminists in London but, cultural differences being what they are, it seemed perfectly in order for Taiwan and the orchestra looked and sounded great. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me.
There are pretty women everywhere here in Taiwan, serving you at the table, showing you round, or just standing at doorways, hands clasped demurely in front of them, just waiting to be helpful. It may not be politically correct but it could certainly grow on you. If you are a man.
On a more technical note: Taiwan ’s transport system has an equivalent to London’s Oyster cards that act as electronic tickets. The city mayor Ma Ying-jeou, known as mayor Ma, was at the Acer bash and spoke about the system, no doubt to stress his technical credentials – he is a presidential candidate.
He explained, in excellent English, that the cards were now being used to check children into school. They swipe them on a reader and an SMS message is sent to their parents to reassure them that their little darling has arrived.
I wonder how that would go down among the truants of England.
Mayor Ma said there had been one complication in Taipei: “I keep getting letters from wives asking me if I can set up a similar system to check on their husbands.”
Power Rangers
A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to get an invite from Enermax in the UK
to use their power supply testing rig. Such setups are a rarity outside mainland Europe
so we duly trotted up to Milton Keynes armed with a box or two of PSU’s to do some testing.
Time constraints limited us to what tests we could do, so naturally enough we went for the big one - 100% Stress Testing and stood well back.
Some interesting results and it must be said smells came out of the various supplies. One supply, typical of the sort found in low end cases, went bang before it got anywhere near its claimed output, while the most powerful supply tested the Tagan Turbojet 1100 was noisier than the unit used to pump the power into the supplies.
See PCW’s power supply feature in the up coming January 2007 issue or to see the stress test results see the new Power Supply section on Reportlabs.
Apple's MacBook Pro gets the Core 2 Duo treatment
Released back in April this year, the MacBook Pro was the first Apple computer to house an Intel processor - the Core Duo.
With its entire range now shifted over to Intel, Apple has now turned its attention back to the MacBook Pro and given it a Core 2 Duo overhaul.
Apple states performance across the range should improve by up to 39%. However, we suspect the problems we mentioned in the original review of the Intel MacBook Pro will still apply - namely the lack of software that's designed to take advantage of the extra power afforded by the dual core processor.
The cheapest is a 15in model with a 2.16GHz processor at £1,349. Faster 2.33GHz versions are available at £1,699 with a 15in screen and £1,899 for the 17in MacBook Pro.
Other improvements include a new 1in thin aluminium chassis complete with a built-in webcam.
We'll be getting a sample in soon, so keep your eyes peeled for a full review.
To Taiwan, testing the world's first solid state ultra-mobile PC
I'm roadtesting the new solid-state version of the Samsung Q1 ultra-mobile PC on a madly rushed trip to Taiwan (of which more tomorrow). The Q1 has a 32Gbyte solid-state disk(SSD), 1Mbyte of Ram, and an 895MHz Intel processor and must be the world first mainstream PC with no moving parts.
It is a joy to be using once again a computer that is truly portable, and also one that really can be pen driven. The handwriting recognition actually works, if you use it with care, so that it has much of the convenience of a paper notebook. I stress these points because the Q1 cannot be judged by the standards or ordinary notebooks, or even larger Tablet PCs. It is a new class of machine, which means that even its faults are interesting because they show how ultra-mobiles can and will get better.
Bluetooth blues
We've been reviewing the Saitek iFreedom Bluetooth speakers. As mentioned in my earlier blog, I'm dubious over their compatibility claims because I couldn't get the A2DP functionality to work. A2DP lets you connect your mobile phone or laptop to the speakers wirelessly. The manual doesn't mention A2DP compatibility or troubleshooting.
Following my feedback, Saitek have rectified their mistake and are now inserting an extra two pages into the box. It includes a paragraph on how to connect to a mobile phone and what the Bluetooth password is. We hope to have a download for buyers of earlier speaker packages that lack the extra two page insert. Look at for a PCW review soon.
A Wii little problem
There is a general pessimism around the office regarding the Nintendo Wii. We envied our colleague who got to play the Wii over at Nintendo's headquarters, but none of us will buy one although we love the idea of being able to play a star wars title with a light-sabre.
The real conundrum is this: The console will be powered by an IBM Broadway CPU. It will run at 729Mhz and while megahertz aren't everything it has more in common with the Gamecube processor than anything 'next gen'. The ATI 'Hollywood' graphics processor is equally unimpressive. Screenshots show how bad the Wii will look compared to the Xbox360 in Call of Duty 3.
The Wii is affordable and the remote control is an excellent idea. The problem is you can't base a whole console around a controller and ignore horsepower, graphics, hi-definition and DVD capabilities.
If a killer game (like a Starwars title) comes out for the Wii, then anyone could sell a Wiimote clone or even an adapter or software to make the Wiimote work with a PS3 or Xbox360 (after all, the Wiimote is simply another Bluetooth device).
Nvidia ships Windows Vista WHQL drivers
Nvidia has made graphics card drivers available for Vista that are certified by the Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). WHQL is a testing centre at Microsoft and getting the stamp of approval implies compatibility, stability and acceptable performance.
Vista will ship in January so there's still time for companies to get their act together. Stories floating about on the net suggest ATI still has a way to go with its drivers because it hasn't implemented OpenGL yet.
Sony high def camcorders get hard disks
Sony’s high definition camcorders will be taking two routes for the time being.
Its 1080i HD AVC camcorders record directly onto an internal hard disk drive or DVD, using Mpeg4. The AVC system was developed with Panasonic, it will take a similar route with its camcorders.
The Sony AVC HDR-SR1E has a 30GB hard disk, which doesn’t sound
like much, but it records 242 minutes, 442 minutes or 10 hours of footage,
depending on the quality setting chosen. That may be restrictive if on holiday,
but there’s no reason, other than to keep the cost down, that it can’t put in a
bigger hard disk.
The 30GB version costs about £1,000, which makes it a high-end purchase for camcorders. And right now, it’s mainly high-end enthusiasts that think HD when recording family and friends (although we wonder how many people buy HD camcorders and hook them to CRTs and think they are getting an HD picture).
It comes with Nero to burn footage to DVD – Blu-ray being the choice Sony hopes consumers make (and at the moment that’s the only HD choice until recordable HD-DVD disks hit the market). Footage can be dragged and dropped in both directions between a computer and camcorder.
Destruction of national TV stations imminent
LCD analysts Meko have speculated the downfall of traditional TV broadcasting. It suggests any person with vague technical ability could set up an IPTV station for $1000 a month. They could then broadcast any channels, like Sky Sports, over the internet to people who don't pay for the channel. By being based in a country outside of the WTO it would be easy to evade copyright laws.
We've heard of pirate TV stations already in existence based in China. They often show expensive Premiership games and films for free, however these stations have terrible bit-rates.
Allofmp3.com should serve as a warning to TV broadcasters – Russia is an ideal country to broadcast IPTV without paying royalties (although this is soon likely to change).
The Slingbox we reviewed earlier this year does this except only one user can recieve the TV stream. The advent of high quality bit-torrent downloads of shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives has also brought down many barriers and satisfied those who don't like waiting half a year to get hit US shows in the UK.
HD TV is a great money spinner
1080p panels cost $50-$80 (£27 - £53 based on screen size) more to make than 720p, according to Pete Gamby of Meko, who specialises in LCD market research.
Despite being so cheap to go from 720p to 1080p, manufacturers put huge mark-ups on TVs that are full HD. NEC and Viewsonic for whom he had been invited to talk for didn't disagree with his findings.
It is technically easy to go to 1080p from 720p on the production line. The cynical among us would suggest LCD TV producers are holding back true high definition so that in a year's time consumers will rush out to upgrade their 'old' 720p panels. He also said the shift to widescreen TVs didn't occur because they are more attractive for viewing content, but because they are cheaper to produce than 4:3 aspect ratio monitors.
Meko doesn't believe 1080p is useful on monitors less than 40in because there's no perceived improvement in picture quality, but it is ideal for monitors bigger than 60in.
Finally Pete Gamby suggested the HD TV revolution is a bit of a scam. If standard definition services like Freeview, broadcast in 576p instead of 576i and at a higher bit-rate, then HD wouldn't look that much better than standard definition and panel makers wouldn't have had sales of 1.4m HD tellies in the UK. Only 90,000 punters currently get HD in the UK through Sky's HD service.
Devolo release high-speed Homeplug AV kit
We've just had a demo of Devolo's latest Homeplug AV kit (the stuff that uses your mains wiring as a network).
Using their test rig, which simulated typical signal noise in a home environment, Develo achieved an impressive 90Mbit/sec. This allowed for two HD streams (around 20Mbit/sec each) and a fair amount of data to be transferred at the same time.
Unlike rival Netgear's awkwardly designed HDX101 devices, Devolo's box doesn't plug directly into the wall socket so won't suffer from the same usability issues as mentioned in our review.
We'll be running our own separate tests in the coming days and will be posting a full review soon.
Vote in the PCW Awards 2006 and win great prizes!
Voting for the PCW Awards for Excellence 2006 is now open. It's your chance to tell us which companies make the best computing products, whether it's because of the technology, design, support or simply great value for money they offer.
Just follow the link above, follow the instructions and enter your votes to be included in our great prize draw. And to show our appreciation for your input, we've got prizes worth £1,933 up for grabs, including a superb Shuttle XPC G5 8300H PC and monitor bundle, a Tiscali broadband package, 2GB Crucial Gizmo drives, a Crucial Ballistix memory kit and more!
(Note: the prize draw is only open to UK & ROI residents - full terms and conditions are available at http://www.pcw.co.uk/awards/tandc)
Symbian Smartphone show: Joy, LG announce a Symbian phone
LG chose the Symbian Smartphone show to announce it’s first Symbian handset., Joy. And no, that’s not us being sarcastic, it is actually called the LG Joy.
We got to play with the Joy for a short while, but LG was being particularly cagey about details including price, network availability and other details.
What we can tell you is it runs Symbian Series 60, has a 2.4in screen and houses a 2megapixel camera. Although we don’t have the precise weight, it’s also incredibly light.
Rumour has it the phone will be available early in the new year.
Symbian Smartphone show: Sling Media and Sony go head to head once more
TV on your mobile appears to be gathering pace and both Sling Media and Sony are about to launch mobile clients for their streaming TV devices (Slingbox and LocationFree respectively).
Just as was demonstrated by our reviews of Slingbox and LocationFree, Sling Media appears to be serving up the better offering. While Sony is only launching its mobile client for Sony Ericsson’s P990 (running off the UIQ operating system), Sling Media has elected to release a Symbian version, which will be compatible with many more phones.
Sling Media says it will release the mobile client within the next quarter with a Windows Mobile version to follow. Meanwhile Sony claims to have the product ready to download from its support site, but despite hunting around for some time we couldn’t find it.
Of course, both will delight in hurling large amounts of data to your phone so, unless you’ve got a hefty data allowance, it could be an expensive way of watching TV on your mobile.
As you’ll see in our review of the Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV it’s possible to get TV on a phone for free, albeit with a limited channel line up.
Symbian Smartphone Show: Does the web need dotmobi?
Opinion was divided over the wisdom of the new dotmobi (.mobi) domains at the Symbian Smartphone show in London today.
Set up to specifically cater for web pages formatted for mobile phones, dotmobi addresses were made available to buy last month.
While the dotmobi Advisory Group were obviously singing its praises, the guys on the Opera stand were less than impressed claiming that it would simply mean companies having to develop two separate web sites.
Opera believes people will want to use the same addresses as they do from a desktop and, as sites such as the BBC have demonstrated, it’s possible for sites to detect when a mobile phone is viewing a site and provide it with a low-graphics version.
Apparently over 12,000 dotmobi domains have already been snapped up, however it’s too early to tell whether this indicates a success as the majority could well simply be due to companies not wanting to lose their dotmobi domain to a rival.
That said, there are some pretty heavyweight names behind dotmobi including Microsoft, Nokia and Vodafone.
Searching within search engines
I find it a mind-maze wading through all the Kelkoos, Pricerunners and Ciaos of this world that pop up in Google when I'm searching for reviews of products I want to buy. These sites will often just list a product and have an empty section labelled 'reviews' in the hope that surfers will do their dirty work for them.
I recently discovered www.gmbmg.com (Give Me Back My Google), which is a new front for the Google search engine. The only difference is it filters out price comparison sites, leaving true product reviews at the forefront.
Phishy contradiction
Okay, it happens... we have posted two ostensibly contradictory stories today, one saying phishing is worse than you might think and the other implying that the biggest risk lies in the stuff your throw in your wastepaper basket.
The US figures claiming that as many as 14 percent of recipients fall for some phishing scams seems to be way over the top, even for a country in which the majority of people do not believe in evolution. It may be true of the odd, very clever phishing scam though.
I remember a famous hacker a couple of years back being asked how jhe would set about getting secret information from a company. He replied that the easiest way would be the front door, as buildings are far more easy to get into than sensitive areas of computer systems.
The fact is that you have to be vigilant whether you are online or not. And, despite all the horror stories about online fraud, you are at least as much risk handing you card over to a stranger at the till of a gas station - or throwing the bill away.
Funai launches £64.99 photo printer
The FDP-100 is a compact printer that prints glossy A5 images. The 300x300 dpi is low and won't set the world alight.
Funai claims prints come with an 80 year water resistance guarantee, due to some sort of special dye that covers prints with a water resistant coating. Apparently it protects against fingerprints, dust and humidity. We would be interested in testing this claim.
The prices of photo printers are falling like laser printers once did; £64.99 seems very reasonable, however the water resistant coating may result in odd proprietary print cartridges that Funai can make a killing on.
It should be available on www.amazon.co.uk now, however we couldn't find it but expect it to go online soon.
Nintendo Wii preview
We’ve just posted our preview of Nintendo’s Wii console, due out in December.
Although it doesn’t have the raw power of its competitors and lacks any HD capabilities, it’s small, cheap and has a truly innovative control system.
Check out our full preview of the Nintendo Wii.
Draft-n routers as fast as 'g' should have been
802.11n will be the next major Wi-Fi standard since 802.11g. It has not yet been ratified so manufactures are calling their equipment "Draft-n".
Today we spoke to a spokesman from TrendNet today who claimed draft-n routers from Buffalo and Netgear don't work properly with older Wi-Fi equipment.
He also claimed that their new router can achieve 120-125 Mbits/sec in the real world but was cautious on the router being fully compatible with the final "n" standard: "we should be able to do it" is perhaps the most honest response in the industry. Other manufacturers simply claim all that's needed is a firmware upgrade and their draft-n products will become just 'n'.
Draft-n routers claim transfer speeds up to 300Mbits/sec but PCW's Will Stapley recently tested one and found it never exceeded 50-60Mbits/sec for normal file transfers.
TrendNet said 600Mbits/sec products will start shipping in March 2007; however we really are entering another 'model number' scenario, much like AMD originally did with its Athlon XPs.
Via’s carbon-free claims ridiculed
Journalists got extremely emotional at Via's press conference yesterday to unveil its ‘carbon-free’ PCs and processors. We didn't resort to name calling, but everyone was unhappy by its new ‘carbon free’ logos.
In our news story we revealed how it certifies CPUs and systems as 'carbon free' if complimentary trees have been planted. Via only offsets the carbon-dioxide produced to power a CPU or system for three years. The manufacture of computer equipment requires four times more electricity than powering a system for its average lifetime, so the program is fundamentally flawed - CPUs and systems are extremely carbon-un-neutral from the word go.
Via claims it can't calculate how much energy is used in making devices because it only designs things, but if the United Nations University (who calculated the 4x statistic) has an idea of what it takes to manufacture silicon, then Via could certainly make an educated guess.
I applaud Via for making low powered CPUs that require a quarter of the electricity of an Intel Pentium D, however the 'carbon free' claim is not true and every journalist knew it and felt they were seriously misleading the public.
Via expects the platform to be a success in the UK due to our green conscience, however the case is different in the US; a spokesman told me that during an American press conference the concern was over consumers thinking 'carbon free' means there is no carbon at all in the PC…
Netgear's 200Mbit/sec claim falls short of the mark
We're in the process of testing Netgear's HDXB101 mains networking kit.
Although marketed as delivering throughput up to 200Mbits/sec, we weren't at all surprised to find actual throughput much lower.
Initial tests show it to average at around 25-30Mbits/sec - faster than most wireless connections, but way off Netgear's claim. When we plugged one of the units into a four-plug adaptor, throughput plummeted to around 5Mbits/sec.
Another issue we have is the physical design of the units. Due to their bulky nature, you're unlikely to be able to fit it alongside another plug on a dual-plug wall socket.
Despite its drawbacks, it's still one of the fastest mains networking devices we've seen. We'll be posting our full review in the next couple of days.
Digitise those vinyls
TerraTec's new £99.99 PhonoPreAmp iVinyl is designed to allow easy transfer of music from disks or tapes to a PC for translation into a digital format. It comes with TerraTec's SoundRescue software for Windows and Roxio CD Spin Doctor for the Mac to allow you to clean up the recordings.
AOL UK deal sparks memories of $160 billion burst bubble
Carphone Warehouse was keeping quiet today about its plans following its £370m purchase of AOL
The company admits that it has been struggling to keep up with the demand for the 'free' broadband offer it made earlier this year with its Talk Talk deal.
The new deal inevitably recalls the 2001 AOL's $160 billion purchase of Time Warner, which has become the iconic disaster of the Dot Com bubble. AOL was able to purchase Time Warner's very real assets using the notional value of its own stocks, which were wildly overvalued.
Time Warner went along with the deal, apparently out of fear that it would miss out on the emerging new-media world. In fact AOL was itself struggling to keep up with the changes. Its 'walled garden' approach, which contrived to keep subscribers within its service area and off the wider internet, could not survive as both the web and its users became more sophisticated.
A new company, AOL-Time Warner, was formed from the deal and just a year later it reported a $99b loss, one of the largest ever, after writing off 'goodwill' because of a fall in value of the AOL division.
Internet stock prices are now more realistic (or most of them are) but true values remain hard to judge. The web-access market is very volatile at the moment, with all the big players offering or preparing deals bundling mobile and fixed telephony, TV and video downloads, and broadband. The fact that 625,000 people applied for Talk Talk in the space of a few weeks shows how fickle subscribers are.
Carphone Warehouse will be hoping history does not repeat itself.
Use IE within Firefox
Our New Media manager Chris Wiles is very enthusiastic about a little utility he's found called IE Tab 1.1.1.4 that allows you to open Microsoft Internet Explorer within a Firefox tab. This allows you to use Internet Explorer without leaving Firefox, and take advantage of the latter's security measures. And it's free. For Chris's review and a download link see here.
Smartphone suggests it's a little chilly
During tests of Palm's new Treo 750v, it told to me its battery was cold, announcing “rub my battery, I need warming up!”. I was astonished by the message, but did notice my toes were feeling a little numb. (OK, we made the “rub my battery” bit up.)
Most lithium-ion batteries can operate down to -20°C so either the phone is slightly faulty or the office's air condition hasn't been changed since the UK's sweltering summer.
We just posted a review of the phone, which we really liked for its robustness and wide array of features.
Back to the future with HP
I got two distinct stabs of deja vu talking to Phil McKinnney, chief technology officer of HP's personal systems division, at the launch of some new handheld products today. Firstly, he believes the future lies in simple single-function devices, repeating views I wrote about some ten years ago in a piece about a company called Diba, which was designing futuristic appliances based on the premise.
It's a nice idea, though I don't buy into it. My feeling is that the general-purpose tablet will dominate computing in the fairly near future, which will affect the market for other portable devices. McKinney agrees that it is an old debate, and his stance seems to be taken as much to provoke debate as to predict.
The second deja vu stemmed from the fact that he was speaking about subjects I have written about recently. He believes the thin client, drawing all or most of its resources from the network, will come to dominate tablet computing, as opposed to the fat client model of Microsoft's Origami. I'm an agnostic on that one, as you can read in the coming edition of PCW - or here online when the article gets posted.
He also spoke about how his concept of a personal wireless hub will interact with the digital home, something I've just written at length about for our sister magazine Computeractive. McKinney showed a concept model of the hub in the form of a wristwatch (top left), but he thought was not a very likely format for the device.
His hub is a very interesting concept but surely we already have it, in embryo, in the mobile phone. My hunch is that everyone will eventually have to have a tablet, and that this will act as a communications hub. McKinney's concept is surely more likely to succeed as a module that you stick into your tablet when you are using it, but can be pulled out and used as a mobile phone when you are travelling light.
He showed some striking models on concept folding and scrolling screens for the home, and the coffee table pictured left. The idea is that you sling your tablet in the dip in the middle of the tablet to charge it; the tablet also links automatically with the table which acts as a screen, so that you can keep using it.
Good reasons to turn your PC off
The front page of the metro today goes with the story "Threat to your PC as you sleep". It reveals computers which are left on all night and connected to broadband risk being attacked more than 50 times a night. The threats include port scans, attacks from the Slammer worm and various bits of Malware trying to get through.
The report doesn't surprise me and it is only a real menace to users without appropriate antivirus and firewall installed. However should a new security hole arise and a virus exploit it (à la Blaster which exploited a vulnerability in Windows 2000 and Windows XP TCP stack that had just been patched) then it really would be better for everyone to have their PCs turned off.
This is yet another reason for turning off a pc at night. Environmental reasons and energy costs (which can easily add £48 per computer over the course of a year based on an idle PC consuming 110 Watts turned on for 10 hours each night; 12p/kWh x 110 Watts x 10 hours x 365 days) conclude the argument to shut down.
Stereo sound over Bluetooth has teething problems
We've been testing Saitek's new iFreedom speakers, which come equipped with Bluetooth to connect your mp3 player wirelessly. It’s supposed to be A2DP compatible and wirelessly hook up with any A2DP mobile phone or laptop, however the iFreedom speakers wouldn't connect to the soon-to-be-reviewed A2DP-enabled Treo 750v.
A2DP describes how to transfer stereo sound over Bluetooth. It’s useful because some headsets based on A2DP can simultaneously connect to a mobile phone and A2DP audio device. They can then automatically pause music playback when a call comes in.
The Bluetooth.org website lists all products which have undergone compatibility tests. Saitek's product isn't listed, suggesting it's not compatible.
I expected Bluetooth to be a tightly regulated standard, however it says: "Neither the trademark nor Bluetooth qualification guarantee that a product fully complies with the Bluetooth specification or is interoperable with other manufacturers Bluetooth enabled products. That remains the responsibility of the product manufacturer."
Being Bluetooth or A2DP compatible doesn't guarantee anything. Deeper reading revealed that A2DP should be a well defined standard with a central codec supported as mandatory. Yet different manufacturers can add propriety codecs which complicates compatibility.
I’d recommend readers either try before they buy an A2DP device, ask, or make sure the manufacture has listed your device. Manufacturers may often state just one or two phones that their headset is compatible with and you can't assume further compatibility.
How to ruin a good film with technology
Sitting down to watch a film at the weekend should be a relaxing experience, yet what I went through yesterday was anything but.
First I tried streaming a film using the Philips SLM5500. As mentioned in the review, this is one of the more user friendly media streamers, but sadly it didn't like the Xvid file I was trying to feed it. Pinnacle's Showcenter 200 was next up.
Things started to look up when it recognised the file and started playing, but my spirits were soon dampened when the video started stuttering just two minutes into the film.
It wasn't long before I identified my wireless network as the cause. With other nearby wireless networks fighting for airspace, none of the three 2.4GHz channels were vacant. The result was severely restricted bandwidth; a problem that will only get worse as more people buy wireless routers kit with extended range.
I considered unravelling an extra long Ethernet cable to make a direct link between the Showcenter and Iomega Storcenter NAS drive, but wires in the lounge never goes down too well with the other half.
In desperation, I switched to Sky+ and found a movie worth watching. I should have learnt my lesson and just sat down to watch the movie, but no, I had to try and make full use of the Dolby Digital broadcast with my 5.1 speakers.
As a result, I spent most of the film trying to find the sweet spot by constantly repositioning the satellite speakers. When I finally had the perfect set up, I spent the rest of the time trying to work out a) whether the sounds were coming from the right direction, and b) whether it actually made a difference to my enjoyment of the film; the latter kind of answers itself.
I'm just thankful I haven't succumbed to Sky HD, otherwise I'd have been constantly rushing up to the screen and trying to find out just how much extra detail I could detect.
Next weekend I plan to read a book.
Testing Wimax broadband links in Shakespeare's countryside
The prospect of being able take your laptop anywhere in a UK city and have access to a DSL-class wireless broadband link has become real with the announcement by Pipex Wireless that it is to roll out Wimax services. Intel, which launched the project with service-provider Pipex, plans to implement Wimax in Centrino notebooks as standard by 2008. It will also, incidentally, support 3G's high-speed packet download access (HSPDA).
But what speeds are we likely to get with Wimax? Pipex Wireless and Airspan, which provides its Intel-chipped equipment, took journalists to a farm down the road from Anne Hathaway's cottage outside Stratford-upon-Avon yesterday to allow us to find out.
Onshare launches free file sharing service
UK software developer Zgroup has just launched the public version of Onshare, a free secure peer-to-peer file sharing service. The service consists of a client application on the PC and a secure web service that enables Onshare users to share any type of files over a VPN-like direct connection. Users can choose who they want to share files with via a 'friends' list. Friends get read-only access to files you choose to share with them.
All traffic uses 2048bit encryption and uses a proprietary technique to 'hide' transfers in normal HTTP packets. This means the standard HTTP port 80 can be used to avoid the need to configure firewalls, and it also gets around common methods used by ISPs to control or block P2P traffic. At the moment there's no charge, but Onshare says that a charging system will eventually be put in place, although there will always be a free version. According to a greyed-out advert in the software, unlimited transfers will cost £2 per month.
Secure live chat between friends is also included, and Onshare integrates into Windows' context menus for easy sharing of any files, folders or drives. We'll do a full review when we've played around with it for a while, but so far all we can say is that it's certainly easy to install and use.
Hands up who actually wants TV on a mobile?
After playing around with the new Lobster 700TV (Virgin Mobile’s new phone with Mobile TV) for a few days, we’re still not convinced people actually want to watch TV via their mobile.
We certainly prefer Virgin Mobile’s method of using the DAB network to distribute content as opposed to the Mobile TV service on Vodafone that sends content over the 3G phone network and eats up your data allowance.
But squinting at highly compressed video on a ridiculously small screen and coping with frequent service interruptions is incredibly frustrating.
If you are in a high reception area and stand in one place the quality is passable, but get on a train and you’ll soon be presented with pretty shocking picture and audio quality.
When you’re listening to the radio you can put up with occasional interference, but it’s a different matter when you’re watching TV.
The gadget junkie will love it, but even if the quality of the picture increases we still don’t see TV on mobiles really taking off. Indeed, we get the feeling mobile TV is being rammed down our throats by profit-hungry network operators as opposed to actual market demand.
We’ll be posting our full review of the Virgin Mobile Lobster later today.
ISP PlusNet has been getting me down lately
After months of severe traffic shaping (where certain data streams are slowed by the ISP), crippling my P2P programs such as BitTorrent, online gaming and FTP, I was frustrated. Traffic shaping is supposed to free up the network for everyone, but despite being synced at 8mbit/s, I have never downloaded anything above 2mbit/s.
Back in July I read that PlusNet had
deleted 700GB of customer emails.
Then it leaked 20,000 customers' personal data and deleted CGI data crippling customer's websites.
I was getting nervous. Then one morning I got up early to do some work and
found my broadband was down. It turns out a large proportion of its customers
had lost all internet connectivity,
webmail and telephone support for four hours. Morning wasted.
PlusNet blamed a sub-contracted 'Telehouse'
in London. That
didn't wash with me though; none of the other big ISPs went down.
- Read the terms and conditions, because ISPs like to redefine long standing words like 'free'.
- Don't be afraid to try a cheaper broadband service because it really can't get any worse than this.
- If you rely on broadband for work, consider the premium ISPs, even if they cost a bit more.
First impressions: Wifi Skype phones
We've had two wifi Skype phones arrive in the office that have created differing first impressions.
Sent in for review by SMC (below) and Netgear (left), they are the first two wifi Skype phones we've seen. Until now, Skype users have restricted to Dect-based phones that require the PC to be on.
While these are wifi phones, they can't be used with wireless hotspots, because they require you pay online and neither handset has a browser. SMC has done a deal with The Cloud to use its wifi hotspots, and that's the only way these phones will be truly mobile at the moment.
They are both based around the same software, with individual tweaks. And although they look pretty similar, so far I think usability is much better with the slightly smaller Netgear handset.
Early tests suggest the acceptable call clarity is similar in both, but I can see price is going to be a barrier, with the SMC being the cheaper by £20 at £150.
But that feels steep, particularly when you think that you can’t IM using them, nor do they support video calls and with the exception of the £6.99 a month Cloud deal, you can’t use them at public paid-for hotspot. Nor could you use one in 
a hotel room, because again, access requires a browser.
They do support functions such as SkypeIn, SkypeOut and voicemail though.
Both products seem to work fine, but I’m struggling to see why at the moment you’d buy one with the sort of restrictions highlighted above. SMC believe the phone will mainly interest business people that make regular international calls to other Skype users, but it will be of limited use to any that travel regularly because of the hotspot restrictions.
There'll be a full review of both once testing has been completed.
£399 terabyte drive
A new Pro Edition 2 version of Western Digital's My Book external-drive system offers a terabyte of storage for £399 inc Vat. It is set by default for Raid 0 storage, striping data across two internal disks for maximum performace. But there is a Raid 1 option where datya is mirrored on each disk for safety.
The device offers a choice Firewire 800/ 400 and USB 2.0 links.
New wireless links start to run through the alphabet
Curious story yesterday about Wi-bree, a new short-range wireless link being promoted by Nokia. It's designed for tasks requiring bursts of activity over a very short range and it has a very low idle power, so that it can run for a very long time off tiny batteries (and, presumably, solar panels that are increasingly being used to power dispersed sensors and other gizmos). This sounds remarkably like the spec for Zig-bee, which is already well-established.
A spokesman for the Zigbee Alliance said Wi-bree seemed to be limited to point-to-point personal networking applications, whereas ZigBee has typically been used in mesh networks of sensors. He went on: "With very little technical detail to go on we can only surmise that this is simply a proprietary solution masked as some kind of industry-driven push. They are apparently using the Bluetooth radio frequencies in new ways for mobile phones to drive Nokia sales."
There is no reason why Nokia should not design its own technology to suit its specific needs (though sensor communication is one task cited as suitable for Wi-Bree). Wi-Bree does have a faster data rate than Zigbee - a rated 1Mbit/sec as opposed to 250Kbits/sec - though this may not be significant for the kind of work both are designed for. But why the similarity in names? Is someone making a point? Or are they going to run through the alphabet with new links: ZigBee, Wi-bree, X-bee...
Review: RIM's polished Blackberry Pearl
Although previously aimed directly at the corporate market, RIM has decided to give its latest Blackberry a distinctly consumer look and feel.
The fact it's called the Pearl and not solely the 8100 indicates RIM's desire to push it's mobile towards those more familiar with the funky sounding Motorola Razr and LG Chocolate phones.
As you'll find out by reading the full review, we're extremely impressed with it and it's one of the very few products to review 5 out 5 across the board.
Tesco eschews open standard for rival to Microsoft Office
Office suites tend to get bundled with PCs these days, so it is hard to see what kind of market there will be for one sold off the shelf at Tesco's, even if it does cost only twenty quid. But Graham O'Reilly, of the sales team at Formjet, which has developed the software, is confident that the Tesco Office suite will find a market.
"Microsoft Office is one of the biggest retail software products in the world. People buy it off the shelf, so there is not reason whyt they should not buy another suite," he said.
He agreed that many people felt they had to buy Microsoft's product because it is a de fact standard. The Tesco product will open and close Word and Excel documents, but no non-Microsoft product is going to do this with 100 percent reliability, if only because it would have to match the Microsoft product's feature set down to the last sub-sub-menu item. And of course one reason people buy rival products is because they believe Microsoft forces them to pay for features they don't want.
But the Formjet suite will be largely compatible, O'Reilly said. "Is everybody going to pay £300 or more for the Microsoft product when they can get something that does the same thing for a fraction of the price?"
O'Reilly stresses that the suite is not the same as the Ability Office suite, which Formjet also developed. "But obviously we will draw on work we have already done."
Two security packages, including an anti-virus product, have a more obvious market. O'Reilly was cagey about how these offering relate to Panda security products, which Formjet distributes in the UK. But as anti-virus expertise does not come easy, there is clearly some kind of tie-up.
The Tesco move does come at a tricky time for Microsoft Office, because a new version with entirely different file formats is to be launched next year. The formats are without doubt better but they do mean office across the world will face working with both the old with the new ones, which will cause hassles however much Microsoft tries to avoid them.
At the same time there are pressures, particularly from governments, for an open file format to facilitate document exchange between disparate systems. One way to increase the potential market for a rival Office suite would therefore be to use the Open Document Format which has already been accepted as an ISO standard.
The Tesco software does not use it, O'Reilly said. But he promised that the Tesco suite would remain compatible with any changes Microsoft makes to its formats.
Screaming mobiles to stop phone theft
As if having to put up with loud mouths on the train having phone conversations isn't bad enough (why is it people with booming voices always have their phone set so you can hear both sides of the conversation), now we have screaming phones.
It's the latest attempt to discourage thieves from stealing mobile phones - a growing crime problem in the UK. The idea from Remote XT sounds good - once known to have been pinched, a mobile will scream and the only way to stop it is to turn the phone off. It also blocks the Sim, ensuring thieves can't run up a huge bill in your name, and wipes the phone's data.
The downside is it costs £9.99 a month, more than insuring your mobile phone insurance. A one off fee would be far more attractive - or a payment per use. But at almost £120 a year, it's going to be easy for users to ignore the service, and even businesses may balk once they add up the costs.
