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Iomega refreshes network storage boxes
Iomega has launched a new generation of its StorCenter network-attached storage (NAS) devices. The Pro NAS 250d Servers, in four capacities ranging from 500Gbyte to 1.5TBbyte, use Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 operating system and hot-swappable Sat all drives. US prices range from £1999 (£1020) to $3999 (£2050.
Privacy argument needs balance
I believe in the right to privacy. Anyone who has read 1984 will understand that with full disclosure, someone in government will sooner or later become corrupt.
But after being called at 2am, several times, when you're trying to get some sleep, by an immature idiot who's dialling random numbers, it's difficult to see the privacy argument.
Can anyone suggest a valid reason for using BT's 141 to hide your number? I cannot. BT retains call records. Government agencies have access to call records, so you don't have any privacy from those at the top anyway.
If you want privacy, the onus should be on the caller not making the call in the first place.
There isn't a parallel between 141 and using an anonymous proxy online (thus hiding which websites you visit/emails you send) because the Government can't always monitor proxy servers. Further more proxies are excellent at helping journalists and bloggers residing under repressive regimes.
Said dialler-under-the-influence used 141 so I couldn't get back at him. He should take a leaf out of my book and call a friend or family member and tell them you love them when you've had too many.
Don't call random numbers asking if the receiver likes various genitals.
Media-processor goes dual core
This is a block diagram of 3DLabs Semiconductor's new media processor, launched today, which has two ARM9265EJ cores and an array of 24 media-processing elements which unusually can do both floating point and integer operations.
Technical director Nick Murphy said a single ARM11 core would have been as powerful for processing but less power efficient that the two that were used. They have the added benefit that one core can deal with random events interupts while the other maintains processing without disruption.
Projected applications include portable media players, set-top boxes, video cameras, video-conference terminals and smart surveillance cameras.
3DLabs Semiconductors is offering a software development kit for rapid development and porting of applications, and an array development kit for buys who want to program the array directly. There is also a hardware development platform.
Other performance figures: high-definition H.264 720p decode at 25 frames per sec; H.264 D1 encode at 30 fps; 4.8 GFLOPS; 200M pixels/sec;8M vertices/sec; 1.6 GBytes/sec memory bandwidth; integer, IEEE 32-bit and 16-bit floating-point processing
Virtual reality collides with the iPod
You can now watch the videos on your iPod through virtual reality glasses.
Called the Mikimoto Beans i-Theater, the unit claims to offer the wearer the experience of a 50" plasma screen.
The glasses weigh 78g, have dual qVGA (320x240) TFT screens, integrated stereo headphones and will run for six hours.
Since 5G iPods only offer up to 640x480 pixel playback and a qVGA screen has 1/27th the resolution of a standard 50 inch plasma screen, the size/quality claims are a little dubious.
The goggles appear to have a lower resolution than similarly priced alternatives that don't have any iPod branding. RCA plugs (phono connectors) mean you can connect other devices like portable DVD players.
I will personally laugh my chops off the day I see someone wearing these glasses on the tube. The neon blue lights flashing out the front of the unit will be great for Xmen/Geordie wannabes.
They cost $329.00 (around £199 inc. VAT) and are available now.
Is Skype all hype?
'Only' four percent of online users use Skype according to a new Jupiter Research report. Ofcom reports that at the end of March there were 11.1 million broadband links in Britain, so it is a fair guess that there are around 12 million now. That makes nigh-on half a million UK Skype users, even assuming just one to a broadband connection. Not a small number - and as Jupiter points out it is likely to rise with the new generation of Skype friendly phones.
The study shows that twice as many people use other Voice-over-IP services, which does not at first sight look so good for Skype. Its drawback is that it uses proprietary protocols and in theory systems using the global SIP standard should be more popular and convenient.
In fact SIP has been slow to take off because systems using it have been harder to use, according to Ian Fogg, lead author of the report and senior analyst at Jupiter. Rivals to Skype are a disparate bunch, ranging from multiuser games that bundle VoIP, Instant Messenger systems like Microsoft Live and AIM, and offerings from individual service providers. The impressive thing about Skype is its ease of use and the fact that it is growing so fast.
Different IM systems are just beginning to interoperate but superficially the VoIP landscape still looks similar to that of email in pre-web days, when it was extremely difficult to communicate with anyone outside the system you were subscribed to. However, Fogg points out that almost all VoIP systems have gateways to the old steam telephone system that you can use as a fall-back, even if you have to pay for it.
Users perceive VoIP as a way of getting free phone calls. The reality, says Fogg, is that it is generating new business models that allow people to phone each other much more for less money. People now have a choice of many ways to contact each other and VoIP adds features such as being able to address a person instead of a particular location or device. So if you ring your wife or husband you can get through whether they are home or not.
Microsoft launches HD-DVD drive into UK
Microsoft brings out its HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 this Friday, and we've got one in for test.
Our review is already online - we were pretty impressed overall with it - but perhaps most remarkable is its price. It only costs £130, and for that you get an HD copy of King Kong and a remote control as well. That makes it a hell of a lot cheaper than buying an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player if you already own the console.
Even if you don't around £400 will buy you the Xbox 360 and the HD-DVD drive - still cheaper than the players, and you get to play games too.
3D-map your street at 70kph
The module fitted to this car is said to be able to create a 3D model of its surroundings to millimetre accuracy on and off-road at speeds of up to 70Km an hour.
The Streetmapper 2 system, designed to fit any 4x4, can provide detailed maps of streets, including overhead fittings, for use by the likes of planners, safety inspectors and asset mappers.
It combines a laser system from Nottingham-based 3D Laser Mapping and positioning technology from the German firm IGI.
A series of lasers measures the position of features relative to the vehicle and the data is processed by an onboard computer at a rate of up to 40,000 points per second.
3D Laser Mapping offers a number of products that include terrestrial and airborne laser scanning solutions.
BT goes Total Recall
We've had a BT Videophone 1000 in to test for two months now.
In my opinion it's about 10 years too late. It's the kind of thing everyone thought they'd be using in the 80s (and pretended to use them in 1990 film Total Recall).
It's essentially a £99.99 webcam with a Sim card reader and 3.5" LCD screen. You can then chat over the internet with a friend, and see them face-to-face.
BT claims it provides high-definition sound however I suspect it will be of similar quality to Skype and MSN messenger video/phone calls.
You can only use the phone with BT's VoIP service, Broadband Talk, which costs £7.99 a month (on top of your broadband subscription). Ideally a software update would let this phone be used with third party VoIP providers like Skype so you don't have to pay the high Broadband Talk price.
We want to review it but we don't have a Broadband Talk account and BT is taking ages to set one up; this is obviously its Achilles heel - could there be problems ahead?
Beware of emails bearing offers of free smut
So-called social engineering is more dangerous than clever hacking, according to security experts. They mean those psychological tricks virus writers use to 'market' their wares - more or less the same techniques that legitimate advertisers use, in fact. The classic instance was the 'Love Bug' virus, which caught millions of people out across the globe with the subject line: "I love you."
It proved almost irresistable, and the Love Bug was one of the fastest-spreading ever. (Okay, I got caught out too, though I thought the email was a new line from some PR company. Honest.)
The promise of free porn is another common ploy, and it is happening again , according to Sophos. Emails with a variety of subject lines containing the words 'free' and 'porn' are circulating. If you click the proffered link you catch the Pasyme-DL Trojan virus, and serve you right for going to places your mother always warned you against.
Sophos senior security consultant Carole Theriault says emails with "racy subject lines still seem hard to resist for some users" despite numerous warnings. "This malware campaign leads victims down a rathole they might feel embarrassed to be found in."
Rewritable printer video and impressions
In the video above you're seeing the re-writable printer taking a sheet with text on it being put in the back of the unit (the eraser). Then several seconds pass where the printer warms up/has difficulties and then the very same page is spat out the front with an entirely different text.
I took a look at Toshiba's latest conquest to profit from our green conscience. As you can read from our news story, it's launching the World's first re-writable printer.
Toshiba says if we use its printer we'll save a little bit of the rain forest. This may be true if you are exceptionally careful when handling the paper, but would you trust yourself to never fold, damage or severely dirty a single bit of plastic in your office?
The printer hopes to compete with industrial laser printers but the head of Toshiba's European print division, Michael Keane, admitted "There are a few drawbacks to this material". This includes: Text is never truly black; the text is slightly fuzzy because the printer only has a 300dpi resolution and you can't expose the paper to UV or high temperatures.
The printer is composed of two distinct parts. At the rear end an 800W heater brings the paper above 180 ºC and erases anything previously printed on the sheet.
The front end has the print head. It contains 300 print dots per square inch, which heat to 400 ºC to induce a chemical reaction which reveals a shade of gray. The print head is the only thing that should need replacing and Toshiba guarantees it for 50Km or around 168,000 sheets.
It is a fine technical achievement but at the end of the day the printer is slow, huge, hideous and noisy.
You will use less paper (it costs £5 a sheet) but I'm willing to bet the carbon emissions you'll be responsible for during the construction of this monstrous printer will completely wash away any other environmental gains the printer has to offer.
HP Media Vault first look
I took a quick look at HP's new Media Vault today. It is a hard disk you connect to your router so that different computers can access its data from around the house.
The device has a removable drive bay so you can add another SATA hard disk. Three USB ports allow you to connect external hard drives for even more connectivity. With multiple drives connected it can implement RAID for extra back-up peace of mind.
For people who want more than just network attached storage (NAS), the device runs Linux and can act as a web server, print server (by connecting to three USB printers) and media streamer to an Xbox, for example.
The box is much bigger than most NAS devices and I'm pretty sure you could cram four disks into the space it fits two. The unit will probably be turned on 24/7 and it consumes 24W in standard mode (and 18W in a user-selectable low power mode). For the price conscious this adds £25 to your yearly energy bill.
It unit comes in two varieties, a £249 300GB and £349 500GB version, which I think is a lot to pay. Most people will just use it as basic network storage, or even as an external hard disk, and I reckon you could build a basic NAS by using an external enclosure for less than £150.
The office thinks a comparison between a home-brew NAS and HP's own is worth a look, because it all boils down to how easy they are to use.
DivX takes on YouTube
I met with DivX representatives recently to discuss its new video-uploading website, www.stage6.com. DivX's European managing director Mark Lawson told me: "We hope to grow as big as YouTube."
Stage6 focuses on providing much higher quality video than YouTube by using its own mpeg4 compression. In comparison, YouTube uses a low bit-rate Flash player.
Unlike YouTube, Stage6 lets you download and store every video to your computer. Lawson also stated Stage6 will allow anyone to charge for their own content. By doing this DivX hopes for a lot of interest from independent studios.
The site has been around for eight weeks now and still has a lot of work to do. It lacks the variety YouTube has, especially anything that possibly infringes copyright. In response to this Lawson said: "we don't monitor any of the free content". Instead inappropriate content is removed when a certain number of users say so.
Lawson pities the movie industry and claimed it was "too late" on digital distribution. He says they have been technologically ready for two years and by not licensing or selling moves online they have made the same mistake as the music industry did, resulting in widespread internet piracy.
My initial impressions of the service are favourable. Quality is good and the website has a clean feel about it. The file sizes are typically 10mb per minute of footage, which is vastly higher than YouTube's clips. You must have DivX installed on your system or download the 2.5MB DivX web player. In my opinion this is its Achilles heel and means it won't ever gain the widespread appeal of YouTube.
Comparisons are easy to draw. A dancing video on stage6 looks much better than the one on YouTube, but takes much longer to download.
Skype and Fon join SMC in wifi bundle
I reviewed two Skype wifi phones recently – from SMC and Netgear - and felt both were well overpriced for the range of services they offered.
This week I got hold of Belkin’s Skype wifi phone. It’s made by the same manufacturer as the SMC handset, comes with the same wireless hotspot deal yet costs a third less. At £100, the handset is beginning to head towards being better value for money.
I’ve given it only a quick initial test so far, and found quality and ease of use pretty similar to the SMC alterative, and a full review will be online in a few days time.
In my write up of the SMC phone I criticised the cost, and mentioned that Belkin would soon have a rival handset for £50 less. The day the Belkin landed on my desk, SMC announced it had done a deal with Fon and Skype. The bundle gets you the SMC phone, a Fon router, 500 SkypeOut minutes and free Skype voicemail for a year for a more reasonable £99.
Fon is easiest described as a Peer to Peer style wireless hotspot operator. It is backed by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who of course co-developed Skype, so the Skype, SMC, Fon bundle is clearly more than a coincidence. It works by having people in homes or offices agree to open up their wireless networks to other Foneros, which other subscribers can use.
It has its support but I can’t see too many people being attracted by the SMC/Fon package, because among those that are savvy enough to secure their wireless network many will be nervous about opening it up to strangers (it comes with a secure router so protects PCs on your network) and for those that don’t secure their networks, I think the Fon concept is beyond most of them.
Update:
The SMC phone we reviewed, which comes with a £6.99 a month deal with hotspot provider the Cloud, has now also been cut to £99 from its original £150.
Philips webcam with hacking utility
We have a Philips SPC715NC webcam in for test at the moment, and although impressed with the device itself, have not been by the shoddy software it comes with.
While installing the software, my laptop flashed up a security alert, telling me that the Hacktool utility was being loaded. We checked with Symantec, which told us that although nothing to worry about in this case, it was a utility often used by hackers to hide windows.
I phoned Philips PR and asked why this utility was coming up, pointing out it would worry a lot of customers. Some three weeks and a reminder call later and I still have no answer as to why it didn’t spot this problem or what is being done about it.
The actual webcam itself I have no problem with. Image quality is good and it is as easy to use as you would expect of a webcam these days. But it has created a poor impression of what is an otherwise good product.
Someone at Philips should have loaded the software on several machines – as we did after spotting the problem – to make sure set up was smooth.
3 mobile service shows the way of the future
3 this week announced its expanded mobile internet package, including a range of services that let you not only access the internet or make Skype calls, but also control your home TV and PC.
It’s an impressive set of services, although as a customer you’ll have to pay a monthly fee. So far 3G operators haven’t come up with that illusive killer application for their networks, so considering the money that was invested returns are quite poor.
I like the look of this package from 3. It has done a deal with Sling Media so that Slingbox owners can control their home TVs – it reopens the debate of whether people want to watch telly on a mobile screen. To date I’ve never been convinced, but suddenly I think the argument has become more compelling.
A deal with Orb means you’ll be able to push photos from your PC to your phone. Taken a step further, I can see people getting a service like GoToMyPC, and paired with a handset that is PDA-like (such as the O2 XDA or Palm Treo), it’s an attractive offering for business people. And incidentally, then you’d have a screen size more attractive for watching TV.
TV over data streams is not that new, and we’re also seeing phones with an additional antenna so that you can watch TV independent of your mobile service (cutting out their data charge). I can see this coming soon in combination with the sort of service 3 announced yesterday.
Give people the choice of for instance controlling their home TV, including their pre-recorded programmes or DVDs using a Slingbox, or to just watch whatever is being broadcast at that moment over say Freeview.
We’re heading that way with phone calls after all. Hence the reason Skype is part of this package. Although you’ll pay indirectly through your monthly subscription, 3 has accepted that by allowing people to save money on calls via Skype it will reap the benefits of pulling in cash through another service.
3 puts on massive launch for X-Series
As you can read from our news story, the X-Series launch was really drummed up today. I wasn't expecting that much effort, but Routers, the BBC and other big news organisations turned up alongside the tech-media obviously expecting something huge.
Although the service bundle looks attractive, there really isn't anything new. Sling Media has already a partnership with Symbian and Skype has been on Windows smart phones for a while now. Google and Yahoo are just getting in on the act by doing what they already do.
3 managed to pull together big-wig rivals from Sony-Ericsson and Nokia, Google and Yahoo onto one stage. Humourously the vice president of Nokia claimed its phone was best immediately followed by the president of Sony-Ericsson who claimed they made the best mobile phones.
Head of wireless partnerships at Google David Thevenon said Google intended "to democratise the World's information". I chased after him to ask how this fitted in with Google censoring information in China but he scuttled off straight away.
Plusnet takes a dive
My rants of PlusNet's poor service will echo around these walls until I get booted out.
Imagine my satisfaction then when separate reports from ADSLGuide and uSwitch yesterday said what I've said all along. The surveys slammed PlusNet for its 'customer satisfaction' dropping 14 and 16 per cent respectively compared with a year ago.
The websites now put it in the doldrums with BT and AOL and fast approaching Tiscali levels of service. PlusNet charged me £84.60 this month when I decided to pack my bags and, instead of moving to a free broadband service (which will make you sad), I moved to a royally good service provider (usually ranked the best on ADSLGuide).
Most of my problems were instantly solved and I now have much better download speeds.
Video review: Ion USB Turntable
Transferring vinyl to your PC can be a real drag, as it means connecting your hi-fi to your computer, and they may live in different rooms.
Ion has come up with the USB Turntable, which plugs directly into you computer and along with the free software, digitises your old classics.
You can read a full review on Computeractive.
LG's monitors Eclipsed by the Ring and jam
I’m all for inventive, creative and evocative product names, but sometimes you have to wonder what companies were thinking.
LG’s latest monitor names caused sniggers here as we read about its new Fantasy Series. In itself this is already creating a dodgy picture, but to then find out that the three monitors in the Fantasy Series include the Ring and I’m beginning to think we’re heading in an altogether different direction.
And it gets worse, because one of the features of the Fantasy’s £260 Ring that LG highlights is its “soft red glow”. Enough said on that one….
The other 4ms response time monitors are the Eclipse and the Jar. Now, the Ring paints a certain picture about its use and owner. In LG speak it’s: “Created for people who believe that the exterior styling should match the advanced features within….”
And as for the Eclipse, you’d be thinking ethereal and mysterious. But the Jar?
That makes me think of jam.
CES Blog returns
Consumer electronics show CES is just around the corner, and once again, we're joining with colleagues on other titles to produce the CES Blog.
Last time round, in January, it was a big success and this year as well as pre-show news already being posted, we'll be covering CES in-depth again. We'll jetting off to Vegas again and along with all the news, photos and views from CES, plus you'll find video from the event here on the Test Bed as well as on the CES Blog.
Given the size of CES, we'll be joining forces across the extended family to create the biggest and most up to date show news you could ever wish for. Sister title Active Home will also be at the show, and as well as posting to its Interactive Home blog, will also contribute to the CES Blog.
The Silicon Valley Sleuth will be in town to spy on the press room shenanigans and back room dealings. The Gizmodo boys will be drooling over the gadgets while our very own Security Watchdog will be keeping a cursory eye over proceedings.
Hitting Las Vegas in January is a harsh way to start the year, but we'll suffer it to bring you the best of CES.
First impressions with the Toughbook 5 series
Having conquered the military market Panasonic is now aiming for business users wanting tougher notebooks.
There are a few different models, but the laptop that really caught my eye was the CF-W5. It only weighs 1.37Kg (including battery and wireless card) but is a super tough laptop.
I observed it withstanding water being poured over its keyboard continuously for a minute without the laptop flinching. It achieves this water resistance by being a well sealed unit and it has a hole through the middle of the keyboard, allowing much of the water to drip straight through it.
It then took the full weight of a 95Kg man standing on the top of the closed unit – would anyone else out there trust their laptop not to crack under that kind of mass?!
Panasonic claims 40 per cent of all laptop damage happens because they were dropped when being carried. In response to itself, it says the 5 series will remain operational even after several 30cm drops onto a hard surface. In many instances the laptop will survive 76cm drops, and the hard disk should always survive at this drop.
It has fantastic looks and a great little mouse pad with a scroll feature reminiscent of the iPod's.
I've seen a dozen Toughbooks and back light bleeding is the biggest problem on all of them. On further investigation this is because Panasonic takes an LCD panel from the manufacturer and fits its own, much brighter, backlight. Its backlights aren't a perfect match so the screen looks very uneven.
I wasn't allowed to test drop any of the laptops to verify their claims but we will be getting retail models in for review in the next two weeks.
Remember that thing called a defragger…
It seems a lifetime ago that I used to worry about defragging my computer.
Back in the days of Windows 95 and 98 I used to defrag my computer religiously, desperately trying to speed it up.
The climate of fear means we've been pushed to worry about spyware and having our identities stolen instead. Today computers are plenty fast and I literally haven't thought of defragging my hard disk in years.
I had a chat with the CEO of Raxco Software, Robert Nolan, this morning who set me straight. Raxco sells a Windows Disk Defragmenter called PerfectDisk. Nolan claims an average computer 'will boot 15-30 seconds faster' if it's been properly defragged.
The defragging software bundled with Windows is limited and PerfectDisk goes further by defragging your hibernate file, page file, NTFS metadata, directories and will finally consolidate all your free space into one lump. This should all result in decent performance gains for computers and we will be following up on the claims.
High street to become Bluetooth spammed
Small startup OnMyMobile is launching Bluetooth transmitters to beam adverts to your phone as you walk down the high street.
A cinema could send you film trailers as you walk by it, travel agents could send you holiday adverts and music stores could badger you to buy the latest Robbie Williams cd.
The technology is impressive with up to 24 users being hassled at the same time. The range is, as usual, 10m and you must accept the Bluetooth invitation before you see the content; however I don't much fancy having 10 invitations on my phone and telling it no all the time.
A more useful application of the push-technology might be in museums where information on artwork could pop up every time you approach a new piece.
Digital people to inform deaf train passengers
Train announcements will be accompanied by digital sign-language people in the future.
UEA's 'Applications of Virtual Human Signing' should end up on public displays in train stations across the country within a few years time.
Because deaf children leave school with an average reading age of nine signs and text announcements aren't enough to convey a train's been cancelled or delayed.
Perhaps synthesized signers (digital people) will join the automated voice at stations so rail authorities can deal with angry passengers even less.
On a personal note I also tested the Food Detective at St. John's Innovation Centre.
This £50 package involves an uncomfortable pin prick on the end of a finger and a mad wrestle as you squeeze out enough blood to fill a small vial. The test takes 30 minutes and reveals the 50 most important food intolerances that can lead to migraines, stomach and bowel problems.
This test should have a wide appeal because a lot of people live with food intolerances without ever realising it.
Apparently I'm slightly intolerant to wheat and chocolate, so no chocolate sandwiches for me anymore.
Glimpses of the future go on display
Dr Hermann Hauser, serial entrepreneur and technology heavyweight, introduced future technologies at St. John's Innovation Centre this week. He's had a hand in Bluetooth technology (specifically providing 60 per cent of the World's Bluetooth chips through CSR) and ARM processors, which power 80 per cent of all mobile phones.
Hauser hopes to build the World's first plastic electronics fab in the next couple of years. He claimed '70 per cent of the cost of newspapers are making and distributing them' and a paperless printer would be vastly more efficient. Because 1GB can store 250,000 A4 text pages: 'One paper can contain your entire library', he said.
Plastic paper is looking extremely impressive and he claims to have already made completely self-contained roll-up newspapers with half a million transistors. Yield is excellent at 98 per cent so the Minority Report vision of a plastic newspaper is almost upon us.
The multi-millionaire put on a highly convincing display however gaffes were rampant, especially when he continually referred to 'Mytube being sold to Google'.
Video review: Intel QX6700 quad core processor
Intel has brought out its Kentsfield quad core processor - the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 CPU.
It's the fastest processor through our lab to date, and here we demonstrate just how much quicker it is compared to the previous generation, the dual core Core 2 Extreme X6800.
You can also read a full review online, and compare its test results to other CPUs.
Click To Play
Finepix Z5fd continues Fujifilm’s high ISO campaign
The Finepix Z5fd, details of which were released today, will be the first camera in Fujifilm’s Z-series to incorporate the company’s Face Detection feature.
When activated, Face Detection scans the scene for human faces by looking for two eyes and a mouth. If it finds what it thinks is a face it will ensure the focus is locked on the subject, even if it’s at the edge of the frame, and adjust the exposure accordingly.
The Finepix Z5fd also comes with a 6megapixel CCD, 3x optical zoom and, as is typical with Fujifilm snappers these days, a high maximum sensitivity of ISO 1600.
When we met up with Fujifilm earlier this month, it bemoaned the industries infatuation with megapixels. We had to agree that a high megapixel has very little to do with actual photo quality, although it still seems to sell cameras.
But, in the next breath, Fujifilm was shouting about its compacts having the highest ISO ratings in the industry. With the increased image noise associated with high ISO settings, we’re left wondering whether it’s simply another marketing ploy.
Do you have a digicam capable of an ultra-high ISO? Do you ever use it? Leave your comments below...
Don't recharge your battery fully, says Panasonic
Perfectly timed to complement my earlier post, Panasonic today announced batteries shouldn't be fully recharged.
It's adding an ECO mode to new laptops that won't charge the battery beyond 80 per cent. Panasonic claims this results in batteries having a 150 per cent better capacity over their lifetime.
It believes consumers need to buy a replacement battery every 12-18 months if batteries use a standard fully-charge cycle. A battery should last three years without severe degradation with ECO mode.
Much of the electronics inside Li-ion batteries and chargers are designed to stop them from being overcharged because that's when they start exploring, however manufacturers have obviously been pushing batteries to their limits so they perform well in run-down tests.
Conspiracy theorists may also suggest manufacturers can make extra money by selling replacement batteries.
Panasonic strengthens Toughbook line-up
Panasonic displayed five new Toughbook laptops at Rockingham Speedway in the UK today.
It is replacing the ultra-macho CF-29 and CF-18 with the CF-30 and CF-19. It is also joins the corporate brawl with three new business laptops, the CF-W5, CF-T5 and CF-Y5. These don't conform to the same strict standards the uber-rugged versions do (i.e. no military use standards, mud or sand tolerance) but they do show impressive water resistance and Panasonic's high calibre drop-it-and-it-will-survive feature.
The corporate machines should appeal to important business people needing a little extra reliability. Panasonic claims its rugged laptops are so well built they only show a 3 per cent failure rate per year compared with 25 per cent on average for all laptops.
Its laptops are designed to be upgraded every fives years compared with the industry norm of three.
Tesco software reviews now live
As revealed in the Test Bed earlier this month, Tesco is taking on the office software market with a range of low-cost applications.
We've now posted reviews of both Tesco Complete Office and Tesco Photo Restyle.
As expected, both are strikingly similar to Ability Office's applications, which is hardly surprising since Ability Office is developed by Formjet, the same company supplying Tesco with its software.
Pricing is extremely low, with the Photo Restyle package only £9.97 - considering the features you get, it's pretty good value for money.
Watch out for a review of Tesco Internet Security in the coming days...
Prolonging laptop and mobile phone batteries
Battery fatigue is a depressing aspect of many mobile devices. What may have been a three hour laptop when you bought it a couple of years ago might now run out of juice after one hour. Frustrated consumers may upgrade, but this is folly when the rest of the machine can keep on going for years to come.
Lithium-ion batteries, the ones used in modern electronics, are temperature sensitive. If you were only to use your laptop in the fridge it could last up to 14 per cent longer per year.
It is a common myth (and one that I believed until recently) that a battery will live longest if you try and empty the charge completely from it when storing it or before charging it. In fact lithium-ion batteries last longest if they are about 40 per cent full.
If you keep two identical batteries for a year at 40 degrees Celsius, one at 40 per cent charge and the other at 100 per cent charge, the first battery will last 20 per cent longer than the second.
One further consideration to take into account is mechanical parts, like DVD drives, also fatigue over time making them less efficient and more energy consuming.
So even if you work in a fridge battery life may always get worse.
AMD makes bold Vista claim
AMD went demo crazy today by showing off identically looking Viiv and Live PCs and laptops.
The difference between AMD and Intel systems in The Sims 2 had the most startling effect on me. It utilizes Shader Model 2 as standard on AMD integrated graphics, whereas Intel's GMA 3000 graphics seem to be stuck in the dark ages, using only Shader Model 1.1. Water detail and reflections were missing from the Intel system and textures generally made the game look straight out of the 90s.
AMD has a very convincing lead when comparing integrated graphics side by side. A low end computer bought for Christmas will indeed have a better 'out of the box experience'.
As we said in our news story, the other half of AMD's presentation was that Live's integrated graphics will run Vista's Aero desktop acceptably, even with the demanding glass translucency effect.
This flies in the face of the widely accepted viewpoint that a discrete mid-range to high-end graphics card will be needed. When AMD wouldn't show us Vista in action on a Live system, claiming Intel's drivers are too poor for a fair comparison, our suspicions grew stronger.
We hope to test AMD's claims soon because if true, the impetus to be Vista ready really will fade.
BenQ's DC X720 digicam: style over substance?
We spent last weekend playing with our review sample of BenQ's DC X720 - apparently the world's smallest 7megapixel digital camera.
The slick chassis certainly looks the business, but photo quality is far more important that a snazzy design and, sadly for BenQ, the DC X720 struggles.
Image noise is rampant, even when shooting in well lit conditions, and it has trouble keeping focus at the edges.
Its slim design will appeal to those who want a camera for nights out, but the similarly styled 6megapixel Nikon Coolpix S6 is now available for around the same price (£179) and capable of taking far better photos - and we very much doubt anyone would miss the extra megapixel.
Full review coming soon...
ATI and Nvidia driver updates
Hot on the heels of Nvidia's WHQL release, ATI has made their WHQL-Vista drivers available
With the Vista release for businesses just 4 weeks away hardware companies are rushing to make sure their hardware will work. Not being Vista ready would slash sales of any company.
Getting the WHQL stamp of approval implies compatibility, stability and acceptable performance. The drivers are available on the recently-turned-AMD-green ATI website.
Separately, in an attempt to stay one up on ATI, Nvidia has released drivers that accelerate high-definition video performance.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray will be the benefactors of this release however with so few HDCP chips available and even fewer HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives out there we're not sure who would want the drivers.
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!
Don't delay - voting closes on 15th December 2006.
(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)
Microsoft bows to user demands on Vista licensing
In an 11th hour about-face, Microsoft has ceded to the demands of the enthusiast community and changed the restrictive terms of the Vista retail end-user license agreement (EULA). It will now allow people to transfer Vista between PCs or perform multiple major hardware upgrades without being in breach of the terms. According to the Windows Vista Team Blog, the new terms read:
You may uninstall the software and install it on another device for your use. You may not do so to share this license between devices.
This makes it possible to transfer a license between PCs, as long as it's uninstalled from the old PC, something that wasn't allowed under the original license terms. Reactivation will still be required if major hardware changes are made, as is currently the case with XP.
The full EULA can be read at the Microsoft Vista site.
via Slashdot
Overclocking quad cores
When the QX6700 arrived, I didn't think it be a very good overclocker because the more cores you add the more likely you are to get a duff one included.
In the olden days Intel or AMD would make a load of processors and test them afterwards. Cores with good characteristics were set to a higher frequency and cores that didn't quite cut the mustard ended up as lower clocked processors. When you have four cores that all run at the same frequency, this selection is a lot tighter and maximum speeds are limited by the best core out of four.
At first overclocking was a nightmare with the D975XDX2 'Bad Axe 2' motherboard. Although we hit 3GHz with it, scores actually got a tad worse. It was only after we found a Bios update that we really got somewhere. The new Bios actually limited some of the FSB settings but we started to see bigger scores with higher clocks.
When we got too ambitious the system became unstable and the Bad Axe 2 was really difficult to reset back to stock clocks. The competition does Bios resetting and fine-tuning settings much better but that doesn't matter to Intel since they focus on the business market in the likes of Dell and HP.
We found that without increasing the voltage to the CPU (thus inflicting minor blows to it) we could push the frequency to 3.2GHz reliably. It booted at 3.33GHz once but we forgot to run benchmarks… (the benchmarks probably wouldn't have run stably anyway, ahem). At 3.2GHz the quad core was 90 per cent quicker than an X6800 in 3DMark05 CPU tests.
In the coming weeks we believe we can push the processor to 3.66GHz, representing a 1GHz overclock, with just a few minor voltage tweaks so keep your eyes peeled.
Quad-core reviews: Hi-Grade PC & Intel motherboard
If you liked the look of Intel's Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad core processor in our review and can't wait to buy one, Hi-Grade has come up with one of the first PC systems to make use of it. At over £2,000, the Ultis Tachyon QX6700 isn't cheap, but it's a real speed demon and comes with Nvidia's Geforce 7950GX2 SLI graphics card.
And if you fancy building your own quad-core PC, be sure to catch our review of Intel's D975XBX2 quad-core motherboard.
