Review: Primare DVDi10
Primare's DVDi10 is an integrated DVD player, 2.1-channel receiver, and DAB radio tuner, the natural evolution of the Swedish company's CDi10 CD/amp combi. It aims to deliver separates performance from a single stylish unit. Just match it up with stereo speakers and a powered sub.
For this money, you'd expect rock-solid build quality and that's what you get. The metallic bodywork is sturdy, and the fascia moody and minimal. Three thick feet quell vibrations and the row of bullet-like buttons with illuminated green icons on top is delightfully old school.
Good CV
From the spec sheet, its DVD credentials are solid. At its heart is the Genesis FLI2300 video processor, which handles 1080p DVD upscaling duties, ably supported by an Analog Devices ADV7320 video DAC. It also plays back MP3s and JPEGs from DVDs or CDs, but not DivX, SACD or DVD-Audio – all missed chances.
On the back, three sets of analogue phonos cater for external sources, but there are no digital inputs. Coaxial and optical digital audio outputs offer a path to full 5.1 with a separate receiver, and the built-in analogue to digital converter lets you pass on line sources from these outputs.
On the video side, you get HDMI, component, S-video and composite outs and there's an iPod connection offering front panel control and a metadata display.
On the receiver side, Primare claims a rating of 75W per channel and naturally it decodes Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. The DAB radio tuner offers 10 presets and 196kHz/24-bit conversion.
One odd thing: I thought the OS menus distinctly old-fashioned. It's since transpired that Primare has updated these – existing owners can take their DVDi10 to their dealer to get the new software.
Putting that disappointment aside, I fired up Apocalypto on DVD and was hit for six by the sound. The drums that propel Jaguar Paw through the rainforest are vital and urgent; the sharp, sweet treble coaxes out subtle detail and there's a depth and richness that also permeates CD playback.
The 1080p picture quality is immaculate too – the rich tapestry of the film's rainforest was conveyed with pristine clarity, and there are no noise or upscaling artefacts to report. Contrast, colour saturation and edge definition are excellent. A run-through of the Silicon Optix HQV underlines the quality of the video processing, as diagonal lines are free from stepping and feathering.
The DVDi10 is pricey for what it is, lacks a few features you might expect, and has a clunky, operating system. Luckily, it makes up for it with a classy AV performance and an eye-catching esoteric design.
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Review: Sony NWZ-X1060 Walkman
The last time I played with a Sony personal media player, it was a horrible experience – the interface was a work of the devil designed to stop you from using the thing in any constructive way. Thankfully, times have changed, and the brand's NWZ-X1060 is a good deal more accommodating.
You no longer have to jump hurdles to move files around – a simple drag and drop will do – and the touchscreen interface is a joy to use.
The model reviewed here has a capacious 32GB drive (enough for 120 hours of video), although a cheaper (آ£210) 16GB version is also available.
The feature set is tempting: wi-fi connectivity, YouTube, noise cancelling headphones, web-browser and a super-sharp 3in 16:9 OLED display. There's also an FM radio.
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In Depth: The rise of the web comic
Rebecca Clements, an Australian illustrator, wasn't expecting much when she put her first comic online. "I thought I'd just start a web comic with no expectations at all to see where it went. And that's that," she says.
But her quirky comic Kinokofry, which features a cast of wisecracking mushrooms, has become a phenomenon online – and it's not the only one. An increasing number of artists are turning to the internet to express their ideas, find an audience and, in some cases, to make a living.
With no editors, publishers, or advertisers to upset, online cartoonists are free to explore uncomfortable issues and ask difficult questions of society, making the world of online cartoonists about as far away from Mickey Mouse as it's possible to get.
"I'd always played with the idea of writing an occasional comic strip," says Edinburgh based cartoonist and programmer Matt Gemmell, who draws the Sheercore comic in his spare time. "The web lets me do that and share the results with people without cost or commitment, so it becomes a leisure activity rather than a hassle."
"We are our own bosses. The only people censoring us is ourselves," agrees Matt Melvin. Together with his friends, Rob and Dave, Matt draws the online cartoon series Cyanide and Happiness. Like other online cartoonists, art has been a lifelong passion for Matt.
"Like most kids, we all drew all over our notebooks and papers in school. We just never stopped. Luckily, the artistic skill required hasn't changed much," he says.
"We've sort of got our different styles, but overall we go for complete simplicity," adds fellow Cyanide and Happiness cartoonist Rob Denbleyker. "Stick figures whose only difference is the colour of their shirt, set against white backgrounds. Occasionally there will be a background or prop if the joke demands it."
Stylish work
There are, it seems, as many styles of online cartoon as there are people drawing them. "Kinokofry is fun, a bit strange, fantastical, cute," says Clements. "I would hope it's seen as imaginative. Full of things to keep the eye wandering all over the page."
Of those we spoke to, the artist who sticks closest to the style of the traditional comic strip is Jeph Jacques, who draws Questionable Content. How would he describe his style? "Improving!" he says modestly.
"I don't know if I have any particular style, but the word 'minimalist' comes to mind," says the man behind the Abstruse Goose comic site, who wished to be known simply as 'that guy who draws Abstruse Goose'. So be it.
GETTING NOTICED: Word of mouth and social media sites are the secret to Abstruse Goose's success
"I often only draw the minimum necessary to convey my idea," he says. "If you read through my archives, you'll see that many of my comics feature disembodied heads with very little detail. In some ways, this is how human perception works. The brain focuses attention on salient features of the environment and discards extraneous noise."
Ryan North is the man behind Dinosaur Comics. He's used the same six-panel strip since 2003 and simply fits each new story onto it. "What do I do? In a sentence: I use the same pictures of dinosaurs every day but think up of new things for them to say. It's better than it sounds. OK, that's two sentences; but I feel the latter one is important."
Online benefits
So what advantages does the web hold for anyone wanting to break into cartooning? "Oh, tons," says North. "A huge potential audience, great interaction with your readers, the ability to see what people like and what they don't, the ability to see how people respond to what you're doing in real-time – there's just tons of great stuff that you get by being online.
"For me personally I get to be a cartoonist, because my comic would never survive in print. Maybe one in 100 people would like it, but online, I can gather that one per cent all in one place."
"Another benefit is the immediacy of the feedback I receive when I post online," adds the guy who draws Abstruse Goose. "I often receive feedback and constructive criticism within minutes of posting a comic and I always appreciate it. I also appreciate the enormous freedom that being online affords in terms of the content, style and format of the comics."
This idea of freedom is one that's shared and highly valued by all of the artists that we spoke to. Questionable Content's Jacques cites it as his number one reason for choosing to publish his comics online. But what else does he value about doing things online?
ONLINE FREEDOM: Questionable Content writer Jeph Jacques supports his family from the income of his comic site
"Potentially unlimited audiences, no middlemen between the creator and the audience, higher profit margins... lasers," he jokes. Another important benefit of distributing comics only over the internet is the speed with which one can become popular.
"For one thing, it means that absolutely anyone can get instant exposure," says Kinokofry's Clements. "It doesn't mean that you will, or that the response will be good, but it's a free-for-all, and it means that people aren't spending years sending pages out to publishers before they get seen. I think there's a fairly good sense of community in general," she adds, "and it's one of the main reasons I love it."
Getting noticed
Given the freedom to publish whatever they feel others will like to read, online cartoonists face an increasingly crowded marketplace. So how difficult is it to stand out from the crowd and gain an audience?
"If you play your cards right, if you manage to attract the right audience for your work, or if you get lucky, then you can very quickly have a large audience that you can deliver work to as often as you like," says Clements.
"Getting constant feedback can be a great thing. It's certainly addictive and can be a driving force to either improve or produce more."
For that guy who draws Abstruse Goose, attention came early. "I've been fortunate in that my comic always seems to get more attention than it deserves," he claims.
"I got lucky in that one of my comics made it to the front page of Digg after I had been posting comics regularly for only about three weeks. Social media sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon can expose your site to many potential readers."
Online cartoonists also tend to check out each others' work, and they're uniquely placed to recommend other comics to their readers – something that print cartoonists can't do, as North explains: "The great thing about online comics is that this happens naturally, even if you don't advertise. In a comics page in a newspaper, Garfield's creator Jim Davis can't say 'Hey, check out Mary Worth!' because there's finite room on the comics page. If a paper picks up Mary Worth, that might mean that Garfield gets dropped.
"But online, I can say 'Hey, check out this awesome comic!' – and I do, all the time – because there's no loss to me. If a reader likes it too, they'll just read two comics instead of one."
So, which up and coming online comics do our artists recommend and read themselves? "Raymondo Person and Achewood are easily my personal favourites," says Clements. "Read them, read them, read them! They really are brilliant. You will read them and never want to stop – except to talk about them with other people forever."
MAGIC MUSHROOMS: Rebecca Clements' Kinokofry is filled with wisecracking mushrooms and their pet bugs
"There are too many to name," says Cyanide and Happiness' Matt Melvin. "I would start with Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and maybe XKCD if you've got an inner nerd." "I like Toothpaste For Dinner," adds his colleague Rob.
Ideas before artwork
So, with so many comics being produced exclusively online, what makes an outstanding comic – one that will be noticed and loved by many and possibly make its creator famous, if not rich?
"For comedy comics it's the joke, and for dramatic comics it's the story," says North. "It sounds simple, but I think it's the truth! I believe that a good comic script can succeed despite being drawn badly, but that a bad script can't be saved by good art. Of course, great writing and great illustration makes for a great comic 100 per cent of the time."
Jacques agrees with this principle. "Good artwork is a huge plus, but it's the writing that will keep me coming back for more," he explains. So with both artists agreeing that ideas are in general more important than artwork, where does their inspiration come from?
Writing what you know may be the key here. "My ideas tend to come from whatever is currently happening in the world," says Gemmell. "For me, being a self-employed iPhone and Mac software developer, a big part of that is tech news and events," he says. "Many of the scenarios also come from online chats with friends and colleagues, suitably sanitised (in both senses of the word)."
So if you fancy yourself as a cartoonist, get cracking. You never know where it might lead.
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Review: Boston Acoustics VS Series
The VS Series of speakers is Boston Acoustics' finest, with the most high-brow mission statement I have ever read, about merging art and science, like Californian hippies, man.
When they arrived I unpacked them lovingly and took a grille off – I nearly had a heart attack! The bloody tweeter was poked in like a belly button!
Now, the same thing happened on my Bowers & Wilkins HTM4. A mate's two-year-old squashed it – my own son saw it happen and didn't dare tell me, in terror of my reaction. I was able to get a replacement, but this was a review sample! A disaster!
There is a selection of ways to fix pushed-in tweeters and dust domes but the very best is to apply your mouth and suck it out with your tongue. I tried it and it wasn't having it. I could get purchase but could feel it was fixed, clearly more than just pushed in.
I looked at Boston Acoustics' very brief manual, which really just describes basic use and best placement. Then, like the tiny-but-crucial details on Ikea flatpack instructions, I could see that all the tweeter pictures had this irregular looking dent in the middle. Oops. Needless to say I grew donkey ears and glowed so red you could have used me as a traffic light.
Luckily, I hadn't been like a Dyson vacuum cleaner and sucked it rotten, but rather applied the most delicate and even pressure and, apart from some lick spittle, there was no real harm done.
Ethereal excellence
All the cabinets in this VS Series use this unconventional tweeter design, called here a Super Wide Bandwidth tweeter. Boston worked out that you can go totally pistonic to 30kHz if you stick the middle of a regular silk dome tweeter to a brass plug in the middle. So, it has all the fabulousness of a ring radiator tweeter but, dare I say it, even slightly better performance – as the sound of these speakers is ethereally delicious.
The moment they fired up I was transfixed; even the crap at the start of my Wall-E Blu-ray was awesome. The balloons in the Up! trailer rustled seductively; the dynamic speed and purity of Luxo the lamp's boings were just absurdly right-there-in-your-face.
Then it was into Wall-E, with its clever use of an old show tune by Michael Crawford overlain with music by Hollywood composer Thomas Newman. The soundtrack is wonderful – atmospheric and at times hugely emotive. The sheer musicality of this 5.1 array was given a real test and it came out shining.
NO SLOUCHING: The center speaker has a little foot at the back to help it sit up straight
Louis Armstrong gets a number, too (La Vie en Rose), and it felt like he was in the room with me. The detail and placement was high-quality and would have silenced any flat-earth stereo hi-fi nutter with its accuracy. Back in Wall-E's world, I could count the footfalls of the tiny-but-cute cockroach; and the rest of the bandwidth was perfectly smooth and homogenous, with exquisite blending from driver to driver.
The single shortcoming to this high-end package, in my opinion, is the bass end, which became apparent in the scene where EVE has a joyous fly around Earth. Newman's soundtrack swells and will move you if there's any poetry in your soul at all, yet a crucial part of this feel is the exciting fullness of the bass, all rippling depth with taut edges.
In my own system, I use a B&W ASW825 subwoofer for its 1,000W of grip, along with a آ£2,500 REL Stentor for its absurd below -10Hz authority. Between them the combined result is, as Vinnie Jones said, 'Emotional'.
The trouble is, that while the Boston Acoustics' VPS 210 dual 10in woofer (one driven, one a passive radiator or wobbler) has a 500W amplifier in its guts, and does go very deep, it just cannot push enough air around in these overblown cinematic moments. You can hear that the product is struggling and have to wick it back a tad.
HOOK UP: All the speakers, including the surrounds, come with binding post terminals
The subwoofer is exquisite to look at, as are all the loudspeakers, but I would love to see this as a dual 12in beast with a kilowatt amp – or maybe even a three-kilowatt dual 15in monster – as the performance of the rest of the VS system is commensurately excellent. Bass is all about logarithmic scales of Watts and air to push about, so this isn't total madness on my part. It would be very costly, of course.
Non-parallel lines
Elsewhere, the VS 325C centre has a wee foot to the rear to help the non-parallel sided enclosure face the right angle. Meanwhile, the VS 336 towers also have two small bars to support the back of the box, as no two sides of the enclosure are parallel. This is to avoid internal reflections. Only grunty old-fashioned or cheapo speakers are cubic boxes with square edges these days!
The cones are made from a processed paper pulp and are called, rather grandly, Organic Composite Cone Material (OCCM). All except the sub are rear-ported and nicely gas-flowed and curvy back there, so will need some space away from the walls, as do the VS260 bookshelf rears.
Overall, this is a very high-end group of speakers with an astonishingly posh, detailed sound, and premium-grade styling. Get four of those woofers and you will still slap the hell out of systems costing a serious slice more.
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Review: Optoma ThemeScene HD82
The Optoma Themescene HD82 is a mid-priced projector designed to deliver a truly cinematic experience, and they're using some pretty strong words. So can it live up to its billing?
To qualify as a paradigm shift, the HD82 would have to deliver technology and performance so stunning that it would become a new standard by which all other home cinema projectors would be measured.
It certainly has a great pedigree; Optoma is making in-roads into the projector market in every area from the tiny pocket Pico to the affordable GT-7000 for game players. Previous home cinema projectors such as the HD80 have set a high standard, so the HD82 would have to be something really special to hold its end up.
Certainly the claims for the HD82 make impressive reading. It's powered by Texas Instruments' DLP DarkChip3 DMD technology, and has a claimed 20,000:1 contrast ratio. New technologies include a motion control video-processing system designed to deliver smooth HD playback; PureEngine and PureMotion technologies using a frame insertion system; and a new and highly flexible lens arrangement.
In appearance, the HD82 is certainly an improvement on earlier generations. Adopting a centre-lens layout, it's not small or light, and weighs around 8kg, but it is sleek, elegant, glossily black, and devoid of ugly panel controls. Mind you, Optoma realises this could be inconvenient should you lose or damage the main remote, so includes a mini-remote, which clips magnetically to the rear of the projector.
The main remote is similar to previous models, with backlit keys and a fairly obvious layout.
Spec respect
The HD82's connection panel is as well-specified as you could desire. You get two HDMI 1.3 inputs that support DeepColor, a DVI socket that supports HDCP, component YCbCr/YPbPr phono sockets, an S-video input, a composite video input, an RS-232 control socket, and not one, but two +12V trigger sockets.
Plenty of connections then, but more significant are the lens shift functions. Under the case are three wheels that control the 1.5x lens zoom, and vertical and horizontal shift, along with a manual focus ring. Between these, it should be possible to install the HD82 without difficulty in a wide range of environments – and the menu system offers all sorts of installation options, too.
By avoiding digital keystoning, the PureShift system ensures a uniform quality for all the image. Projection range is from around 1.5m-12.5m, with an image size of 0.76m-7.67m (diagonal, for a 16:9 image). An anamorphic lens is an optional extra, and one of the 12V trigger sockets can be programmed to activate a lens 'sled'.
Another new technology – which accounts for a significant portion of the case – is a twisty-turny system of cooling airducts. With much of the air-cooling done passively, Optoma can reduce the work done by the cooling fan, and hence the noise it produces. Clever, yes?
At around 26dB it's a big improvement on previous DLP models, though still not the quietest around. Standby power consumption has been reduced too, from around 10W to under 1W – of course, that's to be expected with the new EU regulations soon to come into effect.
Real test
Given that the HD format sets a minimum standard for resolution, the real tests of a projector are now its brightness, black levels and colour reproduction. Optoma makes some extraordinary claims for the contrast ratio of the HD82, and while they might be achieved under exacting manufacturers' laboratory conditions, few of us live in laboratories, so we have to apply some real-world standards as well.
In my viewing tests, the Optoma's best contrast performance was (not surprisingly) achieved with the Dynamic Iris system switched on. Watching the Walt Disney Blu-ray of Prince Caspian, I was certainly impressed by terrific amounts of detail, extremely rich colours and strong contrasts (the projector defaults to its Cinema preset mode, which slightly over-emphasises brightness and colour, but it worked for this sort of material).
Pure and simple
As for motion handling, a scene where the Narnia children are observing the preparations of the enemy army illustrates the effectiveness of the HD82's Pure Motion system. This works much like a TV's 100Hz function, interpolating extra frames to smooth out motion blur.
With a split-screen function to demonstrate its effect, it's easy to see the benefits here. Look at the siege ladders as the camera pans across. With Pure Motion switched off, the uprights blur as the camera pans. With it switched on, they're much smoother and more detailed.
Of course, there's a price to be paid, as there is using a TV's 100Hz function. The danger is that the frame interpolation will create unwanted artefacts, particularly on moving objects. Fortunately, the level of Pure Motion processing can be set, so you can adjust it to suit you.
The HD82 has effective Noise Management functions, which clean up video sources a lot, reducing movement and smoothing out areas of colour, though at the expense of introducing some aliasing.
Prince Caspian's cave sequence – where bright torches stand out against a totally black background – also shows the effectiveness of the HD82's Dynamic Iris system. Sadly though, the iris is perfectly audible above quiet dialogue. But switch it off, and the contrast performance visibly drops with the blacks losing something of their depth.
Another problem shown by Prince Caspian's cave sequence is the DLP rainbow effect. I hadn't really noticed it while watching evenly-lit scenes, but the torchlight made it shimmer. The six-segment design of the colour-wheel does something to reduce the effect, and it's not the worst I've seen, but as with any DLP projector, if you're prone to it, you should get a demo of the HD82 before you buy, and check out what rainbowing you can see.
If it sounds as if I have reservations about the HD82, it's only because Optoma's claims for it have to be taken with a pinch of salt. For in the real world, it's extraordinarily easy to set up, packed with helpful functions, nice-looking, and a top performer. You'll be hard pushed to find anything significantly better for the money, though there is competition around this price from the likes of Epson and InFocus.
Unlike Darwinism, the theory of relativity, or quantum mechanics, the HD82 does not represent a paradigm shift. But it is a worthy development of a distinguished product line, and a darned good projector.
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Google accused over Android Skype app block
We've already documented the predictable battle between Apple and Google over the bar on getting a Google Voice application onto the iPhone, so it's with no small sense of interest that we discover Google accused of hypocrisy on its own Android platform.
According to a USA Today story, Google tried to block Skype - like Google Voice, a way to avoid expensive carrier fees for phone calls - from its Android Market earlier this year.
Dodgy dealing?
Instead of the full Skype application, owners of Android phones instead got Skype Lite, which sends calls not over Skype's potentially free VoIP network, but across the regular phone network at a cost.
The trickiness lies in how that came about - USA Today suggests it's due to some underhanded deal between Google and US Android carrier, T-Mobile. If it were true, it might make it look at least a little foolish in its tussle with Apple over Google Voice on the iPhone.
Clear and simple
However, Google has hit back to deny any suggestions of impropriety. Writing on the Public Policy Blog, Google VP Andy Rubin explained his side of the argument:
"Here are the facts, clear and simple: While the first generation of our Android software did not support full-featured VoIP applications due to technology limitations, we have worked through those limitations in subsequent versions of Android, and developers are now able to build and upload VoIP services."
No VoIP anyway
He goes on to brand USA Today as plain "wrong" and to add that, "at this point no software developer - including Skype - has implemented a complete VoIP application for Android."
So, in other words Google is all for users installing proper VoIP applications on Android and making free or cheap phone calls, but there's actually no way to do so anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Yet.
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In Depth: 9 things you'll love about Snow Leopard
Steve Jobs first announced Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was in development at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2008. It was a chance for Apple to take stock of where it was with OS X. There would be no major innovations, but plenty of refinements: it would install quicker, take up less disk space, and the user experience would be improved through Apple's attention to detail.
Fast forward to WWDC 2009, and the version of Snow Leopard being prepared has everything Apple promised, and more. Refinement rather than revolution, then, is the watchword for Snow Leopard. We've picked out our top nine of those elegant tweaks and finesses – plus a few more for good measure – to show you what Apple's latest big cat has to offer.
1. Improved Finder
So many of the improvements in Snow Leopard are under the skin, but because they affect the parts of the operating system we use most, we'll experience real, long-term benefits when we use them. Take Finder, for instance.
We use the Finder every time we use our Mac, so doesn't it make sense to rewrite its underlying code to optimise it for the latest technologies, such as 64-bit processing? Well, that's exactly what Apple has done with Snow Leopard.
In a direct comparison with Leopard, Snow Leopard's Finder does seem a little more eager to respond; it's only a matter of milliseconds to be sure, but an improvement nonetheless.
Improvements have also been made when it comes to ejecting external drives and optical discs. For instance, if you inadvertently leave a file from one of your disks open, you no longer see the cryptic error message that says: "The disk...is in use by another application". In Snow Leopard, Finder actually tells you what application it is, and advises you to quit it.
2. Smarter QuickTime X
Like Finder, QuickTime in Snow Leopard has been optimised to take full advantage of 64-bit.
In addition, it now uses the capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor (found in such Macs as the MacBook, MacBook Pro and Mac mini) to decode videos compressed using the H.264 standard.
This in turn frees up the main processor in your Mac for other tasks. As of Snow Leopard, QuickTime Player also reaches version X. Not only does it launch quicker than before (Apple claims up to 2.8 times faster), but it looks different – very different.
Gone is the brushed aluminium skin, and in comes a slick, minimalist interface with media controls (play, pause, fast forward, and so on) that fade out of view when you don't need them. And that's not all: need to make a training video for your colleagues on a hot new application? No problem: choose File > New Screen Recording and do it!
You can even perform basic video editing using the Trim feature (in the Edit menu), and upload your video directly to iTunes, your MobileMe Gallery or YouTube.
3. Polished Preview
We've said before that Preview is the hidden gem of Mac OS X. Starting out as a humble image viewer, its feature set now goes way beyond showing previews of printed pages. For instance, have you ever tried to copy and paste text from a PDF into a word processor and found that the PDF's formatting gave you more work than if you'd just retyped the whole thing?
Well, no more: Apple has added a little bit of artificial intelligence to recognise that, say, the text in your PDF is arranged in columns. It enables you to select what you need.
What if you want to annotate your PDF before you send it to your colleagues? No problem: click Annotate in Preview's toolbar, and a comprehensive set of annotation tools appears along the bottom of the application window, enabling you to add callout arrows, text boxes and highlights to make your point.
Open multiple PDFs and you can view them all in a single window (like a contact sheet in Photoshop), allowing for a quick comparison. And it doesn't stop there: you can now scan images directly into Preview, adding yet another tool to what's already a Swiss Army Knife of an app.
4. Refined Address Book and iCal
For another example of the 'refinement rather than revolution' policy adopted by Apple for Snow Leopard, look no further than Address Book. The Sharing and LDAP options in Preferences are now combined into a single Accounts pane, which now allows you to set up syncing with Google as well as Yahoo and MobileMe.
For Google Contacts users, this is a welcome recognition by Apple that there are online contact managers other then MobileMe; though, of course, this option has previously been available to iPhone users. We set up syncing with MobileMe and (separately) with Google, and found the syncing experience pretty seamless.
All you need to do is enter your email address and password, and everything is done for you. There was a bit of a glitch when we tried syncing with Google, which left our contacts without an email address listed in Address Book as No Name, but other than that we were impressed.
The big news when it comes to syncing, however, is Snow Leopard's built-in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007.
5. Better screen grabbing
Whether you're emailing a technical support helpdesk or helping out a Mac newbie it's great to be able to take a few shots of your Mac's screen by simply hitting Cmd + Shift + 3. But how often have you looked forlornly for that one grab that makes your point succinctly, only to find it mingling with others labelled Picture...?
No more: Snow Leopard labels your grabs with the date and time they were taken, making it much simpler to find the one you want. While we're on the subject of refinements, we'd have liked to have seen an option here to change the default target folder for screenshots. Saving multiple grabs to the Desktop makes for a lot of clutter, unless you move each one in turn as you take them.
Luckily, there are applications such as the free TinkerTool that lets you make this change. The equivalent Terminal command also still works in Snow Leopard. And don't forget, you needn't stop at still images: with QuickTime X you can record all the activities taking place on your screen and edit them into a training video.
6. More refined Stacks options
The changes made to Stacks are a prime example of Apple's strategy of refinement rather than revolution for Snow Leopard. Stacks is the feature – introduced as one of the '200 innovations' in Leopard – that enables you to click on a folder in the Dock and see your files expand, fan-like, so that you can pick out the one you need. Which is great, unless you have a large number of files to choose from.
Even if you choose to have your Stack open as a grid or a list (which you can do by clicking and holding on the Stack icon, then choosing the appropriate option), you might still see a message that there are more files to view in Finder. Open that same Stack in Snow Leopard and you'll see that things are different: by the simple addition of a scrollbar to the open Stack, Apple has made the feature much more useable.
And the refinements don't stop there: if there's a folder nested inside your main Stack, it will also open as a Stack rather than switching to a Finder window. And you'll find a handy back arrow in the top-left corner of your open Stack so that you can easily find your way back where you came from.
7. Exposأ© is now in the Dock
Exposأ© allows you to view all the open windows in the current application, or across the whole system, with a single keystroke. All those keystrokes, however, can be time-consuming if you need to switch to a different application before using Exposأ© on the new app's open windows.
What if you know which application you need to switch to? Wouldn't it be great to switch applications and use Exposأ© at the same time? Well, now you can. With Exposأ© now, simply click and hold an app's icon in the Dock and all open windows in that application will separate, enabling you to switch windows. And press Tab while Exposأ© is active in order to move to the next application in the Dock and activate Exposأ© on that.Application windows are spring-loaded, so you can drag and drop items between them.
8. Access all areas
More often than not, Macs have been the choice of those who need assistance with their hearing or vision, and Snow Leopard builds on that history with a powerful set of enhanced features. VoiceOver is Mac OS X's built-in screen reader, speaking text and commands for partially sighted users. This now has a better startup tutorial with practical examples.
VoiceOver now allows you to fine-tune the speaking voice's settings, including speed, pitch and intonation. Also for partially sighted users, Snow Leopard introduces a feature called Braille mirroring. This enables multiple USB Braille displays to be connected to one computer simultaneously. This is a highly practical for classroom settings, where different students are likely to have different makes and models of Braille display.
Snow Leopard includes the drivers for more than 40 different models of Braille reader, including Bluetooth displays. More new accessibility features include Quick Nav. This uses arrow key combinations to move the VoiceOver cursor so you can control a Mac using one hand. Move up, down, left, and right by pressing the arrow keys individually, or press the up and down arrows together to press a button or click a web link.
9. New System Preferences tools
Again, there are lots of thoughtful little touches in Snow Leopard's System Preferences, though no huge surprises. One really nice touch is the inclusion of new mapping technologies in the Time Zone option of the Date & Time preference pane. This uses Core Location technology, that makes use of Wi-Fi hotspots to set your time zone automatically – perfect for the forgetful globetrotter.
In Security > General, if you've set up a password to wake your Mac from Sleep mode, you can now set a time delay of between five seconds and four hours before you need to enter your password. The International pane in System Preferences is also gone now, replaced by Language & Text. This is, admittedly, almost the same as Leopard's International, but with the addition of a Text pane.
This is similar to the useful AutoCorrect feature that's in Microsoft Word, enabling you to set up custom shortcuts for your most commonly used words and phrases for use in applications such as Mail, TextEdit and iChat. In order to set this feature up in the relevant application, however, you'll first need to go to Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement.
Oh yes, and just for good measure, you can now shuffle through a selection of your favourite screensaver pictures by choosing the Screen Saver option in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane.
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Yahoo slaps down Sony, Motown over net radio
The music-industry luminaries at Motown, Capitol, Virgin and Sony BMG are likely crying into their lattes this morning after the latest body blow to a business seemingly determined to stand Canute-like against the rising tide of the internet.
A US federal appeals court in New York City has ruled that Yahoo's Launchcast online music service does not have to pay the record companies higher royalties every time it plays their songs.
Not interactive
Where Yahoo maintained the service was not interactive and, therefore, had to pay only the same fees that apply to radio stations, the firms contesting the original 2007 verdict said it was customisable and should be liable to pay a lot more.
The court ruling, however, sided with Yahoo: "The user has control over the genre of songs to be played for 5,000 songs but this degree of control is no different from a traditional radio listener expressing a preference for a country music station over a classic rock station."
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Twitter tells airlines people are not cattle
Next time you have an unsatisfactory customer-service experience, instead of complaining to the company concerned, it might be beneficial to let it all out on Twitter.
That's the line of action being encouraged by consumer-rights groups fed up with some pretty shoddy treatment from big businesses.
Let it all out
Chief among the examples cited by Reuters this week is the approach taken to the notorious US airline industry by groups like FlyersRights.org.
While posting messages about bad experiences that read like elementary school graffiti - "Screw american airlines. Every plane has Been broken. Gah. So done", for example - may not seem useful, public venting does seem to be working.
Left to stew
FlyersRights founder Kate Hanni is meticulously documenting and tweeting reports of airlines abusing their hold over passengers in such matters as bumping them off flights and keeping entire plane-loads waiting on the runway overnight.
She explains: "It creates an awareness for people that these things are happening all the time. When I hear about a stranding event where someone is stranded right then, I tweet it."
So, it is useful...
On the back of such negative publicity, FlyersRights is pushing for US legislation to protect airline passengers from abuse. If successful, perhaps naysayers will then stop deriding Twitter as just another internet fad.
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Motorola starting 4G phone trials next year
Motorola announced this week that it is working with a major mobile phone network operator to begin trials of LTE, or 4G, technology by the middle of next week.
The US giant is working with long-time Japan partner KDDI on a Long-Term Evolution deployment to begin testing next year with a view to a commercial rollout in 2012.
Nokia ahead of the game
Motorola's 4G scheming follows soon after hardware competitors Nokia and Ericsson announced they will start work on LTE development in the US with Verizon Wireless.
The Japanese 4G work will rely heavily on methods and hardware developed at its LTE laboratory in Swindon that opened in February this year.
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Sanyo technology kills swine flu dead
Reacting quickly to the recent surge in H1N1 influenza cases in its home country, Sanyo has announced a new technology that promises to cut the infectivity of swine flu by 99 per cent.
The Japanese firm's Electrolyzed Water Technology combines with a regular air-purification system to create a mist that all but destroys the H1N1 virus.
Bird flu too
Based on testing with viral samples from people with swine flu, Sanyo says the new method looks like a promising way to combat the pandemic, although it still has work to do before a commercial product is available.
As an added bonus, the system has the same effect on both normal seasonal flu and avian flu as well.
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Ricoh CX2 offers high dynamic range and more
Ricoh has just announced another interesting camera with innovative features.
The CX2 is a 10.7x (28-300mm equivalent) superzoom that's home to a 1/2.3-inch 9.3MP CMOS sensor.
Using the CMOS chip allows Ricoh to offer high speed services like a 5fps burst mode at full resolution, rising to 120fps at VGA resolution.
High time for high dynamic range
Advances include flavour-of-the-month feature high dynamic range, where the CX2 combines two images of the scene shot at different exposures to give a single ultra-realistic image. You choose four levels of effect (from 'very weak' to 'strong') or let the CX2 automatically choose the exposure settings, to expand the dynamic range by up to 12EV.
Other unique offerings include multi-target AF, a mode where the camera shoots complex scenes at seven different focus points - letting you choose which to keep and which to discard. The CX2 can also shoot backwards in time, continuously shooting images at either 5fps at 9MP (or 30fps at 2MP), but only saving the preceding 45 (or 30) when you take your finger off the shutter - great for catching one-off events.
More Japanese weirdness comes courtesy of 1:1 format shooting (to help you pretend you have a medium format camera), a built-in electronic level to avoid wonky horizons and, our favourite, Today's Shot - a function that displays how many pictures you have shot that day. Handy.
Small is beautiful
Finally, miniaturisation mode blurs the top and bottom of the image to make it look as though everything you shoot is really, really small. It sounds strange but it works brilliantly on the right images.
All this, plus an ultra-sharp 3-inch, 920,000-dot LCD display, 1cm macro mode and high-contrast black & white mode can be yours for just آ£300, when the Ricoh CX2 goes on sale shortly.
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Robo doc detects cancer 40% better than humans
Would you trust a robot to delve into your innards? If Canadian researchers are right, you should.
A prototype touchy-feely robot has been shown to detect tumour tissue in half the time, and with 40 per cent more accuracy than a human surgeon.
The cybernetic sawbones, developed by the University of Western Ontario, also results in less tissue damage than clumsy old humans.
Touching technology
Oncologists use scanning techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify lesions. But tissues may shift during surgery, making it hard to rely on the position identified by the scan. So surgeons also use gentle pressure (palpation) to confirm where atumour is, or to locate further tumours not picked up through scanning.
This can be very tricky in modern, minially invasive surgeries, where the surgeon must attempt to feel for harder, cancerous tissue using long, slim instruments via a very small incision. Enter the robot-controlled palpating device, which applies consistent force and moves over suspect tissue systematically.
Using tactile sensing instruments under robotic control reduces the force applied to the tissue by over a third compared to a human controlling the same instrument. Accuracy in detecting the tumours was also far greater with the robot - between 59 and 90 per cent depending on the robot used.
To develop the prototype robot for use in real surgeries, the researchers plan to upgrade to a flexible rotating head and a remote centre of motion. They would also add an improved interface to help surgeons overcome any fears about using robots in this type of surgery.
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Scientists propose creating black holes
Boffins at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire are proposing to creating reproduction black holes in their laboratory.
The tiny black holes will be made on a much-tinier scale than their celestial counterparts - in fact, they'll be quantum sized to avoid dooming us all to relativistic gravitational demise.
The plan has been made to vindicate Stephen Hawking's theory that black holes are not completely black but emit photons called, appropriately enough, Hawking radiation.
Student meddles with forces man was not meant to understand
"Hawking famously showed that black holes radiate energy according to a thermal spectrum," said Paul Nation, a graduate student at Dartmouth. (Just a minute - if someone is going to create black holes on their workbench, I want it to be at least a professor, and preferably a Nobel laureate).
"His calculations relied on assumptions about the physics of ultra-high energies and quantum gravity. Because we can't yet take measurements from real black holes, we need a way to recreate this phenomenon in the lab in order to study and validate it."
Nation has written a paper showing that a magnetic field-pulsed microwave transmission line containing an array of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) can reproduce the physics of a radiating black hole in a system where its high energy and quantum mechanical properties can be directly controlled in the laboratory.
This is not the first proposed imitation black hole, says Nation. Other mad schemes have considered using supersonic fluid flows, ultracold Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear fiber optic cables. However, the predicted Hawking radiation in these schemes is incredibly weak or otherwise masked by commonplace radiation due to unavoidable heating of the device, making the Hawking radiation very difficult to detect.
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Catch up: this week's most popular posts
This week, TechRadar brought you news of a new PS3 and a price-hiked Xbox; a guide to HDMI 1.4, OS X and little-known iPhone games, and reviews of the latest mobile phones and sat-nav apps for iPhone.
Top five news stories
Official: Sony PS3 Slim, 120GB, آ£250, September
It is, finally, official. Sony's PS3 Slim is out next month, with a 120GB hard drive and a آ£250 price tag.
Sony announces screen scrappage scheme
Sony has announced it is to take part in a new television trade-in initiative, which gives consumers the chance to get money off new Bravia TVs.
Microsoft increases price of Xbox 360 in UK
Microsoft has issued official notice to UK retail to increase the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade bundle in the UK. The price is being hiked from the current آ£129.99 up to آ£159.99, according to British retailer contacts.
Forza 3 'pushes Xbox further than ever before'
Forza 3 will push the Xbox 360 further than ever before, according to the developers, with group product manager and Turn 10 spokesman Steve Beinner suggesting that it is the best looking game to date on the Microsoft console.
Flagship Canon compact loses five megapixels
Canon launched a successor to its flagship PowerShot G10 compact camera this week - with five megapixels less resolution. Is this the end of the resolution arms race?
Top five in-depth articles
10 things you need to know about HDMI 1.4
With one eye firmly on the digital home there are several significant improvements to the technology, including integrated data connectivity and support for 3D. Here's what you need to know.
The Linux users' guide to Mac OS X
Linux is fantastic, don't get us wrong, but Apple's kit can also be appealing – especially its range of Apple laptops. But if the thought of getting to know OS X puts you off, fear not: there's a lot of common ground between Mac and Linux that isn't immediately obvious.
12 best iPhone and iPod touch games you've never heard of
With 13,000 games on the App Store, and many hundreds of independent developers creating games, it's important to highlight hidden gems. So here are the 12 best iPhone and iPod touch games you've never heard of.
10 record-breaking achievements in tech
Fastest runner, tallest building, fattest man – who cares about any of that when there are world records of technology just waiting to be broken?
After Google: who will be the next web sensation?
Today, Google dominates search, but there's always another major player around the corner; a revolutionary service that comes from nowhere to change the way we use the web. Right now, Twitter is the darling, but will it last? And what's next?
Top five reviews
TomTom for iPhone is here, even if it's a little earlier than expected. We thought the company would release it in September alongside its much talked about iPhone cradle, but it seems the advent of other sat-nav apps onto the market has forced TomTom's hand.
At less than half the price of all its competitors, Co-Pilot's parent company ALK has seriously undercut the competition and will be looking to capitalise on those not bothered about the TomTom name.
Samsung's latest flagship handset, the Samsung Jet S8000, was released to massive fanfare around the world, and the General Manager for the UK said that he thought it was better than the Apple iPhone 3GS - but can a non-smartphone really compete?
The HTC Hero has emerged blinking into the light, complete with the new Sense UI, to unleash a smackdown on the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. Android upgraded, this is the most powerful Google OS phone yet.
The Sony Ericsson W995 is the latest phone to carry the famous Walkman name. It features an 8.1 megapixel camera, an improved media syncing system (which few could deny it needed), HSDPA 3G, Wi-Fi and A-GPS, all wrapped up in a neat, if slightly bulky and button-heavy slider package.
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Interview: Secrets of real-time search revealed
TechRadar recently spoke to Vice President of OneRiot, the real-time search engine that aims to keep you up to date with exactly what's hot on the web at the moment. We wanted to find out why it's getting so much attention at the moment.
Real-time search is the ultimate buzzword on the web at the moment, with Twitter and Facebook just a few of the sites opening up the social possibilities of up-to-the-minute information, and with OneRiot taking this one step further, there's no time like the present to speak about the machinations behind the site, and just how it keeps right up to date…
TechRadar: Tell us a little bit about the history of OneRiot
Tobias Peggs: We launched the Alpha version of the site in November last year, then we launched the Beta in May. But we have been building the product for just over two years.
There's some very complex search architecture in the background, which has to be put in place before you can put a site like this live.
When people have been using things like Google for 10 years, they expect things to happen, like page load times.
TR: Why do you think consumers are looking at real-time search now?
TP: People are realising there's a very real need for real-time search. If you look at the numbers and how they break down, regarding how people search the web, 20 per cent are navigational searches, those searching for Yahoo.com and Sony.com. 40 per cent are trying to find specific information: there's a recipe for cabbage soup that I need, and so on.
Traditional searches are very good at dealing with this 60 per cent of the market. But there's around 40 per cent of searches where the user behaviour is where they want completely up to date information on something like, say, the Iran election and Michael Jackson's death.
Consumers are beginning to realise there's new avenues to find this information and you don't have to just look on things like Wikipedia.
And with traditional search engines when you type in something it is typically these sorts of pages that come up first, and they fail to tell you what is actually going on right now.
TR: This is something that Twitter does…
TP: Twitter is helping with that enormously because it is such a buzzy, right now, place for content. Twitter is a Black Swan – it's just phenomenal.
TR: Did you know Twitter would explode the way it did?
TP: Being based in San Francisco, it's such a close community you couldn't not realise that it was going to be a success. Twitter has been part of my 24/7 experience, and you could always see what was going to happen.
But what this does is open people's possibilities that you can get real-time information about what is happening right now.
The issue with Twitter is that you can type something you want to know about it, and search results. You'll get pages and pages of information regarding your search but not all if it is going to be relevant.
Say it's people tweeting stuff about U2 – some of them have links to articles on the web, some is opinion, some is irrelevant.
So what we've done at oneRiot is harness that social energy on the web, people sharing stuff with other people. We look at Twitter trends, what's going on the Digg pages.
We also have our own panel of users, about three million strong who in real-time tell us what is happening. So we harness all that information.
So when you search oneRiot we show you the news article you have got to read that day, because that is what everyone else is reading, the video that is popular, the blog commenter who is making sense of things. It's all about fresh, socially relevant information.
TR: How do you rank your pages?
TP: We developed something called Pulse Rank. We very much believe in the need to rank things. You've found something you want to learn about, but there are thousands of things about it, so rather than provide a real-time stream of things that aren't relevant. We rank the results in real-time, based on pulse ranking which broadly reflects current social buzz around content.
So, if the video is being shared a lot on Twitter and our panel are watching the same video a lot, then this will be ranked higher.
So, it might not actually be the freshest thing, but it should be the most relevant.
TR: How do you get on the panel?
TP: It's more like an internet measuring service. So you join the panel and then as you surf the web, you can then pass that information back to us anonymously if you so wish, and we can use that information to find out what is hot and what is not.
The way that traditional search works is through indexing and ranking. So the way that Google indexes is that it links one piece of content to the other and this spiders around the web.
In terms of ranking, page rank is basically heavily based on citation, so the number of links to a certain piece of content. So, if you have written an article and lots of other people have linked to it, then that page increases in page-ranking and so on.
As a consequence, this tends to favour the well-established websites. So, if you were to Google Iran, the first hit would probably be Wikipedia and the second page maybe the CIA page on Iran, as these will be well-linked. it's a dependable system but doesn't work with real-time search as well.
So, we at oneRiot sat there and thought how we could integrate what's happening now into this system. In order to do this, we had to invent a new way to index the web and also to rank the content.
The indexing comes from what it happening on the social web right now, and the ranking is what's the most socially relevant content within this – what is the must-see video to watch.
TR: Does this mean that your system sometimes throws up some obscure blogs?
TP: That's one hundred per cent correct. It's like a meritocracy – if you write the blog that everyone is reading at the moment, then you will be on top. But we have to be careful that what is popular isn't spam, so we also look at who is sharing these links and if they are to be trusted.
Working with real-time means that things are constantly evolving, and so the search results on our sites are constantly evolving as well. That's why a lot of people who use our site use it multiple times in a day as they want to be kept as up to date as possible and stay on top of trends.
From a business aspect this is great for us, as because our users search many more times in a day with the same query, we have the potential to monetise that user many more times during the day.
TR: What do you think of Facebook buying FriendFeed?
TP: It's going to be interesting to see what happens with this. There is potential there, so if I want to watch a video that one of my friends posted a while back, then I'll be able to search and find it.
Until Facebook opens up the search though, it's going to be quite limited. If, say, I want to know a good coffee shop in London, I can search around my friends group to see if they have mentioned one before but the chances of this are unlikely.
There are definitely going to be some useful stuff but real-time search – tell me what my friends are thinking about this – you probably don't care, you would rather read the New York Times or something.
Having said that, with 220 million users, if they could turbo charge that content and open up all that content like Twitter has done, then that will become a really interesting core of information.
For more on the OneRiot search engine, www.oneriot.com. Or you can check out the company's new RiotFeeds – a micro-site powered by OneRiot that offers an easy way for tweeters to discover the hottest links in their Twitter stream for any topic- tech news, gadgets, sports, green living, food & wine. Check this out at http://feeds.oneriot.com.
Related Links
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Exclusive: Microsoft: Windows 7 browser ballot design 'pretty fluid'
The proposal for the Windows 7 browser ballot screen is "still pretty fluid" according to Microsoft.
Yesterday, Mozilla Foundation Chair Mitchell Baker slammed Microsoft's suggestion of a browser ballot to give users a choice of internet browsers on Windows PCs, despite the fact it seems the design of the screen is not yet set in stone.
We asked Laurence Painell, Windows OEM & WGA Marketing Manager at Microsoft UK, for his reaction to Mozilla's accusation.
"The proposal was put together and has been placed. The exact details of the proposal have not been released yet, so I would suggest it's probably still pretty fluid," said Painell.
"An argument which I would imagine between all the different [developers] – and this has been one of our points all along – who's going to manage it, who's going to pick and how it's ultimately going to be administered. Those fine details have yet to be released."
Baker claims the Internet Explorer still has a "unique and uniquely privileged position on Windows installations".
Certainly the mock-up shots of the ballot screen we've seen so far (see above) show Internet Explorer on the left, with Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome and Opera stretching out towards the right.
Under the ballot screen proposal, users of XP, Vista and Windows 7 would be presented a screen enabling them to "easily install" competing browsers from the web.
Baker also suggests that downloading and installing a new browser is not straightforward for many novice users: "We expect to see many people who want other browsers get lost in the process before they actually succeed in making an alternative browser their main browsing tool."
The ballot screen will enable Microsoft to ship Windows 7 in Europe with the same functionality as in the rest of the world.
Check out our guide to upgrading to Windows 7.
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First impressions: 15 minutes with Avatar 3D
TechRadar has just got back from the screening of 15 minutes of James Cameron's Avatar – the movie that has been tipped to take 3D into the mainstream.
With 3D TVs the talk of the town (and probably the forthcoming IFA), Sky announcing a 3D channel in 2010 and digital IMAX arriving in cinemas around the nation, Cameron's next film is still being seen as a rallying point for the industry.
To spark even more interest in the film, a quarter of an hour of Avatar was shown off to people across the globe, and three of the TechRadar team were there to take a look.
Editor - Patrick Goss
I wasn't sat in the ideal place to be honest; my heart sank when I saw the words Row B on the ticket, and after seeing the Avatar film trailer yesterday and the game trailer today I couldn't help but think of Dances with Wolves and the Night Elves' homeland in World of Warcraft.
But, the moment the giant 3D James Cameron disappeared after introducing his film, I felt the excitement rising. The clips from the first half of the film – which made up the lion's share of the 15 minutes – varied in pacing, and to be completely honest the faster stuff still suffered badly in 3D.
As much as I wanted to be thrilled by the chases through trees, the really quick stuff was confusing and difficult to follow, making me wish I could watch it in more straightforward 2D.
However, the moment things slowed down, the reasoning behind the 3D was obvious. The early jarring glimpses of the aliens quickly faded to acceptance of the characters and little details shone through, like the glimmering eyes, and the vertiginous drops from the cliffs.
I certainly feel excited about seeing Avatar in 3D, although I'm still not convinced that this will burst through the notion that 3D is a neat trick rather than the future of cinema.
Gareth Beavis – News Writer
I'm not a movie buff by any stretch of the imagination, and my 3D experiences so far have been mainly made up by the recent slew of 3D Disney films. I've taken almost zero interest in the build up to Avatar, but was intrigued to see what all the fuss is about.
And after seeing 15 minutes of it, I'm torn. On the one hand, there were times when you could see how Cameron has taken the 3D/CG boat out so far you thought about calling the virtual coastguard - it was utterly mesmerising and so beautiful and engaging in the quieter, slower scenes.
On the other hand, it's not a lot more than an average fantasy film (think the product of Lord of the Rings mating with Ferngully in a fit of celluloid passion - in 3D) and while the physicality of the Blue Cat Things was excellent - you're still constantly aware you're watching CG-created Blue Cat Things, which ruins the immersive illusion at times.
For me, 3D is still just 'a bit cool' and a long, long way away from 'I'm going to pay آ£4 more to watch this in 3D'. Avatar looked very impressive, but from what I've gathered it looks massively over-hyped. Come on Cameron, next time spend the 3D budget on 'Titanic 2: This time we'll turn a bit earlier'.
Marc Chacksfield – AV specialist
After following the internet build-up surrounding Avatar for what feels like eons, seeing the film in all its 3D glory for the first time is something of a let-down.
Yes, it's mesmerising and the 3D does look a touch better than what been seen in the past but it all feels, well, too much. The action scenes are stunning but your eyes just don't register everything that is happening.
Couple this with a disparate script that seems to mesh childlike videogame fantasy with Aliens-style space marine fighting and what you have is something that's stylistically a mess. When things calmed down, however, there was much sparkle in the 3D – facial gestures were jaw-dropping and the CGI faultless.
What we saw today were unrelated scenes and the faith that I have in James Cameron as a filmmaker should, and most probably will, mean that Avatar will be a success. Let's just hope that he hasn't spent too much time in making things look pretty and forgotten to take care of little things, like, er, the script.
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