Google to refresh Street View images every year
Google is looking to refresh the images in Google Street View every year, in order to keep the service up to date with our ever-changing cityscapes.
The news comes as European regulators fix their regulatory eyes on Google's attempts to bring digitised versions of the world's cities online.
The Associated Press received this letter from EU regulators to Google – with the EU reps wanting to know more about the company's retention policy for Street View image.
Refreshing Street View
It turns out that Googlehas decided that the ideal retention time for Street View images is a year.
But the EU still thinks that is too long and now wants the retention period reduced from a year to six months.
The EU also wants to see Google publish notifications in local newspapers, to alert local people as to when and where its Street View cameras and vehicles
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Existing PS3 franchises set to get motion control
Sony is set to bring motion control to some of its major existing PlayStation 3 franchises, according to the company's VP of worldwide studios.
Last year gamers were already treated to demos of major titles including Resident Evil 5 and LittleBigPlanet, shown at the Tokyo Games Show working with motion control.
Sony pushes innovation
Speaking to Official PlayStation Magazine, Michael Denny said it was "important to us as the first party studio, as the flagship for PlayStation, that we're always pushing innovation".
Denny added that Sony was "both working on new games and looking at applications to our existing franchises."
So we may well see motion control aspects to the next outing of Resistance, God Of War, Motorstorm and Uncharted.
Sony is sure to reveal more on Arc games at the Games Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco this month. Meanwhile, Microsoft were showing off Natal to select groups of press this month, including TechRadar.
You can see our fully detailed hands on review of Project Natal right here.
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Apple admits using factories that employ Chinese children
Apple has admitted that child labour was used at some of the Chinese factories the company uses to manufacture computers, iPods and iPhones.
Eleven 15-year-old children were found to be working in 2009 at three factories that supply Apple directly.
Most of Apple's computers, phones and digital music players are assembled in China. The company has not revealed the names or locations of the three factories in question that were using child labour to assemble Apple devices.
Dodgy suppliers sacked
Apple said this week that the child workers in question are no longer being used, or that they are now not underage.
"In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment," said Apple in an annual suppliers report.
Either way, the fact that it happened at all is yet another PR nightmare for Steve Jobs, with the news hot on the heels of a story earlier this month that 62 workers at a factory run by Wintek, in the Chinese city of Suzhou that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia were poisoned by n-hexane.
In the latest report, Apple detailed sweatshop conditions inside some of the factories it uses, with 55 of the 102 factories that supply the company ignoring Apple's rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week.
"When we investigated, we uncovered records and conducted worker interviews that revealed excessive working hours and seven days of continuous work," Apple said, noting it had now terminated its contracts with the factory in question.
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Guide: How to make your own home server
We've got to that point where most people have more computers in their home than TVs. Who can blame us? TVs are dumb devices, while computers will do everything a TV can and so much more.
It's not a typical case, but it wouldn't be far from the truth to describe editor Alan's house as a laptop graveyard. Turn over a cushion here or a sofa there and scores of the damn things come tumbling out, we're not making this up.
That's the problem, while once we used to have a single desktop, now we've got a host of devices: a gaming desktop, a living room PC, multiple laptops, netbooks and Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices, such as the ubiquitous iPhone.
The principle of convenience is great but where do you start to store all of your documents, files, music and other media? Leaving files dotted around on different machines or USB drives is hardly a good idea.
There's always 'the cloud' but that's not going to work very well for your huge music collection or library of HD movies. There is a better solution… The home server.
Possibly, three of the dullest words you've recently read but stick with us, we're going to show you how one can revolutionise your home. Based around the FreeNAS server operating system we're going to show you how this can be linked with inexpensive hardware to create a perfect centralised storage and media server system.
Wrapped up as a 74MB download this all-in-one OS, NAS and server packs a serious amount of versatility into a tiny package. Just to start its software RAID can span a bunch of hard drives together, so you can pack epic levels of storage into a single shared network drive.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg, as part of the distribution it comes with a host of handy features: it's a UPnP Media server, iTunes server, Bittorrent client and can function as an FTP and webserver.
The base minimum hardware is as simple as a 486-class processor with just 512MB of memory. So any old system or laptop can do the trick, but the best way to learn about FreeNAS is to get on and install it.
Just what is FreeNAS then? You've probably taken a glance at the screen grabs on these very pages and the carnival of BIOS shots mixed with grey, grey browser administration pages must be filling your heart with utter glee right now. While these screen shots might be about as exciting as saying FreeNAS is based on the FreeBSD operating system, it is the brilliant features that beat in its binary heart we love, not the colour scheme.
As a distribution FreeNAS is available from www.freenas.org, go to the download page and grab it with the generic 32-bit i386 version or the 64-bit AMD64 build. Get the LiveCD version as that's what we're going to be employing in this feature.
There are a host of other options such as installing FreeNas onto a flash drive or virtual box, but we're going to keep things as straightforward as possible for this, your first install.
Once you've got the 74MB ISO image you'll need to burn it to a CD. As with other LiveCDs, once you've burnt it, you can technically run the operating system directly from the disc. However, we want to create a permanent installation on a hard drive. We'd recommend that you first sort out the BIOS boot options for your new server hardware and make sure the first boot device is the optical drive.
Once done start up the server with the CD in its drive, if you've run BSD for Linux before the stream of screen nonsense will seem pretty familiar to you.
Ooh a rabbit hole
Eventually the initial run will rest at a text menu with nine options, choose '9' which is 'Install/Upgrade to hard drive/ flash device, etc'. This will present you with the marginally friendlier blue screen with another six install options.
This time select option '3' as this will create a full installation and automatically set up both the data and swap partitions.
First, we must make sure FreeNAS knows some important system settings. You need to select the CD drive for the 'cd0' device, the current optical drive should be the only one listed, unless you installed multiple optical drives, but why would you do that?
The next option is to install the hard drive, this will be listed as 'adx', where the 'x' will be the SATA controller number. You should be able to recognise the drive from its name, if you have more than one installed at this point.
Next, we need to specify how large the install partition and swap partition should be. The installation default is just 128MB and that's actually fine, we also want a swap partition and again the default swap size seems quite low at around 1,600MB, but that's fine.
At this point FreeBSD is installed onto the hard drive; it's a rapid process and once complete a page of important information is displayed. Make a note of the data disk device and the partition number, which will be along the lines of 'ad0, 2'. Also make a note of the swap partition device name, again this should be similar to '/dev/ad0s3'. Exit and choose to reboot.
At this point you can discard the LiveCD and, indeed, the optical drive if you can't see yourself using it again. Allow the operating system to boot and you'll be confronted by a similar text menu as before, but this time there's now no option nine!
We are in fact all but done, we just need to check the network configuration of FreeNAS. Hopefully, if it has automatically picked up the network adaptor, you should see towards the top of the screen 'LAN IPv4 address:' and a sensible looking IP address to go with it.
It won't hurt to check your IP. Select option '1' and a list of available network adaptors will be displayed, the device name is on the left and the MAC address on the right, using the MAC is probably the easiest way of correctly identifying the right adaptor.
With a working adaptor selected the all important setting of the IP address can be done. Our personal preference is to allow the home router to dole out the IPs. If you select option '2' the first choice is to get the IP from the DCHP server, which is your router.
The issue here is if your router at some point assigns that IP to another device, as you're not going to be able to remotely connect to the server and that will involve all kinds of merry hell.
So there are two options, many routers enable you to lock an IP to a single device, you may have to delve around but it'll be in there somewhere. The alternative is to set FreeNAS with its own fixed IP address, if you choose not to use the DCHP option you'll be stepped through the various required settings.
First, you will need to choose an available and valid IP address for your network, typically this will be either 192.168.0.x or 192.168.1.x where 'x' can be a number from 0 to 255. If possible check your router for a list of currently allocated numbers and simply pick out a free one. It's as easy as that.
You also need to know the IP address of your DNS and Gateway plus the subnet mask. The easiest way to find these details is to jump on a Windows PC and select 'Start' > 'Run' > Type 'cmd' > Click 'OK' then type 'ipconfig /all'.
Locate the main Ethernet adaptor and note these details down. Alternatively, you can right-click the active network icon in the Notification area, choose 'Open Network' and 'Sharing Center' > click the 'Local Area Connection' link next to Connections > click Details.
Punch these numbers into FreeNAS as it requests them, the only funny bit is how the subnet mask is specified but for most people this will be the default '24' to correspond to the standard 255.255.255.0 subnet. When asked about setting the IPv6 choose 'No'.
At this stage no matter which option you chose FreeNAS will initialise the Ethernet interface and attempt to secure an IP address. It'll display this IP and how to access its web based interface, so make a note of it.
Getting GUI
That's it. You've set up a FreeBSD operating system. It's criminally easy. Effectively you can now leave your server, disconnect the mouse, keyboard and display, as everything is remotely managed via a web browser. So break out your Ipod Touch, netbook or Wii browser and become your very own server administrator!
Into the browser's address bar you need to tap the IP address of the server, we hope you noted it down. Technically, this should also end with ':80' as this indicates you want to connect via port 80, but you can usually leave this off as by default HTTP request use port 80 anyway.
The default username and password are 'admin' and 'freenas', respectively, and with that you're in! Any connection problems at this point could be related to the router not accepting the specified IP address, it could be the IP has been altered by the DCHP. For both these check your router's list of connected devices.
It could also be the MAC is being blocked if you're going via a wireless router, or an overly aggressive firewall on your PC could be blocking either the IP or port 80 access.
Now we can get on with the good stuff. Welcome to the world of FreeNAS – it's a bit grey. An obvious point, but it is good practice to first change the username and password.
Hover the mouse over the System menu and click 'General'. You can alter the username here, click the 'Password' tab to change that. For the security conscious you can switch the protocol to HTTPS. Whatever you do make sure you don't miss-clicking the 'Save' button positioned by some usability genius out-of-sight at the bottom of the page.
Hard times
It's now time to add in the swap and data partition that you carefully made a note of earlier, right? It's actually a straightforward process, despite the scary names BSD insists on giving all of its devices. We'll go through adding the data partition, but this is a good example of how to add further drives and partitions at a later date.
Select the 'Disks' > 'Management' menu, click the '+' symbol on the right. Now check the details you noted about the Data partition, the top Disk pull-down menu should match this; and should read something like 'ad0' ,for example, followed by the hard drive's name.
Add a description, enable the hard disk standby, plus a suitable Advanced Power Management scheme, enable S.M.A.R.T. and select 'UFS' as the preformatted file system. Click the 'Add' button and on the next page click the 'Apply changes' button. We've now added a physical partition to the operating system, but to access it, we need to add a mount point.
Select the 'Disks' > 'Mount Point' menu and click the right-hand '+'. The type is 'Disk', then select the physical drive from the Disk menu, set the partition type to MBR and, importantly, the partition number is '2'. As '1' holds the operating system and '3' is the swap partition.
The file system is 'UFS', add a friendly mount point name such as 'Files' along with a description. Click the 'Add' button at the bottom and then the 'Apply' button to complete the process.
To add the all important Swap partition select the 'System' > 'Advanced' menu, click the 'Swap' tab, click the right-hand 'Enable' tick box, change the first pull-down menu to 'Device' and enter the device name that FreeNAS mentioned earlier.
It should be the same drive name, but use partition 3, which reads as '/dev/ad0s3', the ad0 number will change depending on which SATA controller the drive is connected to. Click the Save button and that's set.
Right, we've got an operating system, a network connection and we've got a web interface and storage. It's time to make this home server earn its keep.
The most obvious first step is to establish a Windows network share. Despite all of the cleverness that FreeNAS has to offer, a basic Windows shared folder will enable you to access all your media either directly or through your favourite media library, along with adding in sexy things such as scheduled backups and the like.
Click 'Services' > 'CIFS/SMB' and click the far-right 'Enable' check box. Other than altering the Workgroup name to match your home network and enabling the Large read/write option, you're safe to scroll to the bottom and click the 'Save' and 'Restart' button.
That's the basic service started and we'll be doing similar things for other services. Before you'll actually be able to see anything you'll need to share something, click the 'Shares' tab and the right-hand '+'. This should be pretty self-explanatory, choose a name, select the path, opt to have a recycle bin, click the 'Save' button and then click 'Apply'.
The three other most interesting services are the UPnP streaming, iTunes library and BitTorrent client. These are all activated in a similar way to Windows sharing. Beyond requiring you to configure a few directories for holding your music, video and photos the defaults for these will all have you up and running.
While the address to the web interface for each is listed at the bottom of each configuration page. Putting it together When it comes to the hardware the truth of the matter is that you won't need anything particularly staggering.
If anything the chassis is the most important part of a server, as potentially you might want to cram it full of old hard drives for vast storage. So make sure you check the number of free drive bays. But with most tower cases offering at least four up to seven 3.5-inch drive bays that should be enough to keep you happy.
For a processor anything really will be fine, if you hope to try out the transcoding then you'll want a dual-core processor. Personally we have a Windows server running on an ageing 2.4GHz Pentium 4 and that's perfect for file serving.
The same for memory; our test FreeNAS system running 512MB only showed 19 percent memory usage. For a complete list of compatible hardware take a gander at the huge list here.
It entirely up to you how much or little you utilise your server, at the very least it's a useful way to centralise all of your storage needs. It's also a great way to run a convenient download box that isn't your thundering gaming desktop and best of all it can help share your home media to all your family.
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Review: Telestream ScreenFlow 2.0
While QuickTime X offers basic screen recording in Snow Leopard, ScreenFlow is an all-in-one solution, enabling you to record several sources at once – screen, camera, audio – and edit and export the results.
A year back, we liked ScreenFlow 1.2, and this is a strong upgrade, still offering excellent performance and a userfriendly editor.
Control over video is improved via several new settings and features. There's basic colour correction and effects, such as rotation – previously a little abrupt – which can be softened via the Curve feature's 'ease' settings.
A selection of 2D and 3D transitions is available to apply to overlaps, and the most baffling ScreenFlow limitation, the inability to move content between projects, is gone. You can now copy and paste between timelines or drag items between Media tabs.
Some niggles remain, however. Clips in the timeline can be split but not merged, and Option-dragging won't copy them. Effects can't be cloned but must be applied to each clip, and stage items must be dragged to move them.
The persistent lack of titles is a surprise too, although text boxes provide a basic alternative. Audio effects and ducking mean you needn't process voiceovers in another app, and YouTube publishing has been added to export options.
So for ScreenFlow fans, this is a no-brainer upgrade, and for newcomers it remains the best tool of its type. But it's still too pricey for dabblers.
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Review: Citrix GoToMyPc for Mac
Mac users with a MobileMe subscription may well be familiar with the Back to my Mac feature that enables you to connect to and use your Mac from another one anywhere in the world.
But it only works between Macs, and chances are you'll only have access to a PC when you really need access to that one essential file. Step forward, GoToMyPC for Mac.
GoToMyPC has been available to PC users for some years. Now the company has made a version for Mac users, so you can connect to your home Mac from any computer anywhere, as long as it's on the internet and can run Java.
The host Mac has to be running OS X 10.4 or later, but the client machine requirements are much lower. You need Windows 95 or later, or Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, and you can even use it on Windows Mobile devices.
The price you pay Installing the software onto your host Mac is easy, and setting up an account takes just a few seconds.
But at £11.99 a month for one machine, you should make sure you'll use this service a lot.
There's a discount for taking a year-long subscription, so you only pay £107.99 for 12 month's service. A two-machine account is £17.99 a month or £159.99 a year, with any additional devices charged at £8.99 a month or £79.98 a year.
We used the service on a few different PCs and it proved impressive. The connection is fast and smooth, with logins taking mere seconds.
Simply navigate to the GoToMyPC website, log in and click on the computer you want to share. It really is easy. Even if you've never used a Windows PC before, there's nothing to worry about. Simply fire up the browser and in a few steps, you have your Mac in front of you.
The screen can be used in a window or at full size, and it's very responsive. You can't watch video, but a slideshow works just fine. We even typed into TextEdit without any delay.
There's no audio functionality as yet, so you can't use it to listen to your iTunes music or podcasts, but it's a feature on the PC version so we assume it'll make its way onto the Mac sometime in the future.
This isn't the only service of its kind available for the Mac, and the competition is much cheaper. LogMeIn Free is 100% cheaper in fact, and for one-off single users, it's just as good.
Even the paid-for service LogMeIn Pro is less than GoToMyPC, at £7.20 a month or £41.20 a year for one machine. And that offers increased functionality, such as desktop sharing and file transfer.
With the competition offering a free service, there's not much reason for single-machine users to pay for GoToMyPC. If you have a larger base and perhaps want support, there's more of an argument for the service, but it's still more expensive and less feature-rich than LogMeIn.
Ailing economy
In isolation, GoToMyPC is really quick and simple to use, and lets you get on your Mac from anywhere in the world in an instant. However, once you look at the pricing and the additional features of GoToMyPC's competition, it looks less economical.
GoToMyPC for Mac works really well, but the cost is just a touch too much for our liking. It scores highly on usability, but fails on value for money.
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Review: ColorSchemer Studio 2.0
Although many designers and illustrators have a natural eye for colour, there's science behind great colour schemes.
ColorSchemer Studio is an interactive colour wheel that provides shortcuts to creating schemes, enabling you to pull palettes from images, use a colour wheel to identify harmonies, preview colours via drag and drop into several predefined layouts, and export your creations in text or image formats.
Version 1 of the app was a little limited, but the new LiveScheme feature brings to mind Code Line's discontinued Color Consultant Pro, in that it enables you to pick a lead colour, then combine and experiment with various harmony types to create exciting colour schemes.
Schemes can be accessed via the SchemeBrowser, which also offers several predefined schemes.
New built-in colour management is another plus, and a great addition to the accessibility options, which include colour-blindness simulation and a contrast analyser.
Our only real criticism of ColorSchemer Studio is that it's quite complex to use. Newcomers may feel overwhelmed by the options, and the interface isn't always intuitive.
However, 30 minutes or so in, things start making sense, and you'll likely find yourself living in the LiveSchemes section anyway.
Also, the app's perhaps a little pricey, but for a jobbing designer ColorSchemer Studio provides a robust, flexible toolkit for creating colour palettes, and as such comes recommended.
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Guide: How to clean your Mighty Mouse
Apple's Mighty Mouse (now also called an Apple Mouse) has a dirty little secret. While the scroll ball performs its duties as intended when the mouse is new, it can become clogged with dirt and grime over time.
Its performance then deteriorates dramatically, with the ball sticking and failing to scroll. There are a number of things you can do to try and free the ball, and return it to its full 360-degree scrolling glory.
First of all, try turning it upside down and rolling the ball around. Roll it on a piece of paper, hoping the debris and dirt will rub off onto it. Give it a blast with a can of compressed air, or a rub with computer-cleaning solution or a wet wipe. But if all else fails, a drastic course of action may be required.
Removing and cleaning a Mighty Mouse's scroll ball isn't particularly easy. A considerable amount of disassembly is required before you can clean the ball and its housing.
In this tutorial, we show you how to get inside your Mighty Mouse without damaging it, and how to clean and reinvigorate your scroll ball to get everything up and running again. It should take approximately 20 minutes, but be prepared to invest a little more time if needed, especially the first time you clean your mouse in this way.
A word of warning
Caution! Disassembling your Mighty Mouse involves breaking off a component that's glued into place. It's not easy, and if you make a mistake, you're extremely likely to damage or even ruin the device.
We can't take responsibility if your Mighty Mouse is broken while following this tutorial, and as a result we can only recommend that you attempt it if your mouse is in such poor condition that you feel you've nothing to lose, if you give it a go.
It is recommended that you read the whole of this tutorial before you start, especially Steps 2 and 3.
Quick tip
Apple has posted a guide to cleaning your Mighty Mouse without disassembly on its support website. Try these tips first, before you go ahead and take your mouse apart. Follow them regularly and it might never even require disassembly.
Disassemble a Mighty Mouse for cleaning
01. Gather your equipment Make sure you have a scalpel, a steel ruler or something similar to remove the base ring, and a Phillips screwdriver to unscrew the ball housing. We recommend you get some tweezers, cotton buds and a computer cleaner - either wet wipes or a spray bottle.
02. Unfasten the collar Slide your scalpel under the plastic ring that circles the body (not the base) of the mouse. As shown in the picture, above, it's the collar that runs over the side buttons and the USB cable, not the ring around the outside of the base panel. Take care not to break it.
03. Remove the collar Here's a picture of the collar after it's been properly removed. It's important to note that, before removal, this collar is glued and not clipped into place. The glued spots are broken by sliding your scalpel or pocket knife under the collar and twisting.
04. Undo the mouse shell The front section of the mouse's body is now held in place by two easily visible clips. Gently prise them open and lift the body of the mouse. It hinges at the rear, as you can see here. Disconnect the hinges too, taking care not to damage the data cables.
05. Free the cables To remove the cables connecting the lid to the motherboard, lift the stays forming part of the sockets. With a fingernail either side of the plastic housing, raise it by a millimetre. The cables can then slip free from their housing, separating the mouse into two parts.
06. Unscrew ball assembly You now have easy access to the ball housing, which you should unscrew using your Phillips screwdriver. The cross-shaped white plastic housing that holds the ball in place comes free with a little lift, but be careful not to lose the ball or one of its magnetic rollers.
07. Clean ball and housing Now it's time to get the cleaning gear out. Using ordinary computer-cleaning fluid, tweezers, wet wipes and cotton buds, clean out all the grime and gunk that's accumulated around the ball. As the rollers are magnetic, use a pencil to push them into place after cleaning.
08. Reassemble the Mouse Follow the disassembly instructions in reverse. Make sure the stays are raised before you slot in the cables, then push them down again to hold them secure. Use an extra-strong glue or silicon sealant, to replace the collar. Use it sparingly – just a few spots are needed.
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Review: AppZapper 2.0.1
Deleting an application by dragging it into the Trash leaves behind files such as preference and support data, but AppZapper deletes the app and all its associated files at the push of a button.
It's hardly essential (the files left behind are generally small and inconsequential), but if you try out a lot of software, it's good to completely remove the ones you decide not to keep.
But is AppZapper 2.0 worth the £8 when programs such as AppDelete and AppTrap do a similar job for free?
AppZapper 2.0 offers a more streamlined interface. Drag-and-drop deletion is augmented by a browser showing your apps, widgets, plug-ins and user-added System Preferences panes, all of which can be removed using AppZapper.
You can add restrictions to this browser, displaying only programs over a certain size and listing according to name or when it was last used. You can erase several apps at once, and configure your deletions so you keep certain files, which is useful for deleting corrupt preferences while retaining the application.
A new feature called My Apps holds licence and registration information on card icons. You can store an app's URL too.
Graphical excellence comes at the price of compatibility; it's now Snow Leopard-only.
Is AppZapper 2.0 worth the price? We think so. There are free apps that do a similar job, but not with the same finesse – and storing your licence codes in one place is a bonus.
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