Review: LG 50PK790
Most people seem to think that 2010 will be the year of LCD/LED screen technology. But we're not so sure.
In fact, we reckon plasma's potential innate response time advantage when it comes to showing the latest generation of 3D images could see plasma enjoying something of a resurgence.
Not that the 50-inch LG 'Infinia' 50PK790 we're looking at here is 3D-enabled, we hasten to add!
But it is a brand new plasma TV, and a feature-heavy one at that - despite its reasonably aggressive price point. So it should at the very least provide a good indication of how big a part LG is likely to play in our predicted plasma renaissance.
Within the PK790 range you can also find the larger 60-inch model, the 60PK790, while above the PK790 range on the plasma side of things are the 60-inch 60PK990 and 50-inch 50PK990, which add a black-boosting extra filter to proceedings.
Then there's the 60PK590 and 50PK590 below the PK790 range, which aren't as stylish and ditch the online functionality.
LG also has an extensive range of LCD TVs of all sizes, as well as the LE5900 and LE7900 edge LED series, and the extremely interesting-looking LX9900 and LE8900 direct LED sets with their extremely slender bezels.
For its money, the 50PK790 packs a serious feature punch.
This actually kicks off with its design, which is certainly one of the most attractive we've ever seen wrapped around a plasma TV.
The screen is strikingly slim, for a start, especially right at its extremities - so much so that it actually cuts into your fingers a bit when you're lifting it into position either on a wall or on its very attractive, opulent-feeling desktop stand.
The bezel is very trim by large plasma standards, and the final style push comes from the screen's single-layer finish.
In fact, it's the way the glass panel lying across both the bezel and the screen is allowed to extend a small distance beyond the main bezel that chiefly accounts for the finger-jabbing sharpness when lifting the 50PK790 noted earlier.
Stylish looks
The 50PK790's rear is nearly as attractive as its front, thanks to its healthy stock of sockets, which include four HDMIs, a USB port able to handle JPEGs, MP3s, and best of all, DivX HD files; an Ethernet port for future Freeview HD interactive uses, accessing files on a DLNA PC or LG's new (to TVs at least) NetCast online system; built-in Bluetooth functionality for wireless connection to Bluetooth headsets, mobile phones and now, impressively, PCs; and optional Wi-Fi via a separately purchased USB dongle.
If you're paying attention you should have noticed that we mentioned Freeview HD back there.
Freeview HD
The 50PK790 manages to be right up to date by being the first LG TV we've seen with a built-in Freeview HD tuner. Obviously this is only immediately of benefit to you if you're lucky enough to live in an area served by the Freeview HD service.
But even if you're one of the millions of people who aren't already Freeview HD'ed up, it will be with you by 2012, so you might as well think ahead.
The other potentially most significant change here from anything LG delivered last year clearly comes with the Ethernet/Wi-Fi functionality, with the DLNA and online functionality enabling LG to keep up with the other big players in the TV world.
The new NetCast service clearly warrants more attention since it's the first time LG has introduced such a service onto a TV. When you first access the service, you're asked to pinpoint your location in the world, so that the service can provide you with local weather and time information once you get to the main NetCast 'jumping off' screen.
It has to be said, though, that this 'jumping off' screen isn't exactly overloaded with content when we remember what Sony, Panasonic and Philips are offering with their online TV systems .
Internet apps
All you get are global weather reports from AccuWeather.com, the seemingly inevitable access to YouTube (though via a more friendly interface than that of most rival online TVs), and the Picasa web photo album service.
What's more, during our tests both the YouTube and Picasa systems were unusable via our standard 2MB broadband download pipe; they kept generating network errors, despite our same broadband pipe proving perfectly adequate for, say, Panasonic's VieraCast and Sony's Bravia Internet Video services, as well as the BBC's iPlayer system via Freesat.
We're wary of being too harsh on such service disruptions so early in an online TV's life, but even if they were working, the amount of content available could hardly be considered jaw-dropping. Here's hoping more services - such as the already-promised Skype online video call platform - come online soon.
LG is - astutely - very big these days on getting endorsements from professional independent AV organisations. And so we find the 50PF790 sporting support from both THX - complete with two THX picture presets - and the Imaging Science Foundation, the latter of which can be called in to calibrate the screen professionally for you, storing night and day settings to two special preset slots.
Calibration
You can also use the ISF slots yourself to access an Expert menu, where you can find such impressive fine tuning touches as a full colour management system, complete with red, green and blue contrast, and brightness tweaks, plus colour and tint adjustments for all six primary colours.
These calibration features will undoubtedly catch the eye of any serious home cinema fan.
Other picture presets cater for Sport and Game content, with additional Vivid, User and 'Auto Power Save' options also available. The latter option works in tandem with such technologies as an ambient light level detection system to keep the TV running at its optimum efficiency. Though it's probably best avoided if you value premium picture quality over fractionally improving your carbon footprint.
Fans of casual gaming, meanwhile, might be chuffed to find a selection of simple games tucked away on the 50PK790, including Sudoku, Whack a Mole and Invader. However, these games - included it seems, as a riposte to Samsung's Content Library feature - really are basic in the extreme, and for the most part merely highlight some response issues with the remote control!
Motion smoothing
Wrapping up the 50PK790's features are adjustments to the set's gamma level, noise reduction circuits, dynamic contrast element, an excellent Picture Wizard that uses built-in test signals to help you calibrate images better yourself and, last but not least, 600Hz processing.
As with Panasonic's current 600Hz plasmas, the 50PK790 doesn't actually refresh the picture 600 times a second, but rather uses a 'sub-field drive' to fire each pixel as many as 12 times for each frame of a 50Hz PAL signal.
This makes the 600Hz title rather dubious, but hopefully it can still result in more fluid motion and a generally richer image.
In some ways the 50PK790's pictures represent a considerable leap forward from last year's LG plasmas, and with HD at least are capable of looking really quite excellent.
The best of the good news finds the 50PK790's black level response going much deeper than the slightly milky look of last year's screens, at least once the TV has been calibrated correctly.
Dark scenes can look convincing, detailed and, well, dark.
Deep blacks
If the word 'calibrated' had you groaning with fear back there, don't worry; the black level improvement has allowed THX to deliver a much superior THX Cinema setting than anything provided on last year's LG plasmas. So just choose that when watching HD films if you want an easy life.
Actually, the much-improved black levels aren't the only things that help the 50PK790 produce a better THX preset. For LG has also come on leaps and bounds with its colour response for this new plasma TV.
Colours look richer with a greater dynamic range, yet they also look more natural thanks to a marked reduction in the extent to which greens dominate dark scenes and oranges dominate reds and skin tones.
There's more subtlety to be seen, too, in the way the 50PK790 renders fine blends, with practically no ugly colour striping around, and no blotching to skin tones during HD viewing.
As we find with many plasma TVs, colour accuracy diminishes when you switch to standard definition material, but again this doesn't happen nearly as severely as it did on last year's LG plasmas.
More good news finds the 50PK790 avoiding the motion blur so common with rival LCD technology, but also handling judder well thanks to its '600Hz' system.
Motion judder
Even with LG's anti-judder Film Mode in play, you don't get the total, almost freakish fluidity that you can obtain from Panasonic's top-stream plasmas, or Philips' high-spec LCDs. But the minor amount of judder the 50PK790 leaves behind actually feels quite natural to our eyes - especially as the Film Mode processing doesn't appear to generate anything particularly significant in terms of unwanted side effects.
The 50PK790 excels, too, at reproducing the clarity and sharpness of good quality HD feeds. In fact, it's so forensic in its approach that it easily delivers the natural film grain when showing Blu-ray movies that's so beloved of serious cinephiles.
Not that the 50PK790 is only an HD tool, though. Aside from the occasional colour tone issues noted earlier, it actually upscales standard definition pictures reasonably well provided they're of a passable quality in the first place.
While the 50PK790's pictures are capable of looking quite outstanding at their best, though, there are two main picture problems. The first finds that while black levels are a big step forward compared with last year's LG models, they're still less profound than those of some new Panasonic plasma models.
The most alarming issue, though, finds the 50PK790 still suffering with the same image retention problem noted on last year's LG models. At its lowest level, this can find really bright image elements in dark scenes leaving momentary but clearly visible shadows behind.
Image retention
At its highest level, if you leave something bright and, especially, colourful - like a channel logo - in the same place on screen for as little as an hour, you will be able to see a shadowy relic of that logo apparent over even quite bright pictures for a considerable time after you have changed channel.
For instance, after watching Sky News for a couple of hours, we decided to fire up the excellent Borderlands on our Xbox 360, and were alarmed to see a clearly readable relic of the Sky News logo appearing in the blue skies above Pandora.
And while watching Casino Royale on Blu-ray, we were perturbed to suddenly see the letters S and T appearing in a patch of blue sky behind Bond as he hung off the back of a van during the film's 'Free running' sequence.
We couldn't even remember what we'd been watching that might have caused these residual letters, but the fact remains that they were there, and they were clearly and distractingly visible.
We should say that we didn't experience any permanent 'screen burn' during our tests, and we would expect the issue to diminish after the first 100 hours or so of use. But the problem was certainly enough to cause irritation on a few occasions - especially as other plasma manufacturers seem to have almost completely eliminated this old problem now.
Considering how slender it is, the 50PK790's audio performance can be considered a reasonable success.
As we'd expect, bass is rather limited and compressed. But crucially the mid-range is open enough to leave action scenes sounding acceptably dynamic without overwhelming dialogue and audio detailing.
The speakers remained free of buzzing distortion at any kind of volume below painful, too.
Value
Although the 50PK790 doesn't look particularly cheap against some of the sub-£1k 50-inch models LG has managed in the past, it does enough with its design, features and in many ways picture performance to make its £1,300 price look pretty reasonable.
Ease of use
Thanks to an exceptionally well-designed, graphics-heavy on-screen interface and thoughtfully organised remote control, day-to-day use of the 50PK790 is a breeze.
In an ideal world LG might have a) tried to make the menus smaller or more transparent to make it easier to tweak picture settings, and b) made the remote control a bit more responsive. However, overall the system is still an impressive exercise in how to handle large quantities of options and features without causing the technophobic to blow a gasket.
At first glance, LG appears to have a definite winner on its hands with the 50PK790.
It's extremely easy on the eye, it's got more than enough connections to satisfy even a very sophisticated, extensive AV system, it's got lots of helpful features (including reams of multimedia support), and it produces what are for the most part seriously likeable pictures. All for a pretty reasonable price, too.
In fact, in the long term there's likely to be very little to stop you buying and loving a 50PK790. The problem lies in the short term, where the 50PK790's curious and outmoded susceptibility to plasma's once-common but now largely eliminated image retention issue can cause some really pretty distracting image artefacts.
As noted in the main review, we couldn't say for sure if there's a worry about this retention becoming permanent if you kept a bright, colourful image element 'frozen' in the same place on the screen for a really prolonged time.
Our suspicion is that the image retention probably would always fade over time. But it's a bit disappointing to even have to talk about this issue on a screen that's so cutting edge in other ways.
We liked:
Given what a large presence the 50-inch 50PK790 will be in your room, it's great to find it sporting a seriously pretty chassis design. It's got more than enough connections to cope with a modern, ambitious home cinema system too, and aside from a currently rather limited online service, it's on the money with its multimedia support too.
It's brilliantly easy to use, too, and best of all, its pictures frequently look quite superb.
We disliked:
The TV's rendition of dark scenes is certainly a step forward from previous LG TVs, but it still doesn't deliver black colours that are quite as rich as those of some rival plasma brands. A much bigger concern, though, is the amount of image retention, at least during the first few dozen hours of use.
It will be nice if the NetCast online service bags a few extra services sooner rather than later, too.
Verdict:
It's great to see LG still putting so much effort into the supposedly 'unsexy' plasma format, and achieving some extremely likeable results in the process. Provided you can put up with some image retention problems for what we presume will only be the first few days of the TV's life, then the 50PK790 is well worth checking out.
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Serious security flaw found in Facebook's privacy settings
A massive security flaw has been found on Facebook, which allows users to see personal information about their friends, including friend requests and more.
The flaw was found by TechCruch who have posted a video of just how to see other people's information without doing any hacking.
Privacy problem
It seems there is a loophole in the security preferences of the site, in the section where you can preview security changes you have made and see what your profile looks like to other people.
Once you do this, a simple refresh allows you to see sensitive information of that person, and even their chat windows if they have been left open.
There has been no statement as of yet from Facebook, but Chat is currently disabled on the site.
TechRadar has tried out the flaw on willing participants and it does seem legit. We saw the pending friend requests of our friends and were told how many notifications they had.
Facebook has been very public about its privacy changes – changes which have not been popular with the public.
Although this privacy loophole is likely to be closed sharpish, the consequences of such an oversight may be far reaching.
TechRadar has contacted Facebook for comment.
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Golden Joystick Awards voting is open
The voting for the 28th annual Golden Joystick Awards has opened, with 16 different categories for you to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the Super Marios from the ETs.
The voting, as ever, is taking place on http://www.goldenjoystick.com and the long-list entries are only open until 27 May.
After the nominations have been assembled the shortlist will be ready on 14 June – with a glittering awards event later in the year.
Genre specific
There have been some changes for this year's awards with no console-specific awards meaning genres are king.
"Make sure you show the very best games, developers, publishers and retailers the love they deserve," said the release.
"Don't be afraid to nail your flag to the virtual mast and encourage your friends to join you in attempting to secure immortality for your favourites."
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Update: Twitter to launch embeddable tweets
Twitter has surreptitiously announced the launch of embeddable tweets, allowing users to add a Twitter update to websites.
Although it hasn't been officially announced, Twitter did show off the brand-new function on its media blog.
The micro-blogging site is hoping that sites will use the embeddable option to show off how much of a viable news source Twitter has become.
To show off the virtues of adding tweets to a news piece it uses an article by ReadWriteWeb, which has screen-grabbed tweets in it, as an example, noting: "the use of real tweets helps 'chunk' the piece both visually and logically; we think it makes it easier to read."
Bit of a hack
The blog post then goes on to explain that: "The truth is that a pasted-in image of a tweet is a bit of a hack. We have a simple alternative to propose; it's coming tomorrow."
And to show off the technology, Twitter posted what an embeddable tweet will actually look like.
To make it work, Twitter notes that all that's needed is "just a snippet of code you'll be able to use to generate simple, selectable flat-HTML tweets."
There's no sign of the code yet, but if Twitter says it's arriving today then we can only but believe it.
UPDATE
Twitter has released its code generator for embeddable tweets in a quick post on its media blog.
To use it, go to http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie and enter the URL of the tweet you want to embed. To get the URL, simply click on the time stamp of the tweet.
The blog does note that it won't work on all sites, but this is very much a work in progress for the company.
Currently, the code you have to add to your blog is massive - this will be reduced in the next iteration and so will some time-stamping issues.
For now, you will just have to 'bake it' and how the embed comes out okay.
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Exclusive: Acer criticises AMD's XGP technology
Acer has told TechRadar that it does not feel AMD's XGP external graphics project offers a good enough user experience, although it remains interested in the product.
Somewhat strangely, Acer was expected to release a branded ATI Radeon external graphics card to take advantage of XGP this year, but that appears to have been put on the backburner.
XGP was AMD's attempts to offer laptops users with an external discrete graphics cards, meaning that users could offer a massive graphical boost to their laptops when power was less of an issue.
AMD VP Leslie Sobon told TechRadar a few weeks ago: "Acer will be coming out with an external Radeon graphics card and when you plug that in you get discrete capability, we're really excited about it.
"I don't know If Acer has announced when it's coming out, I don't know myself, but it's coming out this year where they will have this XGP solution..."
Not the best
However, in response to TechRadar's probings about a release date Acer responded with a less than flattering description of XGP, even though it has already used the port part of the technology in its Ferrari laptop.
"Acer is interested in this solution, but at the moment it doesn't offer the best user experience," said a spokesman for the company.
Now obviously, TechRadar contacted AMD to get to the bottom of this, and the company responded by saying: "AMD has been working closely with Acer to bring XGP to market.
"The Acer Ferrari One, now available for purchase, does include the XGP port. AMD demonstrated a prototype solution with this notebook at International CES 2010 in Las Vegas at the beginning of this year.
"A shipping date for the XGP unit has not been announced."
Curiouser, and curiouser.
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In Depth: UK election: the parties' tech policies examined
With just a day to go before Election 2010, the hustings have become high-tech. It seems that you can't call yourself a modern politician if you're not spamming social networks and launching your own iPhone app.
That's all style, though. What about the substance? What are the big parties' plans for technology once they're elected?
Can we take them seriously, or should we just vote for the Pirate Party instead? Let's find out.
Better the devil you know?
It isn't hard to work out what Labour's all about: it's rammed the Digital Economy Act down our collective throats, with all the file sharing-related fun that implies.
However, Labour also has some positive technological plans: it wants everyone to have at least 2Mbps broadband by 2012 and 90% of us to have "superfast" 100Mbps broadband by 2017, and it's willing to risk a potentially unpopular telephone line tax to help pay for it.
Another tax move is designed to help the games industry: announced in this week's budget, the government intends to introduce film industry-style tax breaks to keep game development talent - and profits - in the UK.
Labour is also publishing lots of previously private government data at data.gov.uk, something it promises to continue doing, and it promises to use more open source software. The government also intends to build G-Cloud, a cloud computing platform for government IT, as part of a new IT strategy designed to save £3.2 billion per year.
There's good news for ID thieves too. Gordon Brown has described his plans for MyGov, a digital dashboard that will ultimately replace the Direct.gov website. A kind of Boring MySpace, MyGov will be a one-stop shop for all government services from disabled badges to managing pensions, with a single login "making interaction with government as easy as internet banking or online shopping."
Will MyGov be linked to the National Identity Scheme, creating a potential nightmare for anyone whose data gets compromised? The government isn't saying. That's reassuring, isn't it?
Tory tech
The Conservatives have made a lot of noise about their technology policies, and unlike Labour they've put all their tech-related ideas in one place.
The Tories want to take Labour's publication of government data even further and give us all a Right To Data, so for example the Tories pledge to publish monthly crime statistics on a street-by-street basis together with details of the energy consumption of government buildings, details of government contracts and tenders, salaries paid to quango bosses, council spending and, inevitably, MPs' expenses.
To prevent high-profile IT disasters costing billions, they also promise to cap government IT projects at £100m apiece.
Like Labour, the Tories promise superfast 100Mbps broadband for lots of people, but while Labour promises 90% coverage by 2017 - or rather, while Labour says it has "an ambition for access for 90 per cent" by 2017 - the Tories say that only they can ensure the UK "will be the first country in Europe to extend superfast 100Mbps broadband across most of the population."
That won't be paid for by a telephone tax - the Tories plan to scrap that - and it won't reach remote areas: the Tories' approach is to have superfast broadband appear first as a premium service in cities, which will make so much money for ISPs that they'll be able to offer the same thing cheaply in Auchtermuchty. We're paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.
As an incentive the Tories will relax planning controls, get BT to share its infrastructure - ducts and telephone poles - with rivals in much the same way Local Loop Unbundling enabled ISPs to stick their kit in BT exchanges, and from 2012 they may also divert some of the BBC licence fee currently earmarked for promoting the digital switchover.
The Conservatives are likely to keep Labour's tax breaks for the games industry too: shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey has previously claimed to be "sympathetic" to the need for tax relief, so he's unlikely to scrap it if he gets into power. The party has also promised to retain the R&D tax credits that many technology businesses benefit from.
There's one thing you won't find anywhere in the manifesto: the Tories' support for some of the Digital Economy Bill's more worrying bits, such as disconnection for file sharers. As Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group told the BBC: "it is totally contradictory to propose building a future dependent on the internet and support plans to disconnect families as a punishment."
Quite Liberally
Despite the odd crazed peer such as Lord Clement-Jones, whose proposed - and now, heavily amended - amendment to the Digital Economy Bill was apparently written by the BPI, the Lib Dems are a pretty tech-friendly bunch - although with the exception of their anti-Digital Economy Bill stance there isn't much meat on the policy bones.
So for example they say they will "ensure universal broadband access and make sure that rural areas don't get left behind" in their policy briefing but don't explain how they'll do that. Similarly, they promise to "tackle the problem of illegal file-sharing in an effective and proportionate way" without elaborating.
For specifics you'll need to head for the old and rather dusty Make IT Policy website, which explains the need for government investment to ensure broadband reaches everyone, the need for an overhaul of copyright law, the importance of net neutrality, plans to get shot of the controversial IR35 rules that affect many IT contractors, and moves to encourage the use of open source software in government departments and contractors' systems.
The Lib Dems are also in favour of the tax breaks for the games industry: earlier this month Don Foster, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said that if such tax relief was introduced in the budget "personally I'll be delighted and will be doing everything I can to make sure nobody in my party proposes stripping it out again."
Minority Report
There are more parties than just the big three, of course, although unless something really incredible happens parties such as the SNP or Plaid Cymru won't be dictating tech policy for the entire UK come May. However, it's interesting to compare the big three's plans with the policies of a younger, internet-based party: the Pirate Party UK.
There's lots of interesting things in the PPUK manifesto: legalising CD ripping; establishing a legal right to share files "provided no money changes hands"; requiring the BBC to release all its programmes with a Creative Commons licence; stronger data protection laws; and the right to pay your ISP only for the speed you actually get, not the "up to" speed the provider offers - so if you only get 1/4 of the advertised broadband speed, you'd only pay 1/4 of the agreed price.
To deliver broadband for all, the PPUK would extend the universal service obligation, which currently means anyone who wants a phone line must get one, to include broadband connectivity. DRM-protected products would have mandatory warning labels, and disabled people would have the right to bypass DRM that prevents them from accessing media.
The Pirate Party doesn't have a snowball in Hell's chance of becoming the next government, but that's not the point: by grabbing headlines and the occasional political seat, the various Pirate Parties around the world can keep copyright reform in the press and on the political agenda.
The bigger picture
So will any of this swing your vote? The answer, of course, depends on what other policies the parties have - so while you might not like a party's attitude to file sharing, you might love their economic ideas; you might love their tech policies but think their energy policy is the work of simpletons; you might be so outraged by the tax hike on cider that you won't vote Labour ever again, and so on.
We'd certainly find ourselves torn if a party planned to implement invasive and unnecessary internet monitoring but also promised to fire Carol Vorderman into space. That's politics for you.
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In Depth: UK election: the parties' tech policies examined
With just a day to go before Election 2010, the hustings have become high-tech. It seems that you can't call yourself a modern politician if you're not spamming social networks and launching your own iPhone app.
That's all style, though. What about the substance? What are the big parties' plans for technology once they're elected?
Can we take them seriously, or should we just vote for the Pirate Party instead? Let's find out.
Better the devil you know?
It isn't hard to work out what Labour's all about: it's rammed the Digital Economy Act down our collective throats, with all the file sharing-related fun that implies.
However, Labour also has some positive technological plans: it wants everyone to have at least 2Mbps broadband by 2012 and 90% of us to have "superfast" 100Mbps broadband by 2017, and it's willing to risk a potentially unpopular telephone line tax to help pay for it.
Another tax move is designed to help the games industry: announced in this week's budget, the government intends to introduce film industry-style tax breaks to keep game development talent - and profits - in the UK.
Labour is also publishing lots of previously private government data at data.gov.uk, something it promises to continue doing, and it promises to use more open source software. The government also intends to build G-Cloud, a cloud computing platform for government IT, as part of a new IT strategy designed to save £3.2 billion per year.
There's good news for ID thieves too. Gordon Brown has described his plans for MyGov, a digital dashboard that will ultimately replace the Direct.gov website. A kind of Boring MySpace, MyGov will be a one-stop shop for all government services from disabled badges to managing pensions, with a single login "making interaction with government as easy as internet banking or online shopping."
Will MyGov be linked to the National Identity Scheme, creating a potential nightmare for anyone whose data gets compromised? The government isn't saying. That's reassuring, isn't it?
Tory tech
The Conservatives have made a lot of noise about their technology policies, and unlike Labour they've put all their tech-related ideas in one place.
The Tories want to take Labour's publication of government data even further and give us all a Right To Data, so for example the Tories pledge to publish monthly crime statistics on a street-by-street basis together with details of the energy consumption of government buildings, details of government contracts and tenders, salaries paid to quango bosses, council spending and, inevitably, MPs' expenses.
To prevent high-profile IT disasters costing billions, they also promise to cap government IT projects at £100m apiece.
Like Labour, the Tories promise superfast 100Mbps broadband for lots of people, but while Labour promises 90% coverage by 2017 - or rather, while Labour says it has "an ambition for access for 90 per cent" by 2017 - the Tories say that only they can ensure the UK "will be the first country in Europe to extend superfast 100Mbps broadband across most of the population."
That won't be paid for by a telephone tax - the Tories plan to scrap that - and it won't reach remote areas: the Tories' approach is to have superfast broadband appear first as a premium service in cities, which will make so much money for ISPs that they'll be able to offer the same thing cheaply in Auchtermuchty. We're paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.
As an incentive the Tories will relax planning controls, get BT to share its infrastructure - ducts and telephone poles - with rivals in much the same way Local Loop Unbundling enabled ISPs to stick their kit in BT exchanges, and from 2012 they may also divert some of the BBC licence fee currently earmarked for promoting the digital switchover.
The Conservatives are likely to keep Labour's tax breaks for the games industry too: shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey has previously claimed to be "sympathetic" to the need for tax relief, so he's unlikely to scrap it if he gets into power. The party has also promised to retain the R&D tax credits that many technology businesses benefit from.
There's one thing you won't find anywhere in the manifesto: the Tories' support for some of the Digital Economy Bill's more worrying bits, such as disconnection for file sharers. As Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group told the BBC: "it is totally contradictory to propose building a future dependent on the internet and support plans to disconnect families as a punishment."
Quite Liberally
Despite the odd crazed peer such as Lord Clement-Jones, whose proposed - and now, heavily amended - amendment to the Digital Economy Bill was apparently written by the BPI, the Lib Dems are a pretty tech-friendly bunch - although with the exception of their anti-Digital Economy Bill stance there isn't much meat on the policy bones.
So for example they say they will "ensure universal broadband access and make sure that rural areas don't get left behind" in their policy briefing but don't explain how they'll do that. Similarly, they promise to "tackle the problem of illegal file-sharing in an effective and proportionate way" without elaborating.
For specifics you'll need to head for the old and rather dusty Make IT Policy website, which explains the need for government investment to ensure broadband reaches everyone, the need for an overhaul of copyright law, the importance of net neutrality, plans to get shot of the controversial IR35 rules that affect many IT contractors, and moves to encourage the use of open source software in government departments and contractors' systems.
The Lib Dems are also in favour of the tax breaks for the games industry: earlier this month Don Foster, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said that if such tax relief was introduced in the budget "personally I'll be delighted and will be doing everything I can to make sure nobody in my party proposes stripping it out again."
Minority Report
There are more parties than just the big three, of course, although unless something really incredible happens parties such as the SNP or Plaid Cymru won't be dictating tech policy for the entire UK come May. However, it's interesting to compare the big three's plans with the policies of a younger, internet-based party: the Pirate Party UK.
There's lots of interesting things in the PPUK manifesto: legalising CD ripping; establishing a legal right to share files "provided no money changes hands"; requiring the BBC to release all its programmes with a Creative Commons licence; stronger data protection laws; and the right to pay your ISP only for the speed you actually get, not the "up to" speed the provider offers - so if you only get 1/4 of the advertised broadband speed, you'd only pay 1/4 of the agreed price.
To deliver broadband for all, the PPUK would extend the universal service obligation, which currently means anyone who wants a phone line must get one, to include broadband connectivity. DRM-protected products would have mandatory warning labels, and disabled people would have the right to bypass DRM that prevents them from accessing media.
The Pirate Party doesn't have a snowball in Hell's chance of becoming the next government, but that's not the point: by grabbing headlines and the occasional political seat, the various Pirate Parties around the world can keep copyright reform in the press and on the political agenda.
The bigger picture
So will any of this swing your vote? The answer, of course, depends on what other policies the parties have - so while you might not like a party's attitude to file sharing, you might love their economic ideas; you might love their tech policies but think their energy policy is the work of simpletons; you might be so outraged by the tax hike on cider that you won't vote Labour ever again, and so on.
We'd certainly find ourselves torn if a party planned to implement invasive and unnecessary internet monitoring but also promised to fire Carol Vorderman into space. That's politics for you.
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Exclusive: AMD: dockable computers are the future
AMD believes that people will not want to choose between a small, portable and lower power device and a heavier but more powerful option, and a senior figure at the company thinks that docking could be the answer.
The computer world is awash with talk of so-called 'thin clients' which don't need huge processing power and take advantage of the cloud to store information and run applications and 'fat clients' which have more processing power and their own storage for programs and data.
With its Fusion project, AMD is keen to align itself with both thin and fat clients, but vice president of marketing Leslie Sobon thinks that the public will not need to compromise in the long run, with the option of a portable device that docks into a more powerful machine when portability is less of a problem.
Not that simple
"We talk a lot about thin client cloud and I just don't think it's that simple," said Sobon, "I think it's a lot of stuff in the cloud and still fat clients."
"There are things that people are going to be comfortable having in the cloud and things that they are going to want their flash drive to hold and you are offering them the choice – it's never going to be an either or proposition.
"But for me it's how you move from something that's mobile and portable to something you can actually manage and enter content with – those things need to come together.
"Docking is probably the way that will come together. You basically have a smartphone and then you dock it and it expands its ability."
Google is hoping that the release of its Chrome OS at the end of the year will bring a slew of thin clients, with the operating system designed to utilise the cloud and local storage limited to a cache.
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Upside-down glasses solves 3D TV conundrum
The Home Cinema Choice crew have discovered a rather novel way of making sure your proprietary Samsung 3D glasses work with Panasonic 3D sets (and vice versa); simply put the glasses on the wrong way up.
Essentially Panasonic and Samsung have simply put the polarising lenses in the opposite way round – which leads to a practical if rather inelegant solution.
"While Samsung and Panasonic glasses are officially incompatible with each other, we've discovered that if you wear one pair upside down they will work with the rival brand's set," said HCC's Steve May.
Success!
"I successfully enjoyed 3DTV on a Panasonic model with upside-down Samsung glasses, and vice versa," he adds
"Admittedly it wasn't a very comfortable experience, and you do look stupider than normal trying it, but heck, this is what we've all been reduced to..."
Apparently a common standard for active shutter 3D glasses is on the way, and it sounds like it can't come soon enough.
Unless you want to look like a mix between a Blues Brother and Dennis Taylor.
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Upside-down glasses solves 3D TV conundrum
The Home Cinema Choice crew have discovered a rather novel way of making sure your proprietary Samsung 3D glasses work with Panasonic 3D sets (and vice versa); simply put the glasses on the wrong way up.
Essentially Panasonic and Samsung have simply put the polarising lenses in the opposite way round – which leads to a practical if rather inelegant solution.
"While Samsung and Panasonic glasses are officially incompatible with each other, we've discovered that if you wear one pair upside down they will work with the rival brand's set," said HCC's Steve May.
Success!
"I successfully enjoyed 3DTV on a Panasonic model with upside-down Samsung glasses, and vice versa," he adds
"Admittedly it wasn't a very comfortable experience, and you do look stupider than normal trying it, but heck, this is what we've all been reduced to..."
Apparently a common standard for active shutter 3D glasses is on the way, and it sounds like it can't come soon enough.
Unless you want to look like a mix between a Blues Brother and Dennis Taylor.
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HP offers up host of new laptops
Hewlett Packard has announced major updates to its consumer laptops and netbook ranges, with changes to the Envy, Pavilion, G and Mini lines.
HP says that the new updates deliver "distinctive design elements, new materials, enhanced performance and better experiences to consumers."
The Envy line is the 'premium' option aimed at the higher cost end of the market, and the HP Envy14 and Envy17 offer ATI Mobility Radeon discrete graphics cards, slot-loading optical drive and Intel processors.
The notebooks also boast Beats Audio, developed in conjunction with Dr Dre (who, as we all know, got his doctorate in the University of Phat Beats), and up to 2TB of storage.
Design-wise the Envy range has a "magnesium-alloy bottom layer for reduced weight and thickness, a pure-grade laser-etched aluminum chassis for improved strength and durability."
The HP Envy4 has a UK release date of July with a starting price of £999 and the HP Envy17 is expected to be available in July with a price of £1299 and upwards.
Back in the Pavilion
The thin-and-light HP Pavilion range has been given a major update with the dm1, dm3, and dm4 all offering a "full PC experience" in a featherweight form factor.
The range-topping dm4 weighs in at less than 2kg and boasts an Intel Core processor, an optional ATI Radeon HD5450 GPU with a 14 inch screen and "up to" 6.5 hours of battery life.
The dm3 is now offered with either an AMD Athlon II Neo or Turion II Neo with an optional ATI Radeon HD5430 GPU, while the HP Pavilion dm1 brings AMD Neo processor, an ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics and up to 5GB DDR3 memory support.
The higher-performance HP Pavilion Performance/Entertainment notebooks haven't been left out either with the dv3, dv6 and dv7 all being billed as "ideal for any type of media-rich experience, offering the latest in graphics, audio and video."
The dv6 is the first HP Pavilion notebook PC available with an optional touch screen, plus a new 16.6 inch HD display, and the dv3, dv6 and dv7 all come with finger print reader, and can also have Dolby Advanced Audio and Altec Lansing speakers with the dv7 potentially bringing metal finish HP triple bass subwoofer and HP Beats Audio.
The HP Pavilion dm1, dm3, dm4, dv3, dv6 and dv7 have a UK release date of July, with UK starting prices of £399, £499, £699, £799, £549 and £649, respectively.
Mini and cosmetics
HP's Mini range has been boosted by new designs for the HP Mini 210 line and an updated HP Mini 110 which is now available in 2 colours and offers an optional six-cell battery providing up to 8 hours of battery life.
The HP Mini 210 and Mini 110 are expected to be available mid July with a starting price of £299 and £249 respectively.
To finish up HP has also introduced additional colours to its entry-level notebooks HP G62 and G72.
"The HP G72 will be available in black and biscotti, the HP G62 in black, white, silver and biscotti," adds HP.
"The HP G62 will also be available with the latest AMD Phenom II, Turion II and Athlon II series processors."
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Nokia releases Ovi Maps Own Voice app
TomTom may have just signed up Darth Vader but Nokia is massaging egos the world over, with news that it is to allow you to record your own voice for its turn-by-turn navigation service.
Prefect for those who like the sound of their own voice, the aptly titled Own Voice app allows you to lend your dulcet tones to the 53 simple step-by-step processes found in the Ovi Maps sat nav.
Given a voice
Once you have recorded your oral masterpiece, then you hit save and the whole thing will be ready for you at to the Own Voice website.
If you don't fancy doing one yourself, then there are a number of user-generated voices to choose from on the website.
For instance, you can have angry Charlotte who will bark orders at you like a nagging girlfriend, which sounds a bit too close for home to actually be any fun.
There's also one called the Reaper, which allows you to take instructions from someone who sounds, well, like Death.
Nokia's Ovi Maps service launched back in February and is proving quite popular. In its first week of launch, the free app was downloaded over a million times.
Since then, Google has announced its own free navigation service for Google maps.
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In Depth: The hacker's guide to website security
We all know that securing your website is important, but sometimes it can seem a distant, somewhat theoretical task.
Well, let me help you focus your minds (and perhaps instil a healthy level of fear) by making it all a little more real.
I'll describe exactly how I would go about compromising your website, using simple methods and tools that are freely available to all. You may be surprised, even alarmed by how straightforward this is.
But don't panic! I'll also outline some of the countermeasures you can use to deter the would-be hacker and keep yourself safe. The scenario is fictional but based on my experience of years in the web industry working as an ethical hacker – employed by organisations to hack their systems in order to uncover vulnerabilities. My remit is to gather as much information as possible from the sites and servers of Company A. To start with, I only know the URL.
1. Passive reconnaissance
Reconnaissance refers to the preparatory phase where an attacker gathers as much information as possible about the target prior to the attack. Passive reconnaissance involves techniques such as gathering publicly available information, using search engines, social engineering and dumpster diving – going through the bins.
Active reconnaissance (stage 2) involves using tools to actively interact with the target, such as network scanning and banner grabbing. Footprinting is the term used for collating the security profile of the organisation. Information unveiled at various network levels can include details regarding domain name, network blocks, network services, network applications, systems architecture, IP addresses, phone numbers, addresses, contact names, historical changes and application information to name but a few.
Footprinting is important to gather information about the technologies being used. With this information, the attack can be more focused.
Step 1: URL/networking info
Ethical hacker: "I need to gather information about the URL, so I'll use a WHOIS tool to get that. This provides me with lots of information including contact names, telephone numbers and Name Servers. Excellent, I now have two name server records, which I can test later.
I'll perform a reverse WHOIS on the IP address of the Name Servers now to see what I can find. I now have the IP block and will scan the range to see what servers are hosted on it later. Just by using one simple tool I've gathered the registrar company name, address, UK address, UK limited company number, name server IP addresses and the network block."
Countermeasures: There's very little you can do about this, I'm afraid. As an individual, you can opt out of the WHOIS.
Step 2: URL gathering
Ethical hacker: "I know the URL, so I'll use serversniff.net to discover subdomains and possibly other servers. These URLs may contain details about a company's products, partners, intranet and so on. I now have a list of all the subdomains on that server – Shop and Chat. I bet there's some old software I can exploit that's been forgotten about."
Countermeasures: Lots of firms have subdomains for hosting test sites, internal development, web mail etc. It's easy to find these subdomains by querying the Name Servers we discovered in step 1. Rather than create the subdomains on internet-facing DNS, you could have them on internal DNS only.
Step 3: IP address scanning
Ethical hacker: "Now I have several IPs that I can scan for host names from the WHOIS Net Block. I can scan each of these servers for any additional domains that they're hosting. This could lead to more vulnerabilities and information leaks. Again, I'll use serversniff.net."
Countermeasures: Each IP address has a domain name associated with it. This can be found by doing a simple HOST query on the IP. What this doesn't tell you is all the other domains hosted on the server. Apache and IIS allow multiple server names (or websites) on each server. Finding these additional websites may lead to new sources of information or old sites that have been forgotten. Again, there's not a lot that can be done to prevent this.
Step 4: Google hacking
Google hacking is the art of creating complex search engine queries in order to filter information related to the target. In its malicious form, it can be used to detect websites that are vulnerable to numerous exploits and vulnerabilities. It can also locate private, sensitive information about the target. The techniques can also be used on Bing, Yahoo etc.
To find all the pages for www.example.com that have been cached by the search engine, use "site:www.example.com". And to search within the cached pages, use "site:www.example.com search term". There are a plethora of searches available to find information about the target without actually touching the site.
Ethical hacker: "Rather than go straight to the website, I now want to see what the search engines have cached. Server administrators often forget that the search engines are spidering their servers and will leave valuable information open or worse still, allow access to sensitive documents. I'll use Google today and see what I can find. I find some internal documents and case studies. I'll also have a dig around archive.com to see if there's any old information about the company."
Countermeasures: You can restrict what the search engines spider with the robots.txt file. However, not all search engines read this file. Also be aware that, as you'll see later, the robots.txt file can be used to find directories you think you're hiding.
2. Active reconnaissance
Step 1: Scanning
Scanning is one of the most important phases of intelligence gathering. The attacker gathers information about the target's server OS, system configuration, services running and vulnerabilities. The idea is to discover exploitable communication channels and find various ways to intrude the target system. This is equivalent to a burglar trying the doors and windows of a house.
Port scanning is the process of determining which services are running on the target server by sending a sequence of preformed messages. It involves connecting to TCP and UDP ports on the target to determine if the services are running and listening.
A listening service on a server is basically a program that communicates with the outside world. These programs listen on ports. There are standard ports such as 21 for FTP, 25 for Email, 80 for web traffic etc. Some ports are of more interest than others, as they can provide an easy route into the server if left either badly configured or with their default settings enabled (for example, anonymous users on FTP). Once a listening service is discovered, more attacks can be launched.
Ethical hacker: "I select two targets: the main URL and an IP from the Net Block. I don't want to alert the sys admins, in case there's an IDS box or firewall in front. I need a tool that can perform an idle scan so I'll use the best, NMAP (nmap.org). The scan reveals some interesting open ports and the IDS or firewall didn't even know! I can see the standard 25,80,122,443,53 open.
"Now on to the second server. Rather than an idle scan, I'll perform a SYN scan just to see which ports are open. I can see 3389, which is a Windows remote desktop port, 80 and more interestingly, port 3306 filtered. This indicates that there's a MySQL server running, but I'll confirm that later."
Countermeasures: The main defence against port scanning is a firewall. Properly configured, you can restrict at an IP level who has access to which port. However, public ports such as 25, 80 and 443 can never be restricted. If you want to spend the money, some top-end firewalls will detect the types of scans that can be performed and block the requesting IP. Once an attacker sees that a port is filtered, they know there's a firewall in place.
Outgoing firewall rules are as important as incoming. For example, the attacker may be successful at uploading a script that can tunnel through port 80. If your firewall allows incoming and outgoing port 80 connections then the tunnel will work. However, blocking outgoing port 80 will stop the tunnel.
Step 2: Identify the server OS
Identifying the server OS is the next step. Once it's known, a search for vulnerabilities can be started. Vulnerabilities don't have to be remote, as once an application has been compromised, a local user may be able to escalate their privileges to administrator or root. There are several techniques for identifying the OS but an experienced hacker will know just by looking at the port scan output.
Ethical hacker: "I need to confirm the server's operating system. As port 25, 53, 80, 122, 443 and 3306 could be running Linux or Windows I'll use Xprobe2 to test. Just as I thought: it's a Linux server, CENTOS 5.2. Port 53 was the giveaway. I'm not sure what port 122 is, though. As the other server is running ms-term-serv, that's a Windows server for sure. I just need to find which version."
Countermeasures: As there are so many techniques for determining the OS, there's very little that can be done to countermeasure this.
Step 3: Banner grabbing
This involves connecting to the server ports and passing some information that will return, at best, the application name and version number. Most applications will advertise themselves and give away their version numbers. Once the application and version number is known, it can be checked against a list of known vulnerabilities.
Knowing the application and version number isn't always that valuable, though, as some fully patched applications don't always update the version number.
Ethical hacker: "Let's identify the applications and versions. On the Linux server we have port 25, 53, 80, 122 and 443. I already know what the services are, apart from 122, but let's see if I can get the version numbers. I'll keep it simple and use Telnet. Port 25-Sendmail version 8.13.8, Port 53-DNS, Port 80-Apache 2.2.3, Port 443 HTTPS Apache 2.2.3 and port 122 is SSH version 2-4.3!
HELP IS AT HAND: For info on how to secure your IIS server, including the latest updates, visit msdn.microsoft.com
The sys admin is trying to be sneaky. On the Windows server there's IIS running, MS Terminal Server and MySQL. IIS is version 6.0. Via the terminal server client I can see that it's Windows Server 2003 – unpatched, I bet. I know that Port 3306 is MySQL, but it's filtered rather than closed. This tells me that there's a firewall configured in front of the servers and it's filtering MySQL connections from another server."
Countermeasures: Most applications allow you to change the advertised banner, somewhere. You may have to dig deep but you should be successful. For example, Apache has a directive "ServerSignature", which can be set to OFF. With SENDMAIL you need to change the sendmail.cf file. For IIS you can use the IIS Lockdown tool.
Something else you can do is conceal the file extensions, since the file extensions can give clues to the operating system you're running.
Step 4: Web server application scan
The reconnaissance process has its uses but unless there's a fundamental weakness there's no way to exploit the server. However, it's useful to map out the network and potentially discover hidden gems.
During the name server search, a number of additional host names and subdomains could be discovered. System administrators and developers often forget about these and leave old test scripts, data and vulnerable applications that have been downloaded for tests but never updated.
A paramount step in testing for web application vulnerabilities is to find out which particular applications are hosted on a web server. Many applications have known vulnerabilities and known attack strategies that can be exploited in order to gain remote control or to exploit data. In addition, many applications are often misconfigured or not updated, due to the perception that they're only used 'internally' and therefore no threat exists.
Ethical hacker: "Let's look to see if I can find any juicy pieces of information on these websites. I'll use an Amazon Virtual server to hide my real IP from the sys admin (not that they'll look in the logs anyway). From my passive reconnaissance, I can see that on the Linux server there are five websites hosted and two with subdomains. On the Windows servers I can't see any websites, even though IIS is running.
Starting with the Linux server I'll run the web file scanner, Nikto. I can see a robots. txt, /administration, phpinfo.php, /test, /manual, phpmyadmin, /downloads, /forum and /bakups. The robots.txt file lists the directories that the search engine shouldn't spider but that doesn't stop me looking at them. I can see /includes, /administrator, /cache/, /components/, /images/, /includes/, /installation/, /language/, /libraries/, /media/, /modules/, /plugins/, /templates/, /tmp/, /xmlrpc/. Let's look at phpinfo.php.
As I suspected, it's the PHP information. This will give me some information regarding the installation of PHP. I note the version, paths and installed extensions.
â— /administration next. Joomla installation. No version number. I look at the source. The meta tag tells me it's 1.5. There are plenty of security updates for 1.5.
◠/Forum. This leads me to a forum for the website. Looking at the footer I can see it's Vbulletin, but no version number. A quick Google search shows me the administration link – /admincp, the admin control panel screen – but still no version. I look at the page source and there it is: version 3.6.8 on the alt tag for the Vbulletin logo – how stupid. I'll search for a hack later.
â— /test. There's a copy of a website here.
â— /manual. A copy of the Apache manual.
â— /bakups. Some old tar files. Worth a look.
â— /phpmyadmin. Installation of phpMyAdmin version 3.2.5. The latest version but still an opportunity to test the username and password. Username is generally root.
â— /downloads. I can see a Joomla tar file. This may mean Joomla is installed somewhere.
"I move on to the Windows server. The default IP address page confirms it's II6, but there don't seem to be any websites on this server, which must mean it's used for some other purpose. With MySQL and terminal services I'm guessing it's used for some database work."
Countermeasures: Don't leave old or unwanted files on the server. Make sure all installed third-party software is up to date. If you have a login page, can you restrict the IPs that can access it? You can't restrict access to the robots.txt file, so ensure there isn't any valuable information in there.
3. Gaining access
The next step is gaining access to the web application, database or the server itself, using a selection of the following attacks: cross-site scripting XSS, SQL injections, command injections, cookie/session poisoning, parameter/form tampering, buffer overflow, authentication hijacking, obfuscation attack, platform exploits, application exploits, brute force attacks and web services exploits.
Step 1: Software exploits
Ethical hacker: "As I'm focusing on information leaks and unauthorised access, I'll concentrate on application exploits, SQL injections, form manipulation and XSS. I'll start with the software I know has been installed and check for exploits.
◠Vbulletin 3.8.6 exploit – lots of them, XSS, remote execution and SQL injections.
◠phpmyadmin 3.2.5 exploit – nothing there but I could try a brute force if all else fails.
◠Joomla 1.5 – lots of different exploits available.
Let's have a look at the websites on the server. I identify five hosts and two subdomains.
"Nothing special on the first two, just static pages. There are a couple of forms on the others that I'll check later. Then there are the subdomains, Shop and Chat. Shop is an ecommerce application. I can't identify it, so it must be written in-house.
Chat takes me to a login page for Crafty Syntax Live Help Login version 2.12.6. I've never heard of this one, so I Google it. Okay, looks genuine: the latest version is 2.16.8! I look at the change log. Version 2.12.6 was released on 16 November 2005. I can see from the installation notes that the default user is admin and a quick search lists SQL injections that can reveal the username and passwords."
SECURITY BASICS: The General Security guidelines of open source info site dev.mysql.com are a good place to start for the basics of securing your site
Countermeasures: Your main defence here is keeping installed software up to date. This may not always be easy if you've made modifications from the default installation. However, it's a necessity. Removing all traces of the version number will help to deter the hacker, but not necessarily prevent an attack.
Another measure worth considering is restricting access to administration logins by IP address. This can be done with Apache by the htaccess and on IIS in the Internet Services Manager. If you can't do this, you could write a script that blocks an IP address after three failed login attempts.
Step 2: Form manipulation
Ethical hacker: "I'm now ready to move on to form manipulation, XSS and SQL injection. I'll concentrate on the custom-built ecommerce software. I'm going to use Paros Proxy to intercept the forms I fill in and discover hidden fields.
I register first: it all seems basic, so I'll check for SQL injections next. Now it's time to buy something. I choose the red one at £159 and click through to the checkout. The fields I've got include product name, code, description, quantity and cost.
There's also a hidden field called promo. I reckon this will be used for some discount when called from another script. I change it to a 1 and the cost to £99, then submit it. It goes to a third-party payment provider and I have a 10 per cent discount from £99. Result!"
Countermeasures: Any form submitted from the browser can be tampered with. Even JavaScript that does input validation can be bypassed once the data is submitted. To prevent this, all form validation should be done on the server. Use a standard input validation mechanism to validate all input data for length, type, syntax and business rules before accepting the data to be displayed or stored.
Step 3: SQL injections
Ethical hacker: "Now let me check the registration page and login for SQL injections. First I log in, entering my email address and password. There's a bit of JavaScript that's checking for a valid email address, so I'll have to use Paros Proxy again to bypass this. I don't have any luck, so I move on to the registration page. I'll use SQLMAP for this as there are six fields to check.
I get an error code: 'Microsoft OLE DB Provider for OBDC Drivers error. [MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver][mysqld-5.0.67- community-nt]You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '1','2/5/2010 11:00:49 AM',''','','yes','yes')' at line 1'.
"Interesting – MySQL on Windows. This is the server I scanned earlier with a filtered 3306 port. It looks like the input validation hasn't detected the single quotes correctly. Now I can craft a SQL select statement to gather the table structure and some database content. I can see that the MySQL user is called mysql and that they don't have FILE permissions, which means I can't read or write files."
Countermeasures: SQL injections are number two on OWASP's top 10 application vulnerabilities. This is because there are many ways to use them.
SQL injection is a method of running SQL code that's appended to user input and run against the SQL server (for example MSSQL, MySQL or Oracle). As web applications are becoming more complex, the scope for SQL injections is increasing.
A simple test to try is to put a single quote (') character in the input. Single quotes are interpreted as field delimiters, between code and data. By inputting a single quote you're testing for the correct handling of invalid input. However, simply validating input for single quotes isn't enough. Attackers can also manipulate HTTP requests and substitute values using a proxy server.
Error messages can also provide a wealth of information if the developers haven't written the code to handle this correctly. By manipulating input, error messages can be generated that give away column names and table names. Even drop-down lists can be manipulated by the use of a proxy.
And finally, insecure database configurations such as default usernames, passwords, privileges and permissions all help an attacker. When creating new database users, it's easy to just grant all privileges. This should be avoided. Only grant the minimum necessary for the user to perform their tasks.
Change the default username from root. Most attackers look for the root user as it's the most powerful user. If you rename it to some innocuous user, it will be more difficult for the attacker to gain full privileges.
IN THE FRAME: Open source penetration testing framework Metasploit is the ethical hacker's best friend
Step 4: XSS
Ethical hacker: "Now for some XSS. The forum software was old and vulnerable to some XSS. Let me investigate a little further. Okay, I can inject some code so that when someone reads my post it will execute JavaScript that will email me their cookies. Hopefully it will be the administrator so that I can log in as him."
Countermeasures: Start by assuming that all input is malicious. You must check for input type, length, format and range. Remember that this must be done on the server, as the attached can alter any data sent to the server.
Step 5: Exploiting vulnerabilities
Ethical hacker: "I know the major version numbers of Apache, Sendmail, MySQL and IIS. There's not been a major exploit for Apache, Sendmail or MySQL for a while now. But IIS is version 6 and that will be my target. I'll use Metasploit, as that comes with all the vulnerability checks built in.
I give it the IP, select the exploit for IIS6 and then select the payload. I'll go for a command prompt. Launch and result! CMD.EXE on the Windows server. Easy. Now that I'm on the Windows server, I'll be able to connect to the Linux server from the internal trusted network and try a few more attacks."
Hopefully I haven't scared you too much here, but given you an insight into how straightforward it is to exploit unprotected sites and servers. There are numerous resources to help you understand the risks and protect yourself, so check these out. Forewarned is forearmed!
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Google Editions ebook store to launch this summer
Google is to launch its Google Editions ebook store in 2010, which will offer the latest digital books without locking your purchases to a specific device.
Google announced this week that the store will launch June/July time and will be browser based so any device with a browser will be able to view the books.
Once the book has been accessed online, it will be cached in the browser for reading offline.
The news of Google Editions first broke back in October 2009, when Google announced it was looking into a store that was not device specific.
This differs from what Sony is doing with the Reader and Amazon with the Kindle – where they are offering content tied to those specific devices.
Device agnostic
Gabriel Sticker, a spokesperson for Google, said about the ebook store: "It is a different approach to what most readers today have and the vision is to be able to access books in a device agnostic way."
Google is also hoping to break down the barriers for purchasing ebooks. Its store will be available through its Book Search service, but it is hoping that book sellers will also add a link to the store on their websites in return for a share of the profits.
It's unknown what the prices for the ebooks will be or whether they will be set by Google or retailers.
Currently, Amazon is king in the ebook market, picking up a 90 per cent share. This looks likely to decrease significantly once Google launches its store and the Apple iPad Bookstore builds momentum.
Google is no stranger to ebooks. It is currently battling it out with publishers over rights to the digitising of out-of-print books and magazines.
Google Editions is said to be entirely separate to that part of its business.
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New features for iPhone HD uncovered in SDK
New features in the iPhone 4.0 SDK beta 3 have thrown up some interesting new features for the new version of Apple's mobile operating system.
BGR has been poking around in the latest version of the SDK, and it seems Apple has only just decided to throw in some new elements that help take advantage of the new multi-tasking tray.
The main feature in our eyes is the new media player widget on the home screen, which makes it much easier to interact with your music by swiping left from the multi-tasking tray.
Admittedly this is just as easy as double tapping the home screen button to call up the music player, but this media widget will hopefully be the first of many from Apple as it seeks to make the iPhone UI even more intuitive.
Share your files
Another handy feature from the SDK is the file sharing, allowing you to move things like mail attachments to your computer from your iPhone via iTunes.
This seems to be still in beta at the moment, as it's not fully functional, but hopefully will make the final release next month.
Other elements such as quicker app closing and phone orientation lock show some good promise from the Apple in terms of working out how to make things that little bit more slick prior to release.
At the very least, it will give Jobs something to talk about on stage since the new iPhone HD has been displayed to all and sundry already...
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Best unlimited internet deals added to TechRadar
TechRadar has added two powerful new deals comparison services to its Phones@TechRadar mobile phone reviews section, enabling phone buyers to compare contracts for unlimited internet provision, plus look at SIM only deals.
"We've realised that the sort of smartphone buyers who are visiting our mobile phone reviews tend to be looking for all you can eat Internet deals, so it's great we can now offer this new service," says Nick Merritt, TechRadar's editor-in-chief.
"At the same time, we're delighted to be able to show our users SIM only deals as well. A lot of our readers get their phones SIM-free then shop around for the best SIM only deal, so it's a handy offering."
TechRadar is the UK's biggest mobile phone reviews and news website, and has recently launched a dedicated phones review section and phone deals comparison store at Phones@TechRadar.
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Best unlimited internet deals added to TechRadar
TechRadar has added two powerful new deals comparison services to its Phones@TechRadar mobile phone reviews section, enabling phone buyers to compare contracts for unlimited internet provision, plus look at SIM only deals.
"We've realised that the sort of smartphone buyers who are visiting our mobile phone reviews tend to be looking for all you can eat Internet deals, so it's great we can now offer this new service," says Nick Merritt, TechRadar's editor-in-chief.
"At the same time, we're delighted to be able to show our users SIM only deals as well. A lot of our readers get their phones SIM-free then shop around for the best SIM only deal, so it's a handy offering."
TechRadar is the UK's biggest mobile phone reviews and news website, and has recently launched a dedicated phones review section and phone deals comparison store at Phones@TechRadar.
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Review: Microsoft Office 2010
Like Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2010 has been available in beta so long and so publicly (and has run so reliably) that the actual launch might almost seem an anti-climax.
Around 7.5 million people have downloaded various versions of it, and the Office team has had 650,000 individual feedback reports - and those have changed things, particularly in Outlook and OneNote.
Office 2010's UK release date is 12 May (although large businesses and developers can get Office Standard and Professional Plus 2010 already) and three versions, Office Home and Student 2010, Office Home and Business 2010, and Office Professional 2010, will be in the shops in June.
That's also when the free Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote web apps will be available on Windows Live.
They have fewer features than the desktop apps, but they mean you can view and edit Office documents on any machine, you can use them to co-author documents online, and you can keep a OneNote notebook online and work on it in the desktop OneNote app at the same time as a friend or colleague.
RIBBON: All the Office apps now have the ribbon interface and an updated version of the Office menu (called Backstage, but opened from a tab marked File because that's what people look for)
The Home and Student version of Office includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote; Home and Business adds Outlook. Professional, which we review here, gives you Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access and Publisher.
Whichever version of Office you get, you're getting something you didn't get before: OneNote and the web apps in all the versions, Publisher in the Professional version.
RIBBON: Create your own tabs on the ribbon, add tools and pick an icon to use for the dropdown if there isn't enough space to show all the icons individually
There's also a cheaper academic version of Office Professional, but the best way for most people to save money is to get the Home and Student version - or instead of paying for the box and the media, buy a product keycard with the licence number to unlock a pre-installed copy of Office Starter on a new PC.
Office Starter is the basic version of Word and Excel that ships on new PCs. It doesn't have the References, Review and View tabs on the ribbon, it lets you edit tables of contents and smart art that's already in a document but it doesn't let you create them from scratch and you can't create pivot tables in Excel. It does have task panes - and it always has a little ad for Office in the corner.
BACKSTAGE: The Backstage menu is one place for all the things you might want to do with your document, explained in handy detail
It's very much a replacement for Works - or for WordPad - and if you want the full new feature set of Office 2010 then you want one of the full versions.
The question is, with free apps like OpenOffice, free online apps like Google Docs - and the free Office web apps themselves - what do you get from Office 2010, and do you want it?
There are a lot more SmartArt diagrams in Word, Excel and PowerPoint - and all three apps get powerful new image editing and style tools.
This includes standard correction options but the most dramatic are the Artistic Effects - Photoshop-style filters that turn images into pencil sketches, pastel or oil paintings, mosaics or rippled glass - and the amazing Remove Background tool.
This does what it says on the tin, removing the background from images; the automatic removal isn't perfect but it often gets the object you want first time and you can easily add and remove areas.
The new word processing features in Word are mostly about the look of text. Text effects replace the tired old WordArt with the same image effects that Word 2007 had for objects like shapes.
BACKGROUND REMOVAL: To do this you need an object with sharp edges and a little patience but you can cut out complex objects very quickly
There's a drop-down gallery of presets on the ribbon, but you can set the reflection, glow, soft edges, bevels, gradient fill, custom shadow and other options to get the look you want.
OpenType support means if your font has ligatures for combining two letters more smoothly (like ff or if), kerning values for letter spacing, stylistic sets (like the fancy, curlicue-embellished alternate letter forms in Word's new Gabriola font) or different spacing and shapes for numbers when you use them in the middle of text or on their own, you can choose different options.
PICTURE EDIT: Turn photos into graphics with the Artistic Effects in Office 2010
Word also gets a new navigation pane that pops up when you use Find; this gives you snippets of text around all the places the word you want is found or you can use it to browse by thumbnails and headings.
This works very well, but find and replace is still a separate command, in the old dialogue box; plus as soon as you make any edits to the document you lose the results in the navigation pane. We'd also prefer to see Word repeat the find automatically rather than making you do it by hand.
SECURITY: Word opens downloaded documents as read only and it blocks macros by default
In Word (and PowerPoint and OneNote but not Excel) you can edit a document at the same time as someone else as long as it's stored on SkyDrive - and it's easy to save documents straight there from the desktop menu, so collaboration isn't limited to businesses with SharePoint.
Word locks the paragraph that one person is typing in and if you hover over it you'll see an Outlook-style mini contact card for them that lets you mail them or start an IM or voice through Windows Messenger so you can have a chat.
SMART ART: There are more diagram types making Smart Art more useful
When you open a file in Word or any of the Office apps that you received in email or downloaded from the internet, or if it has active content like macros or a connection to a web service (like an embedded web video in PowerPoint, not just a URL in a document), it opens in a new Protected View, with a warning info bar at the top of the window.
You can't save or print a protected file, still less edit it, but you can read it and search it.
That means you can safely open any Office file that you find online without anything malicious being able to run. If you believe the document is safe, you can choose Enable Editing from the info bar once; you don't have to do this every time you open the document.
The very first version of this in the beta had problems; we're happy to say that all of those are solved and the protection is reassuring without being intrusive.
TEXT ART: WordArt used to be very cheesy; now it has powerful and flexible effects for text headings. Cheese optional
If you use Excel for real calculations, the big news is that the statistical, mathematical and financial functions have been overhauled.
Sometimes it's just a name change, but a number of functions that haven't been as accurate as they should be are improved and there are 50 new functions. Mostly the changes are about better ways to find and visualise information.
There are more options for conditional formatting, where you colour or tag cells with icons to show comparative values, but there's a new way to put that information right in a cell with sparklines - mini graphs that show trends in a series of values, so you don't have to look back and forth to understand the figures and the chart.
If you use PivotCharts to organise information you can put a button on the chart to choose filters that change what you see in the chart - much easier than trying to chop areas of data out of the initial selection.
AUTOSAVE: Excel and other Office 2010 apps keep multiple versions of your document
If you want to switch between different settings in a Pivot Table or Pivot Chart often, you can create Slicers - graphical views that float over the workbook and combine data from multiple underlying tables or charts that you can style the way you want.
If you have huge data sources to work with, the PowerPivot add-in lets you analyse them in Excel; especially on the 64-bit version you can deal with truly enormous data sets surprisingly fast - essentially you get SQL Server analysis inside Excel. And if you format a lot of charts, you can save the formatting steps as a macro to re-use quickly.
For the average spreadsheet, the new filter options will be more useful. You no longer have to freeze the window to keep column headings visible at the top of the window; a tiny thing that makes life so much easier.
BACKSTAGE: Backstage organises options and tools logically; the print default in Excel is only sheets with actual content on
When you filter a column, instead of scrolling through dozens or hundreds of checkboxes for a large spreadsheet you can type in what you want to filter on and Excel filters the list of filters; it's easier to do than it is to describe and you get just the information you want to see.
Excel feels generally faster to use; files open and save faster, large workbooks with multiple sheets in load in parallel and charts in particular are faster - back up to the speeds of Excel 2003.
Excel doesn't do much different with the Backstage view from other Office 2010 apps, but the default print setting is to only print active sheets - no more reams of pages printed only with the Excel grid using up all your paper.
Like Word, Outlook and PowerPoint (and Publisher if you're pasting text), Excel lets you preview the different ways you can paste in information so it looks right by using the Paste gallery on the ribbon.
SLIDERS: Pivot Tables are powerful but complicated; create sliders to switch between different views quickly
This is a change of emphasis in Office from years gone by, when Quick Print was the default and Excel acted as if it always knew best; now you're encouraged to look at the options to make sure you get want you want first time, which can take more thought but ends up much less frustrating.
All three apps also make it harder to lose work. If you change your mind about your changes, you can see the last five autosaved versions of your worksheet or document on the Backstage menu.
SPARKLINES: Sparklines put mini charts next to your data and you get options to format the data and the look
If you save the document those versions are deleted; if not, Office keeps the most recent version just in case you want it later. And if you create a document and never save it, Office keeps it around for four days before deleting the autosaved version, so files you didn't want aren't cluttering up your disk but if your PC crashes or gets unplugged before you get around to saving a new document you can get it back.
We'd like Excel to take a lesson from PowerPoint 2010; like Word, each presentation is now in its own window so you can see them side by side with all your other windows; this shouldn't be a new feature but it's certainly welcome.
You can have Backstage open to save one presentation to SkyDrive while you tweak an animation in another and look at a third presentation with animations and transitions in the new reading view, which is a slideshow that doesn't take over the whole screen.
Being able to group slides into a section means you can print them together or move them around in the presentation - or into another presentation - more quickly.
BROADCAST: PowerPoint Broadcast is the easiest way to show a presentation without being there in person
If you need to give a presentation to people who aren't in the same place as you, PowerPoint Broadcast is hands down the easiest way to do it; you just choose Broadcast Slide Show from the Share & Send section of the Backstage menu in PowerPoint and you get a URL you can email around.
The people you send it to don't need to install anything and the slides are high resolution, not the size of a postage stamp.
You can also turn your presentation into a video - including your narration - in full resolution or resized for the web or a mobile phone. And it's great to see an accessibility checker in the sharing options.
SCREENSHOT: Journalists and product managers won't be the only people who find grabbing screenshots into presentations useful
The new image editing tools in Office 2010 are particularly useful in PowerPoint, but you also get basic but useful video editing tools. You can trim videos within your presentation by dragging a slider, add fades and other effects like reflections, bevels and 3D or bookmark scenes to use for a video menu - or to trigger animations on the slide when you reach the bookmark.
You can use video as a slide background or layer multiple videos one on top of another. And you can easily pick one frame (or a different picture) to use as the preview on the slide, instead of having an anonymous black frame until it starts playing.
You can embed DivX, MOV and H.264 files as well as the usual WMV, WMA and MP3, and you can use the embed code from video sites like YouTube to add web video to your slides; you'll need to be online to play the video and while you can preview it, you can't fade in or trim online clips because PowerPoint doesn't keep a local copy to work with.
Effects like recolouring the video or putting it in a 3D frame don't work, even though PowerPoint lets you apply them; if would be clearer if the options just weren't available.
VIDEO: You can put video into your presentation - or turn your presentation into a video
VIDEO: Trim video clips, put them into a 3D frame and bookmark frames to work with
The new transitions - some with 3D effects - and animations look professional rather than cheesy - and they're GPU accelerated. The animation painter works like the format painter; you can copy settings from one animation to another all in one go.
PowerPoint is growing up into a multimedia authoring tool and if your presentations are boring, these days it's your fault not PowerPoint's.
Outlook 2010 would be a lot faster than Outlook 2007 if the Office team hadn't decided to take the performance improvements and release them as a service pack for the 2007 version.
That means that although search performance is still a little faster than with 2007 the most obvious difference is the ribbon and Backstage interface.
As with the apps that got the ribbon in Office 2007, this is a mixed blessing. The disadvantage is that if you've learned all the illogical places where Outlook's commands and feature are hidden, you have to look for them again.
The advantage is that they're now in logical, easy to find places and the relevant options simply appear when you open an email, address or appointment.
QUICKSTEP: Quick Steps are like macros for dealing with email - rules that you choose to apply by hand
Start a search at the top of the message list and you get a ribbon of commands for choosing options like searching the sender or subject rather than the entire message, whether it has an attachment and when it was sent.
You can get all those by putting in the right search keywords, but you have to remember them; the icons make power searches accessible to anyone and the contextual ribbon is a great way to see them.
Quick Steps will speed up dealing with mail if you have to do the same thing to lots of messages and it's more complicated than deleting or filing them; there are canned Quick Steps to reply to a message and delete the original automatically and to file messages in the folder you use the most and mark them as read and you can create your own multi-step macros.
JUNK: New since the beta; Outlook lets you mark messages as junk without opening them
Hitting Ignore on long-running conversations (discussing a party you don't plan to go to or arguing about not using Reply All on messages that shouldn't have been send to so many people in the first place) will save you some time too.
Conversation view puts messages into threads; this is a huge improvement on Outlook's previous attempts to show the structure of back-and-forth messages and it pulls in your own messages from other folders.
It can be confusing when the conversation is shown partially collapsed and it works best if you use Exchange for email - if you pull in email from multiple services, or you get or send a lot of messages with the same subject, emails are likely to get mis-threaded.
SCHEDULE: As soon as you open five or more calendars - including internet calendars - Outlook gives you this schedule view for comparing them
MEETINGS: Calendar preview lets you see whether you can make a proposed meeting - and you can accept straight away
For that reason it's off by default. We'd like to see more tools for working with this - like an option to split messages that aren't part of the same conversation - but it's well worth trying conversation view because if it works with your messages it's extremely convenient.
The Outlook Social Connector puts details about friends in your social network into a small pane at the bottom of their messages; you can see what other messages they've sent, what meetings you've both been to, what files they've sent to you and what their recent status updates say.
CONVERSATIONS: See all the messages back and forth - even the replies in other folders (shown in grey)
Connectors for Linked In and MySpace are already available, with Windows Live and Facebook 'coming soon'. Sometimes it's just interesting to see what's going on; sometimes the picture helps you remember who you're talking to if you haven't worked with them in a while - and being able to get at other messages and attachments is very useful.
It's not as powerful as the Xobni add-in, but it is free. Smartphones that sync all your address books instead of letting you choose (like the iPhone) will get duplicate contacts with just email addresses in; we'd blame the iPhone rather than Outlook for that.
SOCIAL: Even without a Social Connector plug-in Outlook shows you meetings, other emails and files from the sender; with a plug-in you see their shared details and updates
There are some other Outlook improvements that only work with Exchange, but the majority of the new features in Outlook are both useful and available to everyone.
OneNote has been a hidden Office gem for years.
Now, everyone gets it as part of Office, and it gets the ribbon makeover, which puts handy features - like recording audio while you're taking notes or clipping areas of the screen into a note - in logical places where they're easier to find.
The downside is that pen styles (for writing on a tablet PC) and tags aren't quite as easy to choose from a gallery as they were in a task pane.
We'd also like to see OneNote get more up to date spell checking and grammar tools (and a find and replace option).
FILE: Collect research from multiple sources on the same page
The Find pane is much easier to use however, and searching multiple large folders with years' worth of notes is instantaneous on Windows 7, changing as you type in the search, and it's usually quicker to search for a page than navigate to it through your notebooks; results are ranked by how recently you've worked with those pages and OneNote searches the text that it automatically OCRs from images on the page as well as audio you record. You can also search on a page and see highlighted results.
OneNote is a good place to take notes about anything, including documents. You can create a OneNote page linked to another document or an email message and use the Dock to Desktop button to turn the OneNote window into a pane locked to the side of the screen so it's easy to jot down notes.
SEARCH: Word wheel search finds matching pages as you type and highlights results
TAGS: Tagging content on OneNote pages is as useful as ever, but you have to open the ribbon gallery every time instead of using a task pane
Inserting information from other programs - especially Internet Explorer - or by taking a clipping of the screen lets you choose which section or page you want to put the information in, instead of creating a cluttered Unfiled Notes area you have to work through.
You can add links to other OneNote pages from the same Quick Filing list or by typing the page name in double brackets - and if you type the name of a page that doesn't exist OneNote creates it, so you can treat it like a wiki. And there's finally a 64-bit Send to OneNote printer driver.
SKYDRIVE: The OneNote web app will be available on SkyDrive when Office 2010 goes on sale, at which point you'll be able to keep your notebooks there, share them and collaborate live
OneNote has always been good at sharing and syncing notebooks; this gets even easier now you can save and open notebooks from SkyDrive in OneNote (or OneNote Mobile - which puts an end to the frustration of only being able to sync to one PC from Windows Mobile).
If two people are working on a page - or you edit it on different PCs - the changes are tagged with your initials and you can get lists of who's changed what. Deleted notes live in OneNote's new recycle bin for 60 days in case you change your mind.
OneNote was already a great tool; these small but useful changes make it even better.
Office Professional also includes Access and Publisher, plus a handful of utilities, the most useful of which is the Office Picture Manager.
This gives you a picture viewer with a choice of thumbnail and filmstrip view and some simple but useful image editing tools: you can automatically correct colour and brightness for multiple images using what Microsoft says are improved algorithms, or you can manually edit the brightness, contrast, midtones and colour, plus you can crop, rotate and compress images or remove red eye.
These are the same tools you get inside the various Office apps, although they're better than what's in Publisher and it's useful to be able to edit multiple images in the same interface.
PICTURE MANAGER: The same image editing tools as in Word, PowerPoint and Excel are in the Picture Manager - one way to use them with Publisher
Publisher is something of the odd one out in Office 2010. It's packed with improvements: dynamic guides that suggest where the element you're dragging could align with what's already on the page, content building blocks you can customise with your own styles and save to use in multiple documents, multiple layouts for captions on images, live previews of what text and objects will look like with a specific format, Excel-style table styles you can apply quickly and the option to hide the 'scratch' area for objects you haven't positioned yet when you want to just see the finished page.
With OpenType fonts you get key OpenType features: true small caps, number styles, ligatures, improved kerning and stylistic alternates.
You can create a picture placeholder the size you want your image to be, pick the image to use and use the automatic cropping tool to pan and zoom to get the right section of the image in place.
PRINT: Backstage's print preview makes sure you don't print double-sided documents flipped the wrong way
You can easily replace images and even swap two images around on the page. Combine the new tools with the addition of lots of useful templates, the way Publisher takes advantage of the ribbon interface to expose all of the tools clearly (context-sensitive tabs and drop-down galleries with different options work extremely well) and the superb print preview on the Backstage menu (which even lets you see both sides of a two-sided document using transparency so you know it will all print the right way up) and you get a DTP program that's both powerful and easy to use.
But some of the best image tools from the rest of Office are missing.
Publisher doesn't have quite as many picture styles as Word, PowerPoint and even Excel; it doesn't have artistic effects, colour saturation or tone tools - and it doesn't have the Remove Background tool.
All these would be ideal in Publisher, but the time it took the team to implement the ribbon meant they couldn't adopt the latest tools from the other apps - like OneNote this leaves you with niggling disappointments.
Access gets a mix of tools to help you set up a database more quickly (by including pre-built components, adding related fields like all the pasts of an address at once, including content from websites like Bing Maps for addresses and storing images in a gallery), improved visuals (including themes and Excel-style conditional formatting) and enhancements to macros.
ACCESS: Put an Access database together faster with standard building blocks
LIVE PREVIEW: See styles and formats with the live preview
Features for building web databases only work with SharePoint, and Access remains a business tool rather than general purpose tool; for core Access users, the new version makes existing tasks easier but has few revolutionary improvements.
Microsoft Office 2010: Verdict
The Office 2010 interface cements the ribbon firmly in place at the top of the screen; it also fixes the biggest problems with the ribbon interface by letting you customise the ribbon fully, moving, adding and deleting icons or creating your own custom ribbon with exactly the tools you use.
You can even attach a custom ribbon to a template so you only get it when you need it.
What Microsoft calls the Backstage menu - and the rest of us will call the File menu - has also grown up and become useful.
It isn't as pretty as the glowing orb of the old Office button and it doesn't take advantage of design principles like Fitts Law (which makes the corners of the screen the easiest to click on), but not many people run one Office app full screen at a time any more and the File tab is far more obvious.
More importantly, the features on the Backstage menu are the ones you need to have there and they get much the same logical organisation as the ribbon gives to the features you use in your document.
The most confusing entry in the beta, Share, has been renamed to the much more logical Save & Send, you can see as many recent files as you want on the menu and the instant print preview is particularly useful.
Office 2010 has plenty of new features that just make it easier to get things done; from instantly inserting screenshots to PowerPoint's video editing to sparklines in Excel to conversation view and the Outlook Social Connector.
The paste preview finally lets you paste content into documents and get it looking right first time. The graphics tools across the Office apps don't compete with high-end image editing packages - although Background Removal is extremely impressive - but they make it easy to give images you're using in documents extra polish.
New security tools aren't overly obtrusive for the protection they give you against malware in documents online.
And with the Office web apps, you're going to be working with online documents much more. Even if you don't use the cut-down online apps themselves, you can put documents on SkyDrive so you can work on them at the same time as someone else in the full Office apps.
Office 2010 is also the first version of Office with 64-bit versions of the apps; that means you can work with Excel spreadsheets that are larger than 2GB, speed through long documents in Word, handle massive email stores in Outlook or just avoid the overhead of running 32-bit apps on a 64-bit system (Office on Windows 64-bit does a good job, but it doesn't deliver the speed ups we're seeing when you go completely 64-bit).
64-bit Office is great, except for the things it doesn't work with; Microsoft tells us the problems with synchronising to Office Mobile will be fixed by the time the Office Mobile apps arrive in June, but there are still issues with 64-bit Flash in PowerPoint (which is at least in beta) and so far the Outlook Social Connectors are still 32-bit, as are most third-party Office add-ins.
None of those are the responsibility of the Office team, but it does show that Microsoft - and Adobe - still have work to do for 64-bit, especially given how many new PCs now come with 64-bit Windows installed.
We liked:
The improved performance, especially in Outlook Search; Outlook's conversation view and embedded calendar views; the customisable ribbon interface, the clear organisation of Backstage; sharing and collaboration in OneNote directly and in other apps through SkyDrive; the amazing background removal tool and PowerPoint video editing; and improved but unobtrusive security.
We disliked:
Only the flagship applications get the flagship features even when they're just as relevant elsewhere; OneNote lags on AutoCorrect and spelling tools, Publisher lags on image editing. 64-bit Office has big advantages but the 64-bit ecosystem is still not ready.
Verdict:
There might not be any one feature that you'd buy Office 2010 for (although search in Outlook comes pretty close and collaborating in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and especially OneNote through SkyDrive is compelling), but put them all together and you get a hugely powerful suite of apps that's still easy to work with.
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Microsoft finally outs Communicator for Nokia phones
Microsoft has announced that its Communicator Mobile for Nokia devices has finally gone live.
The new service will enable E-Series Nokia phones to easily communicate with other members of their Exchange network using the same program.
Communicator Mobile allows people to see their colleagues' availability, and click to communicate with them using a variety of options including IM, email, text or a phone call.
Chat any way you like
The names and status of colleagues are shown in the devices' contacts menu, so users can update their own presence, start and join IM conversations, and call directly from the contact card.
This is the first part of the alliance between Nokia and Microsoft, which was announced last August.
The deal will eventually see a suite of Microsoft products on the Nokia E-Series phones, enabling Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote on the go.
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Latest Google Chrome is 'fastest to date'
Google has revealed that its latest Chrome beta is the fastest yet, upping browsing speeds by at least 30 per cent.
Google has been doing using both the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks to test Chrome's speed and is claiming that it has managed a 30% and 35% speed increase.
This is impressive in itself, but this also means that since the first release of Chrome, the browser's speed has increased by as much as 305%.
Browser sync
Other new features released in the update of Chrome include integration of the Adobe Flash plug-in and some HTML5 shenanigans – including Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop capabilities.
Another improvement is the addition of browser preference synchronisation. Essentially, now you can sync themes, start-up settings and homepage preferences. This is an extension of the bookmark synchronisation released earlier this year.
New figures from NetApplications show that, in April, Chrome's browser share was up to 6.73 per cent, which is a rise of 2.4 per cent year on year.
To download the new Chrome beta, which is available for Mac, Windows and Linux, go to www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/beta.
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Review: Asus G73JH
The Asus G73JH is an aggressively and uniquely styled machine that looks fantastic and boasts great performance for gamers.
The laptop's striking design – with angular lines and tactile matt finish – is inspired by the F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Bomber, but there's more purpose to the design than looks alone. The large exhausts at the rear of the chassis draw hot air away from the internal components and deposit it comfortably from the chassis' rear, making this one of the quietest gaming machines we've ever tested.
The angled design also means that the backlit keyboard is angled slightly towards you, improving user comfort.
Unfortunately, the isolated-key style board is disappointingly spongy and the large touchpad means we were constantly brushing it while typing, leading to erratic cursor behaviour and spelling errors.
The latest and greatest components have been used, including a very powerful quad-core processor from Intel's Core i7 range, alongside 8192MB of DDR3 memory. Everyday performance is truly stunning and you can flawlessly run pretty much any conceivable application, including high-end photo and video editing software.
This is largely thanks to the fact the processor is capable of automatically overclocking itself to an impressive 2.8GHz, providing extra power when it senses you most need it. Asus has also included an overclocking feature of its own, however. When you need that little bit more power during frantic gaming, hit the hotkey above the keyboard and the processor's clock speed can scream up to 2.97GHz for even more performance.
While everyday performance is excellent, it's also available elsewhere for considerably less money, however. Some of the other Core i7 machines include similar components and performance for nearly half the price.
Powerhouse graphics
Where this machine justifies its price is in gaming performance. The DirectX 11-compatible ATi graphics card provides stunning 3D power for running the latest games and multimedia applications.
The 17.3-inch screen adds to its abilities. It's not the brightest panel around, but colour reproduction is excellent, with contrast especially impressing. Blu-ray movies – using the integrated Blu-ray drive – and games look great in particular.
We like the G73JH a lot. It's a great looking and uniquely designed machine that provides stunning performance, but for those who are watching the pennies at the moment – a lot of us – a similar experience – albeit with not quite as much style – can currently be found for cheaper elsewhere.
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Review: Acer Aspire 4820T
Acer released the Timeline series last year to critical acclaim, but while the range boasted excellent portability, performance was slightly lacking. The new TimelineX range rectifies this and, despite a few usability issues, the Acer Aspire 4820T simply has it all.
The latest in cutting-edge technology is present, with an Intel Core i5 processor joined by 4096MB of DDR3 memory. Performance is stunning and you'll be able to run the most resource-intensive applications and programs with ease.
Our review unit featured an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card, providing the level of graphical performance we'd expect from a gaming laptop. However, retail units will feature a lower-powered 5470 chip, producing roughly half the power of the aforementioned. You'll still be able to edit photos and HD movies, but the latest games won't run quite so smoothly.
Slim chassis
This level of power is particularly impressive considering the size of the laptop. At only 31mm thick, it's easy to slip into a bag and the machine also weighs just 2.1kg – meaning it only narrowly misses out on ultraportable status.
Despite the use of powerful components, an excellent 428-minutes of battery life are on offer between charges, meaning true all-day usability.
Acer has achieved this using low-powered components, such as LED backlighting for the panel and a hard drive that allegedly uses 40 per cent less power than standard drives. At 500GB, storage is nevertheless still highly capable of containing all your files and folders.
The 14-inch screen has a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution and is sharp and bright. It features a very reflective Super-TFT screen coating, however, making it a little irritating to use in bright conditions.
A brushed aluminium design is used on the lid to great effect, with silver plastics adding to the effect on the inside.
The keyboard is one of the laptop's very few weaknesses. It's poorly mounted into the chassis and this means it's fairly spongy and very noisy to use. The typing action is comfortable enough, however, and doesn't take too long to get used to.
Elsewhere, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet allow fast networking, while a Dolby Home Theatre system simulates 5.1 surround sound through your headphones. Three USB ports and an HDMI-out – for connecting to an external monitor or TV – round out the strong specification.
We're extremely impressed by the Aspire 4820T. There's a serious amount of power on offer in a very small package, making it ideal for everyone from the casual user to design professionals. It's a shame about the keyboard but, ultimately, it doesn't spoil the party.
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Internet Explorer market share dips under 60%
Microsoft saw its share of the browser market dip below 60 per cent in April, the worst decline the computer company has seen since 1999.
Although it still has the lion's share of the browsing world, it's lost around 9 per cent of users in the last 11 months, with official figures from measurement firm NetApplications showing it has dropped from 68.32 per cent to 59.95 per cent.
Chrome was the biggest winner – Google's browser nabbed 6.73 per cent share, which is a rise of 2.4 per cent.
This means that it has overtaken Safari as the third most popular browser around.
Browser ballot
Another browser which saw a rise in users was Opera who is currently claiming fifth place in the market. It rose from 2.03 per cent to the nose-bleeding heights of 2.3 per cent.
Firefox, meanwhile, also saw a small rise – from 22.43 per cent to 24.59 per cent.
There's no denying that the recently introduced browser ballot is having some effect on the web-browsing world.
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Intel outs Atom for Android and MeeGo smartphones
Intel has announced its Atom Z6XX series – the chip giant's first big roll of the dice for the smartphone market. The good news is that the chip looks storming in terms of performance and is very power efficient.
The bad news? Intel has named no names in terms of handset manufacturers who might deploy the new silicon, formerly codenamed Moorestown. However, it did show off an Aava Mobile reference device completely powered by Intel hardware during a launch event attended by TechRadar.
The silicon will run the Android OS as well as Intel's joint Linux venture with Nokia, MeeGo. Support for other operating systems was clearly hinted at. Given Nokia's closeness to Intel, we reckon we'll see Symbian running on it before too long.
The second-generation Atom also "scales very well up to tablets... you're going to see a number of different ways these products will be used," said Rob O'Shea, Director of Intel's EMEA Embedded Group, as he presented the key specs of the new device.
Crucially, Intel is citing a 50 times power reduction – equating to a 10 day standby time – over the first generation of the Menlow UMPC Atom platform.
Intel was keen to show this with a real-time power consumption demo, shown here. The old Menlow Atom platform is the red line, while the new Moorestown platform is the blue line - both are measurements taken at full stretch. The barely visible green line is Moorestown at idle power.
Intel also demonstrated three-way video conferencing running live on the hardware (encoding one as well as decoding two other streams), as well as Quake 3 and 1080p HD video decoding - the device can encode 720p.
"With these kind of power reductions, we are in the smartphone zone. We are in the game," said Pankaj Kedia, Intel Director of Mobile Internet Devices. We'll bring you more from Pankaj Kedia in a separate piece on TechRadar.
Comparisons to other handsets
The smartphone version of the chip will reach 1.5GHz, while a second, tablet-orientated version will ship for tablets.Some graphs were shown comparing the performance of the new Atom to the ARM Cortex-A8 and other unidentified mobile handsets.
While these graphs were convincingly in the Atom's favour, it was unfortunate that the Cortex-A8 looked at was only clocked at 600GHz and the handsets were unidentified - worth taking with a pinch of salt. Intel also showed graphs claiming a 3-4x JavaScript browsing speed improvement over competitors, though there are so many variables within this it's hard to take the numbers that seriously until we see shipping devices.
The 140 million transistor SoC (System On Chip) component – is 45nm technology, although Intel was openly looking ahead to producing Atom using the 32nm and 22nm processes.
Intel believes its key advantage is that its architecture is already well established. "It's a computer that enables voice," Kedia said of Intel's hardware, "[It's] the [level] of experience you expect to find on a PC."
"If you can deliver great graphics and video, you can scale that up into very slim tablets. We can design where we have to have that discipline up."
Just to be clear, Moorestown is the platform, As well as the Z6XX variant of the Atom (codenamed Lincroft SoC) also controlling graphics memory and display, the platform includes a Platform Controller Hub (MP20, codenamed Langwell). The platform also includes wireless and other hardware from the likes of Freescale, Ericsson and Marvell, though the exact implementation of this will presumably depend on the handset manufacturer.
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US judge to halt iPhone HD release?
Steve Jobs might be quaking on his aluminium unibody iThrone tonight as it appears the next iPhone release could be halted - by the law.
Sadly nothing to do with a counter claim by Gizmodo's Jason Chen, the problem revolves around the screen used in the upcoming iPhone HD.
This is very much a 'maybe' story, as it relies on 'facts' that are far from being confirmed, but could be very bad news for Apple.
LG is believed to be the supplier of the new OLED screens in the upcoming iPhone HD, giving it that super-slick look Apple and Jobs are so fond of.
But LG has jumped into litigation with a rival Asian screen manufacturer, AU Optronics, claiming that AUO had nabbed some tech for its screens.
Flip-reverse
But the claim appears to have backfired, with a US judge ruling that AUO is in the right and LG was the infringer.
AUO could now push for an injunction on all products containing LG's OLED screens, which would mean a US shutdown for the iPhone HD.
Would Jobs really want to announce it and then have to wait for his home country to get it while the likes of the UK and China are happily loving the next-gen iPhone?
Of course, this is based on a lot of hearsay and 'if this happened, then that would happen'... but surely nothing could stop the Jobs iPhone-juggernaut now. Surely?
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