Monday, September 13, 2010

IT News HeadLines (Techradar) 12/09/2010


Techradar
In Depth: 10 of the coolest demoscene creations

The Italian musician Fabio Barzagli was effusive: "Friendships, joining, travelling around different countries, discovering new samples, effects, styles, having that magic art-trip while watching the big screen with a thousand other people. That's the demoscene!"
Demos are short samplers of creativity put together by teams of programmers, artists, musicians and designers, but with a twist: they're executables.
Everything you see (and sometimes everything you hear) is generated in real-time. Demos began as add-ons to cracked games, designed to show off the prowess of the person who removed the title's copy protection. In the 30 years since the first examples appeared, the 'demoscene' has become established in its own right.
There are now international demo conferences (called 'parties') that attract thousands, and many host hotly contested competitions.
For the sake of the competitions, demos are split into categories. Short demos are called intros. Some categories have incredibly tight memory restrictions: in an age when Windows itself now needs 2GB of RAM, some of the most restrictive competitions limit the executable to just 4kB. The larger 64kB demo class really begins to exploit the power of a modern PC, and the mega demo class (any demo over 1MB, or a floppy disk of code) might also include large graphics and sound libraries.
Older computers continue to be popular with demo makers keen to squeeze the last clock cycle from their CPUs. 'Sceners', sometimes working with original kit, still write for the Commodore 64, Atari ST and even the Sinclair Spectrum.
As the demoscene has evolved, so the categories used to judge them have also developed. Today's competitions are as likely to include genre-blurring categories such as Most Original Concept and Best Technical Achievement as they are Best Commodore Amiga Demo.
It's not necessary to have access to old-school hardware to view any of the demos in this feature. Where necessary, videos of each can be viewed at www.demoscene.tv.
So why do static, non-interactive demos matter, at a time when PCs can generate detailed, interactive worlds for us to play in? Read on to find out, and for a look at some of the coolest and most influential demos out there. It's time to enter the demoscene and get a flavour of its variety and ingenuity.
Exploring the demoscene
1. Blunderbuss
Fairlight
Website
Blunderbuss
Though it was created for fun over a couple of days, with over a million particles in motion at any one time, Blunderbuss is anything but a blunt weapon.
The demo features what looks like a burning match head, with wisps of smoke curling away from it under the influence of a slight breeze. An acoustic guitar and vocal plays in the background. As the demo unfolds, the smoke sometimes moves as if responding to a gust of wind, and takes on the shape of a word from the song.
Blunderbuss is a very impressive piece of work, and it took second place at the MAiN 2009 demo competition in France last year.
2. Elevated
TBC and Rgba
Website
Elevated
Show people Elevated and most will be mildly impressed. Show them the size of the executable, however, and they'll immediately want to see it again.
Elevated is just 4kB long and yet contains a near photo-realistic fly-through of a mountainous landscape. It's all generated entirely in real-time – including camera motion blur. The trick to packing so much into so little space is a powerful graphics card.
Much of the processing, including calculating the path along which the camera can fly, is done by the powerful GPU required to run the demo. It's still a very impressive piece of work, however.
3. Craft
LFT
Website
Craft
Craft is a demo that runs on the absolute minimum of hardware. It took first place in the Wild Demo category at the Breakpoint 2008 competition in Germany, and runs on an Atmel TAMega88 microcontroller chip containing 8kB of flash RAM to hold the program and a further 1kB of volatile RAM for variables.
The chip itself generates multichannel sound and VGA video. The demo video begins with a sequence explaining the hardware, which can be constructed for under £10. Despite its low cost, the demo itself is certainly as good as some of the classic demos written for the Commodore 64.
4. The Cube
Farbrausch
Website
The cube
No roundup of the current demoscene is complete without the innovative Farbrausch group. Weighing in at 809kB for the main executable (and 5MB for its packed data file), The Cube is a fine example of making the simplest techniques produce the most complex graphical output.
The shapes that form the initial geometric shapes gradually evolve, warp and convolute, and take on forms that can only be described as organic.
Despite its simplicity, the demo requires a fast graphics card. As Farbrausch say in the notes accompanying the demo: "This is real-time, not amateur hour."
5. Sult
Loonies
Website
Sult
Sult's release ZIP file contains just the demo's executables, and they're all just 4kB long. It has been tested on the GeForce 8600 and Radeon 4850 graphics cards, and only uses the libraries freely shipped with Windows.
The music is generated programmatically, and it can take up to a minute for this process to complete, so if you're waiting around don't think that the program has crashed.
The result is mostly a display of fast-moving scenes featuring rings linked together to form meshes of chain mail over an underlying landscape, but there's also what seems to be a tongue exploring the inside of an octopus' tentacle.
6. Ephemera
Approximate
Website
Ephemera
The developers say that it took them three days with virtually no sleep (complete with "six pizzas, 150 cans of lager and a broken festival chair") to complete the Ephemera intro in time for the Sundown 2009 party.
The intro contains a number of steampunk inspired sequences backed by cool ambient beats. Opening in an observatory, it features rooms filled with scientific ephemera.
The executable is just 62kB and ships without any extra libraries or media files. All the developers' hard work must have paid off because Ephemera took the combined 4kB/64kB PC intro category at Sundown 2009.
7. Rupture
Andromeda Software Development
Website
Rupture
For those without the necessary hardware to run this demo in all its glory, the link above will show why Rupture won the Public Choice award at the 8th Annual Scene.org Awards in April.
It begins in a city with a neon Tron-like feel to it. A motorbike suddenly appears and literally burns up the road as it passes through the city, tearing through buildings and lorries. The action then follows a juggernaut as it too races through the city.
The demo continues with various modes of transport, including a speedboat. Buildings shatter into fragments and everything is lovingly rendered in seriously smooth 3D.
8. Mescaline Synesthesia
Demarche
Website
Mescaline synesthesia
Mescaline Synesthesia shows that you don't need the latest PC and graphics card at your disposal to create compelling demos. Written for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum models 128 and Plus2, the ZIP file includes a some handy emulators to run the demo.
The demo has a decidedly old-school rave feel about it, as does the music. It takes the viewer through the effects of mescaline at a rate that would leave '80s computing enthusiasts gasping at the power of their machine.
This is a clever demo written on hardware most people wrote off years ago.
9. Atari ST B.I.G. Demo
The Exceptions
Website
Atari st big demo
For some people, the B.I.G demo – created by German demo group The Exceptions (often abbreviated to 'TEX') – still represents a breakthrough in demo design. TEX is regarded as the group that really kick-started the demo scene for the Atari ST.
The demo B.I.G. (short for Best in Galaxy) was released in January 1988. B.I.G. is freely available as a disk image file for downloading from Atari Mania (see link above). It runs with most emulators including Steem, which is free.
Follow the beginner's instructions on the Steem site to add the ST's original boot ROMs and put the demo's image file into Steem's virtual disk space.
So, what exactly is B.I.G.? Running it in 2010 is like stepping into a primitive past where the only waveform available for music making is a fluty square wave and the colours are bright and acidic. It combines the themes of music and scrolling from TEX's previous work and creates a jukebox of over 100 tunes to scroll through, all originally written by Robb Hubbard for Commodore 64 games and ported to the Atari ST by German computer musician and TEX member Jochen Hippel.
The demo opens with a grey screen featuring several scrolling sections, including the ubiquitous text and rainbow colours. Pressing keys [1], [2] or [3] puts the demo into one of three 'Psych-o-screen' modes. These feature several demonstrations of graphical effects that were very impressive back in the day.
It's still unusual for a demo to be interactive. A major theme running through all the effects is that of text scrolling behind other objects. This soon became a standard show of programming prowess.
Other groups, such as The Carebears (TCB), also began making Atari demos in 1988, and it's arguable that their action-packed, games-oriented style eventually eclipsed B.I.G.
On running B.I.G today, the first surprise is its apparent primitiveness, but that's really just a culture shock. The second surprise is the realisation of how difficult it must have been to code anything. There were no integrated programming environments back in 1988, and most home computers had a single floppy disk drive. Programming anything meant pretty serious dedication to the machine's manual, and speed of execution meant resorting to assembly language.
10. State of the Art
Spaceballs
Website
State of the art
It was perhaps the Amiga more than any other platform that led some demo makers away from trying to impress their peers and towards slicker, design-led demos. Reliving their heyday can be difficult: Commodore still owns the copyright to AmigaDOS, and so unlicensed copies are illegal.
However, Fraser King maintains a small archive of videos, and of course YouTube has plenty more.
Among the first and most popular of 1992's Amiga demos was State of the Art by Spaceballs. This demo sparked controversy because of the way it was made. The Spaceballs team realised that 2D images could be captured from video as vector graphics, which could then be played back and manipulated by a computer.
They recorded a woman dancing, took coordinates from the video and created an animated silhouette of her. That, in essence, is State of the Art, plus a few trippy visuals and some suitably loved-up beats. The response from sceners was nothing short of outrage.
"He should get himself a video camera and make music videos. Nothing is real-time in this prod… If you like it, watch MTV, you will get something better," wrote one in the fanzine RAW. Even so, in 1992 State of the Art won a prize at a major Swedish demo party.
Team member Lone Star said at the time: "I wanted to make a totally different demo, which I knew was possible when using my new [software]. This demo had a new different style, and it was a demo that all kinds of Amiga-owners would enjoy, not only the coders."
At the time, Amiga sceners were used to the scrolling, rainbow-hued technical wizardry of the Enigma demo by Swedish sceners Phenomena.
By contrast, State of the Art seemed to be nothing more than a database of pre-computed coordinates and dumb code that took the next frame's coordinates, drew the outline of the captured image from them, filled it in and occasionally morphed one set of coordinates into another. If the people who objected did so fearing that the demo style they loved was under threat, they needn't have worried.
The subsequent proliferation of demo parties and continued existence of technical competition categories shows that there's room for both design-led demos as well as overt programming wizardry. The most popular are those that do what Lone Star set out to achieve: mix technical skill with design flair.



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Guide: How to create a Windows rescue disc
Some types of PC infection can render your computer unusable because it's unable to boot into Windows. If the master boot record is overwritten or any of the Windows files called upon during the boot process are compromised, you could be left with a paperweight instead of a computer.

However, even in desperate situations like these, it's possible to find and neutralise an infection by using a boot CD.
Rescue remedy
There are numerous discs available that are capable of booting your computer, including a number of Linux Live CDs that provide full GUI environments.
However, for a quick and easy option, you can do a lot worse than AVG's Rescue CD. You can download it for free from here. Select the ISO version and use a CD-burning program like CDBurnerXP to burn the ISO image to disc. Make sure you use the correct ISO burning option as simply copying the ISO file to disc won't result in a bootable CD.
You can now use this disc to boot your computer, provided of course that your CD/DVD drive is enabled in the BIOS as a boot device.
Cleaning up
When your PC recognises the boot disc and starts from it, you'll see a simple welcome screen. It will automatically boot into the rescue CD in 10 seconds, but you can take this option to run Memtest86+ to thoroughly check your RAM if you think this might be causing your problem.
Otherwise, boot into the Rescue CD properly, which will mount all your hard drives and boot up your network connection. If you have a router sharing your internet connection, this will enable the rescue disc to access the internet. You can use this to update the virus definitions and then go on to scan your PC as shown in the walkthrough.
A full scan of your hard drives can take a while, but you can interrupt it at any time by pressing [Ctrl]+[C]. If it's left to run its course, the scan will eventually provide a report menu.
This offers several options. Choose 'Report File' to display a summary of all the detected files. You can opt to delete all of them. This will remove the infections, but be careful when choosing this option, because if any of the detected files are important to Windows' operation, your PC will be rendered unusable.
Restoration drama
A safer option is to choose to rename all the infected files, because you can restore them if necessary. The program automatically renames each of the files by adding the suffix '_infected.arl' to the end of the filename. This prevents them from being used, but you need only rename them back to their original names if they're important files and you want to reinstate them.
For a more cautious approach, you can opt to handle each infected file individually. This can be a pretty time-consuming process, but this way you get to choose whether to delete or rename the file concerned in each case.
In addition to the incredibly useful virus scanner, the rescue disc includes a file manager, access to the Windows Registry and a data recovery utility.
Using your AVG rescue disc
Remove infected files and give your PC a clean bill of health
1. Update virus definitions
Step 1
Once you've burnt the ISO image to a disc and used it to boot your PC, you need to accept the terms of the AVG Rescue disc. If an internet connection is detected, you'll be prompted to check for updates. If it does, make sure you choose to update from the internet.
2. Scan for infections
Step 2
From the Update options, choose to update definitions only. Once they're downloaded and installed, you'll be returned to the main menu. Here you have a number of options. Select 'Configure and run on-demand scan' from this list. This will scan your hard drives.
3. Scan options
Step 3
Select the options you want to use for the scan. Those selected are marked with asterisks. Highlight an option using the arrow keys and press [Enter] to select or deselect it. Choose 'OK' to begin the full scan. This may take some time, so make sure you've got the kettle on!




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Review: Grado Prestige Gold 1
The Grado Prestige Gold 1 is a moving-magnet cartridge, complete with replaceable stylus and high output typical of the breed, but there are some notable differences to the generator.
Most moving-magnet designs end up with a very high inductance in the generator windings, which in turn can lead to compatibility issues with cable and amplifier-input capacitance.
Grado's generator is referred to as a 'moving iron' type and has inductance a factor of ten lower, though resistance and output voltage remain unaffected and this should give better consistency with application and better high treble in general.
In typical Grado style it's a plain-looking little device that comes in understated packaging, but if they've put all the money into sound quality instead, we're not arguing. The stylus is elliptical and compliance is moderate, while mass is on the low side of average.
Two things struck us at the outset about this cartridge: its bass is gorgeously full and its imaging seems distinctly better than most (though none of the models we were comparing it with is in any sense bad in that regard).
The funny thing is, though, that after a few minutes one's attention is directed elsewhere, for this cartridge has qualities in the upper midrange and treble that really make it stand out from the crowd.
This frequency range is tricky for cartridges as it's often quite 'busy' and places high demands on the stylus and generator.
The Prestige Gold 1 just seems to sail through the toughest tracks, resulting in a more refined sound than one expects anywhere near this price. Voices and instruments benefit equally, with admirably consistent tonal qualities from soft to loud.
Related Links



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Review: Goldring 2300
The Goldring 2300 is halfway up the 2000 series, but this model differs from its siblings principally in the matter of stylus shape, though there are also changes to the generator assembly.
It's a moving-magnet type, offering the usual advantage of the breed in having a replaceable stylus and its mass is about average at 7.6g. Compliance is moderate and we don't anticipate any problems fitting the 2300 in any conventional tonearm.
Output is slightly higher than most moving magnets produce, but not by enough to cause problems with a typical phono stage.
The rounded plastic body has threaded inserts which do make mounting the cartridge a very easy job, though we're a little nervous about the stylus guard, which if applied incorrectly could do a lot more harm than good!
The most obvious characteristic of the 2300's sound is the sheer solidity it produces. It achieves this thanks to a very reliable bass region which never seems to get into trouble even with the hottest discs.
There's a really great balance to the lowest octaves, which gives drive to rock, poise to classical and, of course, a very natural tone to male vocals. Precisely because the bass is so well balanced, though, it doesn't leap out and assault you the way some budget cartridges seem to.
It has that restraint that's characteristic of so much good hi-fi (it knows when to give and when to hold back).
The treble is nearly as good, though it can just occasionally sound a little constrained: it seems to work well driven hard, but can seem rather too mild-mannered when subtler high frequencies are called for.
Related Links



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In Depth: What if Microsoft disappeared overnight?
Microsoft is the top dog of tech firms. Its operating systems have guided the evolution of home computer use for over 30 years. It's hated, loved, mocked and praised in roughly equal measure. It's even powerful enough to turn its nose up at the US government.
What happens then if, suddenly, it dies? If you wake up one morning and there's no Windows, no Internet Explorer, no MSN, no Office, no Bing… it's all just gone.
We know it's not likely to happen soon, and we know Microsoft is rather well off financially at the moment, but every empire ultimately crumbles. Just how would the world react if there was no more Microsoft?
We've enlisted the help of futurologists and top technology analysts to help us describe a world without Gates, Ballmer and Windows.
The reach of Microsoft
First, let's get an idea of what we're dealing with. Microsoft is the third largest company in the world. The brand is a household name: the yearly Millward Brown study into the most powerful global brand names put Microsoft at number two in 2009 (with its brand valued at $76million), beaten only by Google.
Remember, that's not just tech – that's everything. Microsoft's name is more recognised by people across the world than McDonalds or Coca Cola. This isn't so surprising when you consider that Net Applications calculates that Microsoft's operating systems were being used by 93 per cent of computing devices in May 2010 (or at least those that connect to the internet). The various Mac OSes had only a five per cent market share, with Linux at a measly one per cent.
Windows runs government systems, hospital computers and global financial infrastructures – its reach is immense and its pockets are very deep.
Then there's what Microsoft means to most people. For many it represents computing. Those without an active interest in technology often believe that Microsoft Windows is the computer.
That's the kind of brand association you won't see with any other company, and it makes it a very powerful force in the technology world.
And then it's gone
But despite all this, suddenly, one day Microsoft disappears. It would take a series of very unfortunate events for the company to be gone overnight – and the scenarios that could cause this are rather hard to imagine.
To completely wipe it out would take an unimaginable event: something like a potent version of the millennium bug striking 10 years later than expected and managing to wipe out every Windows operating system across the world, while meteorites take out all the global archives of all its software and everyone's back-up discs spontaneously combust.
As we say, it's unlikely. But however it's achieved, Microsoft is gone and there can be no rescue. What would be people's first reaction to the loss?
Rob Enderle, Principal Technology Analyst of the Enderle Group, says it would be panic: "It would depend on how fast the incident occurred and how much time people had to get ready for it. I'm assuming 'suddenly', and in such a case it would probably crash the NASDAQ, which might take many of the other markets with it in a kind of a rolling collapse. Microsoft is likely a firm that is even higher on the 'cannot fail' list than the auto companies and most of the banks."
Futurologist and technology researcher Robert Mannings agrees: "If it was a failure like we have seen in the worst days of the credit crunch then, yes, there would be panic. Stock markets would fall based on the belief that many businesses would be adversely affected. Think of the chaos of the illusory millennium bug and the current financial woes that are caused largely by fear of loss rather than actual loss."
Both agree that with some warning, the reaction would be a lot calmer. As Mannings explains, "The software world moves quickly, and if it was clear that the company was doomed for some reason then it would not take very long to fill the void."
Winners and losers
Who would benefit from the titan's fall? "In the short term, everyone would be a loser if the failure was rapid or catastrophic, since stock markets would fall too," says Mannings.
"Rivals such as Apple and many big software houses would win business as some rapidly replace systems. In the longer term, everyone would be winners, as there is something of a monopoly about Microsoft – filling the vacuum are likely to be many players with more competition and thus lower prices and more innovation."
It's clear that there would be massive shifts in power in the technology world. "Pressure would be taken off Google and Apple," believes Enderle, "but both firms are increasingly focused on each other anyway so their benefit would be reduced. Interestingly, since Microsoft's Zune and Bing efforts are likely preventing Apple and Google from being branded monopolies, these two firms might actually not have a net benefit at all, but instead be hit indirectly by successful anti-trust action if Microsoft failed. The most critically hit of course would be firms that survive by selling Microsoft software and related services."
He also tries to envisage the impact Microsoft disappearing would have on the financial world: "Microsoft is widely held as an investment in retirement and investment funds which, depending on the level, could be badly hurt were the company to fail. Clearly, Bill Gates' own charitable efforts would be hard hit.
"The US would be hit very hard financially and this alone could shift much of the technology power in the world to China depending on how quickly and effectively China prepared for the event. Much, if not most, of the world's technology manufacturing is already in that region."
The death of Microsoft wouldn't just affect economies – it would also affect people's everyday lives. So many systems around the world depend on Windows, from government institutions to hospitals, that without Microsoft providing the basis for all this infrastructure the effects could easily be life-threatening.
Enderle explains: "If just Microsoft the company failed, its software could remain in place for decades – Unix is effectively gone, yet it's still active in a majority of large companies today. However, if Windows were to somehow become compromised and fail, the impact on the world would be catastrophic.
"The majority of servers and around 90 per cent of PCs run this platform and related tools. If that product failed broadly, we could return very quickly to the pre-industrial age. Think Mad Max, literally. Let's be clear, however: given that security around the platform is both deep and diverse, taking it out this broadly would be harder to achieve than a true human pandemic. So, while possible, it's extremely improbable."
Should the improbable occur though, would the bigger technology firms be able to react fast enough to step into the gap?
Mannings' answer is short and sweet: "Yes, they will have a field day!" Enderle agrees: "IBM, HP, EMC, Oracle, Apple, and Google (with the anti-trust exceptions noted previously) could all likely weather this with different levels of pain, but all would be impacted, and likely harder than we currently realise. The market might move instead to create a super company – like IBM was before Microsoft came to be. The firms that could form that super company are Google, IBM, and possibly HP, Apple and Oracle – though these last few are more of a stretch."
Open source solutions?
Things aren't always that simple, though. It's never easy for a big company to change direction, and the time frames involved could easily stretch into months, if not years. If these other larger companies weren't able to react fast enough, it would provide a massive opportunity for open source to claim the territory that Microsoft previously controlled.
However, as Enderle points out, "Open source isn't an entity; it's a practice, and one that only works well in parts of the market. The more personal the technology, the less interest there is in open source. It might become more popular, but there's no governing body that has the strength to step in and keep vendors and software providers in line at this scale.
"Currently most open source platforms exist as an alternative to Microsoft. With no Microsoft, the threat holding them together would evaporate. Rather than benefiting, they would likely fragment and fail, benefiting companies like IBM, Oracle and Apple."
Mannings can see a way for open source to be utilised in this scenario, though: "Perhaps the bottom-up open source movement will be funded to create a more robust model. Think of the mobile standards such as GSM and 3G – they're open, but not in the sense that anyone can join in.
"It will take time, but the wait will be worthwhile: a rolling set of standards that competing companies can work to [will be created]. There will also be true free open source, but it seems unlikely that the community would have the resources to fully fill the shoes of Microsoft."
Even if the very nature of open source means that it wouldn't be able to provide a concerted solution, without Microsoft's influence, the way would be open for a flurry of original methods of doing things from independent developers.
So would this herald an era of more innovation from smaller players? Mannings believes so: "There would be a surge of innovation, and probably some new names would become big."
Enderle, however, takes a different view. "It could do, but returning an industry to what it was before Microsoft would take a lot of time. There might be more innovation, but there also would be more complexity and far less interoperability."
This seems likely to be an accurate prediction. Innovation would be happening in a world without the massive unifying role that Microsoft plays only too well. Without this, new computing methods from many different hands could easily become too disparate or unguided to be useful.
Mannings takes a positive view on this scenario: "There will be some problems but these will lead to opportunities too. Never waste a good crisis!"
Enderle foresees a larger problem: "The level of disruption would extend beyond just the industry and into power struggles between countries. The level of destabilisation would be extreme if it happened quickly, and the industry might not recover from it intact.
"Without Microsoft, Intel or some other major player would need to step in and coordinate the response, and even Intel doesn't have the breadth and skills to do this today. It might take as long as 10 to 20 years for the market to reach this level of stability again.
"Once the market had direction, though, growth could be higher than it is today, and the danger for America is that it might occur overseas – with China being the most likely foreign beneficiary.
"Currently China isn't yet ready to step up, but that will likely change dramatically in the next decade and well before the industry could again stabilise in the US. The US once had leadership in consumer electronics. That shifted to Japan, and then Asia in general; it once had leadership in trains, but that shifted to Europe, then Japan and it now resides in China. Just as the US displaced Britain as the most powerful nation last century, China is moving to do the same to the US. Microsoft, if damaged untimely, could be the tipping point in such a change."
Governments to the rescue?
All of these predictions of dramatic sea changes make it likely that the governments of the world would step in to help deal with Microsoft's disappearance.
However, as Enderle points out, "Government intervention has generally proven inadequate to this task [in the past], suggesting we would likely have a very big mess for a very long time."
But what if the impeding death of Microsoft could be foreseen? As its disappearance would have such huge consequences, it seems likely that the governments of countries more dependent on Microsoft's products would step in earlier to prevent it from failing.
Mannings agrees: "The US government may intervene to provide an organised wind-up to give time for alternatives to be provided. More likely, the company would be broken up and the parts sold off so that there would be continuity. As many government systems rely on Microsoft, there's a strong motivation to keep things going."
Enderle, too, is sure the US government at least would get involved: "Microsoft represents a massive amount of the US's positive international balance of trade revenue alone, and, with partners, most of the US tech industry. Microsoft would crater the NASDAQ and likely cause a cascading failure in other markets, which suggests it would not be allowed to fail."
Microsoft's unique position
With all this doom and gloom hovering over a world without Microsoft, it seems that, despite its many nay-sayers and sometimes niggly software, we should be glad that it's here to stay. So does this mean there's some truth in the statement, 'If Microsoft didn't exist, we'd have to invent it'?
Mannings says no. "In the early days of many industries there's a monopoly – Watt's steam engines, for instance. But then, after patents expire, innovation occurs and time passes there are many players and other dominant designs emerge.
"Watt's engines were replaced by more efficient high-pressure versions, and later by the gas engine. We're still in the foothills of the computer revolution and Microsoft is only a step on a long road. There's a good chance the Chinese, Indians and Russians will invent their versions [of Microsoft products] – they're probably already working on it!"
Enderle agrees. "Microsoft is unique. We don't find another company in this role in any other industry that I'm aware of, with the possible exception of De Beers for diamonds. It is a relatively unnatural event to have a parts vendor amassing the kind of power that Microsoft has amassed – typically power resides with the solutions provider.
"Both Microsoft and Intel rose to unprecedented power due to the unique nature of the technology industry. While Google's power may eventually exceed Microsoft's worldwide due to its control of information, even it is unlikely to be able to control the technology industry as effectively as Microsoft did in its prime. Had not IBM licensed DOS, there would likely be no Microsoft. Once gone, I doubt it will be replaced – I doubt it can be."



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Hands on: Archos 70 and 101 Internet Tablet review
We spent some time with the new Archos 70 and 101 Internet Tablets recently, to see if the all-conquering PMP maker still knows how to work video on the go.
Both are running Android 2.2, and both come with much bigger screens than your average mobile phone - the 70 comes with a seven inch screen, and the 101 a 10.1-inch version.
Can you see what Archos did there with the names?
Archos 70 Internet Tablet
The Archos 70 is a device that builds on the history of the Archos range - we're talking only 300g and a ridiculously thin 10mm frame that make it more than pocket friendly, if you're wearing a pair of '90s cargo pants.
The screen is a WVGA effort, meaning it's lower-res than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but in all honesty doesn't make a huge amount of difference.
Archos 70 and 101 review
The screen can work both in landscape and portrait modes, with the Android interface re-jigging itself to show the icons in an easy to hit manner.
Archos 70 and 101 review
Despite claiming an ARM A8-powered 1GHz processor, the movement did take a little while to happen as we everything was re-oriented, but we'll put that down to pre-production software.
Archos 70 and 101 review
The Archos 70 comes with a kickstand for easy movie viewing, but also allows you to use the PMP as we video caller (over Wi-Fi or 3G if you Bluetooth tether it to a mobile phone).
Archos 70 and 101 review
We're a little sad there's not SIM card on board, as this would be a nifty little device for surfing the web on the go.
Archos 70 and 101 review
As you can see, the lines and design of the Archos 70 are really sleek, so much so that the Android buttons are actually built into the software rather than wasting chassis space by putting them on there.
The two core functions of the Archos 70 Internet Tablet are obvious: video watching and internet browsing.
Archos 70 and 101 review
There are actually two models on offer: an 8GB flash effort and 250GB hard drive version. Why you wouldn't go for the latter for a few millimetres of extra depth and a little more weight, we don't know.
The Archos 70 can play back a dizzying array of video file formats (AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, MPG, PS, TS, VOB, FLV, RM, RMVB, ASF, 3GP if you're asking) so it clearly can handle pretty much anything you can throw at it.
Archos 70 and 101 review
The video is crisp and clear, and the with the weight being so low holding it in the hand is a really nice experience.
We're also pleased to see a capacitive multi-touch screen on offer, as we're tired of prodding endlessly at resistive options, and multi touch also helps the internet browser too.
Archos 70 and 101 review
The experience online was slick, although we were browsing over Wi-Fi, and the zooming in and out was as fast as we've seen on many high end mobile phones.
The Archos 101 is pretty much the same as the Archos 70, except obviously with a bigger screen.
That display is actually boosted to 1024 x 600 pixels, putting it on a par with the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but the screen didn't instantly leap out as a super clear display.
Archos 70 and 101 review
Android 2.2 is also present, and pressing the icons is obviously easy and accurate with a massive capacitive screen such as this.
The kickstand is also slightly modified with the Archos 101 Internet Tablet, allowing you to select a range of heights to place it on a table at the angle you want.
Archos 70 and 101 review
It only comes with 8GB or 16GB of flash memory though, meaning you have to really think about the media you want to pump on there when you're out and about - although you can pack in up to 32GB with an extra microSD card, just like the Archos 70.
Archos 70 and 101 review
It's only 480g though, which is a lot lighter than the iPad, and we can imagine a longer watching session without the kickstand would really benefit from this additional slimming down.
The 12mm profile is also ridiculously thin - it almost feels too lightweight in your hands, but the solid aluminium shell soon dispels that worry.
Archos 70 and 101 review
In our play with the Archos 101, the firmware clearly wasn't up to scratch as it crashed on us left, right, and centre - although if it's anything like the Archos 70 it will be fine.
It's easy to forget about Archos, as the world is all going gaga about phones and tablets from Apple and Samsung these days.
Archos 70 and 101 review
But when you pick up a device you realise the heritage Archos has with PMP devices they feel nice, are palm-friendly and come with all the codecs under the sun.
We can't help but wonder if Apple has permanently stolen the thunder from Archos in the portable media game, but if you're after an Android tablet (sadly without the official App Market) then you could do worse than checking out one of these devices.



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Google Earth gets its own website
Google has launch a new website for Google Earth, featuring showcases and tutorials for the more advanced features the exploration software.
It looks like Google is trying to push Earth as an advanced tool, rather than the cool plaything it has been for much of its life.
Tutorials on creating tours, importing data and creating 3D buildings are included (using Google SketchUp, naturally).
The Deep Blue, the Moon and Mars
There's also a showcase and explanation of the features that Earth has developed more recently, including the ocean, the Moon and Mars (the latter two of which really should have their own program that isn't named 'Earth', if you ask us).
There's also case studies of how different businesses might using Google Earth, including media companies, non-profit organisations, data providers and educators.
Visit the site yourself to be wowed with all the things you didn't know Google Earth did. We will warn you, however, that's it's not as interesting as pottering around in Google Earth itself, unsurprisingly.



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Facebook overtakes Google in time spent
According to data from comScore, US users spent more time on Facebook than they did on Google for the first time ever in August.
While Facebook had comfortably sat below Google for the last three years, it has surged recently, creeping ahead of the search giant around the time it hit 500 million users, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised.
For the last few years, Yahoo sites had ruled the roost when it came eating up the American people's time, but the chart shows that it has failed to grow for the last few years, allowing Facebook and Google to steal a march on it.
Bouncing back
Perhaps the tie-up with Microsoft will help it claw back those precious minutes as people realise the sheer joy in trolling through photos of people they don't really know.
The timing of this particular graph is a little unfortunate, coming the day after the unveiling of Google Instant, which will trim yet more precious tenths of second off the time users spend there.
Of course, as long as people keep clicking ads, we doubt Google minds too much how long you spend hanging around.



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Blu-rays for home cinema nuts: Alien Anthology
The Alien Quadrilogy boxset was a true lynchpin for the DVD format. When it came out in 2003, it revolutionised the format, with its superb DVD extras and a cracking transfer.
Seven years later it is now time for the four Alien films to come to Blu-ray in a boxset which sounds (and looks) like it truly delivers.
Home Cinema Choice is so impressed with the Alien Anthology six-disc set that it has showcased stills from the Blu-ray online which tease that this may well be one of the best transfers yet for the hi-def disc.
"It's time to throw out those old Alien Quadrilogy boxsets, as Fox has taken the franchise to a whole new level with this stunning six-disc boxset," explains Anton Van Beek, news editor at Home Cinema Choice, part of the TechRadar network.
"Alien and Aliens in particular have never looked better, the completely remastered AVC encodes revealing levels of fine detail and colour accuracy that previous versions simple can't compete with."
Aliens
As for the special features, well it sounds like they are still very special, with Van Beek explaining: "The care and attention put into this set is evident at every turn, from the stunning presentation of the films themselves through to the abundant special features – including the longer and more honest version of Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien 3, which Fox took the scissors to for the DVD release.
"Quite simply, it's the best Blu-ray release of the year by a significant margin."
Alien Anthology has a UK release date of 25 October, courtesy of 20th Century Fox, and will be priced at £49.99.
Go to hcc.techradar.com for all the details and super-large images of the whole anthology.



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Panasonic adds Netflix streaming to 2010 TVs
US owners of this year's range of Panasonic's Viera Cast TVs and Blu-ray players will find that they can now stream video from Netflix, thanks to a software update.
The new service sits alongside what was already on offer, including Amazon video on demand, Skype, Pandora and YouTube.
While UK users won't be able to take advantage of the latest feature, Panasonic says it's "constantly looking to provide the best possible entertainment experience for our customers", so maybe we can hope to see it match Samsung and integrate LoveFilm streaming in the future.
Cast, Viera Cast
LoveFilm itself has made some aggressive moves to shore up its digital offerings, including the addition of MGM movies. A James Bond marathon without leaving the comfort of the sofa? Don't mind if we do…
All Panasonic online features will naturally require an internet connection, with a wireless USB dongle available to avoid yet another cable emerging from your TV.
The Panasonic 2010 range can also use USB connectivity for keyboard control when browsing, and playback of JPEG images and AVCHD videos from recent digital camcorders.



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In Depth: 25 best BlackBerry apps
A couple of years ago a BlackBerry was just for work and apps were few and far between.

Now you can get more great apps than you can fit in your BlackBerry memory at once.
You can find some of the same apps as on every platform, like EverNote, Shazam, Yelp and UrbanSpoon; other apps take advantage of the famous BlackBerry security - and the business audience is the reason tools like Xobni came to BlackBerry first.
Here is our pick of the 25 best apps for BlackBerry.
1. ShortCutMe - £3.99
You won't need ShortCutMe once BlackBerry 6 comes out, but for now it's the easiest way to make shortcuts on your home screen to favourite phone numbers, apps, Web sites and commands (like turning Wi-Fi on and off). A little garish but very useful.
ShortCutMe
2. Nobex - free or £15.89/year
You can't get a BlackBerry with an FM radio in but you can stream radio stations from around the world (the US selection is better than the UK as there are no BBC stations) - see what's playing, see the lyrics and if you like it, buy the song, with Nobex. The sound quality is excellent and you can stream over Wi-Fi for hours at a time (it works over 3G but check your data costs). The premium version has more stations but the free version has plenty to listen to.
Nobex
3. miRoamer free - free
Another streaming radio app, miRoamer promises some BBC stations but we couldn't get them to play. Other stations played happily, with good quality sound, but it doesn't have half the features of Nobex.
miroamer
4. Didiom Pro - free app plus $9.99/year
Put the Didiom Pro app on your PC and you can stream music onto your BlackBerry; the free trial only gives you five songs, your PC has to be on, you'll probably have to tweak your network to make it work and the interface is clunky but $10 isn't a lot for your own personal streaming service.
Didom
5. Music WithMe - £11.95
Music WithMe doesn't stream music to your BlackBerry; it pushes chosen playlists from your ITunes library into the Music WithMe service and then downloads them to your handset over Wi-Fi or 3G so you don't need to be online to play music - but the download can take a long time if you transfer a long playlist. Handy but quite a pricey way to avoid plugging in a cable.
Music withme
6. VLC Remote Control - £0.79
VLC Remote Control has complicated setup (expect to tinker in the .hosts file), cryptic shortcuts and a minimal interface, but when you can sit back on the sofa and control the excellent VLC media player on your PC over Wi-Fi from your BlackBerry it's worth the effort.
VLC remote control
7. BBC iPlayer - free
Browse a mobile version of the BBC iPlayer site and play TV shows in the BlackBerry iPlayer; you can watch BBC TV channels and listen to BBC radio live or pick shows from the last seven days. You need Wi-Fi to enjoy watching, but this is TV in your pocket.
BBC iplayer
8. Slingplayer Mobile - £19.99
Slingplayer only works on recent handsets with 3G or Wi-Fi (it really needs good bandwidth), it's pricey and you have to have a Slingbox, but if you do you can watch any of your channels - or anything you've recorded on a PVR like Sky+ - on your BlackBerry (and you can set recordings when you're out.
Slingplayer mobile
9. Kayak - free
Kayak is one of the best sites for finding hotels and flight deals; it's even handier on the move - you can find a room, track a flight or look up airline baggage fees.
Kayak
10. neoReader - free
BlackBerry Messenger 5 lets you use QR codes to add contacts - it can also use them to download software, open web pages and call phone numbers but it's not that convenient to pretend to be adding a contact every time. NeoReader (get.neoreader.com on your BlackBerry) isn't the most elegant app, but it's quicker for snapping barcodes and it recognises more functions (like sending text messages).
neoReader
11. Xobni - £7.95
A few people have spent years creating their address book in Outlook, keeping it up to date and syncing it to their BlackBerry; the rest of us can use Xobni to do the work. Xobni grabs contacts automatically from emails, phone calls, meetings, text messages, LinkedIn and Facebook - and arranges them by how often you're in touch. Flick the trackball up when you're writing a message to find and add contacts from Xobni. If you have Xobni for Outlook you get even more contacts.
Xobni
12. Gwabbit - free or £7.95
Simpler than Xobni, Gwabbit just grabs email addresses and (sometimes) numbers from email signatures - automatically or you can force it to scan a message. A quick way to build up your address book, but the free version tells the person you're 'gwabbing' that you've done it.
Gwabbit
13. Linked In - free
If Linked In is your social network, the official app gives you updates, copies contact details into your address book and lets you send and accept invitations from the app. The downside is if your network is active, downloading their updates can impact performance and battery life.
LinkedIn
14. hulloMail 1.2 - free
hulloMail offers iPhone-style visual voicemail where you can see what message you have and who from, in your inbox on the phone or wherever you read your email - or record your own Hullo voice messages to send. Pretty much what voicemail should be.
hulloMail
15. Documents To Go - $19.99
Pay for the premium version of Documents To Go, that comes free on most BlackBerrys, and you can create new documents, check your spelling, use bulleted lists and tables, copy text out of PDFs and actually read PDFs on screen. The handy file viewer and automatic sync of documents from the desktop software are a bonus.
documentstogo
16. Bones In Motion - free
It's a shame Bones In Motion is only for the Storm and Storm 2 because it's an excellent pedometer and walking tracker; it tracks your walking or biking accurately, shows your trail on a map and works out how much exercise you got. And it's free!
Bones in motion
17. Home to Phone - $2.99
It's easier to look up a phone number on your desktop, but you want to dial the number on your phone; Home to Phone lets you send numbers to your BlackBerry ready to dial; you can also send URLs to your phone, or back to your PC if the BlackBerry browser can't cope. If you don't use Firefox you'll need to run the slightly buggy Windows app (the Chrome plug-in doesn't have all the features yet).
Home to phone
18. Where's My Phone? - £2.79
Left it at home or lost it in a bar? Where's My Phone? lets you find your BlackBerry by turning on the GPS, making it ring loudly or having it call you so you can listen to where it is; you can lock it with a reward message asking finders to call you or wipe it. You have to set it up and learn how to send commands, but once done you get peace of mind.
Wheres my phone
19. Twitter - free
There are plenty of Twitter apps for BlackBerry - UberTwitter is particularly good - but the official Twitter client has a great range of features including tweeting photos from the camera, making lists, the choice of retweeting or quoting - and new tweets appear right in the inbox.
Twitter
20. Seesmic - free
You don't get the multicolumn view of the desktop version with Seesmic for BlackBerry, but you do get posting (via Ping.fm) to a panoply of services and there are nifty features like seeing images in tweets and even the timeline.
Seesmic
21. Vlingo - free or £15.89
With a great keyboard on the BlackBerry you don't need voice control as much but Vlingo does more than just taking dictation; you can use your voice to search the Web,update Facebook or Twitter and (of course) voice dial; you can also launch apps and have messages read out to you. The paid version lets you send messages and IMs or dictate into apps.
Vlingo
22. AstraSync - $49
Why would you need another mail app for BlackBerry? AstraSync works with Exchange ActiveSync services like Hotmail and Gmail so you get over-the-air calendar and contacts sync, it synchronises read and deleted messages in both directions - and it works without a BlackBerry data contract so you can save money, especially when you're roaming.
AstraSync
23. Google Maps - free
BlackBerry Maps is all very well, but Google Maps shows tube and rail lines, satellite images and traffic - and lets you search for places and addresses and get directions. It's a shame the interface doesn't make better use of the memory and trackball but you'll want to have it if you go - well, anywhere.
Google maps
24. PayPal - free
Simple and straightforward, the PayPal app lets you send money from your phone in a choice of currencies (and you can see how much you have and what you've spent and received lately), directly to people in your address book.
PayPal
25. eBay - free
Search eBay form your phone and log into your account to bid, check on watched items or monitor your own auctions with the eBay BlackBerry app. Another nice BlackBerry feature is the way you get notifications from the app in the inbox.
eBay




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Chrome-to-Phone coming to the iPhone?
Google has stated that it would love to bring its Chrome-to-Phone services to platforms beyond Android.
This means that we could see the ultra-cool functionality of simply clicking on a button in the Chrome browser to have links, maps and Youtube videos pumped to an iPhone.
Hugo Barra, director of products for mobile at Google, said: "We'd like to bring [Chrome-to-Phone] to other platforms, but we have to figure out the right way to do it."
Magical
"The notifications infrastructure for Android [2.2] is amazing and unique; at that just doesn't exist on other platforms, so the experience wouldn't be as magical as it is at the moment," he added.
It seems unlikely that the service will be ported to any other platform in the near future, given that Chrome-to-Phone was designed with Android in mind.
Back in April Google told TechRadar that it was looking to push Google Maps Navigation onto other phone platforms as well, but given we haven't heard anything on that for a while, we can't see Chrome-to-iPhone appearing anytime soon.



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The iPod nano watch arrives – Apple on your wrist
Steve Jobs may have alluded to the new iPod nano as being watch-like, but Apple hasn't come out with a watch attachment.
No worries, as unsurprisingly a watch manufacturer has come out with an iPod nano band to do just that.
The 22mm band slips through the nano's clip, and, well, makes the iPod into a watch, allowing you to see the time on a device that will need to be charged up far more often than a normal wrist-based timepiece.
The ipod watch
We want Bluetooth
There's also the issue of having headphones plugged into your wrist, as that's just asking for a world of tangles and anger.
We need someone to make a Bluetooth attachment for the iPod nano so we can wirelessly stream music from the end of our arm to our ears – then we will officially be living in the future.
The watch strap only cost $17 (£11) from County Comm, but they're currently not available for the UK as yet – but don't worry, we reckon it's only a matter of time before a watch manufacturer realises that their stock will fit the nano and they can begin marketing the iPod nano watchstrap too.



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Review: SRM Arezzo Kinetic
SRM first came to our attention in 2009. In fact, its basic Arezzo model won our coveted award for Best sub-£1,000 turntable.
The full range includes the aforementioned Arezzo; the Arezzo Reference; Ultra and the Kinetic. All are supplied with similar features, but the Kinetic adds just one more, albeit a significant one: a flywheel which is interposed between the motor and the platter.
Obviously the platter of any turntable is supposed to rotate at a constant rate and one thing that helps this happen is the inertia of the platter itself, which together with the compliant drive belt filters out any small-speed irregularities due to the motor or its supply.
The Kinetic's flywheel is driven from the motor by a single square section belt and then passes the impetus on to the acrylic subplatter via a further four belts, giving relatively stiff coupling. In this case, the rotational momentum of the flywheel almost exactly equals that of the platter, so the effect is similar to doubling the weight of the platter.
The motor itself is a low-voltage AC type, which is attached to the sub-chassis. This is a semi-suspended design, with the sub-chassis stood off from the plinth on sorbothane mounts which are reasonably compliant but don't give quite as much decoupling as springs.
The plinth stands on conical feet on a further level of acrylic, but the three-level construction is still quite low-profile.
Rega rb300
The arm board is also acrylic and is to some extent decoupled from the sub-chassis. Our review sample came fitted with a Rega RB300 arm (not included in the price), complete with SRM's 'counterweight resonance controller' – basically a thick rubber band which wraps round the outside of the counterweight. A dust cover is available as an option.
Sound quality
Once again, tonal balance could prove a deciding factor for many listeners – in this case a small lift in the upper bass. That's going to vary in effect with different loudspeakers, of course, and with the extended but neutral Bowers and Wilkins 803S we used for most of our sighted listening, it was perceptible but not bothersome.
That's pretty much a constant: deep bass can suffer if the turntable is not isolated at least somewhat from a suspended floor.
That apart, the Arezzo Kinetic does a lot of things very well. It has a direct, even forceful, presentation and places considerable emphasis on the rhythmic side of things. One listener used the word 'confident' in describing the sound and we could easily see what he meant by that, with dynamics and attack both full-on.
The clarity the Arezzo achieves in the midrange is very welcome in separating voices from each other and from the accompaniment: it's the highest frequencies that occasionally seem a little blurred.
Despite this, imaging is good, if not outstanding.
Related Links



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Qualcomm: 1.2GHz, not 1.5GHz chips, coming Q1 2011
If you were looking forward to owning a smartphone running at 1.5GHz at the beginning of next year, we've got bad news for you.
CEO and Chairman of Qualcomm Paul Jacobs stated that the new chip would appear in devices in Q1 2011, but that's been corrected to the end of the 2011, according to the PR team.
Apparently he meant the 1.2GHz dual-core chips will be coming then, which makes much more sense as they've been sent out to manufacturers to begin popping them into handsets.
Could'a been a contender
The 1.5GHz chip is likely to land in the laps of the phone brands at the tail end of this year, at which point they can begin a series of tests and trials to see what can be done with the chip. We assume this will be carried out with some kind of Rocky-esque montage.
Qualcomm's share prices benefitted from the news of the impending chip, so we're assuming someone down the chain will be getting a slap on the wrists for giving misinformation.
Of course, dual core chips aren't to be sniffed at either, and given we'll be seeing them by MWC next year, we could see smartphones moving onto even cooler applications soon.
Via Slashgear

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Qualcomm: 1.2GHz, not 1.5GHz chips, coming Q1 2011
If you were looking forward to owning a smartphone running at 1.5GHz at the beginning of next year, we've got bad news for you.
CEO and Chairman of Qualcomm Paul Jacobs stated that the new chip would appear in devices in Q1 2011, but that's been corrected to the end of the 2011, according to the PR team.
Apparently he meant the 1.2GHz dual-core chips will be coming then, which makes much more sense as they've been sent out to manufacturers to begin popping them into handsets.
Could'a been a contender
The 1.5GHz chip is likely to land in the laps of the phone brands at the tail end of this year, at which point they can begin a series of tests and trials to see what can be done with the chip. We assume this will be carried out with some kind of Rocky-esque montage.
Qualcomm's share prices benefitted from the news of the impending chip, so we're assuming someone down the chain will be getting a slap on the wrists for giving misinformation.
Of course, dual core chips aren't to be sniffed at either, and given we'll be seeing them by MWC next year, we could see smartphones moving onto even cooler applications soon.
Via Slashgear



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Review: Panasonic TX-P65VT20B
The whole point of 3D is immersion. The technology wants to create a 'real' space for you to engage with.
So it follows that if a 3D screen is big enough to fill your field of vision, it's more likely to deliver an immersive stereoscopic experience. Especially if that size is accompanied by the full HD resolution that's fuelling the new 'frame sequential' 3D push.
With this in mind, Panasonic's TX-P65VT20B is a seriously tantalising prospect. After all, it combines the biggest yet seen on a 3D TV with full HD frame sequential playback. What's more, it uses plasma technology, which on the evidence seen so far uses its faster response time versus LCD technology to great effect when reproducing 3D images.
The P65VT20 isn't as glamorous as I'd like, though. In spite of its bronze finish, it's a bit chunky and staid in its sculpting.
But it does have both Freeview HD and Freesat HD tuners, meaning you can get HD broadcasts regardless of where you live in the country.
The set also has the Ethernet port required by both the UK's free HD broadcasting platforms for future interactive services, and this can also access DLNA PCs or Panasonic's so-so VieraCast online platform.
More multimedia strengths come via a pair of USBs and an SD card slot, with playback of photo, music and video files (including DivX HD), and even lossless recording of the TV tuners to Buffalo's JustStore Desktop HD-EU2-UK USB HDDs. The USB ports enable you to make the TV Wi-Fi ready via a dongle that's included in the box. However, it's not as elegant a solution as a built-in system.
Panasonic tx-p65vt20b 1
Pictures are driven by multiple video processing tools, such as Panasonic's powerful V-real Pro 5 3D engine and 600Hz sub-field drive for producing smoother, sharper motion handling and enhanced brightness and saturation.
Not to mention the brand's latest NeoPDP screen technology, which promises to deliver enhanced colours, black levels and sharpness, as well as an extra tweak, exclusive to the VT20 series, that reduces the plasma cell decay time – an essential improvement for tackling the dreaded 3D crosstalk phenomenon. More on this later.
Third-party endorsements abound: THX provides a well considered picture preset, while the ISF has certified the screen as being possible to calibrate by one of their experts. This gives some idea of the level of picture tuning flexibility the P65VT20 affords.
Highlights include a colour management utility; various gamma presets; the ability to adjust or deactivate the set's Intelligent Frame Creation frame interpolation system; and Panasonic's new Resolution Enhancer system for boosting the sharpness of standard definition sources.
The TV ships with two pairs of Panasonic's 3D glasses, which feel uncomfortable rather quickly and let an annoying amount of light in. So much so, that you need to darken your room as much as possible when viewing in 3D.
Performance
This situation is reinforced by the way the TV loses considerable brightness in 3D mode versus its LCD rivals. Just lift your glasses while watching some 3D content and you'll be startled by the brightness gulf.
Just as well, then, that the P65VT20's immense black level response versus LCD rivals ensures that 3D images still look reasonably rich and dynamic.
Panasonic tx-p65vt20b 2
From here on in, though, the P65VT20's 3D efforts really improve. Their single most important achievement is how little they suffer from crosstalk. The TV certainly isn't immune to the tell-tale double ghosting of objects in the mid-to-far distance; actually, we felt the P65VT20's size made what crosstalk problems the screen does suffer more obvious than they were on the smaller 50in P50VT20.
But the issue is far less common or obvious than you find with any active LCD 3D TVs. This immediately makes the P65VT20's 3D pictures both more convincing and less tiring to watch than those of any other 3D brand.
The reduction in crosstalk also helps the set deliver impressively on frame sequential 3D's promise of full HD resolution with 3D sources. 3D Blu-rays such as Monsters Vs Aliens look superbly detailed and crisp. In fact, the TV's 65in screen size helps it produce the most convincing demonstration yet of exactly why the frame sequential 'active' 3D approach is worth pursuing over the lower-res, passive method.
The P65VT20's sheer enormousness does, it must be said, ram home the resolution difference between full HD 3D Blu-rays and Sky's side-by-side 3D broadcasts. But the latter's images still look impressive for the most part, despite their reduced pixel count.
Switch the P65VT20 to 2D mode (it doesn't carry any 2D-to-3D conversion circuitry), and it continues to impress. HD pictures look consistently outstanding, with the massive screen emphatically delivering on Panasonic's plasma black level advantage, while also producing superbly natural, subtle colours. High-definition images look terrifically crisp and detailed, too.
Game for anything
The P65VT20 doesn't just excel on films and TV either. Its rendition of the relentlessly dark Alan Wake on Xbox 360 frequently took my breath away, for instance, on account of its outstanding black level response.
Shifting my seating position around reminded us, too, of just how convenient plasma TVs are, since they don't suffer from reduced picture quality with wide viewing angles.
Panasonic tx-p65vt20b 3
In theory, if the P65VT20 was going to have a major weakness, it would be with standard-definition sources. But in practice they're really not at all bad. The upscaling engine suppresses source noise without leaving the image looking overly soft, and unlike many LCD TVs and previous Panasonic plasmas, the P65VT20's colour palette doesn't go awry when shifting down from hi-to standard-def.
That said, this is clearly a TV that's tailored to showcase high-definition, so I'd strongly recommend that you keep it on a Full HD diet as much as humanly possible.
Really my only issue with the P65VT20's pictures, beyond the occasional (but good vs LCD) 3D crosstalk issues, is the very rare appearance of gentle fizzing noise over skin tones during horizontal camera pans.
Sonically pumped
A final surprising strength of the P65VT20 is its audio. The set carries three speakers in a 2.1 configuration, delivering 10W to each, and this helps it produce a soundstage that's wide, dynamic and powerful enough to accompany the king-sized screen.
The TV is overall another superb set from Panasonic. Its contrast, sharpness and sheer size make watching it a wonderfully cinematic experience, and while there's room for improvement, it also serves up the best 3D pictures currently available.
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In Depth: Why the App Store isn't suddenly a free-for-all
Apple surprised the industry on 9 September by issuing a statement regarding major changes to App Store policy.

As reported on TechRadar, Apple is "relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code," and has published App Store review guidelines, which Apple hopes will "make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps".
It's unclear why Apple has made these changes, but online buzz about Apple capitulating to various parties seems wide of the mark. Apple isn't scared of Adobe, nor does it need Adobe technology on iOS.
Apple's statement has already been widely misunderstood as Apple allowing Flash on to the platform, but the reality is simply that Flash might now be usable as a development environment for iOS apps.
Nonetheless, this has been enough to, at the time of writing, boost Adobe's share price by ten percent; by contrast, Apple's remains stable. Nor is Apple scared of Android. While Android's marketshare is rising, much of this is due to its existence at the low end of the market, where Apple doesn't care to fight; and iOS devices remain hugely popular, highly profitable, and are also in a state of rapid growth.
TechRadar contributor Adam Banks posits that potential investigations by the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission into Apple's 'monopolistic' ways might have "resulted in a tactical rather than emotional change of heart," and there's likely some truth in that.
However, it's most likely that the bulk of Apple's shift is a developer issue, and while Apple calls its new guidelines a "living document", it's arguable that App Store submissions have been a living process from the very beginning.
Moving the goalposts
Apple's screwed up a number of times along the way regarding App Store submissions, but it's important to remember that Apple's not overstating things when it refers to the App Store as the "most important milestone in the history of mobile software", which brings with it an unprecedented level of work regarding curation and management.
Some argue curation shouldn't be necessary (hence the likes of OpenAppMkt providing an alternate means to get apps on to iOS devices), but approvals cut down on the likelihood of dangerous apps, along with potentially raising the bar for quality (albeit not as high as many people would like).
It's also clear that Apple is learning, even if the rate of change has been frustratingly slow. Little by little, common requests from developers have been taken on board, and now, finally, Apple is loosening up regarding development environments and the provision of guidelines.
"Developers will welcome this," reckons Matt Gemmell of Instinctive Code, creator of Favorites. "The main fear until now wasn't the restrictions themselves - many of which most of us would agree with - but the fact they were unknown. Decisions can only be 'capricious' if you can't account for their origin."
James Montgomerie, who was caught up in App Store rejection shenanigans with Eucalyptus, agrees with Gemmell, saying he's "heartened to see Apple laying out these rules frankly and clearly". Montgomerie adds that the document "still has several vague areas in it, but it's on the whole a great step forward, and removes a huge amount of unease."
Retaining standards
Although Apple's guidelines increase transparency regarding App Store reviews, it's also very clear Apple hasn't opened the doors to all and sundry - the App Store isn't suddenly a free-for-all. The available documentation, which PCalc creator James Thomson rightly calls "fascinating - and occasionally hilarious - reading" is surprisingly candid and, at times, casual.
"We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don't need any more Fart apps," is one of the bullet points; elsewhere, an argument is made regarding standards and not putting apps online just to impress your friends: "We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour".
For Gemmell, the emphasis on quality within the guidelines is welcome: "Knowing the rules Apple is using, and more importantly seeing that they're generally based on themes of preserving quality and minimising offence, should be a comfort to those considering deploying apps on the Store." He does note that the remainder of the announcement, regarding developer tools, is vague but "may presumably apply to third-party tools and frameworks," adding that the "impact of the 'Epic Citadel' demo from the recent Apple event was no doubt a factor in this equally welcome change to policy."
Bob Koon of Binary Hammer is a little concerned by this particular change, arguing that the "already giant App Store can't handle an infusion of purely non-native apps," but Montgomerie counters, believing that "apps should be judged on quality, not on how they were developed". On this subject, Thomson adds that it should "remove a lot of uncertainty around certain technology," and implies we might now see an increase in third-party app-development tools for iOS.
Whatever the outcome, everyone must remember that Apple is still Apple. "It's important to note that Apple's list isn't exhaustive," says Thomson. "Even if you comply with everything, you could still get rejected for something else that's not been considered or documented yet."
However, developers are largely excited by Apple's announcement, even if they were already using Apple's own tools. "It's not that I'm going to stop using Xcode any time soon, and neither of Apple's changes affects me directly," says Thomson.
"But they make me feel a whole lot better about developing for the platform, so from Apple's perspective, it's mission accomplished."




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Weird Tech: Actual mind control device released
The XWave headset from PLX Devices claims to let users control their iPhone and iPad through the power of the mind alone. For a suspiciously cheap $99 you get a headset with a "forehead sensor" that apparently has the ability to interpret brainwaves, eventually granting users the chance to control gadgets using the power of the mind - then translating that into a wider range of control functions via an Apple app.
The caveat is that users first have to "train" their minds to operate the device, so don't just bin it straight away when you can't use it to open iTunes and scroll listlessly up and down the vast collection of music you no longer like.

Real or fake? We don't care - the advert's nice.
Man made
Etsy, which is everyone's second guiltiest internet pleasure just behind looking at Christine Bleakley's choice of shoes on the showbiz section of the Daily Mail over your lunch, has thrown up another winner. Its a hand-made retro iPhone dock going under the slightly clumsy name of the iRetrofone Skyliner, offering a "fully functional" iPod dock stuffed into a retro-styled phone chassis.
iretrophone
iART: Untangling telephone cables - the Angry Birds of days gone by
And it's not just a pretty charger, either - the Skyliner routes voice communications through its handset. In a vague nod to modern times, the maker notes that his $250 creation "helps eliminate concerns about radiation". In much the same way that putting your mobile phone on a table far away from you also helps eliminate concerns about radiation.
It's a start
There's lots of quite difficult-to-understand science surrounding the invention of this "tractor beam", so forgive us if we just sort of gloss over much of the factual stuff and end up talking about in which order we most fancy the ladies out of Star Trek.
tractor beam
ENGAGE: Beats touching things other people have touched
The basic gist of this is that researchers at the Australian National University have invented a (sort of) tractor beam, able to manipulate particles. Now, it can only move very small particles about a metre or so, but it's a massive improvement on the previous best - which was moving even tinier particles a couple of millimetres. Soon it'll be moving things you can see the length of a room.
"No, really, it says so on the signs"
Microsoft's rather over-enthusiastic family-friendly policy claimed another victim this week, with keen Xbox Live user Josh Moore finding his account banned for violating the online gaming service's terms & conditions. His offence? Living in a town called Fort Gay. Fort Gay is a real place, not a description of what happened last night.
Fort gay
NOT EVEN A FORT: Not that there's anything wrong with being fortified (Credit Bing Maps)
"At first I thought, 'Wow, somebody's thinking I live in the gayest town in West Virginia or something.' I was mad," said Josh, pointing out that he's not even gay so it's, like, double the crime. Microsoft's already confirmed it was a mistake, and will be reinstating Josh's account. And removing the graffiti about him from the toilet walls of its office.
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Motorola now planning Android tablet too?
Motorola looks like it wants to join the Android tablet party, as it has its own device showing up in inventory lists.
Over in the US, Verizon is listing three sets of such a device under the heading of the 'Motorola MZ600 tablet'.
However, they're all for the same tablet, just dummy and demo models as well as the real thing, before you all start getting TOO excited.
Given the timing of this announcement, the tablet would likely land later this year, or possibly at the beginning of next, meaning it could be packing Google's new Gingerbread 3.0 Android OS.
Nothing but big phones
Google has already stated that it wants to optimise the experience on the Android platform for larger-form devices, calling the current options that have access to Android Market 'large phones'.
Whether Motorola brings out a Galaxy Tab competitor, complete with Froyo and full voice capabilities or something a bit more substantial and powerful with the next gen OS, will likely depend on whether Google starts giving more detail on its tablet OS plans.



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