Alcatel announces Android touchscreen OT-980
Budget phone specialist Alcatel has announced its first Android smartphone, with the Alcatel OT-980 bringing Android 2.1 and a 2.8 inch touchscreen display.
The Alcatel OT-980 represents two firsts for the company as it moves into the world of smartphones and the Android OS.
The 'dual function' phone has both touchscreen and QWERTY keypad, Wi-Fi, HSPA, E-Compass, Multi IM client an MP3 player and a 2MP camera, and will, unsurprisingly, become the manufacturer's flagship phone.
Bold, new choice
"Continuing the quest to make their communication devices accessible to the mass market, the Alcatel OT-980 is the bold new choice among Android 3G/3G+ smartphones," explains Alcatel's release.
"Ultra-stylish and dynamic, the Alcatel OT-980 is set to bring the hugely popular Android 2.1 Éclair operating system to a wider range of consumers.
"Combining advanced technologies with a sleek design the OT-980 handset enables the user to personalise their mobile phone by adding new options and features to the device by downloading applications.
"From social networking apps such as Twitter, Bebo and Facebook, to shopping, games and music apps, the app world becomes accessible to all."
The OT-980 phone will be available from Carphone Warehouse for £99.95 on Pay As You Go contract, with a UK release date of October 2010.
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Sony PlayStation Move arriving Friday in UK
Sony Move will arrive on its expected UK release date this Friday, with the company confirming the pricings of its new PlayStation Move motion controller and the software to use it with. Move is all set to revolutionise family gaming on Sony's flagship console, and TechRadar's PlayStation Move review suggests that it is worthy purchase.
The new PlayStation Move will arrive on UK shelves on Friday 17 September, with the starter pack, comprising a PlayStation Move motion controller, PlayStation Eye camera and a Starter disc including demos of the titles Sports Champions, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, Start the Party! will be available for £49.99 RRP.
The PlayStation Move motion controller will be available for £34.99, with the PlayStation Move navigation controller at £24.99.
Innovative ways
Mark Bowles, PlayStation Move Brand Manager, said: "PlayStation's heritage is in developing innovative new ways for people to enjoy the platform, beginning with EyeToy where your body became the controller, and continuing with the development of the Buzz! Buzzers and SingStar microphones.
"PlayStation Move is our most ambitious control system yet, delivering pinpoint accuracy that makes it perfect for enhancing the traditional game experience, yet accessible enough for families and fun seekers to enjoy."
Games-wise – the launch titles include Sports Champions, EyePet Move edition, Kung Fu Rider and Start The Party.
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Review: Samsung WB600
At first glance, the 12 megapixel Samsung WB600 doesn't look like a camera that particularly stands out from the crowd of mid-range compacts.It's built from plastic rather than a more exotic magnesium alloy, it isn't festooned with manual dials, and it isn't till you turn it on and start using the lens that you realise the trick it has up its sleeve – it's a truly enormous telephoto, backed up by a camera with enough options to keep long distance photographers happy.
Features
As Samsung's top-end compact, the WB600 has some pleasingly high-end features.
The first is given away by the mode dial on the top of the camera. There's a fully automatic mode for point-and-click types, as well as a program mode that puts plenty of control in the photographer's hands without handing over aperture and shutter decisions.
But there's also an A-S-M mode, which allows you to set your own aperture or shutter, while the 'M' stands for manual, allowing you to set an entirely custom exposure. In use the system works reasonably well.
Actually changing the camera's settings requires you to dig into the menu system - another dial for flicking values up and down would have been an excellent inclusion - but it doesn't take too long to get things set as you want.
The 3-inch LCD simulates the exposure your settings will result in, which is handy if you're not sure what you've done will result in a good image.
Otherwise, the WB600's build is good. It's an all-plastic construction but feels tough, and while the 3in display isn't as fine-grained as you'll find on some other Samsung cameras (not least the superb AMOLED display on the Samsung EX1), it's a decent model, if a touch hard to read in the sun.
But if the WB600 is a little bulky compared to some, it's worth remembering that it's got one of the longest lenses of any compact built-in.
The 15x zoom lens housed in the 2.8cm deep body is equivalent to 24-360mm in 35mm terms. That's truly telephoto, although it's also long enough to make the optical image stabilisation a real necessity. It's so long, in fact, that the motor that drives the zoom mechanism becomes an issue when you want to go from wide-angle to telephoto quickly: with a wide-to-long time of 3.3 seconds, getting the composition you want takes a little patience.
The Samsung WB600's image quality is excellent.
Our tests suggest it could stand to be a touch sharper, as cropping in revealed a merely average amount of detail resolved, but the vast majority of photographers will find nothing to complain about.
See full-res imageIn particular, the WB600 rescues itself from this minor criticism by rendering colours beautifully, edges sharply, and - impressively for such a long lens - taking images with very little chromatic aberration.
A more serious criticism comes when the lens is extended all the way to 360mm. Detail resolution in the middle of the frame remained good, but the edges lost sharpness almost entirely.
See full-res imageIn fairness, it's a problem you'll only really notice if critical details are in the corners of your compositions, but it's worth watching out for.
Low light performance is reasonable. The WB600 offers ISO settings from 80 to 3200, although as is the case with most compacts sporting such ambitious sensitivities, the highest settings are best ignored unless your subject truly transcends image quality.
See full-res imageDull colours and an obscuring fog of digital noise means ISO 3200 is best saved for emergencies or, even better, not used at all. You have to reach a fair way down the scale to find ISO settings truly unaffected by noise, although ISO 800 is just about usable if you want to avoid using the flash.
For wildlife and sports photographers looking to make the most of the long lens, the WB600 includes a motion capture mode, which in our tests took 30 frames in just 4.7 seconds - an average speed of 6.4fps.
See full-res imageThat's significantly quicker than the burst modes on low-end DSLRs, but the speed comes at a price, as image resolution is reduced to just 0.3 megapixels, or VGA. If you want to take pictures at the WB600's native resolution of 4,000 x 3,000, you'll need to live with the considerably slower burst speed of around 1fps.
We tested the Samsung WB600 at every ISO setting. Here are the results...
ISO 80...
See full-res imageISO 100...
See full-res imageISO 200...
See full-res imageISO 400...
See full-res imageISO 800...
See full-res imageISO 1600...
See full-res imageISO 3200...
See full-res imageHD 720p movie modes are becoming par for the course on mid-range compacts these days, and the WB600 doesn't disappoint, with 15fps and 30fps modes on offer at 1280 x 720.
It's a little disappointing that the manual modes on offer in stills mode aren't duplicated here, as the ability to choose your own aperture and shutter speed would be significant advantages on a camera with a lens perfect for shooting sports and fast moving animals.
You do at least get control over exposure compensation, so you can change exposure by plus or minus two stops.
Quality is generally good, if not particularly fine-grained. Our test films revealed a middling amount of detail being resolved, which is at odds with the WB600's excellent performance when it comes to shooting stills. However, motion is nicely captured and colours rendered well, even if the integrated stereo microphones could do with a little more protection from the wind.
When it comes to shooting stills, the WB600 is well worth the money.
We have our reservations about the lens' performance at its longer reaches, as corner softness is an issue, but for general long-lens photography this is a great little device for trips to the zoo or wildlife photographers who don't want to be weighed down by a DSLR.
We liked:
We're big fans of the WB600's manual mode. It's a great starter camera - use it on fully automatic mode for a few months, then gradually start employing its more serious features until you're ready for a DSLR. In the meantime, its still images are excellent, and the incredibly flexible lens should cover you for just about all photographic eventualities.
We disliked:
Long lens image quality isn't perfect and, at times, trawling through the menu system to reach relatively common features such as aperture size or exposure speed can be a tad slow. Another dial to quickly adjust settings would have been welcome, not least because it would have ensured that the WB600's useful manual modes were more than occasionally useful.
Verdict:
Performance is excellent, and if you can stand the low resolution images, the 6fps burst mode is better than just about any other compact we can name, and definitely faster than any low-end DSLRs.
The manual mode is an extremely attractive inclusion, and with the price hovering around the £190 mark the WB600 represents seriously good value.
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HTC Desire HD and Desire Z get UK release date
HTC has announced that the HTC Desire HD and Desire Z will be released into the UK soon.Speaking at the London launch, the Taiwanese firm confirmed that the two handsets, which offer high level tech specs and the new Sense UI, have been given a UK release date of October 2010.
Vodafone is the first network to offer the phones in the UK, building on a long relationship with HTC, with the HTC Magic and HTC Legend both being brought to the networks on exclusive.
No UK exclusive
Vodafone will launch the Desire HD and Desire Z in all its markets, although it hasn't nabbed the exclusive on these phones for the UK.
There's no word on the HTC Desire HD and Desire Z UK pricing as yet, but we assume that the former, with its higher specs and larger screen, will be more expensive when it lands next month.
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HTC Desire Z unveiled - Android 2.2 with a keyboard
HTC has announced the new HTC Desire Z, the QWERTY-packing brother to the HTC Desire HD.The new phone has a 3.7-inch QVGA screen, 4GB of internal storage and an 800MHz Qualcomm chip powering things along underneath.
A 5MP camera with autofocus and flash are also on offer, with Android 2.2 on board from the outset.
The hinge on the QWERTY keyboard is specially designed to allow users to hit the top row of keys, as well as programmable keys for things like texting, calling or launching an application whenever you want.
Full metal jacket
The battery is a little smaller than expected at only 1300mAh, but there's 4GB of internal storage to pack in your multimedia, as well as a microSD slot for expansion.
It's a thin all-metal device, with dimensions of 119mm x 60.4mm x 14.16mm with a weight of 180g with battery.
It's also packing the new HTC Sense UI and HTC Smart Boot, which helps power up your phone quicker and adds in new features and functionality to the user experience.
We're still waiting on an HTC Desire Z UK release date and UK price, but stay tuned for our full hands on: HTC Desire Z review coming later today.
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HTC Desire HD finally announced
HTC has announced another of its worst-kept secrets: the HTC Desire HD, the new Android flagship phone from the Taiwanese firm.The new phone features a WVGA capacitive screen, a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and (thankfully) Android 2.2.
There's also an 8MP camera on the back with LED flash and face tracking, the ability to record in 720 HD video and support for a variety of video codecs.
It also comes with Dolby Mobile and SRS, as well as enhanced photo features, HTC is calling this the 'best of what it has done packaged into one handset'.
Upping the stakes
HTC has also beefed up the internal storage to 4GB, with a microSD card slot for expansion too – and we reckon you're going to want to given that the new HTC Desire HD is shaping up to be a multimedia powerhouse.
The Desire HD is decked out in aluminium to give it a premium finish, and is essentially the UK version of the HTC Evo, and the HTC HD2 given an Android makeover.
It also comes with the latest version of HTC Sense, offering a raft of new features and a new slick user interface, along with HTC Smart Boot to make powering up your device a much faster experience.
We're still waiting to hear word of the UK release date and UK price, but as soon as we know, you'll know – and stick around for our forthcoming hands on: HTC Desire HD review.
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HTC announces new Sense UI overhaul
HTC has announced a new version of its Sense overlay, bringing with it a raft of new features.First appearing on the forthcoming HTC Desire HD and HTC Desire Z, the new UI will allow users to pre-load or pre-cache maps so there is 'zero wait' time for when you're panning and zoom.
The new HTC Sense also brings a unified inbox, that will let you either see all or some of your accounts on your HTC phone.
You can also see only 'VIP' friends or unread emails, and easily manage these using check boxes.
HTC Smart Boot, another new offering from the Taiwanese firm, will also offer much quicker loading times.
It claims that loading times will be cut from around 45 seconds to 12 seconds, meaning you can be up and running in no time at all.
If you've got a DLNA TV in your house, the new HTC Sense UI can send all the media from your handset onto the screen too.
HTC has also announced HTCsense.com, a new website that allows you to trace your phone using the GPS, or remotely wipe or lock the device from wherever you are.
It's more than that though - you can also see you contacts, search text messages and ring your phone from wherever you are.
We're still waiting to find out when this is coming to older models too, but we're hoping that at the very least the HTC Desire and HTC Legend benefit soon.
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IDF 2010: Intel and Dixons team up for new app store
Intel has revealed new partnerships with UK high street stalwart Dixons as well as book seller Barnes and Noble and Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Asus as it officially launches the AppUp online application store. Originally unveiled in beta form last year, Intel's Renee James announced at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) today that AppUp is now officially good to go.
AppUp is Intel's answer to Apple's iTunes app store and provides an online portal for purchasing applications for devices running the MeeGo, Moblin and Windows operating systems.
Currently, AppUp's content is mainly aimed at netbook and tablet users. Eventually, Intel hopes it will be bursting with software for smartphones, internet-connected TVs and more.
App what?
Wrapping your head around Intel's intentions with AppUp isn't easy. For starters, Intel isn't getting into the business of selling software itself.
Instead, Intel provides the underlying app-store infrastructure which third parties will rebrand and reskin. What's more, AppUp theoretically includes a wide range of device types from smartphones to HDTVs.
So, how exactly does it work? The basic idea is that device users will log in to any AppUp-based store using a single login or profile. AppUp will recognise their device and only offer compatible software and applications. Moreover, this content will be the same whether it's the Dixons' AppUp store or Asus's.
Intel says AppUp has an advantage over the competition thanks to its 24 hour try-and-buy option which allows users to experience the full experience of any app gratis for one day.
At this point, you may be wondering what the point is of having multiple stores selling the same content. If you're Dixons it makes sense in commercial terms thanks to the cut received on every app sale. But for the end user, it makes for a confusing and fragmented looking market place.
The great unwashed
The reason appears to be Intel's reluctance to get its hands dirty dealing direct with consumers. It's simply not something it is comfortable with. Consequently, it's hard to know what to make of AppUp, whether it will be a success and if so in what segments.
During its beta phase, AppUp was dominated by netbook users. However, if Intel does manage to get traction in the smartphone market with the Atom chip and MeeGo companion OS – and that's a huge, neon-lit, 50-storey if – handsets could dominate the new marketplace.
Equally, however, with stiff competition from Apple and Google's Android, it's easy to imagine AppUp slowly fading into obscurity. Much like Intel's efforts to get into the HDTV segment, it's all to play for. One thing we're fairly certain of, however, is that if it is a success, it'll take some iteration and consolidation to achieve.
For the record, the Dixons AppUp store will goes live for download November 1st. Dixons' Gary Hearns told TechRadar that Advent-branded systems with AppUp preinstalled will begin shipping at the beginning of 2011.
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IDF 2010: Intel and Dixons team up for new app store
Intel has revealed new partnerships with UK high street stalwart Dixons as well as book seller Barnes and Noble and Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Asus as it officially launches the AppUp online application store. Originally unveiled in beta form last year, Intel's Renee James announced at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) today that AppUp is now officially good to go.
AppUp is Intel's answer to Apple's iTunes app store and provides an online portal for purchasing applications for devices running the MeeGo, Moblin and Windows operating systems.
Currently, AppUp's content is mainly aimed at netbook and tablet users. Eventually, Intel hopes it will be bursting with software for smartphones, internet-connected TVs and more.
App what?
Wrapping your head around Intel's intentions with AppUp isn't easy. For starters, Intel isn't getting into the business of selling software itself.
Instead, Intel provides the underlying app-store infrastructure which third parties will rebrand and reskin. What's more, AppUp theoretically includes a wide range of device types from smartphones to HDTVs.
So, how exactly does it work? The basic idea is that device users will log in to any AppUp-based store using a single login or profile. AppUp will recognise their device and only offer compatible software and applications. Moreover, this content will be the same whether it's the Dixons' AppUp store or Asus's.
Intel says AppUp has an advantage over the competition thanks to its 24 hour try-and-buy option which allows users to experience the full experience of any app gratis for one day.
At this point, you may be wondering what the point is of having multiple stores selling the same content. If you're Dixons it makes sense in commercial terms thanks to the cut received on every app sale. But for the end user, it makes for a confusing and fragmented looking market place.
The great unwashed
The reason appears to be Intel's reluctance to get its hands dirty dealing direct with consumers. It's simply not something it is comfortable with. Consequently, it's hard to know what to make of AppUp, whether it will be a success and if so in what segments.
During its beta phase, AppUp was dominated by netbook users. However, if Intel does manage to get traction in the smartphone market with the Atom chip and MeeGo companion OS – and that's a huge, neon-lit, 50-storey if – handsets could dominate the new marketplace.
Equally, however, with stiff competition from Apple and Google's Android, it's easy to imagine AppUp slowly fading into obscurity. Much like Intel's efforts to get into the HDTV segment, it's all to play for. One thing we're fairly certain of, however, is that if it is a success, it'll take some iteration and consolidation to achieve.
For the record, the Dixons AppUp store will goes live for download November 1st. Dixons' Gary Hearns told TechRadar that Advent-branded systems with AppUp preinstalled will begin shipping at the beginning of 2011.
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Gary Marshall: The Galaxy Tab's fatal flaw: it makes the iPad look cheap
Some bad ideas are so amazingly, excruciatingly bad that they're painful to think about. Angelina Jolie getting a tattoo of a spider's web across her face, for example. Letting David Cameron and Nick Clegg run the country. Pouring Nitro-Mors on your naughty bits.
Making an iPad rival that costs more than the most expensive iPad. That sort of thing.
Yes, in news that apparently comes from the "we've eaten an entire field of magic mushrooms" department, that's exactly what Samsung's doing. Not the Nitro-Mors. The iPad pricing thing.
Amazon wants an incredible £799 for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, possibly because it believes it's made of diamonds, cures cancer and brings your ancestors back from the dead.
To be fair, other sites list the Tab for much less, but it's still pricey: when we asked about a £615 price we'd seen another retailer offering, Samsung coughed and agreed that the Tab would certainly cost more than £600. That was a shocker, and we didn't think it meant nearly two hundred quid more than £600.
Perspective
Let's get some perspective here. Apple is hardly the Poundstretcher of technology, but its cheapest iPad is £429, just over half the price of Amazon's Galaxy Tab.
The 64GB one is £599 - £200 less than Amazon wants for the Galaxy Tab - and even the 3G 64GB model is £100 cheaper at £699. Maybe Samsung looked at Apple's "magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price" and shouted "Unbelievable price! Yes! We can do that! Eight hundred pounds of unbelievable! Take that, Ninja Steve!"
Or maybe I'm right about the mushrooms and the entire company is completely off its face.
So what do you get for the price of an exceptionally powerful laptop, one and a half iPhones or nearly two entry level iPads?
You get a tablet that's quite good but far too expensive. When TechRadar's Gareth Beavis wrote our hands on: Samsung Galaxy Tab review he described it as "pretty darn neat" but noted that "now we just need to find out the price to see if it's going to be really popular".
If Amazon's price is right, this is one Tab I can't imagine many people rushing to pick up.
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IDF 2010: Intel goes Atom crazy - but where are the phones?
The second day at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco has been all about Atom, the littlest of PC processors but a very big deal for Intel. Atom is the key to getting Intel into new lucrative markets. The world's biggest chip company duly rolled out a slew of Atom-related product announcements and industrial alliances aimed at doing just that.
However, arguably the biggest coup of all never materialised. There's still no hard evidence of an Atom-powered smartphone on the horizon.
Still, today it was the job of Intel's Doug Davis to dish details on Atom. Davis unveiled new Atom chips aimed at a wide variety of markets and form factors including tablet PCs, HDTVs and even cars. Put simply, Intel wants its chips powering anything and everything that connects to the internet.
Every kind of Atom
Our whistle stop tour of the new chips starts with the CE 4200, a full-on system-on-a-chip design targeted at internet-enabled HDTVs or as Intel would rather they be known, smart TVs.
The key upgrade for the CE 4200 over the existing CE 4100 is the addition of a hardware H.264 video encoder.
This should allow for various funky new real-time usage scenarios. Think multiple streams, picture-in-picture, piping content between devices and more. The CE 4200 should find its way into various set top boxes and HDTV sets in 2011.
To prove its prowess in the TV market, Intel rolled out long-time bedfellow Microsoft. The Beast of Redmond has been working on a new take on its Media Center tech.
The new set top device runs Intel Atom and Windows 7 Embedded to deliver what was described as the full HD Media Centre experience on the cheap.
High profile partners
Acer and Asus are said to be working on retail versions for 2011. Intel also announced a new set top device from D-Link and Boxy as well as a new Linux based media centre interface from Amino.
Next up is the Atom derivative formerly known as Lincroft. We've already seen quite a bit of Lincroft branded as the Atom Z600 and part of the smartphone-targeted Moorestown platform. New for this IDF is a derivative known as Oak Trail.
The big noise here is the addition on a new daughter chip which provides PCI Express among other functionality. That in turn means support for full house operating systems such as Windows 7. In short, Oak Trail is meant to be the killer chip for tablet devices and uber thin and light netbook systems.
Of the myriad of Oak Trail-powered devices on stage, the show stealer was undoubtedly Dell's new Inspiron Duo. At first it looks like a chunky 10-inch tablet, only for it to split down the middle and reveal a hidden keyboard and swivelling screen mechanism.
Dynamic Duo
The Inspiron Duo's hardware looks pretty hot. Unfortunately, the device was noticeably laggy and unresponsive during the on-stage demo.
Still, given that Oak Trail is all about reduced power consumption rather than increased performance, that's hardly surprising. Atom-powered systems running Windows 7 have always been pretty ghastly.
The last of our Atom chips is the new E600. Designed for embedded applications, the E600 is a chip that will very likely be invisible to end users.
However, Intel is hoping it will be powering the infotainment system in your next car.
Put all these new Atom chips together and you have a strategy for getting Intel into almost every imaginable internet-connected device, except those pesky smartphones. We've shot the breeze on numerous occasions with Intel representatives regarding phones.
As for the absence of Atom-powered phones at IDF, Intel's Alistair Kemp rightly points out that smartphone product development cycles are more drawn out and complex than PCs or tablets. The phones, TechRadar is assured, are coming.
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Review: Panasonic TX-L42D25B
Panasonic is currently the king of plasma TV. So much so, that its LCD screens often get overlooked. Now, though, it's joined the LED market, with a range of TVs from 19-42in. This set, the TXL42D25B, is the biggest in its arsenal. Is it good enough to challenge the LED lineups of Samsung, Sony et al?
Distinguishing features
The advantages of LED of CCFL are now well-known, and include energy efficiency, thin screens, improved brightness, and wider colour gamuts. But there's more to a good HDTV than how it's lit, and thankfully Panasonic hasn't eschewed other technology.
The TX-L42D25B features the latest version of a technology called In-Plane Switching (IPS). This produces a wider viewing-angle and addresses one of LCD's traditional bugbears.
The TV is also capable of playing a variety of media types, including JPEG photos, MP3 music and DivX/ MPEG/AVC-HD video formats. Multimedia alternatives to USB are present in the form of an SD card slot and networked playback. The latter gives you a choice of any DLNA-compliant media servers that may be on your home network and is one of the brand's Viera Tools.
On top of this is VieraCast, Panasonic's on-line entertainment and information portal. This enables access to on-demand video clips from the likes of Eurosport and YouTube. Skype is also supported, and if you buy Panasonic's optional USB camera, video phoning becomes an option. Networking is wired, although a wireless 'dongle' is available optionally, but I'd prefer to see the function built into the set.
The TX-L42D25B is also one of the UK's only TVs to boast no fewer than three types of TV tuner. One current trend that hasn't made it into the screen, though, is native 3D support. As far as Panasonic is currently concerned, 3D is suited to its plasma panels.
A way with hues
Up and running, the Panasonic's colour reproduction stands out – whether the green grass on a football pitch or the red blood in Ninja Assassin. I viewed both of these in HD – Freeview for the football, and Blu-ray for the movie – but the chromatic capabilities also extend to SD DVDs.
The latter cannot, of course, hope to get close to HD's detail, which is simply sublime, but the screen's upscaling acquits itself well. It's just a pity that none of the TX-L42D25B's armoury of electro-trickery can tame the feathery artefacts that spoil a fair few standard-def digital broadcasts.
Contrast ratios and black levels were commendably good, especially after calibration. Of the picture tweaks on offer, 'intelligent frame creation' had a remarkable effect, especially with 60Hz film-derived video such as Region 1 DVDs. The judder disappears to the extent that the result could almost pass for genuine 1080p24.
The splendid images are let down by a gutless sound system that's suited only to uncritical viewing. For movies and music, add on an audio system via the rear-panel analogue and digital audio outputs.
As a first foray into LED tech goes, the TX-L42D25B impresses – it's definitely the best LCD screen I've yet seen from Panasonic. Well worth auditioning if you're looking for a new 42in set.
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Mozilla unveils 'Kraken' browser benchmark
Mozilla has announced Kraken – a JavaScript benchmark that it is claiming focuses on realistic workloads and forward-looking applications. Although the speed of browsers is currently judged by benchmarks such as SunSpider and V8, there have been rumblings for some time that they do not represent a 'fair' test.
Now, Firefox maker Mozilla has launched Kraken, and is hoping that it will become a popular industry benchmark.
Realistic workloads
"We believe that the benchmarks used in Kraken are better in terms of reflecting realistic workloads for pushing the edge of browser performance forward," explained Mozilla's Rob Sayre.
"These are the things that people are saying are too slow to do with open web technologies today, and we want to have benchmarks that reflect progress against making these near-future apps universally available."
Mozilla aims to launch Kraken and continue to build over time, and the software will be open source.
Evolve
"We think Kraken is a step in the right direction," added Sayre's blog. "Kraken will evolve quickly over the coming weeks and months as we build out its test suite and continue to push forward the capabilities of the open web, as we make the workloads more realistic and varied.
"Of course, as with everything we do, Kraken will be free and open source and we welcome contributions and participation from the wider community."
The first result from Kraken is published, as you would expect, comparing Firefox 4 to Firefox 3.6 – and you also won't be surprised to find the result is favourable – with the former 2.5 times faster than its predecessor.
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Mozilla unveils 'Kraken' browser benchmark
Mozilla has announced Kraken – a JavaScript benchmark that it is claiming focuses on realistic workloads and forward-looking applications. Although the speed of browsers is currently judged by benchmarks such as SunSpider and V8, there have been rumblings for some time that they do not represent a 'fair' test.
Now, Firefox maker Mozilla has launched Kraken, and is hoping that it will become a popular industry benchmark.
Realistic workloads
"We believe that the benchmarks used in Kraken are better in terms of reflecting realistic workloads for pushing the edge of browser performance forward," explained Mozilla's Rob Sayre.
"These are the things that people are saying are too slow to do with open web technologies today, and we want to have benchmarks that reflect progress against making these near-future apps universally available."
Mozilla aims to launch Kraken and continue to build over time, and the software will be open source.
Evolve
"We think Kraken is a step in the right direction," added Sayre's blog. "Kraken will evolve quickly over the coming weeks and months as we build out its test suite and continue to push forward the capabilities of the open web, as we make the workloads more realistic and varied.
"Of course, as with everything we do, Kraken will be free and open source and we welcome contributions and participation from the wider community."
The first result from Kraken is published, as you would expect, comparing Firefox 4 to Firefox 3.6 – and you also won't be surprised to find the result is favourable – with the former 2.5 times faster than its predecessor.
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In Depth: What's next for Firefox on Linux?
Firefox is the open source project your non-open source friends are most likely to have heard of. It's also the one they're most likely to have used. In fact, Firefox has brought open source into the light of mainstream attention, getting coverage alongside all the usual technology and systems. At the same time, using the language of one of its own slogans, it's enabled us to 'take back the web'. It's become such a dominant force online that site builders can no longer ignore Firefox rendering compatibility as they used to.
Internet Explorer is no longer the only browser, and this means people finally have access to an unabridged version of the web on their desktops. But after some spectacular initial success, the Firefox mission has stalled.
Growth over the last year has been static, and things are about to get worse. A competing open source browser has been able to go from zero to 7% market share, and doesn't show any sign of slowing down.
This is Google's Chrome, built with many of the same motivations that drove Firefox's development, and Google has a wide and comprehensive plan for Chrome's future.
However, it's not over for the browser yet. This is just the end of the honeymoon period. It now has to learn to adapt and evolve in an environment where it's not the only open source browser at the watering hole, and Internet Explorer is no longer just an easy target for destruction.
Where it began
Starting life in 2002, Firefox was the antidote to what its authors saw as the bloated, full-fat, feature creep of Mozilla's Application Suite. Mozilla inherited a lot of its appearance and aesthetic from close ally Netscape, a company that needed to monetise the browser and satisfy a different community.
As a result, it found it very difficult to assert its own independence. Frustrated, Blake Ross and David Hyatt copied Mozilla and pruned functionality, while a colleague, Ben Goodger, took what he saw as a dysfunctional user interface and turned it into the minimal theme that helped make Firefox Phoenix 1.0 such a success.
The release notes proclaimed, "Phoenix is not your father's Mozilla browser. It's a lean and fast browser that doesn't skimp on features." Phoenix was enough of a success that Mozilla decided to push the browser forward as an official project. The next 18 months followed a "long, difficult, all-consuming road," according to Goodger, but finally, on November 9 2004, Firefox 1.0 was released, and the world rejoiced.
Ascendency
Firefox's growth is as much thanks to its circumstance as it is to its features and foresight. During those early years, it was able to take advantage of Microsoft's poor Internet Explorer security record, as well as its reticence in updating the browser.
This led Firefox on a trajectory that now gives it almost a third of the browser market, and nearly all of it at the expense of various versions of Internet Explorer. Firefox has helped bring tabbed browsing, extensions, anti-phishing protection and genuine security to everyone.
But more importantly, it's allowed non-technical, non-Linux people understand what open source software is and what it can do. Firefox is free for all users, and works on a massive variety of platforms.
Firefox used to enjoy an excellent relationship with Google, thanks to the fact that about 90% of Mozilla's revenue is generated from Google being the browser's default search engine. But the pairing became strained when Google announced plans to create its own open source browser and released the first version for Windows in September 2008.
What's interesting about Chrome is that there are two versions of it. It's the official Google product and is only available as a binary. But because it relies on so many free software libraries – including WebKit, Portable Runtime and SQLite – Google also releases the source code under a project it calls Chromium.
When built, this is identical to Chrome, with a few exceptions: the logo's different, there's no auto-updater and no usage statistics are sent to Google.
Chrome sent out shockwaves because it's essentially done a Firefox, reinventing a minimal interface in the face of feature creep. It's fast, light and very compatible with the vast majority of websites. Combine this with its makers' insider knowledge on how to enhance Google application performance and searching, and it's easy to see why it's done so well.
By May 2010, Chrome had captured 7% of worldwide browser users. While usage data doesn't yet suggest these users have switched from Firefox, they're certainly potential Firefox users who've found a better alternative. It's winning back and keeping loyalty that's the challenge for Firefox.
How are the two browsers different, and how are they the same?
To understand why two major browsers are competing for the same space, it's important to see how they differ.
The most cited reason for Chrome being chosen over Firefox is its speed. Since its release, it's not an exaggeration to say that Chrome has changed most users' expectations of how fast a browser can feel.
This is, in part, because websites are becoming a lot more complicated, filling every available crevice with advanced features, and because most other web browsers pre-date the web 2.0 revolution that's taken so many of our desktop-bound applications into the cloud.
Realising that most of this online interaction was through JavaScript, the Chrome development team went all-out to make its JavaScript performance revolutionary. In doing so, they upgraded the user experience for every site based on JavaScript code.
Google obviously had a vested interest – many of its own feature-rich cloud applications rely heavily on the language to provide functionality. But then, so does the rest of the web. There's hardly a site left that doesn't add some usability logic through a few lines of JavaScript code.
The first version of Chrome caused a storm when it was revealed to be almost twice as fast as Firefox 3.0.1 in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and 35 times faster than Internet Explorer 7.
This was all thanks to its V8 JavaScript engine, and while benchmarks are always contentious because they place unrealistic loads on browsers, most people could feel the difference when they used Chrome. SunSpider is an interesting attempt to mimic many different real-world scenarios, including decompression, encryption, general mathematics and sting handling.
Firefox developers responded with their own JavaScript optimisations, woven into a new engine called TraceMonkey. This added something called Trace Trees to the original SpiderMonkey engine, and improved performance by looking through the code for common paths, which were then precompiled.
V8, in comparison, attempts to pre-compile as much as possible by turning JavaScript into machine code rather than byte code when it's first executed, and handles the dynamic nature of JavaScript by patching the inline code through its runtime system. It's complicated, but the results speak for themselves.
We ran Firefox 3.6.3 and Chrome 5.0.370 against each other with SunSpider 0.9, and the gap between them has grown. Firefox completed the tests in 1,475.1ms , while Chrome took just 444.5ms – almost three times faster than the speed it attained on its debut.
However, Firefox also peformed much better than the original Chrome, which shows that users of both browsers have benefited from the competition to build a screaming JavaScript engine. They're both promising improvements for the future.
Desktop integration
Firefox is deeply ingrained with Linux sensibilities, and we often consider the project to be one of our own; one of the flagships we're proud to herald as an example of what open source can achieve.
As a result, there's never been any hesitation when it comes to including it as a default browser in all but the most ardent KDE-based distributions. This is because Firefox is built using GTK, the same programmers' toolkit used to create Gnome.
As a result, it can feel more integrated within the Gnome environment. Toolbars, menus, file requesters and themes will look the same without any modification. From KDE, the alterations that make Firefox look like a KDE application are purely cosmetic, and can feel a little rough around the edges. But not as rough as Chrome can sometimes seem.
As Chrome developer Ben Goodger explained, Google avoided cross-platform toolkits because applications that use them end up "speaking with a foreign accent". Instead, they used GTK for the user-interface. This is slightly ironic considering Goodger was the the lead developer for Firefox before taking to the helm of the Chrome project, but what he says makes sense.
Without the long-standing tradition of Linux use, Chrome's use of GTK has been able to forgo Gnome integration and strike out on its own. As a result, the final application looks different to both Gnome and KDE, and consequently alienates neither.
The theming engine is more adaptable to the look and feel of Gnome, reflected as one of the default theme choices, but Chrome can be coerced into a wide range of skins. Most noticeable, however, is the lack of top title bar. This is because Chrome has repositioned page tabs to the top of the window to make better use of the available real estate.
The top title bar usually gives you responsibility over your desktop's window manager, the part that controls where the windows go and how their borders are drawn. Chrome usurps the window manager by hiding it and pushing its own UI to the edge of the borderless window. This is why the browser's windows behave slightly differently to those of your native desktop and why, especially when compositing is enabled, it can be less stable than Firefox.
Linux versions of Chrome provide the option to re-instate the window border by selecting Use System Bar and Borders from the right-click menu that appears in the space after the tab view.
Security and stability
The most important feature for a browser is one that users don't see: security. A typical browser session might shuttle email, messages, banking and purchasing information, music, photos… all of which could be at risk if a leak springs up.
This is where open source really shines, with both Firefox and Chrome offering up their sources for scrutiny. As a result, they harbour very few surprises. But it's impossible to build perfection into so many lines of code, and both browsers will need updating as and when problems are discovered.
Firefox takes a wonderfully open approach to security by publishing a list of vulnerabilities, coloured according to their severity. In the first four months of this year, there were 25, of which 13 were judged critical. There's even a security blog which often responds to users' concerns and media reports.
The Chromium security portal isn't quite as open, and you'll need to delve into the security forums to discover what's going on. This reflects a desire to keep vulnerabilities discreet, not one to hide what could be serious security risks.
The last stable update, released at the beginning of June, fixed nine serious vulnerabilities and two problems judged as medium risk, although most of these issues occurred within WebKit rather than the wider Chrome application.
There are also signs that both Mozilla and Google's development teams are happy to work together. It was Mozilla that discovered an important bug in Chrome's V8 engine, for example – no doubt in their quest to speed up their own JavaScript engine. And both projects offer bug-hunting incentives. Google and Mozilla offer $500 for every new security problem discovered, although Mozilla has a slight advantage: you also get a T-shirt.
Threads
When problems do slip through, it's Chrome's ability to shield other pages you have open that's won it supporters. If you have 10 tabs open in Firefox and you open a new page with a broken Flash animation, you lose everything. In Chrome, only the current tab stops responding.
This feature owes itself to Chrome's multi-process abilities, with which it keeps each tab running in an isolated process known as a sandbox. If something crashes within a sandbox, it doesn't affect the entire application. Instead, the tab view will be replaced with an 'Aw snap' message, and you can reload the page or give up.
This approach also has a positive effect on security, as it's almost impossible for a process running within a sandbox to access ones running within other sandboxes. When even Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 includes window sandboxing, you may think Firefox had long ago assimilated one of Chrome's best features. But it hasn't, and currently has no plans to do so.
The best Firefox can manage is an offer to re-open the tabs you were using when you relaunch a crashed application. It does have its own 'sandbox' project, but it's the peer-review process, which has been running for more than three years, that ensures quality in add-ons installed through the official site.
However, there is some good news. With the release of Firefox 3.6.4, a version of the browser that was destined to be 3.7, plugins now run within their own processes, as they do in Chrome. This removes one of the most common causes for an application-wide crash, but it doesn't stretch to web pages and won't help you with a poorly written Flash application.
Embedded media
Listening to music and watching videos have become essential functions of your web browser. There are now many paid-for portals that let you stream movies, and many more for music.
Before HTML 5, a browser would be expected to launch an external application in such instances, spawning products such as RealPlayer. But HTML 5's specification embeds this ability in the rendering layer.
Firefox has been at the forefront of this revolution, embracing free formats such as Ogg Vorbis and Theora. You only need to click on an Ogg Vorbis music file, for example, and it will be embedded within a new window and played back automatically. Click on an MP3 file, by comparison, and Firefox will go back to asking which external application you'd like to use to open it.
This is a feature that's going to become increasingly important, with sites like Vimeo and YouTube already making the move away from Flash to HTML 5. But it's also going to be a particularly tough challenge for Firefox. As Mike Shaver, VP of Engineering at Mozilla puts it, "this is an important step in making video a first-class citizen of the modern web".
He then goes on to describe the specific problem facing Firefox in a future dominated by patent-encumbered codecs like the ones used by YouTube and Vimeo – H.264.
"For Mozilla, H.264 is not currently a suitable technology choice. In many countries, it is a patented technology, meaning that it is illegal to use without paying licence fees to the MPEG-LA. Without such a licence, it is not legal to use or distribute software that produces or consumes H.264- encoded content. Indeed, even distributing H.264 content over the internet or broadcasting it over the airwaves requires the consent of the MPEG-LA, and the current fee exemption for free-to-the-viewer internet delivery is only in effect until the end of 2010." [This has since been extended to 2016.]
The solution is to use a truly open format, and that means either Google's WebM or the often-criticised Ogg Theora. WebM seems to have momentum, with Chrome, Firefox and IE9 pledging support, but will it grow into a position where H.264 support becomes a non-issue?
Regardless, WebM is going to be a big part of Firefox 4, and Mozilla hacker Robert O'Callahan announced its inclusion after Google gave WebM a new licence to remove ambiguity and decouple copyright patents in the licence's language.
If WebM happens, Firefox will be in the best-possible position. If not, Linux users will still have to rely on additional packages to online content. But it's also a chance for greater collaboration.
As Michael Shaver wrote recently: "I very much believe that Google (both the Chrome and YouTube teams), Vimeo and many others share our desire to have a web with full-featured, high-performance, unencumbered, natively-integrated video, and I very much look forward to us all working – together and separately – towards that end."
Killer feature
Despite all this talk of function and the future, there's one aspect of Firefox that Chrome can't compete with: freedom. It's this that's likely to be a foundation of Mozilla's future growth.
There's little doubt that Google developed Chrome to satisfy its own agenda. With its own operating system just around the corner and a serious foothold in the mobile market, it needed its own portal to the online world, one that could present Google's applications and tools in the best light.
Firefox doesn't have those restraints. It's a browser that's been developed to bring the web to as many people as possible. As stated on its own web page, Firefox has a mission to "promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web". This means it should always put users first, no matter what temptations are placed at its feet.
While Chrome is based on open source, it's a long way from being as open as Firefox. Mitchell Baker, Chair of the Mozilla Foundation, said it best at the end of April, when she discovered a botanical garden she was interested in seeing wasn't a tourist honeypot but a non-profit organisation like Mozilla.
"Non-profit organisations can make mistakes. They can be boring and ineffective just like anything else. But the chance that the whole thing was just something dumb designed to get people there to extract money felt much, much lower." It's the same for Mozilla.
The Firefox team has a lot to think about, and they don't have much time. Firefox 4 is due in November, and many of the plans for it were outlined in May in a web presentation by Mike Beltzner, Firefox's director. He asked, firstly, who uses the browser?
Apparently, there's a split between early adopters, mainstream users and developers, and the new version of the browser has to cater for them all equally. It was no surprise that the first word in the plan was 'fast'.
What was interesting was that there wasn't an all-out race for benchmark dominance; it was more to do with what the user sees. Beltzner gave an example of how a progress meter's design might affect how speed is perceived.
As a result, Firefox 4 will use a sleek theme. Early mock-ups look very like Chrome. Reading the details, there'll be no modal dialogues, updates will occur in the background, there'll be no startup interruptions and add-ons won't need a restart.
Security is also important. There's going to be a permissions manager that will show you your relationship with a site. So far, the manager shows a list of websites, with a list of permissions that correspond to a site's capabilities. You could choose to disable geolocation data, for example, or customise pop-up blocks.
But while privacy may be an issue for data you don't explicitly share, Firefox 4 is going to have a more social aspect, with features designed to help you share your favourite websites and even open tabs.
HTML 5
There's been a lot of work on the HTML 5 rendering layer, and multi-touch gestures sound exciting. There's also been progress on animation with CSS 3 transitions, along with a new remote JavaScript debugger, profile manager and WebGL – all part of Mozilla's new web standard to bring interactive 3D graphics to web pages, as tried by VRML.
As well as the rhetoric about the interface inferring speed, JavaScript is being overhauled. The new engine is called JaegerMonkey, and attempts to improve some of SpiderMonkey's clever trace routines with simpler, more efficient codes that compile entire subroutines without over-analysis. This is perfect for cases in which trace routines don't work because an application isn't repetitive enough.
At the end of May, David Mandelin, a Mozilla programmer responsible for JavaScript development, announced that JaegerMonkey was at the half-way point. Results indicate that it's doubled its efficiency, although benchmarks say it's still slower than Google's V8 and Apple's Nitro.
But speed isn't just about UI and JavaScript. Mozilla's asked the Reddit community for their multi-minute launch profiles to improve speed and, hopefully, image.
Competition
The real test is how Firefox is going to adapt to a market that's being dominated by embedded and locked-down devices that won't necessarily make things easy for people who want to use it.
Google's Chrome OS is a prime example. It's a complete operating system that's built around Chrome. There's a similar situation in the mobile market. Mozilla ruled itself out of the iPhone, stating that Apple made it too hard to create a competing browser, and Apple hasn't relented on its no browsers rule, other than to allow Opera.
Android's a different story, and is becoming the only real iPhone competitor. As a result, Mozilla's been trying to create a mobile version of its browser. It released an early-Alpha version for Android, Fennec, at the end of April, which had most of the desktop features, including add-on support. But it's clear that there's a lot of work to do.
Regardless of plans, most users want to know how Firefox is going to fare against Chrome. Mozilla is pragmatic. It wants to boost co-operation and play down conflict. Beltzner said, "We watch our competitors and our competitors watch us, and we are in it to win it."
Mozilla has the skill, financing and community to succeed. But it hasn't been in this position before; for years, Firefox has been the standard open source browser. But competition is good. If Mozilla really wants to win, that makes us all beneficiaries in a contest that may transform Linux.
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Review: Procella Audio P10 / P8 / P6
I have followed the development of the surround sound codecs since before they were let loose on the general public. In fact, I had only just hooked up a spare pair of speakers to the outputs on my then, huge Sony TV, to run what's called a Hafler surround, when I joined HCC. It involved hooking up the speakers in the rear out of phase, but pointing in towards the listener. It was interesting but nothing like as cool as Dolby Pro-Logic, and when I was taken on a press trip to hear stereo rears for what was then called Dolby AC-3, I nearly died of delight.
Then of course came DTS and we now have fully lossless surround codecs from both Dolby and DTS, plus some fierce processing power available from our AVRs to interpolate seven surround channels.
I also love all the different 'stings' or short format demo clips that both Dolby and DTS use, from the original full-size steam train to the jet-pack powered THX robot and the ridiculous DTS wibble-wobble-ping thing.
Trouble was, nearly every speaker and amplification system I tried couldn't really cope with the lunatic levels and dynamics of that one DTS sting above all others. The movies would sound mostly fine, but very few speaker systems could deliver what the roaring dinos of the Jurassic Park franchise wanted to offer up.
In the beginning
And so it was that, inside the DTS organisation, some speakers were being designed for use in the internal demo theatre, which had to impress folks from the movie industry.
These soundboxes turned out to be so amazing that they spawned their own company, Procella Audio, and are now marketed via custom install distribution company, Pulse. And that is just as well, as there is no way on earth that the average speaker customer would look twice at these boxes.
Not for Procella Audio, who is the world of branded cast alloy parts nor pretty veneers. In fact, 'pretty' and 'design' are offensive words to the company.
However, I do feel that these 'merely functional' speaker products do have some small duty to have a modicum of appeal, especially as the system on test is a Procella 'lite' array, which includes the smaller enclosures and entry-level woofer.
As such it's meant for smaller rooms, being positioned closer to the mass market and not the hardcore CI crowd. But the manufacturer has utterly neglected this kit's desirability.
Now you may feel it is as irrelevant as the makers clearly do, but when I spend £1,700 on a loudspeaker that's part of a fabulous £10K set, I don't expect to find the serial number stuck on a flimsy, white paper address label from a stationers' shop. Nor do I like that the only branding on show is a sticky-backed plastic thing that comes off if you brush a sleeve against the grille it's slapped on to.
As per the Revolver speaker brand of old and the very early Acoustic Energy speakers, it's a product of a genius designer, or design team, and no one in the company dares point out that the emperor is not only naked, but also damned offensive to look at.
That said, the very first AE product used pukka badges and costly metal film serial number stickers, whereas these look like a shed project by comparison.
In their defence, these speakers are specifically designed to go behind acoustically transparent screens or else, by dint of their 7.5Ëš of slope to their cabinets, be mounted pointing down slightly, upon the wall, and therefore simply never be in line of sight. But as a buyer, I would wonder quite why the things were so costly.
Contrast them with the delicious engineering of Monitor Audio's Platinum Series and you might wonder that, too. So what products am I whingeing about?
Well, I auditioned two P6s and three P8s, each described as an LCR product, as well as the P10 subwoofer. I was surrounded by compression-driven horns and sealed enclosures with a single high quality driver in each.
Voice of reason
The marketing bumpf takes a simple axiom – that of the identical voicing of each enclosure in a system for synergy reasons – and calls it Identical Voice. I feel that as the driver in the P6 is on a rubbery surround, while the driver in the P8 is on old-fashioned honest, folded linen, that this is piffle. (Consider, too, that the P8's compression driver is a 1.5in while the P6's is 1in).
Even identically 'voiced', louder is seen as better and the rears had to be cranked to get a level commensurate with the fronts. As Procellas are designed for high power use, you are then up against the rear channels of your amp working far harder, and that alone kicks dents into your identical voicing.
And then comes the filtering down. The full-fat Procella product does literally inspire awe. Proper British, actual awe. And that's rare. A home cinema in the US just achieved full THX certification with Procella Audio speakers, using six subwoofers and huge amounts of power.
In the case of the P6 especially, there is a total lack of awe. Sometimes, when you scale down this far the essence of a brand disintegrates.
Don't get me wrong, these are high-quality speakers and all that is published in their extensive white papers about linearity and power and fabulously-controlled dispersion is true, but for me this is like early Mercedes A class cars; essence of brand filtered down to the point of disappointment.
Like some professionally-derived audio kit I have seen in the past, this stuff is as domesticated as a Scottish Wildcat. By which I mean it's ugly, brutal to look at, but works to lofty standards.
The single XLR input to the subwoofer is evidence of this. At least you get a pro-to-home adaptor that augments our 'normal' hardware with a phono socket. (Thereby adding an annoying inch or two behind it, too.)
Start clearing the garage
The woofer goes deep and tight, and both the P6 and P8 alike use very posh drivers that really do play with clarity and potency. The imagery from the horns and the placement around you is excellent.
There's no microscopic 'sweet spot', but instead you get even, full range coverage, just like the sound you'd expect down at your local commercial multiplex. Linear and smooth, even if restrained and polite, with none of the dome tweeter snappiness that is so typical of metal domes, these are speakers for non-speaker heads who just want to be assured of having good performance.
So to sum up, this system is still not a domestic product, but in its 'lite' form, as here, it's perfect for garage conversion cinemas.
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ISPs must pay 25% of costs of piracy warning letters
The UK's ISPs have been told that they will partially fund the crackdown on illegal p2p downloads through their networks, with the UK government expecting them to pick up a quarter of the costs. The costs involved with contacting people picked out for warning letters have been a thorny discussion, with ISPs not keen on the added expense.
But the government has now outlined its decision, which will see the rights-holders paying 75 per cent of costs and the ISPs the rest, but does make the important decision that appeals, for now at least, will be free to those accused.
Vexatious appeals
"The notification costs of ISPs and Ofcom as regulator are to be split 75:25 between copyright owners and ISPs on the basis of the costs of an ISP which is an "efficient operator" as verified by Ofcom (as proposed in the consultation document)," explained the pdf report from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
"The regulator costs also include the costs related to the appeals system."
"There should be no fee for subscribers to appeal against a notification letter. However the Government retains the power to introduce one at a later date should it become clear that a large number of vexatious appeals result."
You can expect loud complaints from ISPs, and probably loud ones from rights-holders too
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Nikon D7000 16MP mid-range DSLR announced
Nikon has unveiled its latest DSLR for the mid-range market – the Nikon D7000. Packing a whole host of features that seem to pit it against Canon's recently launched EOS 60D, the DSLR boasts a 16.2MP sensor, 14 bit colour depth and a massive ISO range of 100 to 25,600 (expanded).
The D7000 doesn't quite match the D300s when it comes to continuous shooting but it can rattle off 6fps when needed.
Autofocus shooting
When it comes to shooting video, the D7000 brings 1080p 24fps to the table and allows you to use continuous focus during movie recording.
This is all captured using MPEG4 and there is some built-in editing function.
The viewfinder on the chassis is three inches in size and has 100 per cent coverage and the camera uses Live View, which has face detection built in.
There are also twin SD card slots on board, which means you won't have to chop and change when shooting and there's an audio-in jack on the camera.
The Nikon D7000 has a UK release date of 29 October and will cost £1,099.99.
TechRadar will get its hands on the camera today, so expect a first impressions shortly.
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Review: Samsung BD-C7500
The Samsung BD-C7500 is one of the most distinctive Blu-ray players currently available. With its ultra-slim form-factor, vertical orientation, glossy black finish and wall bracket, it's crying out to be mounted under your flatscreen TV. Choose the desk stand at your peril; press the 'eject' button (on the remote, or the player's touch-sensitive control strip) and as it reveals the disc compartment, the entire frontispiece motors leftwards knocking over any lesser objects in its path. You have been warned...
Nevertheless, the BD-C7500 is still a package of plenty in most respects. A 3.5mm socket provides the only analogue alternative (stereo audio and composite video) to the 1080p24-capable HDMI port. Every other terminal is digital – optical audio, a USB port and Ethernet. In keeping with the ethos of wall-mounted minimalism, there's integral Wi-Fi.
In addition to BD Live support, complete with 1GB of cache, are Samsung's Internet@TV platform and a DLNA-compliant networked media player. The C7500 can also deal with compatible files via USB.
Internet@TV, borrowed from recent Samsung tellies, provides PC-free access to a selection of web favourites including YouTube, Twitter and Google. Other widgets can be downloaded to the player, where they share the aforementioned 1GB with BD-Live data.
Among them are simple games such as Texas Hold 'em, picture galleries, news, weather and even TV listings. BBC iPlayer and LoveFilm are also launching soon, and even now, there's plenty to get your teeth into.
And that's before you consider that the C7500 also plays Blu-ray discs, which load speedily courtesy of Samsung's 'Ultra Fast Play' technology – once the disc tray has finished its somewhat tardy dance.
Over the Moon
With a Samsung full HD 40in LCD TV and the C7500 set to output 1080p24, I was thoroughly impressed with what this designer deck could extract from Blu-ray discs.
Moon fared well, to the extent that in the exterior shots, it was possible to identify individual stars against the infinite blackness of space. The saturated hues of instrument panels and subtler flesh tones were conveyed with equal dexterity.
Also impressive is the smoothness of movement, compared to the judder of early Blu-ray hardware. Decent DVD transfers stand their ground, with Samsung's upscaling doing an artifact-free job.
And while low-bitrate YouTube clips (HD isn't supported) and other AV mediocrity are ruthlessly exposed, well-encoded DivX HD material looks superb. Moving to sound quality, the analogue stereo output is acceptable – but no substitute for the full high-resolution multichannel experience that's only possible here via HDMI.
With our Onkyo TX-NR905 AVR and Rogers 6.1 speakers, dynamism is on tap – as is subtlety when it's called for. Overall, a decent 'lifestyle' package.
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Review: Runco LS-5
Runco projectors tend to combine huge bodies with even bigger price tags, which makes the LS-5 a real surprise. For it's really not substantially larger than a mainstream domestic projector – slightly taller perhaps, but with a fairly standard footprint. It looks good, too, thanks to its rounded, teardrop shape and smart black finish. When it comes to price, HCC can't recall a Runco projector with a price of less than five figures. Yet the LS-5 costs less.
In fact, so 'mass market' is this product that you may be able to get one directly from UK distributor Pulse Marketing, rather than going through Runco's normal Custom Installation route.
Of course, simply being more affordable doesn't automatically make the LS-5 a great buy. It still needs to deliver on the picture and feature fronts.
The LS-5's installation flexibility can also be seen in its provision of two ISF presets, supported by the same extensive colour management system used on much higher-end Runco models, plus 10 separate sharpness controls, colour space/temp/gamut/'SatCo' (colour booster) options, and RGB offset and gain adjustments.
Kiss my iris
The projector also offers manual vertical and horizontal image shifting, and ConstantContrast and AdaptiveContrast options that can automatically adjust the projector's aperture in response to the image content.
Other projectors have dynamic iris features, too, but Runco's is exceptionally advanced, comprising 200 different aperture positions, an unusually low-mass actuator and an ability to function at the frame rate of the incoming signal.
More impressive flexibility concerns the lens options; as well as 1.86-2.2 standard and 1.56-1.85 short-throw lens options, Runco also does its own easily attached anamorphic lenses.
The LS-5 seems robustly built, but is surprisingly noisy. Runco's own figures suggest a quite high 30dB volume level. The fan noise is at least constant and so is easier to 'filter out' mentally. But it's still something an installer needs to work round.
The noise factor becomes easier to forgive, though, when you find yourself staring in amazement at its sensationally bright, dynamic and lustrously rich pictures. Images pop off the screen in a way no cheaper projector we've ever seen gets close to.
And, remarkably, the LS-5's brightness and dynamism is achieved without compromising contrast. For within a single, punchy frame it's easily possible to find rich, detailed dark areas right alongside punchy, bright areas.
This is particularly true with the AdaptiveContrast functionality operational, so it's a relief to discover that this feature hardly ever generates a brightness jump that's distractingly obvious.
Thanks to the projector's superb automatic judgement of brightness and contrast, the LS-5 also produces a greater sense of image depth than arguably any other single-chip DLP projector we've seen – an achievement further enhanced by the image's stunning sharpness. The LS-5 seems completely free of the sort of clarity issues that often hamper single-chip DLP projectors. There's almost no rainbow effect, in spite of the image's gorgeously rich, bright tone.
Meanwhile, the tonal richness and diversity is mesmerising, with a level of dynamism that's potent enough to justify the projector's price tag. The LS-5's NegativePulse lamp technology (which adjusts the lamp output for each colour wheel segment) to improve colour bit depth, clearly works extremely well.
Chip passes muster
I can't fault the LS-5's pictures. It consistently produces images of such intensity, clarity and stability that I find it hard to believe they're not coming from a three-chip DLP projector. And you can't give a single-chip DLP model higher praise.
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Google Doodle celebrates Agatha Christie
Google's latest search doodle has appeared – celebrating the 120th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth. The Google Doodle – which appears when Google changes its traditional logo in order to celebrate a key event – has always celebrated a noteworthy event, and it is the birthday of one of Britain and the world's best-loved writers that has brought this change.
Marple and Poirot
Christie is one of the best selling authors of all time, with her crime thrillers defining the genre and catapulting her to fame.
Characters like Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot are still popular today.
Christie famously disappeared at one point in her life, running off to Harrogate in Yorkshire and sparking a massive UK-wide manhunt.
The author died in 1976 at age 85 from natural causes, but her legacy continues and Google's doodle illustrates just how important she is considered.
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Microsoft to webcast its IE9 beta launch event
Microsoft will live stream its IE9 beta conference from its inaugural Beauty of the Web event tonight, and is promising some exciting glimpses into what its browser can do. With the world poised for the release of the next iteration of the still market-dominant IE, Microsoft has already shown that it is hugely enthusiastic about IE9.
The conference to unveil the beta will be at 10:30am Pacific Daylight Time – that's 6:30 pm BST – and will be webcast at www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/internetexplorer/
Improvements
IE9 promises to bring a host of improvements to its predecessor, with major gains being made particularly in speed.
Microsoft has continued the path it trod so successfully with Windows 7, showcasing its work in progress in public to get user feedback and hone its product.
That process has included a number of platform previews that have shown off the great strides being taken in javascript handling and hardware integration.
TechRadar will of course, bring you all the news on the IE9 beta the moment that Microsoft give us the nod.
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Amazon puts Samsung Galaxy Tab on sale for £799
Amazon UK has put the Samsung Galaxy Tab up for sale ahead of its launch next month – at a whopping £799.The 'Samsung P1000 Galaxy Tab Smart Media Device' is listed with a 1GHz processor, 7-inch LCD screen, Bluetooth 3.0 and Android 2.2, although no UK release date.
Given that these are all specs found in the average mobile phone (the 7-inch screen aside) it's truly hard to see where the cost hikes are coming for the new Samsung Galaxy Tab.
Could it be true?
Other sites, such as Clove, are listing the Galaxy Tab for a lower-but-no-less-palatable £615 price point, and Samsung confirmed to TechRadar recently that the post £600 price point is indeed genuine, although it may change before launch.
Apple's iPad, by comparison, costs up to £699 – but that's with 64GB of flash memory and a 10-inch screen... and it's made by Apple, so you can see where all the cost hikes have come in.
Either way, it's hard to see how Samsung hopes to make the Galaxy Tab competitive unless some networks are planning to offer huge subsidies on a very long-term contract, as otherwise this new device is going to barely register in the fight against the iPad.
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Twitter announces major overhaul
Twitter has announced major changes to its user interface, with the micro-blogging platform now moving to a two panel look which can show more contextual information about the tweets. That second panel of information includes being able to do things like see tweeted pictures and videos and extend the 'promoted tweets' bought by companies and that show up when a person taps in key words or search for certain things.
"You can now take a simple short tweet and get more context and information in less time," Twitter co-founder and chief executive Evan Williams told BBC News.
Buried treasure
"We liked the old Twitter but we thought we could make it better. There was a lot buried underneath Twitter and now we are bringing all of that to the surface," he added.
The extra imagery will be boosted by deals with 16 photo and video sites, including YouTube and Flickr.
The new format will be rolled out in the coming weeks, and the early hum about the change has been a positive one.
The changes are outlined on a special page at http://twitter.com/newtwitter and include a note on the new design that explains: "You will now find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above your timeline – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen.
"On the right, you can see the features you're familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics."
Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the public tasting, and it remains to be seen if Twitter's major overhaul can allow it to maintain its publicity.
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