IT News Head Lines (Techradar) 3/29/2012

Kindle Touch available for pre-order in UK

The Kindle Touch has launched for pre-order in the UK, with the 3G version weighing in at a whopping £169.
The Kindle Touch is the flagship e-ink device from the US company and will actually arrive for UK customers on April 27, with pre-orders opening from now.
"The Kindle Touch with 3G hits a great spot for customers," a spokesperson for Amazon told TechRadar.
"You can get a Wi-Fi only Kindle but if you want a device that is a top of the line ereader then wherever you are you can download a book in 60 seconds.

"It's also got this touch technology that is hugely innovative. The way in which we looked at the screen was very different from other people where we said 'where do people actually click on the page?'.
"We're excited – we don't break out sales but we think people are going to like it and we've seen that in the US."

Price point?

However, the pricing of the device is likely to raise eyebrows. In the US, the Wi-Fi only Kindle Touch is priced at $99 and the 3G version $149, whereas the UK versions will go on sale at £109 and £169.
At the latest currency rates that works out at a cost of $172 and $267 respectively.
There are always discrepancies between UK and US pricing – normally blamed on tax and the increased cost of rents and store leases in Britain, but in this case also because of an advertising deal in the US that displays messages from sponsors when the screen powers off.
"The $149 Kindle Touch includes special offers, which are screensavers and deals that are sponsored by a variety of companies," explained an Amazon spokesperson.
"This option is only available in the US and without special offers US customers will pay $189 [around £118] plus local taxes and shipping costs."

Flagship eReader

In the meantime, the Touch will still likely prove popular – bringing some key advantages over tablets in terms of reading.
"E-ink is certainly going to continue to be around, added the spokesperson. "We heard loud and clear that our customers are big readers and we know they love e-ink.
"We talk about long-form reading versus snack reading – when you're going to sit down for an hour the device you pick up is the e-ink device."

Read More ...

---

Kindle Fire UK release date: Amazon still keeping quiet

Amazon has told TechRadar that there is still no update on when the Kindle Fire tablet will be landing on British shores.
The Kindle Fire has been a phenomenal success in the US, with the $200 (around £126) device proving hugely popular.
However, the UK has still not been given a release date for the Fire – or indeed any official word on whether it will be arriving at all.

Nothing to announce

"We don't have anything to announce today [in terms of the Kindle Fire arriving in the UK] but from a US perspective we know that our customers love Kindle Fire and are really excited about it," said an Amazon spokesperson.

In the meantime, Amazon has launched the Kindle Touch in this country, retailing at £169, which may give an indictation as to where the Kindle Fire will be priced.
Currently in the Kindle range in the US the cheapest entry level Kindle is priced at $79, the Kindle Touch WiFi is at $99, The Kindle Tough 3G comes in at $149 and the Fire at $199.
In the UK, The Kindle is £89, the Kindle Touch £109, the Kindle Tough 3G £169 which would suggest that the Kindle Fire will be priced at between £209 to £229.
That's obviously significantly more than you would pay in the US, but still one of the cheapest tablets on the market, with heavy subsidies from Amazon.
That is, of course, if the company decides to release it in Britain or wait until later generations – with the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 rumoured to be nearing production.

Read More ...

---

Exclusive: Amazon: Readers will go for Kindle Touch not Kindle Fire

Amazon believes that readers will be looking to pick up a Kindle Touch rather than wait for the Kindle Fire in the UK.
The Kindle Touch will launch in the UK with a price of £169 for the 3G version, which means one of its direct competitors will be its stablemate the Kindle Fire when it finally makes an appearance in the UK.
Although no date has been announced for the Kindle Fire UK release, Amazon is at pains to point to the differences between an e-ink device and a tablet.

Excitement

"We don't have anything to announce today [in terms of the Kindle Fire arriving in the UK] but from a US perspective we know that our customers love Kindle Fire and are really excited about it," said an Amazon spokesperson.
"But we think customers in the UK are going to like the Touch – we saw that in the US despite having the full range of devices.
"This is built for readers, whereas the Kindle Fire is built for entertainment."
Persuading people to buy a Touch is likely to rest around how fond people are of e-ink, something that Amazon is keenly aware of.
"It's a reader's device," reiterated the spokesperson. "People love the eInk technology and the fact you can read in the sun without glare.
"When people are big readers they don't want to put up with glare or things beeping at them from another app.
"It's...something we purposely did on these devices – you don't get distracted."

Fire or Touch?

It's clear that Amazon will have to persuade the technophile audience that it is worth forking out a significant proportion of a Kindle Fire's cost for the e-reader.
In the US, there is a price difference of $50 (around £30) between the $149 3G touch and the $199 Kindle Fire, although the price of the Touch is significantly upped for the UK.
However, Amazon suggests that people are actually choosing to carry a laptop and a Kindle, rather than just a Kindle Fire which, technically, could replace both.
"We're finding people are bringing a laptop and then they choose between a Kindle or a tablet and a lot of times they are bringing a Kindle - so it's very interesting."

Read More ...

---

Google I/O sells out in half an hour

Google's annual developer conference has sold out in record time, with developers snapping up all Google I/O tickets within 28 minutes of them going on sale.
Set to take place in San Francisco in June, Google I/O runs for three days. Prices of tickets were hiked up for the 2012 event, with general admission hitting $900 (around £564).

Unlucky

Google's Vic Gundotra took to Google+ to commiserate with those who missed out on tickets, saying that the company experienced 6250 qps on servers at 7.01am, one minute after the tickets went on sale.
"While we're overwhelmed with the interest and enthusiasm around Google I/O, we know it can be very disappointing and frustrating when an event sells out this quickly," he wrote.
He added that those who can't attend in person will be able to watch the keynote speech and key sessions streamed live online, while all session videos will be made available after 24 hours.
What you won't get, of course, are the freebies – in 2011, Google I/O attendees all received a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb. Who knows what this year's goodie bag will enclose – perhaps a Google Nexus tablet?

Read More ...

---

Review: Sharp LC-60LE636E

Overview

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2012), Sharp's stand really stood out.
Not because it was particularly cutting edge (although it did have an 8k resolution TV), but because of the striking simplicity and attractiveness of its core message. It said that Sharp is going to sell really big screens for really small amounts of money.
This idea sounded good to us, and now its first fruits are here in the shape of the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E - also shortened to Sharp Aquos LE636. This brooding 60-inch TV has a full UK price of £2,599 (about $4,150), but is already available in some stores for just £1,295 (about $2,067).
This truly is extraordinarily cheap when you consider that, for instance, the Samsung UE60D8000 costs £3,000 in the UK, or $4,200 in the US.

The suspicion has to be, of course, that Sharp has really slashed the performance and features of its new 60-inch television to hit such a remarkable price level.
But a glance at its spec sheet uncovers such reassuring features as a Freeview HD tuner, 100Hz processing with 'film dejudder', multimedia playback via DLNA or USB, USB Time Shift support and Sharp's Aquos Net+ online platform.
Here's hoping this surprisingly long list of features doesn't mean that Sharp has saved all its cost-based compromises for the Aquos LE636's picture quality.
The Sharp Aquos LE636's size obviously makes it a TV that sits relatively high up in Sharp's range.

But as testament to how Sharp is following through on its bigger-screen policy, it sits below no less than four other sets: the 60-inch LC-60LE831E (which adds Sharp's Quattron technology); two 70-inch models, the 70LE836E and 70LE741E; and most jaw-droppingly of all, the imminent 80-inch LC-80LE646E.
But for now, let's find out if Sharp's debut budget biggie, the Aquos LC-60LE636E, is as appealing in the flesh as it sounds on paper.

Features

Just in case you didn't pick up on this yet, the Sharp LC-60LE636E is a 60-inch TV that can be found retailing in some places for as little as £1,295 (about $2,067).
So potent an attraction is this, it's tempting to just leave this section of the review and move on. But Sharp's ridiculously tempting big-screen bargain has plenty more tricks up its sleeve.
For a start, it's surprisingly good looking. You might well have expected such a value-driven TV just to house its vast screen acreage inside a boring, no-frills plastic frame.
But the bezel is pretty eye-catching, thanks to both its impressive slimness and its classy, high-gloss black finish. The little illuminated (if you want it to be) Sharp 'swish' symbol along the bottom edge is attractive too.
The Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E isn't especially slim around the back by today's standards. But if this is one of the areas where Sharp has had to compromise in order to keep pricing down, that's just fine by us. After all, you don't sit there looking at the back of your massive telly, do you?

The TV's connections are very respectable for its price, too. Most of the important jacks are arranged for sideways access, to make the screen easier to wall hang, and they include, for instance, four HDMIs - as many as you'll find on the most premium of rival sets.
Plus you get both USB and LAN multimedia jacks, and even Wi-Fi, courtesy of an included USB adaptor.
The USB port can play photo, music and video (including DivX HD) files, or else it can be used for recording from the built-in tuner - a tuner that, incidentally, can receive HD and standard definition Freeview broadcasts.
The network options, meanwhile, can play back files from a connected DLNA PC, or they can enable you to go online with Sharp's Aquos Net+ platform.
Sharp's Aquos Net+ is currently rather off the pace compared with some other big-brand TV online systems.

Based on Philips' NetTV platform, the only really handy services available at the time of writing are YouTube, Picasa, an open web browser and, to a lesser extent, the Box Office 365/Napster/HIT Entertainment subscription services.
Aquos Net still doesn't have BBC iPlayer, which has become standard fare with all the other big TV brands.
The Sharp Aquos 60LE636's huge screen is illuminated by Edge LED lighting, contains an inevitable Full HD resolution, and drives its pictures with a 100Hz system, to counter judder and motion blur.
This is all pretty respectable stuff for the price tag, although you can't help but wonder whether Sharp will be able to light a screen as big as 60 inches from the edges without causing pretty major backlight consistency problems.
Heading into the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's on-screen menus, it again gives you more than you might reasonably expect for such a cheap TV.

There's a healthy degree of colour management, for instance, that enables you to adjust the hue, saturation and 'value' of all six of the key colour components. There's also a sliding Gamma adjustment bar, a Film Mode for adjusting the image to suit movie (as opposed to video/TV) sources and a Fine Motion mode for reducing judder when showing motion.
It's good to note, too, that you can adjust the backlight independently to the image's brightness, giving you a level of backlight flexibility that might come in very handy should the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E prove to have the sort of backlight consistency flaws discussed earlier.
You might expect the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E not to fare too well in the energy consumption department, given its size. But in fact Sharp has managed to bag an A+ rating for its king-sized screen, using the latest EnerG standard.
Trying to find reasons to explain how the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E can be so cheap, the only really significant issues are that it isn't 3D ready, and doesn't employ Sharp's 'Quattron' technology, whereby an extra yellow sub-pixel is added to the usual red, green and blue ones that make up an LCD TVs picture.
But there are doubtless plenty of people out there who would be happy to forego both of these features in return for getting such a huge screen for so little money.

Picture quality

Sharp's LCD TVs have really come on in picture quality terms in the past couple of years, so it isn't as surprising as it probably ought to be to find the ridiculously cheap Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E producing instantly attractive images that give no immediate evidence of the TV's extraordinary cheapness.
Pictures look very dynamic, for instance, thanks to a compelling combination of bright, reasonably rich colours and, even better, a potent black level response. Whites look punchy and clean, too.
In short, first impressions suggest a startlingly good contrast range for such an affordable king-sized TV.
HD feeds look nicely detailed too. Certainly there are some big TVs out there that deliver an even greater sense of crispness, but you're never in any doubt with the Sharp that you're enjoying the delights of an HD image.
Playing a big part in this impression is the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's reproduction of motion.

There's much less blurring and resolution loss over moving objects than would normally be expected of such a price-focused panel. Nor is judder by any means excessive, even in the panel's native mode, without motion processing in play.
Calling in the Fine Motion system does reduce judder a little, though, and it's a decently invisible system on its low setting, in that it doesn't generate many unwanted side effects.
There's just an occasional sense of a stutter with it, as if the processing is suddenly has to catch up with the source image.
Please note, though, that if you choose the TV's Movie preset, for some bizarre reason both the set's Fine Motion and Film Mode settings default to High, resulting in an image that looks unnaturally fluid and beset by lagging and haloing artefacts.
It was noted earlier that the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E is capable of some likably punchy pictures, but it should also be stressed that it can produce a wider range of colour tones than might have been expected for its money.
Skin tones and large colour expanses entirely avoid the plasticky or blotchy look associated with screens unable to resolve small colour differentiations.
One final strength to report is that provided you don't run the backlight down too low, the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E is capable of resolving a decent amount of shadow detail during dark scenes.
The set is by no means perfect in this regard; by the time we'd optimised the backlight, contrast and brightness levels to produce what seemed to be the most convincing black colour, shadow detail had started to be a little crushed out of the image.
But nudging the brightness level up to a point where shadow detailing emerges again still leaves a black colour that can be considered very credible for a screen of the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's price.
It's not especially surprising to find that the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E isn't as satisfying with standard definition as it is with HD.

After all, it's quite a challenge to convert the often rather grubby, compressed standard definition images the UK gets from many Freeview broadcasts into something pleasant even on a 42-inch TV, never mind a 60-inch one.
Standard definition images on the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E look a touch soft, and - as with numerous other LCD TVs - they tend to suffer with a less punchy, dynamic colour palette.
However, the set does do a decent job of calming down the worst of any compression noise that might be in a standard definition source, and images remain contrast-rich and bright. So overall standard definition images are never less than eminently watchable.
The Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E also measures pretty well when it comes to input lag, turning in a consistent figure (using the Game preset) of around 34ms - sufficiently low not to seriously damage anyone's console or PC gaming performance.
For 90 to 95 per cent of the time, in fact, everything about the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's performance is good - which translates into brilliant within the context of its low price.
However, tragically - if not entirely surprisingly - images are let down by one single but undeniable flaw: backlight inconsistency.
The need to illuminate such a large screen evenly using just lights ranged around its edges proves a technical challenge too far, resulting in some obvious areas of unnatural extra brightness when you're watching very dark scenes.
There's a strip of extra brightness around 3 inches across, running down each side of the screen, and four or five other clouds in more central positions over the image too.
Needless to say, whenever you see these over something dark you're watching, you can't help but be distracted.
As usual, you can reduce the impact of these clouds somewhat by pushing down the image's backlight level. And if you're watching in a bright room you might be less aware of the issue, too.
But of course, there's a good chance that if you've bought a 60-inch TV, you'll be keen on dimming the lights and watching films in a cinema-like environment.
At which point, unless you're willing to put up with dark scenes so devoid of backlight that there's practically no shadow detail at all, you will see the backlight consistency distractions fairly regularly. Darn.

Usability, sound and value

Usability

As with so many TV operating systems these days, the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's is a classic mixed bag.
Kicking off with the remote control, it looks fine in a hardcore tech kind of way, with its slender build, glossy black finish and shiny silver trim down each side. But its slenderness means that many of its buttons are tiny - indeed, you almost need a magnifying glass to see some of them.
Couple the smallness of many of the buttons with the fact that most of them are very crowded together, and you've hardly got a recipe for an easy user experience. Especially if you're trying to use the remote in any sort of darkened environment (there's no backlight).
There doesn't seem to be any great logic to the layout of the remote's buttons, either. Even after using it for a week we weren't getting a feel for where all the most useful buttons were.
In some ways the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's on-screen menus are better. Or at least they're relatively clever. In a bid to enable you to keep watching TV while you use them, the menus are organised around a double-axis system that spreads across and down from the top-right corner, with a slightly smaller version of the picture playing in the bottom-left without any menu content appearing over it.

This system is especially helpful when you want to channel browse while still being able to see and hear the show you're watching.
While there is a full-screen EPG if you want to use it, you can also access the guide from the main cross-bar menu, with scrollable listings appearing down the side, and a nifty little ticker coming up under the picture telling you more about the TV programme being shown.
While it's easy to appreciate and even applaud the thought behind the picture-preserving menu design, though, it also creates a few problems. The most obvious one being that the space available for you to work with in the right-hand column is limited, leading to some unhelpful text abbreviations and a slightly confusing look and layout.
As with the double-axis menu system on Sony's recent TVs, you have to scroll along the top menus a bit more than you might like to get to some useful features. But to be fair, Sharp does seem to have put a bit more thought into putting the most useful menus first than Sony has.
Overall, the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's menus look and feel quite cutting edge in some ways, but we wouldn't be surprised to see the brand adopt a more graphical style for its menus in the future, following the sort of Smart Hub trend started by Samsung and LG.

Sound

While there's a good chance that a screen as big as the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E will be used with a separate audio system, the sound produced by the set's internal speakers is surprisingly good.

The soundstage is large enough to do at least some justice to the scale of the pictures, and the dynamic range is surprisingly expansive, delivering clear trebles at one end of the scale and at least a hint of bass, too.
Pleasingly, the soundstage is potent enough to open up when a movie soundtrack shifts up a few gears, and nor does it tend to sound too harsh or thin during action scenes, even at loud volumes.
All in all, then, the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E puts in a pretty good effort.

Value

For the majority of your viewing time, if you've bought a Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E you'll probably be sat there watching it smugly, thinking that you've bagged yourself the greatest AV bargain ever.
With HD sources in particular, the TV exceeds budget expectations in almost every way, from black level response through to colour vibrancy and sharpness.
However, if you're a movie fan who regularly likes to dim the lights for a serious film-viewing session, you'll almost certainly become aware during dark scenes of some fairly distracting backlight consistency problems.
And we can readily imagine many such movie fans feeling more than a little annoyed by this problem.

Verdict

On paper, the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E sounds too good to be true. Being able to get a 60-inch screen from a respected brand for £1,300-2,600/$2,000-4,150 pretty much rewrites the big-screen pricing rule book.
The screen isn't nearly as basic with its specification as you might expect either, managing to include extensive picture calibration tools, 100Hz processing, multimedia playback from USB sticks and DLNA PCs, and even a degree of online functionality.
It looks very pretty too, putting to shame the bland plasticky finishes of your typical budget TV.
For much of the time, the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's performance merely underlines its up-front appeal, with colourful, bright, punchy and sharp pictures that it's hard to believe are really coming from such an amazingly cheap screen.
It even sounds good, despite being impressively slim.
However, tragically much of its excellent work is undone by a single but aggravating flaw: noticeable and distracting backlight consistency during dark scenes.

We liked:

The Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's price is so low for such a big screen that it's almost unbelievable.
With that in mind, its performance is remarkably good, too, for much of your viewing time, with dynamic colours, a rich black level response, plenty of sharpness and even some potent audio. The set's a nice looker for such a big unit, too.

We disliked:

The chink in the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E's otherwise formidable armour is the appearance of pretty obvious backlight consistency flaws when watching dark scenes. This can be quite distracting when you see it, and is impossible to calibrate away.
Sharp's online service is pretty limited compared to most rivals, too, and some aspects of its operating system could be better.

Verdict:

Sharp's new policy of offering huge screens for peanuts prices has nearly got off to an extraordinarily positive start with the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E. It's better looking than it's got any right to be for a budget 60-inch TV. It's got more features than it has any right to have for its money. And in many ways it even produces much better picture quality than it has any right to.
What a pity, then, that film fans in particular will find their movie nights troubled by the set's backlight consistency flaws.

Also consider:

There really aren't any other 60-inch TVs that come close to the price of the Sharp Aquos LC-60LE636E.
If you want the ultimate in big-screen TV picture quality, though, and you have deep pockets, you could go for the Panasonic P65VT30 - especially since this is currently getting quite heavily discounted (to around £2,800/$2,600) because Panasonic's new 65-inch models are incoming.
If you'd rather go for a 55-inch model with stunning looks, cutting edge features and a generally excellent performance (provided you're careful how you set it up), then you couldn't do much better than the new Samsung UE55ES8000. But again, you'll need the best part of £2,500/$3,900 to bag yourself one of those.
For a really cheap alternative to the Sharp, you could consider a TV such as the 55-inch Kogan KULED551HDAA, which is now on sale for just £749 (about $1,200). But please be warned that you'll have to accept some fairly significant picture quality compromises with this cut-price offering.

Read More ...

---

One More Thing: Emergency pizza button is tech's greatest achievement

Better take a seat. A number of things in today's One More Thing may shock you: Google is publicising Google Play! You're never going to be Indiana Jones! Twitter isn't clairvoyant! And Apple's worth a few bob!
We know. Stay calm. Deep breaths. Calm yourselves with thoughts of the emergency pizza button - if you don't want one of these on your fridge then we can't be friends any more.
That's amore – Science and facts have proven that pizza one of the top five foodstuffs known to mankind, so we should all move to Dubai and get ourselves an emergency pizza fridge magnet. Feeling peckish? Just click the button and it'll send your order through to Red Tomato Pizza via your phone using Bluetooth. This is what technology can do for us, friends. This sets us apart from the animals. [Stuff]
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5AzeVa6EQA
Humbug - Apple's stock reached an all-time high of $613.40 per share today (£385), putting the total company value at around $570 billion (£357 billion). Yeah, yeah, we get it, Apple's got a lot of money and it's worth a lot of money and we'll probably have to, for one, welcome it as our new fruity overlord. Whatever. [TNW]
Play dot com – Google Play is now on the Google homepage taskbar, taking you straight over to the book, music, movie, app and game store and removing the need to, you know, Google it. Nice Doodle today, too. [Google]
Indiana Phones - Speaking of Google Play, it's now stocking Temple Run for Android. We're not saying the free game will turn you into Indiana Jones because he was more of a doer than a player - at least, not that kind of player - but, let's face it, it's the closest you're going to get. [The Verge]

Hackers hacked – Remember when Angelina Jolie was a hacker with a bad fringe going by the name of Acid Burn? Ahh, those were the days. Anyway, some actual hackers have been bamboozled by Microsoft which reckons it has nabbed two command servers in the US which hamper the virus spreading ability of the gangs, estimated to have skimmed over $100 million in the past five years (around £63 million). [Yahoo]
LulzSec reloaded – Thinking of a cool name is often the hardest part of being a hacker so fair play to the new LulzSec for just adopting the existing moniker. New LulzSec (or LulzSec reborn, if you prefer) has already got to work publishing 171,000 MilitarySingle.com users' account information for all to see. Darn those pesky kids. [Neowin]
Harshing the buzz – Twitter buzz isn't a foolproof indicator of how well a movie will do at the box office, a new study has discovered. Yuh-huh, we could have saved everyone a lot of effort and told you that after the great filmic flop that was Scott Pilgrim. [The Register]
Rack off - You know how Apple loves a court case? Good news for it then, as the Aussies are launching a new one against the Cupertino company for advertising the new iPad as "iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G" when it isn't compatible with the country's 4G frequency. Expect the same sort of thing to happen over here before too long. [PhysOrg]
Breaking Rad – Netflix UK has announced that it will be streaming Breaking Bad season 3 from April 1. This is excellent news, despite the fourth series having just aired in the 'States. But Netfilx gives with one hand and takes with the other, as news has reached us that it is no longer planning to revive Terra Nova. Shame. Not to worry, this crystal meth will help us get over it. [PR, Electronista]

Read More ...

---

Review: Intel Xeon E5-2687W

Introduction

Whatever happened to Intel's promise of massively multi-core PC processing? With the arrival of the new Intel Xeon 2687W eight-core monster, we're getting a taste of what we've been missing.
Strictly speaking, of course, the Intel Xeon 2687W is not a desktop PC processor.
It's a workstation and server chip. That explains the eye-popping price. However, it's also closely related to Intel's latest desktop range topper, the Intel Core i7 3960X.
Actually, it's more than just closely related to the 3960X. It's the same chip, known internally at Intel as Sandy Bridge E.
But this time with all eight cores enabled instead of six.
So, it's Sandy Bridge E as we would like to have seen it originally, just with a Xeon badge and at a much higher price.
All of which leaves us wondering how much difference the extra cores make and whether they're worth double the price of the six-core i7 chip.
Oh, and for the record, AMD's processors don't figure here as competition. The pseudo eight-core AMD FX 8150 chip isn't even in the same post code for performance.

Vital Stats
Clock speed - 3.1GHz
Turbo speed - 3.8GHz
Cores - 8
Threads - 16
Socket - LGA 2011
Process - 32nm

Benchmarks

Cores v clocks is Intel's explanation for the Core i7 3960X's six-core configuration.
With the arrival of the eight-core Xeon 2687W, we can put that claim to the test.
The most immediately revealing metrics are the single and multi-threaded Cinebench results. The Xeon is only slightly behind in the former but has a hefty advantage in the latter, which doesn't really square with the official Intel narrative of dropping a couple of cores from the Core i7 3960X in order to crank up the clocks.

Multi-threaded CPU performance

Single-threaded CPU performance

Memory bandwidth performance

CPU encoding performance

Real-world productivity performance

Energy efficiency

Verdict

The new Intel Xeon 2687W may not be targeted directly at the desktop, but it will drop straight into any Intel X79-based PC motherboard with the LGA2011 socket and fire up like a trooper.
If you can afford the asking price, therefore, it is an option for a desktop PC.
Like the Intel Core i7 3960X, this new Xeon benefits from Intel's Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. As it happens, Sandy Bridge is expected to be superseded by the introduction of Ivy Bridge in just a few weeks. But Ivy Bridge will initially be aimed at more mainstream systems via the LGA 1155 socket.
For at least the next six months, Sandy Bridge will remain the engine powering Intel's very fastest processors until we see the Ivy Bridge E variants tipping up towards the end of the year.

Anyway, that makes the Intel Xeon 2687W a 32nm beast with no fewer than four memory channels.
It also means the 2687W doesn't get Intel's integrated HD Graphics and in turn misses out on QuickSync video transcoding.
Apart from the enabling of the final two cores inside the Sandy Bridge E die, where the 2687W chiefly differs from its Core i7 sibling is cache and clockspeed.
It's ever so slightly slower at 3.1GHz to the Core i7's 3.3GHz.

The top Intel platform

Intel Core i7 3960X
Intel Core i7 3930K
Intel Core i7 3820
Gigabyte X79-UD3
Asus Sabertooth X79
YOYOTech XDNA Platinum

Nope, it's not a dramatic difference and it's a lot less than we were expecting after Intel told us it had disabled the final two cores in the Core i7 3960X because that made for the best balance between clockspeed and cores.
Turns out, you can have all the cores enabled without winding down the frequency significantly.
As for cache, it's 20MB plays 15MB, again in the Xeon's favour. The only other difference of note involves overclocking.
Put simply, you can't overclock the Xeon 2687W.
The multipliers are locked and the baseclock just won't tolerate more than a percentage point or two of tweaking. As we'll see, that's a serious blow to the Xeon's enthusiast credentials, but not unexpected from a chip designed for stability in a workstation environment.
But first, what about performance at stock clocks?
Well, the Xeon is quicker across the board, making it by far the fastest processor we've ever tested.
OK, it's not the full 33 per cent faster in multi-threaded software you might postulate from the transition from six to eight cores. But it's not a million miles away in several benchmarks, including professional rendering, video encoding and database crunching.
It's also barely any slower in single-threaded software, which isn't a huge surprise given the similar clockspeeds.
That said, there's not much evidence the extra cache memory has an impact on the desktop.
Of course, with this extra performance comes greater power consumption to the tune of an extra 40 watts under load. But much more of a problem is that overclocking limitation.
Crank a Core i7 3960X up to 4.5GHz and it delivers near identical performance to the Xeon 2687W, but for half the price.
Whoops.

We liked

"Comfortably the fastest processor we've ever tested."

Eight cores is what the Sandy Bridge E die has. Once you've paid for it, eight cores is what you should get. And that's exactly what the Intel Xeon 2687W gives you.
The result is comfortably the fastest processor we've ever tested.
It's also a drop-in upgrade for any X79. Yippee.

We disliked

The workstation and server market is a different world from that of the desktop PC.
The enormous price of the Intel Xeon 2687W may make sense in the former, but it's far too rich for the latter, especially when you consider the lack of overclocking support.

Final word

By turning cores on but turning overclocking off, this eight-core Xeon is a zero sum game.
As expected it's just not cost effective on the desktop, but still puts into question why exactly we don't have a full eight-core desktop processor in the desktop Sandy Bridge E family.
One thing's for certain; it's not a technical limitation.

Read More ...

---

Canon to release 'entry level' full-frame camera?

It's only been a few weeks since the Canon 5D Mark III was announced, but already the internet rumour mill is suggesting that there will be another full-frame model before the year is out.
With its three grand price tag, the 5D Mark III certainly isn't cheap, especially when you consider that its predecessor can now be picked for as little as £1200 if you know where to look.
For many, the 5D Mark II was an affordable route to full-frame shooting, and has remained a stalwart of the high end enthusiast/semi-pro ever since it was announced.
This year however, the 5D Mark III finally made its debut and many were left a little underwhelmed by its megapixel count and high price.

Competition

Hands onCanon 5D Mark III Review

Many were expecting that the new camera would rival the 36 million pixels of the Nikon D800, so were perhaps left a little disappointed that the 5D Mark III's sensor weighs in at 'just' 22 million.
Now however, rumours are circulating to suggest that Canon has another ace up its sleeve in the form of a cheaper full-frame model that will appear in the autumn, conveniently timed for the Photokina trade show taking place in September.
For a few weeks before the 5D Mark III was launched, persistent rumours suggested that a split in the line was coming, with a '5D X' housing a 46 million pixel sensor, could these rumours have jumped the gun by a few months?
Stay tuned for more updates and rumours in the coming weeks and months.

Read More ...

---

Welcome to TechRadar in the US

If you're anything like us, you love everything about technology and well...just can't get enough.
Whether you're researching your next mobile phone purchase, curious to know if the rumors about the new iPad's heating issues are all hot air, or you just want to spend some time drooling over the latest piece of gear, we have you covered.
Of course, we realize that the internet isn't suffering from a dearth of outlets willing to write about technology and gear. And a lot of them are actually pretty good at it. So that raises the question: why TechRadar in the US? Simply put, our sister site, TechRadar in the UK is the #1 technology website in the UK and us folks on the other side of the pond are gonna leverage their success to bring tech lovers in the States even more of the tech that they love.
Working alongside the UK, TechRadar in the US will continue TechRadar's tried and true tradition of creating detailed, thorough reviews as well as breaking news stories, unique feature stories, truly useful buying guides, and of course, opinion pieces.
Of course, TechRadar in the US won't just be a clone of its sibling in the UK - we'll definitely have our own take on things and as we grow our unique voice will too. So be sure to come back daily and be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Read More ...

---

Fox: UltraViolet is a 'serious work in progress'

Danny Kaye of 20th Century Fox has revealed that the movie studio is still behind the UltraViolet digital locker service but much more needs to be done before it adds its own content to it.
Fox has been part of the UltraViolet digital locker initiative since the start, but the service has had slow take-up in the US where it was first launched and also in the UK - where it launched in December 2011.
At the present time, Fox hasn't added its content to the service, despite being a mouthpiece for the service, but Kaye assured this was coming once UltraViolet improves and once retailers start supporting it.

Kaye: "Today's fragmented digital world does not give users access all of the time to their content and we need to deliver with and without the internet."

"We have been working on UltraViolet since the beginning – and we view it as a very serious work in progress," explained Kaye at the PEVE conference in London, with TechRadar in attendance.
"We want to make sure that UltraViolet is as good as it can be. The quality of the experience and the ease of use remain hyper critical."
Kaye, who is the executive vice president, Global Research and Technology Strategy at Fox, said that the improvements that need to be made are everything from how UltraViolet works and the support is has been given.
"You will see Fox content on UltraViolet when a common file format is available, the user interface is improved and retailers are more involved.
"When it comes to Ultraviolet, we are not trying to replace the retail environment – they will become more involved when UltraViolet becomes bigger."
One of the more recent retail players to sign up to the service is Amazon, which will make the lack of Apple that little bit easier to swallow.

Making the old new

One of the ways the retail space could help UltraViolet is by offering digital copies of older movies. This is something Wal-Mmart is offering in the US and Kaye ensures that this will be coming to the UK soon but he also revealed that an offline eco-system also needs to be made.
"We will be bringing the Wal-Mart programme of getting their older content online [to the UK] soon.
"But today's fragmented digital world does not give users access all of the time to their content and we need to deliver with and without the internet."

Local content for local people

This offline version of UltraViolet is currently called Project Phenix and is collaboration between Fox, Warner Bros, Western Digital and San Disc.
"We will be giving the local storage to consumers which they will need," said Kaye.
"When we do allow consumers the kind of interactivity we want to give them – files will have to be backed up in local storage. That means there's going to be big files so we are teaming up with hard drive manufacturers to make this a reality."
Kaye seemed quite grounded when it came to making UltraViolet a reality, revealing that simplicity is the key to the service's success.
"By translating the positive lessons of the analogue world to the digital world, we want to make all aspects of the digital experience to work as simply as a DVD," explained Kaye.
"We have to make it simple."

Read More ...

---

In Depth: 10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV

10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV

If Apple does release a connected television called the iTV, it could let you access any show, speak commands using Siri, and browse the web.
That means Apple could stake a claim to your mobile life, your morning commute (since most cars these days work the best with an iPhone and many have 30-pin ports), your office, and your home entertainment.
What would be left? Obviously, Microsoft still owns the corporate desktop, and embedded Linux is not going away anytime soon.

More on Apple iTV
Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know

But home entertainment is one of the last steps towards consumer domination.
As you might expect, the iTV will work just like the iPhone and iPad by offering apps you can run on the television. Here are the ones we want.

1. Spotify

Okay, let's start with Spotify. This app has fallen out of favor with some of late, especially since you have to listen to advertising in the free version and there's still no iPad version. Apple would need to work out a licensing agreement, which is a landmine of self-destruction since users might not buy as many songs. Yet, imagine the potential: a home entertainment system implies surround-sound speakers, so Spotify could become a whole-house persistent Internet radio service on mobile and on your television.

2. Google Maps

Mobile mapping tech has exploded – companies like Garmin are worried. The apps have robust POI lists and turn-by-turn directions. There are mounts of major Android models and the iPhone for your car window. But on a television, mapping is also a fertile ground. A Google Maps app is a no-brainer, but the real innovation will come in how it connects to you mobile device: sending navigation directions after your family agrees on vacation plans, seeing a street view on a 42-inch display, and browsing through photos you captured on your phone and pinned to the exact GPS coordinates.

3. Banking

We want a banking app that also connects to your mobile. This should be more fluid than it is now: you could run the app and see a list of recent purchases, call up a customer service portal with a video chat to ask about a new mortgage, or control how a future iPhone model uses Google Wallet or the Square app for that day. (Helpful if one of your kids starts using near-field communication for payments.)

4. Shopping

The iTV could revolutionize home shopping. Today, the lean-forward ecommerce on a computer works well, but impulse shopping would work even better on a home television - rather like Amazon Windowshop on iPad. You might be watching an episode of Doctor Who, and an iTV shopping app could pop up and tell you which leather jacket a main character is wearing. Lean-back shopping could prove highly lucrative for Apple.

5. Zynga games

We already know there is a great opportunity for gaming on the iTV well beyond playing Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. If the iTV has a powerful next-gen processor, the television could even take on the PS3 and Xbox 360, at least offering casual games like From Dust that do not require high-end graphics. The best games might be from Zynga, though, since there's a stronger social aspect. The iTV could show a pop-up video of other players in their living rooms and even use a Kinect-like gesturing system.

6. Twitter

We expect a Twitter app, but in the home entertainment market, there's added potential for tweeting about which shows you are watching, asking questions about an actor in a movie, and better location-awareness: tweeting that you are now home and watching Top Gear. This app also needs something brand new: a better live feed at the bottom of the screen showing tweets of closer friends and family.

7. Amazon Kindle

Honestly, we're not sure if this one will even work, but the idea is interesting. The Kindle app on an iTV should work like the original Kindle and read the text to you. This means home entertainment might work in the reverse of the current norm: we'd watching something on the iPad or listen to music on an iPhone while the iTV reads a book or maybe shows complex diagrams in HD.

8. Skype

Once again, Skype is common the desktop. But the main problem with the service is you have to have your laptop up and running to connect. On an iTV, Skype could always be running, so you can take video calls, hold a videoconference with co-workers, and even stream your family activities securely.

9. Instagram

The iTV will likely have a camera for taking pictures and recording video, which will work well for family snapshots. But the iTV is not portable, so Instagram would likely work more as an editor of photos you've taken with your phone. In a group setting, multiple users could interact via voice and gesture to do a group edit of family photos. That's an interesting paradigm shift, because it's hard to get a group of people around a laptop, but easier if the entire clan is in front of a 42-inch television.

10. SkySports or ESPN

A sports app like Sportacular, ESPN ScoreCenter or the new Sky Sports for iPad opens up a whole new feature set on the iTV. Sports scores for mobile is one thing, but tying sports data to your current program is even more interesting: scores from other games, comments from people watching the same match, and even a multi-window feed of several games at the same time could become the best way to watch sports ever.

Read More ...

---

Harry Potter ebooks finally released

JK Rowling has finally taken a tip from Professor McGonagall and transfigured the Harry Potter series from print books to ebooks.
Yes, that's a rather convoluted way of saying that the Harry Potter ebooks have finally been released DRM-free so you can enjoy them on any ereader you fancy, although you will have to buy the ebooks from the Pottermore shop.
That doesn't mean that Pottermore is up and running quite yet though – it's still in beta form so if your name's not down, you're not getting in.
The ebooks are available to all, though, released in epub format so you'll be able to download the ebooks and read them on Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook, iPad, iPhone, and most Android devices. The books are not available to buy through iBookstore.

All the gold in Gringotts

And what about the price tags? The first three (shorter) books, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, are all £4.99 ($7.99 in the US).
The longer books are a tad more, with £6.99 (or $9.99) being the cost of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
True fans will go for The Complete Harry Potter Collection, we imagine, which comes in at £38.64, saving you 10 per cent.

Read More ...

---

Exclusive: Intel is boosting our profile, says rival ARM

ARM believes that Intel's attempts to crack the mobile phone market have served to highlight just how dominant the British company's designs are in the post-PC world.
One of the UK's most successful companies, ARM-designed chips are in everything from digital cameras to the latest tablets, and yet the Cambridge-based technology firm is a long way from being a household name.
Speaking to TechRadar, executive vice president Lance Howarth admitted that ARM needed to "raise its game" in terms of bringing the brand to the fore, but only if the balance is right for their huge network of partners.

In DepthHow ARM took on the world - and won
The past, present and future of the UK chip giant

Anonymous ubiquity

"Three years ago I'd say we suffered with anonymous ubiquity," said Howarth. "We were everywhere, but nobody knew.
"Now we're starting to see a transition because of mobile devices. The awareness of ARM and the types and diversity of the devices we are in is becoming talked about.
"The arrival of Windows 8 on ARM is accelerating that even further.
"So one of our challenges is getting this balance right, supporting our federation and partnership against the empire of Intel. It's how we join up our efforts – so that the combined aggregate total is not just ARM against Intel, but Qualcomm TI NDS and so on

ARM: "One of the best things that's ever happened to us is Intel trying to come into the smartphone space"

"We're all joined by a common set of values which is the people have united around the ARM architechture.
"My utopian goal is that when you guys talk about technology, say the latest HTC phone – that it isn't HTC on Qualcomm but HTC on Qualcomm which is ARM – I want to get ARM into almost every article."
Intel has been a hugely dominant force in silicon chips for many years, especially in the realm of computers, with the x86 architecture the basis for almost every PC for years.
With times changing, however, Intel is now looking to the mobile device market – something that Howard believes has brought unforeseen benefits.
"One of the best things that's ever happened to us, quite frankly, is Intel trying to come into the smartphone space," he said.
"We're a UK company and as a consequence we don't normally fit into the US tech coverage, so when Intel come along and say 'we're getting into smartphones' all the Germans say 'hold on, we've already got smartphones – and if you aren't in smartphones then who is?'
"So they say 'it's Qualcomm and Nvidia and Ti and, oh they are using this technology from ARM', so suddenly your message is getting out there."

Read More ...

---

Logitech launches curvaceous UE Air Speaker

Logitech's latest speaker is an Apple AirPlay-compatible wireless speaker in the shape of the Logitech UE Air Speaker, that comes with good looks and a relatively wallet-friendly price tag.
The speaker, which uses Wi-Fi to pump your uncompressed tunes wirelessly from an Apple iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone, offers dual tweeters and woofers, as well as custom-tuned acoustics.
Logitech promises that these will deliver "a big soundstage" with "impressively detailed stereo sound", but we'll have to reserve judgement on that until we get our ears on it.

Curvy

The UE Air Speaker is a curvy affair, with sleek looks that Logitech reckons includes "subtle curves" (they're not that subtle) and comes in a piano-black finish which is marketing speak for shiny black.
UE, incidentally, stands for Ultimate Ears. Thank goodness you don't have to go in the shop and ask for that, eh?
Users will have to download the Logitech UE Air app to stream music, and it comes with a dock connector so you can charge your iDevices and play music from older Airplay-less models too.
The Logitech UE Air Speaker is heading Europe-wards in April 2012 with a price tag of around £299 (should hit the US for around $399.99) – not a bad price for a good-looking Airplay speaker.

Read More ...

---

Exclusive: Fuji: customers satisfied by 'white orbs' solution

Fuji has said that customers who had experienced the so-called 'white orbs' problem have been satisfied with the solution it has come up with.
Several users of the Fuji X10 high-end compact camera had found incidents of "white blooms" appearing where highlights occurred in the picture.
Earlier this month, Fuji announced that it had developed a new sensor that will be fitted free of charge for any user who had discovered this problem.
Speaking to TechRadar, Adrian Clarke, senior vice president for Fujifilm Imaging said, "We had sold a huge number of X10s across the world and we discovered a very small proportion of those people weren't very happy and we were determined to take action."

Cause

Buying guideBest compact camera 2012: 27 reviewed and rated

The phenomenon was also said to affect the X-S1 bridge camera. Fuji explained in a statement that the "blooming" effect can occur with all digital cameras which use CMOS sensors, but also admitted that certain shooting conditions meant that the cameras were more prone to it.
"It took some time to come up with a definitive answer," Clarke said, "and that answer was a modified sensor.
"We've monitored the calls every day and by and large everybody's been really satisfied. We had quite a number of calls in the first few days, but they have more or less dried up now, there are almost no calls.
Customers will be able to get the modified sensor from May.

Read More ...

---

In Depth: Windows 8 browsers: the only Metro apps to get desktop power

Windows 8 Metro browsers

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 comes in both a desktop version, in which you can run all the plugins and accelerators you want, and a touch-optimised, full-screen, plugin-free Metro version.
Mozilla and Google recently announced they're working on Metro versions of Firefox and Chrome for Windows 8, which are not just Metro-style apps.
They're what Microsoft calls "Metro style enabled desktop browsers".
Metro-style applications on Windows 8 use the WinRT framework, not the familiar Win32 APIs (apart from a small number of system calls); that means they can run on both x86/64 PCs and on Windows on ARM (WOA) tablets that don't have x86 instructions, without any changes in the code.

More on Windows 8
Hands on: Windows 8 review
50 Windows 8 tips, tricks and secrets
Windows 8 on ARM: Steven Sinofsky speaks
Windows 8 tablets: what you need to know
All our Windows 8 content

They run in a security 'sandbox' called the App Container that isolates them from other Metro apps and from the operating system (so one Metro app can't call code distributed separately, like a plug-in), and they're distributed as .appx files that have to come through the Windows store.
You could write a Metro-style browsers, although you'd have to write all the code from scratch and it's not clear whether WinRT would include all the functionality you'd need. But what Microsoft, Google, Mozilla and maybe Opera are doing is to create a hybrid Metro/desktop app; something only browsers seem to be able to do. And as far as we can tell, they can only do it for x86/64 PCs – not for WOA.

Windows 8 Metro/desktop browsers: who's making them?

Mozilla and Google have announced they're working on version of Firefox and Chrome. And Opera's communications manager Zara Lauder told TechRadar "We are currently looking into Windows 8. The new OS and the Metro UI offers an interesting new platform for end users, and we know users will want to run the Opera browser on it."

Windows 8 Metro browsers: what's different?

According to Microsoft, a Metro style enabled desktop browser gets "full access to Win32 APIs for rendering HTML5, including the ability to use multiple background processes, JIT compiling, and other distinctly browser-related functionality (like background downloading of files)."
Basically, the Metro browser gets to use the same code as the desktop browser; other Metro apps don't get that. No other Metro apps can run in the background (except for a few specific things like playing music); they get a few seconds to tidy up and then stop running as soon as they're not in the foreground. A Metro browser can keep downloading and uploading files even when you switch away from it.
These hybrid Metro/desktop browsers don't have to come from the Microsoft Store like other Metro apps; you can download them from the Web and install them like any desktop app.
They can use the Play To contract to play media files on DLNA-connected devices and they can use your SkyDrive account to store favourites, the last 50 URLs you type in, the last 1,000 sites in your history and other settings that would be useful to have in your browser on your other PCs (like the passwords and open tabs Firefox already syncs to other devices).
You can only use one Metro-enabled browser at once; whichever one you set as the default browser. The Microsoft documentation talks about "preserving the Metro style user experience" which we interpret as keeping things simple and not confusing users by throwing up a 'which browser do you want' dialog when you open Web pages or giving you multiple browser icons to tap in Search.
Clicking the Start screen tile for a Metro-enabled browser that's not the default will open the desktop version of the browser.
You can't set which Metro browser a specific site will open in when you click a link. But at least on x86 PCs you can always choose to go to the desktop and open multiple browsers in the usual way.
And if you pin a site to the Start screen as a secondary tile from a Metro-enabled browser and then make something else the default browser, when you click the tile that Web site will open in the desktop version of the browser you pinned it from. So if you're happy with IE for most sites but you want a second browser for specific sites, you can now make that happen fairly easily.

Windows 8 Metro browsers: can they use plugins?

Maybe. IE10 doesn't let you use plugins like Flash in the Metro version, or accelerators and bookmarklets, although they all work in desktop IE10. That's to make tabs open faster and improve battery life security, reliability, and privacy.
A pure Metro browser couldn't support plugins because you couldn't install them in the browser and it couldn't reach out of the sandbox to call them. But Metro-enabled browsers aren't quite as constrained by the AppContainer sandbox.
The way IE works (in Metro and desktop) is to run a medium integrity process for the browser frame; the tabs that Web pages load in are each in their own sandbox (even in the desktop browser, tabs that used to be running at low integrity with fewer permissions are now at the AppContainer level). Metro browsers can call apps to handle file links (like desktop PDF viewers).
It's not clear whether other browser makers could use these possibilities to support plugins like Flash. Mozilla's Brian Bondy says "It's too early in development to know for sure. There may be some technical restrictions and we haven't decided one way or the other if we really want it."
Google has the code for Flash, which it already builds into Chrome but today this runs as a separate process that just gets installed with Chrome, which could also fall foul of the sandbox issue.

Will WOA have other browsers?

You can't run any third-party code on the WOA desktop, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky told TechRadar; just the Office apps that comes with WOA and the apps and tools that are "intrinsic to Windows" – which includes Internet Explorer.
That means no third-party desktop browsers on ARM PCs, and without a desktop browser to build on, you can't have a hybrid Metro/desktop browser. Anyone wanting to create another browser for WOA will have to write it completely in WinRT (and that definitely means no plugins).

Why is it only browsers that get this option?

Browsers (along with Adobe Reader) are the only apps that have adopted the low integrity level introduced in Vista. Low integrity apps can only save files to few folders in the user profile (like cookies, favourites and temporary files).
They can't create startup files, modify your documents, change configuration settings or registry keys or control other running apps – which makes it much harder to use them to get malware onto a PC. That makes using their code in Metro much less of a risk than other apps.
And of course, Microsoft doesn't necessarily have a choice. At least in Europe, Microsoft has to allow other browsers to run on Windows or get fined for excluding them, so it has to give browser makers the same option to have a hybrid browser that the IE team has.
Only allowing desktop browsers and not Metro browsers on Windows 8 would look pretty anti-competitive. Assuming it isn't possible to use plug-ins in any Metro browser, all browsers will need to let you switch straight to a desktop browser for pages that won't work without plugins.
There aren't any other applications built into Windows that work in both Metro and desktop, so there's no pressure for Microsoft to allow this for other apps.
So why is it so unlikely that we'll see third-party browsers on WOA? Even if Microsoft did get complaints from regulators, it would be pretty easy to say that Windows doesn't have a monopoly in the ARM tablet market – and to point out that the market leading iPad doesn't allow third-party browsers either.
The desktop IE process is the same; a medium integrity process with the tabs for Web pages running at the AppContainer sandbox level.

Read More ...

---

Buying Guide: 10 best 32-inch TVs in the world today

10 best 32-inch LCD TVs

Our constantly updated list of all the best 32-inch TVs in the world
The 32-inch LCD TV is one of the most popular consumer electronics products in the UK.
It's the most popular TV size by far, mainly because many British living rooms can't physically take a TV much bigger than 32-inches in size.
And what's more, with HD sources now widespread, 32 inches makes the perfect second-TV size for a bedroom or study.
Within the 32-inch division there's plenty of choice, too. A basic HD-ready set like the Toshiba 32HL833B below can be found for less than £300 if you search hard, though it's just as easy to spend over £2k.
But there is one certainty at this size - your new TV will be an LCD TV. If you're lucky it could have LED backlighting, but it won't be a plasma; LG used to make plasmas at this size, but there's not one on sale any more.
brightcove : 1048084416001
A typical £500 purchase will sport a Full HD screen, have at least three HDMI inputs, and some kind of 100Hz scanning, though the latter feature varies so much in effectiveness that you've simply got to see it in action in the shop before you shell out any extra cash. Full HD, media streaming and even built-in Freesat HD or Freeview HD - it's all possible on these small TVs.
So what's the best 32-inch LCD TV for you? Read on to find out...

Toshiba 32HL833B

A back-to-basics edge LED TV
£290: Edge LED backlighting and full HD resolutions were considered high-end features only a couple of years ago, so to see them on this sub-£300 screen is quite something. Toshiba's entry level 32-incher may lack the latest web, 3D and Freeview HD goodies, but this slim HL Series set has more than enough technology for many.
The lowlights are just two HDMIs, poor audio and the lack of Freeview HD, though great colour saturations, decent sharpness and contrast do enough to deliver a sense of cinema that belie its price. DivX playback is handy and the detail in Blu-ray is superb, while DVD and Freeview are watchable on this good value, efficient TV that delivers the basics well.
Read: Toshiba 32HL833B review

LG 32LV550T

Impressive mid-range TV with bags of features
£448: The 32LV550T is a well-made TV with tons of features that sells for an exceptionally aggressive price. It's better looking than most 32-inch sets and its connections wouldn't look out of place on a flagship TV – so don't be fooled by the lack of 3D.
Edge LED lighting is unusual at this price and also includes full HD resolution, 100Hz, TruMotion processing and endorsement by the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF). No wonder, since with judicious calibration the 32LV550T is an engaging and natural picture performer.
Add LG's Smart TV system, extensive DLNA PC network compatibility (including the fabulous Plex interface that makes home networking a lot easier), USB multimedia playback and optional Wi-Fi, and the smallest member of the LV550T range makes a big splash.
Read: LG 32LV550T review

Toshiba 32RL858B

A great value 32-inch TV
£370: Toshiba has been quietly but surely making the budget end of the TV world its own in recent years, and the 32RL858 is a perfect example of just how much Toshiba has learned, and why the brand is now hard to beat for anyone on the hunt for a good TV for not much cash.
The TV looks much better than most budget models, with its unusual silver look, exceptionally narrow bezel and ultra-slim rear. It's also got way more features than most budget TVs - most notably a Freeview HD tuner, Full HD resolution, 100Hz motion processing, smart TV functionality and network multimedia playback capability.
Best of all, though, is its picture quality, which neatly sidesteps nearly all the usual problems associated with budget TVs.
Read: Toshiba 32RL858B review

Toshiba 32DB833

A TV with built-in Blu-ray player
£487: If you're in the market for a second-room TV that combines a degree of multimedia support (via USB and recordable discs), TV and Blu-ray in one attractive-looking and impressively affordable package, Toshiba's 32DB833 is well specified for the job and better than you'd expect for the money.
Its shortcomings in the contrast and sound departments make it potentially more problematic as a main living room TV, but it could still be considered if money's tight and you fancy 'going fully HD' in one fell swoop.
Read: Toshiba 32BD833 review

Panasonic TX-L32E30B

Sophisticated mid-range 32-incher
£450: If Panasonic's TX-L32DT30B is a bit rich for you, how about this near-identical Edge LED TV? 3D goodies are stripped away, but DLNA capabilities, USB recording/playback, and the refreshed Viera Connect online service remain.
Black levels aren't reference-level, but this set is far easier on the eye than most previous Panasonic mid-range sets, and is better built than similarly specified models from other brands.
Pictures are naturally coloured and sharp, multimedia options are extensive and the viewing angle is wider than most on this two dimensional darling.
Read: Panasonic TX-L32E30B review

Samsung UE32D5000

Affordable LED TV that delivers superb pictures
£345: The UE32D5000's status as a showpiece living-room TV is undermined by the lack of features, such as 3D, Smart Hub, Wi-Fi and Freeview HD, but if you want to bring full HD into the kitchen or bedroom – where HD pictures and fancy functions might not be as essential – then the UE32D5000 is a terrific choice, particularly at such a knock-down price.
Throw dashing looks, DLNA, a top-notch operating system, and excellent picture quality into the mix and life looks even rosier for this cracking 32-inch set.
Read: Samsung UE32D5000 review

Sony KDL-32EX524

Clever features and decent pictures
£390: Part of Sony's EX Series, this all-rounder is stuffed full of features, but stays at a reasonably wallet-friendly price.
Able to deliver hi-def pictures and play content from a variety of sources – including USB devices, networked computers, Blu-ray players and from Sony's magnificent Bravia Internet Video portal – the below-par build quality is the only reason we could find for its low price.
The smartphone app control is a nice extra, and though we spotted some motion blur, judder and average contrast, the KDL-32EX524 punches above its price tag with a generous array of features and decent all-round picture performance.
Read: Sony KDL-32EX524 review

Sony KDL-32EX723

Neat tricks from this mid-range smart TV
£380: Internet, 3D and full HD-ready, this mid-ranger from Sony comes packed with tech including Motionflow XR 200 motion processing and the new X-Reality picture processing engine.
Both contribute to SD and HD pictures that look sharp and detailed, the former ridding images of blur while retaining a natural look. Black levels are spot on, though there is one snag – 3D images are dominated by excessive crosstalk – so, sadly, we wouldn't recommend this set if you're into 3D.
Still, superb 2D and the excellent Bravia Internet video platform make this a great, if slightly overpriced, all-round Edge LED set.
Read: Sony KDL-32EX723 review

Panasonic TX-L32ET5B

A passive 3D model from Panasonic!
£700: While 3D is unlikely to be the prime motivational factor for anyone buying a 32-inch TV, we think Panasonic has played a bit of a blinder on this one, making 3D much less of a faff, more affordable and perfectly enjoyable.
Sure it has one or two operating niggles, but these are pretty much minor concerns. This is a highly competent multimedia and connected TV, while from Blu-ray movies to daytime TV and HD sports, the Panasonic TX-L32ET5B consistently serves up first-rate images. And ultimately, that's what counts most when telly shopping.
Read: Panasonic TX-L32ET5B review

Philips 32PFL9705

Direct LED and peerless picture quality
Philips likes to push boundaries with its flagship 9000 Series TVs and it's done this again in grandstanding style with the 32PFL9705. What's more, it's done it on two fronts.
In feature terms, its expanded its multimedia support with the unique MediaConnect system, offering a really great way of getting your TV and PC to work together for people not comfortable with the usual more inscrutable TV file streaming approaches.
The other area where the 32PFL9705 breaks new ground is with its picture quality. The use of direct LED lighting with local dimming really does make the set the best 32-inch LCD TV the world has ever produced. And you can't ask for much more than that.
Read: Philips 32PFL9705 review

Read More ...

---

O2 unleashes Samsung Galaxy S2 ICS update

O2 has taken to its Twitter account to announce that the Ice Cream Sandwich update is now availble for its Samsung Galaxy S2-owning customers.
In a move that's not so much post-PC as present-PC, you'll still need to connect your S2 to a computer to access the Android 4.0 software update via Samsung's Kies software.
The oxygenated network has stayed true to its word that the update would land "before the end of March" after earlier reckoning that mid-April was a likely looking release date.

Tasty treats

O2 joins a select line up of networks offering the ICS update already, with only Three managing to roll it out thus far - Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange are feverishly working on the software testing in order to get the software to customers as soon as possible.
We're tracking who's getting the update when on our handy Samsung Galaxy S2 Ice Cream Sandwich hub page, so stay tuned for more info.
Those free-spirited SIM-free Samsung Galaxy S2 owners are laughing though, having been first in the queue for the updated OS. UPDATE: They're not laughing after all, as delays mean that Samsung is still testing the software for SIM-free Galaxy S2 owners. Sorry!

Read More ...

---

Updated: The new look TechRadar is here

UPDATE: We're aware of a few technical issues with the new site. Please bear with us while we iron out the bugs.
TechRadar's new look has finally gone live, bringing a cleaner and more modern feel to Britain's favourite technology site and making it easier for you to find the news, features and reviews that you love.
Although we'll forever reminisce about the news grid, we decided that the time had come to be a little more linear in the way that we do things – making it easier to find out what's happened and when.
You'll also notice that the front page loads faster and that the whole site is bedecked with big, beautiful widescreen images.

Video star

Video will now be significantly bigger in the page and a lot nicer to watch. There's even a video homepage where you can flick through all of our best video content. You can read more about the redesign here.
Although things may look different we'll still be bringing you the most authoritative reviews, the latest and greatest tech news and the hardest-hitting features by some of Britain's most important technology voices.
So, welcome to the new look TechRadar. We hope you'll enjoy the cleaner, brighter and more visual site and we'd love your feedback – good and bad – so we can carry on improving for years to come.

Read More ...

---

Sharp's tie-up with Foxconn made official

Sharp has announced that it is to enter into a manufacturing partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn, with both companies agreeing to a 50-50 split in capital.
The move won't come as a surprise as many who have been keeping tabs on the home entertainment market.
Back in July 2011, there were rumours that the two companies were to begin a joint venture by the end of 2011 - although this didn't happen, it has now been confirmed that the joint venture will be created in Taiwan.

Sharp move

Sharp is a massive manufacturer of TV panels. When it comes to LCDs, it is the biggest in the world and rivalled only by Samsung.
The whole venture is to essentially cut costs in the manufacturing process. By putting their resources together, certain components that make up LCD panels – glass substrate and things like colour filter films – will be able to be acquired in bulk by the two companies and costs will be a lot less.
Yes, it's all to do with the economies of scale – a phrase that business students love to bandy about.
Sharp is making a push into the big screen market so it will keep focusing on this side of the market – leaving Foxconn to bring in the smaller 20-40-inch panels.
Manufacturers in Japan have had a tough time of late, so this new deal will make sure that Sharp keeps its dominance in the TV panel market.
Saying that, it is a big move for a Japanese manufacturer to hook up with a Taiwanese counterpart.

Read More ...

---

HTC Sense back-up to close, data deleted by end of April

HTC is set to close HTCSense.com and delete any data stored on the back-up service by April 30.
HTCSense.com users will need to log in and download a zip file of all their data before April 30, at which point all files will be inaccessible and, soon after, deleted.
Apparently it's because HTCSense.com is "undergoing a renovation", presumably from the school of creative destruction.
"Until the new services are ready, features previously available on HTCSense.com will be shutting down," a letter on the site explains.
HTC goes on to promise the scant compensation that, "You'll be among the first to know when the new and improved services are ready."

Senseless

It seems a little incongruous that HTC is renovating the back-up service by deleting everything and starting again, rather than just porting its users' data across – and it's more than a little inconvenient for users.
The shuttering of the back up service comes as HTC readies its new HTC One series of smartphones, announced back at MWC 2012. These phones all come with two years of free DropBox action, which may have played a part in the HTCSense.com's (temporary) demise.

Read More ...

---

Google Instant search gets Japanese man fired

A Tokyo court has ordered Google to switch off its Instant search feature following claims by a Japanese man that it cost him his job.
The man in question has not been named, but his lawyer Hiroyuki Tomita has been fighting his corner.
Tomita said that when searching his client's name on Google, it suggested a host of criminal acts and 10,000 defaming or disparaging items.
The man claims that Google's usually helpful feature led to his dismissal and then prevented him finding new work.

Google refused his request

He started court proceedings in October, after Google refused his request to delete some of the suggestions. The company said that the suggestions are generated automatically with no malign intentions and do not infringe his privacy.
Talking to Kyodo News Agency, Tomita said: "It could lead to irretrievable damage, such as job loss or bankruptcy, just by displaying search results that constitute defamation or violation of the privacy of an individual person or small and medium-size companies."
"It is necessary to establish a measure to enable swift redress for damage in the event of a clear breach."

Read More ...

---

Review: Sapphire Edge HD3

When Sapphire launched the first Edge-HD mini PC back in early 2011, it claimed it was the world's smallest PC - and at under half a litre in volume, it was hard to disagree.
A year on, we now have the third generation of Edge HDs: the HD3. It forsakes the Intel power of the first two models, and is instead powered by one of AMD's latest E-450 APUs running at 1.65GHz.
When we say 'mini PC', we really mean teeny-weeny. The HD3 is roughly the size of a paperback book, but a lot thinner - War and Peace it ain't. Its curved design is very tactile, and thankfully Sapphire hasn't given it the usual glossy grand piano finish, so it won't become a fingerprint magnet.
Instead it has a more user friendly rubberised shell. Weighing in at a mere 530g, it also feels comfortable in your hand - or in your coat pocket - and there aren't many PCs you can say that about.

Business or pleasure?

Sapphire pitches the Edge HD3 at home, business and educational uses, and the machine features the 1.65GHz AMD E450. That's backed by 4GB of DDR3 memory, and certainly has enough power to handle everyday home and office chores. Just don't expect it to render large scale images or to be able to handle heavy video-editing duties.
One big advantage of Sapphire switching from the Intel Atom platform to the AMD E-450 is the integrated HD6300 graphics. This portion of the APU is much more capable than the integrated Intel solution found in those earlier iterations.

Benchmarks

CPU encoding performance
X264 v4: Index score: Higher is better
Sapphire Edge HD3: 3.20
Zotac ZBox ID80 Plus: 3.56
CPU rendering performance
Cinebench R11.5: Index score: Higher is better
Sapphire Edge HD3: 0.63
Zotac ZBox ID80 Plus: 0.72
Memory bandwidth
SiSoft Sandra: GB/S: Higher is better
Sapphire Edge HD3: 4.27
Zotac ZBox ID80 Plus: 4.15
In this case we're not thinking so much about gaming - although it does support DX11, so you might just about get away with some undemanding casual gaming at low resolutions and settings. No, the main advantage to this graphics sub-system is the multimedia support it offers - especially 1080p video playback.
Another point in the HD3's favour is that it uses under 30W even when it's running at peak performance. It draws under 20W when idling, which is a huge reduction compared to a run-of-the-mill desktop.
A quick scout around the rear of the HD3 shows just how much the wee thing has to offer. You get VGA and HDMI outputs, a couple of USB 2.0 ports, a LAN port for the wired Gigabit Ethernet, a couple of audio ports and the aerial socket for the b/g/n Wi-Fi. You'll also find a pair of USB 3.0 ports sitting under a flap at the front of the unit.
The inclusion of two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports works well enough when there's an operating system installed, but it causes one or two niggles beforehand. The USB 3.0 drivers can only be loaded once an OS is installed, so you need to keep swapping between whatever you have the OS on, the keyboard and/ or the mouse.
The Edge HD3 is very well designed, and as long as you don't set your expectations too high, it's the ultimate space-saving PC. It still has enough grunt for everyday office jobs, and thanks to the HD6300 graphics, it can handle 1080p without missing a beat as well.

Read More ...

---

HBO Go,Comcast Xfinity and MLB.tv launch on Xbox 360

Microsoft has confirmed that three new video apps are coming to the Xbox 360 today.
Comcast Xfinity TV, HBO Go and Major League Baseball will all be landing on Microsoft's console.
HBO Go brings the cable network's on demand offerings including Deadwood, Entourage and Game of Thrones, while Comcast brings its own catalogue of films and TV shows and MLB.TV offers up over 2,400 games.
All three of new offerings will feature significant Kinect integration, allowing content searches by gesture and voice. MLB.TV even lets users jump between two games in splitscreen by shouting "switch" at their Kinect.
The Xbox's entertainment offering has been steadily growing of late with the addition of big name apps including ESPN, Hulu, Netflix, Vudu and YouTube. Today's new additions bring the Xbox's tally of entertainment apps to 36.

More watching than gaming

According to Microsoft, over half the time users spend on Xbox Live is now devoted to consuming videos and music rather than gaming.
Yusuf Mehdi, head of Microsoft's Xbox marketing and strategy division, said: "What we're seeing is that people are turning on the Xbox to play games and then keeping it on afterwards to get other types of entertainment.
"We've really seen this amazing explosion at Xbox the last four months that's honestly even surprised our own hopes and aspirations."
In total, households are spending 84 hours per month on Xbox Live – a 30 percent increase on last year.
Xbox Live now has more than 20 million paying subscribers.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Kindle , UK , Amazon , Google , Sharp , Intel , Xeon , Canon , TechRadar , Apple , Logitech , Windows 8 , Windows , Samsung , Galaxy , HTC , Sapphire , Xbox ,