IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (Techradar) 2/3/2015

Netflix announces deal with Disney in Australia and New Zealand

Netflix has come out swinging today, announcing a deal with The Walt Disney Company that will bring a selection of Disney's most popular content to the streaming service when it launches in Australia and New Zealand in March.
Under the deal, Aussie and Kiwi Netflix members will have access to film and television content from Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm.
Confirmed movie content includes Pixar favourites such as Cars, Monsters Inc. and UP, Marvel Studios blockbusters such as Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, Walt Disney Animation Studio classics Frozen, Tangled and Big Hero 6 and other Disney staples like Planes, Saving Mr. Banks, Maleficent and Muppets Most Wanted.
On the television side of things, Netflix will be streaming Lucasfilm's Star Wars: The Clone Wars, ABC Studios' hit series Lost, Jake and the Never Land Pirates from Disney Junior and the Disney Channel's Good Luck Charlie.

Streamboat Willie

While rival streaming service Presto already has a large range of Disney shows and movies on offer, Netflix undoubtedly has the advantage as the service has exclusive streaming rights to Guardians of the Galaxy, Big Hero 6 and Maleficent in the months after launch, and its content will be available to stream in full HD where available.
Netflix's announcement only confirms a select number of titles, so it's hard to know if the service's full catalogue will be as extensive as Presto's, which currently includes animated classics like Aladdin and Toy Story 3.
Netflix also mentioned in its Disney announcement that all of this content would be included in its "low monthly price", which is rumoured to start at $9.99, though is still unconfirmed by the service.
Stan, Australia's most recent addition to the streaming media fold, has not added or announced any Disney content since its recent Australia Day launch, which is somewhat of a gaping hole in its content line-up.

We've got the rumoured details surrounding Netflix rumoured launch date and price

Introduction and features

Introduction

Toshiba has become one of the biggest names in business laptops thanks to its wide range of effective, no-nonsense office systems, and its latest attempt to nail the ideal corporate portable comes from the Satellite Pro R50-B-12U.
This system includes a Core i5 processor inside a slim body for just $832 (about £532, AU$987) – a keen price that brings the R50 into line with some tempting competition. HP's Envy 15 x360 costs $1,015 (about £649, AU$1,175) and can function as a laptop and a tablet, and the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is a little more expensive – it'll set you back $1,149 (about £672, AU$1,223) – but it's a high-quality notebook with a 1080p screen and a Core i7 processor.

Design

The R50 is cheaper than both rivals, and its 0.94-inch (24mm) body still competes: that's the same thickness as HP's hybrid, and not far off the 0.8-inch (20mm) frame of the Dell laptop. The Toshiba's 5.07 pound (2.3kg) weight is reasonable, too; a mite less than the HP, and lighter than the 5.73 pound (2.6kg) Inspiron. These are important factors when using this machine on the road, as it won't take up too much room in a bag – and it won't weigh it down unnecessarily, either.
Build quality hasn't suffered despite those dimensions. The underside and wrist-rest barely budged despite presses and prods, and the screen didn't twist much. It's a better bet than the inconsistent HP, and it's as sturdy as the Dell. The strong chassis is enhanced by good connectivity, with two USB 3 ports, an SD card reader and a DVD writer around its edges – with the latter a feature not found on either of the R50's rivals.
It's good ergonomically, too. The keyboard is sensibly laid out with large keys and a numberpad, and the typing action is comfortable thanks to a consistent, light action and a solid base – we were quickly up to speed and using the Toshiba to type out long reports. The trackpad offers similar quality, with a smooth surface and a pair of snappy buttons.
Toshiba has spent money making the R50 slim and sturdy, but it's not spent much cash on design. The black plastic is decorated with barely-visible straight lines across the wrist-rest and lid, the keyboard is black, and the only bit of gleaming metal comes from a small Toshiba logo on the lid.
The Satellite Pro comes with two operating systems: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit is installed out of the box, and Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit is included on a DVD. It's a generous extra, but the rest of the software is a mixed bag. McAfee's security suite produced numerous irritating pop-ups, and Internet Explorer is hampered by bookmarking tool Symbaloo. Elsewhere, Evernote, Spotify and Winzip could prove more useful.
It's worth bearing in mind that removing these added applications could improve performance: with the bloatware uninstalled, the R50's boot time improved from 47s to 27s.

On the Inside

The mid-range R50 doesn't have the most exciting specification. Its Core i5-4210U processor is clocked to 1.7GHz, and it's the same chip used inside HP's hybrid. It's one step behind the Dell, which deploys a Core i7-4500U chip.
Elsewhere, you'll have to rely on Intel's middling integrated graphics, and the chip is paired with 4GB of single-channel RAM and a sluggish 500GB, 5,400rpm hard disk.
Connectivity includes Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 – the standard selection we now expect on notebooks.

Performance

Benchmarks

PCMark 8 Home: 2,167
PCMark 8 Home battery life balanced 50% screen: 3hr 43mins
PCMark 8 Home battery life power saver 25% screen: 4hrs 46mins
PC Mark 8 Home High Performance 100% screen battery life: 3hrs 2mins
3DMark: Ice Storm: 33,030; Cloud Gate: 3,943; Fire Strike: 489
Cinebench R11.5: CPU: 2.55; Graphics: 14.84fps
Cinebench R15: CPU: 231cb; Graphics: 18.76fps

The unfussy specification returned a middling set of benchmark results. In PC Mark 8's Home test the R50 scored 2,167 points – a little behind the HP Envy 15 x360, which scored 2,322 points with the same processor – a lead that's likely caused by the HP's 8GB of RAM. The Dell Inspiron 15 7000, with its Core i7 silicon, outpaced both systems with a result of 2,493.
The Toshiba settled into third place in the Cinebench R15 CPU test, too. It scored 231cb, which was six points behind the HP but further behind the Inspiron, which scored 255cb.
This is no gaming laptop, either. Intel's integrated graphics core stumbled to a result of 33,030 in the 3D Mark Ice Storm test – more than 4,000 points behind the HP laptop, and almost 15,000 points behind the Dell and its discrete Nvidia graphics core.
The 5,400rpm hard disk didn't help matters in any of our benchmarks. Its sequential read and write speeds of 95MB/s and 82MB/s are slow, even for platter-based hardware.
The middling specification had one upside: no thermal problems. The R50 stayed cool and quiet in every benchmark, and none of its added heat was transferred to the chassis during stress-tests.
Battery life wasn't bad, either. In PC Mark 8's Home battery benchmark the R50 lasted for 3hrs 43mins, which was ten minutes longer than the Dell but ten minutes less than the HP.

Screen

The R50 has a non-touch screen with a resolution of 1,366 x 768. That's standard for this class of machine, but it's restrictive for both work and play. The lack of pixels mean that it's tricky to work with multiple windows or large applications, and the sub-HD resolution means 1080p movies can't play at their full fidelity.
The 233cd/m2 brightness is good, but the R50 faltered elsewhere. Colour accuracy is no good thanks to a wayward Delta E of 8.18 and a cold colour temperature of 6,931. The latter figure means that colours lack vibrancy, while the former result means this panel is no good for colour-dependant work.
The 1.01cd/m2 measured black level is far too high, and it contributes to a poor contrast ratio of 231:1. The high black level means that the darkest shades appear as underwhelming greys rather than anything deeper, and the poor contrast hinders depth and distinction of colours across the entire range.
The low resolution and poor quality mean this screen is only suitable for web browsing, word processing and other less intensive tasks. The HP's screen suffers from similar problems – a low resolution and a lack of quality – while the Dell streaks ahead with a Full HD resolution, touch control and better quality.

Verdict

Toshiba's system concentrates on good ergonomic design, which is why it's got a good keyboard and trackpad built inside a sturdy frame. That will help this system excel as a work laptop, and the Core i5 processor will help with general office software, too, even if it lacks the grunt to take on more demanding applications.
In other departments, though, this system disappoints. The screen quality is poor, battery life is middling, and its all-black chassis doesn't exactly set the pulse racing.

We liked

Toshiba knows the business market, so it's no surprise that it's concentrated on the practical aspects of the R50's design. Build quality is consistently good, and the keyboard and trackpad both have the quality required to get serious work done.
The R50 is slim and light, too, although it's design isn't much cop – this isn't a laptop for turning heads, and both of its rivals are better-looking.
Performance isn't anything to shout about, either, but the Core i5 processor provides enough grunt to get modest jobs done.

We disliked

The R50's modest budget means this is a dull-looking laptop, but that's not the only area that's suffered.
The screen lacks the colour accuracy, contrast and resolution for any sort of serious work, which means that the Dell is the easy winner in this category. Battery life is fine but no outstanding, and the Core i5 processor is only capable of handling mid-range work tasks – for anything more demanding the Dell Inspiron 15 7000's Core i7 would be a better bet.

Final verdict

The Toshiba's good ergonomics, reasonable build quality and Core i5 processor make it a solid business notebook, but the R50 does little to stand out. The display is poor, battery life is average, and that Core i5 chip won't handle applications in the same way as the Dell's Core i7. That Dell is a better option if you've got more cash to spend, and the HP Envy 15 x360 is better-looking. Only buy the R50 if you need a mid-range machine and you're content without it turning heads.

Beautifully simple

Underlying all of this was the desire for Apple products to be simple: the iPhone's interface can be used by a child or a computer programmer, and the use of a GUI in the 1984 Macintosh set a precedent for ease of use of a computer. Indeed, the Mac Pro, Apple's most complex computer, is reduced to a simple – and objectively beautiful – cylinder.
Alongside this micro-trend is the macro-trend that the world is moving on from PCs to mobile devices ("post-PC" as Steve Jobs referred to it), which makes the reports of the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro even more intriguing.
A recent leak from 9to5Mac has shown that Apple's next MacBook Air is going to be a radical transformation from the current line of Airs (codenamed the MacBook "Stealth"). Currently, Apple sells 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs, but the new one sits at 12-inches and is likely to be smaller and lighter than even the current 11-inch Air in terms of its chassis. Alongside the screen size change, the report indicates that Apple is also radically rethinking the ports on the Air, right down to the MagSafe connector.

Obvious similarities

When reading 9to5Mac's report it is hard not to draw similarities to the current iPad and, more specifically, the rumoured iPad Pro. Early reports suggest that the iPad Pro is likely to have a 12-inch screen (rumours fluctuate between 12-inch and 12.9-inch) while only having one port, as all iPads currently do, creating a strong correlation between the MacBook Stealth and the iPad Pro.
It is important to note at this point that no one knows for sure what Apple is going to do – except Apple itself, and all that follows is conjecture about the company's plans. Mark Gurman, the author of the 9to5Mac report, has been largely correct in the past when it comes to Apple product and software leaks so it is more than likely that Apple is testing the MacBook Stealth in its later stages – backed up by reports from other well connected sources – but nothing is certain. Similarly, the iPad Pro has been leaked by various outlets and makes business sense for Apple, but until Tim Cook announces it on stage nothing is for sure.
The correlation between the specifications of the MacBook Stealth and the iPad Pro strikes me as odd, especially as Apple is a company that likes to have a level of significant differentiation between its products, selling only a small range, each with its own niche and ability to solve certain problems.
Many saw the iPad as just a "bigger iPod Touch" until the product matured and new use cases grew out of the bigger-screened tablet. Many also questioned the iPhone when it was first released, asking why anyone would want a phone without a physical keyboard and limited battery life – all of Apple's PC lines have significant differentiation focusing on different areas of the market.
Releasing two products that are so closely linked makes no sense when compared to Apple's historical preference to product releases, and so it seems feasible that the MacBook Stealth and iPad Pro are one and the same.

Commercially sound

The iPad Pro, as I've previously written, makes commercial sense for Apple and for the iPad range which isn't seeing as stellar growth as the iPhone, because consumers hold onto them forever. The iPad was primarily designed by Apple as a "coffee table device" that could easily be picked up and used in one hand while reading a book or a magazine.

Will the iPad Pro be the next blockbuster enterprise device?

Over the years, more and more apps have become available on the App Store leveraging the larger screen, while the physical form factor of the iPad has diminished in depth and weight making it ideal as a travel companion where a MacBook Pro, or even the Air, would not be.
Conversely, the MacBook Air has grown more powerful and more of a laptop than the original version which featured one USB port, a smaller battery and a last generation processor (and, shockingly in 2008, no DVD drive). It wasn't until 2010 that the MacBook Air got a refresh, taking on the body it has today and receiving the stellar battery life that makes it so popular.
In some ways, the 11-inch MacBook Air is like an iPad just with a keyboard. OS X has progressed so far into the territory of iOS that the two operating systems often feel interconnected – both literally, with Continuity, and metaphorically, with Launchpad and Mission Control – and this is by design. Apple's 2010 presentation was entitled "Back to Mac," and made the point of just how involved iOS and OS X were going to become over the following years, sharing features, applications and even software engineers in Cupertino.

Stealth OS

There has been no word about what kind of operating system the MacBook Stealth would be running, as OS X could be too bulky, carrying features that someone on a lightweight machine just doesn't need. Full-screen apps become even more useful on smaller screens, as the iPhone and iPad have proven: people don't want to run multiple apps side-by-side on a screen that is under 13-inches, as Microsoft and Samsung have been touting, choosing instead to make the sacrifice and run one app and focus their attention on that.
And these iOS apps are now focused very much on business users with many niche applications being adapted for the iPad – from Microsoft's Office to the Apple/IBM partnership – needing only the addition of a keyboard to bring them up to the level of OS X.
It would seem, then, that the MacBook Stealth and iPad Pro potentially have a lot in common and that they could, in fact, be one device. Many users of the iPad now add keyboards to their devices, either via Bluetooth or a case, and this is what the MacBook Stealth does: adds a built-in keyboard to an iPad-esque form factor. Only time will tell if the two devices end up being one but Apple's focus on unification between products would suggest this could be the case.
Image Credit: MacRumors

Monday, February 2, 2015

IT News Head Lines (Techradar) 2/3/2015