Crazy-but-true Olympus sensor captures details between the pixels
Olympus has three D-SLR style compact system cameras in its range and the OM-D E-M5 sits right in the middle. It's the one Olympus sees as its core model for enthusiasts, and because it was the first of the three it was the one most in the need of a refresh.
But this is much more than just a quick respray. As we first reported in our Camera rumors 2015 article, Olympus has indeed introduced a super-high-resolution mode based around a highly creative use of its in-built sensor-shift system.
This is normally used to correct the effects of camera shake by shifting the sensor to counteract any camera movement during the exposure. But Olympus has harnessed this technology to shift the sensor by microscopic amounts in a fraction of a second during the exposure to take eight separate shots which are then combined into a high-res composite image.
The sensor describes a tiny circular movement around each pixel (photosite), effectively adding 'in-between' pixels to the 16 million pixels hard-wired into the sensor.
Olympus's High Res mode is not instant, however. Each exposure takes a second, and the subsequent image processing adds another 2.5 seconds. It's designed for static subjects with the camera mounted on a tripod, and while Olympus is quick to quash any talk about it being a medium-format camera competitor, the company does say the quality rivals that of many full-frame cameras.
No 4K, but does it matter?
Interestingly, Olympus hasn't jumped on the 4K bandwagon with the E-M5 Mark II. But it does shoot full HD movies and the company is keen to show off the shake-reduction capabilities of the E-M5 Mark II's 5-axis shake reduction system, which can counteract yaw, pitch, roll, vertical shift and horizontal shift movements.
The E-M5 Mark II has an improved, second-generation version, and this can be used for both stills and video. Olympus played the assembled journalists a pretty impressive action short taken entirely on the E-M5 Mark II, completely handheld for both static and panning shots, and without tripods or gyro rigs. Olympus has also added multiple video frame rates to allow for different territories which was, to be honest, a bit of an oversight in the original E-M5, and quotes a maximum bitrate of 77Mbps, almost four times higher than its predecessor (the bitrate is a key part of the video quality).
Quiet, please
That's not all. The OM-D E-M5 Mark II has a new, quieter shutter mechanism capable of speeds up to 1/8000sec, boosted to 1/16,000sec with the electronic shutter mode. This is designed for silence rather than fast action, though – the sensor 'scanning' process used takes around 1/20sec.There are other important improvements too. It's the first OM-series camera with a fully-articulated rear screen – the others have a tilting screen.
And you'll also see a difference in the viewfinder. The E-M5 Mark II has a 2.36-megapixel EVF screen, which is almost twice the resolution of the original camera's 1.44-megapixel screen.
Let's not forget this is a seriously fast camera, too. The old version could shoot at 9fps, and the E-M5 Mark II ups this to 10fps – that's pro sports D-SLR territory.
Finally, there's a Quick Sleep mode that boosts the battery life from the normal 310 shots to as much as 750. Battery life is still a weak spot point in CSCs vs DSLRs, so it's good to see Olympus tackling the issue. With the grip and extra battery (see below) we're told this should double.
Accessories
The OM-D E-M5 comes bundled with a new FL-LM3 flash that increases the distance from the optical centre of the lens for better lighting and reduced red-eye, and there's an HLD-8 battery holder and an ECG-2 grip which offers a headphone socket so that pro videographers can monitor sound levels.
Olympus has also announced a new, weatherproofed version of its 40-150mm zoom. The 40-150 f/4-5.6 II is dust and splash proof and now comes with Olympus's 'ZERO' (Zuiko Extra-low Reflection Optical) lens coating technology.
Finally, Olympus also announced the development of a new 8mm f/1.8 fisheye lens which should arrive in summer 2015.
Olympus's 40-megapixel breakthrough is remarkable, though the shooting constraints of the High Res mode mean that doesn't directly challenge larger, professional cameras. Nevertheless, Olympus has found a way to conjour a massive jump in resolution from an everyday, affordable compact system camera aimed at enthusiasts.
The technology is still experimental, and it's still too slow for regular hand-held photography, but it's early days yet and this could be just the start – has Olympus found a whole new direction for digital imaging?
Price and availability
The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II goes on sale at the end of February 2015 and will cost £900 body-only, £1100 with the Olympus 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 kit lens or £1250 with the Olympus 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II superzoom lens.
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In Depth: OS X Yosemite tip: how to customize your Dock
The Dock has been a mainstay of OS X since the start, a place to stash apps and documents as well as easily see what's running on your Mac.
Visually, the Dock has seen big changes over the years. Initially it was a semi-transparent white rectangle with subtle pinstripes, which were eradicated as of OS X 10.2 Jaguar. In OS X 10.5 Leopard, the Dock turned into a 3D glass "shelf" when at the bottom of the screen, which gradually got frosted as the operating system was upgraded further. In OS X 10.10 Yosemite, we've almost come full circle, with the Dock reverting to a simpler semitransparent rectangle.
If you're not thrilled with the new Dock, you can use the free cDock (sourceforge.net/projects/cdock) to make changes. The app is capable of updating a number of aspects of the Dock, including the addition of spacers, creating a "recent items" folder and dimming hidden apps. Note that on first launching cDock, you may get a security warning; if so, open System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy > General, and click Open Anyway.
Now let's take a detailed look at how cDock can enhance the functionality of your Dock.
1. Make the Dock 3D
Launch cDock and select the Dock theme menu. If you'd like your Yosemite Dock to resemble the one from Mavericks, select Yosemite 3D and click Apply. cDock will quit, the Dock will relaunch, and a few seconds later it'll be a 3D shelf again.
2. Update its theme
To update the theme, relaunch cDock and choose a new option from the menu. The Fullscreen options make the Dock fill the screen edge; Transparent removes the background. To go back to OS X's default theme, select Restore > Apply.
3. Add Dock spacers
Spacers can help you organize multiple items in your Dock into groups. Use the spacers menus in cDock to add items on the "app" and "doc" sides and click Apply. Drag to move your spacers; to remove one, right-click and select "Remove from Dock."
4. Add a recents stack
Set "Add recents folder" to Yes > Apply. A new stack appears in the Dock, with quick access to recent apps. Right-click to switch this to documents, servers, or favorites. Run it again to add another stack (it won't replace any existing ones).
5. Show only active apps
The Dock, by default, shows both stashed and running apps, but to only show running apps and the Trash check "Show only active applications" > Apply. This makes your Dock into an app switcher. To revert, uncheck the option in cDock and Apply.
6. Mouse over highlights
If you've added one or more recent folders, try selecting "mouse over highlight" in cDock. On restarting your Dock, you'll see a highlight behind any app you're hovering the mouse cursor over, which helps make your selection easier to spot.
7. Lock the Dock
It's easy to add stuff to the Dock by mistake, but cDock can help: check "Lock dock contents" > Apply. You'll no longer be able to add items to it by dragging them, and options to remove items will be gone. Uncheck the box and click Apply to revert.
8. Custom theme
For a more personal take on the Dock's appearance, select Custom from "Dock theme" > Apply. It will load settings.txt and an instructions document. Edit and save settings.txt, and click the cDock icon in the menu bar to refresh the Dock.
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Is Under Armour the next big player in fitness and wearables?
Under Armour today continued its push beyond nice workout digs and into the world of fitness tech with the acquisition of health and fitness companies Endomondo and MyFitnessPal.
Endomondo is a fitness-tracking platform and social network, while MyFitnessPal is focused on helping users achieve their fitness goals. The former was bought for $85 million (about £56m, AU$109m), the latter for $475 million (about £313m, AU$612m), reports TechCrunch.
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With the new purchases, Under Armour now claims it has the biggest digital health and fitness community in the world, with 120 million registered users total.
Under Armour seems to be setting itself up as a major player in the digital health and fitness world, with wearables, apps and a platform where all these gadgets and services are synced and connected.
Keep in mind this is a company that until a couple of years ago primarily made socks. It's unclear how far they'll go with this, but the Under Armour brand does carry some weight and the purchase of Endomondo and, in particular, the popular MyFitnessPal prove the company is in it to win.
For now both newly acquired companies will continue to operate out of their current headquarters.
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Apple Watch and new Macbook Air could star in February event
It seems like Apple's last event was just yesterday, but then again time flies when you're waiting for the next iPhone or Apple Watch rumor.
Now Apple will host another event toward the event of February, this time to show off the next Macbook Air and yet more Apple Watch details, reports French site iGen. The iPad Pro is not expected to appear there, however.
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The new Macbook Air is reportedly a fanless, 12-inch laptop that will ship with hardly any ports - possibly just a headphone jack and a new, reversible USB Type-C connector for power and other needs.
The Apple Watch, on the other hand, is expected out in March, though we're still waiting for more details on the Apple wearable.
Hopefully we'll get those in a few weeks when February comes to an end.
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Pentax full-frame bombshell: 'reference' camera to go on show at CP+
Pentax is calling this a 'reference' camera and has not yet finalized the specifications or even the product name. It does say, however, that the new camera will have full, 35mm size image sensor and that it will use the company's K-mount interchangeable lens system.
CP+ is a major annual photography show. Originally called the Japan Camera Show, it's been taking place since the 1960s.
Pentax already makes a range of APS-C format DSLR bodies and lenses, and says that the new camera will be able to use existing DA-series interchangeable lenses using an 'image-cropping' function.
There is no word yet on any full-frame lenses for this camera, but although Pentax is no longer one of the main players in today's DSLR market, it has a long and successful history in 35mm SLR photography and has a wide range of older film lenses to draw upon.
Unlike Canon and Nikon, Pentax also has considerable experience in the professional medium format market, and when we reviewed the Pentax 645Z we gave it a 5-star rating.
Pentax full-frame launch date
Pentax says the new camera is currently under development with an anticipated launch by the end of 2015. Currently, Canon and Nikon are the only full-frame DSLR makers, and the arrival of a new brand in this arena would certainly shake things up.Details are scarce, but this would appear to be different to the new Pentax APS-C DSLR 'reference camera' announced for CES in January.
It's unusual for a camera maker to announce new models in this way, but this could be Pentax's way of getting a foot in the door when a finished product is still some way off.
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- Pentax 645Z review
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Review: mini review: Urbanears Zinken
When it comes to looks, Urbanears headphones are right up my alley. I'm a sucker for their simplistic design and pastel paint jobs. Based on the amount of people I've seen wearing these headphones, it seems that I'm not alone in my admiration of their style.
The new $99 (£89, AU$129) Zinken on-ear headphones boast the signature Urbanears vibrancy and have a minimal, but useful set of features. But do the Zinken bring enough comfort and performance to make a mark on the scene, or has it all been glossed over?
Design
The Urbanears Zinken, while a little ridiculous to say aloud, are easy on the eyes with a smooth matte-finished look. The headphone materials come together with a near-uniform blend of plastic, synthetic leather and touches of metal for added stability and flair.
The Zinken - and all Urbanears headphones, for that matter - look as if they have been plunked into a pool of paint. The color of our review model is "Rowan", a color inspired by the exotic berries of the mountain ash shrub. Let's cut the embellishment and call it "orange".
The air hockey mallet-sized earcups have a decent range of motion. Attached seamlessly to a band of colorful plastic on one side and pleather padding on the other, these earcups can swivel about 45-degrees to each side, thanks to sturdy, cylindrical metal sidearms, which allows the earcups to be folded into the headband for a more compact form factor.
Design aside, the earcups are also packed with some clever functionality. On the bottom of each cup is a different size of audio input. The partially-coiled TurnCable included in the box is uniquely equipped with a 3.5mm input on one end and 6.3mm on the other. If you are listening to music on a standard device, you'll utilize the 6.3mm input under the left earcup. Alternatively, utilizing the 3.5mm port on the right requires that you connect to a device that supports a 6.3mm input.
The TurnCable has an inline remote, but it serves a limited purpose. While it allows you to play/pause songs, skip forward and backwards and to talk on the phone, Urbanears bafflingly omitted volume controls. No one ever needs to adjust the volume, right?
Urbanears has crafted the Zinken to be your catch-all headphones, whether you're scratching vinyl or jamming on a commute. They've also included a cool social feature called ZoundPlug. This allows anyone to hook up to your unused earcup input to listen in on what you're enjoying. The Monster Inspiration Lite also perform a similar function. It's not groundbreaking by any means, but it puts an end to the need for a y-splitter.
Holding these headphones all together is the headband. It's surprisingly stiff and requires a bit of effort to widen to my head size, which on the spectrum of head sizes is rather large. There's not much to see here, but it continues the colorful tour with the same materials as we saw in the earcup. The durable metal sidearms provide peace of mind, but I worry about the degradation of the plastic components over time.
Performance
Although Urbanears have only been in the business of making headphones since 2009, it has landed on an appealing, iconic design and stuck with it. If only the company had struck gold on the side of audio performance.The rock song "Here Comes Everybody" by Autolux is presented by the Zinken in pale fashion. The spacey vocals and crunchy guitar work don't come through to full effect. A song that works more in favor of the Zinken's strengths is "good kid" by Kendrick Lamar. The cans reproduce the deep thumps of hip-hop decently, but again, the mids and highs fall behind.
Not everyone will find something to complain about with the Zinken, but in contrast to their crisp and vibrant design, the cloudy and flat delivery of the sound is only emphasized further. Sometimes it all came together to warmly pump out a tune, but these were one-off encounters.
Your comfort-level wearing the Urbanears Zinken, as is the case with all headphones, will depend on preference. I typically enjoy the on-ear experience, and don't consider it a flaw if a slight adjustment is necessary for comfort as time goes by. The Zinken aren't the most comfortable set of on-ear headphones I've used, but I can get along during my commute just fine.
We liked
The heart and soul of the Zinken are its design and color. While most headphones are chock full with obnoxious branding, these are refreshingly clean of identity. Actually, it's that stark lack of branding that makes them stand out even more.The interesting functionality enabled by the ZoundPlug and TurnCable boost the Zinken's versatility and are simple, but welcome features. No need to share earcups with friends on the subway or bus anymore.
We disliked
Despite these additions, for $99, the Urbanears Zinken are a plain, feature-poor option in a market full of better values. While the design is redeeming, the rest of the Zinken package, namely the muddy sound performance, doesn't make a convincing enough argument to go with Urbanears next time around.If you're looking for better sound quality, the JBL Synchros E40BT offers stellar performance at the same price point with wireless Bluetooth connectivity and sharp build quality on top of it all.
Final verdict
So long as these continue to be sold in Urban Outfitters, people will continue to buy the Urbanears Zinken. And it's hard to blame them, they look awesome. But educated audio lovers deserve to know that they can do much better, especially for the $99 asking price.
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Behind the Design: How MSI designed the insane GT80 Titan gaming laptop
A mechanical keyboard is born
We've seen some massive laptops in our day, from the Alienware 18 to the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro. This year, however, MSI pulled out a new rabbit out of its hat and introduced the GT80 Titan as the first-ever gaming laptop with a built-in mechanical keyboard. Weighing in at 9.9-pound beast and just shy of two-inches thick, it's designed almost like a foldable typewriter.The hardware underneath this massive machine is even more impressive. The list of components includes two top-tier Nvidia GTX 980M GPUs working alongside the most extreme of Intel Core i7 processors and an absurd 32GB of memory.
MSI's Clifford Chun told TechRadar in an interview the school of thought with the GT80 Titan was, "How crazy can we get?" The MSI product manager explained that once the team realized it was working with a massive 18-inch space, they couldn't overlook the opportunity to create one of the most insanely outfitted gaming machines ever built.
Curiosity sparks
Chun explained MSI came up with the idea to create a laptop with a mechanical keyboard five years ago. "One day, it just dawned on us, and we thought, "Why won't we just integrate it?'" Chun quipped, noting the idea came in a moment of serendipity after using mechanical keyboards day in and day out for both work and play.
"The final straw was when we conducted a survey among our customers, and a massive 79.2% of the group told us they'd love to see a mechanical keyboard in a notebook," he said. "We simply had to create one."
Of course, it wasn't an easy birth for this over-the-top gaming machine. The MSI team went through dozens of designs working closely with Steel Series to build a laptop that could deliver the same tactile and responsive mechanical keyboard experience desktop PC users enjoy.
Hit the keys!
SteelSeries is one of MSI's earliest partners, and together the companies have had a long relationship of building special keyboard with a tactile feel, despite not being mechanical. Developing a switch-driven mechanical keyboard, however, was a whole other ordeal, according to Chun.The mechanical keyboard featured on the GT80 doesn't just look the part; underneath each key cap are real Cherry MX switches, which most gamers prefer for their precision and responsiveness over the springy rubber dome keyboards found in most offices.
"We wanted end users to have the exact feel of using a real mechanical keyboard," Chun said. To that end the Titan is the same as a standard desktop mechanical keyboard, down to the same height and width. Even each row of keys slowly descends at a slant to perfectly replicate the desktop gaming peripheral.
"We pushed the keyboard all the way to the front and push all the components up to where the screen side is at," Chun explained. "We didn't want to raise the keyboard to make it too thick, so the layout was optimal, although unusual."
In another shake up to the traditional notebook, the MSI GT80 Titan also features a tall trackpad where the number pad would usually rest.
"It was probably the largest gamble we took in the design phase," Chun said. "We didn't want to make the notebook any larger than possible, and at the same time it's no use designing a mechanical keyboard that's smaller than standard."
After mulling on what to do for weeks, it became clear the solution was to create a touchpad with an integrated number pad. This way users could have a small surface to could control their computer without a mouse, while also offering a number pad that provides haptic feedback in the place of clicky mechanical keys.
Easy access panel
Of course, with nothing underneath the keyboard, you might ask where all the components have gone. Right above the GT80's signature keyboard is a large panel that hides all the laptop's internal goodies. The metal sheet spans the entire width of the machine, and just by removing two screws you can remove this cover to get to nearly every replaceable part including the system memory and solid-state storage drives.Chun recalled [one user submitted a photo of his modded machine after he replaced maxed out his system with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage arranged in Raid 0.
"We always have some crazy end users that just want to show off how they modded their machines," he said with a laugh.
"Ever since we did the GT72 we were already doing the upgrade panel in the back.In this one we've made it even easier with just two screws, and then the whole top front opens up giving you access to everything."
"When people are spending $1,800-plus on a gaming laptop, this is not a small chunk of money," he said, likening the GT80 to an investment.
By giving users easy access to upgrades, MSI hopes to make its gaming laptops something its users can keep using for three years or longer when most machines only last one to two in an age of constantly advancing in graphics card technology.
A system ready for the future
Ready for the long haul
The Titan takes this upgradable concept to the next level, even giving users the option to replace the rig's two graphics cards. It's an unconventional move; the laptop's two Nvidia GTX 980M GPUs aren't soldered permanently to the motherboard. Instead, they're connected via removable MXM cards, which plug into the machine's logic board like express ports on a full-size desktop.MXM cards, of course, are not new. In fact, all of MSI's laptops models were originally built with the technology until the company started producing its thin and light GS line of gaming machines. The swappable graphics connection isn't ideal for every laptop as it requires a minimal height to make room for the connector and cooling unit.
However, this isn't a problem for a 1.93-inch thick machine such as the GT80 Titan. To take advantage of this modular architecture, MSI offers graphics card upgrades for users who want to keep their machines up to date.
"Gaming
notebooks are a big investment for anyone, and it's not fun to spend a
lot of money to see your expensive piece of kit become almost obsolete
with the launch of a new graphics card," Chun said. "We're trying to
give our users the options to update their systems, so their systems can
stay on the bleeding edge for longer."Unlike a soldered connection, the graphics cards in the Titan can be removed completely and replaced using a MSI GPU upgrade kit to keep up with modern technology. But upgrading your graphics isn't just a matter of adding a new circuit board; these upgrade kits also come with a new thermal cooling module.
"The whole reason we use a different thermal model is depending on the motherboard and the chipset, sometimes there is a tiny difference in height even if the MXM card's width is the same," Chun explained. "We wanted to make sure the thermal models that ship along with [the part] are not so high that it's not touching the chip and if it's too low, then it's really crushing the chip."
"We've left enough room to make sure the heat dissipation will be good enough for the next generation [of GPUs] as well."
Scaling the giant
The MSI GT80 Titan already holds accolades for being the first-ever gaming laptop with a mechanical keyboard and for being extremely upgradable, yet oddly enough it isn't the biggest 18-inch laptop in the world - the Alienware 18 still holds that honor. Meanwhile, MSI boasts the Titan is actually smaller than some 17-inch laptops.In fact, the Titan was meant to be a 17-inch gaming laptop one point.
"We originally wanted to put this inside a 17-inch gaming laptop," Chun said. "But the width of the unit was not big enough and we did not want to make the unit fat or too thick with a 17-inch chassis."
However, going with a bigger chassis also presented the challenge of making the machine inherently bigger.
"The first generation when I first heard about this was, like three years ago, really was like a brick," Chun recalled.
"All the product managers were like, 'We can't sell something like this.' We all knew this was a beast of a laptop, but we took a lot of time trimming down the internals and figuring out better heat pipes."
"That's why we spent so many years on designing it and laying everything out," Chun said. "It wasn't easy, to tell you the truth."
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In Depth: Home entertainment in 2015: what you need to know
Buzzwords to know in 2015
As far as years go, 2014 was one of the best. While we didn't get flying cars or hoverboards, home entertainment enthusiasts like myself got the LG 65EC9700 OLED TV, Tidal music streaming service and Amazon Echo, all in the same year.But having so much cool A/V tech in 2014 presents a problem: What can possibly happen in 2015 that could top last year?
If it wasn't for CES 2015 it'd be easy to throw in the towel, buy one of the last plasmas on store shelves and go on living our lives like it's still 2014. Fortunately the mother of all technology shows gave us hope that there's a brighter, louder and more crisp tomorrow - all we need to do is be patient.
So, while we patiently await the hi-fi revolution Sony has promised us and LG's line of gorgeous - and I mean gorgeous - 4K OLED panels to drop in price, let's take a look ahead at the products, services and buzzwords that will consume every penny of my salary in 2015.
Big buzzwords in 2015
Before we walk the walk, we've got to talk the talk. Here are five terms you need to know in the new year:
4K / UHD - Almost everyone knows these two by now, but for the sake of review let's go over them one more time. 4K resolution is a misnomer of sorts; it describes any display device that has a horizontal resolution of 3,840 pixels. UHD on the other hand is a more general term introduced at CES 2013 that denotes any service or product that produces a picture beyond standard HD, generally referring to 4K or 8K.
OLED - OLED is awesome, plain and simple. Not enough for you? Fine. OLED, or organic light-emitting diode, TVs don't have a backlight in the traditional sense. Each individual pixel carries its own current and therefore can be individually controlled. Want a super bright pixel next to one that's completely black? No problem. OLED enables a TV to have a better contrast ratio and increases clarity whether you're standing far away or right up next to it.
HDR - HDR stands for high dynamic range, a concept content makers and manufacturers stole from digital imaging. HDR is used both to describe the way video is shot and how it appears on your 4K TV. Videographers capture darker shadows and brighter whites during the shooting process, then will separate them to create a wider array of possible colors.
Quantum Dot Displays - Another product in the "it's existed for years, but is just now coming to TVs" category is quantum dot. These little, bitty plates of nano-crystals sit between the backlight and LCD panel and enhance color depth by 20-30% by producing shades of color before hitting the red, green and blue sub-pixels. Both Samsung's new SUHD TV and LG's UF9400 4K UHD TV, due out later this year, will use variations of quantum dot.
Hi-Res Audio - Hi-resolution audio is the brilliant audio standard coined by Sony that, as they say, "is difference you can hear." If you understand lossless media, the idea here is the same: Capture the original recordings at 96kHz/24bit (or higher), keep the file as uncompressed as possible and stream it over Bluetooth to another Hi-Res-equipped device using a new codec called LDAC.
What's happening with TV, audio and streaming
Whether the content is there to support it or not - and trust me, it's not - 4K will become a more standard choice when buying a TV in 2015.
This is due, in part, to consumer demand. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reports that panel manufacturers collectively sold a whopping 800,000 UHD TVs in 2014 in the US alone. This represents a 500% increase over the number of 4K TVs sold in 2013.
What does the CEA expect this year? It expects consumers to buy three million 4K TVs in 2015.
Up until now though, UHD has been a relatively lawless place, with manufacturers posting their own double-speak in order to get the leg up on the competition.
The UHD Alliance, a collective of the biggest names in the industry (Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Netflix, DirecTV, Disney and Fox, to name a few…) have come together to create a strict set of standards that everyone will have to follow.
Whether or not the UHDA will stop corporate trickery remains to be seen, but we're cautiously optimistic this ocular Justice League can clear up a bit of the confusion around 4K in 2015.
What's happening in audio?
There have been hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into advertisements that convince you that you need a new TV, monitor or graphics card. For years you've been told by every corner of the tech sector that visual fidelity is more important than your audio setup.But that's going to change in 2015. Two established companies, LG and Sony, are willing to go all-in on audio this year.
Sony has always been a major player in audio, but this year's release of the new Hi-Res Walkman has the potential to put high-end audio in our pockets without ever touching a conversion program. The Walkman ZX2 takes MP3s and MP4s from your music library and upconverts them to "near hi-res quality," and has the ability to store and play most lossless media files like flac and wav.
High-end audio won't come cheap, though. Sony's audiophile-quality iPod competitor will cost upwards of $1,200 here in the US and £949 in the UK.
But while Sony's targeting the high-end of the audio spectrum, LG's attempting to dethrone Sonos as the king of multi-room home audio.
The system, called LG MusicFlow, uses any LG MusicFlow speaker like a node in a Wi-Fi network. You can connect to any number of speakers (from soundbars to surround sound systems, portable Bluetooth speakers to bookshelves) to your network and control them individually or together through the MusicFlow app.
We'll have a full review of the system when LG drops the needle on MusicFlow in March.
What's happening in streaming?
4K content was hard to come by in 2014. Netflix had one or two original series that supported high-resolution streaming as well as one or two high-profile films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But, by and large, there was little to no native 4K content to watch on any of those 800,000 4K TVs sold last year.It'd be easy to give you a blanket statement like "there'll be more places to watch 4K in 2015." But we're numbers people. Just how much more content will we see? How much of it will sit behind a paywall? And when will cable providers get it together to broadcast at least the most basic cable channels in 4K? No really, someone tell me.
I don't have all the answers, and I'm not going to pretend I do. What I can say with confidence is that there were some game-changing events that happened in late 2014 that set the stage for a surge of native 4K content.
The biggest of these events was Amazon launching a slew of 4K content with the intent to challenge Netflix's high-resolution monopoly. Currently, there are 33 movies available in Ultra-HD, only about a fifth of which are available for free to Prime subscribers on Amazon Instant Video. Be sure to catch Amazon's original series like Transparent, Alpha House and Mozart in the Jungle, also available in 4K.
If you're still tied to cable, the fact that DirecTV launched a 4K satellite in December and Comcast started its own streaming app before the clock struck January 1 bodes very well.
What's coming next?
That's 2015 in a nutshell - 4K TVs will go vogue, music will finally get the kind of attention TVs had for the past 10 years and yes, there will finally be native 4K content to fawn over.Before we wrap up this look into the crystal ball though, I'd like to take you a bit further. What can/should/needs to happen in the realm of hi-fi and home entertainment?
It's likely that Apple and Google will get into 4K this year by adding a selection of Ultra-HD films to their respective storefronts. And if both services get an upgrade that means the next iteration of the platforms' staple media players, the Apple TV and Nexus Player, won't be far behind.
So what will happen with all the standard HD TVs? While 1080p screens aren't out of the picture yet, industry analysts as well as big manufacturers like LG see them phasing out in 2018 before completely disappearing in 2020.
Similarly, audio's only going to get better and better from here on out. The iPod gave us the ability to fit thousands of songs on a 16GB device and in the time since then, memory's only gotten cheaper. We've finally reached a point where 256GB could easily fit 25,000 of your favorite songs in hi-res. And that will only happen if convenient hi-fi streaming services like Tidal and Spotify don't succeed in convincing us to stop owning music entirely.
Whether you're an A/V nut, a home entertainment enthusiast or just someone with a streaming addiction, the future for your favorite technology looks bright.
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Exclusive: DonorsChoose.org uses Salesforce's Marketing Cloud to raise millions for underfunded schools
The saying goes: All politics is local. DonorsChoose.org - a non-profit organization devoted to raising money for teacher-led projects at underfunded schools - discovered that the same can be said for charitable giving.
In partnership with Salesforce.com and its recent acquisition, ExactTarget, DonorsChoose was able to create a campaign devoted entirely to requesting donations that would go directly to classrooms within the geographic vicinity of the email recipient. In other words: emails were personally tailored to request funds for schools near the donors' zip codes.
Rather than sending out a spray-and-pray campaign asking donors to give money for teachers at schools halfway around the country, DonorsChoose Chief Marketing Officer Katie Bisbee wanted to personalize and localize the giving process.
"We thought this would give [donating] a one-to-one feeling," Bisbee says. "It makes giving seem doable as opposed to [when we request] for 500 teachers."
How Salesforce helped
Since 2009, DonorsChoose has worked with ExactTarget, and now Salesforce, to trigger automated email campaigns based on its database of contacts, previous donors, and institutional partnerships.Each night DonorsChoose synchronizes data to Salesforce's CRM and Sales Force Automation tool, in addition to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
For the "Never Before Funded" campaign, potential donors were not only targeted based on their zip code, they were also provided with dynamic content. For example: previous donors were sent a photo of a teacher the recipient had funded in the past. In previous years, DonorsChoose would have sent a text-only generic email to initiate contact, and then a followup email that included a link that would populate a photo in the email. But with Salesforce's data and marketing tools, DonorsChoose was able to customize and personalize this interaction to give it a more intimate feeling.
The results
From December 2 to December 31, DonorsChoose emailed more than one million potential donors, asking them to give money to a teacher who'd never had a project funded on the site. The dynamic, location-based emails generated $450,000 from approximately 4500 donors. This total is roughly 1.9% of DonorsChoose's revenue for the first half of their 2015 fiscal year.It wasn't just the sum that was a success. Of the million emails sent, 25% were opened, 5.5% generated a click-through to the DonorsChoose website, and 0.4% converted. Compared to text-based emails that did not contain dynamic content, emails with photos and zip-code data were clicked at a rate of 36.5%, more than five percentage points better than text-based messages.
Because Bisbee's hunch was that DonorsChoose would generate more interest this year than last year, the company sent out more emails for this campaign (as well as its other December initiatives). As a result, some of its performance metrics tumbled slightly compared with last year: open rates decreased 1%, and click-through rate decreased 0.3%.
However, the big ticket numbers improved: conversion rate increased to 0.19% compared with 0.17%. Revenue for the first half of the year is up to $23.3 million, a 38% increase compared with last year. December 2014 constitutes 25% of total contributions for the 2015 fiscal year, compared with December 2013, which constituted only 15% of the 2014 fiscal year.
What's next?
Bisbee and her team on working on learning more about how donors give money based on gender and A/B testing."Last year we learned that men constitute 25% of our giving on our website," Bisbee explains. "We looked and saw that then 10 days of the school year when men gave the most aligned with holiday email reminders [we sent]. The conclusion we drew is that men are responsive to these holiday email reminders."
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Review: iFit Active
Introduction and display
Everyday, electronics constantly evolve by adapting to meet our lifestyles, like health. The last years saw the rise of wearable technology, a market focused on a product designed for active humans, recording their dietary, exercising, and sleeping habits.Besides wearing an old black Casio watch to monitor swim lap time, I've never touched a "wearable." So for an entire week and half I wore the iFit Active, a wearable that could tell the time, automatically record steps, total distance walked, the amount of calories burned, and sync via bluetooth to a smartphone with a dedicated app allowing for more detailed analysis.
ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of exercise equipment, has grounded itself in specializing in treadmills, elliptical trainers, and stationary bikes. The company recently jumped into the ever-growing popular market of fitness trackers.
Enter the iFit Active, a "3-in-1 wireless activity tracker" with a conventional approach for logging your calories, steps, meals, and sleep patterns. In the broad range of fitness trackers of every fitting, the iFit Active takes a bare bones approach with its sheer simplicity through form and function without overstating itself as anything else but a tool for tracking.
It is nowhere near the immense interactivity and beautiful display of something like Samsung's Gear Fit, but instead, shines in its straightforwardness by mainly focusing on simple functionalities of logging.
The iFit Active works as a pedometer, automatically recording every step that you take as well as the distance you've traveled and the number of calories you've burned. You can manually log in how many calories you've consumed as well as record your sleep cycle. This data is sent off to its dedicated app, compiling it in detailed illustrated records. It also serves as a watch, and displays both date and day.
Design, comfort and interface
The actual unit of the iFit Active is a lightweight black little module called a "tracker pod" that can be outfitted with its included hard rubber wristband and a clip that you can fasten to your waistline or pocket.The wristband's strap has two plastic prongs that stick into a series of holes, allowing virtually a one-size-fits-all guarantee for users. To assure the band is absolutely secure, a slider sleeves the area where the prongs are snapped in, assuring the wrist band doesn't fly off when you're running.
Comfort
The iFit's wristband feels as snug and heavy as a digital rubber watch, and overtime, becomes a second skin. If you're not much of a watch wearer, you can fasten the iFit's clip virtually anywhere on your clothes' edges (e.g. sleeves, collars, socks, pockets.) Depending on where you've placed it, the clip can become less noticeable than the wristband.
It's not recommended you hold on to just the tracker pod alone, as the little hard component can bounce around without clinging to anything. The included rubber jackets are made to assure the iFit sticks with you without having to consciously worry about potentially losing it.
Interface
The iFit Active's tracker pod has a small rectangular LED display, illuminating blue tinted text in all caps upon interaction. It functions primarily through two even buttons on its top and bottom. Press the top button to display the time, day, and date for ten seconds.Pressing the bottom button multiple times will navigate through a selection of text sliding from the right, displaying labels for activities of calories in, calories out, steps, distance, and net calories. Leaving an activity idle drops down an associated number tied in with your selected data.
Holding down the bottom button enables a sleep mode. The iFit Active will ask if you're going to bed, and then start recording the time of your sleep. Once you wake up, you'll have to click the bottom button again, signaling you're awake, thus storing your hours slept. You can program the exact hours you plan to workout and sleep so the device knows when to start and stop. A silent alarm can be set to vibrate you awake in the morning.
You can record the calories of each meal directly through your iFit Active by pressing and holding the top button. There, a display label will read, "LOG. CAL" and you can add or minus calories in increments of 50.
The iFit Active includes a USB cable for recharging. At the end of this cable, you'll find a unique set of protrusions used to connect the tracker pod's contacts with, along with a strap to fasten it in. A full charge will take roughly six hours.
Compatibility, battery and verdict
The iFit Active is compatible with your iPhone 4S and above, iPod Touch fifth-gen and above, and Android 4.3 devices and higher. You can download the iFit Track app in Apple's App Store or on Google Play.The iFit Active can't operate unless you first sync it via Bluetooth with the iFit Track app. The data that is stored in your iFit Active will sync up and log itself into the app, keeping a detailed record of each day's activities.
After setting up an iFit account, you'll enter your height, weight, and gender and be able to set goals for the number of steps, distance, calories burned and consumed, net calories, and sleeping time. The tracker pod will show a percentage out of 100 next to each logged number.
The app displays a wheel with dots that light up based on your calorie input and output. Your net calories display in the middle, with a list of three items below documenting a progression line of calories consumed, steps taken, and hours of sleep.
Eating a complex meal that you might otherwise be unaware of for its nutritional values can be recorded directly into the app. The iFit Active has a catalog of various popular food items that you can choose from.
This isn't always 100% accurate, since exact foods won't always match in concise nutritional values; through confident guesstimating, you'll be able to find the appropriate meal – you can always adjust the serving size too.
Each time you document a referenced meal, the iFit Track records the amount of fiber, unsaturated fat, other carbs, protein, sugar, saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol counts. Each attribute of nutritional value will be tallied up by percentage based on the USDA's daily recommendation (e.g. "30% fiber? Have more." or "215% Sugar? Hold on, too many is not good."), keeping track of your daily intake.
You're also able to input various exercising activities directly in the iFit Track app. The "Log Workout" gives you inputs for your activity type, end time, duration, and calories burned. Unfortunately, this is more arbitrary than meal logging because there's no preset to estimate burned calories with their associated exercises.
The app also connects you to not only a dashboard and stats, but includes a friend's list for those with an iFit Active, a calendar with a detailed progression chart of every bit of recorded data, a newsfeed, and a leaderboard.
Battery life
The best attribute (and strongest selling point) of the iFit Active is its immense battery life. Under moderate usage, and conservative estimations, the iFit can last about two full weeks.After a full week and a half of testing without ever turning it off or charging, the iFit was still kicking with a 30 percent charge. Calculated, this would mean the iFit still had about five to six days of battery life left.
Consider the conditions: My workout routine included 10 hours weightlifting at the gym every week along with light walking. Through the iFit Track app, I logged in my daily meal intakes, then synced it immediately with the iFit so it could display the correct data. Whenever a moment of exercise or diet occurred, I made sure to log it. I never took the iFit Active off unless showering or sleeping - virtually every step I took was recorded.
Where most companies might overstate their product's claims, the iFit Active underestimates its battery charges to last approximately "5 to 7 days."
Some electronics, like smartphones, are never turned off unless there's an immediate lack of outlets. The iFit takes about six hours to fully charge, and lasts long enough to reconsider the fairness of its price tag.
We liked
Though putting the tracker pod into the wristwatch casing is a bit tedious, it highlights its durability. Most collapsible gear doesn't feel sturdy once joined together, but the iFit Active always felt intact whether it was sleeved in its wristband, snug in the clip mold, or strapped in for charging.It's a breath of fresh air that iFit Active isn't an overly complicated piece of wearable hardware that's trying to be everything. Simply inputting variables of data for calories in and calories out as well as automatically recording my steps seemed practical enough to come off as an introductory fitness tracker.
We disliked
The app wasn't reliable when syncing with the iFit Active. After the first week, the app notified me that it "Cannot Sync" and I had to give it a hard reset. After doing so, I got the same message, and again, found myself repeating the same instructions of a hard reset and then re-syncing. I gave up after the fifth time. All the data that was stored on the iFit Active over the day was now gone.The $79 (£64.30, AU$96.49) price tag is absolutely absurd and completely unjustifiable. There are already fitness trackers on the market for $17.77 (£14.47, AU$21.70) like the iBody Oled, or the Misfit Fitness tracker for $49.99 (£40.70, AU$61.06) that deliver a lot of the same or better features as the iFit Active. Essentially the rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for, but the iFit Active is willing to make that exception.
On a lesser note, if you happen to be wearing the iFit Active outside during the daylight, it's virtually impossible to read the display. The LED light is best viewed in darker settings.
Final verdict
The iFit Active is an appropriate introductory fitness tracker in the developing market of new wearable technology, but it's the high price and sync malfunctions that ultimately bury it in its grave.If ICON Health & Fitness, Inc. decided to scale down the retail price to be more affordable as well as fix a few bugs, the iFit Active could immensely enhance its brand as a stand-alone substitute opposed to other more overwhelming and complex fitness trackers.
For $99 (£80.58, AU$121.05) extra, you can get your hands on the well-received Razer Nabu, a sophisticated fitness tracker with a vibrant digital display that can let you know when you receive calls, texts, e-mails, and social media notifications.
The pattern of inconsistencies with the company's official estimate on battery life, a highly marked up retail price, and a lack of anticipation for sync malfunctions sadly reflects on the product in itself. A quick Amazon search and many users are also experiencing problems with syncing.
The overall feeling when dealing with the iFit Active was in itself a workout of my patience. I want it to be good, because it can be good, but it's so unfortunate how unprepared it was, as if the company was unaware of the product it was making and what it has to compete with.
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Is Apple working on Street View for its own Maps?
There were plenty of reasons to get upset when Apple replaced Google Maps with its own, inferior Maps app in iOS, one of them being the Apple service's lack of Street View.
Now Apple might be working to remedy that - "might" being the operative word.
- The PlayStation 4 is a strong console
In other words, Apple might be working to get its own street-level images of major cities for an Apple Maps Street View feature.
There are drivers, though
The Bay Area vehicle's appearance was documented on Claycord.com (the source of the image above), which reports that the minivan was unmarked - unlike Google's imaging cars - and that the driver refused to explain what he was doing.The site also speculates that the minivan was a self-driving vehicle, though that seems unlikely - Apple doesn't have a license to test driverless vehicles, and there's literally no evidence that the people in these vans aren't pushing the pedals themselves.
However the van is definitely Apple's - 9to5Mac called the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which confirmed it.
It does seem that Apple is preparing to launch its own Apple Maps Street View feature, even if it only covers major cities when it arrives - maybe in iOS 9?
- Microsoft is catching up with the Xbox One
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US official takes a stand to keep the internet 'fast, fair and open'
Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the US's Federal Communications Commission and the person in charge of regulating the internet there, has issued a lengthy statement in which he clarifies his stance on net neutrality.
And thankfully, he's on our side.
- The best laptop for you
"This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles, marketplace experience, and public input received over the last several months," Wheeler confirmed on Wired.
Whatever rules the FCC establishes this week won't affect only the US, but will likely have far-reaching consequences for internet users around the world.
Good for the goose
Wheeler says what internet service providers want may not always be best for internet users (duh), and that the FCC has the power to update its rules as technology evolves. That's exactly what he intends it to do now.He recounts a story of his own tech startup in the '80s, which he says failed because of closed network systems, and says his new rules are "the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC."
"These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services," he wrote. "My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone's permission."
At the same time, he says, the rules will not discourage operators to invest in their networks and infrastructure.
"The internet must be fast, fair and open," he concludes.
- Read about the best gaming laptops on TechRadar
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Watch out Google, Apple is building a search engine
Having moved away from Google and towards Bing, Apple has managed to shake off Google's grip on iOS when it comes to search - but it appears to have bigger ambitions in the pipeline.
As spotted by Cult of Mac, the company has posted a job advert for an "Engineering Project Manager" for something called Apple Search.
As the summary goes on to explain, that job is precisely what you might think - a "search platform supporting hundreds of millions of users" to be led by a person who would "play a part in revolutionizing how people use their computers and mobile devices".
What's he building in there?
Now, we've been expecting Apple to show up at the search party for some time, but we don't think it would be foolish enough to take on Google with an all-out web engine complete with a domain name, bells and whistles.Instead, a service baked into its hardware seems more viable. Apple already has Siri, so it feels like some of the pieces are already in place.
That said, this could be nothing more than Apple rejigging its Spotlight search. But considering how many people use iOS devices, and how many of those use Safari as their default search browser, kicking both Microsoft and Google out of bed could be a smart move for Apple to make right now.
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VIDEO: Best fitness tracker 2015: top activity bands to wear
Best fitness trackers 1-6
It's a brand new year and that means you need of the one of the best fitness trackers for 2015 to stick to that always-elusive resolutions. You've taken the first of many meaningful steps.
Right now, there are plenty of familiar brand names out there: Jawbone, Nike, Fitbit and Samsung, as well as new entries from the likes of Microsoft and Garmin. But which has the best tracker?
All of them count calories burned and tally up your total steps, and an increasing number of fitness bands keep an eye on your heart rate. There's no shortage of metrics tracked via your wrist movement.
It comes down to performance. That's why we took every literal step to find out which tracker lives up to the hype of giving you that extra nudge for jogging or even walking - you've got to start somewhere.
1. Jawbone Up24
Are you in the market for a nearly weightless fitness tracker? Look no further than the Jawbone Up24. Ditching a built-in display makes it one of the lightest wearables available, weighing in at a scant 20 grams coupled with a comfortable soft exterior.
While the Up24 lacks a display of any kind, it syncs every step and your sleep data to a gorgeous smartphone app. All your biometric data is then displayed clearly with with bar graphs, line charts and all with so many colors. The Up24 will also periodically tug at you with reminders to get up, plus users can setup personalized challenges that go beyond burning more calories. For example, you can set goals to get more sleep or make sure to drink a healthy amount of water everyday.
A superior, though more expensive, follow-up dubbed the Jawbone Up3 is being readied with a brand new design and extra sensors, though it's been quietly delayed.
Jawbone Up24 review
2. Fitbit Charge
Welcome back to the best of list, Fitbit. Sure, the Fitbit Force was recalled due to causing skin irritation, but it was among the best step and calorie burning counters to wear on your wrist. It's back sans all of the rashes as Fitbit Charge, and it has the same OLED display, metrics and form factor. There's a some new stuff here too: a texturized rubber design, slightly easier-to-buckle clasp and caller ID functionality.
Alternatively, the Fitbit Charge HR adds a heart-rate monitor for a bumped up price, while the Fitbit Surge (which we mention later on among the best fitness trackers) is the company's "Superwatch." Those are tempting features, but most people will be satisfied with the Fitbit Charge's basic metrics and syncing.
Fitbit Charge review
3. Nike FuelBand SE
It's an oldie but a goodie. The Nike FuelBand SE was announced way back in November 2013 but it's still one of the most stylish and effective fitness trackers to ever come out. Sporting a hard plastic band, the FuelBand SE is small and discreet as a regular - if a bit stiff - wristband. The dot matrix LED display makes for an easy to read digital clock and lights up with rainbow colors whenever you've accomplished your goals.
The FuelBand SE is also one of the most goal-oriented fitness trackers, gamifying the act getting fit with fuel points awarded for every little completed workout. At the end of the day you can see how close you came to your fuel point target as well as your total calories burned and steps taken. Beyond traditional exercises like running, you can also set the Fuel Band SE to quantify activities like yoga and bowling.
Nike FuelBand SE review
4. Basis Carbon Steel
The Basis was one of the first companies to come out with a fitness tracker equipped with a massive array of sensors in order to track heart rate, perspiration and even skin temperature. While Basis has since introduced an all-new Peak smartwatch, it's still a bit of a mess, which is why we've included the older generation: the Carbon Steel Smartwatch.
One of the best features of the Basis Carbon Steel is that it can tell when you start exercising - completely on its own. This smartwatch will intuitively start tracking your activity whenever you start a run, set off on a long trek or take a nap then record all the data as soon as you finish. It's a seamless process in comparison with most fitness trackers where you have to press a button to mark the beginning and end of a session.
Carbon Steel Smartwatch review
5. Samsung Gear Fit
Samsung has introduced plenty of smartwatches into the wearable world and now it has a fitness tracker with the Gear Fit. Despite a much more band shaped design, the Gear Fit still carries over many of the same features from Samsung's smartwatches including a beautiful AMOLED display and notifications.
Of course as an fitness tracker, the Gear Fit is also equipped with an accelerometer and gyroscope a to track your movements. Unfortunately it also comes with a very finicky heart rate sensor that picks up some rather unreliable data. It's not perfect, but the Samsung Gear Fit is one of the few wearables that tows the line between activity tracking and the best smartwatch features.
Samsung Gear Fit review
6. Garmin Vivofit
On the complete opposite spectrum of the Samsung Gear Fit, is the Garmin Vivofit fitness tracker. It doesn't do notifications, nor does it have GPS or a light up screen. In fact you won't even need to plug it in at night because the Vivofit comes with a battery rated to last an entire year.
For the most part, it does little more than act as a digital watch with a pedometer that counts your steps to estimate how many calories you've burned. There's also a little red growing line on the screen to remind you to get up when it's full and some very basic sleep tracking. Simplicity is the Vivofit's strength and its affordable $75 (about £47, AU$91) price also makes this a perfect way to get into fitness trackers on the ground floor.
Garmin Vivofit review
Best fitness trackers 7-10
7. Misfit Flash
While most wearables can often look like cheap digital watch or a wrist-mounted computer, the Misfit Flash is a bit more stylish and fashioned as a piece of jewelry. On first blush the Flash does not even look like an electronic device. However, underneath this deceivingly plain plastic face there's a set of LEDs that light up to show you the time. This little quarter-sized puck also contains sensors for activity and sleep tracking, a six-month battery and it's entirely waterproof to boot.
We've yet to fully review the Flash, but given it's packing the same internals as the Shine it should be another home run device from Misfit. Currently priced at $49 (about £38, AU$73) on Amazon, the Misfit is another very affordable fitness tracker like the Garmin Vivofit.
Misfit Flash review
8. Microsoft Smart Band
If you thought the Basis Carbon Steel had a lot of sensors, wait until you get a load of the Microsoft Smart Band. It has a whopping 10 biometric sensors: an optical heart rate sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, ambient light sensor, skin temperature sensor, UV sensor, capacitive sensor, microphone and a galvanic skin response sensor.
Microsoft is pulling out all the stops for its inaugural wearable with Cortana integration on Windows Phone 8.1 devices. Outside of the Redmond camp, users will also be able to pair the device and get notifications from both Android as well as iOS devices.
Microsoft Smart Band review
9. Samsung Gear S
The Samsung Gear S wins the award for being the biggest smartwatch or bracelet depending on how you look at it. Knock it for its excessive size, but the Gear S is one of the first self-sufficient wearables thanks to its built-in cellular radio. Add in the built-in GPS and this is one of the very few smartwatches that makes it possible to go on a run and not worry about leaving the smartphone at home.
The standalone smartwatch comes with the S Health app and a Nike+ Running app that work quite well when coupled with the smartwatch's own plethora of sensors - seven to be exact.
Samsung Gear S review
10. Fitbit Surge
The Fitbit Surge is by far the biggest wearable Fitbit has ever made. It comes with a new watch-shaped design, a runner-friendly GPS feature and heart-rate monitor. The Surge also brings a few smartwatch features such as notifications for caller ID and SMS messages. Overall the Surge looks to be a beefed up version of the Fitbit Flex and its successor, the Fitbit Charge.
Fitbit Surge review
Honorable mention: Apple Watch
It had to happen eventually and Apple is finally getting into the wearable game with the Apple Watch. It's slated for an early 2015 release but we went hands on with it and felt like it will be a worthy fitness device. Though it might be classified as a smartwatch, there's a Sport model made specifically for athletes with a lightweight aluminum body and fluoroelastomer band (soft but durable plastic made to stand up to the rigors of an active lifestyle).
Like many the best smartwatch entries, Apple's has an optical heart rate sensor on the back and an accelerometer to count your steps. Its "iWatch" then shares these metrics with the companion Health app on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus that then can be shared with third-party health and fitness apps.
- Now that you've got the gear, check out the best fitness apps on Android
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Download of the day: SiSoftware Sandra
SiSoftware Sandra can diagnose almost any aspect of your computer's hardware, providing an invaluable tool if you want to tweak or overclock your PC.
Why you need it
If you're looking to keep a close eye on the internal workings of your computer's hardware, SiSoftware Sandra can tell you exactly what's what. Its diagnostics service and huge range of tools provide a wealth of information on more or less anything you need them to, giving you an excellent insight into what's working well – and what's not.That makes it useful for a range of different scenarios. Whether you're looking to replace old hardware or overclock your system, knowing how well your computer's components are performing is essential.
So to that end, Sandra takes a detailed look at pretty much any aspect of your PC's innards, including its memory, hard drive, motherboard, processor, BIOS, network, Windows internals, peripherals and a whole lot more.
You can use its benchmark tools to see how your hardware compares to other components on the market, while the Performance Tune-Up feature analyses your system and suggests improvements you could make to boost its performance. Sandra looks at so much – using 60 different tools – that it should probably feature in everyone's PC toolkit.
Key features
- Works on: PC
- Versions: Lite (free), Personal ($49.99; about £33.09), Business ($199.99; about £132.34), Tech Support ($299.99; about £198.52), Tech Support Plus ($349.99; about £231.61), Enterprise ($2,195; about £1,452.71)
- Diagnostic tools: There are about 60 different tools in Sandra to help you work out what could be improved in your system
- Improvement advice: Sandra doesn't just show you the state of your hardware, it actively suggests improvements you could make to get even more out of it
You'll also like
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Lollipop starts hitting Moto G, but Android 5.1 is just around the corner
Owners of the Motorola Moto G (2014) should soon be receiving the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, with the latest version of Google's mobile operating system now being rolled out to owners of the second generation Moto G.
The update, which is actually Android 5.0.2, is pretty identical to the standard unmodified version of Android, which is good news if you're not a fan of unnecessary apps that some manufacturers like to preinstall.
Although the news that the Moto G (2014) handset is getting Android 5.0 Lollipop is welcome, it could soon be outdated as new rumours suggest Android 5.1 could be released soon.
Getting a new lollipop
Promotional material for the Android One in Indonesia makes reference to Android Lollipop 5.1. Android Police dug further and uncovered photos of an unboxed Indonesian Android One phone that appear to be running Android build LMY29F, also displayed as Android 5.1.
If accurate then Android 5.1 doesn't appear to look any different to Android 5.0, so the update would like be mainly updates and fixes to sort out some of the problems found in Android 5.0.
The leap from Android 5.0.2 to Android 5.1 is quite a major one, so there may be more substantial changes.
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Review: Turtle Beach Ear Force Z60 review
If you've had the pleasure of trying out Kingston's superlative HyperX Cloud headset and sampled its thunderous bass, you'd say its 53mm driver units were big enough to power any gaming audio kit.
The industry, however, apparently disagrees.
We've had Asus with its Strix Pro boasting 60mm drivers and now Turtle Beach is getting in on the act with its Z60.
The cynic in us wonders if the value in increased driver size isn't more about marketing than consumer benefit; it's a nice number to imply a quantifiable benefit over rivals, but driver circumference alone is far from a gold seal of quality.
There's substantially more on offer from this $90 (£80) surround sound headset.
Did we say surround sound? Sorry, we meant DTS Headphone: X, which is a "revolutionary" new 360-degree, 3D surround tech that gives not just space but height to sound cues. If that sounds a bit far-fetched, but… it isn't.
You really do hear the illusion of sounds coming from high above as well as behind or around you.
Turtle Beach has made a fine name for itself on the console market by combining great surround sound with strong build quality, but doesn't tend to release as many models for us PC users.
It's really bringing its A game to our realm with this model, though.
The headset itself connects to an inline control which offers preset sound behaviours for gaming, music and movies (as well as the usual volume/mic controls). Movie mode boosts the frequency range that speech most commonly occurs at to keep dialogue clear, while also pumping up the bass to keep the sound effects hard-hitting.
It's designed with J.J. Abrams in mind, rather than Werner Herzog.
Game mode goes even further with the bass, boosting low frequencies to a level you can feel as much as hear.
This is where the 60mm drivers come in – they're positively violent.
Turtle Beach works them harder than Asus' Strix Pro cans, the end result being hilariously OTT gunfire, explosions… basically anything occupying a lower frequency range than Brian Blessed.
Music mode is as close as the Z60 comes to placating the audiophiles, flattening out the frequency response so your songs don't sound like mush. But it's only partially successful.
Kingston's HyperX Cloud delivers more satisfying bass, but still scrubs up well when you need flat, 'true' sound – aural evidence that driver size isn't the last word of the argument.
Yes you can
The headset design is very similar to more expensive console models such as the Turtle Beach Ear Force PX4, and as such it's very adjustable, breathable and strong.
Construction materials are predominantly plastic, but are finished to a really high standard and are near-silent when you're fiddling with them.
The microphone is perfectly functional and easily adjustable, and can also be removed if you want to use the Z60 as headphones for your MP3 player. You'll need a USB connection to make use of the surround, but there's a handy 3.5mm jack connecting the cans to the inline remote.
We liked
That 3D surround tech does sound a little far-fetched...until you try it. The vertical separation is the most obvious benefit, really giving you the illusion of sounds coming from above and below, as well as around you.The in-line remote is good too, offering relevant and sound-changing preset profiles.
The build quality is typically-good for a Turtle Beach set of cans. The Z60 will fit pretty much anyone's head, with a little adjustment, and is nicely robust.
We disliked
The combination of hefty 60mm drivers and the surround sound support means the Z60 is a bit on the pricey side. If those features aren't for you then neither is this headset.Verdict
The Ear Force Z60 is a good all-rounder, as you'd expect given Turtle Beach's previous cans. We'd hesitate to say it's overpriced, but you can find rival offerings for much less if you're willing to ditch surround for sound quality.Specs
Frequency response range - 20Hz-20KHz
Driver size - 60mm
Connection type - 3.5mm/USB
Cable length - 3m
Mic - Omni-directional
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Sky to launch new Now TV Box in 2015 - will we finally get HD?
This year will see a new Now TV Box from Sky, sporting upgraded hardware. The news came via Sky's second quarter press release, which made a passing mention to the next-gen box in its lengthy document.
It also makes it clear that Now TV will be a priority for the firm this year, which will put even more of its marketing behind the service.
The current box only offers 720p output, so there's a good chance the new model will offer 1080p. With Sky rumoured to be launching a 4K service this year for satellite viewers it would be nice if the Now TV box got an upgrade to support that too.
However it's pretty unlikely given that Sky's Now TV hardware is built by Roku, which doesn't yet have a 4K box.
We checked with Sky about the news and a spokesperson told us: "we will be launching the next generation NOW TV Box with exciting new features. We will give more details at the appropriate time".
Bringing in the newbies
Of course, there is plenty that could be included in that, Sky may finally allow people to install apps on the box like those from Plex and Netflix - something that would be very welcome.The current Now TV box launched in 2013 and while Sky is reluctant to say how many customers it has, or boxes it has sold, it does mention that it has trebled the "transactions" since 2013 and increased the "buy and keep" by 100%.
Now is also helping Sky to build its audience, the firm says that 90% of customers weren't previously considering joining Sky.
- Now TV review - is Sky's platform a winner?
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Review: Raspberry Pi 2
When the Raspberry Pi appeared In 2012 few could have envisaged how popular the Raspberry Pi would be. In the years after its release the Raspberry Pi has become the most popular single-board computer on the market and spawned many imitators, but none with the rich community that has grown organically around the Raspberry Pi.
The latest single-board computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation comes with the spec boost that we were all hoping for. The Raspberry Pi 2 is the latest in a long line of products from the Foundation and can run a number of Linux distros (and even Windows 10).
It really is a barebone board in every sense -- even to the point where you will have to find your own micro-USB cable to power it up (a move made to cut down on costs). All things considered, the Raspberry Pi 2 really is amazing value at just £25 ($33, or AUS$45).
Since the release of the original Raspberry Pi there have been three versions of the flagship B model, starting at 256MB RAM and increasing to 512MB with the second B and B+. But in all of these models the system on a chip (SoC) has remained the trusty BCM2835 with an ARM v11 700Mhz CPU, the same as the Now TV box. The community has done wonderful things with these resources but now the spec boost that they were waiting for has arrived.
In early February, the Raspberry Pi 2 arrived and the original ARM11 has been replaced with a Cortex-A5 CPU running at an improved 800MHz. But rather than stick with a single core, the Raspberry Pi 2 comes with four cores which speeds up the Raspberry Pi by as much as six times.
To go with the new CPU, the amount of RAM has also been upgraded to 1GB. The rest of the hardware, however, matches that of the B+: a Videocore GPU, a 40-pin GPIO, four USB 2 ports and 10/100 Ethernet. Physically the Raspberry Pi 2 also has the same dimensions as the B+.
Performance and benchmarks
Specifications:SoC: Broadcom 2836
CPU: Quad-core ARM7 800MHz
GPU: Videocore IV 250MHz
Memory: 1GB
GPIO: 40pin
Ports: 4x USB 2.0, 100BaseT Ethernet, HDMI, MicroSD card
Size: 85.60 × 56.5mm (about 3.2 x 2.1-inch)
To show the improvements made to the Raspberry Pi 2, we wanted to run a few real-world benchmarks to show how powerful the new Pi actually is when compared to the B+. The first test on our list is booting both Pis from cold to login prompt.
The B+ managed this is in 33 seconds versus 17 seconds for the Raspberry Pi 2. We then set both Pis to boot straight to desktop and the B+ managed 42 seconds while the Pi 2 came in at 21 seconds -- half the time of the B+! Once at the desktop we tested a few common applications. Creating a new world in Minecraft took 42 seconds on the B+, and 21 seconds on the Pi 2. Loading IDLE 3 took 13 seconds on the B+ and a mere 4 seconds on the Pi 2.
Running SunSpider in the new optimised browser gave a glimpse at real-world performance. Over the suite of tests there was a 2.5 times boost in speed. Considering the complexities of multi-threading this sounds like a reasonable expectation. Even so, individual results showed a near four-fold increase on this unoptimised code.
The Raspberry Pi B+ and Pi 2 both come with the same Videocore GPU as before and in our tests there was a small improvement in FPS (Frames Per Second) for the Raspberry Pi 2 largely thanks to the increased RAM present on the board. Our last test was file transfer speeds via Ethernet, for this we used scp to copy a 692MB Big Buck Bunny video file to each Pi. On the B+ we saw an average of 3.8MB/s and on the Pi 2 we saw 4.6MB/s, which is an 0.8MB/s speed increase.
To discover for ourselves how Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton arrived at his claim that the Raspberry Pi 2 is six times more powerful than its predecessor, we ran a Sysbench test on both models. It clocked in at 509.58 on the B+, versus 74.68 on the Raspberry Pi 2 -- a 6.8x difference in favour of the newer model.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation have released an updated Raspbian image which includes the ARMv7 kernel image necessary to use the new CPU. Applications written for the original Raspberry Pi are fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi 2, though -- building upon the rich projects that have been written since the initial launch of the Raspberry Pi.
Final verdict
The Raspberry Pi 2 is less than half the cost of a PS4 or Xbox One game but, given the time and effort, could provide far more satisfaction in the long run. Available since December, the new sleek Raspbian desktop runs well on the B+, but on the Pi 2, it feels like a responsive desktop that we normally see on our main computers.The speed increase provided by the quad-core CPU and 1GB RAM is more than welcome, and retaining the B+ form factor keeps a strong tie to the many existing add-ons. It is a powerful platform for hackers and makers and also a competent solution for a low-cost computer in schools and homes around the world.
It should be noted that the Raspberry Pi 2 may prove a little daunting to newcomers -- particularly ones that have not come across Linux before, but there are plenty of resources out there to help you on your way. You'll have to grab yourself a micro-USB cable to get started, but they're fairly ubiquitous and can be had for next to nothing.
The Raspberry Pi 2 answers a lot of the requests made by the community and provides a stable and well-supported platform for hackers, makers and learners to carry on making excellent projects for many years to come.
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Industry voice: A look at the role of the ARM Cortex-R5 in Automotive MCU Design
Automotive technology is undergoing a transformation, with major innovations arriving every day, including new safety systems, increased connectivity and expanded availability of telematics services.
Reliability and performance are non-negotiable for consumers – be it for the current cars on the road, or the coming wave of connected vehicles. Safety-critical applications will need to communicate via open interfaces, especially advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), telematics and car-to-infrastructure communications.
Real-time responsiveness becomes mandatory for all automotive systems and the designs of automotive platforms need to be scalable. Therefore, future-proofing the car today is more about integrating hardware and software than innovation in mechanics.
ARM solution
This is where the ARM Cortex-R5 processor comes in, as it provides a high performance solution for real-time applications in a variety of markets including automotive. From a high-level perspective, ARM's Cortex-R series processors offer much higher performance than the Cortex-M series, while the Cortex-A series is intended for user-facing applications with complex software operating systems.As a result, the Cortex-R5 processor is specifically intended for implementation in advanced silicon processes, emphasising improved energy efficiency, real-time responsiveness and ease of system design.
The processor provides a highly flexible and efficient two-cycle local memory interface, enabling SoC designers to minimise system cost and energy consumption. These system-level features include a high priority low-latency peripheral port (LLPP) for fast peripheral reads and writes, and an accelerator coherency port (ACP) for greater efficiency and more reliable cache coherency with an external data source.
The Cortex-R series was designed in cooperation with automotive partners and satisfies automotive requirements like real-time response, reliability and high-end performance.
High performance
Designing the embedded systems found in automotive devices is not a simple project. It requires sophisticated performance capabilities that can deliver high levels of quality, security and reliability.The Cortex-R series processor provides fast processing combined with a high clock frequency and a deeply pipelined microarchitecture. The system comes with dual-core multi-processing configurations and hardware SIMD instructions for very high performance DSP and media functions, making it easy for developers to design for high performance needs. The capabilities of the Cortex-R5 core also fit the growing need for graphics and displays, and HMIs that provide drivers with clear, fast visual access to data.
Real-time responsiveness
With the Cortex-R series, processing meets hard real-time constraints for any and all occasions as well as fast, bounded and deterministic interrupt response. In automotive and industrial environments, this function is critical and necessary. Automotive designers are constantly tasked with keeping up with changing telematics protocols. In-car technology must be responsive to surroundings and the inner workings of the vehicle, ensuring the passengers' safety.The architecture also includes tightly coupled memories (TCM) local to the processor for fast-responding code/data and low latency interrupt mode (LLIM) to accelerate interrupt entry.
Functional safety
Functional safety is at the core of the Cortex-R processor series. The system is dependable and reliable with high error resistance, and user and privileged software operating modes with Memory Protection Unit (MPU). The processor architecture includes ECC and parity error detection/correction for Level-1 memory system and buses and dual-core lock step (DCLS) redundant core configurations.Cost effectiveness
The processor provides a highly flexible and efficient two-cycle local memory interface, enabling SoC designers to minimise system cost and energy consumption. With best-in-class energy and die area, the technology provides cost efficient techniques to bringing automotive MCUs to market quickly.In design, the configuration makes it possible to include or exclude features to optimise power, performance and area. Additionally, fast development and testing with configurable debug breakpoints are available, and watch points through CoreSight debug access port with embedded trace module options speeding up time to market. Customers can now design with a much simpler and cost effective interface while not giving away either performance or features.
These features make the Cortex-R5 processor a pronounced resource for automotive MCU design, enabling automotive MCU designers to deliver high performance, enhanced human-machine interfaces, high security and advanced networking protocols tailored for a broad range of automotive applications such as electrification, body electronics, battery management, automotive cluster displays, HVAC and ADAS.
MCUs that are developed with ARM Cortex-R processor can enable scalable and efficient designs of high performing and secure automotive applications that will improve drivers' safety and user experience with the latest technology advancements in cars.
Case Study: The Traveo Family of Automotive MCUs
The Spansion Traveo microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-R5 delivers high performance, enhanced human machine interfaces, security, and advanced networking for embedded systems.The first product of the Spansion Traveo family, the MB9D560, features dual ARM Cortex-R5 cores with 2MB of embedded Flash and operates at 200MHz. Additionally, Spansion is the first to use the ARM Cortex-R5 with integrated resolver digital converter (RDC).
With the help of the ARM Cortex-R5, this family of microcontrollers greatly expands Spansion's MCU portfolio for hybrid electrical vehicles (HEV) and electrical vehicles (EV). The dual-core/dual-motor control structure on a single chip allows the simultaneous control of two motors, for example the motor and the generator of an electrical engine system have to function at the same time. Both motor control modules have their own embedded interface circuits for resolver sensors, and include unique hardware IP to speed up motor control operations.
The dual-core approach and several inbuilt diagnosis functions support the required level of functional safety. By integrating these functions in a single chip, OEMs can improve the performance and save costs versus previously having to use four different chips, two MCUs and two RDCs. Improving the communication between these integrated components results in significantly faster real-time system response.
- Dr. Saied Tehrani is senior vice president and chief technology officer at Spansion
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