Running Man of Tech: 10k a day: a brilliant watch and faff-free headphones
10K a day - great running tech
When running, the last thing you want when trotting along is something distracting you from the task of just putting one foot in front of the other as quickly as possible.Headphones falling out, bleeping watches inaccurately tracking distance, clothing hurting / fitting poorly are all things that will cause the air to turn blue around a runner who's embarked on an 18 mile run to find things are less than optimal.
I'm still doing the 10k a day for charity but building up to the finale marathon, so I need to make sure my gear is going to be quietly running the in the background and helping not hindering my progress. Luckily, this week's choices turned out to be perfect for the job:
Garmin Forerunner 920XT
I've already reviewed this running watch, but it's become such a key part of my running gear that I felt the need to talk about it here too.
Let's get the big issues out of the way first: the cost is pretty high at nearly £400 (if you want to get the heart rate monitor too, which really does augment the experience) and it's a little chunky to wear day to day.
But it's actually, for a sport watch, well designed and compact, with the white / red or black / blue colour combination looking stylish on the wrist.
There are two things I love about this watch: firstly, it just can do pretty much anything sports related, and secondly the battery life is brilliant.
This is a multi-sport watch though, which means it's equally as adept at tracking you swimming and cycling as out bouncing through the streets on two feet. If you're not into triathlons then you might want to consider the Forerunner 620, which has a very similar interface and the same ability at tracking your runs and is £70 cheaper.
That said, the battery life isn't as good, and doesn't have the same range of metrics - nor can you currently download new watch faces from Garmin's new Connect IQ app store.
But let's get back to the 920XT: it's an excellent watch and connects perfectly to your smartphone. It will track steps throughout the day then seamlessly move into running mode, with a quick GPS fix (most of the time, as long as you're not in heavily built-up areas) from the smartphone really helping out.
The in-run display can show as much or as little as you want, with the amount of data fields customisable. So if you only want to know current pace, heart rate and estimated finish time for any given distance, that's possible with minimal button pushing.
The pace is 'smoothed' to show in 5 second intervals, so you'll only ever be going 4:45/km or 4:50/km for example - there's no in between, but it does keep the pace more regular.
It's a little more harsh on the pace and distance as you run: it can show up to 50 metres less over 5km, for instance, but for the most part it's unerringly accurate and that under-representation is actually quite a good motivator.
It will even show smart notifications when connected to a smartphone, which means you'll get updates when someone texts, calls or emails you without needing to grab the phone out your pocket. You can turn off those updates when training (which was the thing most people worried about when I showed them the ability) but for me, knowing who's phoning you on a run means you can easily make the choice whether to stop or not.
Verdict
This is one of my favourite running watches of all time: the battery life is excellent, and for me is worth the extra money over the 620 if you think you might ever dabble in the pool or on the bike. Plus you can even set up your own strength sessions too - all uploaded seamlessly to the Garmin Connect app.It's expensive, but if running is your thing then there has to be one big investment: I wouldn't look much further than this if you're thinking of getting a 'proper' running watch.
Best for: The committed data-fiend
JBL Yurbuds Focus 400
These headphones are an interesting proposition: guaranteed to never hurt and to never fall out. If you've read the previous weeks' columns, you'll know I've been struggling with earbuds in general throughout my running career thanks to growing what, in theory, appear to be the worst ears for holding little nuggets of sound in.
So to hear of these was a real win as they should solve all the problems - a guarantee is a guarantee, right? OK, they're not Bluetooth, which means I had wires to contend with on a run (not my favourite thing in the world, but manageable) and at £45 not a huge outlay for the top-level buds in this range.
Actually, the Focus 400 earbuds probably have the most manageable cord I've ever run with, as the main 'three pronged' control centre doesn't dangle irritatingly under one ear but in the join between the two cables running up to your head.
Place this under a t-shirt and it sits very quietly on your chest, plus is still easy to press the buttons through fabric. Those keys could be a little more distinct, as you're essentially caressing divots across your upper torso when trying to pause music, but it's generally easy enough to use on the go.
You've probably noticed that I've avoided talking about the earphones themselves so far - that's because I found that they're not as comfortable as advertised. They're far from uncomfortable, but I did have a small amount of pain over a long run on one side.
This can be mitigated by giving them a little twist before placing the rubber loop into place, but this doesn't make them insanely well-fitting though. That loop can also fall off at times, meaning a panicked rummage through the bag looking for it at times.
That's the bad stuff out the way, but once all set up, the fit is snug and definitely won't see your headphones falling out your ears. Sound quality is a little on the tinny side, but the audio quality certainly isn't something that bothers me when plugging around trails.
Verdict
The JBL Yurbuds Focus 400 earphones are a very good piece of kit to have in a runner's arsenal - they're not my main headphones for a run as I prefer something wireless, but should the battery run down or some issue creep in with connectivity these are straight out the bag and onto the ears.Best for: The faff-hating music-listening runner
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OPINION: Under Armour: the USA's tech-enhanced fitness giant is ready to conquer Europe
Under Armour's purchase of fitness apps Endomondo and MyFitnessPal is a massive statement of intent, but one that comes as no surprise. It's also that rare thing: a move to monopolise a sector that's actually a good move for consumers.
In September last year, Under Armour surpassed Adidas to become the second highest selling sportswear brand in the US behind megacorp overlords Nike. While Adidas suffered a 23% decrease in sales by September 2014 - dropping to $1.1 billion total sales - Under Armour surged ahead with a 20% increase that took them to $1.2 billion. There's no doubting its credentials: in the USA, UA is a major player.
That hasn't yet fully translated to Europe, but it soon will. Adidas has home field advantage, but Under Armour has made steady inroads and bulwarks to entrench itself on this side of the pond.
The Baltimore-based sportswear brand has been typically brash about its arrival in Europe, and its conquering of the market has been a textbook mix of big money and "soft power". Its ploughed cash into huge advertising campaigns. A lucrative sponsorship deal with Tottenham Hotspur was the point of the spear, alongside a similar deal with Welsh Rugby, and personal deals with the likes of former Spurs captain Michael Dawson, Welsh centre Jamie Roberts and full-back Leigh Halfpenny, and recently a bumper deal to steal Andy Murray away from Adidas for the next four years.
At the same time, it's been assiduously courting media brands, journalists and influencers on this side of the pond with events, "advertorial" campaigns and all manner of opportunities to see their gear in action and to make themselves available to the press - and not just the men's health and fitness press. It's been a marketing campaign of exemplary slickness.
Then there's the recent app purchases - totalling over $500 million by the way. While MyFitnessPal is big everywhere, Endomondo enjoys most its success outside of the USA. There's no doubt that Under Armour is here to stay, and it has the multi-sport credentials to challenge the big players in Europe too.
Finally, Under Armour has also leapt into bed with the tech fan's tech brand, HTC.
So how does all this affect things? These are big waves Under Armour is making .
By adding Endomondo and MyFitnessPal to its existing fitness apps UA Record and MapMyRun, Under Armour has established the largest digital fitness community in the world, with a 100 million-strong userbase outstripping the likes of Nike+ Running, Adidas MiCoach, Strava and others.
For all that is great about many of these running apps, functions like crowdsourced running routes, events and challenges rely on large user bases. The larger the better, in fact. With 100 million people now invested in Under Armour's fitness offering, those social features will only benefit, as will those who use them.
Though Under Armour may rapidly come to dominate the social fitness space, it will take a long time to monopolise it. Nike and Adidas both have large, loyal user bases of people who are tied into their apps through consumer products like fitness watches, and both will be up for the fight.
The one way that Under Armour could screw things up is if it tried to leverage its power in that app space to boost its hardware business. At the moment, its apps work with all the big fitness products on the market, from mum's activity trackers like the Fitbit Charge to full-fat pro running watches like the Garmin Fenix range.
There's little doubt that Under Armour wants to get into wearables in a big way too. A couple of years ago it built the Armour 39, a connected heart-rate monitor of sorts, but confined it to the US. The recent tie-up with HTC suggests a much more serious assault on that market too.
This could be great news for HTC, as well. It's a company that's been struggling financially, even as it triumphs with tech fans and journalists. The Taiwanese smartphone king has a reputation for quality design, and if it can be the company that finally cracks the wearable market with something functional and beautiful, it could find itself back on the inside track from cult favourite to mega brand – a bit like UA in Europe, in fact.
Even if their partnership starts with nothing more than a native app on the upcoming HTC One M9, that could be extremely useful to them. Apple and Nike shared a mutually beneficial partnership when the iPhone launched. So too could Under Armour and HTC.
There's another reason that Under Armour has been getting its cheque book out in order to grow: UA Record has struggled to make an impression since launch, with users complaining of glitchy software and poor connectivity. It's like an ambitious football team buying a clutch of star players to take it from mid-table respectability to cup success. UA now owns the expertise of Endomondo and MyFitnessPal, and can draw on HTC's hardware assistance. Hopefully it will use those assets to build something user-friendly with deep functionality and wide-ranging compatibility.
The worst thing it could do would be to force users of its new acquisitions on to UA Record, but I am sure they won't make that particular schoolboy error.
If anyone in the UK and Europe underestimated Under Armour before, I doubt they do now. This is a massive company with huge global aspirations, but one that takes the time to understand the markets it wants to move into. All its power grabs so far have been shrewd, and the consolidation of a number of superb fitness entities is great news for tech-assisted runners, as far as I'm concerned.
The next stop is Mobile World Congress, where HTC should be dropping more hints about what it's going to do with UA. As far as the European sport and fitness market goes, this is a little like a third soft drinks brand using new technologies and shrewd, social-based marketing to go up against Coke and Pepsi. This race is on, and I'm hyped about it.
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Industry voice: Busting the myths of agile development: what are its real benefits?
Agile is in vogue. While it's been around for well over a decade as a formal term – and even longer as a concept, some would argue – it has become increasingly important in recent years, particularly in the public sector, where it's now the default approach for running software projects.
Operating projects and programmes in this way – as opposed to the traditional waterfall method – represents a significant change, not only to the mechanics of the project teams, but right across an organisation. Because of this, it's important to understand agile, what value it brings, and, importantly, the role that the customer organisation needs to play to make agile successful.
The real value of agile
A common misunderstanding of agile is that it is cheaper and faster than waterfall delivery. The truth is much less clear cut – it can be cheaper and faster, but only if it is suited to the organisation and project in question. Where this is not true, waterfall may actually be cheaper, faster, or both.The real value in agile is in fact in its flexibility and responsiveness to evolving business requirements, which ensures that the organisation gets a system that genuinely addresses its needs, rather than the system it thought it wanted at the beginning of the process (as would be the case in a waterfall project, where full requirements are defined at the start and remain relatively static). The reality is that business requirements evolve over time, and agile makes it easier for projects to adapt accordingly.
Moreover, the ongoing stakeholder involvement, which is central to agile, ensures that problems are identified and corrected as early as possible, thereby reducing costs and preventing any nasty downstream surprises for both customer and supplier.
Agile versus waterfall?
Another common fallacy about agile is that it is an all-or-nothing decision to use this approach. Ideally, it would be. However, in reality, hybrid projects that apply aspects of waterfall and agile are perfectly possible. For example, agile projects can exist within a larger waterfall programme. While this may not deliver the full benefits of agile, this approach can provide organisations with a stepping stone to agile development, or enable more effective development for parts of a larger project or programme. We will look in more detail at the implications of running agile within waterfall-style contracts momentarily.Changing customer responsibilities
One of the most important things to understand about agile is how the responsibilities of the customer organisation differ from what is expected of them during waterfall projects.Firstly, the organisation needs to appoint a knowledgeable and empowered individual to form the link between the development team and the wider organisation – the Product Owner, in Scrum terms. This individual is typically a business analyst with experience of project management, and their role is to define the vision for the project, set the priorities for features being developed, plan the project iterations and form the link between the project team and the wider organisation.
They are also responsible for brokering the conversations between different parts of the organisation to ensure business needs are met and, where necessary, compromises reached and expectations managed. The importance of this role must not be underestimated, and it is vital that an appropriate individual is selected for it. They need a deep understanding of what the job involves, must have a good relationship with the various stakeholders, know the business needs inside out and be able to make quick, appropriate decisions about the direction of the project.
Secondly, the success of agile depends on effective planning by the Product Owner, and to enable this, the organisation needs to have delegated sufficient authority to the person in this role, to enable important decisions to be made quickly. The iterative nature of agile and the need for regular releases to the customer mean there simply isn't time to wait for something to be discussed at next month's management meeting. If everything needs to go through several levels of signoff, this will strangle the project and wipe out any benefits that agile would otherwise deliver.
Thirdly, the success of agile depends on getting regular feedback from stakeholders. The customer organisation needs to understand this and make the appropriate individuals available at the right time on an ongoing basis, rather than simply at the end of the project delivery. This ensures that any concerns are resolved as they arise, and helps the project progress smoothly.
Understanding leads to success
It's only by understanding what agile is and the value it can bring that organisations can determine whether it's the most appropriate development approach for their particular project or programme.- Matthew Du-Feu is an experienced software developer, Product Owner and Scrum Master, who has led agile teams delivering complex, high security software
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UPDATED: All 34 Apple Watch designs: Every band, case and face so far
Apple Watch: watch cases and bands
We're about 60 to 90 days out from the Apple Watch release date, meaning you can't try on the iPhone-compatible wearable just yet.That's a problem for anxious early adopters. The April-bound smartwatch comes in a variety of colors and styles, way more than the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
In fact, there are 34 different Apple Watch choices and nine default watch faces with millions of customizations, according to Apple's website.
Here's every Apple Watch face, band and case announced so far, giving you extra time to decide which "iWatch" should be your watch before waiting in line.
Cases: Apple Watch vs Sport vs Watch Edition
All Apple Watches boast the same rectangular design with rounded off corners, but they're divided up into three different case "collections" based on build materials.Starting at $350 (likely north of £230, AU$450), the names Watch, Watch Sport and Watch Edition, don't tell us a whole lot about those differences, so let's explain each watch case.
Watch
Donning the "regular" Watch puts a highly polished stainless steel case on your wrist, one that comes in glossy metal colors of either space black or stainless steel.Protecting the precious Retina display is sapphire crystal, which is the same glass that covers the Touch ID home button of newer iPhones.
Sapphire crystal is touted as the hardest transparent material on earth next to diamond. It'll stand up to dings every time your formerly-bare wrist forgets what it's like to wear a watch.
Watch Sport
Sport is the the lightest of the three Apple Watch choices thanks to its anodized aluminum case that still manages to be 60% stronger than standard alloys.It skips out of the expensive sapphire glass in favor of what Apple calls strengthened Ion-X or aluminosilicate glass. This further reduces the weight, making it fit for active lifestyles.
Sure, the iPhone-matching matte space gray and silver aluminum case appears less shiny vs the Watch, but Apple's 7000 Series aluminum and Ion-X glass makes it 30% lighter.
Watch Edition
Watch Edition will be the most expensive Apple Watch because of its 18-karat gold case. It may even be locked inside a safe within your local Apple Store.It's been crafted by Apple's metallurgists to be twice as hard as standard gold, says the Cupertino company, and will come in two colors: yellow gold and rose gold.
Complementing those cases are color-matching bands made of leather or fluoroelastomer plastic.
Bands are the next step in deciding on the right Apple Watch.
Six different band styles, 18 colors
Apple Watch is all about personalization with six band types and 18 colors, all of which are easily interchangeable thanks a unique slide-out locking mechanism.
Yes, it's a proprietary watch strap - did you expect anything less? - but it looks to be a whole lot easier to switch out compared to the irksome hidden pins of the Moto 360.
I'm okay with that. I want the sport band at the gym and the Milanese loop for a night on the town without the hassle of digging into the watch case with a pair of tweezers.
Link bracelet
Available with the regular Watch, the link bracelet is one of two stainless steel Apple Watch bands. This one matches the 316L stainless steel alloy of the case.It has more than 100 components and the brushed metal links increase in width closer to the case. A custom butterfly closure folds neatly within the bracelet.
Best of all, you can add and remove links with a simple release button. No jeweler visits or special tools required for this stainless steel or space black-colored strap.
Milanese loop
One of the classiest-looking Apple Watch bands is the Milanese loop, a stainless steel mesh strap that loops from case to clasp.Emphasizing that woven metal design, there's hardly a clasp. Its tiny magnetic end makes the strap infinitely adjustable and tucks behind the band for a seamless look on one's wrist.
An out-of-the box option with the regular Watch, the Milanese loop is truly one of a kind in that it only comes in a stainless steel color.
Modern buckle (leather strap)
A modern buckle adorns the bottom the first of three leather options among Apple Watches, complete with top-grain leather sourced from France.The French tannery is said to have been established in 1803, but Apple puts a tech-savvy twist on the buckle. It's a two-piece magnetic clasp that only looks ordinary when together.
This leather option comes in soft pink, brown or midnight blue for the regular Watch and bright red or rose gray for the premium Watch Edition, all meant for the smaller 38mm watch size.
Apple Watch: More bands, sizes and watch faces
Classic buckle (leather strap)
If the Apple Watch modern buckle is a normal-looking watch band with a magnetic twist, then the classic buckle is an ordinary-looking variant without one.No tricks here. It's just a traditional and secure band that feeds through a stainless steel or an 18-karat gold loop and matches the watch case.
The classic buckle's leather is from the Netherlands and the color choices are as simple as can be: it comes in black for the regular Watch or midnight blue for Watch Edition.
Leather loop
This is the leather-equivalent of the all-metal Milanese loop because it tucks magnets into the soft, quilted leather Apple Watch band.The more pronounced pebbled texture also stands out from the subtle finishes of the modern and classic buckle. Apple says its Venezia leather sources from Italy.
Apple Watch buyers who go with the leather loop band have three colors choices: stone, light brown and bright blue.
Sport band
Despite its name, the sport band is an out-of-the-box option among all three "collections," not just the Apple Watch Sport.The band is made of smooth fluoroelastomer, so it's resilient for all activities and fastens with a simple pin-and-tuck closure. Hopefully it's easier to buckle than the Fitbit Charge.
The sport band is available in the most colors on the Sport Watch: white, black, blue, green or pink. Regular Watch and Watch Edition buyers can choose between black or white.
Apple Watch sizes
Less exciting, but equally important is the choice of among Apple Watch sizes. There are two case heights: 38mm and 42mm.
This opens it up to smaller and larger wrists. The 38mm size is more compact, but having that little bit extra screen space by way of the 42mm option may go a long way.
It should be noted that a few bands appear to be exclusive to certain sizes: the modern buckle is limited to the 38mm option and leather loop the 42mm size, for example.
No right-handed and left-handed Apple Watch decisions need to be made at the Apple Store, thankfully. This smartwatch is ambidextrous because the screen can be flipped.
Apple Watch faces
There are nine different default faces from Apple, according to its official website, and likely a lot more to come from third-party developers currently testing out WatchKit.
The great thing about smartwatch faces is that none of them are permanent, something we were fond of when testing out Android Wear smartwatches.
Mickey Mouse is my favorite because I never got a Mickey Mouse watch as a kid. But maybe that'll be reserved for Disneyland visits now that I'm an adult.
Analog watches like Chronograph, Color, Simple and Utility can be swapped in for a more professional look that rivals today's best smartwatch alternatives.
Digital watch faces all have something unique to offer. Motion adds a bit of animal-inspired movement in the background, solar lets you follow the sun's path based on your location and the time of day and astronomy lets you explore space and a rotatable 3D Earth.
Modular, the grid-like ninth watch face, really defines what Apple means when it talks about complications. Most faces can be alerted to include pressing information like stock quotes, weather reports or your next calendar event, according to the company.
Apple Watch wrap-up
With two sizes for most band designs, six band types, 18 band colors and three cases with two colors each, there's a lot of choice going into this smartwatch purchase.Apple Watch is launching with a lot of personalization, echoing a time when the Cupertino firm introduced variety among its iMac G3 computers and iPod successors.
Which case and band combination I get is ultimately going to depend on price and availability, details we should know a lot more about come April.
- Check out the best Apple Watch apps to come
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Week in Gaming: Lego dinosaurs, zombie parkour, and why you need Majora's Mask in your life
You'll never guess what the lead story is this week. It involves moons, music and impending doom. No, it's not Frank Sinatra's back catalogue, but nice guess.
It's a sweet, if creepy story about identity, friendship and the apocalypse. Nope, it's not popular children's book The Day The Earth Caught Fire, either. It's Nintendo's madcap masterpiece, Majora's Mask - a time-hopping, mask-swapping sort-of-sequel to Ocarina of Time - and it's finally come to 3DS!
This week's seen a tidal wave of reviews after the Majora's Mask embargo ended on February 4, and unsurprisingly the general consensus is that it's pretty alright. Scooping up a bunch of near-perfect scores, the 3D remake of the original N64 game isn't exactly a surprise success, but it's certainly a comforting one. Also it's really good and you should all play it, says this completely unbiased reporter.
Elsewhere in the land of games that are fun and cute, we have Lego Jurassic World, the newest and most dinosaury Lego game on the block (pun most definitely intended). We don't know much yet – it'll be tied in with the Chris Pratt film starring Chris Pratt and some dinosaurs that aren't so keen on Chris Pratt apart from as a musclebound appetiser, and it will feature a T-Rex and, presumably, the usual Lego game humour.
Moving on from plastic dinosaurs to zombies: Dying Light's out, and it's received mostly lukewarm reviews. Like the temperature of a freshly zombified corpse. Uh, probably. The game's similarity to Techland's Dead Island and interesting night-day cycle have enthralled some and put off others, but let's be honest, it's all about dropkicking zombies off a rooftop.
Unlike Dead Island, Dying Light is technologically sound, set in a variety of areas including run down favelas (teeming with zombies), financial districts (overrun with the undead) and bazaars (jam-packed with corpses that want to nibble on your flesh). There's also the addition of first-person parkour, a fiddly but useful mechanic that gives you an advantage over the zombies... for a while. Worth a play, we reckon, but don't expect it to blow your mind (maybe just nibble on it a bit).
Speaking of people turning into corpses, Surgeon Simulator's just sold two million copies. Two million! That's a game that started as a 48-hour game jam project, a game that involves wildly flapping your meathooks in the direction of the patient's thoracic cavity in the hopes they might not die while you try to jam organs inside them. Two million copies. Brilliant.
Here's some good news: Club Nintendo is closing down! Ah, wait, that's not the good news – the good news is that the closure of Nintendo's reward system later this year means that loads and loads of new gifts are being added to the site, either because Nintendo are saying sorry or because they need to clear out the warehouse.
Buying Nintendo games contributes to your Club Nintendo coin count, which can be used to buy these gifts as well as digital copies of some games – at the moment you can buy Super Mario World, Paper Mario and Link to the Past as well as others. The gifts include T-shirts, jigsaw puzzles and bags featuring Nintendo characters.
But brace yourself for another dose of bad news – this is only happening in the US. The UK store is still closing down but the Stars Catalogue features the same old fairly duff stuff as before, unless you really fancy an eye mask with Peach's face on.
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Xbox One is finally getting a screenshot feature
Microsoft has been teasing a screenshot feature for the Xbox One for a long time, but despite frequent updates to the console it still can't snap an image of its own display.
Sony's PS4 has had the ability since launch, making it extra irksome for Xbox fans who've been waiting more than a year just to be able to take a screenshot.
- Here's what to expect at MWC 2015
"Nice to finally be doing this on my Xbox One dev kit," he wrote.
Spencer said last October that the feature was still "months away," making this the perfect time for it to debut. Hopefully we'll see it in the next Xbox One update in March.
- Chromecast is a brilliant streaming stick
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In Depth: Tidy up your iPhoto library before switching to Photos for OS X
You might have had a bit of a shock on attempting to launch iPhoto on an iPhone or iPad after upgrading to iOS 8. The app was abruptly dead and inaccessible, superseded by Photos, which gained filters and more editing capabilities. In 2015, Apple will bring similar thinking to the Mac, replacing iPhoto with an OS X version of Photos.
Generally, when a desktop app is retired, it doesn't suddenly stop working and force you to migrate to an alternative product. Chances are, you'll still be able to continue using iPhoto for a while - although that's not guaranteed. However, it's clear that if you're an iPhoto user on OS X Yosemite, you should start planning ahead, because Apple's made it clear iPhoto has no future.
Although we wouldn't recommend switching to Photos the instant it's released (hold back a bit to discover whether it's relatively bug-free), it makes sense to use it as an excuse to tidy things up in iPhoto. We don't know precisely how iPhoto content will map to Photos, but we can make educated guesses that your albums will move across intact; additionally, now's the time to eradicate clutter, such as those blurred shots. Even if you decide to stick with iPhoto as long as possible, our tips will improve your experience in the app!
1. Make a backup
Some of the changes in this walkthrough cannot be undone, so back up your library just in case. It's found in /Pictures and can be copied elsewhere on your Mac or to an external drive. You can copy it back and use File > Switch to Library in iPhoto if need be.
2. Create some albums
Got a large photo library? Get into the habit of making photos easier to locate by adding them to an album. Use File > New Album, name it, and drag photos to it. Or, use File > New Smart Album and add conditions to fill the album, such as images within a date range.
3. Name your photos
You can name photos and search for that string or create smart albums based on it, but this is tedious, so make a selection and go to Photos > Batch Change. In Set Title to Text, type a title, check the "append" box > OK. Each image will also gain a hyphen and number.
4. Isolate iOS screen grabs
Go to File > New Smart Album and make an album called "iOS device grabs"; click "+" until you have four conditions to edit. Leave "Match set" to "all" and set conditions Aperture is Unknown, ISO is Unknown, Filename starts with IMG_, and Filename contains PNG.
5. Delete your screen grabs
Click OK and you'll have a smart album full of iOS screen grabs. If you want to save them outside of iPhoto, select them all (Command + A) and drag them to a Finder folder, or select all and press Command + Option + Delete. Click Delete Photos to remove the images from your library.
6. Find thumbnails
We know text strings can be useful for finding images, and this extends to pictures you want rid of, like accidentally imported thumbnails. Find one, click Info and note one of its dimensions in the information panel at the top right. Create a new smart album.
7. Remove thumbnails
The resolution text string could start or end with the noted number, so create three conditions: Any Text starts with [number], and Any Text ends with [number], and "Photo is not Movie." Set Match to "all." Click OK. Select and delete.
8. Empty the Trash
iPhoto maintains its own Trash, which works rather like the main OS X one and lets you view the images you're about to delete. If you find something you want to rescue, right-click it and select Put Back. Or, select Empty iPhoto Trash from the iPhoto menu.
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Review: Aorus X7 Pro
Introduction and design
Thin gaming laptops, like the Origin EVO15-S and Digital Storm Triton, have made us rethink our expectations of high-performance machines. Thanks to more efficient parts, including Intel's Haswell (and soon Broadwell-U) processors as well as Nvidia's Maxwell GPUs, manufacturers don't need to put rip-roaring components into a bulky notebook chassis.No device proves this point more than Gigabyte's Aorus X7 Pro. It's a 17.3-inch gaming laptop equipped with two Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M graphics cards working together in SLI, plus a beefy Intel Core i7 processor. And yet, the machine is less than an inch thick. On paper, the X7 Pro sits on equal footing with the Alienware 18 and MSI GT72 Dominator, but has Aorus managed to squeeze the same amount of gaming performance into a smaller package?
Design
The Aorus X7 Pro is an unfathomably thin gaming laptop, considering the two GPUs and high-end chips it comes packing. With the lid down, the laptop closes down to an astonishingly thin 0.9-inch silhouette. Compared to most other gaming 17-inch gaming laptops - with the exception of the even thinner Razer Blade Pro - you could almost mistake Aorus' offering for an oversized Ultrabook.
The majority of the machine features a metal frame that makes up the screen lid, palm rest and surrounding keyboard deck as well as the laptop's underside. The only bits of the plastic include the bezel around the 17.3-inch screen as well as the sides of the laptop. You'll never really notice the difference between the two different materials, as Aorus has given the plastic bits a bespeckled paint job which closely resembles the anodized finish of the metal.
The Aorus X7 Pro's design is a mix between a stealth bomber and a hyper car, which is made even cooler by a purely black and white color scheme. The laptop top lid features three sharp lines, including a prominent front beak. The extra detail adds a bird-like motif to the unit on top of Aorus' logo of an eagle, but it makes me worry that the paint will rub off faster because of this sharp edge.
The front end of the machine also comes to a distinct point following the beak. Meanwhile, the laptop's inside panel features a sharp, angular vent grill that looks both futuristic and serves as an intake for the components inside.
This laptop's hot, hot, hot
Aorus made doubly sure to make sure it's thin gaming machine stays well ventilated. The rear of the machine rises slightly to a rear vent bump, similar to the Asus ROG G750, which flares out with sculpted lines, similar to the rear exhaust of a hyper car. Along with the heat coming out the back, there are four vents cleverly built into the laptops sides.At the front, you'll also find intake vents that even wrap around the corners of the laptop. Each of the vents features little chevrons the help add support for the opening and add an extra bit of flair at the same time. What's more, there are even more slits for intake spread across the machine's underside.
Despite all these measures to ensure maximum airflow, plus the passive heating though the laptop's metal bottom, the Aorus still regularly reaches skin-scorching temperatures during gaming sessions. The fans crank up to a distracting level and then only get even louder after that. On a full load, you can hear the fans spin up to a room-filling resonance from the turbulence inside the machine.
The Aorus X7 Pro pushes out plenty of heat - there's no doubt about that - but the fan noise becomes so obnoxious you'll need to almost always wear a headphones during play sessions. This is also a notebook you'll strictly want to avoid putting on your lap, even if you're doing something as simple as watching a YouTube video.
Specifications
The Aorus X7 Pro is so much lighter and thinner than other 17-inch and up gaming machines we've tested, that it almost seems like it was fashioned out of a futuristic lightweight alloy. Weighing in at 6.6 pounds, the X7 Pro is substantially easier to tote around than the 8-pound MSI GT72 Dominator and the immense, 12.07-pound Alienware 18.Aorus' machine is also easier to slip into a bag, thanks to its smaller 16.85 x 12 x 0.9-inch (W x D x H) dimensions. For the GT72 Dominator and Alienware 18, you'll need to purchase a new oversized bag as each notebook measures 19.6 x 11.5 x 1.9 inches and 17.97 x 12.90 x 2.26 inches, respectively.
Here is the Aorus X7 Pro configuration given to TechRadar for this review:
Spec Sheet
- CPU: 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-4870HQ (quad-core, 6MB cache, up to 3.7GHz with Turbo Boost)
- Graphics: 2 x Nvidia GTX 970M SLI GDDR5 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM); Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200
- RAM: 8GB DDR3L (1866MHz)
- Screen: 17.3-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 Wide Viewing Angle LCD
- Storage: 512GB mSATA SSD
- Ports: 3 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, mini-Display port, Surround port, D-sub, RJ45, SD card reader, microphone jack, headphone jack
- Connectivity: Wireless LAN: 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0
- Camera: 1MP HD camera
- Weight: 6.6 pounds
- Size: 16.85 x 12 x 0.9 inches (W x D x H)
For nearly the same price, you could pick up a MSI GT72 Dominator Pro, rocking an Intel Core i7 4710HQ processor and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980M for $2,549 (£1,836, AU$3,299). Although the MSI machine only has one GPU, this rig has more memory both for the system and GPU at its disposal, but half the amount of SSD storage.
The Alienware 18 is the priciest machine at $2,649 (about £1,739, AU$2,348), but it stands as the X7 Pro's direct SLI rival. The 18.4-inch laptop comes running two AMD Radeon R9 M290X GPUs, which makes it an even more direct competitor to the Aorus's Nvidia graphics. Unfortunately, the Alienware 18 comes a little light on memory, with only 8GB onboard and a 1TB hard disk drive by default. Users who want the extra speed of an SSD will have to fork over an additional $300.
Performance
If there were two words to ever describe the Aorus X7 Pro, they would be "excessively powerful." This dual-970M monster easily chomped its way through every test I threw at it. Despite being thin, there's no doubt that the X7 Pro is a beast.Here's how the Aorus X7 Pro fared in our benchmark tests:
Benchmarks
- 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 21,032; Sky Diver: 25,402; Fire Strike: 10,451
- Cinebench CPU: 639 points; Graphics: 142 fps,
- PCMark 8 (Home Test): 4,093 points
- PCMark 8 Battery Life: 1 hours and 53 minutes
- Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p, Ultra): 85.28 fps; (1080p, Low): 164.72 fps
- Metro: Last Light (1080p, Ultra): 43.67 fps; (1080p, Low): 108.67 fps
This dual-970 machine is also a smooth performer when playing games. We use Metro: Last Light as benchmark test, because it's a resource intensive game that brings most mobile gaming rigs to their knees, and yet Aorus thin gaming machine was able to play the game with every setting on Ultra at 43.67 frames per second. Comparatively, the Alienware 18 was not able to break past 30 fps and only ran the game at 26.67 fps. The MSI GT72 Dominator was able to achieve 37 fps in Metro: Last Light.
With modern games such as FarCry 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Aorus laptop had no problem keeping up a steady 60 fps with all the graphical settings turned up to the max. I was even able to play heist rounds of the Battlefied Hardline beta without a single hitch. By turning off v-sync, gamers can expect to get even more ludicrously high frames per second gaming in titles such as Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which the X7 Pro was able to play at 85.28 fps, though at the expense of some bad screen tearing and intermittent frame rate drops
Display made for gaming
The Aorus X7 Pro ships with a decent Twisted Nematic (TN) screen ready for gaming. The color depth and blacks don't look as pristine as an IPS screen, but the Aorus' display looks better in both regards, compared to most gaming laptops we've tested.As a TN panel, it also has a high refresh rate and low response time - absolutely necessary qualities for twitch shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield. The Aorus X7 Pro's screen also has an impeccable matte finish to it, which knocks away glare even in the worst of lighting situations.
Tinny, nigh-invisible speakers
Unfortunately the audio setup on the Aorus X7 Pro leaves much more to be desired. For starters you'll be hard pressed to actually locate any actual speaker grills but it is outfitted with two speakers at the front and two additional subwoofers located on the laptop's underside.
Despite all the tweeters, playing music on this machine sounds tinny and begins to distort even when just turning the system volume up to 20. Worse yet, you can barely hear the speakers over the blaring fans, which makes a headset a necessity.
Incredibly unexceptional life
Gaming machines have never been lauded for their long battery life, and going with a thin chassis has cut the run time of the X7 Pro even shorter. The slim gaming rig only lasted a short 1 hour 53 minutes while running our PCMark 8 battery life benchmark tests. With regular use; browsing between seven tabs in Chrome, writing in Microsoft Word, chatting in Skype and Hipchat, all while streaming tunes on Google Music, the Aorus X7 Pro only ran for 2 hours and 5 minutes.The MSI GT72 Dominator did marginally better lasting just 2 hours and 18 minutes. Even the Alienware 18 held on by just a few more minutes for a total of 1 hour and 57 minutes of run time while unplugged.
Bundled software
The Aorus X7 Pro comes with plenty of little system management tools, giving users easy access to laptop settings and firmware updates. Each is useful in its own right but here's a short list of applications you'll want to keep running.- Command and Control: A quick panel of system level controls for turning up fan speeds, turning on and off wireless radios and activating a system gauge.
- Killer Network: For a bit more analysis on your wireless network performance, this app provides access to data usage counters, network performance and more.
- System back up: The name of this application is fairly self-explanatory
- Drivers Update: perhaps the single most useful application out of this lot. You can check all the drivers you have installed at a glance. You can also initiate downloads and install updates with a single click on this simple app.
Verdict
Aorus has successfully put a hardcore gaming laptop into a chassis less than an inch thick, proving that you can indeed enjoy a high-performance machine that isn't a brick. That said, the X7 Pro has made more than a few concessions to achieve this slim form factor, including heat and battery life.We liked
Aorus has done a great job building a machine that matches function with fashion. The exterior feature thin vents on almost all it sides to help pull in fresh air and exhaust heat while making the machine look just a bit cooler at the same time.The Aorus X7 Pro has also proved to be one of the best performing machines we've ever tested. It absolutely crushed it in our suite of benchmark tests, setting all sorts of new records. In real world gaming, it easily plays modern titles at 1080p with all the graphical flourishes set to ultra.
We disliked
While this machine is easily one of the most capable gaming laptops we've ever reviewed, it's also one of the hottest and loudest. We've had a few machines with loud fans such as the Origin EVO15-S. The X7 Pro, however, is on a whole other level, as the machine sounds like a leaf blower on full load. The system also gets uncomfortably hot, even when simply web browsing and streaming video.Between the heat making this laptop absolutely uncomfortable to put on your lap and the short two hour battery life, this is a machine you'll rarely be on the move with. The real shame of it is this laptop was designed to be lighter and thinner than most gaming laptops, making it easier to take out, but all its faults will make you reconsider this decision.
Final verdict
The Aorus X7 Pro easily stands out of the crowd of oversized gaming laptops as a much thinner and lighter machine. These rigs are often called desktop replacements not only for their size but also the amount of performance they can deliver. Recently, though, laptops have been getting thinner from Ultrabooks to workstations to gaming laptops - now, a 17.3-inch laptop has joined the trend.For the most part, the X7 Pro succeeds but stumbles hard while doing so. Thanks to the Nvidia dual 970M setup, this machine easily outpaces Alienware 18 I reviewed last July, a massive gaming laptop that costs nearly double the amount and is also twice as thick compared to Aorus' thin mobile gaming offering. Even the similarly priced MSI GT72 Dominator falls well short of the X7 Pro even with a Nvidia 980, the best mobile GPU on the market currently.
If you can look - and hear - past Aorus X7 Pro's flaws, it's an amazing piece of mobile PC gaming hardware for seriously premium price.
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Analysis: Nintendo had its best year in a long time, but can it keep it up?
Nintendo, home of Mario, released its 2014 financial report last week, alongside sales figures and updated financial forecasts for the fiscal year.
The good news - and, certainly, what Nintendo would like us to focus on - is that 2014 was the company's first profitable year since 2012. The bad news is roughly everything else: Sales are still lagging in just about every category, and even with some end-of-year rallying for the Wii U, it still is failing miserably to live up to its predecessor in terms of units sold.
So, wait, how is it making a profit again? It's a bit confusing and, to add to the fun, Nintendo's future is even more muddled. Let's get to it.
By the Numbers
In 2014, Nintendo sold 3.93 million Wii U units, over half of which occurred in the latter half of the year. The 3DS, meanwhile, did a good deal better, selling just over seven million units worldwide between April and December. Both of those numbers, however, are lower than what Nintendo projected at the start of the fiscal year, and certainly aren't the kind of growing numbers that inspire confidence.The Wii U, in particular, is struggling extra hard here. For point of comparison, in the Wii's first two years, it sold over 20 million copies, while the Wii U sold 9.2 million. Additionally, both the PS4 and Xbox One are outpacing Nintendo handily, with the PS4 netting lifetime sales of over 16 million and selling over a million units the week of Black Friday alone.
The 3DS's straits are a bit less dire, and it's still easily the handheld console hegemon. (I'd quote the PlayStation Vita's sales numbers, but Sony's been pretty tightlipped about them.)
On the bright side, software sales for Ninty's flagship titles are pretty solid. The best sellers were Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8, which sold 3.39 million and 4.77 million, respectively. The real victory here, though, is the 3DS version of Smash, which flew off the shelves to the tune of a whopping 6.19 million units.
None of this is terribly surprising, though it is impressive how many more units the 3DS version of Smash sold. Even given the month lead time it had, that's quite a bump, which goes to show just how much bigger the user base for the 3DS is than the Wii U.
Money, money, money
Despite positive sales on the 3DS, Nintendo lowered its sales projections by 6.8% for the fiscal year, and a lot of these numbers, while impressive, still represent a slow but steady decline. Again, we beg the question, how is Nintendo posting a net profit for the first time in years?The answer is found in the thrilling world of currency markets. As the Wall Street Journal reported, "A weak yen accounted for a large part[…]¥51 billion in gains, mostly from a large sum of dollar- and Euro-denominated assets held by the company."
In other words, with the yen running weaker than the dollar and the Euro, Nintendo has been able to parlay its international gains, however marginal, into meaningful domestic profits when those gains are then converted back to yen. It's not the same thing as a rousing success, but it's something, and according to Barclays analyst Yuki Okishio, as reported by CNBC, it's a cushion Nintendo will be able to fall back on for a couple more years if exchange rates remain consistent.
Amiibo and the future
Not that convenient exchange rates are enough to inspire confidence from investors. Nintendo's stock took a dive after the numbers were released last week, falling 7.32% after the announcement, with little recovery as of press time. The lack of investor confidence is a problem for Nintendo, and if trends continue it might force their hand, causing them to push into new markets. Investors have clamored for smartphone games in particular, and Nintendo may need to finally break into the space to keep stakeholders happy.People, especially those nostalgic for the 8-bit era, want to see Nintendo succeed. The company is well on the way to turning it around and with the New 3DS, which comes out in the United States later this month along with the long-awaited remaster of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Nintendo is poised to profit again in 2015.
That said, it still has a long way to go to catch up to Microsoft and Sony. Some pundits claimed Nintendo jumped the gun on next-gen with the Wii U, and it's hard to argue with that. If the Japanese electronics giant doesn't want the Wii U to turn out like the GameCube, a woefully barren system that sits on our shelves until the next Xbox or PlayStation come out, they've got to get behind third-party publishers in a big way.
At least amiibo are selling like collectible hotcakes, with 57 million sold so far. If Nintendo can maintain those gains and parlay them into meaningful profit, that could be good leverage to get more publishers on-board. In the meantime, if you're a fan, now might be time to buy those amiibo you've had your eye on. They could use the help.
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Review: Microsoft Band
Introduction and display
Microsoft quickly and quietly launched its Microsoft Band when no one was really expecting a wearable. The company promptly released the sensor-intensive Microsoft Band after its announcement (without much fanfare, with a price tag of $199 (about £125, AU$230).Despite the high cost, the ninja release and the Microsoft brand seemed enough to keep people curious and ravenous for the Redmond ware, as its been sold out online and in stores for months now.
Sneaking into a growing ocean of wearables, Microsoft has a long way to go, if it wants to remain a top contender in the fitness tracking competition.
Jawbone already has the successful UP24, plus the UP3 coming out soon, and likely another after. Fitbit also has a lineup that's gotten the masses in a running frenzy, including the newest three of the brood - the Fitbit Flex, Fitbit Charge (and Charge HR), and Surge. Whew. Not to mention every smartwatch has some version of fitness tracking built in.
With the space inundated, what's to keep everyone interested in the Microsoft Band other than brand name recognition? Let's find out.
Display
The 1.4-inch TFT (320 x 106 pixels) full color display screen is crisp and bright with no pixelation in sight. Its 11mm x 33mm is much smaller than the Samsung Gear Fit's curved 1.85-inch AMOLED screen. But you don't need a huge screen, since the fitness tracker isn't going to be showing off any intensive graphics.
The Band's display is big enough that I can read everything clearly but small enough to remain unobtrusive. Not many fitness trackers even have screens, let alone colorful screens - except the aforementioned Gear Fit.
The Fitbit Force, Surge and Razer's Nabu have simple OLED displays which are far less fancy than the Microsoft Band's. In most cases, this is perfectly sufficient considering a lot of fitness trackers are also simplified notification hubs. The Band also fits in this category but like the Gear Fit, it lets you read and reply to messages with generic pre-written responses - but not on the iPhone.
Design and comfort
The Microsoft Band isn't going win any prizes for being the most attractive fitness tracker, but it's not the most hideous either. At best, it's simple and modest, which is far better than looking flat out ugly.Despite the amount of tech packed inside and its 11mm x 33mm screen, the band retains a relatively slim form factor. It's a little thick where the clasp is, but it doesn't jut out too far. The Band also looks bulkier and feels heavier in the hand than it really is, because of the sensors taking up a lot of space. When wearing it, the band doesn't feel any chunkier than any other tracker.
There are only two buttons on the device. One is a power button and the other is an action button. I'm used to just tapping on the center portion or touch screen of other fitness trackers, so pressing the power button took some getting used to. I found myself wishing that a simple tap could activate the band. The action button however, isn't too bad. Basically, it starts or stops work out session timers, sleep tracking and the stopwatch.
So far, the band only comes in black and isn't interchangeable. It's made of a thermal plastic elastomer material and is pretty comfy against the skin. The band can get a bit linty, and became annoying to dust off though. Mine has also been lightly scuffed up here and there. Unfortunately, the bezel around the display has taken most of the damage, and I honestly don't even know how. Regardless, it's been quite durable and I can't see it breaking from a drop.
Almost all the trackers in the wild have their own unique way of fastening around your wrist, and the Microsoft Band is no exception. So far I've seen a simple wrap around like the Jawbone, pinholes like the Misfit Flash and different variations of both. The Band has chosen a sliding clasp route that is both easy to use and easy to adjust.
Comfort
The Microsoft Band fits on the wrist like a Jawbone UP24 in the sense that both are a little rigid, and don't completely wrap around small wrists. But the adjustable clasp helps the Band fit better; people with larger wrists shouldn't have this issue.There are three base sizes (small, medium, large) that fit snugly once you fiddle around with the clasp. I opted for a small tracker, of course, and it's been the most comfortable wearable I've worn so far.
There are two ways you can wear the band, and I found myself switching between both. When typing at my desk, if I wasn't charging it, I would have the screen on top because I didn't want it constantly hitting the desk. When I wear it out and about, I like to have the clasp on top with the screen on the inside of my wrist. This is especially useful when I'm driving since all I have to do is slightly turn my wrist to quickly read a notification.
Admittedly, I can see people feeling annoyed at switching, but I enjoy that you can wear it whichever way you want. I've also heard that the screen is more comfortable if worn on the inside for some people, though seeing the clasp on top isn't as visually appealing.
Specs, performance and interface
As I mentioned earlier, the Microsoft Band has a whopping ten sensors: an optical heart rate sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, gyrometer, GPS, ambient light sensor, skin temperature sensor, UV sensor, capacitive sensor, microphone and a galvanic skin response sensor.To crunch the data from the sensors, the band has 64MB internal storage and an ARM Cortex M4 MCU processor.
Sadly, the band isn't waterproof, though it claims to be "splash resistant" meaning light rain and hand washing it is A-OK. Everything else, showering, swimming and submerging it in water is off the table.
Performance
The sensors are pretty self-explanatory, but accuracy is a whole other story.The heart rate monitor worked consistently for the most part. I've only experienced one occasion so far, in which it randomly spiked from 75 to 140 beats per minute, then back down to 78. I wasn't doing anything but sitting on a stool watching the most boring concert of my life, so I'm not sure why it would have suddenly jumped.
The sleep tracking has felt consistent as well. The first night I used it, my "actual sleep" was five hours and I woke up only twice. I felt great the next day despite the short duration. The next night I slept for eight hours and felt horrible. The app told me I woke up 10 times which seems like an accurate assessment of why I was so tired even though I had a full night of sleep.
I
think I would have to keep using it more and comparing the graphs -
which incidentally are really easy to read - and all the metrics. Decent
accuracy aside, I wish the sleep tracker was automatic; you have to
select the app then press the action button to begin and end monitoring
which can be annoying at times.Step tracking, like the other pedometers in all the fitness trackers and smartwatches out there, is dubious at best. There were times when I felt like it wasn't tracking my steps because the counter wouldn't change. But for the most part, the band's sensor kept up with my mental calculations. I reset the steps and walked the same distance - one block - at about the same speed - two steps per sidewalk crack - with the resulting number remaining consistent every time.
On the whole, the band runs quite smoothly with its platform-agnostic operating system. Interestingly, Microsoft decided to use a wearable architecture that has been optimized for low-power micro-devices, instead of Windows 10 or a modified version of Windows.
There's been no lag, and the touchscreen is super responsive. At times, it was actually a little too sensitive; I would be scrolling through the apps and it would open one, falsely registering that I had selected it.
Two of the best features of Microsoft's wearable are the GPS and the band's ability to download workouts. This basically means you don't have to lug your phone around if you're exercising or going for a run. You still need a phone at the end of the day to sync your info though. Still, I liked how I didn't have to worry about carrying around a phone for the band to function.
The second function allows you to "download" workouts from the Microsoft Health app to your phone over Bluetooth. Similar to the GPS, you won't have to carry around your phone to start exercising.
Interface
The set up is easy enough on the band, but you'll have to sign up for a Microsoft account right off the bat if you don't already have one. This thoroughly upset me, but the annoyance subsided once I realized there was no way around it. I understand that an account is probably needed for all the data Microsoft will be gleaning from you, but it's still another process, plus I already have enough accounts under my belt.
It takes an extra five minutes or so and then another couple of minutes for the band to sync and pair up with your phone over Bluetooth. I used my iPhone 5S to start with, and it worked perfectly fine.
If you shudder at the thought of using anything remotely Lumia-esque or reminiscent of the Windows 8 tiles, you're out of luck. The interface of the Microsoft Band is essentially a simplified Windows platform. But instead of a bunch of resizable, colorful squares you get … a fixed number of small, non-resizable, colorful squares. It's not as awful as it sounds, though. The interface actually works really well with such a small amount of real estate.
If you've enabled the always-on watch face, it will show the time and date. Pressing the power button takes you to the home tile which displays the time in color; you can replace the date by pressing the action button and customizing it to show your heart rate, steps taken, calories burned, or miles from the day. You can also pick from 12 different wallpapers for the home tile alone, with 10 colors that will also deck out the tiles, plus three "discreet" options - or dark grey solid colors with three different font colors.
Scroll horizontally to go through the list of apps and vertically to read messages. Tapping on the main watch face (after pressing the power button) takes you to a list of your fitness goals, like steps taken, miles walked/run, calories burned and the heart rate monitor. Holding down the home watch face and pulling to the right will display battery life (no percentages though), show whether you've enabled the heart rate monitor and your Bluetooth connection.
Notifications were easy to read, but if someone sent an extra long text message, you'd have to read it off your phone. You can't reply with non-Windows devices; all you can do is read social media messages, texts, calls and so forth delivered to your wrist, which I guess is sufficient enough for a fitness tracker.
It's an extremely straightforward interface that isn't hard to grasp at all, which I appreciate since I find Microsoft's Windows 8 interfaces tend to be cluttered and difficult to figure out. The only change I'd make is to include the option for continuous scrolling. It's a little thing, but it would have been ideal if I didn't have to scroll all the way back to the home screen to see the time or another feature. I can also see the perk of having vertical orientation like the Gear Fit but reading messages wouldn't work well on the band's small screen.
Apps and fitness
More apps would be a boon for the Microsoft Band, because there aren't very many right now. It's nice how you can sync up so much data from other apps, but do I really want to have five different app accounts along with all my Band fitness data? Not really. I wasn't using the partnered apps in the first place and I didn't really feel like downloading them.
Microsoft offers 17 stock tiles, or apps, you can mix and match from the Microsoft Health app. Of the 17, you can choose 13 to display on the band.
Your options are the run of the mill apps: messaging, mail, calls, calendar, run, exercise, sleep, alarm/timer, guided workouts, weather, finance, UV, Starbucks, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter and a notification center. You can also sync up the UP by Jawbone app, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness and MyFitnessPal so Microsoft Health app has more info on you.
There are a few random ones, like UV which takes a reading - low, moderate, high, very high, no UV - of the UV rays when you're outside. While fun to try, it gets old after using it once. It seems a little unnecessary since it doesn't really do anything - it's pretty obvious if you're being exposed to too much sun.
The Starbucks app is pretty neat in that it stores the barcode of a gift card for easy access when you're the cafe. You can only store one card at a time though.
Fitness
This wearable was basically made to make you an exercise machine. There are so many sensors and apps dedicated to fitness, it's kind of crazy, if verging on excessive. However, it's definitely been fun using them all (and painful realizing how out of shape I am).
My favorite fitness feature is the guided workouts app. Microsoft partnered with Gold's Gym, Shape, Men's Fitness and more to compile a series of workouts that you can "download" to your band. It's not as fancy as it sounds, but it gets the job down. Essentially you pick whatever workout you want from the Microsoft Health app under "Find a workout." These range from activities under running, bodyweight and strength categories that last for five minutes to an hour and incorporate different reps.
I chose a 14-minute beginner's crunch and plank routine to start with. The app synced with my band and after choosing the tile, it would start the timer and I would begin the workout. After each rep, the haptics would buzz, letting me know there would be a moment to rest, then it would buzz again beginning the next set.
If you aren't sure how to do an exercise, there are short videos that accompany each workout that you can watch from you phone beforehand. It's a barebones way to exercise, but easy and great for people like me who prefer to keep an already arduous chore as hassle free as possible.
The running app is even simpler. All you have to do is select it, and it begins a timer. Keeping the GPS on measures the distance you've run and tracks your pace and route. the app can also retrace your steps, so you can challenge yourself later. The metrics then show up on the band under the Run app and on your mobile device.
You can also measure yoga sessions, weight lifting and cycling. Basically, Microsoft is trying to say the Band can do everything to make you the most macho, buff, fit person ever.
In fact, the Microsoft Health platform has been touted as being an actual service that uses a series of algorithms to collect the data you input from the Band, and even Jawbone or Runkeeper, etc. It then continuously changes up routines, tells you different things and so forth to help motivate you.
Most of the sensors are used when you're exercising to give you the fullest picture of well, you. But it's not quite there yet … I was expecting a lot more from what Microsoft has plugged about the platform. I even downloaded and signed up for the partnered accounts, but it's been disappointing so far.
Just like the lack of apps, it's too early for the Health app to really work. Where are the suggestions to help motivate me? I was expecting some sort of creepy AI to be my personal trainer and yell at me (through haptic feeds and text messages or something) to get my lazy bum away from Netflix binging and into a pair of running shoes. OK, maybe that's wishing for too much, but Microsoft did promise "valuable, personal insights" to help me reach my fitness goals.
The Microsoft Band webpage reads, "Built in the cloud, Microsoft Health will continually evolve to offer you better experiences and more valuable data over time. The more you share with Microsoft Health, the more accurate and helpful your insights will become."
Again, what insights? The graphs that charted my sleep and exercising have been great so far, but where's the part where Microsoft said it would help me be a healthier person? Apparently it's not ready yet.
[Editor's Note: we've reached out to Microsoft for comment on this, and will update this space as soon as we hear back.]
Compatibility and battery life
It's such a little luxury, but the first world problem of having too many devices really is a hassle. That's why it's fantastic that the Microsoft Band is compatible with iOS 7.1, iOS 8, Windows Phones 8.1 and Android 4.3-4.4 devices through Bluetooth. Most fitness trackers are cross-platform, but there are still a few out there that aren't. The majority of smartwatches are in the Android Wear camp, meaning you can only use Android phones. Then there's the Samsung-only Gear series.
Despite the cross-platform support, the band works best with Windows Phones, thanks to Cortana. Using the Halo-inspired virtual assistant requires a data or Wi-Fi connection, but with it, you can use voice commands to set alarms, dictate short voice notes, create time/location/people based reminders, ask Bing questions, create calendar events, play music through your phone, and tell it to call or text message people.
You can also respond to notifications with short, pre-written responses but again, the band only lets you do so with Windows Phone devices.
Battery life
Microsoft says the band should last two days with regular usage; prolonging battery life means going into your settings and turning off watch mode (so the display is blank), setting the brightness to auto or low, shutting off the GPS when running and toggling off the display when exercising.
Despite the recommended settings, I was actually able to get two full days with almost everything on after fully charging the band. I received notifications from Facebook Messenger, Twitter, other app notifications (Instagram likes, LinkedIn requests, etc), phone calls and text messaging. I kept the heart rate monitor running, left the GPS on, had the brightness on high and had the clock face showing constantly - except at night when I was sleeping though the band was still on tracking my sleep. I didn't exercise for long amounts of time during the first two days though.
I attached the little magnetic end of the USB charger in the afternoon on Monday for a full charge and, like clockwork, it died at the same time on Wednesday. The band powered down a bit sooner from Thursday to Friday after using it for multiple exercising sessions - two 20 minute guided workouts - and having the GPS on while running, but it still managed to last a day and half, opposed to a full two days.
Microsoft says it takes about an hour and a half to get a full charge. This matches up well with my experience. The band was in the red low battery warning stages when I plugged it in after the first two days of usage, and after 60 minutes it was at 80% which was faster than I expected. It took the full hour and a half after exercising and using more of the band's features.
At the end of my week, I was pretty pleased with the band's battery life and charging time. It did what I expected, and there are reasonable ways to conserve its energy.
Trying to figure out how to keep the batteries alive as long as possible is a huge sore spot for wearables, but something a lot of companies are making headway in solving. Misfit's Flash and Shine fitness trackers last up to six months and the Garmin Vivofit lasts a year by using old fashioned watch batteries. However, both are pretty simple devices, with neither screens nor the ability to give you notifications.
Verdict
Time and again, Microsoft has been known to throw curveballs, or enter markets prematurely - Microsoft Tablet PC, anyone? - and it's rarely been good for the company.The Microsoft Band didn't necessarily release prematurely, but there's definitely work to be done. None of this is to suggest that the tracker won't be excellent one day, but this is what you should know before hitting up the Microsoft Store.
We like
The battery life isn't spectacular, but for something running a lot of programs, lasting a full two days, or nearly so, isn't too shabby. The fitness-centric ecosystem is also so intensive, you probably wouldn't need any other fitness tracker after the Microsoft Band.It's also been a really comfy device to wear - it has practically become an extension I don't even notice anymore.
The GPS function also helps the band be a little more independent and helps it feel untethered even though it's not.
We dislike
I really wish the Microsoft Health app was as good as it claimed to be. I was looking forward to a device that could send me motivational messages or tips straight from the tracker. A variety of apps is also sorely missing from the band.Having Cortana and quick replies on iOS or Android would have been really neat too, but the appeal of cross-platform has been slightly squashed because of the Windows Phone favoritism. That said, this is also likely because the CPU inside the Band likely isn't capable of running Cortana on its own.
Also, for how jam packed the band is for active types, I'm really surprised it's not waterproof.
Final verdict
There is so much potential here it's killing me. I love the Microsoft Band, but it's breaking my heart, knowing it can do so much more.It seems as if Microsoft thought cramming fitness, fitness and some more fitness would make the band a feasible tracker. It's not a bad idea, but it would be nice to do something with all that data. I can see the Microsoft Band reaching Jawbone UP24 levels of awesome once the Health app really gets going.
The company has struck a fine balance between fitness and functionality, but I'd like to see it executed better, and I feel like Microsoft can definitely do better - heck, it's 80% there in my book.
For now, $199 (about £125, AU$230) is too high a price to pay for a fitness tracker. That's especially knowing you can find a device among the hordes of other trackers out there that is, dare I say, just as good as the Microsoft Band.
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Blip: Hey! Listen! Netflix developing live-action Zelda series?
Netflix is reportedly developing a live-action show based on Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda video games.
The series doesn't have a writer yet, but Netflix is aiming for "Game of Thrones for a family audience," a source told The Wall Street Journal.
If true, this is pretty insane. Video game adaptations have traditionally been absolute crap, and it's rare for anyone to want to touch them. Zelda has yet to be adapted into a live-action production, but the cartoon in the '80s was pretty much the worst thing ever.
But Netflix has been absolutely killing it with its original shows, from House of Cards and Orange is the New Black to the upcoming Daredevil, which looks great. If anyone can make a Zelda adaptation that doesn't suck worse than the Water Temple, maybe it's Netflix?
More blips
You don't need to be the Hero of Time to read more of TechRadar's blips (though it wouldn't hurt).- Google shows its love with free Play Store credit for Chromecast users
- Drones are trying to spoil Star Wars
- Madonna debuted her new music video on Snapchat
Read More ...
Blip: Google shows its love with free Play Store credit for Chromecast users
What's almost as good as free money? Store credit! And that's what Google is giving Chromecast owners this Valentine's Day.
Some Chromecast owners - it's not yet clear how many - can redeem $6 (or £5 in the UK, according to some commenters) in Google Play Store credit between now and Valentine's Day.
To check if you've received the gift, head to this website on a device that's on the same network as your Chromecast. We've asked Google whether the promotion applies outside the US, and we'll update if we hear.
The idea is for you to rent a movie with your sweetheart, though we all know most people will probably spend this on Candy Crush lives.
More blips
This Valentine's Day, why not curl up with more of TechRadar's blips?- Drones are trying to spoil Star Wars
- Madonna debuted her new music video on Snapchat
- We need to talk about HTC's rap video
Read More ...
Review: mini review: Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2
The Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2 try their darndest to make the case that less is more. And while it's not the most feature-packed option on the market, the culmination of premium materials and striking design make the P5 Series 2 an undeniably lavish offering for audio lovers and minimalists alike. But at $299 (£249, about AU$382) do the P5 Series 2 bring what other cans cannot, and do they justify their price?
Design
The aluminum-reinforced headband is coated with padding and wrapped with sheep leather. Did I mention that these were fancy? Thankfully, it's not just all looks, though, the P5 Series 2 adjusts to accommodate my big noggin. I should mention that it just about topped out at my head size, so that alone makes trying before buying absolutely recommended.
The ear cushions connect to the flexible aluminum sidearms which extend from the headband. The default resting position of the P5 Series 2 puts the brushed metal branding into view. With the ear cushions in hand, giving them a twist as you would to put them on your head yields about 130-degrees of swivel. The hinges fastening them to the sidearms allow a fairly generous rocking motion to find a cozy placement on your ears, too.
Similar to the headband, the cushions are given the deluxe treatment as well, with sheep leather and aluminum in the mix. Flipping the headphones over, the leather pillows covering the speakers are poked with an intricate grille which allows the sound to freely pass through.
Each cushion is magnetically attached and can pop off, requiring only a gentle lift at its edges. Not only does it satisfy the curiosity of seeing the speaker up close, it's also useful for swapping out the standard audio cable for the included 3.5mm to 2.5mm one.
Bowers & Wilkins included a chic tote bag to toss the P5 Series 2 into when not in use. As if we needed any more indication that this is a premium package, the bag seals the deal.
The deluxe materials and design touches that make up the P5 Series 2 certainly impress, but can it outclass the on-ear competition when it comes to comfort, features and performance?
Performance
The P5 is the smaller on-ear sibling to the over-ear Bowers and Wilkins P7, but with a recent revision, they are now quite similar internally. The P5 I'm reviewing here is the "Series 2" model, which improves on the internals of the original, bringing it more up to spec to that of the P7 while maintaining a smaller form factor and a cheaper price tag.With the sterling reputation backing the British audio company, I expected great things with the P5 Series 2. Thankfully, it delivered at playing my music with an almost palpable level of fidelity. Whether I was listening to compressed audio on YouTube or enjoying some Hi-Fi masterpieces on Tidal, the P5 Series 2 quickly became my go-to reference to discover how my music is meant to be heard.
I had a blast hearing the P5 Series 2 flex its prowess on my music library, but I had a few favorites that I feel allow it to work its sonic charms most effectively. The backbone of "Reckless Serenade" by the Arctic Monkeys is made up of the pulpy bassline that comes through on the P5 distortion-free and with awesome clarity. Another is the beautiful, vocal-driven track by Neko Case called "I'm From Nowhere". Lastly, in honor of Blue Note Records celebrating its 75th birthday - and also because I really like the song - here is Madlib's groovy rendition of "Montara" by Bobby Hutcherson.
Listening to music was consistently fantastic, but I encountered slight discomfort at times while wearing the P5 Series 2. Ranging from 30 minutes to an hour, everything is peachy. But extended use past the one to 2-hour mark requires some adjustments to carry on without annoyances. This type of discomfort is common with on-ear headphones, and my experience with the P5 Series 2 wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I was just a little surprised that the premium materials didn't do more to reduce typical discomfort.
Finally, iPhone users will appreciate the inline controls and microphone. The play/pause button and volume rocker offer gratifying tactility with only a gentle press and they operated without a hitch. Unfortunately, only the play and pause functions work on other mobile operating systems.
We liked
The P5 Series 2 are a fantastic set of on-ear headphones that audio aficionados will cling to for a the remarkable sound. The fashionable leather, aluminum and incredible build quality only work to sweeten the deal further.We disliked
Quality comes at a price and, unfortunately, $300 is not an amount that everyone will be able to pony up. If it meant shaving $100 or more off the price tag, I could have done without sheep leather, especially since it didn't do much to prevent slight discomfort anyway.It's baffling that the inline controls aren't compatible with other popular mobile operating systems. Are Android and Windows Phone users still being hung to dry at this point? Unfortunately, yes.
Final verdict
The Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2 isn't the most feature-rich option, but in terms of sheer sound and build quality, they easily raise the bar for the competition to follow. These audiophile-grade headphones are a must-buy for anyone serious about hearing music the way it was intended. So long as you have the money, there's not much else in the on-ear market that can match this package at this price point.If you're looking for a cheaper set of headphones that dolls up your music with balanced (but not as full) sound quality and compatibility across multiple mobile OSes, check out the wireless over-ear Koss BT540i headphones.
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Review: HP ZBook 17 G2
Introduction and design
The best mobile workstations on the market combine incredible graphics rendering with top-notch processing speed and superior displays. Unfortunately, they also cost and weigh twice as much as most traditional consumer laptops. In other words: you're paying top dollar for what's under the hood and not for your ability to easily transport the device from location to location.The mobile workstation market is led by machines like the Lenovo ThinkPad W540 ($2,573, £1,606, AU$2,946), a 4.4 pound, 15.6-inch, 2880x1620 (3K) resolution laptop with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-4800MQ processor and a Nvidia Quadro K2100M graphics card.
Also at the top of the food chain is the Dell Precision M3800 ($1699, £1299, AU$2138), a 15.6-inch powerhouse that was recently updated to include a 4K monitor, an additional terabyte of data, Thunderbolt 2.0 docking and the option of installing Ubuntu. Like the previous model, the 4.4 pound Precision M3800 comes fully-loaded with NVIDIA Quadro K1100M graphics and an Intel Haswell Core i7 processor.
If you're looking for something brawnier and more powerful, Dell also has the Precision M6800 ($3,490, £2,075, AU$3,750), which will cost significantly more, and crack your back at a gigantic 8.8 pounds.
Not to be outdone by its competitors, HP has updated its ZBook 17 mobile workstation ($1900, £1250, AU$2400), a ferocious laptop built to withstand any task you throw its way.
Design
This 17.3-inch mobile workstation is built with a three-spindle wedge design that shifts most of its hefty 7.42 pound weight toward its thick backside (1.57 inches). The ZBook features a dark grey plastic chassis that is surrounded by aluminum that covers the top of the display and houses the keyboard.
The first things you'll notice as you sit down to work at the HP ZBook 17 G2 is its chiclet-style keyboard, left-set touchpad and three point buttons. The keyboard includes a number pad for easier data entry, which should please those of you in financial services.
However, the left-set touchpad always takes some getting used to after working on traditional centered devices, and three point buttons are a horrible idea that I can't ever seem to get used to. For example: the middle button closes tabs in Internet Explorer. So any time you accidentally click the second button, instead of the traditional left click or right click buttons, your current internet tab goes bye-bye. And when you're not closing out of your tab, you're simply clicking and clicking without any response, which is annoying. I realize this middle button can be disabled, but I don't want to create a dead area on my already-extensive keyboard.
The HP ZBook 17 G2 only goes up to Quad Hd resolution, so if you're looking for maximum pixel power, don't look here. However, if you're more concerned with what happens on the screen than how it looks, keep reading.
Specs and performance
Here is the HP ZBook 17 G2 given to TechRadar Pro:Spec Sheet
- CPU: 3.10 and 3.30 GHz Intel Core i7-4940MX
- Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro K5100M
- RAM: 16 GB
- Screen: 1920x1080
- Storage: 1TB 7200 RPM SATA, 256 PCIe SSD
- Optical drive: DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL
- Ports: 2 USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.0 charging, 1 USB 2.0, DP 1.2, 1 Thunderbolt 2, 1 RJ45, 1 docking connector, 1 secondary battery connector, 1 VGA, 1 Express Card/54, 1 SD, 1 SmartCard reader
- Connectivity: WLAN: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 802.11 a/b/g/n (2x2)
- Camera: 720p HD
- Weight: 7.42 pounds
- Size: 16.37 x 10.7 x 1.33 in
- Operating system: Windows 7
Although this laptop isn't the most portable on the market, if you do find yourself travelling with it, you won't lack for connection options. The addition of the Thunderbolt 2 port means you can get excellent 3K resolution when you dock the device to 3K compatible displays. Still not up to snuff with the Lenovo ThinkPad W540's built-in 3K standard, but a nice touch nonetheless.
Performance
Performance is really where this machine shines (when not bogged down by viruses - more on this later). I ran a dozen cloud-based spreadsheets while simultaneously downloading WarThunder (which looked and played superbly) and FutureMark benchmarks. I had no issue whatsoever until I went into that twelfth spreadsheet and then the FutureMark download crashed. This is on-par with the cloud-based workload I run my 2010 MacBook Pro through each day, but I would never even think of downloading that second program on the MacBook, lest all hell break loose.Benchmarks
Here's how the HP ZBook 17 G2 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
- 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 18213; Sky Diver: 139343; Fire Strike: 4385
- Cinebench CPU: 727 points; Graphics: 118 fps,
- PCMark 8 (Home Test): 4048 points
- PCMark 8 Battery Life: 2 hours and 15 minutes
Last year's model cranked out an impressive 3123 points in 3DMark's Fire Strike test, which measures graphics rendering. This year's model improved more than 1200 points to 4385.
On PCMark's home test, which measures your laptop's ability to handle common tasks like web browsing, writing, gaming, photo editing, and video chat, among other tasks, this model scored 4048 points, a whopping 400 points higher than last year's model.
"Okay, but how does this stack up against its competitors from other brands?" you're likely asking.
Lenovo's ThinkPad W540 gets crushed in every category. It's dramatically worse than the new ZBook on Cloud Gate's graphics and physics tests, it's nowhere even close to the ZBook on SkyDiver and FireStrike, and if you're concerned about frames per second, the new ZBook delivers 48 more frames per second than the Lenovo. Keep in mind that the Lenovo is one of the best devices on the market - that's how good the new ZBook is.
When compared to Dell's Precision M6800, the ZBook gets somewhat humbled. Although the ZBook performed better on graphics rendering and physics tests, the M6800 was better at graphical complexity. In terms of frames per second, the ZBook crushes the Dell as well, which performed more in line with the Lenovo W540.
Battery life, flaws and verdict
So herein lies the rub: the HP ZBook 17 G2 is only going to give you two hours and 15 minutes of battery life, according to PCMark 8 testing. I was able to squeak out three hours and one minute of WarThunder gameplay with no other programs running, but even that pales in comparison to the ZBook's competitors.The Lenovo W540's battery last three hours and seven minutes during the PCMark 8 battery test, and our reviewer was able to run the machine for four hours and nine minutes without over-exerting it.
The Dell M6800 was able to crank out two hours and 35 minutes of battery life during PC Mark 8 testing, which is just slightly better than the ZBook.
So the moral of the story is: if you're planning on being away from a power outlet on regular occasions, you may want to consider a different device (or a different class of devices, for that matter).
Other major flaws
The ZBook 17 G2 comes bundled with a wide variety of HP and Intel security and performance management tools, including HP's Performance Advisor. Despite the protection, I found myself bogged down by a ton of pop-ups and redirects. I ultimately wound up having to restore the machine to an earlier version in order to get it working properly again.Running Performance Advisor didn't help, which was really disappointing and frustrating. For such a steep price, I expect these issues to be proactively defended against rather than retroactively removed from my system. Purchasers with dedicated IT departments won't have to worry about these issues. However, individual users who want a laptop that can kick butt for personal projects will have to be careful.
We've already discussed battery life and weight ad nauseum, so keep those in mind when making your purchase decision.
We liked
The HP ZBook 17 G2 is capable of more than any other workstation on the market. Its ability to process and render graphics, manage multiple programs, edit video and photos is second-to-none. It tests incredibly well compared to the leading competitors, and it's plastic and aluminum design is easy on the eyes.We disliked
Unlike some of the other mobile workstations we've reviewed, the HP ZBook 17 G2 doesn't offer more than a QHD display. It weighs as much as or more than every other business-class workstation in its class, and its ability to defend against viruses out-of-the-box is atrocious. Not to mention you won't even be able to watch a long movie without having to recharge.Verdict
The HP ZBook is one of the best laptops on the market. If you need to accomplish a task with precision and speed, there is no better device. Unfortunately, its heft, its FHD display, its awkward touchpad buttons and a susceptibility to viruses kept this machine from achieving perfection. Despite all that, compared to its top competitors, the HP ZBook 17 G2 is well-priced and well-positioned to lead the industry.
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Microsoft privately testing Work Assistant app for Windows Phone
After having debuted Cortana for Windows 10, Microsoft is now privately testing a new Windows Phone app called Work Assistant. Though not much is known about Work Assistant, the project could be related to a project that Bill Gates is working on for Microsoft called Personal Agent.
Originally uncovered by Windows Mobile Power User, Work Assistant currently exists as an internal beta and is designed to help users perform Office tasks on Windows Phone. The app is a 2 MB download on the Windows Phone Store and is compatible with devices running at least Windows Phone 8.1. Work Assistant also requires permission to access appointments, contacts, the Internet, and the device's microphone to function.
Last month when Microsoft showed off Windows 10 for the desktop, it demonstrated how the Cortana personal assistant that originally debuted on Windows Phone could be used to find Office files stored locally on the PC or on the cloud in OneDrive.
One speculation is that Work Assistant could help extend Cortana's capabilities on Windows Phone and provide deeper tie-ins with the new touch-optimized version of Office 2016 when it launches for Windows 10 for phones.
Bill Gates' Personal Agent project
Another possibility is that Work Assistant may be part of Bill Gates' Personal Agent project. On Reddit during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, Gates said that he was working on a Personal Agent project."One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to," Gates said. "The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model - the agent will help solve this."
Personal Agent will work "across all your devices."
According to Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, Work Assistant is developed by the Digital Life & Work Group inside Microsoft, which is part of the Applications and Services Group (ASG) under Qi Lu.
"Julie Larson-Green, Chief Experience Officer of ASG, is believed to be spearheading the Work Assistant effort, and Gates has been involved, my source said," Foley said.
Without much detail about either project, it's unclear if Work Assistant and Gates' Personal Agent are related.
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Microsoft issues fix for Xbox One controller issues
Microsoft is rolling out the first Xbox One system update of the year, and it brings with it welcome improvements to the performance and stability of the console's controllers.
The controller now connects to the Xbox One much more quickly, and it's been improved in other ways, too - hopefully fixing the occasional disconnect issues that players have experienced.
- What cool gadgets will you buy in 2015?
Every game now has a game hub, where users can see which of their friends are playing, view Twitch broadcasts, access DLC, peruse the leaderboards, and more.
Xbox Live Director of Programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb details some of these changes in the video above.
The new Xbox One update also improves party chat performance and makes home screen tiles transparent when you have a custom background, and adds TV features to several regions that didn't have them before.
Microsoft promised when the Xbox One launched that the console would receive frequent updates, and so far they've delivered - making the new Xbox better and better with every one.
- The PS4 keeps getting better too
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Looks like Asus has a Microsoft Health-powered smartwatch up its sleeve
When Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Band last October, it wasn't just showing off a new wearable - it was also kicking off a new wearables platform called Health.
And it looks like Asus might be the first smartwatch maker to take advantage of that platform with a new gadget, the Asus VivoWatch.
- Samsung's Gear S is a standalone smartwatch
The group described the wearable as a "Health watch which can detect heart rate and sleep data."
The Windows link
The link with Microsoft is obvious in the name "VivoWatch," as Asus uses "Vivo" for Windows gadgets like the VivoTab and VivoBook.The new Asus watch probably won't run Windows - we're still waiting on Microsoft for one of those - but Microsoft said in October that wearable makers will be able to license the Band's 10-sensor system and Health platform, and it seems Asus may be the first to do so.
Asus already has one wearable in the Asus ZenWatch, but there's definitely room for another.
- The iPad Air laid down the gauntlet
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Review: Netgear ProSafe Smart Switch S3300-28X-PoE+
Introduction and Performance
Unlike the unmanaged Netgear ProSafe XS708E we reviewed at the end of last year, the ProSafe S3300 is a family of much smarter switches with a clutch of additional management features and optional Power over Ethernet (PoE) capabilities. S3300 switches also come with a lot more ports, including four 10GbE uplinks, plus they can be stacked together and managed via a single IP address. So not your average consumer switch, but the kind of hardware suited to small to medium sized businesses looking to keep on top of network bandwidth and usage.A capable enterprise package
Netgear's ProSafe S3300 switches are available with either 28 or 52 ports, with or without PoE in each case. The model we looked at had 28 ports (the S3300-28X-PoE+) and at the time of our review it was available online for as little as £410 ex VAT (about $614, or AU$770), working out at a shade over £17 (about $25, or AU$32) for each of the 24 Gigabit Ethernet ports provided.
The other four ports feature much faster 10GbE interfaces, two ready to go with RJ45 (1000Base-TX) connectors while the other two are SFP sockets that require additional adapters to support fibre connections. Importantly, all four ports can be used at the same time and, as well as server uplinks, can also be utilised to provide a high-speed interconnect when stacking switches together. Up to six switches can be connected this way, the S3300 architecture sporting a 40Gbps backplane with built-in redundancy and automatic failover should a switch in the stack stop working,
Getting started
Build quality is impressive for such an affordable switch, with an all-metal 1U chassis that features a built-in power supply and forced cooling via a couple of fans mounted on one side. If necessary it can sit on a desk or a shelf, but it is very noisy so rack-mounting in a server room is the preferred option, especially if building a stack. Mounting brackets are included.Like any switch, the S3300 can simply be plugged in and left to get on with the business of L2 network switching all by itself. To take full advantage of the L3 features, however, some setup and management work is required, with a custom utility provided to help locate each switch and configure its security before handing you over to a browser-based GUI.
A fair degree of technical expertise is needed to get the best results here, but the interface is easy enough to follow and basic options like VLAN setup and PoE management proved very straightforward. The ability to automatically prioritise VoIP and video traffic is another very useful feature with lots of other other quality of service and bandwidth management tools built-in. All of these are designed to take advantage of industry standard technologies and protocols for interoperability with switches and routers from other vendors.
Verdict
A really nice 10GbE platform that has a surprisingly high number of features for a switch in this price bracket, the ProSafe S3300 is easier than most to manage. Optional extras can be expensive, but that's common for this kind of product and, overall, it's very affordable.We liked
The ProSafe S3300 delivers real enterprise-class networking in an affordable package that enables small to medium-sized businesses to exploit the benefits of 10GbE without breaking the bank. It's also easy to manage via the integrated browser interface and optionally supports both the 15w 802.3af (PoE) and 30w 802.3at (PoE+) standards, simplifying the deployment of things like wireless access points, PTZ CCTV cameras and IP phones.We disliked
It's worth noting that the adapters needed to take advantage of the two SFP ports will bump up the price, in some cases quite considerably. Direct attach cables for stacking start at around £55 (around $82, or AU$103) according to length, but fibre optic transceivers can cost anywhere from £120 (around $178, or AU$225) to over £700 (around $1,048, or AU$1,315) depending on specification. Such costs, clearly, need to be taken into consideration when planning to buy this kind of switch.Similarly, if you want to deliver maximum power over all the ports you need to add an optional RPS (Redundant Power Supply) which can add a further £500 (around $749, or AU$940) or more to the overall price.
Final verdict
A strong contender for small companies looking to build a new LAN or upgrade their networks to 10GbE, the ProSafe S3300 has all the right options in an affordable, easy to use and scalable package. Just watch out for the optional extras.
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Review: Updated: Android 4.4 KitKat
Introduction
Everyone was expecting Key Lime Pie to serve as the delicious moniker for the next version of Android. Google surprised us all by bucking tradition and releasing Android 4.4 under the name KitKat.Version 4.0 started life as Ice Cream Sandwich, but the last three decimal additions came under theJelly Bean banner. This new version was obviously deemed different enough to snag a new nickname, but not different enough to merit a jump to version 5.0.
It's no longer the latest version of Android, however, with Android 5.0 Lollipop recently coming out. It hasn't reached a huge amount of smartphones at the moment, so there's still a good chance that your Android device is rocking Android 4.4 KitKat.
If you'd like to find out when (or if) your device is getting updated to Android 5.0 Lollipop, check out our guide on when you can expect to see the upgrade.
But back to Android 4.4 KitKat; don't be fooled, this is an important step up for Android. KitKat is super-smooth, the UI is refined and elegant, there are improvements to the long-neglected calling and messaging side of the platform, a new focus on productivity, and your fortune-telling digital assistant is brought front and centre as Google Now reaches maturity.
General surprise in the tech world wasn't just based on the erroneous supposition that Key Lime Pie had to be next; there were also some raised eyebrows at the idea of Google entering into a tawdry cross-licensing deal with Nestlé which would see a flood of Android-shaped KitKats hitting the shops offering buyers the chance to win Nexus 7 tablets or Google Play credit.
According to Google the promotion was its idea, and no money changed hands. With Nestlé producing 50 million Android KitKat bars it certainly looks like a sweet deal for them.
Naming conventions aside, the 4.4 update is about addressing some of the Android criticisms that simply won't go away, and it does so very well indeed.
There's a real focus on the consumer here, with a smattering of useful new features, a noticeable bump in performance, and some optimization to ensure that budget hardware is not left behind.
Before Android 5.0 Lollipop dropped, Android 4.4 was easily the best version of the platform to date, which could explain why some smartphone and tablet manufacturers seem to be in no hurry to update their devices.
Android KitKat started out as version 4.4, but it's since had various small updates in the form of 4.4.1, 4.4.2, 4.4.3 and most recently Android 4.4.4 - this review has been updated to reflect the tweaks and changes experienced at each step to give you the most complete overview of the operating system, as well as highlighting how things will change in the move to Android 5.0 Lollipop.
First impressions
KitKat really makes a mockery of the idea that iOS 7 is more refined than Android and even stands up well to iOS 8. This version of the platform is impressively fast, with stylish transitions and an intuitive feel that masks the potential complexity.There's a paring back of the notification bar that introduces translucency and context awareness, enabling you to reclaim every pixel of your display for whatever you're doing.
There are a few new features here, and not all of them are perfect, but for the most part Google has cherry-picked improvements and refined them.
The contrast between the bloated OEM launchers and stock Android could hardly be starker, but there are still a few things that manufacturers like Samsung and LG could teach Google (split-screen apps is an obvious one) and some of these things have been addressed in Android Lollipop.
The familiar white Google logo, followed by four pulsing colourful circles, still greets you on booting up, but the process has sped up dramatically as the platform has matured. When I checked version 4.1 on a Galaxy Nexus it took 34 seconds. The Nexus 4 running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean clocked in at 19 seconds.
Android 4.4.4 took around 20 seconds to boot up on the Nexus 5used for testing. Not quite as fast as the Nexus 4, but when you consider that my Galaxy S3 running version 4.3 of Android took just shy of 40 seconds to boot up, you get a feel for how speedy that is.
As the home screen comes into view, you can immediately detect the lighter feel that Google was shooting for. The status bar icons at the top are now white.
The custom Roboto font looks like it has been on a diet, which makes it feel that little bit more crisp and elegant. Looking at menu highlights and icons, what once was blue is now generally grey.
All of this has changed again though with Android Lollipop, which gives the OS a 'Material Design' makeover which features a flat look while making everything that little bit more real.
Google Now Launcher
The changes go further on the Nexus 5 because it has the Google Now Launcher. Those black bars top and bottom are gone. A subtle gradient is retained to ensure white icons are clear, even on light backgrounds.Head into your app drawer and you'll find white dots at the bottom of the screen to illustrate which page you are on. The icons are now much bigger and clearer, at the cost of displaying just four across instead of five.
The widget tab has been dumped, and you won't miss it because a long press anywhere on the home screen gives you access to the widget menu, as well as wallpapers and relevant settings.
Swipe from right to left and you can access additional home screens. There doesn't seem to be any limit, you simply drag an icon to the right to create a new screen. Any home screen you empty will automatically disappear.
The only real surprise is that you have to scroll deliberately through each one; you can't take a shortcut by tapping on the page marker dots at the bottom.
Swiping from left to right on the home screen will bring Google Now into view, but I'll go into that in more detail later.
Initially none of these changes made it beyond the Nexus 5 by default, but the Google Now Launcher has since been made available for other devices in the Play Store.
I was disappointed and surprised that Google initially decided to keep this as a Nexus 5 exclusive, so it's pleasing to see it getting a wider release.
If it doesn't work for you, the good news is that popular launchers, such as the free Nova Launcher, can be used, and the status bar transparency is supported along with a number of other customization options, to help you get the look you want.
- Check out our top ten Android launchers for some ideas on where to start.
Calls, messaging and productivity
Jelly Bean saw a major overhaul of the notification shade, but dragging it down from the top of the screen won't reveal any major changes in KitKat.Google has moved on to the next challenge, and refreshingly there has been some overdue attention lavished on the calls and messaging apps.
Notifications have returned to the spotlight in Android Lollipop, as that enables them to appear on the lockscreen and become less intrusive by popping up at the top of the screen when you're in an app, rather than blocking your view.
Calls
The Phone app sits bottom left in the dock on your home screen (although the dock can be customized to your liking). Fire it up and you'll find that frequently contacted people are prominently displayed.
There's a search bar at the very top for contacts or nearby places, and it auto-suggests as you type, so you'll rarely need to input more than a couple of letters.
Your last call is highlighted at the top, with three favourites below that, and then the rest of your contact list. It only fills this in as and when you call people.
Three icons sit in a blue bar at the bottom: on the left you have a call log, in the middle there's the dial pad, and on the right is where you can add, import or export contacts, and access call settings.
The caller ID system has also been improved, so that it can automatically search for businesses with a matching number in listings on Google Maps, if the phone number calling you is not listed in your contacts.
There's nothing Earth-shattering going on here, but Google's bet that most of us only frequently contact a small group of people is a safe one, and it makes the Phone app faster to use.
Messaging
The changes to the messaging system are much bigger. Google has decided to consolidate MMS and SMS messages into its Hangouts app.
When Android 4.4 KitKat initially turned up I was pretty critical of the Hangsouts app, as the separation of SMS and Hangout messaging threads and the lack of auto-detect to choose how to message a contact, felt awkward.
Thankfully I can now say, with Android 4.4.4 running on my Nexus 5, the whole experience is a lot better. Both of my primary concerns have been addressed by Google and Hangouts is now a slick, fluid messaging application.
If the person you want to contact is online and signed into Hangouts (via Google+, Google Talk or Gmail), then you can use that service. If they aren't, your phone will automatically detect that and switch you to SMS mode.
You can choose between available options by tapping the icon to the left of the text input box - allowing you to over ride an online instant messaging chat in favour of a good, old fashioned SMS.
The Hangouts app allows you to share your location, which is great for meeting friends, and you can send files like animated gifs, or make video calls. Google has also integrated Emoji into the keyboard, so you have a huge list of comical Japanese squiggles to make your messages more interesting.
Just remember that they won't display properly at the other end if the person you're talking to doesn't have Emoji characters installed.
- Hate Hangouts? We've compiled a list of the best SMS messaging apps for Android to give you the top alternatives.
Productivity
It's commonplace to use your smartphone for work nowadays, and there's a greater level of expectation that it will be able to handle documents. The days of the BlackBerry device for the office and something else for home are long gone.
Google has included QuickOffice as a standard app with Android 4.4. It enables you to create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on your phone or tablet.
You can save those files to the cloud using the 15GB of free storage you get with Google Drive. It's also capable of opening PDF files. You can share any of your creations directly via email, Bluetooth, Google Drive, and other cloud services.
Wireless printing
There's a new Cloud Print feature to simplify the process of printing a photo, document or web page wirelessly from your Android smartphone or tablet.It's a pretty barebones option, and you'll need to use a printer that's connected to Google Cloud Print or an HP ePrint printer. Other printers will add support via apps in the Google Play Store.
It draws the list of devices from Chrome, so any device or printer you've used while signed in on Chrome gets listed. This might be a headache for some, so you're best off going to the Google Cloud Print website, when signed into your Google account on your desktop, so you can set it up exactly the way you want.
There's no denying that Google tries to push you towards using the services it wants you to use, and Gmail is a good example. The improvements to the Email app in Android 4.4 offer a welcome break from this pressure.
Some of the better features of Gmail have been integrated. Emails are organized into nested folders, contact photos are displayed, and they double up as checkboxes to select messages.
The bottom navigation bar is gone and there's a new slide-out menu that comes in from the left, offering access to all your folders.
You can also just slide an email left or right to delete it, which enables you to get through that inbox faster. The only obvious thing that's lacking is threaded email conversations.
It looks like Google might allow the Gmail app to handle non-Google emails with Android Lollipopthough, so having two email apps may soon be a thing of the past.
Downloads
One final boost to productivity is offered by the revamped Downloads app. If you download a lot of files this will really help you find what you want without a lengthy search. You can choose between list or grid view, and you can filter by name, date, or size.You'll also find that the menu that slides in to enable you to open files in specific apps and attach them provides you with a clear choice of recent files, cloud services, and downloads.
Cloud integration
The allocation of 15GB of free cloud storage is fairly generous, provided you don't mind using Google services. There are various routes into that space. The most useful feature is the auto-backup for photos and videos. You can set it up via Google+, the Photos app, or Google Drive.
You'll also find that you can open your Google Drive files directly from the cloud in relevant apps. Use Quick Office and you can open Word documents.
Fire up the Photos app and you can see photos and videos taken with the camera on the device you're holding, or tap the Highlights tab and you'll see all of your photos and videos from any device that you've backed up, as well as photos you've posted in Google+ and photos you've been tagged in on Google+.
Photos vs Gallery
When it comes to viewing your photos and videos, Google is clearly transitioning from the old Gallery app to a new Photos app. That means there's a slightly confusing mixture of the two.
The Photos app looks fresher, with a white background and a nicer layout.
It lists your content chronologically by default. It pulls in all of your backed up content from Google+, and supports Auto Awesome photos and movies.
The photo effects allow you to merge photos, create wee animations, and more.
There's also an editor to create movies from a mix of photos and videos with various themes, styles, and background music options. The real attraction is the "auto" part of the equation, but you'll have to tweak to get really good results.
The Gallery app has a more in-depth photo editor, but none of the Auto Awesome features. It has a traditional album set up by default, but you can choose to filter by time, location, people, or tags.
Both of the apps duplicate sharing functionality, although it's an option that looks more stylish in the Photos app and you can see the extra integration with existing Google services.
It's another area where Google is trying to tempt you into using its services with some interesting and exclusive features, but the Gallery app is perfectly functional and you can afford to ignore the Photos app if you prefer not to use it.
On devices from other manufacturers there's a good chance that the stock Gallery app will be replaced by their own app for photos, and that's part of the reason it has to be there. It remains to be seen how, when, or if Google will integrate the two in future.
Bear in mind also that the look if not the functionality of all these things is going to change with Android Lollipop to fit with its new Material Design.
Google Now and performance
Google Now
The pre-emptive powers and general usability of Google Now are improving with every passing Android release. On the Nexus 5, or any other device running the Google Now Launcher, you only have to swipe from left to right on the home screen to open Google Now.On other Android 4.4 devices you can swipe up from the Home button, wherever you happen to be, and whatever you happen to be doing, and it will launch.
As long as you have your language set to US English (you'll find the option to change it in Settings > Google > Search > Voice) you can simply say "Ok Google" to launch a voice search and you can do that from any screen on the phone, even the lock screen.
You can use Google Now for all sorts of thing, including web searches, sending messages, making calls, launching apps, and even playing songs.
The one impediment to that is the speech recognition, but it's showing real signs of improvement in Android 4.4. Even with my Scottish brogue the success rate for queries was pretty high. You can also tap on any wrongly interpreted words and pick a replacement from the dropdown list.
Google is apparently working on integrating Google Now with partner apps next, so it will be able to access their content, and that could advance it another step.
The customization options are still very limited right now, and if you aren't interested in weather results, commute updates, specific sports teams or stocks, then it's just about the voice commands.
Performance and multitasking
Android has been criticized for lag and stutter since it first appeared on the mobile scene. This is somewhat inevitable when you allow low-end hardware to run the platform and manufacturers to create their own user interfaces. Project Butter was the concerted effort to eradicate lag in Jelly Bean and it definitely worked, but KitKat takes it to a whole new level with Project Svelte.Navigating around on the Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 is lightning fast and silky smooth, nary a touch of lag to spoil your day. The Nexus 5 has had special treatment to ensure that the touchscreen is responsive and accurate, and you can really feel the difference.
Any device with Android 4.4 will benefit from the memory optimization, and if you're on Android 4.4.3 or 4.4.4 there are even more improvements, making it a breeze to skip in and out of apps and games. This speedy performance is no surprise on a powerhouse like the Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 with their 2GB of RAM, but it really stands out on a device like the Moto G with 1GB of RAM.
That's what makes KitKat so important for the budget end of the Android market.
Google's Project Svelte enables the platform to run reliably on devices with just 512MB of RAM. It could be a viable update for devices stuck on Gingerbread.
A 'low memory' mode can automatically scale back animations and ensure that the hardware can cope. The real barrier to this is persuading manufacturers and carriers to update old devices when they'd prefer you to buy a new one.
There should be even more performance improvements with Android Lollipop, in large part because it switches to the ART runtime, which is both faster and more memory efficient than Dalvik, which is the standard Android 4.4 runtime.
Better yet, Android Lollipop brings improvements to battery life as well as a battery saving mode to keep your devices going for as long as possible.
Everything else
We've covered the highlights already, but there are a few other enhancements worth mentioning. For a start, KitKat finally brings lost device security to the platform as a default. The Android Device Manager, for finding and remotely wiping a lost device, is now built in to the platform.When you are listening to music on your device, or projecting movies to Chromecast (now fully supported), you can enjoy full screen art and controls on the lock screen.
The immersive mode which melts the status bar away when you're playing a game or watching a movie is available for all apps now, although it will require developers to update them to support it. A simple swipe up from the bottom of the screen conjures up the Back, Home, and Multitasking keys.
It's also truly gratifying to be able to check your notifications by swiping down from the top of the screen without having to exit whatever you are doing.
Notifications get better still with Android Lollipop, as among other things it will smartly prioritise them based on your own usage.
Bluetooth MAP support in Android 4.4 promises better integration with Bluetooth-enabled cars, closed captioning and subtitles can now be turned on via the Accessibility menu, and you can manage Home screen replacements or launchers from the menu via Settings > Home.
Perhaps the biggest new feature we haven't mentioned yet is support for tap to pay via NFC. Google has found a way to allow apps to manage your payment information in the cloud or on your device, so you can use Google Wallet, even if carriers are trying to push their own alternatives.
Throw in support for IR blasters, a more power-friendly way to act as a pedometer, and a new location option in quick settings to give more control over what apps are tracking your location and how they do it.
All in all there are a lot of little tweaks and additions that improve the whole experience, though it's a shame that things like low-power audio playback and HDR+ photography have been limited to the Nexus 5.
The emergence of that Google launcher makes you wonder how much further Google's Android might deviate from the stock experience on other devices in the future.
Verdict
Android 4.4 KitKat doesn't dramatically change the Android experience, it adds a handful of specific features to enable people to get more from their Android devices, and it represents a subtle refinement that's both aesthetic and performance-related.Many older devices are yet to benefit from Google's commitment to optimizing the platform for low-end hardware, but new budget devices are coming on leaps and bounds as a result.
We liked
The Google Now Launcher looks and feels better, which is great if you have a Nexus device or you're willing to go to the trouble of sideloading it.Smooth performance and support for lower-end hardware via Project Svelte is a very smart move. It hasn't solved the fragmentation problem in the short term because updates are down to manufacturers and carriers, but it will certainly ensure that the budget Android experience is vastly improved in the future.
The productivity tweaks are a real boost for anyone using their Android device for work, especially the long overdue update to the Email app. Immersive mode is a subtle thing, but it's a truly welcome tweak.
We disliked
It's odd to have a Photos app and a Gallery app with a lot of duplicated options and a handful of exclusives. The user experience would undoubtedly be better if there was just one app to handle your photos and videos.The ability to have more than one app on screen at a time is something I would have liked to have seen - especially on the fleet on Android tablets - perhaps Google is content at leaving this to the likes of Samsung, but there are signs that we might see something along those lines in Android Lollipop.
Verdict
There's absolutely no question that anyone in a position to install Android 4.4 should go ahead and do it. Even without the Google Now Launcher there are enough improvements, refinements, and new features to make it well worth your while. It builds on what is already a very solid platform with a huge range of apps and games.Android 4.4 KitKat is every bit as stylish and refined as iOS 8, and it still beats the pants off Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10.
We suspect the real strength of KitKat will show itself at the budget end of the Android market. Anyone with limited funds to snag a smartphone will benefit from Project Svelte. The popularity of the Moto Gshows there's a real appetite out there for a solid phone that doesn't tie you into a costly monthly contract for two years.
If you're in the market for a new smartphone, whether you want something cutting edge, or you have a tight budget, Android is a seriously strong contender for your business.
Most devices should by now have got Android 4.4 KitKat, but for the full run down of when your device will get the update check out our regularly-updated Android 4.4 release datea rticle discussing all the recent news and rumours about which phones will be updated. And don't forget to check when you'll get Android Lollipop too.
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