SanDisk wants to kill hard drives with low cost SSD
SanDisk promises an even more affordable solid state drive with its newly unveiled Z400s. With capacities ranging from 32GB to 256GB, SanDisk claims that the Z400s brings all the benefits of solid state storage – including reliability, performance and low power consumption – at a cost that is competitive with traditional hard disk drives.
The Z400s is targeted at the embedded space for use in vertical markets as well as the mainstream computing market. SanDisk is positioning the drive as an affordable entry level solution, joining the company's X series and performance A series SSDs.
"With a single architecture, SanDisk is able to provide OEMs with an affordable solution for displacing HDDs in today's cutting edge consumer devices, and help embedded application designers avoid overpaying for un-needed space – all while delivering the peak performance and high-reliability that only SSDs can supply," said Rizwan Ahmed, senior director of product marketing, client platform solutions, SanDisk.
Features
The Z400s is available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities in mSATA, 2.5-inch SATA and M.2 (2242 and 2280) form factors. SanDisk says that the drives can be used in mainstreaming computing to bring the benefits of solid state storage to affordable-priced entry-level notebooks.For mainstream computing use, the drive fits inside popular mSATA enclosures with a 7mm height. SanDisk claims that the Z400s has a read speed of 550MB/s and a write speed of 380MB/s. These speeds are not too far off from the company's high-end 240GB SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD ($140, £91, AU$180), which has a 550MB/s read speed and a 520MB/s write speed.
Even though SanDisk did not announce specific pricing, the company told TechRadar that the drives features a lower total cost of ownership compared to current solid state drives (SSD), and that the Z400s will be priced comparable to hard disk drives (HDD). For comparison, a 250GB Western Digital 2.5-inch hard drive currently retails for $47 (£30, AU$60) on Amazon while a 256GB SSD from rival Samsung costs around $100 (£65, AU$128).
Laptop use
SanDisk says that the Z400s uses less power than hard drives, with up to 20 times lower power consumption. The Z400s runs on as little as 30mW of power. When used in a mainstream computing laptop, this means that the laptop can run longer on battery power."By designing systems with the new SanDisk Z400s SSD, PC OEMs can deliver products that are 5x more reliable and 20x faster than traditional hard drives, translating into fewer returns, lower total cost of ownership and increased overall customer satisfaction," said SanDisk.
Enterprise use
For embedded applications, SanDisk is positioning the Z400s for use in automotive black boxes, security systems and point-of-sales machines. Because solid state drives feature fast boot times, increased reliability and durability compared to hard drives, the Z400s should be a good fit for these types of solutions.The fast boot times will help businesses stay productive and retain customers if they need to restart their POS machines. "Research shows that customers become frustrated after 2.5 minutes if there is no progress in a checkout line; after five minutes, one out of three customers will abandon the line altogether," SanDisk said of the benefit of transitioning to solid state storage.
SanDisk is currently sampling the drives to customers.
- Read our picks for the best Ultrabooks on the market
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Jony Ive anointed Apple's first ever Chief Design Officer
There’s no question that Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design and great tech innovator Jonathan Ive has become the company’s chief visionary since Steve Jobs’ passing, bringing the Apple Watch into existence and turning Mac OS X and iOS and the beautiful user experiences they are today.
Now, a promotion has recognised his immense design contribution, with Apple anointing Sir Jony Ive its first ever Chief Design Officer.
Ive revealed the news to Stephen Fry in an interview with The Telegraph.
Conceptually actually remarkable
The new role gives Ive the opportunity to focus more prominently on design, freeing him up from the administrative and management work that has taken up a lot of his time in the past.Alan Dye will be put in charge of user interfaces, while Richard Howarth will be heading up industrial design, with Ive overseeing both.
According to a memo from Tim Cook, Ive will be handing off managerial duties to Dye and Howarth on July 1st.
- Read about Jony Ive’s latest creation in our Apple Watch review
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Bling out your Apple Watch in 18K gold on a budget
Don't have $10,000 (about UK£6,464, AU$12,779) or more lying around to buy a gold-plated Apple Watch Edition model? That's okay, because a new service can make it look like you're a big spender for the same cost as Cupertino's cheapest wearable.
9to5Mac today published an unboxing and hands-on video featuring an Apple Watch with gold plating and a link bracelet costing far less than you might imagine.
That's because the customized Apple Watch was bling'ed up by a new service called WatchPlate, who can turn even the cheapest Sport model into an 18-karat gold-plated beauty in only four business days for a mere $399 (about UK£258, AU$510).
Better yet, these experts with nearly a century of combined experience at gold plating can make you look like a million bucks, complete with free round-trip shipping courtesy of FedEx.
Big spender
Naturally, spending upwards of $17,000 (about UK£10,988, AU$21,724) on an honest-to-goodness, 18-karat Apple Watch Edition does come with at least a few perks, such as the VIP treatment you'll receive from the Apple Retail Store or posh boutique you'll need to visit to buy one.However, this third-party approach does have a few benefits: The gold plating is available in either yellow or rose gold (Apple's is only available in the former), and WatchPlate can even set you up with bands like the Link Bracelet shown here, a configuration unavailable to regular Edition buyers.
The end result is described as "stunning" and "absolutely gorgeous" and the gold plating appears to have held up nicely after the first week of wear and tear, but the best part may be that you won't have to take out a second mortgage just to replace this customized wearable, should it get stolen by an unscrupulous thief.
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Review: Updated: New Nintendo 3DS
Introduction and design
For all the stuff it does well, Nintendo doesn't do itself many favours when it comes to communication. After the messy and confused messaging of the Wii U and the perhaps even more confusing 2DS, it's now gone and named its latest 3DS the New 3DS.And certainly by just looking at it, you wouldn't be able to tell much difference between it and its prior form. It's less of a problem for the serious gamers and Nintendo nuts, but for the parents who are out to buy their kid a birthday present… well, you can see the problem.
But the New 3DS really is new. The alterations might not immediately strike you - many are under the hood - but the handheld has undergone a number of beneficial tweaks. And as I'm about to explain, it does justify the upgrade.
What's most curious about the New 3DS, however, is that it's only launching in Europe, at a price of £150 (around US$240, AU$300). The US and Australia will only get the XL variant while Brits will get both. Nintendo has obviously been keeping a close eye on consumer trends and, we assume, determined that everyone else prefers to go large.
But whichever size you go for, this is the definitive 3DS - the one Nintendo should have given us back in 2011.
Design
I've never had a problem with the design of the 3DS and, clearly, neither has Nintendo. The clamshell shape is as familiar as ever, although it has been bumped up a smidge in size to accommodate a slightly larger display.
As an added bonus, Nintendo has granted the power of interchangeable faceplates to this smaller model. Nintendo sent me a rather eye-catching Luigi one to try but you'll have a vast range to choose from (Japan already has 40) if you fancy some added customisation. Why this is absent on the XL is a bit of a mystery to me - again, I imagine it comes down to market research.
Open it up and, again, it's a familiar site. As a nice little touch, the face buttons now replicate the colours of those on the SNES controller. But the biggy is the one we've been waiting on for far too long - a second analogue stick.
Don't be fooled by that puny-looking grey nib that's sprouted on the right hand side - it's a fully-fledged C-stick capable of 360 degree movement. It feels stiff but it's surprisingly sensitive. During my time playing Majora's Mask it worked wonderfully for controlling the in-game camera. Much of that is down to the placement that makes thumb-jumping between face buttons and analogue stick super easy.
To go with your new analogue stick is a pair of added shoulder buttons, putting the much-berated Circle Pad Pro accessory out of a job. Thank goodness, it was ugly as sin. Meanwhile, the new ZL and ZR buttons sit side by side with the old shoulder pressers, making Nintendo's handheld finally feel complete.
But there's more; the wireless button is now gone, the start and select buttons both rest below the fact buttons, the volume slider sits on the left-hand side of the top screen, and the power button has shifted to the bottom right of the device. That last one is perhaps my only niggle with the new aesthetic as it makes turning the console on and off a tad more awkward than it should be.
Switching up the design isn't the only reason for changing the faceplates on the New 3DS - both the battery and MicroSD card lie beneath. The fact you need a screwdriver to change an SD card in 2015 is, in my eyes, a design flaw - especially when you consider how quickly those cards fill up.
But that's not the strangest decision Nintendo has made on the New 3DS. No, the strangest decision was to not include a charger with the console. I guess the assumption is that most buyers will be upgraders from an older 3DS, but what about everyone else?
These days it's assumed that any gadget not running on AA batteries is going to come with some sort of charger in the box, and I think there are going to be a lot more disappointed people than Nintendo anticipates.
Features and games
If I'm ordering the new features in terms of importance, the next on the list is the tremendously better 3D effect. The 3DS of yesterday demanded you kept your head in a 'sweet spot' to get the benefit of an extra dimension - now the 3D follows you around.Thanks to the console's new front-facing camera, the 3DS will follow your head and adjust the parallax to meet the angle of your focus. Much like when the 3DS and its stereoscopic function showed up in 2011, this new 3D feature is something you really have to see to understand. But I can tell you now, it makes a phenomenal difference; finally, I have a reason to push that 3D slider back up again.
That said, there's still much debate over whether the 3D effect of Nintendo's handheld is more than a gimmick, and Nintendo hasn't done much of late to prove otherwise. Pokemon X and Y, two of the biggest games to hit the 3DS, ignored the feature for the most part. The 2DS speaks for itself.
Nintendo's new head-tracking 3D doesn't make it better in clarity and pop, but it does make it more consistent and comfortable to use, which is still a big improvement in my eyes.
What might be less noticeable when you pick up the 3DS is the added speed. Nintendo has swapped out the CPU for a faster model. Apps now open and close with added brevity, and a number of upcoming games will only be compatible with this newer model.
Here's the rub of the New Nintendo 3DS. The Circle Pad Pro provides a (rather cumbersome) fix to anyone who wants to stick to their current model, but when it comes to new games that are New 3DS-compatible only, there's only one solution for those who don't upgrade: suck it up.
That's going to cause fragmentation, but obsolescence is the very driver of technology so it's difficult to criticise Nintendo's decision to up the processor on a device that's nearly four years old.
Just how much grunt the new processor will lend the 3DS remains to be seen, but with the additional controls now part of the parcel it may be the only thing standing between the 3DS and a bunch of lovely Gamecube ports. The prospect of one day playing Mario Sunshine on my 3DS is pant-wettingly exciting.
What's not been boosted significantly on the new model, however, is the New 3DS's camera. There's been a slight improvement for capturing pictures in low-light conditions, but overall it's a pretty weak feature that I'd say the console could do without were it not for augmented reality games like Face Raiders.
Nintendo's made one other preparation for the future, NFC, and this one is going to get a lot of use. The New 3DS comes with NFC built in, ready for Nintendo's army of Amiibo figurines. By placing an Amiibo on the bottom screen of the 3DS the two will interact, allowing you to level up your character, gain some bonus items, and more.
Nintendo's toys are selling marvellously well at the moment (really, who's surprised?) and rolling out by the truckload, so expect to see plenty more characters - and much more interaction with the 3DS - in the near future.
As for the games, I shouldn't need to tell you that they're in abundance. Good games too, which is where the technically superior PS Vita falls down.
The library of games available to 3DS owners is already vast and varied but it's no coincidence that Nintendo is launching its new handhelds on the same day as Majora's Mask 3D, the handheld port of its classic N64 Zelda adventure.
That library will grow stronger with more powerful games, thanks to the new CPU, and I can't wait to see how far developers can push the handheld. It was recently announced that the multiplatform Unity engine is coming to the 3DS, with more than 50 Wii U games using it already.
Unity powers most of the big Android and iOS games right now, and the result of this should be better quality games for the 3DS. It might also tie into Nintendo's foray into mobile gaming.
But right now, this feels like it could well be the last episode in the 3DS saga. So, Nintendo, what comes next?
Verdict
Nintendo has long been boss of the handheld market, but the fact it continues to be so successful in a market now dominated by smartphones is, quite frankly, damn impressive.The New 3DS means Nintendo should continue to hold its own for a while longer. With more power, extra controls and a reason to turn that 3D slider back up again, Nintendo's latest handheld is a welcome refresh that - despite some minor niggles - is definitely worth the upgrade.
We liked
Almost every change Nintendo has made here is welcome, and the result is a handheld that finally feels complete. The 3D is now much more consistent, meaning less headaches and a more enjoyable experience, while the C-stick gives us what we've been asking for since 2011.We disliked
There are a few niggles: having to remove the back with a screwdriver to change the microSD in 2015 seems crazy; the camera is still quite poor; and the name might cause some confusion for those less familiar with the Nintendo family.Final verdict
The New 3DS makes a number of small improvements, but put together they make for a console that's definitely worth the upgrade, especially as a number of future games will be incompatible with the older model.Faster, comprehensive, more powerful; Nintendo's best handheld finally feels complete.
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Spotify users will feel right at home with Windows 10 Music app
Microsoft has been pretty good at offering the world a peek at what Windows 10 will look and feel like when it arrives later this year, but you'll have to dig a little deeper to find out what the newly rebranded Music app will look like.
Earlier today, Twitter user @BrownieTrav (via The Verge) turned up an Xbox Support page that appears to offer a closer look into what Microsoft has planned for the all-new Music app coming with Windows 10.
At first glimpse, the overhauled user interface with a darker theme looks suspiciously like a screen capture from Spotify, rather than the current version included with the Windows 10 Technical Preview, which is largely unchanged from Windows 8.
But the new UI will also look familiar to anyone using the Xbox app for Windows 10, part of Microsoft's overall unification toward white and black as the primary colors used throughout the revamped operating system.
Music Preview
The support document notes that users of the Windows 10 Technical Preview will be required to search for the new Music Preview by name in the Store, which will be installed alongside the standard Music app for the time being.In addition to displaying songs ripped from a CD collection, copied to OneDrive or purchased from services like iTunes, the Music Preview will also display user playlists as well as "millions of songs in the Xbox Music catalog."
Microsoft expects to release Windows 10 to the general public sometime this summer (presumably late July) in 111 languages and 190 countries.
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Updated: 50 best Mac tips, tricks and timesavers
Introduction
Your Mac can do millions of things, but sometimes even the best of us forget some of the cool stuff it can do - so we're here to help jog your memory.
Some of these tips need recent versions of OS X - such as OS X 10.9 Mavericks or OS X 10.10 Yosemite - but not all of them do. In some cases, some are little features that Apple has sneaked into upgrades that you might have totally missed, and some might be a classic lightbulb moment of "I'd totally forgotten you could do that!"
This is neither a formal nor an exhaustive list; we've just put our heads together to gather the fifty tips we think are awesome.
- Check out our review of the new MacBook
1. Do unit conversions in Spotlight
As well as being able to do calculations in Spotlight, in Yosemite it gets an extra trick: unit conversions. You can do specific unit conversions if you need to – "13 stone in lbs", say – but it's also intelligent enough that in many cases if you just give it the amount and unit you want to convert, it will suggest not just the likely conversion but also plenty of alternates. Type in '$1299' and you'll immediately be told what that is in Sterling (based presumably on what's set as your native currency in the Language & Region pane of System Preferences), and then when the window folds down to show more results, you'll see Euros, Yen and so on.
2. Talk to and listen to your Mac!
In OS X 10.8, the Mac's ability to listen to you as well as talk is really impressive. Although these are sometimes framed as being accessibility features, they can be useful for everyone. For example, it's a good idea to read through any important text before you send it off, but it's easy to skip mistakes when you're reading your own work. Instead, select the text and go to Edit > Speech > Start Speaking. You can control the speed and pick from a range of different voices (our favourite's the Scottish 'Fiona') in the Dictation & Speech System Preference pane.
If you find you use the feature often, you should enable the option to trigger speaking aloud using a keyboard shortcut - the default is Option+Esc, which you can change in the Dictation & Speech pane. (If you do have restricted vision, investigate the VoiceOver feature in the Accessibility pane of System Preferences too; this can read aloud buttons and other on-screen items, and more.)
Your Mac is just as good a listener as it is a talker, though. Not only can you control your Mac using Speakable Items (check the Accessibility pane) but in OS X 10.8 you can also dictate text anywhere you would type. By default you just press the Function key twice and then start talking.
3. Run Windows
We know, we know - who wants to run Windows? But sometimes it's handy, whether to play the latest games or run some niche piece of software that has no Mac equivalent. You can either run Windows alongside OS X with a virtualisation app such as VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop or VirtualBox, or partition your hard disk to install Windows on to run it full-bore on your hardware using Boot Camp Assistant (in your Utilities folder).
4. Add clips from websites to Dashboard
Remember Dashboard? Introduced with 10.4, this overlay holds 'widgets' that can perform handy little tasks - Apple still hosts a catalogue of them at apple.com/downloads/dashboard. One oft-forgotten trick is that you can make your own widgets by clipping from web pages. The best bit is that the web page remains live. Here's how to do it (we're going to clip out some cricket scores, but it will pretty much work for any part of any site).
1. Navigate to the page you want to clip a section from in Safari. (It has to be Safari, not Chrome, Firefox or whatever.) You can clip out information that's essentially static - say, a list of keyboard shortcuts you want to refer to - or stuff that's changing all the time.
2. Go to the File menu and choose Open in Dashboard…; now you can mouse over sections of the web page, and it's usually smart about snapping to appropriate areas. If not, just click then drag the handles. Once you're done, click Add at the top right.
3. Once the clipping has been added to your Dashboard, you can click the i at the bottom right to flip it round. Here you'll see options for the frame; pick the one you like. The web clipping should update anyway, but if you need to force a manual refresh, click it, then tap Command+R.
5. Type exotic characters
As well as letters and symbols you see on your keyboard, you can type a bewildering array of special characters. You may already be familiar with typing accents such as for café (in that case you either type Option+E then E again or, on OS X 10.7 or later, hold down the E until you get extra options) but you'll find there are many more.
Go to the Edit menu of most apps and you'll see Special Characters at the bottom. This panel gives you access to a huge range of symbols you can drag into your documents. Not all apps or operating systems support them, but these are mostly part of the cross-platform Unicode standard. There are probably more than you see at first, too; click the cog to reveal more.
Emoji (those fun, colourful characters available in OS X 10.7 or later) are a notable exception to this cross-platform world. They're not Apple-only, but your recipient might not be able to see them.
6. Sign PDFs right in Mail
It might be the 21st century, but we're still using squiggles on a piece of paper to agree to all manner of things. If you are emailed a PDF to sign, though, you don't have to faff about printing it, signing it, then scanning it back in: you can actually sign it right in Mail. Drag a PDF into the email you're sending, hover over it then at the top right you'll see a little button appear; click it, and you get a range of Markup options, including one for signing documents. Best of all, you can either add your signature by holding a signed piece of paper up to the webcam on your Mac – and it does a great job of cutting it out of the background – or by drawing on your trackpad. Got an iPad stylus? Try using that instead of your finger!
7. Batch rename files
In versions of OS X before Yosemite, renaming a group of files at once either meant third-party software or rolling your own rename script using something like Automator or AppleScript. Now, though, you can just select a group of files and then select Rename either from the right-click contextual menu or from the drop-down button marked with a cog icon in Finder windows. When you do, you get the option of adding text, replacing text, or applying a format such as a name and an automatically incrementing counter.
8. Share easily with friends
In various places in Yosemite you see the option of sharing things to friends and contacts from a little Share button that looks like an arrow going up out of a box. The best bit, though, is that Yosemite keeps track of how and to whom you most often share stuff, so that if you're in the habit of sharing funny links with a friend and AirDropping files to a colleague sitting next to you, these options will get stuck to the bottom of the share menu to make it easy to pick those options next time.
9. Use custom icons (plus, exporting icons
to use elsewhere)
Back in the day, we all seemed to be adding custom icons to every folder on our system, but it appears to have fallen out of fashion a bit. But it shouldn't have, because it's a great way to personalise your Mac and makes it easier to identify folders and other stuff at a glance. Below, we'll show you how to do it, but here's a bonus tip as well.
If you want to copy icons to use them in documents, for example, it's really easy with Preview. Select the item with the icon you want in the Finder and then tap Command+C. Switch to Preview and tap Command+N (which is New from Clipboard) and you'll see the icon appears in all the different sizes. Pick the one you want (usually the biggest) and then export it to whatever format you need - PNG is often best as it retains the transparency - and drop it into your document.
1. The first step in changing a file or folder's icon is to find what you want to change it to. Search the web (try interfacelift.com). Go to /System/Library/CoreServices and then right-click CoreTypes.bundle and choose Show Package Contents; you'll find great system icons including Apple hardware in Resources.
2. Once you've found the item whose icon you want to copy - whether it's a file, folder, app or whatever you like - you need to get further information on it; either go to the File menu and choose Get Info or just hit keys Command+I. Now, click on the icon and tap Command+C.
3. The next step is to paste the icon onto the folder or whatever it is you're personalising in a similar way. Opt to 'Get Info' on it, select the icon and then tap Command+V. If you later want to clear the tweaked icon, then you can select it in this Get Info window then tap .
10. Quickly import with Image Capture
If people sometimes overlook Preview's power features, they almost always ignore Image Capture completely. Before you clog up your system with bloatware apps and drivers for digital cameras and scanners, though, try Image Capture - it's in your Utilities folder. With this you can control most modern scanners (or the scanners in multifunction printers) both wired and wirelessly, and import from digital cameras, including iOS devices.
Pop up the panel at the bottom-left for extra options; it's here, for example, that you tell your Mac what app should launch when you connect each of your devices (including 'none') so you could launch Aperture when you connect your SLR, say, but launch nothing when you dock your iPhone.
11. Annotate PDFs and images
Preview has some fantastic tools built into it for annotating images and PDFs. And, what's best of all is that the annotations it adds to a PDF are based on a standard that's compatible with Adobe's PDF app, Acrobat, which is used by Windows users and companies - so it's easy to share annotated documents with colleagues.
Make sure the Edit Toolbar is visible (from the View menu) and you'll see you've got options for drawing shapes, arrows, speech and thought bubbles and more. There's also the option to highlight text in different colours, strikethrough some text, add notes and type some text into boxes.
12. Sign your documents
In OS X 10.7, Preview gained the ability to add your signature to documents. To get started, go to the Signatures tab in Preview's preferences and then click the +. Now, sign your name in black ink on a small piece of white paper and hold it up to your Mac's webcam. Line it up and click Accept (making sure the 'Save this signature' option is checked if you want to use it in the future).
Now open a document you want to sign, pop up the Edit Toolbar and click the signature icon - it looks like an S on a line next to a tiny x. Draw a box to add your signature on the form. You can scale and reposition it afterwards too.
13. Crop, resize and tweak images
Preview is one one of the most underappreciated apps on a Mac; especially in later versions of OS X, it became hugely powerful, and even for us at MacFormat, it does much of what we'd traditionally use a more elaborate and expensive application such as Photoshop for. Do yourself a favour: open an image in Preview and poke around the app's menus and interface to see what it can do.
For example, you can crop your image. Draw a selection with the regular Rectangular Selection tool then either hit Command+K or choose Crop from the Tools menu. Alternatively, show the Edit Toolbar and make a more complex selection either with the Instant Alpha tool (like in iWork) or use the Smart Lasso. With this tool, you draw as carefully as you can around the outline of the object and then Preview works out as closely as it can where the edges are. In either case, cropping will, if the image isn't already a PNG, convert it so that you can have the thing you're cutting out on a transparent background. (You might need the Invert Selection command, too!)
You can also resize images, and even do some tweaks to the colours with the Adjust Color pop-up. Select Adjust Color… from the Tools menu, and you get some handy sliders and a histogram to help you tweak things. Plus, hit the backtick symbol (to the left of Z on a UK Mac keyboard, and to the left of 1 on a US Mac keyboard) to bring up a loupe so you can see what's happening at 100% as you make changes.
14. Share your passwords and credit card details
If you have more than one Apple device – whether that's a work and a home Mac, a Mac and an iPhone, or a couple of iOS devices – then it's worth turning on iCloud Keychain. This lets you keep your Safari website usernames and passwords, credit card information, and Wi-Fi network information in sync across all your devices, so that, for example, you can quickly log into a website on your Mac having saved a password on your iPad, or enter your secure credit card details automatically on an iPhone having saved them on your Mac. It's a slightly complex setup, but worth a bit of pain up-front to make your life easier later on; start at this page on Apple's website to find out how.
15. Make a keyboard shortcut for anything
Keyboard shortcuts are great for saving time, but you're not limited to just the shortcuts put in by developers; if there's a particular menu option you use all the time that doesn't have a shortcut, you can create it yourself.
Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts. Click the + button to add a new shortcut. You can choose which app you want to apply it to from the drop-down list, but you must know the exact name of the menu command to type into the next box, including the correct case and any special characters such as ellipses. Lastly, choose a unique key combination to invoke the command, then click Add.
16. Use Automator and Services for speed
Automator is a tool built into OS X that enables you to build your own workflows of commands, making complex tasks much easier in the future. Use it to build your own little apps that perform a specific task, to make a workflow to modify batches of files, or to create new Services, which are functions you can access from a right-click. You could use Automator to rename a large number of files, to convert images to a different file type, to turn text files in a folder to audio files, and much more.
1. To create something in Automator, open it, then choose what type of thing you want to create: each is useful in different circumstances, so click on them to see descriptions. Select the one you want and click Choose (or open an old Automator file).
2. Start creating the steps of your workflow by dragging Actions from the left-hand side of the screen to the empty space on the right-hand side. Actions are categorised by application and file type, or you can search for something at the top. Just click an Action's name to see what it does.
3. Once you've built up your workflow, you can click Run in the top-right corner to test it (though you won't be able to fully test everything this way). If there are any problems, the part where it failed will have a red cross next to it, and the log underneath will explain any warnings.
17. Use the app switcher to do more
Most Mac users will be used to using Command+Tab to switch applications, but this little interface is more flexible than it seems at first. For a start, if you bring it up, then keep holding Command and hover your cursor over the icons (or press the " and ' keys), whichever app is highlighted when you release Command is the one you'll switch to.
Also, when you've got an app highlighted, you can do a few other things: press Q to quit an app instantly; press H to hide an app from view; or press the up or down arrows to see the highlighted app's open windows in Mission Control. Finally, if an app has windows that have been minimised, switch to it, but hold Option when you release Command - the minimised windows will all reappear back from the Dock.
18. View someone's screen remotely
One really easy way to view someone else's screen or even control their Mac over the internet – which is invaluable if you're helping troubleshoot a relative's computer problems – is to launch Screen Sharing by searching for it with Spotlight then entering the Apple ID of the person you're trying to contact. (If you or they don't know it, just have them look in the iCloud pane of System Preferences. And while they're there, make sure Screen Sharing is enabled in the Sharing pane of System Preferences.) They'll be asked to grant you permission to view their screen, and they can also then click on the screen sharing icon in the menu bar and grant you the ability to virtually, remotely control their mouse and keyboard too.
19. Send and receive SMSs on your Mac (and more!)
When someone sends an SMS – a text message in the original mobile phone sense – to your iPhone, it appears in a green bubble rather than a blue one, as would be the case if someone sends you an iMessage. Before Yosemite, SMSs would only appear on your iPhone where you'd have to peck out a reply, but now you can have them come into your Mac or other iOS devices when they arrive so you can reply to them from there too. Your iPhone needs to be running iOS 8.1, but once it is, and once you're signed into your iMessage account that also has your phone number linked to it both on your iPhone and on your Mac or other iOS devices, turn on the Text Message Forwarding option under Settings > Messages on your iPhone. Boom!
20. Mute Messages conversation threads
One of the great things about iMessage is the ability to create a group chat with a few of your friends or colleagues so that it's easy to arrange meet-ups or discuss work stuff. But these conversations can take on a life of their own, and if your friends' comedy routines or an irrelevant tangent in a work conversation start to irritate you, you can easily mute a thread so that you can reclaim some Zen. Click Details at the top right of the window when you're on one of these noisy threads and you'll see a checkbox marked Do Not Disturb. The chat will keep coming in, but you won't be notified when replies arrive. (This also, of course, works on one-to-one chat threads.) You can also leave a group conversation completely.
21. Name conversation threads
With loads of iMessage conversations happening at once, it can be easy to lose track of who said what, where, which is especially true if you regularly use multi-people chats and mix work and pleasure. In Yosemite, though, you can name group chats by clicking Details at the top right then typing a name at the top. It might be that you do this for individual, disposable things ("Meeting up for the Cup Final this weekend" or "Promo activity for the new launch", say), or you could treat it a bit like old IRC channels or rooms, creating one called "Banter" which you and your close friends regularly drop into just for general chat.
22. Record your iPhone or iPad's screen
With Yosemite, you can now record whatever happens on the screen of your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, which isn't just useful for developers to show off the apps and games they build, but can also be great for things like creating little tutorials or even just recording a bug so you can help a developer or a company fix it.
To use this feature, you just connect your iOS device up to your Mac using its cable, then launch QuickTime Player. The chose New Movie Recording from the File menu and then, if it's not already selected for you, choose your connected iOS device as the 'camera' source from the drop-down menu next to the record button. Choose whether you want to record sound (either from a built-in or external mic, or the audio the iOS device itself is producing) from the same menu, then click the record icon. Once you're done, you can trim the clip (⌘T) and then easily share it to, for example, YouTube.
23. Adjust the volume in smaller increments
When you use the volume up and down keys on your Mac's keyboard, the difference between one tap and the next can actually be pretty big – especially if you're driving some meaty external speakers. Hold down ⌥ and ⇧ as you tap those keys, though, and the increments become much smaller. And here's a bonus tip: if the audible feedback when you change the volume annoys you, you can turn it off in the Sound section of System Preferences, but, and here's the clever bit, you can temporarily toggle it back on by holding ⇧ when you change the volume – handy when you're not sure whether your Mac isn't making a noise because the system output is configured incorrectly or because the app you're trying to use is at fault.
24. Share your purchases with your family
With Family Sharing, up to six people in a family can share the same purchases between them, and as a parent you can choose to be alerted (and then approve or reject) purchases your kids make on your card – and you get other benefits such as easily being able to see where everyone is, and getting a shared family calendar.
It's easy to set up, too. Go to the iCloud section of System Preferences and click Set Up Family, then follow the prompts. If you need more help with Family Sharing generally, check here, or if you just want to get started sharing purchases, go to here.
25. Rename, duplicate and revert files easily
In OS X Lion, Apple introduced some new features for working with files, and a new hidden menu to access them. When you've opened a document, move your cursor over its name to bring up a small black arrow just to the right. Click this arrow and you bring up a menu with some of these new options. The most useful are the ability to rename and duplicate files, but you can also lock a file to prevent further editing, change it so that the file is stored in iCloud instead of only on your hard drive (though only in compatible apps), or move the file.
The flashiest feature is the ability to revert to a previous version of a file, though: you can choose an older version from what's listed in this menu, or click 'Browse All Versions…' to enter a Time Machine-like interface, where you can scroll through older versions of that file and compare them to the current one.
26. Switch audio source/output from the menu bar
If you have headphones or speakers set up with your Mac, and if you have a headset or microphone connected, you might find yourself wanting to switch between different inputs or outputs, but this doesn't have to mean a slog to System Preferences every time: hold Option and click the volume adjuster in the menu bar and it'll bring up a list of audio inputs and outputs. You can then select the ones you want (though it can't display too many, so might be limiting for complex set-ups).
27. Store anything you like in iCloud Drive
It used to be the case that the only files you could store on iCloud were from specially-built apps such as Apple's iWork suite, but now we have iCloud Drive in Yosemite, we can chuck any files we like onto the iCloud Drive icon in the Finder sidebar. Those special, 'blessed' apps still get their own folders, but you can create your own or just put things loose into iCloud Drive. All those files will sync to other Macs signed in with your Apple ID (so long as you've enabled iCloud Drive on them) and will also be available through icloud.com. On iOS, apps that can use iCloud will usually default to opening files from their special folder, but should also allow you to browse through your entire iCloud Drive to open files stored elsewhere.
28. Cure an insomniac Mac
You might find that occasionally when you close your MacBook's lid or pick Sleep from the Apple menu on your iMac or Mac mini that it resolutely refuses to go to sleep, and this can be no less annoying than when a child does the same. Happily, getting to the bottom of this problem is considerably easier with your Mac. New in Yosemite, you can chose from the View > Column menu when you're on Activity Monitor's CPU tab to show a column of processes that are preventing sleep. Click this column header to sort by it, and then you can easily find what apps are keeping your Mac awake, then quit them if necessary.
29. Quick searching within sites
There's a really cool, badly understood feature in Safari in Yosemite: the ability quickly to search within specific sites right from Safari's search bar. How it works is this: let's say you go to amazon.co.uk and search for 'MacBook'. What actually happens is that you're redirected to a new URL that looks something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=macbook.
Now, what Safari can do is look at that URL and work out that it's a search and, just like you could, realise that if you wanted to search Amazon for 'iMac' instead of 'MacBook', then rather than waiting for the amazon.co.uk homepage to appear before typing 'iMac' into the search field and waiting for the results to load, Safari could send us straight to http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=imac. See that last word in the URL change? To make that happen, all you have to do is type 'amazon iMac' into Safari's search bar and then you'll see one of the options is 'Search amazon.co.uk for imac'; click on this, and you'll go straight to the results.
You have to do a search – any search – in a site first before Safari can recognise the syntax for a search string, but when you do, you'll see the sites listed in the Search tab of Safari's preferences.
You can even type just a part of the target site's URL. So long as you've searched once on Wikipedia, for example, you can type 'wiki apple' and you'll see the option to search Wikipedia for 'apple'.
30. Close tabs left open on other devices
Whether because you suddenly realise you've left a dodgy tab open on an iPad you've just handed to a colleague or because it's just flat-out easier to go through and close a bunch of tabs on your Mac rather than on an iOS device, you should know that you can close tabs open on any device signed into your Apple ID from Safari in Yosemite. Click the icon that looks like two overlapping squares in Safari (or choose Show All Tabs from the View menu) and you'll see all your open tabs on all your devices. Hover over each and you'll see a close button you can click. (This also works from iOS to Mac; swipe right to left on a cloud tab in its tab view and tap Delete; that tab will then be closed on the Mac.)
31. Share (some) contact details
You can easily send someone your contact details either by doing it the old-fashioned way of dragging a contact card out of the Contacts app and then attaching it to an email, say, or by using the new Share commands in Yosemite, but the problem with this basic method is that you might have information on your card you don't want others to have. For example, you might have defined a relationship with your spouse so that on your iPhone you can say "send a message to my wife" without having to specify who you mean, and you might want to keep that information private for security reasons.
Now, it's easy. In Contacts' preferences, click vCard then Enable private me card. Now, when you go to your Me card in Contacts – and you might have to define one first – and click Edit, you get a series of checkboxes next to each field to show whether it would be included when you share a card.
32. Connect to the internet through your iPhone
The iPhone comes with a feature that enables it to share its 3G or 4G mobile broadband connection with other devices (though this must be allowed by your network operator), making it perfect for getting your Mac online wherever you are. There are three ways to connect your Mac to your iPhone to share its signal: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB.
To begin, go to the Personal Hotspot option in the iPhone's Settings menu, and turn it on. If you want to connect over Wi-Fi, find the Wi-Fi network created by the iPhone in your Mac's Wi-Fi options, select it, and enter the password shown in the iPhone.
To connect using USB, plug your iPhone into your Mac and you should get a dialog that takes you to the Network section in System Preferences, from which you can select the iPhone. For Bluetooth, activate Bluetooth on both devices and pair them, and the connection option should again appear in System Preferences > Network.
33. Share a DVD drive with Remote Disc
Remote Disc enables you to effectively share a DVD drive between multiple Macs, letting you, say, use an older iMac's SuperDrive with a MacBook Air to install software. To activate this on the Mac that has the disc drive, go to System Preferences > Sharing and check 'DVD or CD Sharing', then insert the disc you want to share. Make sure the other Mac is connected to the same network as the disc-laden one, then open a Finder window and look in the sidebar for Remote Disc in the Devices section. Click it, then double-click the computer you want to connect to.
34. Print to the next available printer
It can be annoying having to wait for someone else to print out large documents when you're in a hurry, so use this tip to minimise the wait if you have access to more than one printer. In System Preferences > Print & Fax (or Printers & Scanners on recent versions of OS X), you can select multiple printers and create a Printer Pool. You can then select this Pool from the print dialogue in apps instead of your individual printers, and if one printer is in use, your Mac will automatically send the document to one that's free instead - no waiting!
35. Use Home Sharing to share your iTunes library
It's pretty common for members of a family or a shared house to want to share their music or movies with each other, and you can do this easily with iTunes. Go to iTunes > Preferences > Sharing, and then check the box labelled 'Share my library on my local network'. If you want to limit who can access your library, set a password in the box near the bottom, otherwise everyone will be able to access it.
You can also limit sharing to particular areas or playlists in your iTunes library. Once Home Sharing is turned on, other iTunes users can see your library by clicking the Library drop-down menu in the top-left of iTunes. iOS device users can also access libraries through Home Sharing by going to the More tab in the Music or Videos apps.
36. Share a printer with other Macs
Network printers are massively useful, letting anyone on your network print wirelessly, but if you've got a great printer already connected to one Mac and don't want to replace it, you can still get the same convenience. Go to System Preferences > Sharing and check the Printer Sharing service. This will bring up a screen where you can select the printer to share, and specify who can use it, if necessary. Once this is set up, any Mac on the network can access that printer from the print dialogue, though the Mac the printer is connected to must be turned on.
37. Get wireless audio and video with AirPlay
AirPlay is Apple's technology for streaming audio and video around your house, and it's available on both iOS devices and Macs. Most Macs can stream audio to AirPlay speakers, while newer Macs can also mirror their displays to an Apple TV, letting you show something on the big screen.
For basic AirPlay output from iTunes, you just need to click its symbol - the rectangle with the triangle cutting into it - next to the volume bar and choose where you want to send the music. If you want all of your system audio to come from the speakers instead of just music, though, hold Option and press a volume control key to open the Sound preferences, where you can choose an output (or use the Menu bar tip we already mentioned).
If an Apple TV is on the same network as your Mac, an AirPlay icon will appear automatically in the menu bar. To start mirroring your screen, select it, then click on the name of your Apple TV.
38. Add a Guest User account to your Mac
As you probably know, you can add multiple users to your Mac, so that every person in your home or office, say, can have their own space to work and to set things up how they like them. But there's another kind of account you can turn on: a Guest account.
Turn it on in System Preferences > Users & Groups, and now you'll be presented with Guest as an option at the login screen. Anyone can use it - no password needed - but once they're finished everything they do will be wiped. This is great not just for Macs in foyers or spare rooms, say, but it's also great for if a friend or colleague says, "Can I just borrow your Mac for a minute to do something?"
You probably should turn off Automatic login and set your Security & Privacy settings to require a password after, say, five seconds of sleep or screensaver time. That way you can be sure nobody will be able to access your stuff, but when they try to use your Mac they'll be offered the option of switching user and can then pick Guest.
39. Restrict what someone can do - and when!
The Parental Controls in OS X are simple, but there are plenty of options in there - some of which are useful for other things than preventing underage access. You can limit computer use to a certain length of time every day, set a 'bedtime' after which users won't be able to use the computer, limit the functions of the Finder, limit what apps that user can use and more. You could, for example, disallow a nervous computer user from modifying the Dock or changing their password.
40. Cover your tracks in Safari
It used to be in Safari that if you wanted to delete caches and history, you only had the nuclear option: nix everything. In Yosemite, though, when you choose Clear History and Website Data from the History menu of Safari, you get the option of covering your tracks by clearing data from the last hour, today, today and yesterday or, as before, from all time. It clears your history from all devices signed into your iCloud account too.
41. Email huge files
Email isn't really meant for file transfer, but let's be honest, we all do it. Problem is, many email providers flat-out won't let you send attachments over a particular size (often only a few megabytes) so sending large files over email is usually a no-no. With Mail in Yosemite, though (and in fact with the webmail version of Mail at icloud.com), you can email files up to 5GB in size. What in fact happens is that the attachment really gets uploaded to iCloud, and then a link is sent to your recipient where they have 30 days from which to download it. (If your recipient is using Mail on Yosemite/icloud.com, they'll probably just see the attachment in their email client as usual rather than being shown a link.)
42. Find menu bar options quickly using Help
Some apps have more menu bar options than you can hope to keep track of, but instead of searching through each drop-down list manually, you can use the last Help menu to speed things up. It contains a search box, where you can type in the name of the option you're looking for. Results come up underneath it, and hovering over a result will show you which menu it's in, or you can just click the result to select it.
43. Throw files from your Mac to your iPhone
Don't forget that if you have a modern Mac that has Bluetooth 4 and a recent iOS device (iPhone 5 or later, for example), then you can easily send files from your Mac to your iOS device using AirDrop. The quickest way to do this is to right-click on the file you want to send then pick AirDrop from the Messages fly-out menu, then pick the device you want to send it to. (You'll have to have AirDrop turned on from the Control Centre of the iOS device first.)
44. Resize your windows like a window-resizin' pro
In Yosemite, clicking the green button at the top left of a window now takes that window full screen rather than maximising it, but you can restore the old behaviour by holding ⌥ as you hover over the green button.
But there's more! Hold ⌥ as you resize one side of a window and the window also resizes from the other side as well. Hold ⇧ and the window resizes proportionally, aligned to the opposite edge (which sounds a bit confusing but makes sense when you try it). Or hold ⌥ and ⇧ when resizing a window for the whole thing to shrink down proportionally around the centre. Put it all together and you could click the green button to make a window fill the screen then resize one edge while holding ⌥ and ⇧ so that you make it smaller but keep it centred. OCD FTW!
45. Take control of your windows
You can be quite flexible when it comes to windows in OS X - not only can you drag from any side to resize them these days, but you can also hold Option to resize them from two sides at once (the one you're dragging and the opposite one), or hold Shift to resize it while keeping it locked to the same proportions. And while we're talking about windows, if you want to move any that are in the background without bringing them to the fore, hold Command and then drag them around.
46. Paste text without keeping its formatting
When you copy text from some applications, and especially from the web, you tend to also copy its formatting, such as the text size, font choice and so on. When you then paste this into some text fields, such as in an email, it looks out of place, and can make things hard to read. To paste the text without its original formatting (so it just formats in the same way as the rest of what you're pasting into), instead of pressing Command+V, press Option+Shift+Command+V. Microsoft Word actually has a 'Paste Special…' (or 'Paste and Match Style') menu option to do the same thing.
47. Change which app a file is opened with
If you want a file to open in an app other than its default, select the file and press Command+I, to show its information. In the 'Open with:' section, use the drop-down menu to choose a new app. If you just close the window here, that change will only be applied to that one file; if you want other files of that type to use that same app, click 'Change All…' beneath the drop-down menu.
48. Have things ready at log-in
If there are certain apps that you'll always want to have open when you start up your Mac, you can set this up in System Preferences. Go to Users, make sure your user account is highlighted, then click Login Items. Click the + and you can choose an application, file server or pretty much anything else that should open when you log in. Once you've added something, you can use the checkboxes to opt to hide it, though it will still be running in the background. Having lots of these set up can make your Mac slower to start up, though, so if you need to speed things up and temporarily don't need them running, hold Shift while OS X is logging you in to suppress them.
49. See your Mac activity with Activity Monitor
If you find your Mac is running slow, or the fans are kicking in when you don't appear to be doing anything too intensive, you can see if you can identify what's causing it. Activity Monitor in OS X shows you how your Mac's resources are being used. Launch Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder to see current processes, and the resources they take up. The columns show you things such as the CPU usage of a process or the RAM it's taking up. If there's a process that's hogging resources and you're confident it's not needed, you can end it by selecting it, then clicking Quit Process. If you're just curious about how system resources are being used, click the tabs (CPU, System Memory and so on) to see graphs of your usage over time.
50. Back up your Mac
Okay, so we know that people haven't actually forgotten they can back up with their Mac, but we also know that so many people don't bother. Please do! Ever since OS X 10.5 Apple has made it easy to back up using Time Machine. Ideally you should be doing other things to back up as well, but at least do Time Machine; you can pick up a 2TB drive for less than sixty quid. Go on. Do it today!
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Charter appears ready to bring Time Warner Cable into the fold
In early 2014, Charter Communications attempted a buyout of Time Warner Cable, leading the way for Comcast to swoop in with a rival offer. A year and a half later, the tables appear to have turned in Charter's favor.
Bloomberg today reported that Charter Communications Inc. is on the verge of announcing a buyout of Time Warner Cable in a deal estimated to be worth $55.1 billion equity in cash and stock.
According to the usual "people familiar with the matter," Charter will cough up $195 per share for Time Warner, a 14 percent bump from TWC's closing price last Friday; shareholders would receive $100 in cash and the remainder in Charter stock.
The deal would put the fourth-placed US cable company in charge of the nation's second-place rival following a failed bid by Comcast that collapsed under regulatory scrutiny last month.
Jacked in
Sources claim the deal could be announced "as soon as tomorrow," creating a combined entity that would also include Bright House Networks, a smaller cable company Charter is already attempting to purchase for $10.4 billion.The deals come at a time when traditional cable services are under increasing pressure to expand internet offerings as content providers continue to offer more content directly to media streaming boxes, smartphones and tablets.
With the purchase of Time Warner Cable, Charter would effectively quadruple the number of subscribers, adding more than 12 million customers in lucrative cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Dallas.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently signaled that a combined Charter-Time Warner had a better shot at being approved by regulators than Comcast-TWC did, which certainly couldn't hurt while making wedding plans.
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Google patent details Amazon Echo-style smart toys
If you thought the idea of barking commands into a cylindrical black box to order supplies from Amazon was strange, get a load of what Google may be planning for the next generation of internet-connected smart toys.
The US Patent and Trademark Office (via Engadget) published a patent application from Google late last week entitled "Agent Interfaces for Interactive Electronics that Support Social Cues," which could wind up being little more than child's play.
Effectively an internet-connected, voice-activated device not unlike Amazon Echo, the Google patent describes "an anthropomorphic device, perhaps in the form factor of a doll or toy, may be configured to control one or more media devices."
Unlike Echo, such smart toys could be configured to respond to movement through the use of a camera, as well as spoken words or phrases from a microphone attached to the head of the device.
Attractive user interfaces
Naturally, Google's device would be able to communicate with a server on its network, allowing the smart toy to transmit commands to other connected media devices so it's as functional as it is cute."Cute" is definitely what Google seems to be going for here, describing the device as an "attractive user interface" for young children, thanks to its disguise as "cartoonish dolls or toys," although "other physical appearances" are also at least hinted at.
Taking it one step further, the smart toy could "express curiosity, (it) may tilt its head, furrow its brow, and/or scratch its head with an arm" in response to a child's commands, which certainly sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie to us.
That's exactly how an attorney for Big Brother Watch described potential privacy concerns with the smart toys to BBC last week, but it's unclear what, if anything, Google engineers may have done since the original patent filing in 2012 to address them.
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Updated: Windows email: 5 best free clients
Introduction
Those who work with email detest it, but it is still a daily part of many of our lives – and the provisions made for email within Windows leave a lot to be desired. As someone who works online, I send and receive many emails a day and need a trusty email client that won't break or falter.
After the disaster that was Windows Vista, Microsoft ditched Windows Mail (later brought back in Windows 8), leaving a gap in the market for email conscious users of Windows. Luckily, developers have created many free email clients that do the job: here are the best five.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Best all-rounder; best for non-Outlook users.
Created by Mozilla, the same people behind the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird is minimalistic in design, offering simple options such as "Get Mail" and "Write". Setting up my email account was quick and easy, needing only my email address and password – no server settings here – with options to import my Calendar and Contacts alongside my mail.
Thunderbird filters out junk emails effectively, as would be expected from a renowned web brand. In fact, having Mozilla as the developer of Thunderbird is one of its greatest strengths; regular updates and bug fixes are forthcoming and support is good.
The clear and well designed interface sets Thunderbird apart, with over 1,000 add-ons – integration with social networks, design tweaks, and so on – coming as a bonus.
Mozilla makes sure Thunderbird's user base of just shy of 10 million people worldwide are never short of new features with updates being delivered at a similar rate to the Firefox browser it first grew out of.
eM Client
Best for those who want a good indie email client.
Offering an interface reminiscent of Microsoft's desktop Outlook client, eM Client – a clumsy name – offers a host of email services tied up in a streamlined way that works well and is, above all else, no frills. All of the options – Delete, Write New, Reply All, and so on – are presented at the top, with the three column layout offering a clear view of your emails, inboxes and email accounts.
Of the five, eM Client is the best mix of simplicity of design and power, easily importing my emails and offering an Outlook-style experience for free. Updates are sporadic but do offer useful trinkets every so often such as the addition of support for Google's oAuth authentication recently. One of the only drawbacks is the lack of a big backer, which means development could be slow.
Inky
Best for people with multiple email accounts.
Offering a more casual twist to email, Inky is a fantastic option for those who want to use multiple accounts in one place. The interface is simple, with a two-column system offering easy access to all of your accounts as well as other utilities, such as the Calendar.
Inky works with every major email service available and offers support for custom settings, enabling anyone to add any account if they know the server's inputs. Alongside this, Inky also has cloud syncing—via a proprietary account—which means that your email is synced across versions of Inky. You can even sort messages by relevance so that those from close contacts have an added drop of blue ink alongside them and each one automatically shows up at the top of the unified inbox.
As someone who has multiple email accounts, Inky's ability to seamlessly make them into one – at least for appearance's sake – is impressive, and earns it a place on this list.
Claws Mail
Best for those who love simplicity.
Unlike all of the other email applications on this list, Claws Mail is a throwback offering an interface reminiscent of Windows XP. For those who don't like the mess of unneeded animations or the swoosh of a tiled interface, Claws Mail offers a refreshing change: grey and blue is the colour scheme, offering a simple, straightforward interface.
Don't let the utilitarian interface fool you though. Underneath, Claws Mail has all of the features and functions of a more illustriously designed email client, with the ability to have multiple email accounts and email threading. It's email convenience without the clutter.
Outlook
Best for those who rely on Outlook.
For the 420 million users of Outlook, Microsoft's built-in application has always been the best option. Built by Microsoft for Exchange and Outlook accounts, the program offers extensive enterprise-level options and syncs Calendars, Contacts and Notes seamlessly between Windows devices.
The Windows 7 version of Outlook is starting to look slightly outdated – despite being used in almost every work place around the world – when compared to the slick Windows 8 app, but it still does a great job and is the best client for those who rely on Microsoft's email option.
Even though the Windows 7 version of Windows 10 hasn't been updated for some time, the Outlook for iOS and Android apps are now an adapted version of Acompli, the email company Microsoft bought last year. Outlook.com, the web based version of the service, on the other hand, is being completely redesigned ahead of Windows 10's release in the style of the popular cloud-based Office 365 productivity suite.
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Lots of people on Vine are trying to summon a demon
If you've got two pencils, some paper, a cameraphone and no problem with looking ridiculous on the internet, you can take part in the Charlie Charlie Challenge that is currently taking over Vine and Twitter.
Once we had chain emails that promised a grizzly end if you didn't forward them on to everyone in your address book, now we have Vine-based Ouija boards. By drawing a grid, writing yes in two corners and no in the other two then chanting "Charlie, Charlie, are you there?" you can find out if Charlie is there or not then post it to Vine.
Of course, there are as many "why the hell are you doing this" parody videos as there are legit Charlie Challenges. Religious Twitter has jumped on it as a chance to spread The Word. One Direction fans are using it to find out which band member will marry them. Poor Charlie is run ragged.
Quite aside from the fact that we can tell you're just blowing that pencil, pal, I can tell you right now which one of the four remaining members of One Direction is going to marry you: none of them. Or, at a push, Louis. But probably not even him.
I guess this is what happens when the UK and the US have a three day weekend at the same time. Let us know which member of One Direction you'd like to marry in the comments below.
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Put a back button on your iPhone 6 with this magic screen protector
The iPhone 6 is fine, sure, but with its massive footprint it's also kind of a hassle if you have tiny hands. Take navigating back to the inbox from an email in Mail, for example; the gymnastics your thumb needs to undertake if you only have one hand available are Olympic-level.
Enter Halo Back: not a Gwen Stefani remix but a smart screen protector that uses a capacitive channel to link the dead bit of glass by the home button to the top left corner where the back button lives, thus essentially putting a back button within easy reach of your thumb.
Not to question the all-mighty all-powerful all-knowingness of Apple but this seems like what we in the biz call Quite A Good Idea. You can back it on Kickstarter here.
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Qualcomm and Daimler working to bring wireless charging to your car
One day in the not-too-distant future you'll get in your self-driving car, speak out your destination and put your smartphone down on the arm rest - where it will begin charging automatically.
Daimler (owner of Mercedes-Benz) and Qualcomm have announced a new partnership to work towards in-car wireless charging. The companies are also going to develop ideas for charging electric cars without cables.
The days of fiddling around with cables and cigarette lighter sockets could soon be over - in fact, your car's built-in systems might eventually be able to charge up your mobile while it's sat in your pocket.
Signal boost
"It's important that we remain on the cutting edge of technology," said Daimler's Thomas Weber, echoing the thinking of every car manufacturer as the likes of Google and Apple jostle for position.The agreement between Daimler and Qualcomm also covers 3G/4G connectivity inside cars, which will be a key technology for getting software patches, map updates and more straight to a vehicle without a mobile phone.
We don't have any details of particular products yet or a timescale on when they might appear but it's encouraging to see car manufacturers getting up to speed with today's technology at long last.
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The PC Gamer: Consoles held The Witcher 3's graphics back, but PC gaming is far from cursed
Introduction
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has finally seen its long-awaited release, and by all accounts, happiness should reign. Instead, its launch has been soured by one accursed word - downgrade.In a nutshell, the final game doesn't look as good as players were expecting after early footage, and to add insult to injury, it's because while the first two games were developed for the PC - the second one being a graphical showpiece - The Witcher 3 came to PC, PS4 and Xbox One simultaneously.
Console-ing words
Even CD Projekt has agreed, had this not been the case it could have looked a lot prettier and taken advantage of more technology. That said, they've also commented that without console versions, there wouldn't be the budget for the game at all.It's an unfortunate situation all round, not least because The Witcher 3 still looks amazing. Stunning, actually. It's a game of beautiful animation and loving detail, of blood-red sunsets and distant glimpses at far off hills. Pixel-for-pixel it looks similar to the previous game, released in 2011, but that was a much more restricted experience in far smaller zones.
Resources can only be spread so far, financially or system based, and the last game still looks stunning. Not many can hold onto their looks for four years, especially when up against the might of companies like EA with Dragon Age Inquisition. To hear some people talk, you'd think that The Witcher 3 was using low-resolution pixel art. No, no, no. It's top-tier graphics, all the way down.
Just hearing that things could have been better though really spoils the experience. Suddenly every texture seems blocky, every clipped hair becomes a missed opportunity. Flat grass effects that would have gone unnoticed or even admired with a polite "Oooh" suddenly feel retrograde. Insulting, even. What is this feeble insult placed before our eyes? We were promised a literal portal into another world, goshdarnit!
Frame hate
The Witcher of course isn't the only victim of this - a more deserved one would be Dark Souls 2, where lighting and graphical fidelity was a late victim of the need for a better framerate. The problem though tends to be less a question of developers trying to deceive the public, and more that development is an inherently messy business.
Generally, when we see games years before release - the first shots, the first trailers, the E3 demos - we're actually seeing a construct. A fake, if you will. Games are generally running on a ludicrously powerful PC carefully hidden under the scenes, with the content designed to be a snapshot of what the developer intends to make rather than an actual slice of a game that by definition isn't finished. That often means changes, for good and bad.
Bioshock Infinite for instance bears almost no relation to its original demo, a high-octane chase full of reality-warping magic. The mission in the Watch Dogs trailer simply isn't the one players finally encountered in the final game, looking neither half as good, nor being half as interesting in terms of details.
Load of bullshot
It's rare though that this is deliberate, unlike other practices like rendering out super high-resolution screenshots and then Photoshopping them on top of that - a practice dubbed 'bullshots' by Penny Arcade. Live demos are intended to be what the game looks like, or at least, to set a level of aspiration on both sides of the screen. Otherwise, they'd just be renders.After the show though, two key factors however often step in - optimisation so the final game actually run well, and whether or not that's possible, and whether or not the tricks used actually work across an entire game rather than simply an individual section. A particular rain shader for instance might look fantastic at night, but godawful on a sunny day, and need a total rewrite.
In the case of The Witcher 3 for instance, CD Projekt has discussed having experimented with two rendering systems - one looking better in key areas, yes, but the other looking better across the entire world. It's not surprising that it ultimately went for that one. Decisions like this are quietly made all the time, and we rarely ever even notice.
In most cases, there's little reason to care, save that with modern gaming culture's increased push for endless screenshots and videos, and the same images cropping up again and again, we're constantly exposed to these games to the point that by the time they arrive, it's as if we've played them already.
On PC, it's particularly irritating when a game fails to use our often mighty machines to the full. Still, we should look at the positives. Aside from the occasional coughed up console port, we're never asked to settle for crap frame-rates or 900p graphics, and tools and mods offer incredible scope for stepping into games where the developers left off - just look at what modders are doing with the creaky old GTA IV, never mind the projects already under way for GTA V.
The Witcher 3 is already getting the upgrade treatment, with its first PC patch offering some improvements, and later versions promising to allow players to tweak ini files and crank up the data. It's also of course possible to play it in 4K mode right now, provided you have a suitably nuclear powered PC at your disposal.
As E3 rolls around for another year though, it's worth remembering exactly what we're seeing - hopes, dreams, and yes, marketing. Things change, but rarely because someone in a suit is cackling at the thought of murdering gamers' hopes and dreams in two years.
As with all technology purchases, what really matters is the end result. Have the compromises and cutdowns resulted in something not worth the money? Then that is indeed a problem. When the result is still great though, perhaps it's time to cut everyone a little slack.
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Instagram is planning to invade your inbox
Being a young, up-and-coming, trendy social network is all well and good, but what happens when growth starts to slow down? If you're Instagram, you start sending out emails to users who aren't logging in as often.
TechCrunch has spotted a new Highlights email digest that brings the best of your feed right into your inbox. The idea is you might be tempted to check back in more often.
This hasn't rolled out across the whole network yet, though Instagram has confirmed that it's a genuine feature. Whether or not it decides to make it more widespread and permanent remains to be seen.
If the recap fits
Like the recapping features recently introduced on Twitter, Instagram's Highlights is aimed at those users who don't spend all their time inside the app. Those users can be a problem if you're a platform that relies on views and interactions.Instagram now boasts more than 300 million active users and an average of 70 millon photos are uploaded every day. Those are impressive stats but the pressure is always on to keep them going upwards.
So don't be surprised if an email from Instagram suddenly appears in your inbox - it's just trying to boost user engagement. We would hope if the feature becomes official then you'll be able to opt out.
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This is what Google's new Photos app looks like
As the likes of Apple and Dropbox have demonstrated, finding the magic formula for an all-encompassing photo service isn't easy. Google is having another crack at it this week, and screenshots of the upcoming app have spilled out onto the web via Android Police.
A lot of the functionality mirrors what's in the current Photos app (stuck inside Google+) but there are some new features: you can share photos and videos with a single URL, for example.
The Auto-Awesome tool is renamed as Assistant and gives you more manual control over the slideshows, movies and collages you can create from your content. Albums can be automatically generated based on date, location and other bits of metadata.
Features galore
As you would expect, Material Design principles are plastered everywhere, and based on these screenshots the app has a clean and straightforward layout that fits in with Google's other mobile apps. A new dedicated home on the web will be introduced too.It looks like the emphasis is on automation. Your pictures will be tagged automatically, for example, so you can quickly pull up photos of the cat or a camping trip without having to label them all yourself. The integrated editing tools will get some spit and polish too.
We shouldn't have long to wait before all this becomes official: we're expecting Google to unveil its newly improved Photos app at some point during Google I/O, which starts later this week.
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Innovators: Great tech innovators: Hossein Yassaie
- Age: 57
- Company: Imagination Technologies
- Best known for: Hardware, graphics
- Quote: "I believe in and hope for making a real difference. I consider ignorance the biggest danger to the human race's progress."
Born in Iran, he became a UK national at the age of eight, and studied at Birmingham University where he got his PhD and became a Research Fellow. His first steps into the tech industry saw him work at STMicroelectronics and Inmos for the best part of a decade, where he was in charge of digital video and DSP, before he moved to Imagination Technologies in 1992 as CTO.
The UK-based graphics giant has seen much success during his tenure as chief exec, and its PowerVR mobile GPUs are used by many of the world's leading device manufacturers, including Apple, Sony, Samsung and LG.
Yassaie also kicked off the firm's Pure division when he saw a gap in the digital radio market, and while the initial intention might not have been to shift products to consumers – the first radio was really meant as a demo platform for Pure's DAB chip – success quickly led to a range of DAB radios (like the Evoke), portable wireless speakers, iPhone docks and the like.
Under Yassaie Imagination Technologies is also firmly angling itself towards the Internet of Things market, with its MIPS processors boasting high levels of performance efficiency, and Ensigma IP solutions for radio comms slotting in neatly with the frugal power requirements of wearables and IoT-connected hardware.
Yassaie is clearly a driven man and in interviews has lamented the fact that Britain no longer has enough giant tech firms like Imagination Technologies and ARM – and we need to get back to grass roots and innovate to breed further success, something Imagination isn't afraid to do.
He was also given a knighthood back in 2013 for his services to the tech world.
- In partnership with Microsoft, powered by the HP Spectre x360
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70,000 shots later, this image is now the world's biggest photo
It may only be the world's 11th tallest mountain, but Europe's Mont Blanc is now the subject of the world's largest photograph.
In2White, a photographic project headed-up by Italian photographer Filippo Blengini has usurped the 320 gigapixel panorama of London taken in 2013, which previously held the title, with an image that is 45 gigapixels larger.
Capturing the entirety of Mont Blanc, this 365 gigapixel image required 35 hours of continuous shooting to capture the 70,000 pictures that make up the portrait.
It took two months of post production to stitch the 14 Photoshop files together, resulting in a total file size of 46 terabytes.
Every inch of the mountain
Not just a feat in photography, the five international members behind the Mont Blanc image, had to trek for an hour from the nearest structure to a height of 3500 meters above sea level and endure temperatures of minus ten degrees in order to capture the images with a range of Canon DSLRs.There is an interactive image on the In2White website that shows a version of the full panoramic image, which can be can be zoomed in on to see everything from an eagle (kilometers off in the distance) to the construction site of a futuristic €105 million cable car station.
Interestingly, the final image is so large that if it were printed at 300dpi, it would be large enough to fill an entire football field.
Technically NASA has a bigger 681 megapixel image of the moon, but it was taken by a satellite and it doesn't really fit the biggest image in the world title.
- Want to make your own gigaphoto? You'll need one (or more) of the world's best DSLR
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Review: Updated: Foxtel Play
Introduction
Update: Foxtel has expanded its lineup for Foxtel Play, updating the channels offered in each package and adding new shows to the Boxsets channel, so we've updated our review.It seems like an age since the TV through the internet craze took Australia by storm. While ABC iview and SBS On Demand are practically everywhere these days and the free-to-air networks are struggling to decide exactly what the internet is to them, Foxtel has been plugging along quietly with online video.
Initially, it was simply Foxtel on Xbox, which then made its way to Telstra's T-Box and Samsung TVs. Foxtel Go arrived later, letting Foxtel subscribers get their entertainment on phones and tablets on the go.
But Foxtel Play is all of those services wrapped up in one. It's the first comprehensive Pay TV offering delivered through the internet in Australia.
Available as an app for Windows PCs, Macs, Samsung, Sony, and LG Smart TVs, the Xbox 360, the PS3 - and most recently the PS4 and Xbox One - Play is the sum of all Foxtel's previous IPTV parts, offering comprehensive channel selection through a wide variety of devices.
Packages and pricing
Foxtel Play follows the company's more traditional payment and packaging options. You pay a base rate for the most basic package, with the option to add additional channel packages for a fee.But unlike the standard Foxtel subscription, Foxtel Play doesn't have a lock in subscription fee or installation costs. Because all the content is delivered via your internet connection, there's no need for a technician to connect cable from the street or a satellite dish to your roof.
Foxtel Play is also cheaper than the cable or satellite based subscription, although not by as much as you might expect given there's no set top box or PVR like the Foxtel iQ included in the price.
The basic pricing starts at $25 a month, and is offered in four different package configurations. There's Entertainment, which includes Fox8, Lifestyle, Arena, Lifestyle You, Lifestyle Food, Lifestyle Home, MTV, Comedy, Style, E! and TV Hits; Drama, which includes BBC UKTV, FX, SoHo, Universal Channel, SyFy, BBC First and 13th Street; Documentaries, which includes National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo People, Discovery, BBC Knowledge, Discovery Turbo, History, A&E, Crime Investigation Australia, Bio and Foxtel Arts; and Kids, which includes Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, CBeebies, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Discovery Kids and BabyTV.
You can throw multiple packages together as well, with Foxtel charging $35 for two packages, $45 for three and $50 for all four every month.
In addition, there are two premium packages on offer. Sports, which includes Fox Sports 1,2, 3, 4 and 5, ESPN1, ESPN2, EuroSport and Footy Play; and Premium Movies and Drama, which includes the Premiere, Action, Thriller, Comedy, Family, Disney, Masterpiece, Romance and World movie channels.
Premium Movies and Drama pack also comes with the Boxsets channel, which means you can binge watch every episode of shows like True Detective, The Sopranos, Entourage, The Wire, Deadwood and Australian piracy's poster show, Game of Thrones.
Each of the premium packages will set you back $20 a month for Premium Movies and Drama, or $25 a month for Sports, meaning a complete Play subscription will cost $100 a month.
No matter which package you sign up for, you also get access to Foxtel Go, allowing you watch on your tablet or phone, as well as access to the Sky News, Sky Weather, Sky Business, Fox Sports News, CMC, Max, EuroSport News, TVSN, Channel V and V Hits channels.
The full Foxtel service has had a price restructure, with the base plan starting at just $25 these days, but scaling up to $120 a month for a complete channel line up. So Foxtel Play is slightly cheaper, and you'll need a satellite and a 12 month contract to get the full service. On the upside, a full service subscription also gets you a Foxtel iQ3 set top box.
Still, the advantage of not having to sign up for 24 months, as well as the benefit of being able to watch on multiple devices is alluring.
Installing and entertaining
Getting set up with Foxtel Play is a fairly straight forward affair. Head to Foxtel's Play website, select your packages, fill in your credit card details, download the app and you're pretty much good to go.Setting up a second computer is slightly trickier, as Foxtel doesn't have links to the software conveniently located on the Play website. It's there - you just have to search around for it.
Meanwhile, connecting to the Xbox One or PS4 app is as simple as downloading it from the Marketplace or PlayStation Store and then logging in once your account has been created.
The first time you open the app on your PC or Mac, you'll be able to browse the EPG while Sky News plays in the background. When you actually try to select a program, the app will prompt you to login with your account details.
From there, you'll be given access to all the channels you've paid for.
If you're a parent and want to make sure your kids can only access appropriate material, the parental controls option is pleasantly simple.
First, you need to create a four-digit pin, confirm it, and from there set what rating level you want to be available.
If a user tries to access content above the pre-set rating, they'll be required to enter the pin.
Pressing Play
There are three tabs on the PC/Mac app, including a home button and the two main components to Foxtel Play: Live TV streaming and Catch Up video on demand.The apps for Sony's PlayStation consoles are more or less the same, but feature an additional two tabs, bringing their selection to five buttons in total: Home, Live TV, Catch Up, Search and Settings.
The Home tab offers a patchwork of live TV programs and popular catch-up programs, which kind of looks a bit like the Live Tiles from Windows 8. It's a two column grid, with rectangular boxes of various sizes.
Weirdly, no matter the size of the window, you need to scroll down a little bit to see everything, but it's not like there's a lot of content below the screen to actually view.
Live streaming is exactly what it says on the box. The same content that's broadcast via Foxtel on its selection of channels is streamed online via the Play service.
The default view shows a list of channels and current programs running down the right hand of the window, while the left shows the currently selected program, and the programs description below it.
There are two alternate views as well - one with the current channel shown as a thumbnail size next to a larger EPG, and a full-screen view that only shows the video playing.
You can limit the number of channels shown in the list by genre. As we were testing the service with the full channel offering, we're not sure if it will only display the channels you've paid for, but there's no menu option for "My channels" or something similar, so we're doubtful.
Catching up
The final viewing option with Foxtel Play is Catch Up, which offers a selection of programs on demand, to watch at leisure from start to finish, often without the ad-breaks of the Live TV option.Sadly, for anyone hoping for a serious Netflix competitor in this service, you're destined for disappointment. While the range of programs on offer is pretty decent, with hundreds of TV shows, movies and documentaries available, the depth of each offering is quite shallow, although improving.
TV shows, in many cases, only have a handful of episodes on offer at any given time. The arrival of the Boxsets channel means you can binge on some of your favourite shows, but there's still a lot of programming only available on a catch-up basis.
While that's slightly frustrating it does make sense. This is a Pay TV company, after all, which has a business plan built around the broadcast model of entertainment.
To counter this, Foxtel also has its Presto service, offering a movie and TV streaming selection for an affordable monthly fee.
It's a rapidly expanding market, and with the recent launch of Netflix and Stan in Australia, competition is only getting worse. But in the time since the Foxtel Play's launch, it has improved dramatically, with more content and easier pricing models.
DRM and Video Quality
What, you didn't expect Rupert Murdoch's beloved Australian Pay TV company to dive into a DRM-free online portal, did you?The good news is that the restrictions on Foxtel Play aren't too draconian. You can register three devices to the service, although that does include Foxtel Go as well. Generally, that's probably going to be a computer, a tablet and an Xbox, PlayStation or Samsung, Sony or LG TV.
While you can opt for a range of permutations and combinations in terms of what devices you connect, you can only connect a single Xbox. We're not sure why - probably because multiple Xbox consoles really would eat into Foxtel's multi-room charging strategy.
And while three devices can be connected to a Play account, only two of them can stream video at a time. So forget about having four family members watching four different things on four different devices. You'll need to pony up the cash for two accounts for that to happen.
Video Quality
In terms of video quality, there are only two settings - Best and Low. Best is actually very decent - we'd go as far as describing it as almost up to DVD quality, although it does depend on your broadband connection. That said, our fairly slow ADSL2+ connection managed the stream effortlessly, and it only took between five and ten seconds to buffer a new video.The Low quality is still very palatable, at least on a computer. While pictures lack definition, they're still watchable on a smaller screen. The lower setting on the Xbox 360 is harder to view, but is certainly no worse than watching most YouTube clips on the big screen.
The video quality setting is one thing many users will need to pay attention to, given the bandwidth restrictions on home (and mobile) broadband plans.
According to the service's FAQs, the highest quality setting will chew through 1310MB of data every hour, while the low setting will only use about 470MB.
In other words, if you left the lowest quality streaming 24 hours a day for a month, you'd likely use up more than 300GB of data. At the highest setting, you'll probably crack 900GB.
While those usage cases are unlikely, you may still want to upgrade your broadband plan before signing up.
Verdict
It's clear that Foxtel has put a lot of thought into creating a proper Pay TV service for the internet with Play. It's sleek, easy enough for anyone to use, and comprehensive in its offering.But, it is still Foxtel. If you've given up paying big bucks for television because of the hours and hours of rubbish programming between one or two decent shows, this isn't for you. It's still the same old content Foxtel churns out day in and day out on its broadcast channel, only delivered through the internet.
But it's impossible to doubt the benefit of moving to an IP based system. No longer is your television locked to your home. You can take your Foxtel subscription with you on holiday, or hospital, or anywhere else you may need to go.
Of course, whether that convenience is worth the price of entry is up for debate. But if you're likely to pay for Foxtel in the first place, you probably won't balk at the asking price.
We Liked
It''s so convenient and quick. Even on a fairly poor ADSL2+ connection and a two year old Mac, it still took less than 10 seconds to buffer. Once it started, we never experienced a bump in playback.The ability to stream to multiple devices also won us over. While it's probably a little bit stricter with the DRM than we'd like - only having two simultaneous connections when you can only have three connected devices seems a bit weak to us - the convenience is still something you don't really get with a full Foxtel subscription.
We Disliked
We'll be honest, we were hoping for more from the Catch Up service. It's not that there's nothing to watch via Catch Up, it's just that it's not really a viable way to discover a new show. We'd like to be able to try pilot episodes of programs, and then follow through if we like them, like you can with Netflix.The harder pill to swallow though is the price. Sure, a single package seems like pretty good value. But this was an opportunity for Foxtel to bring a la carte channel subscriptions to the table.
The biggest problem with Foxtel in general is that you need to pay for half a dozen channels you don't care about to get the one channel you do.
In broadcast that may make sense, but this is the internet, and there's simply no reason why users shouldn't be able to create their own package with only the channels they want to pay for.
But more than that is the fact that a complete Play subscription gets you 48 channels, some of which won't play on certain devices. A Platinum broadcast subscription gets you 86 channels, plus an iQ box and HD channels, for an extra $20 a month.
When you factor in you have to pay for broadband usage as well, it simply doesn't stack up as an affordable alternative.
Final Verdict
This is a step in the right direction, make no mistake. But Foxtel probably has played it just a little bit too safe for it to really disrupt the market.There's a good chance that in 15 years, pretty much all television will be consumed via the internet. With that in mind, Foxtel Play is a good, solid first step for the Pay TV company, after its previous crawling attempts.
We'd love to see more versatility in packaging and pricing, as well as more of a push to on demand streaming. But given the way Foxtel makes its money, there's a good chance we'll be waiting a while for that.
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Selfie, bacon, shrug, avocado: the next set of official emoji
Emoji is on the rise as a global language: more of us are using it every year, the symbols are all over Instagram and Hollywood movie studios are deploying it to promote their latest blockbusters.
The Unicode Consortium is the body in charge of the official character sets you see on your computers and mobile devices, and the organisation just released a new list of candidates to be considered for inclusion in Unicode 9.0. The updated character set is scheduled to appear in 2016.
Included in the new list are symbols for bacon, avocado, selfie and shrug. Also making an appearance are face palm, man dancing and the ever-useful rolling on the floor laughing. This is a preliminary list so it may change between now and the release of Unicode 9.
So if you find yourself stuck for the right colourful icon to use in digital communications, hang tight - help is on the way. Unicode's Mark Davis says many of the new batch are "based on expected high frequency of use or because they are highly popular requests from online communities".
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Android M Nexus devices to get a two-year update guarantee?
When you buy a new phone, how long is it going to be able to run the latest software for? It's that kind of buyer anxiety that Google is hoping to do away with, according to the latest rumour reported by Android Police.
Sources speaking to the site say Android M Nexus devices will be guaranteed to get updates for two years. Apparently the program will be applied retrospectively too, putting the Nexus 5 (October 2013) and Nexus 6 (November 2014) in line for the new mobile OS.
What's more, Nexus phones and tablets will be guaranteed to get security updates for three years or 18 months after purchase, whichever lasts longer. In other words, your Nexus 4 (November 2012) will still get patches for several months yet.
Anti-fragging
If true, it's another reason to pick a Nexus-branded device over a rival handset - fragmentation and sluggish update cycles are problems that have plagued the Android scene over the years.Android Police sounds fairly confident of its sources. The site says the new guarantees could get announced at Google I/O next week, or might be kept back until there's a new Nexus device to show off.
We're expecting to hear a lot more about Android M on the 28-29 May. Rumoured to be included in the new operating system are features such as native fingerprint sensing technology, better app privacy management and improved voice control.
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