LG's flagship 3D TV axed from consumer launch
LG's flagship 3D TV, which it showed off at CES this year, won't be coming to the UK for consumers.
The LG LD360 3D LED TV was supposed to be launching into consumers' living rooms this April, but it has apparently been pulled.
The LD360 was supposed to provide consumers with a 47-inch LCD TV that will be compatible with such services as the Sky 3D TV channel.
About face
Just two months ago, LG was touting the new flagship model as the start of a new wave of TVs, stating:
"One of the biggest trends in TV in the coming years is certainly set to be 3D and LG is making its first 3D TV (LD360) available to consumers in April 2010."
We've yet to hear why this has happened or what it means for 3D TVs in general this year, but it will be news to Samsung's ears, as it means its 9000 Series will be among the head of the pack of 3D TVs launching this year.
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Acer announces K11 pico projector
Acer has announced it is to return to the wonderfully small world of pico projectors, with the K11.
Announced this week at CeBit, the K11 on paper sounds like a pico on steroids. It has double the light power of the K10 – at 200 ANSI Lumens – and also packs a punch when it comes to memory and connectivity. This comes in the form of an integrated USB and SDHC card reader and an HDMI port.
Compact and bright
The lamp technology is again LED which means that you should get around 20,000 hours use out of it.
Size-wise, the K11 is more than compact, measuring a dinky 122x116 mm. It also weighs a mere 0.61Kg.
There was a bit of a niggle on the K10 when it came to display sizes but this has been rectified in the K11. The pico projector now pipes content out at a multitude of display ratios, including the movie-popular 4:3 and 16:9 formats.
Add to this ColorSafe and DLP technology and what you have is a projector that looks like it can compete with the big boys.
There's no pricing for the projector as of yet, but the Acer K11 does have a UK release date of May.
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O2 could block Nokia-Skype deal for customers
We've spoken to O2 about the impending Skype and Nokia deal over Symbian handsets - and it's not good news for its users.
Basically, as Skype is all about sending voice calls through data (which means calling people far away costs the same as dialling someone next to you) the amount of data used ramps up.
O2 has decided that this is against policy - and has given TechRadar the following statement:
"We do not as a general rule block access to voice over IP services on our network.
"However, in the case of unlimited data services such as our data bolt on and iPhone tariffs, VoIP is prohibited within the excessive use policy."
All about the customers
"These unlimited data packages are designed to allow customers to browse the web and access data services such as email without worrying about a cost per MB.
"To offer the best possible customer experience, we prohibit continuous streaming of any audio/video content, Voice over IP, P2P and file sharing services, all of which can adversely impact the overall customer experience."
There you have it - although we'd be surprised if the other networks didn't have the same kind of policy, as the use of 'unlimited' data is still a hot topic.
We've contacted other networks to find out their policy - so if you're into VOIP and think this is a travesty, let us know in the comments below.
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Exclusive: TiVo: Sky partnership caused UK flop
TiVo has pointed the finger firmly at its ill-fated relationship with Sky as the reason for its failure to break into the UK market, but is confident that the same mistakes will be avoided in its forthcoming collaboration with Virgin Media.
Speaking to TechRadar at the launch of TiVo's new set-top boxes in New York, Vice President and General Manager Joshua Danovitz explained that the reason TiVo withdrew from the UK in 2003 was down to the creation of Sky+ rather than any lack of enthusiasm from the nation for personal video recorders.
"I would say it's less a tech failure and more a partnership failure," explained Danovitz when asked about the company's exit.
"We partnered with a company [BSkyB] that wasn't 100 per cent dedicated to promoting TiVo and soon after working with us and coming to market started promoting their own technology.
"I think that that can be related much more to a corporate policy and strategy discussion than it is to a market readiness or market acceptance.
"Additionally, at the time TiVo was incredibly young – we went public in 1999 and launched our first product, and we were in the UK by 2001.
"I would say we had not conquered the US enough to send out large mature teams to other key markets and we were depending on partners to do so and the situation with [BSkyB] was 'well if this is the way it's going to work then we're not going to be able to support that'."
Virgin Media partnership
Danovitz explained that TiVo's partnership with Virgin Media – announced back in November and likely to see the first products by the end of the year – was based on a much more solid model than its previous foray into the UK.
"Since [the last attempt to come into the UK] in the US we have retail products – we partnered with DirecTV, with Comcast etc and we've now launched in Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, Austrialia and New Zealand.
"The way we are doing all of these partnerships are similar to the Comcast and DirecTV models. They own the consumer – there is some commitment to deploy and distribute – they do the marketing and we provide the service.
"So the model of working with Virgin is very close to what we are doing domestically in the US with the largest operators and what we are doing all of those international deployments."
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Mobile phone boarding passes increase by 1,200%
The amount of consumers using mobile phone boarding passes has dramatically risen, with one company quoting a 1,200 per cent increase.
UK-based company Trinity Mobile is reporting that it has found that more and more people are using its phone-only boarding pass service, which negates the need for paper passes.
Instead of security scanning your boarding pass, they can do it straight from your phone.
When this service is offered, Trinity Mobile found that 600,000 people chose to opt-in in 2009, compared to a mere 50,000 in 2008.
Massive growth
"The massive growth in mobile ticketing is completely driven by the consumer's need for the fastest, easiest and most affordable way to get tickets," explained Rob Clegg, Commercial Director at Trinity Mobile.
"Our technology has proven to deliver these enhanced customer services efficiently, securely and cost effectively, and has the added benefit of being environmentally friendly."
To back up its figures, Trinity Mobile is quoting a recent study by Juniper Research which found that over 15 billion mobile tickets will be issued across a wide range of industries worldwide by 2014, up from the 2 billion expected to be delivered this year.
Impressive, but not as impressive as someone who can make a mobile phone out of a boarding pass – that we would pay to see.
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Spanish Mariposa botnet makers arrested
The Spanish Civil Guard has announced it has arrested three men responsible for a Spanish botnet which infected more than 13 million PCs.
The botnet was named Mariposa - as in the butterfly - and has infiltrated millions of PCs with a virus which stole, among other things, credit card numbers.
Even though the botnet was working in Spain, it managed to infect PCs in 190 countries, with 40 financial institutions found to be hit by the virus.
We have to turn this off
The botnet was officially shutdown on 23 December but the cost of removing the virus from all PCs could run into millions.
Two security firms helped bring down the botnet - Defense Intelligence (based in Canada) and Panda Security SL (Spain) – with Chris Davis, CEO of Defense Intelligence saying about the virus: "It was so nasty, we thought 'We have to turn this off. We have to cut off the head'."
Unfortunately, it seems that there are more than three men responsible for the botnet, with Mark Rasch, ex-bigwig of the US Department of Justice Computer Crimes Unit, noting that: "Mariposa's the biggest ever to be shut down, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. These things come up constantly."
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In Depth: 10 industries that the iPad is perfect for
When the iPad was announced, cynics scoffed: "It's just a big iPod touch!"
It turns out that a big iPod Touch is exactly what a lot of people are waiting for, and not just so they can admire their achingly trendy reflections in its smudge-resistant glass.
Here are 10 industries that the iPad would be ideal for.
1. Medicine
With a wipe-clean surface and few nooks or crannies for brain matter or bodily fluids to get stuck in, the iPad's form factor is ideal for medical applications.
It's an area Apple is already in with the iPhone, with applications offering everything from reference to patient monitoring, and US doctors are definitely interested in the iPad.
GET WELL: There are already plenty of iPhone apps for medicine, covering everything from patient monitoring to form-filling
2. Music
The iPad may not have the horsepower to offer multi-track recording in its own right, but as a control interface for something like the awesome Ableton Live music program it would be perfect for live work. It could also be a kind of mixing console for controlling studio hardware.
ON STAGE: As a controller for software such as the awesome Ableton Live, iPads could replace the laptops we often see on stage.
3. Education
Putting textbooks on iPads is a no-brainer - but it's capable of more than that. As North Carolina's Herald-Sun reports, educators are excited about other possibilities including "allowing students and researchers to, say, examine photos and maps as they're checking texts" and even delivering a "cloud-based, disaggregated, open educational experience". Whatever that is.
BETTER THAN BOOKS: If the iPad were just a big ebook reader textbooks would make it a big deal in education, but it's capable of much more than that
4. Residential and commercial property
From showing architects' renders while standing in rubble to bringing up house price graphs, reports on local schools or any other relevant data when showing potential buyers a property, the iPad could prove to be a useful tool for estate agents and commercial property firms.
5. Real-world retail
PDAs and smartphones are already used to take orders and payments - Apple's EasyPay Touch turns an iPod into a portable payment processor and mobile checkout - but something slightly larger would fit better on a typical retail counter, bar counter or desk.
6. Ecommerce
Applications such as Next's online shopping app are a nice idea, but smartphones are just too small for serious sofa-based shopping. Something like this mockup, on the other hand, would be brilliant - and better for the environment than all those doorstop-sized catalogues that retailers like so much.
BETTER SHOPPING: Next's iPhone app is all very clever, but the iPhone's too small for serious shopping. iPad brochures could sell shedloads of stuff
7. Sales
By sales we mean Mondeo-driving, service station-stopping sales. The iPad is an excellent presentation platform, and of course it can be used for order processing and staying in touch with the office, too.
8. Project management
When a well-respected productivity software firm such as the Omni Group throws its considerable weight behind the iPad and says the iPad version of its diagramming product is more important than the desktop version, something is definitely afoot. Planning and rejigging priorities tend to happen in face-to-face meetings, an environment the iPad is perfectly suited to.
9. Inspection
Whether you're deciding whether to award a building warrant, carrying out a safety check on a boiler or assessing the performance of a school, inspections produce enormous amounts of paperwork - most of which ends up plugged into a computer anyway. The iPad is much more portable and usable on the move than even the most mobile laptop.
10. Law enforcement
Regular viewers of Cops know that laptops often appear in patrol cars, but tablet PCs are a much better idea for the limited space available in police cruisers - and the iPad's comparatively low price could make it very attractive to cash-strapped police departments. Don't get too excited, though: it's more likely to be used for database access and form-filling than for smacking villains.
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Apple looks to move movies to the cloud
Apple is laying the groundwork for a cloud-based iTunes Store which will not only hold music – as previously reported – but movies too.
According to CNET the fruit-based company is in discussion with movie studios to allow video content to be stored in the cloud for its upcoming iTunes service.
The idea of iTunes being in the cloud is an obvious one in today's on-the-go web-reliant world.
Through Wi-Fi or 3G you would access your content on the cloud-based service and not worry about the mountains of disk-space needed for storing movie content on your iPod/iPhone/iPad.
In the cloud
The problem that Apple seems to be facing is that movie execs aren't happy with the company's normal walled garden approach – they want a cloud-based site to be accessible from non-Apple products.
This is something that always seems to sit uneasy with the company.
James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester has said about the 'open access' idea: "Apple would prefer not to do this. But it just doesn't have the leverage it once did.
"Apple can't dictate terms or position itself as a digital saviour."
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Nokia opens door to VOIP with Skype deal
Nokia and Skype have announced that they will be offering VOIP calls for all owners of Symbian-enabled Finnish phones.
In a joint statement, which TechRadar hopes was read out with spokespeople from both parties struggling to speak in unison, Skype for Symbian was formally announced.
The service will work over 3G, Wi-Fi and apparently even EDGE and GPRS, which would be impressive given the limited amount of data speed offered by the latter.
Skype for Symbian will run on any Nokia smartphone using Symbian ^1, the current version of the platform.
Moving on up
However, Skype will soon introduce this client to Symbian mobile devices from other manufacturers, including Sony Ericsson.
"Symbian enables us to bring smartphones to more and more people and ensures scale for our solutions and compelling services, such as Skype," said Jo Harlow, Senior Vice President for Smartphones, Nokia.
"We're seeing around 1.5 million downloads a day on Ovi Store now and believe that the Skype client for Nokia smartphones will have wide appeal to Symbian users."
The service has been enabled for a long time through third party providers, such as Fring, but this is the first time VOIP has been enabled by an official manufacturer.
The Nokia N900 is also able to make VOIP calls through Skype, although this uses Maemo as an OS rather the Symbian version announced today.
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Gary Marshall: Apple vs HTC: this is great news for Microsoft
The news that Apple is suing HTC for patent infringement reminds us of a quote by the great Jack Handey: "Even though he was an enemy of mine, I had to admit that what he had accomplished was a brilliant piece of strategy. First, he punched me. Then, he kicked me. Then, he punched me again."
Make no mistake, Apple's move is brilliant - and while HTC is the apparent target, the company being punched here is Google.
That's bad news for Google's Android partners, and potentially great news for Microsoft.
Instead of going after the cash rich and impressively lawyered Google, Apple is targeting one of its key hardware partners instead. That's smart, because by going after a relatively small target Apple stands a much better chance of getting what it wants, and of doing a lot of damage to Android.
Unless Apple gets comprehensively destroyed in court, it's hard to see how this can possibly end well for Google. If HTC settles out of court - the most likely scenario - then HTC's going to have to hand over a big pile of money to Apple and other Android manufacturers will probably have to do the same.
What happens next?
If HTC doesn't settle, Apple could persuade the court to halt shipments of HTC phones to the US until the case is decided - and while it's a pretty remote possibility, an Apple win could force HTC to cripple its Android models' interfaces. That means until the case is over, anyone making Android phones has very good reason to be nervous.
An out-of-court settlement or an in-court Apple win would destroy one of Android's two major selling points: unlike, say, Windows Mobile, hardware firms don't have to pay a per-phone royalty to use it.
The second major selling point is the power of the Google brand, but we think that's damaged, too: just as Google's various handset partners were bringing their Android-powered phones to market, Google completely overshadowed their efforts with the hype around the Nexus One.
To put it bluntly, the Nexus One demonstrated that just because you're making Android phones doesn't mean Google won't shaft you.
The thinking behind the suit
This is different to Apple suing Nokia: that was a straight tit-for-tat, you-sue-us-and-we'll-sue-you-back bit of corporate tomfoolery. We suspect that the HTC case is colder and more clinical than that, a classic case of revenge being best served cold.
Remember when Google's Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board, claiming that there was no conflict of interest because Google wasn't a competitor? Steve Jobs hasn't forgotten, and you can bet he's smirking.
He's not the only one, though. By chucking sugar in Android's petrol tank, sticking a potato in its exhaust pipe and letting down its tyres, Apple isn't just giving Google the finger: it's giving Microsoft some reasons to be cheerful, too.
Android manufacturers such as HTC and Motorola make Windows Mobile kit, too, and Microsoft just happens to have a new version coming up - a new version whose interface, significantly, isn't sue-ably similar to the iPhone's. So while Apple is using HTC to get at Google, it's indirectly assisting its arch-enemy, Microsoft.
When we looked into the Windows browser ballot yesterday, we were pretty sure that the tech industry couldn't get much weirder: after all, the EU was punishing a firm for anti-competitive behaviour by making it promote a firm it's investigating for - yes! - anti-competitive behaviour.
We were wrong, because that's nothing compared to this.
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Review: Musical Fidelity V-DAC
Musical Fidelity is very much the child of its creator, Antony Michaelson, a charismatic individual who manages to be equally passionate about his high-end products (especially monster-powerful amplifiers, something of an MF speciality) and his budget components like this one, the V-DAC.
Why pay a fortune, he asks, for fancy audio kit when a tiny and inexpensive box like this contains all the important bits without any of the frills.
Well, the V-DAC certainly doesn't waste any money. The case is utterly basic, made of steel, but perfectly adequate to contain, protect and electrically screen the gubbins inside.
That said, we've two small issues to raise: first, the distribution of sockets on both ends of the unit is a little inconvenient in practice, and second, the mechanical mounting of some of those sockets is not the most robust, and we would advise care in connecting up so as not to break internal solder joints.
The V-DAC caters for all three of the usual digital inputs: USB and both electrical and optical S/PDIF, with a single unbalanced output. Between inputs and output are functional bits, which we quite agree are more typical of high-end stuff, including a sample rate converter and high grade DAC chip.
The output opamps are nothing fancy, but none the worse for that and have been seen in some quite upmarket kit. Passive components are likewise decent rather than show-off and the power supply is the usual 'wall wart' kind of thing – not universal voltage though.
Sound quality
Cheap it may be, but only in the best sense is it cheerful – at least, it seems to have put our panel listeners in a good humour for the duration of its stay in the test system. There was the odd question mark raised here and there, but the general tendency of the comments is very clearly in favour of the V-DAC's performance.
Above all, they kept mentioning the big presentation, even in the smallest-scale music. The last track of the programme was solo voice and piano, but even there the V-DAC managed to find a greater depth to the image.
Amusingly, one listener commented that the singer and pianist didn't always seem to be quite in agreement, which is, in fact, a very perceptive comment, as they weren't!
Obviously, it's the big stuff that will really benefit from this kind of presentation – the only possible drawback is if it's accompanied by a lack of precision, which is sometimes the case. Not here, though, and both Dark Side of the Moon and Rachmaninov's luxurious orchestration drew praise for the detail as well as the scope in the sound.
The one area that, perhaps, suffers a little in very dense music is the bass, which develops a little overhang, but still manages a rapid, precise attack. Dick Hyman's piano, a slightly bright Bأ¶sendorfer, received in some ways the best rendition of the group, with excellent clarity and pace and once again a large scale which suits the instrument – the largest piano in regular production in the world.
One listener commented that the rhythm seemed slightly less clear than in a couple of previous presentations, though that was the only negative comment on that aspect throughout the V-DAC's session.
Even the Penguin Cafأ© Orchestra, in a recording that's not outstanding, but which seems very revealing of kit prowess, revealed some of the best balance, pace and general excitement of the day.
Once again, we found the S/PDIF and USB inputs very similar sonically. We have to hand it to Mr Michaelson – this little unit does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin!
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'Arrogant' Ballmer says Bing will be number one
The CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, has been quizzed on the search market, Bing and the dominance of Google.
Ballmer is convinced that Bing can be the number one search engine but it may take some time.
Speaking at the Search Marketing Expo in California, when he was asked if Bing could usurp Google, he told audiences: "There's no good answer to this question. If you say yes, you sound arrogant. If you say no, you sound like you're happy with second place.
"No one aims to be second, so the answer is yes."
Late to start
When asked what timeline he though this may happen in, Ballmer noted there is no deadline, mentioning it could be in the next 10, 20 years or more.
"Tomorrow's goal is to gain a few points, a 10th, and just keep working and working," he explained.
When asked why Google is the more dominant, he unsurprisingly pointed out that "the No. 1 thing that Google benefits from in search is they did it right first.
"We started later. There's a value to incumbency."
Bing is slowly adding to its search market share. Its recent tie-up with Yahoo means that it will have a 30 per cent market share (in the US) to Google's 65 per cent.
We are betting that Microsoft is happy that there's no time limit on overtaking Google as it could be a waiting a long time to achieve such a thing.
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BlackBerry slider phone spotted in spy shot
BlackBerry collectors rejoice - the final piece of your collection has finally been spotted in a blurry spy pic.
A BlackBerry featuring a dual slide-out keyboard and touchscreen interface has been spotted on the spy circuit, complete with out-of-focus picture.
The fact it's (apparently) sporting a touchscreen has prompted a number of people to assume this is the Storm3, although that would be a real departure from the click-screen tech of the first two.
One of a kind
Far more likely is that this is a standalone device in the BlackBerry range, much like the Pearl Flip 8220, a pre-cursor to a new form factor.
The spy picture also shows a device very similar to the Palm Pre, which would be an interesting direction from RIM.
And such a device has been tipped by analysts too, with Chris Umiastowski from TD Newcrest writing that a clickable screen with a physical keyboard is likely on the horizon as well.
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Review: Jolida Glass FX Mini DAC
Meet the Jolida Glass FX Mini, the most basic DAC imaginable, a miniscule piece of kit featuring a mini-USB socket on one end and a pair of phono sockets on the other.
There are a couple of blue LEDs to confirm that it's live and ready to receive data, but that's about it.
From a company better known for making valve amps, the Glass FX is amazingly dull looking in comparison. The case, for example, is machined from a solid block of aluminium, with a steel cover screwed in place.
Removing that reveals a continuing theme of simplicity, as there is precisely one semiconductor component inside, an integrated circuit, which connects directly to the USB socket on one side and to the phono sockets on the other.
The chip in question is one of Burr-Brown's range of dedicated audio USB receivers, as found in most USB-input DACs, but the majority of specialist audio manufacturers prefer to follow one of these with further de-jittering measures and a dedicated DAC chip. So let's keep an open mind on the quality, given the trade-offs between simplicity and the (presumed) benefits of more sophisticated de-jitter and DAC functions.
One technical aspect that does deserve mention, however, is output level: if you power everything from the USB power line and don't include a voltage converter or some other clever means (an audio transformer could do the job, at a price) you're limited to less than the usual two-volt output.
In this case, it's about 0.8V, which is fine but just means your volume control will be a bit further round than usual. Most amps have plenty of gain in hand anyway.
Sound quality
Since we always match playback levels very accurately in our blind tests, the limited output gave nothing away to our listeners.
Something certainly stood out in this DAC's performance, though, as it attracted the most varied comments of any. Now, obviously, if everyone likes a component it can't be bad, but if everyone has a strong reaction – and at least some of those reactions are positive – things are generally looking up too.
Hi-fi that only presses some people's buttons, but presses them hard, is always well worth investigating. And that seems to be the category the Glass FX DAC falls into. It's clear from their notes of the session that one of our listeners gets much more excited by rhythm and timing than any other single aspect of sound quality, and he's typical of many listeners.
He was the one who started being impressed on the first track and was positively ecstatic by the fourth, hearing more vitality than most of the other DACs in the group could produce and enjoying a much more 'foot-tapping' sound than before or after. The music was, for him, more convincing, more involving – simply more lifelike.
At the other extreme, one other listener lamented the lack of detail, which he had heard in presentations through at least some of the other DACs, and pointed to confusion, reduction in the scale of images and a 'boxy' presentation.
But then this individual didn't mention timing explicitly anywhere in his notes of the whole session, thus neatly proving the point that different people hear different things in recordings.
And frankly those conflicting comments seem to sum up this little device very well. It is energetic, but lacks insight.
At its price, it would be outrageous to demand all-round excellence and we reckon that excellence in one area is commendable.
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Review: Firestone Audio Spitfire
Its rather involved name may conjure up images of rubber tyres and the Battle of Britain, but the Firestone Spitfire DAC oozes simplicity in terms of performance and design.
In fact, many a design-conscious household would probably be very happy to house one of these as their DAC of choice.
It's supplied with the usual 'wall wart' power supply, but an optional upgrade is also available for آ£103 in a matching case. And, since we were also sent one of these, that's how we conducted most of the test.
To reiterate, the Spitfire is simplicity incarnate, with no front-panel controls and just a single digital input (both flavours, though only one can be used at once), plus a single stereo unbalanced output at the rear. Indicator LEDs do, at least, tell you what's going on.
This can be useful and we did notice that our sample sometimes seemed to lock up, if initially powered up with no source connected. All three LEDs light up, but switching off and on again invariably fixed it.
Circuitry follows a straightforward arrangement, with a digital receiver chip and DAC both from Texas Instruments and a minimum of analogue output signal path based around a high-performance op-amp.
The optional power supply is a linear type, based on a small frame transformer, with simple linear regulation. It's ingeniously assembled so as to use the whole case as a heatsink and connects to the DAC via a supplied cable of about a handspan length.
Sound quality
We used a USB-S/PDIF converter box from Trends Audio as an interface since there's no USB input and the computer we were using as a source for our blind listening session doesn't have an S/PDIF output. We first checked it for bit-perfect data passing and low jitter so the sound has plenty of weight to it and some good resolution too.
A couple of listeners commented that the presentation is just a little on the bright side, but in a good way, making for a lively sound rather than being tiring or strident. Otherwise, tonality seems neutral and well balanced.
There's more to bass, though, than just its tonal relation to the rest of the spectrum. The ideal hi-fi component should have extension with body, clarity and tunefulness.
On the whole, this DAC seems to manage an impressively close approach to that ideal. For instance, it manages the deep heartbeats that begin Dark Side of the Moon effortlessly and with real weight, but it also does a great job of reproducing the low notes on a piano, which can easily come out as a tuneless dull thud. Drums of all sorts have loads of impact and a very immediate presence, while low melodic instruments are easy to follow.
For all that, the slight brightness can at times take the shine off the bass, or at least divert the listener's attention. This is one of those things that will surely vary between listeners. What might not vary quite so much is a slight lack of insight – a very small degree of veiling that can also reduce the scale of stereo images. We found this a little less marked when using a CD as a source, but it's still present.
Ironically, and Firestone won't thank us for saying this, we felt the detail was a little better using the free power supply, though this did cause something of a trade-off in bass quality.
Still, it's a capable and likeable product, even if it's not up there in our top three.
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Interview: How Stephen Fry takes down entire websites with a single tweet
Stephen Fry has revealed how he regularly crashes websites with around 3,000 requests per second as a result of him tweeting a link to his 1.3 million plus followers.
In an exclusive interview with our colleagues on .net magazine, Fry says: "When I tweet a link it usually gets around two or three thousand requests a second. Especially if I word it in a way where I really want people to go to a site."
So Fry tries to warn site owners of the potentially server-smoking rush beforehand. "I just have to be very specific, and say: 'Please go to your web guys and your host and tell them this is the kind of traffic you could get," Fry explains.
"Fifty per cent of the time the site is down in seconds – even when we've contacted site owners and they've told us everything will be fine. It's often an unprecedented amount of traffic, and they don't have the required capacity."
Fry is, of course, a huge fan of Twitter, although he admits that its true potential is only just beginning to be realised.
"Twitter's astonishingly new still, and its power is only just beginning to be discovered," he enthuses. "Not just power to advertise, but power to campaign, power to – perhaps – change politics: not necessarily in a good way, not necessarily in a bad way. But it's power nevertheless.
"Wherever a lot of people are assembled, and are exchanging ideas quickly, there is always power. And people are only just beginning to learn how to use the API to its fullest potential."
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Interview: How Stephen Fry takes down entire websites with a single tweet
Stephen Fry has revealed how he regularly crashes websites with around 3,000 requests per second as a result of him tweeting a link to his 1.3 million plus followers.
In an exclusive interview with our colleagues on .net magazine, Fry says: "When I tweet a link it usually gets around two or three thousand requests a second. Especially if I word it in a way where I really want people to go to a site."
So Fry tries to warn site owners of the potentially server-smoking rush beforehand. "I just have to be very specific, and say: 'Please go to your web guys and your host and tell them this is the kind of traffic you could get," Fry explains.
"Fifty per cent of the time the site is down in seconds – even when we've contacted site owners and they've told us everything will be fine. It's often an unprecedented amount of traffic, and they don't have the required capacity."
Fry is, of course, a huge fan of Twitter, although he admits that its true potential is only just beginning to be realised.
"Twitter's astonishingly new still, and its power is only just beginning to be discovered," he enthuses. "Not just power to advertise, but power to campaign, power to – perhaps – change politics: not necessarily in a good way, not necessarily in a bad way. But it's power nevertheless.
"Wherever a lot of people are assembled, and are exchanging ideas quickly, there is always power. And people are only just beginning to learn how to use the API to its fullest potential."
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Books outnumber games on offer for Apple's iPhone
Apple has sold well over a billion apps for the iPhone since the launch of the market-leading smartphone, with the news this week that sales of iPhone-compatible books now outnumbers sales of games for the first time.
The latest figures are from mobile ad company Mobclix, which shows how the number of books in the iTunes store now exceeds the number of games.
Mobclix's data shows that there are over 26,000 books in iTunes, compared with a just over 24,000 games.
Apple vs Amazon
Popular iPhone e-book apps include (ironically) Kindle one, (Amazon-owned) Stanza and Classics.
What with the forthcoming release of the iPad – now rumoured for a 26 March launch in the US – will Apple be able to take on the might of Amazon's Kindle in the e-book market?
TechRadar also looked into the thorny issue of piracy of e-books recently – that great big elephant in the corner that the electronic publishing industry so far seems to be trying its hardest to ignore.
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Lib Dems looking to block copyright-infringing sites in the UK
The Liberal Democrat Party is actively pursuing a change to the Digital Economy Bill which would see sites which host copyrighted material illegally blocked in the UK.
This amendment could well have severe implications for those who use the internet in Britain and may target well-known video-sharing sites such as YouTube.
The two peers who are looking to add a "Preventing access to specified online locations" clause are the brilliantly titled Lord Razzall and not-so brilliantly named Lord Clement-Jones.
Prevent access
The crux of the clause is as follows:
"The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court."
This is somewhat chillingly followed by: "whether a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright."
The Lib Dems will obviously try and sugar coat this as much as possible and, if the clause is put in place, a lot will hinge on what exactly is a "substantial proportion" of copyright infringement.
At the moment, there is little to no web filtering happening in the UK. If this law were to pass, then we could very well see ourselves in a situation like China where the reasons for blocking certain sites are more than a bit skewed.
Australia is another country looking into possible net filtering.
The Digital Economy Bill was announced back in 2009 and has courted much controversy for its proposed tax levy on internet connections and it gives Peter Mandelson, First Secretary of State, the right to change the bill at any time of his choosing.
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Lib Dems looking to block copyright-infringing sites in the UK
The Liberal Democrat Party is actively pursuing a change to the Digital Economy Bill which would see sites which host copyrighted material illegally blocked in the UK.
This amendment could well have severe implications for those who use the internet in Britain and may target well-known video-sharing sites such as YouTube.
The two peers who are looking to add a "Preventing access to specified online locations" clause are the brilliantly titled Lord Razzall and not-so brilliantly named Lord Clement-Jones.
Prevent access
The crux of the clause is as follows:
"The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court."
This is somewhat chillingly followed by: "whether a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright."
The Lib Dems will obviously try and sugar coat this as much as possible and, if the clause is put in place, a lot will hinge on what exactly is a "substantial proportion" of copyright infringement.
At the moment, there is little to no web filtering happening in the UK. If this law were to pass, then we could very well see ourselves in a situation like China where the reasons for blocking certain sites are more than a bit skewed.
Australia is another country looking into possible net filtering.
The Digital Economy Bill was announced back in 2009 and has courted much controversy for its proposed tax levy on internet connections and it gives Peter Mandelson, First Secretary of State, the right to change the bill at any time of his choosing.
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Britons 'waste' آ£52bn a year on gadgets
Another day, another survey. This time one that says we Brits waste آ£52 billion on gadgets that they cannot operate every year.
Somewhat ironically, the survey was commissioned by Sky HD.
UK consumers spend an average of آ£3,065 each year on electronics, but Sky HD has highlighted a major gap between spending and usage.
Idle functionality
The nationwide poll of 3,000 people revealed that over half the functions on Brits' high-tech gadgets are left idle.
The gadget gap figure of آ£52 billion was calculated by the average annual spend divided by the average number of unused features and multiplied by the number of households in the UK.
An amazing (and worrying) 47 per cent of those surveyed were unaware that an HD TV needs to be connected to an HD source to get a high def picture.
Two per cent of those surveyed also believed you needed to be born with HD Ready eyesight to view high def TV and movies!
The least tech-savvy city in the UK was Glasgow, with Glaswegians using just 42 per cent of the functions available on their gadgets.
Wolverhampton was the most tech-savvy city in the UK, with residents using almost 80 per cent of their gadgets' abilities.
63 per cent of women read the instruction manuals for their kit compared with just 54 per cent of men.
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Google throws weight behind HTC in Apple suit
Google has given its support to HTC in the recent lawsuit Apple has raised over alleged patents.
Given that the patent claims made by Apple appear to be more about Android than specific HTC phones in most cases, we contacted Google to see if it had a response.
A Google spokesperson told TechRadar: "We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it."
Battle royale brewing
The fact that Google has spoken out at all over the issue shows that there are likely some patent allegations facing the Android operating system, as Apple never specifically mentions it in the documents filed.
Google has been viewed as a threat to Apple, especially in the mobile space, since Eric Schmidt left Jobs' board of directors last year, so competition was always expected between the two firms.
But this lawsuit shows that Apple is clearly worried about the threat Google and Android are providing in the phone arena, so it will be interesting to see whether this spat is handled quickly or rumbles on for years and years.
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Facebook soon to be worth over $1bn a year
Facebook is set to be worth over $1 billion a year (آ£666.4 million), according to new figures that estimate projected revenue for the social networking site.
Facebook is set to break the billion dollars of revenue mark by the end of 2010, according to Inside Facebook's new figures.
Tending virtual farms
Facebook has over 400 million users, many of whom spend an inordinate amount of time poking their online mates and tending to their virtual farms.
Inside Facebook says that the fastest growing part of the company's market is "performance advertising" – whereby companies use ads in Facebook to drive the use of their own games and apps such as the incredibly popular casual game FarmVille.
That same report from Inside Facebook claims Facebook made $635m in 2009.
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iPad users will plump for Wi-Fi over 3G
AT&T will provide wireless 3G connections to the Apple iPad tablet PC in the US, although the company's boss thinks most users will connect via short-range Wi-Fi networks in the home.
CEO Randall Stephenson does not expect the iPad to result in many new service subscriptions for AT&T as he expects that most users will plump for Wi-Fi or prepaid services.
"My expectation is that there's not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription," he said during a webcast of an investor conference.
As far as AT&T's exclusive rights to US sales of Apple's iPhone, Stephenson added that the iPhone would be "an important part" of AT&T's phone line up "for quite some period of time."
FCC and net neutrality
Stephenson expects the Federal Communications Commission to deal with the issue of net neutrality in a positive way, noting he was "fairly optimistic net neutrality will land at a reasonable place."
However, he was not so positive about the FCC's plans to achieve its proposed goal of putting web connections of 100 megabits per second in US homes, adding:
"If the objectives are 100 megabits capability to every home in the United States that is going to require a lot of investment. To drive that kind of investment will require a redirecting of the subsidies that exist today."
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Activision announces non-FPS Call of Duty
Activision has announced that it is planning a new Call of Duty game that will NOT be a first person shooter for release in 2011, following the shock move of sacking a number of senior execs at CoD developer Infinity Ward.
The new non-FPS Call of Duty title is to be created by developer Sledgehammer Games, headed up by Dead Space veterans and former Visceral Games bosses Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey.
Activision's plan is to extend the highly lucrative Call of Duty franchise "into the action-adventure genre".
New CoD genres
The company also announced the creation of a dedicated Call of Duty business unit, plus announced that Steve Pearce, CTO, and Steve Ackrich, head of production, will now take over Infinity Ward following the shockdeparture of execs Jason West and Vince Zampella.
Activision cited "breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward" in the sackings. The company has refused to comment further on the issue.
"2010 will be another important year for the Call of Duty franchise," said Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing.
"In addition to continued catalog sales, new downloadable content from Infinity Ward and a new Call of Duty release, we are excited about the opportunity to bring the franchise to new geographies, genres and players."
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