In Depth: Will Chrome OS deliver us the disposable PC?
During a visit to Google's London HQ we grabbed some time with Chris DiBona. He's the Open Source Programs Manager for Google, overseeing everything the corporation does that's open sourced and making sure it's "correct and useful."
We talked Google Chrome and, later, Android. We put to DiBona the issue that if users buy a netbook, they still tend to expect Windows on it, so will they take to Chrome OS?
"Yeah. Windows or Mac. Is this going to change? We're going to find out. We're willing to say, you know what, let's give it a try, let's see if it works.
"We think it can, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. For some people it will be for an auxiliary machine, for others it might be a primary machine. But we'll see. And the only way to know is to try it.
"People haven't really tried small, thin, practically disposable computers. There's still this regret if a computer breaks. We want to make one where that's not the case… so if you leave it on a plane… you're not worried about your data. It's a different approach. And if someone's going to do it, it might as well be us."
Encouraging open source projects
DiBona has a wide-ranging role, and is also responsible for Google Moderator, the polling locations API.
"My whole job is about making it easy for engineers to release software," he explains. DiBona seems relaxed and is happy to talk candidly about Google's work on Android and Chrome OS. "[My team] helps with the licence strategy from the very beginning. When you use as much open source as we do, you can screw up and we don't want to do that."
"We have been [encouraging open source] as much as possible. Then you have bigger projects where open source is a key part of the strategy, such as Android and Chrome OS where we feel making it open source helps drive the platform at a speed we haven't seen before."
"You can especially see this with Android – devices are coming out all the time that we know nothing about, and that's pretty great. Sometimes we know about them and just don't have the time to help."
The Android strategy
So how does DiBona feel that Google can keep Android partners close? "We feel that if we continue to execute and make a very good mobile operating system then as those people create new devices [developers will]… stay close to what we're doing because we'll continue to move the platform forward. It will pull all the fragments and little forks with it."
Some devices provoke amusement: "At CES we had a microwave running Android and it's like 'really?' Obviously we're not going to optimise the environment for popcorn! Ostensibly you could run an app on a microwave I guess.
"[Android is] a young operating system but I think we're doing OK. "
We asked DiBona what he felt about a potential conflict between Chrome OS and Android now that Android has started to appear on some netbook-type devices. Does he think it's confusing?
"It is yes. See Android is really not targeted at netbooks. I don't think you'll see a lot of Android netbooks… that are commercially targeted. Chrome OS is very different… it's optimised for that kind of experience.
"It's a different approach towards getting online. A very stripped down approach. A very web approach. It gets out of your way and says 'here's the web'."
We also asked DiBona how Google seems to be able to release products such as Android so quickly in comparison to other companies: "Well there's no reason for it to be slow. A lot of companies get wrapped up in how software is valuable and for Google software is valuable because of what it allows our users to do [as well as external developers]."
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iPhone 4G spotted in concept photos
New concept photos of the iPhone 4G have emerged - with some cool new touches we think might actually make it to the final version.
The new concepts by Seraphan includes some well-thought out ideas - imagine being able to pick up the iPhone in a whole gamut of colours a la the iPod nano.
OK, we're not sure it's that important in tech terms, but the pictures still look pretty, so we're taking that as a positive.
Ins and outs
Some ideas from the artist we think are likely to make the final iPhone 4G cut, such as a flash on the camera and porting the iPad interface to the mobile phone side of things.
Others are a little more pie in the sky - a microSD expansion slot is never going to happen in Jobs' reign, and we've grown tired of seeing rumours of a front camera too.
But it's always fun to look at pictures, and given we're likely to be snowed under with 'spy shots' of the forthcoming iPhone, this is a welcome distraction.
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Competition: WIN! A limited edition PC with Intel
Napoleon: Total War is the new chapter in the Total War series, where you assume the role of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, tactically assemble armies together and get to battle it out in real-time all across the world.
Critically acclaimed and only on PC, the game is a must-have for strategists and also for those who like a bit of multi-player action – as Napoleon: Total War has a new 'drop-in' multiplayer campaign mode.
To celebrate its release we are giving away, in association with Intel, a limited edition PC, equipped with an Intel Core i7-860 processor.
Not only that, five runners-up will receive a copy of the game and an Intel Core i7-860 processor.
Gaining a 9.1 score by CVG, which calls the game "a defining example of what great strategy games do best," Napoleon: Total War is out now in the shops (courtesy of Sega) and available to download through Steam.
Click here to enter the competition
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Penguin Books jumps on the iPad bus
Penguin has been demo'ing its latest range of Apple iPad friendly electronic books this week, with rumours flying around about the planned release of Apple's latest uber-toy in the US later this month.
Kid's favourite Spot the Dog makes an appearance in the iPad books demo video which shows a mini-game where you can colour in Spot and another one where you shake up the iPad to mess up a room and then have to tidy it up.
Which of course begs the question: "Are you seriously going to let your children play with your new expensive Apple toy?"
Dogs, bodies, pads
Dorling Kindersley is planning an iPad version of The Human Body whereby Apple fans can zoom in on different parts of the anatomy, for varying reasons of education, titillation and delight.
Dorling Kindersley's Starfinder lets you use the iPad's built-in compass and GPS to let you point the device at the sky to identify stars. Which is clearly Very Cool.
Penguin Books' CEO John Makinson says that the Apple iPad will be "embedding audio, video and streaming into everything" it does.
"The iPad represents the first real opportunity to create a paid distribution model that will be attractive to consumers," Makinson told FT's Digital Media & Broadcasting Conference. "The psychology of payment on tablets is different to the psychology on a PC.
"So for the time being at least we'll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs.
"We don't know whether a video introduction will be valuable to a consumer. We will only find answers to these questions by trial and error."
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Samsung announces H-Series camcorders for UK
Samsung has unveiled its H-Series camcorder range for the UK, comprising four new models.
Originally shown off at CES 2010, the HMX-H200, HMX-203, HMX-H204, and HMX-H205 camcorders sport a number of pretty smart features, including a BSI CMOS imaging sensor, Full HD capabilities and solid-state memory.
Samsung believes that getting rid of a plain-old disk-based drive means that you'll be able to get around two hours' battery life.
20x zoom
All camcorders come with an expandable memory SD/SDHC port but house different internal memory.
The H205 is the biggest memory provider with a 32GB SSD, followed by the H204 with 16GB memory and the H203 with 8GB memory.
Interestingly, the H200 has no internal memory at all. Instead, what you are left with is just the SD card slot.
Image-wise, the camcorders come packing an impressive 20x optical zoom and a 37mm wide-angle lens. And you can take stills using the cam's 4.7MP sensor.
Samsung still isn't forthcoming about a UK release date or pricing but expect them to hit the shops in the next few months.
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In Depth: 5 of tech's most infamous lawsuits
As Apple aims its legal guns at HTC over alleged iPhone patent infringements our colleagues at T3.com have marked the occasional by looking back at 10 famous tech lawsuits.
Here are five that caught our eye:
1. Erik Estavillo vs Blizzard and World of Warcraft
Habitual litigant Erik Estavillo has sued Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, but he surpassed himself with his legal pursuit of developer Blizzard in late 2009. He claimed World of Warcraft's "sneaky and deceitful practices" get in the way of his "pursuit of happiness," as the leisurely pace of the game's characters results in, "the player taking longer to get where he or she needs to go in the game."
Winona Ryder and Depeche Mode's Martin Gore have been subpoenaed to testify, as Estavillo considers them expert witnesses on the topic of alienation.
2. Erik Estavillo vs Sony
Mr Estavillo warmed up for his battle with Blizzard by suing Sony for banning him from the PlayStation Network, allegedly for some salty language while playing Resistance: Fall of Man.
The judge dismissed his £55,000 suit after determining the First Amendment - the constitutional right to free speech - did not apply to Estavillo's claim. He duly filed another suit against Sony, this time seeking $180,000.
3. Gregory McKenna vs Apple
In 2006 Gregory McKenna worked for a modelling agency that he is convinced was an elaborate front for the mob. Shortly after leaving its employ, he claims to have received death threats through the headphones of his iPod Mini and Shuffle. He surmised that Apple - in cahoots with the Mafia - had placed receivers in his MP3 players. He's claiming $14.3 million for stress and loss of earnings.
4. AMD vs Intel
Recent allegations by AMD and international unions suggested that Intel ran a "systematic worldwide campaign" of bullying and bribery to maintain its 80 per cent market share. In early 2009, Intel paid over $1bn to the European Union and $1.25bn to its rivals AMD in order to smooth over this unfortunate matter. We can't guarantee it, but we think we'd feel pretty smoothed if offered that amount of cash.
5. Horizon Realty Group vs Amanda Bonnen, Via Twitter
Stretching the limits of what constitutes libel in the modern world, Amanda Bonnen was served a still pending, $50,000 lawsuit in 2009 by her former landlord, Horizon Realty, for posting the following on Twitter: "Who said sleeping in a moldy [sic] apartment was bad for you? Horizon really thinks it's ok."
Whether that's fair comment is a matter of opinion, but Horizon's CEO Jeffrey Michael maintains that his company is a "Sue first, ask questions later organization," so we'll say that it isn't, to be on the safe side.
Read the full article at T3.com
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Review: Russ Andrews Tip Tonic
As you might expect, Russ Andrews offers a wide range of LP maintenance and tweaking accessories, but I was particularly drawn to the Tip Tonic as it performs the same function as an old Audio Technica product (long discontinued), which I treasure and allows wet cleaning of a stylus.
Obviously, loose fluff and suchlike can be dislodged easily from a stylus with any soft brush, but discs often have nastier stuff deep in the grooves, which leaves a hard and tenacious residue on the diamond.
It may not even be possible to see this with the naked eye, but just the smallest buildup on the stylus will cause imperfect tracking and, all too readily, premature disc wear.
One needs to be careful with wet cleaning, though, as the suspension at the back end of the cantilever may be weakened and/or hardened by use of the wrong chemical solvent, and on such small parts it's likely that capillary action will draw the fluid up from the stylus to the suspension, however carefully one cleans.
Tip Tonic is specially formulated for this job and a quick 'nose test' suggests that it's not an aggressive chemical that's likely to attack rubber suspension, but a couple of drops on the supplied nylon brush are highly effective at loosening gunge.
The brush is just stiff enough for the job and the process takes seconds, but it is well worth the wait.
Tip: leave the volume at a normal listening setting for immediate feedback as to whether you're being too rough!
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Google adds gesture navigation to Android
Google has been tinkering with its Android OS again, and has now come up with written gesture recognition.
The new service means that users will be able to simply draw a letter on your Android phone (2.0 and above only) and your mobile will trawl through the phone's innards to show you all the things that begin with that letter.
If you struggle with your finest copperplate handwriting, simply striking the letter through from left to right will erase it and you can start all over again.
Bringing down the insanity
This basically mimics the voice search function on the Android phone, but has the added bonus of not making you look like a crazy by speaking to your phone with no discernible response to the outside world.
And it's also smart - it will remember what you choose when writing certain letters, and bring that to the top each time.
It's a Google Labs product at the moment, and can be downloaded through the Android Market - but only in the US at the moment, which is annoying for us British dwellers.
But if you're a Milestone user (or a soon-to-be Legend/Desire owner) then we'd bet this won't be far away from a UK release as well.
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First Windows Phone 7 device to be called LG Panther?
We're all excited about the launch of the new Windows Phone 7 Series - but we're slightly perturbed about what could be the flagship device.
According to LG, its first Windows Phone 7 device is going to be called the - wait for it - the LG Panther.
Well, this 'news' is pretty tenuous, seeing as it comes from UK site Best Mobile Contracts with no reference to where the name came from - but still, it kind of fits with LG's ethos of ker-azy naming.
Phone Doe
Since LG showed the first Windows Phone 7 device off to the world, it's been an odd situation of knowing the phone but not having a codename.
But the hardware itself is pretty natty, with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, 5MP camera with flash and large touchscreen.
We're hoping to hear more about WP7 later this month, and more rumours should start leaking out from September as manufacturers start gearing up for a Christmas launch.
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Computers 'understand women better than men'
Researchers have discovered that voice recognition computers find it easier to understand women's voices rather than men's.
Edinburgh University boffins made this fundamentally dull discovery, claiming that men say things like "umm" and "err" more often than women.
Step away from the pub, Dave
That is perhaps because they keep asking us all those tricksy questions, such as: "Have you been to the pub? Do you think my bum looks big in this?" And so on.
The Edinburgh uni researchers recorded phone calls and studied how much of conversation a computer voice recognition system understood. Variations in pitch, tone and speed cause the system to misunderstand voices.
The study was a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Stanford University in the US, and published in the journal Speech Communication.
Dr Sharon Goldwater, of Edinburgh University's School of Informatics, said: "Voices vary from one person to the next and it is challenging to design a computer system that can understand lots of different voices.
"We hope that by closely studying how people speak and how machines process this, we can help create better systems that will be simple and efficient for people to use."
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Review: Moth Record Cleaning Machine MkII
There are considerably dearer and fancier record cleaning machines on the market, but the Moth Record Cleaning Machine follows the same basic principles as all of them.
You spread a cleaning fluid over the disc then vacuum it off together with all kinds of dirt.
There are various reasons why this machine is cheaper than most, and if £450 is too much, you can save a couple of hundred by building it from a kit.
One of those reasons is that you have to apply cleaning fluid to the disc manually. This means pouring some from the supplied dropper bottle onto the disc surface and spreading it around with the supplied brush.
It's less convenient than simply pushing a plunger but with practice doesn't take much longer, and it has the advantage that experimenting with different fluids is much easier.
Dirty fluid is vacuumed off from below as the disc rotates slowly, and this takes about the same time as most machines – a minute or so per side. The vacuum pump, which sounds a lot like a domestic vacuum cleaner (and probably is – heck, that's what I would use!), provokes my one reservation about the machine: it's so noisy, at about 92dB, that one should wear ear defenders while using it.
The suction tube needs a little prompting to lift up and stick to the disc's underside, but this soon becomes habit, and results seem to me every bit as good as other machines I've used over the years.
With an efficient workflow, 20 discs per hour can be cleaned – about average for most machines.
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Review: Milty Pixall
The Milty Pixall seems to have been around since the ark, so presumably someone is buying it. I've not seen many true audiophiles wielding one, though.
Maybe people wonder about whether applying something sticky to the playing surface of a precious record is not such a good idea.
The basic idea is exactly the same as those rollers used to take lint of clothes. The roller is sticky and has enough compliance to get some way into the grooves of an LP so as to pick up loose dust and fluff.
After a while the surface loses its 'stick' but you can peel a layer off to reveal a fresh surface underneath. Refills (1.8m, or about 11 or 12 layers) are available for £8.
The actual sticky material looks a lot like decorators' masking tape, that's been wound inside-out. It certainly does lift dust.
I found, however, that it doesn't penetrate far enough into the grooves to lift out the finest particles, and for best results one can use the Pixall after a sweep with a carbon-fibre brush (Milty makes one of those too), which does get right into the grooves but tends to leave a visible line of dust particles behind. Running the Pixall over that line a couple of times leaves little or nothing to see.
As for possible damage, I couldn't detect any ill effects. There's certainly no sticky residue, and even with rough handling the roller doesn't scratch the disc.
For that to happen, you would probably damage the underside first, or just break the roller handle.
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Review: Pro-Ject DAC Box FL
While all the other DACs use largely conventional tactics and components, turntable specialist Pro-Ject has adopted an approach beloved of some 'digital retro' enthusiasts, and built a filterless DAC.
Now, there's no shame in the company supporting digital formats, for plenty of CD titles have never been released on vinyl. But this move to filterless DAC technology is no 'me too' digital afterthought.
The basic idea is to avoid all digital filtering, which is generally thought imperative to avoid aliasing distortion at ultrasonic frequencies, and instead use multi-bit conversion at the native data rate (no up-or oversampling).
The claimed benefit of this is the avoidance of 'time smear' due to the long impulse response time of most digital filters. 'Time smear' is a bit of a nebulous concept and its sonic ills are by no means universally acknowledged.
But that doesn't mean the filterless concept is invalid, especially when taken to the extremes Pro-Ject has employed – we can't even see any sign of analogue filtering in the DAC Box FL.
The case is identical to that of the super-tiny preamp and power amp in the 'Box' range, as well as the headphone amp and various other units, though in this case it has an unusual amount of free space inside.
Four DAC chips are used, concealed beneath a heatsink and connected electrically in parallel. Other components include a digital input receiver and some power supply components.
Some form of switch-mode regulation is used, which can lead to the unit emitting a peculiar whistling noise, only audible from very close by. Inputs are both flavours of S/PDIF, though as usual, only one can be used at a time. There are no indicators for anything, so you just have to listen to see if it's working!
Sound quality
Not surprisingly, given the design details, this proved to be the most highly characterised DAC in the group and when it's good, it's great. It's at its best when it comes to energetic, lively music making, in which case it's right on the money, full of enthusiasm and very convincing.
In fact – and this will probably sell a few units sight unseen – it's so good at that side of things that all our listeners forgot almost completely about the usual hi-fi stuff of balance, detail and so on, and just wrote about how convincing the music-making was. Big scale, wide dynamics, natural sound and suchlike were about the most technical comments to be found.
There was just one mention of detail, suggesting it's good, but perhaps not the very best and a couple of mentions of tonal balance, both pointing out that the sound is a little on the bright side though not sufficiently to lapse into harshness. All of which is very welcome news indeed and in no sense to be sniffed at.
On the other hand, there is a danger that the enthusiasm can be a little like that of a puppy – enchanting for a while but a little wearing over time. For obvious practical reasons, our blind listening tests aren't very long, but we felt this DAC could become frustrating in the longer term.
It's not so much the brightness, though that is persistently noticeable, but more to do with the lack of fine detail, which makes really analytical listening tricky. Then again, one doesn't always want to listen analytically.
I think in the end, the fairest comment to make on this DAC is that it can open new windows on recordings, but may not be the only DAC you ever want to own. Used with a CD player of more conventional design, it will be a great alternative to the latter's analogue outputs.
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More photos of BlackBerry slider leak out
The rumoured BlackBerry slide phone has been spotted in the wild once more - this time in more high res shots.
You will hopefully remember we brought you news of the first slider yesterday, which came complete with the - apparently required for this sort of rumour - super-blurry pictures.
Well, it seems the spy-shot industry might be taking that criticism on board, as new and clearer pictures have been posted by the same site, BlackBerry Leaks.
Smartphone sleuthing
So what do they tell us? Well, the evolution of the hardware seems sensible - defined keyboard buttons, an optical trackpad and a large screen all follow the BlackBerry lineage.
However, many are predicting that this is a keyboard/touchscreen combo, with the SurePress system also coming.
But looking at the photos, it doesn't seem to have the same hardware structure (take a look at the Storm 2 to compare) so could this be RIM's first non-clickable touchscreen?
Of course, it could just be a prototype phone found in the bottom of RIM's skip - but that theory ruins all the rumour fun.
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Microsoft 'humbled' by 90 million Windows 7 sales
Microsoft has revealed that its latest operating system, Windows 7, has sailed past the 90 million sales mark, prompting much celebration from the company.
The announcement came at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom Conference, where Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein relayed the fact that 90 million licences for the product had been shifted.
Humbled and excited
The news was also put into a blog, with Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc noting that the company was "humbled and excited that people are responding so positively to Windows 7 - our customers have made it the fastest selling operating system in history".
The blog also went on to big up PCs, saying that there's a number of hardware innovations coming to the high streets soon, including the Sony Vaio X which is so small "it could fit inside a MacBook Air".
Released back in October 2009, Windows 7 has been a great success for Microsoft – both critically and commercially.
Microsoft must be crossing all its fingers that this positivity will leak into the mobile phone market, where the company is preparing its latest OS – Windows Phone 7 Series.
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