Lamborghini president spies SUV in company's future
Are you in the market for a luxury SUV, but find the Porsche Cayenne an insufficient expression of your opulence? Well Lamborghini may have the answer to your enviable problem.
Stephan Winkelmann, the iconic supercar manufacturer's president, has said an SUV would be "a strong fit with the brand" and that such a vehicle would provide "the perfect complement to our super sports cars."
While Lamborghini showcased a hybrid-powered five-door Urus SUV concept back in 2012, there has never been confirmation that such a model might enter production.
Three's company
While Lamborghini currently produces just two model lines – the V10-powered Huracan and V12-powered Aventador – Winkelmann has left the door open for a third line to join them, saying: "The Urus is a very concrete idea for the future of Lamborghini – as a third model line and as the perfect complement to our super sports cars."Were it to enter production, the 440kW-plus twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 plug-in petrol-electric hybrid would be required to meet the company's notoriously high standards, with Winkelmann explaining that "Every new Lamborghini has to fit to the brand."
So if you have a spare half a mil to spend on your next SUV, you might want to wait and see what the Italians have in store.
- Is a Lambo a little out of your price range? Well, perhaps Bond's new limited edition Aston Martin DB10 fits within your budget. Hmmm, perhaps not.
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Sinking Quickflix asks customers to buy shares
In a move that's unlikely to fill investors with confidence, Quickflix has asked customers to buy shares in the company in a bid to raise $1m.
The video streaming service is looking for a fast injection of cash after a recent attempt to raise $5.7m from investors only managed $650,000.
CEO Stephen Langsford has written a letter to customers asking them to buy shares at 0.003c each, claiming the cash will provide "working capital as well as in investment in content and marketing to achieve customer and revenue growth".
Quickflix has struggled to capture the imagination of the Australian public – often overshadowed by US competitor Netflix – and the announcement of Netflix's Australian launch scheduled for March 2015 will have done little to help Quickflix's situation.
From stream to tidal wave
The arrival of the US video juggernaut isn't the only factor turning up the heat in the local streaming space – 2015 will also see the arrival of the no-contract service Stan, while the Presto Movies Service has announced it will be expanding into television in early 2015 with Presto Entertainment.Langsford's letter is a far cry from the statement he made in July of this year, when he effectively told Netflix to bring it on, saying: "We're used to competing against big players and we'd welcome Netflix to the market."
Challenging the US service to officially launch in Australia rather than relying on local customers using VPNs to get around geoblocking, Langsford said: "Just come through the front door, Netflix, and we'll happily compete on even ground."
Now that Netflix's Australian arrival is imminent, it seems – for Quickflix at least – the battle may be over before it truly begins.
- Want a streaming service without the hassle? Foxtel Play is worth a look.
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Download of the day: Foxit Reader
Foxit Reader is one of the best all-round PDF packages available, exceeding what many of its paid-for rivals do whilst remaining completely free.
Why you need it
If you're looking for great free PDF software, head in Foxit Reader's direction. It makes the bold claim that it is 'better than Adobe PDF Reader and Acrobat', but this isn't merely a case of hubris from the new kid on the block. Foxit Reader has been around for half as long as Adobe's PDF software, but it's been making some serious waves along the way.It's secure, light on system resources and loads up quickly, and the Microsoft Office-style ribbon bar keeps options tidy and easy to find. Separate PDF documents can be loaded in the same window thanks to Foxit's tab system, ensuring your desktop doesn't get clogged up with multiple windows.
When it comes to reading and editing PDFs, Foxit puts in a truly strong showing. You can highlight text, insert bookmarks, draw graphics, type on the document and more. Create PDF documents from scratch, convert images into PDFs or reverse the process and change PDFs into text documents – it's all there in Foxit. Then when you're done, you can easily share your work with collaborators or on social media using Foxit's extensive range of integrated tools.
Foxit Reader's main rival is Adobe Acrobat, and while Acrobat has a few more advanced features, it also currently costs $19.99 a month to use (about £12.79 a month); Foxit is totally free, packed with features and more than meets the needs of the everyday user.
Key features
- Works on: PC
- Versions: Free
- Read and edit: Foxit contains extensive tools to help you edit and mark up PDF documents in pretty much any way you need to
- Create and convert: Make PDF files from scratch or create them from a range of imported files, or convert them back the other way
- Keep things organised: Foxit's intuitive user interface ensures options are easy to find but never cluttered
You'll also like
- PDFCreator
- Free PDF Perfect
- PDF24 Creator
- PDF-XChange Viewer
- PDFsam
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Fighting Talk: The last thing we need is more anonymity on the internet
Wasn't the coolest thing about using the internet for the first time thinking up your first anonymous username?
In the early days of the internet, everyone had a clever pseudonym based around something they liked, a favourite song, character off the telly or a talking animal from a PlayStation game.
But the internet was different back then. The hate mobs hadn't formed. Women didn't get word-lynched for saying they liked the wrong thing. There weren't so many channels in which people could post their rape jokes unchallenged.
Anonymity in the early days of the internet was because the rules hadn't been set and it seemed like fun to call yourself Captain Shoes when talking to strangers, not because anyone had anything to hide, but because it didn't really matter and you owned some shoes.
Now, though, the internet is part of life. It's not just a thing you do sometimes, it's the only thing we do all the time. It's very important to everyone. All of the time.
And it's splintered in half. Only maniacs use pretend names now, with the opposing normals happy to post their mundane/racist comments under their actual identities, linked to Facebook profiles that give away every secret about their lives, families and homes.
So who's doing the internet right in 2014?
Rude boy's outta jail
The emergence of anonymous messaging apps like Yik Yak and the relaunched Secret suggest there's a healthy desire for anonymity on the internet, presumably because there's always a continuous flood of people coming of age (about 13 years old) who are being allowed to run riot on their own online for the first time. And you need a pretend name to be really nasty.It seems that a lot of the new wave of anonymous apps are used for little more than bullying by these newly anonymised and therefore empowered internet users, and the last thing the hate-filled internet of 2014 needs is more ways in which people can slag off others for a laugh.
The location-aware anonymous chat services make it even easier to be aggressive without consequence. Newcomer Yik Yak appears custom built to let schoolkids bully each other and workers pick on the office weaklings until they crack and massacre everyone at the Christmas party, with its blend of anonymity and hyper-locality perfect for spreading rumours, lies and bad feeling in the immediate proximity.
Building apps that allow anonymous comments with the hope of one day generating money through ad revenue or selling yourself to Facebook for $1bn is quite the poor taste business model.
Luckily, though, people tend to tire of negativity pretty quickly. It's funny for a bit to have an anonymous ding-dong with someone who doesn't know you are in fact you, but having an endless stream of nastiness in your life is actually quite unsustainable.
You can quite quickly go mad from spending your nights awake and mentally composing angry replies to anonymous threats. Users of these anonymous messengers are all involved in one massive, hate-fuelled race to the bottom of the internet, where comments alternate between Hitler and your mum's genital health for all eternity, and no one's having any fun.
These apps are going to burn out, as people realise there's no need to be quite so nasty all the time and how draining it can be. Secret has already shown this. It was fun for a few weeks, and some tech sites sourced a few useful stories from angry users with chips on their shoulders, but it soon fizzled out.
Momentum was lost because you can't trust or believe anything that anonymous people say, funnily enough. Hence the hasty relaunch of Secret as more of a chat tool than an aggressive whistle-blowing app.
Being yourself is an asset nowadays. A nice, unbroken history of nice comments and an old Twitter account you haven't had to hastily close out of shame shows you're a nice person. An internet black hole between 2009 and 2015 when you were anonymously raging under a name with lots of Xs in it shows you're perhaps prone to being a bit of an idiot.
Growing up a bit, using your real name, and moderating your behaviour so you only think bad things instead of saying them is the only sensible choice.
After all, one slip and your anonymous hating could be discovered.
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Downloads: Christmas crackers: Paint.NET
Proving that image editing doesn't have to be complicated, Paint.NET brings many of the advanced features of expensive software to a free program. Funnily enough, this is an application whose original team of developers started work on the Paint program that's built into Windows, but this take things to the next level.
You'll probably end up taking no end of photos over Christmas, and some of them might need a little work to make them look their best. Removing red eye is a breeze, as is removing unsightly blemishes from otherwise perfect shots.
This might not be as powerful as the likes of Photoshop, but it includes all of the everyday tools you need, all presented in a wonderfully accessible package that is quick and easy to use. There are all of the usual built-in tools and filters, but there is also scope for extending the capabilities of the program through the use of plugins; there are a huge number available to download from the Paint.NET website.
The beauty of this program is that you can keep things simple if you prefer, but there is also the potential for experimentation with more advanced features without ever feeling overwhelmed.
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Review: ViewSonic PLED-W800
Introduction and performance
If part of your job means giving PowerPoint presentations in unfamiliar surroundings, the LED projector market has you in its sights. They've been around a few years now, but ViewSonic's latest portable projector seeks to finally set a benchmark between portability and brightness.No-one is suggesting that you set up the PLED-W800 outside on a sunny day and try to give a lecture, but with a brightness of up to 800 lumens it might just be enough for reliable, bright projections inside.
Just as crucial to its success is this device's sizing. So-called pocket projectors may be tiny, palm-sized gadgets, but their lack of all-important brightness means barely visible projections, which has seen their popularity wane.
However, at 175 x 51.5 x 138mm and weighing 898g, the PLED-W800 is half the size of a netbook (remember them?), and actually ships with a laptop-style soft case. Zipped along three sides, it's stitched halfway across the middle to create one compartment for the PLED-W800 and another for the external (and quite bulky) power-pack and small remote control. It's a high quality case, although when packed-up the whole package does sag in the middle and isn't all that easy to cart around.
Wi-Fi disappointment
Full HD-compatible though sporting a WXGA resolution (1,280 x 800 pixels), the PLED-W800 isn't designed to get every splash of detail from a Blu-ray disc. No, it's game is documents and multimedia – its rear boasts an SD Card slot, a USB slot, an MHL-ready HDMI input (for connecting DVD/Blu-ray players and also smartphones/tablets) and a VGA input for laptops. A Wi-Fi dongle (ViewSonic recommends its PJ-WPD-200) is purely optional, and brings Miracast and DLNA compatibility.That's fine, but the lack of built-in Wi-Fi is a shame given the popularity of hosting PowerPoint presentations from a tablet. Slightly making up for that is 2GB of on-board storage, which makes it possible to do away with a computer and all peripherals save for the PLED-W800's remote control.
The PLED-W800 retails at around the £535 mark, going by prices online as of the time of writing this review.
Performance
The PLED-W800 is a cinch to setup. Put on a table just 26-inches (66cm) from a wall we got a good 24-inch picture immediately, using the focus wheel to create a sharp, vibrant image in murky, wintery ambient light conditions. In search of the biggest possible image, we made the PLED-W800 (which has a 1.4:1 throw ratio,) project an 80-inch image from 84-inches (2.1m), which is the maximum for good-looking presentations.File support is excellent. In our test we used the remote to scroll through a list of documents from both a USB stick and an SD Card to display PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Learning how to navigate these documents takes a few minutes, but it's possible to zoom in as well as adjust positioning. All files load quickly, and look clean and sharp enough, with text that's easy to read, and white areas of the page are pure. We're not talking eye-searing brightness, but there's enough for a vibrant projection provided you switch off lights and close blinds, though you can stop short of a blackout.
Video files are also supported. The PLED-W800 plays a bevy of file formats including the hi-def MKV container as well as the more regular AVI and MP4. The quality of video is reasonably good, with the projector's 100Hz processing making video fluid enough, though only the Movie mode produces acceptable colours – all the others are too high on contrast, washed-out, far too vivid, or with a lot of solarisation. Choose carefully.
Despite being susceptible to the dreaded 'rainbow effect' from DLP colour wheels, it wasn't much visible to us on the PLED-W800's output. However, we did notice a slight lip-sync issue with audio while watching all three video file formats.
The way video files are treated, however, is otherwise slick – although the PLED-W800's native aspect ratio is 16:10, video files are automatically resized to 16:9, 4:3 and even 21:9, though it's using its 2x digital zoom to perform these resizes.
Verdict
Solid state, LED-based projectors are all the rage with hard-traveling road warriors, and it's easy to see why with under-a-kilo DLP beamers like the PLED-W800 available.We liked
PC-less presentations are a doddle, with Microsoft and PDF file support from USB and SD card. It even plays MKV video files. This projector is bright enough for excellent projections in a dingy room (draw the curtains if you can – it helps massively), and the resolution is just right for good-looking presentations.The PLED-W800 also has stereo speakers on its rear, which do help if your presentation has a short video within, though it does lack any kind of low frequency sonics. So the rear's 3.5mm audio output jack is an excellent addition that adds a lot of flexibility – invest £100 or so in a good quality portable Bluetooth speaker that has a 3.5mm audio input (most do, but check), and you can easily add a bit of bass and mid-range for a much more professional feel. Few projectors have an audio output.
The 30,000 hours of lamp life is worth remembering, too (that's about a decade of normal use), as is the highly portable chassis design.
We disliked
Should a flagship portable projector have Wi-Fi built-in? Of course it should; no-one wants to bother with Wi-Fi dongles anymore. Nor is the PLED-W800 the quietest projector we've ever tested, racking up between 60-69 decibels when it's at full brightness, though it didn't prove distracting while the speakers were in use.In theory those speakers are a nice add-on to any projector, but at a measly 2W each they supply a possibly harmfully bad sound quality that could jar with those watching presentations. A red laser pointer on the remote would be handy, too.
Final verdict
The lamp-free future is here, and this DLP-powered LED beamer is a highly portable, PC-less option for slick presentations. With great file support, easy navigation, a portable design and just enough brightness and resolution to compete, the PLED-W800 is surprisingly versatile.The provision of USB, SD Card and HDMI slots is handy, but shouldn't a flagship portable projector have Wi-Fi? We think it should, but the media-friendly PLED-W800 is nevertheless a good value, long-lasting and low maintenance portable product for road warriors – and it's just as handy for saving space around the office.
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