Microsoft releases Photosynth, but we can’t get synthy

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Microsoft has finally launched its Photosynth software to the public, after teasing us with it since way back in 2006. I’ve been thoroughly impressed by all of the demonstrations in the last two years, featuring gorgeous shots from the BBC, National Geographic and NASA, and have been waiting desperately to try it myself.

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Gordon Brown in sense of humour shocker!

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Gordon Brown is a very intelligent man. Unfortunately, this is tempered by the fact that he has the charisma of a bag of cabbage.  However, somebody in Downing Street clearly saw an opportunity to rectify this when they responded to little England’s petition to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister with a video posted on YouTube.

If you’ve not seen it, watch it here. Otherwise, bear with me for a thirty-second summary: The video opens with the words: “Thanks to the 49,447 people who signed the petition to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister. You make a compelling case… ”

We then see the doors to number 10, which open and we pan up the staircase, which is lined with photographs of past prime ministers before we arrive at the top, and a picture of Clarkson. This is then followed by by the words: “But on second thoughts… maybe not.”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not barrelful of monkeys, farts in the bath, Arrested Development funny, but it’s worth a wry smile and a blog post. It’s a sign that this Government does have some charisma about it, and, perhaps more importantly, imagination.

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Blik becomes iBlik

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

I played with the Blik RadioStation a while back, and I must admit that I was thoroughly impressed. It was the first combined DAB, FM and Wi-Fi radio I’d seen, and the sound quality was good enough to easily bag it a recommended award.

Not content to rest on its laurels, though, Blik has thrown another audio source in to its new model. Now you get three flavours of radio and an iPod dock. In the time-honoured tradition of iPod accessories, the model name has been preceded with a meaningless “i”, to become the iBlik.

None of us here in the labs have an iPod, so it’s my duty to admit that the above image is a cunning mock-up. We wouldn’t want to deceive you here at Pro. We’ll test it out and get back to you, but if the dock’s sound quality can match that of the radio inputs then it has nothing to worry about.

Is HD TV finally worth paying for?

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

I remember when we first started talking about HD. Back then it was this mythical beast that would tear apart video as we know it with its millions of pixels, and leave us all cursing standard definition for being as fuzzy and vague as Colin Jackson’s “expert” Olympic analysis.

Then it arrived and we loved it. The first time I ran a 1080p video on my 40in TV, my non-techie housemate grabbed the controller and kept replaying the same HD movie trailer for what seemed like an hour, so enamoured was he with the detail. Those of us with a PlayStation3 or Blu-ray player can enjoy the delights of HD by renting movies, but TV has been much slower out of the blocks.

Put simply, even a drum-beating HD lover like myself can admit the line-up of HD channels just hasn’t been worth paying for. Cable customers with Virgin’s V+ box can watch several free channels like BBC HD (and enjoy the excellent Olympic coverage, Jackson aside), but Sky HD is the big gun we all pinned our hopes on. And it’s expensive. Very expensive. (more…)

First look: Novatech X50 MV

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Laptops are dime a dozen at PC Pro at the moment, with the Labs full to bursting with everything from practically identical netbooks to the gargantuan HP Pavilion HDX9320.

So when the Novatech X50 MV arrived we were, admittedly, a little non-plussed. Another 15in laptop? Really?

However, a closer look reveals that there’s plenty about the X50 MV that is a little different to the usual notebooks that arrive in the Labs on an almost daily basis. It’s fully Centrino 2, for instance, thanks to an Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 processor. It’s a mid-range part when compared to other Centrino 2 components but, with a clock speed of 2.53GHz and a 6MB L2 cache, there’s no doubting the power available here.

Intel’s new WiFi link, the 5100 part, ensures connections to newer draft-n networks can be easily handled, and a new mobile GPU, the GeForce 9600M GT, could provide some gaming potential too. In fact, it’s hard to find an old component in the X50 MV at all. That’s not the most interesting thing about the X50 MV, though.

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Roll up for the TFT fire sale

Monday, August 18th, 2008

When upgrading a PC, the monitor is often the one thing people keep hold of. The rationale goes that it still works perfectly well and newer screens still use the same TFT technology that’s dominated the industry in recent times. Why shell out for a new one?

I’ve just finished testing Iiyama’s latest flagship model – a 26in monster of a display with DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs and a very impressive set of 5W speakers. It’s a solid TFT, and I was expecting a reasonably attractive price given the non-adjustable stand, but I was staggered to see just how cheap it is.

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Technology the real Olympics winner

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Opposite me, David Bayon is picking away at his salad while watching the gymnastics (he’d like me to write that he was watching something manly, but we all know the truth). Jon Bray was watching the long jump. And to follow a whim, I fired up the table tennis highlights. We have, somehow, slipped with barely a murmur into on-demand internet TV, and it’s fantastic.

Even the resolution is high enough to impress. Bayon (now switching his attention to athletics) has just exclaimed “you can see her heart beating” as he watched one of the 400m runners stand ready for the race.

It takes something like the Olympics to show us how far technology has come. The BBC iPlayer has been around in one form or other for the last two years, and we’ve become used to it. But do you remember how you last watched the Olympics? If you’re anything like me, it was mainly via a highlights programme on terrestrial TV. I’d have been lucky to see two minutes of table tennis. If I wanted to, I could watch 50 minutes’ worth, or fast forward to precisely the match I was interested in.

Now we’re all casually firing up our browsers, streaming live or pre-recorded events direct to our display. Makes you wonder how far things will have improved by London 2012.

Never lose your mouse again

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Ever lost your cordless mouse? No, us neither, but don’t let that put you off Logitech’s latest innovation. The V550 Nano comes with a separate stick-on mouse knob (that’s a technical term) for your laptop.

Choose a suitable spot on your lid, peel off the backing and press it into place, then just slide the groove on the base of the Nano onto it – hey presto! you’ll never lose your mouse again. Phew.

It also comes with a remarkably small receiver, which slots neatly inside the mouse itself – it couldn’t really get much more portable. Check back on Monday for the review.

eBay your ideas

Friday, August 15th, 2008

We’re in a knowledge economy now, so I’m told. Unfortunately, capitalising on knowledge can be hard. Just because you know exactly how many episodes of the Simpsons each and every periphery character appears in, doesn’t mean that it’s going to earn you any money. Similarly, being able to list the ten most common colours that cars from 1993 were bought in isn’t going to pay for that swimming pool you hanker after. (more…)

A first look at the HTC Touch Pro

Friday, August 15th, 2008

If you keep close tabs on the smartphone scene – and PC Pro’s reviews section – you’ll know that we weren’t too impressed with HTC’s response the iPhone 3G, the Touch Diamond a couple of months ago.

We liked the fact that it buried most of Windows Mobile’s ugliness under an attractive, finger-friendly touchscreen interface, and we liked its fantastic VGA screen. We were also keen on its fantastic web browser – Opera Mobile 9.5.

But we hated its sluggish performance. The whole point of touchscreen interfaces is that they should be responsive, but this was anything but. Hit a control on screen and, like as not, you’d have to wait a second or so before anything actually happened. It was one of the most frustrating phones we’ve ever had the displeasure to use.

Would the same issues afflict its big brother – the Touch Pro, which arrived in the Labs today?

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