Since Wolfram Alpha launched at the weekend, I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read in which the author asks it inane questions and laughs when it falls flat. Even our own Darien Graham-Smith (along with several others in the office) seems almost delighted to prod and poke at it to find instances where Wolfram’s big pre-launch claims can be mocked - usually by comparison to Google or Wikipedia.
Unfortunately, this is something that was bound to happen given the publicity the site has received in recent weeks from the mainstream press. The big problem occurs because most people are attempting to hastily test the new engine without any real reason to be using it. (more…)
Samsung’s monitor range has been hugely successful over the last couple of years, combining excellent image quality with living room design, and after seeing the 2009 additions today I can safely say that winning formula looks set to continue.
The majority of the displays on show were impressive refreshes, such as the polished and angular ‘Lavender’ line and the ‘Ecofit’ low-power models - all of which we’ll be reviewing over the coming months. But in amongst them a few interesting additions caught my eye.
The first was the so-called ‘lapfit’ display (LD220 and LD190N), which is essentially a widescreen monitor without the traditional stand. Instead it rests on an arm in the same way as a picture frame.
The Blair Witch Project used the web to build word-of-mouth hype with incredible success before its release back in 1999, and since then it’s become a bit of a cliche for film studios to do the same. The usual process is to create cryptic teaser websites to whip the fans into a frenzy of chattering excitement before releasing an ultimately disappointing, prosaic film to a near-universal ‘meh’. (I’m looking at you, Cloverfield.)
But Lost Zombies is taking a much more ambitious approach to using the online community, by actually getting the community itself to make the movie.
“In 2007 the flu pandemic began. The flu strain spread quickly, mutating out of control and causing a global zombie apocalypse. Today 75% of the population has been wiped out. We want to hear your story.”
At its heart the site is an online community, with members posting messages and writing articles, but it has the potential to be much more than that - which is why it’s just picked up the Community and People’s Choice Awards at the South by Southwest Web Awards in Austin, Texas.
I know, I know, it’s a bit bland. And it doesn’t have a monitor. And that chassis is mostly empty as it doesn’t really have much inside it. And it can’t keep up with the other PCs. And there’s actually nothing behind that little door on the front.
But my £250 PC - bought fully formed and totally new from Ebuyer.com - has at least TWO strengths that propel it past the garish nastiness of Mike’s monster, the ageing unreliability of Darien’s pile of tat and Mr Fearon’s little portable non-PC oddity.
While researching an upcoming feature, I found a link from the BBC. Entitled “Why 3D is about to break through“, it explains the exciting world of 3D movies and projection, before concluding that it “looks like the future of 3D is firming up.”
Only trouble is, the article was from over a year ago. Since then I’ve been to see Beowulf at the IMAX, and toyed with an old game on one of Zalman’s monitors, but I can hardly say 3D leapt out at me through 2008.
This year, though, is different - one look at the barrage of 3D TVs launched at CES is enough to realise that. But while the industry hypes it, I’m intrigued to know whether you, the consumers, are actually interested in 3D at all. Going to a movie once in a while is one thing, spending your own money on kit is another entirely.
So, is it something you’d consider investing in? And, gaming and movies aside, are there any applications for which you see 3D being genuinely useful?
The big launch of the week was AMD’s move to its AM3 platform. Finally allowing the use of DDR3 with its CPUs, we received a motherboard and several new triple and quad-core processor models, which we promptly fired through our intensive benchmark suite with pretty impressive results.
At the more budget end of the scale we saw HP’s Compaq CQ2000, a beautifully designed small-form-factor PC with a 20in TFT for a mouth-watering price of just £286 exc VAT. We’ve seen cheap mini-PCs and nettops before, but this is the first we’d really want in our living room.
We also reviewed Toshiba’s latest business model, the Tecra R110-112, which came in bright white with a vast array of security features and reasonable power too. (more…)
As you may have read, after much head-scratching about just what it’s actually supposed to do, PC Pro has bitten the bullet and joined Twitter. With the whole team contributing I’m sure it’ll work well, but on an individual level I’m just not a fan - I’ve tried it for a bit with my own personal account and found it a bit, well, pointless.
But then I was told about Cursebird. Built by a web developer who saw a few of his friends cursing on Twitter and realised he was finding it unfeasibly funny, Cursebird was quickly born with one very particular purpose: like Twitter’s disowned step-brother, it exists to bring you only those Tweets containing swearing.
WARNING: THIS LINK IS PROBABLY BEST AVOIDED IF YOU DON’T FIND RUDE WORDS FUNNY…
A week heavy on peripherals saw a video camera with an ultra-slow-motion mode, Dell’s entry into the fledgling pico-projector market, a mouse which reads your palm and one of the cheapest PC and monitor bundles we’ve ever seen.
Jumping killer whales and pico blues
Sanyo’s HD2000 pistol-grip camcorder has a special trick - it can record 1080p video at 60fps, and can even reach 600fps for those Planet Earth-style animal action shots if you don’t mind sub-YouTube resolutions. Its video quality may not quite reach excellence but its all-in-one ability to take good video and stills makes it a strong choice at a good price.
Another strong choice, but at a more premium price, was the superb LaCie 324 monitor. The 24in panel displays 92% of the NTSC gamut, and during our tests it had cooing crowds gathered around it as the ultimate endorsement. Bringing images alive in a way standard monitors just can’t match, it earned a deserved recommendation for professionals.
This week the office activity has been dominated by the £250 Challenge, so PCs and laptops took something of a back seat in reviews. Still, we saw a fine business system from Lenovo, the ThinkCentre M58, which made use of the company’s fantastic desktop chassis. With everything accessible and removable in seconds, we wish consumer manufacturers would take note, and the Lenovo earned a deserved Recommended award.
As far from the business side of things as we could get was the HP HDX16-1000, an entertainment behemoth of a laptop with an HD screen, Blu-ray drive and a TV tuner. It’s not very portable and battery life is as iffy as you’d expect, but for its sheer assault on the senses it’s well worth a look - and it’s not too expensive either.
In a varied week for reviews, the most notable new arrival was Dell’s Inspiron Mini 12. Attempting to take the netbook category up even closer to true laptop size, it failed on so many counts that our review concluded by saying, “even the presence of XP Home and a high-capacity battery would only elevate the Mini 12’s score from a maudlin two to an unremarkable four.” Harsh words indeed.
Components and peripherals proved much more successful, with Belkin’s N+Â draft-n router earning high praise from reviews editor Jon Bray. With the choice of ADSL or cable variants, impressive performance in our tests, a USB port for external storage and a very attractive price, it jumped straight onto our A List.
