Motorola pays Lucas for its Droid

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Google’s Android operating system seems to be gathering pace, with more and more phones emerging that run the Open Source mobile OS – in the past few months we’ve reviewed the Samsung i7500 Galaxy, HTC Hero and HTC Magic.

One phone that’s gathering momentum across the pond is the Motorola Droid and, from early previews, it’s easy to see why: as well as offering the numerous benefits of Android, it also has a sliding Qwerty keyboard, 3.7in capacitive touchscreen, 5mp camera, GPS and Wi-Fi. It’s also the first phone to ship with Google Maps Navigation installed.

In short, it sounds superb – but that’s not the most interesting thing about one of the most-hyped smartphones of the past several months.

The most interesting thing about Motorola’s new phone can actually be found on the Droid homepage. Look past the flashy graphics towards the copyright notices at the bottom of the screen – you know, the part that everyone usually ignores – and read the bottom line, which says:

“DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license.”

So it appears that Motorola can’t call its new Android phone the Droid unless they pay a certain Mr. Lucas a hefty wodge of cash to stop him turning up at the Chicago firm’s HQ with a battery of lawyers.

Who knew that R2D2 could prove so profitable?

Thanks to Brian Sharp at WikiTravel for the R2D2 image.

Help me choose my next PC case

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

I know there’s a while to go yet, but I’m beginning to think about Christmas – and, specifically, what I’m going to do about my ailing PC over the holiday period.

It’s in bad shape. The chassis is an decrepit Cooler Master model that has no screws holding the sides on and, since I rescued it from the PC Pro Labs, not all of the components inside are actually secured properly: the two hard disks lie uncomfortably in their drive bays, and the optical drive isn’t attached to the 5.25in bay, either; instead, it merely balances between the bay and the front of the chassis and  has to be physically pulled towards the front of the system to be used.

Obviously, this brings numerous disadvantages, with the rattling and reverberating of the hard disks and optical drive meaning that my system isn’t exactly quiet. The lack of cable-tidying means that it’s an ugly PC to look at and difficult to work inside, too, which has made life tricky when I’ve upgraded components in the past.

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My favourite Android apps

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Samsung X-Series: First Look

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

The first two days of the IFA trade show in Berlin saw a couple of laptop-related surprises: first, Sony unveiled one of the most alluring machines we’ve ever seen in the form of its 14mm, 640g X-Series, before Samsung unleashed its very own X-Series notebooks the very next day.

Samsung’s trio of new laptops may not be quite as slim as Sony’s latest crowd-pleaser, but they still have some pretty enticing vital statistics: the 15in X520, for instance, is 24mm thick and weighs 2.09kg. And even though that’s more than three times as heavy as the Sony, it still feels incredibly light for a 15in notebook. The X120 is even more lightweight at 1.36kg.

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Sharp PC-Z1 MID: first look

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

This year’s IFA trade show has seen all manner of amazing gadgets and boundary-pushing technology unveiled – but, unsurprisingly, there haven’t been many MIDs on the menu.

Don’t tell Sharp that the MID is dead, though – it’s just introduced a brand-new MID device at this week’s IFA Berlin trade show: the PC-Z1.

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PC Pro’s top 10 hard disk destruction methods

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

It appears that our investigation into the Bustadrive, a home-made hard disk destruction device, has unleashed the latent violence that lurks within the average PC Pro reader: several folk entered into detailed discussions in our comments section and over on Slashdot about which calibre of bullet would do the best job of ensuring that no-one could get their hands on your credit-card details, and countless other readers have suggested similarly violent methods for disposing of your data.

We’ve been so impressed with the calibre of comments that we’ve compiled a list of our top ten hard disk destruction methods – although, since we’re ever so slightly scared of some of these people, they’re in no particular order.

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Meet Bustadrive, a home-made hard disk destroyer

Friday, August 14th, 2009

If your job involves having to destroy hard disks and make sure that their data is impossible to recover, you’ll know that it can be an expensive business: properly disposing of each hard disk can cost between £5 and £10 and, when you’re managing the IT affairs of potentially large businesses, these costs can mount up.

One IT Manager has had enough, though, and taken the matter into this own hands by creating the Bustadrive, a machine that uses a powerful “hydraulic punch” to physically deform a hard disk, rendering it virtually unreadable.

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First look: the Virgin Media Freedom netbook

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

While mobile broadband dongles are undoubtedly well-matched with netbooks, most mobile broadband firms offer third-party netbooks with their respective dongle deals: T-Mobile bundles its dongle with an Eee PC 904HD, Vodafone entices customers with a Samsung NC10 and Orange lets prospective buyers choose between HP, Asus, Samsung and Toshiba models.

Virgin Media, meanwhile, is the first mobile broadband company to release its own netbook and, while it’s undoubtedly very similar to Zoostorm’s offering – even sharing the same name, the ambitious “Freedom”, – it’s an interesting move and a good-looking product.

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Will Nvidia PhysX ever be worthwhile?

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Nvidia has talked up its PhysX system incessantly since it bought Ageia Technologies, creator of the engine, in February 2008, but it’s struggled to make a significant impact on the PC gaming landscape. So, despite the impressive tech demos and endless optimism, is PhysX looking more like a white elephant with every passing GPU and game release?

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Hands on with Nvidia Tegra

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Nvidia’s Tegra was first introduced in June 2008, touted as a “computer on a chip” that would saunter into numerous types of device – most notably MIDs – and beat Intel’s Atom at its own game. It’s been all quiet on the Tegra front since, but we’ve finally had the chance to go hands on with Nvidia’s exciting new technology.

The ARM11 core (which is also used in the Zune, several Nokia phones and the HTC Dream) is the main processor but, for tasks that have specialist demands, several other chips are included: a GPU handles gaming and 3D tasks, an audio unit is optimised for mp3 and radio playback, a 2D graphics chip can handle a camera.

Separate chips tackle video encoding and decoding, with Nvidia promising the ability to encode and decode 720p video simultaneously. The board also houses flash and system memory, which are the larger chips towards the bottom of the PCB.

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