How to get email without a computer

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Here in Vegas, CES is overflowing with computing embedded in devices of every kind — cars, home appliances, booth girls (I’m assuming, anyway) — but one stand is touting a way to cut the computer out of your life, while still receiving email.

The Presto Printing Mailbox is the antithesis of Martha Lane Fox’s digital divide plans: it’s for people who simply can’t understand — or can’t be bothered to understand — how to get email off that infernal computing box.

(more…)

Viva Las BIOS

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Dell doesn’t have a stand here at CES in Las Vegas, but it does have its name up in bright lights on the Strip – although not in a good way.

A Dell Precision WorkStation 300 Series is clearly used to power one of the giant signs just along from our hotel, but instead of displaying details of Celine Dion’s Vegas Warblefest or some such nonsense, it’s currently displaying nothing but the BIOS screen.

(more…)

1 million volts, a hard drive and Dr Megavolt

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

“Just put your signature there,” said the ioSafe rep. “It’s nothing to worry about. Oh, but one thing. Whatever Dr Megavolt says, do it.”

I didn’t argue, merely noted from the indemnity document I was about to sign that it would be a very, very bad idea to place my fingers outside the Faraday cage I was stepping into.

A few minutes earlier Dr Megavolt had explained what was going to happen: a million volts would be sent through an ioSafe Thunderbolt external hard drive, which was protected by a titanium cover.

Everything would be fine, right? Well, as we were about to discover, things weren’t necessarily that straightforward.

Extreme Ultrabooking at CES

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

In a city where a woman stood on a street corner dressed as Catwoman didn’t even bat the eyelids of passers-by, it can be pretty hard to grab people’s attention. But Lenovo achieved that feat at CES today, by sending out someone to test drive its new Ultrabook – on the roof of a stretch Hummer.

You might think driving around with a man sat using a laptop on the roof of the car would attract the attention of the local constabulary, and you’d be right…

(more…)

Windows 8 with eye-tracking: hands on

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

One of the major complaints my colleagues at PC Pro have had about Windows 8 is that the touch-focused OS is annoying to use with a non-touch enabled laptop.

Convertible laptops and touchscreen desktops could help get around the problem, but eye-tracking firm Tobii has come up with a better idea.

(more…)

Video: Autonomy’s augmented reality technology in action

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

CES Unveiled is the traditional curtain raiser for CES, allowing a limited number of companies access to journalists for three hours on the Sunday evening before the show starts proper. Autonomy, the company that reportedly cost HP a cool $11.7 billion back in August 2011, was one such company, and we caught a demo of its augmented reality technology.

The video is streamed directly to the app once it recognises the image, and then saved locally so that it can be viewed without eating up your data on subsequent occasions. For people like me, who can’t recognise faces almost a minute after I’ve been introduced to someone, the business card application looks particularly interesting.

Forget Full HD, here comes 8K

Monday, January 9th, 2012

While we spent yesterday getting mildly excited about the prospect of Full HD tablets, Sharp entered the Vegas spirit by raising the resolution stakes considerably today.

At the end of its CES press conference, the company revealed that its stand at CES will include an 85in 8K display containing no fewer than 32 million pixels.

To put that in perspective, that’s the equivalent of 16 Full HD screens.

We’ll be sure to drop by the stand when it opens tomorrow (Tuesday).

Warranties, app stores and me

Friday, January 6th, 2012

My late uncle and I were very different people. Despite being the two ‘fixers’ in the family, the ones who got the busted kettles and the snapped gear cables from the rest of the clan, we were poles apart in one area: our approach to warranties. Even though he would keep his cars going for 20 years, he had a very sharp understanding of what should be his responsibility, and what was down to the vendor.

Actually, that’s an understatement. Woe betide the firm whose slipshod customer handling captured his attention. Once the horn-rimmed specs and the Brylcreemed bonce were aimed in their direction, he would pursue them relentlessly, his measured drawl torturing their receptionists until they actually did put him through to the MD or the Company Secretary (which incidentally is still quite a good one to try, since chancers seldom know enough about company law and structure to try that route).

(more…)

The 10 most optimistic press releases of 2011

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Like most media organisations, we receive a steady stream of press releases here at PC Pro. On an average day I’d estimate we receive around 30 emails and letters from manufacturers, developers and PR agencies, all earnestly drawing our attention to something or other.

Sometimes these releases are useful, and even interesting: a press release might, for example, contain advance warning of a forthcoming product launch, or an important announcement from a major industry figure.

If I’m honest, though, I’d have to say only a minority of press releases are so worthy. Many of them are what I call downright optimistic – in other words, the people sending them are being rather hopeful if they imagine that we will have any use for the information.

Here, for your entertainment – but with some names removed to protect the innocent who are, let’s be honest, only doing their jobs – are ten of the most optimistic press releases we’ve received in 2011.

(more…)

The best free books to read on an Amazon Kindle

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

There are so many free books available for the Kindle that you never need spend anything more once you’ve bought the device. You have the entire canons of out-of-copyright writers such as Oscar Wilde, all the Sherlock Holmes adventures you’ll ever want to read, plus a myriad of other freebies. And in a way, those other freebies are the more interesting.

Some of the books are honeypots from professional authors, hoping to lure you into their 23-part series that tells the life story of an amazing spy/explorer/dancer/footballer. There’s nothing wrong with this, just go into it with your eyes open.

Some are only briefly reduced to free as a promotion, before being shoved up to full price. You can keep an eye out for such promotions by entering your email address at www.ereaderiq.co.uk (this site also provides a slightly clumsy search mechanism for finding free books).

Then there are some that barely qualify for the terms “books” at all. O’Reilly, for instance, produces a number of very short publications about technology that feel more like extended articles. (more…)