Hands on: Meizu M6 MiniPlayer
MP3 PlayersInitially this MP3 player was thought to be the fantastical invention of bored photoshoppers dreaming of a widescreen iPod. It turns out that the Meizu M6 is, in fact real. Yes, dear tech loser, we have it in our hands.
Video quality on the thing is actually rather good. We've watched the demo movie bundled with it and fidelity is at least comparable to the latest iPods. The M6 MiniPlayer is smaller than a credit card, slightly thicker than a nano, weighs less than 60g, and has a 61mm (2.4-inch) screen that displays song info, synchronised lyrics, AVI video, photo slide shows, screensavers and Flash games. Continue reading...
Sony HDV HD HVR-V1: Get the film look
CamcordersOur love affair with the Sony FX1 continues unabated to this day, but if we had to level one criticism at the camcorder, it's the lack of an in-camera 24p mode (to the layman, 24p is a broad emulation of the way a traditional celluloid movie camera captures footage). Sony has evidently sensed our mild disappointment and has created this, the HVR-V1.
Sony says it has collaborated with "prominent movie and drama creators" to come up with a more filmic capture method that trounces traditional 50/60i (PAL/NTSC interlaced). In addition to typical 50/60i, the HVR-V1 offers 24p/30p progressive scan capture -- this should give a very close approximation of film look, and make it easier to convert HD footage for traditional celluloid projection. The HVR-V1 adopts a 2:3 pull-down HDV recording system for storage of the 24p scanned images. The diagrams on Sony's Web site will give you the best idea of what this means. Continue reading...
Denon DVD-3930: Upscaling new heights
Home CinemaIf you want to watch films at near high-definition quality before the dust settles on the Blu-ray versus HD DVD hi-def format war, an upscaling DVD player is the answer.
Denon has concentrated its efforts on upgrading existing technology before becoming involved in any next-generation infighting. The new DVD-3930 uses state-of-the-art technology, which Denon claims produces a picture that rivals the latest high-definition formats. Continue reading...
Intel Core 2 Quad QX6800: Four brains in one skull
AccessoriesIt seems like barely a couple of months ago we were singing the praises of dual-core processors. The equivalent of having two separate brains in the same skull, these CPUs help computers run a lot faster without consuming much more energy.
Now, at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel has upped the ante by unveiling quad-core processors --Â CPUs that have four processing cores on a single physical processor, or, as we like to think of it, four brains in a single skull.
The first batch of quad-core chips will arrive before Christmas. Among them will be the Intel Xeon 5300 series server chips, and the more consumer-oriented QX6800 Intel Core 2 Extreme CPU, which is aimed at gamers, hardcore video editing folk and those with more money than sense. The technology will filter down to mainstream processors in early 2007 with the Core 2 Quad range. Continue reading...
How do I access my PC while away from home?
I need to access various files and folders on my home PC using a separate computer located elsewhere. Ideally I'd like to do this without having my home PC switched on or connected to the Internet. I've got very little money to spend. What are my options?
George Guapacha
There are many ways to get access to data on your PC while you're away from home. Most of these require your home computer to be switched on and all of them require access to the Internet. The most obvious method is to use Windows XP Professional Edition's built-in Remote Desktop feature. This lets you control your home PC via the Internet using a computer in another location.
You can enable this by right-clicking the My Computer icon in the Start menu, clicking Properties, then clicking the Remote tab at the top of the System Properties window. To initiate a connection from another PC, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Communications, and the Remote Desktop Connection icon. You'll need to know the exact IP address of your home PC, which you can find by clicking the Start button in Windows XP, then clicking Run, and typing 'cmd' into the resulting dialogue box. Once the window with the scary black background appears, type 'ipconfig' and note down the IP Address. Once you're done, type 'exit' to return to Windows.
If you don't have the Professional Edition of Windows XP, you'll need to use an alternative remote access program such as GoToMyPC or LogMeIn Free Edition. These applications provide more features than Remote Desktop and many users will find them easier to use, as there's no need to remember pesky IP addresses -- you just use a standard password. What's more, you can even get access to your home PC via your PDA or smart phone.
If you don't want to leave your PC switched on indefinitely but still want access to files and folders, you should consider investing in a network-attached storage device such as Buffalo's TeraStation or LinkStation Pro. These devices are essentially external hard drives with added network gubbins -- they connect to your broadband router and let you access their files and folder over the Internet. Unfortunately these devices won't give you access to your Windows desktop, and you'll need to ensure the drives contain the files you require -- but they won't eat as much electricity as your computer. They can be pricey, though. Continue reading...
Xun Chi 138: The world's smallest mobile phone?
Mobile PhonesTaking a rare break from watching people set fire to their faces on YouTube, we stumbled across the Xun Chi 138, a mobile phone that appears to have been designed for hobbits.
Bizarrely, it doesn't have many buttons and there's no room for a keypad. This might seem like a fatal flaw in a mobile phone, but it has handwriting recognition and can be controlled by scrawling numbers and letters onto its touch-sensitive screen. There's a stylus tucked round the back, but this will inevitably get lost, so you'll probably end up using a matchstick.
As well as the ability to make calls, the Xun Chi 138 has 128MB of storage, audio playback software, GPRS and some sort of camera. It's labelled '1.3 MEGA PLIX', but we've never actually heard of a 'PLIX', so we aren't making any promises. Continue reading...
Nokia N95: And the band played on...
Nokia has announced a new 'hero product' for the N-series, the N95 (pictured right, click for a larger image). Following on from the camera-centric N90, the music-oriented N91 and the camcorder-ish N93, the N95 swaggers on to the stage doing everything they already do, and more. It's a tick-the-boxes, line-up-the-bullet-points, count-the-features-on-your-fingers kind of phone, although Nokia would prefer you to call it an "all-in-one multimedia computer". Perhaps the marketing department thinks you'll find it hard to stomach paying 350-400 (SIM-free) for a phone.
Pretentiousness aside, the N95 offers an impressive range of features:
Despite being a relative newcomer in the slider-phone market, Nokia has come up with a new trick: two-way sliding. Push the screen up and you get a numeric keypad, as usual; push it down and a set of media keys appears at the top. These are designed to be used with the phone in landscape mode. Continue reading...
Apple Aperture 1.5: This time it's good
SoftwareAperture has always had a place in our dark little hearts -- there's something undeniably Minority Report about the way it manages photos on a virtual table. But the first release of Apple's digital darkroom, though visually thrilling, was processor-intensive to the point of oppression, and was undermined by a flawed raw conversion method that, in our experience, gave photos odd little multicoloured fringes in areas of high-contrast detail -- to mention just one quirk. This was intensely frustrating, like driving a Lamborghini with a flat tyre.
Apple has been quietly overhauling the software in a series of point releases, and with Aperture 1.5, it's now widely reported to have got to the point where it's actually a practical solution for pro and semi-pro photographers.
Raw conversion algorithms are improved and the software now lets you work on photos referenced anywhere -- even on removable media such as CDs. This might sound like an obvious feature (Adobe's competing photo software Lightroom has had it since first beta), but Apple overlooked it in previous releases. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: Huckleberry Finn vs modern gadget-toting kids
MP3 PlayersWith news breaking this morning that kids carry an average of 160 of equipment in their schoolbags, pundits are asking the inevitable question: how does this compare to what Huckleberry Finn carried in his schoolbag?
By examining the contents of Huck's schoolbag, and noting the differences between this and the schoolbag of a modern child, we have an accurate cultural barometer against which to measure the degradation, or improvement, that mass consumer technologies have brought to the Western world. For the purposes of this comparison, we will call our modern child 'Harry'.
Huck's Bag: Tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty old bedquilt off the bed
Harry's Bag: Apple iBook
While Huck contented himself with the kind of scabby detritus we would today more readily associate with a tramp, Harry carries a 749 MacBook. Harry is one of 3 per cent of school children who take a laptop to school. Huck drank out of a tin cup, but Harry is more likely to sip Isotonic sports drinks while instant messaging his friends through a 1/min mobile phone datacard. Continue reading...
Samsung CLP-300: Honey I shrunk the colour laser printer
PrintersYesterday we went hands on with the Samsung CLP-300 -- which claims to be the world's smallest colour laser printer. Its 390mm by 260mm by 340mm dimensions may not sound impressive on paper, but it's pretty svelte in comparison to the oven-sized Samsung CLP-500.
Let's put it this way: you cannot, we repeat, cannot carry a colour laser printer further than a couple of metres. Not unless you're doped up on steroids and have a titanium endoskeleton. You can't really install one in your home, either -- unless you've got a dedicated office space -- because these things are usually huge.
The CLP-300 impressed us because it is the size of a normal mono laser, or a slightly chubby inkjet. It weighs just 13.6kg so it's reasonably portable -- you can move it from room to room, or lug it to the car without risk of a hernia. Continue reading...
Crave Podcast 13: Who's bored of blogs? 
CNET UK PodcastEverybody's doing it, from government ministers to that guy in class who never utters a word -- blogs seem to have taken over the universe. In the latest Crave Podcast, Rory Reid, Chris Stevens and Rupert Goodwins put the blogosphere on trial. Are blogs an essential alternative news source and a massive tool for freedom of speech, or merely glorified diaries that make you reach for the snooze button?
News of Apple's latest launch hits the podwaves, and there are mixed views on Microsoft's choice of autumnal colours for its Zune. Rupert rants on Microsoft's DRM this week, and what Chuck D thinks of the matter -- if you can decipher the bleeps. The podcast's crystal ball looks to the future, and sees an intercontinental underground train travelling at ridiculous speeds under the Atlantic, but it gets more ridiculous when the topic turns to a device that lets fish navigate on dry land... WTF?
Confused? Intrigued? For all this, and more, download the latest episode from the Crave Podcast homepage. -KM
You don't know Jack PC? You should
DesktopsWe've seen some funky PC designs in our time, but this has to be the most bizarre and inspiring. It's Chip PC Technologies' Jack PC -- a thin client that's the size of a plug socket.
The device is essentially a stripped-down network PC that relies on a server to carry out most tasks. Most thin clients resemble skinny PCs (hence the name) or fat monitors (made bloaty because of extra internal computing gubbins), so they're a bit pointless for home use.
We wouldn't normally touch them with a bargepole, but the Jack PC got us thinking. It's versatile enough to fit into an ordinary Ethernet port, has a front-facing DVI monitor output, four USB ports and a couple of audio ports, so it could be perfect as a low-power Internet kiosk for the home. Continue reading...
Samsung YP-T9: Another day, another MP3 player
MP3 PlayersWhat are they feeding those Samsung engineers in South Korea? Barely a week goes by without another MP3 player springing forth from the great steel loins of its factory in Kumi.
Now the YP-T9 has emerged, glistening in the moonlight, howling and thrashing. This time, it's twins for Samsung. The YP-T9's brother, the YP-T9B, is Bluetooth-enabled. Whether it supports A2DP (for wireless headphones) or is simply a wireless means to sync music with the computer hasn't been confirmed.
HP Pavilion dv6000: Lubed up laptop
LaptopsFans of glossy-looking consumer technology should check out the shiny new HP Pavilion dv6000 series. To say these laptops are shiny is an understatement -- they have the kind of sheen that could put Patrick Stewart's head to shame.
As well as looking like they've been greased up for a triathlon, the laptops use HP's new 'imprint finish', so the black lid and silver keyboard sections have an intricate fingerprint-style pattern running throughout. This fits in with HP's "the computer is personal again" marketing campaign. Fingerprints? Personal? Geddit? Ironically it also collects your own fingerprint smudges like there's no tomorrow.
The new look won't be to everyone's taste but it's an improvement on HP's staid designs of old. We think it looks pretty good, but one thing we didn't like was the keyboard and mouse. The keys have a tendency to wobble about, and there's too much travel in the mouse buttons. Continue reading...
Crave Talk: To slim or not to slim?
Digital CamerasIn an attempt to flog more cameras in an age of plenty, HP is busy making a feature out of distortion. In particular, it's happy to announce that many models now have a slimming feature, a bit of internal processing that fudges the aspect ratio and takes just a little off the hips.
It's also the age of Flickr, but here I'm still a bit of a Luddite. I love slapping my pictures up, but always in unadulterated form. I have a constant argument with one of my more talented photographer pals -- he sees no problem with Photoshopping images before putting them online. Fine, but say that they're modified. Is that different from cropping or tweaking the exposure, he says, which a digital camera can do before your picture ever escapes? I think so. Continue reading...
Letter from Linuxland -- Part 3
SoftwareIf you've been at all interested in Ubuntu, you'll have read what it's like to use when you first install it. You've got the world's best browser, some damn fine office software, a few games, a nice clean windowing interface and almost everything you need right there on the desktop.
All that's true. One of the biggest buzzes I got from the software was that first heady half hour. All my Firefox extensions loaded just fine, I got my head around enough of Linux' idea of how the disk is organised to save files from OpenOffice and send them off through Gmail, my USB stick popped up on demand with the dragging and the dropping -- the revolution had begun, comrades, and not a drop of blood to be found.
Then I clicked on a link to an audio file. Something called Totem appeared, and sadly declared that it didn't know nothing about no MP3s, sir. I soon found out that Totem was also charged with video playback, at which it was similarly clueless. Continue reading...
iRiver S10: Not ideal for fatties
MP3 PlayersAs the Western world makes itself morbidly obese on offal shakes and Big Macs, MP3 players just keep getting smaller. We're all expanding like fleshy party balloons in some hellish jamboree, but the electronics industry is all about miniaturisation. It's a sad irony that as gadgets decrease in size, our grotesquely chubby fingers become increasingly unable to operate their tiny controls.
By 2050, we'll all be sat around on the remaining bits of dry land, a nation of Jabba the Huts, desperately trying to switch over from the Shopping Channel, but unable to on account of our fingers having reached the point at which they can no longer accurately pick out a single button on a TV remote.
The iRiver S10 (2GB) is ludicrously tiny, and just 1.9g heavier than the new iPod Shuffle, but, unlike Apple's offering, it comes with a built-in screen. On the downside, you'll have to contend with 8 hours of battery life, compared to the Shuffle's 12 hours. Continue reading...
Asus AiGuru S1: Make free calls and listen to streaming music
AccessoriesA couple of months ago you couldn't find a decent Skype phone for love nor money, and now four turn up at once. The latest to arrive is the Asus AiGuru S1, a wireless VoIP handset that doubles up as a streaming music device.
The handset has Skype pre-installed, but unlike some of the other phones it can't connect to your existing 802.11b/g Wi-Fi infrastructure. You'll need to use the accompanying Wi-Fi dongle and leave your PC switched on in order to make and receive calls. Bummer.
Still, the AiGuru S1 supports SkypeIn, so you can receive calls via your own personal local telephone number, SkypeOut, so you can call ordinary landlines, plus it lets you conference call, store contacts and access voicemail -- all from the handset.
The AiGuru S1 has an integrated 0.5W speaker for hands-free calls, which you can also use to play music that's stored on your PC (you can use a set of ordinary headphones, too). We reckon this would be useful for listening to music while pottering around the house or doing the gardening. Continue reading...
Access a webcam with a mobile phone
I'm interested in finding out what's the best way to set up a security camera at home that I can monitor with my mobile phone. How can I do this? Continue reading...
Crave Talk: All hail the analogue revolution
MP3 PlayersIt sounds like an unlikely revival, but vinyl is scratching and crackling its way back to the top. Seven-inch vinyl records are once again a popular format for some indie singles' sales in the UK. Sales of 7-inch singles have risen to well over one million this year. The last time things looked this good for vinyl was 1998.
It doesn't stop there --Â the NME's Alex Needham is championing the format to supersede CD. "I think it's very possible that the CD might become obsolete in an age of download music but the vinyl record will survive," he said. Continue reading...
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