Xbox One review: For gamers, yes, but you'll like it too

"It's a Trojan horse!" they said. When Microsoft released the original Xbox in 2001, the company dominated the computing world, and common wisdom held that its console was going to use games as a gateway to conquering your living room. In the end, the Xbox was just a games machine. The Xbox 360 was also called a Trojan horse, and although it eventually proved to be a popular way to watch Netflix, it too was primarily just another games machine.

With the Xbox One, Microsoft isn't even bothering with the wooden-horse trick. The new console is a Trojan army, blatantly marching on your living room, carrying a banner that reads, "We are here for your TV!"

Made for a new era

When the Xbox 360 hit the market in 2005, we lived in a different world. Twitter didn't exist. Facebook was solely for college students. The iPhone was two years away. App stores? Xbox Live Arcade was one of the first, but the idea that you would download every app for your device from a unified online store is a relatively new thing, made commonplace by hundreds of millions of smartphone sales.

The Xbox One is, to its core, made to live in our new consumer-electronics era. It's an era in which we don't just watch TV, we tweet about it. We don't just play games, we share videos of our best moments. Nearly everything has an online component, and computers don't even have disc drives anymore. We live in an age in which talking to your phone's built-in assistant is so two years ago.

The Xbox One is made for an age in which we expect everything to be downloadable from a single online store.

The Xbox One aims high. It promises to be your always-on living-room hub that plays nicely with your cable box, runs the latest and greatest games, streams, shares, and makes video calls. That it succeeds at all is somewhat amazing, though in some ways Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew. The Xbox One is a truly next-generation device, enjoyable by a wide audience without alienating the core enthusiasts, but its software lacks polish and refinement.

TV is more than cable

Maybe you don't have a cable or satellite subscription. Maybe you're a cord-cutter, and you get everything from Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Instant Video. Those apps and more are nicely integrated into the Xbox One environment, though it leaves me wanting more.

"Xbox, Bing South Park" brings up a list of all content related to the TV show. (Yes, like an uncool parent desperately trying to relate to teenage kids, Microsoft insists that you use "Bing" as a verb instead of "Search," thus making both Bing and Xbox less cool.) Select an episode, and the Xbox One shows you all supported services where you can watch it.

The way the Xbox One shows you every option for watching streaming content is a godsend for cord-cutters.

There's something almost magical about saying "Xbox, go to Netflix" and watching it flip right over without ever bringing up a menu or fiddling around with the remote. When you're done watching House of Cards, you can say "Xbox, play Forza Motorsport 5" and be right back in the middle of the track where you left off, with no loading screens, assuming that Forza Motorsport 5 was the last game you played.

Although show titles tend to trip up the voice recognition quite often, repeating yourself a few times still proves to be faster than typing in show names with a remote or gamepad.

The initial lineup of streaming services has some notable holes. HBO Go is "coming soon" but not yet available. YouTube is the biggest missing link, but streaming music services such as Pandora and Spotify would be most welcome, too.

The Xbox One gracefully serves as a target for DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) "play to" functions, streaming photos and playing music or video over your home network with ease. But here, too, Microsoft has work to do. The console is not a DLNA "pull" device—it can't search your network for DLNA servers and browse the content on them.

The games are definitely next-gen

Let's talk about the games—the real reason most consumers who have their eye on this console will part with $500 for it this holiday season. The Xbox One delivers a thoroughly next-gen experience. Forget all that fanboy nonsense of the past few months about native rendering resolution and such.

I've played half of Ryse: Son of Rome, and it is both more fun than expected and an arresting visual spectacle on a par with the best the PlayStation 4 has to offer. Forza Motorsport 5 is the sharp, clean, smooth racing sim a next-generation launch title should be. Dead Rising 3 is impressive in its scope, and I didn't notice any crippling slowdown when mowing down hundreds of zombies. It's miles beyond what any current-generation console could hope to pull off.

Play 'Ryse' for a few hours, and tell me it doesn't look every bit as good as any PS4 game.

Full reviews of the Xbox One games will have to wait, particularly since it's so difficult to get a handle on multiplayer while using the prerelease Xbox Live environment. I think it's safe to say that anyone with reasonable expectations for next-generation console launch games will be quite happy with the Xbox One roster.

A note on game installs: Yes, every game needs to be installed to the hard drive. The speed at which this happens varies, and in the current preproduction environment, I don't think I'm seeing the same download speeds you'll experience on the real Xbox Live network after launch. Many games are "ready to play" while they're still downloading or installing off the disc, but the wait time to get to that point varies widely from one game to the next.

Game DVR is neat, and terribly flawed

Microsoft's "Game DVR" feature is fantastic. Just say "Xbox, record that" and it grabs the past 30 seconds of gameplay (which is really the past 5 minutes of gameplay automatically trimmed to 30 seconds, but you can extend it to 5 minutes easily).

The best part is the way this feature is integrated into games. The games I played would often surprise me by saying that a game clip had just been created, right after I did something cool. "Oh yeah," I'd think, "that would be a really cool clip!"

Game DVR recordings are chock-full of artifacts, making gorgeous games such as 'Forza Motorsport 5' look like garbage.

The problem is, the quality is awful. The problem is not the resolution or frame rate of the recorded clips (720p, 30 frames per second). It's the bitrate and encoding parameters. The road in Forza Motorsport 5 turns into a blur of artifacts. Every ounce of detail from a Killer Instinct match disappears. I've been told that the bitrate is somewhere around 1.5 megabits per second, but the clip I saved to SkyDrive was about 30 megabytes for a 1-minute clip, or about 4 megabits per second. Microsoft desperately needs to change the encoding settings for this feature—it's making the games look like garbage.

A world-class controller

The new controller—which takes the well-loved design of the Xbox 360 controller and refines it further—is terrific. It's a little smaller, with more-precise and more-responsive sticks, a vastly improved D-pad, and buttons that are a little closer together and easier to press. The triggers have their own rumble motors, which is really effective in some games and gimmicky in others.

IMAGE: MICHAEL HOMNICKThe new controller is really, really good. The headset is an improvement, too.

Unfortunately, there's no obvious way to learn how much charge your controller has left. That seems like it would be good information to have. The good news is, I played all weekend—easily 20 hours—on the included pair of AA batteries.

The new headset is better, too. It's more comfortable and adjustable, with better sound quality. It clips to the bottom of the controller via a proprietary plug, and although the connection seems annoyingly large at first blush, it's a godsend. The plug has large, unambiguous mute and volume buttons that you can't miss in the middle of a heated gaming match, yet it stays entirely out of the way of your grip.

That HDMI input

I tried plugging the HDMI-output cable of my DirecTV box into the Xbox One's input, and then setting it up as my cable provider in the settings screen. I also have an Onkyo receiver between the Xbox One and my TV.

IMAGE: Michael HomnickThat extra HDMI port, the one labeled 'HDMI IN,' makes all the difference

I can walk into the room and say "Xbox, on," and the Xbox One will wake from its low-power slumber, turn on my TV, and turn on my receiver. It will automatically recognize me and log me in. If my fiancée walks into the room, it automatically recognizes her and logs her in, too.

I can say "Xbox, watch TV" and it kicks over from whatever I'm doing to show the output of my DirecTV box (or whatever else is plugged into the HDMI input). The voice-controlled "OneGuide" channel guide is nice, but I almost never look at my channel guide to see what's on. I do find some value in saying "Xbox, watch Comedy Central," causing the Kinect camera to work like an IR blaster and immediately flip my DirecTV box to channel 249, or saying "Xbox, watch HBO" to hop over to channel 501. It's faster and easier than using a remote.

But the Xbox One doesn't know what recorded programs are on your DVR, and can't program it. The console can't access all the on-demand menus and content. So you can't ditch your remote; you can only use it less often. For someone like me, who never watches live TV, the real benefit of this TV integration is quickly and easily switching from watching TV to doing something else (like viewing Netflix or gaming) without changing inputs and turning on other devices. It's a real timesaver.

I also ran the PlayStation 4 into the HDMI input, and it works just fine. I didn't play much, but passing the PlayStation 4's video signal through the Xbox One didn't produce any extra latency.

You can run a PS4 into the HDMI input of the Xbox One, if you want. It doesn't do anything special, though.

Kinect is a vast improvement

The new Kinect is leagues beyond the Xbox 360's Kinect. It's smaller, it works far better in dim light, and it has a much easier time tracking a tall guy like me in a tiny San Francisco living room. For the most part, the camera is a great addition to the system, and it's probably a good gamble on Microsoft's part to force the Kinect on everyone, even if that decision makes the Xbox One cost $100 more than its primary competitor.

But the device still needs refinement. What's that saying again? Eighty percent of the time, it works every time.

Image: Michael HomnickThe new Kinect is a vast improvement over the old one.

Once you learn the proper commands (I keep wanting to say "log in" instead of "sign in"), voice control works great. Except when it doesn't. The console correctly understood me eight or nine times out of ten, but the small percentage of the time you have to repeat yourself is still frustrating. Pressing a button works 100 percent of the time—that's the standard that other interface methods must live up to.

What's that saying again? Eighty percent of the time, it works every time.

Many of the voice commands are faster than buttons and menus are, even if you end up repeating yourself. On balance, the Kinect stuff is very cool and honestly quite useful, but I imagine that most users will use only part of what's there.

I should mention that you can also navigate the Xbox interface by holding up your hands and grabbing, pulling, pushing, and sliding things around, Minority Report–style. This approach is slow and annoying. On rare occasions, the Xbox One thought I was trying to control it with hand-waving gestures when I was just taking a sip of my drink during dinner. It popped up controls and a ghostly hand on the screen, interrupting the TV show. It should have an option to turn all this hand-waving-navigation stuff off, but it doesn't appear to include one.

A dearth of detail

The settings are fairly basic. You have no way to see exactly how much storage all your games and saves and downloadable content are using up. You can press the menu button in your list of games and apps to get the installed size of a single game (and an option to uninstall it), but that doesn't tell you how much space you have left on the 500GB hard drive.

There's just no way to see at a glance which games take up the most space so you can know what's best to delete when you need to make room for something new.

This is the only indication you get of how much space your games are taking up.

You also can't see, for example, your download rate or time remaining. Notifications tell you when apps were updated, but not necessarily what those updates contain, and notifications don't appear when a system update has taken place.

I imagine that customer demand will force Microsoft to add such features to the Xbox One in the first round of patches.

Social sharing…or lack thereof

Regrettably, the Xbox One doesn't let you share your game videos very easily. You can't stream live to Twitch or Ustream. You have no way to post anything you do to Facebook or Twitter. In fact, in a day and age where TV shows and commercials display hashtags, the complete lack of social integration on Xbox One is conspicuous.

You can save your game clips from Upload Studio (the free app that edits clips you save in Game DVR) to SkyDrive and then do whatever you want with them, from your computer or smartphone. That's a welcome feature, but a lame cop-out considering the absence of any social integration at the system level.

Microsoft's only kinda-sorta attempt at letting you share stuff is mediocre SkyDrive integration.

Also, you get no systemwide feature to take high-quality screenshots, which seems like a huge oversight. In this regard, a voice command may be too slow…might I suggest tapping the Menu and View buttons simultaneously?

Quiet, power-efficient, always connected

Microsoft really doesn't want you to turn your Xbox One all the way off. For starters, the console takes an eternity to power on when you do (about 40 seconds or so). From standby mode, the Xbox One is live in less than 15 seconds. My receiver and TV take about that long to turn on, but it's still a little disappointing that the console doesn't wake up more quickly. In the standby state, the Xbox One will download game and system updates and the like, and is virtually silent.

IMAGE: Michael HomnickSlightly warm air and a gentle hum are all that ever escape the huge vents on the top of the Xbox One.

But here's the neat bit: The most recent game you've been playing stays held in a suspended state, even in this standby mode. That's right—you can say "Xbox, turn off" in the middle of a Ryse level, go to bed, wake up the next day, say "Xbox, on," and select Ryse, and you're exactly where you left off within seconds. No loading screens. More than all the fancy high-definition graphics in the world, features such as this make the system feel "next-generation."

No matter what you do with it, the Xbox One is whisper quiet; it's certainly much quieter than the PlayStation 4 or any current-generation system. Sitting idle in its menus, the Xbox One draws about 70 watts of power and hums along at just over 40dB. Its low-power standby mode is too quiet to measure reliably, and draws about 18 watts. Playing an intense game such as Ryse, the power draw jumps to about 125 watts, but the noise stays down to around 45dB. Most of the time my DirecTV box made more noise than the Xbox One did.

Xbox Live Gold subscription required

An Xbox Live Gold subscription is not required to use the Xbox One, but it is required to enjoy the Xbox One. The service costs about $60 a year, and without it you can't do anything good with this console. The Gold tier of Xbox Live has always been necessary to play games online. Users have also always needed Gold membership to access Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other streaming media services (even though you're already paying for those separately, and nobody else locks them behind a paywall).

Slay hordes of zombies while you catch up on 'Family Guy'? Not without Xbox Live Gold you don't!

In a console so focused on seamlessly blending TV, online streaming services, and games, it's a shame that this extremely anticonsumer policy has been extended into this new generation, and in fact, extended further. With the Xbox One, not only are the streaming media apps, and Skype, and freakin' Internet Explorer, for Pete's sake, locked behind the Gold paywall, but so are great new features such as Game DVR, the unified OneGuide TV listings, and even SkyDrive.

The good news is, you need only one Gold account for everyone who uses your Xbox One. Set it as your Home Console, and everyone who uses it, whether they have their own Xbox profile or sign in as a guest, will share your Gold privelages.

Bottom line

On balance, the Xbox One is a fantastic piece of technology, well worth the cost of a new iPad. There are some sore spots, which Microsoft will undoubtedly address in the coming months through software updates. Chief among them are the terrible quality of Game DVR recordings, the inability to stream game sessions, and the total lack of social media integration. People want to share their fun with the world, and "upload to SkyDrive and do what you want from there" is a half-baked solution. The ridiculous policy of requiring Xbox Live Gold to use streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus deserves to be abolished, too.

But this is Xbox One version 1.0. This is like the "Blades" interface of the Xbox 360. If this is the starting line, it's pretty exciting to think about where the console will be in another year or two.

Even so, we're looking at more than just a solid foundation. The launch lineup doesn't boast a "gotta have it" system-seller—Titanfall may be the first when it arrives this spring—but it still has quite a few very good games. These games are worth your time and money, and they clearly demonstrate the power and features of the system. Buying an Xbox One is not just buying into a promise of great things; there's a whole lot of value in this $500 box right now.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

PlayStation 4 review: Sony's best console yet is off to a shaky start

The PlayStation 4 marks a turning point for Sony. It's a humble gaming machine designed to integrate into your living room, a far cry from the pomp and circumstance with which the company debuted its predecessor, the PlayStation 3.

That's a good thing, since the PS3 proved a prohibitively expensive box that was more difficult to program for and less online-friendly than its competitor, Microsoft's Xbox 360. Sony's suffered some well-deserved criticism in the seven years since the PS3's debut, and seems to have taken that criticism to heart.

The PS4 is a beautiful piece of kit. With ample power under the hood, a controller that's a joy to hold, and excellent system-level support for social sharing and streaming, Sony's latest console is poised to perform very well in the years to come.

But right now it's a little underwhelming. For one, the interface is obtuse. Plus, useful features like DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) streaming are missing. And few of the games you can play on it right now are worth paying attention to, much less buying the system for. It's a strong base to build from, but Sony still has a lot of work to do if it hopes to conquer the console gaming market.

Another black box

The new PlayStation's rhomboidal black chassis is deceptively small, and sleek enough to slip unobtrusively into your existing media center. It plays well with most receivers, but forget about composite cables—the PS4 kicks out video via a single HDMI on the back of the box.

The PlayStation 4 cants back like a low-slung supercar.

That back panel is predictably sparse, sporting just the single HDMI jack, a digital audio out, a port for the power plug, an ethernet jack, and an auxiliary port for the PlayStation Camera (sold separately, naturally). Inside are a pair of radios, one for Bluetooth 2.1 and the other for 802.11 b/n/g wireless, but that's it as far as connectivity goes. Unlike the Xbox One, which has a back panel festooned with extra USB ports and an HDMI input that can suck up signals from your other devices, the PS4 is ill-equipped to dominate your living room.

I like that Sony built a dedicated jack for the camera on the back of the machine, because it allows you to mount the accessory on top of your TV or media center while keeping its assorted cables tucked neatly out of sight. It's a nice change from the PS3's USB PlayStation Eye camera, which often had to be plugged into the front of your console, leaving an unsightly black cord dangling in front of your media center.

The PS4 also sports a pair of front-mounted USB 3.0 ports, and that's it. It's a bare-bones box that could charitably be called "streamlined," so you'll have to do some port juggling if you want to charge more than two controllers at a time or hook up a flash drive.

While the PS4's 500GB, 5400 RPM internal hard drive can be replaced, there is no official support for external hard drives. Plug in external storage and you can save screenshots, videos, and saved games, but not store the games themselves. The PS4 currently lacks support for a lot of fringe uses, actually. It can't play music CDs, stream media over your home network, or run Linux, all of which the PS3 could handle with ease.

Sony took a fairly minimalist approach this time around.

Of course, most people—myself included—don't need their game console to do any of those things. They need it to play games, stream Netflix/Hulu Plus/Amazon Instant Video, and play DVDs/Blu-rays, and Sony's latest console makes doing those things a breeze, nay a pleasure, thanks to a simplified interface and a vastly improved gamepad.

A better gamepad

The DualShock 4 is the best controller Sony has ever designed. At first glance it looks like a modestly evolved version of the DualShock 3, with a goofy light bar where the four-LED player indicator used to be and a big ol' clickable two-point capacitive touchpad on top, pushing the PlayStation button down a few centimeters. Flanking the touchpad are the Share and Options buttons, which have replaced the venerable Start and Select buttons. There's also a mono speaker on the front, which could be really cool if developers use it wisely instead of, say, suddenly squawking out bad audio logs late at night.

It may not look like much, but lay hands on the DualShock 4 and you'll never want to let go.

The touchpad and lightbar seem like frivolous additions—few games or apps use either in interesting ways. Free-to-play shooter Warframe requires you to swipe and click the touchpad to select and use your powers, for example, while Killzone: Shadow Fall changes the color of your controller's lightbar from green to red as your character gets hurt. It's a neat trick, but seeing as the last thing you'll probably want to do while playing a really awesome game is look down at your hands, it probably won't meaningfully improve your gaming experience.

For that kind of evolution, look to the DualShock 4's sticks and triggers. Both are significantly improved from the DualShock 3, a controller that caught a lot of flak over the years for its rounded analog sticks and lightweight triggers. While I never had much trouble using the DualShock 3, I've found the DualShock 4's sturdier and slightly larger chassis, concave triggers, and redesigned sticks feel significantly better in my hands. Building a small circular depression on the top of each stick makes it much more comfortable to rest your thumbs on them for extended gaming sessions, though I wish the sticks themselves were a little tighter and offered more resistance.

The touchpad might offer some intriguing control options in the future, but the lightbar is a frivolous addition.

The DualShock 4 still charges via a USB cable, though it charges via micro-USB rather than mini-USB this time around. It's a nice touch; since most non-Apple smartphones and tablets now come with micro-USB charging cables, you should have no trouble finding extra charging cables lying around. You'll need 'em, too. During testing, my DualShock 4's non-replaceable lithium-ion battery ran out of juice after 7 hours of gaming, a depressingly brief battery life that inspired me to keep my controller plugged into my phone charger so I could refill the battery without having to get off my couch to hook the controller up to the console.

You get a cheap headset, and you get a cheap headset, and you get a cheap headset!

Sony also packs a cheap mono headset into every PS4 box, and you can jack it into the stereo headset jack below the PlayStation button to participate in voice chat or voice control. This headset is perhaps the chintziest piece of technology I've ever used, with a single earbud, a mutable mic and an impractical plastic clip connected by a single audio cable.

It looks cheap, and it is cheap—it's essentially a free pack-in, after all. But there's a silver lining: While the earbud's output is muffled at best, the built-in microphone performs remarkably well. Friends in party chat and those watching me stream games complemented the audio quality of the voice chat, but more importantly, they didn't complain about the mic rubbing against my shirt or picking up extraneous room noise.

Most gaming headsets that connect via USB, optical audio, or 3.5mm audio jack will work with the PS4, though you may need to download a system update first. I tested both the Plantronics Rig and the Astro A50 headsets, and both worked perfectly.

Remote Play works, but it's not worth buying a Vita for

If you happen to own a PlayStation Vita, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how well the PS4's Remote Play feature functions—when both devices are on the same wireless network and in close proximity to one another. I streamed both Killzone: Shadow Fall and Resogun to my Vita via Remote Play while I was sitting about 12 feet from the console, and both games looked fantastic on the Vita's 5-inch OLED screen. I noticed no appreciable input lag or graphical distortion while playing either game—as long as I stayed within 15 feet and didn't let any major masonry get between me and my PlayStation 4.

The Vita is a great system, but Remote Play is not a good reason to buy one.

As soon as I took the Vita into the bedroom or the bathroom of my cramped one-bedroom apartment, both games started dropping frames and suffering noticeable graphical distortion. They weren't unplayable, per se, but they weren't terribly enjoyable under those conditions. Your mileage may vary based on your own network setup, but if you don't already own a Vita I wouldn't recommend picking one up just to play your PS4 games remotely—there's very little leeway for an ideal experience.

You can also use the Vita (or a smartphone or tablet running the PlayStation App) to do some second-screen stuff with PS4 games, though none of the games available at the time of this writing take compelling advantage of that feature. You can set waypoints in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, for example, or check stats and modify your loadouts in Call of Duty: Ghosts. Again, it's a neat touch, but nothing worth paying for.

Trust me, you want to buy the camera

Before we move on from hardware, I want to take a moment to discuss the new PlayStation Camera. It's an optional accessory—you have to shell out $60 for one since they don't come packed in with the console—but after bringing one home for testing I have a hard time recommending you purchase a PS4 without it.

The PlayStation Camera lets you play silly motion-control games like Sony Playroom, but its chief value is in letting you stream your play area and use voice commands from across the room.

The new camera functions much like a proto-Kinect: You can use it to participate in voice chat, log into your machine via face recognition, issue voice commands to the built-in microphone, or play motion-controlled games like Just Dance 2014 and the preinstalled Sony Playroom tech demo.

While the lexicon of voice commands the PS4 understands is relatively meager, I predict it will be patched pretty quickly to support a broader vocabulary and become competitive with the Xbox One's impressive voice control system. You can tell it to take a screenshot or launch a game, for example, but it can't recognize common commands like "Netflix" or "Power off."

Sharing is worth caring about

But that's not why you should invest in a PlayStation Camera. You need it to get the most out of the PS4's built-in sharing features, specifically streaming gameplay via Twitch and Ustream. While you can stream gameplay footage just fine sans camera, you'll be able to communicate with viewers only via voice chat or by clumsily typing out messages using the gamepad. Connecting a camera to your console allows you to inset a live feed of your play area into the stream, which lets you liven up your broadcast by bringing people over to play games together and talk to viewers about what's going on in the stream.

These are the things YouTube stars are made of.

You can start streaming at any time with a tap of the Share button, a physical manifestation of Sony's decision to embrace online communities and the burgeoning game-streaming culture. It's worth noting that you can't stream or capture screenshots/video of apps or the system interface. You can only share your experience playing games (not streaming media apps) but you can do so with unprecedented ease.

Streaming is an integral part of the PlayStation 4 experience. There's even a "Live From PlayStation" section of the main menu that lets you tune in to other streams and (eventually) interact with them via the console.

The Share button is configurable, but by default you can hit it at any time to bring up a menu for uploading screenshots or video clips to your social networks, as well as capturing them if the game allows. Developers can selectively disable capture functions.

You can capture a screenshot or continue capturing a video clip. The system is constantly recording video with a 15-minute buffer, so hitting the Share button lets you immediately edit/share a clip of your last 15 minutes of gameplay. Or you can start streaming your gameplay live on Twitch or uStream. For now you can grant the PS4 access to only your Twitter and Facebook accounts, though we'll hopefully see more services integrated soon. (I'm looking at you, YouTube.)

You can choose to link your Facebook account to your PSN ID, which will pull in your profile pic and allow you to share stuff from your PS4 directly to Facebook.

It's worth noting that integrating your Facebook account with your PS4 allows you to do more than just post from the Share menu. The PS4 will pull in your profile pic, associate it with your PSN ID, and show it to people on your friends list who agree to a mutual sharing of "Real Names," a.k.a. the name you typed in when you set up your PSN ID. It's a small change, but a welcome one that makes it easier to remember which one of your chums is "x-xGhostDog86x-x" on your friends list, which has been expanded past the PS3's paltry 100-friend limit to ridiculous 2,000.

If you play only one launch game, play Resogun

Whether or not you'll find any games worth streaming is ultimately a matter of personal taste. Personally, I find slim pickings in the PS4's launch lineup. I prefer to play multi-platform games like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag or Need for Speed: Rivals on a PC. PlayStation-exclusive games like Knack and Killzone: Shadow Fall don't interest me.

Resogun is the outstanding exception to an otherwise unappealing launch game lineup.

The only exception is Resogun, a vibrant side-scrolling shooter that pays fantastic homage to Defender. It's a PS4 exclusive that's free for PlayStation Plus members and developed by Housemarque, a Finnish studio with an excellent track record. Since every PS4 comes with a two-week free trial for PS Plus, there's no excuse for you to skip this game.

Problem is, Resogun is a great game that would work equally well on the PS3 or the PS Vita, not to mention the PC or a competing console. The best launch game on Sony's latest console does nothing to showcase the console's unique capabilities, and that demonstrates a real lack of foresight on Sony's part. The Playroom demo does interesting things with the PS Camera, but that's all it is—an interesting tech demo.

The PS4 is a gaming machine without any games worth playing, and that's a real problem.

Also, get a PlayStation Plus membership

PS Plus is your best stopgap while we wait for Sony to address the PS4 game drought. Plus members can play both Resogun and Contrast on PS4 for free as of this writing, though more games will cycle through in the months to come. A year's worth of membership will cost you $50, and it's a pretty good deal when you factor in the free games and the discounts you'll receive on the PlayStation Store. Also, you must be a Plus member to play PlayStation 4 games online, a change of policy from the PlayStation 3.

Yup, you're gonna need PlayStation Plus if you want to play games (badly) online.

Thankfully, if you share a console, only one person has to shell out for PS Plus membership. Once you set the console as your primary PS4, everyone who logs in can play games online. The console allows for you to store up to 16 accounts' worth of information, but you can also log into a PS4 with a "Guest" account that allows you to download your PSN ID to play games and earn credit for trophies, then delete it when you leave.

It's also worth noting that the dual local ID/PSN ID system that plagued the PlayStation 3 is gone. You log into your PS4 with your PSN ID, and that's the only account you'll use across all aspects of the system.

Classic XMB interface needs an overhaul, not a facelift

Unfortunately, Sony failed to overhaul the PS3's venerable Xross Media Bar (XMB) interface. The new interface, which Sony calls the PlayStation Dynamic Menu, is still built on clunky rows of icons stacked atop one another.

The PS4 interface is functional, but confusing. Why are all these notifications important, for example, and why are they ranked in no discernible order?

Minor changes abound: The Trophy system, for example, has been updated retroactively across all PlayStation consoles so that each achievement sports a little icon indicating how rare it is based on how many other players have earned it. I would have preferred that Sony update its firmware so that we didn't still have to manually sync our trophy data with Sony servers, but no dice. You can also initiate Real Name transfers with people on your friends list: When one of you asks and the other agrees, both players can see each other's real names (or whatever you have tied to your PSN ID).

Adding rarity indicators to every PSN Trophy was a small but much-appreciated touch.

The interface feels snappy and fast to navigate, due in part to the PS4's capacity to keep an app and a game running in suspended mode simultaneously. In practice, that means you can quickly flip back and forth between a game of Resogun and an episode of Breaking Bad streaming on Netflix. You can spend as much time as you like browsing the PDM or even putting the console into suspend mode without having to worry about losing your game or your place in the episode.

Bottom line

The PlayStation 4 is going to change the gaming market with an eclectic library of downloadable indie and free-to-play games running on a revamped operating system that can support things like game streaming, social sharing, and remote play. It won't change it with whiz-bang graphical upgrades or exclusive software—though those would be greatly appreciated.

It's easy to see the potential here. What if one day I could wake up, use my Vita to boot up the PS4 in the other room and launch Planetside 2, then invite my friends into a squad via PSN, Facebook, and Twitter before leaping into a massive firefight and streaming the action? Gosh, that sounds like a pretty good Saturday.

The best launch game on Sony's latest console does nothing to showcase the console's unique capabilities.

But right now, it's just potential—the PS4 doesn't do much except play and stream games, and it currently lacks a game library worth paying $400 for. And that's troubling, especially when Microsoft is fielding a competing black box in an effort to gobble up the lion's share of the console market before Sony has time to find its stride.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

US senators challenge in court NSA claim that dragnet surveillance is required

Three prominent U.S. senators have in a federal court filing questioned the claim of the National Security Agency that its bulk collection of phone records is required for intelligence purposes.

The brief argues that after extensive review of the surveillance, the senators have seen no evidence that the bulk collection has provided any "intelligence of value" that could not have been arrived at through less intrusive methods.

Mark Udall, a Democrat from Colorado, Ron Wyden, Democrat senator from Oregon and Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, all members of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Tuesday they filed an amici curiae (friends-of-the-court) brief in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco division.

In the First Unitarian Church v. National Security Agency suit in the court, the church and other organizations claim that the bulk phone records collection program has violated their constitutional rights including to free association.

The government's collection of bulk phone records first came to light in disclosures in June by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, that the government was collecting phone records of Verizon's customers under an authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The requirement to turn in metadata applied to calls within the U.S., and calls between the U.S. and abroad. The government subsequently confirmed that there was an authorization to ask Verizon to produce telephony metadata on an ongoing daily basis, and also got the authorization extended by the court.

"The government has at its disposal a number of authorities that allow it to obtain the call records of suspected terrorists and those in contact with suspected terrorists," according to the filing, which argues that "more targeted authorities could have been used to obtain the information that the government has publicly claimed was crucial in a few important counterterrorism cases."

The government has said it needed the collection and storage of such bulk data for its analysis tools to be effective, though it has filters in place to prevent unauthorized access to personal data.

The senators have also said that they are worried that the government's theory interpreting Section 215 of the Patriot Act to permit the bulk collection of Americans' records is not limited to phone records. "The government's legal interpretation of Section 215 could be extended to authorize bulk collections of information far beyond the call records at issue in this case, such as financial or medical records, or even records indicating the location of ordinary Americans," according to the filing.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency collects data in bulk on international money transfers, under authorization of the FISC, which can include personal information on U.S. citizens, according to recent reports.

The three senators with some of their colleagues have already introduced legislation to reform the surveillance laws of the U.S., including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which asked the court to vacate the order by the FISC authorizing the collection of Verizon phone data. The group had decided to approach the Supreme Court directly, without taking recourse to lower courts, as it held that only the Supreme Court had the proper jurisdiction to review a FISC order.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Six more arrested in breathtaking $45 million ATM theft

Six more alleged participants were arrested Monday in a $45 million global ATM fraud, including one man who was photographed stuffing $800,000 into a suitcase, federal prosecutors in New York said.

The defendants are alleged to be part of a New York cell that used bogus payment cards to withdraw millions of dollars from more than 100 ATMs in a matter of hours, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Defendants Anthony Diaz, 24; Saul Franjul, 23; Saul Genao, 24; Jaindhi Polanco, 29; and Jose Angeley Valerio, 25, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. They face a possible seven-and-a-half years in prison. A sixth defendant, Franklyn Ferreira, was arrested later on Monday but had not been arraigned, the spokesman said.

Hackers raised the withdrawal limits on the cards after breaking into prepaid Visa and MasterCard credit card processors in the U.S. and India, which handled transactions for the Bank of Muscat, based in Oman, and the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC, also known as RAKBANK, in United Arab Emirates.

The style of attack is known as an "unlimited operation," prosecutors said. Neither of the prepaid debit-card processors has been identified.

The Bank of Muscat lost $40 million in February when criminals made withdrawals, prosecutors said in May when they announced the first indictment.

Franjul is alleged to have packed $800,0000 cash in a suitcase and given it to co-conspirators who then boarded a bus for Florida. The cash was to be delivered to Alberto Yusi Lajud-Peña, one of eight people indicted in May, but who was subsequently found to have been murdered in April in the Dominican Republic.

The attorney's office released an iPhone photo taken by a co-conspirator that allegedly shows Franjul handling the cash. The New York cell spent proceeds from the heists at high-priced nightclubs and on luxury cars and watches, prosecutors allege.

Two other photos provided by the attorney's office showed a Facebook post with expensive bottles of alcohol and a receipt for more than $4,000 worth of booze purchased at a New York lounge.

RAKBANK was hit with $5 million in losses after 4,500 ATM withdrawals were made in 20 countries on Dec. 22, 2012. A second large attack between Feb. 19 and 20 saw the Bank of Muscat lose $40 million, withdrawn by people in 20 countries in just 10 hours.

The New York cell is alleged to have withdrawn $2.8 million of RAKBANK's money in thousands of transactions from 140 ATMs around New York, sending the bulk of it to organizers of the attacks.

Of the eight people indicted in May, four have pleaded guilty to charges related to the thefts, and three others remain charged under a superseding indictment released Monday, prosecutors said.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Salesforce.com and HP to offer 'Superpod' for large enterprises

Customers of Salesforce.com who want their own dedicated infrastructure within the vendor's cloud will now be able to get one through a partnership with Hewlett-Packard.

The Salesforce Superpod will be based on HP's Converged Infrastructure hardware and jointly developed and marketed by Salesforce.com and HP. The Superpods will be hosted in Salesforce.com's data centers and cost customers extra money, but pricing details weren't provided Monday.

HP CEO Meg Whitman will discuss the offering when she joins Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff at the start of the company's Dreamforce conference, which gets underway Tuesday in San Francisco. HP says it will be the first customer for the Superpod.

It marks a significant shift in strategy for Salesforce.com, which has historically served all its customers from its multitenant cloud, where they share an application instance with their data kept separate. The emergence of the Superpod may have been provoked by demand from large customers not fully comfortable with the multitenant delivery model.

Multitenancy is a common architecture for SaaS (software as a service) vendors, as it provides advantages over traditional hosting such as the ability to update and patch many customers at once. It wasn't immediately clear Monday if the Superpod option will mean those customers can choose to take updates on a different schedule.

The announcement is also a surprise on another level, given the high-profile pact Benioff made with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in June. Under that deal, Salesforce.com committed to continue using Oracle software to build its own products for the long term, and also said it would use Oracle's engineered systems such as Exadata.

Ellison and Benioff also buried the hatchet on their long-running public feud. Benioff even invited Ellison to Dreamforce, an offer Ellison accepted at the time.

But Ellison's visit may be off now that Benioff has cozied up so closely to HP, a company that sued Oracle after it announced it would stop porting its software to the Itanium chip architecture used in high-end HP servers.

Ellison also hired former HP CEO Mark Hurd as co-president of Oracle after Hurd's controversial departure from the company in 2010.

An Oracle spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

US agencies see some benefits in virtual currencies

Federal officials told a U.S. Senate hearing on Monday that virtual currencies like bitcoin can offer benefits to the financial system, but also cautioned about its possible misuse for illicit activity.

"The Department of Justice recognizes that many virtual currency systems offer legitimate financial services and have the potential to promote more efficient global commerce," said Mythili Raman, acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice in her testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

"We have also seen, however, that certain aspects of virtual currencies appeal to criminals and present a host of new challenges to law enforcement," Raman added in her written testimony before the committee, which is conducting an inquiry into virtual currencies.

Law enforcement agencies suspect that virtual currencies are being used for money laundering and other illegal activities as they typically allow users to remain anonymous. Dealers of drugs and other illegal items on online marketplaces like the Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded are said to have taken cover behind the Tor anonymity service and anonymous bitcoin transactions. The Silk Road site was brought down in October by U.S. officials and its alleged owner and operator arrested.

Ernie Allen, president and chief executive officer of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, said his organization is concerned about the apparent migration of commercial child sexual exploitation and other criminal enterprises to a "new unregulated digital economy, made up of digital currencies; anonymous online payment systems; anonymous internet tools; and file hosting companies."

Criminals have exploited virtual currency systems because they do transfers quickly, securely, and often with a perceived higher level of anonymity than that afforded by traditional financial services, Raman said.

Tom Carper, U.S. Senator for Delaware and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in his opening statement that some people wanted to play by the rules, which is difficult to do "if the rules or proper authorities aren't clear or if the future is uncertain."

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has tried to bring some rules to virtual currency, said Jennifer Shasky Calvery, director of FinCEN, in her testimony. "Virtual currency is a medium of exchange that operates like a currency in some environments but does not have all the attributes of real currency," Calvery said. "In particular, virtual currency does not have legal tender status in any jurisdiction."

Calvery made a distinction between centralized virtual currencies that have a centralized repository and a single administrator, and decentralized currencies like Bitcoin which transmit value electronically between parties without an intermediary.

"We have seen both centralized and decentralized virtual currencies exploited by illicit actors," Calvery said, but added that any financial institution, payment system or medium of exchange could also be exploited for money laundering purposes or terrorist-financing. FinCEN has increased its oversight of virtual currency operators by guiding administrators or exchangers of virtual currencies that they must register with FinCEN, and institute certain recordkeeping, reporting and AML (anti-money laundering) program control measures.

Virtual currency is not necessarily synonymous with anonymity, and a convertible virtual currency with appropriate anti-money laundering and know-your-customer controls under U.S. law, can be as safe from exploitation by criminals and terrorists as any other money services business could, Raman said.

Carper has previously said that the government should evolve thoughtful policies rather than play "whack-a-mole" with the latest website,  currency, or other method criminals are using This approach translates into challenges for law enforcement as well. Hiring, developing, and retaining skilled criminal investigators that are required to investigate crimes involving digital currencies and transnational organized criminal groups is a high priority for the Secret Service, but is challenging in the present fiscal environment, said Edward Lowery III, special agent in the Secret Service.

Some agencies have already taken measures to accept virtual currencies in some way. The Federal Election Commission, for example, recommended in an advisory this month that bitcoins can be accepted as in-kind campaign contributions, though disallowing disbursements through bitcoins from a bitcoin wallet.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Laptop buying guide 2013: How to find the right notebook for you

Anyone in the market for a new laptop this year has a lot to consider before parting with some cold hard cash. You still have to weigh the usual choices—display type, CPU, memory, graphics, hard disk, battery life and weight/footprint. But entirely new form factors give you even more to choose from. New mobile CPUs from Intel and AMD have upped the ante, too—not only in terms of processor speed, but with graphics performance and battery life as well.

Most of the innovation this year appears in the thin-and-light notebook market, and one of the most exciting trends is the blurring of the lines between tablet and notebook. Some new laptops offer touchscreen displays that swivel, pivot, or detach from their keyboards to transform into tablets. Dell's XPS 12 Ultrabook Convertible, Lenovo's Yoga 11S, and Sony's VAIO Tap 11 are three of the most interesting examples of this new form factor.

PHOTO: ROBERT CARDINDell's XPS 12 Ultrabook Convertible features a touchscreen that pivots inside of an aluminum frame to convert from a notebook into a tablet.

If you think you can live outside the Windows ecosystem, you'll find some interesting Chromebook choices. These notebooks run Google's Chrome OS as well as browser-based apps. The most interesting examples include the high-end Chromebook Pixel, the inexpensive HP Chromebook 14, and the dirt-cheap Acer C720 Chromebook (which is priced at just $199).

Mainstream notebook prices, meanwhile, always seem to start at about $400 and rise to $1500-plus as they become thinner and lighter, or as their displays get bigger. And the sky's the limit with mobile workstations and high-end gaming PCs. Still, for your 2013 budget, you can walk away with a computer that's lighter, thinner, and more powerful than anything you could have bought last year. In the 2013 edition of our laptop buying guide, we'll look at form factors first, and then do a deeper dive into specs.

Types of notebooks

Mini notebooks: If your computational needs aren't too demanding, you'll find convertible notebooks with smallish screens like the Asus Transformer T100 for as little as $400. This model's 10.1-inch display detaches from its keyboard, just like the more expensive Sony Tap 11, but the Asus is powered by an Intel Atom processor that's much less powerful than the Core i5 CPU in the Sony. Don't mistake this class of PC for the pitifully weak netbooks of yesteryear, though: These are real computers.

All-purpose notebooks: If you're on a tight budget, but need a notebook with a larger display and keyboard, consider a mainstream notebook like the $580 Acer Aspire E1-572-6870. Machines in the all-purpose class have 14- to 16-inch displays with a typical resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels, 4GB of memory, mechanical hard drives, and mid-range CPUs. These portables don't make great gaming machines, because they don't have discrete GPUs, but they're very good all-around laptops and they're great for students. Expect to pay more for models with touchscreens.

PHOTO: ROBERT CARDINAcer's Aspire E1 sports a Haswell-class processor in a competitively priced all-purpose notebook.

Thin-and-lights: Frequent travelers who keep notebooks in their carry-on luggage seek out thin-and-light notebooks, weighing in at five pounds or less and with screens no larger than 14 inches. Thin-and-lights might not perform better than budget and all-purpose notebooks, but they usually cost more because vendors build them using more expensive parts—lightweight metals such as aluminum and magnesium versus bulky plastics. Sony's $1400 VAIO Pro 13 represents this category well.

Discrete graphics are rare in thin-and-lights, but many of these laptops feature solid-state drives, which are extremely fast. These hard-drive alternatives are also expensive and comparatively small. (256GB is a typical capacity.) Ultrabooks, an Intel trademark, are a popular subset of thin-and-light notebooks based on Intel's low-voltage mobile CPUs.

Desktop replacements: Designed to replace a desktop machine, these laptops are big, heavy, and have nearly every feature you'd find on a tower PC. Desktop replacements boast a fast mobile CPU, a discrete graphics processor, lots of memory, oodles of storage, an optical drive, a large keyboard with an embedded numeric keypad, and lots and lots of I/O ports. The downside to all this power is the high price and the heavy weight. Toshiba's Qosmio X75 A7298, for instance, costs $1900 and weighs 7.3 pounds.

PHOTO: ROBERT CARDINIt may boast some high-end components, but Toshiba's Qosmio X75 weighs in at a reasonable-for-its-class 7.3 pounds.

Gaming notebooks: These machines have much in common with desktop replacements, but they're designed specifically for playing games. They're typically outfitted with the fastest available CPUs and discrete graphics processors, very large displays, and optical drives. This is the only class of notebook that pays almost no attention to power consumption. Prices can range from high to stratospheric: The $2250 Asus G750JH is considered moderately priced for its class.

PHOTO: ROBERT CARDINIt may be a heavyweight, but the Asus G750JH turns in a performance that will appeal to gamers.

What to look for

Now that we've looked at the various notebook classes, let's examine the key components and features you should consider when shopping for a notebook.

CPU: Intel's Core processor line, now in its fourth generation, has dominated the mobile chip landscape for several years now. Atom processors—Intel calls the current generation Bay Trail—are the least powerful, but they also consume the least amount of power and can be found in many of the latest Windows tablets. Intel's Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors are next in line. Fourth-generation Core processors, formerly codenamed Haswell, are the most desirable chips to buy. They're identified by a 4000-series part number (the Intel Core i5-4200U, for example, with the U identifying this particular part as one of Intel's ultra-low-power CPUs). Most of Intel's processors are dual- and quad-cores.

AMD hasn't given up on the mobile market. AMD Elite A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) promise superior graphics performance thanks to integrated Radeon graphics technology. Chips in this family range from the high-end A10 down to the A4; there's also an E-series for smaller, lower-end portables.

Memory: While nominally only 2GB of RAM is required to run Windows 8, 4GB is a more realistic minimum. Consider upgrading to extra memory when you buy, since adding memory later can be difficult (or even impossible, since many laptop makers are electing to produce sealed designs as chasses get smaller). DDR3/1600 memory is the most common spec.

Display: Expect resolution of at least 1366 by 768 pixels on budget laptops, and at least 1920 by 1080 resolution on higher-end models. A few high-end notebooks, such as the Toshiba Kirabook, deliver better resolution (the Kirabook's display is 2560 by 1440), but you'll pay dearly for the feature. Touchscreens are relatively common on 2013 models, and this trend is expected to continue as Windows 8 gains traction.

Keyboard: The only way to tell whether you'll like a notebook keyboard is to use it. Size, shape, texture, key travel, and tactile feedback all play into the experience, and individual tastes in these attributes can vary widely. Larger notebooks usually have enough room to include a dedicated numeric keypad.

Trackpads: Look for multitouch support for Windows 8 gestures. Most trackpads have integrated right and left mouse buttons, but a few also offer separate buttons. Pointer sticks (think of the ThinkPad TrackPoint) are also going away, but some vendors—including Toshiba and Lenovo—continue to offer them on business-oriented models.

Storage: Serial ATA hard disks remain the mainstream standard. These mechanical drives typically run at 5400 or 7200 rpm (faster is better), and you should expect capacity of least 500GB. High-performance notebooks come with solid-state drives (SSD), which deliver significantly higher performance. The downside is that they're more expensive than mechanical drives, so you usually get less capacity: 128GB to 256GB is typical. There is a third option: a mechanical drive with a small SSD cache that stores frequently used executables for faster performance.

Optical drives: Once a standard feature, these drives are rapidly disappearing because it's easier to download application software and stream movies and music from the cloud. You'll still find them on desktop replacements and dedicated gaming notebooks, though.

PHOTO: ROBERT CARDINWhen considering laptop specs, look for USB 3.0 ports—at least two of them.

USB ports: Look for at least two USB 3.0 ports out of three or (preferably) four USB ports total. USB 3.0 peripherals have become commonplace, and you'll want to take advantage of their superior speed. Many vendors now also include at least one USB port that can charge a smartphone or other small device even when the notebook is powered down.

HDMI: This is the easiest way to connect your notebook to a consumer display or a big-screen TV (although an DisplayPort-to-HDMI will do the same thing).

DisplayPort: Many business laptops provide DisplayPort in place of or in addition to HDMI. DisplayPort 1.2 supports higher resolutions than HDMI, and it allows you to daisy-chain several monitors together.

Memory card reader: If you have a digital camera, you'll appreciate having a memory card reader on your notebook. SD card slots are the most common.

Wired ethernet: With the prevalence of wireless networking, some vendors are cutting back from gigabit ethernet to 10/100 ethernet. Some are leaving the adapter out altogether, expecting you to buy a USB-to-ethernet adapter (which typically limits to you to speeds of 100 mbps). Don't underestimate how annoying this can be.

PHOTO: ROBERT CARDINIt's easy to overlook, but you'll want to confirm whether the laptop you're thinking of buying offers gigabit ethernet or 10/100 ethernet.

Wireless ethernet: Integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi adapters are common these days, but dig deeper to find out if the adapter supports both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks. The 2.4GHz spectrum is exceedingly crowded, especially in urban areas and is very susceptible to interference from other wireless devices. You'll get much better performance, albeit with less range, with 5GHz networks. Support for the 802.11ac standard has been slow in coming, and that's a shame because this newer standard is absolutely great.

Webcam: The popularity of Skype and other video chat applications has turned webcams into a checklist item, but quality can vary widely. A good HD webcam will compensate for poor ambient lighting and offer face tracking. Look for resolution of at least 720p.

Audio: Very few notebooks have speakers that are worth listening to, but most people use headphones these days anyway. If audio is a feature you care about, see if the laptop maker has partnered with a company with audio expertise: Dolby, DTS, Harman/Kardon, and Beats are good examples.

Additional features: Some business models offer fingerprint scanners, a security feature that appeals to some users, though it can be tricky to use. Docking ports are available on many business-oriented models, which is a handy feature for commuters who want to plug their notebooks into big-screen monitors. But universal port replicators from third-party vendors such as Targus can do pretty much anything a manufacturer-specific device can do.

This is an updated version of a previous article that includes the most up-to-date information as ofNov. 18, 2013.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Smartphone buying guide 2013: Find the phone that's right for you

Few tools of modern technology have become as prevalent as the cell phone, which allows you to be in touch from almost anywhere, almost all the time. And you can do more than just talk: Today's phones let you send and receive email and text messages, surf the Web, and play music and videos. Sifting through the sea of service plans and handsets can be difficult, but we'll walk you through what you need to know to get the phone and the service plan that are right for you.

When considering a new smartphone, whether it's the newest iPhone, an Android superphone, or a business-friendly Windows Phone, it pays do a bit of research before you hit the stores so that you'll know exactly what to look for.

When you're shopping for a phone, you can do some simple hands-on tests in the store to ensure that the handset has everything you need.

Call quality: What good is a phone if it can't make calls? Some of the simplest, most bare-bones feature phones offer the best call quality, and some fancy smartphones offer dismal calling. When evaluating phones, be sure to make a few test calls. In our hands-on tests, we generally place some calls from a quiet room and several others in a noisy environment. You might not be able to replicate such tests indoors, but try your best. Listen for static, tinny voices, and interference. Ask the people you call if they can hear a disruptive amount of background noise.

Design: Your choices range from phones that are easily pocketable to large-screened behemoths that are more like tablets than phones. Whichever type of phone you select, check to see if it's comfortable to hold against your ear, if you can hear callers without constant adjustment, if you can use the phone with one hand (or by scrunching your neck and shoulder), if it fits comfortably in your pocket or bag, and if it's durable enough to handle some rough treatment. A solidly built phone should be able to withstand getting banged around in a handbag or pocket, as well as a bit of moisture and a short-range drop. You should consider investing in a case or display protector as well—especially if you're somewhat accident-prone.

Android is just one of the many mobile operating systems to choose from.

Operating system: If you're looking to do more than make calls and send text messages with your phone, consider the platform that it runs on. The mobile operating system you choose will greatly affect your phone's capabilities. The most popular platforms are Google's Android (found on multiple devices), iOS (found only on iPhone models), and Microsoft's Windows Phone. Each operating system has its own advantages and disadvantages, so familiarize yourself with all of them before settling on one.

Display: If you intend do a lot of Web browsing or movie streaming, make sure that the screen is big enough for you to take full advantage of the phone's features. For surfing the Web or editing Office documents on your phone, a screen that measures less than 4 inches diagonally will feel cramped.

Screen resolution: The higher the resolution, the better the screen will look—an important factor if you plan to watch videos or view photos on your phone. A high-resolution display is desirable if you plan to do a lot of reading on your phone, since text will look much sharper on it and be easier to read.

If your phone lets you adjust contrast and brightness (including backlighting), you can make text and graphics easier to view in well-lit places, and you can also save battery life in a pinch.

4G support and availability: 4G networks offer data speeds that are vastly superior to those available on a 3G network. You can expect to see average download speeds of around 6 to 9 megabits per second while connected to a 4G network—though of course those speeds vary depending on your location and on reception quality. You'll encounter two kinds of 4G networks when buying a new phone: LTE and HSPA+. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T all have their own LTE networks, with T-Mobile and AT&T defaulting to HSPA+ when LTE coverage isn't available.

The iPhone 5s supports LTE on all 4 major carriers.

4G is pretty much the norm on smartphones these days, and you'll definitely want it on your next phone. Normally, connecting to a 4G network costs nothing extra, though the faster data speeds do mean that you can quickly hit your data cap if you aren't careful. Carriers are constantly expanding their 4G networks; but if you're leaning toward choosing a 4G-capable phone, check the relevant carrier coverage maps to confirm that your region already has 4G service.

Cameras: If you expect to take a lot of photos with your phone, you'll want to pay attention to the phone's camera specs. For mid- to high-level smartphones, 8 megapixels is now pretty much the standard. However, a higher megapixel count doesn't necessarily mean a better camera. Verify that the phone camera you're interested in has a flash (dual-LED or Xenon flashes work best); otherwise, pictures you take indoors or at night will come out looking like blurry messes. Try to take a few pictures in the store to get a clear idea of the camera's photo quality.

Photo: Michael HomnickThe Nokia Lumia 1020 has one of the best smartphone cameras around.

Most cell phone cameras also video-capture capabilities, and most midrange and high-end phones can capture high-definition 720p or 1080p video. If video is your thing, make sure that the OS provides an easy way to upload your videos to services such as Facebook and YouTube.

Pretty much every smartphone these days has a front-facing camera. These are mostly good for making video calls and taking selfies, but generally aren't as important as the camera on the back of the phone. If you plan on making a lot of video calls on your phone (or just like taking pictures of yourself), then you'll want a high-megapixel front-facing camera or one with HD video capabilities.

Processor: Much like 4G, quad-core processors are quickly becoming the standard in phones. You can still purchase and run most phones just fine on a dual-core processor—but going forward, most phones will have four or possibly even more cores. As time goes on, having a phone with a dual-core processor may limit the types of applications you can run on your phone, and the types of updates it can receive.

Battery life: There's no easy way to predict how long a phone's battery will last. In our lab tests and hands-on evaluations, LTE phones have generally supported shorter battery lives than 3G phones have. Ultimately, however, it all depends on how much you use your phone. If you're always on your phone, browsing the Web and making calls, your phone probably won't make it through a full day before needing to recharge. If you aren't always near an open outlet, you can buy a case with a built-in wireless charger, or you can carry around an extra battery for your phone. For a complete guide to extending your phone's battery life, check out our article on how to optimize your gadget's battery life.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Sony PlayStation 4 sales cross 1M units on first day

Sony said sales of its PlayStation 4 game consoles crossed 1 million units just 24 hours after the device was launched in the U.S. and Canada on Friday, although some users reported some issues with the device.

The Japanese electronics company is counting on the device to help lead a turnaround for the company.

Sony returned to a loss in its second fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, even as its smartphone business did well. Its game sales increased by about 5 percent to ¥155.7 billion (US$1.58 billion), but this was mainly because of favorable exchange rates. Unit sales of its PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable devices in fact decreased, ahead of the launch of the PlayStation 4. The profits of the business were affected by a cut in the price of the PlayStation Vita.

The company hopes to have strong sales as well of the PlayStation 4 in Europe and Latin America where it will be launched on Nov. 29, Sony said Sunday. But competition is coming from Microsoft's launch of the Xbox One on Nov. 22.

Sony's advantage is likely to be the lower price of its $399.99 gaming console, which is priced $100 lower than the Xbox. IDC has forecast that PlayStation 4 bundle sales will overtake Microsoft's Xbox One sales in the upcoming holiday season mainly because of its lower price point. The game consoles are also facing competition from gaming on mobile devices and handhelds.

The U.S. launch of PlayStation 4, however, had setbacks with some users complaining that their devices blinked blue, and did not get into the power on phase and connect to the TV.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google begins work on six more solar power plants

Google has announced plans to continue its rollout of solar energy plants in the U.S. with its second largest investment to date: $80 million for six new facilities.

So far, Google has committed over $1 billion to wind and solar power plants that create clean energy and generate "attractive financial returns," it said in a blog post.

The new plants, which will be built in California and Arizona, are expected to generate 160 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 17,000 typical U.S. homes. They are expected to be operational by early 2014.

The 17.5 megawatt/22 megawatt Victor Phelan project, located in San Bernardino, California, is part of six Recurrent Energy developed projects acquired by Google and KKR.

Ongoing investments in sustainable energy

"You'd think the thrill might wear off this whole renewable energy investing thing after a while. Nope—we're still as into it as ever, which is why we're so pleased to announce our 14th investment," Google wrote on its official blog.

All together, Google's 14 renewable power facilities will be able to generate 2 billion watts (gigawatts) of energy, enough to power 500,000 homes or all of the public elementary schools in New York, Oregon, and Wyoming for one year, the company said.

Recurrent EnergyThe 17.5 megawatt/22 megawatt Victor Phelan project, located in San Bernardino, Calif., is part of six Recurrent Energy developed projects acquired by Google and KKR.

The latest solar power investment is similar to one Google made in 2011, when it partnered with global investment firm KKR and invested $94 million in four solar facilities built by Recurrent Energy.

"Those facilities have since started generating electricity, and we've committed hundreds of millions more—more than $1 billion in total—to renewable energy projects around the world," Google said in its blog. "These investments are all part of our drive toward a clean energy future—where renewable energy is abundant, accessible and affordable.

As before, Google is partnering with KKR to finance its the utility-scale solar facilities in California and Arizona. Recurrent Energy will again build the plants.

Google now gets about 20 percent of its power from solar facilities, but the company has committed to achieving 100 percent renewable energy.

Other tech firms explore alternatives

In addition to locations in California and Arizona, Google has data centers in Oklahoma and Iowa so they can plug into wind farms.

Along with Microsoft and Apple, Google is among a fleet of technology companies that are moving to tap solar, wind, and hydroelectric power sources.

Microsoft built one data center next to a Wyoming landfill in order to use methane gas to power the facility. Apple now uses a massive 100-acre solar energy farm to power its Maiden, North Carolina data center.

Over the past six years, the growth in wind farm deployments in the U.S. has been second only to gas-powered electrical plants.

The list of companies using and deploying renewable energy resources includes Intel, Kohl's, Staples, Walmart, Ikea, McDonalds, Walgreens, Macy's, FedEx, Toyota, and Lockheed Martin, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to the latest data, 6.8 gigawatts of wind power was added in the U.S. in 2011, a 31 percent increase over 2010. That 2011 jump brought the cumulative wind power capacity for the U.S. to 47 gigawatts, according to a study published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The latest data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) shows that the U.S. now has more than 6.4 gigawatts of installed solar electric capacity, enough power for more than a million households. This year is expected to exceed all others for new solar installations.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More